So, now it’s Jeb’s turn to experience the joys of panicking sugar daddies who want to see a return on their investment beyond a 7% rating in the polls.
He’s got enough money (and the connections to raise more) that he can tough this out longer than Scott Walker, but this isn’t the kind of press his campaign wants to see.
I learned from watching John McCain’s campaign come back from the dead, so I’m not going to pronounce Jeb’s campaign…
…but it is definitely a very sick campaign. Very sick.
And they’re worrying about Rubio when I think they should be more worried about Kasich.
I don’t doubt that some Establishment types are ready to flee to Rubio, but these are the same people who thought Jeb was a cinch.
What part of Donald Trump’s success or John Boehner’s demise makes these folks think that the Republican base wants a pro-amnesty U.S. Senator of Cuban descent as their standard bearer?
Am I crazy?
We have a full-on white nationalist freak-out revolt on our hands and they’re worried about Rubio?
First, look at the fact that the Republicans’ top three choices now, who collectively have the support of over 50% of likely voters, are not members of Congress or even sitting or former governors. These folks hate Congress, hate the Republican leadership, hate the Republican establishment, and, above all, hate racial minorities.
Now, assuming that some basic desire to win at some point takes hold of these folks, I have to assume that they’d prefer a governor to a senator if only because a governor has nothing directly to do with Boehner or McConnell or any Bushes or Washington DC.
But Christie ain’t gonna work and Walker is already gone.
Kasich is going to seem a whole lot more electable than Trump, Carson, or Fiorina.
Now, Ted Cruz is a special case because although he’s a senator he’s a conservative purist who fits their mood. But he’s the most transparently unelectable of all the candidates, and at the end of the day he’s a racial minority, too.
I think you can make a case that Rubio is the strongest candidate among the senators, but Kasich just fits better as a consensus choice who doesn’t offend too many people and that all sides can basically live with.
I could see a Kasich/Rubio ticket, or vice-versa, I guess. That’s as good as the Establishment can possibly hope to do, I think.
I think Jeb can outlast these punks, maybe, but he’s an obvious dud. He doesn’t have it.
So, I’m not surprised that his donors are starting to lose their shit.
Is this why you’ve left off Jeb!’s exclamation point?
I’ve been going with Jeb? for a while now.
I recently made the tough decision to downgrade his upper case letter status, so it’s now jeb?
But as I’ve noted before, unless someone politically kills this guy off, he’s going to stick around a long time, even if I continue to refer to him as jeb?.
A dangerous opponent in the general, if he gets the nom, as he and the family organization have experience in stealing elections and doing it with impunity.
If Trump is actually serious and is building an organization that can get him on ballots and get people to the polls, I still don’t see how they can stop him. But that’s the $64,000 question. Kasich I really don’t think is going anywhere even if the party elite rallies behind him. His poor debate performance and failure to make a podt-debate move in the polls have eased my worries about him (he would be the general election candidate I would fear most).
Trump’s in-box should be filling up with resumes from laid off GOP campaign staffers about now. But doubt he’ll offer the fat paychecks they were getting from Walker.
Kasich on paper and from prior appearances on TV talkies looked good, but after seeing him in two debates, he’s about as interesting and exciting as Pawlenty.
The wannabe crowd is thinning out and none of them are looking any better.
I do wonder when Jeb! or his SuperPAC funders start airing ads. That money doesn’t spend itself. And what money does he have in his campaign compared to the SuperPAC’s? Also, anyone else laugh that 2 days after 538 puts out an article claiming Piyush can win Iowa that Piyush bails on the race?
Jeb’s got ads running in the NH TV market, which includes the regional cable news network, NECN, so I see them even though I’m in Massachusetts. Standard “I did great stuff as governor and I’ll do great stuff as president” themes.
And it hasn’t moved the needle at all. Haha!!
His SuperPac made a huge ad buy a few days ago. $24 million in the IA, NH, and SC markets.
As of 6/30 he’d raised approximately $10 million and had spent $3 million. More revenue and COH than the others except Clinton, Sanders, and Cruz.
He could face the same challenge as Perry and Walker did. Plenty of dough in the SuperPac and a short of campaign donors and cash in the campaign kitty.
From Open Secrets (6/30), the three Democratic candidates had raised $66 million, and the gazillion GOP candidates (excluding Trump) had raised $64 million. (That doesn’t include anything for Walker, Christie, and Kasich who were late in opening their campaigns.) The pool of primary campaign donors if finite, all of them are swimming in the same pool, and none of them have made any headway in building a large, small donor base. That could be a reason Trump has become popular — he’s not asking his supporters to send money and they do like free stuff.
