Part of me really resists going all-in with the presidential primary drama here, over a year before actual elections. As previous cycles have shown — 2012 being the previous big example — practically anything can happen at this point.
It is sort of interesting to observe and speculate about what's going on among "likely GOP primary voters" (the group that is driving things quite a bit more extremely than "likely presidential voters." Why has Trump done so well? Why has Carson? Why has the long game favorite Bush done so poorly? Who will drop out next? OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENS IF ANY OF THESE PEOPLE GET THE NOMINATION?
The fact that one of them will (barring something really dramatic and unexpected happening) is … daunting. The need to run to the Right during the primary season will (justifiably) come back to haunt each of these folk, even the ones who aren't as zany as all that.
Are we beginning to see the end for Trump, and will that carry through to his BFFs Carson (almost certainly) and Cruz (harder to say)? Is Fiorina's rise only temporary before she comes under hard scrutiny (probable)? Will Bush's deep pockets keep him in the game the longest? Will any of the also-asterisked get back onto the main charts again?
Stay tune.
Donald Trump’s slide in the polls is beginning to look real
We’re not saying it’s the beginning of the end, but…
Can you win with faux noise as ur enemy? I don't think so.
Trump your done..you fool..couldn't keep your mouth shut..its a shame
+keith olszewski Fox News' ability to kingmake in the elections has been challenged this year. They are still a key voice, but clearly not the only voice listened to on the far Right.
Trump was always going to slide. His function is not to become the nominee, his skin is thinner than an onion and his mouth is infinitely stupid. He is a wrecking ball that GOP voters are using to knock down the Moderate minority who run the party. They have all the money. Trump doesn't need their cash, he can say what Conservatives actually want, he can promise those things and mean to do them. Then (who knows when, maybe very soon) an authentic Conservative (like Cruz) is gratefully accepted as the alternative.
As you note, the only certain thing is that the picture will look quite different in several months.
It's taken quite a few years for these GOP voters to get the picture, that they are a plantation for the moderate establishment of their party. But they suddenly get it this year.
(Most) Dems don't understand the Trump phenom nor anything on the right, they cannot understand why anyone is a Republican or Conservative to begin with.
Bush is sinking ever-downward, Conservative loathe his name and the performance of his family, he was never going to be nominated once the base activated.
Trump, your Fired!!
What's beginning to look to you isn't real at all, simply because DONALD TRUMP is here to stay and at the end of the day the Republican party will have no choice is choice but to accept Trump for the party's nomination or risk loosing the whole fricking thing, surely I don't think the REPUBLICANS are that stupid!
+Maurice Moses From what I've been able to tell, the biggest problem Donald Trump has is that he began to believe his own clippings about being able to actually get the nomination, at which point he started shifting from an honest (if goofy) "Hey, I can say whatever the hell I want and enjoy seeing it repeated on the TV news each night" to trying to do that in a calculated fashion and coming across as mean-but-contrived instead of mean-but-authentic.
Can we clone George Washington for president?
I can think of several Presidents past I wouldn't mind seeing get another crack at it.