The Next President of the United States

[david3103]

Drumpf appeals to the have-nots. The top 0.1% of American households have almost as much of the wealth in the US as the bottom 90%. Inequality breeds resentment and a search for an alternative to the old ways.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequality-top-01-worth-as-much-as-the-bottom-90

If you were a resident of Detroit say, would you be inclined to vote for an establishment politician?

I completely agree that Trump isn't stupid, he's been given his shot and by God has he taken it.

I will point out that "make America great again" etc as a campaign is basically what Hitler did. He's also said things like he's going to ban Muslims from entering the country. This bit sound familiar too?

Godwin's Law strikes.

Every politician in the world has run on the 'Make <insert name of country here> Great' ticket at some stage. It's a lot more popular than 'Vote for me and I'll bring this country to it's knees'

Britain is close for disparity of wealth and it moves closer every day that the stock market doesn't dive.

I think the UK figures matched the top 1% with the bottom 55% which obviously isn't good but is a long way from the US situation.

Brexit will level it all up, or down depending on your viewpoint.

[MintTrav]

Who has run the best campaign? It's no contest. Before the voting started, then as we went from State to State, and still now after his party's race is decided, one campaign has been head and shoulders above the others. Ted Cruz has run probably the best campaign there has ever been. Clinton and Sanders have run very good campaigns (in different ways) but Cruz has been outstanding. The candidate has held his own in debates and interviews and they have done their fair share of advertising and promotion but the big difference has been in the ground campaign. Cruz has put together a very large but, more importantly, incredibly well-run team of volunteers who have delivered in State after State. It was their work that won Iowa right at the beginning, and there have been several others where they have made the difference to win or finish high enough to collect more bound delegates.

The other area where the Cruz campaign excelled was in organisation within the party. In many States, Trump won the popular vote and the majority or all of the bound delegates. This was followed, usually a week or two later, by the selection of the delegates who will attend the Convention. This is where Cruz really came through. In many States, although the public was on Trump's side, the local party preferred Cruz. The usual process is for each candidate to put forward a slate of potential delegates for selection/voting. In several States, Cruz was able to engineer the local party to the extent that the delegate list ended up being comprised almost entirely of Cruz supporters. These delegates would have been bound to vote for Trump on the first ballot but would have mostly been free to vote how they liked after that. Cruz won all 34 delegates in Colorado and 36 out of 37 delegates in Utah. Trump won the public vote in Missouri, Virginia, Louisiana and Arizona, and the delegates are bound to him on the first ballot, but most of those selected as delegates in all four States were Cruz supporters. I haven't checked beyond that, but it has definitely happened in other States too. If only Cruz could have made it to the Convention, he would have had a huge possibility of taking the nomination on the second ballot. The Cruz ground campaign was so successful because it made a huge effort to reach those making the decisions, including having substantial "persuasion teams" at the voting centres. This on-the-spot account of the in-party campaign is fascinating: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/how_cruz_won_all_the_colorado_delegates.html

The Trump team, on the other hand, ran a one-pronged campaign based on the candidate's personality. They didn't do much advertising and put minimal effort into the ground campaign, both with the public and the in-house delegate selection. When they tried, it was done poorly, with misspelling of names, candidates omitted from ballots or disqualified for late fee payments and general confusion over other issues, such as the ballot number allocated to each candidate (in some States, you vote for the person's number rather than their name - the Trump campaign mixed up the numbers they were promoting). They even gave out flyers where two out of the three names were running in a different District. The suspicion is that it was all due to lack of money. As it happened, the candidate's personality turned out to be enough to swing it, but it was a risky strategy that didn't give them their best possible shot at winning.

