[HoosierDaddy]

You can be the conscientious marriage denier's 5th husband!

[Terez]

amphibian, on 04 September 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

Terez, on 04 September 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

It doesn't mean he's not serious. It just means he has no need for advertising at this point. The media is covering his every word for free. He will need to spend a little on staff for ground game in the early states, but this has not been a major campaign expense for the last few decades. The vast majority of campaign cash goes to ads. Most campaign workers are volunteers reporting to a small circle of paid staff.

You are overestimating the reach, effectiveness and duration of national media coverage if you think this is sustainable for even the next couple months. Also, ad buys are indeed something like 65% of the overall money, but the other 35% of overhead and bodies on the ground staffing is considerable.

Primary voters are typically people who pay attention to news/politics media of some type. Ad buys are more important in the general when you're reaching more low-information voters, unless you're trying to get name recognition in the primary. Trump decidedly does not need to do that. Again, he is a new phenomenon. He gets compared a lot to Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, but he's nothing like that. No one was talking about them in 2012 except the political media. Now EVERYONE is talking about Trump, and not just in the US. I follow Polandball (see avatar) on Facebook, which is Eurocentric, and while most of them have an opinion about American politics, in general they don't know shit about it. But they're all talking about Trump. I've had European friends write me and ask me what the hell is going wrong in American politics. You are underestimating the reach of Trump coverage in particular.

We'll see if the inevitable attack ads have any effect on his popularity. (When he signed the pledge, he made that inevitable.) I don't anticipate it will hurt him enough to make him drop out or keep him from ultimately getting a plurality of the delegates, but we will see. The base is really riled up right now, partly because they have been losing primaries where conservative/TEA types have been pitted against Establishment types. The sheer number of candidates in this race makes it likely they'll finally get their wish: a TruConservative presidential candidate. Every time, they nominate an Establishment type, and they lose. They honestly believe that's because they didn't nominate a TruConservative. They're tired of Romneys and McCains and Doles. And they're especially tired of Bushes.

[worry]

Attack ads will be effective, but his biggest problem is that informationally he's an empty shell who refuses to do his homework. I don't think Republican primary voters are necessarily smart enough to care about that, but they are narrative-driven so once the narrative changes (and it inevitably will after Trump fails time and again in debates) they will go with the flow. I agree with you that they're sick of establishment people (primary voters are largely the same people who vote in off years, and they're the ones still pushing in Tea Party candidates). But we know while the anger may be real (as caveman simple as it is), the logic isn't there. It's still astroturf, they're still incapable of genuine groundswell, so they're gonna shift away from Trump whenever the talking heads decide to finally "get serious". What Trump can potentially be, as has been pointed out, is the Ross Perot figure. Because the right wing are fundamentally un-serious about governance, and because they so misunderstand "big tent" politics, they play with fire. And as with the Perot year, they're going to get burned. Even with the pledge, Trump isn't going to play nice.

[Terez]

For the record, Perot did not cost HW his reelection. Exit polls showed that Perot voters' 2nd choice support was divided exactly evenly between HW and Clinton. And when Perot dropped out of the race temporarily, Clinton's poll numbers actually improved.

[worry]

Yah, that is true. I suppose I still underestimate how evenly he drew disaffected Dems too; the myth persists. But like I said a few weeks ago, I don't think we're in danger of a right wing president any time soon anyway. And in terms of rhetoric Perot turned voters away from voting from either mainstream candidate, and Trump might be able to do that (especially since attacks are the only weapon in his arsenal). Right now though he's a destructive force on the Republican side, and he's unlikely to get any crossover voters in the general as a Republican or 3rd party candidate, so he's more likely to fulfill in reality the popular perception of what Perot did.

I agree we have to wait and see if the attack ads against Trump are effective, but it's all relative. Trump's own attack ads are likely to be sharp, even meaner than usual, and probably quite effective in their own right. At least I hope he's the type who says "if I'm going down, I'm taking you with me".

