Albert Hunt did something interesting. He decided to talk to a bunch of Establishment Republicans and ask them who, between Ben Carson and Donald Trump, would be a better general election candidate and a better president.
If such questions make you uncomfortable, you’re not alone. These are not questions that sane people want to contemplate. Interestingly, the answers were about what you’d expect from Democrats. Carson is more likable, which is an asset, but he’s too much like Mr. Rogers and doesn’t have leadership skills or enough of a knowledge base. Trump has more applicable experience in management, but his massive ego and recklessness are too much of a risk, and he’d alienate so many people that he could go down like Goldwater.
Basically, there’s no sense that Establishment Republicans would actually support these folks. They’d more likely go into a fetal position and pray.
Wondering who is the lucky beneficiary of the vast number of former Bobby Jindal supporters. :::coughing:::
They’ll be having a convention to decide on their endorsement, probably in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
They’ll go with Trump- the White Guy.
Carson is the likable one? Seriously? He doesn’t come across as Mr. Rogers to me. He’s more like someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and access to too many drugs. The man is weird even before you hear his policies. Listening to him talk raises my blood pressure.
TPM has the best description of Carson. They call him Mr. Magoo….master of chaos.
All true, and yet compared to Trump he is easily the more likable one.
These are people who think every black man they see is about to knife them. When they encounter one who always looks as if the quaaludes just started kicking in, they’re reassured.
You made me laugh! But possibly also true (ergh).
I also reject the Mr. Rogers comparison. Ben Carson may talk softly, but he is an incredibly hostile and willfully deluded man. Mr. Rogers had neither of these traits; much the opposite, in fact.
I would certainly prefer them sitting out than using their cash to buy HRC.
So you acknowledge that she’s for sale.
Certainly more so than Sanders.
Do you have me confused with a HRC supporter or something? She’s the most electable liberal republican in the race.
At what point do always reliable GOP voters not bother showing up(or are overwhelmed demographically)?
Under current US electoral dynamics, that’s all that really matters. Otherwise, Clinton wins, Democrats take the Senate and everything else is a push.
My assertion – these votes are reliable because they are reactionary in nature, and Goldwater running today would get 46-7% of the national vote.
McCain got 45.65% of the popular vote. Romney got 47.2%. And these two were running against an African-American Presidential candidate.
A severely reactionary, racist candidate going against a solid opponent could go well below 46%.
Trump is getting very real.
Nativism is his Buzz Windrip ticket.
The surgical savant con man is a phony candidate, focused on fleecing Fundie rubes. Trump, as a wealthy CEO biznessman/celeb, can present as an actual candidate, and it is clear the Repub electorate considers him one.
But there’s a long, long way to go on the rocky road of Repub insanity, obviously, and there are alternate Fuhrers for the Fascist Party, Cruz particularly. He is doing better and better in polls, as was to be expected. If he does well in Iowa, he explodes upward.
Fear, hatred, militarism and resentment will be the reactionary road map, just as in Germany, 1932…
Rubio or Kasich. By that logic, Christie on the outside, but I really don’t think he has a chance.
I’d give even money on Rubio or Kasich. The Republican pols hate Cruz and they will stop him.
Rubio is the useful idiot who has proven to the Koch’s that is ownable.
Kasich is totally colorless but has a presentable resume.
Oh really
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-kasich-govt-agency-judeo-christian-values
Ohio Gov. John Kasich is proposing a new federal agency to spread Judeo-Christian values throughout the world as a way to combat the Islamic State.
“We need to beam messages around the world about what it means to have a Western ethic, to be a part of a Christian-Judeo society,” Kasich said in an interview Tuesday with NBC. “It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means so many things.”
The GOP presidential contender laid out his proposal during a larger discussion of his plan to defeat the Islamic State. The agency would promote the Judeo-Christian beliefs to places such as China, Russia, and the Middle East, Kasich told NBC.
