Communities Dominate Brands

Smartphone Wars: Q3 Scorecard - All market shares, Top 10 brands, OS platforms, Installed base

Its time to do the Quarterly update for the Smartphone Wars. First off, the overall market size. I told you last quarter that I felt the big industry analyst houses had it maybe too low, but based on their consensus view of Q2 unit shipments, I downgraded my annual shipment forecast. Now we have Q3 numbers (the average now works out to 354.7 million units worldwide) which is 5% growth compared to Q2. I do think the Q2 numbers were a bit too conservative and I can come back to my original forecast for 2015 total shipments of 1.55 Billlion units and yes, can be a bit below that so lets say its now between 1.53B and 1.55B. (I know these numbers are important to some of our readers here, who have their own models back home..)

So lets do the numbers. The Top 10 largest smartphone brands for Q3 ie July-September Quarter of 2015 are as follows:

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q3 2015

Rank . . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was Q2 2015 . . OS systems supported (coming)
1 (1) . . . Samsung . . . .  84.2 M . . 23.7% . . . . . . . ( 21.5% ) . . . . . . Android, Tizen
2 (2) . . . Apple  . . . . . . . 48.0 M . . 13.5% . . . . . . . ( 14.0% ) . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . . Huawei  . . . . . . 27.4 M . . . 7.7% . . . . . . . (   7.6% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
5 (4) . . . Lenovo .  . . . . . 18.8 M . . . 5.3% . . . . . . . (   4.8% ) . . . . . . Android (Tizen)
4 (5) . . . Xiaomi . . . . . . .18.5 M . . . 5.2% . . . . . . .  (   5.6% ) . . . . . . Android
6 (6) . . . LG  . . . . . . . .  . 14.9 M . . . 4.2% . . . . . . . (   4.2% ) . . . . . . Android
7 (7) . . . ZTE  . . . . . . . . . 14.2 M . . . 4.0% . . . . . . . (   4.1% ) . . . . . . Android, Firefox
8 ( -) . . . Oppo . . . . . . . . . 12.5 M . . . 3.5% . . . . . . . (   2.0% ) . . . . .  Android
9 (10) . . Vivo . . . . . . . . . . 12.1 M . . . 3.4% . . . . . . . (   2.8% ) . . . . . . Android
10 (9) . . TCL/Alcatel . . . .  10.3 M . . . 2.9% . . . . . . . (  2.3% ) . . . . . . Android
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . ..  93.8 M
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . ..   354.7 M

Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 Oct 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So Samsung takes a little step up in sales and market share for a change. Apple continues its annual pattern where Christmas sees the 'step jump' and the rest of the nine months sees an annual erosion in market share, this is nothing unusual. For Huawei I adjusted the Q1 and Q2 numbers because we learned the first half sales were 50M and now we know the immediate period before and after, so I have the four consecutive quarters as: 24.4M, 24.4M, 25.6M and 27.4M (this again for those who are following the math back home). This pattern makes more sense than the see-saw we had before for Q1 and Q2.

There is a bit of jostling for fourth place with Lenovo taking that slot from Xiaomi. Then the fight is on the bottom of who is a global Top 10 manufacturer and who isn't. Coolpad is dropped out and as I warned before, China's Oppo was on the bubble and now they are in at 8th ranking. Who is next coming from China? Meizu. Where is the first non-Chinese brand? India's Micromax. And a little side-note on the previous giants, for this Quarter Q3, Japan's Sony (which includes remnants of Sweden's Ericsson) has overtaken Microsoft's Lumia (which is the rump of Nokia's old smartphone unit). Sony sold 6.7 million and Microsoft Lumia 5.8 million smartphones, but both are far out of the Top 10. Both former giants are still shrinking in size of quarterly shipments and have trivial market shares; and both units are unprofitable so its a battle of loser and "loser's loser". Next lets do the OS battle. No 'battle here, so just lets get it over with:

Smartphone OS Shipments Q3 of 2015
Android . . . . 84.2%
iOS . . . . . . . 13.5%
Windows . . . . 1.7%
Blackberry . . . 0.2%
Tizen . . . . . . . 0.2%
Others . . . . . . 0.1%
Total . . . . . . 354.7M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 Oct 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

So yeah, we have Tizen in the charts... Note its statistically tied with Blackberry, but as Tizen didn't announce any number and Blackberry did, well before Samsung results, I expect Tizen did not ship more than BB, so the Tizen number is likely below 800,000 units for Q3. Its by selling one smartphone, the Tizen Z1 by Samsung, but now for Christmas, Sammy has launched their second Tizen phone, the Z3 and they did promise it would be sold in more than the two countries where the original Z1 was available.. We will have to see. On the top, this race was long since decided, Android won. Apple does a nice niche market for the premium price end with iOS. Windows continues to die, now they are down to 1.7% global market share in new sales and as I predicted, now yes, their market share has fallen to below 2% for the first time. The developers have not just stopped making or supporting Windows Phone apps, now many are pulling their old apps away from the Windows app store. It is becoming a Zombie extinction (wow, that is a phrase I never expected to write. And for casual readers, yes 'zombie' is what they call an app that has been abandoned by its developer but still lingers, without support or upgrade, in the app stores. More than 70% of all apps even at iPhone App Store and Google Play, are zombies. But there is an extinction of zombies happening now at Windows Phone app store. That is the very end indeed). Then lets go to the installed base.

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF 30 SEPT 2015

Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share  Was Q2  . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 1,808 M . . . 76 % . . . . . . (  76%) . . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, Xiaomi, TCL-Alcatel, Vivo, Coolpad 
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . . 463 M . . . 20 % . . . . . . ( 20 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Windows Phone . . 45 M . . . . 2 % . . . . . . (   2 %) . . . . . . Microsoft(Nokia)
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . .  19 M . . . . 1 % . . . . . . (   1 %) . . . . . . Blackberry
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31 M . . . . 1 %
TOTAL Installed Base . 2,367 M smartphones (2.4 Billion) in use at end of Q3, 2015
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Analysis 30 October 2015, based on manufacturer and industry data
This table may be freely shared

Nothing dramatic here. The total installed base of smartphones in use is already 2.4 Billion. Android is at 76% and still growing (but growth now so slow it was in fractions of one percent). Meanwhile Apple iOS, for the first time I see the peak of iPhone installed base having passed in Q2. It is yes, also only fractions of one percent but so you know, last four quarters were 19.5%, 19.7%, 19.7% and now 19.6%. As we already know from Apple own guidance for the Christmas season, there is no dramatic growth in unit sales compared to last year Christmas, but the industry has grown a lot, it means iPhone iOS installed base will now repeat the same market share decline we have seen in the annual sales market share for a couple of years now. This will be far more muted, of course, as the installed base reflects all devices in use, and Apple iPhones have a long life of use in the after-market, as hand-me-down phones and in the second-hand used phone market (also globally, used iPhones are big sellers in Emerging World second hand phone markets). For Apple fans, don't despair, the installed base will still be around 19.5% by year-end ad the rounding-off will probably still show 20% to the end of this year in the installed base. But just please note, the peak has passed and now will be in the same downward path as iPhone annual sales market share of new smartphones has been. That is inevitable math... But now we know it has happened and the gradual decline has started. By about 2020, the iPhone installed base will be down to about 12% when iPhone new unit sales are down to about 10% of all smartphones sold worldwide. (My readers care about these things..)

We also get a convenient rule of thumb now. iOS to Android installed base is now 1:4. So for every iPhone in use worldwide there now are 4 Android smartphones (this excluded tablets obviously where also Android leads but I don't study such tiny markets as tablets or PCs, haha, mobile consumes all of my time in tech). Oh, if you want the ratio to include Windows? Then its 1:10:40 for every 1 Windows smartphone there are ten iPhones and for every 1 Windows smartphone owner you might find, there are 40 Android owners. Nobody makes Windows apps anymore...

Other than Android won these wars, iOS is a healthy niche market for wealthy customers, Tizen is hoping to pass Blackberry and Blackberry is switching to Android, there is one more obvious refrain for us all .Say it with me, readers: Windows Phone continues to remain dead (and Lumia unit shut-down watch is now to 18 months of life left) That the Q3 report. Tune in, in three months, for the Q4 and full year 2015 report.

3rd Republican Debate Review: Christie emerges, Cruz rises, Kasich misses, Jeb fails

The third Republican debate has just ended on CNBC. This is my review of the candidates and I think we've seen the real race now take form. Ted Cruz will now rise to the top of the conservative side. The Trump summer is over, we will now see a brief Carson November but he clearly will not hold. Huckabee will not be able to challenge Cruz. Chris Christie will rise to challenge Marco Rubio for the moderate side. Jeb is going down as simply not having the fire or talent to get the job done. That unique fighter role that Fiorina exhibited so well in the first two debates was now suddenly overshadowed by Christie. Kasich made a valiant effort to change into the fighter he never was. Rand Paul continues to be irrelevant. (oh, and the kids table will not provide any other talent to this race). Carson will no doubt do well in Iowa, Trump (if he is then still in the race) can do well in New Hampshire. But the real race is a three-way contest: Cruz vs Rubio vs Christie. Fiorina can make a strong showing for the VP slot. But lets do each of the candidates by how I grade them - and my criteria were given in yesterday's blog, as each candidate had a different or differing mission, they would not be graded on the same metrics. But the scale is the same, that USA school grading system where A is best and F is failing.

CHRISTIE - A

Christie didn't really hit it out of the park, he did not have a pure Newt Gingrich moment, but his exchange with the moderators - are you going to answer this questions or will you let me answer it - that was excellent. Christie came clearly well focused, well prepared, constantly feisty but never rude or hostile. And as the pro debater he is, he constantly wrapped his points around with humor. A total command performance, excellent, worthy of the only A grade. I am sure that also general pundits and press will give this debate to Christie and his sound-bite is likely the most shown in reruns.

I said the Republicans are now seeking a dragon-slayer to defeat the feared debate master Hlilarymonster and Christie had fully internalized that need. He delivered. This was the perfect moment for him and none of the questions nor none of his rivals on the stage even particularly provoked that mean side of him that can tell nice old ladies to sit down and shut up. If there are two sides to Christie, we today saw only the sunny side of the Jersey boy. Like I wrote, Christie was on the ropes in terms of the 'adult table' debate inclusion, and needed a jump in his polling. This debate will definitely do that for him. And i think that as long as (or until) he doesn't implode due to some nasty bullying incident, he should now see a steady rise in his polling which brings Christie nearer to the center stage, gets him more time to talk and more time with the press, and he is enough of the pro, to convert that to more popularity. Especially as the Summer of Trump is past and the electorate suddenly appreciate the debating skills of this dragon-killer. I would say the Christie core-voter now re-discovered their favorite candidate. Last debate saw Fiorina jump 10 points in polling after her debate-winning performance that she then squandered in incompetent handling of the Planned Parenthood brain-harvesting delusions. Christie will not be making such amateur errors.

CRUZ - B+

The second best performance and a true break-out performance was with Ted Cruz. I said before that I couldn't see where his supposed debate skills were. Now we saw them aplenty. Remember the early Cruz response, when he took offense to the early questions? Cruz went through the field, mocking the moderators based on the first question to each candidate, by candidate name, and with funny twists of what circus tricks the moderators wanted them to play for TV, like making Dr Carson prove he can do math, etc. That could not be a planned prepared speech (like say Huckabee's comparison of the run-away blimp and the US government). That was totally debate technique, skill, and practise. And only someone with a sharp mind can pull that off in a live event like that. Bravo Ted. I am impressed. And this bodes well for future debates, as Ted is learning to adapt his college debating skills, and his Senate speaking skills, to this TV debate format (for which there is no other testing ground).

I wrote after both first debates that Cruz was nearly invisible. Now he inserted himself forcefully to the debate. I wrote that he came across as hostile and scary. Now he was nearly human. This is a far improved candidate who is clearly making a claim of being the flag-bearer for the conservative wing of the party. Essentially a flawless performance, and while he is not yet quite a dragon-slayer at the level of Fiorina or Christie, Cruz is clearly in a totally different league to Dr Carson for example, for the very conservative voters. If they want a nice guy, they can pick Carson. If they want to defeat Hillary next year, then its gotta be Ted Cruz. I think the very conservative reviewers may give the debate to Ted Cruz instead of Christie but I give Cruz only second place. Still, as his competition is hapless on the conservative side, this is an 'easy bracket' for Cruz to dominate. Yes, expect his polling now to improve and strongly.

CARSON - B

Now, don't misunderstand me. Carson was not the third best debater. But he had a totally different mission and his bar was set far below the others on the stage (so low, it would have been one floor below the stage). Carson can never win the nomination. But Mr Sleepy did arrive after one half cup of coffee, apparrently. He spoke not 300% faster, but 100% faster and he even managed to keep his eyes open occasionally. There were no Nazis no Holocausts and no slavery or fumbled answers relating to vaccinations. He did ok. And for Carson, just sounding like a sane person. Not sounding like a winning candidate, but sounding like a sane normal person, that is a good performance. He earned a B this time but his bar is also now raised for the next debate. Note, that as front-runner, Carson should have faced fierce fire from all sides. That never came. For his wacko positions, he should have been grilled as the front-runner far more, but this was the CNBC 'business' debate so he only got asked about his bad-math tax plan (or in reality, a fantasy). So its not like Carson was really tested but that doesn't matter. He emerged from the debate as far less the weird man from Mars, but like a normal person. Many who have loved him for a long time, can now with dignity point to this performance and say, read the reviews, he is not a lunatic, he did not suck. And yes, Carson sounds sensible. He will not set the room on fire, he would be crushed by Hillary, there is not one ounce of dragon-slayer in his body; but that won't deter some voters from preferring him. That being said, there wasn't any viable sensible alternative on the conservative side up to now. Who, if not Dr Carson. Well, now that rival has emerged, it is indeed, Ted Cruz. I think when the Carson November passes (and that may well be by mid-November) then his supporters will flock to Cruz.

RUBIO - B-

Marco Rubio had a good debate but his bar was set high and he needs to elevate his game. He has to show he is the 'leader' of this party, at least the moderate wing. He did not establish that. He was clearly better than Jeb Bush, but Chris Christie came out of nowhere and stole Rubios thunder. And Rubio is not taking advantage of the glaring opportunities he is presented. Jeb Bush is down. Rubio cannot win the nomination if he doesn't win his home state of Florida, where it is a two-way run-off against Jeb. Jeb has vastly bigger funds than Rubio and a massive donor base. The Florida election isn't until March 15. Jeb has ample time to regroup and recollect his team and refund his campaign - and then crush Rubio with TV ad money for Florida. You have to have a killer instinct like Hillary showed when skewering nice guy Bernie Sanders about his position on guns in the Democratic debate. Killer instinct, Marco. You had a chance and you failed to take it. I don't think this will come to haunt Rubio, but it might. And its poor judgement to not strike Jeb now when he is clearly down and considering quitting the race. Nobody else on that stage is an existential threat to Rubio's candidacy, but Jeb is. And Jeb was the front-runner and Jeb still today has far more funding especially in his SuperPAC. Rubio should have used the chance to attack Jeb (Jeb did try to attack Rubio).

FIORINA - B-

Carly had another solid performance and a lot of fireworks. But now, for the first time, she was not the best debater of her round (in the first debate, she was at the kids table). When she won those first two debates, they gave her big boosts in her popularity. Today I think it won't move the needle much. Especially not, as Christie did the same 'Fiorina job' but Christie did it better. Both attacked the Democrats and Hillary Clinton but Christie did it with far more humor, seemed far more honest and personable, and tallked directly to the audience. Fiorina by contrast seemed more to recite her stump speech and delivered anger, almost rants. Christie didn't fall into the side of anger he only communicated resolve. Oh and Fiorina, that joke at the start with your smile - gosh, don't do that ever again, that was just creepy. When Christie and Fiorina are considered side-by-side, its very clear that Christie is the Presidential candidate and Fiorina is auditioning for Vice President. If she wants to elevate her game, she has to learn from Christie (or Huckabee or Hillary) and add that item of humor to her arsenal, to be able to attack via a joke, and then smile or laugh naturally, with the audience. That is what she needs to elevate her game to the front-runner level. I think Fiorina's fall in polling will end now, but I dont' see much of a bump. Her performance by itself would yes, have given another modest bump but because Christie did Fiorina but better, it means the real bump goes all to New Jersey.

TRUMP - C+

Donald Trump was not as unprepared as in the second debate. He threw a few punches and more he liked to attack the media. Pretty nifty gimmick at the closing statement to point out that Trump won the debate rules negotiations, but also, that was strongly deflated when Trump over-reached, claimed the debate would have been 3 and a half hours, and CNBC moderators interrupted him saying it was only 2 hours from the beginning. Trump's ending would have been far stronger if he hadn't done the over-reach (in reality, they wanted 2 hours of debate plus ad time, Trump got 2 hours with ad time, so kind of both are right, but now that powerful argument was deflated and Trump's strong closing was watered down).

