I touched on this a bit in my last post, but I want to spend some more time on it. What the hell is going on with Donald Trump? The fact is, nobody really knows (and I’d include Trump himself in that). Look at the reaction from sophisticated observers to what happened last night. Some think Trump was terrific and did exactly what he needed to do. Others thought he did poorly and is now going to tank. They generally agree on how everyone else did, but because they don’t fully understand why Trump is so popular right now, they can’t get a bead on how his performance last night will play. Chris Cillizza at the WaPo says “I think he may be beyond normal political predictions,” and I think that’s right. I haven’t found any scientific polls on who won last night; there’s a thoroughly unscientific one at Drudge showing that Trump won by a lot, which while probably not worth much, does have a very large number of respondents (over 500,000).
So what is going on here? My sense is that Trump is basically saying this (to paraphrase Bob Dole): “this system sucks in every way – you know it, I know it, and the American people know it. The only people who don’t know it is the media and the politicians, because it benefits them. Well, you know what? They suck too. I’m not going to play by their rules. I’m going to say what I want to say, when I want to say it, and the consequences be damned.”
That message is very appealing to some people, particularly those who feel disenfranchised by the existing rules and ignored by more traditional politicians. Furthermore, Trump has been quite adept at boasting about his skill in working within the system, even while he criticizes it. Consider his campaign finance-related answer last night, in which he declared that “our system is broken,” and then, as evidence, bragged that he had given a lot of money to politicians who then did whatever he wanted. That allowed him to say (a) the system sucks because people shouldn’t be able to buy politicians; however, since it’s the system we have, (b) I’m a smart, skillful guy who knows how to work the system; and (c) Hillary Clinton is a tool because she did what I wanted after I gave her money. Similarly, his answer on Atlantic City was very clever. He was able to talk about how laws are set up to benefit wealthy people like him, which taps into anger against the establishment, while also boasting about how good he was at working within those laws, which makes him look like a smart businessman who can get rich even in tough economic times.
Even his answer to Megyn Kelly on sexism, while appalling, was consistent with his damn-the-torpedoes approach. TPM sums it up well:
Foxbots to Trump: Are you not a fraud, a cretin and a scoundrel.
Trump: I’m very rich. F@ck yourself. I have no time for your nonsense.
Between the facts that Trump is playing by rules that don’t seem to apply to anyone else, and that he has enough money that he doesn’t have to fundraise and can stay in the race for quite some time by self-funding, I think he’ll stick around for a while, and I also think that he’ll continue to confound political observers who are having trouble figuring out what is behind his rise. I don’t think he’ll be the Republican nominee. But I do think that, at least for the next couple of months (and maybe longer), he’ll stay in the headlines, and he’ll continue to make the other candidates feel starved for oxygen.
In the “Trump still in vs. Trump drops out” pair of futures, how does it impact the ability of Bush, Cruz, Christie, et. al. to fundraise? Does it make it harder because more of them stick around for longer, spreading dollars thin? Does it make it easier because the Trump-haters with money will dig deeper?
Since he’s not fundraising, he’s not diverting dollars that would otherwise go elsewhere. And I think we’re still at the point where nobody expects him to be the nominee, so donors are still free to back their preferred horse.
I could see donor’s for 2nd tier candidates might be reluctant to give if they believe that Trump will stick around long enough to knock their candidate out of contention in the early primaries, but who really knows.
I agree that Trump isn’t taking much in the way of donations. But, this idea that there’s a fixed pool of money for the other candidates is flat out wrong.
With Trump in the race, does it encourage those who oppose Trump to dig deeper into their bank accounts to further fund non-Trumps?
With Trump in the race, does it take oxygen out of the room so some candidates fold their cards sooner — leaving their potential donors for the other non-Trump candidates?
Surely there’s a fundraising impact for the non-Trump candidates who are likely to go the distance. I just don’t know what it is…
… I don’t think you can treat fundraising as much of a zero-sum game. Ted Cruz got 35 mil from just three people (really 4 people, but I’m counting the billionaire Wilks bros 15 mil as one donation) through superpacs.
