a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

idk anything about borowitz

Thing 1: He's not funny.

~ fin ~

Candidates worry about declaring their finances because they don't want people to know how rich they are; Trump is evidently obsessed with making the world think he's richer than he actually is.

Which is exactly why I thought having to reveal his real net worth (which I'm guessing is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50% of what he says it is) would have been a bridge too far. But apparently not.

I simplified that anyway. Candidates also balk because of shady transactions, so that would presumably give Trump pause. With Hillarly, I'm sure it's the richer-than-you'd-guess problem.

Romney appeared to have both problems.

O'Malley was/is Gov of Maryland, right?

He was mayor of Baltimore before that, so not a timely resume.

Thing is there isn't a whole lotta democracy about the nominating / primary process if you break it down. The party fathers can stop whoever they like without it looking like a coup.

...So the fact that the populace are dumbshits doesn't enter into it all that much.

plz plz plz

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/23/donald-trump-threatens-third-party-candidacy/?_r=0

^^^I was thinking this might happen, like some even more batshit updating of Ross Perot.

hence a scenario where a Bernie victory becomes theoretically more plausible

Definite possibility, I'd say, especially if personal animus is the motivation (as it was with Perot, who basically just had it in for Bush):

"I'll have to see how I'm being treated by the Republicans," Mr. Trump said. "Absolutely, if they're not fair, that would be a factor."

what a whiny-ass chump baby

4-way clinton-sanders-trump-republican candidate to be named election would be great - very unpredictable

do it trump do it

It's probably his best leverage for getting into the debates--better even than whatever his poll standing is at the time.

Aren't the debates entirely based on poll standing though?

a 3rd party candidacy is his... trump card

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/mmmm-delicious-120501021742-phpapp02/95/mmmm-delicious-1-728.jpg?cb=1335838816

Sanders is not going to run an indie campaign, he doesn't want moronic whiny Democrats to give him the same bullshit epitaph as Nader's.

(xxpost) You're probably right...I just have this sense that they'll figure out a way to dodge that, whereas fear of him running third-party (which would almost guarantee they lose) is more frightening.

damnit this is happening way too early in the election cycle. why can't it be July 2016

btw anyone who wasnt taking warren srsly as a candidate think that bernie is in her league

oh yeah this plans a winner JE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry_fRjLyE68&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

(I'm an American Against Prosperity, btw)

46-30-20 doesn't sound that far off the mark if Trump ran. I think it'd be more like 46-37-13, but it would make it impossible for the Republicans to win. (Trying to think if there's anything Trump could still say or do to lose that base core of support...coming up blank.)

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-gains-shows-vulnerability-crowded-contentious-gop-race/story?id=32576808

def think trump wld wash out completely and finish below 1% as and indie but that doesnt mean i dont want to see him try, i mean he is a gigantic fn clown lets not forget

yeah, on his best behavior he would pull in 10-15% maybe, but imagine him saying things, on camera, every day for the next 15 months. there's no way he gets through that without accidentally making fun of jesus or saying that everyone's mom's suck or that he would like to nationalize all hotels and then fold them into his Trump chain etc etc

a trump run would force implicit acknowledgment that their big tent includes people who find trump appealing.

lol man https://twitter.com/JaxAlemany/status/622138907094831106

"accidentally making fun of jesus"--love that. John Lennon dodged that one, no problem for Trump.

re jebs medicare comments

so baby boomers are lucky enough to be born into the strongest period of growth in us history, they take as much as they can for themselves, then basically pull up the ladder behind them when theyre done bc its all all become so unsustainable.. must be nice

i think you have to be polling w/ minimum 10% support to get into the general election debates. that number might be higher and it's not a set number in any case (i might just be remembering the bar w/ vote % you have to clear to qualify for federal funding next election). whatever the bar is perot met it in 92 but not in 96. there was controversy w/ leaving perot out in 96 though. no other third party candidates since have come near that bar. only way i could even imagine trump doing it is if bush won the nod, tacked toward the center, picked someone for veep the base wasn't wild about, and generally looked noncompetitive/like a loser. even then trump would have to manage that tightrope of saying stuff batshit enough that it would fire up the crazies but not cross whatever uncrossable line. tbf he's kinda managed that for nearly 30 years, he's almost in that barkley zone, so it's not completely implausible. where it would hurt the gop isn't so much the votes it would steal as the dumb shit whatever candidate gets the nod would have to say and do due to worrying about getting outflanked. it could get out the hispanic vote also.

