* “I think we should amend the Constitution to limit election campaigns to 6 weeks like they do in Canada.”
That’s fine for silly little countries pretending to govern themselves like Canada or France or Britain. America has to govern the world and take care of the political and military stability not only of our own time but for generations to come.
It’s one thing to make a game out of being a semi-autonomous territory with its own quirky rules and leaders. Countries with responsibilities — grown up countries — have to carefully vet and stress test potential presidents.
If Canada puts a Harper into office, it’s a joke at Davos and an annoyance for a few million nobodies whose livelihood or environment are spoiled and they’ll have to move or adjust. We’ll make a humorous episode of South Park and laugh. But if America elects another Dubya, the whole world in endangered. North Korea or Iran might light off WWIII. Millions more will certainly die. World wide economic crisis will scramble the hopes and dreams of billions permanently. Chinese dictators and European bureaucrats — the junior varsity — will have to try to take responsibility for world diplomacy.
It would be ugly. Be glad America takes elections seriously and doesn’t treat them like a timed hockey game. For America, this isn’t just a fun diversion where everybody goes home after satisfied because it doesn’t really matter who won the game.
* For years I’ve been hearing how the GOP has become such right-wing extremists, compared to the good old days. (When, of course, they were also called right-wing extremists.) The GOP was supposedly the party of Old White Guys clinging to outdated ideas.
And now, who is leading the Democratic race? A geriatric socialist (and not even a member of the Democratic party), who spent time in a Stalinist kibbutz, honeymooned in the USSR, and cozied up with Castro’s Cuba and the Sandinistas. And, as far as I know, never repudiated any of that. He thinks we have “too many” kinds of deodorant, and links that to child poverty. It’s the economic thinking of pot-smoking freshmen circa 1970.
If the US is far enough gone to elect that guy, we truly are doomed. But I don’t think we are. I think the Democrats are more screwed by a Sanders candidacy than the GOP is by a Trump candidacy.
* NPR was talking about how Bernie’s big weakness is that his supporters are almost all white.
* I quasi-predicted here in June 2015 an anti-immigration candidate getting into the primary and winning even before Trump entered:
The depressing thing is that every single one of the 15 quasi-serious presidential candidates, if they were in the House, would be on the left-most quarter of the GOP caucus, with Bush and Rubio the left most 2%.
Walker and Cruz are supposedly the best, but both supported amnesty is speeches to business groups. As Kaus recently uncovered, Cruz then had his spokesman outright lie about it. And every single one of the 15 is clearly to the left of Mitt Romney.
The field right now is so fractured there is a wide open opportunity for an anti-immigration candidate, who, far from being hard right on the issue, could run right to the middle of the House GOP stance, and collect the 20% of the vote needed to win the various “winner takes all” primaries.
Then in July 2015, this comment is looking pretty good, predicting after the first two polls came out putting him in front, that his lead would grow and that he’d dominate the debates:
Wow, Trump is the real deal on immigration, not a fake like Cruz and Walker:
I guess I was cynical enough to think he was a fake too, but there is no mistaking his all-in sincerity reading his twitter feed. The attacks on McCain are just plain delightful, and land with a hard thud, not snarky girl-slaps typical of twitter jokes.
He’s also #1 in the last two national GOP primary polls, 3 points ahead of Jeb in both of them.
He’s got a great and unique sense of self-parody: he likes his own basic persona, but has fun turning it up a few notches to an absurd exaggeration.
The press can call this humor “buffoonish” which seems to be their favorite word to describe him lately, but based on their college records Jeb, Rubio, and Walker seem to be near the bottom of the IQ range for presidential candidates in a long time, and are the real dullards inarticulately grasping at the establishment script. I’m really looking forward to the debates now, which I predict will be Trump-fests and push him 5 more points above Jeb.
* Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
* It’s interesting that Google News (https://news.google.com/news) is now “un-personing” Trump. Not long ago, he was in the top News Stories. Now his name doesn’t show up at all. But Flint is right up there with Bernie Sanders. (Are people really googling Flint that much?)
Also, if you just google “Donald Trump” Google presents a rather idiotic main image, as if he’s saying “F— you.” Bernie, naturally, looks rather nice.
Of course, without Steve, I probably would never have noticed these things on my own.
* America doesn’t want a pretty foam boy for President. Who knew?
* Hillary’s lead with blacks will only last until they realize Sanders is offering more FREE STUFF.
* BREAKING NEWS: With surprisingly strong second place finishes, this week’s real winners are Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, and Cam Newton.
* I’m listening to Sanders rant on in his victory speech right now, and everything he claims the GOP doesn’t believe in, Trump doesn’t believe in either. He would be unable to really attack on anything. Wall Street, Iraq War, Mortgage Meltdown ( Despite what Bernie thinks, although Wall Street benefited from it to some degree, it didn’t cause it ) and Bernie wants to declare war on the police and the greenhouse effect, err, global warming, err, climate change ( funny how an unassailable scientific theory that is a “fact” according to Sanders somehow changes it’s name every decade, poor old relativity and quantum mechanics, they haven’t change their names in 80-90 years! ). He also claims that GOP races reduce voter turnout, I’m pretty sure like him Trump has increased voter turnout since his 2nd place finish in Iowa got him more votes than any GOP winner ever got till 2016, but what do I know, I’m septuagenarian Jewish guy who moved from diverse NYC to staid, pale, boring 99 percent white bread Vermont 45 years ago.
