Of course these numbers will change. Maybe they will change in a way that doesn’t mortify 85% of the country and maybe they’ll just get worse.
A new Monmouth poll in New Hampshire finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 24%, followed by Jeb Bush at 12%, John Kasich at 7%, Scott Walker at 7%, Marco Rubio at 6%, Ben Carson at 5% and Rand Paul at 5%.
But until pundits understand that Trump isn’t doubling up the competition in New Hampshire, of all places, because people like him personally, we’re going to keep trying to live in a bubble of denial.
He’s winning because the Republican media and Republican leadership made a conscious decision to marinate the brains of their electorate in Stupid Sauce.
And the secret ingredient in Stupid Sauce is hatred.
After all, John McCain was supposed to be popular in New Hampshire.
Remember?
“He’s winning because the Republican media and Republican leadership made a conscious decision to marinate the brains of their electorate in Stupid Sauce. “
Great line!
It’s the stupid sauce and Trump’s thrown away the dogwhistle. I suspect Rush Limbaugh would lead in the polls if he ran.
As others have said, Trump is the Republican id. He’s hate-filled-stupid incarnate, the poster boy for angry white men.
More worried about Kasich, who got to 7 in this poll. He might be their best candidate.
It is worth remember that GOP primary electorates have not nominated candidates from the more conservative.
Looks like Kasich might be moving up enough late to sneak into the first GOP debates.
A good thing even as I agree he would make for a serious opponent for either Hillary or Bernardo. Impressive resume and seems able to think on his feet. He does have some quirky personality issues that pop up now and then.
Call me a softy, but if a Gooper has to win next year, I’d probably prefer the Ohio guy over people like Trump or Bush or Walker. Especially the Jebster. Three Bushes in 25 years would push me over the edge. Three Bushes in 50 or 100 years would even be too much. And we could look forward to another war in the ME, probably leading to WW3. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
No, no, no, no to Kasich!!!!
God, he’s a nightmare! He did everything in his power to block development of light rail connections here in Ohio. He’s a businessman-turned-politician with rich cronies he supplies with privatized business. He’s big on privatization, selling highways, prisons and schools to the highest bidders, who turn around and shortchange the people who need the services most. How about maggoty meat in the prisons? Charter schools who report to no one? Secret boards of friends and associates who have access to funds they don’t have to report. He stinks.
Kasich is also a big time Right to Lifer and he’s basically a jerk all around.
I hoped he wouldn’t gain traction, and hopefully there will be a lot of scrutiny if he does get more attention, but he would be a disaster in the White House.
Sure he’s awful (all of the GOP is awful). But have to note that he wasn’t nearly as successful in implementing the GOP awful agenda in Ohio as Walker in WI and Snyder in MI.
The thing Democrats have to beware is that Kasich in campaign mode doesn’t sound and act as crazy and/or clueless as the others. When GOP voters begin to focus on electability, Kasich will rise, assuming he has enough money to stay in the race that long.
Hillary by 7 in Ohio.
He is a potential nightmare.
Potential, yes. But haven’t seen him often enough in speech and debate forums to have more than a superficial impression of his campaign skills. Have noted a certain arrogant tendency that could easily trip him up.
My preliminary assessment is that he’ll play well against Clinton because he doesn’t sound as scripted/rehearsed as she does. A veneer of authenticity.
And his embrace of Obamacare will win him the MSM moderate gold star.
He is not a rick kid, either.
As I said, I really don’t want to run against him. But at this point that is more about the idea of him – since I really haven’t seen much of him
Have people really forgotten that Kasich used to be the vacation substitute for BillO the Clown? He’s an extremist!!
Only two groups even knew that and neither has forgotten. Those would be BillO fans and those that loathe BillO.
Seems to be consensus here that Kasich is a rightwing extremist. We’re just not clear how he ranks on his extremism in comparison with the others. Is he in Cruz/Trump territory or Bush territory and is there any substantive difference between those territories. The other variable is how each of the possible GOP nominees will perform against Clinton.
Check out the Kasich and Deval Patrick MTP appearance. Not many Democratic pols are as strong as Patrick in such a forum. Yet, against Kasich, if one is objective, he came up short.
