Posted on 11/26/2015 8:20:18 AM PST by C. Edmund Wright
In an exchange with Paul Krugman, political scientist Alan Abramowitz made one of the best cases I've heard for, as Krugman put it, "thinking the Trumpthinkable." At some point, Abramowitz argued, pundits need to admit that Trump has a good chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination.
But that remains a minority viewpoint. Nate Silver, for instance, published a piece arguing that analysts extrapolating forward from Trump's current (and impressively durable) poll lead are likely to be disappointed. So I called Abramowitz and asked him to walk me through his argument in more detail.
(snip)...... I saw what Nate Silver posted on FiveThirtyEight, and what he's saying is reasonable based on the history of these presidential nominations, but there are a couple things I think are different this year.
Silver makes the case that the polls at this point don't necessarily mean much, and you can get big swings in voter preferences in relatively short periods of time. And that's true. What I think is different is Republicans are tuned in to a much greater degree than they were at this point in previous nomination contests. You can see that in polling when you ask whether voters are paying attention, and you can see that in ratings for the debates. The idea that voters aren't tuned in yet and won't make up their minds till January or later may not prove as true as it has in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
It is agnostic on whether Trump would be a good nominee or not, but these are lefties. What is amazing is that they understand what's going on.
Trump leading all the polls for 4.5 months, drawing crowds of thousands and he might win. I would never have come up with that one. :-)
Ezra Klein was the organizer of JourNoList, the outfit made up of about 200-300 bloggers and reporters who were actively campaigning for 0bama. When Palin came on the scene, this same crew are the ones who spent the campaign trashing her, and her family, and even continued long after the election.
Essentially, Klein is just another dirtbag.
Anybody taking bets that state reps at the convention will be, uh, informed that Mr. Trump is NOT to be nominated?
Yes, it is.
I am not an analyst and dont have a degree it political science.
I look at the polls and he is beating all republicans and Hillary in some polls. That’s good enough for me.
Agree with other FREEPER. Author is a dirt bag.
If Trump is nominated he will win YUGE!
The issue that has been purposely thwarted by the establishment is the illegal alien inundation.
People have finally realized that both parties are responsible for the non-enforcement.
And it has not been incompetence, but malfeasence bordering on Treason.
yeah well these guys are like weather forecasters, they call for sunshine all but they don’t stick their heads outside to see that it is raining
This is what worries me...that the GOPe would rather start a riot that ends up with Clinton beating Jeb than having Trump be POTUS.
The GOPe have been traitors to their voters before and they’re still collecting paychecks so why stop now?
Trump leading all the polls for 4.5 months, drawing crowds of thousands and he might win. I would never have come up with that one. :-)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Not to mention that he has far more money than he needs, has a tremendous ground campaign, and a very nimble media infrastructure (ie, Trump on Twitter).
Someone posted something the other day that Bill Bennet thinks that some one may try to, uh, remove Trump from the race by nefarious means. In any case, if Trump wins the caucuses/primaries, will the delegates still be instructed to NOT vote for him at the convention? Or merely with hold their votes. How many rounds of votes before a cant-idate is nominated?
Yes we could have clued Ezra in a long time ago. LOL!
I disagree on that point.
He is far from just another, a mere. He is a primary, front row center Bag of Dirt.
I would not take that bet as its fun to fantasize about these types of things but in reality whoever wins the primaries and gets the magic number of candidates will be the nominee.
He is a primary, front row center Bag of Dirt.
I stand corrected, and I’m going to have to use that description sometime.
He not only has to fight the rats...even worse he has to fight his own party. The GOPe has really shown itself for what it is since the dawn of the Tea Party.
They called me the other day asking for money and I brought up Mitch McConnell and Thad Cochran, the unlimited spending, etc. The guy said “oh, there is room for improvement”. All he wanted to talk about was bogymen - what if the rats take Congress - well I asked what difference would it make?
I told him the only reason I took the call was to tell someone there how angry we are and I was not going to give them a penny.
Their choking grip on the dissemination of news is slipping, and the power with it.
It is worth getting up each morning just to experience the gnashings and rendings.
Go Trump, Go Cruz, in any order.
Might? Hell he is the next President and America will make a turn around to sanity.
Right, Klein commenting on the Republican race is as meaningful as Khameini commenting on the selection of the Pope; look for disinformation and misdirection here.
I agree with much of the reasoning in this article. Those that dismiss and underestimate Trump do so to their own demise. His support is very strong and consistent. He is not only strong in the South but blows everyone away in the NE. He’s also strong in the Midwest though places like MI and WI have been a bit tighter with Carson leading there slightly in the polls but the problem is that even in places where Trump is not leading he’s still racking up very strong double digit showings that are within the margin of error of the leader.
It is without a doubt that if Jeb Bush had the Trump numbers the GOP-E and the media would have declared the race over. Its going to be very hard to change the trajectory of this race if Trump wins Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. If Trump wins Florida and he has had consist big leads there then its over for Rubio and Bush. Cruz needs to win Iowa which he appears to have a really good shot at. Trump at this point has a near lock on New Hampshire and I work in the north east and they love Trump in a way I’ve never seen people love a Republican in that area. Trump has a big asset and that is he is animating large numbers of disaffected voters who have in the past voted infrequently or not at all. If Trump gets those voters to the polls then its going to be very hard for anyone to beat him and though I support Cruz I think its very good for the GOP. I’ve always though it was better to appeal to blue collar voters and working class voters than to water down party positions to be more like liberal Democrats and Trump is really putting that theory to the test.
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