:+1:

And when JIMGA, Flere, and BEL can all agree on a point, it's a wrap, gentleman. :p

Well the KKK Party is around 40% right now ;).

Neither is fielding a candidate afaik.

But both are as viable a contender as the L's (or the G's for that matter).

It isn't going to be Trump trying to replace him, as long as "Support Trump or else we'll prevent you from running" is his official stance. He may leave before the 2020 race begins in earnest, but he may not.


A) Freedom of association. The political parties have the right to set terms of membership as well as terms of eligibility for candidacy. I mean, neither one of them are likely to exclude explicitly on the basis of federally protected classes. They could, however, announce that candidates who signed, and then reneged upon, a previous loyalty pledge will not be permitted to run. Okay, good luck stopping that person, you say. The RNC coordinates the debates with the various network partners. Simply make the airing of a debate contingent upon RNC approval of the invitees, and then exercise veto power over a Kasich or a Cruz if they run in 2020 without having endorsed Trump in 2016.

I'm not saying that exclusion would be *easy* but they could throw up all sorts of roadblocks and generally make it an enormous hassle for that person to run as a Republican.

B) Preibus might have liked to be able to forestall a Trump run in the first place, but it's easier to exclude in the future because somebody broke a "rule" than to say "we just don't like orange-haired asshole loudmouths, you can't run." Freedom of association and the pre-existing loyalty pledge give him some leverage to exert to attempt to maintain party unity in the here-and-now. And that's almost certainly why Cruz would be considering an endorsement, if he in fact is.

As others have pointed out, Cruz wins nothing by caving now, especially after he showed his ass at the Convention. Endorsing Trump now won't endear him to the Trumpites, and would probably be cause for disdain from the #NeverTrumpers. The only reason to do so is if he thinks Trump will lose, intends to run in 2020, and takes seriously the threat that Preibus could somehow block his candidacy if he doesn't follow through on the loyalty pledge.

This basically assumes Trump wins. If Trump loses, there will likely be a massive backlash that costs Preibus his job, and if Preibus survives in any way, folks like Cruz and Kasich will be the "we told you so" group and will hold all the cards. And Preibus doesn't get to decide the eligibility requirements himself. Furthermore, trying to block Cruz would play into his hands. He can literally use that to claim 'outsider' status once again.

In retrospect maybe, but at the time the RNC establishment loved Trump being one of the dozen candidates. Get a little extra media attention in August, let him explicitly say some of the things establishment politicians could only hint at and see which ones they could run with ans which ones were too far... Just turned out they massively underestimated how much the base disliked them & Trump's attention span.

wow, Hillary should make sure that gets played in every Ohio black church before election day. I see that she has already resigned her position.

No idea what you are talking about. Third parties were in the debates in the 70's and then Perot in the 90's. (Reagan once debated only John Anderson because Carter wouldn't debate) They created these rules in the late 90's after Perot started to ruin the stranglehold the D/R had developed.

Massive two party system advocates? Of course they do.

Is JIMGA really a 'massive two party system advocate'? I mean, I'm no fan of his, but I think you're reaching quite a bit.

Agree that he craps on everyone pretty equally but nothing he has ever written has shown much thought to supporting 3rd parties. (Even if the Nazis ran which seem to hold a lot of his positions)

There were only two election cycles that had debates with a third party candidate - The first 1980 debate (as you said, Carter refused to debate with Anderson, so the first debate was Reagan vs. Anderson, but the second debate Reagan agreed to Carter's terms so it was Reagan vs. Carter only) and the 1992 debates. That's it.

In 1996, Perot wasn't a part of the debates, so not sure how the 15% adopted in 2000 was in direct result of Perot.

I'm not sure there will be an anti-Preibus backlash if Trump loses. His hands are kind of tied. If he explicitly and publicly renounces efforts to help beat Hillary Clinton at the ballot box, THAT would sink him with Republicans more than almost anything else could. Trump...he doesn't have to ChristieHug (tm) Trump, but as long as he appears to be working towards Hillary Clinton's defeat, he can probably survive whatever postmortem is coming. If he wants to.

Cruz could absolutely claim 'outsider' status on that, but he isn't going to be able to leverage a cult of personality the way Trump has been able to in order to get free airtime. He has a decently large donor list but I'm not sure a Cruz money machine could compete with the Clinton network on its own. He needs the support of an external apparatus. Where is he going to find that?