That was then. Nowadays he seems to be trying to present himself as a Conservative with a Conscience, taking a page out of the Bush-Rove 2000 playbook. His imagined conversation w St Peter at the pearly gates, and his supposed concern for the poor.
Well, it worked for Junior. And Romney proved Repubs can tolerate quite a bit of ideological shape-shifting.
At the woo-woo level, he’s the father of daughters and only two of them.
Looks like he’s also got hisself a young, attractive trophy wife, from what I saw on the teevee screen at his announcement speech. Of course, this is subject to further review as the campaign unfolds.
Not an issue. Long gap between the end of his first marriage and second one. The difference in their ages is the same as that of JFK and Jacqui.
J-a-c-k-i-e, please. Gotta get it right on her birthday today. 7-28-29.
He may get into the debates but the guy is going nowhere. Kicked himself in the nuts with Obamacare. No way he lives that down with the base.
Romneycare did for Romney?
New state motto: Live free or deny.
Heard it on the radio this morning.
Guess who’s winning?
Man with rat on top of head.
LOL
He’s leading Jeb by 2-1.
tee hee hee
I figured that one of these days the GOP would get the candidate it deserved. Figured maybe (MAYBE) it would be Cruz. If Trump were able to go all the way, we’d have Goldwater’s 64 campaign on steroids. Sooner or later he’d alienate almost everyone and wind up with maybe 27% of the popular vote. Biggest electoral landslide ever.
Have not seen anything about the response from Latinos of Jeb basically saying that he doesn’t support a path to citizenship for the undocumented.
Oh, you can stay, work, pay taxes, but you’ll never be a citizen.
Am I the only one looking side eye at this?
But, because he said it in Frank Luntz-approved ‘respectful’ language, it’s supposed to be all good?
Don’t think we won’t be hearing more of this in future. Such a bad idea one is surprised it hasn’t had more traction already.
As we have seen, the recent history of Repub party prez primaries is that the braindead base (and they have been braindead for a very long time now) ultimately swallows the bad tasting establishment candidate after very short term dalliances with the (more satisfying) lunatic clowns, such as Santorum.
McCain was dead in the water at one point. Rmoney was disliked all the way to his victory. So history would suggest one of the phoney “moderate” candidates (Bush or Kasich) will prevail.
But the Trump 24% phenomenon (open know-nothing billionairist spewing of rage and resentment) seems new, and a successful two-term extremist dimwit with 100% plutocrat backing is also a new(er) element. Will this be the year Dr Frankenstein’s monster finally rises up and kills him?
It’s curious why extremists like say Podhoretz are in such despair over Trump. Do they doubt his commitment to rightwing extremism and nationalist militarism? To Repub tax (abuse) policy? There seems no reason to think he wouldn’t be a neocon and plutocrat dream. Surely they don’t think him too stupid compared to Bush junya and Dummy McCain?
Of course Trump is unqualified, but their last prez candidate was a whisker away from being totally unqualified as well. They don’t like the more open expression of Latino hatred? It’s been an obvious element of “conservative” politics for a decade, is the volume control really so critical? What is really the basis of the despair? Team Conservative desperately wanted an early front runner and they got one, haha!
If 2016 is really going to be the year of White Rage, then Bush/Kasich should be doomed, and Repub history will not be able to repeat itself.
In the debates I expect Donaldo, campaigning with a small to nonexistent team of advisers and always sure of himself and shooting from the hip, going into the debates with little preparation because he’s so darn smart he doesn’t need prepping, to utter something too outrageous even for his el stupido base, causing his support to unravel.
Not sure if ultimately it’s about Donaldo being too afraid to win or too afraid to lose, but I expect some damaging foot-shooting to happen in the next month or two.
I hate to agree with most MSM analysts, but in this case I agree it’s more likely that this is just a GOP summer fling thing, and the serious candidates left standing by the time of IA and NH will be the 3-4 Establishment ones, Donaldo maybe in 5th position and fading fast.
Sorry, Brodie, but you are a little off here. There is nothing that he might say that is too outrageous even for his el stupido base…unless of course he goes off on them, which is highly unlikely because then the mirror in which he sees reason for his narcissistic preening would shatter.
I also don’t think that he is “afraid” to win or lose. Sociopaths do not feel “fear” as normal people define it. They have redirected that fear into self-love and hatred of “the other.”
