Adios, Rubio! Another one bites the dust! Will Kasich be far behind? GOP candidates running on suckers money?

So far, Cruz carried Texas, his home state, and in spite of trailing is at least still in the race.  Kasich is still in the race after winning Ohio, but he can't win nationally.

Rubio is out; he couldn't win his home state of Florida.

Neither could the other Republicans who are out so far.  Not only Rubio couldn't carry Florida, where he was born and raised, but Jeb Bush couldn't carry it either. Ben Carson couldn't carry Florida  (he lives there) OR his native state of Michigan.  Chris Christie couldn't carry his home state of New Jersey, not after his handling of Hurricane Sandy, Bridge-gate, the pension fund fiasco, and the nine drops of the state credit rating.  Scott Walker couldn't carry his home state of Wisconsin, with his corrupt governance, notably his campaign manager getting millions of state $ for his sports facility; last election cycle, Paul Ryan lost Wisconsin, and is unlikely to be able to carry it this time if he is drafted in a brokered convention.  Bobby Jindal couldn't carry his home state of Louisiana - and was so unpopular, it is possible he ran for office only as a graceful out from his badly failed state office.  Rick Santorum has never been able to carry Pennsylvania in his runs for president. I doubt from the polls that Mike Huckster-bee could carry Arkansas either.  In the previous election cycle, neither Tim Pawlenty or Michele Bachmann could win Minnesota either.

And it looks as if Donald Trump, in spite of his winning elsewhere, can't win in New York.

Hillary Clinton would crush Donald Trump in a New York State general election matchup: poll

It is pretty much a given that a candidate, any serious candidate, has to be able to win their own home state.  And ALL of those candidates KNEW going into the race, that they were unlikely to change their popularity sufficiently to carry their home states.  Which raises the question, were they ever REALLY seriously candidates, or were they just in it to make money in some way, using election law?

Pretty much the situation is that NONE of the other candidates who were even nominally in the race on the right could have carried their own states, if you go down the entire list.  Which is a short way of saying that where they know you, REALLY know you, they don't like you.

The Week summed it up:

Is Ben Carson's campaign one big con?

Ben Carson's presidential campaign is many things. A curiosity, an oddity, a fascinating yet disturbing commentary on today's Republican Party? Absolutely. But there's also some reason to believe that it's a giant confidence game.
That isn't to say that Carson isn't genuinely trying to become president. He has even moved into the lead in a couple of recent national polls. But the inner workings of his campaign will look awfully familiar to those who understand how one right-wing movement has been bilking gullible conservatives over the last half-century.
...As conservative radio host Erick Erickson says, "Carson's actual expenditure list reads like a wealthy Republican getting played by consultants."

While Donald Trump keeps claiming he is funding his own campaign, the reality is that he is also seeking donors.  He isn't paying for his own campaign out of his pocket, he is LOANING his campaign funds, which are repaid out of donations.  Trump is running on suckers' money.  In different ways that might be the case for the majority of the rest of the GOP candidates, and has been for some time now, given the reality of their unfavorables.

Conservatives, with their opposition to campaign finance laws, such as their support for Citizens United, have made democracy into one big con game to fleece conservative donors and to sell out the country to special interests, all while patting themselves on the back for their piety and rectitude.

One more GOP candidate drops out after Super Tuesday

Per news via WSAZ:

Ben Carson says 'no path forward' in 2016 race after Super Tuesday results

Really Ben, what took you so long?  The writing has been on the big wall for a long time now.  You peaked too early.

Meanwhile, Kasich is in some conservative alternate reality / state of denial, still asserting he is doing even better than expected -- which his pretty bad.  Presumably he is hoping to have enough delegates to barter into a VP position, since it is clear that no way in heck is he going to be anywhere near being the presidential nominee.  Not even if he uses the most extreme version of 'Republican math' where numbers have no standard value like the numeric values in real mathematics.

The presidency is not happening, and I predict never will happen, for either Ben Carson or John Kasich.  Rather like the Queen lyrics for the video above, they are always about to make their political mark in national politics, but no matter how much banner waving, it won't - likely - happen.

