Good or bad, the game has changed - entrenched politicians are who would usually be able to win elections because they helped to rig the system are left scratching their heads and wondering what the new rules are and how long this will last. It's fascinating to watch. And scary.

Last edited by opendoug (10/26/2015 10:44 am)

Bush has yet to articulate a reason he should be president.
So, I'll go with Lager. Once the two crazies crash and burn, Rubio looks like the beneficiary.

You know, Hillary should be concerned about Rubio. If he pulls it together the election looks like Kennedy/Nixon, with Hillary looking like a tired Nixon.

Rongone wrote:

From my perspective Rubio won't be the republican nominee. If he does become the nominee it's because of the utter dysfunction of the party and them scraping the bottom of the barrel for some 'consensus' candidate. If I am completed wrong and he becomes the nominee, he won't win the general election. That said, we're a year away from the election so a lot could happen.

Completely disagree with your analysis, especially Rubio's chances as the nominee. More inclined to agree that any republican will have a very hard time winning the general election. 

But that's another argument for another day.

Let's instead take a look at another"Beginning of the End" scenario.....

We have arrived at Donald Trump’s first real crisis on the campaign trail. In one word, it is “Iowa.”

In the latest Monmouth poll, Trump is now 14 points behind Ben Carson. One poll, in and of itself, is not a trend. But there are now five polls showing the same trend. Trump is now behind Carson.

.......Donald Trump has lost his lead in Iowa. It is, however, more serious than that.

First, historically, once a major candidate in Iowa has lost the lead, he never regains the lead. Donald Trump is, however, a once in a lifetime candidate. He should be able to overcome it. But Trump’s problem is in the underlying poll data.

Trump is less and less anyone’s second choice.

If you examine Carson’s supporters, you find a group of people, many of whom are evangelical, who were long ago put off by Trump’s braggadocios attitude. They wanted their own outsider, but they wanted the quiet Christian alternative. They went with Carson and those initial Carson supporters will not go to Trump.

Now in Iowa, Carson has taken votes from both Trump and Fiorina and these new Carson voters are signaling they will not go back to Trump.

In the Monmouth poll, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio are increasingly people’s second choice. Trump, to be sure, garners more overall with combined first choice and second choice votes at 30% compared to Rubio and Cruz tied for 24%. But as Trump has trended downward, his second choice gains are noticeably smaller.

Rubio, for example, went from 4% to 10% on the first choice question and from 8% to 14% on the second choice question. Trump, on the other hand, fell from 23% to 18% on the first choice and only grew 2%, to 12% on the first choice question.

Monmouth is not the only poll to show this. The Des Moines Register poll also shows a Trump decline as Rubio and Cruz make advances. The Quinnipiac poll is even worse for Trump.

Quinnipiac asked this question: “Are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president?”

30% of voters overall said they would never vote for Trump, which was higher than Jeb Bush’s. But most damning for Trump is that 31% of evangelicals would never vote for him and 24% of very conservative voters would never vote for Trump. The former is higher than with Bush and the latter is only three points behind Bush.

Trump has lost Iowa. He has lost evangelicals, who are a core component of the Iowa Caucuses. According to press reports, Trump has yet to buy a voter file to even get people to caucuses in about 100 days. No candidate at this point who has ever lost a lead in Iowa has gotten it back. More and more of the core of conservative and evangelical voters in Iowa are turning from Trump.

So very shortly we should start hearing from Donald Trump how Iowa does not matter, which just means New Hampshire and South Carolina will matter more. In both, Trump is doing very well, with only one noticeable trend. The more polls focus on likely voters instead of registered voters, Trump’s margin goes down

I am of the belief that if Trump ends up 3rd or 4th in Iowa, it effects his chances for a stronger showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina. And if he doesn't come out of N.H. or S.C. with a win, then his campaign is essentially over.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sick of this whole cluster#%*<~ of a two year election campaign and think we need to shorten and revise the whole process. There are plenty of more important issues that we should be concerned with.  -  rongone

Ditto, but the media loves it.  It's like watching a 2-year "Days of Our Lives" soap opera with all kinds of juicy twists and turns.  The media eats it up because it sells.
 

TheLagerLad wrote:

Rongone wrote:

"Completely disagree with your analysis, especially Rubio's chances as the nominee." LagerLad

Oh yeah? Well . . . Let's just look at the polling data . . . 'Cause they're all 100% accurate and don't blow (pun intended) with the wind . . . I mean they're iron clad . . . Right? And let's not forget that we've got a year until we actually vote . . . That's plenty of time for these candidates to stick their foot in their mouths, offend a major sector of voters, stub their toe, or to stumble and fall flat on their face.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sick of this whole cluster#%*<~ of a two year election campaign and think we need to shorten and revise the whole process. There are plenty of more important issues that we should be concerned with.

I agree that this process is too long and way overhyped by the media.

That said, we're less than 100 days out from the Iowa caucus and about a month away from the dead period between Thanksgiving and Christmas where most people will saturated in the joy of the holidays to pay attention to the day to day activities of the campaigns. So I think it's reasonable to start gauging the candidates chances at the nomination. We know Hillary will be the Dem nominee. So let's take a gander at the GOP side of things.

First, let's eliminate those who are certain not to be the nominee (in my two-bit opinion)

Santorum
Huckabee
Patacki
Christie
Jindal
Graham
Paul

Now let's go to those who have an unlikely, but outside shot:

Kasich
Carson
Trump
Cruz

The leaves us with the following:

Bush
Rubio
Fiorina

I agree that using polling as a single data point isn't the best way to evaluate a candidate's chances. So let's look at the offshore oddsmakers



The numbers heavily favor Rubio over Trump and Bush.

And then add-in the factors I mentioned earlier -- Young, latino, smart, fairly new to the national politics game. All positive things for Rubio.

Of course this is all speculation and nobody knows how this will turn out. But as it stands today, I think it's a reasonable to consider Rubio a good bet for the GOP nod.

 

Maybe we should just throw them all into a caged boxing ring, like the WWF, and let the winner be determined by who survives and walks out of the cage. And, since it's kind of an athletic competition, we can also bet on it through those offshore oddsmakers websites (by the way, are you sure Predictit is a wagering website? Sounds like a porn site to me.). That would be kind of cool and would also stimulate our interest over the holiday season in conjuncture with all those family activities like watching football games after stuffing ourselves at the dinner table or drinking alcoholic beverages while screaming at the TV over a bad call. It would also rival the entertainment value of 10 or so of the candidates standing behind rostrums trying to verbally assassinate their rivals with ridiculous statements that fact checkers will later ascribe four pinnochios to and the candidates own staffers will scramble to clarify the remarks.

Also, I don't subscribe to the notion that Marco Rubio is of above average intelligence when he says things like he's going to quit the senate because it 'frustrates him'. Aside from the fact that statement makes him seem . . . How can I put this nicely . . . Palinesque. It also doesn't bode well for someone seeking the presidency who will have to try to work with the legislative branch . . . The one he just quit because it frustrated him . . . In order to attempt to get things done in Washington, D.C.. Oh yeah, and he doesn't have the best attendance record in the senate when it comes to showing up to vote on legislation. Is that due to his frustration, disinterest, or inability to understand his responsibilities as a senator?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2015/10/25/28cfaff0-6d59-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html

Last edited by Rongone (10/27/2015 8:51 am)