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

I'm not entirely with all this speculation & armchair diagnoses of Ben Carson's intelligence/psyche, but man, I would love to witness the meeting between him & Armstrong Williams & rapper Aspiring Mogul

it is amazing how terrified of their base the gop is -http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/ben-carson-2016-campaign-rivals-215615?cmpid=sf#ixzz3qlQURVNf

http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/meet-aspiring-mogul-rapper-behind-ben-carson-ad-freedom.html#

The reason I go by Aspiring Mogul is because it’s not about me. It’s about me inspiring other black men, other African Americans, to say, ‘Hey, you can start a business, you can become anything you want to become in America. You can get on Google and Google anything you want to be or anything you want to do

#GoogleSearchesMatter

Dare to look at a picture of what you want to be.

Ben Carson is... Marine Todd:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTLM2xyUYAAPR4c.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTLM2xyUYAAPR4c.png

that's an amazing lie

you stick to the truth, dr. carson!

so is his whole autobiography just clunky rewrites from the plot outlines of old chain letters and urban legends? I hope he also took down an evolution-believing know it all with a devastating twist argument, and laid down item by item what your MOM thinks you do at college... and what you REALLY do in college!!

I'm starting to wonder if he's ever actually performed surgery. But even if he hasn't, the idea of performing surgery unquestionablyly fits the Ben Carson narrative.

Thanks for the misspellings, mobile device.

Perceptions 301

oh my God

sound like a course made up by a first year student

I'm a big fan of Carson's other book:
http://splitsider.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/11/nathan_for_you_movement-640x500.jpg

interestingly, perceptions 301 is a portmanteau of the name and street address of the second best strip club in new haven

*usual narrative related caveats apply to the "truth" of that "fact"

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1572b65d16bde48d8cc552c8c9741f0fd5921616/0_476_4928_2804/master/4928.jpg?w=1225&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=b593e3ee12ff260f6daa1566bd68b956

That's his business manager, right?

ok, so this wasn't a joke.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/nov/07/ben-carson-house-homage-to-himself-in-pictures?CMP=share_btn_fb

wtf @ 'poverbs'

Has this been posted?
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0355/8941/products/MONICA_LEWINSKYS_EXBOYFRIENDS_WIFE_large.png?v=1425433092

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/marco-rubio-paid-florida-gop-charge-card/story?id=35033122

I assume Rubio put out this stuff today hoping to catch some cover from Carson's troubles. I think there's only going to be one viable nominee before long.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1995/1101950731_400.jpg

(At the time, Dole was three years older than Clinton is now.)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34759190

US presidential contender Donald Trump's opening monologue on TV comedy show Saturday Night Live was disrupted by a heckler shouting "Racist!".
But the interruption was from comedian Larry David - joking that he wanted to claim the reward offered by a Latino rights group angry at Mr Trump's statements on Mexican immigrants.
The group, Deport Racism, tweeted that Mr David had won the "bounty".
He told the audience in New York he was there "to show I can take a joke".

Should have showed he could make a joke, right?

when you are a joke, better to show you can take a joke than make a joke

in the end, the joke you take is equal to the joke you make

Re.: "There's a woman out there, and many million more like her, who believes that given the choice of who they run against next year, the Democrats want to sabotage Ben Carson's campaign to make sure it isn't him."

Ah yes, the "they will tell you who they fear" aspect of the conversation.

Yes, THAT's why we were all so eager to tear Palin down. Because we feared that in a fair fight she would have totally crushed us. Yup, please keep thinking that.

As a congenital, unbudgeable Democrat, my heart's desire is the exact opposite of what they suppose it to be. GOP, PLEASE NOMINATE A TRUE CONSERVATIVE. Seriously, the purer the better. What I want most is for people to have the choice of a deep-red, fire-breathing, powdered-wig Tea Party-belonging, Freeedom-Caucus-loving, kneejerk anti-tax, anti-government, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant gun-nut candidate on the ballot. I believe that the people, on the whole, would decisively and thoroughly reject that candidate. Because that's really not where the broader electorate is.

To me, seeing that strain of politics thoroughly aired - and thoroughly repudiated - is the most important thing about the coming election. I don't need to be jazzed about the Democrat personally, or approve of everything she or he has ever done. To me it's much more important to have the current strain of right-wing nuttery discredited as an electoral strategy at the national level.

the right will never accept that their ideas have been rejected. There will always be a problem with the messenger.

You may be right, but yr TruCons always say that nominating a conservative hasn't really even been tried. Not since Ronaldus Magnus, and Goldwater before him (whose role was to announce the coming savior like John the Baptist).

Nominating a loser milquetoast moderate, a McRomney 3.0, DEFINITELY won't quash this narrative. The narrative will continue to be that True Conservatives were Stabbed in the Back by The Establishment(tm). So please let's let them try a conservative-approved nominee this time. A Cruz, a Carson, a Palin or Perry type - please, yes, bring it on.

No, it may not completely kill that talking point, but it may make it look more ridiculous than it already is.

Nearly everyone already knows it's ridiculous, and that Cruz etc. are money sponges dipping themselves into a sea of angry old white people--but as long as that money is still out there...

Conservatives have one basic narrative: They lost the '64 election and everyone said they were history, and then they came back and basically took over the country 16 years later by remaining pure

the right will never accept that their ideas have been rejected. There will always be a problem with the messenger.

OTM.

The flipside of this is that I'm increasingly convinced that the "moderate" clown car participants are there hoping to lose to the Twue Conservative, so that after the latter crashes and burns in the general election, the former can basically say "I told you so" and present themselves next time around as the Electable Best Chance To Oust Hillary. I mean otherwise I can't fathom what Christie is still doing in this race.

That they're looking that far ahead to essentially be able to say "Told ya so!" is so obnoxious. I mean, it's just conjecture that that's what someone like, say, Christie is doing. But I can totally see that being the case.

Christie is still in the race because most of his potential backers signed on with Jeb and sees blood in that water

In my dreams I see a Goldwater-esque 35% popular vote ass kicking in 2016 but far all I know candidate Carson/Trump/Cruz will end up with 45% and me weeping for america

Nah, they don't have that much of a chance.

Do they?

never underestimate the stupidity of the american voter

Well I live with three Fox News junkies, so I guess I should know better.

45% would be a pretty disastrous loss (and there's no way they would carry the electoral college with that percentage cuz it wouldn't include certain states they would need to win)

Whoever gets the republican nomination, including Carson, Trump, or Cruz, would soften their delivery of whatever the heck is considered to be True Conservatism today. The whole "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" approach was thumped badly in 1964 that no one will venture onto that scorched earth again. This is not to say they would soften their actual positions, but only that the message will be made as innocuous sounding as possible, as with "compassionate conservatism".

After losing again, the fire-breathers will certainly blame the messenger once more.

I dont want a disastrous loss I want a public humiliation thats unspinnable

everything is spinnable in a fact-free zone

I mean, there's no electoral outcome that will eradicate a strain of American politics that's been around forever

Because no one who gets as close to the presidency as occupying the nomination of a major party is knowingly going to create a humiliating disaster, you'll need the most reckless and willfully blind and stupid nominee among the crowd. Trump is easily the most reckless, but Carson now seems to score highest when you average out all three of these qualities. Cruz is much less likely to fly straight into the mountainside.

everything is spinnable in a fact-free zone

― Οὖτις, Monday, November 9, 2015 10:31 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously, these guys will never admit defeat, they'll just keep whining about media bias and shit

Pretty sure the new crop of nominees in waiting doesn't give a shot about Goldwater analogies.

they'll just keep whining about media bias and shit

millions of "illegals" voting