Dare to Dream

From Five Thirty Eight, placed here without comment:

No to Tim kaine

Hillary must not pick Tim Kaine as her Vice President. Kaine is too hawkish (which underscores a big problem with Clinton). Further, he is anti abortion rights. He brags about cutting taxes, including estate taxes (that was a big gift to the wealthy at the expense of the working and middle class). Kaine is a bad idea. A disaster!

Afraid to debate

Hillary Clinton is afraid to debate Bernie Sanders. In the last few days her poll numbers have started to collapse. Bernie has won a string of massive blowout victories in the nation's most diverse states. Her fundraising has taken a dive and she's had to cut way back on spending (which is only going to make it easier for Bernie to expand his support in upcoming states). She's looking at a map that greatly favors Senator Sanders. And now, in a ham fisted attempt to control the course of events, she has revealed that she is terrified of facing Bernie in another debate.

Trump's racist Friends

Well this is beautiful! After years of courting religious extremists, racists, sovereign citizen weirdos, and assorted crazies the Republican party is now faced with the stark reality that those people are in fact their base. It isn't pretty, but boy is it fun!

Libertarians for Sanders!

Reason (yes, I'm actually going to link to Reason) makes the case that libertarians should support Berni Sanders. I think they are right. Here's the link. They are not the only ones suggesting it. Even Penn Jillett is on board!

 Hell, even Ron Paul praises Sanders. What I'm saying is, Libertarians should support Bernie Sanders.

Trump wins another debate with clowns

HuffPo has the best analysis of the most recent "debate":

Thursday night's Republican debate reached circus levels of absurdity. Wolf Blitzer lost control. Donald Trump took over. Marco Rubio dripped in sweat. Ted Cruz looked lost at home. Ben Carson seldom spoke but produced the wittiest zinger of the night. "Can someone please attack me," he begged, in an effort to be noticed amidst the massacre.

Chaos

Rubio looks more and more like a small child lost and out of his depth. Cruz may actually be the The Zodiac Killer. 
And, poor Ben Carson seems to be drugged. All in all, a wonderful look into the modern Republican party.

Marco Rubio is a Scandal 'Bot

It seems that Marco Rubio wants to Unseat The TRUMP and become the Republican Nominee in order to face either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. I hope he does. He is an oppo researcher's wet dream. Here are a few links, just for fun!


Marco Rubio has some issues that

should hurt his whitehouse bid.

There's this

and drug lords

and such

and real estate

which isn't going away

and the credit cards

and his arest record

which does not look good for a "values" Republican.

and these are the tip of the Marco Rubio Scandal iceberg

Hot Links

Which candidate is more electable?

Should Posner replace Scalia

and, which of them is more electable?

marco-bot and 9-11

Who again?

part of Hillary's Latino Problem

Bernie and Electability

And this

More Rubio Scandals

Did Marco Rubio use his political office to grant favors for a major drug traffiker ? It sure seems so.  The more we learn about his friends and finances the more troubling it becomes. But, he's the GOP golden boy!

Driftglass Gets It

It seems more and more that the only one who understand is Driftglass

As I wrote a few years ago,the brain-caste of the GOP spent a 40 years and billions of dollars carefully breeding an army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps. And they have been so successful at completely re-engineering the Right's ideological digestive system that they can no longer process any information which does not come to them in the form of Fox-approved Benghaaaazi goo.  

In other words, in order to win elections and rake in vast fortunes, the Conservative brain caste has painstakingly created the perfect feeding-ground for con men and demagogues like Trump, the louder and more bombastic the better. And from David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal and "Meet the Press", to Ann Coulter and the Washington Free Beacon and the Breitbart Collective, in one way or another, virtually everyone in the media makes bank by flattering Conservative meatheads and pandering to their delusions.

They are the GOP's premium leads, but however abundant and renewable a resource the Conservative meatheads may be, come Presidential election time, there is never enough room at the trough for every rapacious Republican hog.  This is why every few years we have these Little Red State Fundy moments; that delicate time when the knives come out and the various species of Conservative con men start cutting each other's balls off over who gets to pluck the wingnut pigeons...

...while trying desperately not to call attention to the fact that their entire political system depends on pandering to the army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps which the GOP has worked so long and hard to cultivate...

It is too damn early to predict an election

This article discusses an election prediction from Moody's. It makes good points, but leaves out the fact that it is too goddamned early to predict the fucking election. Sure, Moody's predicted the last election correctly. So what? Any idiot could have predicted that Obama would trounce Mittens.

Presidential elections in this country are weird beasts. We see trends that involve economics (a sometimes great indicator, but sometimes lousy), social issues, international issues, personalities, the moral climate, the weather (yes, kids, weather influences voting) and too many other factors to list.

Demographics play an outsize role. Right now, the Dems have a leg up due to demographic trends, slight economic improvement, and changing views on social issues. That all equals a slight advantage, not a huge one. 

I also dislike the fact that Moody's thinks, this far out, that they can state that the election comes down to Virginia and Ohio. They are making a huge error calling Florida for the Republicans. Right now, I'd put FL as a toss-up - if the Republicans nominate either Bush or Rubio, FL goes Democratic (I'm going against conventional wisdom here, but I bet I'm right). Ohio could (could) be important, but my models suggest that North Carolina is more likely to be the key this time out.  Virginia is going blue again.

The article in question doesn't care who the candidates are. That's a mistake. A Hillary V JEB! match up is a very different beast than a Bernie V Cruz fight. Let's assume that the candidates are Webb and Walker. In that case, who the fuck knows who wins what?!? Webb is as likely to win Georgia as Walker is to win South Carolina.