Posts by Delaware Dem

Jonathan Chait has a perceptive summation the Trump threat to the GOP's 2016 prospects:

"...The significance of his performance lies in his deadly serious threat to run a third-party campaign, siphoning off the immigrant-haters and amorphously angry blue-collar whites the actual nominee will need for himself. The intense barrage of pointed questions displayed how seriously Roger Ailes takes Trump's threat to hijack the GOP for his own end. It failed to reckon with the other threat: that the Republican plan to drive Trump from their party might instead work all too well."

A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll taken after the first GOP presidential debate finds Donald Trump still leading the field with 23%, followed by Ted Cruz at 13%, Ben Carson at 11%, Carly Fiorina at 8%, Marco Rubio at 8%, Jeb Bush at 7%, and Scott Walker at 7%. Chuck Todd explained on Meet the Press that it was a “scientific” online survey. I am not sure what that means, since online surveys are by their very nature not random, and thus the poll can't really be scientific, so take this poll for what it is worth. But for those of us who are poll starved and curious to see what affect the debate had on the polls, this is our first clue.

Matt Taibbi notes “there are plenty of Tea Party-type voters out there who hate the Republican Party establishment almost as much as they hate the Democrats. There are also plenty of right-wing voters who think George Will and Charles Krauthammer are smug media weasels only slightly less disgusting than the Rachel Maddows and Keith Olbermanns of the world. A know-it-all is a know-it-all.”

“Trump’s followers are a gang of pissed-off nativists who are tired of being laughed at, belittled, dismissed, and told who to vote for. So it seems incredible that the Republican establishment thinks it’s going to get rid of Trump by laughing at, belittling and dismissing him, and telling his voters who they should be picking.” “These hysterical critics are making one of the world’s most irredeemable bullies look persecuted and like a victim, a difficult feat. The desperation to get rid of him may just feed more and more into the right wing base’s crazy victim complex, and in turn get Trump even more support.”

And yet.... Washington Post: “Republican leaders who have watched Donald Trump’s summer surge with alarm now believe that his presidential candidacy has been contained and may begin to collapse because of his repeated attacks on a Fox News Channel star and his refusal to pledge his loyalty to the eventual GOP nominee.” Politico: “Fallout from a crude attack on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and the departure of a top political adviser roiled Donald Trump’s campaign Saturday, leading Republicans to question whether the laws of political gravity have finally caught up with the real estate mogul.” This is why I am not predicting anything. Last time we predicted Trump was over, when he attacked the honor of all POWs and John McCain, his numbers increased 10%, from 14% to 24%. Remember, nativists and racists are also sexists and misogynists.

New York Times: “Republican Party leaders, whose presidential nominees have not won a majority of female voters since 1988, are setting their sights on making electoral gains among women in the 2016 presidential race and trying to close the gender gap in swing states like Florida and Colorado. But the remarks and tone about women at Thursday’s debate — and the sight of 10 male candidates owning the stage — may have only damaged the party’s standing among female voters in the 2016 general election, according to pollsters and some Republican leaders.” “Democrats were gleeful at the tone of the debate, already imagining future campaign advertisements featuring debate cutaways with Mr. Rubio saying that future Americans will ‘call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies.'” And that's just with policy positions with Rubio and Walker and Huckabee. With Mr. Trump, an open hostile display of the GOP's guttural misogyny is on full display. Donald Trump took his attacks on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly “to the next level on Friday night, apparently insinuating that the moderator had been menstruating when she questioned him during Thursday’s first Republican debate,” Politico reports.

Said Trump: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her — wherever.” “Unlike undocumented immigrants, John McCain or Rosie O’Donnell, the Fox News anchor enjoys a huge following among the network’s viewers, who happen to make up the core of the Republican primary electorate. So picking a fight with Kelly — as Trump did when he chided her during a tough debate question about insults he’s lobbed at women, dissed her in the spin room, and tweeted his complaints about her — carries risks that Trump’s other feuds do not.”

Now, this would be an opportunity for the GOP to get support from women by defending Kelly and attacking Trump. But they are fearful of the voters who back Trump.

My take, from the brief parts that I could stand to watch: Trump hurt himself among all humans, living or dead. But not enough to end his campaign or for him not to the frontrunner. But I suspect, when actual votes are counted, Donald Trump will do very poorly. The two candidates that stood out most to me as a Democrat are John Kasich and Marco Rubio. Both would be very difficult candidates to beat in the general, I think. But both have faults. Rubio still seems unpolished and he has this... what I can only describe as a "scared" tone in his voice that I attribute to new public speakers. And he looks too young. Not young and vibrant, like Clinton, Gore and Obama, but young and no where near ready. I cannot escape the feeling that Rubio is just running for Vice President. And he had a major flub when he basically endorsed Hillary Clinton as the most qualified person for the job. Kasich's problems are that his answers that make him dangerous in the general will hurt him in the primary. Accepting Obamacare and Accepting Gay Marriage. I cannot imagine more lethal apostasies. And he flat out lied when he said he balanced the federal budget when he was chair of the OMB during George W. Bush's first term. Nope, Mr. Kasich, you inherited a balanced budget from President Clinton, which you immediately put into the red with your tax cuts. Is it me or is Jeb Bush the Incredibly Shrinking Man? Has he lost like 50 pounds? And the more he speaks, the more he sounds like W. "In Florida they call me Jeb, cause I earned it?" Earned what? Being called Jeb? That's dumb. The Christie v. Paul cat fight was fun, and Paul was right about the Bill of Rights. Why is Scott Walker getting good poll numbers? He was the most underwhelming and disappointing last night. Huckabee was Huckabee, a fascist theocrat. Cruz was Cruz, a modern day Joe McCarthy.

New York Times: “The most pressing question that Donald Trump could face [tonight] in the first debate of the 2016 presidential race may not be about Iran or immigration, but this: Can he deploy enough adjectives (‘huge!’), superlatives (‘the worst!’) and invectives (‘loser!’) for him to use up his time without being challenged successfully on the substance of policy?”

“Mr. Trump could come away a winner if he makes cogent points without sounding too hostile, presenting himself as more of a serious-minded, anti-establishment voice in a primary crowded with career Republican politicians. But there are risks for him if he turns the debate stage in Cleveland into another episode of the reality show his campaign has sometimes resembled.”

Then again, ABC News reports that he is just going to "wing it," which is great news for us watching for mere entertainment value:

“Candidates usually spend hours and hours preparing for a major debate — reading up the issues, going through practice Q & A sessions or mock debates and practicing lines to use when the big moment comes. Not Donald Trump,” ABC News reports. Said one senior adviser: “Trump doesn’t rehearse… I have no idea what to expect. I’m just as clueless as you about what he’ll do.” “It’s not that his political team hasn’t tried. Trump’s aides have prepared him memos on the issues and the expected lines of questions and potential attacks from the other candidates, but there have been no formal debate prep sessions, no mock Q & A, no practice debates.”