He’s here to stay, and he’s dangerous. All the mocking and all of the super-confident statements of his imminent demise as a political force reflect the same mistakes that the German press and establishment made during the rise of Hitler.
Yes, he is a clown.
But he’s a dangerous one.
John Wayne Gacy was a “clown,” too.
Bet on it.
We underestimate Trump at our mortal peril.
AG
“Sociopaths do not feel “fear” as normal people define it. They have redirected that fear into self-love and hatred of “the other.””
That’s very very true. They often feel that they have destiny (or God) on their side.
Very good point.
I think the press will use the debates to knock down Trump. The press is very good at spinning debates to say people did far worse or better than they actually did – look at how they actually called W the winner of some of his presidential debates when he was having trouble getting complete sentences out. Trump will make some faux pas or do something that looks unnattractive (even good debaters slip sometimes) and it will be over all the media 24/7 until he withdraws.
Everybody else will have similar problems but you’ll never hear anything about any of them. Jeb could probably drool through the whole debate and talk about ending SS and Medicare at every opportunity and they’ll still stick up a pic of him smiling at the end and call him the winner.
Agree. Maybe not the first, Fox-sponsored debate, but subsequent non-Fox debates could mean tough questioning of Donaldo and/or tough post-debate analysis to his detriment.
Agree too about the Jebster: the MSM, excepting a few Msnbc hosts offering mild and polite dissent, will tout his performances as the standout Steady Hand or Wise Man in a very uneven field.
(Btw, my GOP-connected tenant is trying to rustle up tickets to the first debate. I hope to get a first-hand report from her in RT, plus a thorough post-game analysis. She’s currently favoring the Jebster and Kasich, I gather, but will also be watching Perfesser Perry. She’s worked for all three. And, yes, she finds it only mildly amusing at best that I call him “Perfesser”…)
You mean like the “Dean Scream”? Or “Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet”?
They only do that to Democrats.
Was it the GOP and rightwing media that took out Dean or a concerted effort of the neoliberalcon forces in the Democratic party in concert with their beltway buds?
I’m not totally convinced that the latter didn’t have some agency against Gore as well.
Republicans have been known to trash one of their own as well.
Surely they don’t think him too stupid compared to Bush junya and Dummy McCain?
IQ is not a qualifier. It’s being a good front man for their owners that’s important. And do it well enough not to look like what he/she is, an empty suit.
They’re freaked out by tRump because he’s not under their control. Doesn’t matter if they are in perfect alignment with tRump on the issues/matters. He’s unpredictable and will just as easily come after them as their opponents if it serves tRump’s interests.
Yes. Precisely.
However…they have no control over whether he runs or not, and their media-non-personing attacks are simply not working because the media are now quite possibly even less trusted than is the Federal government in general by a huge percentage of the population.
The presidential fix machine…the one that eliminates candidates unacceptable to the PermaGov… may have finally run its course, at least in its present form.
There are others available, as the history of the JFK/RFK/Malcom X/MLK Jr. era plainly illustrates. They also eliminated Ross Perot by threats against his family, I believe.
We shall see, soon enough.
AG
That gives him the same incentives as Ross Perot.
Only if like Perot, he doesn’t have a path to the GOP nomination. OTOH, Perot wasn’t speaking to the rightwing, fundie, racist base of the GOP, but to the nominally Republicans and Democrats that economically hadn’t been faring well under Reagan/Bush and sensed the NAFTA was going to further screw them and/or the US economy. On that single measure, they weren’t wrong.
once won New Hampshire. Pat Robertson beat George Bush in Iowa in 1988.
I really don’t think anything is really all that new.
IA, NH, and SC have historically tended to be less defining in the GOP primary race than in the DEM race. Perhaps that’s because the interstate difference among Republicans varies more than it does for Democrats.
I would have thought it was the other way around. In States dominated by big cities, city machines are what counts. Rural states tend to be white Germanic (growing Hispanic) and have a different set of priorities, think Daschle, and Feingold versus Durbin and Schumer.
Republicans seem pretty much the same except in the North, no Confederate Flags. But the same old God, Guns, and Gays. The same obeisance to the Kochs.
