Trump Leading in the polls – why is this important?

[KeepTalking]

To be fair, we are better at it than dogs.

Trumps 15% is more significant than it seems. He is in a field with about a dozen career GOP politicians. These are the people who get the label "serious candidates." Those who answer polls know that. They know Donald Trump will flake apart and drop out long before the convention. Picking Trump on a poll today says little about Trump and a lot about the rest of the field.

In that case, all I can say is that I am deeply disappointed in Americans.

Are you all really so serious and boring as to answer truthfully on such polls?

At least fifteen percent of Australians would pick the silliest candidate, just to fuck with the pollster's head.

I just assumed that enough Americans had a sense of humour to render this result totally meaningless, and I would think quite poorly of your countrymen if that isn't the case.

Don't worry, this happens in America as well. My late Father-in-law was the type who would fuck with phone polsters in exactly this manner. I would do the same thing if I had the time and patience. I just hang up on them before they can get going.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

His numbers seem fairly consistent with historical averages. At this point in 2011, Romney was in the low 20s and he had a couple of main competitors who were in the 10-15% range.

Those competitors were all legitimate challengers and even those in the single digits at this point in the race had a decent path to victory available to them. The race this year is between Bush and NotBush and the NotBush is spread amongst about a dozen candidates, of which Trump is the most popular. While he's a joke to those outside of the GOP base, those in the GOP base are quite serious about him.

 

[bilby]

His numbers seem fairly consistent with historical averages. At this point in 2011, Romney was in the low 20s and he had a couple of main competitors who were in the 10-15% range.

Those competitors were all legitimate challengers and even those in the single digits at this point in the race had a decent path to victory available to them. The race this year is between Bush and NotBush and the NotBush is spread amongst about a dozen candidates, of which Trump is the most popular. While he's a joke to those outside of the GOP base, those in the GOP base are quite serious about him.

This 'GOP base'; is there any way to simply surround it with razor wire and declare it as a high security psychiatric facility?

 

[arkirk]

His numbers seem fairly consistent with historical averages. At this point in 2011, Romney was in the low 20s and he had a couple of main competitors who were in the 10-15% range.

Those competitors were all legitimate challengers and even those in the single digits at this point in the race had a decent path to victory available to them. The race this year is between Bush and NotBush and the NotBush is spread amongst about a dozen candidates, of which Trump is the most popular. While he's a joke to those outside of the GOP base, those in the GOP base are quite serious about him.

This 'GOP base'; is there any way to simply surround it with razor wire and declare it as a high security psychiatric facility?

I believe we may be experiencing a little decline in public tolerance of racism. That being said, I suspect that Trump has grabbed onto the tiny sliver of the society which supports continued racist thought and policies. I think 15% even of the Republicans is about as high as he will get in the polls. He is an ugly candidate with a truly ugly campaign style and agenda.

 

[Bronzeage]

To be fair, we are better at it than dogs.

Trumps 15% is more significant than it seems. He is in a field with about a dozen career GOP politicians. These are the people who get the label "serious candidates." Those who answer polls know that. They know Donald Trump will flake apart and drop out long before the convention. Picking Trump on a poll today says little about Trump and a lot about the rest of the field.

In that case, all I can say is that I am deeply disappointed in Americans.

Are you all really so serious and boring as to answer truthfully on such polls?

At least fifteen percent of Australians would pick the silliest candidate, just to fuck with the pollster's head.

I just assumed that enough Americans had a sense of humour to render this result totally meaningless, and I would think quite poorly of your countrymen if that isn't the case.

I know a lot of the world thinks Americans have no sense of humor, but this is mostly because of Seinfeld reruns. Telling a pollster you approve of Trump is pretty funny.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

This 'GOP base'; is there any way to simply surround it with razor wire and declare it as a high security psychiatric facility?

I believe we may be experiencing a little decline in public tolerance of racism. That being said, I suspect that Trump has grabbed onto the tiny sliver of the society which supports continued racist thought and policies. I think 15% even of the Republicans is about as high as he will get in the polls. He is an ugly candidate with a truly ugly campaign style and agenda.

Ya, I doubt that he's going to be getting much higher. My point was that you can't just write off his support as some kind of joke which isn't representative of the GOP. The Republicans have been catering to the groups which support Trump for a while now and their policies are coming back to bite them in the ass because they have a rich and popular candidate who is giving these groups the loud voice in the GOP which the leadership has always tried to keep to a whisper while in company.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I saw this comeback on the Naked Capitalism links page:

I say it is John McCain who needs to apologize to U.S. military families, for being a perma-warmongering-for-even-the-most-transparently-corrupt-reasons douchebag, and for being complicit in the gross underfunding of the post-combat-support aspects of the defense-related budget. A lot easier to send the fresh-meats overseas to get blown up for whatever the pretext du jour is than it is to give a rat’s patootie about them afterwards, isn’t it, Senator McCain?

I was on the verge of liking Trump, then realized that that was Yves Smith, not the Donald.

Doh!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/links-72115.html