Credit where it's due. That's pretty funny.

Yes, deserves a good chuckle

He's skipping a debate on fox News. Refused to sign a pledge promising to support whoever wins the nomination while everyone else has to play by a different set of rules. Yet fox and the RNC will continue to support him with everything they have.

It's honestly amazing how much control he has over the party at every level and how he's setting them up for headaches for years to come. He's set the precedent within the party that if you're far enough ahead in the polls you can skip the debates and give them the middle finger on any pledges.

This is 10 years after Nixon resigned.

The GOP is probably right that dumping Trump will likely mean short term pain for the party as his supporters take it out on them in 2024. But voters have short attention spans. The GOP will be in a much stronger position in the medium and long term if they just take their medicine now.

Because we don't have a thread for the nomination for lower ranks:

The Bonkers Conspiracy Theorist Running For N.C. Governor | HuffPost Latest News

(wtf is going on down there??)

100% accurate IMO

It would be very painful in the short term, but breaking up with Trump and rebranding the GOP as something closer to something moderate Republicans would like to see would absolutely trounce the dems. Or, at the very least, potion them to be competitive as Gen Z ages without all the need to gerrymandering suppress voting.

Trump said he's going to put a 10% tariff on every imported product.

Cause things just don't cost enough.

People act like the GOP leaders can just decide to pull support from Trump, and the rank-and-file voters will follow their lead. Except that is what the leaders did in 2016, he still won the nomination, and all of those leaders have bowed to the Great Orange Messiah or they are no longer in leadership.


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I have a bad feeling about trump, I have a feeling he is going to win the election.
A lot of my down south trumper family has said that all the indictments are making them support him more. I can see it happening.

What does support him more mean though? Like going out and voting when they hadn't previously or does it mean wearing a Fuck Biden cap in 2023?

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I think he will win because there will be at least one third-party candidate that is going to pull 2% of the vote. That is all it is going to take.

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Agree with this completely. The voters wanted Trump badly in 2016. That's why he won then, and almost won in 2020. They are the only ones who can say 'nope, we don't want this guy anymore' and so far they aren't saying that.

Disagree on him winning this time though. I don't see any indications that his support is as strong as it was. There's still quite a bit of it for sure, but I think he loses even to Biden and it's not particularly close this time.

I agree on first sentence. And if it was a Joe vs Trump, also believed on second, but am more concerned now.

Current pictures of Joe remind me how hold he is. And yeah, with age also comes degradation of mental acuity. There were times when I thought the same back in 2020 but then he shows up with a good debate performance or speech. So I do believe he can do the same in 2024 but Father Time is catching up with the guy ...

And I would feel a lot better if I had more confidence in Kamala. She's probably doing what VPs always do, stay out of the limelight etc. But she is more "heart beat away from the Presidency" than any other VP in recent history.

Bottom line. Joe wins it unless he's stumbles in debates, speeches etc. (e.g. he really shows his age).

GOP leaders don't care about the long term future of the GOP. They care about their own individual short term futures. Dumping Trump or doing anything to undermine him could cost them their own positions/seats. And Trump would still win the nomination.

And I guess that's the rub. Not a lot of Senators/Governors/Reps willing to do what is in the medium/long-term interest of the GOP (or the country from their point of view) if they have to personally sacrifice literally anything to make it happen.

A few have tried. They are now out of politics basically. If more did, that would mean more of them out of politics and replaced. I still wish they did, don't get me wrong, I think we'd better off if there were a lot more Justin Amash/Liz Cheney/pick your other examples and fewer Lindsay Grahams.

It wouldn't change where we are in terms of Republican voters favoring Trump though. People forget easily how opposed the establishment was to Trump in 2016. It didn't stop his candidacy.

It's also almost always the same people who want more Republicans to do the right thing who get upset when politicians don't do what their voters want them to do on various issues. But ... what Republican voters want their representatives to do is to support Trump. By large margins. So what do we want? Do we want politicians to do what their voters think they should do, or do we not want them to do that? If we're going to cheer when some random politician gets voted out for not doing what their constituents want, we can't very well rightfully complain when Republican politicians don't do that en masse.

See below video starting at about 1:10.

They were talking about Jan 6 (not 9/11) initially. There was a second followup question about Jan 6 and that's when he veered off an talked about "how many police, how many federal agents were on the planes .."

I don't think he was misquoted and taken out of context. But I can easily believe he flubbed and conflated the 2 topics.

