(08-25-2023 11:12 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/25/ipsos-poll-trump-indictment-00112755

From reading the article, you'd think that it just paints a dire picture of Trump's chances at the White House. Which it does, but, more than that, I think that it opens up a huge lane for a single non-Trump candidate to blast through. If it's Trump vs 15 others, he'll win every single time in the primary and get smoked by Biden 99 times out of 100 in the general. Win for the Democrats. However, when/if the Republican field winnows, voters will have a chance to decide on intellectual purity (MAGA all the way for lack of a better term) vs "high likelihood of destroying the Democrats in the House, Senate and WH elections".

Looking at the Republican Primary and on to the General through that lens, it's interesting to see who has the most to gain from the legal system going after Trump.

Biden? Maybe, but it would be really tough to manage all of the indictments to do exactly the right amount of harm to Trump, but not too much. Everyone working on these indictments has his/her own political career to consider, is anybody going to pull punches enough to let Trump get off with a slap on the wrist b/c Biden asked them to? Biden has one more election in him, maybe, but these prosecutors have DECADES in front of them. How would it look on your resume in a Democratic primary if you could say that you put Trump behind bars? You'd probably clear the field in a House race, perhaps a Senate or Gubernatorial one, too. At best, this is a potential win for Biden, but also a potential re-election nightmare, because...

IF Trump actual goes to jail, or even just loses the Republican nomination due to his electability concerns, Biden's reelection chances tank precipitously. Looking at it through that lens, which Republicans have the most to gain from a Trump takedown?

De Santis - basically the same lane as Trump, he'd get a whole lot of Trump voters by default. Easily smokes Biden in the general elction

Pence - very divisive figure in the Republican party, but if the legal tsunami against trump goes nuclear then Pence just looks better and better in the general. Any independent would consider him, perhaps even some moderate Dems.

Ramaswami - fantastic speaker, great charisma, successful businessman, no reason for MAGA Republicans to dislike him b/c he's a fresh face.

Chris Christie - It's quite ironic that, after facilitating Trumps takeover of the Republican Party during the debates in 2015, he could facilitate Trump's loss of the nomination in 2024. I wonder if he's not one of the reasons that Trump sat out the debate the other day. Christie doesn't get much traction with voters, but he's a worthy adversary to Trump on the debate stage.

(08-25-2023 12:43 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  No one has a chance against old dementia because of the system they have set in place but anyway for those thinking their hope rest in DeSantis are in for a huge letdown; he’s going to lose in the general as he’s just not a good campaigner and has turned off Trump supporters that he needs. He was a good governor but listened to the wrong people in this national run

(08-25-2023 12:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-25-2023 12:43 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  No one has a chance against old dementia because of the system they have set in place but anyway for those thinking their hope rest in DeSantis are in for a huge letdown; he’s going to lose in the general as he’s just not a good campaigner and has turned off Trump supporters that he needs. He was a good governor but listened to the wrong people in this national run

Thats what I think is more important than who we run. We need to focus less on the primary horse race and more on building a Republican version of the DNC mail-in ballot/ballot harvesting machine. Even if the GOP mail-in ballot/ballot harvesting machine is only 50% as effective as its counterpart in the DNC----it would still turn every one of those close congressional and presidential elections into blow out Republican victories.

(08-25-2023 12:32 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I thought this was instructive in terms of the level of knowledgeable understanding of the overall DOJ misuse and misbehavior issues during the last decade or so among this particular polling pool used to generate these responses. Lets keep in mind several scandals within the Obama/Biden Administration----using the IRS and law enforcement to attack political enemies---not to mention the Russia Russia Russia hoax that was operating with the explicit blessing of the highest level of the Obama-Biden White House. Thses operations were simply a precursor to the current wild eyed political assault by the Biden DOJ. It would appear the vast majority of the respondents to this poll have absolutely no knowledge of these background facts revealing improper conduct and use of powers within the Obama and Biden Administrations. Ive certainly never seen anything even close to these actions or activities by the DOJ during the Trump administration.

In fact, more people believe Trump is guilty of weaponizing the legal system than Biden. Fifty-three percent of respondents — including 56 percent of independents — said that the Trump administration actively used the Justice Department to investigate political enemies with little or no evidence of actual wrongdoing. The comparable number for the Biden administration was 45 percent across all respondents, including 43 percent of independents.

(08-25-2023 12:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-25-2023 12:43 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  No one has a chance against old dementia because of the system they have set in place but anyway for those thinking their hope rest in DeSantis are in for a huge letdown; he’s going to lose in the general as he’s just not a good campaigner and has turned off Trump supporters that he needs. He was a good governor but listened to the wrong people in this national run

Thats what I think is more important than who we run. We need to focus less on the primary horse race and more on building a Republican version of the DNC mail-in ballot/ballot harvesting machine. Even if the GOP mail-in ballot/ballot harvesting machine is only 50% as effective as its counterpart in the DNC----it would still turn every one of those close congressional and presidential elections into blow out Republican victories. I mean---we are almost winning with no mail-in ballot/ballot harvesting programs at all. Imagine how welll we would do if we had one just half as good as the DNC's.....