Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

People are weird.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: “Go Nuts. On Camera. Please.”

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: “Go Nuts. On Camera. Please.”

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gop candidate mergers ohman

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
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Guess there aren’t enough non-political reality shows already on the air. At Bloomberg View, Jonathan Bernstein:

We’re about to see some wild behavior from the Republican presidential candidates. At least that’s what the cable networks are trying to arrange. To understand why, look at how Fox News and CNN have set their debate rules for the first GOP debate, which will take place on Aug. 6 on Fox…

We’re going to see gimmicks, stunts and every attention-grabbing device the campaigns can think of, all timed to maximize poll standings near the end of July.

All of this public campaigning promises to provide cheap, watchable programming for the same cable news networks that are setting up the incentives. A public feud between two candidates (even a phony one deliberately planned to draw attention) should attract higher ratings than coverage of the less-visible courting of party insiders that candidates might otherwise be engaged in. And some contenders who have a pile of money but little public impact may run national ads on, say, Fox News, to try to get into the top 10.

Constructing polling averages is an art, not a science, and there’s plenty of room (deliberately manipulated or not) for different results driven by the choice of methods… It’s impossible to know who is really ahead, especially for candidates bunched toward the bottom. So it may come down to luck, when the last two or three slots are filled. Right now, the candidates in 9th through 14th place in HuffPollster’s estimates are separated by all of 1.8 percentage points, so claiming one is ahead of another is guesswork.

Perhaps more important, these current also-rans — Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina, Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Kasich — are close to zero in the ratings. It wouldn’t take much for a Joe the Plumber to declare a candidacy and reach 10th place if he’s featured on Fox in June...

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Five hour debate! That’ll bring in the ratings! Please proceed, Republicans.

    Sully used to give a yearly Hewitt award for

    The Hewitt Award is named after the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt, is given for the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    This has the makings of a kick-ass reality show. Especially since a slot has very recently been freed up. Now, what we need is a giant dome, with a cache of weapons for the contestants to find and use on each other …

  9. 9.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Valdivia:

    What are you doing still up?! You’re a normal person.

    I’m almost done with The Nightmare. Much better than The Hypnotist.

  11. 11.

    Valdivia

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    :)

    is the implication that you are up because you are not?
    I collapsed super early tonight and now my body thinks its time to start the day…
    I found their books to be really addictive. Fire Witness is good too.

    ETA: buenas noches.

  15. 15.

    Zinsky

    As someone commented on another thread, how do these guys (and one gal) differentiate themselves from one another? Their views on everything, and I mean everything are identical! Rand Paul is the only one who even tries to nuance their lemming-like fealty to the anti-abortion, anti-climate change, anti-Obama, pro-gun lockstep brain-dead agenda they all espouse.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @Zinsky: they try to differentiate by becoming even more over-the-top whackaloon. The one who wins probably will offer a “final solution” for the browns and the moochers.

  17. 17.

    mai naem mobile

    I don’t know why they don’t draw numbers and have 2 sets of debates for the first 2-3 debates. By that point, they should be dropping out to the point where one debate will be possible..The cable channels need to fill time anyway so they’ll be happy.

  18. 18.

    David Koch

    @Zinsky: people only partially vote on issues, they also put a lot of stock in electability and personality.

    i image there will be a lot of people who will agree with Sanders on populism, but nevertheless will still vote for Hillary because of electability.

    sometimes you win by default. 4 years ago everyone hated Mitten’s personality and record but he won because the rest of the field had more baggage than an airport.

  19. 19.

    Waspuppet

    @Mary G: Absolutely! 16 Republicans on stage x 5 hours = 0 chance that any of them will say anything so stupid and/or racist that even Chuck Todd would have to notice.

  20. 20.

    Waspuppet

    @Zinsky: There’s no strategic (goals) difference whatsoever; the only difference is tactical: Whether shutting down the government gets them there.

  21. 21.

    danielx

    Chainsaw juggling? Sharpened clue sticks at ten paces? The possibilities are endless….

    I foresee comedy gold.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    @Mary G:
    YES!!
    Please, please, PLEASE let the networks listen to Huge Fuckwitt. This would be and afternoon/evening not to be dreaded but to be encouraged. In that time it is guaranteed that this insane clown posse would be exposed for its lack of depth, its inability to maintain consistency and its general insanity. I wouldn’t watch (who would?) but damn that would be fun as people went over the shit stew picking out the best parts.

