Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

You might want to check the RealClearPolitics averages, which are slightly more reliable:

Clinton vs. Trump: 44.6-42.6 (Clinton +2)

Clinton vs. Cruz: 44.5-46.3 (Cruz +1.8)

Clinton vs. Rubio: 43.5-46.5 (Rubio +3)

Hillary is at 43-45% against each, which is right in line with Obama's job approval rating (44.5%). That seems to be about the floor of Democrat support these days. But for Hillary, it could also be the ceiling. She's so well known, and people's opinions of her are so set, that she does not have much room for gains. The Republicans, on the other hand, have a lot of room to grow their support. In any case, all of the national polls show them polling within the margin of error, essentially tied, with no Republican nominee yet.

Simply put, it does not look good for the Democrats, and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

Plus the Dems are up against the odds from previous contests. The norm is for elections after a re-election to result in a turnover of the White House to the opposing party. The last time the Republicans beat those odds was 1988 with Bush Sr. The last time the Dems beat those odds was Truman's re-election in 1948.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Yeah, I was referring to that. I was saying that Trump isn't going to be the nominee and the GOP establishment will be rulling engaged in voter suppression for the benefit of their candidate, no matter who he is.

I can't argue with faith. We'll both have a better idea after Iowa and New Hampshire. Trump is basically fighting the same uphill battle on the Republican side that Obama fought on the Democratic side in 2008.
As far as voter suppression goes, it's fairly easy to suppress the African American vote because a third of African-American males are embroiled in the criminal justice system. The youth vote is a lot more difficult. Suppressing the white male vote is a lot harder since so many white males, especially older white males are already registered. Establishment Republicans have relied on social issues like abortion to keep this demographic mesmerised in previous elections. But that isn't working this year because this demographic is hurting economically. The one "social issue" that is galvanizing this demographic, immigration, is the one that the Republican Establishment is on the wrong side of, preferring since the 1990s to have open borders and the same kind of immigration levels we saw in the 19 'oughts to keep wages down now as then. Nativism aside, this is something the white male demographic "gets".
There simply isn't time to create the kind of literacy tests that we saw in the South that kept voter participation in the 20% range and were used against poor whites as well as African Americans in that time and place.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I don't understand your certitude on this; particularly we're now just 3 weeks from Iowa.

What's the reasoning or is this the same kind of gut feel that so many in the GOP Establishment and media have been expressing for 6 months.

I gave a rationale earlier using an analogy with momentum stocks. I believe that analogy is valid because of the content of the Trump campaign. With most candidates the what you get with a candidate is the party line with a few perturbations that make the candidate somewhat distinctive. This makes it a lot easier for a candidate to justify his campaign because he/she can focus on just the few bits that make them special. A voter will support the candidate whose “special bits” most appeals to them and support whoever wins thenomination because they are more comfortable with their party’s line that the other (that’s why they lean towards that party in the first place).

Trump is different. He says things that would disqualify any other Republican who said them as nothing more than a fringe candidate. But people do not care what he says he believes. They care about what he will DO. What is Trump’s solution to weak wage growth, rising health costs, terrorism, or another of the problems facing America? His solution to all of these is the same, his greatness, before which these problems will fade away . America will stop losing all the time and start winning, because Trump is a winner.

He is a blowhard. A talker who has no skills, nor particular talents except somehow this ridiculous figure managed to talk his way into billions. He has now decided to run for president . And no matter what he says or who attacks him they all bounce off and he rises higher and higher in the polls. All that is needed is for him to win the first contest in Iowa and then he will go on to win every single contest after that, and they will all fall before his like dominos. And all this will happen when he wins Iowa, which of course a winner like Trump will do. And not be a small margin. He will crush Cruz like all others before him, that is if he really is the winner he claims to be.

I think Ted Cruz is going to win Iowa and not by a little.

If he (Trump) loses, he still will likely take NH, that leave SC.

No, if Trump loses Iowa this destroys the case for Trump. A winner does not start out as a loser. If he loses Iowa he will probably lose NH and even if he wins it will be a weak win, with Cruz getting all the coverage, in which case it will feel like a loss. With two losses under his belt he will lose in SC and after that his campaign will collapse.

I know this sounds mystical, but Trump is a mystical candidate. He is a pure momentum play. The justification for buying is that the price is going up. And the price will keep going up until it doesn't, and then it will fall.

Simply put, Trump is a bubble.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I gave a rationale earlier using an analogy with momentum stocks. I believe that analogy is valid because of the content of the Trump campaign. With most candidates the what you get with a candidate is the party line with a few perturbations that make the candidate somewhat distinctive. This makes it a lot easier for a candidate to justify his campaign because he/she can focus on just the few bits that make them special. A voter will support the candidate whose “special bits” most appeals to them and support whoever wins thenomination because they are more comfortable with their party’s line that the other (that’s why they lean towards that party in the first place).

If we were dealing with an election where the establishment of both parties was almost certain to win nomination I would agree. That being said, the primary season so far indicates that the establishment is hearing a clear DO NOT WANT from both parties.

Trump is different. He says things that would disqualify any other Republican who said them as nothing more than a fringe candidate. But people do not care what he says he believes. They care about what he will DO. What is Trump’s solution to weak wage growth, rising health costs, terrorism, or another of the problems facing America? His solution to all of these is the same, his greatness, before which these problems will fade away . America will stop losing all the time and start winning, because Trump is a winner.

Have you ever stopped to consider that Trump's very appeal is that he is a demagogue? We had 8 years of stupid, we've had 8 years of rational, it is time for 4 years of crazy to get the ball rolling and the 4T over with.

He is a blowhard. A talker who has no skills, nor particular talents except somehow this ridiculous figure managed to talk his way into billions. He has now decided to run for president . And no matter what he says or who attacks him they all bounce off and he rises higher and higher in the polls. All that is needed is for him to win the first contest in Iowa and then he will go on to win every single contest after that, and they will all fall before his like dominos. And all this will happen when he wins Iowa, which of course a winner like Trump will do. And not be a small margin. He will crush Cruz like all others before him, that is if he really is the winner he claims to be.

Except for one problem, which I pointed out earlier. Iowa rarely picks the nominee. Here's the thing. The Iowa GOP base is the tea-baggingest, right-wing nuttiest, fundamentalist Christian-est subgroup of the GOP out there. They usually pick someone who appeals to that, and those that appeal to that don't survive NH, SC or Super Tuesday.

I think Ted Cruz is going to win Iowa and not by a little.

I hope he does, because that means he'll likely lose NH and SC and then pack his shit and go back to Texas. We've had enough Texans I think.

No, if Trump loses Iowa this destroys the case for Trump.

Except for the fact that Iowa almost never picks the nominee when an incumbent GOP president isn't running. They did it in 1996 (Bob Dole is from Nebraska or Kansas or one of those states next door which is why he won) and W. picked it up in 2000 too. Otherwise Iowa never picks the GOP nominee when it is contested. The Democrats are a different story though. But we're not discussing the Democratic Caucus--we know whose going to get that one, she's already bought and paid for it.

A winner does not start out as a loser. If he loses Iowa he will probably lose NH and even if he wins it will be a weak win, with Cruz getting all the coverage, in which case it will feel like a loss. With two losses under his belt he will lose in SC and after that his campaign will collapse.

Except this almost never happens. Santorum won in 2012 and lost in NH which Romney picked up. Same thing with McCain. If anything winning Iowa and losing NH spells doom not the other way around. History should be our guide here. History says your theory is bullshit.

I know this sounds mystical, but Trump is a mystical candidate. He is a pure momentum play. The justification for buying is that the price is going up. And the price will keep going up until it doesn't, and then it will fall.

Simply put, Trump is a bubble.

He very well could be. We shall see. That being said, I still say that if Trump loses Iowa no one will much care, but if he loses NH then he'll have problems. The thing I think you're forgetting Mike is that Iowa really is a backwater state with certain special conditions that make it unlike any other state. Much like how Rand Paul can only really be a Senator from KY (no other state would elect him, even if he did technically qualify otherwise).

Originally Posted by playwrite

So how did they both get elected if they don't appeal?

