2016 Republican Primary

[BDKJMU]

Surpised that Carson, a distant 4th nationally in he polls, has SS protection, but Cruz and Rubio don't.

Crowded Presidential Race Could Strain Secret Service Budget
http://www.rollcall.com/news/crowded_pr ... 762-1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DSUrocks07]

Surpised that Carson, a distant 4th nationally in he polls, has SS protection, but Cruz and Rubio don't.

Crowded Presidential Race Could Strain Secret Service Budget
http://www.rollcall.com/news/crowded_pr ... 762-1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

IIRC you have to officially request SS protection.

Carson probably requested it early on in the cycle when he was one of the early favorites.

A Tea Partier like Cruz and to an extent Rubio being fiscal conservatives, its not a stretch to imagine them holding off for now.

[BDKJMU]

The latest RCP SC GOP primary polls range between 1/15 and 1/23, so semi worthless since things are very fluid right now.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -4151.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BDKJMU]

After Iowa but before last Sat night's debate I would have put the nomination odds at:
-Trump: 45%
-Rubio 30%
-Cruz 20%
-Bush 5%
Everyone else 0..

Now If I would put it at..

-Trump: 60%. Iowa 2nd place/24%, won NH with an impressive 35%, more than doubling 2nd place Kasich's 16%. Heavy favorite right now.

-Cruz: 15%: Won Iowa with 27.6%, NH barely edging out Bush for 3rd place/12%. I thought he would do better in NH. In the not current SC polls is 2nd to Trump.

-Rubio: 15%. The last debate obviously hurt him badly. But he's not done. 3rd place/23% in Iowa, 5th place/10% in NH, only 2% out of 3rd place, 6% out of second, where he likely would have been with a better debate performance.

-Bush: 5%- After a terrible 6th place/3% in Iowa, had a bit of a resurgence in NH with a 4th place/11%, lost by less than 1% to Cruz for 3rd place. I believe still has the most $$ coming in. Lot of support in SC, which should be one of his top states. SC is his Alamo. In SC if he doesn't come in at minimum top 3, likely top 2 he is done.

-Kasich: 5%. After an irrelevant 8th place/2% in Iowa, an impressive 2nd place/16% in NH, but he literally threw everything into NH. Doesn't have the $$ or organization outside of NH. With Bush $$ and organization his chances would be much higher.

-Christie: 0%: Again after his best debate performance, can't do better than 6th place/8% in NH. 6th place finish means will not qualify him for the SC debate on Sat, which means he is done. He may as well suspend his campaign tomorrow. All his is doing after tonight is pissing in the wind..

-Carson: 0%- Iowa 4th place/9%, NH 8th place/2%. Doesn't qualify for SC debate. Done, but my guess is will keep going till after SC.

-Fiorina: 0%: Iowa 7th place/2%, NH 7th place/4%. Doesn't qualify for SC debate. Done. My guess is will suspend campaign tomorrow.

[BDKJMU]

Rubio just got Bobby Jindal's endorsement. Good to lock up that Cajun Bollywood vote early!

See, told you he would be fine.

He's not fine according to the NH results...

[BDKJMU]

Delegates:
1237 out of 2472 needed to win.
Trump 17
Cruz: 10
Rubio 7
Kasich: 4
Bush: 3
Carson: 3
Fiorina: 1
Christie: 0
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... count.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[93henfan]

[CAA Flagship]

Sure does look that way.

[93henfan]

Sure does look that way.

JSO dream ticket

[CAA Flagship]

Sure does look that way.

JSO dream ticket

It will take some work for me to convince myself that a VP has a voice in the White House, but it's the only way I would forgive myself for voting for Trump.

[bluehenbillk]

Now that's a ticket I could support!

[kalm]

Sure does look that way.

JSO dream ticket

What's the over/under on new JSO Trump threads this week?

