Trump’s not going to blow this thing, is he? The campaign manager’s arrest. The massive abortion gaffe and walk-back. The foolishness about nuclear proliferation. It’s been a bad week.
I’m afraid he’s going to flame out before clinching the nomination, paving the way for the GOP to nominate someone who can impersonate a sane person more convincingly.
Trump’s got this thing, right? Right?!?!?!?
RaflW
Trump’s re-staging of The Producers may have a bonus plot twist.
TaMara (BHF)
Just read that the RNC isn’t getting some big sponsorships (so far) for the convention. They don’t want to be associated with the crapfest it’s guaranteed to be.
So if Trump does blow it…does that mean he goes for an independent bid? I’m just looking for anything that will split the rethugs into enough splinter groups that we can use them for kindling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I doubt any of these things are going to hurt him with his core audience. He’s sure as hell not going away, whatever happens, and if he’s pissed at the Republican party for taking “his” nomination, so much the better. The man would be utterly incapable of sitting by quietly and not popping off at least five times a week about how Nominee X is terrible, I could’ve been so much better, it would’ve been terrific, believe me, but that’s not what the politicians as usual crowd wanted.
Yutsano
He’s up like 56% in Noo Yahk and is still ahead in the other primaries. I think he’ll either get there or get close enough to get it. And the GOP will never be the same.
Baud
Cruz?
redshirt
You want Trump to be the nominee, Betty C?
Patricia Kayden
Trump’s supporters are stupid bigots so yes, he’s got this.
Thoughtful David
He’s not going to stop. His ego is too much in it. He may come into the convention in second place or something, but then he’ll have to make a scene about how he “wasn’t treated fairly,” and the Trumpenproletariat will riot.
Don’t give up hope.
geg6
Calm down, Betty. He’s got this. He’s gonna win big…I mean, yooooogely, in NY. So yoooooge that it may be enough to shut down any thought of a brokered convention.
redshirt
Fantastic drawing, also too.
David Fud
@Yutsano: It give me warm fuzzy feelings that the GOP will never be the same. It give me feelings of creeping doom that the US might never be the same. Let us hope for the former and pray to the flying spaghetti monster against the latter.
Yutsano
@TaMara (BHF): A brokered convention will be a bloody mishegas. And no way does Trump accept that without a fight. It’s a big mess and it couldn’t happen to a nicer party.
Politically Lost
Dream scenario is he’s badly wounded yet manages to retain just enough delegates to have a lead going into the convention without clinching the nomination. He loses on the first ballot and Cruz loses on the second. Mild violence ensues on the third ballot between Cruz and the talking yam. White knights Ryan, Romney, McCain, etc. with big money backing try to take over. They fail, badly. Open rebellion begins and the violence starts to become considerable. Big money and establishment types take their ball, go home and begin to scramble for a third party candidate. A clear Repub candidate takes days to nominate with what’s left.
JPL
Yup.. Trump can say racist statements, but mentioning that if you break a law, there should be punishment will bring him down. It’s not the republican party you wished for, but it’s the one you got.
Brachiator
When’s the next primary? Can’t know the impact of this recent stuff until then.
@TaMara (BHF)
The Republicans still control Congress and many states. No certain sign that they would lose power even if Trump blowed up real good.
RaflW
Oh, and any defection to Ryan in the convention will lead to as much disaster as either Trump or Cruz at the top. The base will be livid for the remainder of the election season, and I’m pretty sure Ryan hasn’t actually improved his campaigning game that much since Biden mopped the floor with him in’ 12.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Politically Lost: That might not be far too much from the truth. I just hope all the rioting is within the party and not within the Q or out on the streets.
Roger Moore
@Politically Lost:
The convention center is destroyed by a meteor strike that somehow manages to do no damage to the rest of the city.
Daulnay
This mess will only make me completely happy when the vast majority of the ‘sane’ Republicans repent of the hatred they’ve fomented, and condemn and discourage all the hateful politics they’ve been cultivating. I do expect Hell to freeze over first, but hopefully not before they’ve all gone there.
As a second best, I do hope the Republican party splits into at least 3 competing parties. And that the Talibangenicals decide that joining politics sullies their chances of getting into heaven, and withdraw.
geg6
@Yutsano:
I was a poli sci major and I remember a class about American parties and thought how quaint and fascinating it was to read about the few party disintegrations in our history. Most of the class focused on the permutations of the two major parties but the stuff about the Federalists and the Whigs just seemed so exotic. I couldn’t imagine this happening in the modern world. I am just flabbergasted that I may be seeing it happen in real time. Not sure that this is just an adjustment for the GOP or one of those major meltdowns, but it’s frighteningly exciting to be living through it.
andy
Does he got it? Enough to get him close to the magic number, for sure. The Base is too invested in their revenge fantasy to settle for someone objectively better.
eemom
Pretty sure that even if he ends up not being the nominee the republitards are just as fucked…..cuz he’s gonna raise hell and take all his enraged zombies with him. I actually think he wasn’t too far off when he said there would be riots.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Heart wants what the heart wants
PaulWartenberg2016
The fallback option is Cruz, whose unpopularity numbers are starting to match Trump’s.
? Martin
@Politically Lost: Dream scenario is that the GOP caves on the open carry ban and the Cruz delegates stand their ground on national TV.
p.a.