If you say it was the demographics, you'd be right. And now you just need to expand that thought to TX and half a dozen other states where the eligible but typically non-voting Hispanic populations reside - can you say "sleeping giant?"

It's a good idea you have of the Castros. Hispanics can tilt the election of a few key states, and their numbers are growing. My method works well though. A low score does not prevent election to a state office. Jerry Brown has a very low score, although with a couple of rising planets to help him. He won CA governorship 4 times; he ran 3 times for USA president and lost.

It takes a lot more charisma and confident leadership ability to be elected president. Getting elected of course does not mean good governance in the office (witness George W Bush). But certain qualities appeal to American voters and horoscopes indicate those qualities.

Now it's an outside chance that there are enough hispanics now to change the American character. That's a stretch though, since we have already been a nation of immigrants and that doesn't change the general traits of Americans. And Castros' score is so low it's just a tough bar to cross. No-one with that low a score has even come close to getting elected president.

Unfortunately, it looks like Rubio is in the best position to take advantage of the hispanic vote. That doesn't mean it will be enough for him to win though.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I see more of the half-measures the Clinton-Obama Democratic Party have been known for. I agree with Mike Alexander on this: it's a prescription for a dew decades in the wilderness.

That's not going to change by just having Sanders in the WH. People who believe otherwise are the same people still confused about savior Obama not bringing them their Wall Street perp walks, single payer health care and many other magic ponies. The latest savior-seekers truly believe that Sanders' in-your-face approach, in contrast to Obama's first term of repetitive fig leaf offerings, will make a difference. It won't.

I'll make a dollar-to-donuts bet with anyone that, under a Sanders or Clinton WH , Mitch McConnell will repeat his job number one is the defeat of the President and that House Republicans will break the 100 mark for repeal Obamacare votes before the 2018 mid-term elections.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

..... More needs to be done.

Well yea, but one of the first steps is getting off the magic pony rides and getting real.

Making the SCOTUS more Progressive in the next several years is huge, particularly in killing off the GOP rearguard actions of outrageous gerrymandering, voter suppression, and unlimited campaign finance as well as demoralizing the cornered animal so that it reactionary violence is mitigated to a greater extent.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Yes, it's a binary choice, but may not be the one you think. There is also a choice between long ball and short ball. If you believe, as I do, that winning now may create desolation for decades, which choice do you make then?

Again, there is no difference in OUTCOME between the long and short ball choice. The only difference is the degree of euphoria in the first 6 months and the degree in utter frustration for the rest of the term.

If anything, belief in magic ponies tends to slow actual progress.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

If we were dealing with an election where the establishment of both parties was almost certain to win nomination I would agree. That being said, the primary season so far indicates that the establishment is hearing a clear DO NOT WANT from both parties.



Have you ever stopped to consider that Trump's very appeal is that he is a demagogue? We had 8 years of stupid, we've had 8 years of rational, it is time for 4 years of crazy to get the ball rolling and the 4T over with.



Except for one problem, which I pointed out earlier. Iowa rarely picks the nominee. Here's the thing. The Iowa GOP base is the tea-baggingest, right-wing nuttiest, fundamentalist Christian-est subgroup of the GOP out there. They usually pick someone who appeals to that, and those that appeal to that don't survive NH, SC or Super Tuesday.



I hope he does, because that means he'll likely lose NH and SC and then pack his shit and go back to Texas. We've had enough Texans I think.




Except for the fact that Iowa almost never picks the nominee when an incumbent GOP president isn't running. They did it in 1996 (Bob Dole is from Nebraska or Kansas or one of those states next door which is why he won) and W. picked it up in 2000 too. Otherwise Iowa never picks the GOP nominee when it is contested. The Democrats are a different story though. But we're not discussing the Democratic Caucus--we know whose going to get that one, she's already bought and paid for it.



Except this almost never happens. Santorum won in 2012 and lost in NH which Romney picked up. Same thing with McCain. If anything winning Iowa and losing NH spells doom not the other way around. History should be our guide here. History says your theory is bullshit.



He very well could be. We shall see. That being said, I still say that if Trump loses Iowa no one will much care, but if he loses NH then he'll have problems. The thing I think you're forgetting Mike is that Iowa really is a backwater state with certain special conditions that make it unlike any other state. Much like how Rand Paul can only really be a Senator from KY (no other state would elect him, even if he did technically qualify otherwise).

Your 'eight years stupid, eight years rational, now four years crazy' is really funny. But it is actually a lot scarier! Yikes!

I think you're right about Trump losing Iowa. We've already seen a preview from Trump when he first dropped out of front runner status - "LOSERS!"
I think with an actual loss Trump will go further and suggest the un-suggestable that as Prez, loser Iowans will be made to pay. Unless one buys into Mike's Iowa being Trump's kryptonite. when Trump goes on to win NH, SC and Super Tuesday, any further state's GOP is going to be scared shitless about becoming another loser Iowa - they'll get behind the Trump steamroller and try to take pity on Iowa.

Again, funny, except that it is a lot more scarier that funny.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It's a good idea you have of the Castros. Hispanics can tilt the election of a few key states, and their numbers are growing. My method works well though. A low score does not prevent election to a state office. Jerry Brown has a very low score, although with a couple of rising planets to help him. He won CA governorship 4 times; he ran 3 times for USA president and lost.

It takes a lot more charisma and confident leadership ability to be elected president. Getting elected of course does not mean good governance in the office (witness George W Bush). But certain qualities appeal to American voters and horoscopes indicate those qualities.

Now it's an outside chance that there are enough hispanics now to change the American character. That's a stretch though, since we have already been a nation of immigrants and that doesn't change the general traits of Americans. And Castros' score is so low it's just a tough bar to cross. No-one with that low a score has even come close to getting elected president.

Unfortunately, it looks like Rubio is in the best position to take advantage of the hispanic vote. That doesn't mean it will be enough for him to win though.

The astrology may have predictive capacity, but maybe it could be made more accurate if it was taken down to the state level. Remember, the Prez is not elected by popular national vote - it's state by state.

Maybe if you look at the Jerry Brown and other anomalies, you might be able to design an astro-electoral college predictive model... and make some big money selling it! The guys who bet big bucks on elections would have to buy a subscription, EVEN if they don't believe in astrology - they'd have to buy into it because the guys their betting against may believe in it and tilt the betting. Some will follow it precisely, some will 'fade it,' either way, just like a stock broker, you're making money.

Originally Posted by playwrite

The astrology may have predictive capacity, but maybe it could be made more accurate if it was taken down to the state level. Remember, the Prez is not elected by popular national vote - it's state by state.

Yes, but people vote in a national frame of mind. Actually, my new moon before election method does show some anomalies in those elections where the electoral college result is different. It does seem to refer to the popular vote more than the electoral. It happened even in 1968 because of the 3rd party bid of Wallace, as I mentioned, but also in the Grover Cleveland elections. But in most cases, the two results are the same. Even in 2000, both methods showed Bush winning by a narrow margin, even though Gore won the popular vote. In the new moon method, it was VERY narrow; the closest of all national presidential elections.

Maybe if you look at the Jerry Brown and other anomalies, you might be able to design an astro-electoral college predictive model... and make some big money selling it! The guys who bet big bucks on elections would have to buy a subscription, EVEN if they don't believe in astrology - they'd have to buy into it because the guys they're betting against may believe in it and tilt the betting. Some will follow it precisely, some will 'fade it,' either way, just like a stock broker, you're making money.

Well I do intend to publish it as part of my book. I just have the national level; state by state would be a much bigger job!

Trump has jumped the shark.

Kiss "it" good bye.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

If we were dealing with an election where the establishment of both parties was almost certain to win nomination I would agree. That being said, the primary season so far indicates that the establishment is hearing a clear DO NOT WANT from both parties.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both Establishment types. Neither wants fundamental change in American life -- like nationalization of business or an expansion of the welfare system. People likely to vote for one in the primary will vote for the other in the general election. This is not Humphrey vs. Wallace, 1968. The Democratic mainstream is far to the Left of any prominent Republican -- even Christie.

