Charles #Koch says #PaulRyan is a "shoo-in" at the convention if #DonaldTrump falls short: source https://t.co/tn0Im21bF1 via @HuffPostPol
— Dr. David Romei (@DavidRomeiPHD) April 4, 2016
Politico‘s Mike Allen is very excited about this week’s GOP fantasy savior:
On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention.
One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan — ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee…
Ryan, who’s more calculating and ambitious than he lets on, is running the same playbook he did to become speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to not want it — and to be begged to do it… Of course in this environment, saying you don’t want the job is the only way to get it. If he was seen to be angling for it, he’d be stained and disqualified by the current mess.
But Ryan, 46, a likable Midwesterner, could look too tempting to resist as Republicans finally focus on a beatable Hillary Clinton. He got rave reviews for a “State of American Politics” speech on March 23 (hashtag on his podium: “#ConfidentAmerica,” the title of his high-minded manifesto at the Library of “#ConfidentAmerica,” the title of his high-minded manifesto at the Library of Congress in December). In the “State of Politics” address, Ryan offered himself as the anti-Trump (without mentioning The Don): “Politics can be a battle of ideas, not insults.”
On “Morning Joe” Monday morning, Joe Scarborough said that if Trump falls even one vote short of a clinch, the convention will “look for someone else”: “If Trump doesn’t get the number, they’ll say they have rules for a reason.” And Karl Rove told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt last week: “A fresh face might be the thing that would give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary.”…
At least one CNBC analyst picks up the megaphone:
… More and more, it’s apparent a Republican leader who never was a candidate for president would have to be the compromise nominee if we do get a truly brokered convention. And despite all his protestations, House Speaker Paul Ryan would be the most likely choice in that kind of scenario. I’m not saying Ryan would necessarily be the best candidate, but he’s already been called upon to save the party once and it’s likely he would be again for a number of reasons. His experience as the vice presidential nominee four years ago means he will have at least a few people close to him experienced in national campaigning.
The fact that Ryan has not really attacked Trump or Cruz so far in this mean season will make him much more palatable to both camps’ delegates. He’s even wisely staying out of the country while his home state of Wisconsin holds this crucial primary today, (he voted absentee). And most importantly, he’s not named “Cruz” or “Trump.”…
According to The Hill, Ryan himself is shyly scuffing his feet, as any ‘surprise’ ‘compromise’ candidate would…
…“I do believe people put my name in this thing, and I say, ‘Get my name out of that,’” he said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” “If you want to be president, you should go run for president. And that’s just the way I see it.
“I’m not that person. I’d like to think my face is somewhat fresh, but I’m not for this conversation. I think you need to run for president if you’re going to run for president, and I’m not running for president. Period, end of story.”
Ryan also voiced uncertainty over the Republican National Convention in July, arguing it might have different rules than the 2012 version…
If thou be willing, remove this cup from me… Mr. Charles P. Pierce, in his part-time job as political theatre critic, judges that “Paul Ryan Is Very Bad at Pretending to Not Run for President”. Jon Chait, at NYMag, is even more dismissive of this idea, and of Ryan’s acting skills:
… Republican elites fervently, desperately hope that this [deadlocked convention] scenario would lead to Ryan securing the nomination. It is hard to think of a more natural fit to rescue them. If the United States had a parliamentary system, Ryan would be the Republican leader. No other figure combines the roles of public communicator and chief ideologist in quite the same way. Asked about such an instance by John Harwood, Ryan all but said he would take the job. (“You know, I haven’t given any thought to this stuff. People say, ‘What about the contested convention?’ I say, well, there are a lot of people running for president. We’ll see. Who knows?”)…
… Ryan’s history is to acquire a reputation as lacking ambition even as he rockets up the ranks. His repeated denials of interest in serving as Speaker of the House were, in retrospect, merely a negotiation over the terms under which he’d accept the job. (The rebellious House Freedom Caucus, the counterparty to the negotiation, turned down Ryan’s demands. He accepted the job anyway.)…
Sometimes politicians have reasons to stoke presidential speculation without having an intention to run. Maybe they’re gauging potential interest, or maybe they’re looking to attract media attention to elevate their profile. Ryan has no such motivation. If he wanted to rule out getting the nomination at the convention, he could simply state he wouldn’t accept it. He hasn’t.
