From the “no shit” department:
After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the Presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.
Our media followed this clown breathlessly for the last few months as he gleefully injected yet another dose of ugly racial politics into the game, giving him a forum when it was clear to everyone that he had no intention of running.
boss bitch
he could win if he wanted to but he doesn’t want the pay cut?
Feudalism Now!
He could win if he wanted to but the Hair Apparent has another griff to run. Got to go. Ta Ta.
fasteddie9318
OK, but did his hair announce too, or is there still hope that it will run?
ant
is there some kind of stopwatch that is running out of time that there is so many of these clowns deciding all at the same time?
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
Judging from the reaction in Wingnuttia this morning, Newt will bethe next to decide he really wants to spend more time as a research fellow.
kerFuFFler
“…especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. ”
Funny, he seems to understand that his support has withered away but his ego just can’t let him say it out loud. But I guess actions speak louder than words.
Ugh
Apparently being compared to Ross Perot was too much for him.
mikefromArlington
Don’t let the door hit your race baiting ass on the way out twit.
Jay in Oregon
if anything is a perfect example of “our failed media experiment,” the fixation on Trump for the past month or so would be it.
c u n d gulag
I know my parents are profoundly disappointed!
They’re retired, and Trump used to send them free stays at one of his hotels in Atlantic City.
They realize that they’ve just lost their last chance for an invitation to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.
I mean, the Donald Bedroom at the Trump House.
Oh, woe is us!!!
What a great President he would have been!
After all, who knows more about bankruptcy than Donald Trump?
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
@ant:
Yes, there is.
The Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable have decided that there has been enough fucking around, they want a real candidate.
Yutsano
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
(wait I’m not done)
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
This will give me something fun to talk about at work today. Schweet.
300baud
You’re being too harsh, John. He’s clearly implying that if running for office (and, presumably, holding office) could be done half-heartedly, he would have done it.
Imagine that! It would be kind of like his many Trump-branded projects: he could have used his well-known name and connections to achieve victory. Then he could have ignored the actual work and responsibility, turning the real power over to cronies and buffoons. Any problems would be met with denial and bluster.
Now that I say it, though, it sounds a lot like Bush II.
aimai
Did he actually collect any money qua potential candidate? Or did it never get that far?
aimai
shortstop
@kerFuFFler:
Same deal with Huckabee. “My heart says no,” “heart” being the cool new euphemism for “poll numbers.” Then he follows up with a bit about how he loves Jesus too much to run for president…the implication being, of course, that the candidates still in the ring just don’t love Him quite enough.
trollhattan
I blame the WH Correspondent’s Dinner. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Haven’t seen a dissection that thorough since the mink in junior high science lab.
BTW Donald, the mink would like his hair back.
beltane
I think the Republicans should just find some kind of blond, Anglo clone of Silvio Berlusconi as their eternal Duce. Can’t they find any aging male porn stars to fit the bill?
I hate our f##king media with a real, visceral, spit in their face kind of hate. It’s one thing to be a douchebag, quite another to idolize a douchebag. Our media are a nasty little clan of douchebag worshipping millionaires. Screw them.
Ghanima Atreides
ow! ow! ow! make it stop! chunky bobo is killing me!
/rolls on floor laffing
Douthat: A Requiem for Huckabee
Who will write the Requiem for Trump? I bet on Bobo.
Mayhap he can work in some Leaves of Grass.
;)
Chris Martinez
In honor of this stunning announcement, a piece lampooning the media’s inability to ignore Mr. Trump:
http://mischievousmind.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/trump-correspondents-dinner/
JenJen
Thing is, I sincerely doubt our left wing media will from here on out ignore the non-candidate whenever he has something truly outrageous and disgusting to say about the President.
Villago Delenda Est
Amazingly, this is also the day NBC makes its decision on his shitty reality TV show.
“Business is my passion”. What unmitigated horse hockey that is. Being bathed in klieg lights is his passion.