The Republican Party has successfully welded the ultra-materialist Corporate Right with the ultra-anti-materialist Religious Right for a couple of decades. This marriage of convenience was based on the idea that the Corporate Right would get tax cuts, business subsidies, a rollback of environmental and workplace-safety laws, and evisceration of labor unions in return for vague promises of 'gun rights' (which the non-Corporate Right has gotten), a ban on abortion, outlawry of homosexuality, and mandatory inclusion of creationism and (fundamentalist Christian, of course!) prayer in public schools. The Religious Right can take 'gun rights' for granted because firearms and ammunition are extremely profitable even if they impose huge costs on innocent people -- but an outlawry of abortion, imposition of school prayer and creationism, and a rollback of LGBT rights will require Constitutional change that requires right-wing super-majorities that the Republican Party cannot achieve except through the imposition of a dominant-Party system.

But know well -- the working-class whites who have flocked to the GOP have paid a high price for getting some unfulfillable promises -- promises that America's economic elites will not endure themselves. They will still send their kids to private schools in which working-class white kids have even less chance of attending than do selected members of showcased minorities. If one of their precious daughters get knocked up with an inconvenient pregnancy, then the Princess will get an abortion in a foreign country if abortion should be banned in America. The Corporate Right has no qualms about regimenting the lives of people not in the economic elite; in view of the narcissism and even psychopathy so commonplace among economic elites, the Corporate Right might shed some crocodile tears about more fatal or crippling injuries in the workplace.

Have you ever stopped to consider that Trump's very appeal is that he is a demagogue? We had 8 years of stupid, we've had 8 years of rational, it is time for 4 years of crazy to get the ball rolling and the 4T over with.

Dubya was not stupid. He was simply an incompetent leader beholden to people out for themselves alone. Such created the disaster that he was as President. He chose his allies with catastrophic folly, at one time thinking Enrob Corporation a model for successful busines; he failed to contemplate the consequences of his overseas adventures. Barack Obama is a chilly and cautious rationalist with a typical set of attitudes of the usual 60-ish Nomad/Reactive President (Washington, Adams, Cleveland, Truman, or Eisenhower) in a post-Crisis time. What Obama did not do was to hold everything that the Other Side held precious hostage to his agenda, which may be the difference between him being a good President and a great President.

With little question, any of the GOP candidates for President sets up for a calamity of either economics or foreign policy. An economic calamity, basically a reprise of the economic meltdown that started the Great Depression, will surely hurt poor people and the middle class first and hard while the leadership resorts to tax cuts targeted at those few still profitable and (most likely) tax hikes on the common man while the Right destroys workers' rights and intensifies monopoly control of the economy. Such would create a political scenario analogous to 1930 in which a right-wing leadership that seemed on the brink of permanent domination of politics gets cast off. A diplomatic or military debacle would lead to huge numbers of body bags returning with the children of poor white people whose parents were recently supporters of the Republican Party but won't be for long.

Military disasters in American history have typically involved amoral leadership at the Top -- leadership that might be pragmatic and intelligent (LBJ, Nixon), but morally compromised. Then there is Dubya, neither pragmatic nor wise. Should America overreact to some national slight or affront and end up with a principled leader with even a modest level of military competence (or ability to select competent field commanders), then the war will go badly. The most dangerous sort of enemy is a principled leader intent more on winning the peace than in exacting revenge. Churchill and FDR fit that description well. Howe and Strauss recognized Pontiac as the most effective of tribal warlords. Of the Axis leaders, the only one who showed any moral courage was Karl Mannerheim, President of Finland, who was more like Churchill or FDR than any other Axis leader. He held the Soviet Union off very well -- and didn't leave a trail of atrocities in his wake. His decency ensured that he would die of natural causes somewhat later than leaders of other Axis Powers.

Donald Trump is a ruthless, reckless, callow demagogue. Not since George Wallace in 1968 or 1972 have we seen anyone so awful who has a chance to win any electoral votes at all. The good thing about him is that he would lose in at least a near-landslide defeat. I have heard several Republicans say that they consider him a dangerous radical. The bad thing is that he has found some raw nerves in America that might be available for exploitation in the event that things go terribly wrong again when liberals think themselves permanently entrenched in power.

Except for one problem, which I pointed out earlier. Iowa rarely picks the nominee. Here's the thing. The Iowa GOP base is the tea-baggingest, right-wing nuttiest, fundamentalist Christian-est subgroup of the GOP out there. They usually pick someone who appeals to that, and those that appeal to that don't survive NH, SC or Super Tuesday.

The tea-baggers and fundamentalist Christians are the mass support behind the GOP. The monetary support comes from the likes of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other right-wing tycoons who use the Christian Protestant fundamentalists, the Tea Party types, and the gun fetishists as cats-paws. The GOP has few moderates. Chris Christie, John Kasich, George Pataki, and Jon Huntsman have no chance. These people turned on Senator Richard Lugar for not being conservative enough. I can't think of any state in which the GOP hasn't been taken over by the Hard Right.

I hope he does, because that means he'll likely lose NH and SC and then pack his shit and go back to Texas. We've had enough Texans I think.

Texas needs to start electing people like Lloyd Bentsen and Ann Richards again.

Except for the fact that Iowa almost never picks the nominee when an incumbent GOP president isn't running. They did it in 1996 (Bob Dole is from ... Kansas, [a nearly-neighboring state] which is why he won) and W. picked it up in 2000 too. Otherwise Iowa never picks the GOP nominee when it is contested. The Democrats are a different story though. But we're not discussing the Democratic Caucus--we know whose going to get that one, she's already bought and paid for it.

Every Presidential election is different from another -- except in a re-election bid in which things are going at least somewhat OK or (as in 2004) haven't gone bad yet, an overwhelming landslide, or when the incumbent President is running for re-election despite a disastrous first term (1932 and 1980 look much alike). At this point I have no idea of who will win the Republican nomination. Heck, at one point I thought that Scott Walker would do best because he is such a complete tool of the Koch brothers.

Except this

[color=green]A winner does not start out as a loser. If he loses Iowa he will probably lose NH and even if he wins it will be a weak win, with Cruz getting all the coverage, in which case it will feel like a loss. With two losses under his belt he will lose in SC and after that his campaign will collapse.

almost never happens. Santorum won in 2012 and lost in NH which Romney picked up. Same thing with McCain. If anything winning Iowa and losing NH spells doom not the other way around. History should be our guide here. History says (that such is nonsense).[/quote]

In 1960 the common knowledge was that America could never elect a Catholic as President. In 2008 the common knowledge was that only white males could be President. The rules can change any year -- and that makes much of the GOP field so scary.

(to)[color=green]Trump is a bubble.

He very well could be. We shall see. That being said, I still say that if Trump loses Iowa no one will much care, but if he loses NH then he'll have problems. The thing I think you're forgetting Mike is that Iowa really is a backwater state with certain special conditions that make it unlike any other state. Much like how Rand Paul can only really be a Senator from KY (no other state would elect him, even if he did technically qualify otherwise).[/QUOTE]

At this point one can throw all the common knowledge about who can be President out the window. The next President could be a woman -- or even an elderly Jew. Face it: Barack Obama has shattered many of the assumptions of who can be President. He may be the last black President we have for a very long time; after all, he is a remarkable politician with few analogues in any ethnic group. Unless America undergoes an incredible amount of black-white miscegenation that makes the 'average American' about one-eighth black and thus by the one-drop rule majority-black, or America starts seeing big-city mayors as suitable candidates for President, we are not going to have another black President for a very long time.

...America solves most of its problems when poor white people recognize that they have much the same plight as poor blacks and Hispanics and practically nothing in common with economic elitists who see working people as livestock at best and vermin at worst. When poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South recognize their economic interests as more in danger than their 'cultural values', then the contemporary Hard Right is no longer relevant. Then, and only then, are the gerrymanders that now ensure an unrepresentative government become unworkable.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It's a good idea you have of the Castros. Hispanics can tilt the election of a few key states, and their numbers are growing. My method works well though. A low score does not prevent election to a state office. Jerry Brown has a very low score, although with a couple of rising planets to help him. He won CA governorship 4 times; he ran 3 times for USA president and lost.