"accidentally making fun of jesus"--love that. John Lennon dodged that one, no problem for Trump.

― clemenza, Thursday, July 23, 2015 6:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Already been there, said in Iowa that he "drinks the wine and eats the little cracker" in church but never asked for forgiveness...

that's specifically Catholic - evangelical base of GOP doesn't give a shit about Catholics (Santorum's an outlier)

Admit it, we've all tried this by now--had to give Jesus a go.

Jesus works really hard but is a guy who just doesn't have it--a total loser!

hasn't he said enough shitty things about latinos already

Already been there, said in Iowa that he "drinks the wine and eats the little cracker" in church but never asked for forgiveness...

― Iago Galdston

That line reminds me of my sacristan days in high school when my buddy and I stuffed unconsecrated little crackers in our shirt pockets to munch on b/w classes.

conversion to catholicism has become this sort of weird marker of seriousness and intellectualism in the gop, i'm guessing combination of two popes before francis and buckley. they've tried to make serious inroads w/ the catholic vote (abortion) and thought it would help form a natural alliance w/ hispanic vote, similar to how they've tried to make serious inroads w/ jewish vote by become likud east on israel but it hasn't really paid off. jeb's a converted catholic, newt converted, sam brownback converted, i'm sure there's many many others i'm forgetting. every conservative on the supreme court is catholic.

Trump is a fucking clown, but so was Herman Cain..

rubio, jindal, kasich, christie, pataki also catholic. last two are more 'these are the kinda ppl who become republican in the northeast' which is kinda different. jindal's a convert. rubio apparently had a flirtation w/ mormonism when he was a kid but basically grew up catholic and came back to the church. ted cruz is a southern baptist, i thought maybe he converted for political reasons but then remembered his dad is a nutcase preacher. ben carson's a seventh day adventist! rand paul is episcopalian and will quote dostoevsky if you ask him about his faith. found this quote from trump looking into candidates' affiliations - "I believe in God. I am Christian. I think the Bible is certainly, it is THE book. It is the thing." i think that's from the house of the dead iirc.

Santorum also catholic

I never noticed the rise in catholicism in the GOP, certainly conversion-style being a trend. Most people I that know who have converted did it just to shut their spouse up.

yeah i think that's the case w/ jeb at least (not to cast aspersions on his spiritual journey)

i think that's from the house of the dead iirc.

lol

the lay Conservative Catholic Intellectuals are a fun bunch, and by fun I mean their worldview is utterly alien to me but at least it's more or less honest. I don't think any of them have any particular fondness for any current GOP politicians

I think that segment has lately taken the view that America is a doomed Mammon-worshipping edifice and the faithful should just withdraw from the public sphere

I read an article on a website about this

good idea imo

Chris Hedges:

"Bernie has cut a Faustian deal with the Democrats. And that’s not even speculation. I did an event with him and Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Kshama Sawant in New York the day before the Climate March. And Kshama Sawant, the Socialist City Councilwoman from Seattle and I asked Sanders why he wanted to run as a Democrat. And he said — because I don’t want to end up like Nader.”

“He didn’t want to end up pushed out of the establishment,” Hedges said. “He wanted to keep his committee chairmanships, he wanted to keep his Senate seat. And he knew the forms of retribution, punishment that would be visited upon him if he applied his critique to the Democratic establishment. So he won’t.”

“The lie of omission is still a lie,” Hedges said. “Bernie’s decision to play the game within the Democratic Party and in essence lend credibility to the party and lend credibility to Hillary Clinton is very destructive. A liberal feeding frenzy within the Democratic Party would see a rise of an actual liberal establishment within the party – I’m not sure one exists any more — that challenged the Party for selling out working men and women.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/15/chris-hedges-on-bernie-sanders-and-the-corporate-democrats/

maybe he wants to win

where is this 'liberal feeding frenzy' going to come from