Fact check: Audio debunks Vivek Ramaswamy's false claim that he was misquoted about 9/11 | CNN Politics

To be clear, my understanding of what Ramaswamy is saying about 9/11 ... he does not believe it was an inside job by US government or Israeli's etc. He does believe that 9/11 report has not divulge the depth of Saudi involvement and subsequent coverups. This involvement may or may not include the SA government at the highest levels, but lower levels, sympathetic princelings etc. I lean towards agreeing with him here.

On Jan 6, the debate tonight should have the direct question to all participants - do you believe that Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020.

The other candidates are still constrained—even subconsciously—by the need to be grounded in reality. Or at least to stay in sight of it. Trump and Ramaswamy are the only two who understand that that’s not what the base wants. The other candidates are offering cocaine and heroin. And 10 years ago, that was enough. No more. Trump and Ramaswamy are offering uncut fentanyl. They understand what the base needs to get high these days.

I really hope someone other than one of those two wins the nomination. This country needs a serious conservative party, and if the GOP is not willing to be that then we are all poorer for it.

Sadly none of them with the exception of Hutchinson maybe? would be anywhere close to the what the conservative party should be. The Party kicked almost all of them out or they ran out the door themselves. I think the only way we get back to them is for the Republican Party to lose very badly in the next Presidential election and the moderates come back and kick the radical right out of the party.

They will need to lose the next several elections. They currently operate under the excuse any election they lose is stolen. Until they get away from that mentality and start focusing on candidate quality they will lose badly.

Experts after 2020 were saying it would take 12-16 years to reform the GOP out of the q-crazy state it is in now. And that is only if they lose.

But the takeaway for them is not that they need to change themselves or their approaches, but that the voting parameters need changed.

Ramaswamy would fail the civics test he wants 18-25 year olds to take to vote. Told Chuck Todd Pence should've demanded Voter ID, single day voting, and paper ballots before he would certify anything on Jan 6. I didn't know the VP got 3 free wishes every 4 years.

Thought I'd resuscitate this thread since the most recent thread for discussions was a poll regarding the 1st debate.

Speaking of resuscitation... or the lack thereof, this article paints a pretty bleak picture not just of DeSantis the presidential candidate but potentially as governor.

‘Waiting for him to drop out’: DeSantis’ influence nosedives in Florida - POLITICO

Yeah I guess the rest of the US doesn't want to be Florida. I don't know how he could have looked at the rest of the country and convinced himself that Dems, liberals and some indpendents would want a Trump "re-do" when Trump himself will be on trial for what he tried to do to our country.



The worse news for Florida however is the stories are starting to circulate that Matt Goetz is considering running for Governor to replace him. As much as a relief as it would be to get him out of Congress, enough is enough Florida.

I saw that a couple days ago and wondered if you had to pick one (no trout option), who is the lesser of two evils.

I would have to say DeSantis at this point-he will (or should be) humiliated and surprised that so few people in his party and state wanted him to be President. He's pretty much lost/is losing against Disney and most of the people/companies he went up against. He may be under federal investigation for what he and the Texas Governor did with busing immigrants to other states, etc.



I think Gaetz is just totally crazy and has issues with the federal govt over sex trafficking that he was lucky to walk away from, I think he would close Florida's borders from immigrants on day 1, throw out the Democratic Party in the state and any who opposed him. So I guess the less crazy/far righter that we know, or the one who likely would go even further than DeSantis has done so far.

DeSantis wrote checks his lack of charisma couldn't cash.

Matt Drudge says there is about to be a surprise person throwing their hat in the ring for the GOP nomination. The rumor is it will be Glenn Youngkin.

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Youngkin probably stands the best shot, but that would only be if all the other candidates dropped out. Trump still likely wins by 10% or more.

They're basically all jockeying for second place and hoping Trump has a heart attack or something.

Youngkin should keep his powder dry. This race is eating every non-Trump candidate alive.

If Yougkin gets in Trump will end his political career. I know the laws and timing in VA make it difficult to wait, but he'll get Lil Marcoed just like DeSantis did.

Yes!

Youngkin seems like a really good candidate--the MAGA in moderate clothing that people wanted DeSantis to be. I think that he can make huge inroads with the suburban conservatives that Trumpism lost.

But he need to wait until whatever the hell is going to happen in 2024 actually happens.

Somehow I feel this is a trap to get Democrats on board with his independent run. There is a reason Kennedy is being funded by Republican fundraisers, and it is not that they hope he or Biden will win.