Buddy you're a boy make a big noise
Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day
You got mud on yo' face
You big disgrace
Kickin' your can all over the place
Singin'

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

Buddy you're a young man hard man
Shouting in the street gonna take on the world some day
You got blood on yo' face
You big disgrace
Wavin' your banner all over the place

We will we will rock you
Sing it
We will we will rock you

Buddy you're an old man poor man
Pleadin' with your eyes gonna make
You some peace some day
You got mud on your face
Big disgrace
Somebody betta put you back into your place

We will we will rock you
Sing it
We will we will rock you
Everybody
We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you
Alright

A few more are gone.......... but were they ever SERIOUS candidates in the first place?Are ANY of the GOP candidates REALLY serious contenders for the nomination or office?

Trump is not the cause of the GOP’s problems—he’s the symptom.ukprogressive.co.uk

A few more candidates have dropped out, Fiorina and Christie. The shelf of candidates on the right have been singularly shallow, none of them really have great depth, and all of them have serious "oppo" material that would be a detriment to their candidacies the same way the '47% are takers' and his record of exporting jobs hurt Romney (and some, worse than what properly came out about Romney).

For example, it would not surprise me to find that Trump had shafted plenty of veterans and their families, like those former casino employees who lost their health care and retirement funds in the failure of his New Jersey casinos - contrasted with Trump exploiting veterans for political advantage with his fund raising stunt while dodging the Iowa debates.  Trump has no history of supporting veterans or of acting on veterans issues, which makes his recent actions at best specious and suspicious.  While I would regard anything coming from Pete Hegseth, failed Minnesota right wing nut candidate, now on the payroll of the Koch brothers as a political activist, the criticism that Trump has no new ideas for veterans, no past advocacy for veterans, and is not serious when it comes to his policies for veterans is pretty much on target.  And that is just one example of many possible oppo issues that could sink Trump in a general election with voters - including his low information supporters who don't really know who he is, but are swayed by style over substance.

I would argue that neither one has ever been a serious contender to be the presidential nominee for the GOP - and neither have the others who dropped out (left or right).  Candidates like Jindal and Perry never had a prayer of winning the nomination, in spite of all their prayer rallies. (Does anyone even remember Perry was briefly a candidate, ....or Jindal?)

A few who still hang on, like Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, and Ben Carson have never really been serious contenders either, they just haven't left yet. Gilmore, for example, got 0% of the New Hampshire primary vote and received 0% of the Iowa caucus vote as well.

I doubt that even most of the political savvy, the most extensively and encyclopedic informed follower of the 2016 election cycle, could readily identify Jim Gilmore without a caption identifying him, and that few more could readily identify Kasich without a label (myself included) among the candidate line ups.  Even Carson's advisers and coaches find him to be a joke.  I expect that we will see Gilmore and Carson quit soon, with Kasich following their example after South Carolina.  I expect Jeb to hang on until April, maybe May. The Bush brand is so badly tarnished, and Jeb is so lacking in any ideas that were not already espoused and implemented by his brother Dubya, that regardless of how much money, or what aging family member Jeb drags out to be his proxy supporters, it is unlikely anything he could do would change the deep disaffection that the country holds for the Bush legacy.

Even though they won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, respectively, I would further argue that neither Trump nor Cruz have a serious chance at being the GOP candidate either; the establishment still holds the real power, if less so than in the past.  And the establishment doesn't like either one, and are, I expect, going to be successful, ultimately, in preventing them from running under the Grand Old Party imprimatur, with all that goes with the official party approval.

I can only surmise that the candidacies of the unlikely proceeded from some angle, some strategy, that participating as a candidate would in some way pay off afterwards, that it would add some degree of prestige or profit.  A few, like Kasich and Fiorina, appear to have been /appear to be running more for the second spot on the ticket of VP.




Steve walks warily down the street,
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
[Chorus] Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust see the rest of the lyrics here: https://www.bing.com/search?q=queen+youtube+channel%2C+another+one+bites+the+dust&pc=MOZI&form=MOZTSB

And then there's the progress of 'the Donald' Turnip-top Trump.... which can only remind me of another Queen classic:

lyrics here: https://www.bing.com/search?q=lyrics%2C+don%27t+stop+me+now&pc=MOZI&form=MOZTSB

The Delusions of the MN GOP

gold-plated clown car

This morning I heard an interview on MPR with MN GOP chair Keith Downey waxing rhapsodic over the glorious candidates available to conservative voters, including Donald Trump.  Downey was enthused with the diverse attention that candidates like Trump have brought to the 2016 race, viewing it as favorable to his party.

