The Future President, Donald Trump

As a matter of fact, joefromchicago is my friend. And he's white! Let's see: including joefromchicago, I can also include ossobucco, Walter, georgeobrien, francis, frankapisa, George, JPB, farmerman, fbaez, Thomas, and many others.

Looks like a train wreck in here.

McG has you running in circles.

So Donald gets second place in Iowa? But takes it on the chin.

I wonder if he uses speech writers, or has personality prompters, and analysts on his staff.

It seems 'all of the above' fits.

He accuses you of posting off-topic once, while railroading the thread completely away from the OP. I drop in once in a while, but have to backtrack a couple of pages to see where things went awry.

But seriously, do you think Trump is ad-libbing mostly?

Or he has a staff of writers and aides?

I think he has consults, but uses his own words.

No, I'm not a moocher like the Bundys. I'm concerned about incidents like the standoff at the Malheur NWR because of the precedent they set. We know that federal inaction in the face of these armed confrontations simply breeds more of the same - the occupation at Malheur is the direct result of the feds' shameful, ignominious retreat from the ranch of welfare-king Cliven Bundy. When are we going to learn that we can't give in to the terrorists' demands? It just encourages them.


Yes, apparently I'm now in Canada, which comes as something of a surprise to me. But I'd rather walk around Chicago than eastern Oregon. Much easier to get a Polish sausage or an Italian beef sandwich in Chicago.

What's next for Mr. Trump?

My secret shame is revealed.

What the hell, now I am feeling left out !

Most likely a win in New Hampshire.

The most reliable polls prior to the Iowa caucus showed Trump with a comfortable margin over Cruz, and Rubio a distant third. Instead, Cruz won by a comfortable margin over Trump and Rubio nearly came in second, right on Trump's heels.

The problem with these polls is that they do not include a category for "undecided" -- at least not in the poll results commonly presented on cable news and other popular media.

According to last night's O'Reilly Factor, about a third of Iowa's GOP voters had polled undecided. O'Reilly reported the results of an exit poll of previously undecided voters leaving the Iowa GOP caucus. I seem to recall that about 33% of those voted for Rubio, about 25% voted for Cruz, and just 14% voted for Trump. The rest were split between other candidates.

This would explain the actual caucus results pretty handily: Rubio's surprise overperformance due to a large chunk of previously undecided voters settling for him; and Cruz closing the margin then adding a winning margin, but not as big of a jump as Rubio.

As for New Hampshire, recent news items indicate that among Republicans, undecideds number about 7%. But a third of independents (who are expected to be about 40 percent of primary voters there) are undecided, which means another 13 percent or so in terms of the overall voter population. But only a portion of these self-identify as Republicans, so the percentage of those undecided, Republican leaning voters is smaller still; but they strongly lean towards candidates like Bush and Kasich. Or rather, they did five days ago:

https://www.wbur.org/2016/01/28/new-hampshires-undecided-independent-voters

But now, after Rubio's strong showing in Iowa, these moderate leaning Republican-identifying independents might consolidate their vote in Rubio.

Put together, the undecided Republicans and undecided Republican-leaning independents probably introduce 10-15 % uncertainty. But then you have the possibility of further shifts among weakly decided voters whose candidates did poorly in Iowa but who might be open to Rubio. Plus there is the possibility of a larger than expected voter turnout that includes more moderate leaning independents than expected.

So while it looks like a shoe-in for Trump, it may not be.

As far as I'm concerned, the issue of undecided and weakly decided voters may be the most significant but underreported topic in political news coverage. This may be why some candidates who consistently show low in the polls nevertheless continue to doggedly hang on.

Good post PP.

Trump Says Skipping Debate May Have Hurt Him in Iowa

I doubt Trump would let anyone else put words in his mouth, but that is just my impression after reading several articles on him. I am tempted to buy a whole book on him. I don't want him for president, but I admit to finding him an interesting read. But then again, I am addict to the Investigation Discovery Channel and occasionally read horror stories.

Ask your local library to order books on Trump. Better than using your own money plus it makes them available to others who might have an interest.

Simply put, Trump is a wealthy loud mouth, a racial bigot, and a media darling.

While I agree completely concerning your opinions of Trump, however I also find it amusing that you are a supporter of both Sharpton and Jackson who share being a wealthy loud mouth, a racial bigot, and a media darling along with Trump.

Show me where I ever supported Sharpton and Jackson.

My my you have supported Sharpton rallies and his comments such as no justice and no peace when it came to such cases as Zimmerman.

Now if you wish to be so dishonest as to denial having done so I frankly do not care to search through tens of thousand of postings to dig up your comments out, so you can get away with being dishonest if you care to be.

Then he's certainly wrong for the job. Speeches are written, and the prez is supposed to read them verbatim. Part of the job description.