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Doing good in NH is the goal for the Kasich campaign. They were planning to get momentum(in other states) if he placed in NH op 3 or overall did well even if not top 3 in NH.
I guess they hope to get people behind Kasich at that point and hope that people will take notice for future states. Regardless what those othr state polls show now, they are assuming that a good result in NH can cause a major shift toward Kasich.
I don't have the actual facts at hand, but I seem to remember that losing in NH was turned into a big 'win' for Clinton later on. You never know until the votes are counted (or not counted, depending on what state you vote in). A candidate can become suddenly unpopular or popular, or their base can decide their individual vote isn't needed since the candidate is so far ahead in the polls, and not go vote.
edited to clarify: I was referring to Bill Clinton when he ran and got elected the first time.
I don't believe in averaging polls especially when 4 of them go back to the beginning of the month. Too much stuff has happened since then including a debate, the Governor of Iowa saying don't vote for Cruz, Palin's endorsement of Trump, Beck's endorsement of Cruz, Cruz's NY values statement, the Canadian thing, the two Corinthians, etc..
The margin of error is based on the sample size so yes, they should have sampled more in the CNN/ORC poll but then it's up to you to apply the margin of error to the results they give to decide how close the candidates really are.
I don't believe in averaging polls especially when 4 of them go back to the beginning of the month. Too much stuff has happened since then including a debate, the Governor of Iowa saying don't vote for Cruz, Palin's endorsement of Trump, Beck's endorsement of Cruz, Cruz's NY values statement, the Canadian thing, the two Corinthians, etc..
The margin of error is based on the sample size so yes, they should have sampled more in the CNN/ORC poll but then it's up to you to apply the margin of error to the results they give to decide how close the candidates really are.
Well, they are all basically within a few points, all showing a tight race, some show Cruz up, some show Trump up.
Except this one, which shows Trump up by 11 and is based on a sample of 266. Seriously, this poll is a disgrace.
Well, they are all basically within a few points, all showing a tight race, some show Cruz up, some show Trump up.
Except this one, which shows Trump up by 11 and is based on a sample of 266. Seriously, this poll is a disgrace.
I think this will be somewhat similar to what I mentioned in the Democratic Poll thread, turnout will be key. Cruz appears to have the advantage in the polls with a tighter likely voter screen that tends to focus more on those who have previously participated in Iowa Caucuses, Trump tends to have an advantage in those that state they will likely attend regardless if they have previously voted in the Iowa Caucuses or not. This tends to make sense since Evangelicals in Iowa tend to have had a high GOP Caucus participation rate in the past, and that is where Cruz is strongest. If Republicans who aren't Evangelicals turn out in higher #'s than they have traditionally done that tends to help Trump, if they turn out at a similar rate in the past or those who haven't voted in past GOP Caucuses don't turn out in high numbers, that will help Cruz.
^It's not clear that Cruz has a complete lock on the Evangelical vote. There are a lot of signs that he doesn't.
Lock? Perhaps not, but advantage? Yes. Regardless point still stands. Cruz seems to have an advantage with the traditional Caucus voter (which in the GOP in Iowa's case tends to be socially conservative Evangelicals), Trump seems to have an advantage among those who don't traditionally vote in Caucuses. If Trump is successful in getting them out to the Caucus, he likely has the advantage, if turnout is closer to those who traditionally turnout for a GOP caucus in Iowa, Cruz likely has the advantage.
I think this will be somewhat similar to what I mentioned in the Democratic Poll thread, turnout will be key. Cruz appears to have the advantage in the polls with a tighter likely voter screen that tends to focus more on those who have previously participated in Iowa Caucuses, Trump tends to have an advantage in those that state they will likely attend regardless if they have previously voted in the Iowa Caucuses or not. This tends to make sense since Evangelicals in Iowa tend to have had a high GOP Caucus participation rate in the past, and that is where Cruz is strongest. If Republicans who aren't Evangelicals turn out in higher #'s than they have traditionally done that tends to help Trump, if they turn out at a similar rate in the past or those who haven't voted in past GOP Caucuses don't turn out in high numbers, that will help Cruz.
I think this is exactly right. Pretty much everyone who follows this stuff agrees that the million dollar question is whether Trump voters, who in many cases do not typically vote, will show up for Donald Trump. If they do, Donald will dominate in New Hampshire and could very well win Iowa. If not, then the whole story line on his campaign could change radically in a very short time, once the actual voting begins.
Lock? Perhaps not, but advantage? Yes. Regardless point still stands. Cruz seems to have an advantage with the traditional Caucus voter (which in the GOP in Iowa's case tends to be socially conservative Evangelicals), Trump seems to have an advantage among those who don't traditionally vote in Caucuses. If Trump is successful in getting them out to the Caucus, he likely has the advantage, if turnout is closer to those who traditionally turnout for a GOP caucus in Iowa, Cruz likely has the advantage.
