Debate Review: CNN Republican December Debate: All did good, no breakouts, no disasters: status quo maintained (and bonus: GOP Spice Girls Edition update)

Lets do debate review. But first..

 

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES SPICE GIRL EDITION (UPDATE)

Back by popular demand (this feature on my blog being on par with as popular as the real Spice Girls are today)

After the fourth debate we found out the Spice Girl names for the candidates. In the interim weeks many developments have happened in pleasant, sunny cheerful optimistic Spiceworld. So Donald Trump obviously is Posh Spice (some suggested she should have been Ginger Spice because ot that thing on her head). After rumors Posh Spice would quit the band, especially as she had that gig to host Saturday Night Live, Posh promised us, that inspite of her huuuge talents in dancing and singing, she would not start a solo career. Since then, however new rumors have emerged Posh might team up with Angry Spice and Sleepy Spice to form a trio and leave the rest of the Spice Girls with much less... spice. It was Posh's idea to not allow Mexicans, women, journalists, blacks, the handicapped and Muslims to come to their concerts. This explains why Posh Spice is by far the most popular of the Spice Girls. Everybody else in the band hates Posh Spice.

Marco Rubio is Baby Spice. Baby Spice is the smiling babyface charmer with the perfect dance moves that everybody loves. Baby is sponsored by a bottled water company which is why she always appears to drink water. In reality she hates the taste and has Finlandia vodka in those bottles. None of the other Spice Girls like Baby Spice.

Ted Cruz is Angry Spice. (She asked to be called Happy Spice and still doesn't get it why that name was not accepted for her to use). Angry Spice is very competent but doesn't have a big fan base. Angry Spice has Posh Spice as a neighbor and both are building enormous walls to really separate their yards from each other. Angry Spice doesn't get along with any of the other Spice Girls. Baby Spice and Angry Spice are now having a feud inside the band which some fans fear might tear the Spice Girls apart.

Dr Ben Carson is Sleepy Spice (she wanted to be known as Egyptian Spice) Sleepy Spice is the one who doesn't know quite the steps and mumbles some of the lyrics, so she is often stuck in the back of the stage and sometimes her microphone is turned off during performances. Nobody is sure how Sleepy Spice ever got into the band. Its speculated she was auditioning for a career as a subway train delays announcer and walked into the wrong room. Sleepy Spice has no friends.

Carly Fiorina is Scary Spice. She was a failed pop star in her past. She is the one who will sing out of synch, over other band members' lines, and often deliberately steps in front of the camera to hog the spotlight in video shoots. Scary is disliked by all others in the band. Scary seems somehow 'different' from the rest and may dress in totally contrasting colors to everybody else. Some who hate the Spice Girls say Scary Spice might be gay or a boy dressed up as a girl. This is of course silly as the Spice Girls is the official band of the Republican party which doesn't have any men. 

Chris Christie is Heavy Spice D. She is envious of Posh Spice's popularity and tries to emulate her, only Heavy Spice D isn't nearly as much the natural-born fascist as Posh Spice just instinctively and beautifully is. Still Heavy Spice D keeps insulting everybody. And nobody likes her. Now sit down and shut up.

Rand Paul is Pacifist Spice. Pacifist Spice is the one in the band who is constantly telling the others that they're doing it wrong on any steps or lyrics. Its not so much that Pacifist Spice isn't liked; all other Spice Girls despise her to the core.

John Kasich is not a Spice Girl, she is Spice Mom who tries to be the only adult in the room. Nobody pays any attention to her. The band is secretly trying to get Spice Mom forgotten off the tour bus and left at some truck stop.

Jeb Bush is not in the band, she is just a spectator. She's a slightly goofy and mumbling Spicegirl wannabe, a dull-brained member of their fan club. Her rich parents got her an audition to the band but while she tried Jeb was never quite able to remember the lyrics correctly, and her dance moves, even her posture is not worthy of being a true Spice Girl. Her mother George HW was a failed popstar. Her sister George W was an even more failed popstar. They're evil and vindictive enough to tell Jeb to keep hanging around the Spice Girls and that he has a chance. Of course nobody in the band likes her.

Of the kids table, Mike Huckabee is Hasbeen Spice, the joker of the group. Rick Santorum is Nutty Spice the one who has no sense of humor at all. Hasbeen and Nutty are best friends and are always praying together. The two may be a bit too friendly if you know what I mean. Lindsay Graham is Warmonger Spice who collects clothes and weapons for action figure GI Joe/Action Man that she dresses onto her Barbie dolls. Warmonger Spice creates her own private little army she plays with every night dreaming of glorious concert tours to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Iran. The others find her creepy.

