The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Canalman]

Looks like Trump unless the GOP superdelegates trump him (pun intended) at the convention.

America in fairness has had  some longshots as president............ Truman, Ford (both not elected though first time) , Carter and Obama.

Have said it before and will say it again I just cannot see what people see in Hilary Clinton. Imo suffers a bit in the likeability/ awshucks/ everyday eddie stakes so important to a politician.

Fascinating stuff all the same.

[screenexile]

Looks like Trump unless the GOP superdelegates trump him (pun intended) at the convention.

America in fairness has had  some longshots as president............ Truman, Ford (both not elected though first time) , Carter and Obama.

Have said it before and will say it again I just cannot see what people see in Hilary Clinton. Imo suffers a bit in the likeability/ awshucks/ everyday eddie stakes so important to a politician.

Fascinating stuff all the same.

I think she's the best of a bad bunch even given how unlikable she is but she's more than qualified for the job.

Trump hasn't a f**king clue... even compared to Hilary, Cruz is as unlikable as you can get so I can't see either of those 2 getting in.

She has experience of politics and knows what she is talking about. Republicans hate her because she is a woman and can't really offer up any concrete reason she shouldn't be in the Whitehouse (even after 7 odd investigations into Benghazi which have thrown up nothing).

To be honest I'm enjoying watching stew's tailspin on here which is quite spectacular even for Trump standards. For his sake I hope she gets in.

[deiseach]

The extent to which the hacks are talking up a contest for the GOP nomination is getting ridiculous. Trump is home and hosed, and that's true even if everyone else dropped out and threw their support behind Rubio (I won't even contemplate the absurdity of everyone else dropping out and throwing their support behind Cruz). Time to the media to make their peace with the both-sides-are-equally-bad narrative and embrace the reality of the monster they created.

[Hardy]

Jays, there goes poor ould Tommy's low profile.

[AZOffaly]

Trump v Clinton? That's what we're looking at? Seriously?

[deiseach]

Ted saw a documentary recently on the scourge of the undocumented Irish and it stiffened his resolve:

[J70]

Trump
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/09/24/trump/
Two qualities more than any others have driven conservatism in our time. The first is cultural and racial resentment, felt by the mostly older and very white population the GOP increasingly represents—resentment against a fast-changing, more openly sexual America, as well as against dark-skinned immigrants, and White House occupants, and gay people and political correctness and the "moocher class" and all the rest. The second is what we might call spectacle—the unrelenting push toward a rhetorical style ever more gladiatorial and ever more outraged (and outrageous), driven initially by talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and now reproduced on websites, podcasts, and Twitter feeds too numerous to mention. There is a strong tendency, perfected over the years by Fox News, to cover and discuss domestic politics as a combination of war, sport, and entertainment all at once.
Well, Trump is conservative resentment and spectacle made flesh.
Certain assumptions about what a Republican politician could and could not get away with doing, assumptions shared by the entire political establishment—that you couldn't attack a war hero, say, or that a GOP candidate would never dare pick a fight with Fox—have been shattered. When he speaks, the media will listen and, given the ratings he ensures, will give him as much coverage as traffic numbers suggest they ought to.
Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus is clearly terrified of him. Even Fox News head Roger Ailes—the effective cochairman of the Republican Party for a number of years now—treats him gingerly. Karl Rove wants desperately for the party establishment to block him. They all wish he would go away, even while they must know that they are responsible for Trump because they have spent many years creating an audience that was just waiting for someone like him to come along.
The three major nearer-term explanations for his success are pretty straightforward. The first is his celebrity. Trump hosts a network prime-time show, NBC's The Celebrity Apprentice, which has run for fourteen seasons (as The Apprentice for eight of those seasons). That is a long time to be on prime-time television. Seinfeld, one of the most popular television shows in history, lasted nine seasons.
The second reason is the surprising weakness of the rest of the GOP field.
The final cause of Trump's rise has been the intense attention given to him by the political media.
In the real, complicated world, solving one problem generally means creating another. But Trump's moral universe has no space for such disorder. All it takes is some resolve, titanium again being the key element:
I do deals—big deals—all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance. These are hard-driving, vicious cutthroat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage. And guess what? Those are exactly the kind of negotiators the United States needs, not these cream puff "diplomats" Obama sends around the globe to play patty cake with foreign governments. No, we need smart people with titanium spines and big brains who love America enough to fight fiercely for our interests.
That's the essence of it. His supporters seem to believe that he can do these things; or, even if they don't quite believe, they long for someone who can—who can tame OPEC and China and Iran as if world affairs could be made to be like a reality TV show. This is an understandable yearning to some extent, in an age in which the United States' ability to call the global shots is so much reduced from what it was fifty years ago. But it has a more sinister aspect, this wish for a strong man who can just fix everything. And surely it's also the case for some Trump supporters that after eight years of Obama, a bullying white man is exactly what is needed to restore things to their natural order. It is these qualities that lend Trumpism its faintly disturbing Face in the Crowd odor.
On domestic issues, his book is rather dull. Every chapter—on taxes, entitlements, health care, the social safety net—starts out with a few broadsides flung at Obama for being either incompetent, weak, or too left-wing and then moves on to policy prescriptions that have been standard conservative points for years. There would be four marginal tax rates under President Trump, the highest at just 15 percent, and that only on dollars earned above $1 million. On top of this he would reduce the corporate tax rate to zero. The national treasury would be depleted. But not to worry—working people would get to keep more of their hard-earned money, and they'd get to spend more years earning it, since Trump proposes raising the retirement age.