Does Trump have any kind of ground game in Iowa? That's what makes the difference in the end, and Cruz has been quietly laying that groundwork for months now. I read somewhere that Cruz studied Obama's 2008 game plan and is using it in this election. But I haven't heard anything about Trump's campaign doing the hard prep work to win in any state.
I don't think anyone cares how many pages the tax-code is. It's complicated because taxes are complicated on the corporate side.
On the debt, two-terms is eight-years. To eliminate the debt in eight years would mean running an annual surplus of $2,250,000,000,000 (that's $2.5 trillion per year.) I don't know any candidate that is claiming to run trillion dollar surpluses. In fact, independent analysis of Trump's tax proposal adds $10 trillion to the debt. The rest of the GOP candidates have similar plans.
Complaining that "we would still have every single government department we have now," doesn't sound so bad either. What departments don't you want?
The tax code is completely insane. Anyone who thinks a 75,000 page tax code (and it grows larger every year) is just fine ought to be forced to sit down and read every page of it as punishment. Compliance with the tax code chews up billions of private dollars that could be better spent expanding businesses and paying off mortgages.
The national debt cannot be eliminated in 8 years. My point is that Kasich will do nothing substantial to attack it. Nobody ever does.
Government Departments? There is plenty of fat to trim. Start with the Dept of Education... which has never actually educated a single person. Followup with HUD, which is nothing but a candy store of 'community grants', etc... You should go look at their budget sometime. Next, have a look at the Dept of Energy... another candy store that allows politicians to pick winners and losers. We could also get rid of the IRS itself if we really wanted to.
There are also a ton of worthless boards and committees we could get rid of. For example:
Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries (JBEA)
Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC)
Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
United States Board on Geographic Names (USBGN)
Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR)
Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds (FICMNEW)
The tax code is completely insane. Anyone who thinks a 75,000 page tax code (and it grows larger every year) is just fine ought to be forced to sit down and read every page of it as punishment. Compliance with the tax code chews up billions of private dollars that could be better spent expanding businesses and paying off mortgages.
According to Andrew L. Grossman, who is an attorney at Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax-code is not 75,000 pages long.
Quote:
So, how long is it? In the 2013 edition, the last page is numbered 4,037. Now, that’s not exactly right either, for two reasons: The book starts at page 100, and then skips 500 pages in its numbering (don’t ask me why), and this volume (like all other volumes I’ve ever seen) contains both the present-day tax laws and prior versions of the tax law. That is because tax lawyers like me often find it useful to refer to prior versions of the law. But the compilation of those old laws isn’t really the “tax code”—it’s just a resource for lawyers. I’d estimate that the old law takes up about 800 pages. So let’s say the tax code is about 2,600 pages long. It’s like 2½ times the length of Stephen King’s It—except you replace “scary clown” with “accounting methods.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyster
The national debt cannot be eliminated in 8 years. My point is that Kasich will do nothing substantial to attack it. Nobody ever does.
Neither will any other GOP candidate. There is also no reason that they should. The U.S. uses a sovereign currency and has neither trouble paying its bills nor finding sources that will lend money at low interest rates. As long as deficits are lower than economic growth, the debt becomes more and more irrelevant. Fortunately, under Obama the deficit has fallen by 75% -- about 2% of GDP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyster
Government Departments? There is plenty of fat to trim. Start with the Dept of Education... which has never actually educated a single person. Followup with HUD, which is nothing but a candy store of 'community grants', etc... You should go look at their budget sometime. Next, have a look at the Dept of Energy... another candy store that allows politicians to pick winners and losers. We could also get rid of the IRS itself if we really wanted to.
There are also a ton of worthless boards and committees we could get rid of. For example:
Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries (JBEA)
Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC)
Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
United States Board on Geographic Names (USBGN)
Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR)
Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds (FICMNEW)
And there are many more.
Those boards and commissions represent in terms of spending a rounding error on a rounding error. Those departments represent a couple of percent of the budget.
HUD's budget is $49.3 billion and the Dept of Education's budget is $77.4 billion, out of a $4 trillion budget. While cutting them completely doesn't do much for the deficit, while you claim that they don't help anyone, I am sure you will find many that disagree -- especially those that were discriminated against in the housing market.
The vast bulk of federal government spending goes to the big five: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest on the debt. Those few boards that you managed to find are just not what your government does on any significant scale.
So, if you want smaller government, either you're talking about cuts in the big five, or you have no idea what you're talking about.
You also mentioned getting rid of the IRS, which is an idiotic idea, as it would mean there would be no organization to collect or enforce collection of tax money needed to run the government.
Last edited by MTAtech; 01-22-2016 at 10:30 AM..
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