And the New York Governor-dude is Invisible Spice. Not much is known about her and nobody really cares. The four tour the nation as a Spice Girls tribute band 'Spiced Out' playing to tiny audiences at Chic-Fil-A restaurants in rural Kansas and Oklahoma. 

The Spice Girls were discovered by music impressario Dick Cheney who attended all the early shows and was called Shotgun Spice. The management contract was then sold via Halliburton to the Koch Brothers who have the honorary names of Coke and Pepsi Spice when they attend a concert.

Already out of the band, tossed earlier this year is Bobby Jindal who was Forgotten Spice (she tried to get the band to learn science and 'be smart'). Scott Walker aka Nazi Spice (she managed to lose some of the band's money) and Governor Oops Rick Perry ie Wrong Spice (who was constantly singing the lyrics wrong and never learned to count the steps of the choreography correctly)

There is no Sporty Spice but had new House Speaker Paul Ryan chose to run this year, he'd be Sporty Spice. Retired House Speaker John Boner, sorry, Boehner, was briefly in the band as Orange Spice. She was kicked out for being too happy. Mitt Romney auditioned for the Spice Girls and was rejected when she started to measure trees for the right height. And everybody still fondly remembers the original Spice Girl, John McCain who was of course, Old Spice.

Our journalists have also unearthed the model on which the Spice Girls were created. The girl band is a rejected American Idol concept by Simon Cowell based loosely on a female version of the boy band Sarah and the Palinettes which had Michelle Bachmann and that 'I Am Not A Witch' woman as its backup singers. The band quarrelled endlessly about Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget and because she never showed up to practise in time because she had to read all the newspapers first. The band broke up before their first tour of the Alaska coastline was finished and Sarah then had a brief but equally failing disasterous reality TV career. Nobody knows where Bachmann is but the other woman keeps insisting still today that she is not a witch.


DEBATE REVIEW (this is the boring part)

Another month another Repnblican debate. This was quite a good debate on content, all nine participants on the main stage were well prepared and have grown better at the format. The CNN moderators were good with good questions, very relevant, and there was a reasonable amount of clash between candidates. But nothing really changed. What Trump needed was to emerge from this debate with his considerable lead holding and he more than did that. Others needed a breakout performance to shift the race and nobody really had that. Certainly not like Fiorina, Cruz and Rubio in the past debates. I rate Chris Christie as having had the best debate and he can see some gains from the event but not dramatic improvement because the others who appeal to moderates (John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul) all also had good debates. Yes even Jeb finally had a good debate but he needs a total breakout performance and this was nowhere good enough for that. So its mostly the same ole, same ole. The status quo is maintained. So a few observations:

Trump B. Trump is learning to enjoy the format and he is a natural for TV. He came under fire several times but nothing really dramatic. Personally I think his response to the question on the nuclear triad is something that should instantly disqualify him and some pundits may follow with that line but most of Trump's voters really don't care about any such 'gotcha' questions and don't care exactly what is a nuclear triad or why it matters. (Triad means three-legged, which is how the USA, Russia and China have arranged their nuclear weapons. So some are loaded onto airplanes, others loaded into submarines, and the rest are on land-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles. This is the costliest way to do nuclear deterrence but it is also the way to have most flexibility and most safety against surprise attack. By contrast France and the UK have put their nuclear arsenal only to two arms, airplanes and submarines, and they do not deploy land-launched missiles with nuclear warheads. If the person running for office as the person who has the legal right to order the launch of nuclear weapons for a country - ie US President - and he or she doesn't know how the nuclear weapons side of the country is even organized, far less what it can (and cannot) do, then that would be very dangerous for the nation. But most who care about this level of national security detail would never be a Trump supporter anyway. So this 'fault' probably will not matter at all to all who support Trump). Trump could have faced a ton of attacks and totally lost his cool. He did show a bit of his temper but mostly kept cool and thats good enough. And he was at times funny and even pretended to be humble for a moment, all good TV theater and he scored well with his supporters.

Cruz B+. Ted had a good night but didn't have the excellent moment he did previously when he attacked the moderator. To me again, I felt it quite lame that Cruz avoided picking up the opportunity to own what he said in private about Trump but still the way he handled it plays well for his supporters and won't alienate Trump supporers who Cruz hopes to pick up over time. So yeah maybe a bit weasely but for primary politics, it was smart strategy. Cruz gave and took well with several interchanges especially with Marco Rubio and showed he's no Jeb Bush when engaging with Marco. 

Rubio B. Marco had a good night but again it was not the excellence he's shown in previous debates. He is highly likable but he has vulnerable sides in his relatively short life in the national spotlight and his rivals capitalized on that several times. I think Marco should have been stronger in those attacks, he certainly knew they would be coming and the topic matter was all familiar territory. But Marco didn't back down and didn't have any fumbles either. Solid good performance but not great.