[bluehenbillk]

Christie back to NJ this morning to re-assess continuing his campaign. You'd have to think Fiorina & Carson will be done very soon.

[DSUrocks07]

It would be ironic that the Conservative leaning GOP and their good ol' Southern boys would willingly vote for a New York businessman and a New Jersey Governor as their nominee, but 2016 will be an epic trend breaking year for sure.

Still think that Christie would be much much more effective as AG.

[kalm]

Why Rubio is unelectable. Sorry Sdhornet.

(And a nice hit piece on Trump and Cruz too.)

And so it comes to this -- the last, best hope of the establishment is Marco Rubio.

Here one struggles to capture the depths of his shallowness, a task akin to grasping at vapor. For it is grim testament to Trump and Cruz that they can frighten grown-ups into proposing Rubio as presidential hardwood.

In debate and on the stump, Rubio increasingly tries to compete with Trump and Cruz through hyperbolic excess directed at Obama. With a slightly unhinged zeal, he claims that Obama is so "completely overwhelmed" that he has "deliberately weakened America." Like his indictment of the president as an enemy of the Constitution and the free enterprise system, this over-the-top rhetoric is shamelessly stolen from the hysterical alternate reality of talk radio. "When America needed a bold plan of action from our commander-in-chief," Rubio proclaims, "we instead got a lecture on love, tolerance and gun control designed to please the talking heads at MSNBC."

But the effect Rubio achieves is not that of a prospective commander-in-chief, but that of a callow aspirant who is over caffeinated, shrill, and willing to say anything -- a man wholly lacking in balance or intellectual ballast. One thinks not of a leader, but of an overambitious sales guy looking for a promotion he doesn't deserve -- say, perhaps, to district manager.

That marks a deeper problem. Supporters excuse the swiftness of Rubio's attempted rise by comparing him to Barack Obama. But unlike Obama, in Rubio there is little sign of a deep intellect or even keen intelligence -- as opposed to a certain gift for reciting a memorized sales pitch. Thus Rubio is the most cosseted of candidates, his campaign designed to protect him from exposure.

His speeches are canned, recited from a script; he "debates" by repeating whole chunks from memory. Confronted by Chris Christie in Saturday's New Hampshire debate, he at last displayed for a national audience what has been obvious up close -- repeating the same utterly irrelevant attack on Obama four times, almost verbatim, each repetition increasingly panicky and unresponsive. It was dreadful to watch; worse to think of him in the Oval Office.

But this is Marco Rubio, the pretender who would be president. He meets reporters guarded by a press aide who selects those permitted to ask the androidal candidate a question. Observing this unearthly phenomenon, one reporter was reminded of "a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points." As political insults go, Christie's characterization of Rubio as "the boy in the bubble" is particularly apt. One wonders if he knows or cares that he appears to have so little pride or substance -- or, in truth, whether he has the capacity to be any better then this.

He switches positions on a dime. Most notoriously, he came to the Senate as an opponent of a path to citizenship, then signed onto legislation proposing such a path when it appeared politically advantageous, then denounced his own legislation after the GOP base rebelled. He has swapped his once inclusive rhetoric on immigration -- including the legal variety -- for a calculated echo of the barely veiled bigotry and nativism deployed by Trump and Cruz. Thus the deeper shame of his attack on Obama for speaking to American Muslims at a mosque is that, coming from Rubio, it was no surprise.

Here, as elsewhere, one searches for his principles. To appease the right, Rubio opposes abortion in the case of rape or incest, then hints at a softer line. Once the proponent of green energy, he flipped and coined the great dodge of climate deniers -- "I'm not a scientist, man." Formerly not given to public pieties, when asked in debate whether he was the "Republican savior," he intoned, "There is only one Savior and it's not me. It's Jesus Christ, who came down to Earth and died for our sins." Including, one assumes, a reflexive political malleability driven by unwarranted ambition.

