Comments

A few reflections on last night’s debate — 48 Comments

1. Oh, God please NO! If Trump gets the nod for the general, I may just have to stay home.

2. And a Single DemonCrat was not hurt in this clown show of a car drive, I see. Of what benefit is that in the war to come or the war that is now?

3. Trump is the monster that the GOPe created. And if he wins the Primary they will have only themselves to blame. Had Bohner, McConnell, and company shown the least bit of initiative in confronting Obama and been able to articulate a clear message Trump would have reached his zenith as a reality TV host.

4. Trump is the monster that the GOPe created. And if he wins the Primary they will have only themselves to blame. Had Bohner, McConnell, and company shown the least bit of initiative in confronting Obama and been able to articulate a clear message Trump would have reached his zenith as a reality TV host.k

   That’s only true in a system where the Regime is not a government for or by the people.

   If the government isn’t made up of the people nor is it for the people, what exactly is the point of blaming political parties in the US for anything?

   That’s like the livestock blaming the farmers.

5. “Anyone can vote over and over and over as much as that person wants. ”

   Actually, I don’t think that’s the case. And I speak as someone who tried to vote twice for two different souls.

   I think it shows you the poll but doesn’t record your vote after the first one if you come from the same IP address. You can vote multiple times but only if you come from another computer or can make the poll think you can. It WILL show you the results if you click on Results so it can appear as if you can vote twice.

6. Yup, the poll is at polldaddy and shows here:

   https://polldaddy.com/poll/9081166/?view=results

   with this notification for bad little vote early vote often me….

   “Thank you, we have already counted your vote. Please tell your friends you voted!”

7. vanderleun:

   I did it about 20 times from the same IP address, and then I stopped through sheer boredom.

   It seemed to be counting my vote every single time, and it certainly allowed me to vote each time.

   I’ve read that you can vote as much as you want. Although I’m not sure that’s true, it certainly seemed true when I tried it. I never received that “you have voted” notice, and as I said, I voted about 20 times and then got bored.

8. Amateur hour. All CNN did was try to start a fight. You said this about this person and watch how they react. And by You I mean Trump.

9. vanderleun:

   Now I’m getting the notice. I’ll change the post to reflect that.

10. Carly couldn’t do everything in a single debate. She will get better in time.

    I hate to say it, but it was necessary for her to bring up the untimely death of her step-daughter due to drug addiction. It was in context. By doing so she avoids the accusation that she is just a female Romney; rich and out of touch with average people.

11. Ymarsakar; kaba:

    The GOP had a role in creating that monster, but not the sole role by any means. I keep hearing that meme “Trump is the monster the GOPe created” (not just from you; I see it all over the blogosphere), but I think it is a simplistic exaggeration.

    In fact, the monster has been created by a host of things. Anger at the “GOPe” is certainly part of it. But some of that anger is based on a misunderstanding of how Congress works, and that misunderstanding has been purposely fanned by people who know better (such as Mark Levin; I’ve written about that before, too, here). They do this for their own reasons.

    And of course, much of the anger is displaced anger at Obama and the Democrats. Some of Trump’s attraction is also purposely shaped by the MSM focusing so very much attention on him, for their own purposes. Some is Trump’s own mastery of self-promotion and media, carefully nurtured for decades and helped along by his reality TV shows.

    To give all the “credit” to the GOPe is to give them too much credit.

12. Mark:

    Agreed. That was clearly the format.

13. Last night when I tried to vote at Drudge, it appeared that I could vote over and over, which I had read was the case. Now I see that doesn’t actually happen, so I retract the statement that the same person can vote over and over.

    It’s probably IP limited. Which means you can still vote again, you just need a script that runs different proxy servers.

14. Of course, there’s no reason they couldn’t have disabled that function, ala Hussein O disabling credit card fraud checks on oversea donations.

    Many things can work not as intended, behind the curtain there. This is the world at large after all.

15. Already knew it was a setup. How it was setup, that’s a slightly different and more in depth issue.

16. Ymarsakar:

    Yes, I would add that I assume that knowledgeable people could game that “one computer, one vote” system, too, particularly on an online poll.

17. Hackers and crackers can maybe get 1000-50000 different addresses, depending on whether they’ve gained root access to various computers and networks (distributed parallel processing is not only a game, a research tool, but also a tool used to crack systems on the net by using the CPU of computers that are infected).

