Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. And why not Cruz? Because of questions about his likability? And what about Hillary Clinton and her lack of likability? You presume a great deal about the inevitability of an extremely bad candidate in Hillary Clinton. And of course her becoming the nominee is dependent on Barack Obama impeding the investigation into her blatant mishandling of classified information while Secretary of State. It appears the Director of the FBI is a straight up law and order guy and is not taking instructions from Obama on this. In fact, he came out earlier this week and said it was inappropriate to even inform Obama about the progress of this investigation and that he would not do so. So, if the FBI recommends numerous charges, which is expected and which will be publicly known if and when it happens, it will be up to Obama through his DOJ to impede that prosecution, like he did with Lois Lerner and a number of others. Except this would be such a blatant act of corruption on behalf of the presumptive Democratic nominee that his legacy would be tarred forever by that. So would Hillary Clinton, for that matter. It would certainly hurt her campaign, perhaps mortally. Then again, can you imagine the height of the flames from the bonfire of Obama's executive orders should a Republican win the presidency in 2016? That will have a seriously detrimental impact on Obama's legacy too. Anyway, Hillary is not the slam dunk that some of her supporters seem to think that she is.
You believe an awful lot of bullsh!t. Why do you keep swallowing turds from Bullsh!t Mountain when the facts are so easily Googlable?
Hillary shouldn't be a slam dunk, but the Republicans look like they're trying to give her a step stool right to the basket.
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I don't think this is a matter of what anybody "believes", cml750... (…and I appreciate your response, by the way...)...because people can and do believe whatever it is they wish to believe... ...but again, I think there has to be one thing that's brought to light about The Gospel of Mark, in particular. ..and also, in the interests of not boring or confounding you with a lengthy dissertation (and to show some respect to Clutch and not clog up bandwidth), I’ll be brief. The portion of the Mark Gospel you reference, about Jesus' resurrection (Mark 16:9-20) does not appear in any of the earliest known manuscripts of the gospel. Other ancient witnesses of the same time frame (documents eventually deemed to be non-canonical to Christian faith, mostly, from about A.D. 70, at the very earliest) do not have these passages of scripture, either. Most agree that these subsequent passages of Mark were added on to the original narrative at some later date. That's actually something you will find highlighted in most bibles that you come across nowadays, by biblical scholars and historians. Why noted secular and religious scholars would both agree on some things that are not part of "traditional" Christian theology is beyond me...propaganda is propaganda, after all... I've said before in other places that there is a considerable argument for there having possibly been two competing versions of Jesus' message. I've read from several varied sources, from many different kinds of scholars and theologians, about this and more questions about Jesus of Nazareth that I've had. And I focus on Mark because it is the oldest gospel (historically), and because of the idea that this story of Jesus' resurrection was, at least at the time, common knowledge. It's interesting that even bible scholars and historians...people who have spent their entire lives and their entire professional reputations in research...don't actually have a problem with noting things like this... ...and again, the theology serves its own purpose...one I readily admit to not being qualified enough to debate about. I'm not a theologian. And don't have any intention of becoming one. I had “faith” in something long before I had any idea about any particular theological doctrine about it, and since that “faith” hasn't waned, and has often rewarded in unsuspected ways, I see no reason to not continue to pursue it. I think Jesus, personally, was never, and would never be, threatened by truth…because he would say in no uncertain terms that the message endures…embellished or not.
That's, like, your opinion, man. Gallup says Clinton is -4 %pts net favorable and Ted Cruz is net -3 %pts. So they are roughly equal. The difference is that only 6% were "not familiar" with Clinton, while that number for Cruz is 39%. Cruz still has some latitude to determine his destiny.
The fact that Clinton is only -4 percent is amazing considering the GOP has been attacking her for 24 years. Let's see how Cruz holds up after some scruitiny.
Considering the fact that Romney lost convincingly and McCain lost badly, here's a better question: which Obama states will Cruz (or ANY republican candidate) win? I apologize for repeating myself, but this bears repeating. In 2012, with a bad economy, really high negatives for Obama, and a not-bat****-crazy candidate in Romney, the republicans still lost, and convincingly so. In addition, both the left and right concluded afterward that the cause of this loss was the increasingly important minority votes. So now, with a much improved economy, far better ratings for the president, a republican party which has tripled down on racism and xenophobia, and four additional years of unfavorable demographic change, how on earth are they going to win a general election? Even a major scandal for Hillary won't be enough, at this point. And I'm not saying that's a good thing.
