quote:

Sure, but if you are worth billions, why are you paying rent, or not paying rent, as the case may be?

I mean that it's a fair point that his net worth is not as important as having cash on hand to spend on a run for the presidency. Net worth is kind of meaningless unless you are willing and able to convert it to cash.

Also like Bernie Sanders, Trump would be a catastrophe as president. I'm not rooting for Trump for president, I want to be clear about that. I'm rooting for Walker and/or Cruz.

But I'm cheering on Donald Trump's causing the establishment RINOs conniption fits. The MSM foaming at the mouth. The Democrats are prepared to attack and destroy any and every RINO, but they don't know what to do with this maniac. You know, his response to just about everything that is thrown at him is "Go fuck yourself!" He does not become contrite, wring his hands and apologize-- like that cretin Martin O'Malley just did for saying that all lives matter. After Trump's most recent attack on John McCain, he has surged in polls that you know were calculated to sink him.

Wonderful! I hope he targets Jeb Bush next and tears him a new one.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
But I'm cheering on Donald Trump's causing the establishment RINOs conniption fits. The MSM foaming at the mouth. The Democrats are prepared to attack and destroy any and every RINO, but they don't know what to do with this maniac.

And that's Trump's function. Again, the timing is excellent.

I don't think Trump wants to run a third party campaign. I think he is just an egomaniac and wants to advertise the Trump brand.

But what he will do, even without a proper third party campaign, is alienate moderate voters which the GOP needs to win a national election.

He can easily become similar to Perot and cost the GOP the election.


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse...-scam-james-altucher

I'm sort of breaking my promise here. No news. Why no news? Because the news you read is almost always by uninformed reporters and is totally irrelevant in 99.999% of the cases.

Example: Greece has not paid a single debt since Rome took over in 146 BC. And yet, everyone keeps asking me about Greece.

News flash: They will borrow more money, and AGAIN they will not pay their debts. Nor should they.

Greece is a subsidized beach resort, healthy food, etc but they aren't a real country - (sorry in advance to anyone offended by this) and then in three years, for less than the cash Google has in the bank, the entire world will figure out another way to bail them out.

That's all you ever need to know about Greece. By the way, when I was living in Astoria, New York (all Greeks) I learned the rules to the three ways they play backgammon there.

We would play all night in the local Greek-owned pool hall. I did this for 18 months. This has now made me an expert on Greek culture and news. It was probably the best 18 months of my life. The one and only time I had no worries, nothing to do. Just play.

But...Donald Trump. This news story fascinates me.

I was just in a coffee shop. John McCain was giving his "FIRST RESPONSE EVER" to Donald Trump's remarks on the TV above the cashier.

About a dozen people were crowded in to listen. What would he say? Would he trash Trump? Would he take the high road?

Entertainment!

Because the human mind is prepared to have up to 150 friends (the so-called "Dunbar Number") and most of us are not at 150, so we replace them with who we see on TV or in magazines. John McCain.

Or, for the guy sitting next to me at this moment: Kim Kardashian is his VERY close friend.

My Dunbar friend at the moment, based on the book I am reading: Bill Murray. I hope one day I meet him and he likes me.

But back to Donald Trump.

Claudia has explained to me the news because I asked her why she was so upset the other day.

He said two things that are super-idiotic. I don't even think Trump truly believes what he says. Which I'll explain why in a minute.

A) He said, "Mexicans and other South Americans [meaning: Claudia] are sending their murderers and rapists here to the US."

Which has been non-stop laughs for me ever since. When I wake up in the morning I get to shake Claudia awake and say, "Hey, what's a dirty rapist like you doing in my bed?"

B) He said John McCain is not a war hero because the "real heroes came home".

Or something like that. There is zero chance I'm going to read exactly what he said so Claudia could be totally lying (which is possible, being a criminal, murdering rapist).

Ok: so first things: clearly the above two statements are moronic.

