Posted on 12/19/2016 7:15:37 AM PST by drop 50 and fire for effect
The Pennsylvania results will be the subject of academic scrutiny for a long time. Donald Trump and Senator Pat Toomey both overcame long odds to win in 2016, and yet they appealed to very different groups of voters and I believe there was a lot of ticket-splitting there. Trump won a lot of support among Democrats in central and western PA who didn’t vote for Toomey, while Toomey won a lot of support in suburban counties around Philadelphia that Trump lost to Clinton.
Agreed on all points.
“Yet one of the major themes of Bush’s 2004 campaign was opposing gay marriage.”
In my opinion this was just lip service to obtain the evangelical vote. He wasn’t going to expend any political capital on this issue.
He kept repeating that “Muslim is the religion of peace” which left one wondering what Christianity was. The statement that “all religions go to heaven” in the Charlie Cook interview was telling with regard to his view of Christianity. The fact that the Bushes were more comfortable with a candidate with extreme abortion positions like Hillary than Trump tells me all I need to know.
The Bushes are the establishment and exist to make sure there is not a real alternative to the establishment in either party.
“It was blue Collar Democrats that saved our ass!”
Yes. Ironically, many of them were diehards for Hillary in 2008. Her time in the limelight as SoS and foundation grifter did her no favors.
Great post. The Bush family is full of sh!t from top to bottom. Yeb’s abysmal performance in 2016 was an indication that even ardent Republicans weren’t buying their bullsh!t anymore.
>>For example: I don’t think there was a single candidate other than Trump who would have won Pennsylvania.<<
Well, for starters, Senator Toomey distanced himself from Trump to an extent and still got more votes than Hillary did, although a few thousand less than Trump. Granted, he was an incumbent and wasn’t a presidential candidate, but here’s what I find interesting.
Toomey’s lack of outright support for Trump cost him in coal country where Trump outperformed him, but Toomey managed to get more of the suburban GOP vote than Trump. I find this encouraging.
View this election as a river of potential GOP voters. Upstream there are four tributaries, with by far the largest being composed of the traditional GOP voter who supports the eventual nominee, regardless. A much smaller tributary feeding the GOP vote is composed of disaffected Democrats, e.g., coal union members, etc., who Trump, like Reagan, pulled into the GOP stream, diverting it from the traditional Democrat stream, a two-fer. Depending upon a lot of factors, this stream could dry up, or increase, in 2020 and beyond.
The other two tributaries hold GOP voters, but of drastically different temperaments. The Toomey stream is composed of voters who couldn’t abide Trump’s perceived character flaws, and because of that just couldn’t defend a vote for him, even though they easily voted for Toomey.
The Trump stream is composed of anti-establishment (anti-Bush?) GOP voters who would have stayed home or written in a third party if Bush, or Kasich, or ???, were the nominee. Trump won partly because this stream has grown over the past six years of dissatisfaction with the GOP Congress, and because he managed to divert a significant portion of the the DEM stream, with Hillary’s help.
Here’s where I see it going, assuming Trump does just a reasonable job as President the next four years: The Toomey stream and the Trump streams will merge into the rest of the massive GOP stream, and the diversions from the DEM stream will continue. Third party voting by former GOP voters will be way down, and the GOP will be in excellent shape in 2020.
This is why I was very critical of Freepers who decided to punish any House and Senate candidates who didn't support Trump. A Trump presidency with Democrats in control of Congress would have been an absolute disaster.
I can’t speak to all of the counties mentioned, but at least as far as Cobb and Gwinnett in GA are concerned, I suspect Trump’s weakness had more to do with the increase of Hispanics than moderate/Bushie sentiment. I also suspect the same is true for the Texas 7th Congressional District, which the author mentions was GHWB’s old district. It still includes wealthy areas, but much of it has become downscale Hispanic. Unsurprisingly given what has happened to our country in recent decades, it does not much resemble the district GHWB won 50 years ago.
I’d agree that Trump doesn’t have a Republican pedigree, but he did run as one, and as essentially an anti-liberal in nearly all respects, so I think it’s a stretch to say the appealed to “voters from all parts of the political spectrum.”
The question in my mind was whether he meant what he was saying (since he obviously exaggerates in many obvious ways). Judging from his appointments so far, he is serious about “draining the swamp.” That alone will go a long way to fulfilling his MAGA pledge, and I’m quite optimistic at this point.
Nope. Wishful thinking since Issaccson won both easily. The Never Trumpers need to take ownership and quit looking for scapegoats. They did their best to elect Hillary and they did mange to depressing GOP votes for Trump in GOP strongholds.
Ironically, this is part of his appeal to many voters. They're tired of politicians, and they just want someone in office who can get the job done for the sake of getting it done rather than having everything subject to political posturing.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s not “wishful thinking” because I’m a Never Trumper or a Bushie. If it’s “wishful thinking,” it’s that I think (or would like to think) that the Never Trumpers and the Bushes had a lot less pull than they thought and have been outed as completely irrelevant.
NR has the bolls to print this? They started it.
It's the America First party and it's long overdue.
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