Post the PM!

Actually, as a moderator, I would like the exchange to be sent to me via pm.

I've got -120 on DIM, and jh at +450 after a handle of EW.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I've got -120 on DIM, and jh at +450 after a handle of EW.

It wasn't me. I'd say SK790 and Monkeyboy as co-favorites with he didn't actually receive a PM threatening his kids as the third most likely.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I've got -120 on DIM, and jh at +450 after a handle of EW.

It was definitely not me, although I can see how you'd think it was the board homo since he mentioned his kids. I assure you, I only enjoy adult cock.

That is some sick stuff.

jerseyhoya wrote:...with he didn't actually receive a PM threatening his kids as the third most likely.

We have a winner.

I'm guessing the angriest people in this thread, sk is too hippie for that I think. MB is a wildcard.

jerseyhoya wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I've got -120 on DIM, and jh at +450 after a handle of EW.

It wasn't me. I'd say SK790 and Monkeyboy as co-favorites with he didn't actually receive a PM threatening his kids as the third most likely.

Ding ding

JUburton wrote:If I had to guess I think Trump takes FL and NC. Cruz MO. Kasich OH. Trump slight victory in IL. Rubio drops. The shitshow continues.

MO is interesting, in that primary seems to me to be about whether MO is more of a southern state, in which direction it has been skewing in presidential elections since 2000, or more of a Midwestern state, which would make it the swing/bellwether it had previously had the reputation for being. All those pathologically polite Cardinal fans make me think of it as "Midwestern" - but post-Ferguson, I fear it may have irrevocably tipped toward "Southern." If it's a Midwestern type state, Cruz will win (I think Midwesterners find Trump distasteful - Rubio won MN, Cruz won IA, and I predict Trump will not win WI for the same reason). If it's a Southern type state, Trump wins.

IL is in a similar kind of flux in my mind. If it is "rust belt," that favors Trump; if it is Midwestern, that favors Cruz. IL could conceivably go to Kasich - in an alternate universe where he wasn't myopically focused on OH.

In general, I agree with Monkeyboy's pronouncements about who is to blame for the rise of Trump in a limited sense - this day of reckoning was bound to come for the Republican party, as it did for the Democratic party during the elections of 68 & 80. Rubio made a mistake in not going all the way with his rejection of Trump and his supporters over the weekend - it would have been a bold move that would have clearly differentiated him from the field. Frankly he should have gone all the way, and much sooner too. This whole episode will likely allow a weak candidate in Hillary Clinton to win in November, as there then will have to be a political realignment. I may have been too dismissive of a TV post a few weeks ago about the end of the Republican party. I don't think it will literally end - it will exist in some form - but there does seem to be a real shift that has to happen. Will country club conservatives defect once and for all to a new Democratic Party that firmly occupies a middle ground and excludes organized labor more formally than the sort of arm's-length the party establishment has been keeping labor at for some time? Sure seems like that is a likely direction - country club Republicans can follow their instincts and ditch the social issues once and for all, move the Democratic Party slightly to the right on economic issues (it's already no better than center-left on economics), and settle in to a new position.

If I am this sort of Republican, at this point, I am giving serious thought to doing this after 2016, and trying to find a candidate to fit the "new" Democratic mold in 2024 if Hillary wins. The most upper-echelon Democrats are already pretty pro free trade (Clintons, Obama, etc.). I can join them as a "pragmatic" Democrat. I can forget every distasteful thing I've ever had to pretend to care about with respect to social issues (think the Bushes very tepid, when you analyze it, support for pro-life and anti-gay-marriage causes). I can push for an immigration reform that raises quotas and offers paths to citizenship, which makes me look reasonable and tolerant and helps the bottom line by broadening the labor force, thus reducing the price of labor. I can seize the initiative on issues where Democrats have been divided along more-or-less class lines, and further drive the narrative rightward within the party: the expansion of free trade, school reform, and right-to-work laws. I can also push for "fixes" of Obamacare at the margins - but the real country club set is probably largely not that concerned with the existence of the law. Indeed, many big businesses would just as soon have health insurance taken off their hands wholesale, so the idea that Obamacare is some major stumbling block for "elite" Republicans to make the switch seems unlikely. On taxes, rates are already so low there is no real rom to cut them, so all I need to do is push the party to maintain the status quo - which is what it is going to do anyway, so there you have it.

In exchange for all of this, I'll need to make only one genuine concession: I'll need to back - or at least fail to oppose - some version of a plan to make college substantially more affordable for middle and lower class families (the single biggest driver of income gap currently IMHO).

You could then have a Democratic party of the following broad coalition: middle class to upper class college-educated suburban whites, you could claim a significant portion of the under-35 set, being on the "immigration reform" team could net you lots of Latino voters, and school reform could win some African-American voters to the cause. And of course there will be brand-loyal voters who will continue voting "Democratic," even if the party becomes even more a party of the interests of upper-middle class suburban white "conservatives" who love low marginal tax rates and business-friendly labor laws.

