Republican primary changesFollow

So they want more time for whoever becomes the final candidate to save his face from the embarrassing **** he'll have to say to become the GOP nominee?

It's cute that they think their candidate selection process and not the actual candidates they nominate is the problem.

Seems like every election lately leads to a bunch of hand-wringing and desire to rework the process. After 2008, Democrats were worried about the long Obama/Clinton face off and wanted to reduce the primary season (though there was no rush for 2012). Republicans were upset that McCain took an unbeatable lead so early and felt a longer primary would have led to a better candidate against Obama (granted, they thought that would have been Romney). The 2012 primary calendar and proportional delegate awards were a direct result of that 2008 angst.

I wonder it the GOP is starting to regret this whole 'tea party' business.

Holy shit, regret it? It was a MASSIVE, overwhelming victory. Still is. Do you remember the state of the GOP in 2008??? Jesus, just because we enjoy the humor value doesn't change the control of the House or Representatives, or the many many many many state legislatures and executives that were taken over allowing for multiple structural advantages to be pressed. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, union destruction. Are you fucking joking? Regret it? Because they lost to a once in a generation candidate who brings an almost automatic 25% increase in black turnout and puts states like Virginia and North Carolina in play? Are you high right now?

Democrats are OVERWHELMINGLY the underdog for the 2016 election BECAUSE of the tea party. Because old racists vote, and blacks and kids don't unless they can identify with a candidate. Who is that going to be next time? Hillary? Give me a fucking break. Biden? There are no compelling candidates who can get through the primary process and the reason, children, that the GOP has been fielding bad candidates and making terrible VP choices is because contrary to the narrative we'd like to take comfort it, they aren't morons. They can read the data, too. They know when they need a Hail Mary to win and when they can sell a personality. If a moderate seeming choice comes out of their primary good luck winning Ohio, Virginia or Florida. Relying on a demographic that generally only votes for people they feel a personal identifier with is going to be a huge struggle when we nominate a 60 year old white person.

They gotta be dying off soon.

Probably get carjacked and murdered by a darkie. That's the leading cause of death of 65 year old white men.

That's the advantage of being biracial. If you lose one, you always have the other!

That guy's gonna cost Obama the race!

Still a bad choice, hard to argue otherwise. Probably helped in the 2012 race with that debate performance, though.

I like Hilary.

Me too. She just has zero chance of winning a national election.

The Dems are quietly hoping for a white knight to ride in and rescue them from Hillary as well, or barring that, praying for a Ted Cruz nomination.

Hillary vs Christie would be a close match and a bruiser at that, with Christie likely the winner. The odds of Christie getting past the Republican primary are slim to none, though, even with the adjustments they've made, which might be why Christie is insisting he won't run.

I think it's far less some kind of aversion to putting another non-whitemale in the office as the damage that 24 hours a day looping Hillary declaring to congress that it doesn't really matter why we were attacked in Benghazi will cause. Seriously. If she wins the nomination and I were in charge of running opposition media, I'd do nothing but spend money running that clip during every commercial break on every channel for the next 6 months, with the caption "Hillary: Vote for anyone else, or she wont care why you died".

Ok. Maybe different wording, but that bit alone puts her odds at winning somewhere very close to zero and she knows it. Bad outburst at the wrong time on the wrong subject more or less ended her career as an elected official.




Yeah. Running an obese man from New Jersey, colorful as he is, probably doesn't do much for the GOP in terms of electoral math. Christie probably would still win though, but you're right that his odds of getting through the primary process is very slim (unlike him! Haha. There's just no end to those jokes, or him for that matter... zing!). And honestly? For him, it's less about his waistline as it is that he's viewed as more moderate than most primary voters will want and from a state that doesn't really buy the GOP much.

While folks joke about Cruz, he actually brings a hell of a lot more to the table in terms of electoral math. Rubio even moreso, but he's also young and unpolished (and the Left has already shown a great willingness to make hay out of that). Obviously, we could look at the usual suspect list and toss in Jindal. He's aged a bit more and has more experience this time around, but he actually doesn't seem to want to run (and may have good reasons). Hell, toss Nikki Haley in the mix if you want to really go with the double threat of minority and female, but I don't know if she's really ready for that either.

Dunno. I think there's a pretty decent list of up and coming Republican candidates, but not so much on the Left. I suspect a good portion of that is just perception though. Hillary was such a presumptive frontrunner in 2008, that no one really looked elsewhere. Obama came out of nowhere and took that spot from her, but she remained the "next candidate" in the minds of most liberals since then. This doesn't preclude another "come from nowhere" candidate, but I'm not sure that sort of lightning is likely to strike twice in such a short period of time.

Dems still have some time, but it is growing short.

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 2:37pm by gbaji

Remember when "You didn't build that" totally sunk Obama's campaign?

You conservatives maybe put too much stock into out of context soundbites.

Well, you'd certainly be the one to tell everyone what'll be really important in presidential elections and to teach us all about electoral math.

Later we hope you'll share your sterling wisdom about election year polling.

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 6:00pm by Jophiel