Parsing both presidential fields

[Statistikhengst]

It sure looks that by July 21, blackjack (21) will be achieved: 16 declared Republican candidates, 5 declared Democratic candidates, making for the largest Republican field ever in our history and a sum total of 21 candidates from the two major parties combined. I suppose that VP Biden could increase the DEM field to 6 and by extension, the sum-total to 22, but he is not making even the slightest of moves that indicate that he plans to run, and soon, his window of opportunity is going to fade. So, at least for now, it sure looks like 16 + 5 to me, with stark differences between those two fields of candidates.


On the Republican side, the three major factors are all coming into play: Geography, ideological tilt and $$

Geography:

South:

Rand Paul (KY)
Ted Cruz (TX)
Rick Perry (TX)
Mike Huckabee (AR)
Lindsay Graham (SC)
Jeb Bush (FL)
Marco Rubio (FL)
Bobby Jindal (LA)

Northeast / Acela States:

Chris Christie (NJ)
Rick Santorum (PA)
Donald Trump (NY)
George Pataki (NY)


Midwest:

Ben Carson (MI)
Scott Walker (WI- to announce on July 13th)
John Kasich (OH- to announce on July 21st)


West:
Carly Fiorina


8 of 16 GOP candidates hail from the South - the current ideological center of the GOP.
4 candidates are from the Northeast / Acela region
3 candidates are from the Midwest
1 lone candidate is from the West Coast
Interestingly enough, no GOP candidates from the Breadbasket or Big Sky regions of the country.


IDEOLOGY

This is harder to pin down and a candidate's claim may or may not jive with his actual record, and a couple of candidates are hard to even define, but this appears to be the most Conservative leaning GOP field I have ever seen.

Hardcore Conservative:

Donald Trump
Ted Cruz
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
Rand Paul - with strong Libertarian leanings
Bobby Jindal


Conservative:

Jeb Bush
Marco Rubio
Scott Walker
Ben Carson
Mike Huckabee


Moderate:

George Pataki
John Kasich
Chris Christie
Lindsay Graham


Impossible to define:

Carly Fiorina


Money:

Jeb Bush is guaranteed to rake in big bucks.
Ted Cruz has already been pulling in big bucks.
Donald Trump is worth 9 billion - he already has the big bucks.
Carly Fiorina has already launched a senatorial campaign and financed it mostly herself. The question is: do people even know that Carly Fiorina is running?
Rand Paul is having difficulty getting financial traction. He is going to need a big "break-away" moment to attract big donors, I suspect.


Regardless of whom you think even has a chance or not, each one of these candidates is at least interesting to learn about.

We have two former declared candidates in the running:

Mike Huckabee (who won a number of primary states in 2008)
Rick Santorum (who won a number of primary states in 2012)

We have somewhat more diversity in the field than in 2012:

-1 black GOP candidate (Ben Carson). There was also a black GOP candidate in 2012 (Herman Cain)
-1 female GOP candidate (Carly Fiorina). There was also a female GOP candidate in 2012 (Michele Bachmann)
-2 Latino GOP candidates (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz) - this is a new development.
-1 Indian-American candidate (Bobby Jindal) - this is a new development.


The other 9 candidates are White males. All candidates except Lindsay Graham are married and have kids (some even have Grandkids). All of the candidates are Christians to one degree or another.


So, how to stack a field like this up? Hmmmm, difficult.

The opening primary states (IA, NH, SC, NV) lead to a strong possibility that no front-runner will emerge and a big Primary date (FL / OH / MO) is on March 15th, 2016, again with the strong possibility that no front runner will emerge. FL is expected to be the epic shake-down between favorite sons Bush and Rubio. Kasich will likely have the upper hand in the all important battleground state of OH. MO is important because, like OH and FL, it is WTA. Santorum won MO in 2012.

