The Koch Brothers Read Angry Bear! [links fixed]
Yep. As I said, a monkey could beat Rubio in the general election. So maybe the Republicans should urge a monkey to run as a third-party candidate. Someone who works for the Koch brothers’ super PAC, maybe? — Me, here, Feb. 24
OMG!
Okay, if you think the timing of this is a coincidence you are soooo wrong.
____
UPDATE!: Reader Amateur Socialist and I have exchanged the following comments in the Comments thread:
Amateur Socialist
February 27, 2016 2:16 pm
… meanwhile the twitter machine spewed this relevant scenario:
“Donald we convinced all of your delegates to vote for Marco Rubio on the second ballot”
“Ok well it was a good run give my best to Marco!”
https://twitter.com/darth/status/703639540502654976
I guess I can moderate my disappointment at Madame Secretary’s coronation with the unholy war of egos at the center of the GOP this weekend.
Me
February 27, 2016 5:59 pm
Ah. Well, that’ll save the Kochs the trouble of finding a monkey. Trump’s best to Marco will be a third party run. Meaning Marco will play the role of spoiler for Trump. Unless of course Trump’s delegates decide instead to vote for a REAL monkey on the second ballot.
Something like that. It’s all so confusing.
Just wanted to make sure y’all didn’t miss this. Because I know you would not have wanted to miss this.
Breaking links to pages? How ominous…
Funnnny, Amateur S.
(But thanks.)
anytime… meanwhile the twitter machine spewed this relevant scenario:
“Donald we convinced all of your delegates to vote for Marco Rubio on the second ballot”
“Ok well it was a good run give my best to Marco!”
https://twitter.com/darth/status/703639540502654976
I guess I can moderate my disappointment at Madame Secretary’s coronation with the unholy war of egos at the center of the GOP this weekend.
Ah. Well, that’ll save the Kochs the trouble of finding a monkey. Trump’s best to Marco will be a third party run. Meaning Marco will play the role of spoiler for Trump. Unless of course Trump’s delegates decide instead to vote for a REAL monkey on the second ballot.
Something like that. It’s all so confusing.
Way to go GOP. As is typical with people who do not know how to govern or manage, they wait until the last minute to investigate a “plan B”. And, nothing guarantees a Democratic victory more than splitting the GOP vote between two “republican” candidates.
Republican excellence at work again!
Jerry, it is working just like the GOP drew it up. Trump is going to walk back all his outrageous statements in the general and continue his populist quest for the White House. Remember the Progressive movement was fueled by racism and a a nativist ethos. Meanwhile Beverly, Islim and several others hate Hillary so much they will cut off their noses just to prove that she should not have been the Democrat’s candidate. For my daughters and grand children’s sake I hope enough realists out there recognize that as Rubio put it Trump is a con artist and s facist to boot
Meanwhile kind of looks like the Clintons have pulled the hood over the eyes of South Carolina voters.
According to an exit poll I saw about an hour ago, Sanders won whites by 16 pts. and won millennials and independents but lost voters under 45 by a narrow margin. But African American voter turnout was huge, and although the poll didn’t say this, it’s likely, I would think, that turnout among older African Americans was much larger higher than among younger African Americans. Older African American voters, at least outside the northeast and Midwest, apparently are deeply wedded to the Clintons.
Bev:
If you read Atlantic Monthly, Clinton enjoyed a bigger turnout of black voters than what Obama did in 2008. Furthermore amongst under younger black voters, she won decisively. HRC also won the white vote in SC. He has to do much better in super Tuesday to even have a chance after the first vote if it goes to such. Sanders is in trouble. The underlying issue amongst black Americans may be the trust of Sanders. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/the-south-carolina-primaries/471336/
Well of course, “Bill Clinton was the first black president.”
Ah. Yes, I forgot. And Hillary was the first black First Lady.
Meanwhile, later exit polls show that Clinton won whites, too.
South Carolina = a state Democrats can win in the general?
If yes I agree, Madame Secretary is much more popular than Sanders success would generally indicate (and btw it means the general is a lock).
If no, then I remain fairly skeptical that ~270K SC democratic primary voters are some kind of indication of Sanders “in trouble”.