But yes, Trump needed to show he can do more than be an insult comic. He didn't really achieve that. He needed to show he has meat on his proposals, he didn't do that. He needed to show he is in the class of top debaters to take on Hillary, he didn't do that either. But he was commanding on center stage, wasn't as asleep as he seemed through the second half of the second debate, and had some good exchanges and attacks. Mediocre Trump nothing to write home about, but no mistakes either. An ok performance, I grade C+ and I think he will continue to see modest erosion in his support but no big change based on this debate. Trump will manufacture enough TV coverage to soon be past this debate. He probably sleeps soundly tonight that he faced very few attacks compared to the last debate.

HUCKABEE - C

I paid very close attention to the technique of Mike Huckabee this time. I wanted to see is he deliberately under-performing or is he really struggling. I have bad news for fans of the old Huckster. He is past his prime. This is age that has caught up with the old bass-player from Arkansas. It is like a star athlete, with the chance to score, an open goal, who misses. It is time to hang up the boxing gloves, Mike, and retire. You don't have it anymore. We saw it several times today. He had a perfectly teed-up response. He ran through his response perfectly for 40 or 45 seconds - then he missed his que and... lost it. Then the end of what should have been a home run, was just random rambling. Huckabee really lost his train of thought, repeatedly, in those responses, like that runaway blimp story. Perfect, taken straight out of literally today's headlines. And a funny parallel to bloated government spending, too big to fail, all that. And it fall totally flat. He was like the old comedian with early Alztheimers who is forgetting the punchlines of his jokes. We saw this with Reagan in his second election, the early signs of old age, that dulled his debate performances. Luckily his counterpart was the even-duller Mondale, so it didn't damage his election. But Huckabee? I now have to say he is not a meaningful force this time around. And so as Dr Carson will fade, and Huckabee should have taken his evangelical voter support - those will now go to Ted Cruz instead. Sorry Mike, we saw the best of you, back in 2008. This is not the best that you could do, and this campaign will eventually fold. Mike might have a bare-bones low-budget campaign that could last till the SEC primary of March 1, but after that, he will quit. He may end his run sooner. I think his polling will not climb ever again above the levels where it is now, and it will gradually decline. So out of our dragon-slayers Huckabee was a contender, he is not that anymore. And note, his debate was not bad. It just wasn't good enough. With Christie, Cruz, Rubio and Fiorina (and Trump) doing that part, there is no place for a Huckabee this far past his prime. Sorry Mike.. I rooted for you :-)

KASICH - C-

John Kasich is proof that a zeebra cannot change its stripes. Kasich spent his whole political career being a gentleman, respecting others, seeking compromise and diong what is right. He is a solid Mid-Western guy from Ohio. What do you expect. And that is what he is, to his core. And if you wanted an attack dog to tear other people and be cruel and vicious and hateful, that is not what Kasich could ever achieve. He tried. Gosh, he truly tried. He did his very best. He knows his previous strategy was not working. He also saw Hillary and knew that now the party needs a dragon-slayer. And he honestly, truly, was prepared and tried. Kasich gave it his best. And it fell totally flat. His was not the worst debate performance (that was of course Ben Carson) but what Kasich needed to achieve, was to prove to the Republican voters that John Kasich on stage against Hillary Clinton would not be a bloodbath. He proved exactly the opposite. He would a a lamb led to the slaughter. Nice guy, gosh yes. A record of great achievement, absolutely. But this is a year when the Republicans need to defeat Hillary, and Kasich is even more of a nice guy than Bernie Sanders there on the Democratic side. He will not last in this race. Thank you for the audition... NEXT !! I think Kasich will see an erosion of his polling, going almost exclusively to Christie.

PAUL - D+

Rand Paul was almost invisible. He did not shine on anything. He had no memorable moments. He is on the edge of the polling, so he soon might not make the next debate(s). He needed a strong performance and it wasn't there. Once again, Paul was unprepared and acted as if he didn't care about the race. No passion, no fight, no energy, no fire. It almost seemed like he was on the 'down' side of a drug trip. About to go to bed. Sorry Rand, you may not be in the adult table debate next time.

BUSH - D

The worst grade, however, goes to Jeb Bush. His massive megadollar campaign is in deep crisis. He is seen as unwilling to fight for this nomination. And over the weekend, when he was 'with mommy and daddy' he told the press that he would have better things to do than run for President, and that voters should vote for Trump if they want a bully... He is seeming sorry for himself, begging for the pity vote. That is the current impression of the 'formidable front-runner' from just a few months ago. Jeb truly needed a break-out top notch debate performance. He needed to act and sound tough, determined, energized motivated and willing to take the fight to Hilllary. And very briefly he remembered, that that was what his debate coaches had instructed him to do today. Then he waffled onwards in a rambling response to bureaucratville. I think this debate is where the end was seen to Jeb's aborted run of 2015. From here his polling will collapse because finally the moderates know who they want. They want that dragon-slayer moderate Governor, Chris Christie. Jeb's support will not go to Rubio (who was poised to have been able to take plenty) but it will go to Christie. In absolute terms, Jeb's performance was mediocre, not as bad as Kasich or Carson. But for what he was supposed to achieve, he failed. His debate grade is a D. This was not even the best that he could have done, if he had really spent the past week seriously prepping for this important debate, rather than go cry in momma's arms in Texas, and then go jogging in the mountains, rather than prepare like for example how Christie, Cruz, Fiorina and Huckabee had clearly done. The story will now run that Jeb is not willing to put in the effort. And the money will vanish. And his campaign is in total catastrophic crisis mode. And Trump will have taken down the third front-runner of the season. Because this all started with Trump's 'low energy' hits on Jeb three months ago.

KIDS TABLE

The undercard debate? Come on, Pataki, quit already. Jindal, its not going to happen. Santorum, sorry, just go away. Lindsay Graham, hey, you are good in front of an audience but if your polling is so bad that the average is 0%, then its time to end the charade. Nobody has a Fiorina moment today but if I have to grade them, I say Graham had the best of the irrelevant debate today.

One more comment. The moderating was atrocious. They totally lost control already with the first question (almost nobody ended up talking about their supposed greatest weakness). And utter chaos on who gets to talk over whom, when a candidate is given more time, etc... Very bad moderation.

Thats how I scored it, before I had read any other reviews. Please tell me what you thought of this debate. And we will get our next Republican debate in just two weeks, on Fox Business TV. There has to be a culling of this herd. There has to be elimination of rivals. It does HAVE to get ugly, at least a little bit, with candidates willing to attack each other. I expected it today, because of the obvious need to show that you can be the dragon-slayer to take down the Hillarymonster but the attacks were very few today. I think that will then be corrected for next time. But I wonder if Jeb Bush or John Kasich will be there anymore. Their hopeless (and in Jeb's case incredibly expensive) campaigns may see a total collapse of support after this debate. And all hail Chris Christie, the newest shining star to come rescue the Republican party (And the awakening of sleeping beauty, Ted Cruz finally showed why he is the leader of the Tea Party wing). 

Debate Judging Criteria for 3rd Republican Debate Tonight on CNBC - Each candidate has a different mission

So today is the 3rd Republican debate, on CNBC. I wanted to get this blog posting out before the debate, so that when I will do the debate evaluations, we can use this as the way to judge, but so that I did not create the rules after seeing the debate... Each of the ten debaters on the 'adults table' part have a different or at least differing mission to try to achieve. It might seem 'unfair' if I applied clearly a different standard on how to measure say Fiorina, compared to how I evaluate Kasich. But they do have different needs out of this debate today, and I want to set out the criteria first.

So lets first note that the whole Republican field expectation level changed last week. The Republican electorate had been cocooned into a false sense of security by Fox and their extremist media friends, that Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate who was ripe to collapse out of the Benghazi inquisition. So huge amounts of Republican voters tuned in to the all-channel TV coverage of the Benghazi hearings, expecting to see the hated Hillary destroyed by seven experienced prosecutors who had used literally four million dollars and months and months of preparation to get ready to skewer her on live TV. Various right wing media had promised them that Hillary was so weak, Joe Biden would be a more formidable foe. And that her vulnerability was enormous from anything starting with 'emailgate'. And it all was about to play on TV. And then reality hit. Reality hit Republican voters, hard. Hillary easily brushed off 11 hours of gruelling grilling by professional prosecutors, on utterly silly witch hunts about whether some family friend of over 20 years sent her a lot of emails.

The Republican voters woke up to the shock that Hlllary Clinton is a powerful, commanding debater and professional at handling hard questions and the Benghazi inquisition was not going to scar her one bit. And the email server was not going to cause any stir at all. But that the Republican field, which is now set to have their third debate, they are not ready for Hillary! What the Republicans now suddenly need is a dragon-slayer. The one thing they more hate than the idea of a third term of Barack Obama, or the return of Nancy Pelosi, or even a third term of Bill Clinton, is that Hillary Clinton would become President. It is the very sum of all Republican evils. She is the devil incarnate to the base of Republican voters. The most horrible scenario imaginable, after 8 years of hated Obama. It now hit the electorate last week, that gosh, Hillary is for real, and gosh, she is strong on TV, and unflappable. And some wimp like Jeb Bush or undisciplined like Rand Paul or soft spoken like Dr Ben Carson would be eaten alive by that vulture. The Republicans are now awakening to the urgent need that they need a fighter. A fighter! Not someone kind and modest and gentle like a John Kasich, no, they want a fighter. Street bully like Chris Christie or alley cat like Carly Fiorina. 

This same theme is echoed in conservative media, first in hush tones and occasional warnings, but many conservative writers have already called Hillary's performances in the first Democratic debate and the Benghazi hearing in terms like commanding, powerful and formidable even. Conservatives. So this is the growing need that will become a stark contrast today in the CNBC debate as the first time we see the 10 Republican rivals after the 11 hour masterclass by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Then a quick word about 'different judging criteria'. Why is that? This is a broad and competent political field, the Republicans have. They have differing natural abilities and skills and also differing past experiences to hone some skills over others. But now, they have to try to evolve into that Hillary-destroying dragon-slayer that the party seeks. So take the two I mentioned at the top of the article, Fiorina and Kasich. Both stand at about 4%-5% polling support and you could say, both have to grow their support. Fine, thats true, but how. These are a study in extreme contrast.

Carly Fiorina is the best attack debater in this field. She instinctively senses the vulnerabilities of her targets and then attacks them relentlessly. Her years as troubled Hewlett-Packard CEO have taught her well to handle tough questions and stick to her talking points. There is no question, Fiorina does not need to convince the voters that she can step into that general election debate on national TV in front of 100 million voters, and match up well to Hillary. But Carly, Carly Carly Carly. She had her meltdown moment last debate. What possessed her to open up to her convoluted demons and profess those imagined scenes of brain harvesting? She did such a good job bullshitting about the imagined evils, that her polling shot up to 15% immediately after the second debate and briefly she was in second place behind Trump. Then the reality sunk in, that this was not reality. There is no such video she described. It was her imagination. That one unforced error, self-induced wound, has hurt her already so badly, she is down to 5% in the polling. She is on the brink of being locked up in that closet with other wackos who say stupid things like Michelle Bachmann 'I know women whose children got autism from vaccinations' and Sarah Palin 'I read all the newspapers' and Christine O'Donnell 'I am not a witch'. So we know Fiorina can debate, what we need to know, is that she actually recognizes the line between reality and her vivid if not alarming imagination. She needs to stay on the side of sanity in this debate, not do another journey to the twilight zone.

Now, consider Ohio Governor John Kasich. He is a nice man, he is a supremely competent man and he is totally a no-nonsense factual dude. All serious, no messing around. A total technocrat. About as exciting as an accountant. He could not find those brain harvesting scenes even if he was locked inside a video rental store that only specialized in horror movies. We have no danger whatsoever that Kasich will go off the rails. He's as sound as they come. But can he debate? Can he be an attack dog? He refused to attack any of his rivals in the first two debates and never rose to the chance to be critical of any of his rivals. He just pivoted back to his record, trying to stay above the fray and keep his campagn honorable. Thats very nice John Kasich, but the opposition has an uncaged tiger called Hillary, and being nice to her won't win you the race. Just look at what she did to Bernie Sanders in their debate. He was nice to her, and said lets not talk about the emails. What did the evil witch of Brooklyn do? She attacked him about his positions on guns. Good guys finish last. What Kasich needs to show, is that he can fight. That he can debate. That he can throw punches. Nobody doubts one iota that Kasich will remain sane. They doubt if he knows what 'to debate' even means.

The two candidates, Fiorina and Kasich have literally the opposite problem and in both cases, the problem is so big they cannot get the nomination if they cannot overcome it. But that same problem for one, is a strength for the other. In some ways the ideal Republican candidate had the sanity of Kasich combined with the tenacity of Fiorina. See what I mean? Each candidate has different things to prove today in the debate, and they can even be diametrically opposite needs like with this pair. So lets go, I will do the Republican candidates by their order of polling ie their standing at the two Republican debates, starting wtih Trump at center of the adult table debate:

DONALD TRUMP - GET REAL

Donald Trump is certainly a natural gifted TV personality. He also has a natural instinct of attack attack attack and never apologize. He seems to have a good foundation to become that dragon slayer but he is only raw talent and he is short on any substance. When we compare him on stage to the actual top debaters (Fiorina, Christie, Huckabee and Rubio in that order) we see that Trump has very weak technique. He often attacks the other person's personality with often childish attacks - how they dress or their posture or how low energy they are etc. This may get under the skin of a weak opponent (Jeb Bush) but do you think such childish badgering could have unrattled Hillary in that 11 hour marathon. She was laughing off FAR MORE compelling arguments. Trump's early debate performance was juvenile in its attacks mostly, with occasionally tidbits of meat and real issues. He needs SERIOUS coaching and TONS of preparation and practise. Its unlikely Trump has the discipline to do that with professional support. But he is outclassed by Fiorina, Christie, Huckabee and Rubio. But Trump is clearly better than say Rand Paul or John Kasich and of course, better than Dr Ben Carson.

The political race is a 'zero sum game' meaning, for one candidate to win support, some other candidate has to lose it. There is no other way to win, no other way to grow. It has to come from someone else in that room. Trump knows this and illustrated a deep underestanding of this from the start, in the way he attacked Jeb Bush the supposed front-runner relentlessly and continuously but also then attacked others who were on the top such as Scott Walker, Rubio, Fiorina and just now, Dr Carson. But this cuts both ways. He was on the top and by the second debate, most of the field had figured it out, that they have to get their gains, by attacking Trump. As frontrunner, Trump had the most support to be stolen by rivals. This same dynamic will continue, except now Carson is rising so the other 8 are likely to attack both of them. Still, Trump will likely see a lot of attacks during the two hours of the debate. And he needs to hit back. 

Trump will then need to show growth and maturing into a more full-rounded candidate, and he will have to put more detail to his vague plans of how to rescue the nation and Make America Great Again. The stupid stuff he's been saying all summer are slowly being caught out, one by one, as crazy or unworkable, and more and more also exposed as simply untrue, such as now the Ford truck factory move from Mexico to Ohio. Kasich pointed out that the Ford deal was negotiated in 2011, four years before Trump insisted that he can force Ford to move back from Mexico. Trump is increasingly seen as an opportunistic liar, and needs to 'get real'. Or else he will find that his actual votes in February are close to his base support now, around 11% not twice or three times that, where his 'ceiling' is and where he could be winning early States.

DR BEN CARSON - HOPELESS

Sorry, now that we've seen Hillary, there can not be many who honestly believe Carson can survive a debate with her far less three. Do you remember Admiral Stockdale? And don't worry if it doesn't ring bells. Admiral James Stockdale was in a national TV debate in 1992, not for President but for VP. He was Billionaire Ross Perot's choice as VP and Stockdale actually asked the live TV audience 'why am I here'. He was the proverbial deer caught in the headlights of the car. He was utterly out of his league and he knew it and the whole TV audience cringed when he spoke. Nice guy by the way, and softspoken not unlike Dr Carson, but he was destined to lose disasterously (as they did, with Perot). Dr Carson just like Admiral Stockdale is not in any way prepared for, trained for, naturally gifted to, or enjoy performing on TV and will be horribly bad at it.