It's like saying "Bill Cosby is a Mexican". Or it's like saying one of the bravest guys ever (whether you believe in his politics or not, which I don't) is not a hero.

But I think something very insidious is going on and not a single person has noticed this.

Donald Trump is being an idiot on purpose.

Now, he might actually be an idiot. This is possible. BUT IF he weren't, then he knows exactly what he is doing. A true game player MUST look at all sides of a story.

Note that after he said these statements his percentage in the Presidential race went from 0% to 12%.

By the way, it's NEVER going to go higher than 12%. But he knows that.

He also knows he has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination for a billion reasons.

So he did a classic marketing strategy. He did the Nigerian 419 scam.

The Nigerian 419 strategy is to have a misspelled email from the son of some deceased Prince who needs all your bank info in order to release $20 million that he will eagerly split with you.

Then he steals all of your money.

Why is the email misspelled? After decades of Nigerians sending the exact same email, why is it always mis-spelled? And, by the way, the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF NIGERIA IS ENGLISH.

There's a simple reason. Anybody in the top 90% of rational people know that a misspelled email coming from a Nigerian prince is a scam.

The Nigerians don't want to deal with those 90%. Even if you sent a perfectly spelled letter with a much more realistic story, those 90% will figure it out. Then the scammer will have wasted his time. He doesn't want to waste time.

He needs to find the 10% that will respond to him really quickly. (Btw, I'm assuming "he" but can also be a "she"). And the 10% that will work.

Does it work? Of course it does. 419-ers made $13 billion last year. And every year.

This is what Donald Trump is doing. And I'm not kidding. I really think he is doing this.

He is saying the most stupid, most outrageous things because he's immediately filtering out the 90% that will never like him anyway.

The 12% that are left have managed to jump over AMAZING hurdles to keep liking him. Who could possibly like him after this?

There are clearly ZERO other candidates for these 12%. Trump represents exactly what they are thinking and he used the fastest approach possible to identify those 12%.

Because of the Idiot 12% - In the first weeks of February, Trump will come in a respectable, 2nd or 3rd in Iowa, New Hampshire, and definitely South Carolina (which after 150 years finally admitted they belong in the United States and slavery is bad).

Then he will drop out of the race and form a third party. Once he forms a third party, he will be able to raise a ton of money, appease his ego, scam people for the next decade, and enter the next stage of his insane career.

Not to mention drain votes from Republicans, giving himself a target to attack for the next eight years (Hilary Clinton) by effectively deciding the Presidential race.

Which is his goal from the beginning.

Most people do the right thing and ignore the Nigerian 419 scam.

The best strategy, which nobody will take (including me by writing this), is to just ignore him.

But we won't. We irrationally need a Donald Trump. Because evolution tells us we need people to gossip about.
quote:

Clever article.

I remember this Altucher from articles he wrote for a blog promoting financial products to registered financial advisors, syrupy, sappy nonsense written by a self-aggrandizing buffoon.

A couple people asked "I don't get..." Well, probably because his writing is hard to follow. His style makes your teeth itch.

What he's saying, bottom line, is right here: "Because of the Idiot 12%..."

He's saying much the same as what McCain said: If you like what Trump's saying, anything he's saying, I would guess, you're an idiot.

Altrucher is a bit irritating.

But here is the real thing to take away. Trump isn't stupid. And he can't really, literally, actually, believe a good bit of what he says. Two things follow from that:

Why is he saying those things? As I said, I think it is to stroke his own ego and advance the Trump brand.

Be careful how much of it we actually, literally agree with, lest we fall into what Altrucher calls the 12%. (There is a difference between sympathizing with the general sentiments Trump is expressing, and enjoying him giving the lefties hell and actually agreeing with some of those things on a factual basis.)

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Altrucher is a bit irritating.

But here is the real thing to takeaway. Trump isn't stupid. And he can't really, literally, actually, believe a good bit of what he says. Two things follow from that:

Why is he saying those things? As I said, I think it is to stroke his own ego and advance the Trump brand.

