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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Assessing Marco Rubio: A surge or just a bubble
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Assessing Marco Rubio: A surge or just a bubble
Ted Cruz can feel a little hard done by. It was he, after all, who won the Iowa caucus, beating Donald Trump, the reports of the pollsters, and indeed everyone else. Normally, that would be enough to fire him into the media spotlight as the man with the momentum. Not this time. The ‘momentum’ badge has instead been awarded to Florida senator, Marco Rubio.
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Third Past the Post!
In 2011 I had to remind myself to vote for AV on the merits of the issue itself, rather than be influenced by the campaign. The "Yes to AV" campaign was so dreadfully incompetent and patronising and badly organised that I was genuinely tempted to vote No, just to express my disgust. I had to remind myself to ignore the campaign and vote according to the issue of AV itself.
I am likely to do the same this time - even if it means being less active than usual and ignoring the campaign. I want national sovereignty, democracy, self-determination, internationalism and global free trade. Yet the "Leave" leaflet which I have received so far assumes that I am a xenophobe, frothing at the mouth and seething with resentment about immigrants.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35502030
Rubio has plenty of room to improve, however, and he has the kind of support among Washington pundits that could translate into a viable candidacy. A recent Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll of definite or probable Iowa caucusgoers found Rubio with views that were “about right” – not too conservative or too moderate – and positive favorability ratings.
And as Rubio points out, he was once a long shot in Florida to win his Senate seat.
Added Bozell: “If you look at the short list of conservative candidates out there, he’s on it. If you look at the short list of moderate candidates, he’s on it. That makes him formidable.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article24780745.html
Pretty piss poor analysis. The true gauge is not Rubio's absolute performance in IA and NH, or even his performance there relative to Trump and Cruz. Rather it his performance relative to what he would need to do to be on track to win the nomination given the particular characteristics of each state race. Whether he wins or loses NH is almost irrelevant so long as he is still viewed as viable and as the most credible non-Trump, non-Cruz candidate going forward. A strong third after Trump and Cruz, with him well ahead of Bush, Kasich and Christie would accomplish that.
Sorry, did not see this before posting my longer, less eloquent version of the same.
Organisations that are given government grants will be banned from using the money to try to persuade ministers to change the law or increase spending.
A new clause will be added into all new and renewed grant agreements to ensure funds are spent on good causes, rather than on political campaigns.
Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock said "the farce of government lobbying government" had to stop.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35509117
Finally, a lot of Govt grants, especially to local authorities, have no conditions anyway, beyond "any lawful activity".
But I disagree that nothing else matters. Rubio needs to keep his momentum up too. I'd modify what I wrote last night: a close second will still keep the narrative of his surge going but it does need to be a close second - and a close second will still give Trump a win which is critical for his campaign. If he loses NH after also losing Iowa it will be a disaster for the self-proclaimed 'winner'. By contrast, a win, even a shabby one, confirms his place on the top table. A good win confirms his place as leader in the race and will reinforce his position in SC. That would give Rubio a long lean streak assuming Cruz does well on Super Tuesday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35508740
True, Rubio isn't in also-ran territory at the moment but there's only so long you can go without a win on the night before you cease to be viable. That was what did for Romney in 2008 who also piled up a string of seconds plus a low-profile win.
http://www.elanvalley.org.uk/discover/reservoirs-dams/birminghams-water
I remember my mothers objection to water privatisation being similar. She had paid as a ratepayer for the reservoirs for Manchester. They were not Mrs Thatchers to sell.
The problem is it leads to fragmentation and postcode lotteries. Moreover, although diseconomies of scale are a problem in some public companies - BT being the classic example - the majority of such local authorities would suffer from a lack of economies of scale, putting further financial pressure on bodies that are already struggling.
Another problem of course is that ironically public companies are far more accountable to the public than local authorities. We vote on them every 3-4 years on a wide range of issues. I can buy shares in BT, turn up at their AGM and criticise the Chairman and CEO for their terrible performance to their faces, before voting against them on the precise issue.
Most of Corbyn's ideas are very Marxist in that way though, and who could forget McCauley's laconic observation: 'Marxism in theory has been one of the twentieth century's great ideas...Marxism in practice has failed everywhere it has been tried.'