Carson D. Ben Carson spent the debate on a philosophical journey all by himself. Not bothered by anyone else and not himself bothering to butt into anything meaningful. He is (again) clearly out of his depth and has no hope of ever being President but he was physically present. And he didn't have any actual 'oops' moment so yeah. Ok performance. Let me say, Carson also is improving only he is starting from such bad starting position that even the improved Carson now is utterly unpresidential and unelectable. But his supporters will again like what they saw and the vast majority of the Republican party has stopped even noticing the man.

Bush B. Jeb had a good night but not a breakout. Pedestrian and yes, even an improvement, so this is technically the best we've seen of Jeb. And yet its totally forgettable. If the others in the moderate 'lane' had stumbled, then some moderates could give this latest Jeb some thought but as Chris Christie was clearly better and the other moderates were all also good, there is no way for Jeb to steal any support. He is still on that downward trajectory.

Christie A-. Chris Christie did not hit it out of the park but he came close and he had the best debate moment in responding to keeping the country safe. Chris kept his fire solidly on Hillary and on President Obama even when directly attacked by Rand Paul. The format suits Christie very well and he is enjoying it. I expect Christie's modest improvement in the polling will continue now into January.

Fiorina B. Carly had a good night but not excellent one. She could have done better, the early part of the debate she was stronger than towards the end.  It surprised me that she did not take the opportunities to hit Trump. I thought she knew that the early debate attacks she did were part of what propelled her to rise in the polling. Maybe Carly has been intimidated by Trump's revenge and now prefers to avoid the Donald.

Kasich C+. John had an ok night, a bit irrelvant and droning but no actual fumbles. He tried to attack again, several times, but mostly to no real relevance. I think his time has come and passed in the process and the moderate voters are moving beyond him, mostly probably now to Christie

Paul B. Rand should not have been in the main debate if we go by the published CNN debate rules. He should have been at the kiddie table. There's been some bewilderment in the press about CNN's weird math of how they decided to let Rand into the debate but at least he did show up also prepared and had what I think is the best debate so far. He was mostly playing to his base, some who were in the audience as very loud supporters. I've written before that Rand isn't bothering to take the race seriously and his support had suffered because of that. This debate signals for the first time that Rand could actually capture something like his dad Ron Paul's level of support - and in that case remain a viable very dark horse throughout the 2016 season and act as a possible spoiler or king-maker if we get to a deadlocked convention.

On the undercard debate Lindsay Graham made his most passionate plea to please let him send tens of thousands of soldiers to the Middle East not just back to Iraq and to Syria but now also he wants to invade Libya.. Graham can be funny at times and makes some good arguments - but even the optics were wrong for him, short Graham standing next to very tall Rick Santorum. The USA doesn't elect short Presidents (as men), sorry Lindsay. The rest? Huckabee is toast, Pataki has probably already quit the race and the press just forgot to tell us. And Santorum will drop out after Iowa, when his prayers for a miracle have not come true. BTW Graham may be campaigning now not for President or Vice President but for Secretary of State and he'd settle for Defense Secretary.

What I find puzzling is that the campaigns of most of the adults table debate think their candidate should NOT attack Trump. This to me is surrender. If a real dragon-slayer emerges, that candidate could easily claim what he or she did to Trump, they next will do to Hillary. And its not possible to win the nomination if Trump still leads when voting happens. They should know that the only way for their candidate to win, is for Trump to be disposed. And unless you're Ted Cruz with his strategy of hoping to pick up the pieces (and a strategy that is not guaranteed to work) for the others, they cannot win if Trump remains on top. So why are they not attacking Trump with a vigor they would attack Obama... The time is running out. There is only one more debate in January, before Iowa has the first votes at the start of February. So I do expect most of these campaigns do the same calculation I have done, and by the next debate they will take the gloves off and try to land a knock-out punch. I think that is cutting it awefully close and for many Trump supporters it will be way too late, as they will have become convinced Trump is their man..

Thats it. I think Trump roughly holds steady. Cruz and Rubio will consolidate their second tier standing and Carson will continue to decline into oblivion. Chris Christie will emerge as the new number 5 and may pass Carson in national polls before voting starts. Rand Paul should see now a consolidation of his base and could then climb to something like 5% support. The others, goodbye. Jeb, Kasich, Fiorina are not going to win anything and the undercard has no Presidents in it either. What did you think?

