Bernie and the Electric Kool-Aid Socialist Test:

"If you watched Tuesday's Democratic debates, you probably noticed a whole lot of yelling. Indeed, the event, sponsored by CNN, was a veritable white-knuckle ride of hollering, with most of it coming from just one guy -- a guy who looked like he just received a nasty shock trying to jump-start his DeLorean in a shed filled with half-baked inventions and sad, peeling posters celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This guy also specialized, I should add, in occasional, disgusted harrumphs.

"I'm talking, of course, about Bernie Sanders, who may not have won the debate, but who certainly set the tone. It was amazing to behold: In a country where just 26 percent of voters describe themselves as 'liberal,' the Democratic Party has apparently gone full-bore, hair-on-fire Oberlin dorm room progressive.

"Sanders' poll numbers with Democratic voters -- which hover around 25 percent, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average -- are astounding, given the fact that he aims to haphazardly micromanage our country back to the economic Stone Age." - Heather Wilhelm, RealClearPolitics

Old People Yelling and Hillary Tells a Truth

Besides the expected old people yellin' about Republicans and Bernie Sanders looking like he should be angrily stamping your Property Tax Assessment, last nights debate did have one surprise I think no one saw coming.  It is indeed a historical moment in politics when someone named Clinton actually utters a verifiable truth. Hillary shocked the world last night by speaking about one particular topic. She has a vagina.

ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, how would you not be a third term of President Obama?

CLINTON: Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. I think being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we’ve had up until this point, including President Obama.

She mentioned nothing of foreign policy, the economy, or even unemployment. She basically said, “I am a woman. I have a vagina and that makes me better because Barack Obama does not have a vagina, but I do.” Maybe someone should clue her in on the fact that our current commander-in-chief doesn’t seem to have any balls, so being a woman doesn’t make her that different from Obama. (One wonders if she's seen those shots of him on a bike in Martha's Vineyard? She might be surprised at how not at all novel her gender-based qualification really is).

Hillary obviously “won” for her brilliant ability to answer questions without really answering them at all and because, well, she’s a woman, so that automatically makes her more qualified than anyone else on the stage. Just ask her, and she’ll tell you. Actually, you don’t even have to ask her, she’ll still tell you, over and over again.

The Democrats' Presidential Debate Schedule:

Drama over Tuesday night's Democratic debate has disinterred an important question from liberals: Why is the party establishment so scared of having voters see their presidential candidates on TV?

The Democrats have limited the number of their debates to just six, compared to the Republicans' eleven. Even worse, they've scheduled them for time slots when few other than hardcore supporters will watch. They'll be like those Potemkin debates in the Senate that you see on C-SPAN, in which a senator is on screen proclaiming rhetorically as though to a crowd, when everyone knows that the chamber is empty and he or she is doing it just for TV.  

Last Night's debate will be the most accessible of the lot even though it was scheduled to begin during Game Four of a drama-filled Mets-Dodgers National League Division Series. The next debate is scheduled for a College Football Saturday night in November. The third is scheduled for the Saturday before Christmas. The fourth takes place during a three-day weekend in January.

CNN BREAKING NEWS: Joe Biden Still Not Running For President

Despite CNN’s recent love note to Vice President Joe Biden that it has voluntarily changed its own rules and will do all the backflips and blow kisses and do his laundry and wash his car if Old Joe will please, pretty please, run for president,  Biden has declined to accept the offer. At least for now. At this time. Winky winky, no definitive announcement, stay tuned, keep those fingers crossed!

Despite everyone in the Media reciting Biden’s name three times and clicking their heels to see if that might summon him into the Democratic primary, anonymous people who claim to know things say the same thing he’s been saying, which is that he has not decided to run for president. I guess the media are worried he’ll forget to let anyone know when he makes a decision one way or another.

The Media the party is feverishly behind the scenes begging for an alternative to Hillary Clinton.  We are doubled over with laughter that CNN voluntarily changed its rules to allow Joe to participate in the Democratic debate, if he so wishes, if he decides, if he changes his mind.....and with no missing airplane to go wall-to-wall with, Joe is their next best bet for ratings.

Ol' Joe has extended his window for deciding whether to jump into the 2016 presidential campaign, several Democrats say, allowing the contest to play out even longer before he answers one of the biggest questions hanging over the race for the White House.

Whining Willie

When Bill Clinton first appeared on the national stage, he brought a nickname with him,"Slick Willie".  Twenty five years later, Slick Willie has disappeared. Bill Clinton isn’t slick anymore. Based on this article in the NYT's, 'Worked Up Willie' is probably a better fit for him.

