Trump

[Darkflame]

In the Quora thread linked some speculate it was part an act - that you need to be dumb to appeal to the voters.
While I can get "over intellectual" can be a turn-off, I am not sure I buy that it follows you need to go so far the other way.

[Absolute_Zero]

More primaries tonight. Cruz is doing well so far, Rubio badly. Only five states, none of them worth very much, but if Cruz gets some momentum from this there are some much more significant states up for grabs in a week or so.

Hence my previously expressed concerns over the Cruz-er. That whilst most are chicken-little-ing over the unlikely prospect of el-Presidente Trump and his phoney theatre of the absurd, saviour Cruz rides into town to save us all from a chimera. Given a choice [if they get a choice], the GOP will choose Cruz. Plausible result: ultra-conservative, “What is best for America is best for the world”, fundamentalist POTUS.

[pogo]

I would not be so sure they will prefer him. Cruz is despised by the Republican establishment, so much so that at one point Trump was seen as the better option. As time went on they came to realise the true madness of choosing Trump, as every week he said something appalling, every debate he was easily bested by two or three other candidates.

Cruz’s problem is he is deeply unpopular with establishment Republicans. He is a Senator and spent his time there grandstanding, disrupting, and generally doing nothing constructive, pissing off almost everyone there in the process. He is also highly unelectable. Perhaps not as much as Trump but he is the sort of extremist that appeals to the Republican base while being a complete turn-off to independents. Normally such candidates are weeded out by the primary process but not this time.

[Absolute_Zero]

That kinda ignores the fact that the GOP establishment is as one in its efforts to derail Trump. Though they might wish to think so, they can't possibly imagine that Marco will save their butts... all the less so after yesterday. By default then --much as he is disliked-- they are passively supporting Cruz. Rock and a very hard place.

[gravy]

If no one gets the 1,237 delegates needed it'll be a brokered convention that decides and the delegates will have a free vote irrespective of what happened in the primaries / caucus

This is what the Republicans are trying to make happen right now and the reason Mitt's head has popped over the parapet.

If they do go that route Trump is almost 100% certain to run as an independent, have near to zero chance of getting elected and hugely damage the chances of a republican sitting in the Whitehouse.

Fingers crossed eh!

[pogo]

Yes, they could even choose Mitt if they wanted at a brokered convention. Not as crazy as it first appears. Although he lost against Obama in 2012, Clinton is no Obama, and he would benefit from having sat out this nomination process, except as an observer and commentator. But it would piss off everyone else. Trump supporters, Cruz, supporters and a whole lot more people who would feel the previous year had been a complete waste.

I imagine that some people are plotting it. The Republican base is already pissed off, letting them pick an unelectable candidate will hardly improve their mood. Romney did pretty well last time, keeping the race competitive up until a the last weeks. But Trump could easily use it as an excuse to run as an independent, splitting the Republican vote and making a Democratic victory a certainty.

[gravy]

If they do that Cruz will get the kibosh too. He knows it's a likely so he's started constructing a narrative to avoid it.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/pre ... ter-revolt

The voting system for this is screwed. States have caucuses or primaries.

A primary is a standard secret ballot open to everyone. Or only registered republicans. Or ones that have registered on that day. Depends on the state. Trump does well in these.

Or a caucus is a series of party member only meetings where the delegate's vote is decided by a show of hands. Trump doesn't do as well in these.

And all of the delegates votes are decided like that. Or they aren't. In some states a portion of delegate votes are reserved to be doled out to candidates depending on... well a number of different things. Depends on the state.

What a mess, make FPTP look almost civilised

[pogo]

It is a horrible mess, something you have to bear in mind when looking at the results. A simple count of the states won is meaningless as the size of them matters. On top of that winning a state convincingly can get you more delegates than a narrow win, so the margin of victory matters. And then some states dole out delegates on a winner takes all basis, by district or over the whole state, which makes them much more valuable to the winner.

That’s why Rubio and Kaisich are still in the race. Despite losing badly so far they have their home states coming up March 15, Florida and Ohio. And both states are winner takes all ones, making them worth more to the winner than a win in a number of other states. Problem is neither state will get them out of third and fourth place. Plus on current polls, while Kaisich seems set to win Ohio, Rubio is expected to lose Florida his home state to Trump, handing him the state’s 99 delegates. No wonder people are saying Rubio should drop out now, rather than be humiliated by the voters who know him best.

[pogo]

[KlaxonCow]

The YouTube comments on that one are an ironic masterpiece.

There's a Trump supporter complaining that SNL's calling him out for being racist...

...and that's why the secret Jews controlling it all behind the scenes, to spread their Jewish propaganda to bring about "the white genocide", should be killed and Hitler was right all along!!

That's the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) "I'm not racist but..." that I've ever seen. The cognitive dissonance involved has flown right off the end of the scale.

[pogo]

Meanwhile the Democrats keep having debates. Mature, sensible, policy focussed ones, nowhere near as entertaining as the other side. They agree on many things, including about the opposition:

[gumboot]

The YouTube comments on that one are an ironic masterpiece.

Well that was inevitable, wasn't it. I think I said earlier that Trump is the candidate who represents all the people who post shithead comments on YouTube. SNL went and pooped on their turf.

[KlaxonCow]

Well that was inevitable, wasn't it.

Oh, totally. But you can still have a good laugh at the absurdity of it all.

[gumboot]

Well that was inevitable, wasn't it.

Oh, totally. But you can still have a good laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Yeah. Bit of a career crisis for the SNL crowd when the comments, and they people they're mocking, are funnier than the video.

[PumaG]

Adam Grant, Professor and author of 'How Non-Conformists Move the World'

'He argues that a rebellious streak is also one of the reasons why Donald Trump is doing so well in the race to be the Republican candidate for US president'

“He is a non-conformist, relatively to how the American political system has traditionally operated. He takes a lot of pride in not being politically correct. However, some of his policies are highly conformist. There is research coming out that the people most motivated to vote for Donald Trump are authoritarians.”

'An undecided voter, Grant refuses to dismiss a Trump presidency as the disaster imagined by America’s liberal elite.'

“He is in the perfect position to build a team of rivals, which we have not seen since Abraham Lincoln. He would have the courage to reach across party lines and bring the best thinkers together. That is the hidden benefit of being a non-conformist: people don’t expect you to follow the rules.” '


There seems to be a bandwagon that could easily write Adam off as being Racist,.
Perhaps he'll get dumped by Google, the NFL, Merck, Pixar, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, The United Nations, The World Economic Forum, the US Army, the US Navy, and the US Air Force.