Kasich is not dangerous. In fact, I’d rate him the least dangerous of the ‘serious’ candidates.
For all of the talk about the GOP’s well-deserved troubles with racial minorities, and
for all of the talk about the GOP going full-on white supremacist, what’s missing in the discussion is that the GOP has been steadily losing ground with Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western whites since 2004. I don’t see a McCain/Romney-style campaign doing anything to reverse this trend. The GOP’s mandate is twofold in 2012: they must simultaneously do better with racial minorities while also doing better with non-Southern whites. And I just don’t see Kasich being able to do either of these tasks better than Romney did.
A Trump-style campaign that goes full-out on stoking white aggrievement and packaging it with populist economics (though it looks less and less likely that Trump is going to be able to forward that part of the platform as time goes on) has a theoretical path to victory. It involves picking off states that Obama won in 2012 that have a white voting population of 80-85%. It all depends on how powerful you think white aggrievement as a political force is.
But we already know how McCain/Romney-style campaigns would work. There’s a good chance in 2016 that in addition to making up no lost ground they also lose North Carolina and Georgia and a not-inconsiderable chance of losing Missouri and Arizona as well.
I’d love to go up against Kasich. For all of the handwringing a lot of liberals do towards him being the one ‘sensible’ candidate in the race, demographically he stands no chance.
I think you are spot on until you claimed Trump had a path to victory. There is no such path. IMHO the white aggrievement that Trump stokes is simply a reaction from them seeing the black POTUS. That is where his main support originates. He is a protest against what exists, and what Obama represents for the future. It’s all about Obama for Trump supporters. But if he was running against the new nominee he would not pick up new aggrievement, because Obama won’t be on the ballot. And if he attacked Clinton with sexist tactics, he would be dead. He wouldn’t win five states.
.
It depends on how strong you think white aggrievement as a force really is. Frankly, it’s not a gamble I’m willing to make, since racial minorities won’t save the Democratic Party if Trump picks up the Romney states plus most of Minnesota/Pennsylvania/Ohio/Virginia/Michigan/New Hampshire/Iowa.
I mentioned that the Republican Party has been steadily losing ground with non-Southern whites, but it’s unclear as to the cause of this loss. If they’re disgusted with the GOP’s right-wing policies, then it won’t help him. However, if the numbers are being drawn from A.) disaffected racial revanchists and/or B.) race apathetic privileged whites who think that the GOP is too plutocratic then the Democratic Party might be in for a lot of trouble indeed. Especially if it nominates Biden or clinton.
What? No. Trump’s rise coincided with him going full-fascist on immigration. I was monitoring white supremacist sites following the #cuckservative meme, and when Trump opened up with his scurrilous remarks on Mexican immigrants they lit up like a Christmas tree. He was their guy. Also not coincidentally, this was when he rocketed up to frontrunner and did a whopping 50% reversal in favorables.
The R’s have been losing ground to non-southern whites. Actually, its probably more to non-southern white women. The ongoing war on women has had its effect. These loses are NOT going to be made up by “full on racism” because they are not primarily racist.
Biden and O’Malley would primarily be running for Obamas third term (at least that’s what I see). Full on racism would be called into play.
Say whatever you want neither Bernie nor Hillary are running for Obamas third term (doesn’t matter what you WANT, it ain’t happening). Full on racism on two of the whitest people in politics … meh.
Sept 27: Trump 21 NBC/WSJ
Sept 24: Trump 21 Bloomberg
Sept 23: Trump 26 Fox News
Sept 20: Trump 24 CNN/ORC
Sept 15: Trump 27 CBS/NYT
Sept 14: Trump 33 ABC/WaPo
Sept 3: Trump 30 Monmouth
The response was “statistical noise”. Nah, these polls don’t have to be right and could change radically, but its a clear down trend.
I think the next R nominated will have significant racist cred. Maybe in the VP slot, but it’ll be there.
I don’t think it will be Trump. He’s too much of a caricature; he can’t keep his mouth shut; the business side can’t stand him; Xtians are not enthused AND I still haven’t seen “boots on the ground” for the caucuses.
It takes more than love to win a nomination.
How do you think that it will play out? Personally, I still feel that Bush or Rubio or even Kasich will be able to rally other Republicans to fend off Trump. I don’t feel that Carson nor Fiorina will be able to stand up to scrutiny, but my hazy feeling is that even if Trump catches every single break possible he’s not going to be able to break 40%. Especially if the establishment candidates manages to woo evangelicals.
Honestly? Who can tell. Right now the only thing I’m willing to bet on (and it would be small $$$) is that neither Trump or Carson will make the cut.
