2016 POTUS Election Thread

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Jiggyfly

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The GOP’s Primary Rules Might Doom Carson, Cruz And Trump
By DAVID WASSERMAN

In a few months, after Iowa and New Hampshire begin to winnow the field, the GOP nomination race could boil down to an epic final between a candidate with a more pragmatic image, such as Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina or Jeb Bush, and a more conservative one, such as Ted Cruz, Ben Carson or Donald Trump.1

If that happens, the moderate finalist — like Mitt Romney and John McCain before him or her — will have a hidden structural advantage: the party’s delegate math and geography.

There are plenty of reasons to be cautious of national polls that show Trump and Carson leading. They may fail to screen out casual voters, for instance, and leaders at this point in past years have eventually tanked. But perhaps the biggest reason to ditch stock in these polls is that they’re simulating a national vote that will never take place.

In reality, the GOP nominating contest will be decided by an intricate, state-by-state slog for the 2,472 delegates at stake between February and June. And thanks to the Republican National Committee’s allocation rules, the votes of “Blue Zone” Republicans — the more moderate GOP primary voters who live in Democratic-leaning states and congressional districts — could weigh more than those of more conservative voters who live in deeply red zones. Put another way: The Republican voters who will have little to no sway in the general election could have some of the most sway in the primary.

As The New York Times’ Nate Cohn astutely observed in January, Republicans in blue states hold surprising power in the GOP presidential primary process even though they are “all but extinct in Washington, since their candidates lose general elections to Democrats.” This explains why Republicans have selected relatively moderate presidential nominees while the party’s members in Congress have continued to veer right.

The key to this pattern: “Blue-state Republicans are less religious, more moderate and less rural than their red-state counterparts,” Cohn concluded after crunching Pew Research survey data. By Cohn’s math, Republicans in states that Obama won in 2012 were 15 percentage points likelier to support Romney in the 2012 primary and 9 points likelier to support McCain in 2008 than their red-state compatriots. Romney and McCain’s advantage in blue states made it “all but impossible for their more conservative challengers to win the nomination,” Cohn wrote.

Blue-state Republicans have already propelled moderates in the 2016 money chase. According to Federal Election Commission filings, donors in the 18 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992 have accounted for 45 percent of Rubio’s total itemized contributions, 45 percent of Bush’s, 53 percent of Fiorina’s and 85 percent of Chris Christie’s. By contrast, they’ve provided just 20 percent of Cruz’s contributions and 36 percent of Carson’s. For comparison, blue-state Republicans cast just 37 percent of all votes in the 2012 GOP primaries.2

But their real mojo lurks in the delegate chase. The electorate that nominates GOP presidential candidates is much bluer than the ones that nominate other GOP officials, a distinction that is almost impossible to overstate. Look at where the Republican Party lives: Only 11 of 54 GOP senators and 26 of 247 GOP representatives hail from Obama-won locales, but there are 1,247 delegates at stake in Obama-won states, compared with just 1,166 in Romney states.

What’s more, an imbalance lies in a nuance of the RNC’s delegate allocation. Although it can be a byzantine process, here are the basics: The RNC allows state parties some leeway in how to award delegates to candidates. In a few states, including Florida, Ohio and Arizona, the primary winner wins all the state’s delegates. In most others, delegates are allocated either proportionally to votes or by the winner in each congressional district.

A total of 832 delegates (about 34 percent of all 2,472 delegates) spanning 23 states will be awarded based on results at the congressional district level. Here’s the catch: According to the RNC’s allotment rules, three delegates are at stake in each district, regardless of the partisan lopsidedness of the seat. This creates a “rotten boroughs” phenomenon in which Blue Zone Republicans’ votes can be disproportionately valuable.

For example, three delegates are up for grabs in New York’s heavily Latino, Bronx-based 15th District, which cast just 5,315 votes for Romney in 2012. But there are also three delegates at stake in Alabama’s 6th District, which covers Birmingham’s whitest suburbs and gave Romney 233,803 votes. In other words, a GOP primary vote cast in the bluest part of the Bronx could be worth 43 times more than a vote cast in the reddest part of Alabama.

wasserman-feature-gopdelegates-wide

The average blue district awards one convention delegate per 28,912 Romney voters, while the average red district awards one delegate per every 56,714 Romney voters. Thanks to this disparity, if a hard-right candidate like Cruz dominates deeply red Southern districts in the SEC primary, a more electable candidate like Rubio could quickly erase that deficit by quietly piling up smaller raw-vote wins in more liberal urban and coastal districts.

