Flann 5 wrote: U.S.presidential campaigns are unique in how early they begin and the amounts of money expended in various ways. You have these negative advertisements on radio and t.v and other media used to take down opponents.

I'm not sure what that's like from here in Ireland but it seems to rely on slick soundbites and images.

What's really needed is real debate on the issues. Given the realities of what is happening in the middle east,and the impact in Paris,Beirut,and elsewhere the need for meaningful and relevant foreign policy is no small matter.

As for predictions on Trumps progress or regress I wonder if Dwill, Geo and D.B. are now tempted to turn to crystal balls or astrology as a medium of prognostication?

Trump's distortion of the facts in relation to Syrian refugees is worrying and exploiting peoples genuine concerns about these things is pretty shoddy,I think.

Is there anything good to say about the political circus that so occupies us for two years of every presidential term? I'd have to stretch to find something. The money that's plowed into the campaigns, creating candidates beholden to these interests, is the worst part, but it doesn't end there. As for Trump, I became less confident in my prediction when I read about him being ahead in the Florida polls, with that state's winner-take-all primary being less than 4 months away. The 99 delegates would give him a head of steam that might get him across the finish line first. It does seem unreal to think about.

I just visited my father (in Florida), and he's pretty solidly in the Trump camp, although he was starting to waver when Trump said some negative things about Ben Carson, who apparently is his second favorite candidate. It sort of boggles the mind that any conservative can like Trump, the man who wants to create a police state in order to round up all the Mexicans and ship them back home. Meanwhile, in reality, more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/m ... o-the-u-s/

I still think both Trump and Carson are flashes in the pan and they will start seeing an erosion of support, but on the other hand the world seems to be going insane. I'll make this prediction instead. If Trump or Carson get the nomination, we'll be saying hello to Madame President Clinton. In the general election, the moderates have powerful sway, and there's no way moderates will ever vote for Trump or Carson.

geo wrote:I still think both Trump and Carson are flashes in the pan and they will soon see an erosion of support, but on the other hand the world seems to be going insane. I'll make this prediction instead. If Trump or Carson get the nomination, we'll be saying hello to Madame President Clinton. In the general election, the moderates have powerful sway, and there's no way moderates will ever vote for Trump or Carson.

The view within the establishment of the Republican party is that a victory for Trump is a walkover for Clinton so they are not keen on him getting the nomination.
I'll be surprised if he does get the nomination but the atmosphere of insecurity emanating from the Paris killings and the hyping up of the danger of taking in Syrian refugees means he could get it through his standard rhetoric.

That would almost certainly mean Clinton would win the election as you say Geo. We never know what's around the bend and whether things will change dramatically or not,who knows?

Didn't Obama pretty much come from nowhere to win his first Presidential election or was that just an illusion?

Flann 5 wrote:The view within the establishment of the Republican party is that a victory for Trump is a walkover for Clinton so they are not keen on him getting the nomination.
I'll be surprised if he does get the nomination but the atmosphere of insecurity emanating from the Paris killings and the hyping up of the danger of taking in Syrian refugees means he could get it through his standard rhetoric.

That would almost certainly mean Clinton would win the election as you say Geo. We never know what's around the bend and whether things will change dramatically or not,who knows?

Didn't Obama pretty much come from nowhere to win his first Presidential election or was that just an illusion?

Politics is like a pendulum. It swings one way and then swings the other way. After George W. Bush, Americans were desperate for a change and that's exactly what Obama promised. Many conservatives now see Obama as the Anti-Christ and want to overcorrect and swing as far as possible the other way. Which is why Trump is getting the traction he is. But I still don't think that he has staying power, especially after the Paris massacre. People need to start getting serious.

Jeb Bush is still the official GOP party candidate and I think you'll eventually see him come up to respectable numbers. He's at least sane, even if he's not nearly right wing enough for the GOP far right. George Will recently wrote an article suggesting it's time to give Gov. Chris Christie a second look, and I agree. It truly shows the zaniness of politics when you see an entertainer and an eye surgeon leading all polls and former Gov. Chris Christie not even making it to the big boy's table at the last GOP debate. Only Christie or Bush or possibly Rubio could get the moderate vote and give Clinton a run for the money. But maybe I'm only fooling myself. It truly is amazing to see the state of the GOP these days. Maybe it needs to get worse before it can get better.

geo wrote: It sort of boggles the mind that any conservative can like Trump, the man who wants to create a police state in order to round up all the Mexicans and ship them back home.

Yes, but in addition to that when fearful Americans get wind of Trump's ideas about registering Muslims in a data base, requiring them to carry special forms of identification, surveillance and potential closures of mosques, warrantless searches of Muslims, deportation of all Syrian refugees - and all of this to protect our Constitutional Freedoms - President Trump will win in a landslide.