Be careful how much of it we actually, literally agree with, lest we fall into what he calls the 12%. (There is a difference between sympathizing with the general sentiments Trump is expressing, and enjoying him giving the lefties hell and actually agreeing with some of those things on a factual basis.)

I agree with this assumption.

BUT, most voter's are stupid and have no idea what the candidate they're voting for even stands for. They vote because of some stupid commercial they saw or what another un-educated (on the topics) voter tells them to vote for. Etc. Trump is good at bringing in these voter's. He's sort of a celebrity, certaintly on tv a lot, and ego or not stupid people like him. What I do like about Trump is he doesn't hold back and in a debate could put any liberal in their place. I do think he is better than most of the current Republican candidates who couldn't stand up to their own wives, let alone a real person. That being said, give me Walker for President.

The problem is that what he is saying is true. The Mexican government has a policy of dumping people they don't want at the border. They have trains that run the length of the country and transport illegals to the border with the US.

Even NPR has done a piece on this:

Riding 'The Beast' Across Mexico To The U.S. Border

What is racist about stating that this is bad for the United States? What is racist about saying the Mexican government is smart to do this, to get them out of their country?

This recent spat has me having about zero respect for John McCain. What a pile of garbage that guy is. Says things about Trump supporters, then when Trump fires back he plays the sacred veteran card. That and about 20 other things make McCain a piece of trash.

How Trump Is Affecting The GOP Field

A rich businessman with a history of not supporting Republicans while holding liberal positions on things like immigration and big government health care schemes combined with a propensity to say head shaking things. But enough about Mitt Romney, this is about Donald Trump.

A new poll is out showing Trump up to almost 25% "support." I put support in scare quotes because, he's not going to get 25% in any actual contest. 6+ months or so out from Iowa and New Hampshire and he's not leading in either state. So let's not even pretend this is about winning.

That's not to say that he's not having an impact. So here's a look at how I see him affecting each of the other candidates. We'll start with those least affected by Trump up to the most affected (either positively or negatively).

First, the group of candidates he's not having any impact on because no one cares about them...Huckabee (5th among evangelicals in Iowa? Go back to Fox Huckster), Kasich, Santorum, Jindal (which I think is a shame), Pataki, Graham.

Next are candidates who should be in the no-one cares about bin but might have escaped that hell if not for Trump:

Ben Carson. Raised a lot of money for his consultants but found the "outside guy people thought was a conservative but really has lots of liberal policy positions" suddenly filled by Trump. Carson wasn't going anywhere but Trump has ended his 15 minutes of fame earlier than it would have otherwise.


Carly Fiorina. She's the candidate everyone likes and wondered why she wasn't doing better while they supported someone else. She did a lot of dirty work early on to grab attention by saying things about Hillary no one else would. People wanted to get her on the stage instead of Trump but his rise has pushed him into the big leagues for now and left her and her pitch as the successful in business candidate in the dust.


Chris Christie. He consigned himself to irrelevancy by not running in 2012 and spending the next few years sucking up to Obama and non-GOP voters by attacking conservatives. Remember how he attacked House conservatives over delaying Sandy pork, er, relief? And then kept quiet while Harry Reid sat on it and Obama dithered over disbursing it. He wanted to run up the score in his reelection bid. Well he did that but at the cost of alienating actual GOP voters.

He's now running as the "I don't care about your feelings, I'm going to tell it like I see it" guy. Sounds familiar, huh? Trumped!


Scott Walker. So far there doesn't seem to much either way here. As he's the front runner in Iowa, a state he basically needs to win to have a shot at the nomination, he might be helped somewhat by Trump sucking up all the air from other candidates who might rise up to challenge him there. So far though it's mostly a push.


