The Shrine

Think about it. He's in the lead with no signs of slowing down. The "not-trump" vote is bigger than the Trump vote but the non-Trump candidates are busy tearing each other apart. So I think Trump is going to the convention with the most votes. The party might coalesce around another non-Trump candidate but Trump will see this as a violation of the "loyalty pledge" he signed with Republican leadership. At that point he could choose to run as an independent. Were Trump to run as an independent he'd guarantee a Democratic victory. The GOP vote would be split between him and the establishment candidate.

Basically he's got the party by the balls. It's him or a Democrat.

Yup. I'm just mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of right-wing vigilantism early. A lot of his supporters really, really do want him to get elected so that it's legal and safe to hurt minorities and immigrants.

Let's be honest here. It's going to be Hilary Clinton for the democrats unless she, like, murders an orphan in front of the press. Sanders could do just about as well as he's been doing and still lose because of the the primaries work differently for democratic candidates. They switched to a superdelegate system to prevent people like McGovern from becoming candidates ever again.

Don't underestimate him. I'm serious. A Democratic slam-dunk was also thought to be assured in 2000 after the relative coup of the eight years of prosperity under Bill Clinton. And the superdelegate system is very unlikely to prevent Trump's nomination at this point.

I think Sanders can still beat Trump, because at least his support is real. Hillary...I don't know. Half her Twitter followers are fake, remember. And if you check the national polls it's a dead heat, with Trump gaining. I don't know that the educated middle class (which this board may reasonably be considered, generally speaking) really understands how angry the lower-middle is, or how much Trump is serving as a voice for their angers and interests. He has galvanized them deeply.

Yes, he can win. It's not a sure thing by any means...but it may become so if everyone continues to underestimate him.

Republicans don't use the same primary system as the democrats so superdelegates aren't relevant with them. There may be a better way to put that since I don't know all of their ins and outs but it's definitely possible for Trump in a way that it probably isn't for Sanders. Superdelegates, as I understand it, are not elected and just get to vote however the hell they want. This is the kind of thing that would basically ensure a more mainstream candidate's victory. Republicans AFAIK are all people who are voted into office and are expected to vote with the state. I don't think they HAVE to on pain of impeachment/forced resignation/whatever, but they'd probably just go with the flow.

From my understanding, the Democrats changed it after the walloping they got in the McGovern vs Nixon election where they lost by a landslide despite Nixon already being fairly thoroughly hated. As a funny aside, Nixon was so out there (to put it as nicely as possible I guess) that he did all that crazy shit despite this advantage. In any case, Democrats changed to a superdelegate system to prevent something like this from happening again because McGovern was the kind of candidate that Sanders and Trump are now. The primary system basically worked like the electoral college for both parties, but the Democrats morphed it so the party could intervene if something crazy (Sanders/McGovern) were to come along again.

It's pretty scummy.

Its tempting to pretend that Trump doesn't have a chance to be president, that America isn't "that stupid", but historically, America has always had a fascination with celebrity status in electing their leaders. Actually, that's pretty true worldwide...I think.

I have said before that I might be naïve, but I think the genuine support for Trump and his views is relatively small (the rotten core of the gop that has been cultivated since 9/11). I don't think racial tensions are any more of an issue than they have been in the last 50 years. The majority of Trump support will come from people tired of the establishment, blinded by his celebrity and people out to have him voted in for the lulz. And that could be a sizable chunk of the population...

Trump legitimately could be the next president of the USA.

If representative democracy involved mandatory voting, mandatory education and a media that wasn't based on celebrity/sound bites...then maybe Trump wouldn't have a chance.

kali o. wrote:Its tempting to pretend that Trump doesn't have a chance to be president, that America isn't "that stupid", but historically, America has always had a fascination with celebrity status in electing their leaders. Actually, that's pretty true worldwide...I think.

Alternately..."yes, America frequently is that stupid."

The biggest problem the modern Dems have, in my eyes, is that they constantly somehow manage to be in a position to lose elections, even after eight years of reasonable success in governance, and moderate to spectacular prosperity.

Bill Clinton was many things, and not all of them honest or upright by any means, indeed many that were truly awful under the Slick-Willie veneer...but he Presided over the longest sustained stretch of prosperity since Eisenhower.