Has anyone in the national media commented on the Rethug inconsistency of claiming they DON’T want to prosecute women who have abortions?
According to them 1. Human Life Begins at Conception ™
2. Abortion is Murder.
3. Murder is a crime with well-defined punishments.
If I hire a hit man to kill an actual human being am I not liable?
SFAW
He’s “got this,” but not in the way you think: he’s going to cut a deal with the RNC (a YUUUUGE deal, of course, and classy) to drop out in favor of the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver. You remember him, right? He’s the guy who refused the Speakership three times, as the crowd cheered ever more wildly. Same thing in Cleveland.
The only question is: what will Trump’s price tag be?
? Martin
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Well, since that was almost certainly to protect the President, and since he’s fine, no harm done.
geg6
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’d fucking go for it, too, given the opportunity. Don’t blame her a bit.
Big Ol Hound
I was so looking forward to “open carry” in Cleveland that now I have lost all interest.
@Betty Cracker.. This is a great piece of sarcasm
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
As president, I will repeal the anti-rubbing rule by executive order.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
God/FSM does not love us that much.
raven
This piece in the NYT is pretty interesting, it lists the positions Trump had in 1990 and how they compare with his current campaign. I suppose most people knew how consistent he is but I didn’t.
scav
@Roger Moore: As though a sympathy-vote win by any of their even more obscure talents from the deep bench is going to be in any fashion more sane or healthy.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Davis X. Machina
@PaulWartenberg2016: No, plan C (or D, or F) is Rand Paul — his ‘dope, drones and domestic surveillance’ campaign will pull in all the kids who are presently carrying Bernie!
The youngs go for that kind of thing.
PaulWartenberg2016
@geg6:
Thing is, the Electoral system encourages the existence of two large parties. The brief period with just the Democrats (1816 – 1832) was something of an aberration where the one party was so huge it held a diverse array of opinions and leaders to promote them. And while the Whigs fell apart, it did fracture into two / three factions from which the Republicans were able to find fertile ground for growth four years later.
I doubt the Republican party itself will die. The organization itself still has a lot of power at the state-regional level (and it’s too much hassle nowadays to build a party from scratch). What’s going to happen is a major internal fight between the increasingly out-of-touch Far Right and the more Pragmatic centrists looking to rebuild the Moderate/Eisenhower wing of the party.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Davis X. Machina:
…Rand Paul couldn’t last longer than his old man in these fights.
He doesn’t appeal to anybody outside of the Republican Youth Atlas Shrugged Fanfic Club.
Betty Cracker
@redshirt: Yes. I think he’d be easiest for HRC to beat.
tsquared2001
@Politically Lost: And ALL of it on TV. It will make the GOP look back at the Houston convention in ’92 with distinct fondness
hueyplong
Trump definitely does not yet have this.
But that might increase — not decrease — the number of Schadenfreudelicious scenarios for us to watch unfold.
If these guys could for one second walk the walk, it would be an open carry wild west show in that arena. But open carry in this context imperils Republicans instead of Skittle-carrying nonwhite youth, so of course they’re in favor of gun control.
Felonius Monk
@Yutsano:
From your lips (or keyboard) to God’s ears.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Of course the question isn’t who will be easier to beat, rather who will do more damage to down ballot races.
Trump will be a lethal does of anthrax around the necks of blue state republicans. It’s 1964 Redux. With Trump’s recent comments on using nuclear weapons Hillary can even run a Daisy ad. (photo)
Davebo
@TaMara (BHF):
I never considered that companies would sponsor political conventions.
Is that whacked or what?
Mark B
I don’t know, I think we might end up with the execrable Cruz as the Republican nominee. He’s much worse, in my opinion, although it’s like a choice between ebola and gangrene.
Amir Khalid
Trump couldn’t lose this nomination if he tried, and he has been trying.
Amir Khalid
@Davebo:
Doesn’t corporate sponsorship of a party event count as a political contribution?
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Amir Khalid:
He has been very trying.
ETA: Also too, the peasants are revolting.
Ben Cisco
@p.a.:
BWAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!
(gasp)
BWAHAAHAAHAAAAA!!!!!
Wait, was that rhetorical or were you –
BWAHAAHAAHAAA!!!!!
Daulnay
Betty,
I think Trump actually does have it. There are solid reasons for the Repubs to back him, if they can hold their noses long enough. Lots of good reasons not to, the same as ours for not wanting him as President. The Republicans lining up behind Trump would be a victory of partisan advantage over their duty as citizens to keep the Republic functioning and Constitutional government alive.
Pew’s breakdown of the citizenry in their Political Typology from 2014 shows a lot of detail about the political landscape. You can pick key parts of the Trumpenproleteriat out of the typology, they are the Hard-Pressed Skeptics and the Bystanders, each about 10% of the electorate. Both groups have been on the sidelines, the Skeptics because they mistrust both parties, and the Bystanders because they are disinterested.
Trump is drawing some of the Bystanders because he is a celebrity. The Bystanders are the only group with a very high interest in celebrity news, and he is probably the only candidate that would appeal to them. The Skeptics have become one-issue voters, and it’s immigration. In the 2012 election, they went hard for Obama.