So why is Carson in first or second place? I really don't know. At least part of what voters say about him, is his mild, gentle way of speaking. So this is my theory. These are simple, gentle, religious and often basic people, who very highly respect authority, like an esteemed doctor. They then appreciate his warm, calming professional doctor bedside voice. This is EXACTLY how you want your doctor to talk to you. And they then fall in love with that TONE, without listening to the words. Dr Carson could be the most wicked reincranation of Dr Mengele and just speak calmly, offer the bottle of poison, and instruct the voter, open up the bottle of cyanide. Pour yourself a drink in this glass. Good. Now drink it all. Yes it stings, I know, it will hurt even more but just relax, you will soon die, your insides will rot, it will be painful, but I am your doctor here and I will kill you. And they would do it, almost as if in hypnosis...

So yes, there are some Carson supporters, not a large portion of them, who are now decided that he is their man. Most of Carson's support is 'soft' ie the voter hasn't made up their mind yet. And Carson has not yet been attacked by the rivals. That is now starting. The reality of Carson's positions make the other famous Republican lunatics (Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell and Scott Akin - you remember him, the 'legitimate rape' guy) seem like a quadret of Einsteins. When Republican voters are truly exposed to what Carson is saying, most will reject him as outside even what the modern Republican party can accept. But he is a Tea Party favorite, that should speak volumes. And as the Tea Party support nationally has fallen to 17% if you are a pure Tea Party favorite, you are unelectable in the general election.

I said the race is a zero-sum game. For the anyone among the other 9 to gain, they have to take from someone else, and as Carson rises to the top, he becomes the favorite target. What makes him even more appealing is that Trump's support is solidifying (half will not leave Trump anymore) but Carson's support is mostly soft, meaning you can rather easily steal some of his support if you are seen as appealing to that given voter group. Carson will be facing a lot of attacks on the debate today. What makes him even more desirable as the fat cat to skin, is that he won't fight back. Trump will hit you immediately but Carson seems to want to believe some kind of buddhist avoidance pacifism in his personal life - including pointing the attackers in that famous Popeye restaurant to not shoot him, but rather to attack the other guy.. Nasty guy this Dr Carson, but he does have a calming voice...So anyway, to pry voters away from Carson will be about the nearest thing to the old adage of 'taking candy from a baby'. Carson hates the whole political and debate process so much, he won't even put up a fight or protest. He is a pushover.

What should Carson do? Have a total body and mind transplant I guess could work. He needs to talk 300% faster, like a normal person, not like he is talking to a retard. He needs at least a rudimentary grasp of how the USA works like its Constitution and the different branches of government. He needs to study his opponents and attack them and defend himself when attacked. He can't keep doing those moronic Nazi comparisions and Holocaust comparisons. Obamacare is not the same as slavery. This is a BLACK man talking.. Its that VOICE. He can say, I will inject these scorpions into your eyesockets, and do it in such a warm and reassuring voice, that people would say, yeah, lets do it. Seriously. Carson's November will be over before November is done and he will never run in another election again.

MARCO RUBIO - HIT A HOME RUN

Marco showed us last time that he is one of the best debaters. He has a good command of the issues and he can throw punches and take them without being riled. He is about the best all-around candidate of this strong field. But he hasn't scored a knock-out punch (yet). He has shown promise but he needs at least a Fiorina moment where everybody agrees, he was the top debater in that round, but he is even better than that. He should have a Gingrich moment, that changes the race and propels him to first place.

The Jedi move by Marco would be if he hits Jeb so hard that Jeb quits the race. Really a knock-out punch, to make it so clear that Jeb isn't up to it, and Florida belongs to Rubio and that Jeb's supporters and staff - and his funding - together with the establishment support needs to abandon Jeb and join Rubio. That would be Machiavellian level dirty tricks that Dick Cheney would approve - but if Hillary was in Marco's shoes, she'd do it to Jeb Bush now. He is the biggest obstacle to Rubio's run - threatening that Florida primary with its 99 delegates awarded in a winner-take-all vote on 15 March. Rubio needs Jeb out now, when he is weakest. Not for Jeb to regroup and grow stronger with the help of mommy and daddy and W and their Bush clan and its deep pocket money support. It is do or die, sooner or later, Jeb or Rubio has to knock the rival out, before or up to Florida. For Marco Rubio, it is best done now, when the party is looking for a dragon-slayer. Yes, it feels bad when you stab someone who used to be your friend and mentor even, but this is politics. You need a killer instinct or you will not survive the final rounds with Hillary.

TED CRUZ - START FIGHTING

Ted Cruz was supposed to be a college champion debater. He's shown none of that in the first two debates. In fact, he's been nearly invisible in the first two debate. That may have worked as a strategy when Cruz was hoping Trump will collapse and Cruz might inherit his supporters, but now that isn't about to happen any day soon. And Cruz finds no place to grow. He has to start to attack. His most natural base is not Trump voters (Xenophobic racists lowly educated and men) its more close to Carson (Evangelical, Tea Party, gun loving and women). Last debate Jeb took off the gloves and started to throw punches at Trump. Just this week John Kasich finally said that he also has had enough, he will now start to fight. Ted Cruz may find himself on a stage with 8 fighters and two surrenderers. Two political pacifists. Two victims. He cannot be seen as the weakling. Cruz has to now start to attack. I think if there is real debating skill, it should become evident if Cruz stops stiffling himself. He could have some hidden talent there. But he has to start now or he'll find that others - particularly Mike Huckebee - will steal the 'low hanging fruit' easiest supporters to grab from Carson.

If Cruz has competent debate coaching, then the coach should be working feverishly to diminish Cruz's natural sneer and nasty expressions. He comes across as inherently hostile and almost impossible to like. Much like how Richard Nixon made everybody feel. But this can be overcome by coaching and learning to smile and various techniques in speech. Ted is that smart, and has such a strong campaign, that this must be one of his long-term projects and we may see that the Ted Cruz of April is actually quite a pleasant guy compared to the rough draft we see now.

JEB BUSH - DESIRE

Jeb Bush is now truly on the ropes. And it is not mostly Trump although he's been a good part of it. Most of Jeb's flailing campaign so far, has been unforced errors and self-induced damage. The latest and one of the worst, was just this weekend when Jeb said he would have many nicer things he could be doing, and if everybody is going to be critical of him, he could just go home. If you wanted a bully, just vote for Trump. Wow. A crybaby and a loser. And quitter! What is this, compared to the attack ads that will come from Hillary next year. What is this mild needling, comprared to what the Ayatollah will call a Jeb Bush the President of the Great Satan nation. Come on, Jeb! Seriously? You think that Trump calling you 'low energy' is going too far? Wake up man! Truly, Jeb is acting totally to form to Trump's carricature of him. And then of course it didn't help that he had his campaign finances in trouble; after two rounds of severe staff cuts; now was in Texas visiting 'mommy and daddy' as Trump called it, begging donors for more money. Jeb has turned out to be the wimpiest of the Wimps of US Politics. The Bush family were all wimps. It was what Daddy Bush was accused of. Then to over-compensate, W Bush adopted that gorilla-like moronic walking style with the elbows turned out, you remember, totally unnatural. And while W Bush - a cheerleader in college - pretended to be tough, he then got sucked to be the puppet by Dick Cheney the real power behind that throne. Now Jeb turns out to be the wimpiest of the Bushes. Wow, that is a low bar. 

So Jeb is on life-support now. He urgently needs, absolutely today, his best debate performance and he has to be one of those who shined today. He has to take on Trump and beat him. If Jeb cannot handle Trump now, he cannot be voted to go and face Hillary. If there is a fighter hiding inside Jeb Bush, it has to come out today. Else it is over. But here is the rub. This is clearly not instinctively Jeb. He is normally a nice soft-spoken, thoughtful guy. He is not a street brawler. If he now goes 'all in' to 'fight' he is likely to come off as utterly clumsy and out of his depth and have his attempts easily side-stepped by Trump and then counterpunched, likely harder yet. Jeb is at a very tall order now, and this is mostly of his own making. The voters want to see real passion, not just a brief show of it but lasting two hours. They want a fighter not a negotiator. They want hard hitting not mild corrections. They want tenacity. I don't think all that even exists inside Jeb Bush nor indeed his moron W brother or his meek dad either. But mark my words, its now an existential threat. Jeb Bush had pried more than 100 million dollars from the Bush family circle of megadonors including 5 Billionaires, and they were promised Jeb was the real thing. Now they had their weekend with the Bushes in Texas. They were promised again that Jeb could do it. They are far too smart and too rich to throw good money after bad. They all are watching Jeb's debate, as the test of will there be any more money. It is make or break time. Jeb is under the most pressure of the whole group.

CARLY FIORINA - SANITY

So Carly Fiorina will definitely shine again as a debater attacking Hillary repeatedly and attacking Trump and whoever else she finds a suitable target. But like I wrote in the above, her test is whether she again goes off onto Planet Neptune or if she can stay on our planet this time. The audience has seen her in the attack dog mode yes, but what she could now show also, is the ability to delight the audience, to make them laugh as well. That would be a step up into the super debater level. The style of how say Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton debated. Attack but through humor and a joke, getting the audience to laugh, to like you, and yet hit the other side hard. If she has competent coaching, they will see this as the next step, because Hillary obviously has this already in her arsenal. And if the moderators bring up her delusions about brain harvesting (or any of her rivals do) then she needs a brilliant, short, clear answer to the point that diffuses it once and for all. The issue has cost her 10 points of polling support. Only a delusional ex CEO would still try to spin this issue. The sensible response now is to quickly admit that she mis-spoke, that part of the video is Planned Parenthood but not the brain harvesting part. And then pivot immediately away from the whole issue to something else, to put distance between that sad episode and the rest of her political life. If she doubles down once again on brain harvesting, then its into the I Am Not A Witch closet and throw away the key. I do wonder if she understands how close the end of her political career now is, just because of this over-reach she did. Again, an unforced error. She had pushed the story, with her spin doctors, into the territory of blatant lie. And its all on videotape. The Democratic party would love for her to be on the ticket in 2016 so they could play brain harvesting delusions endlessly on TV.

RAND PAUL - DISCIPLINE

Rand Paul has shown brief moments of - I hesitate to even call it brilliance, lets say - sounding smart - but then he gets onto some wild tangent and loses the whole point. He is eager to attack but his attacks are poorly timed and conducted and don't really score for him. All sounds to me like he is shooting from the hip, and is not well rehearsed, not well planned and utterly not disciplined. Do you think Hillary came into the Benghazi hearings unprepared and just said what was on her mind? Every single question she got, she had already rehearsed a dozen times and she had perfected the long-winded but detailed answer to eat up the time in that hearing. Rand could have far more success if he tried. If he prepared. If he rehearsed. If he had discipline. But so far, nothing. Lets see how it goes today. I cannot imagine him changing a lot. And a little will not cut it. Nobody thinks of Rand Paul as being equal to Hillary's challenge if its one-on-one a year from now on live TV. Nobody. Not even his dad Ron Paul haha.

MIKE HUCKABEE - TURN IT ON

MIke Huckabee has shown time and again, in the first two debates, that occasionally, a few times per evening, he can have a huge laugh from the audience and a really strong answer to a question. He can also throw the punch. But he hasn't risen to his ability. It does seem either that he is past his prime (doesn't have it anymore) or what I have suspected, he is deliberately underperforming. He wants to remain unnoticed while he builds his Iowa field support and then he arrives with a bang in January or December and wins Iowa by surprise. Fine, I get it. Lets see a bit more of what you got, Mike. Because right now, the Republican voters don't want a dedicated evangelical former preacher, they want a fighter to beat Hillary. You've said repeatedly that you're the only one on the stage who has defeated 'the Clinton machine' back in Arkansas. Its now time to put up or shut up. Lets see what you've got. You can't get to winning Iowa anyway before you steal Carson's evangelical and severely conservative supporters. Why would you wait for that voter support to solidify. Grab it now while the support is soft. Take it from Carson and show the voters you are the one to take on Hillary.

Mike Huckabee is the nearest thing to Ronald Reagan's style of debating in the Republican field. Very conservative, always answered the question, but then pivot, get in you talking point, and make a joke! Get the audience to laugh and really like you. That was Reagan (and that was/is Bill Clinton's style too. It was not Hillary in 2008 but it is increasingly Hillary now). Huckabee ran last in 2008 against John McCain (and finished 2nd overall, and won in Iowa). If the 2008 Huckabee is still today as strong the he is the best debater of this field, and he is just hiding his real skill. But he may be past that prime, he is old. Huckabee actually does not have to show his full skills yet, but he should at least flash some of it, to ensure the voters that Huckabee can take on Hillary - and win. If you wanted a dragon-slayer, Huckabee could be it. And he could even skewer Trump or Carson (or both) in tonight's debate and emerge as the clear winner of the debate with a huge bump in his polling. 

JOHN KASICH - FIGHT

John Kasich has to take the gloves off and get really into the dirt to fight, and fight hard. He signalled that he would be throwing punches but the early press about it signalled still an old-fashioned gentlemen's club type of debating where he won't name names and refuses to fight hard. The electorate want a winner. They see Hillary is 'formidable'. You have to rise to THAT level of fight, John, not just take the gloves off. They want to see brass knuckles. Do you own brass knuckles? Have you hit anyone with them? Voter think you are too much Mr Nice Guy and then it won't matter how great Ohio's economy is, if you cannot match up to Hillary. She will fight dirty...

CHRIS CHRISTIE - HOME RUN

Chris Christie is on the fringe of the polling and the nearest to be eliminated from the adult's table for the next debate in two weeks at Fox Business TV. Its not so much that the voters would need to see that home run or slam dunk by Christie. Its that Chris Christie himself needs that now, just to remain alive. He needs to be at this adults table debate. If he drops to the kids table, then its all over. His strongest suit is the TV debates and if Christie cannot use this opportunity to take a big leap in polling, then he is not the real thing. Its now do or die, Chris. You have to score in this debate tonight. Like Huckabee and Fiorina, Christie can have a super hit night, but he cannot wait for it to arrive. It might not. He has to now create that moment. No doubt, he has prepared for this debate with exactly that in mind. But then, the support. Where will it come. It won't be coming from Carson. Some may come from Trump. But Christie should be hitting Jeb Bush now that he is vulnerable, to steal his support before Rubio runs away with it.

KIDS TABLE

That was the main debate. What of the kids' table? They really only need one thing. Try to have a Fiorina moment (not brain harvesting, I mean a successful debate that produces a big bounce in their support). Someone like a Pataki, Jindal or Santorum, I can't see it happening. Graham, just maybe could do it but no, he is not in the Top 10 class, so even a good debate won't really give him enough to jump past 2.5% support to get to the main debate. These candidates are zombies now, their campaign is over. They will soon need to quit.

Ok that is what we can expect from tonight. Note that in the first debate Trump was hot, but Jeb refused to fight. In the second debate Jeb was willing to fight but Trump tried to play nice. Now Kasich has also said he will fight, Jeb should be 'feisty' and Trump will be far more prepared than he was to the second debate. 

Meawhile all rivals saw how well Fiorina's attacks played in her immediate post-debate bounce that got her from 5% to 15%. So they all (except maybe Carson) know that they have to be willing to throw punches. And that Trump is vulnerable. So we will have Rubio, Christie, Paul and Huckabee also willing to fight. The only true political pacifist seems to be Carson (who will be pummelled from all sides) and I suspect Ted Cruz knows now, he too has to join and throw elbows or he will be labeled a wimp.

The game just got real. The weird delusion that the right wing media were running on, that Hillary was a weak candidate, has now been exposed as a myth. Formidable is a good term instead, and yes, a term used by conservative evaluations even. Consider that Benghazi hearing. Imagine if Trump was there, he'd be crying after 3 hours that it went on too long. Consider Jeb Bush, he'd be sobbing about how everybody was mean to him. But Hillary, took it all in stride, and was smiling in the end, even stayed to shake hands while the Republicans ran away with their tails between their legs. The silver lining on that horrid thundercloud of Benghazi inquisitions, was that now the truth is out. Hillary is not about to fold. She is very strong in a confrontational debate-like setting and plays VERY well on TV. Now at least the Republicans know what they are up against.