It takes a lot more charisma and confident leadership ability to be elected president. Getting elected of course does not mean good governance in the office (witness George W Bush). But certain qualities appeal to American voters and horoscopes indicate those qualities.

Now it's an outside chance that there are enough hispanics now to change the American character. That's a stretch though, since we have already been a nation of immigrants and that doesn't change the general traits of Americans. And Castros' score is so low it's just a tough bar to cross. No-one with that low a score has even come close to getting elected president.

Unfortunately, it looks like Rubio is in the best position to take advantage of the hispanic vote. That doesn't mean it will be enough for him to win though.

Living in California, I can see the huge diversity in the Latino population. Latinos are not only divided by country of origin but by racial differences--and racism--in those countries of origin. There is a huge difference between crillo "white" Mexicans (the faces we see on telenovelas) who often check "white" on ethnicity questionnaires, mestizos (mixed white/Indian) and Native American Mixtec, Zapotec, Nahautl and from Central America, Maya and Quiche, some of whom come to the US not even speaking Spanish. And African-Latinos who are more common amongst Dominican migrants and Puerto Ricans and Cubans than amongst Mexican migrants but by no means unknown.I have even run across Mexicans descended from European immigrants who came to Mexico in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Filipinos are Asians but are also Latinos.
And there are major differences in state of reception. Latinos have experienced much more bigotry in California, where a concerted effort historically was made to transplant a white, conservative Republican Midwestern society than in Texas. It is interesting to note that the patrolman who arrested and abused Sandra Bland was Latino. And in Texas (and New Mexico) there has long been a wealthy Latino Establishment (generally white Hispanic and often "anusi" crypto-Jewish) that has identified with the Republican Party and conservatism. Which is why the Bushes have fought the Republican base on immigration reform so hard. Being majority minority, if Texas did not attract at least a segment of it's Latino population the state would have "flipped" liberal Democratic years ago.
The same differences exist in other states. Arizona is very nativist with huge tensions between Latinos and Native Americans on one hand and Mormons and older whites on the other. Neighbouring New Mexico, as the name suggests, is largely Latino and is a swing state because of variations in the Latino population.
Religiously, Latinos are also in flux. A huge number of both Mexican and Central American migrants have either converted to evangelical Christian (or even LDS) in the US or have converted in Latin America. The push away from Catholicism to Norte Americano Evangelical denominations started with migrants becoming Evangelical and then returning to their native countries and spreading the faith, not from organised missionary activity. And the spread of Evangelical Christianity spread some very individualistic American Republican ideals in Latin America, more in Central America than in Mexico. When conservative Christian Latinos join evangelical churches in the US, they tend to find acceptance and often intermarry with Anglo Christians. Faith trumps race and ethnicity in many cases--more so than say, amongst Korean-American Christians.
So it's not that easy to generalise about how Latinos will vote--if they vote. They still register to vote and vote at rates below the rest of the population. Perhaps one reason may be intimidation--the fear that registering to vote might lead ICE to an undocumented relative.
So how much Latinos will change the US is an open question. Perhaps less than one might think, given the experience of the first American Latino ethnic group--Italians. The degree to which Latinos learn English seems more related to age of immigration than anything else. Young people quickly pick up English and often more than survival fluency while older people have difficulty learning ANY foreign language.( The bilingual-bicultural experience in California (repudiated by referendum, including by Latino voters) was more one of bilingualism being a covert tool for discrimination and segregation and creation of a permanent underclass. California (unlike Quebec with French) never created a university where Spanish was the language of instruction during the bilingual era. Teaching basic classes in Spanish in California from the 60s through the 90s was a not so subtle tool for relegating Latinos to working class jobs. )
Once the immigration issue is resolved, one way or another, Latinos (Mexicans more than Central Americans) may well become more conservative and more Repubican. Here in California there is a contradiction between the interests of a Green coastal Democratic elite (including Hollywood and Silicon Valley to an extent) and a largely Latino working class. Limits on growth make housing unaffordable for poorer people. Without the threat of deportation (and bigotry in the California Republican base which generational change is attenuating) these contradictions are likely to become more obvious, perhaps putting California back in political play.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both Establishment types. Neither wants fundamental change in American life -- like nationalization of business or an expansion of the welfare system. People likely to vote for one in the primary will vote for the other in the general election. This is not Humphrey vs. Wallace, 1968. The Democratic mainstream is far to the Left of any prominent Republican -- even Christie.

The Republican Party has successfully welded the ultra-materialist Corporate Right with the ultra-anti-materialist Religious Right for a couple of decades. This marriage of convenience was based on the idea that the Corporate Right would get tax cuts, business subsidies, a rollback of environmental and workplace-safety laws, and evisceration of labor unions in return for vague promises of 'gun rights' (which the non-Corporate Right has gotten), a ban on abortion, outlawry of homosexuality, and mandatory inclusion of creationism and (fundamentalist Christian, of course!) prayer in public schools. The Religious Right can take 'gun rights' for granted because firearms and ammunition are extremely profitable even if they impose huge costs on innocent people -- but an outlawry of abortion, imposition of school prayer and creationism, and a rollback of LGBT rights will require Constitutional change that requires right-wing super-majorities that the Republican Party cannot achieve except through the imposition of a dominant-Party system.

But know well -- the working-class whites who have flocked to the GOP have paid a high price for getting some unfulfillable promises -- promises that America's economic elites will not endure themselves. They will still send their kids to private schools in which working-class white kids have even less chance of attending than do selected members of showcased minorities. If one of their precious daughters get knocked up with an inconvenient pregnancy, then the Princess will get an abortion in a foreign country if abortion should be banned in America. The Corporate Right has no qualms about regimenting the lives of people not in the economic elite; in view of the narcissism and even psychopathy so commonplace among economic elites, the Corporate Right might shed some crocodile tears about more fatal or crippling injuries in the workplace.



Dubya was not stupid. He was simply an incompetent leader beholden to people out for themselves alone. Such created the disaster that he was as President. He chose his allies with catastrophic folly, at one time thinking Enrob Corporation a model for successful busines; he failed to contemplate the consequences of his overseas adventures. Barack Obama is a chilly and cautious rationalist with a typical set of attitudes of the usual 60-ish Nomad/Reactive President (Washington, Adams, Cleveland, Truman, or Eisenhower) in a post-Crisis time. What Obama did not do was to hold everything that the Other Side held precious hostage to his agenda, which may be the difference between him being a good President and a great President.

With little question, any of the GOP candidates for President sets up for a calamity of either economics or foreign policy. An economic calamity, basically a reprise of the economic meltdown that started the Great Depression, will surely hurt poor people and the middle class first and hard while the leadership resorts to tax cuts targeted at those few still profitable and (most likely) tax hikes on the common man while the Right destroys workers' rights and intensifies monopoly control of the economy. Such would create a political scenario analogous to 1930 in which a right-wing leadership that seemed on the brink of permanent domination of politics gets cast off. A diplomatic or military debacle would lead to huge numbers of body bags returning with the children of poor white people whose parents were recently supporters of the Republican Party but won't be for long.

Military disasters in American history have typically involved amoral leadership at the Top -- leadership that might be pragmatic and intelligent (LBJ, Nixon), but morally compromised. Then there is Dubya, neither pragmatic nor wise. Should America overreact to some national slight or affront and end up with a principled leader with even a modest level of military competence (or ability to select competent field commanders), then the war will go badly. The most dangerous sort of enemy is a principled leader intent more on winning the peace than in exacting revenge. Churchill and FDR fit that description well. Howe and Strauss recognized Pontiac as the most effective of tribal warlords. Of the Axis leaders, the only one who showed any moral courage was Karl Mannerheim, President of Finland, who was more like Churchill or FDR than any other Axis leader. He held the Soviet Union off very well -- and didn't leave a trail of atrocities in his wake. His decency ensured that he would die of natural causes somewhat later than leaders of other Axis Powers.

