US Elections: When Murder isn't Murder

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Who have you been watching these past 20+ years?

Trump doesn't usually take the high road, but it's not that he's averse to it.  If he's tired of this particular endeavor, he might just make a nonconcession speech like: "I won the most votes and the most delegates, I am clearly the winner, but the Republican party is too corrupt for me.  I am taking my ball and going home, and I urge all of my supporters to come with me to TrumpAccounting.com, where I will keep track of your money better than the Republican party ever could." 

Not that I expect it, but it is a real possibility.

[Tywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, jarl the climber said:

That's the biggest problem for Cruz, what good is it for him to win the nomination and then get 30 or 40 percent in the general election and lose horribly? I'm not sure what Trump would do, if he wanted to run as a independent he would have ran as an independent/third party. I think he would talk to the Democrats first and try to make a deal with them.

Basically the theory is that a Cruz candidacy will do less long term damage than a Trump candidacy. Furthermore, if you're a Republican that hates Cruz, you get his candidacy out of the way, because if Trump is the candidate in 2016 then it's a good bet that Cruz will be the guy in 2020*.

*Not that I believe the last point, because the Republican nominee in 2020 will be Nikki Haley.

[Kalbear]

One thing that could get in Trump's way running as an independent is the concept of sore loser laws. While there are very few of these that apply to the Presidential race (I believe TX and one of the Dakotas are the two states that have them) more could, in theory, put them on the ballot. But in general this is also solved by simply not allowing people to register as both; if you've already registered as a Republican in one ballot (either on primary or in the general) you've already missed your opportunity to register as an independent later. 

More about it on Ballotpedia.

It's hard to imagine that Trump could win a general election as a right-leaning candidate without being able to even compete in Texas.

[Myshkin]

If Trump considers an independent run he'll have to weigh his hurt feelings against the enormous amount of money it will cost and the damage it will do to his brand. Essentially he'll be weighing his ego against his greed. The immovable object against the unstoppable force. In the end I'd bet on greed, because he can assuage his ego in other ways.

[Kalbear]

If he isn't really doing a serious run (and from what I've seen of his organization so far, that's certainly the case) it doesn't have to cost a ton to do. He doesn't need to seriously organize or even recruit volunteers. He doesn't need to run attack ads; the media will happily cover his tweets and speeches and he has no problem being personally negative. He has better brand recognition than almost anyone. Furthermore, it's not clear that he can get more of the vote than he already has; Trump does incredibly poorly with undecideds, and it's pretty hard to imagine anyone who is considering voting saying 'well, let's make up our mind about that Trump person' right now. 

If he were running a serious campaign we'd have seen changes in how he campaigns by now. 

[Myshkin]

It's my understanding that even getting on the state ballots as an independent at this late stage will require serious organization, which will cost a substantial amount of money. I also don't think earned media will be enough to keep him relevant once we get to the general. 

[Kalbear]

14 hours ago, Bonesy said:

Sanders still can't win. I'm so nuanced right now.

Now that I'm back on the computer I can use quotes and agree with you. If Sanders continues performing at the level he did in Wisconsin (essentially demographic targets +6) he will lose by about 150 pledged delegates. This would have results like winning WY +28, getting a tie in New York and narrowly winning California (+4). If he gets those numbers he's going to lose. He'll look better doing so, but he's going to lose, and lose worse than what Clinton did vs. Obama in 2008.

In order to win the nomination the numbers didn't change that much - he still needs +11 over demographic targets, up from +10. As I stated above, he lost ground in Wisconsin. This means for April he needs the following to stay on target:

• WY +38 (no polls)
• NY +10 (polls have Clinton +10 and +12)
• MD -6 (older polls frlom March have Clinton +30)
• CT +18 (no recent polls)
• DE +4 (no polls)
• PA +16 (recent polls have Clinton +22 and Clinton +5)
• RI +22 (older poll has Clinton +9)

[Tywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Myshkin said:

It's my understanding that even getting on the state ballots as an independent at this late stage will require serious organization, which will cost a substantial amount of money. I also don't think earned media will be enough to keep him relevant once we get to the general. 

He doesn't have to run as an Independent candidate to get his voters to walk. If they feel like their guy got screw at the convention then I doubt they'd back the Republican nominee.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Myshkin said:

It's my understanding that even getting on the state ballots as an independent at this late stage will require serious organization, which will cost a substantial amount of money. I also don't think earned media will be enough to keep him relevant once we get to the general. 

Nah, getting on the states ballots as an independent is fairly cheap and pretty easy. You essentially need about 5k signatures or so depending on the state, and he can get that in a single rally about as simply as can be. 

I think Trump is going to be relevant for about 8-10 years without doing much of anything special. We still think Sarah Palin is newsworthy in 2016 despite her not doing basically anything political. The idea that Trump would somehow lose his ability to manipulate the media for free coverage seems very optimistic to say the least. And again, it's unclear how much media can help him one way or another at this point. He can run negative ads and that might help a bit, but those essentially suppress their voters, they don't improve his. And people despise Trump at this point. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

So I heard a pundit on the radio say he thinks in a contested convention John Kasich would emerge as the presidential candidate, because he appeals to the broadest constituency in the Republican party, and he has never lost a head to head poll vs Hillary Clinton.

