Who will be the Republican Nominee for president?

[Valmy]

The guys like Wallace fled the Democratic party more than 40 years ago. 

[Valmy]

Yes, one has to be careful to not mistake being slightly less of a raving lunatic with being sane or moderate.  There are no sane or moderate people on the GOP debate stage, none whatsoever.

I disagree but none of them are polling well.

[Liep]

I thought it would be a Clinton vs Bush rematch, but it looks increasingly unlikely.  If I were a voter, I'd vote Bush for sure. 

So your attitude towards US Presidents is the same as with FIFA World Cups?

[KRonn]

I predict Kasich in the end.

That's quite a bold prediction.

It's quite unlikely, but if the right wing candidates split the votes and Rubio sinks due to revelations about his financial troubles, Kasich could win by doing well in blue states has Otto as laid out.

I had thought Rubio's financial issues would be more an issue and I thought he had really screwed up there, but it seems he's been addressing them pretty well and they may not be much of a factor.

[DGuller]

Yes, one has to be careful to not mistake being slightly less of a raving lunatic with being sane or moderate.  There are no sane or moderate people on the GOP debate stage, none whatsoever.

This sounds pretty darn objective.

I don't subscribe to the golden mean fallacy.  There are times when the truth is lopsided, and hedging is playing into the hands of those that don't have truth on their side and being unfair to those that at least try.  Tuesday's debate, just like other debates, have been filled with brazen lies, and policy recommendations based on brazen lies.

[Razgovory]

Or I know what both are, and have no illusions about them.  Read an interesting article about them a month or so back.  Trumps troops are the Wallace voter, the Perot voter, the Buchanan voter.  Working class, white, and distrustful of both government, big business and minorities.  It was these voters that helped Democrats control of congress in 2006 when they became disgusted by the failure in Iraq and then bolted to the Republicans because they feared a Black President was setting up death panels to destroy their guns.  They are the middle American radical, http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74221/return-middle-american-radical

I didn't see any mention of Blue Dogs in your otherwise interesting article.  And none of the politicians you name are Blue Dogs.  Wallace might be considered a Yellow Dog; perhaps you are confusing the terms.

Okay, lets back up, what do you think a blue dog is?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yes, one has to be careful to not mistake being slightly less of a raving lunatic with being sane or moderate.  There are no sane or moderate people on the GOP debate stage, none whatsoever.

Eh, Kasich and Christie are fairly moderate. Bush is fairly moderate. Mind the actual moderate GOP candidates are now required to say certain crazy things as sort of a shibboleth to get elected. Romney had to do the same thing in 2012, he changed his position to be more conservative on a range of issues throughout bout the 2012 Primary season and General election.

The question would be do these people whose pre-Presidential careers show more centrist views behave in a way reflective of what is probably their real positions in the White House, or do they align with the Freedom Caucus and double down on the crazy. I think one reason I disagree with Nate Silver's comments that there's a slight advantage for the GOP this  year is that a lot of independent voters aren't going to be willing to vote for a candidate who "might be secretly moderate", because when someone may or may not be masquerading as a crazy person it makes voting for them very dangerous.

[Valmy]

There are so few of them now I can list them all by name:

Brad Ashford
Sanford Bishop
Cheri Bustos
Jim Cooper
Jim Costa
Henry Cuellar
Gwen Graham
Dan Lipinski
Collin Peterson
Loretta Sanchez
Kurt Schrader
David Scott
Kyrsten Sinema
Mike Thompson
Filemon Vela, Jr

But generally they are more conservative Democrats that value bipartisanship. Moderates, but loosely they do not really have a shared specific ideology.

So comparing them to ideologues like Buchanan or outsiders like Perot is pretty daft.

Wallace is something else, I think those guys had long since departed the Democratic party by the early 90s.

[Hamilcar]

Carson is a very likable, but simply not very strong on the issues.

He does have a certain lack of grasp on reality, yes.

[MadImmortalMan]

AXELROD:  This is interesting because this, seems to me, is the debate that the Republican Party has to have.  Each election the Republican Party has nominated a center-right kind of establishment Republican at the end of the day, and they've lost the popular vote five out of the last six elections.  You hear conservatives like Ted Cruz say, "We need a real conservative."  Maybe you guys have to run the experiment.