    But they are still numbers limited. That’s why polls manipulate opinion, because the sample size is too small. A poll of 1-5 million cannot be easily manipulated, even by governments.

18. The one good thing about flogging a dead horse is that it is cheap. You can use the same one over and over.

    THE POLLS ARE WRONG. (I got a new whip – bigger).

    From Pew Research Center: ” The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed — the response rate — has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.”

    http://www.people-press.org/2012/05/15/assessing-the-representativeness-of-public-opinion-surveys/

    Why the drop? Spread of caller-id and telephone fatigue. So who are the 9%? The people who feel a need to shout their opinions at the world. In the case of Trump the prime suspects are veterans of the Ron Paul army or maybe the Kos Kids or maybe the Rosicrucians. Who ever they are they are not representative of the electorate.

    OK. I’ll go away now and sit in the corner.

19. Trump is a cardboard cutout and – as was brilliantly stated on another thread here – is basically what a liberal thinks that a Republican is. It’s actually a little scary how many Republicans embrace him, even when you can almost see the wolf fur sticking out from the sheepskin costume. Even if he’s a bone fide candidate, he’s here as the Obama of the Right – me, me, me, all about the wondrous me – and in the midterm (much less long term) he’s bad news for us. There’s no one on this forum that’s in favor of unchecked immigration – we get that – but a single-issued candidate has a plank, not a platform. I just can’t get away from the suspicion that he is either a saboteur, or the worst candidate for office, ever.

    I’m not married to any of the candidates yet, though I still prefer Carly at this stage. I’m just getting alarmed at the creepy cult of personality that is growing like a giant cancer around Trump. Like Neo says, I’m starting to see the early stages of Infinite Obama Forgiveness Syndrome (no matter he does, his backers blindly excuse and forgive him) Didn’t we just suffer through six and a half years of self-obsessed, unqualified egotist as President? Do we really need another one just because we hope that this one will blunder and bluster on our side?

20. Corner’s a mess so I’m back. The point I am trying to make is that there is the same kind of self-selection bias in the “legitimate” polls as there is in on-line polls. The bias in on-line polls is self evident. With the legitimate polls they don’t want you to notice. It’s business, you understand.

    Maybe I’ll try the garage.

21. Kyndyll G:

    I agree, except I’d say it’s not the early stages of Infinite Forgiveness Syndrome. When it began, it sprung into being in full flower.

    I think what we are experiencing with Trump is a phenomenon that the right is almost as susceptible to as the left: the cult of personality and magical thinking.

22. Roy Lofquist:

    I agree with you at least in theory about the telephone and response percentage problem.

    Thing is, though, that often the polls are quite accurate. For example, after all the criticism of polling methods during the leadup to the 2012 election, it turns out the polls’ accuracy had been good, although other more recent elections (such as in Israel) have featured inaccurate polling.

    It’s puzzling, and not so simple.

    Here’s a rather lengthy post I wrote about the phenomenon you’re discussing. And here’s more about some of the problems inherent in polling.

23. There is something about Cruz that seems too studied, and a lot of people don’t like that, no matter how brilliant he also seems.

    That is exactly what I thought of Fiorina. Too studied, too stiff, I found it strange, as I have been pro Fiorina before. Now, I am neutral on her.

24. Ruth H:

    I’m almost certain that was a function last night for Fiorina of extreme nervousness and an extreme laser-like focus in order to overcome that nervousness. I believe that it’s an anomaly for her, because in every other appearance of hers she’s been warmer, more smiley, funnier. I believe as she gains momentum, now that she’s proven she can be on the big stage, she will relax somewhat and be more herself.

    Last night Cruz (whom I also like) was pretty much the way he always is.

25. I think Whittle hits the nail on the head as to why Trump is resonating.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RW4R3N8Ju8

    In full disclosure, I don’t like Trump very much at all, although I acknowledge that some of the stuff he has said, in particular about illegal immigration, have needed to be said in an unapologetic way for a long, long time. But with that said, I understand the appeal. It’s the same appeal I think Newt Gingrich had in 2012 when he would flip questions around on the media. But everyone QQ’d Gingrich as being too much of an insider. Too much baggage, etc. And he did have a tendency to go off the rails, but when he was good, he was very, VERY good.

    Trump is fighting. He’s not quite as sharp as Gingrich was, but he’s far less likely to randomly wander off into left field (or space), but he’s fighting. I don’t know who he is fighting for, per se*, but I see who he is fighting against (PC, the media, the establishment, D.C. in general…), and I’m not the only one who sees that. And that is resonating with those who feel absolutely abandoned on issue after issue.

