The Many Faces of US Politics...

[screenexile]

Romney's gone to Town on Trump . . . is it just me or is there a chance someone might come knocking out of the blue come Convention time?

[The Iceman]

Romney's gone to Town on Trump . . . is it just me or is there a chance someone might come knocking out of the blue come Convention time?

romney might step up as an independent? Or a third party emerges? who knows
he should have put himself in the mix from the start... he would have walked all over Trump? but maybe strategic move to avoid all the messy debates and mud slinging and swing in to save the day?

[J70]

One thing is for sure, if Trump is the GOP nominee, there will be plenty of footage of GOP leading lights denouncing Trump for Hillary to use in her ads.

[easytiger95]

Perhaps more likely that Trump finds some way to walk away from the Republican nomination, go independent himself, and thus give him an out if he loses in the general. In that situation, if you get to a convention with Cruz and Rubio left, and a dogfight between delegates, a draft Romney movement emerges, with perhaps Rubio as a VP selection.

All that is predicated on Trump realizing that Hillary creams him in a head to head (I don't think she creams Romney, but a third party run from Trump will split the conservative vote)

Absolutely fascinating - for all the dread implications of Trump running in whatever form for President.

[J70]

I guess its all about match-ups (Hillary is not Obama), but Romney was a horrible candidate last time out. The only time he even briefly came close to even beginning to look like he could win was when Obama gave that listless, apathetic performance in the first debate, and even that was partly because Romney was doing the "pivot to the centre" bit and agreeing with Obama on a lot of stuff.

[seafoid]

If Trump goes 3rd party the GOP vote is split. Even Willie O'Dea could then win for the Dems.

[heganboy]

Trump as a 3rd party or independent candidate is the absolute nightmare for the GOP. They would likely come third on the popular vote.
The nightmare scenario for the Dems is Hilary losing to Bernie/ or another legal challenge/ indictment. That likely leaves Bloomberg with a clear run as a 3rd party and Trump as president.

what would be brilliant for the neutral (yup- I mean me) is 4 names on the ballot, trump bloomberg rubio and bernie.
And that is the many faces of US Politics that this thread has been looking for...

[seafoid]

I guess its all about match-ups (Hillary is not Obama), but Romney was a horrible candidate last time out. The only time he even briefly came close to even beginning to look like he could win was when Obama gave that listless, apathetic performance in the first debate, and even that was partly because Romney was doing the "pivot to the centre" bit and agreeing with Obama on a lot of stuff.

At least Romney was presentable. None of the 3 left are.

[Gmac]

A Hillary aid who set up her personal email account has been given immunity from prosecution a very interesting development .

[J70]

A Hillary aid who set up her personal email account has been given immunity from prosecution a very interesting development .

I predict a repeat of the "a lot of buffers" congressional testimony from The Godfather 2.

[Eamonnca1]

I guess its all about match-ups (Hillary is not Obama), but Romney was a horrible candidate last time out. The only time he even briefly came close to even beginning to look like he could win was when Obama gave that listless, apathetic performance in the first debate, and even that was partly because Romney was doing the "pivot to the centre" bit and agreeing with Obama on a lot of stuff.

For Obama's performance in that debate I blame Obama for taking debate advice from John Kerry.

[seafoid]

Politics everywhere  struggles to contain the fallout of the economic situation. Trump, Irish water and Brexit are all linked.  What is happening to the GOP is seismic.

[Declan]

   

BY:  Matthew Continetti
March 3, 2016 11:18 pm


Donald Trump had by far his worst debate of the 2016 campaign on Thursday. He was defensive and vulgar, evasive and condescending, rude and imperious. He moved drastically to the center on immigration, repudiating his position on H-1B visas on stage and saying "everything is negotiable," including the border wall and the fate of illegal immigrants already in the United States. He defended his calls for expansive torture and the killing of civilians related to terrorists, saying the military "will do what I tell them" even if his orders contradict the law. He dismissed his opponents as "little Marco" and "lying Ted" and bragged about his manhood. Over two hours he provided reams and reams of material for Hillary Clinton's ad writers. And through it all he was cheered by a raucous and heckling audience that seemed to have been transported straight from the courtroom scene in "Encounter at Farpoint."

The spectacle made me ill. On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to criticize and try to stop him. And even then it may be too late.

I sometimes wonder whether Trump chose to run as a Republican because he identified the GOP as the weaker of the two parties. His politics line up favorably with Democrats, and he has supported Democrats in the past. But the Republicans had been so buffeted by 20 years of inattention to the costs of globalization, by the growing estrangement of traditional constituencies who have lost status and resources in the twenty-first century, by the mistakes and narrow-mindedness of the party elite, that clearly the party of Lincoln was the easier mark. Trump called the bluff of the Beltway establishment. He proved that the ghost of Jack Kemp doesn't move the party base. The ghost of Nixon does.

There was no winner at the debate, but there was certainly a loser: The GOP. It started this election cycle in a strong position, and is now on the precipice of nominating a political neophyte, a caricature of everything liberals hate about Republicans, whose unfavorable ratings are sky-high and who loses to Hillary Clinton in practically every poll. The best hope of the anti-Trump forces is to somehow prevent him from winning the number of delegates necessary to secure the nomination outright, and deliver the nomination to someone else at the party's convention. I'm skeptical. It's a last-ditch attempt, and if the party wants to nominate Trump, that's its choice. But in doing so it would crown as the heir to Lincoln and TR and Eisenhower and Reagan a man who every day finds new ways to polarize, repel, infuriate, exhaust, shock, and horrify.

[seafoid]

Mick O Dowd seems to be the Irish version of Trump. He promised to make Meath great again. He has done to the Ryles what Trump is doing to the GOP.

[deiseach]

Some number crunching on the path to a contested convention here. The crucial graphic:

In that case, Trump still holds the delegate lead. But he needs to win 66 percent of remaining delegates to get to 1,237 -- and that could be a hard climb.

As another article noted on the subject, a contested convention is like the white whale of political hacks. I don't think I'd go to sleep during the convention if it happened.