Indeed, it seems quite clear that Rubio's only reason for becoming a senator was to run for president -- not on the basis of any real accomplishment, but by repeatedly reciting an uplifting biographical speech that has little or no bearing on his policy positions. Beneath that is a spotty voting record and an unseemly eagerness to appease wealthy donors, often to fund super PACs whose activities verge on the illegal.

So what, one might ask, is Rubio all about? What are the political passions that drive him? When has he ever done anything courageous, or even hard? And where, in all this, can one locate a president?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n ... 31344.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Baldy]

Why Rubio is unelectable. Sorry Sdhornet.

(And a nice hit piece on Trump and Cruz too.)

And so it comes to this -- the last, best hope of the establishment is Marco Rubio.

Here one struggles to capture the depths of his shallowness, a task akin to grasping at vapor. For it is grim testament to Trump and Cruz that they can frighten grown-ups into proposing Rubio as presidential hardwood.

In debate and on the stump, Rubio increasingly tries to compete with Trump and Cruz through hyperbolic excess directed at Obama. With a slightly unhinged zeal, he claims that Obama is so "completely overwhelmed" that he has "deliberately weakened America." Like his indictment of the president as an enemy of the Constitution and the free enterprise system, this over-the-top rhetoric is shamelessly stolen from the hysterical alternate reality of talk radio. "When America needed a bold plan of action from our commander-in-chief," Rubio proclaims, "we instead got a lecture on love, tolerance and gun control designed to please the talking heads at MSNBC."

But the effect Rubio achieves is not that of a prospective commander-in-chief, but that of a callow aspirant who is over caffeinated, shrill, and willing to say anything -- a man wholly lacking in balance or intellectual ballast. One thinks not of a leader, but of an overambitious sales guy looking for a promotion he doesn't deserve -- say, perhaps, to district manager.

That marks a deeper problem. Supporters excuse the swiftness of Rubio's attempted rise by comparing him to Barack Obama. But unlike Obama, in Rubio there is little sign of a deep intellect or even keen intelligence -- as opposed to a certain gift for reciting a memorized sales pitch. Thus Rubio is the most cosseted of candidates, his campaign designed to protect him from exposure.

His speeches are canned, recited from a script; he "debates" by repeating whole chunks from memory. Confronted by Chris Christie in Saturday's New Hampshire debate, he at last displayed for a national audience what has been obvious up close -- repeating the same utterly irrelevant attack on Obama four times, almost verbatim, each repetition increasingly panicky and unresponsive. It was dreadful to watch; worse to think of him in the Oval Office.

But this is Marco Rubio, the pretender who would be president. He meets reporters guarded by a press aide who selects those permitted to ask the androidal candidate a question. Observing this unearthly phenomenon, one reporter was reminded of "a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points." As political insults go, Christie's characterization of Rubio as "the boy in the bubble" is particularly apt. One wonders if he knows or cares that he appears to have so little pride or substance -- or, in truth, whether he has the capacity to be any better then this.

He switches positions on a dime. Most notoriously, he came to the Senate as an opponent of a path to citizenship, then signed onto legislation proposing such a path when it appeared politically advantageous, then denounced his own legislation after the GOP base rebelled. He has swapped his once inclusive rhetoric on immigration -- including the legal variety -- for a calculated echo of the barely veiled bigotry and nativism deployed by Trump and Cruz. Thus the deeper shame of his attack on Obama for speaking to American Muslims at a mosque is that, coming from Rubio, it was no surprise.

Here, as elsewhere, one searches for his principles. To appease the right, Rubio opposes abortion in the case of rape or incest, then hints at a softer line. Once the proponent of green energy, he flipped and coined the great dodge of climate deniers -- "I'm not a scientist, man." Formerly not given to public pieties, when asked in debate whether he was the "Republican savior," he intoned, "There is only one Savior and it's not me. It's Jesus Christ, who came down to Earth and died for our sins." Including, one assumes, a reflexive political malleability driven by unwarranted ambition.