    *Other than himself.

26. A lot of what was wrong with everyone on that stage last night was because the whole thing was Trump-centered from the get-go.

    Jennifer Rubin has a good piece today talking about how the media are giving Trump what amounts to “in-kind gifts” and has some ideas about how the other candidates and the GOP can push against it:

    First, communications directors for the campaigns should berate, cajole and demand that bookers develop standardized rules for candidates. Either everyone gets to do interviews by phone or no one does.

    Second, confident campaigns will bring their candidates in for solo appearances (e.g., an editorial board meeting with the Des Moines Register, a full hour on one of the Sunday talk shows). That, at least, removes the excuse that Trump is more open to the media than others.

    Third, the candidates cannot complain if the outlets choose to devote time to Trump. It was necessary to respond to his egregious early comments, but maybe candidates should have a “standing objection” to everything that comes out of his mouth. If campaigns want to focus on Trump gaffes, however, they cannot blame the media for covering it.

    Fourth, nothing prevents candidates from appearing in pairs or groups of three on a “panel” so long as they are not interacting directly. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) did so at a Koch Brothers event early on. It was substantive and useful for voters (and donors). Candidates, however, will need to make news and be worthy of coverage. No one expects the cable or broadcast TV networks to devote time to an uneventful event.

    Fifth, candidates do not have to respond to the “But Donald says . . . ” question. Nothing prevents candidates from saying (and some do), “I don’t care what he says. Here is what I think. . . .”

    Sixth, raise the bar for the next debate. It sounds counterintuitive, but having fewer people on the stage puts more scrutiny on Trump and gives credible opponents more time to talk about themselves. If candidates had to be at 3 percent in national or multiple early state polls, that would likely trim the field to single digits. It is also acceptable to simply pick the top eight, or whatever number organizers like. (And candidates can refuse to stand there for an interminable three hours so the network can squeeze every last dollar out of these debates. The Republican National Committee surely can put its foot down and say no debates over two hours will be sanctioned.)

27. And that is resonating with those who feel absolutely abandoned on issue after issue.

    On that note, I’d like to provide a slightly supporting but also alternative intel analysis.

    The activist organization Eric has been talking about, has already been created. It’s just known by a different name, essentially the alliance between GamerGate, internet communities, and self published authors or orthodox published authors of a conservative bent like Baen author, notably the author of Monster Hunter.

    For whatever reasons, the internet has had a unique effect on a sub cultural selection of individuals in the West. The internet is almost the opposite of the totalitarian society Leftists live in in meat space or real life. It’s like John Galt’s paradise, and while in the past you really couldn’t make much of an economic life that had anything to do with the internet, these days with youtube and advertisers paying out the nose to various networks and businesses to push their products, including the gaming industry’s LivePlay sessions which are dominated by individual self made humans not corporate wage slaves, there’s been a somewhat quiet change over time.

    The Left’s astroturf internet communities existed first, but that was mostly because the money from Soros made it profitable. The internet community, by providing business and financial independence to certain people, have created half a generation that isn’t interested in obeying authority. They’re like the desert tribes in Arabia or Arakis, they don’t like foreigners or those who force them to submit. And their culture is much looser or perhaps more radicalized and warlike, than your average Western American totalitarian liberal or European socialist.

    Those communities see Trump and they get behind him. So what people think are Trump’s successes, can probably be attributed to his backers more than anything else. While Trump has had little success or none whatsoever, concerning fighting the Left, GamerGate, VoxDay, and various others like Reddit, have had certain and verifiable battlefield success against Leftist organizations and infiltration attempts.

    Trump will only flash out if another candidate gets the support of such communities or if there is a reason for those communities to no longer push for Trump.

    Sarah Palin had a similar populist support, however her conservative supporters did not at the time have organic C3 in place or computer based C4, in order to support her properly against domestic Republican enemies or Demoncrat infiltrators. The Tea Party came after that, after all, after the Left nuked the Tea Party from orbit and wiped out the organization’s ability to pull funding.

28. Neo, (Can I use a term of endearment?)

    I have seen how the sausage is made. Surveys that are conducted near an election, that is when the results meet the road, are treated quite differently from the kind we are seeing now. The likely voter tests become more stringent. The results are compared to historical voting and turnout and are adjusted by proprietary fudge factors. It is expensive and really not possible in a situation such as the Republican nomination process.

