Chanti Handicaps The Republican Field

With as little snark as I can manage.

Mind you several candidates deserve a LOT of snark. I will try to do my best to bite my tongue.

The leaders:

Donald Trump

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 19%, New Hampshire: 21%, Iowa 17%, YouGov 28%

Strengths: Knows how to generate publicity. Appeals to the bigots the GOP has been courting for decades, his ego, his fortune.

Weaknesses: High negatives, his ego.

Presidential nomination chance: Surprisingly good ATM.

Vice presidential chance: None.

Jeb bush

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 15%, New Hampshire: 14%, Iowa 12%, YouGov 13%

Strengths: Has won the GoP fundraising primary, darling of the GoP establishment, family connections, his name.

Weaknesses: Highest negatives among probable GoP primary voters, Common Cause, seen as a "big government" Republican like his brother.

Presidential nomination chance: Special case. If no one locks up the nomination in the primaries and its an open convention, an excellent chance. Otherwise a slim chance.

Vice presidential chance: Again, special case. Would he accept after his father and brother have both been president? and there is no chance that having him as VP means carrying Florida.

Scott Walker

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 10%, New Hampshire: 12%, Iowa 19%!!, YouGov 13%

Strengths: Koch brothers funding, impeccable sense of timing, knows when to keep his mouth shut, hero to union busters.

Weaknesses: Ruined his state's economy, could still be indited, despised by unions.

Presidential nomination chance: He has a chance.

Vice presidential chance: He has a chance.

Marco Rubio:

Strengths: Brash, outspoken, beloved by the tea party, Hispanic.

Weaknesses: Lack of experience, HATED by many in the GoP power structure, his mouth.

Presidential nomination chance: slim.

Vice presidential chance: He has a chance.

Ted Cruz

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 6%, New Hampshire: 5%, Iowa 4%, YouGov 4%

Strengths: Brash, outspoken, beloved by the tea party, Hispanic, fairly deep background in governance.

Weaknesses: Lack of exposure.

Presidential nomination chance: He has a chance.

Vice presidential chance: He has a chance.

Rand Paul

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 6%, New Hampshire: 4%, Iowa 5%, YouGov 5%

Strengths: Beloved by the tea party and right libertarians, has a different style than the rest of the pack, His name.

Weaknesses: Hated by the GoP establishment and the arms merchants, can't inherit his father's machine for reasons unknown to me.

Presidential nomination chance: slim

Vice presidential chance: slimmer.

Ben Carlson

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 4%, New Hampshire: 6%, Iowa 8%, YouGov 7%

Strengths: Works a crowd like he has been a politician all his life, Washington outsider, perhaps the most intelligent person in the race.

Weaknesses: Does not know when to shut his mouth, no political experience.

Presidential nomination chance: Snowflake in Hades.

Vice presidential chance: thanks to the GoP affirmative action program a decent chance.

Personal note: I could easily see him as Secretary of HEW, Surgeon General, or head of veteran's health.

Could be in the top 10:

Mike Huckabee

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 5%, New Hampshire: 3%, Iowa 7%, YouGov 9%

Strengths: Name recognition among the faithful

Weaknesses: That alone is not near enough

Presidential nomination chance: Snowflake

Vice presidential chance: Slim

Chris Christe

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 4%, New Hampshire: 4%, Iowa 2%, YouGov 6%

Strengths: Good tireless campaigner, sitting governor, name recognition

Weaknesses: Bridgegate, that photo of him hugging Obama, widely seen as a bully

Presidential nomination chance: slim

Vice presidential chance: snowflake

John Kasich

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 4%, New Hampshire: 7%, Iowa 2%, YouGov 2%

Strengths: Sitting governor, former Fox News host

Weaknesses: Not enough name recognition, thinks Fox News is real world experience, former investment banker with Lehman Brothers

Presidential nomination chance: snowflake

Vice presidential chance: slim, were he more popular in Ohio he would have a better chance