AS:
From the beginning Sanders was on the negative side of the equation. He had to makeup for ground HRC already had in the lead. For every race he is not at least even with HRC, he loses ground overall. For every race he wins, he gains ground. It is incremental, Sanders will lose even if he comes close and unfortunately the momentum favors HRC. It is not a battle of beliefs nor an indictment. Unless something changes dramatically soon (the same as Trump), the race is over.
Lot of unknown unknowns out there (hat tip Rumsfeld).
But I do believe that the 2016 election will revolve around the question of Americans needing a pay raise (including the unemployed and yes probably the unemployable too). In the same way that the 2012 elections centered on the question of whether or not the 1% are paying their fair share of taxes.
I don’t see anything changing that central narrative between now and November (particularly the figure in FT showing 1Q2016 S&P 500 profits declining again for 6th straight quarter – it’s not just energy folks).
So then the election hinges on who is going to be the most credible facilitator of this widely understood need for a general increase in incomes. I don’t presume to know that HRC will manage to convince voters she will be better on that question against The Donald. In fact I fear he is going to manage to use her and her husband’s well documented history to show exactly the opposite. All hail president Trump. Rah rah.
And just to try to veer back into the question Beverly raised up there at the top, I will further predict that the people and organizations that have already dropped sizable piles of cash on Jeb! et. al. are not likely to underwrite an extra-party insurgency against The Donald.
“Hey what did you do with that $200M I just gave you?” “No that sounds idiotic I’m going with the reality TV show guy his rallies are Hyoooge!”
McDonnell et al. are (In abject horror and desperation!) floating pitiful trial balloons that will either go nowhere or light an insurgency that won’t materially affect the outcome.
Christie is just the first to recognize the opportunity. The next few weeks will see a lot more GOPers jumping on Trump Inc. before the seats are all filled.
If you think HRC is ready and able to defeat Trump or any insurgent competitor in the general, please think carefully about the implications of her speech in SC yesterday.
“We don’t need to make America great again” is a pitch that many who have seen opportunities and incomes decline and shrink under 8 years of Obama will find difficult to believe.
Here’s hoping they will find a more effective sales technique.
AS:
You are drawing conclusions to what I said and they are not supported by what I said.
And Run: “We don’t need to make America great again” is exactly the kind of slow pitch over the plate I believe (okay hope) the Senator has been waiting for. Maybe it will change things. Dramatically and soon.
Sorry Run I wasn’t referring to your comment more the general fear that HRC is the more “electable” in the general against the talking yam.
I agree with you, Sanders challenges to achieve the nomination are serious and substantial. The mere fact that he is still in the race rests on some genuinely unlikely breaks in the calendar (and disastrously inept politicking by madame secretary and her army of surrogates).
I concur that absent a shocking reversal in the momentum you cite on Super Tuesday this thing is basically over. But having watched HRC manage to genuinely blow similar advantages against BO in 2008 and observing how little she appears to have learned from that train wreck I can’t help myself believing that he still has a (small and shrinking) shot.
A lot will depend on his ability to not just capitalize on her failures but break through the growing MSM narrative that his campaign is over. He’s going to have to win big among demos that haven’t found his message persuasive. And time is short.
AS:
Not since McGovern, McCarthy, etc. have we seen a popular candidate matched against establishment. Bernie has to work 10 times harder to win the nomination. In all likelihood, the establishment wins.
In what may be the ultimate contrarian indicator Bill “Wrong about everything” Kristol advises that Trump “Loves Dictators”.
If Kristol thinks the Emergency Committee is going to stop Trump the inaugural is in the bag.
Freely acknowledged Run. What can I say, I’m a long odds underdog kind of guy. It’s why I play the powerball a few times a year when the pot gets up over 100-200M or so… I figure I’m balancing my opaque 401K portfolio with the ultimate high risk investment heh.
I am not a Clinton fan, though I have been accuses of playing one on the internet.
I simply cannot imagine why anyone thinks Trump can win a national election against Clinton.
He certainly will have the birchers vote for him, which is why he is winning the primaries, but there are not enough of them to make a difference.
This thing is over. We can know let the Green Lanterns poison the discussion and ensure bad results down the ticket.
