I’m going to the caucuses tonight.
Who am I going to caucus for? Well, not Trump. I think he’s an epic fraud who will betray the conservatives who’ve lined up behind him. He’s like an executive brand David Souter, via Vince McMahon.
And I won’t be caucusing for Kasich – who I think is a solid VP candidate – or Carson, who I believe is way out of his depth, and who needs to run for Mayor of Detroit, where he’ll do a lot more good than he’s doing now.
My short list – Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal – are both obviously out of the picture. So it’s down to Cruz or Rubio for me.
Who’s it gonna be?
Not sure. Partly because I am, genuinely, not sure. And partly because the vitriol inside the party has gotten so very, very mindless and pointless. Dennis Prager writes about it – and it’s something every Republican, and especially every conservative, should read before they go to the caucuses:
So this is where we stand today: Many anti-Rubio Republicans regard Rubio as a traitor on the immigration issue and therefore have contempt for his supporters. Many anti-Cruz Republicans regard Cruz as an extremist conservative who is, moreover, a misanthrope, and therefore have contempt for his supporters. And many anti-Trump Republicans – perhaps most – regard Trump as a dangerous fraud, and therefore view his supporters with contempt.
Needless to say, with these attitudes, there is little chance any Republican can win.
So, then, despite eight years of failure under a Democratic president, and with Hillary Clinton — widely regarded as a completely untrustworthy woman who has put pursuit of money and power above the interests of her country — as the Democratic candidate, Republicans will still lose. And Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves.
One observation I made of Ron Paul supporters in 2008 and 2012 – that they seemed to be personality cultists, who believed not only was Paul the only valid choice, but that any other choice was no better in any way than a Democrat, or nobody at all – has metastasized across much of the GOP body politic this cycle.
And so while the “passion index” favors the GOP by landslide proportions – it is, at this point, almost entirely aimed at other Republicans, rather than at the doddering would-be Hugo Chavez or cynical, calculating would-be Eva Peron who, some need to be reminded, actually would be worse for the country than Rubio, Cruz or even Trump.
So if Trump wins the nomination? I’ll vote for him – not because I think he’ll be a good president, not because I think he’s going to hold to his promises (not even on immigration), and not even because I think he, himself, will nominate better SCOTUS justices than Hillary. I’ll do it because he’ll have to run to the legislative majority to get anything done – and if we don’t have a GOP Senate or House, we’re truly screwed. And if Trump doesn’t win convincingly, then the coat-tail effect will tend to increase the power of the worthless whackdoodle Democrats.
And that is the only reason.
So I’ll be going to caucuses tonight. Hope to see you there.
If you enjoyed GW Bush’s style of governance, vote Rubio or Kasich.
Trump has done more to perpetuate the old myth of the GOP as the party of nativism, fundamentalist religion, conspiracy theorists, and ill-focused hatred of supposedly all-powerful government forces. On a personal note I am grateful he vanquished Walker, Huckabee and Santorum. The question you should be asking is “what will the GOP look like when he’s finished”?
On a similar note, Laura Ingraham writes:
If Marco Rubio becomes president, we can expect:
1.) That he will work with Democrats and the GOP leadership in Congress to pass something that looks like the Gang of Eight amnesty bill.
2.) That he will urge Congress to pass any trade agreements that Obama has signed.
3.) That he will send significant numbers of U.S. troops to the Middle East.
4.) That his foreign policy will be developed by many of the same people who advised George W. Bush.
5.) That his economic policy will reflect the views of those who were in power when the United States was hit by the economic crisis of 2008.
How many of those things do you want? At the very least the only one that has marginal support from me is #4. It’s one of the reasons that, while I like Rubio, he’s at the absolute bottom of my GOP support list, especially since I think Ross Perot has been amply proven right about sucking sounds. Rubio’s enthusiastically supporting what I believe are the worst of the establishment policies of the “mainstream” GOP.
I’m hoping there’s a “No Confidence” option on the ballot.
Trump has done more to perpetuate the old myth of the GOP as the party of nativism, fundamentalist religion, conspiracy theorists, and ill-focused hatred of supposedly all-powerful government forces.
To the same extent the popularity of Hillary and Sanders has confirmed that the Democrats are the party of race and government-granted privilege. Pandering to #BLM is not helping the D’s with the non-Black working class. #BLM is not asking for equality. It is asking for special treatment for Blacks.
The question you should be asking is “what will the GOP look like when he’s finished”?