Donald Trump is a ruthless, reckless, callow demagogue. Not since George Wallace in 1968 or 1972 have we seen anyone so awful who has a chance to win any electoral votes at all. The good thing about him is that he would lose in at least a near-landslide defeat. I have heard several Republicans say that they consider him a dangerous radical. The bad thing is that he has found some raw nerves in America that might be available for exploitation in the event that things go terribly wrong again when liberals think themselves permanently entrenched in power.



The tea-baggers and fundamentalist Christians are the mass support behind the GOP. The monetary support comes from the likes of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other right-wing tycoons who use the Christian Protestant fundamentalists, the Tea Party types, and the gun fetishists as cats-paws. The GOP has few moderates. Chris Christie, John Kasich, George Pataki, and Jon Huntsman have no chance. These people turned on Senator Richard Lugar for not being conservative enough. I can't think of any state in which the GOP hasn't been taken over by the Hard Right.




Texas needs to start electing people like Lloyd Bentsen and Ann Richards again.



Every Presidential election is different from another -- except in a re-election bid in which things are going at least somewhat OK or (as in 2004) haven't gone bad yet, an overwhelming landslide, or when the incumbent President is running for re-election despite a disastrous first term (1932 and 1980 look much alike). At this point I have no idea of who will win the Republican nomination. Heck, at one point I thought that Scott Walker would do best because he is such a complete tool of the Koch brothers.




almost never happens. Santorum won in 2012 and lost in NH which Romney picked up. Same thing with McCain. If anything winning Iowa and losing NH spells doom not the other way around. History should be our guide here. History says (that such is nonsense).

In 1960 the common knowledge was that America could never elect a Catholic as President. In 2008 the common knowledge was that only white males could be President. The rules can change any year -- and that makes much of the GOP field so scary.



He very well could be. We shall see. That being said, I still say that if Trump loses Iowa no one will much care, but if he loses NH then he'll have problems. The thing I think you're forgetting Mike is that Iowa really is a backwater state with certain special conditions that make it unlike any other state. Much like how Rand Paul can only really be a Senator from KY (no other state would elect him, even if he did technically qualify otherwise).[/QUOTE]

At this point one can throw all the common knowledge about who can be President out the window. The next President could be a woman -- or even an elderly Jew. Face it: Barack Obama has shattered many of the assumptions of who can be President. He may be the last black President we have for a very long time; after all, he is a remarkable politician with few analogues in any ethnic group. Unless America undergoes an incredible amount of black-white miscegenation that makes the 'average American' about one-eighth black and thus by the one-drop rule majority-black, or America starts seeing big-city mayors as suitable candidates for President, we are not going to have another black President for a very long time.

...America solves most of its problems when poor white people recognize that they have much the same plight as poor blacks and Hispanics and practically nothing in common with economic elitists who see working people as livestock at best and vermin at worst. When poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South recognize their economic interests as more in danger than their 'cultural values', then the contemporary Hard Right is no longer relevant. Then, and only then, are the gerrymanders that now ensure an unrepresentative government become unworkable.[/QUOTE]
That's what Jim Webb was trying to get across in his abortive presidential bid. But his campaign got lost between the Democratic Establishment supporting Hillary and Trump. And Sanders, who has captured the imagination (and contributions) of younger voters. Who knows? If Sanders defeats Hillary, Webb might be his running mate, giving a Sanders-Webb ticket balance in defence and foreign policy as well as an appeal to Southern whites.

Originally Posted by playwrite

That's not going to change by just having Sanders in the WH. People who believe otherwise are the same people still confused about savior Obama not bringing them their Wall Street perp walks, single payer health care and many other magic ponies. The latest savior-seekers truly believe that Sanders' in-your-face approach, in contrast to Obama's first term of repetitive fig leaf offerings, will make a difference. It won't.

I'll make a dollar-to-donuts bet with anyone that, under a Sanders or Clinton WH , Mitch McConnell will repeat his job number one is the defeat of the President and that House Republicans will break the 100 mark for repeal Obamacare votes before the 2018 mid-term elections.

Sanders isn't winning, though it would be interesting. With Clinton in office, your prediction is almost surely correct, with the resulting nothing-burger being laid at Hillary's feet. The GOP can be assholes and get rewarded by being handed 2020 on a platter. I can't think of a worse result.

Originally Posted by PW ...

Well yea, but one of the first steps is getting off the magic pony rides and getting real.

Making the SCOTUS more Progressive in the next several years is huge, particularly in killing off the GOP rearguard actions of outrageous gerrymandering, voter suppression, and unlimited campaign finance as well as demoralizing the cornered animal so that it reactionary violence is mitigated to a greater extent.

You don't get a better SCOTUS if you don't get a willing Senate to match a progressive POTUS. I don't see that happening this cycle or next.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Once the immigration issue is resolved, one way or another, Latinos (Mexicans more than Central Americans) may well become more conservative and more Repubican. Here in California there is a contradiction between the interests of a Green coastal Democratic elite (including Hollywood and Silicon Valley to an extent) and a largely Latino working class. Limits on growth make housing unaffordable for poorer people. Without the threat of deportation (and bigotry in the California Republican base which generational change is attenuating) these contradictions are likely to become more obvious, perhaps putting California back in political play.

That's entirely possible; but if so, it will be because Latinos start to buy into the propaganda about welfare and trickle-down economics. That is a powerful virus. But that virus may dry up due to the automation crisis that you are quite aware of. We ALL may need social programs and wage and hour regulations.

Latinos may get more Republican if they get more prosperous. They will be as able to afford housing as others, then. Which is to say, hardly at all at current prices. On the other hand, in California they could also become environmentalists then. Limits to growth will become attractive to them too, therefore.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Sanders isn't winning, though it would be interesting. With Clinton in office, your prediction is almost surely correct, with the resulting nothing-burger being laid at Hillary's feet. The GOP can be assholes and get rewarded by being handed 2020 on a platter. I can't think of a worse result.

Clinton would do a good job as president. She would not be like Jimmy Carter. The Democrats have a lock on the White House not seen since FDR in the previous 4T.

Sanders is just 3 points behind in Iowa now in the latest poll. If he can pull it out there, he will win big in NH and national polls will shift. Sanders will have a good shot then, even though Clinton will still win some other early primaries.

You don't get a better SCOTUS if you don't get a willing Senate to match a progressive POTUS. I don't see that happening this cycle or next.

Do you think a Senate like today's would have been able to stop Elena Kagen?

EDIT: a new national poll has Sanders just 4 points behind. Woah! Will the horoscope scores really prevail, and Sanders power ahead of Hillary? That would be some upset! And you couldn't say I didn't see it coming!

Here's hoping then that Trump fulfills his horoscope score too and gets nominated, and then blows it all with his big fat mouth!!!

But what a regenerating presidential race that would be!!!

[

QUOTE=pbrower2a;545334]Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both Establishment types. Neither wants fundamental change in American life -- like nationalization of business or an expansion of the welfare system. People likely to vote for one in the primary will vote for the other in the general election. This is not Humphrey vs. Wallace, 1968. The Democratic mainstream is far to the Left of any prominent Republican -- even Christie.

It's hard to find Americans who favour nationalisation of business. The closest we might come to something like that might involve seizure of major businesses such as big banks under RICO and then having the court appoint "special masters" to run them. They would have to run as private entities though. The last attempt to nationalise business was the Youngstown Steel and Tube (now bankrupt and closed) Case. Truman tried to nationalise YS&&T. A fairly liberal Supreme Court ruled that was unconstitutional. Special masters yes. Antitrust, yes. Regulation as a public utility, yes. Nationalisation, no.

The Republican Party has successfully welded the ultra-materialist Corporate Right with the ultra-anti-materialist Religious Right for a couple of decades. This marriage of convenience was based on the idea that the Corporate Right would get tax cuts, business subsidies,

a rollback of environmental and workplace-safety laws,

The Dems and Greens let themselves in for that by their own elitism. In fact, the Green Left is a mirror image of the Republican Right, marrying a basically religious view of the desirability of steady-state limited growth economy with different potential catastrophes raised for it from the threat of overpopulation in the 70s to fear of resource depletion in the late 70s, fear of nuclear power in the late 70s and 80s and now to global warming. While on the local level, environmentalists widened the definition of pollution to include issues of aesthetics (visual pollution) and quickly developed an elite constiituency more concerned about things like stopping construction that offends people and animal rights than protecting working people in places like oil refineries from the ill effects of pollution. It can be argued that in the "abortion wars", the Religious Right learned from and modeled their behaviour on environmentalists.
and evisceration of labor unions in return for vague promises of 'gun rights' (which the non-Corporate Right has gotten), a ban on abortion, outlawry of homosexuality, and mandatory inclusion of creationism and (fundamentalist Christian, of course!) prayer in public schools.