Rick Perry. He should be at the top of this list with the also rans who have no chance but he's breaking with the pack by hitting Trump the hardest, first on Trump's language on Hispanics and now on McCain. I doubt it's enough but when you're stuck in a dark basement with others it helps to be the only one who might have a flashlight to help you find the stairs.

Marco Rubio. He's a lot like Walker in that there's no direct overlap with Trump but unlike Walker, he needs to pick up the pace and get in the fight. Trump's early success is keeping the talk away from things like Iran, Cuba and "the future", which is where Rubio wants the fight to be.

Of course anything that brings immigration and amnesty to the fore is likely to hurt Rubio. He cratered with GOP voters after the Senate passed the Schumer-Rubio-McCain-Reid-Obama amnesty bill. As the issue faded he managed to recover but having it front and center can't be a help to him.


Ted Cruz. This is more of an on the come bet. Cruz is the anti-Perry when it comes to Trump. He's made nice and refused to attack Trump. His strategy seems to be that at some point the Trump bubble will burst and those voters will have to go somewhere. He's positioning himself to be that somewhere. The problems with this plan is I doubt the Trump support moves as a block and as I said, I don't think it's as big as it appears.

All that said, Cruz is a second tier guy at best. If he can capitalize on the eventual Trump flame-out (and Trump doesn't go independent and take a lot of this angry base vote with him), Trump will have had a yuggeee impact on Cruz's campaign.


Rand Paul. Haven't heard much from him lately, have you? Not sure if that's by design or not but I think it helps him. Paul's launch went very well for him ("go ask Debbie Wasserman-Schultz about abortion") but then it devolved into NSA! all the time. Also, he's a prickly guy and he wasn't wearing well. Add to that having a tough time raising money and an inability to find a Super-PAC sugar daddy.

Aside from giving him a break and a chance to reset, Trump helps Paul by taking a lot of the heat that would have been directed at him. Guys like Christie, Graham, Rubio and even Walker were going to go hard after Paul. They either wanted to get a piece of his libertarian leaning base or make their bones with the establishment and hawkish wings by using Paul as a punching bag. Trump has come in to take a lot of that attention and heat.

Paul, like his dad, is better in small doses. There's a "I like him until he goes one step too far" quality with him. Now he can use his allotted 37 seconds of debate time to sound reasonable. He won't be subject to as many attacks and won't have to respond to them. That should give him a chance to build on his existing base.


Jeb Bush. Everything helps Jeb. He's going to be the nominee after all. Trump will keep all would be annoyances down for Jeb. He won't engage Trump and he'll just float above it all.

In the end the biggest service Trump will do for Jeb is scare GOP voters. After a summer and possibly fall (not sure Trump lasts that long as a factor), the moderate majority of the GOP voters will have been scared out of their minds by the kooks and their fevered "find a conservative" flirtations. Jeb, with all his Bush baggage, will seem safe, comfortable, familiar and most of all, electable. They will run to him like a long separated lover runs to their returning partner. There he will stand, waiting to embrace them and lead them to their tragic but inevitable death.

Seriously, it's going to be Jeb. He's what the GOP does. For all the talk of the crazy conservatives running the GOP look at who it nominates for President or elects to run things when they have congressional majorities. It's just the way it is, Trump or no Trump. In the end The Donald will simply play his part in delivering to Jeb his birthright as a Bush...the GOP nomination.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/357987.php

Good read until the "its going to be Jeb".

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Good read until the "its going to be Jeb".

I know, right?
That's exactly what I thought!
Please.... NOT JEB!

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Good read until the "its going to be Jeb".

Who authored that piece? I followed the link but it still wasn't immediately obvious. And who are they?

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
But what he will do, even without a proper third party campaign, is alienate moderate voters which the GOP needs to win a national election.

If those holy grail moderates are stupid enough to vote for Hillary because of Trump, then there really is no hope left for this country. And personally, I'm not buying for a minute that Trump is going to go third party for the general. He'll get everything his ego wants and needs by staying through the primary and making GOP candidate lives hell.

quote:

He can easily...cost the GOP the election.