The RNC partially compensates for this imbalance in the way it awards delegates on a statewide basis. Republicans award “bonus” delegates to states with lots of GOP officeholders and states with the best GOP performance in the last election. For example, despite both states having nine congressional districts, Tennessee will send 58 delegates to the Cleveland convention while Massachusetts will send 42.

But the bigger boon to Rubio, Bush and other moderates is that the opinions of GOP voters in places like Massachusetts count at all in this process — in an era when the Bay State sends zero Republicans to Congress. It’s a huge factor that many pundits tend to overlook, and it’s why the temperament and qualities that the broader party looks for in a nominee differ so much from those of the loudest and most ideological Freedom Caucus types in Washington.

It’s not that national polls are skewed in favor of conservative, red-meat Republicans. It’s that the Republican Party’s delegate geography rewards their moderate rivals.
 

boozeman

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Donald Trump Claims Black Pastors Didn’t Tell Him to Change His Tone at Meeting



By ALANA ABRAMSON
and MATTHEW CLAIBORNE
·Nov 30, 2015, 1:46 PM ET



GOP front-runner Donald Trump concluded a meeting today of African-American pastors with the backing of some of the participants, but not the blanket endorsement he had initially advertised.

The outcome of his New York meeting didn't seem to faze Trump, however, saying he was "amazed" by today's events and it was a “beautiful thing" that none of the attendees asked him to change the tone of his message.

“I think they want to see victory because it is about we want to win and we want to win together,” he said after the meeting this afternoon.

Trump’s campaign had originally promoted today’s meeting, which reportedly involved nearly 100 African-American pastors, as an endorsement, sending out a news release Wednesday using that language. The meeting was supposed to be followed by a news conference, which was canceled this weekend, and no media was invited to the closed meeting.

But Trump was endorsed by some members of the group, including the Rev. Darrell Scott of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Pastor Steve Parson, a Richmond-area minister in Virginia.

“He’s best for not only the country but certainly the black community,” Parson said. “We’re wanting to get off of welfare and we feel that can be done through the information the knowledge of a person like Donald Trump.”

While other participants didn’t outright condone him, they also didn’t endorse him, expressing reservations about comments Trump has previously made that could be construed as offensive.

“We’re deeply disturbed by the lack of empathy that he seems to show,” one participant who was invited by Scott said before the meeting. “I think that’s a real thing to talk about.”

After news of the meeting became public, over 100 leaders in the African-American community published an open letter to the ministers, urging the attendees to consider Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail, which they called “overtly divisive and racist.”

“I was told it was an endorsement,” Trump said today of the meeting on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I have fantastic relationships with the people, but I think pressure was put on them when they heard there was a meeting by people who disagree.”

Katrina Pierson, the Trump campaign's national spokeswoman, said today on CNN's “New Day” that it would be too confusing to label the meeting as an endorsement because the entire group was not endorsing him.

"A lot of the pastors were concerned they might get backlash if they weren't one of the pastors that were endorsing at this time," Pierson explained on “New Day.”

"So the campaign decided, you know what? We want to have the meeting. All the pastors will meet with Mr. Trump and we'll close it to the media."

Trump, 69, also stood by his comments about Muslims cheering on 9/11 in New Jersey, insisting this morning he saw the footage, and did not confuse it with scenes of celebrations from the West Bank. When asked why no one could find the video, Trump said it had not been archived properly.

“Fourteen, 15 years ago, they didn't put it in files. They destroy half the stuff,” Trump asserted.

Trump reiterated that Serge Kovaleski, who wrote the 2001 Washington Post article claiming that authorities detained people “allegedly seen celebrating the attacks,” which Trump had been citing as defense for his claims at rallies, is now trying to pull back his reporting.

