Blah blah blah, it’s only August of the year before, blah blah blah.
Yes, it’s too soon to call. Yes, in commasense’s poll I said Trump would get distracted by something shiny by Halloween. That was wishful thinking.
I now think, much to my surprise, that Trump has a pretty good chance, sad to say. But this is entirely dependent on him caring enough to stick it out, and cutting the others down over their opposition to Social Security. (Not that I think there are really 16 anti-SS candidates on that stage; just a lot of people mouthing the words for AfP money.)
And Sanders looks awfully like the closest thing in the race to a mid-1900’s consensus liberal. You know, the ones that used to win elections?
The party toffs will bitch and scream. There may even be blood shed. But yeah, Trump vs. Sanders looks shockingly, hilariously possible, even probable.
AfP = Americans for Prosperity, lobbying group largely run by a family of ideological “libertarian”/minarchist coal barons. They spend an absurd amount of money on elections.
I’d be thrilled with that result, actually. Sanders would win easily, but it would have the effect of giving both major parties the heave-ho.
I’ve actually felt for a long time that the Presidency should be a non-partisan office. Sanders is liberal, but he’s got no particular allegiance to the Democratic Party and I don’t think he’d govern with their electoral needs in mind. Trump, should he somehow win, I know he wouldn’t give a shit about Republicans. So in a Sanders vs. Trump race, neither major party would really control the White House anymore. Which would be problematic in the short term, since I don’t think either man would make a good President, but might teach them the value of honesty and straight talk in the long run and get us better candidates in the future.
Trump has as much chance getting elected as he does of getting a love letter from Rosie O’Donnell. In the highly unlikely event that he should get the nomination, the 2016 election would be such a blowout for Hillary that it would make the LBJ-Goldwater race look like a nailbiter in comparison.
Sanders has a slightly better chance at his nomination than T-Rump has at his, but he still faces long odds and a bit of hostility from minorities.
I really don’t see a path for Bernie to win the Dem nomination. If for some reason emailGhazi turns out to be some sort of crippling blow to Hillary, Biden decides to run after all, and wins the nomination. If the email stuff turns out to be another perfectly survivable tempest in a teapot (which is what I expect), then Hillary cruises to the nomination.
The problem with left-leaning Dem insurgent candidates from Gene McCarthy to Bernie Sanders is that their candidacies typically catch fire among college-educated white liberals, and unless a candidate like that can widen his support beyond that demographic, he can only be a threat, but not a winner. And it’s rare that they can do that.
Other than Obama, Howard Dean was the insurgent who came closest to breaking out beyond that demographic, but he had the advantage that there was no strong candidate in 2004 that blacks in particular had a prior loyalty to. That’s obviously not the case this year.
Hostility from minorities? Based on the blackly remaster guys protesting at his rally just to get airtime? I don’t think so. Find me a Hispanic group that will choose Trump over Sanders.
I meant for the nomination, not the general election. Hillary enjoys good relations with minority voters, which Sanders has much less of. Certainly in a Sanders-Trump election, minorities would avoid Trump like the plague.
I disagree. The partisan divisions in this country are such that it’s hard to see any GOP candidate capable of winning the nomination doing much worse than the 45.6% that McCain pulled in 2008.
Ha! I was all “Blackly remaster? What kind of disparaging nickname is that? What does that even mean?”
Anyway: Trump will fall and Bernie will continue to rise for the same reason: name recognition. Everybody knows Trump, and everyone knows Hillary, so when the pollsters ask some rube in North Fork who they’re likely to vote for they pick the name they recognize.
Bernie is drawing crowds of thousands everywhere. As he gets more airtime (and especially once the debates begin) we’ll see whether or not he can break out of the white-liberal-college educated pigeonhole he’s being put in. But his support won’t get lower than it is now; it can only go higher.
Trump is the opposite – he’s a known quantity (for certain definitions of ‘known’). As he gets more and more exposure his crazy will become more obvious. But most importantly, he’s not going to win over people who don’t already support him. He has nowhere to go but down. Even if he stays where he is, he can’t win the nomination with 25% of party voters once the other candidates start dropping out.
FWIW, right now (OK, as of last week), Nate Silver’s early odds are on Hillary vs Bush or Walker (or possibly Rubio). Trump is a 2% chance. That’s more-or-less what I’d expect at this point. That said, it’s still really early, but I can’t imagine any plausible scenario where Trump gets the nomination. Sanders (which Nate has at 4%) seems slightly more plausible to me, but I’d still be very surprised if he got the nomination. I just don’t see this electorate swinging that far left. It would certainly be entertaining to see Trump v Sanders, but I don’t find it plausible or probable.
I certainly wouldn’t call it probable, I wouldn’t even call it possible, I would just call it less impossible that previously thought.
Basically I would put it around the probability of finding a mermaid in the Puget Sound, while previously it was the probability of finding a mermaid in the Sahara desert.
If Hillary’s scandal continues to drag on, the Democrat establishment is going to panic and start seriously looking for an electable candidate they can parachute into the race. We might be looking at a nominee who isn’t even on the radar scope yet.
The biggest thing Trump has going for him is that there are 15 other people splitting the non-Trump vote. I think Trump’s support is as high as it’s likely to get, so once the field is narrowed down someone will emerge and consolidate the vote and win the nomination. I have no idea who that will be, but the short list would include Rubio, Bush, Fiorina, Cruz and Walker.
If Hillary’s scandal continues to drag on, not a blessed thing will happen. Because that will mean that the only people who care about it in the months to come are those who care about it now, who are basically the same group that was up in arms about Benghazi!
Not gonna happen.
Biden’s already very much on the radar scope, and he’s the obvious ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ candidate. If Hillary’s candidacy fails for any reason, and Biden steps in (I’d put a probability of >95% on that), it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the nominee is someone besides him or Bernie.
You really include Carly Fiorina in a list of people who might consolidate the vote and win over Trump?!
Wow. Just wow.
She ain’t going nowhere but back down. She might stay at 5% for another month, but any poll that has her much above that will be an outlier.
And I don’t think Trump’s support is capped at ~25%, either. I think there are people who’ve been waiting to see if he was going to stay in the race long enough to be worth considering. He has demonstrated that he can take a serious attempted hit, and keep on truckin’ as if it hadn’t happened. His support can still grow.
Finally, there’s no guarantee that enough candidates to make a difference will drop out. With billionaire sugar daddies financing candidates’ campaigns, they can stay in as long as their sponsors want them to. We’re in a new era with respect to campaign finance, and I don’t think anybody knows how it will really play out, simply because too much will depend on the whims and possibly perseverance of a handful of exceedingly rich men.