I can't help but wonder whether that makes Hunt very stupid or very subtle. He may be ignorant of Chamberlain's career. Or he may genuinely wish to become a raving right-wing demagogue, shatter the major force of the left and defect with a small number of followers to the Conservatives, before committing war crimes and launching regressive taxation prior to finishing his career as acting leader of the Conservative Party.
I must admit, when he was SSoS for Education I wasn't impressed with his subtlety, but I was appalled by his ignorance. So maybe I'm jumping at shadows when I see him as the latter day Roy Jenkins!
Yesterday evening you mentioned social conservatism (I'm not entirely sure what that is) and that "even kippers" seemed relaxed about gay marriage. I find this sort of generalisation irksome, the vast majority of kippers are live and let live types who don't give a toss about gay marriage either way, its about consenting adults. Where I object is govt telling the Church what it must do, it is not the state's place.
I'll ask you a straight question, and perhaps you can consider the social conservative issue here:
Do you ever envisage gay marriage taking place in a mosque or synagogue?
What could possibly go wrong....90% of private company start-ups fail...obviously the difference is it would be OUR money that has to bail them out (again).
My personal view is that the GOP are making a great mistake in passing up Christie, but I don't know much about American politics.
They may also have calculated that with both Democratic candidates so very weak, they can go for a 'true Republican' candidate and still win. That strikes me as reckless, but at the moment it's not insanity given what's happening to the donkey party who seem to be determined to live up to their old emblem of the jackass.
http://www.liberaljudaism.org/news/501-reform-judaism-backs-gay-marriage.html
You are partially right in that there is a libertarian streak in kipperdom that is relaxed about these issues. There is also a socially authoritarian streak that vigorously opposed it too in both kipperdom and the right of the Conservative party too. I remember the conversations here about it.
My objection to Islam in Britain is a left wing one. Organised Islam is systematically mysogynistic, homophobic, patriarchal, and anti-diversity.
There are websites that rank American legislators for their conservativeness and Rubio is consistently top 10 on that score but Cruz is on the podium.
When is the New Hampshire contest?
Six Nations starts today. I wonder if Scotland will be able to maintain their excellent world cup for [still a disgrace they were refereed out of a semi-final].
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/clinton-email-scandal-why-it-might-be-time-for-democrats-to-draft-joe-biden/2016/02/05/cd69dfea-cc18-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html
Even if no charges result, could this leave Clinton fatally damaged?
Kippers are ambivalent about gay marriage, in fact they're ambivalent about most things, leave people alone and stop interfering in their lives.
https://news.vice.com/article/on-board-russian-dissidents-kleptocracy-bus
However, local authorities don't even allow criticism or votes against them in the first place. Mark James in Carmarthen is perhaps an extreme example but in my experience he's far from untypical.
Therefore those LAs that are dominated by one party, e.g. In the Valleys, would be accountable to literally no one.
OK, I wrote all that and then looked it up, apparently I was worrying over nothing:
https://www.gov.uk/marriages-civil-partnerships/religious-ceremonies
JSON automation: A colleague of mine has a Java library:
https://github.com/alexheretic
HALModels, Dynamics and such-like. JSON mapping should be handled via an API.
Six Nations: I was considering backing Scotland. They're only 3, though, and I was hoping for longer.
France are at home to Italy, so should win at a canter.
Tomorrow is Ireland Vs Wales. Should be close.
UKIP is the only major party in Great Britain that is even ambivalent on gay marriage. It is fairly easy to find supporting evidence for this:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/exclusive-nigel-farage-change-ukip-5247000
Who are the potential Vice President nominees?
I view it as a worthy mechanism to keep more of people's money away from the state through married couples tax allowance and inheritence tax breaks
Almost forgot: LowDash support browser UI integration via JavaScript (ecma5).
More seriously, what little I do know of US politics suggests the Obama coalition has fractured over gun control and Medicare disappointments. So a few may have decided to sit it out calculating that four years of Cruz, Trump or Rubio and the next election will be a cakewalk.
I'm hoping that, anyway. The alternative, that the only possible Democratic candidates are a bunch of sleazy, incompetent geriatric has-beens, is too awful to contemplate.
