Does anybody here really think Jeb will be the nominee anymore?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I've seen that trick before. Complain about their own credentials being questioned within the big tent, then proceed to through their own undersirables out of said tent.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm a loyal Republican and will be supporting the nominee unless it's Trump.

The problem with the Republican Party today can be summed up in two words. Tea Party. What I'm about to say does not apply to everyone in the tea party, but it does apply to the majority. The Republican Party was redefined in a sense in the 1980 election with Ronald Reagan. The party became the party that is pro-military, for free markets and limited government, and a party that was socially conservative. However, conservatives like myself recognized that there is always a give and a take. For example, conservatives like me believe that taxes should be low, regulations should be at a minimal, and the federal government should spend only on those things it is designated to be responsible for in the constitution, plus the safety net which is social security, medicare, and medicaid. My point being, we believe in limited government, but not no government. In response to Barack Obama and to a lesser extent, George W. Bush, the tea party was formed. In the beginning, the tea party was about opposing government over reach and out of control spending.

The tea party has become a joke. It's now not folks opposing big government, it's old white folks who buy into conspiracy theories, who believe that immigrants are taking over the country, and who oppose Common Core. They have these ridiculous litmus tests that if you disagree with them on one issue, you are automatically a "RINO." The tea party has recently become a parody of it's former self. They now are opposed to free trade and yet, they claim to be for free markets. The reality is, the majority of those in the tea party do not understand the world they live in. They don't understand trade policy or economic policy in general. They fear anyone who looks different than them.

In 2010, the GOP won control of congress because of Obamacare. The tea party prevented us from winning the U.S. Senate, and we lost ground in 2012 because of the tea party. By 2014, Republican leaders confronted the tea party and we did very well. In this election, you basically have four tea party candidates. The first is Donald Trump. He's old, angry, white, and stupid. He's everything the tea party is made up of. You then have Ben Carson. There are some in the tea party who want to prove that their dislike of Obama isn't based on race, so they support Ben and besides, they hate all politicians. Ted Cruz has sought tea party backing more than anyone else, and because he comes up with great talking points, he has been successful in gaining their support. Rand Paul has tea party support, probably less so than the other three, because his father's supporters who are libertarian are in the tea party.

So, here comes Jeb Bush. He's definitely a free market supporter, he reduced taxes and the size and scope of state government. He's pro-military, pro-life, and for traditional marriage. He wants the federal government to be limited and yet, he's for the safety net. Moderates like him, some conservatives don't completely trust him, and the tea party hates him. Why? Well, for many conservatives, his position on immigration is just not where they stand. For the tea party, his position means he wants more brown people in America and is for amnesty, despite him opposing amnesty consistently. Finally, he believes in Common Core. Look, I disagree with him on this, but to go crazy over one differing position? That's silly.

My point is not to rant here, it's to prove a point. Jeb's opposition does come from some mainstream conservatives, but it mainly comes from the crazies. The same can be said about multiple candidates. With the crazy vote divided, Trump, Cruz, and Carson have no chance at this nomination. Santorum, Pataki, Fiorina, Graham, Gilmore, Perry, and Jindal either aren't connecting with voters and or have no money. That leaves us with Bush, Christie, Walker, Rubio, Huckabee, Kasich, and Paul. Paul's base of support is very limited, most mainstream conservatives and moderates won't back him. Huckabee has the loyalty of many social conservatives, but that isn't as large a part of the party as it once was. Mainstream conservatives who are distrustful of Bush are likely to either go with Walker, Kasich, or Rubio. Ideologically, Kasich and Rubio are most similar to Bush. Therefore, Bush being in the race essentially hurts Kasich and Rubio the most, but the fact that moderates are backing him over Chris Christie hurts Christie as well. That is why I believe Scott Walker is Jeb Bush's biggest challenger for the nomination. If it comes down to a choice between them, I can tell you anyone who wants to win should support Bush because Walker is Romney 2.0

Were it not for the Tea Party, the GOP would be languishing in the wildness unlike any other time since the Great Depression, and it would entirely be because of Bush 43's time in office.

