Donald Trump: Come Kiss the Ring

I'm not a fan of this, and it could certainly change as the campaign goes on, but right now I can't think of a Republican whose chances for the nomination are better than Trump's. I am no longer convinced he will eventually self-destruct. Every time he says something you think will kill him, he gets stronger.

 

Current prediction markets have Jeb as substantially more likely to be the nominee than Trump. From 1.5X to 3X more likely.

 

Jeb's chances are WAY closer to Sanders' than to Trump's.

 

It's a good thing there is a two-party system to tell people how to vote.

 

Well, you've got a helluva arbitrage opening there. Short Jeb (and Sanders), and buy, buy, buy. The payoff would be YUUUUGE!

 

Jeb is on his way down. He is exciting no one. His peak came when he announced.

 

I wasn't going to be the guy to cite John Yoo but everything I read about this suggests that the precedent is pretty clear, being born here makes you a citizen.

 

Trump's ultimate impact on the campaign will be to poison all other candidates. He already did it to Jeb -- played him into the "anchor babies" comment, which will destroy Jeb's hopes of making inroads with Latinos as the GOP had hoped. Then when Jeb tried to say that by "anchor babies" he meant all the Asians coming to our hospitals so their kids would be born citizens, he pissed off Asian groups too, PLUS it was disingenuous as hell and is not what anyone means when they say "anchor babies."

This happened in California when Meg Whitman was running for governor. She was saying nothing about immigration during the primaries until a rich guy named Steve Poizner kept hammering on immigration and made a huge run-up in the polls. So Meg had to get tough on immigration, which killed her with Latinos, which killed her in the general.

 

Jeb is easily the worst candidate in the Bush family.

I have no doubt he'd be a better president than his brother was, but man, watching him try to campaign is brutal.

 

It's still early. This time in 2011, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain were the frontrunners.

 

Daddy Bush is still eligible for another run.

 

LOL ... yeah, if you've lost John Yoo ...