Basilisc
He quit when he learned, to his shock and horror, that politics is the one activity where being (or pretending to be) disgustingly rich doesn’t protect you from being ridiculed to your face in public.
beltane
@aimai: If Trump were better at collecting money he wouldn’t be such a regular in bankruptcy court. He does know how to spend it though. Maybe in his past life he was the wife of a third-world dictator.
Jewish Steel
I believe the technical term is “marks.”
MonkeyBoy
There seems to be a paridigm shift among potential Republican candidates where some stab at running for president or vice president is just a means to accumulate “seriousness” points which increases the ability of their real interest to rake in extra cash.
A high office run burns up money and it used to be that politicians might find a losing or terminated campaign might increase their seriousness to aid in future elections. Now for many is seems to be just about personal Benjamins not political Benjamins.
Comrade Dread
Bread and circuses, Mate. Bread and circuses.
The people need a good show. Keeps them from realizing their being plundered.
Shows you how far removed we are from the good ol’ days. When the barbarians were honest looters and the entertainment meant Trump would have been eaten by lions.
SFAW
Euphemisms’R’Us
bkny
and watch the next two days be endless analysis of the reasons the donald pulled out…
watching noron and mark halperin now with their breaking news alert…
The Ancient Randonneur
I think he tired himself out breaking up that cat fight between NeNe and Star Jones. Oh, and Donald, we’re just not that into you.
SFAW
Requiem for a Lightweight?
Elie
I think that sometimes the MSM knows they are pushing assholes. They need the hoo ha and melodrama of even the bad reactions to keep up interest. Since they won’t report on anything substantive or important, that only leaves outrage and complete krazy foam, clown antics that result in Clarebell Trump being highlighted. Problem for Trump was he took himself seriously, when it was just a demand generation gag from the beginning.
LGRooney
Son of a bitch still owes us some personal financial statements!
JenJen
My goodness. Mark Halperin was just on MSNBC spinning Trump as a “serious, aggressive” candidate who actually talked a lot more about China, Saudi Arabia and economics than the birth certificate. The uber-hack went on to pump what he clearly hopes to be an increasingly likely Sarah Palin candidacy now that two of the biggest crazies (Trump and Huckabee) are both out.
JGabriel
Ghanima Atreides:
It will be written by a Special Reunion of the Alumnae of Spy Magazine.
.
zeitgeist
The folks at the cable news nets responsible for tracking ratings and setting advertising rates called for you, John. They were trying to figure out what your point was.
RossInDetroit
The Donald got tired of having to share the limelight with mere politicians, and with being compared to them. It’ll be interesting to see what he thinks is more worthy of his talents than being the leader of the free world and the most powerful person on the planet.
Actually, no. That won’t be interesting at all.
SFAW
It’s not clear that Trump’s version of McCain’s 2008 “Cut the bullshit” proclamation is any more Preznidential than the original.
Chris Martinez
@JenJen: Try as he might, Halperin will never top his hilariously confident declaration that the story about all of McCain’s houses would help McCain in the ’08 election.
Alex S.
I wonder if Romney will finally be able to break 20% in the national polls now. If not, he’s toast. Gingrich might have committed political suicide as well, with his attack against Ryan (he needs the corporate cash because the mobilized fringe prefers other candidates), Pawlenty can’t break into the double-digits. There’s tons of room for Daniels now and for either Bachmann or some other B-list rabble-rouser (Nate Silver thinks it’s Herman Cain.) I think it’s getting increasingly likely that Michele Bachmann is going to win Iowa which is going to force the republican establishment to unite behind a consensus candidate, either Pawlenty or Daniels.
Yutsano
@LGRooney: Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Trump knew full well his finances would have to be fully disclosed, and that is the LAST thing he wants his creditors to have access to.
@Alex S.: Whoever the Trump supporters rally behind, it won’t be Mittens. I’m still smelling brokered convention.
opie jeanne
@Ghanima Atreides: Some of the comments are better than the article.
