TPM Editor's Blog: Some Christmas Eve Morsels

[applegrove]

Some Christmas Eve Morsels

By Josh Marshall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/some-christmas-eve-morsels

"SNIP............



But let me suggest a slightly dissident evaluation. While I think both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would quite likely be historically weak general election candidates, I think it's quite likely that Ted Cruz would fair worse.

Let me explain.

Trump has managed to deeply alienate huge chunks of the electorate: Hispanics, African-Americans, women, Muslims and immigrants generally. (He could well be declared emperor of middle aged white men. But there are no longer enough of them to elect emperors.) There's also a more diffuse but wider-spread cross section of the population that appears (not surprisingly) to find him too offensive, illiberal or clownish to be suitable to be president - even if they have not been on the direct receiving end of his bile.

But there are potential advantages Trump has that I think we should not entirely discount. First, Trump is not a conservative. Indeed, I don't think he's particularly ideological at all. By this I don't mean that everything he says is a put-on or that he's a closet liberal. What I mean is that his big issues are anti-immigration (something conservative elites are at best uncomfortable with), opposition to "loser" free trade agreements (something conservative elites completely disagree on) and frankly, racism (I'll leave people to decide this on their own). Note too that often when Trump is talking about the failure of the aggressive unilateralism that characterized the Bush years, he talks about the need to rebuild the national infrastructure - bridges, roads, etc. This is Democratic talk - and conservative ideologues know it.



..............SNIP"

[oldandhappy]

1. Trump is a foul person and Cruz is mean.

I think the conservative candidates are beginning to call out Trump on the conservative issues. You are right about all those points.