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    They should follow the English football system, and hold a Premiere Debate and a secondary debate. After each debate, polls are taken, and the bottom couple of performers in Premiere are relegated to secondary, and the top couple of secondaries get promoted to Premiere.

    Think of how much fun it will be to watch the crab-bucket antics.

  25. 25.

    Punchy

    This is just all pure grift. Hux, Sen. Pittypat, The Woman…they have a less than 0% chance at the nommy. But they’ll somehow make millions on the campaign trail and millions from the insane numbers of rich Repubs. Just a few months of faux candidacy will enrich their Swiss accounts. Thats why there’ll be likely >15 GOP “candidates” before its all done. Everyone wants to get rich quickly…

  26. 26.

    trnc

    I really like this from the WP story:
    “Without Fiorina and Jindal, the opening event of the GOP primary contest would feature an array solely of men, most of them white”

    Obviously, the array would still be solely men and mostly white WITH Jindal. Although it’s possible they’re openly insulting his manhood.

  27. 27.

    Mike in NC

    Hugh Hewitt should replace that twit Reince Preibus as chairman of the RNC, or maybe head of ISIS. Either one works for me.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    The cartoon is reminding me of the names TV fans make up for character ships.

  32. 32.

    pluege

    fiona doesn’t have to worry – she’s in because she’s the only to counter the republican war on women charges even though she’s pro republican war on women – optics baby.

  33. 33.

    Chris

    @Zinsky:

    Their voters have been told the Republican Party is riddled with RINOs, liberals, and traitors. And that that’s why things weren’t working out.

    So, it’s basically a competition to prove to the voters that it’s you who are the One True Conservative they’re looking for, and the others are the traitors. From the audience viewpoint, think of it as Where’s Waldo for teabaggers.

  34. 34.

    shell

    Who needs cartoons? These guys will provide all the Loony Tunes untill ‘be-de-be-de-Thats All Folks!”

  37. 37.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Zinsky:

    Rand Paul is the only one who even tries to nuance

    Rand Paul does not nuance anything. He does, however, tell different lies to different audiences. He’s not more sophisticated than the others, he’s less smooth.

  38. 38.

    Mike in NC

    Forget about debates and just hold a seance to see which idiot can summon the ghost of Saint Reagan.

  39. 39.

    Chris

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I keep saying this, but the guy reminds me of Barry Goldwater. Not necessarily any less crazy than his fellow Republicans, just crazy on a different wavelength. (For Barry, the problems arose on social issues; for Ron, foreign policy).

  41. 41.

    Ken

    My hope is that when the polling comes in, once they get past the top three or four the rest of them will all be down in the 2% range – within the margin of error. They’ll have to choose literally based on noise.

    (Not that they won’t be choosing on noisiness anyway.)

  42. 42.

    Alex S.

    @Zinsky:

    Well, some want to kill social security before they kill all the muslims, while others want to reverse the order.

  45. 45.

    jonas

    @Zinsky:

    Rand Paul is the only one who even tries to nuance their lemming-like fealty to the anti-abortion, anti-climate change, anti-Obama, pro-gun lockstep brain-dead agenda they all espouse.

    Aside from occasionally registering a dissenting squawk about the surveillance state, Rand Paul endorses all those positions as well. Why people still keep calling him libertarian is rather baffling.

  46. 46.

    PaulW

    @Zinsky:

    Rand Paul is not the libertarian saint you think him to be.

    He’s mostly a deregulation ideologue. He follows his dad’s obsessive belief in backing a Gold Standard which is no longer economically viable. And he’s pandered enough to the Far Right religious backers to be little different from the “mainstream” Republicans who shout “Guns God and Money” from the rooftops.

    http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/04/predicting-character-fuzzy-vision-of.html

  47. 47.

    PaulW

    @Cervantes:

    No, the losers keep planning for the next round of debates in December.

    Just remember, the winner of this debate not only scored well enough in the first two rounds, he/she survived the bloody third round. We’re bound to see a lot of the lesser candidates drop out…

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