#50
“…..(He) is not quite the candidate Douthat described due to his policies listed in the comments. However, Douthat is right that the polarization of politics has stranded some people in the middle. There are Christians who are disgusted by “Christian” (aka Republican) leaders who don’t heal the sick or feed the poor, but instead gut those programs, “hate on” the least among us (illegal immigrants, the unemployed), and aim to destroy science education in public schools….”
Southern Beale
Also not running for president: NJ Gov. Chris Christie, whose approval rating in New Jersey has plummeted to 38%.
You know, with the Republican Party seriously imploding I don’t understand why President Obama isn’t showing a little more backbone in standing up to them. Clearly no one likes the GOP, or wants to have anything to do with them. They’re a clown car.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
Absolutely. Trump can’t let his creditors see where, and how, he’s hidden assets. The threat of a massive run of injunction requests on the bankruptcy courts has been averted, for now.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale: Because they were given the keys to at least one part of the kingdom. They’ll keep on pulling this shit until they’re kicked out. And no I have no idea when that’s going to happen, although 2012 is looking better by the day.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Good, now you FPers can concentrate on Herman Cain.
Alex S.
@Yutsano:
could be… especially if Bachmann carries her Iowa win to South Carolina.
Asshole
Set the White House flag at half-mast.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: I heard Hendrik Hertzberg worrying over a Huntsman candidacy. A worry he says the Obama team shares.
So, tell me again how much Southern Baptists fear/hate Mormons? I need to be soothed.
Bulworth
Kinda curious that the national media has largely abandoned their man-crush on Christie…
gnomedad
To not know him is to love him. Be a shame to ruin it by ACTUALLY FUCKING RUNNING.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel:
I wouldn’t. The man dared to cooperate with THAT ONE. That’s an unforgivable sin to the 27%ers. Plus he’s pretty much an unknown. I don’t even need to get into religious territory to tell you Huntsman has no chance. To say nothing of his RINO record in Utah.
tokyokie
I similarly maintain the strong conviction that were I to write something longer than a blog comment, I would win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Martin
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: Herman Cain would be awesome. The GOP will be completely at a loss to figure out why Obama is picking up 94% of the black vote when supposedly they’re the real racists, and the GOP candidate is even blacker than the Democratic one. Unpossible!
joeyess
Hey Trump! Don’t forget your hand sanitizer when as you leave the building, you fucking jerk.
Meredith
I was just watching that Mark Halperin piece on MSNBC. I had to turn it off. Mercy.
Chris Martinez
@tokyokie: Nice to see that he’s been humbled by his public shaming.
danimal
Good news for Michele!
Because crazy never lacks an audience.
JenJen
Sigh. Why do all the fun Republicans quit?
Brachiator
Ha ha ha ha! That’s Trump for you, delusional to the bitter end.
I still think that Trump needs to show America his long form financial statement.
Capri
This is playing out exactly the way Bolton predicted.The nomination is practically his for the taking.
Bwahahahaha
eric
@Jewish Steel: There is a ZERO percent chance a man who worked for Obama is going to get the nomination. I don’t care if he was in the garden when the boulder moved. Not gonna happen.
Mike in NC
Clearly The Donald was merely a stalking horse and has now happily handed the Bigot Baton off to “Speaker” Gingrich. Run, Newt, run!
Mike
Obama’s final crushing of Trump was politics majestique! It was quite a sight to behold, and foreshadowing of the next political victim.
Mike in NC
@Southern Beale:
Edited for accuracy.
Cliff in NH
@ant:
Yes, the Iowa straw poll thingie.
Not that it counts for anything…
By JENNIFER JACOBS – DES MOINES REGISTER | 5/16/11 10:54 AM EDT Updated: 5/16/11 12:58 PM EDT
In partnership with Des Moines Register
With the Iowa straw poll a mere 90 days away, the absence of an obvious leader in the GOP race for the presidency, or even an obvious lineup, has left Republicans in a state of unease — but the uncertainty has also heightened anticipation, insiders say.
“It’s wide open, and I think it’s extremely unpredictable,” said Mary Cownie, a former spokeswoman for the Iowa Republican Party.