I think Mr. Downey needs to have his head examined for his apparently deliberate confusing of the gawker attention given to train wrecks as distinct from genuine admiration and support.  While it is the lunatic fringe most frequently turning out for caucuses and primaries, it is NOT the lunatic fringe on the right who most often turns out for the general election - as demonstrated in this Pew analysis of the 2012 election voters.

This analysis is based on 1,575 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters who are part of Pew Research Center’s nationally-representative American Trends Panel, and who could be matched to the national voter file. ¹
The GOP primary electorate represented a relatively small share of those who went on to vote in the general election. Of Republicans who were verified to have voted in the general election, only 25% are verified as having voted in Republican primaries or caucuses in 2012; while 75% do not have a record of having voted in the primaries or caucuses that year. ²

No one in their right mind would find anything wonderful in the 2016 cast of characters on the right, stuffed into what is now, at best, a gold-plated clown car (classy!)  I'm sure Mr. Downey is well aware, for example, of the recent Pew Poll from a week ago which examined how the candidates are regarded.

Hillary Clinton had the best result among those polled to be a great president, followed by Donald Trump; however Turmp far and away had the highest percentage of poll respondents who thought he would be a TERRIBLE president.

Fellow extremist Ted Cruz got far fewer views as a great president, but also fewer negatives, while Bernie Sanders came in ahead of Cruz (barely) as a great president.  Cruz, Sanders and Ben Carson all faced problems with respondents even knowing who they were, compared to either Trump or Clinton. 

Looking at the same time frame,  Pew Polling indicates Democrats hate Trump more than Republicans hate Clinton.

So while Clinton approval ratings may be declining, it is arguable that opposition to Trump is increasing far faster.  And even among Republicans, the opposition to the extremist crazies, like Trump, Cruz, and/or Carson is high.  Additionally, it's a pretty safe bet that Jeb hasn't a prayer of being the presidential candidate (now or ever, I would hazard).

From a Pew Poll the first week of January 2016:




While I expect Keith Downey to try to spin how crazy bad the candidates are on the right, the numbers are pretty clear.  Donald Trump is not electable, and I would argue neither is Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson who has largely disappeared from popular radar; while the enthusiasm is far lower for any of the other more sane establishment candidates, it is also less likely that any of them would bring out the voters either -- perhaps even less so than with the lack of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney last time around.

Perhaps it is unkind of me to be so skeptical of Downey and the conservative candidates - never more so than when the straw poll this time around will be for real.  Let me point out that the winner of the last presidential election straw poll was Santorum (who also won in the Iowa primary....eventually), while the convention winner for candidate later in the summer was Ron Paul.  Somehow all of that irrelevance escaped comment from Mr. Downey, at least in what I heard of his interview.

Given their past track record, I would NOT expect much of what passes for the MN GOP caucus to have any relationship to the actual election in November.

gold plated clown charm

Trump

Oregon Shooter DID NOT target Christians

The conservative guns-and-Bibles pushers are LIARS. That explicitly and emphatically includes the GOP candidates who are exploiting the Oregon shooting for political gain.

They make money and gain influence by peddling false claims about tragedies.  They make claims from un-verified reports; in the case of Oregon, the unverified reports about targeting Christians which law enforcement conspicuously would not validate or confirm.  The guns-and-Bibles pushers then CONTINUE to push their inaccurate but scary narrative, even after the facts are clear their statements and positions are false.  Follow the money; they do this because there is bloody $$$ in it for them, from the religious right and from the gun promoters.

To update that old line "there's money in them thar hills!", there is money in those 'shills'.  From dictionary.com:

Shill, noun:a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.

The Oregon shooter, like the Columbine shooters he emulated, did not target people for their religion, much less for being Christian.

From the Inquisitr:

Even initial reports that Mercer was targeting Christians now appear to be incorrect. Initial reports indicated that he asked victims if they were Christian, and shot them in the head if they answered yes.
But new reports from witnesses say that Mercer did ask questions about religion, but it did not appear to be a motivating factor in who he shot and who he did not.
“‘Do you have a God? Are you Christian? Do you have a religion?’ It was more so saying, ‘You’re going to be meeting your maker. This won’t hurt very long.’ Then he would shoot them,” said Stephanie Salas, whose son, Rand McGowan, was wounded in the attack, in an interview with the Associated Press.

We saw something similar in the Columbine mass shooting back in 1999.  There were false claims made then about religious persecution in the targeting of victims.  And it is likely from the information known to date that the Oregon shooter, who had a sick interest in becoming famous (or more precisely notorious and infamous) like those other shooters, was to some degree emulating the Columbine shooters.

