Preacher
Gold Member
That's because he knows how to compromise and put aside politics for the good of the people for the most part....according to RCP, today, July 29th, 2015, circa 9:30 EDT, here are the national nomination polling averages:
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Trump has lead in 5 of the last 6 national polls.
In the upper-tier, we see three candidates whose aggregates are in double digits: Trump, Bush and Walker.
In three of the last four polls, Walker was actually in second place, so when the Monmouth and USAT polls fall from the first 1/3 of July fall out of the statistic, if Walker does very well in the next polls, he may just become the 2nd place candidate.
Also want to note that techinically, statistically, one of those national polls is called an "outlier", and that would be the ABC/WAPO poll that shows Trump at +11, not because it is wrong, but because it is so radically different than all the rest. In the other 5 polls, Trump was at between +2 to +3 (which is within the MoE of any poll), so, the WAPO poll is really bolstering his statistic right now, which is fine. Soon, that poll will also drop out of the statistic and we will see what the future brings.
We see five candidates in the second tier, all between 5.7 (6) and 6.8 (7): Rubio, Huckabee, Carson, Cruz and Paul.
Rubio made it into double digits in one poll out of six, and so did Carson, so there is always a possibility that they could once again become top-tier candidates.
The bottom tier, circa 3% and lower, is comprised of Christie, Kasich, Perry, Santorum, Jindal, Fiorina and Graham.
If these numbers were to hold into next week (and I am not saying that they will hold, just giving a hypothetical), then the other two candidates who would be on the ten man stage would be Christie (3) and Kasich (2.2). Kasich just declared officially on the 21st and has already gone from polling just 1% to 4% in 14 days, so who knows that the next days may bring.
Pataki is not even listed, so I assume he is at less than 0.2. Gilmore announces next month, so obviously, he has no chance.
This means that the guy who won the second highest amount of primary states and delegates in 2012, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, would not make it into the debate. Not a very fitting thing to do to a guy who racked up 255 Republican delegates, on a shoestring budget to say the least, but rules are rules and sucess in one cycle doesn't guarantee success in the next.
I will remind that even up until January, 1992, then Gov. Bill Clinton (D-AR) was at roughly 3% in DEM nomination polling, where Christie is now, and he went on to become our 42nd president.
I can't blame FOX or any other network for wanting to make a cut-off, for there is no way to have a decent debate for 90 minutes with 15 candidates on the stage. Assuming 4 minutes for question/answer and possible rebuttal (and 6 minutes is probably the more realistic estimate for question / 3 minute response that goes overtime, audience blah-blah and a 30 second rebuttal that also goes overtime), then we are looking at a maximum of 12-13 questions in the first hour, maybe 17 questions total for the entire debate, including introductions and all that jazz. With 15 candidates on the stage, theoretically, each candidate would only get one question and likely, there will be far more than one rebuttal.
So, even with 10, it's going to be a heavy-lift to make sure that each candidate gets fair time.
And I think we all know how much Trump likes to move his mouth.
I suspect that Jim Gilmore will last all of one month and by the time he drops out, just as he did in 2007 going into 2008, people will be asking "Jim who?", so forget him.
And with an aggregate at roughly 0%, I would think that Miss Lindsay will be packing it in soon, too.
Pataki will likely be out by October.
No way for me to get a good read on Fiorina, her poker face is too good.
But Perry and Santorum and Jindal seem very, very dogged to me, I doubt they are going to give up all that easily. So, we could easily still have 13 very dogged candidates all the way until the deep snows of Iowa.
Is there any candidate from the bottom of the pack you think should be in the first debate?
Take the poll. It will be open for 5 days.
Out of all the GOP contenders Kasich sounds most rational. Pretty easy among a herd of hyena, but he is actually an adult among 8 year olds.