Thoughts? Of the 3 remaining contenders he always seemed like the level-headed person's candidate. Thing is will level heads prevail at the convention?

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So I heard a pundit on the radio say he thinks in a contested convention John Kasich would emerge as the presidential candidate, because he appeals to the broadest constituency in the Republican party, and he has never lost a head to head poll vs Hillary Clinton.

Thoughts? Of the 3 remaining contenders he always seemed like the level-headed person's candidate. Thing is will level heads prevail at the convention?

That's certainly what Kasich wants. It's probably a crazy pipe dream at this point. There's no sign that delegates that are supporting Trump right now would go for him (in fact, there are a lot of signs that they'll go to Cruz), there's no real momentum for him - he's still only won one state - and while he's polling high against Clinton and Sanders currently that's almost certainly because no one knows who the fuck he is, and therefore he is perfect. 

He's also running a fundamentally stupid campaign at this point. There was a time when he could have worked with Cruz to maximize his value and maximize the chances of his winning, but instead he's fought Cruz at basically every single turn and competed in states that he had zero chance to win (like, say, Utah). He could have been prepping for New York instead of working in Wisconsin. He's pretty incompetent. 

[Altherion]

30 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In order to win the nomination the numbers didn't change that much - he still needs +11 over demographic targets, up from +10. As I stated above, he lost ground in Wisconsin. This means for April he needs the following to stay on target:

• WY +38 (no polls)
• NY +10 (polls have Clinton +10 and +12)
• MD -6 (older polls frlom March have Clinton +30)
• CT +18 (no recent polls)
• DE +4 (no polls)
• PA +16 (recent polls have Clinton +22 and Clinton +5)
• RI +22 (older poll has Clinton +9)

For the most part, your requirements are much more severe than FiveThirtyEight's:

• WY +57
• NY +4
• MD -9
• CT +13
• DE -5
• PA +7
• RI +33

FiveThirtyEight requires much more from WY and RI, but keep in mind that those two have the smallest numbers of delegates. Everywhere else, your targets are higher.

[Kalbear]

And on the thing OAR linked, here's the bill's text that Sanders introduced. Emphasis mine on what kind of needs to be figured out ahead of time.

Quote

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities included on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.

If you choose to go and force banks to break up if they're above a certain GDP  threshold (this is the most common proposed idea) and then let them figure out how to get below that threshold, the above isn't met. There's no guarantee that their failure wouldn't cause a catastrophic failure depending on how they break up. Which means you need to have at least a decent idea of how to do this ahead of time. 

And if you don't, well, you're basically just hoping that it happens in an okay way or you're just paying lip service to it. 

[Tywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So I heard a pundit on the radio say he thinks in a contested convention John Kasich would emerge as the presidential candidate, because he appeals to the broadest constituency in the Republican party, and he has never lost a head to head poll vs Hillary Clinton.

Thoughts? Of the 3 remaining contenders he always seemed like the level-headed person's candidate. Thing is will level heads prevail at the convention?

On top of what Kal said, which I 100% agree with, for Kaisch to even be considered to be the nominee the RNC Rules Committee would have to scrap the 8 state delegate majority rule, and who knows how that would play out, as it would rightly be seen as the Republican Party Establishment changing the rules of the game at the last minute. There would undoubtedly be some backlash from Trump and Cruz supporters.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

For the most part, your requirements are much more severe than FiveThirtyEight's:

• WY +57
• NY +4
• MD -9
• CT +13
• DE -5
• PA +7
• RI +33

FiveThirtyEight requires much more from WY and RI, but keep in mind that those two have the smallest numbers of delegates. Everywhere else, your targets are higher.

That's because it does things like hope California goes to Sanders +15 or so (which is pretty crazy). And he's already below their needed projections for Wisconsin. Mine is an overall aggregate position system. If I were trying to make actual predictions on this I'd do it differently. 

And remember, those aren't predictions that you posted - those are rose-colored things that would get him the required values. 

[lokisnow]

Clinton just tweeted a fairly mean comment about Sanders and Sandy Hook. Will it blow up in her face or play will in NY and Connecticut?

[lokisnow]

on a lighter note, Clinton just got her BEST gif of the campaign. Sanders campaign manager accused her of being too ambitious (to run for president) and her response, caught on camera, is pretty amazing.

https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-Ejxrdmzq2RgniK8gIghvjsVZLA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6299849/hillary%20is%20like%20I%20can't%20.gif

Speaking of Hillary Clinton is Too Ambitious to Run for President, The Onion put forth that argument in 2006, now Sander's Campaign is seriously advancing the parody arguments of the Onion as legitimate criticisms of Clinton:

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/6/11378306/hillary-clinton-lol-ambition-attack

I think it's about time we had a female president of the United States. I don't care what anyone says: Women can be just as smart and qualified as men—especially the clowns we've had in Washington lately. But Hillary Clinton? She's just a little too ambitious to do what no woman before her has ever done.