All of this is in the data from the Pew analysis. Other than these two groups, the other voting groups are split pretty much 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans, with three groups less partisan than the 3 core groups. If both parties can each keep the 3 groups that usually lean their way, the outcome depends on the Skeptics and the Outsiders. That’s a Trump victory.
However, I don’t think Trump will keep the usual Republican-leaning groups in the coalition. Some will stay at home, and others (the Young Outsiders) will bolt to the Dems. Especially if there’s a bitter floor fight.
Roger Moore
@Davebo:
They’ve been sponsoring them for a while now; they just haven’t wanted to do the branding part of the deal.
SarahT
@Betty Cracker: Your art roolz like Ozzy.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Agreed.
tsquared2001
@SFAW: The Base (all about That Base) will never accept Eddie Munster. He is wrong on trade, wrong on immigrants and the Base thinks he is a complete punk when it comes to opposing The Kenyan Usurper.
Ben Cisco
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: i think the GOP base is perfectly capable of (and perfectly primed to) engage in all manner of violence, either if/when Trump doesn’t get the nom, or when he gets his ass handed to him in the general. That, and the fact that a lot of states are still in a GOP headlock, makes for some uneasy thoughts…
Baud
@Ben Cisco:
But remember. 1968, so both sides.
gogol's wife
OT, but I love this nun who’s introducing the TCM banned movies series.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Wendi Deng, who was married to Rupert Murdoch for 14 years before leaving him for war criminal Tony Blair, is now dating Vladimir Putin.
I guess Eva Braun was unavailable.
redshirt
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: No way!
rikyrah
I believe that he believes that the only way to repair the damage done to his brand is to win the nomination outright, or get close enough so that they have to steal it away.
rikyrah
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Truth is always stranger than fiction
p.a.
@Ben Cisco: Sometimes you hear it in your head and just go with it no matter how foolish… ;-(
Matt McIrvin
Trump doesn’t have it to the same degree that Hillary Clinton has it. But if it’s not Trump, it will almost certainly be Ted Cruz.
We can debate all night who is more horrible, and Cruz is still slightly more nationally popular than Trump. But he should also be thoroughly beatable, and we will have the wrath of Trump from the peanut gallery as well (though I have my doubts that he could mount a credible third-party campaign with ballot access that could get a significant amount of the general election vote unless he starts well before the convention, he could still stir up some trouble by demanding write-ins).
The scenario where it’s neither Trump nor Cruz gives us a probably stronger Republican candidate, but also even more chaos.
raven
Oh my, I’m soooo scared I may wet my pants.
NickM
I am very much pro choice, but I don’t get the upset about what Trump said on the Republican side. If abortion is murder of a child, how is going to a provider to get one different than hiring a hitman to kill your child, morally, and if they enact their preferred laws, legally? Is the only problem that it isn’t expedient to say so? It’s hard to believe they can’t come up with anything better than that. It gives the lie to all their bullshit about an American holocaust, doesn’t it? Can’t they see that?
Daulnay
@NickM:
They argue that the mother is a ‘victim’ of the abortion as well, in order to make their stance politically palatable.
Going full Taliban would lose them votes.
tsquared2001
@Amir Khalid: I think Donnie does want out.
It was a fling, a money making, brand enhancing lark and then the shit got completely out of hand like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction.
SarahT
@rikyrah: Seconded.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I didn’t know she had been with Blair, which only interests me because he the thing that is very much not like the others.
dmsilev
Apparently there’s a rule in the GOP Convention rulebook that says that only people who have won a majority of delegates in at least 8 states can be considered for the nomination; we can thank Mitt Romney’s fear of Ron Paulian shenanigans for that, but it means that the two available choices are Trump and Cruz.
Or “the Establishment” changing the rules in the proverbial smoke-filled back room to let someone else in. That’ll go over well with the StormTrumpers…
Ben Cisco
@raven: OK, now that’s funny. Can’t think of anyone on this blog I’d think would be less scared than you.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Hey! When did you change your nym?
Love it! But remember, it also needs to go on your resume.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The funniest part of the wingnut worship of Putin is that he’s tiny little pipsqueak.
(photo #1)
(photo #2)
He’s worse than Lil’ Marco
SFAW
@tsquared2001:
Now if we can only convince Drumpf to boil Cruz and Ryan and Kasich, the analogy would be perfect. Hell, if he could even just hip-check them out of a 50th-floor window, that would be OK.
JMG
Trump is unpopular in a roughly 1:2 favorabililty ratio
Clinton is unpopular in a roughly 4:5 ratio.
Each of those has more than 95 percent of the public with an opinion.
Cruz is unpopular in a ratio about 7:10, with about a sixth undecided.
We’ve all seen Cruz. Think those undecideds will decide they like him?
Van Buren
CNN just fluffed Trump for being so brave as to face Chris Matthews, that well known lefty leftwing leftist who is just so tough on candidates that all others quaked in their shoes, afraid to face the brutal suckerpunching journalist who subjects them to harsh interrogation methods and such.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Alex Jones is calling for 5 million Trump supporters to stage counter protests in Cleveland.
What could go wrong with that?
Heliopause
Which, the GOP or the general? Based on the past nine months experience I would never assume the former, and the latter was never his to blow.
If it’s Cruz, he’s almost indistinguishable from Trump in terms of electability and insanity. The one you need to worry about is Kasich, he’s won 10 straight hypothetical matchups with Clinton, some of them by double digits.
p.a.
