Almalieque wrote:
My favorite is when GOP campaign leadership is asked if they would whether to see their candidate go against Clinton or Sanders/Biden/Warren, they always say Clinton, yet they always say positive things about the latter and attack Hillary. Now that is some horrible reverse psychology.
Which is kinda identical to Dem campaign leadership being asked who they'd rather face, to which they'll all answer "Trump", while still bashing the heck out of him. There's a number of reasons why political folks might do this, but this is hardly a symptom exhibited by only one side. I'll just suggest that primary politics is "strange". On your side, your trying to find someone who most appeals to your own base, but who will also be appealing to the general voters, all while not suffering too much damage on the way. On the other side, you're trying to encourage the opposition to nominate someone who may appear strong to their primary voters but who you hope will be a disaster in the general. So yeah, you get a ton of seemingly conflicting statements in this process. Not really anything new.
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Media hype aside, HRC has been seen as the front runner for years and is being pounded daily. Everyone else, except maybe Bush and Trump, have basically been given a by. Once the field reduces down to a more manageable size, the dirt will come and everyone poll numbers will take a hit. So, for HRC to be ahead now, essentially with her "worst" dirt, that's actually a good sign.
Yup. That's more of that "strange" primary politics. It's a balancing act. From the GOP perspective, on the one hand, they love the fact that Trump is taking all the attention and all the heat at this stage. In a perfect world, he'd continue to do so for another month or two, but as early polling and/or even primary voting comes in, voters will realize he's not a great general candidate, he'll fall, and then someone else will step into the lead, with a more "moderate/reasonable" image, little or no damage, and then plow through. Of course, the risk is that he does do well in early polling and voting, or primary voters do think he'll do well in the general (or don't care or realize), and his momentum builds and he becomes the nominee. Obviously, the Dems would love that outcome.
But in the short term, he can be seen as acting as a fullback of sorts. You want him to clear the line, but probably can't run the ball far enough to make a touchdown, so make sure you hand that ball to the running back following him. In theory. Maybe. Perhaps. Remember when I said primary politics is "strange"? I've seen enough crazy outcomes (heck. Obama leaps out on this), that I don't pin assumptions on *anything* anymore.