And Paul Waldman, at the Washington Post‘s Plum Line, reiterates that “No, Paul Ryan can’t ride in to save the GOP”:
… The trouble is that nominating Ryan brings its own set of difficulties. The first and most obvious is that a contested convention where party leaders install their own candidate against the will of their voters will validate everything those voters have come to believe about the establishment: that it’s out of touch, that it doesn’t know how to win, that it doesn’t care about what they think, and that it views them with nothing but contempt. According to a new McClatchy poll, 65 percent of Republicans say that if Trump doesn’t get the nomination, it should go to someone who ran for president this year. Other polls in recent weeks have found similar numbers when they asked variations on this question: However you put it, at least six in ten Republican voters seem opposed to the white knight scenario. Which means that come fall, significant numbers of those Trump and Cruz voters might choose to stay home.
It wouldn’t just be the manner in which Ryan got the nomination that would infuriate anti-establishment Republicans. It would also be the fact that as much as anyone, he represents the elite GOP consensus on economic issues. Unlike Trump, he’s an advocate of free trade, his zeal for upper-income tax cuts is as strong as anyone’s, and there’s no more prominent proponent in Washington of privatizing Medicare… So Ryan couldn’t sustain that anger that’s making at least some Republicans excited about this year’s election.
There’s also a misperception within Washington about Ryan’s appeal to the public. For years, he has gotten glowing press coverage, as he has convinced members of the media that he’s a serious policy wonk (despite the abundance of magic asterisks in all his budget plans), and that he’s simultaneously an up-and-comer climbing rapidly up the ladder and one who isn’t ambitious to any unseemly degree. But there’s little reason to think that the electorate does or would share that high opinion of him. Ryan didn’t exactly set the world on fire as a vice presidential candidate four years ago, and Democrats would have no trouble painting him as a representative of the elite whose main goals are to cut taxes for the wealthy and dismantle Medicare…
Maybe we Democrats should be rooting for a Ryan candidacy? I have to admit, looking back at Joe Biden’s efficient brutalizing of the GOP’s blue-eyed boy in 2012, watching him attempt to debate Hillary Clinton would be a schadenfreudalicious joy. But I doubt even Reince Preibus is dumb or desperate enough to give us that viewing opportunity.
Trying to placate Trump supporters with Paul Ryan would be like Democrats trying to win Sanders' voters by putting Bloomberg on the ticket
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) April 4, 2016
Baud
Maybe I should be the nominee of both parties.
Chyron HR
Paul Ryan knows how DC works, and also Marvel.
kindness
I could hardly hate Politico more. Especially that Allen crazoid. And let us not get started on the comments over there.
Major Major Major Major
My text message alerts take more than a minute. This is unacceptable.
And if it’s an open thread, you know what that means: shameless self promotion! New chapter on the fish story, a good one! https://imjustthisguyyouknow.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/the-fish-2-18/
Paul
The Donald should be reeeeealllly pissed!! THIRD PARTY………THIRD PARTY!!!
Villago Delenda Est
The Donald WILL take revenge on the GOP for “disrespecting him”. Some of them will live to regret their actions, but some will not survive the bloodbath to issue any regrets.
Splitting Image
So Paul Ryan is going to be their saviour?
This Paul Ryan?
Bring him on.
Trollhattan
Holeee-sheeeeyit, I’d so love for the Kochs and their sycophants to try this stunt. The Trump howler monkeys would have an absolute eye-bleeding screech-fest then rip the joint apart.
And that would be sad.
Have we finally earned the right to view the Republican Party blown up in plain sight?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
These people never learn.
Yet another spokesmodel: Quayle, Palin, Rubio, and now Ryan
I mean, Biden exposed him for the hollow vacuous know-nothing person he is.
Villago Delenda Est
Paul Ryan is a “likeable midwesterner” only to guys like Mike Allen whose head, like Ryan’s, would look better on a pike than on his shoulders.
D58826
Totally OT but Bernie had a sit-down interview with the NY Daily News and it didn’t go well. He isn’t sure about how he would break up the big banks. He is certain that the CEO’s would handle the details. These are the same CEO’s that he has repeated said broke the law in 2008 and should be prosecuted. When asked about specific crimes he wasn’t really sure which ones but there must be some. He wasn’t able to provide detailed answers to the Israeli/Palestinian issue because he did have any notes with him. He admitted he hadn’t thought much about what he would do if the US captured major terrorist leaders. He thought maybe he would find a place close to where they were captured to imprison them. He wasn’t sure what the right policy towards ISIS should be.
