# The Race for the GOP Nomination - Post-Thanksgiving Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 28, 2015, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819 "2015-11-28T12:40:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/341 "2016-01-07T05:02:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recently saw a billboard on the Interstate protesting that a certain number of birds every year are killed by power-windmills. I assumed it was paid for by animal-rights activists, but now I wonder . . . Wonder no more, it is more likely that those ads were paid more by astroturf groups. > **[Media campaign against windfarms funded by anonymous conservatives](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/15/media-campaign-windfarms-conservatives)** > > Secretive funding network channelled millions to stop state governments moving towards renewable energy As for the numbers, they are a concern, but remember about the canary in the coal mine? Many more than the ones affected by wind turbines do not have to be in the mine to die thanks to the pollution coming from fossil fuels. [http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/25/3475348/bird-death-comparison-chart/](http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/25/3475348/bird-death-comparison-chart/) > [@](#): > > In response to growing accusations from both conservationists and conservatives that renewable energy sources like solar and wind kill too many birds, U.S. News and World Report has compiled data on which energy industries are responsible for the most bird deaths every year. > > For each power source — wind, solar, oil and gas, nuclear, and coal — the data on bird deaths is gathered from different advocacy and industry groups, academic institutions, and government sources. Because estimates vary so widely on solar, wind, and oil, U.S. News included both low-range and high-range estimates for how many birds are killed by those electricity sources. > > Either way, the results show that even with high-range estimates for renewables compared to low-range estimates for fossil fuels, fossil fuels are responsible for far more bird fatalities than solar or wind. Oh, and put a bell on your cat. You will save more birds that way. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/342 "2016-01-07T10:59:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > McCain was actually as right-wing as Reagan, but moderate in temperament, so if you allow McCain as a moderate, Kasich is also a moderate, as is Jeb. With McCain, you have to ask which McCain, the McCain of 2000 (who really was moderate, aside from war-and-peace issues), or the McCain of 2008 (who really wasn’t anymore). > [@septimus](#): > > It suddenly occurred to me that the only GOP Presidential candidates in all of history that could really be called right-wing are Goldwater (1964) and Reagan (1980 and 1984). All the others (Dewey, Ike, Nixon, Ford, Bush-41, Dole, McCain, Romney, etc.) were moderates. McCain and Romney both started off as moderates, and had that political persona for long enough to fix their identities as moderates in the minds of the MSM. But McCain clearly made a decision in mid-2004 to abandon his previous political persona: from the moment he endorsed Bush that year, he took pretty much all the standard-issue conservative positions from that moment forward. And by the time Romney ran for the nomination in the 2012 cycle, he was running against pretty much every moderate thing he’d done as governor of Massachusetts, including his universal health care plan, which was only different from Obamacare in minor details. > [@](#): > > (Cheney and Rove could be called right-wing but their puppet GWB was almost too addle-brained to have identifiable idealogy.) I’d disagree with this. Giving corporations and the Christianist right everything they want, and gratuitously invading a Muslim country - yep, sounds like the stuff of conservatism to me. > [@](#): > > Kasich and Jeb! are at least as right-wing as Reagan, so this election is likely to produce the _fourth_ right-wing GOP nominee in all of history. The only moderates in contention are Christie and, arguably, Trump. At this point, the whole GOP has moved so far right that Reagan might fall off its left edge. Hell, they’re starting to make GWB look good by comparison, and even a year ago, I’d have said that was all but impossible. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/343 "2016-01-07T13:08:59Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > With McCain, you have to ask which McCain, the McCain of 2000 (who really was moderate, aside from war-and-peace issues), or the McCain of 2008 (who really wasn’t anymore). THe only real flip flop was on the Bush tax cuts, which makes sense since Democrats voted against them but didn’t want to undo all of them either. Anyway, the Republicans have always nominated someone plausibly electable every cycle since 1968. Hoping that doesn’t change this time around. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/344 "2016-01-07T17:42:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It was a real estate license. That’s the advantage Rubio has over the Clintons, he’s one of us. It’s hard to relate to billionaires asking for pardons and giving six figures to the First Lady’s brother to get it done. We can relate to a relative getting out of prison and needing a hand to get a real estate license. I know I’m coming into this late, but… IIRC, Marc Rich was indicted for tax fraud. Not murder. Not selling cocaine. Tax fraud. (hell, that should make him a hero amongst self-styled libertarians…) He had negotiated a plea deal with the federal prosecutors, intended to make restitution, then was released on recognizance. A federal judge subsequently invoked privilege and **threw the plea deal out**. So Rich is traveling in a foreign country when he finds out he has to go to trial after all. :smack: He’s not exactly Al Capone. I just can’t work up any working-class ire over this. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/345 "2016-01-07T18:45:56Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > IIRC, Marc Rich was indicted for tax fraud. Not murder. Not selling cocaine. Tax fraud. (hell, that should make him a hero amongst self-styled libertarians…) Indeed. I recall a _Forbes_ magazine article in which Federal action against tax cheats was deprecated because “the government should pursue criminals, not tax evaders.” (Similarly I’m sure crack users are “criminal thugs and hos” while cocaine users are “successful Job Creators having a well-earned holiday.” For every Tit, the present-day Republicans need a Tat, even if manufacturing it requires that the FauxNews viewer’s attention span be too brief to catch the faulty reporting and hypocrisies. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/346 "2016-01-07T18:57:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > THe only real flip flop was on the Bush tax cuts Wrong. As Joshua Green of the Washington Monthly [noted about McCain in 2002](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.green2.html), before his big reversal: > [@](#): > > As a reform-minded foe of corporate welfare, Big Tobacco, and the Republican right, he is peerless. McCain is Bush’s most vociferous critic, voted against the president’s tax cut, forced his hand on campaign finance reform, and federalized airport security in the face of White House opposition. He has co-sponsored numerous bills with Democrats–many of them in the presidential-aspirant class–requiring background checks at gun shows (Lieberman), a patients’ bill of rights (Edwards), better fuel-efficiency standards in cars and SUVs (Kerry), and expanded national service programs (Bayh). He is even drafting a bill with Lieberman to reduce greenhouse gasses and mitigate global warming. As Ronald Brownstein remarked recently in the Los Angeles Times, “[McCain] has become the most hyphenated name in Washington.” So how has he been on these issues lately? 😃 And should I mention that McCain’s relationship with the Christianist right up to that point had been quite hostile, but after 2004 he spent a lot of time sucking up to them? Yeah, I should mention that too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/347 "2016-01-07T19:28:19Z")
There’s a [new PPP poll of NH voters](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NH_10616.pdf), taken earlier this week (1/4-6). The GOP side looks like this: Trump 29, Rubio 15, Christie 11, Kasich 11, Bush 10, Cruz 10, Carson 4, Fiorina 4, Paul 3, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1, Gilmore \<1. The last two times PPP polled NH, in mid-October and early December, he was at 28% and 27%. So the changes are well within the margin of error: his NH support is steady as she goes. Clearly if all the ‘Establishment lane’ candidates’ support was thrown behind a single candidate, Trump would be way behind instead of way ahead. But do any of these four look like they’re going to take one for the team before NH votes? Yeah, I don’t think so either. And Bush and Rubio are going to hang in there until Florida no matter what, so between NH and mid-March, there will be at least two candidates in the Establishment lane to split that vote - more, if either Christie or Kasich is the top vote-getter in that lane. And supposing Trump finishes second in Iowa, and is then abandoned by his supporters after losing his aura of invincibility, who gets his supporters? Cruz is the overwhelming second choice of Trump supporters, according to PPP. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/348 "2016-01-07T22:37:45Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > There’s a [new PPP poll of NH voters](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NH_10616.pdf), taken earlier this week (1/4-6). The GOP side looks like this: > > Trump 29, Rubio 15, Christie 11, Kasich 11, Bush 10, Cruz 10, Carson 4, Fiorina 4, Paul 3, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1, Gilmore \<1. Is that a surge by Bush I see? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/349 "2016-01-08T03:16:36Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Wrong. As Joshua Green of the Washington Monthly [noted about McCain in 2002](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.green2.html), before his big reversal: > So how has he been on these issues lately? 😃 > > And should I mention that McCain’s relationship with the Christianist right up to that point had been quite hostile, but after 2004 he spent a lot of time sucking up to them? > > Yeah, I should mention that too. 🙂 The Christian right thing is not a flip flop, since it’s normal to try to make nice with groups who don’t normally agree with you. As for the other stuff, when he had partners, he worked with them. Under the Obama administration, he’s had no partners. They all got defeated or retired. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/350 "2016-01-08T10:54:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Christian right thing is not a flip flop, since it’s normal to try to make nice with groups who don’t normally agree with you. > > As for the other stuff, when he had partners, he worked with them. Under the Obama administration, he’s had no partners. They all got defeated or retired. In 2008, Obama wasn’t President yet; Bush was. And Obama spent the first six years of his Presidency trying to find GOP partners to work with on _anything_. And yes, it’s normal to try to make nice with groups that don’t normally agree with you, but with pre-2004 McCain and the religious right, it was a matter of opposing worldviews. Like it or not, McCain had a complete political personality change in 2004, from genuine maverick to standard-issue Republican. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/351 "2016-01-08T10:56:43Z")