Trump is embroiled in a controversy over whether he mocked Kovaleski’s disability during a rally last week. He has denied mocking the reporter.
 

Carl

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I think Rubio and Fiorina end up being the Republican ticket. Can they beat Hillary, doubtful.
 

townsend

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I think Rubio and Fiorina end up being the Republican ticket. Can they beat Hillary, doubtful.
No way Fiorina gets on a ticket, she's a Washington outsider, with zero charisma. Of course being a VP candidate in what will likely be a terrible loss is going to make it a pain to recruit for. Paul Ryan's busy jumping on a different land mine.
 

Jiggyfly

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/12/07/here-are-some-muslim-sports-heroes-cc-donald-trump/
 

Jiggyfly

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Millions at stake, the ‘Adelson primary’ is neck and neck

Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
December 2, 2015

It is the biggest financial prize in Republican presidential politics: the endorsement of Sheldon Adelson, the multibillionaire casino magnate legendary for his willingness to spend huge sums to promote the candidates of his choosing.

But this year the bidding to become the winner of what is informally called the “Adelson primary” has gotten complicated. After being wooed by virtually all the major GOP contenders, the 82-year-old Adelson was believed to be close to announcing his backing of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio shortly after the Dec. 15 Republican debate — an event that, conveniently enough, is being held at the Venetian Las Vegas, a hotel Adelson owns.

That scenario, however, has run into resistance from a surprising source: Miriam Adelson, the megadonor’s strong-willed and equally hawkish wife. An Israeli-born physician, Miriam Adelson has become enamored of late with Ted Cruz, according to four Republican sources close to the couple. The Texas senator has impressed her with his unwavering toughness on national security issues, especially his support for Israel, the issue that the couple cares most passionately about.

“He really likes Marco, but she really likes Cruz — and it’s a standoff,” said one well-placed Republican fundraiser familiar with Adelson family dynamics.

It’s a standoff that could result in an awkward split decision — or no decision at all, according to some GOP insiders. Both the Adelsons give generously in their own names, almost always in tandem: The couple’s publicly reported donations exceeded $98 million during the 2012 election. Miriam Adelson wrote nearly half those checks personally, totaling more than $47 million, usually delivering them on the same day her husband wrote seven-figure checks for about the same amount.

But one prediction that is gaining traction in GOP circles is that the Adelsons may end up sitting out the early GOP primaries altogether, rather than choose sides and risk funding attack ads against a candidate one of them actually favors. Some say they could even go their separate ways, at least in the early stages of the contest. “She’s very capable of doing whatever she wants,” said one GOP insider in regular touch with the Adelsons. “If she wants to support Cruz, there’s nothing stopping her.” (Spokesmen for Adelson and for Cruz did not respond to requests for comment. Rubio spokesman Alex Conant emailed: “I don’t comment on the Adelsons.”)

The Adelsons’ dilemma comes at a critical juncture in the GOP race. Rubio and Cruz are openly sniping at each other over national security issues as they vie to become the “responsible” conservative alternative to frontrunner Donald Trump.

In recent days, a super-PAC allied with Rubio has begun running attack ads blasting Cruz for allegedly voting to “weaken America’s ability to identify and hunt down terrorists” — a reference to the Texas senator’s support for legislation that this week ended bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the NSA. Cruz shot back that the pro-Rubio ad was “impugning” his patriotism, while his campaign released its own attack ads in Iowa criticizing Rubio for his past support for the so-called Gang of Eight immigration reform bill that would have given Obama authority “to admit even more Syrian refugees.” (Rubio has since backed away from his support for the bill.)
 

Jiggyfly

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Black pastors press Trump on tone during closed-door meeting
Associated Press By JILL COLVIN
November 30, 2015 9:56 PM


NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of black pastors pressed Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday to address what some called his use of racially charged rhetoric, with several describing a meeting that became tense at times as attendees raised concerns about his blunt language.



While some left the gathering at Trump's skyscraper in midtown Manhattan with hopes their message had resonated, Trump said afterward he had no plans to change his approach, which he said had taken him to "first position in every single poll."

"The beautiful thing about the meeting is that they didn't really ask me to change the tone," Trump said. "I think they really want to see victory, because ultimately it is about, we want to win and we want to win together."