I cannot see it becoming a major force at any level of government for that reason. Its failure to hold on to council seats for example.
If councillors ran the Council, well, it just wouldn't work. Unless one of their number is a former senior local government manager... but even then, again he/she would be effectively running the Council on behalf of the councillors as a whole.
Read up on delegated powers. This is how councils work. It's perfectly normal and reasonable.
The similar analogy is how the Chiefs of Staff of the Navy, Air Force and Army run their services, but they do so because power has been delegated to them by the Defence Council. Read up on that too.
Trump's former political advisor and long time political operator Roger Stone gives his verdict. Interesting gems in there, such as on Trump's ground game in SC etc.
Also, employment law applies to everyone. (The unions played a role in the development of that law, of course.)
Settings can be changed in the control panel to avoid this (for now, at least).
I'm also quite lazy, but they're doing their best to try and persuade me to buy some alternative machine.
Serious question [for down the line, but still]: if I bought a tablet is serious writing possible? Specifically, using freeware word processor programme + a plug-in proper keyboard?
Couldn't write thousands of words with the witchcraft that is touch-screen.
If we break it down into components Maoism would have the edge overall, although not far ahead of Nazism.
However, if we measure it by average deaths by year Nazism absolutely dwarfs any other system - roughly four times as bad as Maoism. However, that was stopped after a few years (it is horrendous to think what Hitler might have done had he lasted for 27 years like Mao). He 'achieved' this, incidentally, in about half the population Mao had at his disposal.
On your substantive point, the traditional cop-out for Marxists is that nobody has ever tried Marxism. Marx believed socialism, never mind Communism, was possible only in advanced capitalist societies, not backward agrarian ones like Russia, China or to a lesser extent Venezuela. However, the problem is that advanced capitalist economies don't need or want Marxism, so don't overthrow their rulers often - and when they do, go for fascists not communists.
Therefore, like all religious fundamentalists, they say the problem is not the message but the messengers, and they wreck it for the rest of us. The reason I like McCauley's point is it doesn't allow them that cop-out, because he further points out that theoretical Marxism spurred capitalism in to greater heights anyway, by its very nature benefitting from the competition!
"The family members of the three Somali men found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl in Rusholme, Manchester, in 2013, showed their support for the trio Bilal Ahmed, Mowled Yussaf and Muhyadeen Osman) by attending court.
Their victim, an A-grade student from a middle class family, was subjected to the most degrading and terrifying ordeal imaginable. The three men raped her six times over 30 minutes in a squalid hotel room in Rusholme. As he was led away from the dock to begin his ten year prison term, ringleader Yussaf stuck his middle finger up at the victim's parents not once but twice. Ahmed sarcastically blew a kiss at the couple shortly before sentence was delivered.
These were just two examples of the gauntlet of intimidation and abuse the couple have faced from the families and friends of the convicted men during the two-week trial"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3434382/A-private-school-girl-mothers-excuse-gang-rape-terrifying-culture-clash-no-one-dares-talk-Somalian-men-living-laws-native-country-causing-devastating-repercussions-Britain.html
Anyway, it's a musing for the future, at this stage. I just don't trust Microsoft not to enforce downloading of their apparently service-based Windows 10 monstrosity.
Despite being fundamentally wrong, this form of nostalgia accounts for the potency of UKIP with the raging baby boomers. In the 60s they wanted change and progress. In the 80s they wanted to consolidate their position, now - finally - they want to go back.
My colleague has a new Microsoft laptop which has a detachable screen which can be used as a tablet. Not sure of the particular model, but shouldn't be too difficult to find.
Edit: despite being Microsoft, you could install Linux on it if you wanted to avoid Windows
Or perhaps replacing my old desktop with something comparable, but non-Microsoft.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Indigo, that's rather good.
Miss Plato, the football and crisps line is brilliant.
Fwiw I am currently working for a privatised utility and have found that it treats its employees well. I also think your last sentence is very perceptive. I will leave it at that, I think
Then we changed to a system of soulless simplicity. Bah!
If I ever write more sci-fi, I'm going to have them use miles, not kilometres.