Considering that he’s taking most of the union votes from the Democrats, that’s a valid question. Of course, once the Democrats lose non-public union voters, what’s left for them besides becoming the party of racist public leeches?
Trump is creating an interesting coalition. He’s pulling in working class blacks and whites, but he’s alienating public unions.He’s losing the statist, corporatist wing of the GOP establishment. If he succeeds, it’s likely that the Democrats become the party of welfare, Wall Street, Big Corporations, and Big Government, while the Republicans become the party of the working stiff and those who want smaller government. Ironic, eh? But the truth is, for all their rhetoric now, the Democrats are even more tools of Big Business and Wall Street than are Republicans.
Trump has a blue collar appeal no one else has been able to bottle. A lot of Reagan democrats will be crossing over – because they see an opportunity to get even with liberals for imposing their will on America for the past 8 years. Also, Trump is not captive to media. Media needs Trump more than Trump needs media.
One of the things you probably don’t know, if you get all of your news from the MSM, is that Andy Stern’s SEIU broke away from the AFL-CIO in the 90s over the immigration issue. Stern wanted his union to represent illegals. The AFL-CIO rightly saw that imported cheap labor undermined blue collar wages.
Andy Stern is a Stalinist. He wants dumb, illiterate workers because they easy to manipulate and to intimidate. The SEIU is very much a bosses’ union. Andy Stern has lunch with Obama, SEIU workers get low wages, and since they are already represented by the SEIU, they cannot organize. Well, they can try, but Andy will send his goons after anyone who contests his union’s leadership.
And please don’t tell me that Stern is longer SEIU president. He runs it from self-imposed exile, probably to avoid legal issues.
I’ll do it because he’ll have to run to the legislative majority to get anything done – and if we don’t have a GOP Senate or House, we’re truly screwed.
Wrong. As 0bamanus Rex proved, you can rule the country by decree… I mean executive order. Trump does not know how to spell “Constitution”. Republicans did not oppose 0bumbler over-reach, why would they start with “one of their own”? Expect a third royal presidency term.
At this point, I’m a single issue voter, and the issue is SCOTUS.
Right now, I’m supporting Rubio; Cruz lost me with his scumbag tactic in Iowa.
If Trump ends up being the guy, I’ll vote for him. Not because I’m sure he’ll nominate a good replacement for Scalia, but because I am sure Clottin won’t.
But looking into the bag of assholes we have to choose from is pretty damned demoralizing. The idiots that are so stoked about Trump are just as bad as the scumbags supporting Hillbillary. We are the idiocracy of America.
People who believe Trump will be the Worst President Ever don’t realize just how bad Obama has been, in part because the media covers for him.
The Iran deal notably was not a treaty. It’s an executive branch action. Obama did the deal on a handshake, knowing that he couldn’t get senate approval for it.
The Iranians knew this. They know that it is a handshake deal that depends on Obama and his successors to hold to it voluntarily. The Iranians know that might not happen, so they wanted everything up front. So Obama gave them everything up front.
Now we have no leverage to insure they hold up their end of this imaginary “treaty.”
We have checks and balances because they are good for the country. Obama violates them at will. There was no demand that we make a deal with a Iranians, except, perhaps, from Valerie Jarrett.
We could write you in, Mitch.
The Big Stink on March 1, 2016 at 5:52 pm said:
We could write you in, Mitch.
“Berg” sounds too Jewish.
Listening to Joe Pags on 1130 this evening on the way home. His listeners are reporting long lines all over the country.
One guy from Blaine said Hwy 110 is backed up in both directions towards Blaine HS.
One other note. I was talking to one of Ben Carson’s Minnesota campaign heads today. Their camp believes that there may be as many as 2 million voters that are secretly backing Trump, but are either not public ally committing to any candidate or just not talking at all.
Swiftee, I agree with you that the choices we have are bad. For all my Trump positive comments, I still put him as my second-to-last choice. But I still put Rubio at the bottom of my list because of his immigration stand. I’ll forgive a lot, but I’ll still take a very solid conservative douchebag who hasn’t been a complete sellout on immigration over either someone I’m sure will continue to drive down wages for the bottom 2/3s of the country. I’d love to see Cruz pull those same tricks on the Democrats, and anything he does would pale in comparison to the crap Hillary would do in office.
Good luck choosing. My turn doesn’t come until later. Given that Trump just about ran the table, I don’t know how Rubio stays in. Cruz is the only major competition to Trump who’s won a prrimary at this point.