NOTE UPDATE 13 Oct 2017 - This blog reversed the sequence of the article on 13 October, 2016, because of idiot Trump supporters now suggesting to repeal the 19th Amendment ie the women's right to vote. As now, in late 2016, nobody cares about the primary debate review, but some may enjoy the Spice Girls joke, I reversed the sequence of the blog. All content remains the same.

Comments

[Stephen Reed]

I believe Trump is right when he says that if he wins in Iowa, then he wins every single subsequent primary. I would say that Trump may win Iowa if he can get his many rally attendees to go to the caucus.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Stephen

That is increasingly likely. And Trump might lose Iowa (I think more likely that Cruz takes it) but then could go on a nearly unbeaten streak in subsequent states and end up the clear nominee with far more than 50% of the delegates. Again, I still rate Cruz with the easiest path to most delegates but yes, if as you say, Trump is able to turn the enthusiasm at his rallies (and polling support) into actual delegates, he is clearly now the front-runner and he 'should' be able to then also get the most delegates. He'd go on to lose disastrously in the general election against Hillary, though, but thats another race...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Stephen Reed]

In the general election, Trump would brutally attack Clinton.

For example, I would not be surprised if she escapes felony indictment due to a pardon from Obama.. Trump could set the stage by daring Obama to pardon Hillary, thus ruining Obama's legacy and setting free a woman Obama personally dislikes.

In the general election, Trump is already testing the kill shot "Hillary is a person who doesn't have the strength or the stamina, in my opinion, to be president." Trump is noted for his vigor, devotion to work, and ability to get things done.

Another kill shot would be to attack Hillary's sobriety. She is a well known drinker - the the extent that her character on the popular US comedy show "Saturday Night Live" is a drunk. Trump is a non drinker, and as mentioned above is noted for his vigor.

Trump may do better with African Americans than did Romney, and certainly do better with the very large voting block of non-college educated white men. I played with the electoral vote simulator at Five Thirty Eight, and a modest increase in this block's turnout for Trump leads to an electoral vote landslide. For example, an increase of 8% turnout (62% --> 70%) results in Trump winning 312 electoral votes.

Play with: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/

[Winter]

@Stephen Reed
Meanwhile Trump will have insulted almost any group of voters beyond the Tea Party. So voters might team up to defeat him. That just happened in France with the Front National.

[Steven epstein]

Truman was short.
Surprised Dewey.
;)

[Winter]

@Stephen Reed
Trump also has his weaknesses. People are starting to get him on it:

Trevor Noah wants to prove that Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter
http://www.scoopwhoop.com/world/trevor-noah-roasts-donald-trump/

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Stephen and Winter

Stephen - I agree in the general election Trump would 'brutally' attack Hillary yes. Totally in his character and he'd use every avenue available. Several things would be different in that line of attack next year in the general election. First off, the love of putting Trump on every TV show will have worn off much of its novelty and Hillary's campaign would demand equal time. The totally lopsided media coverage would end if its only two people competing and both would have plenty to say on anything. Hillary would not let anythign silly said by Trump go unanswered. She'd have a Trump Response specialist doing nothing but reading his Tweets and watching coverage of all of his speeches to spot anything new ridiculous he'd said. Meanwhile this 'gateway drug' phenomenon of Trump having to increase the dosage of his vitriol by every cycle will have run ten more cycles so for Trump to get the same reaction as banning all Muslims now, he will have to suggest you have to boil and fry babies of incoming aliens, by September of next year, just to get that attention he so craves.

But on Trump's attacks on Hillary. She's a known quantity and all the attacks have already come time and again. She's the most known candidate to run in decades. There isn't material to attack that is new. It doesn't mean Trump won't attack her, but only that the attacks will be less effective than they have now been on rival candidates who were far less known to voters than Trump himself was in the early season of this election cycle.

You point out some obvious lines of attack Trump will try. First on the criminal indictment. That will never come, if you seriously believe in that, you have been following too much right wing media. Its the same media that was convinced Benghazi would sink her. If you seriously believe there will be a criminal indictment for Hillary, I know you are too far in that delusion, so good luck with that. We'll be back here when you get over that dream and we can discuss the reality of the election. I will be here. I always deal with the reality, not the fantasy. Not with Nokia, not with Apple, not with Samsung, not Microsoft, not with Hillary or Trump.

On Hillary's drinking, you gotta be kidding. That from a man who is in his third marriage and whose companies have had four bankruptcies. Who has lost an election about drinking since the Second World War? Alcohol consumption was last a political issue with prohibition. Americans have recently forgiven Presidential candidates for smoking POT (when it was still illegal) on BOTH sides of the aisle, Bush 2 and Obama, and it didn't move the needle. If you believe alcohol consumption is Hillary's Achilles's Heel, its even more absurd than the hope of a criminal indictment.