@Daulnay: Yes according them female =/= rational, competent moral actor.
River Wolfe
Thank goodness I’m not the only one worried about a Trump fizzle! I was a bit ashamed of myself for hoping he’s the nominee. Great post.
Show your support with style!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/democraticjewelry
Iowa Old Lady
Don’t worry, Betty. Even if Trump doesn’t get the nomination, he will burn their house down and salt the earth.
I am home from the tapas and wine bar and fear no evil.
smith
The old saying was that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. The Berniebros are carrying on the fine old Dem tradition, but this time the Trumpanzees are doing it too. They will not fall in line, their love for the Orange One is not fungible, and in fact they are not really Republicans in any traditional sense. For that reason, it matters not a whit what happens to Trump — he could win the nom outright, he could try to negotiate at a brokered convention, he could have a fatal stroke, he could humbly withdraw his name from contention, he could move to a desert island and declare it the United States of Trumpsylvania, he could have a full-blown nervous breakdown on national TV, and his supporters will still have a major, irremediable, possibly fatal impact on the Republican Party. Driving sane voters away? Abstaining from voting? Writing in Trump? Rioting and bloodshed? Who knows? They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and really all the rest of us can do is look on in wonder
Gin & Tonic
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Here’s another for your collection.
Keith G
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Can’t help but picture Mara Godoy channeling Madeline Kahn, “It’s twue, twue….”
tsquared2001
@SFAW: I like the way you think – is there a newsletter I can subscribe to?
p.a.
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Is that from last night’s thread? Do you have a signature rubout?
low-tech cyclist
Due to Rule 40, it’s almost sure to be either Trump or Cruz; nobody else is going to win a majority of the delegates in 8 states or more, and they (with ~3/4 of the delegates) will be united against any rule change that allows anyone else to win. And once the rules are set that it has to be one of them, then the two of them can battle it out without having to worry about Kasich or Ryan or whoever.
gogol's wife
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Are you kidding?
JMG
He’s far from done. Polling suggests he’ll win so big in New York it might be all his. New Jersey’s likely to be the same. The current sort-of-stalemate with Trump ahead is likely to last until the convention.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Keith G: FTW
Major Major Major Major
@low-tech cyclist: And due to Rule 34, the fighting will get… dirty… indeed.
SFAW
@p.a.:
One would assume so.
She does, but that would be kissing and telling. Uh, make that “killing and telling.” And besides, she’s much too classy and dignified to do that. She’s more into kneecapping the transgressors. Oh, and she seems to talk a lot about “enthusiasms.”
Chip Daniels
The howling Orc army that Trump has unleashed won’t go anywhere, even if his plane went down tomorrow.
They will demand fealty from whatever nutjob is offered up, and every single one will fall to their knees and offer up the Trumpian manifesto of ethnic rage and fear.
Just how many Americans will find this soothing/ delightful or terrifying/ disgusting is still open to question.
raven
@Chip Daniels: Fuck em.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Just remember: There is NO Rule #6!
tsquared2001
@Iowa Old Lady: Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death, I will fear no tapas and where the fuck is the waitress with more wine?
Of course, THAT Psalm was edited out of the King James version.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@gogol’s wife: Here’s a linky explaining it.
Steve in the ATL
@dmsilev:
Not yet, comrade (isn’t that how we lefties address each other?)–Cruz has not won eight states.
He may eventually, but Kasich sure won’t.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@p.a.: It’s just below the line feed key.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Davebo
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Interesting because despite the veneered teeth and decent body Deng just isn’t that attractive to me.
Maybe she really is brilliant.
(I have some experience with brilliant Chinese girls, most of it bad)
dr. bloor
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
She has to get to Helle Thorning-Schmidt at some point, right?
Asking for a friend.
Mary G
I think Trump’s gotten far enough along to get the nom, even though Cruz’s looking like he’s going to win Wisconsin. If all his prior statements haven’t hurt him with his supporters, this week’s won’t either. They probably admire the tough talk about the Geneva conventions hamstringing our brave soldiers and putting the uppity women in their place. The current poll averages show him winning New York, Pennsylvania, and California, which is a big haul in delegates. Of course, a lot can happen in two months.
Robert Sneddon
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: It’s a tango. Saying “no body contact” is like saying “I won’t come in your mouth”. A really good tango leaves at least one of the dancers pregnant through osmosis.
Amir Khalid
@Heliopause:
If the Republicans take the nom from The Donald and hand it to bronze (not even silver!) medallist Kasich, he could have The Donald to contend with (not necessarily as a rival candidate, but as a heckler capable of doing great damage) as well as Hillary.
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Have to disagree there. Only his resemblance to Tony Banks allowed him to get away with a good deal of sociopathic, self-interested bullshit.
dr. bloor
@Robert Sneddon:
Something you’d expect the Secret Service to be aware of.
ET
@TaMara (BHF): If I was running a big corp I wouldn’t want to be be withing 100 miles of that convention or be openly associated with it.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Davebo: I know what you mean. The historical antecedent I can think of is Wallis Simpson. (photo) She’s was okay. But it wasn’t like she was Vivien Leigh. Yet she had Joachim von Ribbentrop and King Edward VIII wrapped around her finger.
