I think you’re letting your personal distaste for Hillary color your predictions. After she kicks ass and chews bubblegum at her hearing tomorrow, it’ll all be over but the shouting.
Look at the GOP Presidential preference polls for end-of-September 2011. Herman Cain had 17% in some polls; Sarah Palin had 10% in some; did anyone really think either of them had a chance for the nomination?
Similarly, Fred Thompson still had 19% in a poll from early November 2007. Did many think he had a chance for the nomination? And both 2008 and 2012 were elections where smart GOP’ers never liked their chances. They didn’t even want to win in 2008, with the Middle East and the eocnomy both headed for a disaster that could be blamed on whoever was incumbent.
But 2016 is the last big chance for the GOP. They’re favorites to win, or almost so, but the demographics are rapidly turning against them for 2020 etc. They will “pull out all the stops” for 2016.
Given all this, I think it’s totally silly to imagine Trump or Carson has any chance at all.
It will be Rubio vs Hillary in November 2016, with Rubio winning handily after his supporters spend half a billion dollars on Benghazigate and Email-boating.
(I hope I’m wrong, but “wishes aren’t horses.”)
Actually, there was a time in there when more or less unbiased observers thought Thompson had a decent chance at the nomination. I can’t imagine anybody outside of Herman Cain’s fan club thought that about him.
Given all what? Did Thompson or Cain lead in the polls for three and a half months?
Besides, the question isn’t so much whether Trump or Carson can win the nomination. It’s what happens to the GOP nominating process as a result of the followings they’ve developed.
And a lot has happened already. Scott Walker’s been squeezed out of the race. Jeb’s on the ropes, looking like the proverbial empty suit. Assuming Trump and Carson eventually fade, who gets their supporters? They aren’t going back to Jeb.
Here’s the real problem for Rubio, assuming he rather than Jeb is the ultimate standard-bearer of the GOP Establishment’s hopes. And that’s: who’s going to vote for him that’s not already in his column?
If you look at the RCP averages, Rubio and Bush are at 9% and 7% respectively. Another 8-9% is racked up by candidates whose supporters would likely support Rubio over Cruz or Trump: Fiorina, Kasich, Christie, Paul, Graham, Pataki. And another 9% are in the undecided/don’t know zone.
When you put them all together, that’s about 39% of the prospective GOP primary vote. So how’s that gonna work? He has to hope the other candidates in his lane, particularly Jeb, either drop out early or fade into insignificance quickly, while Trump, Carson, and Cruz all stay alive in the other lane. Or he’s gotta draw off supporters from the other lane, while vacuuming up all of his, plus the undecideds.
I’m not saying he can’t win, but even with the support of party insiders and donors, he’s going to have a tough path there. Meanwhile, Ted Cruz is aiming for the SEC primary at the beginning of March. If he wins big then, bets are he gathers up almost all of Trump’s supporters and a good deal of Carson’s, and is off to the races.
Not saying that’ll happen either, but there’s a lot of ways this could break.
If her problem was that people were worried about her debating ability, you’d have a point. Her problem is her honesty, and there’s no easy way to reassure voters on that aspect of your character.
And this is based on what, repeating the word “Benghazi” ad nauseum?
I have ideas on what it’s based on, but it doesn’t really matter. The public views her as dishonest, and once you’re considered a liar you’re not likely to ever be trusted again.
Clinton’s debate performance was good, but didn’t address any weaknesses she had. Voters already think she’s ready to be President. That’s why she wants few debates, they can only hurt her. Her great performance didn’t up her poll numbers at all. It did improve Sanders’ though, despite her victory, thus proving debates are a no-win situation for her.
Well, which is it? 
Wrong again.
Nate Silver’s team says that Hillary got the post-debate bounce, not Sanders.
CNN said otherwise, but that’s because their poll did in fact say that. But the other four said the opposite, so I’ll agree with Silver’s team on that one.
If you take the average of the four polls in the RCP average taken since the debate, her support is 49% and her lead is 23.5%.
Not one single poll in the RCP average taken between the beginning of September and the first debate gives her either that much support, or that big a lead.
IOW, her post-debate average exceeds her pre-debate maximum with respect to both her support and her lead.
