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

anybody read this? kind of hilarious at this point considering everything that's happened this primary season

http://goproject.gop.com/rnc_growth_opportunity_book_2013.pdf

I guess my advice to any candidate who's all "This is unfair/ridiculous/hard!" in response to a debate question would be "Stop running for president, you choad."

skimming the opening sections, it's kinda fascinating. lots of common sense points about why the party is unappealing and how it needs to articulate a conservatism appealing to people under age 50. some of it fairly self-deluding stuff about reforms made by republican governors that show they can still be relevant to a wide base (skipping over the groups with whom those 'reforms' were and are totally unpopular, often the same groups they're hoping to reach out to here). also of great interest is the length of the section on hispanic concerns about the party, versus the skimpy paragraphs on african-americans, like the focus group team has just given up even trying to sugarcoat the reception they're getting. section on the youth vote is just hilarious - if only the candidates could just be more down with "pop" culture. and then you hit things like:

We have to blow the whistle at corporate malfeasance and attack corporate welfare. We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed. We should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.

and it's like... but if you actually did anything about that stuff, you would basically not be a republican at this point. everything else about the party and its policies is in the pocket of the CEOs. if you're not on board with them, you should probably just switch back to being conservative democrats.

but yeah lol:

We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too. (...) If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.

keep up the good work, clown car!

more on the the 'youth' section: they recognize that romney lost the youth vote horribly, and that "for many of the youngest voters and new 2016 voters, their perception of the two parties was born during the Barack Obama era, and that perception will help determine their worldview moving forward." however they aren't willing to say: "... and specifically, if your perceptions were born during the Barack Obama era, you may well think of Republicans as a bunch of sociopathic obstructionists, racists, and conspiracy theorists with no interest in governing." so instead the problem is that "The Party is seen as old and detached from pop culture." there's hope though: the Democrats just won because Obama "was seen as 'cool' in 2008." the Democrats have old people (Biden and Clinton) but the GOP has young ones (Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Kelly Ayotte, and teen sensation Reince Priebus). the good days are just around the corner if they can just talk about "certain social issues" the right way and do more twittering.

basically these clowns are fucked

basically these clowns are fucked
― Frump 'n' Dump (Doctor Casino), Friday, October 30, 2015 1:28 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

basically the complete reason it's hilarious

irl lol @ teen sensation Reince Priebus

fucked as far as the presidency goes, but not so much fucked at the state and local level.

"recommendations:
1. Promote forward-looking, positive policy proposals that unite young voters,
such as the Republican Party’s education policies."

yes, when i'm on college campuses, everyone is abuzz about the charter movement

Dr. Casino otm

Specifically in re "why make it easy" and "pageants."

Romney voters
48% 59,142,004

Obama
51% 62,615,406

fucked as far as the presidency goes, but not so much fucked at the state and local level.

― Aimless

fucked until at least redistricting in 2020 right?

er, the Democrats at the local level, that is

Aimless isn't being clear there - state and local offices can definitely be flipped, it's the House that's the problem.

I know that re-districting has made this much more difficult, but there's a fatalism about House races that is a bit frustrating. The Dems controlled the House only a little over 4 years ago, yet it is taken as written that they can't compete enough to start making real inroads.

Republicans are crushing it at the state level where I'm from.

state Republican Party barely even exists where I'm from

The Dems controlled the House only a little over 4 years ago

you know what happened in the interim right

sorry that was bitchy of me, it's clear you do... but just looking at the voter composition of re-drawn districts makes it abundantly clear how effective the 2010 redistricting was. There's just no way to contest various seats now, the voters aren't there.

I barely even remember when that happened. Was there an outcry about it?

House seats are notoriously difficult to flip when the incumbent runs. Re-election rates for incumbents are historically well above 90% with very few exceptions. Ousting incumbents is not impossible, but it's hardly a fertile ground for high hopes.

2010

xp

That's a good point.

I would say that the Dems certainly are not re-taking the majority next year, but they need to be chipping away at it aggressively now rather than putting that fight off until 2020.

Hillary is trying to unveil her criminal justice platform, and people are loudly protesting her. Her lateness is embarrassing, as is of course her role in creating the problems in the first place. Wonder how this will play.

It is pretty hard to create problems that were problems even before you born.

If Hillary wins it's going to be the same exact Democrat hot shots calling the shots in 2020 that have been doing this since 1993 or whenever Bill was in.

You should see the shit show that is the Democratic party in my state right now. Our Treasurer was charged with extortion, our Attorney General might be removed from office soon over a porn e-mail scandal that she didn't even really create, our Governor is doing ok but the current budget is like 120 days over due.

stuff like this happens: http://keystonepolitics.com/2015/10/state-agency-crippling-bill-heads-to-a-vote-in-the-senate-rules-committee-today/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KeystonePolitics+%28Keystone+Politics%29

sorry, is there a thread for bitching about state politics?

Two Democrats drew our congressional districts and they all flipped GOP for the first time ever.