But as almost all Americans consume alcohol, remembering beer and wine are alcohol, then if Trump were to use alcohol consumption as a reason he thinks Hillary is not qualified, then Trump would by implication accuse the vast majority of Americans of their habits, and alienate EVEN MORE voters. Something Hillary would instantly hit back on. Might it play with some small rural towns and very religious voters, maybe. Would they vote for Hillary? No. But it would instantly set Trump up for ridicule about wanting to ban alcohol consumption next. He'd only alienate voters with that tactic but good luck with it haha. If I was Hillary's campaign manager, I'd love that attack.

Doing better with black voters than Romney. Yes, thats possible and even likely. Not because Trump is liked by blacks but because Hillary is not a black. The black vote obviously surged for the first President who was black. But we dont' need to speculate on your wild assumption playing with 538 blog's model. We have NUMBERS on this. Quinnipiac poll just a few weeks ago tested Hispanic and Black vote between Trump and Hillary. In 2012 Romney only got 6% of the Black vote against Obama. Trump manages to improve on that by.. one point. He would get 7% of the black vote. But the Hispanics (in very rough terms a similar size of voter block) Romney got 27% against Obama. Trump now against Hillary only gets 14%. The damage from 'Mexicans are rapists and murderers' and subsequent racists language is so bad, that even yes, if Trump manages one POINT better with blacks than the rival to the first-ever black President, Trump loses 13 points on the similar size (actually slightly larger) voter block of Hispanics. Its a lost cause. The Hispanic gap is so enormous that Trump cannot win the election. Thats before we look at the GENDER gap which has also been tested and Trump has the WORST gender gap of any Republican nominee. He can't win against Hillary.

Thats before we look at how vulnerable Trump is in the general election against Hillary. Lets start with the bankruptcies. The current field has not used this line of attack. Hillary will pillary Trump on his business past, how cruel he's been, breaking his word, abandoning sinking ships, leaving creditors with nothing while Trump profits. This is the same line of attack that was powerful against Romney but now it comes with added power as it looks like a 'character trait' of all Republicans making the accusation far easier to make and far more damaging when it is launched. And note, Trump's current high unfavorability is before this attack has been struck on him.

All the sound-bites that Trump has made about the Black Lives Matter guy 'deserved to be roughed up' and 'McCain is no war hero' and Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle, added with all the various Republican rivals to Trump like Fiorina attacking him with 'all women heard what Trump meant' and 'Margaret Thatcher said that if you want a lot said, send a man, if you want things done, send a woman' etc etc etc. Each of Trump's rivals has something nasty to say about Trump while the Democratic field is not saying similarly nasty things about Hillary. Oh, and the violence stuff? Hillary's SuperPAC has already now started to run an anti-Trump TV ad about the violence against the Black Lives Matter protesters. Just like how Obama did in 2012 - remember its many of the same campaign team now for Hillary - they hit Romney early while he was still in his primary fight, to define his impression to the general public. This works remarkably well with Independents who don't pay much attention to the primaries and only start to pay attention after the Conventions. Hillary is a known quantity and cannot be redefined. Most of the ugly side of Trump are not known to the general public. They will be by the time the conventions start.

Obama did relatively poorly with the labor vote, some less-educated white voters deserted the party in 2008 and 2012 and voted for the Republicans instead. Hillary has been picking up a ton of labor endorsements already and was by far their preferred candidate when she ran against Obama in 2008. Now look at Trump. The Las Vegas Trump Casino has just had a vote where its workers decided to unionize. And what does Trump management do, they try to overturn that vote. All this is ammunition that only helps Hillary and hurts Trump. Those voters in the middle, Independent voters, are far more friendly to labor and they don't like union-busting.

Then whats with Trump's creepyness. He'd want to sleep with his daughter? You talk about Hillary drinking, seriously, SERIOUSLY? Trump regularly drools about his own daughter. That is another nasty attack ad waiting to happen. Hillary who remained married to Bill after all those years and Trump who switches to a younger trophy wife ever decade.

Then the POSITIVE things that Trump has said about Bill and Hillary. This is DEVASTATING. When Trump does lauch attack ads against Hillary, she will accuse him of politically motivated flip-flops. Hillary as 'the worst Secretary of State ever' but contemporaneously Trump said she was doing a great job. Trump called Bill the best President in recent years, not either of the Bushes (this from a supposed 'Republican' and he said it this Spring yes in 2015 not in 1998). Then that Politifact statistic - that where despised Dick Cheney lied only 60% of the time, Trump lies 76% of the time. And a quarter of Trump's claims are so egregious they are 'pants on fire' lies. Where both are going to be thought of as untrustworthy it will be like comparing a girl scout to Goebbels. Oh, which brings the Nazism and Fascism.

