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It's Mike Pence.

Derec said:
But the balance in that direction is not needed as there is no alternative to Trump on that side of the political spectrum as I doubt Trump will face any serious challenger there. As I said, he needs inroads into independents leaning toward Hillary and Gary Johnson and Pence appeals to neither of those.
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Trump needs to hold onto the Republican base which includes social conservatives (who are not enamored with him).

Derec said:
No, he doesn't.
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Of course he does - if you really are worried about Hillary Clinton getting elected POTUS.
 
laughing dog said:
Trump needs to hold onto the Republican base which includes social conservatives (who are not enamored with him).
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They will hold their noses and vote for Trump anyway. And many will not even have to hold their noses - remember he carried large numbers of evangelical vote in the primaries, much to Cruz' dismay.
Why Mike Pence Will Not Help Donald Trump's Chances
Of course he does - if you really are worried about Hillary Clinton getting elected POTUS.
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Frankly, I have big problems with both of them at this point. If I appear to be harsher on Hillary it's because the consensus on this forum is anti-Trump already.

Remember, I voted for Obama twice. Which is also why I tend to be so hard on his policies I disagree with.
 
A couple of things come to mind about Pence--or maybe one thing but with a couple of dimensions:

1) Because Pence is not a rhetorical bomb-thrower, it's easy to underestimate how conservative he is. For most of his career in Congress, he was one of the 15-20 most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives (that's based on the DW-Nominate rankings of congressional voting records that Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal have been publishing for over 30 years). To take one specific example, Pence's voting record was to the right of Michele Bachmann's.

2) Pence is probably the best, or least bad, choice for Trump, at least among the three names that were being tossed around in the last week or so--again, partly because he is not a bomb-thrower type. Christie would have infuriated a lot of the GOP base, while Gingrich is a classic loose cannon. Pence is the least likely to be a negative on the ticket. At the same time, you don't have to agree with the political scientists who are constantly telling us that "running mates don't matter"--which really means that running mates don't have any real impact that can be detected with statistical analysis--to believe that Pence won't do much that's truly positive for Trump. Indiana is a safe Republican state; if it's sufficiently in play for Pence's presence on the ticket to possibly make a difference, Trump is in real trouble. The one thing that Pence may do for Trump is reassure a segment of the GOP base--not the angry part, but the kind of wonkish, activist conservative type, the ones likely to be concerned about whether Trump will govern as "a real conservative."
 
I would say base upon the Sarah Palin fiasco, running mates can matter a lot.

I know we joked about it in another thread, but think of what happens if Hillary picked Al Sharpton.
 
Iznomneak said:
It said that the logo upside down looks like a hand job.
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They also animated it so that it looks like a p ... iston going up and down.
HSZFt6H.gif

As they say, if the logo is a-rockin don't come a-knockin.
 
Derec said:
But the balance in that direction is not needed as there is no alternative to Trump on that side of the political spectrum as I doubt Trump will face any serious challenger there. As I said, he needs inroads into independents leaning toward Hillary and Gary Johnson and Pence appeals to neither of those.
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I agree with this. I don't think Pence really buys him anything. I think the establishment who forced his hand (~cough~Manafort~Kushner~) is clueless.

But that just makes my candle burn a little brighter. ;)

Schadenfreude Candle-400px.jpg
 
MarkW said:
At the same time, you don't have to agree with the political scientists who are constantly telling us that "running mates don't matter"--which really means that running mates don't have any real impact that can be detected with statistical analysis--to believe that Pence won't do much that's truly positive for Trump. Indiana is a safe Republican state; if it's sufficiently in play for Pence's presence on the ticket to possibly make a difference, Trump is in real trouble.
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That doesn't follow, if you're saying what it is I think you meant to say. Suppose it's true that running mates have made no statistical difference in the past. Why would a statistically verifiable positive contribution spell trouble?
 
The TP logo has been flushed from Trump's website.

If Trump were competing on his game show Apprentice, he would have to fire himself this week.
 