[Terez]

Perot appealed to both parties because his opinions did not follow either party line. He was conservative on trade, in the sense of classical economics, but liberal (Republican, in the timeless sense) on other economic issues. He was liberal on social issues like abortion (pro-choice).

Free Trade was the big debate in the '92 elections. Perot got into the race primarily because both HW and Clinton supported it, and his most memorable debate line was the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs disappearing. Republicans were expected to support free trade. Democrats were not. But Clinton represented the New Democrats, those politicians who were willing to make concessions on the big issues that were important to big money donors in order to actually win a presidential election. The Republicans had held the White House for 12 years at that point, a phenomenon not seen since FDR, and the last Democrat had only served one term. Perot only existed as a candidate because he didn't depend on big money donors.

So it's not surprising at all that Perot drew Democrats away from Clinton, or that he might have even won if he hadn't dropped out of the race. The party had been nearly destroyed by the loss of the Dixiecrats, and Bill Clinton was the last Democratic nominee expected to be a Southerner in an attempt to attract white party loyalists in the south. Gore was, as Clinton's VP, and artifact of that consideration, but by the time he ran for president himself, the white southern Democratic national party loyalists were really negligible. (Local party loyalists took longer to become negligible, but by 2010-2011 it was done.)

The type of Republican who sympathized with Perot still exists, and Trump is attractive to some of those people for the same reason: he doesn't depend on big money donors. He has the freedom to speak the truth about the effects of "liberal" (Republican, or New Democrat) economic policies. Unfortunately, he also has the freedom to be xenophobic, and that's his primary appeal to Republicans (many of whom are southerners who used to vote Democrat, or their kids and grandkids), and the primary reason he will never appeal to disaffected Democrats, a co-primary reason perhaps being his general ignorance on foreign policy and his lack of experience in governance.

I don't think we're in danger of at Trump presidency at all. Like HD said, Dems could run a stick against him and we'd win. But I do think there's a good chance he'll win the nomination. Either way, it will be like the Hugo awards, or Senator Thad Cochran's primary challenge in Mississippi in 2014: turnout will be extremely high because the sane people will feel threatened enough to make absolutely sure they show up and vote to stop him. But can they unify behind a candidate by February? They will need to be unified very early on in the process.

[worry]

And that's what always brings them back to establishment Republicans in the end. Actually the more I think about that slate, though, the more it seems like Trump really does have a chance. I mean he'll be just as polarizing in a few months as he is now, and probably will have an emperor's new clothes moment or two (or ten), but just who is it that's supposed to take his place? They really are a bunch of dimwitted losers. Scott Walker's big push this weekend was riding a motorcycle (slowly) across New Hampshire. It's easy to forget half these people are even running.

[Terez]

If they're smart they'll unite behind Rubio. He's smarter and more appealing than any of the other Establishment types, and he can probably deliver Florida in a general election. He's still a Republican, and I disagree with him most of the time, but he's saner than the typical Republican and I would be more comfortable with him as president than any of the others.

[Gothos]

From my limited understanding of the situation, I think the presidential will be Clinton vs Jeb Bush. It takes more than your own money to run a presidential campaign in the US, and you can't ignore fundraisers. It's a marathon, but Trump is runnin a sprint... he will lose.

As much as I'd like to see Bernie Sanders winning the election (so much fun watching the fallout would be!), it'll most likely be these two, no?

[Terez]

Gothos, on 07 September 2015 - 10:42 AM, said:

From my limited understanding of the situation, I think the presidential will be Clinton vs Jeb Bush. It takes more than your own money to run a presidential campaign in the US, and you can't ignore fundraisers.

Perot did, and he didn't put all that much into his campaign either. If poll numbers can be believed, he might have won if he hadn't dropped out of the race and then gotten back in.