Rick Perry

Polls: CNN Nationwide: 3%, New Hampshire: <1%, Iowa 3%, YouGov 3%

Strengths: Excellent campaigner, slick as a greased python, lots of positives with likely primary voters

Weaknesses: Still has traces of foot in mouth disease, lack of traction

Presidential nomination chance: slim

Vice presidential chance: IMHO the 900 lb (400 kg) gorilla of the veep sweepstakes

Paul Ryan

Polls: CNN Nationwide: N/A, New Hampshire: N/A, Iowa N/A, YouGov N/A

Strengths: Chairman of the House Budget Committee, former veep candidate

Weaknesses: Believe it or not announced too late, little traction with the campaign contribution class

Presidential nomination chance: snowflake

Vice presidential chance: snowflake

The also rans:

Reserved

Handicaps? Not really sure if whether or not they need a handicap tbh.

1. Trump
2. Paul

No others worthy of consideration.

I don't want Koch-funded Union busters that are pro illegal immigration to get their low-wage employees.

Anybody but me hear that NPR program about how Scott Walker cross-referenced the petition to have him recalled with candidate lists for govt. jobs in WI? Some poor college kid signed it in a grocery store parking lot to support his mother who was a teacher about to be financially injured. When he interviewed for a job a couple years later they loved him until they checked that list.

I can't trust anybody that was on board for the recent trade agreements and increase in presidential powers. I think Cruz voted for this agreement, he's out.

Rand Paul will always be recovering from voting against his father in favor of Romney at the last minute. I will always be suspicious of that.

Leaves me with Trump. My vote is his to lose. He won't lose it by being arrogant or smack talking with John McCain. He can only lose it by promoting policies I disagree with. Keeping an eye out for those. Oh, and don't make Oprah your VP. I think he suggested that once.

If they ran an amendment to let Arnold run I'd vote for him.

Don't pay attention to her, she is off her meds and thinks that she has any say in the Republican running.

From Terminator, to Govenator, reprising the role of Terminator, to Presidentinator!

Wait. that last one sounds like something Heinz Doofenschmirtz made up.

I'd go with Presinator myself but to each their own.

It's hilarious seeing the typical progressives try to talk about Republican presidential nominations. In typical double speak fashion you get this false cartoon of what each candidate is. If we listened to them we'd all think the GOP was a bunch of old rich white racist homophobic retards who bang their heads on the wall every day to fall asleep.

As for this race, Trump won't win because he is actively sabotaging his own candidacy. He is doing this for publicity and it's working. Most of his investments have his name attached to them, essentially "Trump" is a brand and should even have a little TM(R) attached to the end of it. Every time that man gets any form of election related publicity, he is guaranteeing millions of both democratic and republican viewers are being exposed to his brand. There is no such thing as "bad publicity", there is bad PR, but any publicity is good publicity. And because of the election laws, they can't refuse to run his ads. It's all very cheap advertising, all he has to do it act like a fool for the whole nation to watch.

Bush has a snowballs chance in hell, that name simply has too much attached to it. Same with Hillary, as much as the Dems want to passionate beg and wish that she gets elected, the swing voters just see her as Obama 2.0. The Republicans would have to really screw up to lose this election. Which gets us to the Democrat election strategy, which has already started. Their goal is to get the Republicans to primary a candidate who can't win against Hillary. Expect a lot of noise and deception from them this time around.

Fun election to watch.

You should label it as an opinion piece considering that's all it is. If it isn't outright slander lol.

Constantly reading how trump is a surprise shows how out of touch the progressives really are.

Trump appeals to people because he has a spine. Something many see lacking in our current administration. He says what he feels and doesn't care how someone else feels about it or how the media will twist his words. He is also anti-establishment. I think he could even fell the Hildabeast if he doesn't stumble too hard.

I believe it started as a PR stunt, but he has gained so much momentum who really knows anymore.

This nation will be looked back on in history and laughed at the fools who would vote for Clinton in the face of obvious, unbridled corruption. Right wing conspiracy! lol

did you mean rand paul instead of ron paul?