Never in recent political history (I am too young to remember Goldwater's campaign) have rivals of his OWN party acccused a fellow Republican of being a fascist. Oh, this will play really well with Independents, one Republican after another calling Trump a fascist. He is so so SOOOOOO vulnerable to a serious, concentrated barrage of attack adds. And they will come from the richest campaign ever seen. And all those attacks will be designed to paint ALL Republicans as nasty as Trump, just like that SuperPAC ad now about Trump and the violence against the BLM protesters and Trump saying they should be roughed up. That ad ends... with the point that this is the modern Republican party (which it obviously isn't but the Tea Party wing IS and that wing is now making all the noise and similar views to Trump's are accepted as mainstream with many candidates saying the same).

But I agree with you Stephen. The 2016 campaign will be nasty and the negative ads will be fierce. Partly because whoever it is on the Republican side, they will be so badly in a hole that they do have to attack Hillary. And she will have all the ammunition to hit back at whoever it is (Cruz, Trump, Rubio or whoever else) and this year's primary fight on the Republican side will be the most damaging ever seen because of the large field of well-funded candiates, combined with 24 hour news and social media and smartphone cameras. Everything said - such as Ted Cruz saying nasty things about Trump behind his back - will be exposed and repeated. So Hillary has the meek Bernie Sanders to deal with. He will be gone by March. Trump or Cruz or Rubio cannot win before June and will be bitterly bruised with a nasty divided party heading into the convention where it may very well be, that the fight still continues, further alienating key constituents of the party. As many Republicans have already said, if Trump is on the ticket they will vote for Hillary or they will 'sleep late' on election day. Trump will face an epic campaign loss and he will be compared to Mondale who lost 49 of 50 states against Reagan in 1984.

But it will be entertaining to watch. And Cruz would not do much better than Trump. Those two are the front-runners to win the nomination..

(more replies coming)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Wayne Borean]

Trump is very likely to win the nomination in my opinion. Based on current polling, and his uncanny ability to come up smelling like roses, I can't see Cruz taking Trump down. Cruz has the ego needed, but not the skills.

Stephen Reed has a point or sorts. If you play with the numbers the way he did, yes, Trump can win. But that's laying with the numbers. When you have a dozen ways that Trump looses, and only one way that he wins, odds are that he looses.

Personally, based on the polling, and my own research (I have a lot of American friends), I'm pretty sure that Hillary will take the election, whether she is against Trump or Cruz. Both are too fringe to attract a lot of Independent voters.

As an aside, I started a fire storm a while back. A rather religious person I know is a fire breathing Republican. We had a discussion about Christ, and his actions, and I told him that no Christian could support the Republican Party because the party is against Christian principles. He's not talking t me any more :)

[Winter]

Trump is now endorsed by Putin

Putin says Trump is ‘absolute leader’ in U.S. presidential race

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-no-major-gaps-with-washington-over-efforts-to-end-syria-conflict/2015/12/17/a178255e-a431-11e5-8318-bd8caed8c588_story.html

[Wayne Borean]

More interesting reflections on the Debate

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/12/16/gop-debate-v-gorillas-pounding-chests-162785

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Winter and Stephen

Winter on Americans uniting against Trump like the French did against Le Pen. Fair point but actually there is no 'need' for the nation to unite, because the US is already/still a two-party system so that unification happens naturally. Which is why in the past any extreme whether fascist right-wing or communist left-wing has not succeeded. Because the US has remained a two-party system the only way to win was to be acceptable to the middle. This has pretty well guaranteed that the two parties never stray too far from the middle ie 'moderate' voters. Whenever they attempt that, they get beaten badly such as most recently Walter Mondale-led socialist-surge in 1984 and previously the Barry Goldwater-led fascist-surge of 1964. The party that attempts that invariably lose and lose massively at all levels of the given election, often thrown out of ruling for years, decades even at the lower government levels. Republicans have by now forgotten the disaster of 1964 because obviously all those who were of voting age at that time are in their 70s in age or above and the younger people don't bother to listen to those who are already past retirement age haha.. So its about the 'right time' for Republicans to attempt this fool's errand and good luck with that. They need to re-learn that lesson now, as part of the process of ridding the Tea Party sickness. The Republicans will not stop being the silly party of extreme views until they get beaten totally in a general election. Mondale lost 49 of 50 states, Goldwater managed to win 6 states losing 44.