That is good. Because Hillary has reached pretty close to her peak of debating capability and has only 5 more soft Democratic debates to fine-tune. Most of the Republicans are far from their peak debating capability. They need the next 9 months to June and all 9 remaining debates to refine their skills. Some will improve a lot, others maybe not much. But now, the Republican voters know what they need, if they want to avoid Hillary in the White House. And that is what has to emerge from the debates now, starting tonight on CNBC. The Republican base want to see blood. They want to find a dragon-slayer to take down the hated Hillarymonster.

iPhone Quarter - We are perilously close to Peak iPhone now (also lets do Huawei)

So Apple results out. In Q3 calendar quarter (not fiscal Qtr) iPhone sold 48.0 million units, up 1% from Q2. this was achieved by launching in China on the launch weekend, where 3M iPhones were sold. So an Apples-to-Apples comparsion would be 45 milllion sales which is down 6% from Q2 which brings the 'normal' back to the unit sales quarterly sales pattern to roughly what it was before the long-awaited phablet screens finally launched as the 6 series last year. So now we are about 'normal' again. And then... those 3M iPhones that sold in China, which would have been counted in Q4 last year, were now already reported in Q3. The Christmas Quarter 2015 will have an 'artiticial hole' of 3M compared to last year. As we've already seen lots of warning signs, from Apple cutting supply orders, to China stats reporting new iPhone activations of the first weeks at 10% below last year same number of days - all this suggests we are very likely right now, Christmas Qtr 2015, witnessing a peak iPhone moment. That Q4 of 2015 will end up seeing less iPhone units sold than same quarter 2014. That would be quite a dramatic shock to Apple and the market. And yes, I am still confident that Apple will see (a modest) further decline in its annual market share. So what does 48.0 million iPhones get you in terms of global market share now? Apple has roughly 13.0% market share in Q3. Apple continues unchallenged as the second largest smartphone maker, far too small to challenge number 1, Samsung in market share.

And then we have Huawei's numbers. Huawei, not Xiaomi, is the third largest smartphone maker and the largest Chinese smartphone maker in the global market. They reported 27.4 million smartphones. They stand at approx 7.4% market share and very likely hold onto their third ranking for the third quarter in a row. Lenovo and LG are the strongest challengers to that ranking.

More smartphone wars as we get data...

Smartphone Wars: Lets do Windows Microsoft disaster, yes 5.8M total Lumia sold is now market share of 1.6% (and falling) (UPDATED)

Lets do the Microsoft Windows Phone Lumia piece in the Smartphone Wars coverage. This is not pretty.


NOTE update on the bottom issued on 29 Oct


Some thought the Nokia smartphone unit would thrive with Windows. It tanked. Some thought the new version of Windows would save it, it didn't. Some thought Nokia selling the handset unit to MIcrosoft would revive the former giant, nothing like that happened. I was the only analyst who correctly predicted all those catastrophies and was the most accurate at forecasting the true doom that followed. Some of my peers were bitten by the propaganda either from Stephen Elop the happy warrior setting oilrigs on fire with his famous memos, or else, bitten by the equally cheerful propaganda from the other baffoon of mobile, Steve Ballmer then CEO of Microsoft.

Then Microsoft changed the CEO. After 80% of the staff brought from Nokia have already been fired, some thought Microsoft could revive the Lumia unit with a total redirection of its strategy from a mass market to a few niche markets. I predicted that change would take Microsoft's approximately 3% market share even further down and hit 2% by year-end. It went even worse than that. Lumia sales now came in last week, at 5.8 million units. Down 31% from the previous quarter. At some point in the past, such a collapse would have been a world-record but this Nokia unit had re-set the world record standards to be so piss-poor that even this kind of crash is only 'par for the course'. Yes now in Q3 Microsoft ex-Nokia Lumia smartphones have a market share of 1.6% (and falling). Windows on smartphones is utterly totally beyond-repair dead. Dead dead dead. 

So yes Microsoft anounced 5.8 million Lumia smartphones were sold in the Q3 Quarter. That means about 1.6% market share. This is the pattern of Nokia smartphone unit market share with the main steps related to Microsoft identified:

Lumia (Nokia) Smartphone Market Share of Microsoft Recent History
Q4 2010 - 28.8% - (All Nokia software, no Windows even officially mentioned)
Q1 2011 - 23.9% - Microsoft announced as future smartphone OS provider
Q2 2011 - 15.4%
Q3 2011 - 14.0%
Q4 2011 - 12.4% - First Lumia smartphones running Windows start to sell
Q1 2012 -   8.1%
Q2 2012 -   6.7%
Q3 2012 -   3.6%
Q4 2012 -   3.0%
Q1 2013 -   2.9% - Migration to Windows Phone is complete
Q2 2012 -   3.2%
Q3 2013 -   3.5% - Nokia handset division sale to Microsoft announced, Elop removed from CEO
Q4 2013 -   2.9%
Q1 2014 -   2.5%
Q2 2014 -   2.6% - Microsoft takes over Nokia smartphone business, Elop back in charge of handsets
Q3 2014 -   2.9%
Q4 2014 -   2.8%
Q1 2015 -   2.5%
Q2 2015 -   2.5% - Microsoft fire Elop from running handset business, refocus strategy to niche markets
Q3 2015 -   1.6%
Source Official Quarterly Results of Nokia and Microsoft, plus TomiAhonen Consulting analysis of industry data, 27 Oct, 2015
This table may be freely shared

I told you this marriage would wreck Nokia (it did) and that it would not resurrect Windows to dominance in smartphones (it didn't). I said firing people would not fix the problem (it didn't). I said selling the unit to MIcrosot would not make things better (it didn't). And I said that even removing the cancer of Elop in charge, could not revive Lumia business (it didn't). I warned years ago, that this business was dead (it is) and that its market share will only decline (as it does). This is the annual market share of the smartphone business from fully owned by Nokia and not using Windows, to now (average of first 3 quarters of 2015)

Microsoft (Nokia) Smartphone Annual Market Share:
2010 - 34.8%
2011 - 15.9% - (MIcrosoft announced as new partner, first Lumia smartphones ship on Windows)
2012 -   5.0%
2013 -   3.1% - (All smartphones now run Windows, Nokia handset unit sold to MIcrosoft)
2014 -   2.7% - (MIcrosoft takes over as owner of handset unit)
2015 -   2.2% - (note this is average of only first 3 quarter sales, full year likely under 2.0%)
Source Official Quarterly Results of Nokia and Microsoft, plus TomiAhonen Consulting analysis of industry data, 27 Oct, 2015
This table may be freely shared

Yes, Windows Phone is dead. The Lumia unit at Microsoft is dead. Appliecaiton developers have abandoned this platform already long time ago, now news is spreading of many apps disappearing from the Windows Phone store, as app developers are REMOVING their existing apps from this dead platform.

I told you so. And so many pundits and 'experts' thought this partnership of Nokia and Microsoft would thrive and grow, or that Lumia on Windows Phone would grow, or some revival was possible. It isn't. I told you all the reasons why, on this blog. If you want to understand fully why Windows Phone is dead, read this blog from the summer. In it I said, Lumia will fall to 2% market share by the end of this year. They are now at 1.6% so that prediction can be called 'correct'. MIcrosoft's smartphone dream is collapsing even faster than I could guess. There is no way this can ever succeed. Lumia is on a death-watch. Expected date of expiration is about 2 years from when the last leadership change happend (half a year ago) so about 18 months is a reasonable time-frame of when they shut down this dead unit for good. Incidentially, also the Surface tablet business is struggling, so that was supposed to offer some serious synergies (hahahahahah)

Now we await the news from Tizen. What is the first quarter when Tizen from Samsung outsells this dead Lumia platform from MIcrosoft. PS expecting a couple of good news quarters soon in this corner, as Tizen is about to pass Blackberry shortly. Then they will chase Lumia... 


PS - UPDATE 29 October - Sony has just released their Q3 numbers and they sold 6.7 million smartphones. So yeah, in that Sweden vs Finland grudge-match where Swedish Ericsson phone business is wholly owned by Japan's Sony, and Finland's Nokia phone business is wholly owned by American Microsoft, now once again Sony (aka Ericsson) has surged ahead of Microsoft Lumia (aka Nokia). Congrats Sony for this small achievement well outside of the Top 10. But as both companies are making losses with their smartphone businesses, that is a very pyrrhic victory at this stage. Still if you want a loser, and a loser's loser. Then Microsoft Lumia is the latter.


Ok, now that Microsoft Lumia mess is done, lets wait for Apple's iPhone numbers out later today.

Form Book 2016 US Election, All Candidates on Both Sides Rated - Rubio strongest on GOP but Cruz has easiest path to nomination; either to face a steamrolling Hillary

This is the total candidate Form Book for the 2016 election, both parties, all major aspects. We now know support ie polling, we know fund-raising, we've seen their debates, and we can make a preliminary evaluation of their path to the nomination based on the delegate math. An early view to electability is also now possible. That is what this blog is about, to rate the two sides of the race to 2016, one year before the election takes place and three months before the primary season starts in Iowa.

I have collected into one place everything you might want to know, even such details as when is their home election and how big is that in terms of delegate count. As many are also interested in the sugar-daddies, I have also included a part about the secret funding, who are the biggest donors and more importantly, what businesses do they represent. Are we surprised that many billionaires buying candidates have oil pipeline businesses or are in the oil or fracking business? Like I do with the smartphone wars (I usually write about tech and mobile), I will cover each candidate in order starting from strongest to weakest. I used the US school grading system where A is Excellent B is good C is fair, D is passing and F is failing (there is no E grade). When calculating the average score, A is worth 4 points, B 3 points, C 2 points, D 1 point and F 0 points.

REPUBLICAN FIELD

Lets do the Republcican field first, so we start with their strongest candidate who is not Trump, it is

1ST - MARCO RUBIO - A- (3.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . B
Fund-raising . . . . . . .B
Debating . . . . . . . . . .A
Path to nomination . . A
Electability . . . . . . . . A
Home Field Advantage: 99 delegates winner-take-all in Round 9 (15 March) (note is elimination round vs Jeb Bush)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 3: Norman Braman (Cars), Larry Ellison (IT), Isaac Perlmutter (entertainment)

Marco Rubio is the strongest of the Republican field in the early going of 2016. His debating has been excellent, as is his path to nomination, as is his actual electability in the general election. Where Marco fails from perfection so far, is the popularity contest, his polling is only good, and his fund-raising which is also good. Note that his megadonors include three Billionaires of very varied industries - a car dealer, an IT guy (Larry Ellison of Oracle) and the founder of Marvel comics. So his 'support' base is not particularly 'polluted' in industries, nor is his support base narrow in focus. The billionaire money goes mostly to the SuperPAC of course, so in the direct fund-raising to his campaign Rubio suffers somewhat.

Marco doesn't have the easiest path to victory (that is with Ted Cruz and Donald Trump also has an easier path) but in the general, Marco on the ticket would almost guarantee the vote of Florida to the Republican side, whether he is on the top, or if he's the Vice President. He has weaknesses mostly due to youth, a first-term Senator, this is more a burden on the Republican side than it would be on the Democrat side, Republicans like Governors more than Senators, and they want a candidate who is experienced. Its the Democrats who ever so often nominate unknown outsiders (like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama). Rubio suffers even more by his looks. He was blessed with a baby face, he looks far younger than he is. Maybe he should add some color of grey in to his hair haha. The worst baggage is that he seems like Obama did in 2008, young, inspirational, great speaker, but inexperienced. And reminding Republicans of seeming like Obama is a very undesirable thing in the nomination fight. So Rubio has all this to overcome.

Then there is Florida. In the nomination fight he - and Jeb Bush - have their face-off in their home state of Florida. Florida delegates are awarded on a 'winner-takes-all' basis, so its almost sure that one of the two will not continue in the race on March 16, the day after Florida has voted. While Marco is currently somewhat ahead of Jeb in Florida (but Trump utterly crushes them both in current polling) the actual voting in that very large and expensive state will be influenced very dramatically by TV advertising, as we saw by MItt Romney in 2012. Marco has his challenges but he also is lucky. Most of all, his lucky call on Putin and Syria, in the last debate. The 2016 election will be more of a foreign policy election than an economy election (unless the USA falls into a deep recession). Putin is likely to be the biggest foreign policy monster in the news for the next 12 months, and Syria will be a continuing war zone and crisis. Marco will be seen as wise for that call, he will milk that well into credibility on foreign policy. Meanwhile he also has damaged his chances, from calling Hillary Clinton the most competent candidate on either side (she has that well stored on videotape) and to saying he wants to eliminate abortion even for rape, incest and life of the mother. On many positions, Rubio is very extreme. He did have a position on a comprehensive immigration reform, it could have played very well with Hispanics (Rubio himself is a Hispanic, parents from Cuba) but he's abandoned those which lessens his appeal with that demographic. Rubio may win the nomination, and if he's on the top of the ticket, Rubio could win Florida for the Republican ticket, which si the largest 'swing state' and would be a huge prize. Rubio polls well against Hillary and could present a strong contrast starting with age.

2ND - JEB BUSH - B (3.0 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . .B
Fund-raising . . . . . . . A
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . B
Electability . . . . . . . . .B
Home Field Advantage: 99 delegates Winner-take-all in Round 9 (15 March) (note is elimination round vs Marco Rubio)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 5: Miguel Fernandez (healthcare), William Obendorf (education), Charles Schwab (investing), Julian Robertson (hedge fund), Rich Kinder (oil pipelines)

Jeb Bush is the second strongest candidate. Jeb's strength comes from the Bush family, and it is fund-raising. But he is turning out somewhat of a paper tiger, on nothing else is Jeb that strong. He's ok in polling, on his path to the nomination and on electability. On his debating skills, Jeb is only fair. This is not the candidate who inspires confidence that he can take on Hillary Clinton, which is why his polling is stuck in single digits and many of his fund-raisers are starting to be concerned. They've already paid a massive 100 million dollars to his SuperPAC and more to his actual campaign but now worry whether that money was wasted. If Jeb loses Florida, he is toast. Even if he manages to klll off Marco Rubio, is his style going to play against Hillary in the main election. In a Bushes versus Clintons name popularity contest, the Bush family loses seriously to the Clintons on all counts, starting with the economy and ending with the wars.

Jeb Bush has also shown an alarming blindness about his brother George W Bush, almost as a rule, making blunders when he is asked about issues relating to his brother. Jeb said he is his own man when it comes to the foreign policy, yet almost all of his advisers come from the W Bush years. When asked was the Iraq war a mistake, Jeb fumbled the question for five days. Now, as Trump has been attacking Jeb about 'he kept us safe' - Jeb does not have the political instinct to instantly end that issue and put it to rest. He should have said simply 'I mis-spoke, I meant, as anyone can understand, that after September 11, my brother kept us safe'. That would have ended this 'issue' which has hounded Jeb for a week now, with Trump prodding him time and again on it. The Republican base knows what Jeb means, that it was shorthand, meaning - of course - that 'after September 11, he kept us safe' but as Jeb said those dumb words in the debate in front of 24 million people, Hillary has collected that video tape and will run it endlessly if Jeb is the nominee, in the general election. It totally serves Democratic interests to tie Jeb to W Bush, to remind all about the terrorist attack happening during W Bush's watch, and that Hillary was in the room with Obama when Obama took Osama Bin Laden out. W Bush had even said before he quit office, that he didn't care if they ever caught Bin Laden. The whole 'he kept us safe' slogan is pure poison for the general election and this was an unforced error by Jeb. Trump is cleverly capitalizing on it now.

That all being said, the role of money is enormous and this year's campaign will cost one Billion dollars to go all the way to win the Presidency. The Bush machine is the best at fund-raising on the Republican side. Some of that support is, yes, oil money like Rich Kinder in the pipelines business, but Jeb's reach is widest and he has yes, five personal Billionaires that have tossed a million dollars into his war chest already. In the last cycle, there were only 7 Billionaires in total that took the big bets in the nomination fight in what was the opera of MItt Romney and the Midgets. The first four states in 2016 will not depend on money. But March 1, the SEC Primary day, that is when money will utterly rule, and Jeb should have a dominating day. If Jeb cannot win half of the states on March 1, we know he is a paper tiger. If he wins half of the states, he is very much stronger than what the early Form Book tells us. But on his debating, yes, Trump is right, Jeb needs to be a bit more high energy.

Incidentally Jeb is the unluckiest politician this cycle. He wanted to block moderates, by having a 'shock and awe' fund-raising quarter, when he raised $100 million. It was meant to keep Chris Christie and John Kasich out of the race. They came in. His 'protege' Marco Rubio rushed early into this race, and by US election rules, the same State cannot nominate both the President and VP (or can, but they lose half the votes, so nobody would ever do this). Then worst, in came Donald Trump, who made Jeb his personal target at every possible moment, just massacring Jeb's polling support. All pundits said Trump was a summer fling that only lasts a month, three months later, he's still attacking Jeb. The two Republicans who quit, were not moderates, both were conservatives (Rick Perry, Scott Walker) so they make it easier for Ted Cruz to win, and Jeb's main rivals, John Kasich and Chris Christie keep hanging on and draining his votes... Unluckiest man in this cycle (compare to Cruz below)

3RD - DONALD TRUMP - B- (2.8 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . A
Fund-raising . . . . . . . B*
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . A
Electability . . . . . . . . D
Home Field Advantage: 95 Delegates winner-take-all in Round 12 (19 April)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: none (but in reality he has two if he needed it, himself and Carl Icahn has launched a 150 million dollar SuperPAC not to help Trump but aligned with Trump mission, so it will likely work in Trump's favor at least worth some millions):
* - I gave Trump a higher grade, he 'earned' a C because this is without any begging for funds. No fund-raising mailers, or websites begging for money, he collected 4 million dollars while saying he wants nothing, essentially selling his hats. So if he asked for money it would be at least a B (could be A) 

Donald Trump was the always-tease candidate who never ran. He was supporting all other Republican candidates in all sorts of elections, doing robo-calls, and blessing their candidacies and contributing to them. And then he also supported Democrats. But now for the 2016 election, he stopped teasing and actually announced his run. And ever since he announced, Trump jumped to a lead in the polls, for a while over 30% and still today well in mid-20s according to the Real Clear Politics latest polling average. He has led the race for more than three months now. More than national polls, in almost every state-wide poll he has led since the first debate. I think I've seen only two state-wide polls where Trump was termporarily in second place. While Trump polling fell after the second debate, from the 30s to the 20s, his polling has again turned to a climb and his margin to the second place Dr Ben Carson is about 5 points.