Even Trump has better answers.
Icedfire
Oh, but didn’t you hear? Paul Ryan has realized that it was wrong to refer to the poor and downtrodden as takers, and boy is he ever sorry.
Pay no attention to the vicious privatizer behind the curtain, though.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The President hugs Kemba Smith, one of the formerly incarcerated individuals who have received commutations(photo)
To date, the President has now commuted the sentences of 248 individuals – more than the previous six Presidents combined. And, in total, he has commuted 92 life sentences. (Graph-Chart)
Csbella
@Baud: many republicans would then sit out the election because they would be confused about who to vote for.
Miss Bianca
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Have I mentioned that I *love* our President? : )
geg6
@D58826:
Yeah, I posted a link to it on my FB page. My Bernista friends have been mysteriously silent ever since. LOL! Bernie is dangerously close to Caribou Barbie levels of incoherence there. At least he mostly uses full sentences with recognizable nouns, verbs and…well…words, unlike Palin. But it’s a seriously terrible interview and frightening that someone this unprepared has come this close to the nomination on our side. The revolution is a fucking joke.
JPL
@D58826: NO problem. Mexico will break up our banks.
Brachiator
HuffPo headline:
“Koch” and “snatch” should never be used together in a political story.
Baud
@Csbella: True, Cleek’s Law would reach a point of singularity if that happened.
Major Major Major Major
@Csbella: anybody who votes republican is already confused about who to vote for
Baud
Paul Ryan — Like Scott Walker, but without the charisma.
gratuitous
The reason Ryan may think his “Aw shucks, I don’ wanna be no President” act will work is because it’s totally bowled over the likes of Mike Allen.Yeah, Clinton would carve Ryan up into little bite-sized pieces in the general.
debbie
Hopefully, that’s the kiss of death for Ryan’s Hope.
Has anyone else started seeing yard signs that say, “Hillary for Prison 2016”? I’ve driven by a couple.
cokane
Im looking forward to the rage and perhaps even violent acts of Trump supporters should this happen. You built this!
geg6
@debbie:
Jesus. Where the hell do you live?
schrodinger's cat
Paul Ryan is the Beltway’s blue eyed boy, I was wondering who they were going to crush after Rubio’s hopes were dashed.
Baud
@debbie: It’ll get nastier than that, I’m afraid.
Brachiator
@D58826:
Yeah, it was a shabby performance. Especially the stuff dealing with Wall Street, which should be Sanders’ signature move, was just embarrassingly feeble.
I like Bernie, but I expected much more from someone who had been in the Senate for so long, and is so big on his economic solutions.
hamletta
Roger Stone says he’ll send Trumpsters to delegates’ hotel rooms if he doesn’t get the nom:
debbie
@geg6:
Central Ohio. The area is largely Democratic, but there remain a few fascist holdouts.
debbie
@debbie:
ETA: I’m going to keep an eye on the corner. I bet more than a few of the neighbors will take exception to the signs.
hamletta
@Brachiator: If he’s been so all-fired hacked off about this for seven years, he should be able to cite, chapter and verse, where federal prosecutors dropped the ball.
Fuck him.
Baud
@srv: And more hydrated.
schrodinger's cat
@srv: And no comb over.
Hal
Isn’t this Ryan’s only hope of being President? I was under the impression that house speakers don’t generally become presidential candidates. Ryan is young though, but it seems to me he would be better off waiting a few years if he has any chance at all to begin with.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
The Kochs and their sycophants are in the corner, huddling with their Paul Ryan doll, repeating over and over “Hillary will be indicted Hillary will be indicted Hillary will be indicted…”
Mike J
@Hal:
Historically, most would consider it a step down. That was when they could tell their caucus how to vote and it happened. It’s not like that now,
Archon
Can someone explain to me why Republicans giving the nomination to Paul Ryan in Cleveland isn’t a disastrous idea. He is the leader of a branch of Congress with 10 percent approval ratings???
I know Republican strategist is kind of an oxymoron nowadays but I truly don’t get the idea behind a Paul Ryan presidential run.
lollipopguild
@Villago Delenda Est: Come on now-tell us what you really feel. Do not hold back.
redshirt
@Chyron HR: Zack Snyder for Republican Nominee!
He is producing/directing an upcoming version of The Fountainhead, so you know he’s perfect.
Dan
@D58826:
yeah, I’m starting to see reactions pop up to that interview and they are Not Kind. Shakesville has a handy Child’s Treasury of Responses To That One Sanders Interview.