Better turnout/support among white working class. slight change in white support/turnout flips many states https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/
democrats lead by 20 points or more with people that have post graduate degrees. jewish people muslims women blacks asians hispanics people that are 33 and under years of age religiously unaffiliated so the whiter, less educated, older, mormon you are the more chance you are republican. i completely 100% agree with Nolan. the republicans need a perfect storm to win this upcoming election.
I love this chart by 538, I think it's fantastic. Interesting observations: even if I tick up working-class white turnout and %repub vote, it flips OH and FL, which ordinarily would be huge- but dems are still ahead over 30 electoral votes. In addition I turned down the black voter turnout a full 16 points, and the only state flipped was VA. Blue still wins. The interesting question to me a year from now will be: how much have the republicans pushed away independents with their rhetoric? It energizes the base, but the base won't win you a general election.
Also consider Republicans have had a lifetime of target practice against Hillary Clinton. She's probably the most vetted, pock-marked candidate in history and it's November the prior year. She is still standing strong. When the GOP selects their guy, the withering assaults from her surrogates and the white hot spotlight from the press will knock (whoever it is) down several pegs. Though I doubt it goes this far, we could have 1996 all over again. The only way Rubio/Cruz/whoever beats Hillary next year is for some scandal to bring her down. That's it, IMO. The real question is how much the Dems gain in the House and Senate. Also, I have a hunch sometime next fall the idea of electing the first woman president is going to create a momentum and inevitability that is unstoppable. It could be a powerful closing argument for many people. That is, if Hillary doesn't blow it and overplay her hand repeatedly (like McCain did with his military service in 2008).
It also bears repeating: Depending on the ever-shrinking white demographic to save you in 2016 when it got you soundly beat in 2012 is a losing proposition which only gets worse every year. Old white people will show up for the midterms and swing the house and senate a little right, but general elections have now fallen totally out of republican hands for the foreseeable future, until the GOP goes through whatever reformation/schism it so badly needs.
Old white people vote consistently, much more so than other classes or millennials. They can't elect national offices because of the Northern and Western liberal states but they will kick butt locally, unless everyone votes dammit. Ted Cruz Bought Personal Data on Tens of Millions of Americans and He Still Can't Make People Like Him http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-bought-p...urce=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link Ted Cruz’s campaign, ostensibly speaking, has a major leg up on most of the other candidates: An in-house team of data scientists, funded by a billionaire supporter, analyzing the data of tens of millions of unwitting American Facebook users. And yet, people still find him deeply unlikeable. (“I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book,” Cruz’s freshman year roommate has said. “Stop asking us stupid questions and do something productive with your time,” say my parents.) That kind of data isn’t cheap. The company spearheading Cruz’s data analysis, Cambridge Analytica, is owned in part by Robert Mercer—a Cruz supporter who threw $11 million at the pro-Cruz SuperPac, Keep the Promise I. Not that it’s all charity—according to the Guardian, Cruz SuperPacs supported by Mercer and his family have paid the company at least $2.5 million this election season. And so far, Cruz’s campaign has reportedly pitched in an additional $750,000. And they’ve given the Cruz campaign a lot to work with: According to the Guardian, the British company has information on millions of Facebook-using Americans, thanks to a process called data seeding. But it seems not all of it was above board, informed consent-wise. The academic used Amazon’s crowdsourcing marketplace Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to access a large pool of Facebook profiles, hoovering up tens of thousands of individuals’ demographic data – names, locations, birthdays, genders – as well as their Facebook “likes”, which offer a range of personal insights. This was achieved by recruiting MTurk users by paying them about one dollar to take a personality questionnaire that gave access to their Facebook profiles. This raised the alarm among some participants, who flagged Kogan for violating MTurk’s terms of service. “They want you to log into Facebook and then download a bunch of your information,” complained one user at the time. Crucially, Kogan also captured the same data for each person’s unwitting friends. For every individual recruited on MTurk, he harvested information about their friends, meaning the dataset ballooned significantly in size. Research shows that in 2014, Facebook users had an average of around 340 friends By summer 2014, Kogan’s company had created an expansive and powerful dataset. His business partner boasted on LinkedIn that their private outfit, Global Science Research (GSR), “owns a massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States – for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles”. The Cruz campaign reportedly used that data to build models of voters using “six key personality types,” some of whom, presumably, could be persuaded to vote for Cruz. That a company figured out a way to harvest our information freely posted on Facebook is unsettling, though hardly remarkable. But the surprising outcome is this: Despite what the Guardian terms “an intensified collision of billionaire financing and digital targeting on the campaign trail,” Ted Cruz is still a deeply unappealing candidate.
