Funny thing is how dug in and uber-emotional you are about this. At least if Trump loses I'm not going to stay home.... I'll vote for the republican. I'm not planning on cutting off my nose to spite my face. You are... but hey, do what you want.

Voting against Trump isn't cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's not an emotional decision. He's a lunatic, he'd be a thoroughly dangerous president, and I value the future far too much to vote for him.

I've voted for the Republican in every presidential election since I've been old enough to vote. I hate Hillary. If Trump is nominated, I will vote for Hillary. It's not to "spite my face." It's because I fear what she will do to the country far less than what Trump will do.

FWIW, I'd say Romney is becoming a better and better bet as the Republican nominee. Especially if nobody drops out soon, it's not hard to see nobody earning a majority of the delegates. He's certainly working to position himself as a potential consensus candidate in that event... I bet Vegas would give you pretty good odds on a Romney bet right now...

ROMNEY/ RYAN REDUX?

Posted by moy23 on 3/9/2016 11:37:00 PM (view original):
Funny thing is how dug in and uber-emotional you are about this. At least if Trump loses I'm not going to stay home.... I'll vote for the republican. I'm not planning on cutting off my nose to spite my face. You are... but hey, do what you want.

Dug in? Yes. Trump has done nothing to make me think he won't be anything more than Trump the Entertainer and a political nightmare. He's a loose cannon that has a great concern for Trump and not much else. He's divided the Republican party with his antics and I can't imagine he's going to unify America. I suspect he'd make Obama look like a master in that regard.

Emotional? Nope. See above.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/10/2016 6:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 3/9/2016 11:37:00 PM (view original):
Funny thing is how dug in and uber-emotional you are about this. At least if Trump loses I'm not going to stay home.... I'll vote for the republican. I'm not planning on cutting off my nose to spite my face. You are... but hey, do what you want.

Dug in? Yes. Trump has done nothing to make me think he won't be anything more than Trump the Entertainer and a political nightmare. He's a loose cannon that has a great concern for Trump and not much else. He's divided the Republican party with his antics and I can't imagine he's going to unify America. I suspect he'd make Obama look like a master in that regard.

Emotional? Nope. See above.

The Republican party was divided well before Trump. The tea party took care of that. 5 million Republicans stayed home when Romney was the presidential nominee. Cruz can't get the Republican Senate on his side. Take a look around.

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/10/2016 12:16:00 AM (view original):
Voting against Trump isn't cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's not an emotional decision. He's a lunatic, he'd be a thoroughly dangerous president, and I value the future far too much to vote for him.

I've voted for the Republican in every presidential election since I've been old enough to vote. I hate Hillary. If Trump is nominated, I will vote for Hillary. It's not to "spite my face." It's because I fear what she will do to the country far less than what Trump will do.

FWIW, I'd say Romney is becoming a better and better bet as the Republican nominee. Especially if nobody drops out soon, it's not hard to see nobody earning a majority of the delegates. He's certainly working to position himself as a potential consensus candidate in that event... I bet Vegas would give you pretty good odds on a Romney bet right now...

Lol.... Romney is a has been. I like Romney but he stands zero chance.

OK, he's made it worse. Before, there was a common enemy named Obama who sat on the other side of the aisle. Now there's a common enemy that's sitting right next to you.

Voting for a candidate that you believe is a horrible option isn't a good thing. Sitting out because you can't find enough redeeming qualities in either candidate to warrant a big "yes" is really the only option. As I said before, Trump/Hillary makes Obama/Romney look like two very viable options.

The best analogy I've heard about this Presidential election season is that it's like America is a TV show in it's final season. The writers have run out of ideas, but they're contractually obligated to deliver more episodes of the show to the network. So they start writing stupid **** That's what Clinton/Sanders/Trump/Cruz/Rubio feels like.

National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg berated two right-wing economic policy figureheads -- Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow -- for what Goldberg saw as their abandonment of conservative principles by supporting Donald Trump's presidential candidacy. Both men have written extensively for National Review Online (NRO) promoting the conservative movement's economic agenda, with Kudlow acting as a contributing editor for the publication.

The right-wing media civil war was on full display on March 9 when Goldberg attacked Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore and CNBC senior contributor Larry Kudlow for endorsing Trump, despite the Republican front-runner's lack of apparent conservative policy bona fides. Goldberg argued that Moore and Kudlow had abandoned conservative purity by endorsing "winning at any cost," and that Trump's policies are a "populist deformation of conservatism." Goldberg's decision to target Moore and Kudlow for their embrace of Trump is particularly interesting given how much the two men have contributed to National Review and National Review Online over the years.