In an interview today on CNN, Worked Up Willie does his best to take pressure off Hillary by saying:

“I have never seen so much expended on so little. She said she was sorry that her personal email caused all this confusion. And she’d like to give the election back to the American people. I think it will be all right. But it’s obvious what happened.”

The problem Bill has, that Hillary has really, is what they can’t say.

Hillary can’t say that she’s sorry for compromising the United States’ national security by exposing the United States’ sources and methods to hacking invasions by China and Russia. Hillary can’t really say that she’s done everything possible to keep United States’ satellite imagery out of Chinese and Russians’ hands.

Bill Clinton knows these things. That’s why he’s attempting to deflect attention away from those questions. He’s doing for Hillary what Hillary did for Bill during Monicagate. The problem is that she isn’t the skilled politician he was. People don’t trust her. They don’t like her, either. That’s because Hillary hit the trifecta of negativity. She isn’t likable. She isn’t trustworthy. She’s definitely a terrible politician. You can do much worse than that.

Help Spark Enlightenment in the Mind of Ignorance

Draft Biden Movement Staffing Up

The Lid

"Reuters is reporting that the draft Biden folks in eleven key primary states are staffing up. Apparently they are concentrating on the super Tuesday states. Generally one does not begin to add paid staffers until they are sure they are going to run. The Draft Biden group is a PAC not a campaign staff and the two are not allowed to talk to each others but it seems to make sense if draft Biden is staffing up someone from the SHMOTUS’ must have given them the wink, wink! They are also staffing up in Florida whose primary is on March 15th. Florida adds another 207 elected delegates.

The political action committee backing the vice president, Draft Biden, has begun building operations in 11 states holding primary elections on “Super Tuesday” in March 2016, two of the group’s officials told Reuters, an important series of votes for any candidate seeking their party’s nomination.

With each passing day as there are new stories about the Hillary Clinton scandals it becomes more likely that Biden will run, but with the latest news about the Draft Biden Super PAC, perhaps the decision has already been made."

READ MORE

Wingnuts For Bernie

(Red-Blooded American)

What Ma Clinton's Campaign Really Needs

"Months into her e-mail scandal, Hillary Clinton is still trying to get away with lines like, 'There's no evidence of that.' Oh, and answering questions with laughter. No wonder she keeps falling in the polls -- behind a 74-year-old Brooklyn-born socialist in the first two primary states, where more folks are paying attention. 

"Donors are panicking because she can't make the story go away -- and her campaign is reaching for a lifeline: It's started sending Bill Clinton out to fund-raise.

He's not doing public events yet -- the campaign doesn't want to be seen to need him. But that moment is coming -- because it's looking like the only thing that can save Hillary Clinton now is a truly gifted liar." - NYP

Diogenes' Early Predictions for the 2016 Presidential Election

DMF's State-of-the-Art  Eco-friendly Clean Coal Fired Mainframe  

DMF- Utilizing the massive power of DMF/MFNS new computer system, we undertook the scouring of the interwebs to collect as much information as possible from polling organizations, opinion pages, on-line polls, blog post (both left and right) advice columns and from newspaper pundit's drivel for the purpose of analyzing the present political landscape and boldly predicting the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. 

We gave the collected info to our crack team of semi-competent analyst made up of primarily the staff, the photoshop department, the MFNS foreign and domestic news bureau reporters, the window washers and the bearded guy who hangs out behind the building. They labored for many arduous hours, drinking and cussing while pouring over the mountains of info to come to a solid set conclusions and predictions. 

Although it's still very early, we are confident our findings gleaned from the available information will hold up in the future, especially in light of the present political trends. These finding are not scientific, cause we ain't scientist. Therefore, all disclaimers are hereby claimed.  

You can read our projections of who the eventual parties nominees will be, and the election prediction after the jump......

Is Donald Trump the New Ronald Reagan.......With More Money and Less Class?

A lot has been said by die-hard Trump fans about the parallels to him and Ronald Reagan.  Let's see, Trump was a trust fund baby, never struggled in life. As far as I know, Reagan never screwed the stock holders of bank stocks out of millions to advance his personal fortune, and Reagan's political evolution was slow, carefully thought out and because of deep seeded beliefs. Reagan never made a point in public to criticize his party or insult his parties candidates, and spoke about opponents only in terms of policy. The list of differences goes on and on....

Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan, and he's not a politician either. But as we all know, good leaders aren't always politicians, and as we have witnessed these last seven years, politicians aren't always good leaders.

As America looks for it's next leader, faced with a job losses and it's industrial base, a growing underclass, racial disharmony and the most uncivilized and barbaric outside threat to the civilized world since the middle ages, what do we see as choices?

On one side is a wing-nut socialist leftover from the sixties, spouting a combination of populism and failed Marxist socialism, and next to him a compulsive liar and criminal with name recognition, and soon maybe the present Court Jester will throw his hair plugs into the ring. On the other end of the spectrum we see a few capable patriotic men and women, who have tired of witnessing our country become something a large portion of the citizenry do not even recognize anymore. Standing tall at the head of this line is Donald Trump.

AND DONALD TRUMP SCARES THE BEJEESUS OUT OF THE LEFT. But Trump has a personal habit that may not endear him with some on the Right, and voters in general. Trump has a way of shooting his mouth off, then backing away from it saying that's not what he meant. Are we to believe he really means what he says? Case in point:

"Bleeding from you know what" ....and.... “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?  I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not suppose say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

And in the new Rolling Stone interview published today, Trump makes this comment about his own daughter:

"Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren't happily married and, ya know, her father…"

The Donald has already weaseled out of the 'Bleeding from you know what ' comment, and is  Trumping back the comment, he made about Carly Fiorina , insisting that he was “talking about persona, I’m not talking about looks,” but admitting that yeah, he probably did “say something about Carly, in a jocular manner.” Besides, if anyone gets upset about this, it proves Donald Trump is the victim of a double standard:

"I say that about a lot of people – ‘look at that! That’s not going to be the president? When I get criticized constantly about my hair, nobody does a story about, ‘oh, isn’t that terrible, they criticized Donald Trump’s hair...."

I'll say this much, Ronald Reagan never made excuses for his words or leering jokes about women and how he’d have loved to do his daughter. But then, Trump is much meaner. A Reagan for a much meaner, dumbed-down America, (thank you teacher's union).

That said, wasn't the very idea of Ronald Reagan becoming president only slightly less laughable in 1979 than the idea of President Donald Trump seems today? After spending 10 days following Trump around and trying (and only occasionally succeeding) to get a straight answer from him about anything, Rolling Stone Author Solotaroff concludes:

"What I saw was enough to make me take him dead serious. If you’re waiting for Trump to blow himself up in a Hindenburg of gaffes or hate speech, you’re in for a long, cold fall and winter."

Putting the Squeeze on Ma Clinton

By Monica Crowley  

The Clintons have never taken a political hit lying down. But given their weak and panicky reactions to Mr. Obama’s current, well-orchestrated hit on her — the FBI investigation into her alleged mishandling of classified material as secretary of state — they have appeared to passively absorb the escalating attack.  Until now. 

As he presses his attack, Mrs. Clinton has two choices. Option one: fold early and negotiate a mild end to the investigation in exchange for dropping out of the race. But Mr. Obama is not a forgiving sort, and now that he’s drawn blood, he’s likely to go for the kill.

That suggests that the Clintons are going with option two: fight him — as part of an elaborate, unspoken negotiation between them over their secrets and futures. That requires a plausible defense. Their go-to strategy has always been to blame others, or inanimate objects such as documents, servers, “processes” — and to designate a fall guy (or gal) to take the rap.

This is the well-worn path they now appear to be pursuing to try to escape Mr. Obama’s ever-tightening political and legal vise.

According to a well-placed source, the four known documents at the center of the FBI investigation are deeply problematic. (They came from a relatively small sample; with each new email dump, there are more questionable documents.) Some of the documents appear to have had no original classification markings. A critical point: the federal government classifies by information, not by marking; that is, if a document contains obvious classified material, ie. information provided by a foreign government, it is automatically considered classified, even if it isn’t marked as such. Mrs. Clinton knew this — or should have.

 Initially she claimed unequivocally that there “was no classified material.” She now says, “The facts are I did not send nor did I receive material marked classified.”

This appears to be the basis for her defense: that some of the documents’ classified markings were removed or changed — without permission — before she saw them. 

By whom? There are only three people who were close enough to her to have had that kind of access:

Fearing a Repeat of 2008, Team Hillary Looks to Chop Off Joe Biden’s Pair.

As Uncle Joe searches for a battle helmet harder then his own head and contemplates jumping into the Presidential race, and with crazy Bernie hot on her heels, Hillary's coronation robe continues to get muddier by the day. Barry's recent blessing of Joe may piss on her parade again by unleashing the attack dogs on her ass in order to put his thumb on the scale for Biden.