..snip..
freelancer
@eric:
Someone here said it over the weekend that they think Huntsman is establishing cred for a more plausible run in 2016. I’m inclined to agree.
danimal
I pity the GOP establishment (not). They keep test driving candidates like Romney, Huntsman, Daniels, etc; folks that may have a shot in hell at appealing to indys. None of them gain traction while freak shows like Trump and Newt! get all the attention. Gawd, I’m really rooting for a nutjob to get the nomination. We really could be looking at a Goldwater moment for the GOP in 2012.
I know, I know, the problem with the GOP nominating a nutjob is that the nutjob may actually win. In that case, I guess I could move overseas to teach English for a few years…
bryanD
I think “suckers” doesn’t apply since no one on planet Earth—and I mean NO ONE—actually believed Trump would compromise his spray-painted sawdust image to such a thing as the Ethics in Government Act and it’s pesky financial disclosure clauses. Too much debt on the Trump Empire books. And if he did, would he reconsolidate his finances onshore, or would he stay smart but take the public hit for being less wealthy than Bill Gate’s 200th best old friend from back in the day?
Easy decision! maintain the casual Myth such as it is, playing Himself on the stupid Apprentice.
(HORRIBLE SHOW!…I miss Hope Dwavorczk! *Rowwwwr*)
Linda Featheringill
I know that Cain is black and half of the Republicans wouldn’t vote for him if he could walk on water, heal the sick, and raise the dead. However, the man is intelligent, seems to be sane, and is very conservative. There might be enough people to give him some traction.
metricpenny
@JenJen:
The carnival has left town but no one told the barkers.
fasteddie9318
I’m afraid, friends, that I too must announce that I will not be seeking the presidency in 2012. My announcement follows:
Culture of Truth
There’s no news in a non-politician not running. The story here is our endlessly gullible media.
jrg
@Cliff in NH:
Yeah, it’s “unpredictable” in a “hey, Cletus, watch this” kind of way… You know it won’t end well, it’s just difficult to know how bad the outcome will be.
Yutsano
@danimal: They will broker the convention before going for an unelectable nut. That could really cause the Teabillies to finally rupture. Either way I plan to make popcorn, because the chosen candidate will be as dry as toast left in the sun for three days.
kindness
I guess this means the MSM can get down to really fluffing Mitch Daniels now. Not that it already hasn’t started, it has. They’ll just kick it up a notch.
Culture of Truth
Halperin is on the Gingrich bandwagon now.
Which means Newt is doomed.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Martin:
Reposting my comment from the open thread:
I want to see Doug, or whomever, start a Herman Cain thread. Specifically, I want to start asking pundits and politicians, “can Herman Cain win?” Why not? He’s got all the talking points down as far as I can tell. He’s a trained public speaker. He has business cred. He won the only debate they’ve had. There’s no crazy stuff in his personal life that I’ve heard of. So can Herman Cain win, pundits and politicians? If so, why don’t you talk about him more? And if not, why not?
Rhoda
@Jewish Steel: Not only is he a Mormon, but he doesn’t hate the gays enough, or hate Obama, or bow down to the tea party.
At best, he’ll be a VP pick. Likely, he’s going to be the next Mitt Romney for 2016.
The Mormon thing is bigger than most people are willing to acknowledge and it’s the biggest problem Romeny has of being a default candidate whose turn it is; the Right hated McCain but he wasn’t Mitt and that is what pulled him through at the end. I don’t care what happens, the visceral dislike if not hatred of Mittens by all the candidates didn’t disappear. It’s reason number one Pawlenty still has a leg to stand on.
BerkeleyMom
Gee, for such a brilliant businessman, Trump just trashed his brand for nothing over the last few weeks. I’d say this debacle was a HUGE net loss for the Donald. I couldn’t stand the guy, but now I know he’s a racist.
Culture of Truth
This may be the first election where every candidate drops out before the first primary.
Ash Can
@JenJen: Did you know that Trump and Halperin met for a little chat just before Trump issued his statement? Here’s exclusive video, right here.