Wait, you mean that that's not their strategy for the last two elections?

That's everyone's strategy, every time, or at least it should be. It totally works.

Sorry, but if you think that noise and deception is best for this country, then you should never complain about how shitty your life becomes when everything goes to hell and the government just made life for you that much harder and overall quality of life decreased significantly.

Who said anything about it being best for the country? That's nonsense.

But every party, everywhere, does shady things. Believing otherwise is naive folly. This is not unexpected; the point of a political party is to win elections. You can best change your city/state/country/world to fit your vision if you're the ruling party, and any means get justified if you reach that end.

The election process typically has very little to do with what's best for the country. If it did, the amount of money that goes into campaigns would be used for something that isn't essentially a gigantic popularity contest.

Yet we see what raw intelligence gets you when you choose to put your idealogy before facts. He'd be great if he wasn't also batshit crazy.

Wait. You really think more than a slim handful of politicians out there want what's best for the country?

They want what's best for themselves and campaign entirely on what they can convince people will be good for them.

No, I agree with you, there are only a slim handful of politicians who are out there with a honest desire to help the country more than themselves.

However, they get ignored because people want the noise and drama and deception. It makes good television.

The only way we, as a nation, could change that and start electing people who actually give a ***about this country is to realize the problem itself and try to fix it.

I think you misunderstood me. Please see above, I believe I explained it well enough now.

And this isn't a party line issue. I do not believe that only Republican candidates only care about what's good for this country. There were no candidates in the past few decades that really gave a ***about this country. Only two comes remotely close in my mind, and that's Paul Ryan and Scott Walker. Paul Ryan because he understand's Congress's ability to influence people's decisions, and Scott Walker because he knows what it means to lead and that he also sticks to the issues at hand (that he believes is wrong with this country) and doesn't change them to suit the needs of a specific group of people.

Yes, they are both Republicans, but before you go all "party line bias" excuse, remember, out of the past few decades, there has been less than a handful of Democrats who actively ran for president vs. a multitude of Republicans. You are bound to get real leaders by quantity, even though they never made it to the national stage (or not make it yet in Walker's case).

The only guy who you could convince me gives a damn about the country at all in this election cycle thus far is Mr. Sanders.

Oddly enough, if Rick Perry ran, I'd believe he cared too. I wouldn't agree with his methodology of fixing anything as I think he's still got a lot of corporate sponsors to please, but I do believe his heart would be in the right place. He comes across as fairly genuine, even if I don't like everything he genuinely is.

Agreed. His heart is in the right place, his mind and viewpoints aren't though.

Oh, I always figured we were on the same page. I was just pointing out that what a party's machine will do is often much murkier than what any individual candidate would do.

This is their nature, and ultimately their duty. A party's job is to win, period, and that means doing the dirty work that a candidate can't or won't do.

When one picks the odds in a horse race handicap is the word used. I use it in that sense.

Fixed. Thanks.

Total agreement.

She actually meant Rupaul!

I stand with Rand, but Trump is very entertaining to watch. I can't wait for his first debate.

As for Walker I've heard good things about him. I have family that all moved to WI and support him.

President Trump would be funny. But if he doesn't get the nomination, doing the 3rd party thing is silly and would ensure a Clinton win. So hopefully he knows when to stop.

I would completely vote that ticket. Rupaul-Jenner 2016.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Grandma Chanti doesn't actually know what handicapping is...

If his goal is publicity, he should totally go third party.

How many losing candidates can most people name?

Yet we all (that is, those of us who were 10+ years old at least) remember Ross Perot.

Not many folks remember Michael Dukakis. Hell, how many people even remember Bob Dole without really trying? Al Gore and John Kerry have stayed relevant, but that they were losing presidential candidates is often an afterthought.

But good ol' "I'm out. I'm back in! I'm out again. No, I'm back!"

Maybe it's just me, but he is the quintessential representative of a third party candidate.

1) Rubio
2) Kasich
3) Walker