Moore's regular publication history with the outlet dates back to 2003, when he was an ardent champion of the Bush administration's tax cuts, and picked up steam in 2014 when he used NRO to promote Republican talking points on tax and regulatory policy, the federal budget and deficit, and the minimum wage. Kudlow's ties to the outlet where he serves as both a contributing editor (in print) and a columnist and economics editor (online) are even more extensive, dating to 1999.

Goldberg may be targeting Moore and Kudlow for apostasy now, but they have been boosting Trump for some time now -- weeks in the case of Moore, and months for Kudlow. Moore praised Trump in a February 11 column for The American Spectator, suggesting he could "expand the Republican base to include independents and union Democratic voters" and claimed that "Trump is the anti-Obama in every way ... . Trump emanates love for America and pledged to 'make America great again.'" CNBC contributer James Pethokoukis also listedMoore as part of Trump's "council of wise men" on February 22. Goldberg wrote that Kudlow "has moved markedly in Trump's direction" on policy, and Kudlow also expressed his support for Trump's tax plan in September when it was released.

In January, the National Review launched a conservative war on Trump with a dedicated "Against Trump" issue, referring to him as a "philosophically unmoored political opportunist." Goldberg's March 9 article berating Moore and Kudlow is just another barrage in the right-wing media civil war over Trump (emphasis added):

In 2009, then-senator Jim DeMint declared he'd rather have 30 reliable conservatives in the Senate than 60 unreliable ones. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign on the premise that deviation from pure conservatism cost Republicans the 2012 election. The only way to win was to refuse to compromise and instead give voters a clear choice. Many of the right's most vocal ideological enforcers cheered him on.

Until Trump started winning. Suddenly, the emphasis wasn't on winning through purer conservatism but on winning at any cost.

Consider Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore. In August, the two legendarily libertarian-minded economists attacked Trump, focusing on what they called Trump's "Fortress America platform." His trade policies threaten the global economic order, they warned. "We can't help wondering whether the recent panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade," they mused. As for Trump's immigration policies, they could "hardly be further from the Reagan vision of America as a 'shining city on a hill.'"

Months later, as Trump rose in the polls, Kudlow and Moore joined the ranks of Trump's biggest boosters -- and not because Trump changed his views. On the contrary, Kudlow has moved markedly in Trump's direction. He now argues that the borders must be sealed and all visas canceled. He also thinks we have to crack down on China.

[...]

Instead of converting voters to conservatism, Trump is succeeding at converting conservatives to statism on everything from health care and entitlements to trade.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/10/2016 7:27:00 AM (view original):
OK, he's made it worse. Before, there was a common enemy named Obama who sat on the other side of the aisle. Now there's a common enemy that's sitting right next to you.

Voting for a candidate that you believe is a horrible option isn't a good thing. Sitting out because you can't find enough redeeming qualities in either candidate to warrant a big "yes" is really the only option. As I said before, Trump/Hillary makes Obama/Romney look like two very viable options.

I think Cruz and Rubio are horrible options. I will still vote for them if Trump loses. Hillary affects my wallet more than any of the Republican candidates.

They may be. IMO, they are better than Trump/Hillary. I think Trump will affect your wallet more than you think. If he creates an era of isolationism, which I think he does when he rambles about trade agreements, the cost of goods will go up. If it's cheaper for Ford to make parts in China and ship them here, that's why they do it. And that affects the cost of your F-150. The US consumer needs imported goods.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/10/2016 10:46:00 AM (view original):
They may be. IMO, they are better than Trump/Hillary. I think Trump will affect your wallet more than you think. If he creates an era of isolationism, which I think he does when he rambles about trade agreements, the cost of goods will go up. If it's cheaper for Ford to make parts in China and ship them here, that's why they do it. And that affects the cost of your F-150. The US consumer needs imported goods.

It's a possibility, but the cost of business as usual for cheaper goods is the continued loss of US jobs. I'd have to imagine Trump will have some pretty smart people giving him advice. Businesmen of his stature always do.

Its a bigger equation than just if this then this.... Trump also wants a 15% corporate tax rate, a 1x corporate repatriation at 10%. Both of those in theory spur business. Less regulation cuts down the cost of producting goods. Trump is not talking about isolation.... He's talking about getting more favorable trade deals made. Isolation would assume he doesn't want to trade with any foreign nation. That's false.

Of course, it's bigger than "this then this" but it's a factor. So is removing cheap labor from the market by deporting all the brown people. I think Trump's plans will be very good for big business. Not so much for everybody else.