Conventional Mealy Mouths: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 5

yup. so after the 19th, i am done with the POTUS election. hope the rest of you have enough Circus Peanuts!

xpost

And I think Bernie understands that, fwiw. But a lot of Bernie supporters seem to want to be able to essentially run a third-party campaign with the trappings and resources of a major party. (Trump supporters too, for that matter.)

because it's the only way to have the illusion of a prayer of winning?

(the usual 'other' elections thread has not been started yet, cuz notsexy)

yup. so after the 19th, i am done with the POTUS election. hope the rest of you have enough Circus Peanuts!

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius),

I just set a reminder to log back in to my mod account and threadban you from POTUS politics threads — no need to thank me.

it's possible to do that threadspecifically?

I think so, I'm not really sure.

yup. so after the 19th, i am done with the POTUS election. hope the rest of you have enough Circus Peanuts!

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, April 11, 2016 12:25 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude come on you are going to posting here in these threads on the regular every day for the rest of the year

How dare you suggest such a thing. Bye.

Well, maybe not 'bye' in the traditional sense of the word. It's a soft 'bye'.

I'm expecting some great new Hillary nicknames when you return

I still would like your view on the question, will he win the GOP nomination?

When Trump lost Wisconsin it strongly undercut his ability to gain sufficient delegates for a first ballot win. It also worked against his narrative that he alone was a 'winner', while everyone else was a 'loser'. Whether these will translate into his losing the nomination seems to me to be mostly wishful thinking promulgated by an aghast party leadership.

Right now, no one in the media wants to commit to a story line other than "nobody knows what will happen", but in order to deny Trump there are a limited number of scenarios, all of which are more improbable than Trump picking up the extra 50 or so delegates he might need for a second ballot win. So, if I were betting, I'd bet cautiously on Trump, as much as that prospect disgusts me.

I do find it encouraging that the anti-Trump megaphones are getting louder and more coordinated and that since Wisconsin Trump himself seems more discombobulated and unsure of himself. If Trump comes to the convention around 100 delegates shy of a first ballot victory, I'd rate the chances of his losing much higher than I do now. He'd be wobbling into the home stretch and would look much weaker than he has looked up until now.

Idk, on a second ballot he'd need not only to have wheeled and dealed those extra 50 or 100 or however many, but also *held onto* whichever of his delegates that, per whichever state rules, are freed up after first ballot. I imagine he has a ton of die-hards in those slots but maybe some of them are in fact not (as with that story a while back of Cruz people getting themselves seated as Trump delegates). If there's a well-organized idk Cruz/Kasich ticket being floated, and those guys plus the kind of people who were backing Bush and Rubio had been doing the organizational legwork for months, I can imagine a scenario where more Trump delegates driift to Cruz than vice versa. I could be wrong but it just seems like the exact kind of thing that Trump's team sucks at.

Btw re: conversation above, I don't think anybody two weeks ago thought it was a certainty Trump would be President, but certainly there were and are plenty of people pretty sure he'll be the *nominee* which is pretty different.

if anyone can wheel + deal the delegates tho to come into the convention w/ the # needed you'd think it would be trump. i would not put bribery beyond him.

lol 'wheel and deal' jinx :p xp

NBC had a high/low projection for him yesterday. If everything worked out optimally (all of New York, all of California, etc.), they had him at 1,245, more than half. If everything goes wrong, 1,165.

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-april-10-2016-n553716

And now, let's bring on Glenn Beck.

I think the counter there is that Cruz is way ahead of courting delegates and understanding the rules than Trump is. Trump's campaign has been really shittily coordinated on that front, they don't understand the rules the way Cruz invariably does.

xp

They also speculated that if there's 100 delegates to be won over, put Trump in that room and put Cruz in there, Trump has the better chance, just because Cruz is so odious. Not sure about that. (That Trump would win them over, I mean, not whether Cruz is odious or not.)

if there's 100 delegates to be won over, put Trump in that room and put Cruz in there, Trump has the better chance

but it won't be like that. most of the wooing will be done by waves of surrogates, canvassing out on the floor or cajoling in private rooms, with selected delegates getting the personal treatment from the candidates, who traditionally never appear on the convention floor at all.

given Cruz's facility with exploiting rules I'm inclined to think that if Trump doesn't win on the first ballot he's not gonna get it. Assuming Cruz wins a few more states from here on out.

All of this is of course tea-leafy, but: Trump's early successes were at least partly due to the large candidate field; the picture is different now.

Secondly, his canned lines are growing stale (we don't win anymore, I'll get the best people, trust me, you'll see, it'll be awesome). Thirdly, those canned lines have not changed a bit, while a counter-narrative of embarrassments and missteps has arisen, undermining Trump's competency/staffing argument. Fourthly, a related narrative has arisen that he has failed to do some pretty basic homework on delegates and convention maneuvering, and this failure could come back to bite his tiny, um, hands.

While certainly entertaining, all this is inconsequential if you believe that demographic headwinds doom any and all GOPers from the outset. Doubly so if they're intent on serving up a cocktail of virulent racism and blatant sexism.