Before the campaigning really got under way, I believed Clinton and Bush were the most likely nominees. Clinton still seems the most likely Democratic nominee, but Bush, not so much. He's raised the most money, and maybe that will pay off for him at some point down the road, but his poll numbers have been tanking ever since Trump started rising. Of course, it's not just Trump rising, and it's not just JEB falling. The other two beneficiaries are the other two candidates with no experience in governance: Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, and Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP.

This is a graph of RCP polling averages for 15 candidates (sans Gilmore and Pataki) going all the way back to 2014. Chris Christie peaked right after he won reelection, and then he got dropped by Bridgegate and various other scandals. JEB peaked when it became obvious he had won the invisible primary (fundraising).




http://www.realclear...ation-3823.html

This post has been edited by Terez: 07 September 2015 - 04:31 PM

[amphibian]

Perot spent 80+ million of his own money in 1992. He spent a lot less in 1996, but he was far more committed than Trump has shown thus far at this early stage.

[Terez]

amphibian, on 07 September 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Perot spent 80+ million of his own money in 1992. He spent a lot less in 1996, but he was far more committed than Trump has shown thus far at this early stage.

He spent almost every bit of it after he dropped out and then reentered the race. His numbers never again matched what he had before he dropped out; it's no wonder he spent a ton of money trying to regain his support. But that's the general election, anyway. We're talking about the primary. In the primary, he didn't advertise at all, but he showed well in write-in campaigns in some states, in both Republican and Democratic primaries.

Aside from that, we're talking about two different candidates with two different approaches. Trump can throw in money whenever he wants. He gets a kick out of the fact that he's surging and he hasn't run a single ad yet, either nationwide or in the early states. Also, if he's not full of shit about his assets (which I doubt because he federally reported them), he makes Romney look poor.

[worry]

Perot had set up the Reform Party by '96 and ran under that instead of independent. Now that I think of it, I find it kind of weird that Perot hasn't been a talking head in forever. I don't know when the last time I saw him in the news for any reason was.

[Tsundoku]

Rick Perry dropped out today. Not that anyone noticed or cared, but for me it means the day was slightly better than it otherwise may have been. That bloke is a complete dipshit.

So who's next? Should we start a betting pool?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 12 September 2015 - 01:10 PM

[Terez]

Jim Gilmore wasn't even invited to the kids' table debate. Lindsey Graham probably won't drop out before Iowa; he has nothing to lose by staying in. Rick Santorum has had a taste of rising from bad numbers; he is also not likely to drop out any time soon. If I had to guess I'd say Gilmore and Jindal will be the next to drop out, in that order. Then Pataki and then Graham. We'll still have at least 11 or 12 come Iowa.

[Terez]

Here's hoping that leadership shakeups in the UK and Australia signify a trend in English colonial politics. All eyes on Canada.

[Nevyn]

The longer Trump stays out front, the more it favours the more establishment types who have deep warchests.

Republican primary voters MAY be nuts enough to back Trump, but the far more likely scenario is they like him until it gets real and primaries start. In the meantime, the main Trump effect is that it is keeping other lesser names from being able to attract attention and money, and it is keeping the press from really going after the establishment candidates. Trump remains like a bulletproof vest for them, and doesn't force them to the far right the way the old Santorum/Bachman/Cain surges once did.

The two keys to that primary season will be if Trump turns into the pumpkin I expect, and then which establishment candidates can grab some early momentum.

[Terez]

Briar King, on 15 September 2015 - 01:38 AM, said:

Yea I'm just smh at Jindal. He should have jumped on those rumored VP slots to get his name out there when his star was burning bright in 08-12.

Who says he didn't? He might have been passed over.

[HoosierDaddy]

Doesn't matter. None have a chance.

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 17 September 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

I forgot to watch 1st debate. Did Jindal do good or bomb himself?

Fell flat - not really memorable beyond a few snark-provoking things. Now producing fanfic about an America with Trump at the helm as a strategy (not joking).