Trump is in very many ways a mystery candidate and might turn out into some mirage or he might fold suddenly. I joked about how much Trump seems like a Trojan Horse candidate, sent to the Republican race to ruin all rivals and destroy the party. You might enjoy the humor of my imagined telephone conversation between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, just before he announced. If you look at what the base of the Republican field has been demanding very vocally, like a repeal of Obamacare, or hatred of the Clintons, or refusing raising taxes for the rich, Trump sounds like a Democrat. Yet he has a massive lead in the current polling. I have said that Trump has a ceiling, the majority of Republicans will not vote for him, but he doesn't need a majority, to win the nomination. As I calculated in the delegate hunt, Trump has the second easiest path to the nomination, because he only needs a plurality of votes to win a given state, and then the wide field of 15 candidates helps Trump secure wins even if he only gets 25% or 30% of a given state. He could win the first state of Iowa with even less than 20% of the vote. That much is a core Trump vote (in the teens) that he has now locked, by pandering to the xenophobic racist wing, the conspiracy wing, and various extreme bigot Tea Party extremists, that the other candidates dare not pursue (except maybe Dr Carson).

The general election with Trump as the nominee would be a total massive national catastrophe for the Republicans. Now, as the math suggests Trump might win the Republican nomination, the leadership in the Republican party is waking up to the horror, that if Trump wins the nomination, in the subsequent general election they'll lose not only the race to the White House but they'll lose their control of the Senate and also the House which was supposed to be unassailable. The attacks on Trump are growing, yet he seems immune to their effects. His polling is at least stable, or in slight increase in the past days and week. What will tell a lot, will be the next Republican TV debate. In the first debate Trump was combative and scored well. He came to the second debate over-confident and ill-prepared. He was attacked by most of the field. He didn't enjoy that, but he tried to withhold his counterpunching. I think the next debate will tell a lot, can Trump master the debate format or can the field get to him and pound him down to the teens in support. I think Trump cannot get above the 30s in his national polling. But all pundits have under-estimated Trump many times. He may well run away with it. Like I calculated, Trump has the second easiest path to the Republican nomination. One last point, the money. This early stage, up to the first four states in February, is 'cheap' that Trump can do without spending millions in TV ad money. From March on, the race would get incredibly expensive. Trump is worth many Billions, he can easily afford the 100 million the nomination fight would cost, to win, but most self-made megarich are very stingy with their own money, and Trump will not want to throw that away. This early race is easily earned back massively by book sales, by hat sales, and Trump's speaking fees into the future. But the Spring race? He may quite suddenly quit. And what about the general election. I am certain Trump will not throw a Billion dollars to fight Hillary in the general election. Would the Republican party throw that kind of money into this losing project, I don't think so. His campaign is likely a mirage, and Trump will take some 'off-ramp' when the convenient exit comes along. He is smart enough to know, he would lose at least 45 states against Hillary in the general election.

Note also the total disconnect with reality. Trump claims he is loved by the Hispanics (because he employs some). Trump claims he'll win the Hispanic vote. The latest polling is pure poison. Hispanics hate Trump, only 15% would vote for him. The Republicans have counted that if they lose the Hispanic vote by 40% to 60%, similar to Mitt Romney, it will become a losing election for them. Marco Rubio might do better than 40%, but Donald Trump? He won't get to half that. Just the Hispanic vote will ruin his run in the general election. Then those veterans. His hostile words about war hero Senator John McCain. Trump went on to the big battleship to take an 'endorsement' by a 'veterans group' (called Veterans for a Strong America) which turned out to be a total fraud (the group, not Trump). Its a one-man-dark-money-operation loosely affiliated with the Koch brothers that runs occasional 'swiftboat' style attack ads. It has lost its federal tax-exempt status. It has no 'members' so Trump's claims that huge amounts of veterans endorse him, is ludicrous. We don't know if Trump got played or he was part of the sham on Battleship Iowa. As Trump likes to celebrate how he is loved by the Hispanics and veterans, he says that he adores women, and women will vote for him. Again his gender gap is atrocious. The Republican women voters far prefer Dr Carson while its men mostly who support Trump. Delusions. (Or he knows the truth, but he is smart enough to see the difference, and callous enough to push something he knows is a lie). The only thing the Democrats calculate even better than a Dr Ben Carson nomination to Republican President, would be a Trump nomination. The resulting landslide would mean flipping the Senate and the House. The Republicans can now do the same math, it is very clear, and the panic is rising, can Trump be stopped. And how. Expect it to get more vicious in the coming weeks.

Which then raises of course the spectre of Trump running as an Independent. This, even more possible now, that Jim Webb has floated the same idea. And Trump as an independent would not win either but would take most of his votes from the Republicans, not the Democrats. But wait, there is yet another option. Remember, Trump has a thin skin and is incredibly vengeful; and he doesn't keep his word. So if he feels the Republicans are ganging up on him, what he could do, while keeping to 'his word' of not running against the Republican nominee as an Independent - would be to ENDORSE HILLARY. Can you imagine the next 4 months of Trump on TV every day and in continuous loop specifically on Fox as a nominally Republican candidate, on legitimate campaign issues; and then he suddenly cries 'foul' about the 'evil corrupt' party playing unfair. And then Trump drops out ...and tells all his supporters to vote for Hillary. We already know he admires and likes the Clintons and has donated to them in the past. Trump will always latch out and take revenge. And seeing how childish he is about any 'slight' against him, he could well do this. For the Repoblican party, Trump is a hand grenade with the pin removed, rolling inside their car, underneath the seat, while the car is stuck in rush-hour inside a long tunnel. When will it explode? With Trump the Republican party truly is doomed whether Trump wins the nomination of not.

4TH - TED CRUZ - B- (2.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . B
Fund-raising . . . . . . . A
Debating . . . . . . . . . . D
Path to nomination . . A
Electability . . . . . . . . . D
Home Field Advantage: 155 Delegates but Proportional in Round 5 (1 March)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 2 - Toby Neugebauer (oil), Wilks brothers (Dan & Farris) (oil fracking). 

So Ted Cruz. The luckiest politician in this election cycle. He saw the two strongest conservative rivals, Scott Walker and Rick Perry quit. And then by not attacking Trump, he's been delighted at how hard Trump is striking Cruz's main remaining opposition, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina. Now as I calculated, because he has no strong conservative rivals (nearest is Mike Huckabee who polls at 5%) Cruz has the easiest path to the nomination. Its not by any means guaranteed, but Cruz will most definitely stay in the race till the end and will have a big haul of delegates. He's nearly certain to be on the ticket, by delegates collected, if it comes to a brokered convention, meaning either President or Vice President. Ted's polling is good, his fund-raising is great, but his debate performance is poor. This is even more bizarre has Ted was celebrated as a champion college debater from his youth. I think he needs to fire his debate and speech coach, fast, and get a new one. His current style of speaking is, to be kind, scary. He is not presidential. He may well win the nomination but he is toast in the general election. His nomination path is the easiest but he cannot win the general election if he goes up against Hillary. His positions are almost perfectly the mirror of Hillary's where on every issue he has taken the view that is against the US majority view. He cannot win the general, and he would at least flip the Senate to the Democrats he if he was on the top of the ticket. If he didn't improve his debating skills, he could even cause the flipping of the house to the Democrats.

Ted is a Texas guy so his big supporters tend to be oil men. The two billionaires that are his sugar-daddies, have ponied up the most money to any SuperPAC, the two guys alone have supported Ted's campaign by a whopping 24 million dollars so far. Why? Oil and fracking. Ted is already in the Senate where he can filibuster any laws against the oilmen, and as President, he'd likely be in their pocket. But this kind of funding does give Ted a kind of safety to say and do just about anything. He knows what these two want, and they can do the math just like I can. Ted has the easiest path to the nomination. As a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity. These two Texas oil tycoons may have bought themselves a genuine Texas-born President. The Cruz nomination delegate plan is to wait for Trump and Carson to implode or quit. But even if they don't, Cruz has a better path to the nomination than Trump. If both quit, Cruz's gains are likely to be quite significant, although he is unlikely to get a majority of delegates, he could have a strong lead in his plurality by June of 2016. Cruz in the general election is a toxic candidate because of his constant feuding with all of his Senate colleagues and most mainstream Republicans at all levels. He is a Tea Party rebel, so if he was on the top of the ticket, some Republicans would openly refuse to support him - and actually endorse Hillary. Others would passively avoid supporting Ted's cause. He can't win the general election in 2016 but if he's on the top of the ticket, he'd cause a rout in the support of Republicans and push a huge wave to Democrats, and both the Senate and the House would flip. The traditional Republicans also know this, that Ted Cruz is no better than Trump, for down-ticket Republican chances in 2016, and are trying to organize against him. The Tea Party tends to love Cruz but they are a minority of Republicans and merely a fringe in the general election. Ted Cruz as the nominee would make 2016 seem like the Republican version of Walter Mondale's disastrous run against Reagan in 1984. Mondale only won his home state, lost 49 states.

5TH - CARLY FIORINA - C+ (2.4 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . C
Fund-raising . . . . . . . B
Debating . . . . . . . . . . A
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . D
Home Field Advantage: 172 Delegates winner-take-all Round 17 (7 June)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M:(none)

Carly Fiorina shines in the debates. She won her promotion from the 'kids table' debate in the first debate that she won, and again, in the second debate, she won. Those two performances raised her to momentary peaks of as high as second ranking in the polling and 15% level. But that has since disappeared, and now Fiorina is down to about 5% level by RCP average. Apart from excellent debate performances, her polling is fair, her fund-raising is good, her path to the nomination is only fair, and her electability is poor. She has gotten recently a lot of funds at the back of her debates, but when the SuperPACs reported, she had not yet found any Billionaires to support her cause. She may have gotten one or two since.

So Carly is the ex CEO of Hewlett Packard. The failed CEO, as many would point out, she was ousted by a unanimous decision by the Board - that is very bad. She was listed in several 'worst CEO in America' lists - that is very bad. Her tenure at HP resulted in the share price falling dramatically, that also is obviously very bad. If Fiorina wants to claim she should be President because her record as HP is a sign of how she would manage, that is a horrid record. Its not far from what we saw here in the mobile industry, of Nokia's disasterous CEO, Stephen Elop, asking to be voted President of Finland... But the political play against her is the stuff that Barbara Boxer ran, that while Fiorina fired 30,000 at HP, she then gave herself a raise and had the company buy 5 corporate jets. Doesn't play well in politics She lost to Boxer in the California election by 10 points, a landslide. But she has been really good on the stump, and in the debates, whether attacking Hillary or attacking Trump. Of all the candidates on either side, Fiorina is the best natural attack-dog. She'd make a terrific VP in that role. Except.

Except for the delusions. Now, that Planned Parenthood video nonsense 'keeping the fetus alive for harvesting their brains' is batshit-crazy. Its at the level of Michelle Bachmann 'I know women whose kids have autism because of vaccinations' - crazy. Its Christine O'Donnell 'I am not a witch' - crazy. Its Sarah Palin 'I read all the newspapers' - crazy. Fiorina has not been able to come clean about that video, that she was remembering a propaganda video, and that Planned Parenthood has never been caught on any video harvesting brains - she is now on the border of becoming unelectable. John McCain found in the 2008 election exit polls that Sarah Palin had become so toxic, more people voted against Palin than the conservative voters she brought to the ticket, who voted for her. She broke the first rule of politics for a VP, do no harm. She actually caused damage to the ticket. McCain would have won more votes against Obama, if Palin was not on the ticket. Fiorina is not there yet, but you can be sure, that Hillary has recorded 'harvesting their brains' onto videotape and have the TV ads ready to run, if Fiorina is on the ticket in the general election. But judging by how much her campaign is already tanking, I don't think there is much danger of that anymore. And this is a shame, for Republicans, because Carly - if we ignore brain-harvesting - would be a very powerful attack dog against Hillary. And as a woman on the ticket, help neutralize Hillary's advantage as a woman. So imagine say Fiorina and Rubio as the ticket. A Woman and a Hispanic, plus winning Florida... but she is nearly unelectable now, and her clock is ticking. Her credibility is being eroded to the core. If she doesn't fix the mistake, after this run, she will be ousted like well, I am not a witch..

6TH - CHRIS CHRISTIE - C+ (2.2 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . C
Debating . . . . . . . . . . A
Path to nomination . . D
Electability . . . . . . . . B
Home Field Advantage: 51 Delegates winner-take-all Round 17 (7 June)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M:(none)

Chris Christie is a kind of one-trick pony. He is really good at the debates (and yes in some public speaking settings). He polls poorly, his fund-raising is only fair, his path to the nomination is difficult but if he managed that feat, he would be pretty well electable. He has some funding support but no Billionaire has ponied up a million dollars for his SuperPAC. But Christie is that superstar on TV, who can knock it out of the park. At any one debate, he could have that winning moment that everybody talks about, like how Newt Gingrich has his boost for the South Carolina primary based on his debate exchange with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

We've seen hints of that so far, where Christie takes a swing and nearly connected on a home run. I expect a break-out performance to happen soon, that should propel him higher in the polls and improve his fund-raising. Christie needs the TV exposure as much as Trump does, and ironically Trump's bombastic campaigning style has made Christie seem less rude by contrast. But like Trump, Christie is also the natural bully who tells nice old ladies on a town-hall meeting to 'shut up ad sit down'. He can thus implode just as much as he can have a good moment. Christie needs the debates. He is happy his side has 11 debates and he almost missed the cut-off into this next debate. But he is that wild card that can be all the talk the next day. And Christie has not been afraid to attack Trump and has done it pretty well so far. He could emerge as the 'dragon slayer'.

Even a successful debate-propelled rise would likely be mercurial. Christie is still a bully. His approval at home in New Jersey is abysmal and should Christie catch fire, Trump would likely hit him with essentially the same book he used against Walker, and thus Christie is quite vulnerable. Especially to Trump. If he were to pull some Jedi move and get the nomination, Christie would fare far better in the general election as one of the more electable, more moderate of the Republicans. My gut says that if Christie did become the front-runner, he could not hold his tongue and temper in check, and he'd say something revolting that would then end his run. Christie doesn't have the teflon-coating that Trump has, who can say outrageous political-career-ending things and still survive.

7TH - JOHN KASICH - C (2.0 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . C
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . D
Electability . . . . . . . . A
Home Field Advantage 66 Delegates winner-take-all in Round 9 (15 March)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M:(none)

John Kasich is the boring technocrat who is the most electable of the Republican field, who is the rare moderate. He has a hard time getting noticed, far less getting to the nomination. His polling is weak, his fund-raising only fair, his debating is also only fair and his path to the nomination is weak. If he made it there, he would be the most electable Republican who also would be guaranteed to win his home state, the always vital swing-state of Ohio, where he is a sitting Governor with very high favorability ratings. He is a moderate by his political views and he has accepted Obamacare into his state, to generally popular acceptance. As of the filing of the SuperPAC finances, Kasich had not attracted any billionaires but that is likely due to his late filing for his candidacy. He should have one or two by now possibly from those who were with one of those first two to drop out who both had several billionaires in their pockets (or perhaps more appropriately, who had sat into the pockets of several). I think Kasich is somewhat below the radar, very technocrat yes, doing all the things right but not getting any major attention. He hasn't resorted to media attention gimmicks, and he hasn't been engaging in attacks on his rivals.