Iowa Old Lady
@tsquared2001: I am a much nicer person after a glass of wine. It only takes one. I am a cheap date.
Mike J
@JMG: @JMG:
Iowa Old Lady
Also Betty, Digby has a video taken by Floridians out for a walk who ran into a panther. I’d put the clip here but I don’t know how.
Davebo
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Well, as I implied, intellect can be very seductive.
Or maybe I’m just old…
starscream
You guys are underestimating how much they genuinely hate us. It will bind them together once the convention is over, no matter who comes out the winner. Thoughts of the party’s complete demise are wishful thinking.
Heliopause
@Amir Khalid:
Sure, but that’s just speculation at this point. And the Dems will have a disaffected wing of the party problem of their own to deal with.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@dr. bloor: Nah. Obama has got dibbs on her.
(photo 1)
(photo 2)
p.a.
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: damned virtual keyboard!
raven
@Iowa Old Lady: Go to the video, copy the url, paste it in the box.
Aleta
Paid media vs Free (press) media
Bush $82 million $214 million
Rubio $55 million $204 million
Cruz $22 million $313 million
Sanders $28 million $321 million
Clinton $28 million $746 million (much of it negative, related to her email)
Trump $10 million $1.9 billion
Not mentioned is how much of Trump’s free media has been negative, but at least in the beginning, his poll numbers kept rising despite negative press.
From the same article, by Michael Tomasky
CBS head Les Moonve, speaking at a Morgan Stanley Conference
(He Paid media vs Free (press) media
Bush $82 million $214 million
Rubio $55 million $204 million
Cruz $22 million $313 million
Sanders $28 million $321 million
Clinton $28 million $746 million (much of it negative, related to her email)
Trump $10 million $1.9 billion
Not mentioned is how much of Trump’s free media has been negative, but at least in the beginning, his his poll numbers kept rising despite negative press.
From the same article, by Michael Tomasky
CBS head Les Moonve (make 60 million a year) speaking at a Morgan Stanley Conference
(Moonve makes $60 million a year.)
What bugs me is, the higher the stakes as perceived by each side, and the tighter the race, and the greater the suspense and agony on all sides, the more profit to the media and to the full time political consultants and image manipulators. And the more money desperate individuals on all sides feel compelled to give. They all have incentive to sensationalize, it’s part of sustaining their jobs.
Roger Moore
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Other than Cleveland being completely unprepared to deal with the metropolitan population more than tripling?
Matt McIrvin
@low-tech cyclist:
Rule 40 is some words on a piece of paper. They can easily get rid of it if they want to.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@SFAW:
Just last night, at the suggestion of a commenter. Not sure I’m going to keep it, though. I’m just kind of trying it out, taking it for a test spin.
Aleta
Sorry, don’t know why that comment doubled when I tried to edit it, and now it won’t let me edit it at all.
If a moderator could delete the doubled part in the middle, I’d be grateful.
Baud
Dave Weigel got fat and old and has a 70s adult film look now.
Mike in NC
If Drumpf and his brownshirts don’t have this nomination in the bag soon, there’ll be hell to pay in Cleveland.
hamletta
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Yeah, no, I’m not buying the Wendi Deng–Tony Blair thing. She wrote some kind of note to herself about how hot he is, but I haven’t seen any indication it went any further.
Iowa Old Lady
@raven:
ETA: Oh I see what you mean. It’s just a link. But it doesn’t run. Oh well, it’s at Digby.
raven
@Baud: Something is wrong with him.
PsiFighter37
Just enjoy the dumpster fire while it burns so orangely.
Bernie is he one who is pissing me off. He basically came out and said he wouldn’t support downticket races. Fucker can go and take his revolution back to the land of white hippies and kindly not show his face again on national TV.
Baud
@raven:
Is that your opinion or do you know something about him that would make me feel bad about what I said?
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Link?
Davebo
Once again the media says this time it will hurt Trump.
When will they learn. Leaving aside the fact that Cruz and Kasich said essentially the same thing.
Short of blurting out that Ronald Reagan was a homosexual I don’t see anything hurting the Trumpster.
Brendancalling
@p.a.: it was addressed today on NPR’s “The Takeaway.
Chris
God, I hope so. Because if not, it’s Ted Cruz who’s in.
Not that I necessarily think Cruz, individually, would be worse than Trump. (Not that I think he’d be better, either…) But the establishment doesn’t hate Cruz with the heat of a thousand supernovas as they do Trump, and that means we’ll be facing a more unified Republican Party in the general. It’ll also mean they’ll be able to write off Trump as the fluke they so desperately want him to be.
Trump is tearing the Republican Party apart, and he’ll do it much more effectively if he’s the nominee. Please, please, let it be him.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@SFAW:
I love how you know me better than I know myself.
raven
@Baud: I was looking at him. It wasn’t just fat, that red face and growth on his forehead are a sure giveaway.
Steve in the ATL
@Davebo:
So you went to Harvard?
Baud
Rachel has people behind her. It looks creepy.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Or saw the Wedding Banquet.
hamletta
@Steve in the ATL: I don’t think the eight-state rule means you have to get your delegates via election. The way I’m reading it, you can pick them up at the convention:
Glaukopis
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: I like it.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
What kind of asshole would call you a “mob enforcer”?