So yeah, the USA will need to have a serious national 'coming together' about Trump but their political system, for all its faults and archaic ways, does have that part built-in. It already does that, what the French system does, with the final two facing off against each other. The USA has been that way for a long while. And most conservative political election experts (not pundits who rave on TV shows but their election analyst number-cruncher specialists) agree that Trump would be a catastrophy for the general election where Republicans would not just lose the Presidency but would lose the Senate and risk losing the House as well. So at a minimum, with the gerrymandering worth seven points, even conservative election analysis specialists seem to think Trump would lose to Hillary by something around 7 points or more. Obama's first election was called a 'landslide' of exceptionally strong victory. It was 7 points over McCain and the Democrats also picked up a filibuster-proof Senate and increased their lead in the House seats.

My calculation at this point in very rough terms is that Trump would lose by 20 points, 60-40 for Hillary, which in terms of states, means Trump would carry something similar to Goldwater's loss, only extremely conservative states like Kansas, Alabama and Utah. Half a dozen of those and Hillary would almost run the table flipping for example Texas which would be catastrophic to the Republicans all by itself dooming their future chances for decades because Texas has a large growing Hispanic population plus significant black and native Indian populations. Texas is the second largest state by electoral votes, after California and ahead of New York, both of which are safely 'blue' states ie they vote for Democrats.

If Texas becomes a battleground state - and if Hillary wins Texas in 2016 it instantly becomes one for coming years ie 2020 and 2024 - then Republicans will face each Presidential election with a knife on their necks. They have to fight feverishly just to defend Texas because if they lose Texas, then winning Florida, Ohio AND Virginia will be pointless, they lose anyway. If Cruz is on the ticket, him being a Texan, its rather safe to say Texas stays red in 2016. But if Trump is on the Ticket Texas will flip. If Rubio is on the top of the ticket, Texas would be 'in play' and could go either way, but more likely will be kept by narrow margin by the Republicans.

Note that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been working to turn Texas 'purple' ie into a battleground state for years. Both are very well loved and known in Texas visiting the Democrats there quite regularly. Obama lent some of his operation to try to help Texas Democrats especially in the mid-terms of 2014 (while they lost badly, as the whole election was a very low-turnout election where Democrats always struggle). Incidentially any of the moderate candidates on the top of the ticket, like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich etc would mean that Texas will not be in play this year, because a moderate Republican would have far better chances in 'normal' battleground states like Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire; as well as 'the three' key battleground states of Ohio, Virginia and Florida (if either party gets two of those three, that party almost always wins the whole election too, the math is so explicit on those three states. Obama won all three both times).

Stephen - haha true about Truman shorter than Dewey. I was referring to the modern times when voters SEE the two candidates side-by-side, ie the time of modern TV debates. Back in Truman's time it was newspapers and radio that were the media where you couldn't see the height of the contender... But good catch haha. I love that picture of Truman holding newspaper with headline 'Dewey wins' when that newspaper obviously called the election wrong.. Just a total classic in mistaken news coverage (and bad polling).

Winter - good point. And that - Trump's creepy expressions about his daughter - is yet another Trump weakness that his current rivals have not seized upon. It would seem like a very strong argument by any religious types like Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum, to make an overall blanket accusation about Trump's corrupted morals and dubious character, from his three marriages to his appalling comments about going to church and eating the cookie to yes, wanting to sleep with his own daugther? But the Republicans have kept silent about it. Now.. Would this be a good tactic by Hillary to attack Trump? No, because it also would raise the issues about her own marriage and unfaitful husband. But... who is the Father of the nation, with two DAUGHTERS? Who loves to make jokes about the rivals. This is a natural for OBAMA to use, as one of Hillary's many surrogates, to poke fun at Trump and saying he, Obama, can't as a father imagine such emotions and that he - Obama - finds it creepy. Then... haha... of course Michelle Obama would be asked about that and she also - true to Hillary's re-election campaign - would chime in as the First Mom, that gosh, if her husband ever said that, she'd slap him on the head so hard it would still ring next October...

The current Republican field is not seriously challenging Trump. This is not normal, in past elections the close front-runners always challenge the front-runner but both Ben Carson and Ted Cruz have that weird non-aggression pact with Trump. Its Survivor Island, its an 'alliance' and obviously in a field of 17 candidates it has worked well, as Trump, Cruz and Carson are ranked 1, 2 and 4 in the national polling and right now, number 3, Rubio is under the biggest attacks he's yet seen. He may not hold that ranking too long as Cruz seems to be the one in ascendancy. But to Trump, this is an abnormal election cycle. It HELPS him win the nomination but makes him FAR MORE vulnerable in the general election and the system 'fails' in discovering the weaknesses of the party's nominee.