Or let's say he DOES eschew the RNC to do an outsider run for President, but doesn't get any real traction, either by getting the GOP nod via an end run completely around the debates and such, or as a visible third party; at that point, his Senate re-election campaign becomes materially important. If he attempts to force the RNC's hand and make them look foolish, what incentive does the RNC have to NOT forcefully back a primary opponent to Cruz, knowing full well that whoever wins the primary probably wins the Senate seat?


Sure. But that misses the point. If Preibus had had the benefit of foresight, or understood how successful demagoguery works, he might have tried to do something. Instead, like Franz von Papen before him, he underestimated Trump's political skills and, in the aftermath, seems to have come to the belief that Trump can be controlled with the right advisers.

Note that my comparison here is explicitly not Trump-Hitler, but rather Preibus-von Papen: both sought to leverage a blustery demagogue to the benefit of the Establishment, and both got taken for a ride instead.

Of course he will. There was an anti-Preibus movement when Trump was winning the nomination. It has been subsumed as people get in line, but after Trump loses, the knives will be back out in force. Especially if the Republicans lose the Senate as well.


This is assuming that the RNC will be able to control the debates that tightly (I doubt it) or will be able to stand in the way of those who refused to back Trump (I doubt it). The party will probably end up seeing Cruz and Kasich as folks who stood up to the utter destructiveness of Trump. Cruz was already the Tea Party's most popular Senator. I doubt his refusal to back Trump will damage that standing. And any primary challenger will be rolled over (especially considering the anti-Trump backlash that will be in effect). Or if Priebus survives and tries to hold Cruz back, he can turn to Trump's playbook and loudly start claiming how the system is rigged. Priebus can't win against that. He's shown he has no spine to begin with; I doubt he'll stand against Cruz.

:lol:

I voted third party for POTUS in 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, and I've posted numerous times in this thread my intention to vote third party once again in 2016. The idea that I'm a two-party system advocate is laughable.

But I'm also smart enough to see that what JIMGA posted is clearly true in this election cycle. We can argue about whether it's the concept of a third party that people are rejecting or some specifics about Johnson and Stein that are being rejected. But either way, the fact remains that we have two historically unpopular candidates and no third party has sniffed 15%.

Well, yes & no on that.

The establishment of the commission (and various lawsuits that surrounded it) did eventually lead to the setting of "objective criteria" for inclusion. That's where the 15% came into play. How much of that was Perot vs how much was the contentious appearance of John Anderson in the earlier debates vs how much was simply getting the subjective out of the picture in order to remove the stream of failed lawsuits {shrug} ... who knows.

But even the objective criteria for '96 was set (as noted in this 20 year old op-ed piece) more than a year before the 1996 debates. And they issued nearly a dozen indicators of what would constitute "a realistic chance of being elected", which was the standard he failed to meet.

In '96 Perot's situation was vastly different than in 1992 ... when the same body, with the same bipartisan makeup & a number of the same corporate sponsors paying the bills invited him to participate.

By '96 he was polling only slightly better than Johnson is now, a far cry from his '92 situation. He no longer had unlimited funding (having accepted federal contributions). He was, simply, not a legitimate factor in the race and had no place in the debates any more than the 100 or so other "parties" that would love 15 minutes.

How much of that is Johnson and Stein not being able to pull voters in, and how much of that is fear that one of the historically unpopular candidates might win if I don't hold my nose and make a vote I'm not truly comfortable with?

Are they even sniffing 15% combined at this point?

Looks more like they're struggling to hit & maintain even double digits nationally between them.

I think at one point Johnson was at around 9 or 10% in some poll I saw, so I just used the 15% debate threshold since if my memory there is correct, he *did* at least sniff 10% for a while. ;)

I've voted for a third party or two over the years, so I have nothing against the concept of them, but I'm also willing to deal with the reality of the current options.

One is soundly rejected by the voters, repeatedly ... but somebody has to be #3 if you insist on counting. The rest are barely more than tragic jokes that are roughly as viable as "The Jon For King For Life" party ... and I don't belong on the stage with legitimate candidates in the current framework either.

And at no point have I ever argued for the inclusion of a third party candidate that I voted for at any level when there was no legitimate reason for them to be there.

Yeah, that's about the highwater number I've seen. Stein's latest appears to be around 1%.