But some things are consistent: some GOP candidates are at between 0-3% in most polling and are definitely 3rd tier candididates:

Carly Fiorina
Rick Perry
Bobby Jindal
George Pataki
Rick Santorum
Lindsay Graham
Chris Christie

Although he will first enter the race on July 13th, Scott Walker is already in the top 4 and has been there for a while:

Jeb Bush
Scott Walker
Marco Rubio
Donald Trump (who has catapulted into the upper tier since his announcement)


Middle tier:

Ben Carson
Rand Paul
Ted Cruz
Mike Huckabee

Undefinable:

John Kasich - only while he has barely been polled, but does well in his home state of Ohio. He may or may not be a one-hit wonder. Wait and see.

Late in 1991, Democrat Bill Clinton was as about 3% in polling and then after Paul Tsongas won NH, Clinton broke away from the pack. So, any one of those 3rd tier candidates could theoretically also move to the fore.

The establishment bet appears to be on either Bush or Walker, but watch out for Rubio: he is young, dynamic, good looking, a relatively good speaker and he has stamina.

The one factor that I am quite sure of is the ultra-conservative factor: with so many hardcore Conservatives in the race and enough debates to burnish their ultra-Conservative cred, this will invariably lead to Conservatives saying stuff to "outconservativize" the others, stuff that will probably be a poison pill for the GOP come Fall 2016.


In the Democratic field, the candidates all come from the Northeast/Acela/Mid-Atlantic region, and were VP Biden to join the fray, this would not change. Hillary Clinton is still the prohibitive front runner, easily at 60% or considerably more in national nomination polling, with avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders making the race relatively close in New Hampshire at present, but holding at 15% nationally. But what does "relatively" mean? A +14 lead in New Hampshire is a margin that is still a landslide margin and one that Republicans can only dream of getting, with such a crowded field of 16 on their side. The STRONG concensus is that, although it is good to have competition, Hillary is still cruising toward the nomination and will lock up the necessary delegates pretty quickly. Her 60% in most all polling reminds me very much of George H.W. Bush's campaign in the primaries-season 1987-1988.

I am making no bets on the GOP field: anything can happen, including a hung-convention and maybe even a dark-horse candidate. There is also the possibility that with so many ultra-conservative candidates, vying mostly from the South, that they split the ultra-conservative vote and allow either a Bush or a Walker an easier path than the polls are showing. Or a candidate can have a really nasty "gotcha" moment in a debate and therefore change the entire primary calculus.

One other fact is that money is not unlimited and the more expensive a primary season is, the more exhaustied people may be when it comes to the General in the Fall.

Now, I personally have a very strong view of who is going to win in the Fall of 2016, but watching the GOP primary field is indeed going to be fascinating, and probably one for the record books in a number of ways. I suspect that we are going to see some interesting surprises along the way. And the issues of the day are guaranteed to play a major role.


Your thoughts?

How would you parse the R field?

 

[Two Thumbs]

that got long and kinda boring

try breaking them down by types of conservatives, not hard right, right mod, etc

there's a big difference between a fiscal and social conservative and ones that actually do as they say

and Trumps a prima donna, he wont last, he just wants the pr

 

[DarkFury]

Doing RE-treads are you?
Parsing both the R and D presidential fields. US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

 

[Statistikhengst]

that got long and kinda boring

try breaking them down by types of conservatives, not hard right, right mod, etc

there's a big difference between a fiscal and social conservative and ones that actually do as they say

and Trumps a prima donna, he wont last, he just wants the pr

Yes, I can imagine that information makes your eyes glaze over.

 

[Statistikhengst]

Doing RE-treads are you?
Parsing both the R and D presidential fields. US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

The fields have grown since then, or perhaps you are too stupid to realize this.

Yes, I believe you are too stupid to realize this.

Yepp, yer a Rightie!!!

 

[Moonglow]

George Pataki (NY) Last name sounds like someone spitting tobacco....

 

[Grandma]

One needs to look at the motive for running.

Sure, any one of them would like to be the Chief Executive, but some of them know it's not gonna happen.

Are they instead hoping for the Vice Presidency? A Cabinet position or cushy ambassador job? Wanting to get picked up by a lobbyist group? I think this is what's up with some of them.

 

[Statistikhengst]

One needs to look at the motive for running.

Sure, any one of them would like to be the Chief Executive, but some of them know it's not gonna happen.

Are they instead hoping for the Vice Presidency? A Cabinet position or cushy ambassador job? Wanting to get picked up by a lobbyist group? I think this is what's up with some of them.

