US Republicans: Backing away from the election… May 13, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Can the Atlantic be correct in this assessment?
Boehner’s comments show why Cruz’s attempts to rally the Republican Party have been futile, even though his opponent is a widely loathed misogynist, ex-Democrat, loose cannon, and race-baiter. Not everyone is willing to be as blunt as Boehner, but other GOP leaders’ feelings are no secret. (Boehner said he golfs with Trump and called him a “texting buddy,” while he offered somewhat fainter praise for his fellow Ohioan John Kasich.)
The problem is that many top Republicans have already written off this presidential race, expecting that Hillary Clinton will win the White House. Amid such resignation, there’s no incentive for them to back the man they’ve served with and despise. It isn’t so much that the top GOP figures are backing Trump; he still has barely any endorsements from officeholders, and Trump’s base is an entirely different group of people. Instead, they’re just backing away slowly.
And is that a mistake?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
they’ve got their own re-election campigns to worrry about
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+1
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“Donald Trump’s support has surged and he is now running nearly even with Democrat Hillary Clinton among likely U.S. voters, a dramatic turnaround since he became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential nominee, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN0Y21TN
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She’s well ahead in the polling average though:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
Clinton will win comfortably but for Trump to break even 40 percent of the vote will establish a worrying precedent.
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Well, I’d like to share your blithe optimism. But opinion polls, even averaged, haven’t exactly been super-reliable lately. Go look at the RCP polling averages before Sanders won Wisconsin, just for a single example.
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Is that comparing like with like though? It is, granted, early days, and we have yet to see the two take on each other but his polling numbers are dismal in relation to take a single cohort – women. And hispanics. And African Americans. Perhaps he can refit them. It’s possible. But it is also an immense challenge. And his own nominal ‘party’ has a significant tranche of members, leading members, who at the best tolerate him very reluctantly and from there on out exhibit a range of attitudes to him right up to outright hostility. None of this makes Clinton a shoo-in but… it does suggest that while optimism would be misplaced at this point she is in a vastly better position than he is.
I’d add that I’m not in the Clinton camp so optimism may not be the word I’d use – though if it’s Clinton or Trump I’d tend to the view she was less worse.
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On the whole I agree with you, the numbers just don’t seem to add up for Trump – how can he possibly build a broad enough coalition to win an American presidential election, while apparently offending constituencies all over the place? And so on.
But I just have heard just a little bit too much certainty in the last few years, regarding polls, how things work, received wisdom, etc., to be 100% confident about what is self-evident, etc.
Optimism not the word I’d use either. And it seems Trump makes lesser-evil-ists of us all.
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Clinton can be regarded as both a neocon and neoliberal candidate. Trump is opposed the free movement of capital, labour and goods and has described the Vietnam and Iraq wars as ‘mistakes’. Trump is a nativist, nationalist, racist ‘American Firster’.
Its 6 months from the election so polls are of little value. But I think its a mistake to say that its impossible for Trump to be elected. Paddy Power has him at 5/2 and Clinton at 1/3. That seems about right.
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Mitt Romney had far superior outreach to Latinos, Asians and African Americans than Trump ever will. And Romney never had a hope of winning.
For Trump to win he has to do better than Romney with whites and hope that Clinton pisses enough of the left that they go 3rd party or stay home. But then again Clinton is very close to moderate Republicans (ACA/Taxes being the only exceptions). And they are 31% of all Republicans.
The conventions are the end of July and then we’ll know the nominees for sure. People in the US will start paying attention then.
Do you know that this is the first time in history that a candidate with an active FBI investigation hanging over them has not withdrawn from the primary? You know, FWIW.
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“the non-Hispanic white share of the electorate has fallen from 71% in 2012 to 69%.”
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/
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“Donald Trump will go to trial in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University that includes the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO charges, after the presidential election but before the inauguration, setting the stage for a president-elect to take the witness stand if he wins the White House.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harlan-green/trumps-rico-trial-date-se_b_9905680.html
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“He cannot win if two-thirds of all women, 80% of all Latinos and more than 85% of African-Americans continue to disapprove of him.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/opinions/donald-trumps-biggest-test-opinion-gergen/
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And/or, Clinton II has basically become the “Grand Coalition” candidate, the unitary representative of the ruling establishment, whom they rally around to fend extra-systemic threats: an American Merkel, Hollande, Tsipras.
So that way the insider-Republican attacks on Trump, nominally their own party candidate, become a little similar to the Blairite attacks on Corbyn?
I say that without in any way being a Trump supporter. And without doubting for a moment that – of course – he is a political and economic insider in very many ways, and doing all this for manipulative purposes.
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Everyone from George Bush to Bernie Sanders will end up pulling the lever for Clinton in the November. This suggests a degree of consensus that can only be harmful as there will be no real political debate (one under-appreciated effect of the Trump phenomenon — his ghastliness sucks up all the discurive oxygen).
Even the Communist Party wants us to feel some love for Hillary:
http://www.cpusa.org/article/left-strategy-in-2016-part-1-grasping-the-key-link-of-struggle/
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I think it’s going to be very close. Despite everything Trump has a broad appeal.
Clinton needs to start winning some more Primaries, if it ends up that she is dependent on the Super Delegates to beat Saunders she will be in trouble.
Trump would be able to use the Democrats convention is rigged for Clinton the Washington Insider etc… even in debates day that he should be facing Bernie Saunders and so on.
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Obama required SDs to get a majority in 08. It’s not Clinton’s primary losses that will be a problem in the GE. It is her pivot to the center and her pursuit of GOP economic & foreign policies that will hurt her in the GE. Even then she’d have to work really, really hard to lose.
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An interesting analysis here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/?ex_cid=538twitter
Basically, it looks like the two most disliked candidates ever will be shaping up against each other.
Clinton’s negatives don’t surprise me. I lived there in the 90s and she was a hate figure then for the right, the one possible democratic figure sure to get out the anti- vote.
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Ahh, wasn’t it great in the 90s? Sprinting through the airport, lashing up to the airway of the plane minutes before it pushed off and not a photo id in your possession.
Fecking McVeigh & Al Qaeda. Bastards.
This time out there’s a lot on the left that don’t have time for her because she’s pursuing the same policies as her husband.
It is going to be one different election, that’s for sure.
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From the same site, this is interesting too: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-dont-miss-manufacturing-they-miss-unions/
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