DownTrend

If you listened to the Clinton political machine back in early 2008, the queen in waiting was as invincible as the 18-0 New England Patriots who only had to beat the upstart New York Giants in the Super Bowl to make history. (we all remember how that turned out). Just a little more than four months after the Pats collapsed, Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic party nomination to a young hustler from Chicago named Barack Obama. It was a crushing humiliation to an anal retentive narcissist who was hellbent on making history as the first female U.S. president and haunts her to this day. 

Now, with the Dems having made what in hindsight appears to be a catastrophic decision to go all in on Hillary even though she would take the whole party down with her if she imploded again, history is on the verge of repeating itself.

Beset by problems of her own creation as well as her not exactly being a likeable person (translation: bitch on wheels), Hillary is going down in flames and the Hillemmings are frantically looking to lay their hands on fire extinguishers. With Vice President Joe “Foghorn Leghorn” Biden having received Emperor Obama’s blessing to challenge the Clinton crime family for the nomination, Hillary is going into full out bitch mode. It’s like that line from the Clint Eastwood western The Outlaw Josey Wales about getting “plumb mad dog mean” and Mrs. Clinton is ready to chop off old Joe’s balls with a pair of rusty garden shears before he gains any sort of momentum.....

The AP: Clinton sends Biden a message....

In ways both subtle and blunt, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is sending a message to Vice President Joe Biden about his potential presidential campaign: This won’t be easy.

While Clinton and her team speak warmly of Biden in public, they have taken steps to make clear how they’ve taken control of the party’s establishment in hopes of discouraging the vice president from entering the race.

The latest came Friday in the most public of settings: the Democratic National Committee summer meetings. In a speech to the party’s most committed activists, Clinton cast herself as its standard-bearer and vowed to win the presidential race and rebuild the party from the ground up.

“We are building something that will last long after next November,” Clinton told party officials gathered in a Minneapolis ballroom. “Other candidates may be fighting for a particular ideology, but I’m fighting for you and your families.”

The speech came after her team rolled out a string of high-profile endorsements in early-voting states and scheduled an onslaught of fundraisers across the country in the effort to ice a Biden bid before he even gets started.

Behind the scenes, they’re pressuring donors and delegates to pledge their loyalty to Clinton. Her team sent a slate of top aides to the meeting this weekend armed with pledge cards asking party delegates to commit to Clinton. - READ MORE

Cornered and growing increasingly shrill, and despite the DNC running defense for her, I suspect Barry has the goods on Her Majesty, and is prepared to use them....

53% Of Democrats Want Joe to Go For it!

CNN Poll: Majority Of Democrats Want Joe Biden To Run. 

And We Find Ourselves in Full Agreement. Go For It Joe!

Earl Done This

CNN - Most Democrats say they do want Biden to make a go of it: 53% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters say they think Biden should run, 45% that he should stay out. Even among those who currently support Clinton, 50% say they think Biden should run. Democratic voters aren't necessarily convinced a Biden presidency would be better than a Clinton one, though: 35% say Biden would do a worse job as president than Clinton, 27% a better one and 38% say there wouldn't be any difference between the two.

A crooked grandmother with a bad memory, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a wing-nut wild haired socialist misfit nephew of Colonel Sanders’  and a legendary gaff machine with foot-in-mouth disease, all grabbing for the same golden ring. Really, what more could we ask for?

If I Were a Democrat.......

......I don't think I would feel very good about prospects for the future. Their ambitious support at all cost for a President they hoped would be their Ronald Regan has faded. The one who was once believed to be their savior and usher in a 40 year reign of democrat dominance has failed as a leader. He instead disgraced the office. He has divided the country with his arrogance and torn it open at the seams. He's done very little for his own black supporters besides giving lip service, fomenting their anger and increase their despair. Our foreign allies don't trust us and our enemies fear us not. Under his lack of leadership we are becoming a second rate appeasing power to the greatest threat to civilization since World War 2. 

And now what do democrats see lying ahead for them? Their increasingly unpopular leading candidate and standard bearer for 2016 faces scandalous allegations in the media and federal investigations that could possibly lead to indictment, all while telling the world it's her turn.  

And they see to her left a wild haired socialist leftover from the sixties with a northeastern accent preaching against the very system that made this country the envy of the world. A wing-nut independent with an outside chance to go down in flames while grasping the democrat banner.