The Religious Right can take 'gun rights' for granted because firearms and ammunition are extremely profitable even if they impose huge costs on innocent people --

No they can't. Something very interesting is happening this election cycle in the Corporate Left over guns, beginning with Hillary Clinton (and which Bernie Sanders has had no choice but to go along with). Perhaps because of the Trump Revolt, we are starting to see white working class males starting to be described in the same dysfunctional terms that were previously used to describe African-American males. Stereotyped as dysfunctional--as a "dangerous class". that is crazy and needs to be kept under control instead of a large group of people who are now in play and have needs to be met. We need to ask ourselves: Why are guns suddenly an issue THIS election? Are we seeing "dog whistling"? If Hillary gets the nomination, will we see some white male "Willie Hortons" in Democratic ads? It's starting to happen, not just over guns but over the white heroin and opioid epidemic. Nobody from either party is asking how much real physical pain and insufficient medical care and occupational injuries is motivating all this opiate use because that would mean a lot of corporate liability. And the Clinton Campaign at least is writing off at least Southern working class whites based on the experience of the last two elections. We may be looking at an attempt to marginalise the white working class, at least the male half of it. What's next? Gun and drug busts to disenfranchise as many members of this class as possible, as has been done with African-Americans?

but an outlawry of abortion, imposition of school prayer and creationism, and a rollback of LGBT rights will require Constitutional change that requires right-wing super-majorities that the Republican Party cannot achieve except through the imposition of a dominant-Party system.

This election cycle will see the Supreme Court weighing in on the war of attrition against abortion rights in conservative states that have reduced access to abortion. The Court will literally be forced to re-decide Roe v Wade in a very different political environment from when Roe v Wade was written. The early 1970s, for example was a time in which a moral panic over overpopulation was in full bloom. If the Court strikes down state abortion restrictions, this will damp down abortion wars but if they uphold them, abortion rights return to the state level.
The Religious Right did not get a return to prayer in the public schools except by non-enforcement in many school districts. But the Religious Right did get into public schools during the Bush Administration by organising "abstinence only" sex education that besides panning birth control, legitimised "slut-shaming". Few states have had the political courage to refuse federal funds for "abstinence only education".
As for LBGT rights, it looks like they will be a non-issue with the Supreme Court having weighed in on gay marriage. And part of the reason for this is that many gay couples have higher incomes. Poorer LBGT people, especially of minority groups still find things difficult.

But know well -- the working-class whites who have flocked to the GOP have paid a high price for getting some unfulfillable promises -- promises that America's economic elites will not endure themselves.

The big story of this election is that working class whites not only realise that they have paid a high price for unfulfillable promises but that it is a price they cannot afford. That is the real story behind the Trump Rebellion. Trump, interestingly is the most liberal Republican candidate. Behind his rhetoric on immigration (which he probably means), he supports single payer health care. Then again (for Aryan Germans) so did Hitler.

They will still send their kids to private schools in which working-class white kids have even less chance of attending than do selected members of showcased minorities.

The real anger of the white working class over desegregation came from the fact that bussing only meant desegregation of working class white schools.

If one of their precious daughters get knocked up with an inconvenient pregnancy, then the Princess will get an abortion in a foreign country if abortion should be banned in America.

Which is also the practice in Europe. Western Europeans get a lot of low cost late term abortions in countries like Belarus and Ukraine and Russia

.The Corporate Right has no qualms about regimenting the lives of people not in the economic elite; in view of the narcissism and even psychopathy so commonplace among economic elites, the Corporate Right might shed some crocodile tears about more fatal or crippling injuries in the workplace.

This is true of the Corporate Left too. Which is not surprisng considering the degree to which they have taken to regimenting and micromanaging their own employees. The story of American corporations in this 3T has been the triumph of a business model that seems to have been modeled on totalitarian religious corporations (cults) like Scientology and the Unification Church. The UC, by the way, was heavily imbedded in the American Right since it came to this country in the `1960s.

Dubya was not stupid. He was simply an incompetent leader beholden to people out for themselves alone. Such created the disaster that he was as President. He chose his allies with catastrophic folly, at one time thinking Enrob Corporation a model for successful busines; he failed to contemplate the consequences of his overseas adventures. Barack Obama is a chilly and cautious rationalist with a typical set of attitudes of the usual 60-ish Nomad/Reactive President (Washington, Adams, Cleveland, Truman, or Eisenhower) in a post-Crisis time. What Obama did not do was to hold everything that the Other Side held precious hostage to his agenda, which may be the difference between him being a good President and a great President.

What could Obama do? Obama had to bear the burden of being the first African-American president and all the racism that this entailed. And in doing so, opened doors to other African-American candidates despite the opposition he faced. We have already seen the result of this in Ben Carson's campaign. White conservative Republicans saying that a religiously conservative African Americans is worthy of their vote. Obama was what some anthropologists call, a "sacrificial pioneer". The first in anything generally dosen't do that well. But he or she opens the door for others. There will be a new crop of African-American millennials (and Asian American millennials) running for office sooner rather than later. Race is almost no longer relevant. .

With little question, any of the GOP candidates for President sets up for a calamity of either economics or foreign policy

This may also be true of the Democratic candidates for President. Hillary Clinton was part of the many of the policies that set us up for current calamities from repeal of Glass-Steagall to abolition of AFDC (welfare "reform"), tough immigration restrictions that kept migrants "illegal", NAFTA. And on her own, in the foreign policy arena, Libya. Hillary could have pulled the plug on her husband, divorced him, gave evidence against him and given Al Gore a chance at succeeding Bill Clinton. She didn't. Why wouldn't a Clinton Administration lead to calamity? But even a Sanders Administration would very likely butt heads with a Republican Congress while calamity builds.

An economic calamity, basically a reprise of the economic meltdown that started the Great Depression, will surely hurt poor people and the middle class first and hard while the leadership resorts to tax cuts targeted at those few still profitable and (most likely) tax hikes on the common man while the Right destroys workers' rights and intensifies monopoly control of the economy. Such would create a political scenario analogous to 1930 in which a right-wing leadership that seemed on the brink of permanent domination of politics gets cast off. A diplomatic or military debacle would lead to huge numbers of body bags returning with the children of poor white people whose parents were recently supporters of the Republican Party but won't be for long.

Military disasters in American history have typically involved amoral leadership at the Top -- leadership that might be pragmatic and intelligent (LBJ, Nixon), but morally compromised. Then there is Dubya, neither pragmatic nor wise. Should America overreact to some national slight or affront and end up with a principled leader with even a modest level of military competence (or ability to select competent field commanders), then the war will go badly.

This is what happened to the US in Vietnam against Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. And it could happen should the US go up against Putin in Russia or Xi Jin-Ping in China.

The most dangerous sort of enemy is a principled leader intent more on winning the peace than in exacting revenge. Churchill and FDR fit that description well.

That is a good description of the string of Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jin Ping. All of which have their eye on the prize of world hegemony for China.

Howe and Strauss recognized Pontiac as the most effective of tribal warlords. Of the Axis leaders, the only one who showed any moral courage was Karl Mannerheim, President of Finland, who was more like Churchill or FDR than any other Axis leader. He held the Soviet Union off very well -- and didn't leave a trail of atrocities in his wake. His decency ensured that he would die of natural causes somewhat later than leaders of other Axis Powers.

Donald Trump is a ruthless, reckless, callow demagogue. Not since George Wallace in 1968 or 1972 have we seen anyone so awful who has a chance to win any electoral votes at all. The good thing about him is that he would lose in at least a near-landslide defeat.