Yutsano
Waitaminute…does this mean the Erik bin Erik pay-per-view event is off?
Villago Delenda Est
I agree that Huntsman is positioning himself for 2016.
If Daniels and Pawlenty have any brains, they’d be doing that, too.
2012 is a lost cause for the GOP. Incumbency alone is a deterrent, but the real problem is that absolutely no one in the field they have right now can win the general election. Until they do something about the crazies tilting them off to five orders of magnitude to the right of Attila the Hun, no Rethug CAN hope to win the general, especially against the man who at long last got his brother in Mooslimism, bin Laden.
jonas
@Jewish Steel: Huntsman isn’t a serious contender this time around. 1. He’s Mormon and 2. he just can’t bring the kind of unhinged wingnuttery the 27 percenters are baying for these days. I think he’s putting a team together now, getting a fundraising network up and running, but looking to 2016 after the GOP’s inevitable 2012 implosion when he can step up as a new “consensus” conservative candidate the way Reagan did in the 70s after Goldwater’s epic defeat in 64.
Jody
I dunno…I got the vibe that if the media tongue bath had continued for much longer his ego would have demanded he run.
And for that, I am doubly thankful to Obama for annihilating the big shitstain.
JenJen
@Ash Can: Hahaha. :-)
danimal
@Yutsano: I just hope the rupture happens soon enough for the nutjobs to form a third party. Even 5% drawn off of the GOP vote could open up states like TX and GA. Probably won’t happen, but it’s fun watching the GOP unsuccessfully try to rein in the craziness that they have unleashed.
Popcorn futures are up 27% in the past two weeks. (Is this what we call truthiness?)
jrg
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep. All the remaining GOP frontrunners have upside-down favorable/unfavorable numbers except for Romney and Ron Paul. Barring some catastrophe, 2012 will be a bloodbath in Obama’s favor.
WaterGirl
@Elie: Not to worry. i thought your comment was good enough to read twice. Maybe even 3 times on a really slow BJ day. :-)
Bobby Thomson
@Southern Beale:
As the saying goes, never interrupt your enemy when he is busy destroying himself.
Giving the Republican party a common enemy right in the middle of their feeding frenzy would be a mistake. Let them carve each other up and then walk in as the adult in the room.
I can’t argue with the strategy. The tricky part is recognizing when it’s run its course.
Jewish Steel
Yutsy, Rhoda, jonas. Thank you. I’m less worried now.
I share DougJ’s fear of Midwestern, sun-chapped daddies.
FormerSwingVoter
A rather interesting juxtaposition on CNN.com’s front page. The two top stories are Trump not running, and a story on the Freedom Riders.
hilts
Poor Chris Matthews.
Matthews criticized Trump for his birther nonsense, but still had a huge soft spot for the Donald by claiming he took the campaign to a higher level:
h/t http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/19/6497646-matthews-trump-takes-campaign-to-higher-level
Shalimar
@beltane:
They have one of those: Roger Ailes. Apparently, he would rather be the kingmaker than the king.
Maude
Bill Cosby was right about Trump.
opie jeanne
@Cliff in NH: This is certainly an interesting development. I can’t even imagine who will win the nomination now, what with the Tea Partiers and the lack of candidates anyone can take seriously.
Mouse Tolliver
@beltane:
Based on how his gold-plated apartment looked in that one episode of The Apprentice, I would say he doesn’t know how to spend money. Auric Goldfinger would’ve considered it tacky.
The Dangerman
I’m beginning to picture Sarah Palin trying to grab hold of the nomination and not letting go til she has it (picture Stan Van Gundy and Patrick Ewing’s leg, for you ballers out there).
Edit: Shit, now that I think about it, I think it was Jeff Van Gundy. More coffee, STAT (and if the pot was filled with decaf this morning, everyone is fired).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slGmTABZtZ8
WereBear
@300baud: SPLUNGE!