And this would not be surprising at all, it has happened in both parties in the past.

I think what it is flying over the heads of many of our Conservative friends is that with such an enormous field, full of candidates who are likely willing to go at least 3/4 of the way no matter what, the entire strategema calculations pretty much fly out the window.

I suspect that the upper 5 candidates will all be within striking distance of each other for a good, long time. A +5 lead, with the leading candidate under 20%, means little.

And a candidate like a Rick Santorum, who is mired at about 2% but who already won 11 states in 2012, and on a shoestring budget, to note, could pull off some upsets.

I just don't see a front-runner emerging after IA, NH, SC and NV. In fact, it is entirely possible that there could be four completely different winners and since the delegate allocation is at least partly proportional in these four states, no one will walk away with WTA.

In 2012, after many days of back and forth, Rick Santorum eeked out a razor-thin win in Iowa, but Ron Paul actually got more delegates.

And there is the Trump factor. Will be have as much sway as soon as the first primaries are underway? I don't know, but with him worth 9 billion USD, there is no reason for him to have to exit the race at any time. He could pull a Perot after the convention, even.

I fully expect that George Pataki will gain no traction at all and am almost willing to bet that he will be the first Republican to exit the race, maybe the third. Lindsay Graham will probably be the second, prolly after he loses in his home state of South Carolina. Carly Fiorina is going to go nowhere fast, but like Donald Trump, she can burn through her money for a while. But with demon sheep following her everwhere, she, I think, will be the third or maybe the first to exit the primaries.

I would not underestimate Rick Perry's ability to learn from his own mistakes. He's not my type, but I respect the fact that Perry is a straight speaker and indeed can learn.

Rubio really could theoretically run away with it, and his youth and vigor could make him very competitive against Hillary, also help to maybe change some Latino minds. Only, I don't think that Rubio is going to win the nomination. I think he is the one who may be picked for the VP slot.

I bet that Ted Cruz stays in until the end and it's candidates like Cruz, Paul and Kasich who could each rack up enough delegates in order to assure that upper tier candidates like Bush, Walker and Trump don't get enough delegates to even get close to 50% +1. In other words, in order to hold sway at the convention, both Trump and Paul could amass enough delegates to force concessions from a front runner in order to release their delegates on the 2nd ballot. In most states, the delegates are locked in for the 1st ballot.

Mike Huckabee has already publicly expressed disgust with his own party over the gay issues and he already threatened, even earlier this year, to leave the party. If there ever way a candidate who, seeing no path for a GOP victory in the Fall, could bolt and make a third party, a Christian Party, if you will, if could very well be a Mike Huckabee.

Rand Paul has good chance of winning KY, if nothing else.
Ted Cruz is very, very likely to win TX, and therefore, a bevy of delegates.
Scott Walker will win his home state of Wisconsin. Ditto for John Kasich in Ohio, where polling shows him heavily favored.
Ben Carson could make a big dent in his home state of Michigan, but probably will not win it. If I recall, MI does WTA per CD.

Mike Huckabee will win Arkansas and he and Santorum will duke it out for MO, which is WTA.
Whoever wins IA will probably not win NH and whoever wins NH will not have enough delegates to really establish a lead.

The two states that therefore can give the first indication of a front runner, maybe, would be SC and NV. This is why I bet that Jeb will make a heavy play for SC, while Rand Paul or Ted Cruz could pull off an amazing upset at the NV caucuses.

And all this wheeling and dealing leads us to March 15th, with Ohio, Florida and Missouri, all delegate rich states, all WTA, with all eyes on Bush/Rubio in Florida. And little states that are usually not given much attention (Idaho, the Dakotas, Oklahoma) could all of a sudden become very, very important.

There are just too many variables right now and who knows what kind of impact Scott Walker is going to have.

Wait and see.

 

[rightwinger]

21 candidates is not that big a deal right now. The question is, how long will they hang around?

With Citizen United, candidates can hang around as long as they have a sugar daddy. If 2016 turns out like 2012, we will have 8-10 Republicans slogging through the primaries consuming each other and wasting resources

In the end, Bush will win.....not even close