I feel for the GOP voters

[poweRob]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

 

[Dragonfly]

Actually - I can foresee two contested conventions happening this year.

The Dems are gonna have a bru-ha-ha for sure.

 

[Casper]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

I feel for the Repubs, as I also feel for the Independents such as myself, normally it is not too much of a task to pick the best (lesser of evils these days) among the candidates, this year will entail an Irish Wake.

 

[poweRob]

I feel for the Repubs, as I also feel for the Independents such as myself, normally it is not too much of a task to pick the best (lesser of evils these days) among the candidates, this year will entail an Irish Wake.

If there is a brokered convention at the GOP convention... I couldn't think of a better setting for Gary Johnson and the libertarian party to make great strides this election.

Don't think he'd win but the % of total votes he'd probably get could boost the libertarian party into making a three party system in the future. Unless their rise fuels a Whig-like dissolving of the current GOP.

 

[poweRob]

Actually - I can foresee two contested conventions happening this year.

The Dems are gonna have a bru-ha-ha for sure.

We will see. Bernie has a lot of ground to gain to make the case for a brokered convention. BTW... Don't forget the dem debate tonight. I'm expecting some serious barbs. It's been getting more testy as of late between the two. Can't wait for the Panama papers to come up.

 

[GunFora]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

I'm sure the GOP voters appreciate your concern....not to worry.

 

[poweRob]

I'm sure the GOP voters appreciate your concern....not to worry.

I think your over sensitivity on the topic kind of proves my point. It's not like I was being ****ty about it.

 

[GunFora]

I think your over sensitivity on the topic kind of proves my point. It's not like I was being ****ty about it.

LOL I'm not over-sensitive about it. I'm not even GOP.

 

[Casper]

If there is a brokered convention at the GOP convention... I couldn't think of a better setting for Gary Johnson and the libertarian party to make great strides this election.

Don't think he'd win but the % of total votes he'd probably get could boost the libertarian party into making a three party system in the future. Unless their rise fuels a Whig-like dissolving of the current GOP.

I believe the GOP is destined for a split after these elections and from what I can tell I believe it is for the best. Don't know the Libertarians have been around for a while and the splitting up of the GOP probably would not have that much of an effect. Problem with Libertarians is their foreign policies that most Americans simply cannot support, other areas have always be attractive in the sense is that they do not believe in the government interfering in peoples personal lives. I think we will end up with more than three Parties the Dems look like they may be headed down the same road to divorce and I can see several new Parties popping up from all the breakups.

 

[Casper]

I'm sure the GOP voters appreciate your concern....not to worry.

You do know that not all people hate the "other" guys and FYI we are all still Americans, it seems easy to forget when we are fighting among ourselves.

 

[GunFora]

You do know that not all people hate the "other" guys and FYI we are all still Americans, it seems easy to forget when we are fighting among ourselves.

I don't "hate" the other guys. I despise their agenda.

 

[Lutherf]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

It sure isn't pretty. I talk a lot of politics with my clients from both ends of the spectrum and NOBODY is thrilled right now. On the left I'm seeing almost exclusively Sanders enthusiasm but heavily tempered with a Hillary reality. On the right the only ones that show enthusiasm are Trump supporters but, irony of ironies, they all seem to be talking about "hope" and "change". Don't get me wrong, I want change too but I'd sure prefer something more substantial than "build a wall" and "negotiate a better deal with the Chinese".

 

[FieldTheorist]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

Actually - I can foresee two contested conventions happening this year.

The Dems are gonna have a bru-ha-ha for sure.

I agree with Dragonfly here. Now is not the time to rub salt in the wounds of Republicans. Yes, they poured gasoline over their entire party structure and then lit a match, but it's not like Democrats are in a better position. It's 2010 for the Democrats. The power structure of the party has been absurdly re-positioned to a particular group within the party and it's drowning out all other voices. The Republicans and Democrats have been slowly taking a jack-hammer at their fault lines of their different coalitions.