To utterly upend Churchill: rarely have so few given so much that we can have so many candidates. And I don’t think, given the history, that the billionaires care how much they lose in this effort so it’s likely the candidates will continue as long and as far as is possible.
I think they have nailed a lot of his attraction. I am a little surprised that he didn’t flame out after the McCain thing.
The question is whether the “give em hell” bit can actually translate into votes once people get all serious n’ stuff.
National politics, and the presidential primaries in particular, are an awful lot like a crappy reality show anyway, so maybe his skills are particularly suited for the task at hand.
I have decided that this guy:
looks an AWFUL lot like this guy:
who, after being aged by the burdens of office, would look like:
for use, Hindenburg-style.
I agree with David’s analysis completely. I think Trump attracts a lot of populist conservatives that voted for Buchannan or Perot back in the day, and that were going to vote for Cruz, Santorum, or Huckabee. Those three definitely get hurt by Trump, and I saw little room for Jindal or Perry before, but there is no room after Trump. He consolidates the far right and populist right (the get government off my medicare crowd).
In theory, this should be a boon to Jeb (as his advisers already believe), but he is so lifeless, listless, free of charisma and gaffe prone that I don’t see him connecting with voters. I think Rubio and Kasich will be the two that end up on the ticket, they had the best debate performance yesterday and are the only ones who have figured out how to campaign for this cycle. Rubio, knowing how Iowa works, is everyone’s second choice. This means on caucus day when the far right is split, people will settle on him as a second choice which will elevate him to a strong finish in Iowa.
Kasich will likely get a strong finish in NH, he is playing to that electorate quite deftly and has a real shot at getting either first or second place. Once Jeb collapses they will split the establishment vote while Trump gets the far right, and Rubio and Kasich will team up at the end to freeze Trump out at the convention. Whether Trump stays in or not after that is a real question.
But my futures market money will go to a Rubio-Kasich ticket, probably in that order. And it’s the worst ticket we could face in the general.
And I’m flexible on who is top of the ticket.
I HAD been for Walker because of his administrative experience until his horrific answer on abortion last night. I’m pro-choice and they are ALL pro-life, so I tended to set the issue to one side. But Walker eliminated himself.
But I still don’t hate him as much as Chuckabee, Santorum, or Cruz.
isn’t a “subtle distinctions” and nuance type of guy
I still don’t see how a failed candidate for Senste can move up to s nomination, but it’s clear she’s probably angling for a ticket spot or cabinet post. I’ll give her this-if McCain was watching he found someone who would’ve been a solidly conservative Veep that could’ve been credible as a VP unlike a certain Alaskan governor.
As to your other point, I suspect Kasich is probably the most socially liberal in this field with a chance. Pataki to his credit hasn’t backed down like Rudy did.
… It has little or nothing to do with Trump himself and more to do with how the media looks at polls. Last earnest poll I saw had Trump at 24% in a greater than 10 person race. That means 76% want someone other than Trump. That 76% is spread over the larger than usual field of candidates and — dare I say it — makes his support seem a little, ahem, Trump’d up. I think this speaks to an “embarrasment of riches” (from a Republican point of view, that is) about how (generically) the base might be satisfied with the field as an entirety.. rather than an generic disgruntlement being funneled through a Trump candidacy. All that is to say there’s enough of what the base likes spread thin between umpteen candidates that the focused anger on Trump seems thicker than it otherwise would be…
All that isn’t to deny that Trump, to a fairly extensive degree, encapsulates the raging id of the right wing, with all it’s contradictions inherent thereto. But as the field narrows Trump should ‘recede’ (I put that in quotes because, like I said, I think his ‘lead’ is illusory) as the five people who like Cruz band with the 7 people who like Rubio and who then turn around and convince the 3 people who like Paul to get with the 4 who like Carson at which point they all rally with the 15 or so who like Jeb.
I don’t know what they were, or how they were given, but I have heard that they were of ‘likely voters’ regardless of party registration. MOST states have closed primaries, so the people they are polling are likely not even eligible to vote for a candidate until the general.