He really comes off as the (more grammatically coherent) Trump of the left, and it’s painful.
NotMax
John Boehner is rested and ready.
;)
different-church-lady
OT: In light of the drubbing Sanders took here earlier today for his performance in front of the New York Daily News, I thought you all might find this from the GOS to be interesting.
(PS: putting my marker on moderation for two links because FYWP)
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: P.P.S.: I lose!
Mike in NC
Ryan was the Koch brothers’ selection to be Rmoney’s 2012 running mate; nobody thought Mitt came up with the idea himself. It wasn’t in his programming.
chopper
oh lol, that would be so much fail.
Cacti
Where did the myth begin that Paul Ryan is a bright guy?
different-church-lady
@D58826:
Well, it’s easy to do that when you just pull shit out of your ass.
Once again, Harry Frankfurt’s distinction between lying and bullshitting comes into play.
elisabeth
@debbie: Like my hometown, Westerville :(
different-church-lady
@chopper: Do they still do the black smoke/white smoke thing?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Holy fuck. I can’t begin to think what would happen in Cleveland if the republican Party somehow wrested the nomination away from not only the guy who ends up in first, but the guy who comes in right behind him too. At this point, if there aren’t gunfights that break out at the convention, I’ll be floored. And I don’t mean that as hyperbole, either. I fully expect to see somebody get shot at that convention.
Cat48
The guy on msnbc says Kasich will be picked bc he can beat Hillary, Trump & Cruz cannot. He’s acting like they always pick nominees this way. I don’t think that’s true??
bystander
Sander’s lack of coherence may be a result of the non-stop campaigning. I never heard any real substance behind the pie in the sky stuff, so nothing new there, but he was more cogent than he is in the interview.
debbie
@Cat48:
Anyone familiar with Kasich will tell you he can’t beat her. Should he be nominated, the oppo research will be overwhelming. He won’t be able to just shrug it off with a goofy smile as he has been doing in Ohio.
PaulWartenberg2016
NOTE TO PAUL RYAN:
Just a reminder, every so-called Republican Savior ended up crashing and burning.
Enjoy.
debbie
@elisabeth:
Good lord, Kasich’s stomping grounds, right?
Baud
@D58826:
I’ve expressed concern about Sanders coming back to win it late because he hadn’t been getting put through his paces in this primary. Regardless of who one supports, I think most people agree that Bernie has made Hillary a better candidate. I’m not sure it’s worked the other way because of how primary dynamics have played out.
Like everyone else, I believe Bernie has a good shot in the general against Trump or Cruz, but I’m more concerned about his ability to beat a “traditional” Republican like Paul Ryan (or Kasich), who will have full Village support. Even Hillary would have a very hard time in that situation.
On a more positive note, I hear Iceland is looking for a new prime minister. I may go north if this country goes south in November.
Cacti
@Cat48:
I’m not sure that they can pick Kasich.
I remember reading that the RNC has a bylaw that among the candidates who contest the nomination, they have to have won at least 8 or 10 primaries//caucuses to be nominated at the national convention.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: I get no joy whatsoever from the Sanders/Trump comparison, but there are times when I feel like the yin and yang pattern is just impossible to ignore.
chopper
@D58826:
jesus, that smacks of ross perot in an interview saying he could answer the question “if i had my charts with me”. ugh.
D58826
@bystander: I don’t know, after non-stop campaigning for POTUS and discussing the banking issues for years, he should be able to close his eyes and read the detailed answer off of the inside of his eyelids. As far as the pie in the sky stuff then what makes him any different than any other politician as opposed to the savior of the republic image that his followers believe in. .
Baud
@Cacti:
When he proposed to cut entitlements.
sigaba
@chopper: In the 19th century they would go out to hundreds of ballots on occasion. Four would be a catastrophe by post-war standards, but you get the feeling that they’d have to break that seal before they had a pretext to nominate Ryan, otherwise it looks too much like a fix.
chopper
@different-church-lady:
certainly there’s a lot of drugs involved i can tell you that much.
chopper
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
yeah i imagine trump is gonna be pissed enough, but cruz is gonna be straight-up livid.
Davis X. Machina
@hamletta:
@D58826:
Does it matter if Bernie’s a little vague on these points?
Once the banks are nationalized, the good folks at Treasury, the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Fed, etc take over, and Bob’s your uncle. They’re all highly professional.