Suffern ACE
I will always stand with Buddy. The fact that Trump was taken more seriously than the guy who has been running for almost 2 years is one of those oddities that will spark much debate about our decline and fall among those Albanian speaking archeologists who will shift through the rubble of our civilization a few millenia from now…
J
@fasteddie9318: Well done!
Comrade Mary
I can’t read the word “suckers” any more without hearing it in the voice of the fat little bird from Tiny Wings. Then it makes me sad because it means I’ve fucked up a slide. You haz given me a wholly unexpected sad, John Cole!
Jay C
@Yutsano:
By the time the Republican Convention is on in, what, 15 months? do you really think anyone there is even going to remember that The Donald was once a “serious” candidate?
If the RNC is going to end up needing to be “brokered” by the two or three Trump diehards, the Party is more trouble than it realizes…
…and the whole country will getting the “smell” for what it is.
jurassicpork
I have the real top 10 reasons why Trump isn’t running.
Librarian
Awwwww. Meat Loaf must be so disappointed.
Mouse Tolliver
One of the positive things to come out of this sideshow are all the unflattering photos of Donald Trump some media outlets have chosen to run when covering this story. There’s a hilariously bad one running on the front page of HuffPo right now. Lawrence O’Donnell has been using one that makes him look like a cockatoo. Was the Donald sitting on Barretta’s shoulder when he announced he wasn’t running?
Mouse Tolliver
One of the positive things to come out of this sideshow are all the unflattering photos of Donald Trump some media outlets have chosen to run when covering this story. There’s a hilariously bad one running on the front page of HuffPo right now. Lawrence O’Donnell has been using one that makes him look like a cockatoo. Was the Donald sitting on Barretta’s shoulder when he announced he wasn’t running?
Anoniminous
Romney is now the Front Runner. He’s the only one left with national support.
And the base doesn’t like him
Gawd, this is good.
@jrg:
Translation into the vernacular:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! WHAT kind of nutter are we going to be nominating?!?
AnotherBruce
@Southern Beale:
The Republican party is not just a clown car. It’s a clown car that has crossed the median strip, collided head first with oncoming traffic, and left a gory mess all over the highway. The clowns are running in all directions in confusion with their makeup all a mess.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
After considerable excitation and self-stimulation, I have decided not to masturbate with a cheese grater. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential fecundity continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the list of autoerotic narcissists in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to masturbate with a cheese grater, I would be able to maintain an erection and ultimately, the rise to crescendo . I have spent the past several months unofficially wanking and grating and recognize that combining my self-aggrandizement with sadomasochistic attention to concerns other than my own cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, insolent self-absorption is my greatest passion and I am not ready to discontinue the need for public validation.
hilts
Palin / Bachmann 2012
Wingnut Nirvana
hilts
@Southern Beale: @AnotherBruce:
The Republican Party is the ultimate Confederacy of Dunces.
AAA Bonds
Look, what boggles my mind is that I remember back in high school when he did this in 2000 and no one took him seriously then, especially because of 1988.
Every twelve years, like clockwork, he runs for President. It didn’t become a pattern until this year, though.
So why wasn’t the story in the media this time around, immediately, “what’s Trump’s real motivation?”
All I can really do is thank the guy for kneecapping the Republicans in 2012. If I were a paranoid person and he were less than a complete asshole, I’d conclude that he was an agent provocateur all along. He provided a unique opportunity for Obama to release the birth certificate: the White House could be seen as shaming an idiot rather than legitimizing a candidate.
RobNYNY1957
It was only four years ago that Fred Dalton Thompson was the new face of the GOP and a straight shot to the White House.
Bruce S
I’m shattered. I just don’t see anyone who can pull the GOP coalition together like Trump by personally embodying the completely nutso morons, the utterly craven opportunists and the most socially nihilistic of the economic elite. The man had it all!
Anoniminous
@hilts:
That ticket would imply Obama getting 783 Electoral College Votes out of 535.