The question then will be - will the most serious challenge to this "super party" in the center come from the left - labor activists, leftists of various stripes, more vocal minority rights activists, etc. - or from the right, in the Trump-style nationalism? Could the two groups conceivably find common cause to form a single party - a new "Republican" party, with the result being we have two parties organized along more traditional class lines?

We might have a three party system for a while, with a left, center/center-left, and right emerging.

Gimpy wrote:

Soren wrote:who the fuck threatens someone's kids?

Donald Drumpf wrote:We're gonna go after their families

I didn't do it either, but... damn, Gimpy. You win the internet.

I doubt anyone did it.

if true, big fuck you to the person who made threats

pacino wrote:all your Berned people, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois are close. Florida is a blowout for Clinton. North Carolina is a decent lead for her. Guess we find out if they fixed their models based off Michigan.

Sorta depends which are and aren't closed primaries. Illinois is open, as is Missouri and Ohio. Makes 'em close since non-Democrats get a say in the Democratic party's nomination process there.

Fivethirtyeight seems a little high to me on IL and OH for Clinton, and a little low on MO, although they don't really have polling data for the MO dem primary. They have Clinton at 99%+ in OH, which seems to me to be, in light of Michigan, flat wrong.

My predictions:

Republican:

Trump: FL, MO, IL, NC
Kasich: OH
Cruz: None

Looking at that, that is pretty stark news for the anyone-but-Trump movement, and particularly so for Cruz. But I think that is where this is going. The one thing I wonder is if the photo of that woman giving the "Heil Hitler" solute could be an image that finally turns people off in MO and maybe IL. Don't think Cruz has a shot anywhere else.

Democrat:

Clinton: FL, MO, NC
Sanders: IL, OH

Clinton picks up waaaay more delegates however, as she wins by substantial margins in NC, FL, & MO and loses by relatively close ones in IL & OH.

Everything about drumpf nauseates me, including - maybe especially - his tics, his mannerisms, his very being.

For instance, what's with his flouncy little right-hand jiggle-jaggle?



Every time he does that fussy little thumb & forefinger circle thing, I want to grab his undersized paw, with it's double-A battery sized fingers (thank you John Oliver!) and snap the whole fucking thing right off, and beat him with it

jerseyhoya wrote:Trump appears to be gaining in the polls over the weekend, at least in Florida, with voters saying the Chicago fiasco makes them more likely to support him

It was a good run

yeah, 240 mostly good years. RIP.

I'm just ready for tomorrow to be over really. Will be a shitshow regardless. The two most likely outcomes are that Trump does very well (wins FL/OH/MO) and almost cements the nomination or he doesn't (loses OH) and we're nearly certainly headed for a contested convention.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... aos-213725

hoping so hard for kasich to win ohio

nice post, Moz. I'm just kibitzing on a couple of items in there:

mozartpc27 wrote: I can also push for "fixes" of Obamacare at the margins - but the real country club set is probably largely not that concerned with the existence of the law. Indeed, many big businesses would just as soon have health insurance taken off their hands wholesale...

Smart big businesses find competitive advantage in actively managing their support for their employees' & dependents' health. Dumb big businesses follow the smart big businesses; they're paying their own bills for health treatment, mostly.

Small businesses are hosed. They're the ones who might benefit from more finely tuned system reform, though they, like yeoman farmers, get more lip service than service from politicians.

....I'll need to back - or at least fail to oppose - some version of a plan to make college substantially more affordable for middle and lower class families (the single biggest driver of income gap currently IMHO).

"unsustainable college costs" is a red herring, a tactical project at best and a category error otherwise. We need to rethink the entirety of our means of broadening "aspirational opportunities" - of steering clear of backing into class ossification.

We're not doing much of anything intelligent with education, bottom to top, in the US - what more evidence do we need than the hordes of idiots who find some kind of answer in a revolting dunce like drumpf?

....The question then will be - will the most serious challenge to this "super party" in the center come from the left - labor activists, leftists of various stripes, more vocal minority rights activists, etc. - or from the right, in the Trump-style nationalism? Could the two groups conceivably find common cause to form a single party - a new "Republican" party, with the result being we have two parties organized along more traditional class lines?

My sense is there's a pretty big reservoir of the brackish ooze feeding the drumpf swamp.

Meanwhile, labor's going the way of the yeoman farmer, and other interest groups are annoyingly resistant to grasping that "the economy, stupid" is chiefly responsible for the stubbornness of so many of the particular social ills they'd like to allay.

another thing I'd like to pummel drumpf with - cynical dumbass opportunist Ben Carson