It's parsing whether being 50% short of a target constitutes "sniffing" I guess. {huge shrugs all around}

Fair question, but either way, it still points to the difficulty of a third party truly crashing through. If your thinking is correct, then we're essentially saying that it takes the Ds and Rs nominating two historically *boring* candidates who inspire little/no fear/loathing from the opposite party for a third party to break through.

So..... Romney vs. Kaine in 2024??? :D

That still doesn't alleviate the minor point of the current third party's failing to crash through at any point.

You basically can't come up with a scenario that makes their unpalatibility to the vast majority of the voters a better option.

Hmm ... and the only notable successes (limited as they were) by a third party within our memories are all basically 'from the ground up" one offs? Wallace, Anderson, Perot I.

Maybe the key to having a viable third party is ... to not be a "party"?

There may be a bit of truth to that - Johnson is definitely hampered by the fact that he has to 'own' the Libertarian Party's platform, some of which is stuff he himself probably thinks is too far.

The third parties always seem to form on the outside fringe instead of closer to the center. I really wonder what would happen if a third party formed at the center.

You won't get a meaningful third party at the presidential level without a change in our electoral system. When the winner takes all of a state's electors, any third party candidate is far more likely to be a spoiler rather than a winner and most people are going to be reluctant to vote for a spoiler that puts in office someone further away from their ideal.

And that doesn't even get into how the major parties are certain to co-opt and successful third party platform ala Perot's debt reduction.

SIAP. Some of the interviews in this series have been really funny. This one was just awkward for the most part.

Yeah, I get that. But you phrased it that "it's easier to exclude in the future because somebody broke a "rule" than to say "we just don't like orange-haired asshole loudmouths, you can't run." " when clearly there were plenty of rules that could have been placed against Trump (his lack of Republican Party membership until recently, the fact that he ran for President under a different party's platform, etc)

Another awkward video with Clinton making the rounds. Whoever told her that it was a good idea to out-shout Trump really missed the mark. This doesn't come off well.

Hillary Clinton: "Why Aren't I 50 Points Ahead? | Video | RealClearPolitics

I agree with this. The 3rd parties all have a stigma to them. Libertarian seen as too small government. Green Party seen as anti-science and loony. Your best bet is to run as an independent.

I'm trying to think of someone who would do well as an independent in this race. Colin Powell? Bloomberg?

Honestly?

I'd say it suffers from the reality of the phrase 'soft squishy center' and it dies from malnourishment ... of money, interest, and eventually voters.

In this race? I'd say you probably already have one, he just happens to have grabbed a major party nomination in the process.

Kanye may have missed an opportunity though.

I found it very funny. I bet ol' Zach gets audited by the IRS in about 60 days if HRC wins. Or murdered, I mean he is found dead of a drug overdose. Of course, this would not have a trail back to HRC.

I thought it was funny. I think Hillary was in on the joke.

Of course she was. I thought it was great. Galifianakis specializes in awkward humor.

Everyone who goes on that is in on the joke, brutal pandering. Shockingly Jeb! at the Emmy's was marginally better.

I've advocated for a legislative system in this country that would actually get 3rd, and 4th, and 5th parties into Congress: Dividing California into 6 states? - Front Office Football Central

Edit: Plus, I've been pretty clear I'm not a 2-party system advocate. I think I've been pretty clear that I'd like the complete and total annihilation of the GOP. :D


Plus, Perot polled 18% in the General in 1992. One could argue that setting the bar at 15% was done specifically with that benchmark in mind, which he then failed to meet in 1996.


As of this morning RCP's poll average puts Johnson at 9 and Stein at 3. So yes.

When I looked at the same numbers yesterday, from the same source, it was 9 & 1.

(Just so you know that I did look)

Here, right? RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - General Election: Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnson vs. Stein

Weird. I mean, in the past (I'm ballparking) 50 polls or so, only two of those have her at 1. The rest have her between 2 and 4.

I didn't do the math, I just grabbed the number & took them at their word tbh.
I was even surprised at it being so low, but I'd swear under oath that's what it said when I looked (entirely for the purpose of having a figure to use here)

Just got a breaking news report from CNN that this is now imminent and could happen as soon as today.

Heh. Haven't read the article yet, but the headline and post comment are pretty much perfect.

Not that anyone holds Trump accountable for lies, but Imma still leave this right here.

7/22/2016

I think this will hurt Ted more than help.

It's page 4 news in the WSJ. Not exactly a huge splash so far. As the Donald said above, what does it matter?