So the race is over now. Trump is going to be the nominee, so Cruz will lay everyone off and settle down to being a Senator? Not quite - they are still at it. Washington State held its delegate selection at the weekend (unusually, before the public vote), a couple of weeks after Cruz dropped out and guess who cleaned up? Not Trump. Our man Ted won 40 out of the 41 delegates - demonstrating, yet again, his popularity with grass-roots party members (more than with the public and infinitely more than with his party's leaders). He's not going to get the nomination - so why bother continuing to collect delegates?  There are two main reasons. One is that the more delegates you have, the more influence you have. Cruz supporters will be prominent at the Convention and having all those delegates will guarantee some premium speaking slots. In debates and behind the scenes, they can bring pressure to bear on Trump to support the right-wing policies they believe in, which he doesn't. They can also influence numerous other decisions in their direction, such as the Vice-Pres selection, the rules of the Convention and party policies for future years. There are some who want to make it more difficult for a Trump-like figure to come through again by introducing rules that only allow registered Republicans to vote in future Primaries. http://nwpr.org/post/cruz-supporters-hope-influence-vp-selection-party-platform-national-convention

Secondly, we have noted already that it is only four years til the next election, and only two years til the race officially begins again. Unofficially, it has already started. Cruz is, de facto, campaigning for the 2020 nomination and, so far, he is the favourite.
 

[MintTrav]

Did I say that Susana Martinez had a shot at the Veep job? Forget it. Trump was in Albuquerque last week and laid into her "You've got to get your Governor to do a better job, she's not doing her job.... Syrian refugees are being relocated in large numbers to New Mexico. If I was Governor, that wouldn't be happening." Her Press Secretary said she "doesn't care about what Donald Trump says about her. She cares about what he says he will do to help New Mexicans. She's disappointed that she didn't hear anything about that last night."

She hasn't endorsed him and didn't turn up to his rally. Take her off the list.

[MintTrav]

Cleveland is ready for the GOP Convention. It has introduced a temporary ban on bringing lumber, fireworks, explosives, drones, ice chests, coolers or ladders into the vicinity. I'm sure there is something else I would expect to see on that list. Can't think what it is.

[MintTrav]

Rubio is on board. He is now a Trump supporter.

Previously, Trump was a con-artist, a lunatic, unfit to be President.

Now, Rubio is not only supporting him, but has said he is willing to make a keynote supporting speech at the Convention or to accept a role in the Administration.

It's like 1984. It doesn't matter how long or hard you fight against it - eventually everyone loves Big Brother.

[TightEnd]

The horrific truth is that Donald Trump could actually win the US presidency: http://buff.ly/1sFegRg

[redsimon]

Are there any polls state by state, as the Electoral College system presumably can skew "national" figures?

[hector62]

I hope the Democrats come to their senses and ditch Hilary and go for Bernie Sanders. I saw him for the first time this weekend and he really impressed me, which is very unusual for a politician in this day and age.

I do find Trump entertaining though. He stated last week that " No one knows more about tax returns than me. Maybe not ever, in the history of the world."

God help America.

[cheesies]

I hope the Democrats come to their senses and ditch Hilary and go for Bernie Sanders.

^^^ Is there a chance of this happening? Mintrav seems to have written him off but as Trump gets stronger and stronger vs Hilary, could there be a point where they end up going with Sanders as he polls so much better vs Trump? Delegates are close, could enough supers jump ship/contested convention? Assuming she isn't indicted for the emails thing that is...

[DaveShoelace]

So Bernie has vowed to keep going despite Clinton securing enough votes to be presumptive nominee.

How does he go about being the democratic nominee in that instance (In lamens terms please)?

[AndrewT]

So Bernie has vowed to keep going despite Clinton securing enough votes to be presumptive nominee.

How does he go about being the democratic nominee in that instance (In lamens terms please)?

All the superdelegates are just people who can vote for whoever they want. He needs to persuade loads of them to switch from Hillary to him.

He will fail.

[TightEnd]

a great essay on Robert Taft, Donald Trump, JFK and Paul Ryan’s profile in cowardice - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/paul-ryans-profile-in-cowardice/2016/06/06/3b45db34-2c15-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html

[Marky147]

Trump turns the latest gun tragedy into a back patting excercise for himself.

Surely he must be almost as short to get shot, as he is to win the election.

[Marky147]

Mate just sent me this, lol.

[PokerBroker]

very clever.