��NEW: Team Trump readies attacks on RFK Jr. as internal polling finds him helping Biden, @ShelbyTalcott reports https://t.co/m7KffYdILk

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 6, 2023

QB Field for Prez

I can hear his first State of the Union..."It wasn't my fault. It was my coaches"

I find it hard to believe he would siphon votes from Dems based on his positions which seem to almost fully align with QAnon-adjacent GOPers. This headline makes sense to me, that he would siphon a portion of the crazy vote from Trump.

No one voting for Kennedy to win. They will be voting because they do not like the two other candidates. And my opinion is there are more Biden voters disillusioned with Biden than Trump voters disillusioned with him. Mainly because Trump support is pretty baked in, but there are many that voted Biden last time that didn't particularly like him.

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But if you voted Biden over Trump, you more than likely had pretty sane positions on stuff like Covid. So why would a disillusioned Biden voter who likely was independent or conservative vote for a crackpot?

I'm not saying there might not be a third party candidate who gets the "disillusioned Biden voter" vote in 2024, I just find it hard to believe that would be Kennedy.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to a CPAC event in Vegas. He's going to get 7 total Democratic votes by mistake. A disillusioned Biden voter will stay home, not vote for RFK Jr.

The Biden voters that are disillusioned aren't voting for Kennedy. There's nothing in common there. They'd vote for Bernie or someone similar if they would run, but Kennedy isn't a threat to Biden.

Yeah, I don't know how the Kennedy angle works in favor for the GOP. I remember Ben talking about his FIL going all anti-vax when COVID came around, and was basically buddying up to RFK2 (I believe actually communicating with, though I could be wrong). It didn't sound like his FIL was anyone who would ever be tempted to vote for Biden (or any other D).

I doubt this gets the attention it deserves, but this should be disqualifying for the presidency. It's easy to sit back and think nothing big comes from intel leaks because we're unlikely to find out about agents being pulled from a region, an agent dying or, like in this instance, it can take years to see the result of the leak.

The only questions the media should be asking Trump from here on out is about his intel leaks and his handling of classified documents. Everything else is a distraction and plays to his hand.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trum...attack-1833094

I really feel like this is 2+2=6 kind of thing. He gave intelligence to Russia that came from Israel, BUT the intelligence was in relationship to Isis possible using planes as weapons. I don't know how that information could give specific details of curtailing the Iron Dome or help in these wall breaches.

Could his sharing it possibly burn an Israeli agent or assets? Maybe. Could that asset possibly been the one that could have caught this plot before it happened? Possible, but not likely. This is about as factual a cause as the $6billion from the hostage trade being the reason behind the attack. It is an American eccentric point of view of something that really has very little to do with the US.

There isn't a direct line between the two events, but based on the 2017 incident and what we now know of Trump, all Putin or anyone at Mar-a-Lago would have had to do is ask Trump if he knows anything about the Iron Dome and he wouldn't have been able to shut up.

My overall point is when you see things like this its a reminder of how serious intelligence leaks are and when you're the President of the US, one is enough to potentially be disqualifying IMO.

I don't disagree that Trump is an intelligence risk, but I am going to disagree about another point in that post. Do you really think Trump is smart enough and pays attention enough to understand anything really substantial about the Iron Dome and a way to circumvent it? I mean simple things like he gave away to the owner of Pratt, how many nukes are on a sub and how close they can get to a Russian sub undetected, sure. But I would believe the operation and weakness in the Iron Dome defense system I would guess is pretty complicated.

Edit: I'm just saying this attack most likely had little to do with Trump or Biden, and I will believe that unless there is hard evidence orherwise.

Great work Ron. I’m surprised that FL needed to do this vs US State Dept but okay.


… but you really didn’t need to show up, arguably a little too gimmicky

Home of the Marist Poll | Polls, Analysis, Learning, and More

Kennedy as a 3rd party candidate is killing Trump according to this Marist poll.

I saw that. Of course there is zero chance that he going to get that kind of vote in the election. I would be shocked if he breaks 3%. My guess is he will get less than the "No Labels" candidate gets.

He will probably only be on the ballot in 10-15 states if he even bothers to go through with it (which I still doubt). I think his audience will be DeSantis voters who just won't vote for Trump.

Answer to the question in today's Politico ...

DeSantis feuds with Biden admin over chartered Israel flights - POLITICO

Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, is announcing Friday he is entering the primaries against Biden. He resigned his leadership post a couple of weeks ago saying he was angry the party wasn't putting a candidate up against Biden, and I guess it should come as no surprise that he meant that candidate to be himself.