According to Yahoo News one of the people Trump named as a foreign policy advisor is now being investigated by U.S. intelligence services for his ties to Russian government officials.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel...-sh&soc_trk=tw

You can get away with being hated by everyone as long as they fear you too, but after this humiliating show of weakness what does Ted have left?

National polls from the last couple days.

McClatchy/Marist: Clinton 45, Trump 39, Johnson 10, Stein 4
McClatchy/Marist: Clinton 48, Trump 41
LA Times/USC: Clinton 43, Trump 45
Gravis: Clinton 44, Trump 40, Johnson 5, Stein 2
Rasmussen: Clinton 39, Trump 44, Johnson 8, Stein 2
AP/GFK: Clinton 45, Trump 39, Johnson 9, Stein 2
AP/GFK: Clinton 50, Trump 44

The people most excited about the Cruz endorsement are his 2020 rivals.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 23, 2016

This guy.

If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2016

Apparently Flowers has agreed. If he actually seats her, I can't imagine that plays well with the majority of persuadable women.

"Here's your husband's mistress, ha ha."

DJT really needs to expand his adjectives. I mean it's very, very small.

I'm not a Trump supporter but that's pretty funny.

Gary Johnson has bizarre tongue-wagging episode on Morning Joe (Warning: this is disturbing) - Shareblue

Oh dear...

I can't comprehend what I just saw. Did he do that on purpose?

Huh. I mean, huh.

He did indeed. His point was that the two other candidates had such negative markers on them that if he were allowed on the stage, he could catch up to them just by showing voters that a third person was running. He wouldn't have to perform well at the debate; he could just show up and talk while doing that weird tongue thing all night, and he'd still get votes.

And it was a fine point to make as long as he didn't actually, for example, DO that.

But he did.

And it got weird.

And now he's Howard Dean'ed himself.

Meh, is this really any worse than Hillary Clinton barking or anything that Trump does?

yes, only because his margin for error was so slim. man that interviewer was giving him the stink-eye even before he tongued her.

So...how do we get normal people to run for President?

But they are the greatest adjectives. He has the best words.

So, it looks like the prediction markets have settled in giving Trump something like 36-38% chance, heading into the first debate.

I think the debate is too slippery a point to wager on (I have no idea how the debate might unfold), so I am out of the markets now. But I'm looking to get back in sometime soon after the post-debate move, whichever direction it is.

I think the best profit opening would be if Trump clears his low expectations and gets a bit of a bump in the markets and polls, short term. If shares of him move up to, say, 42... I'm looking to short him with some confidence, most likely.

So I guess moderators are there to nod sagely as candidates spew bullshit. Why not let the campaigns pick their own questions and be done with the pretense of a moderator?

Bring back the LOWV.

I understand it's a hot trend to demand that the moderator correct "lies," and that sounds fine on its surface. And for a select few of the potential lies to be told between these two, I suspect a moderator might be able to have specific facts or video on hand to make the case if it comes up.

But this idea of asking the moderator to serve as the on-the-fly ultimate arbiter of what is legit and not across dozens of topics and maybe even more odds-and-ends matters is asking an awful lot. If you give them the green light to step in and "correct" a candidate, the chances are awfully high that they get too deeply involved in a judgment call, come across looking unreasonably biased, or even just create a scapegoat window for the aggrieved candidate.

What other function are they reliably & reasonably going to serve?

Their only function should be to keep the proceedings moving, not to try (as some have done) to interject themselves into the middle of the proceedings.

They aren't umpires, nor do they have any remote business in attempting to be.
Ideally, when one of these speaking enagagements (cause they in no way ever resemble an actual 'debate') ends there'd be no one outside of their family who even remembered who the moderator was.

I don't want them fact checking in real time as they will have great problems with that, but I think it's reasonable to examine what the candidates have been saying for the past few weeks and to call out lies that have been previously documented. If you aren't going to do that you really encourage lying by both candidates.

Not to mention the post debate spin will always come down on the candidate that tries to challenge lies.

Instant Replay works for the NFL, I don't see why it couldn't work here. Put Gwen Ifill under the hood and after every segment have her assess points for outright lies. :D

Why even have a moderator? Have the candidates ask each other questions. The only external restrictions could be a timekeeper that shuts off microphones after allotted time for asking and answering is done.

I'd much rather know what Trump plans to ask Clinton and Clinton plans to ask Trump than whatever NBC News decides is worth asking.

