First, the results: The Sanders beat over Clinton was waaay more than expected and the Trump beat over the pack was also more than expected. Meaning…. outsiders are in. Recognizing that I am painting with a broad brush (which you have to do in these types of analyses), here is how I see it: The non-establishment demographic comes from two … Read More
In Which I Speak My Mind To Disgruntled Millenials
Hey, kids! Yeah, YOU on the blue bar! Get off my lawn! But before you do, shut up about Wall Street. It was that way before you were born, and you weren’t the first generation to figure out that it has problems. And while you were watching Pokemon cartoons in the early 1990s and learning to, you know, walk, Hillary … Read More
NH Primary Predictions
Quick post to get it on the record that Sanders will best Clinton in NH by 12, and although Trump will win the GOP, the big story coming out of the primary will be Kasich, who comes in second. Yes, second.
Iowa Leftovers and New Hampshire Appetizers
The fallout from the Iowa results (blogged below) was pretty silly on the right. Trump turned into a whiny baby and alleged that winner Ted Cruz cheated. What Cruz’s people did, apparently, in some Iowa districts, was tell voters that Carson was leaving the race (based on a CNN report which didn’t actually say that), and that they had better … Read More
Iowa Wrap-up: Winners and Losers
Technical winners in that they got the most votes/delegates: Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton, although the latter is so razor-thin and close that it might turn out to have been Bernie Sanders (in 2012, it turned out that Santorum won over Romney, except that wasn’t known for several weeks and everyone assumed that Romney). Winners and losers in the sense … Read More
Iowa Caucus Results
10 pm and more than half the results are in. It looks like Ted Cruz is going to take the Republican nomination, with Donald Trump in second, and Marco Rubio in third. However there is an outside possibility that Marco Rubio might even come in second. The bottom line is, Donald Trump did not come in first which means he … Read More
This Is Inciting Violence. Just Saying.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told the crowd gathered at his campaign rally today to “knock the crap” out of anybody who threw a tomato at him. Trump said the event’s security staff told him there was a risk people would throw the juicy fruit. “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of … Read More
The Demographics of The Political Public Today
Everybody interested in politics needs to look at this Pew article. It’s fascinating and too complicated to summarize here, but basically we learn: Americans are increasingly sorted into think-alike communities that reflect not only their politics but their demographics. The result has been a rise in identity-based animus of one party toward the other that extends far beyond the issues. These … Read More
Iowa’s Raucus Caucus
At long last, today is the Iowa caucus. Let’s take a quick refresher course, yes? The Des Moines Register poll came out yesterday and showed Trump ahead over Cruz, but not by much. Here’s the thing to remember. To have your caucus vote count, the candidate must meet a 15% threshold. Caucus-goers who vote for an under-15% candidate on the … Read More
The Blame Game Starts
Politico: With time running out until the first primary votes are cast, establishment Republicans have begun a ferocious round of finger-pointing over who is to blame for the party’s failure to stop Donald Trump. The chiding, once limited to private conversations, is now erupting in public view — with campaigns, operatives, donors, party officials and conservative intellectuals arguing over why … Read More
Trump At War With Fox
This may be the point where the fracture in the Republican Party becomes unfixable. You have a candidate who leads the GOP poll by double digits nationally, fighting with the media mouthpiece of the GOP in a bizarre carnival of testosterone. It’s the climax of a bizarre confrontation between the candidate and the dominant conservative news outlet. The first debate … Read More
You Read Digby Now
She wrote about how Trump has revealed something very important about the conservative movement for Salon this morning. A good many of its believers have just been mouthing words all these years. They don’t care about their elaborate ideology. They just hate the other team…. a snippet: The Republican establishment is under a tremendous amount of stress right now. Donald … Read More
I Might Have Been Wrong
I used to think that Trump would lose steam after Iowa and New Hampshire. But I’m beginning, like the GOP establishment itself, to swallow the possibility of the inevitability of a Trump victory in the GOP primaries.