ETA: But you should still keep it.
Baud
@Baud: It’s a picture. The close up shot made it look like they were in her audience.
raven
@Baud: Put down the bong and step backwards. . .
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
OK, now I’m gonna blush.
raven
@SFAW: Someone from Taylor Street.
Peale
He just needs an Mexican to murder someone and he’s back on top.
Frankensteinbeck
Given Trump’s base, I don’t see any of those incidents hurting him much.
Whatever happens, bear in mind we’ve never seen this before. This is not business as usual. This shit has not happened at least in the last 40 years.
@Daulnay:
I’m sorry, but that’s an analysis of the 2014 electorate. Studies of this electorate show that Trump’s base are solid Republican voters who do not normally vote in primaries. Many of them are registered Democrats who have voted Republican since Reagan. They are none of the groups you’ve described, and they are not motivated by the issues you’ve described. This is the racists in the Republican Party finally getting the open racist hate speech they’ve been begging for in a candidate.
Aleta
@Aleta: Or instead, could a moderator just delete the above comment with the unexpected growth on its forehead ? THX.
hamletta
@Baud: It was on Rachel Maddow. TPM has the story w/video:
SFAW
@raven:
I don’t get the ref.
Baud
@hamletta: Thanks.
Mike J
@Baud:
Chris
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Isn’t that a little optimistic? None of these people are interested in making peace between the Republican Party and the New Deal again. At most, they’re a little uncomfortable with all the racial shit and tired of humoring the God-botherers.
Baud
@Mike J: Thanks.
raven
@SFAW:
bk
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Who dat?
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Baud:
@raven:
@raven:
I’m not sure I even know what he looks like, or is supposed to look like. I tried google image and it only brought up his avatar, which is a picture of (I’m pretty sure) Thomas Dewey. So now I need to find out what y’all are talking about. Link?
sinnedbackwards
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I sort of remember what day it is in England.
SFAW
@raven:
Thanks
raven
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Here’s a shot with his face fucked up.
raven
@SFAW: Taylor St runs through SiubhanDuinne’s hometown.
Elie
There is going to be a catastrophic event that will prevent Trump from being the nominee — whether it is actually awarded at some point and then has to be rescinded or some such,we will see. This guy is not going in the right direction for a serious contendah… It will be interesting to see when everyone finally agrees that he is unworkable in any way. I love watching the Republican Party with its ice axes fully dug in as they slide and watching their drag marks into the crevace — taking some of the media with them. Tsk,tsk,tsk…. and this late in the season when there is probably a lot of water rushing underneath the glacier, carrying the flailing victims to … a long way away….
Davebo
@Steve in the ATL:
No. But she went to Tulane law.
But honestly, I think it was the body more than anything. The intellect was just a nice bonus.
raven
@Elie: Nice Trotsky reference.
goblue72
@PaulWartenberg2016:
They already did that – its called the Democratic Party.
piratedan
the GOP will slog on, because they’ll continue to get huge infusion of money from the guys who want to make sure that it is never taxed to provide any benefit to anyone else. Now, will those tribal members recognize that it is simply a parody off its former self… who the hell knows, tribalism is strong and not even a hateful scumbag like Cruz or an insecure megalomaniac like Trump can cause them to break away because for whatever reasons, Hillary being a Demoncrat, giving away their hard earned tax dollars to the unworthy is an abomination that they can’t tolerate, despite all of the bs any GOPer may perform, up to deflowering their daughters on their front porches with the cameras rolling. I have family members that I consider good people who donate to charity, do good works who have so ingrained the message that a bridge too far is giving anyone any assistance with their tax dollars is what is destroying this country.
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: Was it on a boardwalk? If so, I saw it at another site. I’ve been to that place — Corkscrew Swamp. Great place for birdwatching. I would have definitely pissed myself if that panther ran at me like that (if it’s the same vid).
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Chuck Todd said Sanders is outspending Clinton 6 to 1 in Wisconsin.
But he says if Sanders doesn’t equal Obama’s 2008 18 pt victory in Wisconsin then it will be a moot victory.
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: Read this article. It’s Rule 40(b) from the 2012 convention, apparently still in force:
In fact this is “subject to possible revision by a new Rules Committee meeting just prior to the 2016 gathering, and by the convention itself, which controls its own rules.”
Looks as if the fight over this rule–or more generally, over the question of whose name(s) will qualify to be “presented for nomination”–will be where the real action is.
The whole mishegoss reminds me of the 1972 Democratic convention, where the key struggle centered around which delegates would be seated to represent Illinois and California; had McGovern not won both of those fights he would not have had a majority on the first ballot & almost surely would not have been nominated. (The CA question went to a roll-call vote on the convention floor–I remember watching it on TV as a 22-year-old political junkie fully understanding what the stakes were.)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Drum points us to speculation that Ryan’s days as Speaker may be numbered. Doesn’t sound like he’s going to be the GOP savior. (That never sounded plausible to me anyway.)
I think it’ll be Trump. And then he’ll likely implode after getting the nomination but before the November election.
Cheers,
Scott.
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: Yes, that was it! Scary as hell.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Mike J:
Kay
The only one who worries me is Kasich. Don’t tell me he can’t win the primary! He doesn’t have to “win”. There are no rules that can’t be broken :)
This is nice though:
Baud
@Kay:
But does anyone want to break the rules for him?