These are the people who will whine about how Crassus was done out of the nomination.
I would like to see ANY poll of actual registered Republicans.
21 States, representing 232 electoral votes, allow some participation of non-Republicans in the Republican Presidential primary.
(For Democrats, it’s 28 states and 318 electoral votes.)
Here’s a detailed rundown:
http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/presidential-elections/congressional-and-presidential-primaries-open-closed-semi-closed-and-top-two/
Map of open or semi-open states for Democrats: http://www.270towin.com/maps/MQ4wq
Map of open or semi-open states for Republicans: http://www.270towin.com/maps/azpbM
I think it is fair to call more than half of the 50 states with closed primaries ‘most’.
I could be wrong, but I think it’s very unlikely that any reputable polling organization is publishing polls purporting to assess the primary without making sure that the people they’re polling are eligible for that primary. I’d be very surprised if the numbers we’re seeing aren’t “likely GOP primary voters.”
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as the party nominees; and, if so, who wins it?
n/m
I think it will be Bush/Clinton in the end, like 1992 all over again. Trump can play Perot and save Cinton’s bacon.
All the candidates but Bush had the same strategy: hang in, others drop out, try to become the alternative to Bush. Trump throws that plan for all of them out the window. I hope they are ready for the most miserable time any primary candidate has ever had. Trump in or out as a third party, Clinton still takes it.
The question will be how she handles it. It may not be a sexy-Bill scandal (you never know) but there will be something.
My own prediction is that there will be something on the “private” emails. Not IRS or Benghazi crap, but rather that it will turn out that some BIG donor to the Clinton Foundation or Bill’s presidential library had an unseemly degree of influence on the conduct of US foreign policy that would not please President Obama. Lincoln bedroom type stuff.
Most of the old scandal junk is very played out, sure enough, but there is always something new, especially with the Clintons. Always.
If, when it happens under the REAL spotlight, she can shrug it off as her husband always did, then on she will roll.
She’s a woman. She’s going to get all the woman vote that is in play. My own wife, registered Republican, is going to vote for her if she’s up against almost all of the Republican candidates.
It’s going to tip the scales everywhere. She got all the usual blue states locked up. With a preponderance of the woman vote, she’s got the edge in the big ones not locked up: FL,VA, NC, OH. Bush/Kasich (or Kasich/Rubio) has a chance, but other than that I don’t see how she is stopped, despite anything that might be revealed.
I always assumed that there would be some of that, but there would also be some sexism so that it would wash. Then again, I was way wrong about the elctorate’s willingness to vote for Obama in 2008, so my assumption may be crap.
Not sure if you voted for Obama in 2012 (male of any color) you’re voting against Clinton in 2016 because she’s a woman.
Independent women are a swing bloc, and they’re throwing their vote to Clinton.
It would take an exceptional Republican ticket (like two competent sounding establishment conservatives from swing states like Rubio and Kasich) to outperform Romney, that is really the ceiling for modern conservative candidates. It would take an exceptional scandal to bring her down. All the more reason Democrats with reservations don’t need to vote for her in the primary.
Only the myopic American media would be surprised by this.
There has been a wave of “go f#ck yourself” politicians doing very well by taking on the system in Europe. Beppe Grillo in Italy may be the best example of prospering by running for office and largely ignoring the system. He is basically a comic blogger who leads a largish party in the Italian Parliament and promises decision-making through online plebiscites. Nor is Trump too different from Nigel Farage of the UKIP, who ha basically said that he expects the media to attack him, so there is no reason to hold back from attacking the media.
This is what happens when a political system draws down its legitimacy, a loss of which can often be traced to the 30-year attack on government perpetrated largely by the right wing. If government is always the problem, then it should be run by someone far from the government. Trump is doing a great job distancing himself from anything the political class considers competent or helpful because a large slice of voters want to vote for someone labeled incompetent or dangerous.
Of course Trump won’t get nominated…he isn’t enough voters’ second choice. But he is doing deep damage to the Republican Party’s brand and I hope he has many more months to continue to do so.
If