If we think of the ultimate ticket for the Republicans, as Kasich is so strong that he'd win Ohio even as VP, but Rubio is not that strong to guarantee Florida if VP, I would say the strongest ticket for the party would be Rubio as President and Kasich as VP. Then they'd win both Florida and Ohio, and now two of the biggest 'must win' swing states would go red. But unless Hillary stumbles really badly, she'd just then pick up the lost votes from other states, like North Carolina and Georgia. But yeah, of this field, the Rubio-Kasich ticket to me seems strongest for the Republicans. Its not a likely ticket, however. Its far more likely, even if Rubio gets the nomination, that he has to pick a VP who finished much higher than Kasich in the final delegate count, just to quell a riot in the party, most likely Ted Cruz.

8TH - RAND PAUL - C- (1.8 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . .C
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . D
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . .B
Home Field Advantage: 45 Delegates but Proportional in Round 6 (5 March)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 1 - Jeffrey Yass (options trader)

Rand Paul gets a C-minus grade with no highlights. Its all pretty bad for him. In polling he's only fair, in fund-raising he's weak, in debating he's weak, his path to the nomination is only fair, but on electability his chances would be good. He has one sugardaddy Billionaire who is an options trader. Rand doesn't really have any strong up-side. He seems to have raised to his level of incompetence and can't get beyond it. What seems to be underneath, is a smart guy, who also clearly knows the ropes, his dad Ron Paul was a Congressman from Texas whose life mission was to run in every Presidential election. Now Rand Paul has taken over the family tradition. But Rand seems undisciplined and unfocused. Its as if he got it all too easy so he doesn't bother to prepare, doesn't bother to make a solid effort and doesn't bother to take it too seriously. Oh, and Rand totally can't pull off the appearance of being Presidential, starting with that hairdo which always seems like he is coming from an all-night rave party. Appearances do matter and he loses also on this count. I think Rand could maybe evolve into a serious and strong candidate, but he needs many years to get there, this candidate seems like a college kid who stayed up too late and didn't bother to do his homework, and is now winging it, to very poor results.

9TH (Tie) - BEN CARSON - C- (1.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . A
Fund-raising . . . . . . . A
Debating . . . . . . . . . . F
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . . .F
(has no home field advantage)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none)

Dr Ben Carson, yeah, second in the polls, great. Huge fund-raising, even better. But can he debate? No. he is a joke. Is there any path for him to get the nomination, not a prayer. Can he be elected, utterly not. Carson is a Tea Party and ultra-conservative religious voter favorite who will not win any meaningful amount of delegates and at some point he will quit. But he is using the 2016 cycle to raise his profile, sell books and raise his speaking fee levels. He is not even taking the race seriously. He suspended his campaign so he can go on a book tour. He knows he isn't going to win anything, but the Republican nomination does offer kooky author-speakers a platform to advertise themselves, so that is what he's doing. And as he's gotten hundreds of thousands of supporters duped, he is raking in the millions and living large spending the campaign donations on a lavish lifestyle, as long as this lasts. Good for him. But lets not confuse his run as a candidate for President.

9TH (Tie) - MIKE HUCKABEE - C- (1.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . B
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . D
Home Field Advantage 40 Delegates but Proportional in Round 5 (1 March)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 1 - Ronald Cameron (poultry)

Mike Huckabee was the runner-up to John McCain finishing second in the 2008 Republlican run. He won Iowa, he was the darling of the ultra conservatives and the evangelical voters - he is a former preacher as well as a former Governor of Arkansas. He was seen as one of the stronger candidates to then sit it out for 2012 when Mitt Romney ran, and many were asking Huckabee come save them from Romney. Huckabee was not getting into the fight against a sitting President but he knew he was coming back. Huckabee went and took a job on Fox to build his brand and audience. With that, how is the experienced former number two, doing now? He is doing quite poorly, actually. Polling is weak. Fund-raising is weak. His path to the nomination is modest, and his overall electability is weak. The one thing Huckabee has shown he still has, is his debate skills, they are good. And he has one megadonor in his corner who is an Arkansas poultry tycoon. 

So what is the story with Huckabee. I think its one of two very opposite theories. Either Huckabee is past his prime, this is his last rodeo and he will ride into the sunset, playing the bass guitar (yes, he also plays the guitar). An old warhorse on its way to the pasture. Ok, that could be it.

Or else, if you had already done this run before. And you sat out last time, but observed keenly the race, and saw how useless it is to peak too early. And you worked diligently for nearly a decade to get to this point, including a long stint at Fox TV to learn the TV game, interviewing conservatives and building your brand. If you have no need whatsoever to introduce yourself to Republican voters. And you have secured your own campaign financial security with even your own Billionaire. If you know you are a great debater, and great public speaker. Then why not wait. Why not, play possum. To lie low. To avoid the slings from the Trumpo-monster. Let the others pretend to have their early peaks, and burn out, and crash out. Why not just work on what really matters - Iowa is won on the ground. Huckabee knows this better than anyone else in this field except Rick Santorum, because Huckabee did it in 2008 (and Santorum then repeated that in 2012 when Huckabee wasn't in it; and did it by the way, by courting the same evangelical vote that is Huckabee's base).

And I need to discuss the debate skills here (what with me being the ex Debate Coach haha back in my college career). There are only four candidates in this field, who can have a dramatic break-out moment through the debates. Anyone can have a failing moment, but only four are that good debaters, that they can at any TV debate, have a winning moment that propels them to big gains in the polls. Those four are Fiorina, Rubio, Christie and Huckabee. Only these four are that good,. Each has a different style. Fiorina does it with her passion and even anger. She turns that on very well in debates. Christie does with pure argument, the more you get him riled and fired up, the more he can fight you. Rubio is different again, he does it with oratory and hope, just like Obama. Not the confrontation but the inspiration. And what about Huckabee. He does it with charm and a joke. Listen to him in the next debate. He does it every time. He charms the audience and he makes them laugh with him. He also answers honestly and oozes total conservative and evangelical values. But never in a threatening way. He is most like Ronald Reagan in that way, the Great Communicator. Reagan did that all the time, while his rhetoric was very conservative, it was never threatening like say Ted Cruz, it was charming and Reagan would always inject humor into his debate answers. It came naturally to Reagan, and it comes naturally to Huckabee. I don't mean that the jokes are not pre-planned and tested, of course they are. But nobody else bothers to go that distance in the answer on the Republican side, to get the audience always to laugh with them. Huckabee does that, every single answer, every time. Incidentally, that's how Bill Clinton debated. Just like Reagan, he too, charming and always the joke, but Clinton of course, taking the liberal-Democratic angle to the answer, but he left you with a smile. Every time. (and PS who has been coaching his wife to do the same now, look at how comfortable Hillary is doing that now. She didn't do that against Obama in 2008)

So Huckabee. Its possible he is a spent force and about to retire. Or. He might be the wily fox who knows that peaking too early will only wear you out. The optimal time to peak in the Republican debates isn't until January or earliest December, for February when we get the first votes in Iowa. Huckabee has done perhaps the longest and most thorough preparation of improvement from his previous run of the Republican field, to get ready for 2016. He won Iowa before. What if he is deliberately pulling his punches now. Waiting for others to get rid of Trump. To wait until turning his full charm and fire and brimstone and preaching - and perhaps also a Reaganesque 'Shining City on a Hill' metaphor that Huckabee has had 8 years of time to refine. We could be in for a big shock in the Republican debates of December or January. I see no signs of weakness in Huckabee, I see the skill all there and the twinkle in his eye. I would suggest its this second theory which applies to Huckabee and he'll suddenly surge just in time to steal a victory or strong showing in Iowa, and be right in the hunt for the race. But that may just be me, the old debate coach, hoping to see the brilliance we saw before in this kid, back in 2008. 

Even so, he has a difficult path to the nomination, and then his ultra-conservative positions make Huckabee very poorly electable. So he's unlikely to be the nominee, but keep him earmarked for a black horse run, and lets monitor the debates of December and January, that is when he would have to turn it on. It could tumble the status quo quite radically if Huckabee suddenly challenges Ted Cruz and Ben Carson for the evangelical and very conservative vote.

11TH - LINDSAY GRAHAM - D+ (1.2 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . F
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . D
Electability . . . . . . . . C
(Has no home field advantage)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (None)

Senator Lindsay Graham polling is so poor it rounds off to zero. His fund-raising is weak. He is only mediocre in debating, his path to the nomination is poor and his electability is modest. I have Graham on the quitting-watch due to all his support being so weak. He hopes and wishes he'll have a miracle in his home state of South Carolina, which is the third state to pick delegates in February. I really don't see him surviving that far. He was almost eliminated from the kids table already for this next debate. What can we say, he is the warmonger in the group, part of John McCain's bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb bomb Iran, gang. He gets often onto TV and the Sunday talk shows but is utterly incapable of turning any of that free media into any support. He's on nobody's VP lists either. That he isn't near the top in his home state of South Carolina tells us all we need to know. 

12TH - RICK SANTORUM- D- (0.8 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . F
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . D
Electability . . . . . . . . .F
(has no home field advantage)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (None)

So then we have the former Senator, Rick Santorum, who finished second in 2012 in the weak field against Mitt Romney. He has never managed more than one or two points in the polls, has only participated in the kids table debates, where he hasn't shined. His polling is weak, his fundraising is a disaster. His debating is mediocre at best, hi path to the nomination is miserable and his electability utterly hopeless. But he's hanging in there. Rick won the Iowa caucuses last time, which propelled his unlikely challenger run. He's a very religious guy who is no doubt praying feverishly to get a miracle. It isn't coming Rick. He will somehow survive to Iowa even without any significant funds, but after Iowa, Rick will go home. He is a nobody in politics.

13TH (Tie) - BOBBY JINDAL - F (0.4 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . F
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . F
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . .  D
(has no home field advantage)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (None)

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana was once thought of a future star of the Republican party. He is not that now. His polling is failing. His fundraising is bad. His debating is useless. HIs path to the nominations non-existent, and his electability is bad. Jindal will soon pull the plug on this hopeless endeavour. I don't think he survives to Iowa's first votes.

13TH (Tie) - GEORGE PATAKI - F (0.4 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . F
Fund-raising . . . . . . . F
Debating . . . . . . . . . . F
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . . C
(has no home field advantage)
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (None)

New York's past Governor George Pataki fails on all scores except that his electability would be mediocre. But he has no polling support, no funding support, no skill at debating and he has no path to the nomination. Pataki's moderate positions don't play well in Iowa, so he would have to hang into the New Hampshire election even to get any delegate votes, which won't be coming. Pataki will quit before February. He may quit before the year ends. He may have quit before you've finished reading this blog.

Gilmore whatshisname isn't even polled by most pollsters.

Now, on the two candidates who had quit, just to give us context, here they are:

QUIT RACE - SCOTT WALKER - D+ (1.4 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . C
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . D
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . . D
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 2 - Joe Rickets (Ameritrade founder) and Diane Hendricks, widow of Ken who was founder of ABC Supply.

QUIT RACE - RICK PERRY - D- (0.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . F
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . . D
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 2 - Kelcy Warren (oil pipelines) and Darwin Deason (IT)

So that is the Republican field. While he got huge pre-season press, Scott Walker turned out to be a paper tiger. Perry was obviously still the same Governor Oops who failed fast the last time as well. So we can see, when the candidate is in the D ratings of this Form Book, it is truly game-over. So curtains will come soon to Santorum, Jindal, Pataki, Graham as well,

On the megadonors, I only included Billionaires who paid more one million dollars or more for some candidate. We can see that four Billionaires from Walker and Perry are available or were, and no doubt will soon, if have not already, pick their next favorite with Candidate Cash, in this Billionaire Bingo of Presidential Poker. Some famous Republican-supporting Billionaires have not yet picked their choice, like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess. And on the Koch brothers. Early this year they shocked the political world when they promised that their funding network would generate donations of nearly a Billion dollars - they pledged a massive 900 million dollars where most would come from their network not from the two brothers themselves. But now they have downgraded that to 250 million which is spread beyond the Presidential election.

On the delegate hunt, the Republicans have 2,470 total delegates so to clinch the nomination would take 1,236 Delegates. That is the magic number. Because the field is so broad and so many have good funding, and no clear front-runner is emerging, this race is likely to go all the way to the last vote, and the Delegate hunt winner is likely to fall short of the 1,236 number in the end, resulting in what is known as a 'brokered convention' situation. That is however, highly unlikely to go to the convention floor as a battle of delegates and floor votes; its far more likely that some compromise or alliance will be formed among those candidates with the most Delegates, such as dividing who will stand for President and who will be the Vice President nominee (or even Secretary of State).

So on the real race. When I was preparing this first Form Book, I was working on the theory that there were five serious candidates but Fiorina has kept falling and I dropped her. The race for the Republican nominee is between Ted Cruz, Donald Trump (yes), Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. Thats the real race, the rest is noise. I'd give it say a 90% or higher probability that the Republican nominee is one of those four. and 80% chance the VP also comes from that quartet. Note, on March 15, one of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio will be eliminated when Florida picks their preference among these two. The dark horses who have a chance but need a ton of luck (or change, Fiorina) are Chris Christie, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee. These five are also far more likely to get the VP slot than be on top of the ticket. Dr Ben Carson will not be the nominee. And the kids table candidates are already politically dead men walking whose campaign termination (or 'suspension') is certain. Now lets switch to the other side

DEMOCRATIC SIDE

So lets go to the Democratic side. Same grading scale but note that I grade the two groups within their groups. The Democrats have less nominees, so the top polling scores far higher. Same with fund-raising, the Republicans have to split fund-raising between 15 candidates while the Democrats had 5 (now 4 after Jim Webb quit). So we can't directly compare Republican scores to Democratic scores, but within either group, we can compare rivals. When we get to the general election and see the full tickets on both sides, I will of course do a deeper Form Book on the four finalists on the two tickets (or perhaps six, if Trump runs as an independent and/or of the Tea Party splits and nominates for example Ted Cruz)

1ST - HILLARY CLINTON - A (4.0 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . A
Fund-raising . . . . . . . .A
Debating . . . . . . . . . . A
Path to nomination . . A
Electability . . . . . . . . . A
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: 4 - Haim Saban (Univision), George Soros (hedge fund manager), Jeffrey Katzenberg (hollywood), Steven Spielberg (hollywood)

So the only perfect score from either party is Hillary Clinton. She is excellent in polling, excellent in fund-raising, excellent in debating, has an easy path to her nomination and has excellent electablility. I have made the point before, that if US politics was scored like some professional sports, like tennis or boxing or golf, then Hillary would be a 'ranked' player, and her world ranking currently would be number 2 (where Obama is number 1, and the Republican field all would be beneath these two). Why is that. Understand the sports metaphor. It is Hillary who gave the current champion the toughest race. She is most definitely a better candidate than John McCain or Mitt Romney, both who lost decisively to Barack Obama. He beat McCain by 7 points in the 2008 general election and beat Romney by 5 points in 2012. But Hillary's loss to Obama was only one percentage of the votes in the 2008 Democratic nomination, and she was still in the race to the last day of voting. If we agree that Barack Obama among current politicians, is the best at campaigning (lets ignore arguments now about whether he is a good President) then arguably, Hillary is ranked number 2. Certainly Hillary seems to be better than Romney or McCain. And Romney beat Rick Santorum and Rick Perry of this current field. And John McCain beat Mike Huckabee of this field (as well as beating Mitt Romney).

On her popularity with democrats, partly her high scoring reflects the weakness of her opposition but for most of the polls in the past year, Hillary has dominated the full Republican field in head-to-head match-ups. Ironically for the Republicans, their only candidate who has consistently beat Hillary in head-to-head polling matchups is the one who won't be the nominee: Dr Ben Carson. Hillary's fund-raising was strong already in 2008, using the Clinton machine. Now combined with the Obama machine, Hillary's fund-raising is a juggernaut, totally dwarfing all other rivals on either side. If you're not yet crying then remember, Hillary did this, while Joe Biden was keeping his dream alive, and many party supporters were waiting to hear his decision. There will still be yet another surge now in her fund-raising.

While I discussed the top debaters from the Republican side here is the debate coach's evaluation of the top Democratic debater. Hillary has refined her style and is a pure pro. Every question she handles it like a perfectly tuned machine: answer question. Pivot. Get your talking point in, which usually is closely related to the question. Include a JOKE. Smile. This is refinement on what she did in 2008. We just witnessed the true test of Hillary as a debater in the Benghazi hearing. 11 hours of grilling by the seven Republicans and they could not get her to drop her cool. She appeared unflappable and smiled all the way through, seeming ever more Presidential as the day went into late evening. Contrast her poise to how Donald Trump feels a 3 hour debate is an ordeal. What we saw in Hillary is a pro debater. She's the strongest debater from either side, although Fiorina probably could cause Hillary's smile to crack somewhat.