At a rally later Monday in Macon, Georgia, Trump told a nearly all-white audience of about 5,000 that the meeting was "inspiring" and "unbelievable."

"It was a really terrific day," he said.

But several pastors who met in New York with the billionaire real estate mogul, who has held a consistent lead in preference polls of GOP voters for several months due in large part to his aggressive style of campaigning, said the session was a bit more complicated.

Bishop George Bloomer, who traveled to the gathering from North Carolina, said he arrived in New York with concerns about "the racial comments that have been made and the insensitive comments that have been made," including an incident earlier this month in which a black protester was roughed up by Trump supporters at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama.

Trump said after the incident, "Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing."

"I asked him: 'Are you a racist? People are saying that about you,'" Bloomer said. "If you are seeking the African-American community to support you, at the least, you're not helping with these kind of things that are going on."

Bloomer said he told Trump that "if he wants to have our ear as a community, to at least tone down the rhetoric some kind of way, tone it down. And he said that he would."

View galleryRepublican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks …
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a campaign rally Saturday, No …
Pastor Al Morgan of Launch Ministries in Raleigh, North Carolina, said part of the group's discussion focused on whether Trump should lighten up a bit.

"What he said was that he would take that into consideration," Morgan said. "So the thing was trying to be who he is, so you have to remain true to yourself. And, in his defense, that's gotten him where he is. So the thing is, how do you convey a person's heart with their personality? That's the dilemma."

Trump is seeking to replace President Barack Obama, who won two terms in the White House by bringing together a coalition of young people, single women and black and Hispanic voters.

Democrats maintain an enormous edge with African-American voters, with Republican presidential candidates faring poorly among minorities in the past two elections. In 2012, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks, 93 percent of black voters backed Obama. In 2008, the number was 95 percent.

But Trump has been courting the support of evangelical black clergy members and other African-American leaders as he works to broaden his appeal in a crowded Republican field.

In Georgia, radio host and failed 2012 presidential hopeful Herman Cain was among those who introduced Trump. Cain was the lone major black Republican candidate four years ago. Trump also interrupted his own 75-minute speech to bring another black Georgia Republican to the microphone. Bruce LeVell, who has served as party chairman in suburban Atlanta's Gwinett County, announced his endorsement, drawing roars from Trump's backers.

Monday's meeting with the pastors was originally promoted by the campaign as an endorsement event, in which he would receive the backing of 100 black evangelical and religious leaders.

But many of those invited to the meet-and-greet objected to that description, saying they accepted the invitation only because they wanted to challenge Trump about what he's said as a candidate.

Trump kicked off his campaign with a speech in which he said some Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals, and recently drew criticism for retweeting an image of inaccurate statistics that vastly overrepresented the number of whites killed by blacks, among other errors.

In a letter published by Ebony magazine, more than 100 black religious leaders wrote that "Trump's racially inaccurate, insensitive and incendiary rhetoric should give those charged with the care of the spirits and souls of black people great pause."

They also expressed concern that Monday's gathering would "give Trump the appearance of legitimacy among those who follow your leadership and respect your position as clergy."

Pastor Victor Couzens, from Cincinnati, Ohio, said he nonetheless felt an obligation to attend the meeting to hear what Trump had to say.

"It's very unfortunate the way he has talked to not just the African-American community, but things he's said about women and Mexicans and Muslims," Couzens said. "But what's more discouraging than the things that he has said is the fact that in the face of him saying all of these things, he continues to surge in the polls."

And some attendees emerged expressing full-throated support for Trump.

"What we were able to do today was allow people to see his heart for themselves and to make up their own minds about him," said Darrell Scott, the senior pastor of New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who helped to organize the meeting. "They find out that he's not the person that the media has depicted him to be."
 

Jiggyfly

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Ok Trump is just trolling the nation at this point right?

He is not even trying to make sense anymore, he just says something inflammatory and then bask in the adoration of the bigots that agree with him.

This is not to say all republicans are bigots because he only has about a 1/3 of party support but that 1/3 has to be embarrassing to rest of the party, right?