Trump for the aforementioned reasons can’t make the Pres, and I don’t think he’s settle for VP. But that’s conjecture on my part. Maybe he would. If so, the Trumpers would probably follow.
Carson, last time I looked, is still black.
Carly can’t make it as Pres. She just doesn’t have the chops, she doesn’t excite anyone, she has a terrible record at HP that will be pounded on and (lord help me) Trump is right. Her optics are terrible. She might be an option for VP, but she doesn’t excite the base, she isn’t Xtian enough for the fundies and she’s probably suspect coming from CA.
Jindal, Rand and Pataki are in a battle to see who can not announce withdrawal the fastest. None can even be considered for VP. Jindal’s state is in shambles from his administration, Rand can’t even control his daddy’s constituency (Bernie is coopting those in NH) and Pataki … please.
Christie, Graham, Huck, Santorum, Gilmore are used to bes and neverwases. They are holding on for various reasons: Christie would like to be VP (probably won’t happen. He has no natural constituency that 3 other less hated pols have), Graham has loser written all over him and will be accused of being gay if he even begins to show in the polls, Huck is trying to keep relevant to keep his Fox gig, Santorum was is an after thought left over from being the last non-Mittens. Who the hell is Gilmore, anyway?
That leaves Bush, Kasich, Rubio, Cruz.
Bush has the $$ to be the last man standing. No one likes him, no one cares if he’s in or out, no gives a damn if he attacks anyone. But he can stay in until the cows come home. That might actually be enough. I don’t see him being VP.
Kasich is running the downlow. Not much organization and he’s bent the anti-gay, rabid anti-immigrant community but that was some time ago (about 3 weeks) so it can probably be forgotten. If he can stay in, I can see him gradually overtaking Bush.
Rubio (sigh). He’s the non-racist appeal to the racists. He’ll get traction for a while as the anti-Trump, but that’s about it. It might be enough to get a VP nod because the asshole racists can’t believe that any Hispanic would be sophisticated enough to vote against someone named Rubio. The only Hispanics who actually will support Rubio are the 60% of the anti-Castro Cuban community of Southern Florida.
Cruz is a definite possibility for Pres in my eyes. Or he could drop out tomorrow. Either way, Ted Nugent has more chance of being elected Pres.
Willard ran a Southern Strategy campaign.
And, it worked.
He got 60% of the White voter.
And, it didn’t even matter, Electoral College or Popular Vote wise.
And the likelihood of the 2016 Democratic Nominee being Black is less than nil.
So, show me a GOPer that appeals to non-White voters.
It looks pretty bleak for them, doesn’t it? I think they’re in ‘pray for a recession, scandal, or policy fuckup’ territory at this point.
And as we can see with Carson and Bush’s recent racist dog-whistles (and I’m not even going to get into the conservative media and polity enabling Trump’s fascism), it looks like they haven’t learned a damn thing. It’s like the 2012 post-election autopsy never happened.
What’s the definition of insanity again?
On paper, nationally, the GOP can’t win. In some ways the 2012 election can be viewed as the limits of the “southern strategy.” How can the GOP improve on the white vote when 39% of them stuck with the AA incumbent? The primary demographic shift from DEM to GOP from 2000 to 2012 was older white folks. And now for every additional older white voter that they could possibly gain, they’ll lose one or more voters in other demographic groups.
Among Latinos, they lost eight points from 2000 to 2012 (down to 27%). Some room for them to lose more of that voting sector.
Asians, down 15% (to 26%). They could lose more of that demographic as well.
The women’s vote (2000 and 2012) was the same. 54% DEM. Attacking PP and contraception isn’t going to improve GOP numbers with women.
A solid majority of those under age 45 didn’t want anything McCain or Romney was selling. So, doubling down on what “old farts” want to impose on the young is an objectively stupid strategy.
That said, while it appears that Clinton can’t lose in the general election (more so in light of the only possible GOP nominee), at this time, not inclined place a bet that she will win.
Fallout from a Jeb? campaign demise could be dicey. Cheers from the crazies just like response to Boehner? Then more panic and fear from the staid? The disarray of a Jeb? demise would be substantial. Party identity would hang in the balance.
Rubio will always be the youngster looking for the water bottle when under pressure. Not a guy you’d turn to to meld a shredded Party.
Cruz doesn’t have a unifying bone in his body. Kasich does and so he might just have a shining moment of leadership when war breaks out within.
