RCP - 10/21/16 - Trump's Troubles Inflict Pain Down Ballot

[ScienceIsGood]

It’s a scenario weary Republican senators have grown accustomed to: On a given day, their 2016 presidential nominee stirs controversy, forcing them to interrupt their campaign schedules to respond. Donald Trump’s refusal on Wednesday night’s debate stage to say he would accept the results of the election presented yet another challenge to embattled incumbents focused on surviving the final three weeks of the campaign.

Many GOP Senate candidates have so far held steady against the weight of Trump. But their campaigns enter a new and difficult phase now that the final debate is in their rear view. With Clinton ahead by significant margins in the polls, Democrats have the knives out for down-ballot Republicans. And Trump, who could face further slides in the polls after this week’s debate, is running like he has nothing to lose.

On Thursday, Trump rallied his supporters with accusations of voter fraud. “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election -- if I win,” he said in Ohio. The GOP nominee went on to say that he would accept “a clear election result.”

Any effective cases Trump brought against Clinton regarding the Supreme Court, emails, and immigration were overshadowed by his doubts about the electoral process. "If you took that comment out, it might have been neutral,” said Rob Jesmer, former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “But that probably made a bad situation worse."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/10/21/trumps_troubles_inflict_pain_down_ballot_132126.html

[Hokie]

1. They need to pay for allowing Trump to happen (nt)

[ScienceIsGood]

3. That is THE STORY of this election IMO. That the GOP WANTED this man to be their candidate!!! n/t

[saltpoint]

2. For some decades, the Republican Party

fed the beast of far-right extremists of many stripes. Made a place for them at the table. Licked the small government 10 Commandments in the Schools trickle-down FOX-fueled anti-Science misogynist xenophobic homophobic bullshit off the boots of Norquist and Falwell and countless others.

Now the beast is vast and has turned on its masters. And a very fierce beast it is.

Y'all reap what y'all done sowed.

[ScienceIsGood]

4. Yep, Tea Party and now this. And they still do not get it. They are seriously a lost party! n/t

[saltpoint]

5. Agree. Yes, we're biased for the blue

team, but there's just no getting around it: The GOP is a madhouse of warring factions, most of them batshit crazy.

Putting it together for a national run in 2020 is not going to be a picnic. I'm not even sure it's possible.

[ScienceIsGood]

6. I tell people all the time. In 2008 I was not embarrassed by any of our candidates for president....

But they had Huckabee, keyes, etc. Many are nuts.

We do not tolerate idiots.

[saltpoint]

9. Yes -- there were some intelligent people

with vision on our stage. For the GOP, not so much.

But wait! The Republicans keep coming up with still worse candidates each cycle. Alway trying to out-do themselves.

[ScienceIsGood]

12. That party is seriously getting worse. And older. I hope they all die off. n/t

[saltpoint]

15. The electoral map is not looking good for

them. Not sure we can light-switch them off in just one cycle, although that would be great.

They are rudderless at the moment. The ship is just drifting through the water with no set course and no captain. And the crew is a mutinous bunch.

May they encounter the great white whale of an electoral landslide.

[ScienceIsGood]

18. You would think the last 2 elections taught them a lesson. But they double downed on crazy this year

[saltpoint]

19. They did. And apparently that's all hunky dory

with Reince Priebus.

Even Jon Huntsman said he would vote for Trump initially. I think he's stepped back from that since.

But most of the rest of the "leaders" in the GOP are still with Trump. I hope the voters have their wits about them and demonstrate to the Republican Party how deranged they are, and how far removed from most U.S. Americans' political leanings.

Fingers crossed on that one. These are the same U.S. voters who preferred Nixon to McGovern.

[ScienceIsGood]

20. Huntsman was way to sane to win the nomination. It showed him what his party really was. n/t

[saltpoint]

21. Yes. The Puke base wanted nothing to do

with Huntsman, which is hardly Huntsman's fault.

But it is the GOP's problem, because no one in their ranks who is nationally electable is "nominatable" in the primaries as long as the Republican base is a pack of reptilian yahoos.

[Freddie]

8. They have one more chance to get it wrong

They'll say that Trump was a one-off fluke and they'll win with a True Conservative. So in 2020 they'll run Cruz or some other far -RWNJ. And lose bigly again.

[saltpoint]

11. It won't be pretty watching the various factions

of what's left of the GOP knife-fight their way to the nomination.

Their road ahead may be worse than it looks right now, which is fine with me. When somebody shoots themselves in the foot, they don't have any right to complain about the bleeding.

[Blue Idaho]

7. They have become the party of deplorables...

No longer a party filled with smart moderate conservatives, it's now more like an unruly militia filled with conspiracy kooks, white supremacists, and dumbshits. Frankly the ideas the modern Republican Party champions make them unfit to govern this country.

[saltpoint]

10. Trump: "I love the poorly educated! I love

the conspiracy kooks! I love the White Supremacists! I love the dumbshits!"

I agree, Blue Idaho. The GOP tried -- or at least claimed that they tried -- some soul-searching after Romney's loss in 2012.

I think it's fair to say we haven't seen any of those findings realized in the 2016 Republican ticket.

Also, to state the obvious, sometime real soon a team of health care clinicians needs to step in and offer comprehensive care to Rudy Giuliani.

[Blue Idaho]

13. Will the GOP do an autopsy on their autopsy?

Seriously, I wish I had never heard the phrase "double down" - I'm so sick of these knuckleheads reaching for a new bottom I could scream.

I hope they send the wagon around to John McCain's house after they throw the butterfly net over Rudy. They are both seriously past their sell by date.

[saltpoint]

16. 10-4 to that. I am up to my neck with

John McCain.

[ScienceIsGood]

14. NONE of my GOP "friends" can explain why they are a republican. Which is weird. n/t

[Blue Idaho]

17. No surprising consider

Being a republican has lost all meaning these days.