from obama. he has a real base. other candidates have to figure out how to dislodge him. what donald trump has done, i think, successfully turn the axis of the republican race into a personal series of attacks and personal qualities rather than the policy arguments that have been the real fissure in primaries before. if the debate ends up being a series of attacks back and forth, even if he is the target, i think in some ways he wins by that. ultimately i think the other candidates have to kind of raise doubts about both his temperament and his agenda, and whether that is something that the republican electorate truly wants. but they have a real challenge. he s put down some roots. trump has managed, so far, to deflect many of his missteps, racist comments, insulting john mccain, sexist comments. anything he could say or do what would be too big for his campaign to move past? well, i think you don t know if the iceberg is too big until
polling. so he literally has very little to lose right now by taking on trump. the attacks that bobby jindal is making on donald trump are different than what you ve seen from other republican candidates. other republicans have tried to brand trump has a faux conservative or, say, attack him on his tax policy. bobby jind is sort of fighting fire with fire. he has made those policy arguments in the last 24 hours but he s also decried trump an e sgrks o maniac and clown. he s using the same kind of language trump uses. this is something republican establishment has wanted somebody to do. bobby jindal is signaling to those folks i ll be willing to fight on trump s level. moving targets when it comes to donald trump because you have bobby jindal and carly fiorina. want to talk about ben carson since he s doing so well in the polls. donald trump still on top. certainly giving donald trump a run for his money in the polls. a new iowa poll has trump at 27% followed closely by carson. both h
the star ledger editorial also says politicians like him live in a bubble surrounded by sick offense, hard truths have a tough time penetrating. i think we all know that that is true pretty much of all politicians, especially when they get to this level. but david frum does he have i don t see where he has some case that he really wants to bring to the american people. the way, for example, rand paul does. if you tell rand paul if you could prove to rand paul tonight that he absolutely cannot win the presidency he would still run because he wants to be out there making these arguments about the nsa and other serious policy arguments that he s trying to make. i don t see that with chris christie. rand paul has a mailing list to develop and a family business to maintain. they have been mailing that list since the late 80s and it s a valuable family asset. i m not a big fan of the rand paul idealist theory. but what is going when you look at chris christie s
true pretty much of all politicians, especially when they get to this level. but david frum, does he have i don t see where he has some case that he really wants to bring to the american people. the way, for example, rand paul does. if you tell rand paul, if you could prove to rand paul tonight that he absolutely cannot win the presidency, he would still run because he wants to be out there making these arguments about the nsa and other serious policy arguments that he s trying to make. i don t see that with chris christie. rand paul has a mailing list to develop and a family business to maintain. they have been mailing that list since the late 80s and it s a valuable family asset. i m not a big fan of the rand paul idealist theory. but what is going when you look at chris christie s difficulty, it is easy because it is such an outsized personality to think personally about what is happening to him. he s cut in a structural problem. he is the governor of the state of new jersey,
thing zblps your point being, if you are going to defeat hillary clinton, you better have a heck of an organization a bunch of money, a bunch of funders willing to back you. it s not like somebody happens to be there and the ball s fumbled and they pick it up. as you point out. the lack of a primary means it s hard for the party to get her on the record on stuff that they care about. the only hope is that she ll be good on the issues if you re a democrat, a centrist or a liberal. and primaries have the base of the party and members of the party exerting some control over what the party s platform is. it can work in all kinds of different ways. but people use the primaries as a way to bird dog. we saw it in 2008. and without that again, it s that sort of top-down vision of how this is going to work. and policy arguments matter. and policy flows out of primaries in a real way. it s going to happen on the gop size. they re going to figure out what the party is going to do on