But it means its most likely that either Trump or Cruz will be the nominee for the Republicans and this is good for America, because either would lose catastrphically and that loss, in turn (ie Mondale/Goldwater) will help cure the party of the extremist nonsense and return the party back to the moderate sensible positions on anything from climate change to minimum wage to Obamacare (and eventually, even abortion and gun control the most dear positions of the extreme that will be hardest to overcome).

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To all in the thread..

Mike Huckabee cutting salaries for his staff.. His campaign is in desperate straights and may soon fold. I would expect George Pataki also to soon quit. Rick Santorum will soldier on hoping for his miracle in Iowa (which will never come, and he will quit soon after Iowa) and Lindsay Graham hopes that his warmongering can catch fire with the ISIS threat, so Graham is likely to try to hang onto his humiliating loss back home when South Carolina votes third, in February). But Huckabee... one that I saw early on as one of the stronger candidates and campaigns as a dark horse surpriser for 2016... is totally on the ropes.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

Who needs terror threats when homework assignments will do just fine?

All schools shut down in a Virginia county over Islam homework assignment

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/18/us/virginia-school-shut-islam-homework/

The US often claim to be special. But I assume this is not the way they mean it.

[Catriona]

This is an example of leadership. We could have used more of it the last 7 years. Both sides gave a concession on an issue important to the other side and reached a deal to avoid a crisis.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/12/18/ryan_pelosi_pass_trial_by_fire_in_budget_negotiations.html

[Catriona]

@Winter, LA closed down their entire school system for a day over a hoax. The schools in NYC were smarter than that.

Anyway, that "assignment" clearly crossed the line. If it had said "Merry Christmas" the left would have been screaming.

[Winter]

@Catriona
"This is an example of leadership."

Leadership? Much more like leading Kindergarten:

From the piece:
"In their call on Monday, Ryan told his counterpart that he had “to defend having dinner with you.” She said, “Tell them you tried to poison me, but I had the antidote,” according to a Democratic aide."

This is so childish. But I agree that it it is progress

@Catriona
"Anyway, that "assignment" clearly crossed the line."

Closing down the schools over this assignment is STUPID. People who consider writing down some text from a different religion as part of a lesson on religions "crossing the line" are fundamentalist bigots.

It just screams that these people hate the "freedom of Religion" part of the constitution of the USA.

[Winter]

Should I laugh or cry?

Poll: 30% of GOP voters support bombing Agrabah, the city from Aladdin

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/republican-voters-bomb-agrabah-disney-aladdin-donald-trump

[Winter]

Kasich Parody Website Announces Putin as Trump’s Running Mate

http://time.com/4156018/trump-putin-running-mate/

Besides jabbing at the chummy relationship between Trump and Putin, Kasich’s campaign re-wrote the current Trump campaign slogan as “Make Tyranny Great Again!”

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

So we now have 4 national polls out after the debate (PPP. Fox, Quinnipiac and CNN/Orc). And we can do the comparison of the polling of only the new results vs the last polls just before the debate. It looks like this:

Trump was 33.0% now 35.0% up 2.0 points (6% gain)
Cruz was 16.1% now 19.5% up 3.4 points (21% gain)
Rubio was 12.6% now 11.5% down 1.1 points (9% loss)
Carson was 12.0% now 8.8% down 3.3 points (27% loss)
Christie was 2.9% now 4.8% up 1.9 points (64% gain)
Bush was 4.0% now 4.3% up 0.3 points (6% gain)
Paul was 2.1% now 2.8% up 0.7 points (31% gain)
Fiorina was 2.3% now 2.5% up 0.2 points (9% gain)
Huckabee was 2.0% now 2.0% flat (no change)
Kasich was 2.3% now 1.8% down 0.6% (24% loss)

Note the hopeless candidates + undecided vote went down from 10.7% before debate to 7.2% now (3.5% of voters either found their candidate or abandoned a loser and is with the above)

So what do we learn? Carson is bleeding support that Ted Cruz is clearly picking up. Christie had a good debate and has moved into fifth ranking ahead of Jeb who is now down to sixth in national polling (even as he had a slight gain too). Rand Paul is showing signs of life. Marco Rubio is stumbling a bit. Trump keeps climbing but now its mild growth at these levels. Kasich's style is not going over well with the electorate.

Also there was a preliminary count on Politico of who would make the adult table debate for the next debate, if these levels hold now. They have only six to make it - Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Christie and Jeb. The others including Fiorina and Rand Paul would be tossed to the kids' table debate. I think a debate with only six candidates would be/should be an improvement in what can be done in that format and hope it won't be another one with nine candidates.. Of course Dr Carson will not add to any debate but he is gradually fading away and maybe by February we won't have to waste time watching him participate in at least the adult table debate haha.

Ok, I know some of you wanted the debate 'results' so there you go.

Tomi Ahonen :-)