Opposing worldviews? You’re thinking of Mitt Romney. McCain had always been a social conservative. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/352 "2016-01-08T13:10:51Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Opposing worldviews? You’re thinking of Mitt Romney. McCain had always been a social conservative. Is dumping your wife for the little bit of fluff that you’ve been having an affair with because your wife got disfigured in a car accident and put on weight while she was waiting for you to come back from your POW time a mark of a social conservative? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/353 "2016-01-08T13:31:14Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Opposing worldviews? You’re thinking of Mitt Romney. McCain had always been a social conservative. In which alternate universe? Very early in his career, he was, but during the 1990s and up to mid-2004, he either gave lip service at most to such issues (abortion, gays), or was on the librul side of them (background checks on guns, global warming (and yes, by then that had become a social issue, as it was a ‘whose side are you on?’ litmus test for social conservatives) and fuel efficiency standards (also a social issue: ‘you can take away my Humvee when you pry my cold dead hands from the steering wheel’). Sorry, but that’s just bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/354 "2016-01-08T13:33:52Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Is dumping your wife for the little bit of fluff that you’ve been having an affair with because your wife got disfigured in a car accident and put on weight while she was waiting for you to come back from your POW time a mark of a social conservative? Well, social conservative pols have always had a ‘look at my votes, not my life’ get-out-of-consistency-free card with their fellow conservatives. (Take David Vitter, for instance.) Liberal environmentalist pols with big houses don’t get the same exemption, needless to say. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/355 "2016-01-08T14:29:39Z")
McCain did undergo a complete remake in about 2004. What’s not clear to me is how much that was driven by his Presidential aspirations and how much it was driven by a desire to remain the Senator from Arizona during a time when AZ went from broadly Libertarian right to insane right-of-John Birch right. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/356 "2016-01-09T00:11:00Z")
Fox News did a national poll this week (1/4-7), and also polled Iowa and NH. **National:** Trump 35, Cruz 20, Rubio 13, Carson 10, Bush 4, Fiorina 3, Christie, Paul, Kasich 2 each, Huckabee 1. \*\*Iowa: \*\*Cruz 27, Trump 23, Rubio 15, Carson 9, Bush 7, Paul 5, Christie 4, Huckabee 2, Fiorina, Kasich, Santorum 1 each. **NH:** Trump 33, Rubio 15, Cruz 12, Bush 9, Kasich 7, Christie 5, Paul 5, Carson 4, Fiorina 3. For comparison’s sake, the PPP NH poll taken 1/4-6 (almost the same set of days as the Fox poll): **NH:** Trump 29, Rubio 15, Christie 11, Kasich 11, Bush 10, Cruz 10, Carson 4, Fiorina 4, Paul 3, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1, Gilmore \<1. Basically, Christie and Kasich are doing a lot better in NH according to PPP than Fox, and Trump’s doing a little better according to Fox than PPP. Other than that, the differences are pretty minor. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/357 "2016-01-09T03:23:02Z")
Despite Rubio’s lack of campaigning, those numbers are acceptable for him. Third in IA and 2nd in NH would leave him as the main alternative to Cruz and Trump and probably knock out all the other mainstream candidates. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/358 "2016-01-09T15:14:10Z")
Agreed that Rubio is playing a (mostly) waiting game. His team believes the no-hopers will drop away and somehow someway the Trump / Cruz insurgent duopoly will resolve to one candidate. Then the R nomination battle will be a straightforward fight between Rubio representing the “mainstream” & whoever representing the insurgency. That will be a Battle Royale and Rubio is conserving blood and treasure for that main event. No one can guarantee events will actually unfold this way, but ISTM that Rubio has a very plausible strategy for a very plausible scenario that presents him with a decent shot at the win. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/359 "2016-01-09T22:28:32Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Despite Rubio’s lack of campaigning, those numbers are acceptable for him. Third in IA and 2nd in NH would leave him as the main alternative to Cruz and Trump and probably knock out all the other mainstream candidates. It would knock out Christie and Kasich, but you can’t convince me that there’s a result that would get either Bush or Rubio to drop out before Florida. The problem for Rubio is that that third in IA and second in NH still leaves him as third banana in the race, which still isn’t very good, going into a stretch (SC, NV, Super Tuesday) when things aren’t likely to go his way. Not to mention, it’s hard for me to believe a candidate can win the GOP nomination without winning **any** of IA, NH, and SC. Anything’s possible, but that would be a long shot. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819/360 "2016-01-09T23:08:33Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > It would knock out Christie and Kasich, but you can’t convince me that there’s a result that would get either Bush or Rubio to drop out before Florida. > > The problem for Rubio is that that third in IA and second in NH still leaves him as third banana in the race, which still isn’t very good, going into a stretch (SC, NV, Super Tuesday) when things aren’t likely to go his way. > > Not to mention, it’s hard for me to believe a candidate can win the GOP nomination without winning **any** of IA, NH, and SC. Anything’s possible, but that would be a long shot. Bush does not need to drop out to finish becoming irrelevant. If Rubio is the only “traditional GOP”/“establishment” candidate to finish in the top three in both of the first races then whether or not Bush drops very few would vote for him. The not-Trump or Cruz votes increasingly accrete to his gravitational field. Remember how delegates are proportioned in most of these early states, proportionately so long as a minimum threshold is hit. At this rate it seems unlikely that anyone not in the top three will hit that threshold while the delegate count difference between those in the top three is likely to be slight. IF Rubio comes in a not too distant second in each of Iowa, NH, and South Carolina, with first rotating between Cruz and Trump, then he could even have more pledged delegates leaving those three and be clearly labelled the singular mainstream kid with Trump and Cruz fighting for different elements of the anti-establishment contingencies. Even if Bush still says he is in it for the long haul. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-race-for-the-gop-nomination-post-thanksgiving-thread/738819.md?page=19)