It’s not really necessary for the President to have detailed knowledge of such things.
Now, the nuclear triad on the other hand…. ignorance or imprecision there is different.
Origuy
A friend of mine has a hypothesis: Have you ever seen Donald Trump and Andy Kaufman together?
WarMunchkin
@Brachiator: I like Bernie, too – I like to see the good in people and at least appreciate them for what they’ve done to move the ball forward. But I’m extremely unhappy about that interview. At the end of the day, you can’t elect an ideology, you have to elect a person – and that person has to be competent and capable of answering questions regarding how the country can accomplish its goals.
Actually, I was mortified this morning when I read it. It’s not even about presidential candidates… this guy is a sitting United States Senator who has a responsibility to ably represent a state in the Union. And he can’t even answer how he’d do what he wants to do, for the cause of his life?
I think it was the Atlantic who wrote today something like: Democratic voters will have to choose between Sanders’ ignorance and Clinton’s past poor judgement. And that about sums it up for me. Head. Desk.
D58826
@efgoldman: Trump is in it for the scam. Given how well Bernie has been doing I would think he would have hit the briefing books a little more, esp. on his signature economic issues
Cacti
@Dan:
Mother Jones has had a few articles about how Bernie has some good sounding big ideas, that are poorly thought out in practice.
Like his pledge to end fracking: could actually be worse for the environment b/c power plants would turn back to coal vs. natural gas.
Or his pledge to rid the the country of nuclear power: without specifying what replace the 19% of our power grid it generates.
And so on.
Bernie is the proverbial dog that caught the car. After 25 years being a gadfly, he’s short on workable solutions for his ideas.
chopper
@Cacti:
they can change the bylaw if they want, likely pretty easily.
redshirt
@Cacti: If that’s the case, then surely Ryan can’t be nominated, right?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@efgoldman: Still, he’s been in the Senate and congress for 25 years. How can he have such a shocking lack of knowledge when it’s his job. I’m mean rank and file people who post comments on this site have 100 times more depth. And we’re not paid to do it, we do it out of natural curiosity. My take is he doesn’t like to read, and since he runs without any competition in vermont, he’s never had to hone his skills or learn how to construct arguments from beginning to end.
JaneE
Ryan has already proved he cannot even manage the house, so he must be ready for a promotion. GOP logic amazes me.
Cat48
@Cacti
Each convention writes new rules and that rule may not be in there! Per, GOP’s Atty Ginsburg whose on TV constantly. They’re really screwing Trump & his voters!
@Debbie. I agree that Kasich is beatable, but he polls 10-11 pts ahead of HRC right now
redshirt
I hope this happens.
But truthfully, I have so many hopes for the Republican convention. All of them disastrous for their chances for VICTORY.
different-church-lady
@Dan:
The “Dean Scream” can take many forms, I guess.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti:
From Shakesville, the money quote for me:
I’m just shaking my head. How can anybody take this guy seriously?
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Yeah, Sen. Sanders’s supporters here typically demonstrate a much more sophisticated grasp of the issues than the candidate does in this interview.
Trollhattan
@Brachiator:
This line is a thing of beauty, as it documents their belief…no, certainty the nomination is rightfully “theirs,” it was “taken from them” and they’re going to “snatch it back” as is their right and their obligation.
“Look here, it’s all scruffed up and it seems something has chewed it. Send it out for cleaning and get it back here, right away!”
If anybody would care to see how the Republican Party operates, this is as open as they can possibly be about it.
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
I hear this a lot, and it’s probably true. I don’t think Sanders expected to do as well as he is doing. That said, it’s worth asking why in fact he did catch the car.
WarMunchkin
@different-church-lady: The ‘Dean Scream’ is not a valid analogy here. That was a trumped-up, nonsensical thing that didn’t happen, like Al Gore’s “inventing the internet”, that used people’s pre-existing biases to slander a candidate that the mainstream press found unappealing.
What happened today was just gentle journalism.
Brachiator
@WarMunchkin:
Yeah. Great summary by the Atlantic.
Damn, I almost wish Obama would declare martial law and take over.
Just kidding. No, serious. Really, just kidding.
John Revolta
@Linnaeus: It’ll be worth asking, if and when he actually catches the car.
debbie
@Cat48:
Right now, Kasich is an unknown quantity. When it becomes apparent he’s Reagan Lite without the Geniality, he’ll be mocked off the stage. Kasich’s resumé may be longer than Dan Quayle’s, but their weightiness is the same.