I mean he is straight trolling and pandering at this point, how can somebody continuing to basically just say everything will be better because I say it will get this kind of traction?

Donald Trump defends proposed ban on Muslims into US, says 'no choice'
By Reuters | 8 Dec, 2015, 07.42PM IST

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, calling it a temporary measure in a time of war.

Trump likened his proposal to those implemented by former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt against people of Japanese, Germans and Italian descent during World War Two.

"What I'm doing is no different than FDR," Trump said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program in one of a round of heated ..

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50094610.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Cheers for Donald Trump after demands to block all Muslims visiting America

By Mark Niquette

(Bloomberg) — During a raucous rally in South Carolina on Monday night, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump expanded on his calls to temporarily prevent Muslims from entering the U.S., drawing cheers from the crowd.

Despite near universal condemnation from his presidential rivals of both parties, Trump defended the statement he released earlier in the day in which he made the case that Muslims represented a security threat to America. “We can’t let people kill us,” Trump told supporters who had gathered at the USS Yorktown, a decommissioned aircraft carrier turned museum located in the town of Mount Pleasant.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a Pearl Harbor Day rally aboard the USS Yorktown Memorial in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, December 7, 2015.

“You’re going to have more World Trade Centers,” Trump said, a reference to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, on Sept. 11, 2001. “We can be politically correct or we can be stupid, but it’s going to get worse and worse.”

In part, Trump’s warning stemmed from the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, France, and San Bernardino, California, which the billionaire argued in his statement justified his plan to halt Muslims from entering the country “until we are able to determine and understand this problem.”

Speaking in South Carolina, Trump repeated the disputed statistics he cited earlier today about Muslims supporting violence against America and said, “we’re out of control.”


“We have no idea who’s coming into our country,” he said. “We have no idea they love us or they hate us. We have no idea they want to bomb us.”

Other 2016 presidential candidates criticized Trump’s statement today, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush calling the real estate mogul “unhinged” and Ohio Governor John Kasich condemning what he called Trump’s “outrageous divisiveness.”

Trump was interrupted several times by protesters who were drowned out by chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “USA! USA!” from the standing-room only crowd of several hundred who cheered as the dissenters were escorted out.
And the really silly part is that now he is saying it would be temporay.

WTF, either you think it's dangerous to let muslims in or you don't, what could possibly happen that that would make Trump think that this tempory ban should be lifted?

How can anybody take what he says seriously, I am really starting to think he is a democratic plant.
 
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townsend

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What if Hitler was trolling the entire time too? Like he was waiting for all of Germany to call him out on his bullshit and they were like "no, no annexing Poland sounds boss af."
 

Jiggyfly

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What if Hitler was trolling the entire time too? Like he was waiting for all of Germany to call him out on his bullshit and they were like "no, no annexing Poland sounds boss af."
This is just such a 180 from Trump even 10 years ago.

That's why I question does he even believe the stuff he says.
 

townsend

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I would wager his IQ is in the mid 80s. He probably believes whatever the hell he's saying at that moment.
 

L.T. Fan

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People get too worked over what Trump says. If he was President he couldn't do all these things he advocates. It's just hype to bring attention to himself. The office of the Presidency can only do what Congress and the Supreme court allows them to do.
 

townsend

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People get too worked over what Trump says. If he was President he couldn't do all these things he advocates. It's just hype to bring attention to himself. The office of the Presidency can only do what Congress and the Supreme court allows them to do.
Would you be comfortable with him as the Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces? I'm not going to lie, if anyone is irresponsible enough to try and destabilize the government with its own military forces, it would be Trump. This is a man who defrauded investors and then sued them for it, he has no soul. Trump is the closest to Vladmir Putin as we'll ever see on the docket.
 

Jiggyfly

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People get too worked over what Trump says. If he was President he couldn't do all these things he advocates. It's just hype to bring attention to himself. The office of the Presidency can only do what Congress and the Supreme court allows them to do.
How can you not get worked up over a guy that says stuff like this and is a viable candidate for president.

The fact that he says this stuff and should know it's impossible is a reason in itself to get worked up.

He is making a mockery of the Republican party does that not bother you?
 
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