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, I’ve gotten the impression for a while that the Trump supporters are the “Nixon/Reagan Democrats” (the people who switched parties between the late sixties and early eighties) and that Cruz supporters and the rest of the party are the John Bircher types. Or, if you prefer, the extreme right wingers who used to vote Democrat versus the extreme right wingers who were always Republicans.
For the Trump supporters, it’s all about race. They don’t really care about economics; they’ll go along with the economic royalism if it promises to screw black people, but they’ll respond equally well to economic populism the way Trump packages it. That corresponds pretty well to all the white Southerners and, in lesser measure, “ethnic white” Catholics, who happily supported the New Dealers as long as they were cool with racism and jumped ship for the Reaganites as soon as they no longer were.
For the Cruz supporters and the rest of the Republicans, the racism is part of it, but it’s entwined with an entire broader ideology in which things like religious fundamentalism and economic royalism are equally important. That corresponds with the John Birchers or their better-dressed and better-spoken cousins the William F. Buckley types; the die hard true believers who never accepted the New Deal and spent the entire 1950s and 1960s fighting to kill it, even after the dominant wings of both parties and the vast majority of the public had become okay with it.
All the talk of “extremists” versus “moderates” is off the mark – there are no moderates, just two different factions of equally extreme extremists who’re finally confronting their differences.
Iowa Old Lady
Kasich scares me too because he can sound plausible. Heck, in contrast to Trump and Cruz, he looks plausible.
Kay
@Baud:
I know but Ted Cruz. They hate him too and they know he’ll lose and they’re backing him. They’re tossing around Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan right now. By May they could be at Kasich.
Frankensteinbeck
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
There was no way they were going to love Ryan. I can’t believe the Teabaggers fell for it long enough to vote him in. Now they can’t get rid of him, the same way they couldn’t get rid of Boehner. Boehner had to quit. He had to beg Ryan to replace him. The Teabaggers didn’t have anybody to replace him, so they couldn’t fire him.
Particularly pathetic, because Boehner was the best friend they ever had. Without his unprecedented obstructionism in his phony Hastert Rule, the Teabaggers would have been nobody in the House and business would have continued as normal.
Betty Cracker
@Iowa Old Lady: The poor panther was scared shitless too! Here’s a link to a local news source with the video.
I recently had a dream that I saw a panther walking down the road in front of my house. It was so real that when I woke up, I panicked for a second, wondering where my dogs were. Never seen a panther in the wild. My husband has, though.
Steve in the ATL
@raven:
She’s a Southsider? Glad to see she overcame a bad childhood to become the awesome chick she is today.
Zinsky
My brother-in-law from Iowa who is very politically connected and is right more often than he is wrong says a Republican insider told him the fix is in and Trump is gonna get booted at the convention and Paul Ryan will be the nominee with Kasich as VP in the ratfuck of the century!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That’s my nightmare scenario.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Straight West.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s kind of funny that the GOP would rather lose the White House than support Kasich.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: I’m confident Kay had binders full of scandals on Kasich she can pull out if necessary.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: Ah. All I know is from the Union League Club up to Winnetka!
Origuy
@Zinsky: The Trumpistas will blame Barack and Hillary for fixing the nomination.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Steve in the ATL:
Big noise.
Baud
@Zinsky: that rumor chain is awfully long.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Baud: They might, because he looks and sounds moderate by comparison. He’s not; he’s just as far right as they are and thin-skinned and nasty and sanctimonious. But he knows how to talk without revealing that too overtly. Until someone annoys him. He’s looking really old and worn out up close – and I saw him in the fall of 2015, so he must look worse now.
Anya
No way Trump will lose. He has all the “the bitch had it coming,” “whites are victimized,” “greed is godly” votes.
Baud
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
He makes Hillary look like a dove in foreign affairs.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Especially if Cruz starts to do better v Trump and it starts to come clear to normal people how horrible Cruz is- then Cruz is the problem for the GOP and there’s John Kasich just waiting in the wings.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@raven:
Stop me if I’d told you this before, but Tony “Big Tuna” Accardo’s daughter Marie was in my graduating class at Oak Park-River Forest H.S. In the yearbook mock elections, she was voted Most Beautiful Girl. Pretty enough, certainly, but some of us wondered very hard about whether any pressure might have been brought to bear on the editors, or faculty advisor. Just wondering, you understand, not accusing anyone of anything….
Baud
@Kay: Once Cruz is on top, it’ll be hard to dislodge him. He actually has a base which is a large part of the GOP’s base.
Kay
@Baud:
I love how we’re all counting on them to follow their rules. These are the people who staged a riot to stop vote counting. Paid staff did that.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@raven:
@Steve in the ATL:
Taylor Avenue in Oak Park, not Street. Us mob enforcers get touchy about mixing that shit up.
Baud
@Kay: The GOP primary is now the Superbowl of Calvinball. It’s incredible.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: Are you telling me that Chicago is more complex than just Cubs or White Sox?
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Betty Cracker:
Those realer-than-real-life-reality dreams are actually kind of scary. A couple of nights ago I dreamt I had a hamburger at a chain restaurant (I almost never eat burgers) and the bill came to a very precise $206.50. I fussed about it in the dream and left a smaller than normal tip, but it was so real that when I woke up I actually pulled up my bank statement online to make sure I hadn’t incurred some ridiculous expense like that.