MattF
Remember the Brinks Trucks? I don’t think Ryan will get the nomination unless the Brinks Trucks Mark II are fitted out with turrets and automatic weapons. Could happen, though.
different-church-lady
@WarMunchkin: I sort of agree — thought of that after hitting post. But incompletely speaking, there’s a comparison in the idea that it really seems like it might be the inflection point.
BR
I keep having this feeling that if my preferred candidate this cycle, Elizabeth Warren, had run, she would have never been so embarrassingly clueless when it comes to a signature issue like Wall Street reform. She knows that stuff inside and out, and would have had both the effective and passionate rhetoric and also some real understanding of how things work. I had been thinking of Sanders as a flawed but reasonable messenger for the message she would have carried, but he’s looking more and more flawed than I expected.
Baud
@different-church-lady: The Dean Scream occurred after Dean had already lost Iowa badly.
@debbie: I actually think they would choose Ryan over Kasich, so I’m less worried about Kasich.
Linnaeus
@John Revolta:
Sanders, though he will still lose the nomination, is doing better than anyone expected against a candidate who, going into this race, was probably the most strongly positioned for the Democratic nomination than any other non-incumbent has been for years. That’s noteworthy.
Turgidson
If the GOP’s “establishment” and billionaire donor/owner class think the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver is the antidote to Trump fever, they’re truly the stupidest fucking people on the planet.
Paul Ryan is a walking embodiment of everything the Trump and Cruz voters are revolting against. Wants to kill Medicare and Social Security. OK with open borders, which provide his paymasters with cheap, exploitable labor. Establishment lifer to his bones. Isn’t an obnoxious vulgar loudmouth (Trump) or sanctimonious scold (Cruz) about how minorities are ruining Amurka for God fearin’ white folk.
If the party declares the Granny Starver the nominee by fiat at the convention, the party really will split in two, perhaps irretrievably.
Hey, wait a minute…
…thinking….
GRANNY STARVER 2016! SCREW THE “VOTERS” GRANNY STARVER 2016!
Baud
@BR: I agree. Warren is strong on rhetoric, substance, and party dynamics.
sigaba
@Baud: Not that winning Iowa is very important. It was important to PBO but only because it permanently shut up all the nattering about the “Bradley Effect.” He lost Iowa but he was still a force to contend with.
Baud
@Linnaeus:
It would be interesting to dissect. I believe, however, that the Sanders phenomenon will get lost in the analysis of the Trump phenomenon this year.
Baud
@sigaba: True. Although Dean came in third, and he lost the lead late.
different-church-lady
Oh… my… god….
Me: THAT’S WHAT THEY JUST FUCKING ASKED YOU!
Cacti
Just read more of the Sanders/NYDN interview, and bloody hell…
His answer for why he doesn’t support the Palestinians filing war crimes charges against Israel at the ICC was “Because shut up, that’s why.”
Not that anyone in the country will care about the above, but internationally, it makes him sound like a total naif.
debbie
@Baud:
I agree about Ryan, but I’ve yet to hear anyone like Glenn Beck saying Ryan would be acceptable.
ShadeTail
So the GOP is turning to the man who Joe Biden spanked like a red-headed stepchild four years ago. What a great idea. Seriously, is there anyone the GOP could nominate who wouldn’t make me laugh and reach for the popcorn?
Thoughtful David
@debbie:
Kasich winning the general assumes that the Trumpenproletariat and Cruzoids who have been “cheated” out of their candidates’ noms don’t take their balls and go home or run out and start third or fourth parties.
Baud
@debbie: It’s hard to imagine them not gelling. But this whole year is so weird, who knows?
Turgidson
@Cacti:
Whoever it was upstream who said “Bernie is the dog who caught the car” nailed it. He was well-suited to be a member of Congress shooting spitballs at everyone who made crooked deals or compromises, or even as a protest candidate for president. He hasn’t shown much interest or aptitude for being a serious contender for president or careful author or shepherd of policy.
But he now seems to be convinced that the country needs him, and only him, as president if it wants to move forward. I don’t really blame him. I imagine starting out so far behind and winning a surprising number of states has an effect on even the most humble or grounded politicians. Even Obama, perhaps the most self-controlled politician in history, left off some whiffs of arrogance after Iowa. But I sure do hope that, after a few of the delegate-rich closed primaries go by and he is either further behind or barely any closer – thus closing his already-extremely-narrow window to a pledged delegate win, he shifts into “support the nominee” mode. Just today Weaver was on the teevee machine saying Bernie’s campaign might not lift a finger to rally young voters to Hillary. I hope that’s just empty blather. The experience of 2008 makes me think Bernie and his supporters will come around in time, but this is the Democrats we’re talking about, so allow me my anxiety.
