I stand by most of my earlier comments. I said, (and I still believe) that Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump will not win, but I was cautious to avoid putting a time limit. Just look at this:
The thing about Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump is that he will not win (he is just too damn unlikable, and unelectable; the same people who nominated Mitt Romney and John McCain will never support Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump), but until he doesn't win, he has *far* too much power and influence over the nominating contest. Faaar too much. Think about this: Because Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump is doing so well, the odds are that he will be within the top ten nationally when the first debate rolls around (and amazingly, probably close to the center of the stage, next to Bush, Rubio, and Walker), which also means he will push out one of the more serious but low-polling candidates (on Red King's NC poll, that would be Perry, Santorum, Graham and Jindal). Just think about that: Rick Perry was more then a bit of a buffoon in 2012, but he was still a governor of a major state (and a major republican state) for a long time, Santorum was the main contender to Romney in 2012, Graham is a major foreign policy expert and Senator (and is practically the long-lost brother of 2008's candidate, John McCain), and Jindal is a popular southern governor and one of the few minorities in the race; Governor Kasich of Ohio (remember Ohio? The state no republican can lose if they want to win the General Election?) wasn't even on that poll, but he would get booted too. All of those people would be booted off in favor of Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump. And there's no criteria they've found yet that will exclude Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump but include important people like Jeb.
Basically, it's a brewing shitstorm of epic proportions. If Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump doesn't deflate soon, it's, well, it's going to be very amusing from a certain POV.
First, I still think it's a shitstorm of epic proportions, that was an accurate prediction. Second, note I said "If Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump doesn't deflate soon", which shows that I am considering it a possibility. Finally, I still think the general thrust of my statement is true, although not in the broader sense. To show what I mean, look at the other one:
All Trumpet can do is toot his own horn. That works great in marketing and politics, but elections are won on more sturdy stuff than that. He can't hope to sustain this momentum, and the moment that hot-air balloon begins to deflate, it'll pop.
The general thrust remains true, but I was wrong in one sense, so I'll amend: Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump cannot afford to lose momentum. Momentum is all he has. He built momentum early on, and he kept it going. But if it stops, the music stops. If Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump loses Iowa, I would put hard money on Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump losing everything. Even if he does win, he might lose.
The two things I could have predicted, but didn't was that the Republican field would never clear up properly, and that the fact that it didn't clear up would allow Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump to keep going. Iowa will clean the field tremendously. Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump may well win, but his real test starts now. We'll see if either the voters, or the RNC have any way, or any interest, in stopping him.
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Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée (Read 1587817 times)