What should cause intense worry on the Republican side is her feverish spending. What is that money going into. She has spent 44 million dollars already. Spent! This is not the superPAC, this is Hillarys own campaign. Hillary's campaign SPENT as much as Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Fiorina, Paul, Kasich and Huckabee COLLECTED, COMBINED. She spent that amount? What is she using it on, is she using a space shuttle as her campaign plane? No. Hillary is running a tight spend-thrift campaign such as using bus transportation where possible and drinking from disposable plastic cups. Its not a lavish lifestyle. Hillary Clinton's campaign biggest expenditure is ... a DATA MINING operation. Did anyone say Obama 2012? Narwhal? The most expensive, most powerful data mining system ever built for a political campaign, and the sixth largest data processing system on the planet. Obama 2012 campaign's biggest expenditure was its data mining operation. The data guru for Hillary's campaign is Teddy Goff. Where did we hear that name before? Yeah. Was Obama's digital boss. If you remember the 2012 election aftermath, the one group that Obama went to thank personally, who delivered his win, was the digital data-mining team that powered his ground game and polling. Obama's Narwhal was state-of-the-art and cost 100 million dollars in 2008. Of that 44 million, Hillary has spent at least 35 million already in Narwhal 2.0. Jeb Bush is also buildilng a data mining operation but Jeb Bush's total expenditure so far - the richest of hte Republican campaigns - his total expendture was 14 million. His normal campaign costs like salaries and travel will be at least half that, so he can have spent, at best, 7 million on the rival system. This looks eerily similar to the Narwhal Orca massacre of competing data systems. Again, with Democrats with a massive advantage. An advantage which last time delivered 4 points of the 5 point victory for Obama. That is why the only team he came to thank in public, immediately after the victory was his data mining geeks. Now Hillary is on pace to spend about twice what Obama did... I would not sleep well if I was a Repubican strategist watching this, and then seeing how Trump is causing the Republican field to waste their funds on deliberate fratricide.

But Hillary. Her fund raising is enormous. She has four billionaries who already ponied up a million dollars or more, three from media and one from Wall Street. She also has a vast donor pool of small donations. Not as vast as Obama had or Bernie now has, but still, a formidable one. Her polling up to this Form Book was based on polling results that included Joe Biden, who just announced he is not running. When Joe Biden is removed, Hillary's lead to Bernie leaps to 25 points or more. It is a rout. Her debating skills are far above her Democratic rivals (including those of Joe Biden) and her path to nomination is certain, unless she has a health episode like a heart attack. And her electability is excellent. Whats not to like. She wins the Democratic nomination without breaking a sweat. We can end the Democratic Form Book right now. But I wouldn't do that to you, my readers. So lets do the three remaining dwarfs.

2ND - BERNIE SANDERS - B- (2.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . B
Fund-raising . . . . . . . A
Debating . . . . . . . . . . C
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . . C
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none)

Bernie Sanders was a forgettable nobody from a tiny state, until his late blooming to cult hero status now. The self-declared socialist and lifelong Independent decided to run against Hillary knowing he can't win but wanted to raise issues for the party to consider. He has put up a respectable campaign. His polling is (to be kind, these were calculated before Joe Biden dropped out) good, his fundraising is (genuinely) excellent, his debating os only fair, and his path to the nomination is technically fair but would only be valid if Hillary stumbles ie has a health episode. Bernie's electability would also only be fair. He is proudly rejecting megadonors. An old school politician who kindly pointed out that the email story should be killed, while observing it isn't good politically for him to say that. And both were true. And Hillary returned the favor by hitting Bernie about his position on guns. Nice guys finish last, or at least, won't finish first. Bernie is one of the last truly nice guys in US politics. We will miss his kind.

3RD - MARTIN O'MALLEY - C- (1.8 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . .D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . B
Path to nomination . . D
Electability . . . . . . . . . B
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none)

Do we need to? Really? Martin O'Malley could have had a chance in a normal year, but not the year of Hillary's belated coronation. He now polls weakly, his fundraising is weak. His debating is actually good, but his path to the nomination is weak and if he ever made it to the race, his electability would be better than Bernie's. Not this year Martin. And as Hillary will pick Julian Castro as her VP, your run won't even get you a VP slot. Best to hope for some modest Cabinet position.

4TH - LINCOLN CHAFEE - F (0.0 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . .F
Fund-raising . . . . . . . F
Debating . . . . . . . . . .F
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . . F
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none)

Lincoln Chafee scores a perfect zero, he is hopeless at all categories. Then lets do the one candidate who quit (UPDATE : only hours after I posted this blog, Lincoln Chafee announced he is also quitting the race)

QUIT RACE - JIM WEBB - D (1.0 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . D
Fund-raising . . . . . . . D
Debating . . . . . . . . . . D
Path to nomination . . F
Electability . . . . . . . . C
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none)

And yes, after Jim Webb, we can also do the hypothetical candiacy of Joe Biden. Note, that I have estimated his fund-raising and debating capability as we have not seen them recently.

DID NOT ENTER - JOE BIDEN - B- (2.6 average)
Polling . . . . . . . . . . . .C
Fund-raising . . . . . . .(B)
Debating . . . . . . . . . (B)
Path to nomination . . C
Electability . . . . . . . . .B
Billionaires who gave more than $1M: (none, but probably would have found several, easily)

Thats the Democratic field. It is now Hillary, there is no more suspense. Bernie will make a brave run of it, and will energize many youth voters but his run is ultimately futile. Hillary will coast to victory and will be well rested as the Republicans tear each other apart in the bloodiest battle as far as one can remember. Thats my Form Book first edition. I will come back to this a bit before the first voting starts when we have seen more of the field and probably the field is also culled somewhat.

MY CRYSTAL BALL

The Republican field has so many permutations that its really fuzzy to see any clarity about that ticket at this point. We know for sure only two things: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio cannot be on the same ticket, and that Trump will never agree to be the VP choice. But if I was forced to guess, the greatest likelihood of the ticket would be Ted Cruz for President and Marco Rubio for VP. How confident am I? I'd give this ticket a 20% likelihood (and maybe 15% chance for the reverse, ie Rubio on top, Cruz as VP). That Cruz-Rubio ticket would lose colossally but Rubio might steal Florida for the Republicans in that loss (likelihood this ticket loses general: 95%). On the Democratic side there is utterly no confusion at all. Hillary Clinton will be the nominee for President (likelihood: 98%). She will have no meaningful challenge from her side, thus she can ignore her 'rivals' in selecting her VP. She will go for her best gains in the general election so the Vice Presidential nominee will be Julian Castro of Texas, former Mayor of San Antonio and currently Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration (BTW who has a twin brother Joaquin who is a Democrat Congressman from Texas). (Likelihood its Castro? 80%). Clinton-Castro will win by landslide drawing both a historic female voter surge (and massive gender gap) and also the biggest Hispanic voter surge (likelihood of Hillary ticket winning: 95%). Current media darlings, Dr Ben Carson and Donald Trump will both quit before March when the race would get prohibitively expensive unless you are seriously in it to win it (likelihoods? Carson 90%, Trump 60%). The Republican nomination fight will not find a nominee with the required Delegates to clinch by the end of the process, so their race goes to a brokered convention (likelihood, 70%). Hillary clinches her nomination on the first date that is mathematically plausible, eliminating Bernie's brave but futile last hurrah campaign (likelihood clinches on first date possible, 80%).

READING THE TEA LEAVES

So then the coffee-drinker's reading of the tea-leaves. Into the far future. If Cruz-Rubio is the Republican ticket for 2016 stampeding to glorious defeat powered by extreme right-wing rhetoric, the election will be a rout. But it won't damage Marco. Then Rubio will run in 2020 (or 2024) as the overwhelming front-runner and he'll pick a woman as VP, possibly Condi Rice. Cruz will be a pariah of the party (worse than W Bush, think Mondale with Democrats). Flip the two names if Rubio is on top and Cruz the VP in 2016. Then Marco would be exiled but Ted be the front-runner to 'save' the party in 2020.

Other wild and less wild guesses. Trump will once again threaten he'll do another run but won't run. Ben Carson will do another fake run to sell his latest book. Romney will beg to be wanted to run and all will again ignore him. As Governor Oops doesn't know how to count to three, Rick Perry will again appear briefly as a nominee before dropping out again. And on the Democratic side, the front-runner after Hillary will be Julian Castro but Michelle Obama may be challenging him if it is 2024 not 2020. Imagine Rubio-Rice vs Castro-Obama haha, an all-minorities pairing on both sides. It could happen..

STARGAZING INTO NEXT GALAXY

So in a galaxy far, far away into the future? Then after Hillary Clinton, the third Clinton to run for President will be Chelsea.. but give her about two decades to get to that level in her political ambitions. The first daughter of a President, to be elected President?

Thats it. I usually write about mobile, tech & digital media related topics, but the US elections are a hobby for me (I am a Finn, living in Hong Kong, so I have no dog in this fight, I am utterly neutral, I can't even vote for either side). If you enjoyed my analysis here, and would like some more, then a few articles related to the 2016 election worth noting are:

My latest serious blog about US 2016 election is this, the first analysis anywhere that does the tull delegate math for the nomination fight. Lots of math stats and very detailed.

And if you want my 2016 previews, the general election preview is here (very long, detailed, full of numbers and stats) and the preview of the nomination battle 2016 is here.

In a related area, as this blog is a tech/mobile/new media blog, the last time I discussed the use of tech in politics to win using modern digital media (2012 election) the deepest analysis of tech use in an election, with tons and tons of cases and stats, is here. This analysis has been referenced to in several published books on US politics already, its the deepest analysis of its kind in the world, that is in the public domain. I have heard from several inside sources who have confirmed that my methodology and findings are sound.

And if you'd like to read a joke about this election cycle, I just did the 'Secret Transcript of the Bill Clinton and Donald Trump phone call'. A previous joke blog about the US 2016 election is this: on the return of the GOP clown car

The Secret Transcript of the Phone Call between Trump and Bill Clinton

(The Communities Dominate blog has acquired the secret recording of the phone call between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, just before Trump announced he is running for office. It is revealing on what was discussed)

Hi Don, how are you?

 

I’m fine, Bill, how are you, and how’s the missus?

 

She’s fine, running for President. Thanks for asking. What’s on your mind.

 

Can I help you in some way? The Foundation, can I send you some money? Or Hillary’s campaign, would you like me to send you a million?

 

No, Don, honestly, we are good. We may come to you later, but right now, there is no need for more money.

 

Well, I feel I have to do something. There are so many issues where you two are on the right side of history and we have to get things fixed. Like Obamacare. Its yes a small step in the right direction, but its never going to work if so many are still uninsured. It has to be a national socialized medicine solution like Hillarycare.

 

Yeah we know.

 

And the taxes. I love not paying as much in taxes as my secretary or my daughter, but it is unfair, and I would not mind the least in paying the same. Those Bush tax cuts were moronic. He’s a moron, like his moron brother and their moron dad.

Yeah, no argument here.

But yeah, taxes. Come on, I’d be ok with paying somewhat higher taxes than the average, we don’t need lesser taxes for billionaires! We have enough money to live. Its the poorest who need some relief, especially after the past decade.

 

I know, that is partly what Hillary is pushing.

 

Yeah, I know. But look at that buffoon Mitt Romney, even in a pure economy election he lost to a sitting President whose popularity was under 50%. Only a loser could throw that election away.

Yeah, we laughed about that with Hillary.

 

So yeah, is there anything I could do? Are you sure you don’t want a million, I could write the check right now, I have my checkbook open. What is it that you really want, Bill?

 

Haha, you know what would be funny, if you ran for the Republican ticket.

 

Haha, yeah.

No, for real this time. Not just this coy game of ‘will Trump run’ but imagine if you ran for real. Don’t think of it as a job, think of it as a reality TV show, where you would play the role of a fictional extreme Conservative President. Like Ronald Reagan played that role in the 1980s.

Haha, yeah, that could work, I could do that.

 

So imagine the issue with the wall at the Mexican border. What would the most extreme Republican nominee do? He wouldn’t just say build a wall...

 

He’d say I will build the biggest wall!

 

Yes, the best, most beautiful wall ever.

 

Yeah, and you know, a Trump Wall, if my company was to build it, I would make it the biggest gold-plated shiny wall that ever existed. One with shining neon lights all night and so huge, it would be visible from space!

 

You would, wouldn’t you?

 

Yes, and then I’d say it wouldn’t cost anything.

 

How come?

 

Because I’d say I would make the Mexicans pay for it

 

Hahahahahahaaa, you’re killing me.

 

Yeah, this could work

 

And it could be fun. How about immigration. What is the most extreme position you can think of?

 

I’d deport them all. No amnesty, not even for kids born here.

 

Yeah, that would get the racists vote. You’d start off with what, 3% maybe 5% of the Republican vote straight on the day you announced.

 

Then there is that moron McCain. I hate it that he gets that hero treatment. I’d call him out on that, the wimp.

 

Yeah, that probably would get you the anti-McCain vote. There is plenty of military veterans who probably would be annoyed, but the small anti-McCain vote would find the ‘first sane’ voice in years and would rally to your side.

 

How big do you think that would be?

 

Not big, but several percent for sure. Say 5%.

 

So I’d be at 10%. Thats still not worth doing.

 

Remember the field is 15 candidates, you’d only need to cross 20% to win Iowa, haha

 

Ok, what else is there that can be grabbed.

 

How about the anti-media vote. If you attack a TV celebrity like say Megyn Kelly, you’d be a hero for standing against the lame-stream media, like Sarah Palin calls them

 

Yeah, besides she’s a bit too cocky, I wouldn’t mind giving her some of my New York mind in some interview

 

Or a TV debate

 

Yeah, TV debate, big audience, even better. Yeah, in a TV debate. How big do you think that voter base would be?

 

I think you’d get another 5% maybe even 10% if you attacked the media through a clear icon. Plus the bonus is that she’s a woman, you’d enrage some women but they’d be voting for Hillary anyway

 

And I wouldn’t mind that, Hillary’s gonna win anyway

 

But you would get some of the oppressed male vote who fear strong women. I’d say you’re at 20% if you did all that.

 

Hey, this is easy. What else can I go for

 

Well, then there are the myths with the Bush years.

 

Oh, yeah, I hate all those lies that took us to the wars, and the anti-terrorist propaganda that got us the spying and nonsense.

 

Yeah, I think Jeb Bush might be vulnerable on his brother.

 

Haha, I could jab him about that ‘he kept us safe’ silliness that the right wing bozoz are aping on Fox.

 

Gosh, that would yes anger the Cheney-Rumsfeld warmonger wing

 

Would there be more votes in that?

 

Actually yes, a part of the Republican base actually hate the Bush dynasty, not unlike some in our Democratic party fear Hillary for a Clinton dynasty

 

Wait until they see President Chelsea the third Clinton, thats when they should be worried

 

Haha, yeah, we’re grooming her, but lets take Hillary there first.

 

So you think Bush has haters

 

For sure, probably a third of the Republican base, but you would not get them all because some you’d already have, and many would be turned against your other comments. But I’d say you could get to say 25% if you attacked Jeb relentlessly

 

He’s actually a nice guy, not really killer instinct like his dad or his dumb brother, I’d hate to do that to Jeb

 

But remember Don, you’d be acting a part. What would JR Ewing do on Dallas? He’d be ruthless. That is how you should think. Like the TV Trump, you’re fired!

 

And Jeb is certainly too wimpy to be President. Gosh he has no energy.

 

That could be your base line of attack, haha, Jeb is low energy.

 

But he is!

 

Yes, he is. He’s like he’s still slightly stoned. But I bet it would get under his skin real fast, if you repeated it in every interview, and in the debates

 

So Jeb is low energy. Yeah, that would be easy.

Then the others are pretty easy actually. You don’t need to worry about those candidates who would be crushed in a general election like Ted Cruz or Dr Ben Carson. But take Carly Fiorina

 

She was a really bad CEO, the whole Board voted her out unanimously. She was on worst CEO lists. I can’t believe the Republicans are even promoting her candidacy

 

Its the woman thing, they need a token woman on that debate stage, because of Hillary. She’s a horrible candidate

 

Didn’t she lose her race in California

 

Yeah she was crushed by Barbara Boxer for Senate, lost by like 20 points. She’s poison in a general election. But think about it, Don, if one of the Governors or Senators says something about her business background, she can bullshit herself into a clear position, her cash flow this, her revenues that. You’re the business guy

 

And I’m way richer than she is

 

You are.

 

Carly ran that company into such a mess, its a disgrace. HP only grew revenues because she made that moronic acquisition of Compaq. I remember even thinking back then, what is she doing.

And then she fired 30,000 employees while buying 5 corporate jets.

 

Haha, yeah, that means she’s unelectable.