    Further, polls have a history of missing the boat by wide margins when the plates (tectonic, that is) are shifting. These kinds of shifts don’t occur frequently, thus aren’t a factor in the predictions. The elections of 1980, 1994 and 2010 are prime examples.

    Lastly, there is the Nostradamus effect. Ten thousand sooth sayers say their sooths. A couple of them come close and they are known as prophets. Nate Silver is the latest guru. Rasmussen, Gallup and Pew had their days. It’s like economics, for which there is a Nobel Prize. Have you noticed that the most common word in stories about the economy is unexpectedly?

    Polling is akin to astrology. Except astrology became astronomy. The motions of the planets are infinitely simpler than the whims and wiles of human beings.

    Regards,

    Roy

    p.s., What’s your sign? I’m a Pisces.

29. Just about everyone agreed that Fiorina did well, but I wish she’d shown a little more of her relaxed side. A well-placed smile or two (a feat of which she’s fully capable) would have helped. She usually has a good sense of humor and more warmth. I think she had decided she needed to impress with her seriousness for her first showing, and she accomplished that. I hope she switches it up a bit next time.

    Not to go all feminist on you, but I think women who are brave enough to join all the guys on the stage feel a need to be very assertive and “unsoft”. Just look at a group photo of Carly up there, the lone woman among all those men, or even some photos of Hillary in 2008 in the same predicament. I’m struck by the image of them standing ramrod straight as if trying to measure up to the men, while most of the men looked at least somewhat relaxed.

30. Mark, 1:32 pm — “Amateur hour. All CNN did was try to start a fight. You said this about this person and watch how they react. And by You I mean Trump.”

    I will be interested to see the extent to which CNN tries to foment food-fights among the Democrats, when they get around to their “debate”(s). To be blunt, I’m willing (and eager) to find myself pleasantly surprised, but I’m not about to bet the rent on it.

31. @Ymarsakar

    I’m not sure I agree with you, if I’m actually even following exactly what you’re saying (Which Eric are you talking about?).

    I guess a little background information:

    I’m a mid-30s, single white male, who has been playing games since the original NES came out in the US in 1985. I am also a computer programmer (not games, but web), who originally went to design school (quite liberal), continues to play games both online and off, and am pretty tech literate and savvy. I still keep tabs on many of the friends I made at school via various social media, and I have made other like-minded friends in online gaming, most of whom I will never actually meet.

    The people in my demographic, from the strict gamers, to the programmers, to the designers… The ones I know, anyway (which make this completely anecdotal) are NOT Trump fans. They label him a xenophobe, a tech idiot, a clown, etc. They don’t love Hillary, but many of them DO like Bernie.

    I don’t disagree that many of the techies dislike authority, but if you’re talking about what is in effect the Guy Fawkes crowd (AKA Anonymous), they’re anarchists, not isolationists. So I’m sorry, I’ve seen absolutely zero evidence that the GamerGate or tech crowd are on board with the Don.

    You know who I know who largely does support him? The Christian people at my occasional Friday night card game. The good old boys I sometimes hang out with at the local dive. The people I know who watch Fox News. Those are the people I know who like The Don.

    As I say, it’s anecdotal, and completely based on my observation, but you’re effectively talking about my generation and the one after mine. I like to think I know at least a little about my generation, especially since I’ve been the only conservative in the room I can’t tell you how many times when among my peers.

    And if it matters, I live in Southern Ohio, so hardly the bastion of liberal thought.

32. Interesting how Trump gets a pass on his up until running for Pres, his support for amnesty.

    Trump on
    Immigration:
    You seem to think he’s an immigration hardliner, and he’s certainly pretending to be. But why can’t you see through it? He condemned Mitt Romney as an immigration hardliner in 2012 and favored comprehensive immigration reform. He told Bill O’Reilly he was in favor of a “path to citizenship” for 30 million illegal immigrants:

    Trump: You have to give them a path. You have 20 million, 30 million, nobody knows what it is. It used to be 11 million. Now, today I hear it’s 11, but I don’t think it’s 11. I actually heard you probably have 30 million. You have to give them a path, and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that.

    Question: Just how many rapists and drug dealers did Donald Trump want to give green cards to?

    Obamacare: The man wrote in his own book and said elsewhere that he was in favor of Canadian-style socialized medicine – which would put him to the left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and on pretty much the same page as Bernie Sanders.