Btw: His slogan is going to be "Make America Affordable Again!". I don't think aping the Trump slogan is going to win you over to Democrats, but I will say that I think a "It's the grocery store, stupid" focus is pretty solid.

Pritzker should have run but I'm guessing he's going to go in 2028.

Rainmaker, I think anybody that really wants to be President in the future has no interest in pissing off the party now by challenging a sitting President. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have a true alternative, but no one is really has a shot to take out an incumbent.

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Wed, Nov 8 for Debate #3.

Pence & Scott have not made the cut-off yet.

Trump is leading by 40-50 points. Cancel the debates.

Mike Pence has suspended his Presidential campaign. Didn't even make it to the first vote.

He should be forced to carry his campaign to term.

Mother is heartbroken.

You win this thread for today, lol

I guess thoughts and prayers didn't work for Pence either.

I still have no idea what kind of campaign Pence was trying to run and how he thought whatever he was doing could win.

His only chance, and it was a remote one, was to come out swinging and tell people how he had a first hand view of how awful of a leader Trump was. Spill the tea, try to convince enough voters that he's a godless charlatan that lacks morals. Nothing else was going to work.

Yeah embrace Christian nationalism, tell everyone that Trump never went to church but played golf instead. Make himself the leader Christians wanted to follow, but instead we got blah Pence. I wonder when/if Trump goes to jail, gets 14th Amendment from running again, he'll restart his campaign.

What's so confusing about how these candidates are handling Trump is that at least one of them may end up on a debate stage with him. What's their plan then? Do they think Trump is going to say nice things about them and tip toe around issues?

They all will suspend their campaigns if Trump ever goes to a debate, because then they will all have to tell everyone how horrible he would be if he got back to the Oval Office, Better to just kiss the ring and move on.

The thing with Christian nationalists is they don't actually care about the Christian part that much. The fact that Trump and all his vices got the support of evangelicals tells you all you need to know.

Pence is a dumb guy who probably thought some straight talk would turn people around. But I think most of the other candidates are just trying to get their name out there for a 2028 run (Haley, Vivek) or angling for the VP spot (Scott). DeSantis was the only one who had a reasonable shot but he ran maybe the worst campaign in history.

Outstanding, gentlemen! :D


This is my take, as well. And, to be fair, this got him pretty far, so why not try and keep it up?


Rudy Giuliani from 2008 would like a word.

I think DeSantis was worse. And that's saying something.

Jeb!

There are definitely a bunch of good candidates. Clinton in 08 & 16 also needs to be in the running, although mostly on hubris.

He's relishing this.

“Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”

Chris Christie lashed out at a MAGA crowd at Florida’s GOP Freedom Summit today. pic.twitter.com/zYjNlp8LHb

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 4, 2023

TBH I'm not sure why RFK is getting a 22% support. It probably won't last but it's an interesting situation.

Access to this page has been denied

It's the grocery store, stupid.

This morning’s NYT/Siena poll has Trump ahead of Biden in five key swing states, finds the economy to be a massive driver of discontent with Biden. https://t.co/PzKiF3AaIo pic.twitter.com/6SZCOSFU2Y

— Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) November 5, 2023

Trump is going to win the White House because this old m-fer didn't know when to step aside:

On NYT poll showing Biden down big

- "it's just one poll"
- "Dem panic is good for turnout"
- "young/non-white voters will mean-revert in '24"

Fine, maybe. But the core dynamic here is Biden's approval is stuck, at 1,018 days, below *every* post-war POTUS not named Jimmy Carter pic.twitter.com/fH7wtyW0XF

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) November 5, 2023

Now:

"I've proven I can beat Trump."

November 8th-ish:

"Damn, I thought for sure I'd win again."

At least we'll now have a replacement for Thanks, Obama!

MA’AM?

He's cooked.

The new NYT poll is bad. There is no sugarcoating it. But instead of panicking or naively un-skewing the poll, we should start doing the work of rebuilding the anti-MAGA majority. Here's one place to start: pic.twitter.com/xpy5LasYJt

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 5, 2023

This is insane. 13 point gap between Biden and generic Dem.

A generic, unnamed Democrat fares 13 points better than Biden against Trump in swing states, per new NYT poll.
Kamala Harris does better than Biden too.
My quick write up of the pollhttps://t.co/cWUe6G38Jy pic.twitter.com/DFHkbQcPUi

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 5, 2023

That's not a surprised though. "No set candidate" always fair better than an actual human. Voters project their own values to "no set candidate", and that magic candidate has no negative traits that any human is going to have.

