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Presidential Primaries 2016

I am gobsmacked. This is beyond the beyond. I read it and then checked again to see if I was reading The Onion by mistake. What? What is it? Well, I ran across a link to this story in the Union Leader.

Trump drops 'Apprentice,' will launch presidential exploratory committee
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http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150317/NEWS0605/150319086

This, to be announced tomorrow.

Can this be true? I decided to cross-check on Politico before rewarding a dot. There, Dylan Byers says:

NBC still planning for 'Apprentice,' despite Donald Trump's presidential claims
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/media...-apprentice-despite-donald-trumps-204171.html

Huh? What's less unlikely? That D. Trump is running for president or that D. Trump is so starved for a certain type of notoriety that he is staging a hoax presidential announcement rumor that will have people using his name and "campaign" in the same sentence, erroneously, for days to come.

I have often said that this person will never run for president. If he goes ahead with this thing tomorrow (and drops out of his TV show), I will be a monkey's uncle. I stand by that. Monkey's. Uncle.
 
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hgc said:
I am gobsmacked. This is beyond the beyond.

<snip>

I have often said that this person will never run for president. If he goes ahead with this thing tomorrow (and drops out of his TV show), I will be a monkey's uncle. I stand by that. Monkey's. Uncle.
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That looks an awful lot like an avatar bet to me. Or username bet. Will you change your username to Monkey's Uncle if he does both?
 
sloinker said:
I think what is dis-heartening on this post is how you can see a distillation of ignorance with certain posters. A black/white answer to every question. Is Hillary as pure as the driven snow? No. Is Hillary a mashup of Hitler/Bin Laden/Charles Manson. Yes. All things GOP good? Yes. All things Democratic bad? Yes. This generalization cuts both ways.
Are people actually this strident in real life. What happened to reasoned, thoughtful, balanced responses to questions instead of the party line rhetoric?
I truly want to know. Should I blame Fox news, low attention spans, environmental pollution, antibiotics in meat?
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I can't disagree. Not only is the field of candidates pathetic (my assertion, not yours) but the claims made are often partisan hate clap-trap. The hate-opinions from ppl who would never vote for that party are nothing but a venting of bile, an exercise in pointless criticism. The polarization emanates from politics itself - Fox and MSNBC & many others are a reflection of the dismissal-ism of, and maligning the motives of "the other", that are prevalent from the top down. There is wide ranging partisan polarization in the press that leads one side to beat the drum, and the others to willfully ignore.

Also note the reactionary assumption of hatred. I recently pasted against a set of polities promoted by one politician and an opponent claimed that I therefore hated the individual. Then there is the msnbc policy of labeling anyone who disagrees with Obama policy as "racist". Such "you are a hater" claims are clearly about shutting down rational discussion and debate, and not answering to the issues.

Democracy has many problems - both academic/hypothetical and in practice. One of the worst is that ignorant voters often have systemic biases. If the errors were uniformally distributed then the fraction that understands an issue might determine the outcome, but instead voters with poor understand, but strong opinions - often created by demagogic politicians, or popular memes, or even common errors lead to poor outcomes.

I'm beginning to think that democracy can't work in practice and will always devolve.

Of course we are a nominal 'democratic republic', but the republics charter is only partly observed any longer. I think the courts bear the blame there for tolerating expedient legislation that defies any reasonable reading. Things like the patriot act are perhaps the worst harm to the constitution & personal liberties of recent years IMO.

Clearly the intention of the constitution was to have a more powerful Congress, and a less powerful Executive, and congress has voluntarily ceded a lot of power in recent decades, but I don't think the extreme legislative polarization, (IMO a result of having only two significant parties) was foreseen. I think we'd be much better off if ANY 3rd party held enough seats st neither of the big2 were a majority. Then compromise would be necessary and running roughshod over "the other" difficult and unlikely.

I don't even think we could arrive at much agreement today about what should be the proper role of and limits to government, much less the policies needed to accomplish these roles.

===

So my current hunch is that this election will come down to Clinton v Bush, and that too speaks to the problem of having only two parties with faily closed power structures.
 
hgc said:
I am gobsmacked. This is beyond the beyond. I read it and then checked again to see if I was reading The Onion by mistake. What? What is it? Well, I ran across a link to this story in the Union Leader.


http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150317/NEWS0605/150319086

This, to be announced tomorrow.

Can this be true?
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Hey, April 1st is still a couple weeks away.

No, I don't believe it either. Well, maybe actually. Did you read the update?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKBN0ME1O620150318
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/donald-trump-2016-presidential-bid-116176.html

Maybe he's just putting a little more effort into his fake campaign this time around. A little more verisimilitude. His TV show will still be waiting for him when this charade is all over. He can afford to do this, no? It's a game he likes to play, so why not?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_committee

In the election politics of United States, an exploratory committee is an organization established to help determine whether a potential candidate should run for an elected office. They are most often cited in reference to United States Presidential hopefuls, prior to the primaries.

Exploratory committees may be governed by law.
. . .

Ron Elving described the use of exploratory committees in his article, Declaring for President is a Dance of Seven Veils, which aired on National Public Radio on December 5, 2006. He wrote:

The exploratory committee has been around for decades, and technically it creates a legal shell for a candidate who expects to spend more than $5,000 while contemplating an actual run. Under the rules, exploratory money may be raised without the full disclosure of sources required of true candidates. Only when the candidate drops the exploratory label does the full responsibility of transparency apply.
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Well, if anyone is foolish enough to donate money to Donald Trump's exploratory committee he could legally use it to defray the costs of his tooling around to places like New Hampshire and Iowa (not that he needs it).

He probably took this step because the press wasn't falling for his game this time around so he had to take it to the next level, which he can afford to.

