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

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e289/mike4424/LovitzDukakis.jpg

It's like telling a room full of second-graders that they're allowed to say whatever they want and overhearing the wave of "penis head"s and "poopy butt"s grow to a beautiful crescendo.

again, the "what's going on with all these madmen leading in the polls" is inevitably voiced by a candidate who is also fucking batshit
though honestly lindsey fucking graham is maybe the most reasonable choice amongst these schmoes except that his voice is too effeminate for the electorate. WHAT A COUNTRY

“And I’ve tried to murder no one ever, so this should move me up a little bit,” he joked. “Well, the day’s not over, but as of right now, nobody.”

lol "please vote for me so I can finally murder somebody"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSQu1UmWcAAfzMM.jpg

Oh yeah, that slimeball is still running. Ostensibly.

HAHA, I thought that was Santorum. They all look alike to me.

The Walker mask looks less like a cartoon character than Walker does.

Walker's and Santorum's faces made back when the lizard people hadn't figured out dough ratio yet

To be blunt: Carson's campaign is a scam.

You can call Ben Carson a lot of things: a brilliant surgeon, a questionable surgeon, a man of faith or a story of inspiration. But you cannot in good conscience call someone who barely visits early-primary states, spends half his money on fundraising (as opposed to staff and organizers), and curtails his campaign to give paid speeches and sell books a serious presidential contender. This is not about ideology or strategy or even ability. It’s about cash, and who’s in this campaign to run the country and who’s in this campaign to run up a tab on donor dollars. It’s pretty clear which one Carson is, but some people may not figure it out until he’s already cashed out and gone.

and he's ahead in iowa

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/polltracker/ben-carson-tops-donald-trump-third-poll

NYT had a p good Poppy Bush quote as he surveys the smoking political landscape: "I'm getting old at just the right time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO_gKb9dOi4

never forget:
https://twitter.com/AndreuAitch/status/625425436063989760

oh my god

beware clickbait: there are stories about a 'sexy bernie sanders' halloween costume.

beware

are you saying it's not sexy

i would have no idea, sir!

http://waytofamous.com/images/michael-moriarty-05.jpg

lmao

perfect.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSOBrJRVAAAZDxi.jpg

it's such nonsense, obamacare easily best since blood on the tracks

To be fair, you say that every time a new benefit program is rolled out.

My takeaway from that is Iowan GOP primary voters are fucking crazy

Set aside the super partisan responses; how does "no experience in foreign policy" get 42%?

Missed cut:

Identified Grover Cleveland as a kind of tuber 83%
Believes that jazz hands can cause blindness 86%
Claims pistachios are alien nuts what's up with the green on the outside so freaky 91%

can't decide whether "no experience in foreign policy" is getting the thumbs-up from isolationists or hawks

It got Best New Music on Pitchfork last week.

http://m.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/1023/Why-Ted-Cruz-Ben-Carson-are-bulk-buying-copies-of-their-own-books

"Look where experience with <____________> has got us! No thanks!"

Foreign policy, taxes, education, oil, take your pick.

http://i.imgur.com/Rsvx9TT.jpg

if you combine trump and carson's support and just call it "CRAZY PERSON", that graph is even more terrifying (even more so if you want to add fiorina or cruz to the crazy pile)

yeah as always it's not the candidate but the constituency that you ought to look at

though the counter-argument is that if the 'real' candidates were stronger you'd see smaller numbers for the oddballs.

slatestarcodex had some interesting thoughts about trump's base of support, i thought

On the other hand, there is a candidate whom the media narrative fits like a glove. A candidate who may win primary among whites, but loses in a landslide among minorities. A candidate whose black support is almost an entire order of magnitude lower than his white support.

That candidate is Bernie Sanders.

According to the same YouGov poll mentioned above, 38% of whites support Bernie Sanders for President, compared to 37% of whites who support Hillary for President. However, only 13% of Hispanics support Sanders, compared to 63% for Hillary. And only 4% of blacks support Sanders, compared to 64% for Hillary!

obama's numbers among african americans were similarly abysmal early on in his campaign.

threw this together quickly so it's a little rough

http://i.imgur.com/qIjSnfy.jpg

I actually found the trump stuff less scary when it seemed like only 30% of the republican party was batshit insane. the fact that trump and carson barely seem to cut into the other guy's support is mind boggling, cause the total support for these guys is a not-insignificant % of the american population now.

Why does that chart add up to 273 percentage points?

multiple answers to whats so damn attractive about BC

Douthat, NYT's resident opinion-con, wrote yesterday that it has to be Rubio by process of elimination... or it will be Mitt to the rescue.

he said, clutching his rosary beads

If it's Rubio, the Republicans are FUCKED. From where I sit, he's dead in the water. He's young, which pundits and campaign manager types keep insisting is a selling point, but he's as stupid as Scott Walker and, like Walker, routinely LOOKS stupid in public. Also, the Cuban thing is gonna hurt him, bad. Alfred knows as well as anyone that nobody gives a shit about Cubans who wasn't already of voting age in 1959, and the majority of other Latinos HATE them because of the special treatment they've gotten re immigration for the last 50+ years.

As I've mentioned, it's so fucking rank when "strategists" think putting a guy with a funny name who speaks Spanish on the national GOP ticket will attract Nicaraguans, Mexicans, Argentines, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.

If the republicans are fucked with Rubio, then they're pretty much just fucked...

except that Clinton has a hard core of haters.

Sure, but not more than 50% of the electorate, surely? Probably enough to continue the grievance politics for the next eight years, but that's probably worst case scenario for a lot of the party.

As I've mentioned, it's so fucking rank when "strategists" think putting a guy with a funny name who speaks Spanish on the national GOP ticket will attract Nicaraguans, Mexicans, Argentines, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.

we're talking about Jeb! here, right

except that Clinton has a hard core of haters.

Who have been reliably voting Republican at least since Reagan, and can thus be discounted. Clinton may cause some lefty voters to stay home; she will not cause any Democratic voters to vote Republican, and I suspect any Republican voters who might otherwise have stayed home, but who will turn out to vote against her, will be balanced by Democratic voters who'll show up to vote for the first female President.

Who was the last republican nominee who, if he'd won, wouldn't have been the worst thing to ever happen to America?