* In the 2012 NH primary Ron Paul won 23% and Jon Hunstman, Jr., won 17%. Cue laugh track. Need I say more?
No, but I will.
The best result from tonight is that Rubio looks weak. He was the strong 3rd place finisher in Iowa, and he showed he couldn’t pull it off, or even come close to pulling it off, in NH.
Gov. Kasich appears to be getting almost exactly the same share of the vote that Gov. Huntsman, Jr., got in 2012. Do you know what Jon Huntsman, Jr., did after he finished 3rd in NH in 2012? He dropped out of the race.
Bush comes out of this the only establishment candidate besides Rubio with the organization and money to carry on. Rubio looks weak. The two can keep damaging each other while fighting for the establishment mantle through several more states.
The worst thing (within reason) that could have happened was Trump and Cruz clawing each other for the anti-RINO vote while Rubio continued consolidating RINO support. After tonight there’s a good chance that won’t happen, at least not until after Super Tuesday.
So the GOP has two establishment candidates left (Rubio and Bush) and two anti-establishment candidates left (Trump and Cruz), with the anti-establishment candidates in the much stronger position for the long-run, and the establishment candidates polling nationwide maybe 30-35%. If you’re fed up with the Bush/McConnell/Ryan Era GOP, that’s a pretty damn good place to be.
* Reporters have two functions: 1) to report the facts, and 2) to give us a morally sound and reassuring perspective. For example, if there is a disaster, they 1) report the number of deaths, and 2) emote about the victims and pray for recovery. So regarding the terrifying disaster that is Trump, they 1) mention the bare facts, 2) look everywhere they can for silver linings. It’s not their job to alter the very fabric of morality. Only external events and time can do that.
* Trump sounded relaxed and gracious. Sanders sounded like a crazy Bolshevik. He thinks Obama was not progressive enough! Obama’s progressivism turned the house and senate over to the Republicans. So where does Bernie see the political support for his even more extreme program?
Also, while I think I like Sanders as a person more than Hillary, that’s a low bar. I find it disgusting that he panders to the black criminal element, acting like the Dindu Nuffins truly didn’t do nothin’. No one is going to win a national election siding with black criminals against the police.
Here’s another thing that makes me dislike Sanders: he revealed in his interview with Ezra Klein that he knows that immigration harms the American working class. But apparently he heard that that kind of talk doesn’t sit well with today’s Democrats, so now he’s all about amnesty. Anyone who expresses concern about unemployment, growing poverty rates, and income inequality without connecting it to immigration is lying to his audience.
I listened to Hillary’s concession screech. Is she capable of speaking in a modulated tone that doesn’t sound enraged? Poor Bill in his heyday, returning home to this harridan after an hour spent with the dulcet-voiced Gennifer Flowers.
* Trump’s speech, as usual, wasn’t canned and it was blessedly short. Sanders droned on and on with what I can only assume is mostly his standard stump speech. He still doesn’t seem to believe he will win. Still playing patty cake with HRC while she tries to rip his lungs out.
I still find it funny that both Bern man and Mrs. Clinton are urging for change. What was wrong with the seven years of hope and change we had under Pres. Obama?
* I agree that his mention of his older brother, whom he credits for his avoiding alcohol and drugs (a value he has apparently instilled in his children), was touching and apparently heartfelt and genuine. I take it he and his brother had a real affection toward each other. But I had to laugh when he started off by crediting his lovely wife Melania by saying she encouraged him to run for President and adding that Melania said “of course, I hope you realize that, if you run, you’re going to win and be President.” Melania was standing right next to him, and the expression on her face said clearly “I don’t remember saying that. In fact, I didn’t say that at all. You’re making that up.” It was a harmless lie, but it was obvious to me that Trump was making it up on the spot. I broke out laughing. He is such a charming scoundrel that you are forced to like him. He reminds me of Edwin Edwards in that way.
* Not just Alabama but the Gulf Coast. Trump has held three large rallies within an hour of where I live. Mobile, Pensacola, Biloxi. It is interesting and surprising that he has targeted this area because it usually gets ignored in Presidential elections. Maybe he knew people would show up and the crowds would look good on tv? People here do like a party and a spectacle. The Gulf Coast is also less evangelical than the rest of the South, so maybe he figured he would have stronger support here. In any case, footage of the 30,000 person crowd at the Mobile rally back in August surely gave him some momentum.
* You will notice, that nearly every single spouse is visibly, visibly on the campaign trail front and center (in both parties). Visibly present front and center. Kasich’s wife, for example, participated in a special fluffy background report on her as first lady of Ohio and being a fitness fanatic.
Nearly every candidates’ spouse is present, save for Columba. Where. Is. Columba? We see Barbara and W., but no Columba. Why is this?
Nearly. Every. Single. Candidate. Spouse. Is. Present on the trail.