JPL
@Linda Featheringill: Cain’s skin color won’t be a problem because iokiyar. Cain came close to admitting that foreign policy was his weakness and his unFair Tax won’t be popular once the public realizes that it is the biggest middle class tax increase ever.
hilts
@Anoniminous:
Palin / Bachmann is the natural choice for a Republican Party that has completely lost its fucking mind.
geg6
@JenJen:
Oh, man. Please, please, please let this happen and prove to me once and for all that the FSM truly loves me and wants to wrap it’s noodly appendages around me.
Oh, man. Nothing would make my day, nay, my year, more than this.
geg6
@Yutsano:
Yup, agreed. It’s only the Villagers who think the man has a chance. As for Obama’s team, no way are they worried about Huntsman. All they have to do is what they’ve been doing: telling anyone who asks about him how great he was as Obama’s ambassador to China and how well they got along.
Dead meat.
artem1s
I predict President Obama will now take all 50 states in 2012 with the exception of Ohio which will cast its 18 electoral votes, as a result of a frantic GOP write-in campaign, for Dennis Kucinich, in a vain attempt to split the Democratic party from its ultra-liberal base.
Anoniminous
@hilts:
I agree that’s the “Wingnut Nirvana” ticket. Merely saying it’s a route to electoral disaster.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@Bobby Thomson:
Also, keep in mind that Obama’s style of standing up to someone involves playing sickly sweet and friendly in public, and then they walk away with budget cuts that are 1% of the reduced amount they thought they’d negotiated. Neither they nor we will see the knife until it’s sticking out of the Tea Party’s back.
gpleigh
This hollow racist clown woke up today and realized his passion is Celebrity Apprentice and the Miss Universe pageant and gaudy hotels. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Gravenstone
@hilts:
The Dimmer Twins is my favorite descriptor for that pairing.
Tone in DC
@Maude:
Amen.
Chris
Well, we’ll never know for sure, will we? Wonderful thing about unfalsifiable statements. Having been the bully in the playground for the last couple months, Trump is now reduced to being the kid who backed down from a fight but will forever be saying “I could’ve taken him! I could’ve!”
Politicking is hard. For not enough money. Now that I’ve grifted all I could from politics, I’m going to go back to firing people for ca$h.
Fred
You are talking about the same media and voters that put the Texas dummy in office for 2 terms and sold a completely unnecessary war based on made up evidence.
So nothing surprises me anymore. When it comes right down to it people are basically dumb and can be convinced of just about anything.
Svensker
@trollhattan:
LOL
Fred
@kerFuFFler: Urrrum, news flash. He never had any intention of running. NEVER!
Did I mention NEVER! Just like the last 2 times he pulled this exact same stunt. People are so fucking gullible it’s downright depressing.
Chris
@Shalimar:
This. It’s the American way: the big boss is never the person on the throne, it’s the person pulling his strings by keeping the money flowing.
Goes back to the Gilded Age at least. How many of the presidents between U. S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt can people name these days? Not many. And while that’s partly because it was so long ago, it’s also because they weren’t the ones really running the country.
ruemara
@Southern Beale:
Do me a favor. When you say the President should show a little backbone, define what you’d actually like him to say/do on what issue/topic/policy. I tire of this President is a wuss meme on the left & the right. So, maybe if we just had a clear statement of what is not being done according to specifications, we’d have a point of agreement or at least open communication.
birthmarker
@Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus): But could Obama pull this off against Palin? It would be hard to use that understated knife stab on a woman, IMO.
I expect Palin will benefit most from the loss of Huckabee. I expect she will rise in the polls. I also think that Cain will not be the nominee. The reason – 8 years of the black man would be too much. That’s what a segment of repubs don’t want as it is.
@Rhoda: The Baptist Church has done an orchestrated hit job on the Morman Church for at least 20 years. There is no way many southern religious conservatives are going to vote for a Morman. They would vote for a conservative third party candidate instead. Thus putting Obama safely back in office.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@ruemara:
No, in this case I think she and those on her side have been pretty clear. They want the president to publicly say that no matter what the GOP is not getting any concessions at all for the debt limit debate, and then follow through with it by making no deal, period. And they want him to do it with aggressive language.