Indeed, it seems quite clear that Rubio's only reason for becoming a senator was to run for president -- not on the basis of any real accomplishment, but by repeatedly reciting an uplifting biographical speech that has little or no bearing on his policy positions. Beneath that is a spotty voting record and an unseemly eagerness to appease wealthy donors, often to fund super PACs whose activities verge on the illegal.

So what, one might ask, is Rubio all about? What are the political passions that drive him? When has he ever done anything courageous, or even hard? And where, in all this, can one locate a president?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n ... 31344.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imagine that...a far left-wing whackadoodle trying to explain why a Conk is unelectable.

Next up, a wolf explaining why sheep are nothing but gristle and fat.

[93henfan]

Why didn't HuffPo pen that article when Obummer was running in 2008?

I did enjoy it though, especially, "One wonders if he knows or cares that he appears to have so little pride or substance -- or, in truth, whether he has the capacity to be any better then this."

YeeeeOUCH!!!

Team Brown takes it in the cojones right there.

[SDHornet]

Imagine that...a far left-wing whackadoodle trying to explain why a Conk is unelectable.

Next up, a wolf explaining why sheep are nothing but gristle and fat.

This. Rubio finished 1.2% away from 3rd. My boy will be fine once he gets to more diverse states.

And serious 93, quoting a huffpo piece? Man you really are butt hurt that Christie got his fat ass handed to him by a short brown guy.

[dbackjon]

Carson is in it for the Book Sales

[Ibanez]

Here's my pre-emptive: Chris Christie has suspended his campaign.

[houndawg]

Imagine that...a far left-wing whackadoodle trying to explain why a Conk is unelectable.

Next up, a wolf explaining why sheep are nothing but gristle and fat.

This. Rubio finished 1.2% away from 3rd. My boy Tattoo will be fine once he gets to more diverse states.

And serious 93, quoting a huffpo piece? Man you really are butt hurt that Christie got his fat ass handed to him by a short brown guy.

I thought that was great! We don't need no cameltoe in the White House.


Look boss! De plane!

[kalm]

Imagine that...a far left-wing whackadoodle trying to explain why a Conk is unelectable.

Next up, a wolf explaining why sheep are nothing but gristle and fat.

This. Rubio finished 1.2% away from 3rd. My boy will be fine once he gets to more diverse states.

And serious 93, quoting a huffpo piece? Man you really are butt hurt that Christie got his fat ass handed to him by a short brown guy.

I assumed Patterson was liberal and yes it's coming from Huffpo...hence why I called it a "hit piece".

Funny thing is, the friend who sent it to me is an immensely successful businessman, who, like Arianna Huffington USED to be a Republican. He's now completely non-partisan for obvious reasons. An honest conservative could've written the piece as well because, while being a bit obvious, it is pretty much true.

Oh the butthurt indeed!

[AZGrizFan]

Why didn't HuffPo pen that article when Obummer was running in 2008?

I assume that was a rhetorical question?

[93henfan]

Imagine that...a far left-wing whackadoodle trying to explain why a Conk is unelectable.

Next up, a wolf explaining why sheep are nothing but gristle and fat.

This. Rubio finished 1.2% away from 3rd. My boy will be fine once he gets to more diverse states.

And serious 93, quoting a huffpo piece? Man you really are butt hurt that Christie got his fat ass handed to him by a short brown guy.

I didn't quote it; that was Kalm. But it is spot on in that Rubio has no substance whatsoever. He just walks around with a For Sale sandwich board and his hand out. He's a worse corporate slut than Hillary and I wouldn't vote for him in any circumstance. At least she's honest about being an insider.

[BDKJMU]

Why Rubio is unelectable. Sorry Sdhornet.

But unlike Obama, in Rubio there is little sign of a deep intellect or even keen intelligence --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n ... 31344.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Obama- deep intellect and keen intelligence What lefty idiot wrote this nonsense??