Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[Mav]

This guy bankrupted a casino. How do you bankrupt a casino?

Rubio on Trump  ^-^

That's one of the funniest lines I've heard in ages.  Even Stephen Colbert would be jealous, assuming Rubio didn't steal it from him.

[madbluboy]

[flash=500,400]https://www.youtube.com/v/I0tE6T-ecmg[/flash]

[Lods]

"Little Marco" has shot himself in the foot by trying to be something he wasn't.
You can't out-Trump Trump
Rubio has exposed his own inadequacies and unless he can pull off an unlikely win in his home state of Florida it's "Exit stage right." for Marco.

Meanwhile Trump keeps rolling along despite being opposed by...... well just about everyone.

I'm no Trump fan, and it is politics so there's nothing to be done about it (and Donald adds his own fuel to the fire)..... but one of the concerns about this politics of personality and demonising of a candidate in the States is there are no shortage of 'nut jobs' who might look to other options to stop their campaign.

[flyboy77]

"Little Marco" has shot himself in the foot by trying to be something he wasn't.
You can't out-Trump Trump
Rubio has exposed his own inadequacies and unless he can pull off an unlikely win in his home state of Florida it's "Exit stage right." for Marco.

Meanwhile Trump keeps rolling along despite being opposed by...... well just about everyone.

I'm no Trump fan, and it is politics so there's nothing to be done about it (and Donald adds his own fuel to the fire)..... but one of the concerns about this politics of personality and demonising of a candidate in the States is there are no shortage of 'nut jobs' who might look to other options to stop their campaign.

Trump will be dealt with (collateral damage) if he gets too close to securing the nomination.

[Mav]

Good for the Dems that Rubio is just about dead.  He is an impressive orator.  Yes, in part that may have been because he recycled his stump speech.  Nevertheless, he has a machine-gun delivery which is pretty impressive.  Being young and Latino may have made an interesting contrast to Hillary and Bernie.  I suspect he might be losing his hair and this, together with being only 178cm (Trump mocked him for wearing high-heeled boots), probably makes it hard for him to make it in future.  Being tall with a full head of hair is just about a minimal requirement for an aspiring President.  Trump is tall, even if his combover suggests he might be follicularly challenged.

The perfect result for the Dems would be Cruz winning the nomination.  He is an unlikeable extremist. He rode into the Senate on the coat tails of the Tea Party revolt in 2010.  He has tried to prove his Tea Party credentials by continually criticising any attempts by Republicans to reach favourable compromises with Obama and the Congressional Dems.  In particular, he led a failed attempt to shut down the government rather than negotiate the budget.  He boasts of being inflexibly hard-right on every issue, from getting rid of their pale version of our Medicare system to abortion to wholesale spending cuts to gun rights.  This is the guy who attacked Trump for saying that he'd make sure sick people didn't die in the streets because to him this suggested Trump didn't have the ideological purity required to let the cards fall where they may.

He is also far from charismatic.  I loath Trump but he has charisma to spare.  Rubio and Trump have both attacked him for being a liar and Trump just calls him "Lying Ted".  This means he could hardly take advantage of Hillary's perceived trust deficit.  A psych professor has even speculated that the fact that his lips turn down at the corners creates an impression that he holds the public in contempt, eliciting a general desire to punch him in the face.

His ideological extremism would be a disaster in a general election.  He thinks that the public's appetite for a disruptor will see them flock to him.  But Trump and Sanders have shown that this appetite doesn't have much to do with a desire for a hard-right revolt.  Rubio and Cruz have attacked Trump for being too liberal on abortion and health care but those attacks have backfired.  Trump's "movement" is very different to the Tea Party.

[Peter Brady]

[LP]

John Kasich seems to be the quiet achiever, he could benefit the most from other candidates stepping out of the race, if he can survive long enough.

If I were Clinton I think Kasich is the one I would want to go up against the least!

[Lods]

John Kasich seems to be the quiet achiever, he could benefit the most from other candidates stepping out of the race, if he can survive long enough.

If I were Clinton I think Kasich is the one I would want to go up against the least!

Best option for the Republicans....but he has to win his home state of Ohio next week.

[Mav]

All Hell may break loose if Trump wins the most delegates leading in to the convention but a contested convention nominates someone else.  Trump may well run as an independent Presidential candidate.  Yes, he has declared that he won't do this but we know he is quite prepared to do this.

Initially, I thought that would help the Dems.  It would split the Rep vote and leave the Dem candidate with the most delegates.  But here's the rub - if the Dem candidate doesn't win 270 delegates, namely a majority of delegates, he or she wouldn't win the election. 

What happens then?  The House of Representatives will choose the President!  The representatives from each state will have just 1 vote amongst them and vote on a nominee.  As there is currently a gerrymander in place which guarantees the Republicans control of the House until 2020, it matters not whether it's the current House or the one following the forthcoming elections which will decide.  Either way, the Republicans will pick the new President.

Trump is likely to pull blue collar democratic votes away from Hillary but perhaps not from Bernie while hobbling the Republican candidate. An unelectable ideologue may end up President.

PS: It looks like the House of Reps has to vote for one of the Presidential candidates and can't draft in an outsider.  In other words, the Republican-controlled House would choose between Trump and the Republican nominee.

[Mav]

I can't believe Trump is never asked to say how he'd "bring back jobs to America".  He talks about bad free-trade deals being to blame.  But he's either saying he'd rip up free-trade deals and bring back tariffs and trade quotas or he'd somehow force countries covered by those deals to renegotiate and take it up the proverbial.  Unless he used the military to force renegotiations, we're back to protectionist policies.  But no one wants to say it.