Too bad Jeb didn’t join in with perfect Spanish.
What was “bad” about his Spanish? Here’s what he said: "Ahora mismo, díselo en Español si tu quieres"
I put me getting beaten up by random passersby in the realm of “not bloody likely”, but thanks for caring.
Trumpists = incipient Brownshirts. Germany in 1931.
Again, the possibility of random passersby, even “incipient Brownshirts”, beating me up is effectively zero. I ain’t a-scared o’ nuthin’. But thanks for your concern.
You are Chuck Norris levels of badassery? Anyone can be beaten up by brownshirts.
On the Spanish spat: I am unclear on how Spanish fluency is an asset in a GOP primary.
So do I! GT nailed it!
I have to say this was the best GOP debate ever! Between the Spanish squabble and the mooning ruckus I was falling off the couch laughing … almost as hard as the time Dr. Carson called GOP leader Reince Priebus “Rinse Pubis.”
SNL can’t make this shit up!
Not gonna lie, I lost a lot of respect for Kasich when he said that Obama should not nominate anybody to replace Scalia. This whole time, I’ve thought that Kasich was the only one of the entire bunch who wasn’t really that bad, yet he felt it was necessary to tow the party line on Obama and SCOTUS.
Shame.
Yes; I am.
Toe the line. But yes, that was a shame.
Wasn’t it adorable, how the mods pretended to treat Carson as a serious candidate?
When is the dumbass gonna drop out, already, anyway?!
When he wakes up.
It’s like having respect for a serial killer because he has fewer victims than all the other serial killers. Kasich is a loonie; he’s just not batshit crazy.
It looks like there might have been some ringers in the audience:
Again, I see this only helping him. A big part of his appeal is that he isn’t afraid of pissing off the establisment. To his supporters this is just another example of him saying what no one else is willing to say.
Ohioan, here. Kasich is not in the middle of a psychotic break, which puts him a cut above anyone else in the Republican field. But he’s still a Republican. He’s not a safe choice.
I just don’t understand why not allowing a nominee to get confirmed is a mainstream Republican position. It makes no sense. It’s such stupid short term thinking. The Democrats will respond in kind when they get the chance, and that chance might be as soon as Jan. 2016. It is quite plausible that a Republican could win the Presidency and the GOP still lose the Senate.
That’s what I said in one of the other threads. They’ve just put so much of their identity into stopping Obama they can’t see what a bad precedent they are setting. And I can’t imagine anyone on the planet thinks they would take this view if the shoe was on the other foot.
I suspect this is base politics at play. If I thought they were more intelligent and devious than they are, I’d suspect that they are satisfying the base, but that when the actual vote is held threatened Republicans will confirm, plus Collins. That’s enough for a slim majority but keeps the majority of Republicans from facing Tea Party challengers.
IMO there are a four potential explanations. Reality is probably some combo of all four.
One is that they really are that short-termish. As I said in another thread: there’s chess players, checkers players, and tic-tac-toe players.
The R folks who could play chess have retired or been run off and the checkers players are now being shouted down by the tic-tac-toe players.
The second idea is that they really buy into the idea that the Ds are a bunch of wimps and if the shoe was on the other foot (which it will be eventually) they believe the Ds will not be as ruthless as the Rs are being now or are willing to be going forward.
And in fact I think they’re right in that, at least a little bit. The upper limit for dirty pool is higher for R than for D. It’s kinda like a couple having a screaming match. They can each give as good as they get verbally. But they both know he can punch a lot better than she can. And just might do it.
Part of that is due to the Rs inherent contradiction that as much as they want to govern, even mainstream R is sort of anti-government, whereas mainstream D is solidly pro-government. So trashing the government while they’re in it is less of a cognitive disconnect for Rs than Ds.
Next, anger is not rational. The Rs have seen within their own primary that anger sells better than competence. It sells better than policy. It sells better than popularity. It sells better than having a big war chest for more & better ads. It even sells better than Jesus and tax cuts together.
Since it’s working, let’s the rest of us Senators grab it and run with it. IMO *that’s *what they’re thinking. It’s truly no deeper than that.
Remember that part of opportunistic leadership is figuring out which way the crowd is already stampeding than rushing to be at the head of it. Claiming all the while that it was your idea to go this way. From that position maybe you can steer a bit. Maybe not. Don’t trip or you’re gonna get trampled is the best advice I can give.
Finally, any movement must guard against believing its own propaganda. It’s seductive, but it’s very dangerous. As far back as Sun Tzu this has been a warning: see the opposition as he is, not as you wish him to be. Clausewitz wrote of this. As have legions of strategists before and since.
If the folks in high R places have fallen for Fox’s worldview, believing that Fox’s audience is the populace, or at least the voting populace, that will lead them very far astray when they encounter the ~50% of the country who’s not like that.
Intellectually they know about the others; but in the gut where decisions are made, the power of being steeped in your own propaganda and being a prisoner of your own worldview produces blinkered decisions.
Back in 2003ish I wrote here about the hazards of our ageing Cold Warriors taking on Iraq, al Qaeda, Afghanistan, and the Taliban while their minds are full of Soviet adversaries & their thinking.
IOW the R leadership seems to have drunk their own Kool-Aid. And are blinded by the sugary goodness.