And as the democrat looks up from their increasing Obamacare premium notices they see a resurgent opposing party, one at the present being led by a candidate with one of the most recognizable names in the the world. A man who speaks frankly and unafraid, who is stirring up the political conversation. And standing not far away, a line of potential leaders that include Hispanic, Black and Female, sons of immigrants, skilled professionals and experienced business leaders. No, this can't be!

Valiantly polishing the turd known as the Obama presidency and his failed legacy, or the want-to-be coming down the shoot, is not a good place to be. Truth be told, history is not shown the electorate very kind to parties who preside over such leadership as abhorrent to their beliefs and freedoms as the last seven years. 

And as Barack and family prepare to retire to a luxurious life of leisure in the relative safety of the Hawaiian Islands, you can hang on to your glorious machinations of Obama's greatness as you watch with envy as much smarter people are elected to solve the problems of rampant border violations, the increasing cost of living and the racially charged streets of America he left us with.  

No, if I were a democrat, I'm sure I would hang my head.....and probably drink a lot.

Are We Witnessing Another Collapse of the Party System?

ACC- It is entertaining. All the “Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers seem to have vanished over the last month or so. Donald Trump is making mincemeat of the GOP party apparatus. All sorts of assumptions about the 2016 presidential race have been tossed out. Rules have been broken. New paths are being blazed. It has all thrown the Washington political class for a loop. And that is a very good thing.....

Personal Liberty

I know it’s still early, but it’s beginning to appear this election cycle that conventional wisdom may not hold.

The pundit class and the establishment politicians inhabiting the insular bubble that is the District of Criminals are flummoxed. They can’t fathom why the hoi polloi will not fall in line behind establishment-approved candidates (and there are several, but particularly they are Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton). Some pundits are even offering to turn in their “pundit license.”

For example, The Washington Post’s Charles Lane told Brett Baier on Fox News’ Special Report last week: “I think I’m going to have to turn in my pundit’s license because — or somebody is going to revoke it because I really can’t analyze this phenomenon. We’re living through one of the strangest, most — if not strange, one of the most puzzling moments in politics that I can remember.”

Americans in flyover country have long sensed that the politicians they elect are not the politicians who end up inhabiting the District of Criminals. And they have long sensed that the system is rigged against them and in favor of the establishment and crony corporations. Though they have sensed it, for the most part they still have played along in the hope that, somehow, something will change. 

READ MORE on the Previous Party Collapse  

The Coronation Is Off and Democrats are Restless

Commentary Magazine

Up to now, the political media has devoted its focus to the human wrecking ball that is Donald Trump. The near myopic fixation of the press is understandable; they are in the eyeballs business, and Trump got them 24 million  pairs of them who tuned into the last Republican debate. But the race for the GOP nomination isn’t the only exciting presidential primary.

The Democratic primary race that was once a sleepy coronation with a predetermined outcome has suddenly become not only competitive but also interesting and substantive. It is curious that the many in media have declined to give the contentious contest due notice.

Just to establish a baseline level of wonderment, it seemed likely Hillary Clinton’s strongest challenger for the Democratic nomination would be former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley as recently as March. The former secretary of state was a juggernaut who enjoyed astronomical levels of support from a committed base of Democratic voters. Those who challenged her were seen as engaged in an endeavor that could most charitably be described as quixotic. If you were inclined toward sympathy, you might have characterized a challenge to Clinton’s dominance as a kamikaze mission. And suicidal is exactly what socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ frontal assault on the frontrunner initially looked like.

Flash forward six months, and that assessment of a leftwing populist candidate’s ability to exploit progressive frustration seems downright naïve. Sanders has achieved the impossible in that at least one survey of a critical early primary state, New Hampshire, now shows him leading Clinton by a considerable margin. While Sanders’ surge is certainly due in part to the candidate’s unique brand of far-left politics, his rise is almost certainly also attributable to Clinton’s self-inflicted wounds. Her candidacy has been hamstrung by the slow and constant drip of scandalous revelations regarding her mishandling of classified information on a secret and unauthorized email system while she served as secretary of state.

Clinton has also been hurt by the implication that her family foundation solicited high-dollar donations from foreign patrons and governments with the implication that America’s chief diplomat would happily provide quid pro quo. When asked about these matters in the press, Clinton routinely fudges the truth, and her trust ratings in the polls have correspondingly plummeted.