If Trump wins the nomination he will be among the least informed candidates for the presidency in a long time. He blusters his way through the (relatively few) substantive questions put to him in interviews and debates: he knows how to get things done; he has "lots of friends" among the (fill-in-the-blank, be it a nationality, such as Mexicans, or other groups, such as Muslims or members of Congress). And he's been subjected to little follow-up questioning: so far, to my knowledge, when Trump says, as he has frequently, about his fuzzy health care plan, that we won't leave people "dying in the streets," no one has pointedcomfirtabose aree the people whom Medicaid and emergency rooms are designed to tMedicaid

Liberal bullshit at its nastiest, God I hate the left, the far left, you know, the morons who believe bile like Whst is written above, keep working on making sure transgender people are comfortable in any bathroom, that will get the job done you fcukwits!

So what's wrong with the piece stew?

Are the Republicans NOT desperate to get rid of him?

Is he not extremely vague on policy detail?

Is he not heavy on boasting and "it's gonna be great!" bullshit?

As for "liberal bullshit", remember, you're the one continually posting about the Clintons' murdering people and Hillary just abandoning the Benghazi victims. You're the one who posted the spoof Bill Bennett piece on Obama as factual a few weeks back.

[GaillimhIarthair]

Trump v Clinton? That's what we're looking at? Seriously?

Its hard to believe in fairness - 320 milllion US Citizens and that is the best they can come up with on both sides!

[armaghniac]

I think she's the best of a bad bunch even given how unlikable she is but she's more than qualified for the job.

Trump hasn't a f**king clue... even compared to Hilary, Cruz is as unlikable as you can get so I can't see either of those 2 getting in.

She has experience of politics and knows what she is talking about. Republicans hate her because she is a woman and can't really offer up any concrete reason she shouldn't be in the Whitehouse (even after 7 odd investigations into Benghazi which have thrown up nothing).

To be honest I'm enjoying watching stew's tailspin on here which is quite spectacular even for Trump standards. For his sake I hope she gets in.

Clinton is a politician, not unlike Enda Kenny say; self serving to be sure, but not intrinsically dangerous.
I can't get Trump at all or why even half educated people support him.

[J70]

Trump v Clinton? That's what we're looking at? Seriously?

Its hard to believe in fairness - 320 milllion US Citizens and that is the best they can come up with on both sides!

It's what you have to go through to get there.

Not everyone is willing to subject themselves to the ordeal, the scrutiny and the hype.

[GJL]

Would it be fair to assume Clinton will win? Surely Americans would not be mad enough to have Trump in the WH?

[J70]

Would it be fair to assume Clinton will win? Surely Americans would not be mad enough to have Trump in the WH?

Depends how well she defends the email stuff.

Trump will go to town on her on that and Benghazi and Vince Foster and all the other stuff, real or imagined.

[give her dixie]

Stew is wrong on the number of deaths Clinton is responsible for in Libya.

She is responsible for the deaths of thousands, the overthrow of Gadaffi and the destruction of a prosperous country,
the rise of ISIS in the country, and the influx of refugees into Europe, among others.

She is a warmonger of the highest order, and her love in with brutal dictators and despots makes her a sad excuse for a
human, never mind a woman.

But then again, those are the qualities a US President has required of late.

[screenexile]

Stew is wrong on the number of deaths Clinton is responsible for in Libya.

She is responsible for the deaths of thousands, the overthrow of Gadaffi and the destruction of a prosperous country,
the rise of ISIS in the country, and the influx of refugees into Europe, among others.

She is a warmonger of the highest order, and her love in with brutal dictators and despots makes her a sad excuse for a
human, never mind a woman.

But then again, those are the qualities a US President has required of late.

PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE ALL ON HER OWN... what a load of aul shite!!

[Íseal agus crua isteach a]

Killary is a political prostitute that's how it is in the United States. Its a lobbyocracy not a democracy. If you are not an Israel first-er you don't stand a chance. Its pathetic and frightening at the same time.