When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

@ossobucotemp,

I'm relying on other peoples' memories. I was part of it.

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I have given up on the public. If they elect Trump they deserve the kind of government they elected in the house and senate. A pack of do nothing loud mouthed idiots which seems to include many democrats. Here come the nazi's the Jews being replaced by immigrants.

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@Finn
For your perusal. This is from Kevin Williamson at NRO (he has frequently sat in for Limbaugh) this morning...

Quote:

"Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian all are rich for the same reason, and Trump is the Republican presidential candidate for the same reason that he’s rich. He is the parasite, and we are the host, because we, as a culture, have agreed to be the host. "

http://bit.ly/29Wgokg

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@blatham,

I wouldn't argue with that. I would add a few others to the list as well.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
Why you want to introduce the fact that you have a vagina, let alone a problematic one, to this thread is beyond me. Get a grip fellow.

Just a small matter of the history of the term. Thomas Szasz The Myth of Mental Illness has a very good description of that history. You'll want to pick that up this afternoon.

I'm well aware of the history of the term and its application as a defined condition for a legion of issues and complaints from women, but I didn't realize you are unaware that it has other accepted definitions like:

exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people.

You'll want to pick up a dictionary this afternoon. Any edition will do.

Pleased to hear you have your doubts on Trump.

His speech tonight will go a long way towards helping me make up my mind. If he can't resist getting crude and petty at a time when, I'm sure, all of his advisers (including his kids) are telling him not to, I will conclude he has no real impulse control, and I will be registering a write-in vote for Mitch Daniels in November.

As to conservatives on Trump, I visit NRO and Weekly Standard every morning. I read Gerson whenever he has a column. I attend to a lot of conservative media every day. I am very well informed as to what these boys and girls have been writing about Trump over the last 8 months or so. I'm not much moved by your use of a term you don't seem to understand very well.

As do I and while you're correct that Trump receives quite a lot of criticism from these folks, I've not seen any allegations that he will be ushering in an age of fascism. If there are any, they are in the minority and subject to hysteria too.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I wouldn't argue with that. I would add a few others to the list as well.

I certainly would.

Like him or not, Trump is a businessman who has developed numerous properties. That's how he became rich.

The other two have produced nothing meaningful in their lives, including the sex tapes that brought them to the public's attention.

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@georgeob1,

Obviously, Cruz's move last night was in preparation for 2020. Equally obviously, he presumes a Trump loss and believes he is situated to pick up the pieces (probably a good presumption). He has a different set of pathologies than Nixon but he has the intuitive strategic smarts of that earlier fellow. And he will surely get the support of the religious right and be greatly aided by the machine the Koch boys have set up. He's going to be formidable. I'm not happy about this because I think he's a sociopath.

ps... glad to hear you had a good weekend. I presume there is alcohol? But no weed?

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@blatham,

The Koch brothers didn't like Cruz for this round - will they like him more in 2020/2024?

Then again, they're getting old as well. Maybe there will be a Koch coup, the way it seems to be happening for the Murdoch family.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Like him or not, Trump is a businessman who has developed numerous properties. That's how he became rich.

Trump inherited $200 million from his father. That is how he became rich. What he has done since is pretty much mismanage that stake, but have enough hits to increase it 10 fold over 34 years. My guess is that you have increased your net worth by substantially more over the same time period without starting with such a nice stake.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Obviously, Cruz's move last night was in preparation for 2020.

Not sure about that. I think he burnt some bridges. I heard on the radio this morning that is Trump goes down by a large margin, it might look brilliant, but if Trump goes down by a slim margin, Cruz will be toast.

I think for all the calculations, it really just came down to him not being able to endorse Trump. For Kasich, it was probably that in no reasonable universe does anyone believe Trump is qualified to be President based on both his history and the positions he's taken in this race, but for Cruz, it really had to be personal. Trump accused Cruz's father of being in on the plot to kill President Kennedy. Trump cast aspirations on his wife's looks. It's not a political dispute, it's personal. I give him credit for telling Trump in advance. (I think Trump was stupid for giving him a Wednesday prime time slot instead of one on Monday or none at all but that seems to be par for the course for Trump. ) It's not like Cruz ever said or even implied that he would support Trump.

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@ehBeth,

My guess is that they'd like him less than Ryan or Walker or even Kasich because he has the characteristic that Trump and the Kochs themselves have - a need to dominate others. But if Cruz is as sly and chameleon-like as Nixon (which I think he is) then he will be able to adapt or to present a convincing image of adaptability without standing in the way of Kochs' goals - and if he looks at the same time like he can pull off an electoral win - I think they'll put their shoulder into the effort. Of course I might have this wrong but it's what I see right now.

They are getting older, true, (Charles five years senior) but I haven't bumped into any mention anywhere (even in Mayer's coverage) of generational conflict whereas that has been a known feature of the Murdoch clan for a decade or so.

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@engineer,

You could be right but my reading of Cruz's motivations suggests his ambition for the presidency is the paramount element and that slights to his father and wife less so. I really do see similarities between him and Nixon in that respect (as well as in strategic smarts). Nixon came back from a place where everyone including him thought was terminal and won the office.

I'm not at all sure that the margin of loss for Trump will be terribly significant as regards how the right wing base come to feel about this cycle. To a great extent, that can be and will be manipulatable. But even aside from that, it will be another WH loss with consequences for the SC as well. It will be understood, I'm completely certain, as another catastrophe caused by an insufficiently "conservative" candidate.