Villago Delenda Est
@ShadeTail: John McCain? No, been there, done that.
Mitt Romney? No, been there, done that.
Tom Cotton? No, will be there, will do that.
John Revolta
@Linnaeus: Oh, I agree. I’m just splitting metaphorical hairs. I suppose I would say that it’s worth asking why he came as close to the car as he did.
Tom Q
@John Revolta: Can I suggest that the Dems’ proportional allocation of delegates is making Sanders look closer to catching the car than he actually is? I went through the states we’ve finished with so far and found that, if all of them had been winner-take-all, Clinton’s lead would be around 1000 pledged delegates — MI and WA are the only triple-digit states in which Sanders has triumphed, where Clinton has won half a dozen, and most of Sanders’ most notable victories have been in states with small delegate allocations. Even while getting clobbered in the Southern states, for example, Sanders picks up a decent number of delegates, because you have to fall below 15% to be totally boxed out, and there are enough dedicated liberals in just about any state to keep him above that line.
The converse, of course, is that this is why Sanders is now further from the nomination than he may appear: because, even if he beats Clinton in the overwhelming majority of upcoming contests, she will continue to accumulate delegates in that same way, making it impossible (barring catastrophe) for him to surpass her tally. (In fact, the states on 4/19 & 4/26 are likely to significantly extend her lead, but that’s another issue.)
Basically, Clinton looks to be doing weakly only by comparison to, say, the way Al Gore ran the table on Bill Bradley, but 1) Bradley didn’t have near the money Sanders does, and 2) I honestly don’t remember if the proportional system was as firmly in place then.
RaflW
@David Canadian Anchor Baby Koch:
Well, OK. But we had Bush Jr. for 8 years of hollow vacuous know-nothing ‘leadership.’ So the GOP isn’t entirely wrong to think the formula can work.
Petorado
If Trump supporters like their guy precisely because he’s not part of the GOP Establishment and says nasty things because he “tells it like it is”, why would they then support an Establishment puppet who hasn’t spent a day on the campaign trail and goes around saying things that belie his true ambitions? This may not work out like they plan.
Gvg
Ryan being given the nomination only looks like a disaster in normal year terms. Sure it will break the party and cause an epic loss. So will all the other alternatives. So what difference does it make? Maybe they think it will be less permanently bad. I can’t understand them anyway.
Result might actually be something getting rid of the electoral college by constitutional amendment or at least codifying how primaries work in law.
Ryan hasn’t seemed altruistic in the past but he does seem to have real interest in his party. He might be avoiding saying no chance because things look so bad he can’t rule anything out. He did accept speaker which currently seems like a horrible job.
RaflW
@Brachiator: It does seem that the bridge from critique to policy proposals isn’t so easy. I’m no Bernie-bro, but it would seem that running flat out doesn’t actually allow that much time for policy thinking. Which isn’t really a defense since he’s been harping on the issues for years. So I do think this will hurt Sanders, outside of his base, and of course post-Wisconsin since the Post item is new info.
ShadeTail
@RaflW:
That’s true as far as it goes. On the other hand, Dubya ran in 2000 and 2004 against Democrats who didn’t run competent campaigns. But Obama/Biden seem to have demonstrated that when the clown runs against someone who *is* competent, the majority votes for competency. And I think both Clinton and Sanders would run a marvelously competent campaign when the general comes around.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
You going to use that pike to pull his head out of his ass first? Or are you just planning to stick the entire mess up in the air?
J R in WV
@Cacti:
Yes, but the rules committee gets there first, and can rewrite those rules as they (and their party bosses) see fit. So nothing is actually set in stone until Paul Ryan beats the podium with the magic gavel. Fascinating to watch so far, can’t wait for the main shew !!!
mclaren
@MattF:
Nobody on this thread is thinking things through.
In order for Ryan to snag the nomination, he would have to have a cabal of Republican insiders tweaking and fiddling with the rules to help him. Ryan would also need lots of nefarious backstabbing by sinister ratfvckers working behind the scenes to bribe delegates who were committed to Trump to vote for someone else on the second ballot if Trump does’t get the 1,237 delegates required to win on the first ballot.