That might be the only option on the table this time.

[Razgovory]

There are so few of them now I can list them all by name:

Brad Ashford
Sanford Bishop
Cheri Bustos
Jim Cooper
Jim Costa
Henry Cuellar
Gwen Graham
Dan Lipinski
Collin Peterson
Loretta Sanchez
Kurt Schrader
David Scott
Kyrsten Sinema
Mike Thompson
Filemon Vela, Jr

But generally they are more conservative Democrats that value bipartisanship. Moderates, but loosely they do not really have a shared specific ideology.

So comparing them to ideologues like Buchanan or outsiders like Perot is pretty daft.

Wallace is something else, I think those guys had long since departed the Democratic party by the early 90s.

What sort of ideology do you think Buchanan had?  He wasn't conventionally conservative.  I see no reason to believe that the Blue Dogs were "moderates", they fell between the conservative/liberal divide, but that doesn't make them moderate.  The MARs mentioned in the article were the ones who elected these Blue Dogs, and when they freaked out over the Black President, they went heavily Republican.

[Valmy]

What sort of ideology do you think Buchanan had?  He wasn't conventionally conservative.  I see no reason to believe that the Blue Dogs were "moderates", they fell between the conservative/liberal divide, but that doesn't make them moderate.  The MARs mentioned in the article were the ones who elected these Blue Dogs, and when they freaked out over the Black President, they went heavily Republican.

Buchanan was an ideologue, the Blue Dogs were not. But amongst their ranks was where I would find the kind of socially liberal and financially conservative folks who fit my views. So I had a soft spot for them.

Plenty of the Blue Dogs were also primaried by the left as well. Many others were victims of gerrymandering redistricting. They are basically extinct now.

[Berkut]

Yes, one has to be careful to not mistake being slightly less of a raving lunatic with being sane or moderate.  There are no sane or moderate people on the GOP debate stage, none whatsoever.

This sounds pretty darn objective.

I don't subscribe to the golden mean fallacy.  There are times when the truth is lopsided, and hedging is playing into the hands of those that don't have truth on their side and being unfair to those that at least try.  Tuesday's debate, just like other debates, have been filled with brazen lies, and policy recommendations based on brazen lies.

I think DG is right in this case.

It seems to go back and forth - one party gets to be the Party of The Crazy, and the other party gets to seem kind of sane by comparison.

There was a time when every Dem had to climb up on a stage and try to out brazenly lie one another as well - but that isn't that time now, so the Dems get to sit back and look pretty good in comparison...this time.

But it wasn't that long ago when the Dems were competing with each other about how fast they could surrender in Iraq and shut down Gitmo, when they all knew perfectly well that whoever won would do no such thing.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't subscribe to the golden mean fallacy.  There are times when the truth is lopsided, and hedging is playing into the hands of those that don't have truth on their side and being unfair to those that at least try.  Tuesday's debate, just like other debates, have been filled with brazen lies, and policy recommendations based on brazen lies.

You said they were all insane.

[Razgovory]

What sort of ideology do you think Buchanan had?  He wasn't conventionally conservative.  I see no reason to believe that the Blue Dogs were "moderates", they fell between the conservative/liberal divide, but that doesn't make them moderate.  The MARs mentioned in the article were the ones who elected these Blue Dogs, and when they freaked out over the Black President, they went heavily Republican.

Buchanan was an ideologue, the Blue Dogs were not. But amongst their ranks was where I would find the kind of socially liberal and financially conservative folks who fit my views. So I had a soft spot for them.

Plenty of the Blue Dogs were also primaried by the left as well. Many others were victims of gerrymandering redistricting. They are basically extinct now.

Blue dogs were not known for being particularly socially liberal, they tended to be gun friendly and immigrant unfriendly.  I think it's deep mistake to say they had no ideology.  They were southern in origin and are the successors of the Boll Weevils, Yellow Dogs (from which they got their name), and the Dixiecrat.  I don't know how many were primaried out.  I imagine I can count that number on my hands.  Perhaps you know.