Granted, we have a grand total of four, but still.

Dude these people are such babies!

https://gop.com/nbc-letter/

hahaha oh man

lol at thinking 'the more we just scrimmage against ourselves and change the rules on the fly so that nobody gets hurt and nobody looks bad the better prepared we'll be when the real games begin'. the gop constructing their own echo chamber and them burying themselves further and further in it anytime reality is too harsh really makes them easy prey when they finally have to leave home. i know post-2004 nobody cares about the center but they really kill themselves in these debates and they have no idea how routine "common sense" stuff reads as batshit insane to anyone that doesn't already have redstate or breitbart or nro or dailycaller bookmarked, that it just confirms every worst suspicion anyone might have about them and feeds into narratives dems have been setting up for months. as a result when something like romney's 47% moment happens not only does it happen but it takes them a while to even figure out it's the kind of thing they need to do damage control on.

i mean ftr cnbc is pretty fucking conservative. the goddamn tea party kicked off w/ rick santelli doing an idiotic rant.

Carefully stage managing every detail in advance whenever television cameras are turned on is hugely important to these guys and they will insist on their little prerogatives, like petulant divas, because the money and power at stake magnify everything to gargantuan size.

the thing is though, they do such a good job of convincing people that government is the problem, that even when they slip, they still manage to prove their point, which doesn't get people running to be a democrat so they almost break even

the 'no taxes' campaign is just so juicy that any other thought (increased taxes, spending?) sounds just as loony to people on the right

yeah neither of those statements is borne out by any polling from like the past ten years

haha, ok. I'm not going to look that up so I'll just believe you. I think I need to tap out of here anyhow

Here's an example of their echo chamber's well-painted walls:

In my piece today, I touch on a similar idea about Mitt Romney. Romney is the opposite of Gingrich: He’s not an ideas guy. He’s a conservative, but he’s not a conservatives’ conservative — he isn’t going to sit around with Ted Cruz talking Rawls vs. Hayek. But he is an extraordinarily competent man, an ace manager of everything except (oddly) his own presidential campaign. Romney should be a sort of semi-official fixer in any Republican administration. The VA hospital system is a mess, the Secret Service is a corrupt mess, the IRS is a wildly corrupt mess, etc. I’d like to see a President Cruz or a President Rubio say: “Okay, Mitt, go sort that out,” handing him whatever the political equivalent of a loaded shotgun is. He could be a sort of roving secretary-of-fixing-stuff-sans-portfolio guy. Carly Fiorina, assuming she doesn’t end up on the Republican ticket, might be good at that sort of thing, too.

I still like my idea of the eventual Republican nominee naming his Cabinet in advance and running as a slate. Not because I necessarily think it’s good politics — who knows? — but because it would be an interesting and entertaining exercise. And I suspect that a Cruz-Rubio/Rubio-Cruz ticket might benefit from putting together a superstar team: Bobby Jindal, who has actually reformed a health-care system, at Health and Human Services; Rick Perry, perhaps, at Defense; Jeb Bush at Commerce or Treasury; Larry Kudlow at the Council of Economic Advisers or the Fed; Donald Trump in some critical diplomatic position, such as second assistant deputy ambassador to Burkina Faso; etc. Feel free to share your nominations in the comments.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/426351/romney-fixer-kevin-d-williamson

Not because I necessarily think it’s good politics — who knows?

Donald Trump in some critical diplomatic position!!!

O that kevin and his dry wit

an extraordinarily competent man, an ace manager of everything

literally couldn't name a suggestion for that cabinet that hasn't run for president. POSEUR.

why would president cruz name a cabinet when he's going to drown government in the bathtub

man ppl bring up that 'he should name his cabinet now! GAMECHANGER!' thing sometimes (usually in campaigns that are basically over, it was a hot suggestion for dole in 96) and it never happens because it's a stupid idea because it means yr opponent now has 15 ppl to dig stuff up on to bury yr campaign that you can't dismiss as easily/quickly as some campaign worker plus you have 15 ppl that weren't good enough to be considered for veep or to win the nomination that you have to hope don't go off message at some rally or in some interview. 15 little palins and eagletons running around. all so some schmuck w/ a blog can go 'oooh jindal at health and human services! daddy like!'

this shit is like off-season rosterbation for a sports team

'now we need to trade for chris sale and jose abreu, sign zack greinke to a free agent contract AND WE'RE SET'

and just the idea that anyone would give a shit about these imagined all-star dream teams. undecided voters en masse going "oh snap, charlie henkleton for HHS? i was on the fence but now it's clear who the serious candidate is here." ffs the campaigns struggle like crazy to even find a vice presidential nom who does anything at all for them. though it was great how obama turned that into like a two-week buildup, TODAY THEY'LL BE ANNOUNCING THE TIME AT WHICH THEY'LL MAKE THE ANNOUNCEMENT NEXT FRIDAY! and then as soon as it was biden it wasn't really very interesting and it turned out the thing people cared about was, still, obama vs. mccain, funnily enough.