Hillary seems to think she knows what our country needs better than anyone else, and believes that she, among the hundreds or thousands of qualified politicians, is the only one who can do it. Is that really the sort of person we want at the helm of our federal government?

Not to mention that she's extremely self-promoting. She spends almost all her time these days going to fundraising events dedicated to raising money for—you guessed it—Hillary Clinton. She's always popping up in the news with a new initiative she's spearheading or some kind of complaint against the president. I don't want to use the B word, but she seems awfully bossy to head an executive branch that employs 450,000 people.

Sen. Clinton always wants to be throwing her opinion around about this bill or that law. I saw her on Meet The Press  just last week. Every time Tim Russert would take her to task on one issue or another, she'd come right back at him with some sort of smart answer. She needs to learn that sometimes you need to just accept your place; it's not polite to always act like you know things. Not to mention the fact that, as a working woman, she should take those precious Sundays to spend some time with her family, not to meet with the press on national television.

I'd rather see a female presidential candidate who wasn't so focused on herself and her political aspirations. It seems like she puts a lot of thought into every decision that she makes, as if every little move were planned ahead of time down to the smallest little detail. It's hard to pin down exactly why, but it just wouldn't feel right to see someone who is so politically calculating win those precious 270 electoral votes in the next election.

Hillary doesn't shy away from tough situations, as she proved with her health- care proposal during her husband's first term. She likes to tackle the hard problems, no matter how entrenched the current failing system seems to be. Is it just me, or should the woman who  overturns a 230-year-old tradition not have such a tendency to rock the boat?

 Hillary has some very strong opinions, and she certainly doesn't hesitate to voice them. She's got an entire website dedicated to her positions on every last little thing. In debates, she always wants to have the last word. She's in love with the sound of her own voice. That's not the sort of person who should be in politics, much less the White House.

Do we really want the first woman leading the free world to be such an outright take-charge type?

What's more, nobody asked her to run. In fact, a lot of people on both sides of the aisle don't even want her to run, and many other politicians are planning on running against her. Yet she's stayed in the race, blatantly ignoring the wishes of some people. Shouldn't the first woman to break the gender barrier of the American presidency be the type of woman who listens to those who doubt her and bows to public opinion more often?

Ever heard of letting others take the lead, Sen. Clinton? If you're going to become the first woman in the Oval Office, you should start thinking about acting a little more ladylike.

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Clinton just tweeted a fairly mean comment about Sanders and Sandy Hook. Will it blow up in her face or play will in NY and Connecticut?

Thought it was actually a pretty good attack.

 

[Myshkin]

54 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

On top of what Kal said, which I 100% agree with, for Kaisch to even be considered to be the nominee the RNC Rules Committee would have to scrap the 8 state delegate majority rule, and who knows how that would play out, as it would rightly be seen as the Republican Party Establishment changing the rules of the game at the last minute. There would undoubtedly be some backlash from Trump and Cruz supporters.

I expect the Rules Committee will scrap that rule. Not that I think it'll make much of a difference. If Trump doesn't win on the first vote I expect Cruz to win on the second. This might be the best outcome for the GOP anyway. I don't expect the Republicans to win this election no matter who they run, and I think realists inside the party probably feel the same, but if Trump (or someone else) gets the nomination Cruz or another "true conservative" will pretty much walk to the nomination in 2020. But if Cruz gets the nomination now and gets crushed in the general the GOP can turn to the tea baggers and say we gave you your candidate and look where it got us. Time to let the grown ups run.

[Altherion]

38 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

I expect the Rules Committee will scrap that rule. Not that I think it'll make much of a difference. If Trump doesn't win on the first vote I expect Cruz to win on the second. This might be the best outcome for the GOP anyway.

I'm not so sure. The GOP is in serious trouble regardless of the convention's outcome and I don't think Cruz being the nominee is optimal. Trump is entertaining, but he could never have risen so high had there not been a substantial fraction of the GOP base which is disaffected with its elites. If these elites select somebody who clearly came in second (I don't see how Cruz can overtake Trump), a significant fraction of the disaffected -- possibly even a majority -- may be permanently alienated from the Republican party. They won't vote for Clinton (Sanders I'm not so sure about), but even if they simply stay home this would be a disaster for the GOP. They'd lose not only the Presidency, but also House and Senate races.

To be honest, I don't think anyone knows what the outcome of a contested convention would be. As far as I can tell, the last time somebody who had won most the most primaries was prevented from being the nominee was in 1952, but back then less than 15 states held primaries in the first place so it was expected that the elites would choose the nominee. I cannot find a single instance of such a convention in the modern era (i.e. with all 50 states holding primary or caucus elections). It might be that business will continue as usual, but it also might be that the Republican party will cease to exist as a national force or that the convention will turn into something analogous to the convocation which led to the ascent of the High Sparrow.