Donald Trump wants Bill Gates to 'close the Internet', Jeff Bezos to pay tax

"I've a strong (and slightly worried) feeling that if Clinton were to win the nomination, a lot of people would vote for Trump instead."

Well, except for women, ethnic minorities, liberals, conservatives who think Trump is insane, anyone living on either coast, the technically literate, the functionally literate... Basically, if Trump wins the nomination then Pol Pot could stand against him with Chairman Mao on the ticket and still get 60% of the popular vote.

Most 'establishment' Republicans are also worried that a Trump nomination could lose them a dozen seats in the senate and fifty or more in the House, too. He appeals solely to the anti-state, racist, sexist nutjob fringe of the Republican party, which now apparently accounts for some 50% of their base. The best bit is, even if he doesn't win the nomination, Trump will probably stand anyway and completely split the republican vote. There's simply no chance of a republican president while Trump is involved in the race.

Trump beating Hillary in GE

The polls don't bear out AC's claim:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

The only poll that shows Trump beating Hillary is the one from Fox News. If Trump was a sure fire victor over her the republican establishment wouldn't be so terrified of him winning the nomination, since the likelihood of Hillary not winning the democratic nomination is about 1%.

The real problem the republicans have in this election is that they've been pushing their anti-government agenda so hard over the years that now the majority of their primary voters are unwilling to support any republican politician, because he's a politician. Previously that might have only hurt republican congressmen while governors could claim they have avoided the taint of Washington on them, but now their voters see even them as tainted. So you see non-politicians like Trump, Carson and Fiorina taking all the attention away from the people the republican establishment wants to push.

I can't remember the numbers but I was amazed at the percentage of likely republican primary voters who said that they saw little difference between Bush and Clinton, and some even said that about the self-styled anti-Washington Washington guy, Ted Cruz. If the establishment is seen as pushing out guys like Trump/Carson to make way for one of their guys like Bush or even Cruz, they might have enough people staying home from the polls that they lose the house/senate that way too. They've really sort of let themselves be boxed in by allowing the anti-government rhetoric to take such a strong hold in their party's message.

Anyway, it is far too early to say who wins the general election between the two. Some republicans who are loathe to support him will decide they'd rather have him than Hillary. Some democrats who want "anyone but Hillary" will decide she's better than Trump. And there's 11 months for them to take a big fall. What's more likely in that time, a new scandal to come up that actually sticks to Hillary, or Trump to shoot himself in the foot so many times that he's managed to alienate most of the republican base to the point where they view this election as a lost cause and start concentrating on finding some to beat Hillary in 2020?

you mean

...that's listening to a voice that's outside your head?

"But who'll be around to write the songs?"

I think Tim Robbins has that covered.

Arnold for President!

Since Ronny is no longer with us it is time to bring out the Governator. He is the only one who can save us.

After all who cares what the constitution actual says.

Didn't stop people suggesting that he wasn't the sharpest knife in the box

And those people were wrong, anyway, as later historical analysis has shown. I'm not a Reagan fan myself, but I'm willing to examine the evidence. His notes for the policy speeches he made before and during his governorship, for example, show that he was a well-informed and insightful policy wonk.

There's no question in my mind that age and disease had taken their toll on Reagan's intellect by the end of his career, but in 1980, the evidence suggests, he was still a very intelligent man.

Trump, on the other hand, is an idiot - a megalomaniacal bully and semi-competent con artist whose occasional ability to profit from the greed of others has deluded him into imagining he's capable of intelligent thought. I don't know of any evidence whatsoever that he's not an utter fool, as well as a vile demagogue and entirely devoid of any moral compass.

And in general the tone of Reagan's campaign message was one of hope and goodwill, not spittle-flecked xenophobic hatred. There's really no grounds for comparison.

Re: "God help America."

Well Allah sure won't, now.

>Implying that America needs the Allah Demolition Team...

'only 12% of voters voted in republican primaries'

Trump may not have as much support in the republicans who skip the primaries, but if they find him unacceptable that's their own fault for skipping the primary and letting him win (if he does end up winning)

Maybe if it gets close to the Iowa caucus and NH primary and he's still up there, it will galvanize record turnouts in both states to hand him a loss, and he'll quickly fade once he's lost his mojo.

Re: He is lucky USA has so few limits on freedom of speech

Funnily enough, he's done his bit to offend Jews as well

Again >implying that we don't need MORE leaders to tell Israel to fork off! Of corse the last One to do this ended up causing Bush I, the presidency. I just pray that history isn't set to repeat itself.

Re: pull the wool off his supporter's eyes

Not only that but when asked for clarification he also meant to include American born Muslims that were currently outside the country.

That would be fun for the family returning from Haj etc.

A nod towards Bush junior who advocates tagging and monitoring ALL foreign visitors.