The public views politicians as dishonest and the longer someone has been in politics the more dishonest they are going to be judged.
No question that the tactic played, trying to build on that perception, was the politically smart game to play for the GOP. But between a bad bounce of the ball (Sanders’ “sick of your damned e-mails”) and poor execution (the stupid public admission it was a politically motivated exercise, the lack of actually having anything to tie on her, and horrible prosecution during the hearing) they have lost their main chance to exploit that potential weakness.
The interesting thing will be to follow the poll results on the honesty question and compare the numbers before the hearing and those that are taken from this point onward.
Meanwhile this is a Trump thread. How honest and trustworthy is Trump perceived by all likely voters? Best I can find is back in July and they both had the same ratings. Dang. An outsider should be high! He hasn’t even had his flip flopping statements really called to account yet!
Trump as a general candidate won’t beat Hillary as the more honest alternative.
My skepticism of polls right now duly stated there is these Iowa results to note:
“Trump tops the ‘no way’ list as 30 percent of Iowa likely Republican Caucus participants say they ‘would definitely not support’ him for the GOP nomination.” Hard to win a nomination with that and hard to imagine great turnout when that much of the base cannot see supporting you.
45% of likely GOP Iowa caucus voters now view him as not honest or trustworthy. (Compare to 8% for Carson, 32% for Bush, 15% Rubio … and from slightly older Iowa polling on the Democratic side, 30% Clinton, and 4% Sanders).
If the candidate most viewed as honest is the one most likely to win then this should be a Carson-Sanders battle, with Sanders winning. 
My “Boy, Do You Have Balls” award for today goes to Rand Paul for suggesting that Trump’s decline in poll numbers means that Trump should drop out of the race.
Ok, let’s get this straight – Trump’s numbers have dropped from roughly the high 20s or low 30s to sort of the mid 20s. In other words, maybe Trump has lost about 6 percentage points.
Attention Rand Paul: you don’t poll better than 6 percentage points. You’re telling a guy with four times more supporters than you that he should drop out because he no longer has five times the support that you do.
Carson and Trump have both been approved for Secret Service protection: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/donald-trump-ben-carson-secret-service/index.html
Trump plays a race card - but loses.
So how did they handle being tokenized?
I like Ike less now.
And Trump keeps on playing the race and culture cards.
Knowing that Ike also liked to see coups (mostly done to support corporations) in Latin America, I do think that the same kind of gangster solutions are being considered by Trump and his fellow travelers.
Maybe this is the beginning of the end for Trump:
Dayum.
beginning of the end over what ? hurt feelings ? lol … this is exactly trump’s appeal … he doesn’t give a s== and says what’s on his mind … short of saying he rapes babies, his support won’t go down … the only way I see them going down is through a massive propaganda attack on both of them which is obviously possible
I have to admit Trump’s campaign is brilliant. His signature issue, immigration, resonates perfectly with the Republican base. You don’t have to talk sense, you don’t have to propose workable policies, all you need to do is awaken that latent racism in the base and they eat it up like manna from heaven. The rest of the field has been dancing to his tune ever since he first vaulted to the top.
Now he’s taken aim at that professional autobiographer, Ben Carson. You might think that isn’t too smart, considering Carson’s popularity. But I think Trump is one step ahead, he can see that Carson’s luster is going to evaporate very quickly and that he is going to wilt in the spotlight. As these base voters abandon Carson, they just might gravitate to the one that opened up their eyes, Trump. I see Trump as taking a calculated risk and that when more and more about Carson is known, the base voters will leave in droves.
I don’t know. I think the novelty is wearing off a bit on Trump and his poll numbers are going down. And Trump is not someone who can patiently wait for his poll numbers to go up, or learn from why people are going to Carson and change his tactics so get people to come back. He’s flailing, and will start flailing more. From the Washington Post article about his speech:
I tried to find some disbelieving tweets from Trump supporters, but couldn’t find them since so many people tweet about Trump, and most of it is making fun of him. But I can understand, because if I saw a tweet about Trump asking people to stab him, or that he compared Carson to a child molester I would guess it was made up.
It does appear that Trump has some consistently enthusiastic supporters: White Supremacists Are Thrilled Donald Trump Mentioned “Operation Wetback”