Almalieque wrote:
It's kind of hard to convince people to vote for "The savior", when you and 30 other people are still running. Again, you're continually failing to see that they had two separate options. You're still talking as if they could do both. If your goal is to save the party, then you would do what Gov. Walker did. People laughed at him, but he did the right thing.
And you're still missing the point that "the GOP" has no power to force individual candidates to drop out of the race. So saying "the GOP should have done this, or should have done that" is meaningless. They *couldn't* do those things. If they could have, they would have, and we'd not be having this conversation.
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Gbaji wrote:
There's little to no value to stop trump when the alternative is Clinton (at least for most GOP voters that is)
There are, for the reasons that I've mentioned. Both candidates will always be seen as the worst thing to ever happen to the country. However, it's a different story when both sides are agreeing that a particular candidate is negative. It's not crying wolf.
You haven't mentioned any reasons. You just keep restating your claim. It would not be better for "the party" to split conservative votes on a third party candidate. Period. I'm not sure you grasp that the way a democracy works is that each component of that system votes for its own interest, and that's how we determine what most people want. It's not perfect, but it's better than any other method we could use. A political party is one of those components, and thus it works for its own interests. I think you're also meandering quite a bit with your terminology in terms of who "they" are. The GOP as a party organization isn't saying Trump is a bad candidate (the RNC has been quite neutral in this area). Individual pundits are. And guess what? Those individuals are also looking out for their own best interest. Just as you are when you argue they should go for a third party candidate. You're not saying that because it's actually best for the GOP, but because it's something you'd prefer, for your own reasons.
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How does unifying behind one SINGLE candidate, splitting voters, but having 16 candidates isn't?
I'm not sure how many times I need to say this before it sinks in:
The GOP has no magical power to force Republican voters to vote any specific way, or to force Republican candidates to drop out of the race. You're basically arguing that if only wishful thinking worked, things would have turned out differently. I'll say it again: If "the GOP" could have been able to get the Republican voters to unify behind one single candidate, they would have. And there would have been no need for that candidate to be outside the group that were running in the GOP primary. They could not do that, when there were other candidates in the GOP to pick. What on earth makes you think that, after the fact, they can somehow persuade massive numbers of Republican voters to unify behind a single candidate
who isn't even in their party? That's ignoring the bigger question of why they'd want to do this in the first place. But even if they did want to, it would not work. We know it would not work.
I've already explained this to you several times, and you just keep saying "But if only they'd unify... blah... blah... blah". They couldn't earlier. They certainly can't now. It's like wishing you could sprout wings and fly. Not going to happen.
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Gbaji wrote:
Not the voters. Or else Trump would not have won, right? You get that for your plan to work, you have to get the voters to switch to voting for Trump to voting for some third party candidate instead.
No you don't. Again evidence that you don't understand. All you need is enough conservatives and GOP members who don't favor Trump, to vote for another candidate to prevent Trump from winning the November election. Clinton 50 % Trump 40% Bush/Rubio 10%
Ok. Now you've flipped into general election strategy instead of primary strategy. Again though, I'm not sure what you think the objective is here. You get that you just handed the election to the Democrats, right? How is that "better for the GOP"? Yes, they could do that, but there's no reason for them to do so. I understand perfectly. I also understand that this is a monumentally stupid thing to do.
I think you honestly don't get that from the GOP perspective, the objective isn't to "defeat Trump". It's to "defeat Clinton". More importantly, it's "win as many GOP seats in the election as possible"'. What you are proposing fails to do that. While I'm sure there are some conservatives who might want this, it's certainly not something that the party wants at all. I mentioned this earlier, but you ignored it. You have to remember that it's not just the presidential election. We're electing 100% of the House, and 1/3rd of the Senate (approximately). That's a lot of seats and a potentially huge amount of power. You don't want your votes to be split among multiple parties.
What the party will do is embrace Trump at the convention, mend fences, and move forward as a unified party. How well they succeed at this is subject to speculation, but that's what they will be trying to do. Because it is far and away the best path forward
for the party. Because, as I've said already a couple times, this is not just about the presidential race. There's a lot more at stake, and tossing that out the window out of a hissy fit over who won your party nomination isn't a great idea. Even for conservatives who are not happy with Trump as a candidate, you want them to still show up and vote for other GOP candidates in other races. Splitting off into a third party makes that less likely. Actively endorsing another party's candidate is a terrifically bad idea.
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If the GOP party rallied around one established candidate (even after SC), preferably as a third party candidate. The party could have done the same thing. The party went in the election split 17 ways.
And if only everyone could just agree on everything all the time, we wouldn't need elections at all. You keep repeating this. How many times do I need to explain to you that the GOP can't force it's voters or candidates to do things like that. It doesn't have that power. if it did, we wouldn't bother with a primary. "The GOP" would just pick a candidate and be done with it. The very fact that we have votes assumes that the party does not have this kind of power. Get it? OMG! It's like whacking a brick wall with a baseball bat over and over.
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At no point was I arguing that Republican principles preclude them trying to be president. So... no conflict.
Let me try this again. You're saying that the Republicans were fighting for principle. I'm asking you, what gives you the perception that the Republicans are fighting for principle
as opposed to simply wanting to be president. Pretty simple question.
Let me try *this* again: It's not a simple question. It is, in fact, a
Complex Question Fallacy. Your question assumes something that I disagree with. Namely, that Republican principles are at odds with the objective of wanting to be president. I even said this in the post you quoted and responded to. I put a bold tag around it in this response, just to make sure you don't miss it.
One of those is not "opposed to" the other. One must not choose between Republican principles and wanting to be president. I'm saying that the Republicans are
both fighting for principle
and trying to win the election and become president (you know, so they can implement policies that align with those principles, something you can't do if you don't win elections). Your response just ignored that and assumed (again) that both can't be true at the same time. But that's the part I disagree with. So stop repeating a "question", which itself assumes something that is in dispute.
If you honestly believe that it's impossible for someone to both run for office and fight for principles they believe in, you're free to make that argument. I think that's a hard sell though. But you're welcome to try! And as a suggestion? Don't ask me questions (especially one's I've already answered). Write your own statements. Tell me what you think is correct and then defend that statement.
Edited, Jun 7th 2016 5:08pm by gbaji