Read More 

Joe Biden Takes Part-Time Job to Help Fund Possible White House Run

Biden has also not ruled out running for a third term as Vice President

It's YOOOGH, Just YOOOGH I tell Ya...

Donald Trump’s online emporium for luxurious stuff that says you like TRUMP! on it is now open, and it’s got the YOOOGHEST selection of terrific stuff, just terrific, that any of the Donald's Lovers and haters can afford, even if you are not a TEN BILLIONAIRE. And unlike his special line of made-in-China Donald J. Trump apparel, this stuff is 100 percent made right here in the U.S. of A., though the site does not specify whether any of it has been made by undocumented immigrants.

First, the bad news. No official Megyn Kelly toilet paper as of yet. And you losers cannot buy a Trump piñata to beat to death with a stick, sorry.  

But, you can buy this adorable onesie for your little Trumpster fan, so long as you promise not to pull out your lady glands and feed it with your breastes, because as The Donald say's, that's “disgusting.”


And you want some hats? Trump’s got all the hats you might need, to protect your fabulous head of hair, in all kinds of colors, although of course you’ll want to get yours in Trumps favorite color gold, unless you are some kind of loser.

And what about an official Donald Trump  hoodie? Great for blending in and doing a little grassroots campaigning at the next political rally near you. 

You can get one in either men’s (perfect for the insecure guy to conceal your oversize large caliber cannons) or unisex sizes (for the ladies)! So many terrific options!

And don’t forget to pick up a couple sets of great license plate holders with Trump emblazoned at the top for your Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Mercedes, or whatever you drive when you’re not being limousined around.

And remember, if you’ve got words to say, say them the Trump way: LOUD. Real loud. With this luxurious megaphone, to make sure everyone can hear ya.

 h/t to Wonk

So Trump is Winning the Polls. It's All Meaningless at This Point

This weekend, I spent time with a fairly large group of Republican friends. Of course Donald Trump was discussed quite a bit. The one thing I walked away with was this: people strongly agree with what Trump is saying. But, it's Donald Trump saying it. 

Translation: Trump's support is a mile wide, and an inch deep. Not one person I talked to said they would likely vote for him if the election was today. 

(In the spirit of full discloser, I was an official in the Jindal Gubernatorial campaign in 2007, and later, in a lesser capacity, for his reelection in 2011. I have since parted ways  philosophically with the good Governor after his privatization of the states 80 year old state charity and teaching hospital system, which guaranteed every Louisiana citizen basic health-care. His refusal to expand Medicaid forced hundreds of thousand of unemployed and under-employed into Obamacare plans they cannot afford.)

While I have much respect for Bobby Jindal, I Do Not support his Presidential Campaign.

But back to Mr. Trump and the polls:

from FiveThirtyEight:

Twelve years ago, in August 2003, Joe Lieberman led in most polls of the Democratic primary. Eight years ago, in August 2007, Rudy Giuliani maintained a clear lead in polls of Republicans, while Hillary Clinton led in polls of the Democratic nomination contest. Four years ago, in August 2011, Mitt Romney began with the lead in polls of Republican voters, but he would be surpassed by the end of the month by Rick Perry, the first of four Republican rivals who would at some point overtake Romney in national polling averages.

Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, as you’ve probably gathered, are not the faces atop Mount Rushmore. Only Clinton came close to winning the nomination.

But the problem isn’t just that the national polls at this stage in the race lack empirical power to predict the nomination; it’s also that they describe a fiction. 

I don’t mean to suggest that Donald Trump’s support in the polls is “fake.” I have no doubt that some people really love him or that he’d be the favorite if you held a national, winner-take-all Republican primary tomorrow. However, the “election” these polls describe is hypothetical in at least five ways: 

* They contemplate a vote today, but we’re currently 174 days from the Iowa caucuses. 

* They contemplate a national primary, but states vote one at a time or in small groups. 

* They contemplate a race with 17 candidates, but several candidates will drop out before Iowa and several more will drop out before the other states vote. 

* They contemplate a winner-take-all vote, but most states are not winner-take-all. 

* They contemplate a vote among all Republican-leaning registered voters or adults, but in fact only a small fraction of them will turn out for primaries and caucuses.

This is why it’s exasperating that the media has become obsessed with how Trump is performing in these polls. 

So you should ignore those national polls entirely? In a literal sense, they do have some correlation with election outcomes: Even this far out, a candidate near the top of the polls is a somewhat better bet to win the nomination than one near the bottom. But that’s like projecting a major league pitcher’s numbers from high school stats: 

READ MORE