The result? The party coalitions are no longer willing to work with each other, and people have been forced to ask "Why did they do this?" The answer, of course, is that they needed to give undue power to the coalitions that supported their donor class' neoliberal capitalist vision of America. The result, particularly on the Democratic side but you're really starting to see it on the Republican side (e.g. how Cruz took Colorado), is that in order to try to keep the status quo, they've had to exert (as I predicted on this forum 5 months ago) a shocking number of tactics that can't be veiled anymore. And it's exposed massive corruption, many openly anti-democratic policies are now widely known, and I would honestly say at this point in time, the likelihood that the Democratic party cleanly takes the 2016 presidency is more and more hazy.


As I see it, this is what's going to happen: Sanders likely will lose (I'll fight with him to the end, and I have no intention of voting for Hillary; the deck was stacked so high against him it was beyond what any of us imagined), and that will fragment the Democratic party very seriously. But, the Republican party is clearly going to have a contested convention, and, yes, the RNC will broker the convention for Kasich. Now Trump supporters and Sanders supporters have nowhere to go. That means that there will be a third party candidate like Nader or Perot. I honestly don't know if Trump will go third party, we'll see, but I'd make a pretty massive bet that he won't survive a contested convention (which is where he's headed).

One thing I can tell you is that the whole thing is turning into a **** show. I like this article on this topic.

 

[tres borrachos]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

Um, an arrogant asshole?

And yeah, I'm not happy by any means. I am all about Kasich right now. Sadly, I have a better chance of waking up and finding Brad Pitt naked in my bed.

 

[Risky Thicket]

I believe the GOP is destined for a split after these elections and from what I can tell I believe it is for the best. Don't know the Libertarians have been around for a while and the splitting up of the GOP probably would not have that much of an effect. Problem with Libertarians is their foreign policies that most Americans simply cannot support, other areas have always be attractive in the sense is that they do not believe in the government interfering in peoples personal lives. I think we will end up with more than three Parties the Dems look like they may be headed down the same road to divorce and I can see several new Parties popping up from all the breakups.

I've thought about the probable breakup of both parties, which would be a wonderful thing. Of the two current ruling parties the GOP appears to be the most likely though the Democrats won't be far behind. But what might the GOP become? I can't decide what I think in that regard.

Seems to me that the GOP will more than split. I see it breaking into 3 or 4 pieces. There are the Teabaggers. They are the religionists. They are the Trumpeters, and there are the old traditionalists/establishment. The Teabaggers and the religionists co-mingle but I am not certain they are one and the same.

The Trumpeters appear to be the only ones interested in smaller and less intrusive government. They want real reform. They do not support establishment politics as far as we know. Teabaggers have said as much but now that we have them in state and federal positions we know differently. The religionists of course want moral reform and some form of theocracy. They have either disguised themselves as Teabaggers or they have found a Teabag/Religionist alliance to be mutually beneficial.

For the moment I feel as if we will see three separate groups: Trumpeters, Establishment GOP, Teabagger/Religionists. Which one will be the "GOP"? I haven't a clue.

 

[Henrin]

Meh. Both sides tried to fix the election right from the start. On the democratic side there was only three candidates to give Hillary a clear shot and on the other side it was a huge mix of past candidates that had no chance in hell, another few that were new that had no chance, and the the establishment.

I really don't buy for a second that the best democrats could offer was Hillary and two losers that had no chance. Either the party is so weak that is all they got or for some reason no one wanted to run. The later is so unlikely it's not even worth going into, and the former is a bad sign for the party.

 

[fmw]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

You mean you pay attention to what politicians say? That is really strange to me. Both of the miscreants have policies. So what?

 

[Fearandloathing]

LOL I'm not over-sensitive about it. I'm not even GOP.

Then what are you doing here? If you can't make a contribution of some substance, then its trolling and disruptive. No one needs your clever interruptions in what could be a interesting debate

 

[cpwill]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

As a conservative policy nerd, I view Cruz as something closer to the Republican version of Sanders (as you describe him). Sanders isn't a policy wonk, and Cruz, while deeply informed about policy, isn't really running as a policy wonk. Kasich is a delusional, self-righteous moderate/lefty (for today's Republican Party) who is setting an awful precedent that could potentially destabilize the party going forward (imagine a race in which every losing candidate with no hope of winning decides to stay in in hopes producing amongst themselves a contested convention, which their strap-hangers all assure them they'd win Because They Are Wonderful).

