I can’t help but wonder if Trump’s more outrageous pronouncements are just a way to gin up press attention (including his most recent to change the libel laws so he can sue the press). I do think his thin skin and bullying ways are all him though since he’s been that way for years.
Maine Governor Paul LePage endorsed Trump today. So Trump prolly has the “bugnuts crazy” AND the “batshit crazy” votes tied up.
ETA: Also from that link:[
](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c6ec7868ae55406c9aa4a9cbf651a721/latest-rubio-renews-trump-attacks-after-wild-debate)
I thought Trump said he was a nice guy? Is he not a nice guy? :dubious:
Maine’s Gov Paul LePage has endorsed Donald Trump.
By the way this Trump University scam does not look good on him. Good the fake university closed down, in fact all for profit scam schools should close. They should not be legal.
Didn’t I just say that?
I did not see your post.
Knock it off with the stealth posting, Bo.
When a predator is stalking his quarry, he has to be stealthy.
I saw these numbers in the latest Harper’s Index and thought they should be displayed in this thread:
There is no “model” that can account for Trump as an individual. Such a model would likely have predicted Todd Akin would beat Claire McCaskill.
Three days left and the conservative establishment… came up with a hashtag? As the best they could do? Oy.
They don’t need a bumper sticker, they need to convince three other candidates to drop out of the race. Trump’s supporters are (per the polling) the most dedicated of the lot. Few are going to change their vote because “the man” is telling them to.
I’m also not sure a social media war is the battleground to fight against Trump, that’s arguably his strongest area–he has an immense Twitter following. Honestly I’m not really sure there is a winnable battleground for the establishment versus Trump, the reality is too many voters disagree with the establishment this election cycle. That’s just not an easy thing to change with targeted attacks, social media movements, or etc.
Presidential burglary really had nothing to do with Nixon winning in 72, George McGovern’s campaign as a disaster. One of the insanities of Nixon’s behavior is that it was wholly unnecessary, he was a popular enough President, with the country doing well enough in his first term, and the Democrats had nominated such a weak candidate that he had no need to do the things he did. Nixon’s electoral margin was 520-17 and his popular vote margin was 60.7-37.5, while some people (a very few) try to say Nixon stole that election the truth is there was no way short of Nixon going insane and burning flags on TV and saying he was going to make the United States a vassal state of the Soviet Union that he was losing to McGovern.
One interesting bit about the Democrats of 72 was that they had the issue of too many candidates, it helped lead to a very contentious convention. I pointed before that with so many divisions being reflected by having so many candidates they ended up chewing each other a lot during the primaries and then the democrats ended up with a pre-chewed candidate that was an easy meal for Nixon.
I think that almost the same thing is going on with the Republicans now, the main difference is that Trump is the one that chewed others up but he did a lot of damage to the Republican brand and more is coming now. After a broken convention (think dozens of Pat Buchanan like speeches) Trump (as he is the most likely to get the nomination) is headed now to the land were just having about 38% of support will not cut it.
Be careful what you wish for.
Trump’s goal in the general will be to portray the election not a choice between Left or Right, Liberalism or Conservatism but between boring stupid ineffectual corrupt has-been politics as usual versus a new Greatness that Works.
He’ll be advertising a new way out of the usual partisan quagmire of non-functional politics. “A pox on both their houses!” will be his rallying cry.
For that message Hillary is just about the perfect exemplar of the Bad Old Way. There is a darn good chance that, like Jeb, she’ll have the misfortune to be selling something (nay, *personifying *something) that much of the public is totally hostile to this season.
IMO his message will have tremendous traction with the populace at large. Roughly 127 million people voted for President in 2012. There’s at least that many again who are eligible voters who abstained in 2012.
Obama beat Romney by about 5 million votes. It doesn’t take too many of those 130 million abstainers showing up to vote Trump for a Change to overwhelm whatever lead HRC may have among the traditional 130 million who voted last time. Meanwhile, Hillary’s ability to motivate that same abstainer group to vote for her is just about zero.
Because Trump’s appeal is not really aligned along the traditional Left / Right divide, the traditional Red State / Blue State narrative also doesn’t really apply.
Every state has marginalized citizens. Every state has people fed up with gridlock & bickering. So despite Trump being a living breathing caricature of a New Yorker, his message’s appeal doesn’t necessarily have much of a regional bias to it.
Adding all the above together, we see there’s no *a priori *reason to suppose the electoral college math will work out differently than the popular vote. I explicitly reject the notion Trump could win the popular yet loose the electoral college.
I think Trump has well over a 50% chance of being the next President. And I say that as a Hillary supporter, as a staunch believer in the wisdom of supporting the adults in the room.
SO many scaredy-cats around here! :smack: Maybe I should start a prediction thread to get you all on record with this big bad bogeyman Trump talk, so I can make sure you all have to sheepishly (but with relief) eat crow when he gets wiped out like Goldwater.
At a rally, as the two were standing together on a stage,a hot mic catches Trump telling Chris Christie, "Get on a plane and go home."
I fail to see the big deal. It could mean anything from “I hate you, go away” to “Thanks for the help; go sleep in your own bed tonight”. Christie says “Yeah, got it” like it’s not unexpected or unplanned – I suspect it’s closer to the second than the first.
Christie’s a grown-up who has been holding his own campaign. I’m sure he knows that directing stuff on stage means getting stuff done fast. We probably don’t need to cry about what a meaning Trump was to him on his behalf.
I’m not crying, I’m laughing. I would love to know if anyone’s figured out what was said right before that, at the beginning of the video.
Yea, I read it as more of a friendly “get out of here, your work today is done” thing then some sort of imperious order.
Are we sure about Christie’s “Yeah, got it”? I may have been “Yes, master”, or “Yes, Mr. Trump.” 