    Hillary:
    Speaking of her, Trump praised Hillary Clinton and her health-care reform plan – in 2007! She attended his (most recent) wedding. He donated to her campaigns and to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, he couldn’t get his head around the fact that Obama didn’t pick her for VP. “I’m a big fan of Hillary. She’s a terrific woman. She’s a friend of mine.”

    Economics:
    People tout the guy’s business record. But he represents almost exactly what his supporters think he opposes. He’s a crony capitalist par excellence. He gives to whatever politician can grease the skids for his next deal – and he makes no apologies for it. He’s an eminent-domain voluptuary. He abuses bankruptcy laws like a stack of homemade get-out-of-jail-free cards.

33. I’m not sure I agree with you, if I’m actually even following exactly what you’re saying (Which Eric are you talking about?).

    Eric has a specific reputation here, but I suppose that may not be well known if there are duplicates or if you are new here.

    The people in my demographic, from the strict gamers, to the programmers, to the designers… The ones I know, anyway (which make this completely anecdotal) are NOT Trump fans. They label him a xenophobe, a tech idiot, a clown, etc. They don’t love Hillary, but many of them DO like Bernie.

    That would be the Silicon Valley crowd, the people who work in the technological agencies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. Their politics consist of their environment, which is usually being bussed in from San Francisco or something of that nature. They are not and were never, economically independent.

    People like Brad Wardell, who also work in the same industry, know very well the social and career pressures put on such people to conform. It’s obvious. That’s the very opposite of what I’m talking about for a very specific sub culture or community online.

    Remember what happened to Eich? The thing about tech savvy purges of fascists and neo reactionaries is that it tends to produce a counter purge of equal fanaticism. Which takes some time to piss people off, but with the internet, the word spreads eventually.

    I like to think I know at least a little about my generation, especially since I’ve been the only conservative in the room I can’t tell you how many times when among my peers.

    What the internet has allowed is a fragmentation. There is no such thing as a uniform “generational value” any more. There are factions and sub factions within factions. If you are isolated in a community and the only conservative in the room… how exactly are you capable of analyzing the reactions of GamerGate community when you actually compare them to the Silicon Valley zombies?

    That doesn’t make sense if you actually have seen what that community does and hates.

    What you’re dealing with here, or what I’m specifying, is more like alien cultures to you than a mere difference in politics or career path. The Left labels them xenophobes, fascists, and what not, but that’s because GamerGate is like its own cultural identity almost. They have their own jobs and cultural tradition, which is very separate from the PinkSF, the Leftist overlords, and the corporations that control Google and Microsoft.

34. but if you’re talking about what is in effect the Guy Fawkes crowd (AKA Anonymous), they’re anarchists, not isolationists.

    Those are not in my current field of view. That crowd is the old cracker/hacker crowd and the script kiddies that use the work of their betters to ape the result and fame. Those are very old communities, predating GamerGate by quite some time.

    Their allegiances are unknown to me, probably because they work in very small teams, like terrorist cells almost, and do not particularly have an influence at the large organizational level.

35. Erudite Mavin

    Did you hear about how he used his political connections to get a bail out from 3 billion in the red, for his Atlantic City casino bust?

    That’s some bust.

36. I’m old enough to remember the USSR sending their best and brightest, fluent in English in the extreme to the point that they might have been raised in this country, to speak on college campuses during the Vietnam War years. Various peace groups like the American Friends Service Committee would sponsor their little talks.

    I guessing we have a modern day version posting on this board.

37. I’m guessing…

38. Is Chuck old enough to remember when he first got on board with the Gaystapo movement and the SF libertines yet?

39. Have you watched the film, “You’ve Been Trumped”? I shows the real Donald Trump. Nasty, vicious to the “real” Scots, and the same “Atlantic City casino” approach. Pour money in, destroy the area and if it doesn’t work out, have the project declare bankruptcy.
    He uses the same language about making everything he touches “the best and greatest you can imagine.
    He aslo was caught in several lies.
    Why has this film not received any PR?

40. The Donald’s “values” are: The Donald.
    The Donald’s “God” is: The Donald. His
    obvious pathology is King Baby. Malignant
    Narcissist, Infantile Defiance on Steroids.
    CHARACTER MATTERS. VASTLY.