EMichael, if you cannot imagine why anyone thinks Trump can win a national election against Clinton, read the first two comments that NYT editors chose for their opening entries in a new blog called “Our best comments of the week,” at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/nytnow/our-best-comments-of-the-week.html
I think either Clinton or Sanders would beat him, but these two comments illustrate why Sanders would be the surer bet.
lol, how anyone can think Clinton can beat Trump is my answer/quesiton. Clinton is poison. The R’s will have a field day, especially if she wins the D race. Think the R’s stopping Obama was “important”? Multiply that hatred by numbers untold when it comes to Hillary. not saying it’s valid or real animus, just that this “hatred” for Clinton is all consuming.
Trump is coming across as the “Anti-Establishment” candidate, because he knows how to play the media and the Establishment. He’s playing the system. That’s the R’s and D’s ultimate horror. Someone is playing them like they have been playing us. for years on end.
That is why Clinton is poison, Vichy D type poison. and Clinton will stop Bernie whatever it takes. She is that kind of person/politician. Clinton wants the presidency so bad, nothing will stand in her way of the Vichy D nomination.
We Americans are fed up with the lying liars who run the show, both the R’s and the Vichy D’s/Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
the real question is who will vote for Hillary on the Vichy D side. The R’s will be sure to come out and vote against Hillary if she keeps the Nomination. What a gift to the R’s base, all throughout the local and state races. Hillary will encourage the R’s to sweep all the Senate and House races.
That’s the real power of Hillary. getting the R’s energized to vote against her.
BEv,
With all due respect why would I want to read comments from unknown people on the internet? I’d rather read Bernard’s comment(well, maybe not).
Doesn’t really matter at this point. Clinton is the nominee, it is all over but the shouting, but the idea that Sanders would do better in the general against Trump ignores Sanders’ greatest weakness, which HRC has left totally alone.
” Take his relationship with the military. During the Vietnam War, Sanders applied for conscientious objector status, which at the time required religious opposition to all wars, not just the war in question. (Sanders’ application was eventually denied, but by then he was too old for the draft.) His campaign spokesman told ABC News that he was a pacifist then but isn’t now. In the 1970s, Sanders chaired the left-libertarian Liberty Union Party and competed in two Senate campaigns and two gubernatorial campaigns under its banner. “Liberty Union calls for a reduction of the U.S. military,” said the party’s statement of principles. That’s a wholly reasonable position, but it continued, “A return to the system of local citizen militias and Coast Guard would provide our nation with ample protection and also protect us from the imperialist impulses of our leaders.” That sounds a lot like getting rid of America’s standing Army.
There’s more. In 1980, Sanders served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party, which was founded on the principles of Leon Trotsky. According to the New York Times, that party called for abolishing the military budget. It also called for “solidarity” with the revolutionary regimes in Iran, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Cuba; this was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.
If Sanders ever truly supported disbanding the Army and defunding the Defense Department, he abandoned these positions when he got into national politics. Nevertheless, Republicans will be able to run ads saying that Sanders was part of a communist political party that called for eliminating the military budget, and fact-checkers will not be able to contradict them.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/02/bernie_sanders_radical_past_would_haunt_him_in_a_general_election.html
You are not getting elected POTUS when you have proposed eliminating the military as part of a Communist organization.
“A new poll finds that 43 percent of Republicans believe President Obama is a Muslim, and 20 percent of all adults believe he was born outside the United States.
A CNN/ORC poll out Sunday finds that while the vast majority of Americans believe, correctly, the Obama was born in the United States, there remains a solid subset of people who still believe he is foreign-born.
That poll also found that 29 percent of Americans, and 43 percent of Republicans, believe Obama is a Muslim. The president is a Christian.
Nine percent of those polled believe there is solid evidence Obama was born elsewhere, while 11 percent just say they suspect he was not born in America.”
Those are the people voting for Trump. Plenty to win primaries, not close to enough to win a national election when he is forced to actually debate someone who can talk.
EMichael, I think what’s going on in this election is that a lot of white so-called working class people don’t care anymore about much other than narrow economic interests. And huge numbers of them feel that the entire political and economic system is controlled by a small percentage of the public and that that makes it impossible to unskew it.
Sanders would be winning the nomination were it not for Southern elderly and middle-aged African Americans. And if he won the nomination he would win the general election.