Now, the official purpose of an exploratory committee is to determine the feasibility of a run for office. I wonder if anyone on this committee would have the guts to tell Trump the truth about the feasibility of his candidacy? I mean, all they have to do is look at that Wall Street Journal poll and tell him what it says. But what fun would that be? And more importantly, how would telling him the truth help put money in this individual's pocket? I'd tell him that America is ready and waiting for his candidacy and the presidency is his for the asking. :D
 
Puppycow said:
He probably took this step because the press wasn't falling for his game this time around so he had to take it to the next level, which he can afford to.

Now, the official purpose of an exploratory committee is to determine the feasibility of a run for office. I wonder if anyone on this committee would have the guts to tell Trump the truth about the feasibility of his candidacy? I mean, all they have to do is look at that Wall Street Journal poll and tell him what it says. But what fun would that be? And more importantly, how would telling him the truth help put money in this individual's pocket? I'd tell him that America is ready and waiting for his candidacy and the presidency is his for the asking. :D
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You're on solid ground with your first (quoted) paragraph. The second one, not so much. Look, you're talking about a billionaire real estate developer. He's had so much smoke blown up his ass that he burps smoke rings. He is unlikely to be deceived by people who try to tell him what he wants to hear.

He's doing what the Donald does best; getting free publicity from the media.
 
Puppycow said:
Reality check for Trump:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/11/2016-blues-57-of-republicans-cant-support-chris-christie/

74% of GOP primary voters "couldn't see themselves supporting" Trump. He has much higher negatives than any other potential candidate.
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Donald Trump does not need a reality check. To him, announcing his candidacy is just his way of getting attention from the media. Some people announce a candidacy because they have just released a book and they need the publicity. Some people announce a candicy because they want to tool around with real candidates. Some people announce a candidacy because it is on their bucket list.

As for Donald Trump, he may be doing it because he likes to hear his voice coming out of TV sets without paying for airtime. He may be doing it to draw publicity to his other projects (as some posters have suggested). I posit that he is merely a short-fingered vulgarian whose has learned that net worth is not all that useful a measure of self and has decided that his sense of self worth is determined by the number of people who act as if he is important in some way.

He has taken this form merely because so many 24-hour news stations have decided that name recognition is more important than content.

In short, he plays the I'm-running-for-president-game because is ego is over 9000.
 
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Ladewig said:
... he is merely a short-fingered vulgarian ...
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You have reminded me that way back in the 80's, Spy Magazine used to skewer D. Trump endlessly, including that particular epithet, which was usually rendered as "short-fingered vulgarian from Queens."

It's 7:30 AM, and still nothing more at Politico about Trump. I think they have finally gotten the message that it's best to wait and see as regards this man's presidential feints.
 
This is just Donald Trump's version of Groundhog Day. Every 4 years he pops his head up and makes noise about how he might run for president. It is a PR stunt especially for those who didn't know that The Apprentice was still on the air. Donald Trump will not run for president.
 
I thought Hillary's candidacy was in trouble with the whole email fiasco, but it looks like I was wrong. She just totally rescued it with her daring new plan for Adult Fun Camps to close our huge Fun Deficit.



Maybe Biden can counter this bold move with a proposal for government-sponsored toy train sets.
 
Brainster said:
You're on solid ground with your first (quoted) paragraph. The second one, not so much. Look, you're talking about a billionaire real estate developer. He's had so much smoke blown up his ass that he burps smoke rings. He is unlikely to be deceived by people who try to tell him what he wants to hear.

He's doing what the Donald does best; getting free publicity from the media.
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Donald obssesion with publicity is like a six year old yelling for attention at the dinner table.
 
Has anyone seen a news report that D. Trump has actually filed the papers? I can only find reports that he will, that he is set to, etc. The FEC website has nothing, but it would be too soon for this committee to be listed there anyway. He's getting his dot today, on the strength of his public statements that he's doing it, but I'm uneasy about it until I find out that he has actually filed papers.

Also, getting a hollow dot today is P. "B." Jindal.

GOP
P. Ryan
C. Christie
M. Rubio ○
J. Bush •
M. Bachmann
W. "M." Romney
S. Palin, VP of Never Gonna Run for President (ready-made for Jerry Springer)
M. Huckabee ○
T. Pawlenty
J. Thune
S. Walker •
D. Trump (Really?) •
R. Paul (le fils) ○
J. DeMint
N. Haley
S. Martinez
R. Santorum (GOP first) •
M. Pence
C. Rice
R. "T." Cruz
P. "B." Jindal ○
J. Brewer
J. Kasich
B. Carson •
R. "B." McDonnell
J. Huntsman
T. Nugent (Celebrity Jokebag Contingent)
P. King
J. Bolton (Funny facial hair never wins)
H. Cain
J. Scarborough
M. Rogers
M. Blackburn
A. West
R. Perry ○
C. Fiorina
L. Graham • (countdown to J. McCain endorsement)
G. Pataki

Dem
H. Clinton ○
J. Biden
M. Warner
M. O’Malley ○
A. Klobuchar
C. Booker
A. Villaraigosa
B. Schweitzer
K. Gillibrand
A. Cuomo
R. Emmanuel
M. Cantwell
E. Warren
Ju. Castro
D. Patrick
H. Dean
E.G. "J." Brown
J. Webb (overall first) •

Indeterminate
M. Bloomberg
J. Ventura
B. Sanders (switching soon to Dem list?)
 
Ted Cruz to announce presidential bid Monday

Sen. Ted Cruz plans to announce Monday that he will run for president of the United States, according to his senior advisers, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington.

Cruz, scheduled to speak Monday at a convocation ceremony at Liberty University in Virginia, will not form an exploratory committee but rather launch a presidential bid outright, said advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet. They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate.
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