People operate at different levels. Rubio is almost definitely sharper than Palin, but perhaps not as bright as GWBush, who was duller than his Dad. Cruz is whip-smart-lawyer-smart but people-dumb. Obama and the Clintons are quick studies. Nixon was smart and more importantly valued intelligence, but was too clever by half as the Brits put it, frequent insights notwithstanding. He also had personality defects which destroyed him.
Trump is a master showman and presenter but lacks focus, which explains his business failures. It’s difficult to lose money on casinos and five star hotels like the Plaza, yet Trump managed to lose so much money on them he was driven into virtual bankruptcy. But the banks wagered (correctly) that they could liquidate him at a better price if he didn’t go into de jure bankruptcy.
Great leaders harness men and women with varied skill sets.
Palin is as dumb as a wall and doesn’t have the ability to stay on message, which is why everything that comes out of her mouth is word salad. Rubio at least has the ability to regurgitate what he is fed in the way it was meant to be expressed, so no, I would not place him in the same category as Palin. Palin is a true numbskull. Rubio is just not very smart.
I check the Predictwise estimates every few days and see that just over two days there was a huge change in chances:
Two days ago Rubio was 60% to win the GOP nomination. He’s fallen all the way to 44% today. Trump rose from 22% to 32% over the same period. Bush, Christie and Kasich also got boosts, but not Cruz.
Someone has got to hire me to write their campaign ads. Hey, Republican candidates, picture this:
We see a little girl of about 8 holding her mother’s hand, shopping in a department store. Then we see a table full of dolls with the sign “Marco Rubio dolls” and the price: $20 crossed out, $15 crossed out, $10 crossed out, $5 crossed out, and finally $2. Little girl says “Mommy mommy, dolls!” She picks one up and it’s a Marco Rubio doll. She sees it has a pull string and she gives it a pull and it says “Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” She gives a puzzled look, pulls it again and it says “Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” Exasperated, she pulls it once more and “Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” Totally disgusted, she tosses it back in the pile, looks in the camera and says “Is this all that Marco Rubio does?” Cut to the preferred candidate, who looks in the camera and says “You want a human, not sound bite machine.”
I think he’s treated as the front runner due to the Iowa results. If it had been Cruz around 30 %, Trump in the high 20% range, and Rubio, Bush, Kasich, and Christie all in the low teens clustered around each other, things would look way different. Instead Rubio trounced the other three establishment candidates. If you believe that the establishment candidate still gets the benefit of the doubt that the outsiders don’t, that is reason enough for Rubio to have the front runner aura.
That works. And even if they lack that basic level of creativity, just playing the clip of him repeating himself four times fits into a 30-second commercial.
The memory of this won’t fade away because his opponents won’t let it fade away.
The other big thing about this moment is that it woke up the media. As you know, I’ve been beating the drum that, unlike with Trump or Cruz, the media was ready to at least pretend that Rubio was a Reasonable Republican who wouldn’t be a disaster as President. I’m not sure that even our courtier press will be able to do that for him any more.
Not to mention, Hillary will slice and dice that little boy, should he have to face her in a debate.
I bet there’s been panic among the big-money GOP donors since the debate. Who do they get behind now? I guess Kasich will be their emergency backup option, but it may be too late to turn him into the guy who will win the nomination.
Your approval ratings would suck, too, if people had been throwing negative propaganda at you for 24 years.
One thing that happened in the 1980 race will be relevant this year, IMHO. Ronald Reagan had been caricatured by the Dems (with some help from what was then the still-somewhat-liberal media) as Bonzo, so when he got up on the debate stage, first with Anderson and then with Carter, and didn’t come across anything like the caricature of him, he picked up support simply by invalidating the caricature in people’s minds.
I think a lot of Hillary-haters are going to be surprised when that happens this year with Hillary. She’s going to give her convention acceptance speech, and get up there and debate the GOP nominee, and she isn’t going to be the witch of the Hillary-haters’ fever dreams. She’s going to be smart and sensible and know what the heck she is talking about*. And just like with Reagan, people are going to realize that the Hillary they had such a negative opinion of wasn’t actually Hillary.
*And unless John Kasich is somehow able to win the GOP nomination, that in and of itself will be a huge contrast between her and her opponent.
Seems pretty obvious to me; they’re banking on the idea that once the majority of primary voters get a chance to vote, they’ll realize what outlandish candidates Cruz and Trump are, and hope that by being the highest-ranked non-Trump/Cruz candidate will make them a shoo-in for the nomination.
Which is a reasonable assumption, if you’re also assuming that the primary voters as a whole are rational and reasonable. I have a terrible suspicion that this isn’t so, and that one of Cruz or Trump will end up with the nomination, and that there are a lot of people who’ll hold their nose and vote for them, rather than vote for Clinton. Which is a shame; I have a feeling that Clinton is actually closer to their political views than either Trump or Cruz.
With the greatest reluctance and disgust, I agree. Christie is an odious creature, but the only other alternative both sane and competent is Kasich (Jeb! no longer counts as meriting discussion) – and I’ve read some disturbing things about Kasich on this forum that make him out to be much more of a RW ideologue than he is generally perceived to be. The prospect of Christie in the WH frightens me less than any other Republican candidate this cycle. And we get 4-8 years of licensed fat-joking!
From what I can tell, having a lot of pretty right-wing friends and acquaintances, they’re tarring her with the Bill Clinton brush; they hated him for being slick and dishonest, and they’re either assuming she’s the same way, as she’s his wife and embroiled in some scandals concerning honesty, or they’re judging her for staying with him after his scandals.
Either way, nothing she does is going to convince them otherwise- she’s tainted by virtue of association.
So voters have known Hillary for 20 years and the convention is going to make people like her? That’s just weird. Plus you misunderstand what made Reagan less threatening than the liberal caricatures of him. Liberals portrayed Reagan as basically fascist right-wing, and a reasonable speech on the national stage will tend to make those characterizations look foolish. Clinton is basically just portrayed as a liar, and speaking doesn’t make people think you are less of a liar because they don’t know how much they can believe what you say.
Clinton’s numbers are not going up. As I predicted, she will enjoy negative approval ratings throughout the campaign, and she will lose unless she faces someone with even more negative ratings.
This is somewhat of a cherry pick. In fact, when I look at favorability polls taken this year, the one you quoted is biggest outlier in the positive direction for Rubio.
On average Rubio gets 41.1 unfavorable to 37.3 favorable. Whereas Sanders gets 37.4 unfavorable to 48.2 favorable.
My view of Hillary has improved over the last few months. I think she’s coming across as slightly more authentic and less robotic. I’m seeing a bit of personality. Her command of the issues is strong, as always. I don’t see why other people won’t come around. Not everyone, of course, but enough to make her numbers move a bit.
And Hillary is, on average, 42-53. I’m not sure how much it matters for this election – I might answer “unfavorable” for Hillary, but I’d still easily vote for her more than any of the Republicans. I think it’s likely that there are lots of others like me.
Hillary is more likeable when you hear her talk in a one on one setting, interview style. She sucks at making big speeches. Boring as she is, when you look at what she actually says, I think a lot more people would agree with her more than any Republican. She’s less of a salesman than Trump, but she’s selling an infinitely more palatable product.
I like this one but I was envisioning one of those wind-up dolls that you turn and then set on the floor and it walks. The last shot of the commercial should be the doll on its side, feet moving but going nowhere, stuck like a broken record repeating “-doesn’t know what he’s doing”