 

But Don, which Republican Governor or Senator is going to explain that to their voters? Rick Perry? He can’t even count to three

 

Yeah, and I did robo-calls for him, I felt so ashamed after that.

 

But yeah, then take Marco Rubio

 

Who is a nice guy, but he’s way too young for this and a one-term Senator, he’s way above his league.

 

What would the TV carricature rival say about Rubio in a debate?

 

That he sweats too much and drinks too much water

 

Hahahahaha you crack me up

 

Yeah, I could do this.

 

Don, you can do this in your sleep. You know them all, you’ve met them all, you know what their real weaknesses are. Take Scott Walker, the true conservative

 

Walker? Of Wisconsin? His state budget is a joke. He’s destroying the state. The roads are a mess, the schools are a disaster. His popularity is poison. He wouldn’t get re-elected dog catcher. He’s campaigning in Iowa only because he would face death threats in his home state of Wisconsin.

 

Haha yeah, thats what I mean. Someone should be saying these things. I mean, there are sensible moderate candidates running, who would be good for America and make an honest debate with Hillary

 

Yeah like Kasich and Pataki

 

Yeah, there are sensible ones in there, and say what you want about Jindal but he’s tried to get the Republicans back from being the loonie party and become once again a sensible party. And Rand Paul is reaching out to the black community, they are not all bad.

So if I did run, there is a ceiling of what, 25%

 

Yeah, 25% maybe 30%. But remember, if 15 rivals run for Iowa, you only need 20% to win. Then you get momentum and 25% can win you New Hampshire.

I could even win it. But that will be expensive

 

Maybe not. I think a normal politician like Hillary or me or anyone there running, we would have to pay a lot in TV advertising, at least 100 million in the primary season and 1 Billion dollars in the general election

 

I’m not paying a billion for this. Not even 100 million.

 

But Don, a celebrity

 

Like me?

 

Yeah, a celebrity like you, would get on TV just by saying something outrageous

 

Like lets deport all Mexicans

 

Haha and if that doesn’t work, why not say all Mexicans are rapists and murderers

 

Hahahaha, yeah, rapists. And murderers. That would certainly get me on TV. This could be fun

 

Think of it as a deliberate parody of a candidate

 

Like Jon Stewart and the Daily Show but done live, without editing

 

Can you imagine being on Fox and then suddenly saying your favorite past president is not a Bush

 

Its you

 

I know, thanks but yes, can you imagine how conservative heads explode if ‘their’ Donald Trump says Bill Clinton was the best president in recent history? Haha, that would set the Fox people screaming with their hair on fire

 

Yes. That would be front line news on all TV channels.

 

It certainly would.

 

And then I’d suddenly say that Obamacare is not going far enough, the USA needs a socialist single-payer medical system like in Canada

 

And Fox would think of boycotting you

 

But they couldn’t boycott me, if I was at 20% and in first place in the polling

 

Not only that, but the very issue of a TV channel boycott would be news

 

Or I could boycott them!

 

Haha, yes, thats even better! Yes, you have an ongoing feud with Fox, boycotting them every few weeks. Its news when your boycott starts, and its news again, when the boycott ends. And you are in the news all the time

 

Which would mean the others have less TV coverage

 

Exactly. In fact, if they run TV ads, their ads will have almost no effect if you hog all the news air time.

 

I should charge them for using me to raise their viewerships.

 

Haha, yeah, thats true, and actually, if you were in first place, I bet the debates would get a huge boost in their viewership

 

They would, people love me

 

They do, Don, they do

 

The ratings would be the best they’ve ever been

 

Thats true. But now think, what if in those debates, you were to say that you want higher taxes for the rich

 

And that the Iraq war was a disaster

 

That would be actually quite healthy for the Republican party

 

Which is now infected by the Tea Party madness

 

Yeah, that would be funny. You running for real.  And if you could keep coming up with outrageous things to say, you could stay on TV almost indefinitely, and where all rivals need 100 million to run a national campaign with TV ads, your campaign would cost you almost nothing

 

And I could release a new biography

 

I bet it would sell well

 

And I could sell hats

 

Haha yeah why not take Reagan’s motto - Lets Make America Great Again

 

Thats a great idea. Would look great on a hat. Totally my style. How was it

 

Lets Make America Great Again

 

Couldn’t it be ‘Make America Great Again’

 

Yeah, it could. Would fit better on bumber stickers

 

And on hats

 

Yeah I bet you could make millions just selling those hats

 

And I would like to inspire Americans to Make America Great Again

 

Yeah, no wonder they called him the Great Communicator. But remember, Don, that too will be an issue for you

 

What do you mean

 

Some journalist will notice its nearly the same as Reagan’s slogan. You should make that the issue of the day, you stealing from Reagan

 

So I should deny it

 

Vehemently yes, claim it is totally not the same

 

But anyone can see its exactly the same

 

No, Don, you’re forgetting. A sensible candidate admits the truth. The most delusional Republican extremist would never admit that truth. Think of Frank Underwood on House of Cards

 

Yes, yes, now I get it. Haha, yeah, I deny deny deny. Everything

 

Everything.

 

So there is no similarity with my hat and Reagan’s slogan

 

Thats it. Deny everything. You’re playing a part. Imagine Nixon coming back and insisting still, that he is not a crook

 

Yeah, I could do this. Then after calling Mexicans murderers

 

And rapists

 

Yes murderers and rapists, I would say, but I love Hispanics and they love me

 

hahaha, yes, yes, then add that they will vote for you by huge margins

 

By enormous margins. Huuuge.

 

Same with women, same with veterans

 

Hey, isn’t there that one loonie veterans group that has no members? I could arrange a fund-raiser with them on the condition that he endorses me

                                 

I’m sure he’d do that for 100 dollars haha, they are nearly broke if I recall

 

Yeah, then I can claim the veterans love me, even after I mock McCain’s heroism

 

Haha, yeah, do that the George W Bush way, on an aircraft carrier

 

Or on a battleship, in front of the big guns

 

Yeah, I can see you, wearing the hat ‘Make America Great Again’ with two giant navy guns alongside your head.

 

This is easy

 

And much more fun than running another season of Apprentice, you could give that to you daughter to run

 

She’d love that. Yeah this actually makes a lot of sense. So when do I quit

 

Well, ideally you destroy the worst threats, say you get Walker, Perry, Bush, Christie, Fiorina out of the race, then you could say you’ve had enough, and just announce you quit. But schedule your book launch well before that, so you get another bestseller to your list

 

So run maybe through November or December

 

You could also go for the Iowa and New Hampshire elections, February, if your polling holds.

 

Haha, and then I could of course drop the bomb about the farce of the Benghazi hearings and that clown Trey Gowdy.

 

Haha, gosh, Hillary would love you for that. She’d appoint you Ambassador to Monaco if you wanted some diplomatic immunity in a casino country.

You're on. But Bill, you're not recording this, are you?

Don't worry, Don, its only going to our old server in our basement. Its not used for anything relevant, I think it stores Hillary's emails. Nobody will ever get to it.


(This blog is a joke entry, by Tomi T Ahonen/HatRat, no Trumps or Clintons were harmed or even waterboarded in creating this joke)

My latest serious blog about US 2016 election is this, the first analysis anywhere that does the tull delegate math for the nomination fight. Lots of math stats and very detailed.

My next poltiical blog will be the 'form book' covering all candidates from polling and fund-raising to debates, electability and path to nomination. Also includes their sugar-daddy billonaires

My previous joke blog about the US 2016 election is this: on the return of the GOP clown car

And if you want my 2016 previews, the general election preview is here (very long, detailed, full of numbers and stats) and the preview of the nomination battle 2016 is here.

Finally, as this blog is a tech/mobile/new media blog, the last time I discussed the use of tech in politics to win using modern digital media (2012 election) the deepest analysis of tech use in an election, with tons and tons of cases and stats, is here. This analysis has been referenced to in several published books already, its the deepest of its kind in the world.

Meanwhile, in non-political stuff, my main focus here IS tech and mobile and new media. My last blog about those topics was an update of mobile industry stats from subscribers to mobile internet to messaging.

Republican Race Meets Revenge of the Math: The Delegate Count means we are headed for a long bruising battle, at least till June possibly to the Convention

The US major party nomination fight, both with Republicans and Democrats, is not won by national polling, its not won by state-wide polling. Its not won by wnning debates nor is it even won by collecting campaign donations. The race is won by collecting the most delegates. That delegate count is the only thing that matters, but it is complex and cumbersome, difficult to decypher, differs between both parties, and changes every year. It also is not yet even fully set in all its details, for 2016. So most pundits focus on the 'easy stuff' of polling or fund-raising or debate performance. Yet all of that doesn't matter, its the delegate count that matters. (Yes, this blog is about politics, not my usual topic of mobile and tech. If you are interested in my thinking about the 2016 election, please follow me across the fold.)

Many Mobile Industry Stats Updated Including Uniques, Mobile Internet, SMS, mBanking

There have been a slew of mobile statistical sources issuing updates to their numbers recently. I know many of my readers like to receive these. Here are the big ones that I've spotted. (Also remember, on Twitter as @tomiahonen I will always comment and retweet any new stats that I find from any source, and very often they are not found by me but are stats that are sent to me as spotted by my followers).

 

Unique mobile subscriber count has been updated by the World Bank for 2015. This is the elusive number, we find easily the total subscriber count for the planet (now more mobile subscriptions in use than humans alive) but many of us have two or more accounts, so what is the actual unique user count. The World Bank now says 5.2 Billion human beings. That number is 72% of all humans alive, of any age including babies. It is utterly unprecedented for any technology including the internet, PC, TV, radio, even the wristwatch. Mobile is the most widely spread technology humans have ever experienced, used in places that have no electrical grid, no running water. It even extends beyond literacy as even an illiterate person can talk on a mobile phone.

And what do we do with the mobile? How about some internet stats? The ITU has updated their internet numbers for 2015 and now count a total of 3.2 Billion internet users in total. Most of those are of course now from mobile phones as I was the first to predict in my book back in 2002. But how many is that? The ITU tells us. The number of fixed internet users is down to 800 million so mobile internet migration is at 75%. Yes, no wonder Google prioritizes mobile-optimized websites ahead of traditional large-screen PC websites, when 3 out of every 4 internet users globally uses a mobile phone to get to the internet.

Mobile money and banking is a hot topic (and my 11tth book was the first in the world publiished solely on mobile money and banking). How big is the mobile banking user base this year? Juniper reports that this year 2015 is the moment when the planet passed the amazing level of 1 Blilion users of mobile phones for their banking. For context, the total number of banking accounts globally is 2.9 Billion so already more than one in three banking users worldwide, uses (at least part of the time) a mobile phone to access the banking services. Yeah, this is THE cannibal of cannibals, among any industry that ever was. Not the internet, but mobile.

Talking about mobile data services, how about the gorilla? The largest data service that humankind has ever seen. The one that utterly dwarfs Facebook or Whatsapp or Instagram or Twitter. The one thats almost twice the size of the total internet? Larger in active users than the total AUDIENCE of television or FM radio even when the shared use of those technologies, a large family watching one TV, is included. Larger in reach than the READERSHIP of newspapers even when the shared newspaper is read by several. What is the biggest data service that ever was (and keeps growing still). Yes, my readers know, its of course SMS text messaging. Portio has just counted the total active SMS user base for 2015 and they have it at 6.2 Billion. Note the clear difference with the unique user number reported before. Of course this count allows multiple subscriptions by one individual (often two phones) to be used where both have SMS traffic. Like our multiple eMail accounts or our multiple ownership of smartphones. But yes, that is a monster, monster number. 6,2 Bilion active SMS users worldwide. You thought Facebook was big? SMS reaches an audience four times larger! You like Whatsapp? SMS is six times bigger by active users. Can you now underestand why I keep harping about SMS all the time? (Oh, and my latest 'everything you ever wanted to know about mobile messaging' blog, with all the stats and 29 case studies - with numbers - is here.)

Portio gives us more. The relevant part of SMS for you, reading this blog, unless you work for a big telco, is not the person-to-person SMS (if you wanted to launch a competitor to that, you'd be more interested in Whatsapp and its peers). No, for most reading this blog, who are in marketing and advertising, or business development, or digital money, or customer service, or retail, or government or education or healthcare, etc, then you want the 'premium SMS' stats. The service that is called A2P and/or P2A in SMS (Application to Person). Sending us an alert when someone used our credit card. Requesting a password when we get blocked out of an internet service while travelling. Paying for parking, voting for TV, that sort of thing. How big is that part of SMS. Portio tells us. 22% of all SMS text messaging traffic this year is A2P or P2A traffic, ie 'premium SMS' traffic. Wow. And growing madly. Do not for one minute think that YOUR opportunity in mobile, is being killed by Whatsapp. Mobile first is always SMS first. If you are reading this blog, you have to understand the only gorilla in the room, in our industry. That is SMS. Yes, Mobile First always starts with SMS. Its not just what I've said for nearly two decades now, and still say every time I meet my clients. Its what essentially every expert in the industry is now saying, plus most of the major global corporations who win all the awards for best mobile innovations, from Coca Cola to Unilever to Mastercard to McDonalds. Did I mention I have the perfect primer for you with all the stats and case studies in SMS?

Wait, there is still more from Portio. They have updated their count of MMS users. Yes, yes, yes yes, we all hate that picture-sharing service but its not called PMS. Picture Messaging Service. It is called Multimedia Messaging Service, MMS. Multimedia. That is EVERYTHING that SMS hopes to be when it grows up. It is THE most powerful step up, after you did your SMS campaign. Why because every phone works with it, no apps are required and it doesn't need to be a smartphone. Better yet, every consumer knows how to open and read an MMS, because it behaves EXACTLY like SMS. Even better, to respond to MMS, the consumer responds EXACTLY like - and usually with - an SMS. The open rates are astronomical, the response rates are lightling-fast and the conversion rates are BETTER than with SMS. Duh. Don't think of it as person-to-person picture sharing. That is dumb. Think of it as the best multimedia vehicle to get to every pocket. Most of MMS revenues are CONTENT, premium content, video clips of movies, samples of new songs released, previews of TV shows, airline boarding passes, offers and coupons, barcodes, that kind of stuff. How many people use MMS in the world in 2015. Yes, more than total internet again. How big is MMS? 3.5 Billion active users in 2015. The second largest digital interactive data service on the planet. The second biggest! Why are you not using SMS and MMS? Oh, and you want MMS stats and MMS case studies? They are of course in this massive article I wrote about the everything guide to mobile messaging.

One last bit. The big data industry. How big is the analytics industry when only measured within mobile and ignoring all telco internal stats, but only the new commercial side of consumer analytics via mobile? All that spyware, all the consumer surveys, all the metrics collected by the mobile ad networks and searches etc? And the analytics of our apps use, etc. Ignoring all the behavior data collected by older legacy industries from TV to the internet, just the mobile consumer analytics business. How big is that? We have for the first time a count of that. In 2015 it is worth $1.3 Billion dollars, as reported by Markets and Markets. Personally, I think that number is way too low, but hey, we have for the first time a global count of that number now. Oh, and if you were not sure how mobile factors in with 'big data' (I say Mobile is the Magical Measurement Machine) then the definitive article on everything you ever wanted to know about mobile and big data, is here.

Yeah, its an early Christmas to all propeller-heads with this many new stats out. Enjoy. PS if you need to see where this industry is headed, the most accurate forecaster for the mobile industry is still me, and my latest global mobile forecast out earlier this year, is here. Get the best data and be ahead of the game!

Hey Tizen Second Smartphone Released (Finally) also Pepsi and some Business phone stats

A few tidbits from the smartphone wars. Samsung finally got its Tizen based Z3 out to the market, releasing it in India. About US $130 will get you a 5 inch smartphone with 8mp camera, so superficially its similar to last year's iPhone 6 (but without the apps). Lets see where else it is released and if more models are coming.

And if you thought 1,000 phone manufacturer brands selling 2,500 models of phones was not enough, we have yet another new entrant to the smartphone wars: Pepsi. Not for most of us, but they will launch phones and accessories in China next year, on Android of course.

Then for those who love stats, Strategy Analytics has some rare business phone stats (and also tablet) for Q2. They find 30 million employee smartphones and 59 million BYOD smartphones sold in Q2.  Of the OS split they find Android at 65%, iOS at 28% and Windows at 6% (which leaves 1% for Blackberry). Note how this differs dramatically from all the nonsense that iOS is winning the enterprise phone wars, exactly as I've said. It went to Android when Blackberry and Symbian fell out of it. Not iOS. But yes, the marketing and advertising departments plus many media industries do prefer iPhones. Thats most of the share.. no revolution here for iPhone either, it is Android all the way. Now we have the numbers. Check out Strategy Analytics here. (and who told you...)

More news as it comes.