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@engineer,

I agree with you, it was personal for Cruz, I think he hates him with a passion, it shows big time. I don't blame him either.

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@blatham,

You're right about his motives, but I think it will backfire.

Trump has to go down in flames for it to have any chance of succeeding. If he loses by 10 percentage points or less, and there is less than anticipated GOP voter turnout, many Republicans will blame him (at least in part)

Even if Trump does go down in flames, Cruz is unlikely to be the choice in 2020. He couldn't beat Donald Trump in 2016. He's not widely beloved by the GOP base or he would be the candidate today, and his speech was hardly a clarion call that produced buyer's remorse in those who voted for Trump.

His political career is in trouble. He might be able to get re-elected to the Senate, but that's not good enough to satisfy his naked and excessive ambition.

I don't know that he's a sociopath but so many politicians of both parties are that he might very well be one. Almost to a man or woman, his colleagues in the Senate despise him and that's not because he's anti-establishment.

Having said all of this I don't think anyone is 100% venal (not even Hillary Clinton) and so I think there was an element of principle in his decision. I just don't think it was the main motivator.

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Another big unknown up the road is what will now happen to Fox. Will the two sons keep key members of Ailes' team (which we might presume would want to keep things much as they are, though that's not certain) or whether they'll move to seriously change the tone and culture of the place. Even Rupert said a few years back, "Roger actually believes all this stuff" and the boys and the one girl have been in serious disagreement with Roger's ideological extremism for a long while.

So there's that. But also there's the money aspect - Ailes' operation has been hugely profitable for Murdoch. I don't know what's going to happen outside of some shift away from the fire-breathing tone we've come to know.

And all this is very important because Fox became the central element in right wing media, more influential than any other (including influence on mainstream media content and narrative). If there had been no Fox, for example, there would have been no Tea Party of any significance.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

You're right about his motives, but I think it will backfire.

It might. These steps are a gamble. But that's partly why I concentrated on the Nixon example. Historical differences, of course (the sixties were incredibly volatile which Nixon capitalized on very adroitly (as did Reagan).

As to the term "sociopath", I think I've only tossed it about as a descriptor for Cruz, Gingrich and Trump. One could accurately, I think, use it for others, J Edgar Hoover or McCarthy, for example. I'm wary of it because I'm not a professional in the field but as regards the individuals I've named, if that term is inappropriate, I'd still have to find another with a similar if reduced meaning.

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Boy, I can say that again.

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This is from an Ed Kilgore column this morning at New York Mag (Kilgore is one of my very favorite analysts). But the bright point is the analogy noticed by Andrew Sullivan.

Quote:

Then, Donald Trump wandered into the arena, presumably to listen to his son, Eric, speak, or perhaps to applaud his new running mate, Mike Pence. But it gave the dramatic perception that he had arrived to join in the shouting-down of the man he so memorably called “Lyin’ Ted.” It was, to borrow a comparison cited by Andrew Sullivan, a moment straight out of pro
wrestling.

And here's Kilgore's last graph. He sees this much as I do.

Quote:

As for Cruz, this looks like a bet that Trump’s going to lose in November, perhaps very badly, making the Texan’s lack of enthusiasm understandable if not prophetic, and also making him the obvious front-runner for 2020 as a beacon of the orthodox-conservative ideology to which a defeated GOP will probably want to return. It’s even possible that if Trump wins, Cruz intends to treat him much as he treated the Republican leadership of Congress — as another pol who lies to the good Republican folks. But he’s declined to take the easy way out, and for that, he probably deserves the renewed attention he is about to get.

http://nym.ag/29Wc5RQ

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@engineer,

He started off rich and became even richer. That's increasing his wealth, no matter how you choose to view him politically. And he didn't do it by posing nude in Playboy (Thank God!) or breaking the internet.

If he mismanaged his stake of 200 million, he would be worth less than that right now. Can you provided evidence that he is? I doubt it.

In terms of percentages, I may have increased my net worth more than he has but that's not the "argument." The accusation was that he is a parasite like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. This is a blatantly ridiculous statement, proving that, indeed, conservatives can sometime be assh*les.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Not sure about that. I think he burnt some bridges. I heard on the radio this morning that is Trump goes down by a large margin, it might look brilliant, but if Trump goes down by a slim margin, Cruz will be toast.

I think for all the calculations, it really just came down to him not being able to endorse Trump. For Kasich, it was probably that in no reasonable universe does anyone believe Trump is qualified to be President based on both his history and the positions he's taken in this race, but for Cruz, it really had to be personal. Trump accused Cruz's father of being in on the plot to kill President Kennedy. Trump cast aspirations on his wife's looks. It's not a political dispute, it's personal. I give him credit for telling Trump in advance. (I think Trump was stupid for giving him a Wednesday prime time slot instead of one on Monday or none at all but that seems to be par for the course for Trump. ) It's not like Cruz ever said or even implied that he would support Trump.

Now that Trump is the enemy his enemies (Cruz and Kasich) get a more benign regard from the Left than they did when they were trying to become the Enemy.

You're right that there is a personal component in all this but Cruz is a big boy and this is how filthy politics can be. (Let's not forget that the Dems accused Mitt Romney of the death of a woman from cancer). I guarantee you that if it served his ambition to ignore the Trump attacks against his family he would have.

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When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

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