This shooter - and I won't use his name, precisely to deny him that notoriety, was into Goth.  The Columbine shooters were erroneously widely reported to be into Goth.  The Columbine shooters were, again erroneously, widely reputed to be outcasts, without friends, part of the 'trench coat mafia'.  And the Columbine shooters (who were really trying more to be bombers) were widely reported to have targeted certain groups, notably jocks, minorities, and Christians. 

Watch the news coverage of the Oregon shooter unfold.  Then take a look at his proto-type mass shooting, Columbine.  The parallels are chillingly clear that the Oregon shooter was emulating the myths and the actual behavior of the Columbine mass shooting in a number of ways.

From the most definitive research on Columbine, Dave Cullen's book Columbine, via the article 7 Myths about Columbine:

Myth #3: The Columbine killers targeted certain kinds of students.
Truth: Although initial news reports claimed the Columbine killers had targeted minorities, jocks, and Christians, the killing was indiscriminate. Their initial plan was to blow up hundreds of students in the cafeteria. When the bombs failed to go off, they killed students randomly. Interestingly enough, Eric’s friends described him as a sports enthusiast, and two of his best friends were Asian and African American.

Myth #6: Cassie Bernall was martyred for her faith in God.
Truth: According to the eyewitness under the table with her, Cassie was shot when Eric poked his shotgun under the table and said, “Peekaboo.” The 911 tape verifies this testimony.
The martyr story arose from the testimony from another student in the library, Craig Scott (brother to victim, Rachel Scott), who recounted a conversation that took place across the room. Valeen Schnurr was the one who actually professed her faith in God, and this took place after she was shot. As she lay bleeding, she prayed, “Oh my God, don’t let me die.” Dylan turned around and asked her, “God? Do you believe in God?” Valeen said, “Yes, I believe in God.” When the killer asked why, she replied, “Because it’s how my parents raised me.”

We also heard, about Columbine, that those two mass shooters would have been stopped if someone had a gun.  There were two armed cops who were unsuccessful in stopping those two shooters.  Likewise, there was a security guard, and numerous armed students, mostly trained veterans, on the Oregon campus - it was NOT a gun free zone - and they did NOTHING to prevent the tragedy from taking place.  In fact, no civilian with a gun has EVER prevented or stopped a mass shooting in the United States, even when on the scene.

Conservatives like to play the victim card, claiming to be victims when they are not. It is one of the more annoying aspects of conservatives. The religious right is particularly prone to making these false claims. Pro-gun advocates likewise push the notion they could be attacked at any moment, by fill-in-the-blank adversaries, and they likewise push the factually faulty notion that if they have their gun(s) with them they will shoot the bad guy dead, the good-guy-with-a-gun fallacy.  All of which sells more guns to stupid people who are not fact or reason based, the goal of the NRA.  Because gun sales need two things, a ginned-up threat and the myth that another gun in circulation in the hands of a civilian carrier is the solution.

Pro-gun candidate Ben Carson is trying to gin up his support from the religious right based on the false initial claims that Christians were targeted in the Oregon shooting.  God-and-Guns scam artist Mike Huckster-bee, promoter of fake diabetes treatments to desperate sick people for cash, and Bible-thumping pro-gunner, is also trying to gain political advantage from the tragedy.  We also see Donald Trump doing the same, with a less explicitly religious persecution angle.  And we have the Lt. Gov. of Tennessee claiming that Christians should be arming themselves because they are a persecuted minority - both factually false claims.

Whether it is claiming they're some kind of martyr if you don't wish them Merry Christmas, to the false claims they were targeted in the latest mass shooting -- by a self-proclaimed fellow conservative -- they try to spin gain, including political capital from these false victim claims.  Pushing the "we are victims" at every opportunity, no matter how factually false is also part of the right wing propaganda that keeps the right wing, especially the radical and extremist right, feeling angry and agitated. That gets unqualified crooked con artists elected, and it sells a lot of guns.

It does not get us good governance or greater safety.  It is based on lies and corrupt money, corrupt power.  Only the foolish and the willfully ignorant should support this effort to propagandize, manipulate, and gain advantage from these efforts to push an us vs. them national mentality of fear and divisiveness.  They lie, they profit, they gain advantage and power.  DON'T LET THEM. They will make you their victims, not the victims of some shooter who should never have had access to legal guns in the first place, much less 14 of them (yes, they found another one).