Insult a significant chunk of Latinx voters with anti-immigrant talk? No prob, one might say; energizing the xenophobia of disaffected anglos will be enough. Insult a significant chunk of black voters with racially coded makers/takers/welfare talk? No prob, you might say; energizing the anti-PC feelings of downscale whites will be enough. Insult a significant chunk of women voters with not-even-veiled misogyny? No prob, you might say; energizing angry male backlashers will be enough. Except it won't, especially not if you double down on all three.

And no other Republican nominee is able to follow a significantly different rhetorical course. Even without Trump's particular brand of noxiousness, the fundamentals of the general election race are set and seem unlikely to change.

Aimless: another person on the panel refuted the 100-person-room idea the same way, that it all happens out on the floor.

I wrote about this elsewhere: I think the biggest factor in Trump's recent slide was less specific events (Cruz's wife, abortion, the manager getting charged--all of which were ugly, but not necessarily uglier than earlier stuff) than the timing, which was during a two-week layover between primaries. With no chance to win a couple of primaries and push all that other stuff to the side, it was nothing but bad news.

xps

I expect the canvassing and the wooing have already begun in a low key, but very determined manner. And, yes, I think Cruz's people will play that game more persistently and more deftly than Trump's, because Cruz's people are better connected and more experienced. Trump's best help will be that he has a less steep hill to climb, assuming most of his first ballot delegates are in his pocket to stay. A well-run campaign would ensure that was true, but his campaign seems very offhand and may not have brought entirely loyal delegates with them.

also he basically has three campaign managers now, who are all fighting with each other, and one of them is distracted by a legal battle

And another is the guy who maintains their email server or something.

Just a reminder that sometimes even billions of dollars aren't enough to de-shoe the clown.

The new guy is one of these David Gergen types who's been around since forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort

josh marshall gives two thumbs up to manafort:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/good-news-for-dems

Ugh the video of the de blasio/Clinton "cp time" thing what the hell

Probably old news but I just saw it

Cruz's wife, abortion, the manager getting charged--all of which were ugly, but not necessarily uglier than earlier

these are very different things to the kind of person who would seriously consider voting for trump. like my grandmother: for her, all mexicans are rapists is self-evident; going after another guy's wife shows a severe lack of class and decorum.

Cruz's wife, abortion

nice name

cf. the usual example of non-Oxford comma usage: "my parents, Ayn Rand and god"

Ugh the video of the de blasio/Clinton "cp time" thing what the hell

the what

http://gawker.com/hillary-clinton-tries-to-prove-shes-not-racist-with-awk-1770293356

Rather than click it and be disappointed, I'm just going to assume that the cropped text in that link is 'ward rap battle'.

Heard a Sanders radio spot out of Buffalo on the way home: 30 seconds of him talking about Wall Street, ending with the requisite "and I approved this message." Is that really necessary if you're the guy talking throughout? Seems as redundant as calling a press conference to endorse yourself.

i think it's law now that if your group paid for the ad, it has to be tacked on?

Thought about making Ward Rapbattle my new dn, but nah. lol though.

okay lol @ "cautious politician time", sorry but that type of full-on terrible joke is funny to me

That routine sounds painful.

it's deeply stupid but welcome to politicans telling joeks

right because Bill's "gaffe" was about a lack of caution and not a deliberate appeal to crime-fearing (mostly) white voters.

I think I've officially hit the point in this cycle where I am weary of everyone involved so all I do now is accept how terrible it all is. Maybe that will somehow become liberating.

a deliberate appeal to crime-fearing (mostly) white voters.

my guess is it was some combination of this + Bill's ego about being personally criticized

not sure what this has to do with the "cp time" thing which is obviously a dumb joke

love this scummy liar

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kansas-spanish-voter-guides-errors

The Spanish-language voter guides from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's office include two errors about registering to vote in the state, while the English guides do not include the same errors.

The Spanish-language guides said that voters could register up to 15 days before the election, while the English version included the correct deadline, 21 days before the election

hillary's daily news interview:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/transcript-hillary-clinton-meets-news-editorial-board-article-1.2596292

i haven't read it (too long)

Why is she dressed in a lime green Dr. Evil top...?

I haven't read the whole thing, but she's very much in prepared speech mode. There's not much back-and-forth. I have heard some of those answers near verbatim in other contexts.

i wait for the non-partisan review :p

There's some a bit into the interview:

So I think we can do that, and particularly if we can get the mechanism for the National Infrastructure Bank. Because if all we do is rely on Congress, then we are going to be at their mercy every five to seven to eight years. Whereas if we say, yeah, Congress still has the primary role... It passed finally $275 billion program, but we want to have an ongoing, revolving fund. We need to look at how we can once again use municipal bonding authority. How can we use more state bonding authority? We used for a little period of time, and I like the idea of federal bonds that can be used for infrastructure, as long as you have a revenue stream. Look, I'm excited about this stuff. I'm kind of a wonky person. I'm excited by it.

Daily News: Get excited about your college plan now.

Clinton: Yeah, I'm very excited about my college plan.

Daily News: Make me understand it.

Clinton: Yeah, okay. Well, the best way to do that...

Daily News: I better have something to drink.

Clinton: Yes, something stronger maybe.