He defended the creation of the new agency, despite vows by some of his GOP rivals to shrink the federal government.
“There’s nobody who’s spent more time shrinking government and cutting budgets than I have,” Kasich said, according to NBC.
Yes, but that’s acceptable, if not actually virtuous, to GOP voters. They love that kind of stuff. So while I (and presumably you) find that kind stuff disgusting (not to put words in your mouth), I don’t see that as a deterrent for Kasich in the GOP primary.
Exactly! I didn’t say I was betting him to win the General. I also share your loathing of the proposal which has no chance of passing constitutional muster, He knows it too, I’m sure. The proposal is just an attempt to peel evangelicals away from Carson.
BTW, I salivate at the thought of a Carson-Sanders match-up. Despite the albatross of Sanders’ “Socialist” self-label, there is zero chance of 271 electoral votes going to a guy with zero political experience and zero executive experience. The Constitution says that I can be President (scary, isn’t it?) but practical politics says that I have maybe a 10% chance of being elected as village trustee and zero chance of being elected State Rep, much less POTUS.
More re Carson-Sanders: Which way do you seeing California going? New York? Illinois? Minnesota? Oregon? Colorado? Maybe Carson would get Texas. I can’t predict what they would do. That would be the only possible big state.
I’m inclined to agree that it’s probably going to come down to Rubio or Kasich. Kasich may have a slight edge bc white guy, but who knows.
I could be wrong, but I somehow don’t see Carson (agree that he seems in it to fleece the fundies; been my take on it with his weird “beliefs” which play well in the prosperity churches) & Trump making it to the final finishing line win for the primary.
Originally I thought that JEB! would be the guaranteed winner, but I rescind that now. Clearly not going to make it.
Lots of Democrats keep on fretting about Kasich, but he just isn’t getting good results in polling with Republican voters; he remains mired down at the 2%-3% level. Calling out Trump and others for their racist and unworkable policies, as Kasich does from time to time, won’t help him much with this group of voters.
Kasich’s hope is to be last man standing. Who would have thought at this point that McCain or Romney would have made it?
I did hear on the news that there was a possibility of a draft Romney movement.
Neither McCain or Romney were running at 2%-3% support a couple of months from the first primaries. Actual Republican voters need to view candidates as worth voting for, not just the media, the Party institutionalists who feed the media talking points, and Democratic Party worrywarts.
I’m reminded of the many comments on this blog from progressives who felt Walker and Christie would be major threats. That supposed “centrist” flavor doesn’t excite the palates of the GOP base voters these days. It’s hard for me to believe that they could actually nominate Trump or Carson, but we are now starting to get to the place where polls are more significant, and Kasich can’t make a case that he will be the last man standing when his polling has him finishing way back in the field. Many polls I’ve seen have him behind Bush. For that and other reasons, Jeb? (h/t marie3) is in a much stronger position than Kasich to make the “last man standing” case.
That pernicious hobgoblin gives me the shivers and by my reckoning his strategy is right on schedule. I always had him figured as the stealth insurgent and he’s well poised to capture Trump and/or Carson support in the end.
Scary little bastard. He’s moneyed-up, and has a credible presence, indeed ground game, in many early primaries. The ill conceived notion of a Southern-slanted ‘SEC’ primary schedule must be giving some establishment types the horrors as they game Rubio or, ahem, Bush through the first big contests. Yikes.
My reading is that the Republican electorate wants to send the biggest spoiler candidate they can find to the convention; if they can’t win the general at least they can pee in the GOP pool. And Cruz is a perfect fit if for some reason Trump’s wings come off.
Somebody look at me !!!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-obama-insult-me-to-my-face
I hate to say it, but Obama’s got too much class for that.
I knew you’d admit it one day.
The man’s still my enemy, but I’m not blind.
Current top comment there: “He said you were afraid of widows and orphans. And that you complained about hard questions. He didn’t insult you. He described you.”