Think about what that means, folks!
It means for the ratfvcking that the Republicans have formerly reserved for stealing elections from Democrats will now be turned against other Republicans.
This will create such eruptions of outrage that it will split the Republican party. As the Trumpenproletariat see themselves getting ratfvcked out of what they perceive their “rightful candidate,” they will become giddy with fury and bolt the party. Open warfare will break out. Editorials will rage back and forth between maddened wings of the fractured Republican party in a frenzy of hate and resentment. The Trumpenproletariat will rebel, denouncing the “tyranny of the Republican elites” and howling against “a handful of weathy insiders who have rigged the Republican convention to thwart the will of the people.”
In turn, the pro-Ryan cabal will crank up the Mighty Wurlitzer to condemn the Trump supporters, attacking half their own party as “no-neck troglodytes who stand for racism and protectionism and want to lead us back into the 19th century.”
This split in the Republican party is likely to prove as damaging long-term as the schism in the Democratic party was in 1968. The Hubert Humphrey debacle (in which a last-minute substitute candidate despised by a significant portion of the Democratic base was forced in at the last minute to shut out other candidates who were much more appealing to the base, but unelectable because of their antiwar stance) is the exact analogy for this situation. And we saw what happened after 1968. It took the Democratic party 20 years to recover. Large blocs of voters split from the Democrats and eventually became Reagan Democrats.
This suggests that the voters who split from the Republican party this time will eventually become Democratic voters, leading to a generational dominance by Democrats in the House, senate, and Supreme Court.
Good times.
DesertFriar
@Cacti:
I don’t have the … It would take me too long to go through all of the math
mclaren
@RaflW:
Neither Bernie nor his supporters are stupid or ignorant. The real antinomy is that solving the problems Bernie has identified requires such novel solutions that the public would be shocked if Bernie put them forward directly. Solutions like a guaranteed minimum income, or social credit.
So what Bernie is proposing to use standard traditional policies to try to solve the problems of income inequality and dominance by billionaires and an out-of-control military-industrial and prison-industrial complex he has identified. Then, when those conventional solutions prove ineffective, it will build public pressure for the necessary but previously unthinkable more radical solutions.
FDR used the same technique. FDR ran on balancing the budget. It turned out that his initial policies didn’t work, so he was forced to move to much less conventional means of ending the Great Depression — the alphabet agencies, social security, the Pecora Commission, setting up the FDIC, and so on. By the time he proposed those more radical policies the public was ready to support him because it was clear by then that the more conventional policies FDR had tried earlier just weren’t working.
mclaren
@Cacti:
See the asterisks in his speeches. It’s all explained in the footnotes.
mclaren
@ShadeTail:
I totally disagree. Al Gore ran an excellent campaign in 2000. And he won the election. That’s proof right there.
mclaren
@ShadeTail:
No.
This has been another edition of “short answers to simple questions.”
mclaren
@Linnaeus:
More than that, it has big political consequences going forward. If Hillary is the nominee, it means that when she becomes president she can’t just do a hard pivot to the far right and crank up a bunch of Republican lite policies to triangulate her way to popularity. The mood of the electorate has shifted. Hillary is going to have to pivot left if she wants to maintain the support of the electorate and the Democratic party throughout her presidency.
mclaren
In other news, the latest Singularity hype claims that full mind transfer to computers should be possible by 2050.
That’s great news for Paul Ryan, because it means he’ll be able to upload his entire consciousness into a pocket calculator.
The Lodger
@debbie: I always thought of Ryan as a shoe-blob myself.
The Lodger
@different-church-lady: Not unless someone started a bonfire in the arena. And, before you ask, I would never suggest that.
AnotherBruce
So they want to anoint Paul Ryan, because Trump. But what about Cruz? He won a significant number of delegates. So are his supporters just going to take this sitting down? The other significant part of this is obviously the Koch brothers. It would establish once and for all that the Republican party is just a vehicle for old rich guys. Not that anyone is surprised but it’s nice that they have come out of the closet for their complete and utter disdain for representative democracy. We need to beat these assholes like a gong come November.
prob50
@Baud:
Who would be your VP nominee? Would it be the same for both parties?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Ignoring the Trump + Cruz supporter freakout…Nominate a guy who hasn’t put together a campaign organization and hasn’t given a single stump speech? What could possibly go wrong with that?