And while the Obama era is no mid-90's...compared to the state we were in when his predecessor left office, it might as well be. For the first time since 2008, everyone I know is actually economically on the rise and things are looking up. That is nearly miraculous considering how truly blasted this country was in November 2008.

The Dems CANNOT SEEM TO FIND A WAY TO REMIND EVERYONE OF THIS.

I would be up there talking about how everyone seems to have effing well forgotten that the economy was bleeding 500,000 jobs a month and hemorrhaging several trillion dollars a year last time a Republican left office.

It's funny how he's able to gain momentum. Normally by now, someone woulda found something a guy leading a party said or did that woulda been a PR nightmare and woulda gone with it 'til they tore them apart. But he's like the Teflon Don here. People already know so much about him and every time he says something crazy or silly it helps not hurt him. No one knows what to do to slow him down because what he's doing to gain popularity is what is normally used against candidates to bring them down. What the hell are they supposed to do now?

And guys, forget this whole "Feel the Bern" shit. He's only lasted in states where there are minimal minority votes where they want something different and are voting against Hilary just because she represents the establishments. Don't forget, Mike Dukaikas won New Hampshire and Iowa back in the day. Now that the real states are starting to vote (you know, those where they don't decide winners by coin flips), she's gonna start pulling away. Don't believe me? Track it yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... .html?_r=0

And don't forget by how much the minority vote, particularly the blacks, support her because of the years under her husband's presidency. It's crazy, much more than supported Barack over her. Bernie only wins when there's little to no minority vote in the states. Again, don't take my word for it, look at the results:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/upsho ... Multimedia

She may be very smart to actually make him her VP candidate once he finally gives up. Not only will he help her win those votes in the demographics that seem to be with him and against her, he's also so left that the Republicans would rather have her than him in office. They know what the Clintons were like (they're centrist enough that if you ain't a right wing nut job, you can work with them). Sanders is actually a very good VP candidate in that and many other ways, not the least of which is the fact he's just too damned old to be president. Man may not even make it to his swear-in ceremony.

And if it does end up Clinton vs Trump as it very much appears to be, it's gonna be a landslide for Clinton. It'll be kinda what happened up here with our election back in November when the anti-Harper vote gave Trudeau an unexpected landslide win and a margin far greater than even the Nate Silver-like projections. The anti-Trump vote will be so huge it'll be nuts. People who normally don't vote because they're too lazy or feel they don't matter will get out there to make sure Trump don't win. He's entertaining and the right may be stupid enough to vote him in but the other 70-75% of the country that's either on the fence or left leaning will say "fuck that shit, no fucking way he represents us on a world stage".

A Trump win represents the sad state of the Republican party and basically guarantees Hilary as the first ever woman president. Man, the first ever woman president following the first ever black president? That's gonna make the hicks super happy :-)

In the 90s I was pretty sure I wouldn't live to see a black president and I thought I'd be at least 15+ years older before I saw a woman get elected.

Zeus wrote:And guys, forget this whole "Feel the Bern" shit. He's only lasted in states where there are minimal minority votes where they want something different and are voting against Hilary just because she represents the establishments.

Again I like the guy and I'll vote for whoever has the best chance to win against the GOP but it looks like Ol' Bern has peaked now:

Zeus wrote:And guys, forget this whole "Feel the Bern" shit. He's only lasted in states where there are minimal minority votes where they want something different and are voting against Hilary just because she represents the establishments.

It would be funny to me that we have a Presidential race handicapper giving advice here who can't tell the difference between Paul Ryan and Rand Paul...except that this race actually matters.

Zeus wrote:And if it does end up Clinton vs Trump as it very much appears to be, it's gonna be a landslide for Clinton.

I'll believe it's a sure thing when you can tell the difference between a libertarian, anti-establishment Senator and a middle-of-the-road Speaker of the House.

For more accurate, data-based, research-based coverage on the polling...the spreads by various news outlets go from Hillary at +8% to Trump at +1%. Yes, he actually won one of the polls.

Please stop coasting, Zeus, and actually get down to some research. This election is *far* from a given.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5491.html

March 15 is when Florida and Ohio vote. If Rubio, the Florida senator, and John Kasich, the Ohio governor, lose their home states, their campaigns would be doomed and that would pretty much be it.