I'm not betting on that, largely because the unravelling in this country is so advanced, the elite so out of touch and so many people left out. The only other candidates who make large numbers of people feel empowered is Ted Cruz (who is worse than Trump) --and Bernie Sanders. Harding and Coolidge were just as awful and even more bigoted. Both belonged to the KKK.
In his own way, Reagan was a demogogue too. How could an actor not be? And Reagan went for two terms won the biggest landslide the Republicans have ever had in his second term , got his Veep elected after him and discredited liberal Republicanism for two generations. A demogogue named Ronald Reagan is the reason the Republican Party is the way it is today--and why we have neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism internationally, even if Reagan was not as conservative as conservatives like to think he was.

I have heard several Republicans say that they consider him a dangerous radical. The bad thing is that he has found some raw nerves in America that might be available for exploitation in the event that things go terribly wrong again when liberals think themselves permanently entrenched in power.

That is the danger. That liberals attempt to disenfranchise the white working class when they get entrenched in power. Now we see why FDR was so socially conservative and did not attempt to improve the lot of African-Americans.

The tea-baggers and fundamentalist Christians are the mass support behind the GOP. The monetary support comes from the likes of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other right-wing tycoons who use the Christian Protestant fundamentalists, the Tea Party types, and the gun fetishists as cats-paws. The GOP has few moderates. Chris Christie, John Kasich, George Pataki, and Jon Huntsman have no chance. These people turned on Senator Richard Lugar for not being conservative enough. I can't think of any state in which the GOP hasn't been taken over by the Hard Right. [/QUOTE
] We shall see if the donors investments this election turn out to be bad investments.

Texas needs to start electing people like Lloyd Bentsen and Ann Richards again.

It's a pity the country was not ready for a woman president in the 90s. Ann Richards would have been perfect.

Every Presidential election is different from another -- except in a re-election bid in which things are going at least somewhat OK or (as in 2004) haven't gone bad yet, an overwhelming landslide, or when the incumbent President is running for re-election despite a disastrous first term (1932 and 1980 look much alike). At this point I have no idea of who will win the Republican nomination. Heck, at one point I thought that Scott Walker would do best because he is such a complete tool of the Koch brothers.




almost never happens. Santorum won in 2012 and lost in NH which Romney picked up. Same thing with McCain. If anything winning Iowa and losing NH spells doom not the other way around. History should be our guide here. History says (that such is nonsense).

In 1960 the common knowledge was that America could never elect a Catholic as President. In 2008 the common knowledge was that only white males could be President. The rules can change any year -- and that makes much of the GOP field so scary.



He very well could be. We shall see. That being said, I still say that if Trump loses Iowa no one will much care, but if he loses NH then he'll have problems. The thing I think you're forgetting Mike is that Iowa really is a backwater state with certain special conditions that make it unlike any other state. Much like how Rand Paul can only really be a Senator from KY (no other state would elect him, even if he did technically qualify otherwise).[/QUOTE]

At this point one can throw all the common knowledge about who can be President out the window. The next President could be a woman -- or even an elderly Jew. Face it: Barack Obama has shattered many of the assumptions of who can be President. He may be the last black President we have for a very long time; after all, he is a remarkable politician with few analogues in any ethnic group. Unless America undergoes an incredible amount of black-white miscegenation that makes the 'average American' about one-eighth black and thus by the one-drop rule majority-black, or America starts seeing big-city mayors as suitable candidates for President, we are not going to have another black President for a very long time.

...[/QUOTE Did you notice how many people on the show "Who do you think you are" turned out to have African-Americans in their geneaology, even though white? And how they didn't care and wanted to meet their African-American relatives? There's more miscegenation than one might think. And it's no big deal anymore. Unheard of in the 1960s. ]

America solves most of its problems when poor white people recognize that they have much the same plight as poor blacks and Hispanics and practically nothing in common with economic elitists who see working people as livestock at best and vermin at worst. When poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South recognize their economic interests as more in danger than their 'cultural values', then the contemporary Hard Right is no longer relevant. Then, and only then, are the gerrymanders that now ensure an unrepresentative government become unworkable.

Maybe it will finally take an epoch of being treated the same way as poor African Americans to get them to think that way.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Clinton would do a good job as president. She would not be like Jimmy Carter. The Democrats have a lock on the White House not seen since FDR in the previous 4T.

Fuck no.
1. baggage maker
2.pengar hora
3.penis dyrkare
4.bankir vän
5. åsna sucker
...

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

That's entirely possible; but if so, it will be because Latinos start to buy into the propaganda about welfare and trickle-down economics. That is a powerful virus. But that virus may dry up due to the automation crisis that you are quite aware of. We ALL may need social programs and wage and hour regulations.

Latinos may get more Republican if they get more prosperous. They will be as able to afford housing as others, then. Which is to say, hardly at all at current prices. On the other hand, in California they could also become environmentalists then. Limits to growth will become attractive to them too, therefore.

Mexicans pretty much came here believing in trickle down economics. They were farmers who were very disappointed by the ejijo system that organised them into cooperatives and then did not help them with the expertise to modernise their agriculture. The ejijo system was very similar to Soviet collective farms and brought in as a substitute for haciendas at about the same time (the 1930s under Cardenas). And they were wiped out by cheap subsidised US corn after NAFTA was implemented. And many started small businesses, such as gardening routes or even recycling metal and cardboard, as well as using skills in building trades taught to them in high school.
So Mexicans came to the US thinking individualistically and predisposed to trickle down economics, already quite socially conservative. It's no accident that all Mexican states except the Federal Distirct punish women who seek or get abortions with prison terms.
Central Americans are a whole other kettle of fish. They never had collectivisation and the haciendas have stayed intact down there. And Guatemalans and Salvadoreans have had radical insurgencies that were put down. So except for those who became evangelical Christians, Central Americans are a lot farther to the Left than Mexicans.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Your 'eight years stupid, eight years rational, now four years crazy' is really funny. But it is actually a lot scarier! Yikes!

I think you're right about Trump losing Iowa. We've already seen a preview from Trump when he first dropped out of front runner status - "LOSERS!"
I think with an actual loss Trump will go further and suggest the un-suggestable that as Prez, loser Iowans will be made to pay. Unless one buys into Mike's Iowa being Trump's kryptonite. when Trump goes on to win NH, SC and Super Tuesday, any further state's GOP is going to be scared shitless about becoming another loser Iowa - they'll get behind the Trump steamroller and try to take pity on Iowa.

Again, funny, except that it is a lot more scarier that funny.

I'm not scared of Trump. Two-Thirds of what he has so far suggested is simply undoable. It is bluster, I can deal with bluster all day long. What scares me is 4 years of Bubba Clintion-esque triangulation and a Democrat being in the White House when the business cycle sends us into the next recession which it is due to in 2017. In short, I want the set up to the end of the Tea Party types to happen, and for that to happen the GOP has to have the White House, and hopefully the House and Senate when the shit hits the fan. In short, the strategy should be to make the Republicans fail to save the day when the latest round of bubbles pop.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Maybe it will finally take an epoch of being treated the same way as poor African Americans to get them to think that way.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

...The Hispanic paradox, or Latino paradox, also known as the "epidemiologic paradox," refers to the epidemiological finding that Hispanic and Latino Americans tend to have health outcomes that paradoxically are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. white counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower average income and education. (Low socioeconomic status is almost universally associated with worse population health and higher death rates everywhere in the world.) The paradox usually refers in particular to low mortality among Latinos in the United States relative to non-Hispanic whites. First coined the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox in 1986 by Kyriakos Markides, the phenomenon is also known as the Latino Epidemiological Paradox. According to Markides, a professor of sociomedical sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, this paradox was ignored by past generations, but is now "the leading theme in the health of the Hispanic population in the United States."