Y'aint wrong.

It's similar to how the broad national "generic R vs generic D" poll stuff has very little bearing on actual outcomes ... because those two don't run against each other and we don't vote on a single precinct basis.

I have to admit that the guy just seems so awkward at being a human I'm almost feeling sorry for him.

Looks like a kidnapping. pic.twitter.com/YfJHOpQOTD

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 8, 2023

He's basically LBJ in 67 at this point.

And then there was 4 + 1

Tim Scott gone.

So his "girlfriend" will only be kept around as long as he has a VP shot, right?

The election is a year away. There's bad news for Biden to be sure, but it's far from over.

When Tim Scott's girlfriend was asked for comment, she said "He told you I was his WHAT?"

Can't a guy catch a break with all you critics.

The rest of the article:

Started dating 5-6 months before he announced his candidacy. Seems to be about the right timeline in preparation for such things...

Haley doing well in New Hampshire.

CNN Poll: Trump holds significant lead in New Hampshire GOP primary, while Haley moves into second place | CNN Politics
I'm calling it ... Ramaswamy is done.

Looking forward to mid-January

Vivek would get a boost in a non-Trump primary because a decent chunk of the MAGA people love him. Apparently toxic masculinity is the only box they really care is checked.

I don't think Trump's hold on the GOP is as strong as it seems. It's partly smoke and mirrors. I'd go as far to say the majority of the party would rather he not run or would prefer a better candidate. They just can't come to a consensus on who that is so they're just going with Trump because they know what they're getting.

It sounds like Tim Scott's money people are falling in with Haley. She seems to be where the non-Trumpers are starting to gather. She has no chance, but for her to have one most if the rest of group needs to drop. I just don't see DeSantis doing her that favor.

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I dunno, the facts seem to indicate that Trump's hold over the GOP is not only pretty strong, but it's pretty reliant on him, as DeSantis' and Ramaswamy's attempts to infiltrate using his schtick look to have failed.

Probably a third of state filing deadlines (for primaries) have already passed, and most of the rest will pass by the end of December, so this is group (barring drop-outs) who head into the primaries.

I'm with GD: looks to be shaping up to be a 2-horse race with Trump and Haley, neatly encapsulating the lines drawn in the to-date super one-sided GOP civil war. However, with the kind of polling leads Trump has, and most of the primaries being winner-takes-all/winner-takes-most, I could functionally see this being over by March.

Are you saying the charade is over by March or that it actually is over mathematically by March? There is literally no chance it's anyone other than Trump unless he (god willing) drops dead and even then he'd probably still be the nominee.

Probably charade, as I'm not sure if one can get a majority of delegates by March, but presume he'll have basically an insurmountable delegate lead by then.

Gives him plenty of time to have people come and kiss the ring if they want the VP slot. That'll be the real show.

I wonder if this becomes a way to attack Biden or maybe Trump come a general election. Surprised to see them calling it out.

BREAKING: @RonDeSantis and @NikkiHaley join @VivekGRamaswamy in calling out Azerbaijan's ethnic-cleansing of Christian Armenians - during remarks at today's @theFAMiLYLEADER Thanksgiving candidate forum in Iowa.

Thank you @120000Reasons & @bobvanderplaats.#120000Reasons.

— ANCA (@ANCA_DC) November 17, 2023

Nice win for Haley.

Influential Koch network backs Nikki Haley in GOP presidential primary | CNN Politics

Trump showing up at the Clemson-Carolina game shows he's at least hedging. Haley pretty much needs every non-trump candidate to drop out in the next week or 2 to even get a minute chance. If there's anyone siphoning her votes in the first primary or two, she won't get the chance to hang in for the longer primary season.

As someone who lives in Haley's state, she's annoying but your average politician. She's at least shown the ability to be swayed by public opinion to do the bare minimum of a right thing (see Confederate flag). I don't think she'd be a good president, but the country would at least slow it's collapse into degeneracy as opposed to Trump.

Trump will soon attack Haley. How she (and others) respond will be critical.

She will be well positioned if Trump drops out or is not available, but it is still so early. We've had similar pushes at 10-15 months out before from Rudy Giulliani, Mike Huckabee, Hermain Cain, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum (I'm sure I'm forgetting some others) in recent years. I guess the best hope for the non-Trump candidates is to have enough money to survive through the primaries and hope he drops out. I can't even imagine what would happen if he wins the primaries and then becomes unable to run and who they might come to a consensus on if they choose at the convention.