George Will's "Dump Trump for Christie" column should be taken note of by Republicans. Not that I'm such a huge Christie fan, though he has impressed me in the debates. His remark about not letting any Syrians over the age of five enter the country seemed to be calculated to burnish his reputation as a tough guy. I agree that in the general election, radicals like Trump or Carson have much less promise as winners, should either be nominated.

Flann, thanks for being an astute observer of our politics. I think most us here are lacking in our attention to the political scene in other countries.

DWill wrote: Flann, thanks for being an astute observer of our politics. I think most us here are lacking in our attention to the political scene in other countries.

Agreed, very impressive, Flann! Presidential politics at this stage is a bit like watching a fistfight in the street.

Florida isn't an open primary state, This means that only registered Republicans can vote on that particular ballot, likewise for Dems and independents. The open ballot is reserved for the general election. If Trump gets Florida's delegates I would be surprised. There still is a long list of candidates on the GOP ticket, this fact alone splits the potential vote thin, giving the lower polling candidates opportunity to move ahead in national polling based on this primary outcome. Christy, Rubio, Bush, Trump, these guys for some voters are popular down here. I'm also inclined to suggest that popularity is regional in this state, I'm not inclined to think in terms of any of these guys running away with primary votes. finally, this is Florida, anything can happen.

Taking a stab at the general election, I think in historical terms. Going back to 1960 too the present, what I see is the more charismatic candidate winning popular votes and typically electoral as well.
Think about it, when the final two are there before you on the ballot, how ever they managed to get there, (in 2 instances it was assassination that opened the door for another candidate) its always the one your more impressed with that gets your vote, (don't ask how Nixon was more impressive) Its a popularity contest in the purest sense.
Popularity based on charisma, I think its a given that Clinton will be the Dem's nominee, Compare her charisma too any other opposition candidate and picture for your self the potential outcome.
Clinton isn't assured the White House, but she has a damn good shot at it, particularly if she's up against genuine duds.

The reality is that scape goating Mexico and Muslims, Fear mongering an out group, are illusionary tactics, they whittle away at morality until all that remains is a charm, people want to be charmed, they want to be charmed out of their vote and out of their money. Politicians will get both.

What I see is a modern society struggling to reconcile hyper-sensitivity with a nothing is shocking open mindedness resulting in a genuine schizophrenia.

ISIL scares the shit out of the Russians and Iranians along with the rest of the world, What happened in Paris is merely the tip of a whole new iceberg, What has been the traditional methodology for dealing with this type of terror needs to be turned turned on its head because terror itself has been radically turned, Nothing is shocking to people like the ones involved in the most recent attacks. No violent retribution can faze the thinking of the people we're up against, Total annihilation would fail to bury the ideology that has been morphing and perfecting for many decades.

Segregation by religious belief is the ultimate goal of these people, Power and eventual domination, Its the core of their caliphate, By their very virtue they leave no room for a negotiated resolution.
Diplomats and world leaders have time and again treated this situation as a thing that can be dealt with in relatively pre-ordained time scales, this is fantasy, I'm not one to generally heap praise on any politician's but Bush was partly correct when he spoke of radical Islam being the ideological struggle of our time, he just thought it could be stopped militarily, we now know different, we now know that our children's children will struggle with this ideology as well, How we prepare them for this is what will define our place in history.

Trump nor any others have the answer because they have failed to recognize that old methods are useless, the conventional wisdoms of the past are no longer relevant in a world of hyper-sensitivity and a nothing is shocking schizophrenia. Love in this case has little room as well, We can not love these people to a negotiating table. With the likes of ISIL, they have pre-ordained their security, they can hide among us, they can bide their time, they will never surrender, they will never forget. We've plopped this shit on our children' children's table and we're damned if we know what to do. Sleep with one eye open that's our legacy too the future.

The cost of freedom is perpetual conflict over ideologies that are disagreeable, Bloody conflict is my prediction for the future of this one. Interminable bloody conflict, As I said, nothing shocking there, what is shocking is squeamish hyper-sensitivity too the bloody task ahead, there will be blood, make no mistake, freedom is a bloody mess and all are fingers and toes will dip in that pool.

As to Trump, he's a supply sider, I'm not big on tax breaks for wealthy corporations and the if come of trickle down economies its temporary at best, As to Clinton, her solution is tax increases and gov't as the answer, another antiquated notion, both ideas segregate, Its interesting to me the seeming subtleness of the movement back toward segregation however unintended.

Segregation is reactionary, its both natural and imposed, its subtle and overt, Is it ugly? or can it be of service? How far back will society slide before its to late? or will it not be soon enough?.