But yeah. No natural candidate for the Reformicons.

 

[Fearandloathing]

It sure isn't pretty. I talk a lot of politics with my clients from both ends of the spectrum and NOBODY is thrilled right now. On the left I'm seeing almost exclusively Sanders enthusiasm but heavily tempered with a Hillary reality. On the right the only ones that show enthusiasm are Trump supporters but, irony of ironies, they all seem to be talking about "hope" and "change". Don't get me wrong, I want change too but I'd sure prefer something more substantial than "build a wall" and "negotiate a better deal with the Chinese".

I hear "hope" and I hear "change" but not together.

The amazing thing about Trump supporters, they don't believe him on his main points, especially the wall and getting Mexico to pay for it. If you can't believe some one on the big stuff, then how can there be any reliability once in office?

 

[Cyrylek]

We-e-ell.... Sen.Cruz is not an "emotion-based candidate", not really. He is trying to merge bona fides religious conservatism with near-libertarian economics and constitutionalism. I am skeptical of viability of such a mongrel, and Cruz is not my first choice (or second, or third...), but he is sure infinitely preferable to Trump. Cruz may be an extremist in some ways, and he resorts to populist garbage talk to compete with The Donald, but he does have definite positions on issues, some of which I do share. I will even vote for him, with reluctance, against Hillary or Sanders. (Although a less unattractive Democratic candidate, like Jim Webb or Ron Wyden, would be another story).

Still, the best possible resolution would be, of course, the second-round voting at the Convention, and Kasich or someone like him as the nominee.

 

[Fearandloathing]

I believe the GOP is destined for a split after these elections and from what I can tell I believe it is for the best. Don't know the Libertarians have been around for a while and the splitting up of the GOP probably would not have that much of an effect. Problem with Libertarians is their foreign policies that most Americans simply cannot support, other areas have always be attractive in the sense is that they do not believe in the government interfering in peoples personal lives. I think we will end up with more than three Parties the Dems look like they may be headed down the same road to divorce and I can see several new Parties popping up from all the breakups.

I expect that the RNC will pull its head back in and begin meddling with rules and qualifications. Clearly Trump has hijacked the party but it remains to be seen whether his front runner status to hold. If the RNC is successful in blocking Trump, then you will likely see little or no changes.

Your two-party system is one of few if any others, and while it's quaint, it has served to elect mediocre talent combined with low ethics resulting in nothing getting done.

There is no doubt there will be a break up of both parties, or more likely a re-arrangement of support. I see the right splitting in two, thereby securing the position of second place unless and until one of the two rump parties can draw off Democrats support.

There is no middle there, and all governments sooner or later have to govern from the middle. Every four years we see the same thing the extreme right and the middle right bashing it out usually to the detriment of the party and its chances of winning. In the end, both parties end up looking alike with the same backers.

If ever there is to be a reform of the two party system, whoever will be stronger with be the party that concentrates on local and state elections, congressional elections over the prize of the White House.

I have doubts we will see this in my lifetime, but it has to happen. In the end the majority of Americans are left with no say.

 

[OrphanSlug]

I don't even mean this to be condescending. On the dem side there is a centrist status quo candidate and a further left candidate to choose from. On the Republican side there is a religious conservative and whatever trump is. Kasich would seem to be a more standard non-emotion based GOP candidate but right now is mathematically out of the picture at this point.

If a Republican voter wanted to cast a vote for a policy-based candidate and not an emotion-based candidate at this point... They are screwed. That's a crappy place to be if you are a conservative policy wonk.

I am not sure what to feel for GOP voters at this point.

For a long enough time now I've held the opinion that Establishment Republicans did this to themselves. It should be noticeable to just about anyone that a trend over the past two Presidential elections at least has developed where on a district level Republicans can appeal to one or more factions of the party to ensure a seat in Congress, but on a national level there is complication appealing to these factions at the same time. It is almost as if they have become adversarial for control over the party, and for the most part against Establishment.

If you lean establishment for the GOP there is no one to vote for, they all exited a long way back (if they ever ran.) If you lean constitutional conservative for the GOP you also have no one to vote for. If you lean economic conservative you also have no one to vote for, they all are full of **** on economic policy.