41. Why can the great unwashed NOT see beyond this very shallow surface??

42. @Ymarsakar –

    Eric has a specific reputation here, but I suppose that may not be well known if there are duplicates or if you are new here.
    Oh. I guess because I don’t run through the comments every day, and largely just read what Neo writes on a pretty much daily basis, I somehow missed that. Silly me for not knowing who “Eric” is with no other context. You were talking about Eric Holder or maybe Eric Musco for all I knew (Hey, we were talking about games, right?).

    But for what it’s worth, I’ve been frequenting this blog since my mom told me about it in I believe late 2007. There are times in which I write long responses, but I almost never post them. I don’t really know why. Perhaps because of exchanges like this.

    There are times I email Neo directly, but not often. She and I had a few fun exchanges way back when about Romney/Newt, though. You see, I was a more of a Newt fan because he was the only one not afraid of the media. And in a field of bad candidates, I felt like he was the only one who had a spine who might fight the media and Obama, even if he was deeply, deeply flawed (Pelosi on a bench anyone?).

    And there are times where I will not swing by for a week or two, but I always come back because I like Neo.

    I’ve seen your name for years (which I always read, “Yarmaskar”, and it wasn’t until my first post in this thread I actually went back and read your handle), since I do on random occasions skim the comments on subjects I think about responding to, but this is the first time I’ve ever interacted with you. I’ve seen Artful’s name for years because he writes insanely long posts that my eyes glaze over after a sentence or two because of the stream of conscious nature of them.

    The rest, I’m not going to bother responding to. I started to do the same bolding thing you did to respond point by point, but it would take a while to correct that much misconception about my life. And also because nothing I say about any of it will make a whit of difference in your mind. You apparently know me and my friends/associates, nay, my life, much better than I do. All from reading a few paragraphs. It’s nice to know projection isn’t dead at least.

    Cheers!

43. nyght…I call it: ‘Often wrong, but never in doubt.’

44. How many times must it be said: Trump is being elevated… now… to be destroyed during the final campaign.

    There is SO much video out there that is damning.

    I don’t blame Trump for his Chapter 11 gambits. They are irrelevant — completely.

    The critical factor is that Trump is CERTAIN to be damaged goods by October 2016.

    He will turn off the GOP base — big time.

    And between then and now, Trump is certain to emit plenty of juicy gaffs, enough to match Biden.

    Lincoln would never be nominated in today’s climate. But I contend he was a terrific president.

    I also can’t see Fiorina at the head of the ticket. She’ll be beaten up silly over the H-P legacy — all the more so now that H-P is laying off tens of thousands.

    She’d be terrific as VP.

    Cruz or Walker are the only fellows that would drive the Democrats crazy. So it’s not any kind of surprise that the MSM is laying them down with malign neglect…

    Walker most of all.

    They hate him most of all.

    Duh !

45. From the one trick pony –

    …Gaystapo movement and the SF libertines…

    …the PinkSF, the Leftist overlords…

    …bussed in from San Francisco…

    Barely a post is written by this person without making these kinds of references. You disagree with anything he says and you are automatically singled out for his pink triangle. Notice how he puts nyght into the company of the Silicon Valley crowd and then tars the entire Tech industry with the same bussed in – PinkSF bullshit? The old guilt by association technique, except in this case it doesn’t quite work because the geek lives in Ohio, but hey, he interacts with them on the net. Close enough.

46. blert…I’m with you except I much prefer Marco at the top, not Walker. Marco, as a candidate, has all the JFK “plusses” and none of his minuses. I like and very much respect Scott, but he lacks ‘photogenic’ fire and it’s Marco that the Dems and Hillary fear to their marrow. With Carly as his Veep Candidate, it’d be a hugely strong ticket. Or, my other ‘dream girl’, Condi Rice.

47. Ages ago, I liked Perry. I eventually switched to Walker (in small part due to neo), but both he and Cruz seemed to lack a spark.
    I’ve now moved on again:
    1) Fiorina
    2) Cruz
    3) Walker

    I notice these were the same 3 shown as “better” candidates in the Bill Whittle video.

    What’s your top 3 now, neo?

48. Matt_SE:

    My top 3 at the moment are the same as yours, but I’d add Rubio to make it four, and right now Walker is below the others. Rubio is rising for me after the last debate. I don’t hold his previous amnesty advocacy against him; I think it was a product of a naivete which he has grown beyond. I have much less of a problem with people changing their minds on something than a lot of conservatives do (for obvious reasons).

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