PJ O’Rourke’s take on all of this for the BBC is hilarious.
It fell flat for me. I am not in love with his attempt at UKesque humor. It seems forced.
I read about 1/3 of the way in and still hadn’t gotten to the funny parts. Different tastes, I guess. 25 years ago, O’Rourke’s combination of cynicism and insight was a thing of beauty. Now all I see is cynicism not only without the insight, but without any regard for the truth.
For instance:
On Sunday, November 12, 2006, the Washington Post Outlook section, front page, above the fold, was entirely taken up by a big “Hillary v. Obama” head, with pictures of the two, looking like they were facing off against each other.
Yep, two years before the 2008 election, the paper of record of the D.C. political classes was treating Obama as basically co-equal with Hillary.
At this point in 2007, he was certainly running behind Hillary, but the press never ceased to treat him as Hillary’s main rival (John Edwards? Who’s that?) and never counted him out.
For cynicism to work, it’s at least got to be accurate. ISTM that O’Rourke’s turned into the same sort of loudmouthed ignoramus that he’s trying to shoot down.
The New Yorker on Mitt’s slumber-party diary: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/mitt-romneys-slumber-party-diary
P. J. O’Rourke was much funnier than that pathetic piece by Paul Rudnick, someone I normally like.
BTW, O’Rourke’s is a transcribed radio talk so it probably loses something in print.
What beat Fiorina in 2010 - and might also in 2016: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/carly-fiorina-california-campaign/index.html
You might have won that bet already, given Walker’s pulled out.
Is it too late for anyone else to enter the race?
Just you wait. Let a couple more candidates implode, and you’ll see Mittens step forth as the savior of the Republicans Party.
CNBC’s debate criteria for their October show seems pretty inclusive. 1% or better overall and 3% or better for the 8 o’clock debate. Who do you think will be out, at the kid’s table and in the big leagues?
In other poll news, The Chicago Sun-Times says Trump is most popular with uneducated Republicans. Which reminds me that all this teeth gnashing that 28% of the population is falling for the proud asshole with no policy except dirty Messicans and broads be illin’ isn’t exactly correct. Aren’t most of these polls of Republican voters and not the nation at large?
Going by their latest poll only, those hitting 3% min are:
That’s nine.
At the kiddie table, motivated by something other than hope of winning, we have:
That’s gonna be lots of fun to watch, in a trainwrecky kind of way.
And at below 1% overall, watching on TV at their hotel rooms:
I’m sure the rest of the field wants to keep Rand around to jab at Trump. Otherwise, I’d say cut it off at 5%.
Expanding a bit mostly just using Real Clear Politics averages for the period (which included 2 that aren’t in the accepted polls for the standard but I’m not working the math for them all) The atandards actually say 2.5 average will be rounded to meet the test of 3% so that’s the actual cut off.
The Main Debate would be
The secondary debate only requires a 1% in any one of the named polls. Already qualified for that are:
Graham is still looking for his lone 1% and Gilmoe isn’t even listed on RCP anymore and I am not digging.
Paul’s margin is wafer thin. He’s really the big question. Kasich, Huckabee, and Christie all performed the worst in the two polls that wouldn’t be included in the debate averages but pulled them down above. With that extra breathing room, they likely all make it. Graham and Gilmore need a pollster to miscode just a couple responses in one poll. I doubt Gilmore does. There’s a chance for Graham who just pulled a 1% in the USA Today poll. Too bad, for him, that one didn’t count.
That’s a lot of people in the relegation zone, all of whom are going to have to make a big noise other than the Hunger Games cannon. These debates are not getting more informative, but they *are *getting more entertaining.
It’s appropriate that Trump’s at the top, given the increasing resemblance of this whole process to an episode of The Apprentice.
“You’re all fired! And I guess that leaves me the nominee.”
You know he’s thought it.
As of this morning, the IBD/TIPP poll of 10/24-10/29 is the most recent national GOP poll in the RCP average. And since the most recent debate was the night of 10/28, this poll is mostly a pre-debate picture.
But the interesting thing about it - if confirmed by other polls - is that only 6 candidates were polling at more than 2% - and one of them, Carly Fiorina, was at 3%.
I’ve got my doubts about the IBD poll, since its previous iteration, 9/26-10/1, showed Trump at 17%, which was a clear outlier, since that poll is the only poll since mid-August to show Trump’s support at less than 21%. But IF other polls confirm its outcome, it would suggest that the winnowing is happening, whether or not the candidates being winnowed, or the outfits running the debates, acknowledge it.
I think at this early stage bank accounts will do more winnowing than poll numbers.
We’ve now got two post-Debate #3 polls (Quinnipiac 10/29-11/2 and Fox News 11/1-11/3) and they pretty much confirm each other.
If you ignore the RCP average (since it includes three mostly/entirely pre-debate polls), and just look at these two:
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Trump’s back in the lead, holding his ground while Carson took a modest hit.
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Rubio and Cruz both got pretty decent bumps.
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Jeb’s at 4% in both polls.
Also, Fiorina’s now got four straight national polls where she’s at 3%.
Also, Chris Christie may be demoted to the kiddie table for this debate: Fox News has said their cutoff is a 2.5% average in the last four national polls completed by November 4, and it looks like Christie only has 2.25%. And Pataki and Jindal may be demoted from the kiddie table into oblivion.