Discussion for article #240012
Maybe Trump leads precisely because it is summer–time for blockbuster entertainment and not thinking too much. Now that school is in session, and hard work must be done, real voters paying attention will agree he is an ass.
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I like that he keeps proving the elite pundits wrong. That’s the funniest part.
“Delegates are rewarded proportionally as caucus and primary votes come in, starting with Iowa…”
Actually, no Iowa delegates are selected until the state convention much later in the year. The February vote is mostly a glorified straw ballot and the results non-binding. In January 2012, Rick Santorum narrowly beat Romney in first-round voting, but Ron Paul swept most of the delegates (22 of 28) at the summer convention and Santorum received none.
It’s also probably worth noting that delegates are rewarded proportionally only through mid-March. At that time states may hold winner-take-all primaries.
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And last summer’s Vegas odds picked the Cleveland Cavaliers as the 2015 NBA champions. The odds, and polling numbers, will change when the games are finally played.
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Hey, TPM, if you were to compare the number of stories that you ran about Trump during the summer to the number of stories you ran about all the other candidates combined during the same period, I bet you’ll see why the summer of Trump refused to die.
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OK, I get that by all the evidence he’s not going anywhere for a while, and I guess we’re all still a little surprised by that, but unless we’re really through the looking glass here it’s hard to believe we’re at a point, a year out, where it makes sense to write an inside-baseball article like this about this bizarre candidate. I’m honestly finding it hard to believe that the seeds of destruction aren’t spread so thickly and evenly through this candidacy that it won’t explode spectacularly over something in the very foreseeable future.
Trump has taken positions on both the Far Right and Far Left. It gives him lots of publicity, controversy and name recognition. This ends up polling well but has yet to result in a single primary vote.
Trump’s strategy has, however, resulted in suckering in the corporate media which is more interested in generating ratings than presenting the facts about all of Trump’s outrageous claims. He’s the perfect candidate for social media and yellow journalism…till the voting begins. One has to wonder how many people will be willing to waste their vote on a bombastic billionaire with a checkered history of bankruptcies, reality shows and consumer scams.
But then we are talking about what’s left of the Republican Party base who are pretty impressed by anything but the facts. Trump has read his marks well. The rubes are putty in his hands.
P.T. Barnam never imploded. He just kept moving the circus around the country so nobody could catch up to him.
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Thanks for pointing out how the goal posts are always being moved in the Republican Party.
The pundits are still operating off of a Reagan Era that never really was as impressive as the GOP likes to remember. Clinton didn’t have a hard time once Perot exposed all the GOP family secrets. Bush/Cheney has poisoned the well for the Republican Party far worse than Hoover did. Even what’s left of the Republican base doesn’t want to call themselves a Republican any longer.
"Sixty-six percent of Iowa GOP caucusgoers said regardless who they will ultimately vote for, the country needs “someone outside of government who can bring a new approach to Washington.”
Yeah, if I were set on voting GOP, I’d also be begging for someone, anyone, not in government. It’s not like they have a great choice among the previously elected.
tick, tick, tick - one just wonders when the BOOM will come.
(I hope the ticking of the clock isn’t replaced by the flip, flip, flip of the calendar pages.)
Hi Caitlin,
May I add to your perfect list of points an updated conclusion: The Republican Party soon will rebrand itself with the Trump logo? As sure as football season is starting I know Trump’s run is for real… republican leaning people think they LOVE him. He’s going to massacre all his republican rivals in the very first primaries, if not before then. The party will cower and cave.
What will clinch it is an unmasked moment of pure LIVE TV in which Americans see Trump (Christie was the favorite earlier, pre-Trump days) tell Clinton to her face, she’s a “…B###H…” or a “…W###E…” some such see you next Tuesday variety type slur. They are begging for it…on live TV. Look what he did with Jorge Ramos!
Do you think I am mad?
You know that’s what they want because they see Clinton as a testosterone challenge. . Believe me, anybody who will slur her on LIVE TV qualifies for the next level of tellin’ Putin where to get off. Thus they become experts in foreign policy. Rock hard cred.
We’re witnessing horrible Live TV, Caitlin.
Liberal comments are confused by Trump. That is due to the weak link between liberal comments and the actual electorate. The actual electorate is not in favor of amnesty, not in favor of open-borders, not in favor of policies tilted to helping the illegals over legal immigrants. In short, liberal comments are confused because 1) Trump says things that should not be well-received (according to liberal commenters) but 2) they actually are well-received.
They say that “truth has a liberal bias”. That is, all kinds of truth EXCEPT truth about public opinion about illegals. There truth and liberal bias/confusion/propaganda diverge. We will see in Nov 2016 as to which truth will prevail. Until then, I expect a fair amount of liberal consternation.
If the author is willing to bet on Trump as the nominee, I am willing to take the bet for any amount she chooses (within reason).