The specific cause of the phenomenon is poorly understood, although the decisive factor appears to be place of birth, raising the possibility that differing birthing or neonatal practices might be involved via a lack of breastfeeding combined with birth trauma imprinting (both common in American obstetrics) and consequent mental and physical illness, the latter compounded by the impact of psychological problems on the capacity for social networking. It appears that the Hispanic Paradox cannot be explained by either the "salmon bias hypothesis" or the "healthy migrant effect," two theories that posit low mortality among immigrants due to, respectively, a possible tendency for sick immigrants to return to their home country before death and a possible tendency for new immigrants to be unusually healthy compared to the rest of their home-country population. Historical differences in smoking habits by ethnicity and place of birth may explain much of the paradox, at least at adult ages. However, some believe that there is no Hispanic Paradox, and that inaccurate counting of Hispanic deaths in the United States leads to an underestimate of Hispanic or Latino mortality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_paradox

In another thread (Is Connecticut the Best State in Which to Live?) I noticed a pattern in which Mexican-Americans fared far better than blacks or whites of similar socio-economic status and age in surviving heat waves in Chicago. Mexican-Americans have more social cohesion and are less vulnerable to social atomization. Relatives, friends, neighbors, and even landlords are more likely to look out for the most vulnerable. The scenario in which one dies of heatstroke behind closed windows with no fan is commonplace among poor non-Hispanics, but rare among Hispanics. The poor are more likely to be ignored -- unless Hispanic.

I noticed that in most measures, Texas fared better than states to its east. One obvious difference between Texas and Alabama (similarly poor) is that the poor in Texas are more likely to be Hispanic. Poor Hispanics are less hostile to formal education than whites or blacks of similar socio-economic status even if they are themselves under-educated. They also smoke much less (and smoking is a severe stress upon one in health and economics -- so much that I could correlate adult smoking to a large and inverse manner with credit scores of statewide populations. (I noticed that Utah, not a rich state, has much better statistical measures of economics and health than neighboring Nevada, similarly poor, and this has nothing to do with the ethnic mix. Religious mix? Sure. Devout Mormons do not smoke).

People who look out for each other can be expected to do better as groups... and if I had to choose being a 12-year-old Mexican-American in a San Antonio barrio and a 12-year-old poor white kid in lily-white eastern Kentucky... looking out for each other is a portent of middle-class status for a group even if the group has yet to achieve middle-class status.

Re: poor white people.

Whites in the Mountain and Deep South alternate between waves of populism and reactionary politics. It is now in a reactionary wave. I can't say that I have any timing on those waves, but we are far away from the time (forty years ago) in which the Mountain and Deep South voted for the liberal Jimmy Carter over the conservative Gerald Ford. Before that was the New Deal, a time of the biggest Big Government in the South since the Confederacy.

I can't see how poor whites in the South are much better off than poor blacks in the South.

PBR,

I read your long rambling post. Most of it is bullshit so a line by line refutation of it is unnecessary. Here is the point when it comes to electoral politics that I don't think you seem to understand. HRC will suppress the vote of non-white, non-liberal voters who typically break Democratic. In many states due to closed primaries those voters who vote in the Democratic primary can vote only for Democratic Candidates in the Primaries. The closed primary system is the norm for most of the country.

As such you can, and will get voters, who will participate in the Democratic Primary, and should HRC win (because she does not appeal to anyone who isn't a Silent or Boomer White Liberal Woman), the Obama coalition will stay home and the GOP will win the Presidency on that alone.

As to Sanders being an establishment candidate and not wanting to expand the welfare state, I can't see how wanting to expand medicare to include everyone wouldn't expand the welfare state. Nationalizations of businesses are simply out of the question. If Truman couldn't do it, Sander's can't either, and Sanders is no Truman.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Living in California, I can see the huge diversity in the Latino population. Latinos are not only divided by country of origin but by racial differences--and racism--in those countries of origin. There is a huge difference between crillo "white" Mexicans (the faces we see on telenovelas) who often check "white" on ethnicity questionnaires, mestizos (mixed white/Indian) and Native American Mixtec, Zapotec, Nahautl and from Central America, Maya and Quiche, some of whom come to the US not even speaking Spanish. And African-Latinos who are more common amongst Dominican migrants and Puerto Ricans and Cubans than amongst Mexican migrants but by no means unknown.I have even run across Mexicans descended from European immigrants who came to Mexico in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Filipinos are Asians but are also Latinos.
And there are major differences in state of reception. Latinos have experienced much more bigotry in California, where a concerted effort historically was made to transplant a white, conservative Republican Midwestern society than in Texas. It is interesting to note that the patrolman who arrested and abused Sandra Bland was Latino. And in Texas (and New Mexico) there has long been a wealthy Latino Establishment (generally white Hispanic and often "anusi" crypto-Jewish) that has identified with the Republican Party and conservatism. Which is why the Bushes have fought the Republican base on immigration reform so hard. Being majority minority, if Texas did not attract at least a segment of it's Latino population the state would have "flipped" liberal Democratic years ago.
The same differences exist in other states. Arizona is very nativist with huge tensions between Latinos and Native Americans on one hand and Mormons and older whites on the other. Neighbouring New Mexico, as the name suggests, is largely Latino and is a swing state because of variations in the Latino population.
Religiously, Latinos are also in flux. A huge number of both Mexican and Central American migrants have either converted to evangelical Christian (or even LDS) in the US or have converted in Latin America. The push away from Catholicism to Norte Americano Evangelical denominations started with migrants becoming Evangelical and then returning to their native countries and spreading the faith, not from organised missionary activity. And the spread of Evangelical Christianity spread some very individualistic American Republican ideals in Latin America, more in Central America than in Mexico. When conservative Christian Latinos join evangelical churches in the US, they tend to find acceptance and often intermarry with Anglo Christians. Faith trumps race and ethnicity in many cases--more so than say, amongst Korean-American Christians.
So it's not that easy to generalise about how Latinos will vote--if they vote. They still register to vote and vote at rates below the rest of the population. Perhaps one reason may be intimidation--the fear that registering to vote might lead ICE to an undocumented relative.
So how much Latinos will change the US is an open question. Perhaps less than one might think, given the experience of the first American Latino ethnic group--Italians. The degree to which Latinos learn English seems more related to age of immigration than anything else. Young people quickly pick up English and often more than survival fluency while older people have difficulty learning ANY foreign language.( The bilingual-bicultural experience in California (repudiated by referendum, including by Latino voters) was more one of bilingualism being a covert tool for discrimination and segregation and creation of a permanent underclass. California (unlike Quebec with French) never created a university where Spanish was the language of instruction during the bilingual era. Teaching basic classes in Spanish in California from the 60s through the 90s was a not so subtle tool for relegating Latinos to working class jobs. )
Once the immigration issue is resolved, one way or another, Latinos (Mexicans more than Central Americans) may well become more conservative and more Repubican. Here in California there is a contradiction between the interests of a Green coastal Democratic elite (including Hollywood and Silicon Valley to an extent) and a largely Latino working class. Limits on growth make housing unaffordable for poorer people. Without the threat of deportation (and bigotry in the California Republican base which generational change is attenuating) these contradictions are likely to become more obvious, perhaps putting California back in political play.

This reminds me, the most stereotypical "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!!" person I know is a Latina from Texas!

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

The Dems and Greens let themselves in for that by their own elitism. In fact, the Green Left is a mirror image of the Republican Right, marrying a basically religious view of the desirability of steady-state limited growth economy with different potential catastrophes raised for it from the threat of overpopulation in the 70s to fear of resource depletion in the late 70s, fear of nuclear power in the late 70s and 80s and now to global warming. While on the local level, environmentalists widened the definition of pollution to include issues of aesthetics (visual pollution) and quickly developed an elite constiituency more concerned about things like stopping construction that offends people and animal rights than protecting working people in places like oil refineries from the ill effects of pollution. It can be argued that in the "abortion wars", the Religious Right learned from and modeled their behaviour on environmentalists.

This is a good point. In my persona experience the Environmentalist movement has split into two different factions, the Old Environmentalists, derived from the old Conservationist movement which started out of anger out of the damage caused by poor land use, forest clear-cutting, and pollution; and the modern Greens, who are hyper-ideological urban people with little actual genuine connection with nature (and more often than not see hunters, a lot of whom are "Old Environmentalists", with contempt and even hatred, see Eric as an example).

A lot of people are surprised that the biggest environmental organization in the US is a hunting group, Ducks Unlimited.