But one thing you can say about Trump: he’s totally changed the discussion on immigration. I don’t expect the GOP establishment to change their tune, but their messenger Rubio has had to change his tune. Not that I expect it will change their actions if Rubio gets into power; I agree with Laura on that point. Trump is bad news on a host of fronts, but he’s the first Republican since Reagan to speak to blue collar workers.
News fromm SD-45. I was the caucus convener for my ward/district tonight and there were 27 votes cast in our room. Cruz won hands down. Trump got 2. Rubio, I think, 8. Kasich 1, Carson 3. Don’t know what you can read into that small of a sampling, but those are the numbers.
Mitch my good buddy I am reporting in from SD61 (SW Minneapolis). It was unbelievable. There were 1100 Republicans who showed up in this DFL stronghold. Yes, you read me right. All of SD61 met at Burroughs School on 50th street. I have been going to caucuses for 30+ years in the heart of the beast here. There were One Thousand One Hundred Republicans who showed up. There were about 70 in my precinct alone. I can remember caucuses where there were 7.
Anyway Rubio scored big in SD61 with about 500, Kasich was at about 240, then Cruz, then Trump each with about 150. Carson had about 26, write ins of 6.
Unbelievable energy. It was total chaos. What a night, it was great.
Dittoes to passout76. My SD61 caucus had over 50 people. 2 years ago we had 2, one of which was me. I’d say at least half – if not more – were twentysomething guys and gals.
You gave Rubio hope, you MN mud ducks.
TBS – Here’s the totals from SD45 W1P1 (I was secretary):
http://imgur.com/bs05DY5
Did your precinct end up not having a convener, so you volunteered? A friend of mine said his pct had 27 voters, but no one showed up to convene so someone volunteered and it was pretty chaotic. You might have been the same one. I didn’t catch what room# he was in.
And yes, turnout was amazing. We had 77 voters in my precinct, standing room only, spilling out into the hall. The DFL caucus had traffic at a standstill on 36th Ave N for a half mile west of Hwy 100. As I approached the GOP caucus, there was a 6-8 block long line of brake lights, so I went around to the west of Cooper HS and parked a couple blocks away.
Wonder how many Minnesota moonbats saw Clottin mocking a young black woman yesterday, and whether they might have suddenly realized what an evil, old bitch she really is?
If you watch carefully, you’ll see the black girl wrinkle her nose around the 1:20 mark…she just got a whiff of Hillary’s personal scent; halitosis, moldy cheese and old lady perfume.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMegFe2GUp4
Erm, that’s the .20 mark
It would be foolish to say Trump could never be President. But nearly everyone who doesn’t vote for Trump prefers anyone else to him. It’s similar to the 2002 French election, Marie Le Pen came in second with 20% of the vote, and in the runoff he won… 20%. His base of support was very jshallow, and everyone who didn’t vote for him jumped ship to the other side.
The Iranians know that might not happen, so they wanted everything up front.
And most importantly, they knew that once sanctions were off, they would not be re-imposed.
Oh, and a correct quote from Heldley Lamarr is “Too Jewish”.
there was a 6-8 block long line of brake lights
There is something to be said for early voting here in TX. Went two weeks ago. Got in, got out in 5 minutes. And that with helping my wife figure out how to use electronic voting machine. Which really upset supervising bluehair: “No Talking!” It was like being scolded in a kindergarten library.
This is why it is hard to take the left seriously when they forecast disaster if Trump is elected.
Paul Krugman, Nov. 20, 2015:
What explains the modern right’s propensity for panic? Part of it, no doubt, is the familiar point that many bullies are also cowards. But I think it’s also linked to the apocalyptic mind-set that has developed among Republicans during the Obama years.
Paul Krugman, Feb. 29, 2016:
But even if there’s a stunning upset in what’s left of the primaries, we already know very well what will be at stake — namely, the fate of the planet.
Why do I say this?
Obviously, the partisan divide on environmental policy has been growing ever wider. Just eight years ago the G.O.P. nominated John McCain, whose platform included a call for a “cap and trade” system — that is, a system that restricts emissions, but allows pollution permits to be bought and sold — to limit greenhouse gases. Since then, however, denial of climate science and opposition to anything that might avert catastrophe have become essential pillars of Republican identity. So the choice in 2016 is starker than ever before.
This is a part I don’t get. Trump is a demoncrat masquerading as a Republican. If all of a sudden I lost all my senses and my ability to think and became a progressive libturd ( shudder, perish he thought!), I would be doing all I can to help Trump get elected to move my agenda forward.