Check it out:
2008 –
IA: Huckabee 34%, Romney 25% and McCain 13%
NH: McCain 37%, Romney 32% and Huckabee 11%
MI: Romney 39% and McCain 30%
SC: McCain 33%, Huckabee 30%, and Romney 4th.
2012
MI was Romney’s home state (one of two like Obama).
Primary wins in a home states get discounted. Even the NV caucus for Romney was discounted because of the large Mormon population.
This is the same Republican party that has thrown away Senate seats in the last few cycles by nominating hate-filled lunatics, so why not the presidency? Besides, they played it safe the last two times, and what did it get them? Two terms of Fascist Socialist Islamist homosexual tyranny under the Prince of Darkness (no pun intended). Maybe this time they’ll nominate someone who’ll stand up and fight.
Ah, but in 2014 they won all those Senate seats and their nominees were no less crazy than they had been in the prior few election cycles. Merely slightly more sophisticated in dog whistling.
True enough. Well, there are really two different questions here. First, is it possible that the Republicans will nominate a hate-filled lunatic for president next year? I think we agree that it is. And second, is it possible that a hate-filled lunatic could win the general election? I don’t think it is.
Of course you’d have to do a state-by-state breakdown to assess Trump’s chances is he were the nominee, but I don’t think it would look good for him. I will just say that considerable numbers will be motivated to vote against him, regardless of the Democratic candidate.
Which is not to say that I don’t see any threat here. But the threat is that these people are going to keep getting more violent, not that they’re going to put Trump in the White House.
Clinton holds up well against bullies. Technically, she gains support when it appears that she’s been bullied by a man. She falters when her opponent doesn’t bully her because that’s when her aggressiveness is most apparent.
There was one 2008 debate where in demeanor and affect, she began a happy dance for herself for landing a zinger on Obama. Just as quickly she melted when Obama deftly and slickly parried it back into her face.
Oui.
Echoing TVITW here: that nails it. So well that you can probably expect it to be widely stolen. Including by me.
Of course the perennial question is whether, or to what degree, those media/”leadership” (scare quotes obligatory in this context) figures’ own brains are likewise so-marinated, versus realizing the stupidity and Reality Denial they peddle to their dupes is nonsense, but they peddle it knowingly for political advantage, and damn the Real-world consequences. Or to put that same perennial question into its classic, most-succinct-possible formulation: “Stupid or evil?” (Is it atrios we have to thank for that one?)
Is Trump even on the ticket in most states? Does he have the kind of organization that would give him a legitimate shot? I know it’s early but there’s so much that has to go right to win the whole enchilada. Being the angriest of angry clowns goes a long way with the GOP base but it’s still hard to imagine it carrying him all the way. Hopefully the fiasco of the primaries is a huge drag on the eventual GOP nominee. I think that’s the best of the realistic scenarios.
Have no idea how Muskrat Head is going to do but I do know he isn’t going to win the GOP nomination. I figure JEB! starts with, about, 600 delegates from the Bush Machine plus allies and only needs another 600 and change to get the nod.
Looking at it another way, the GOP Establishment candidate got ~10 million votes in 2012 and the GOP insurgents got ~8 million votes. Muskrat head would have to make-up a ~2 million vote deficit. Not gonna happen.
Hope your right. Jeb! is going to usher in a Democratic President. Or maybe Hillary.
90% of the people talking about Trump say he won’t be the nominee, as if that’s a fact baked into the cake. I’m not so sure.
That said, I would just about guarantee that if he is the nominee, it’ll be a massive landslide for Democratic candidate X and the possible split of the national Republican party.
Trump is a real candidate. He has enough of the dead-ender 27% solidly behind him that until some of the candidates actually drop out, he’s going to continue to be a candidate. It doesn’t matter if you ignore him or not.
And thinking that it’s even possible for Trump to say something “stupid” that will make the stupid people who support him stop supporting him is kind of missing the point.
Trump has 27% of the dead enders behind him because he has been saying stupid shit. Until it’s down to 1 or 2 other candidates, Trump is going to be hanging out getting media attention and debate platforms.
Which can only be good. Sunlight as an antiseptic and all that.
The GOP just can’t figure out which of the thirteen in their election mobile can be taken out without adding to Trump’s 27% and also leaves them with a plausibly electable candidate.