As for the current top 3, well they seem secure there for the moment but suspiciously looking like they’ve peaked. Fiorina & Carson are getting lots of negative press but Trump’s message is the one seeming to be stagnating. That said, none of them have the political leadership skills that Kasich does to pull the Party together if Jeb? abandons the ship.
I actually think he is the most threatening to a Democratic victory. If the choice is between HRC and Jeb! or Bernie and Jeb!, I think he would win over the mainstream Rep, the independents, and a lot of Dem who wouldn’t be be comfortable with HRC and Bernie due to MSM demonization of both.
He would be portrayed as the most “mainstream” of the candidates and easier for those who doubt the others to swallow.
That he is a lousy campaigner and cannot gain traction in the current GOP environment is a plus for the
Dem. party.
Anyway, the Bush family factorum, Jim Baker, is probably too old to hop the Gulfstream and pull one more Bush son out of the fire this time.
The best way for either Hillary of Bernie to win over both the disaffected whites and minorities is to go full whole hog economic popularism. And take the message deep into the South and heartland; not just Seattle, Chicago and NYC (where Hillary is most comfortable).
R
Is there any constituency at all for Bush? Democrats actually remember the last Bush administration, so they’re out. For the purpose of this discussion, we could simplify the Republican ethos into two main themes: 1) Pretending the last Bush administration didn’t happen (all elected republicans and their connected media organs) 2) Extremist tea-bagging and/or social conservative death metal. Neither theme has the slightest opening for Jeb??? 2) in particular is in many ways a reaction to the utter failure of Bushism. Not for the country or the planet, they don’t care about that, or they are actually proud of that. But it failed for conservatism itself.
The whole campaign seems like an exercise in billionaire arrogance and delusion.
aspiration message “fixing big complex things” – are they talking to 6 year olds? and George Jr hosted a fund raising dinner in NY on Sept 10? are they crazy?
I still see Jeb as having the inside track to the nomination.
But if he falls, it’s Trump all the way. Get your yellow shirts ready.
Huffington Post runs their poll aggregates over three years, which is useless in the presidential cycle. You can customize it for better information. Here’s a good snapshot of where the (R) nomination stands right now:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary#!mindate=2015-07-01&smoot
hing=less&estimate=custom
You can see that Trump had an apex about two weeks ago. But he’s still comfortably in the lead. Carson seems to be picking up a few of his voters. Fiorina’s bounce is over, predictably. In the background, you can see Bush and Rubio making a slow climb.
Your chart has updated since your comment. Trump more decline, Carson up more and now close to Trump.
Rubio also up more, but Bush now slipping back a bit.
Kasich is the only candidate that scares me. I’ve heard that he’s as close as you get to a moderate in today’s gop and I’m afraid he can be dressed up to look like one drawing voters from and D that might make it to the primary finish line.
As I suggested in an earlier post, Kasich is the one the Republicans will nominate, if they follow their usual habit of selecting the candidate with the best chance to win. If they are smart, they will ditch Rubio and nominate for VP Susana Martinez, Governor of New Mexico. She is ten times as smart as Rubio, she is a Latina, she used to be a Democrat, and she gave the only good speech at the Romney convention. This is still the ticket I expect to see. It is the most dangerous, but also the least totally insane. It is the only ticket I consider capable of winning for them.
And, the first question to her will be…..how do you square your party’s stance on immigration, considering that you come from a family of illegals?
I don’t know about Martinez, you could be right as rain.
I don’t, however, expect the VP to come from currently announced candidates. All of them are flawed. All of them have serious baggage. All of them are going to be seen as LOSERS to the eventual winner.
The real question becomes what will the eventual candidate NEED????
Cruz does not need one of the crazies. He needs gravitas and stability. Unfortunately, gravitas and stability are in low demand in the R party right now. The closest you could get to it would be a Blue Dog.
Bush desperately needs someone south of Bedlam to draw in the base. Fortunately for the future of reality TV, Sista Sarah has already had her 15 minutes of fame.
Kasich will need to shore up the base AND not offend any other minorities (and YES, I consider the R base to be a distinguishable minority). Martinez I could see as an excellent fit. However, its a losing fit. Neither has enough exposure and name recognition to be able to establish themselves prior to the negatives being called up.
I can’t see Rubio as the eventual candidate, but weirder things have happened. Rubio will have to have not only a bedlamite, but an extremely well known bedlamite to placate the base. I’m thinking Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Rush Limpdick well known here.
To quote a leader of the only SE Asian country to declare war on the US: ‘Tis a puzzlement.
Forget all your preconceptions of the actors (what they’ve said and done) and flip your image of a Kasich/Rubio ticket to a Rubio/Kasich ticket. Now, does the latter remind you of anything?