There is a common misconception that this is a good way of negotiating.
Chris
@birthmarker:
Palin might benefit from Huckabee’s bowing out the most, but I continue to think she probably won’t run. For the same reason as Trump – she’s lazy. (And her poll numbers don’t look so good either).
Cain and Romney, like you said, start out with huge handicaps in the identity politics department. The rest of the candidate field is questionable too. Ah, for the days of George W. Bush… a white, Anglo-Protestant, born-again corporate whore from a political insider family with a Texas drawl and a friendly media, running in economic good times when people could afford to believe that “tax cuts increase revenue” was true.
catclub
@jrg: “It’s wide open, and I think it’s extremely unpredictable,”
goatse reference?
birthmarker
Trump channeled William Tecumseh Sherman today…
“If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.” (paraphrase)
Humber Dinglepencker
Lucius Donaldus Ahenobarbus, Caesar Trumpus – Oh, what an artist…er…president dies in me!
Catsy
Pretty much every credible assessment of the GOP’s chances in the 2012 election I’ve seen so far begins with words to the effect of, “unless hell freezes over or Uwe Boll makes a good movie”, and ends with words to the effect of “the GOP is toast”.
Honestly. Without some kind of major calamity that creates fertile ground in which conservative FUD can take root, exactly what is their path to the White House in 2012?
The hardcore Republican base–aka the teabaggers–have gone balls-out barking mad. No candidate can prevail in the GOP primary without bending the knee to their ever-increasing list of shibboleths, fantasies, and thou-shalt-nots.
But the more acceptable the candidate is to the teabagger base, the more repugnant they become when confronted with the need to appeal to the rest of the country in a general election.
I don’t see how they manage it, especially not against Obama. You couldn’t thread that needle with monofilament.
Elie
@Southern Beale:
I have to think that you are kidding when you say that the President needs to stand up to the Repubs. Seriously?
You have an opposition that is basically kicking itself in the tail over and over. With a little patience, you can just see that continue. The President has set that up quite nicely playing their own game on the military/war on terra and Medicare fronts.
There is nothing more fun that watching your aggressive opposition eating itself. Way more fun than clobbering them yourself, in my opinion.
If you are serious and not spoofing, you need to go read The Art of War and a little Machievelli to boot. No time like the present to learn a little about strategy and what winning in politics actually looks like. You may not know that.
Kilkee
@tokyokie: We have a winner!
ThresherK
@Bulworth: Kinda curious that the national media has largely abandoned their man-crush on Christie.
Our vocabulary needs a word to describe how the press gets over their mancrushes on Republicans, like this, and Trump, and how everyone else gets over a crush on everyone else. (Tearing up the photo and letters into little pieces and saying how much he suxx.)
Benjamin Cisco
And LOD takes a well-earned victory lap, crushing the Ferengi-Controlled Infortainment Network employees in the process. Nice.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Yutsano:
Please god.
Caz
It wasn’t clear to everyone, and there’s a chance he was seriously considering running and either (1) decided, after seeing how being a candidate felt, that he didn’t want to be one, or (2) fucked up with the whole birth certificate and grades issues and decided he hurt his chances too much.
Liberals tend to apply the phenomenon of totality to things like this. What I mean is that liberals often use phrases like “all the experts” or “everyone knows” or “all economists agree” and the like. It shows a lack of open-mindedness in my opinion when one concludes that a particular “fact” is known to everyone, or that every expert of a particular area agree on something.
Everyone is wrong sometimes, so when you continuously say that everyone knows something or all experts agree on something, you’re obviously wrong about it at least sometimes. Not to mention the fact that there is never a 100% consensus about anything, among experts or “regular” people. Perhaps you’re just making a generalization – in which case you have to realize that all rules have exceptions, and liberals often fail to recognize that those exceptions exist.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into this. But it just struck me as a good example of this type of liberal practice.
Conservatives don’t seem to employ this tactic nearly as much. They have their own deficient tactics that they use which are equally improper.