I giggle a bit every time I hear that. From my perspective, the GOP candidates need little help from anyone in scuttling their chances to win the presidential election. And over a candidate as incompetent and unlikable as Hillary. Now that is a feat indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
But what he will do, even without a proper third party campaign, is alienate moderate voters which the GOP needs to win a national election.

If those holy grail moderates are stupid enough to vote for Hillary because of Trump, then there really is no hope left for this country. And personally, I'm not buying for a minute that Trump is going to go third party for the general. He'll get everything his ego wants and needs by staying through the primary and making GOP candidate lives hell.

quote:

He can easily...cost the GOP the election.

I giggle a bit every time I hear that. From my perspective, the GOP candidates need little help from anyone in scuttling their chances to win the presidential election. And over a candidate as incompetent and unlikable as Hillary. Now that is a feat indeed.

But you are a purist in an impure world where nothing can or ever will be perfect, and see things in that light.

Trump has in the past taken many liberal positions, in fact he has supported “responsible gun control” so he will never be my favored candidate. He has run before didn’t get traction and did not make a third party run. Our Donald is not going to spend a lot of his money in a wasted effort.

I think it’s a looooog time until the GOP Nominee is finally selected. Long before that happens; I expect “The Donald’s” candidacy will be only an amusing memory.
Everyone here is politically engaged, but the so called swing voter takes little notice until a week before the elections, Trump’s run will be ancient history by then..

Meantime, I think he is doing useful work in pointing out some of the absurdities and failures in our immigration practices.

The MSM will do as much damage as possible to all of the potential GOP candidates with their familiar technique of using a slightly outrageous statement by one candidate, to beat the others over the head. They can then ask pol A what he thinks and go to pol B with pol A’s remark.
This whole tempest is a MSM Left Wing manufactured hoo ha.

This form of blood sport is something the MSM really enjoys and allows them to avoid the daily stupidity coming from the Obama Whitehouse. Look a Squirrel!

One of "the donalds" greatest contributions is the amount of press time he's pulling away from HilRod, she's not even a consideration for news, in the wake of Trumps media machine.

At this point it makes her page 5, third row bottom of the paper and Trump Page 1.

HilRod even compared herself to Trump vis a vis hair issues, didn't even make page 5

Excellent point, HRK.

I'll hold my nose and vote for Jeb if he is the nominee despite my objections to both the perception and reality of oligarchy and the additional reality of Jeb's questionable politics and record, but it seems like a sure loser against pretty much any Democrat based on perception alone.

if any family name can get elected again, in today's world, do you really think it'll be another "white guy", "rich southerner and redneck", from a family of "war mongers", and all that? I have too little faith in the voting public (see: the last decade) to think enough can and will see past such things if it comes to that on election day.

especially when, and this is the frightening option, when Hillary can run on name recognition too and be a "woman", "first woman President", "feminist", yadda yadda. a Bush v Clinton race in 2016 is the worst combination imaginable (that's even remotely possible, at least). a nail in our collective coffin, however honorable Jeb may actually be, as though the Democrats themselves picked our nominee for us to (figuratively) rig the game.

It's difficult to understand how more than a roomfull of rational, regular, informed people, much less professional political strategists, can actually think any other Bush can win a Presidential election in this country again anytime soon. It's all but unfathomable. Sure, there are folks here who can reason through it and see that he isn't the devil, but enough all around the country to win? Technically possible, but extraordinarily doubtful, I think.

I'll be delighted to be mistaken if he (or any reasonable person who is reasonably conservative) wins, but if another Bush is the best we can do I think we're in for a rude awakening and a long(er) road ahead. Shit, even if Jeb wins we're in for a rude awakening as he will no doubt demonstrate how "not that conservative" he really is. I'm appalled anyone seriously suggests him, strategically speaking - at the very least.