The latest polling is consistent with a Clinton lead of only ~1% nationally. State firewall breaking up. Trend lines awful.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 26, 2016

I know I mentioned this here to some degree about the "undecideds" a few pages back. This comes on FB this morning from a friend of mine who was formerly #NeverTrump. Sounds like he is #OKMaybeTrump now.

If, as I've suspected, a significant number of the "undecideds" are really "Republicans at heart who can't stand Trump," then the race being close could give him significant momentum with that crowd. (It's nice and fashionable to be #NeverTrump when he appears to have no chance, but will they resist a plausible opportunity to stop HRC?)

And 538's projections are based upon what they think is going to happen between now and November (which is the correct way to look at it, of course). But their "if the election was held today" metric has Trump with a 55% chance to win.

That campaign staff shakeup Trump made in September, and how things have gone for him since, definitely has to put to rest the "Trump doesn't want to win" theories that were floating around then.

Edit: I think the moral here is sell the Dems on predicit when they start talking about the end of the Republican party and such. Though in this election, maybe the next easy money is selling Trump.

Why the new polls released on Monday are such bad news for Hillary Clinton https://t.co/VczYOWn4tK pic.twitter.com/IoGP5DjuNC

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) September 26, 2016

...or not. Polling today seems to have moved the market to about 40% for Trump. I am too uncertain to be in the market today, but I will still be looking to buy in on about Wednesday, I think.

If I'm reading that correctly -- and I think I am -- then I'd say that actually bodes well for HRC.

Conventional wisdom, afaik, is that the easiest/most reliable vote to actually get to the polls is the one that's "anti" something.

Pro-anything fades a lot easier than anti.

For Clinton supporters who need a little catharsis: If You Vote For Trump, Then Screw You | GQ

My favorite part:


On a more depressing note: The Future of America Is Being Written In This Tiny Office - The Huffington Post

MSNBC catches flak for offering keys to debate for Trump, Clinton | TheHill

"Get Those Jokes Off"

“Well, he’s got a group of trusted folks around him, and he’s studying, and he’s preparing, and they’re going through hypotheticals, and what scenarios might come up, and he’s very comfortable. He did a great job in our primary debates. He’s also been through fourteen seasons and season finales. I mean he’s. He will be prepared. He’s always showed up for the big dance, and he will be prepared, and he will be ready to go tonight.”--Reince Priebus

For tonight's event

I really don't deserve to have a vote in this or any election - I couldn't last 2 minutes of the debate before hitting mute.

"our jobs are fleeing the country" *click*

Did he really just say that climate change is a hoax created by China?

No, she said he did.

Hillary said her job plan will create 10 million jobs.

I went outside to smoke. I returned.

Hillary said her job plan will create 10 million jobs.

Yeah, I hit submit too quickly on that one. Here's the background on that one:

Yes, Donald Trump did call climate change a Chinese hoax | PolitiFact

LOL

My wife just did a facepalm and feels bad for Lester.

I feel like trump could literally say anything and it won't matter. I think Hillary's strategy of getting him to act like a dick the opposite of what has to happen. I think trying to neuter him would be a better strategy.

Attacking Trump's business and not paying is a good tact.

I don't think that was her strategy, he has pretty much acted that way his entire campaign.

This and the tax returns was a good 1-2 punch, Trump was aimless and reeling in his response (probably the most I have seen him like that during this entire process).

Also, Hillary's answering of the e-mail issue was effective, Trump did not have a great follow up.

I think Trump is performing as best as can be expected so don't think its hurting him (so far).

It's a unique election. A performance like this would sink a normal candidate, but with Trump, the debate could be a distant memory 72 hours from now.

It is with the betting markets. So far at Betfair, Clinton has climbed from 63.1% chance of winning at the start of the debate to 65.6%

From where I'm sittin', she's wiping the floor with him so far.

I do think Trump has a higher ceiling if he, you know, prepared for the debate like it was something important. Too much time simply reacting and not talking about his own policies. Hillary is doing a good job leading him in, but her speech patterns are robotic and lack fluidity.

He wandered all around the city of Chicago on that one question.

Trump's really backing the "stop and frisk"? ALL-IN

Trump should stop trying to win black votes. He sounds insincere to me.

He was more effective attacking her "30 years" of ineffectiveness.

Hillary just dropped the mic with that debate preparing response.