I agree that Kasich should be the nominee. But do you realize he won’t be?
I don’t think this is controversial, the official democratic party doesn’t want a true progressive like Sanders to carry the nomination and I could see them pulling all the stops to replace him with a more centrist candidate.
I have not accepted that he won’t be, no. He’s doing well in the endorsement primary and he’s doing well in New Hampshire. Kasich’s fundraising has also been solid.
Where I probably got it wrong is in assuming that someone could jump in that late. But fortunately for my rather mixed reputation as a prognosticator, Sanders jumped ahead of Clinton early enough that Biden can still jump into the race. Which I think we all know wouldn’t be happening if Clinton hadn’t seen her historic lead crumble to someone who isn’t even a Democrat.
Clinton has no real appeal in the primary. Her only appeal is name recognition and hoping the primary is over as fast as possible so nobody can compete with her. Sanders by comparison is actually tapping into people’s sense of frustration over the fact that the US is a corrupt plutocracy which has left most people behind, which causes his poll numbers to increase each month. And nothing Hillary can do can to that because nobody trusts Hillary the way they do with Sanders, who seems more authentic.
I guess Hillarys best bet at this point is to build a firewall among minorities, women voters and disadvantaged voters. Sanders has done well with educated liberals, but they/we are only about 1/3 or so of democratic primary voters. As long as Hillary keeps her lead among black voters then she will win the primary.
That’s true, but if Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire, all Democrats will give him a second look. There is nothing about Sanders that any democrat(other than conservatives) would hate, so I’d expect he’ll see his numbers improve among minority voters if he wins IA and NH. The South will still be tough for him due to a lot of conservatives still registered as Democrats and voting in Democratic primaries. But he can win the nomination without the South.
Since we’re being so specific: his national poll numbers are disastrous, and he has no clear path to broadening his appeal. His positions are poison to most Republicans, and if he actually became a threat to anyone, that would come out pretty damn fast. And I see no reason to believe he wants to be president enough to Romney his way through that.
Unless we assume that an outsider will actually win the nomination, which I have not yet accepted as inevitable, then one of the current establishment candidates, all of whom have ghastly poll numbers, will win the nomination. Kasich is as well positioned as anyone.
I think Cruz is neither, and he still has a window. He could be the choice that Trump’s and Carson’s supporters might support if they are gone. I wouldn’t go so far as to predict this, though.
Cruz has a shot, more than I would have originally thought, but I still don’t think it’s very likely. I still say Carson if the voters are determined to nominate an outsider, Kasich, Christie, or Rubio if they fall back to their normal pattern, and Carly Fiorina if they completely and utterly act like dumbasses.
The problem I have with this is that I don’t see what the appeal is of Carson. I know he has been rising in the polls so maybe there is some appeal to the religious right there but I don’t get it. Every interview I have seen he has a very flat demeanor, almost like he has suffered brain damage or a stroke; very little expression, no smile and kind of a dead look in his eye. It may be that he is considering every word very carefully but it comes off as if he is dimwitted. And again, this is not about his positions but purely about how he comes across on camera. I don’t see that getting him very far with a large part of the party.
Exactly two politicians from outside Ohio have endorsed him (Gregg Harper, Robert Bentley) plus three members of the Ohio delegation to the US house. Five guys. This puts him in fifth place by 538’s scoring.
And since when is the endorsement primary an important part of your analysis? Are you giving it equal weight on the Dem side?
No, because the endorsements are based on assumptions that turned out not to be true(Clinton’s inevitability and lack of competition).
The endorsement primary on the GOP side is only predictive in that it can tell you which establishment candidates have the best chance of emerging if the outsiders fall by the wayside. Obviously, if the outsiders do not fall, then the endorsement primary will prove meaningless.
It could very well be this cycle that the two major party nominees have almost no mainstream party support. If that happens, or heck, just the fact that it’s threatening to happen, should make people like Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, and McConnell look hard at their leadership failures that led to this.
You couldn’t possibly know this. Again, you’re not able to read the minds of Democrats. It’s possible this was the reason for some of the endorsements, and it’s possible that some actually think she is the best candidate.
When your analysis is based on mind reading, it becomes guessing.
Endorsements don’t come this early in such numbers unless a candidate is judged inevitable. That’s why relatively few GOP endorsements have been issued at this point.
But let’s make a prediction here. I predict that if Biden enters the race, Clinton will lose at least a couple dozen of her endorsements before Iowa. WHich would indicate that I was right.
Okay, we’ll see. But endorsements have never come that early in such numbers, so we can’t say anything about what it has meant in the past. I think this is another one of those wishful thinking predictions, but we’ll see.
This is a total non-sequitur. Even if Clinton loses 24 or more endorsements if Biden enters the race (official adaher prediction!), why does that mean those endorsements were made based on presumed inevitability and not, say, the endorsers’ belief that Clinton was the best candidate until the candidate pool grew?
Why endorse before you even know who is going to be in the race? Most of Clinton’s endorsements came unusually early.
Because you never know for sure who is going to be in the race unless you wait until the legal deadlines (and even then, there’s always the chance of an RFK situation.) Endorsements frequently come earlier than that.
Because early endorsement of probable nominees is a way to curry favor with them for potential future use, and because it tells your own donor base who else they should support.