LanDroid wrote:

geo wrote: It sort of boggles the mind that any conservative can like Trump, the man who wants to create a police state in order to round up all the Mexicans and ship them back home.

Yes, but in addition to that when fearful Americans get wind of Trump's ideas about registering Muslims in a data base, requiring them to carry special forms of identification, surveillance and potential closures of mosques, warrantless searches of Muslims, deportation of all Syrian refugees - and all of this to protect our Constitutional Freedoms - President Trump will win in a landslide.

Granted, Jon Stewart has a more liberal perspective, but thought one of his comments after leaving the Daily Show was interesting. He thought one of the main differences between liberals and conservatives was that conservative were so fearful. Indeed, if you look at Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory, the conservative seems more inclined to protect his own tribe from harm while liberals tend to overlook such boundaries of nationality and race. This is an oversimplification, of course, but I think there's something there.

Taylor wrote:Trump nor any others have the answer because they have failed to recognize that old methods are useless, the conventional wisdoms of the past are no longer relevant in a world of hyper-sensitivity and a nothing is shocking schizophrenia. Love in this case has little room as well, We can not love these people to a negotiating table. With the likes of ISIL, they have pre-ordained their security, they can hide among us, they can bide their time, they will never surrender, they will never forget. We've plopped this shit on our children' children's table and we're damned if we know what to do. Sleep with one eye open that's our legacy too the future.

The cost of freedom is perpetual conflict over ideologies that are disagreeable, Bloody conflict is my prediction for the future of this one. Interminable bloody conflict, As I said, nothing shocking there, what is shocking is squeamish hyper-sensitivity too the bloody task ahead, there will be blood, make no mistake, freedom is a bloody mess and all are fingers and toes will dip in that pool.

Hi Taylor. My grasp of the intricacies of the U.S. election process is superficial. Syria became a magnet for battle hardened jihadists from other conflicts and past struggles such as Chechnya,the Balkans and other countries who have or had political grievances as well as the apocalyptic hope of a 'pure' Islamic Caliphate.
It's an interesting question to ask what became of the moderate opposition to Assad's brutal regime? It seems for many it was just hopeless as they were fighting both the Syrian army and Isil.
They either abandoned the project or allied themselves with jihadist opposition groups. That may be just a pragmatic approach so whether all those fighting with Isil and other Jihadist militias in Syria are really doctrinaire believers in a Caliphate is open to question.
So really in Syria you have an international coalition of jihadists fighting Assad's army and the Russians. As Patrick Cockburn says Isil is effectively controlling a territorial state and militarily is stronger than half the N.A.T.O. countries.

The combining of a Western coalition with Russia against Isil will be seen by them as support for a repressive regime which plays into their narrative.

It seems likely that this combined attack on Isil will seriously weaken them militarily though of course guerrilla warfare and suicide bombings will continue.

I think there needs to be serious international and diplomatic pressure placed on Russia to agree to elections in the country. It's actually in Russia's own interest to do this but Putin is unlikely to see it that way.
I think the weakening of Isil in Syria could pave the way to some kind of ceasefire and negotiations on territory and other issues.

Cockburn thinks Isil just needs to be obliterated but it's hard to see how propping up Assad's regime will do anything other than have a radicalizing effect on many Arabs who will see it as more of the historic same.

I wouldn't be as pessimistic that some kind of political agreement is impossible. There is a major sectarian division within Islam and what is crucial is that governments in Iraq and Syria govern in a non-sectarian way.

Assad was effectively engaged in "ethnic cleansing" of Sunni Syrians. He really does have to go.In Iraq at one point there were Sunni warlords actually fighting Isil. I don't think it's a given that all Sunnis in Iraq and Syria are paid up members of Isil.

It's almost certain that all those Syrian refugees who have fled mainly from Isil controlled territory are in no way sympathetic to Isil.
You may be right in your prediction of long term bloodshed Taylor but I think there is some hope if key parties whether Iran,Saudi Arabia,Russia,the U.S and the Syrian factions themselves can come to some agreement that is realistic and not just part of a game in the interest of some.
Maybe Isil are just bent on jihad at all costs in which case there isn't much choice other than Cockburn's one. But don't just prop up Assad's wretched regime.
Cockburn thinks the removal of the regime will just create a vacuum for Isil to move into as has happened in Libya and Iraq and will further destabilize the region.
Maybe he's right but it's hard to see maintaining the regime really helping either.

The U.N. security council has voted approving a war on Isil. Did Isil leaders not expect this kind of response to their atrocities in these countries? It seems like a death cult where they hope that even if they are pummeled militarily it will advance their cause or do they have a belief in divinely conferred invincibility no matter the odds?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 42951.html