Also:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-pence-vice-president-announcement
The Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is playing as Trump is about to walk out to introduce Mike Pence as his running mate.

Nice touch.

Watch.
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I so much want to know who pressed "play" on that.

- - - Updated - - -

blastula said:
The TP logo has been flushed from Trump's website.

If Trump were competing on his game show Apprentice, he would have to fire himself this week.
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Sorry trump, that's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.
 
fast said:
MarkW said:
At the same time, you don't have to agree with the political scientists who are constantly telling us that "running mates don't matter"--which really means that running mates don't have any real impact that can be detected with statistical analysis--to believe that Pence won't do much that's truly positive for Trump. Indiana is a safe Republican state; if it's sufficiently in play for Pence's presence on the ticket to possibly make a difference, Trump is in real trouble.
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That doesn't follow, if you're saying what it is I think you meant to say. Suppose it's true that running mates have made no statistical difference in the past. Why would a statistically verifiable positive contribution spell trouble?
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Here's what I was trying to say:

1) There's a fair amount of research by political scientists that concludes that running mates do not really make positive contributions to a presidential ticket--people vote for the presidential candidate, not the running mate. A running mate can be a negative at times (see Palin, Sarah--although McCain would almost certainly have still lost with a Not!Palin running mate), but they don't really provide any positive boost, according to the statistical research.

2) But, suppose you are skeptical about that research. Social science research isn't physics, after all. What, then, would traditional analysis (the sort we get from political journalists, pundits, et. al.) suggest are ways that Pence could help Trump win the election. One of the big "traditional" ways your running mate is supposed to help you (as a presidential candidate) is by giving your candidacy a boost in his/her home state. The classic "traditional" example of this is Johnson supposedly enabling Kennedy to win Texas back in 1960.

3) Pence, however, doesn't really offer Trump any help in that regard. He's from Indiana, traditionally a very safe Republican state. Aside from Obama narrowly carrying the state in 2008, every Republican from 1968 to the present has carried Indiana pretty easily--and Obama's win was a real outlier that Clinton is very, very unlikely to duplicate. So, the only way that Pence's presence on the ticket matters in Indiana is if there is a large enough swing nationwide to the Democrats to put the state in play; probably that would need to be at least a 4-5% swing compared with 2012. A 4-5% swing to the Democrats would make states like Ohio and Florida pretty safe Democratic wins, while probably flipping North Carolina and putting at least some of Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina in contention. If that did happen, Trump would have much bigger problems than whether or not Pence would help him carry Indiana.
 
Pence has got the right flank now. Trump will shift to the middle a bit. Why not? It's a long way til November. He can pull back to his former self some now that the die is cast.

Watch this snake. He may be a piss-poor businessman but he could sell pussy to a priest.
 
TV and credit cards said:
Pence has got the right flank now. Trump will shift to the middle a bit. Why not? It's a long way til November. He can pull back to his former self some now that the die is cast.

Watch this snake. He may be a piss-poor businessman but he could sell pussy to a priest.
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No he couldn't. The best he could do would be to brand it with his name and let someone else do the selling....
 
MarkW said:
Nice Squirrel said:
I would say base upon the Sarah Palin fiasco, running mates can matter a lot.
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But even in Palin's case political scientists and other election researchers are still undecided about how much effect she really had on the 2008 election.
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McCain was never going to win. There was much displeasure with the Republicans. Indiana went blue and Montana came close.

Palin added some unexpected life into the ticket, and McCain immediately got a bump. That bump started getting a little freaky after one week, but then Palin started talking. Say what you want about her, she gave birth to the Tea Party. The Trump lovers absolutely adored her for her idiotic and spiteful attitude.
 
Derec said:
laughing dog said:
No more than the KKK is upset with you.
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You really are an asshole, you know that. Baseless insults are all you and your fellow left-wing radicals have and you are trying to derail this thread with a racist derail.
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The moment you start posting inflammatory pictures of black people like you normally do, the thread has already taken a huge hit.
 
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