Keith P.
I actually think Trump is in the beginnings of what of the most epic chokes in election history. The last couple of days have been *really* bad, even on the Trump scale (particularly the abortion flip-flop and the nuclear Japan/Europe….so bad the Geneva Conventions bit barely made news and pushed his campaign mgr getting arrested for assault off the news)
I think Trump gets blown out in Wisconsin, giving the momentum to Cruz, they get a brokered convention where Cruz gets picked, giving Trump a coronary (the only way he doesn’t bolt the party with Lyin’ Ted getting picked over him)
Kay
@Baud:
I hope so. I’m kind of with Betty. Trump polls horribly head to head. Some of the air is going out of this parade balloon. They wake up from their stupor and there’s..Ted Cruz! “What have we done?” they say.
LAO
@SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer: if you ever need a lawyer, I’ve got some experience.
Gvg
Thanks to Betty I have just realized that even though Trump will lose, he isn’t going away for awhile. He’ll be like Palin and the media will run to him for an outrageous statement every time they need to have some controversy. Jerks.
Keith P.
@Keith P.: BTW: There is also a #NeverCruz movement. I was hanging around some folks last weekend and heard 2nd hand about a political consultant for Rubio saying he would vote for Clinton over Cruz based on….. (there was an implication made about the affairs, but I also took it that the guy just thinks Cruz is generally a scumbag). Surprises the hell out of me because the guy checks off every single box (including being a scumbag. I mean, how the hell was he catching flak for dirty politics? It’s the GOP!) A year ago, I would have almost put money on Cruz-Walker as the ticket, but most conservatives I’ve talked to don’t like the guy….and I live in Texas.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@Steve in the ATL:
There are many shibboleths, of which Cubbies vs. White Sox is but one.
When SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland met Illinois Senator Mark Kirk a few days ago, Kirk asked “Lou Malnati’s or L. Woods?” Garland, demonstrating his renowned ability to grasp all sides of complex issues, replied “Both.”
Kay
It is absolutely amazing 20,000 fast food workers did this:
redshirt
@LAO: If you ever need some muscle….
Kay
@Baud:
There’s truth to it. They really want to win.
Zinsky
@Baud: True, but we will see, won’t we?
Calouste
I’ve said this on an earlier thread, but the whole fantasies of Ryan/Kasich/Zombie taking over the convention and getting the nomination fail to deal with the rather inconvenient fact that the majority of the delegates at that convention are actually going to be hardcore Trumpentroopers and Cruzinistas, people who are fed up with the establishment and want to see a “real conservative” nominated. It’s not just that they represent those voters, it’s that the delegates themselves are like that as well.
cthulhu
@Matt McIrvin:
As someone pointed out above, the Rules Committee beforehand and the pertinent voting powers that be at the convention will be roughly proportional to the delegate counts. So, if anything, Trump and Cruz will have some initial leverage to prevent moves against them. The establishment’s best bet is to work a stalemate between the two for at least two votes to free up enough independently minded delegates and re-open the rules and expand the options.
It is not likely to go well. The Obvious Anagram may well have a coronary.
Keith P.
@Kay: I’m not sure if they can do both sane and likeable. For likeability, I think Paul-Graham would be a helluva ticket (except they probably don’t like each other). For sanity, I’m drawing a blank.
Actual Lindsey Graham joke: “He [Trump] makes Boehner look like an albino.”
Kay
@Keith P.:
I just think the base really wants to win and at some point they will realize that and the anger (Trump) and “principles” (Cruz) will go out the window and they’ll go along with whoever someone in charge tells them can beat Clinton.
Trump just made up all that shit about his broad appeal. There was never any real basis for it. So much of his appeal depends on his being perceived as a winner and people who are attracted to leaders because they’re “winners” aren’t real loyal when the winner starts to falter.
cthulhu
There is another secondary issue of Trump and Cruz going into the convention where neither has hit the magic number. We’re used to the conventions basically being a “coronation” and a big celebration of the predetermined candidate and the party with a lot of high production values and the elder and up-and-coming class coming together in speech after speech extolling the virtues of both the party and the candidate. Hard to see how this facet gets pulled together effectively under the circumstances. For example, does the RNC produce video biographies for Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Ryan, Romney, etc.?
Mai.naem.mobile
I think establishment GOP is assholish enough to do this. Give Trump the nomination, force him to accept somebody ‘normal’ as Veep. Have Trump go on a helicopter ride. Crash. Veep takes over and wins the WH on wave of sympathy. Yeah,crazy but no crazier than negotiating with the N.Vietnamese and the Ayatollah.
kimp
I think this giant “punk” has an it’s course. He never really wanted this office, he just does not want to be irrelevant. the Office would overwhelm him in less than a week.
Matt McIrvin
@Calouste:
Are they? I’ve been hearing a lot of blatantly contradictory things about this. Some people say they’re mostly party hacks who are lukewarm at best about they candidates they’re representing, others say they’re true believers, still others claim it used to be one way but has changed this year (but in which direction is unclear).
Paul in KY
Am somewhat concerned that with Cleveland being a heavily Democratic city, there might be some protests/interactions that would echo Chicago 68.