If you lean anti-establishment then you might have Trump, but only in certain contexts. If you lean social conservative for the GOP at best you have Cruz, but even his voice in that area is not quite as extreme as others in the party. To make matters worse, Trump did better across the bible belt than Cruz did. If you are a northeastern conservative, or an "evil" moderate, you might have Kasich but Cruz won a few of those states already. Also as you point out, Kasich is mathematically on the outside and it would take convention shenanigans just to make his nomination plausible.

There very well may be only emotional based candidates in the field left and right.

The Republican voter, no matter which faction, is screwed as the party itself became a national mess. You would think that the 2012 results on top of how 2008 played out would have convinced them to consider what would be an inclusive path vs. this continued madness of exclusion. But look at the current field, at the beginning of the campaign or now. Very little room for agreement outside of a dislike of anything Obama and/or Hillary and/or Democrat. You look past that, these candidates have too much disagreement which illustrates well how much disagreement there is among those who would vote Republican across this nation.

Get the popcorn ready, the convention should be non-stop.

 

[Risky Thicket]

I agree with Dragonfly here. Now is not the time to rub salt in the wounds of Republicans. Yes, they poured gasoline over their entire party structure and then lit a match, but it's not like Democrats are in a better position. It's 2010 for the Democrats. The power structure of the party has been absurdly re-positioned to a particular group within the party and it's drowning out all other voices. The Republicans and Democrats have been slowly taking a jack-hammer at their fault lines of their different coalitions.

The result? The party coalitions are no longer willing to work with each other, and people have been forced to ask "Why did they do this?" The answer, of course, is that they needed to give undue power to the coalitions that supported their donor class' neoliberal capitalist vision of America. The result, particularly on the Democratic side but you're really starting to see it on the Republican side (e.g. how Cruz took Colorado), is that in order to try to keep the status quo, they've had to exert (as I predicted on this forum 5 months ago) a shocking number of tactics that can't be veiled anymore. And it's exposed massive corruption, many openly anti-democratic policies are now widely known, and I would honestly say at this point in time, the likelihood that the Democratic party cleanly takes the 2016 presidency is more and more hazy.


As I see it, this is what's going to happen: Sanders likely will lose (I'll fight with him to the end, and I have no intention of voting for Hillary; the deck was stacked so high against him it was beyond what any of us imagined), and that will fragment the Democratic party very seriously. But, the Republican party is clearly going to have a contested convention, and, yes, the RNC will broker the convention for Kasich. Now Trump supporters and Sanders supporters have nowhere to go. That means that there will be a third party candidate like Nader or Perot. I honestly don't know if Trump will go third party, we'll see, but I'd make a pretty massive bet that he won't survive a contested convention (which is where he's headed).

One thing I can tell you is that the whole thing is turning into a **** show. I like this article on this topic.

Thanks for the link. That was a most interesting and well written article. I agree with most of it. Hillary will have to be one hell of a president (and she won't be by a long shot) for Sanders' supporters to pack up their tents and go home. The fire is lit and win or not Sanders' supporters may just organize nationally and locally to begin to do the grunt work of building a party more aligned with their beliefs. A Hillary presidency would be a place holder at best.

 

[Risky Thicket]

I expect that the RNC will pull its head back in and begin meddling with rules and qualifications. Clearly Trump has hijacked the party but it remains to be seen whether his front runner status to hold. If the RNC is successful in blocking Trump, then you will likely see little or no changes.

Your two-party system is one of few if any others, and while it's quaint, it has served to elect mediocre talent combined with low ethics resulting in nothing getting done.

There is no doubt there will be a break up of both parties, or more likely a re-arrangement of support. I see the right splitting in two, thereby securing the position of second place unless and until one of the two rump parties can draw off Democrats support.

There is no middle there, and all governments sooner or later have to govern from the middle. Every four years we see the same thing the extreme right and the middle right bashing it out usually to the detriment of the party and its chances of winning. In the end, both parties end up looking alike with the same backers.

If ever there is to be a reform of the two party system, whoever will be stronger with be the party that concentrates on local and state elections, congressional elections over the prize of the White House.

I have doubts we will see this in my lifetime, but it has to happen. In the end the majority of Americans are left with no say.

Bullseye!