The rebellion against the GOP establishment began with the Immigration issue in 2007. We had passed a comprehensive bill before, but the enforcement never came to pass and there was never the firm desire to make it successful by enforcing the laws thereafter. There were legitimate concerns that one amnesty merely begets another either through intentional inaction or lack of concern for the matter. Either way, there was no desire to trust the same people who broke the system in the first place when they came back with the same promises. However, the real animating factor was the notion that Wall Street got rewarded for destroying the economy whilst middle class Americans who had not had a raise since the Clinton years, got left high and dry. The Tea Party in its first two years allowed for the running against both the Democrats who failed ot fix the economy and the Bush era GOP. The problem is that fringe, peripheral and perenial joke candidates like Angle and O'Donnel hopped on the bandwagon and hijacked the movement in several primaries costing us seats we should have won. The very thing that destroyed the Tea PArty was its inherent anger and mistrust of the people who got the country into the current mess.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm a loyal Republican and will be supporting the nominee unless it's Trump.

The problem with the Republican Party today can be summed up in two words. Tea Party. What I'm about to say does not apply to everyone in the tea party, but it does apply to the majority. The Republican Party was redefined in a sense in the 1980 election with Ronald Reagan. The party became the party that is pro-military, for free markets and limited government, and a party that was socially conservative. However, conservatives like myself recognized that there is always a give and a take. For example, conservatives like me believe that taxes should be low, regulations should be at a minimal, and the federal government should spend only on those things it is designated to be responsible for in the constitution, plus the safety net which is social security, medicare, and medicaid. My point being, we believe in limited government, but not no government. In response to Barack Obama and to a lesser extent, George W. Bush, the tea party was formed. In the beginning, the tea party was about opposing government over reach and out of control spending.

The tea party has become a joke. It's now not folks opposing big government, it's old white folks who buy into conspiracy theories, who believe that immigrants are taking over the country, and who oppose Common Core. They have these ridiculous litmus tests that if you disagree with them on one issue, you are automatically a "RINO." The tea party has recently become a parody of it's former self. They now are opposed to free trade and yet, they claim to be for free markets. The reality is, the majority of those in the tea party do not understand the world they live in. They don't understand trade policy or economic policy in general. They fear anyone who looks different than them.

In 2010, the GOP won control of congress because of Obamacare. The tea party prevented us from winning the U.S. Senate, and we lost ground in 2012 because of the tea party. By 2014, Republican leaders confronted the tea party and we did very well. In this election, you basically have four tea party candidates. The first is Donald Trump. He's old, angry, white, and stupid. He's everything the tea party is made up of. You then have Ben Carson. There are some in the tea party who want to prove that their dislike of Obama isn't based on race, so they support Ben and besides, they hate all politicians. Ted Cruz has sought tea party backing more than anyone else, and because he comes up with great talking points, he has been successful in gaining their support. Rand Paul has tea party support, probably less so than the other three, because his father's supporters who are libertarian are in the tea party.

So, here comes Jeb Bush. He's definitely a free market supporter, he reduced taxes and the size and scope of state government. He's pro-military, pro-life, and for traditional marriage. He wants the federal government to be limited and yet, he's for the safety net. Moderates like him, some conservatives don't completely trust him, and the tea party hates him. Why? Well, for many conservatives, his position on immigration is just not where they stand. For the tea party, his position means he wants more brown people in America and is for amnesty, despite him opposing amnesty consistently. Finally, he believes in Common Core. Look, I disagree with him on this, but to go crazy over one differing position? That's silly.

My point is not to rant here, it's to prove a point. Jeb's opposition does come from some mainstream conservatives, but it mainly comes from the crazies. The same can be said about multiple candidates. With the crazy vote divided, Trump, Cruz, and Carson have no chance at this nomination. Santorum, Pataki, Fiorina, Graham, Gilmore, Perry, and Jindal either aren't connecting with voters and or have no money. That leaves us with Bush, Christie, Walker, Rubio, Huckabee, Kasich, and Paul. Paul's base of support is very limited, most mainstream conservatives and moderates won't back him. Huckabee has the loyalty of many social conservatives, but that isn't as large a part of the party as it once was. Mainstream conservatives who are distrustful of Bush are likely to either go with Walker, Kasich, or Rubio. Ideologically, Kasich and Rubio are most similar to Bush. Therefore, Bush being in the race essentially hurts Kasich and Rubio the most, but the fact that moderates are backing him over Chris Christie hurts Christie as well. That is why I believe Scott Walker is Jeb Bush's biggest challenger for the nomination. If it comes down to a choice between them, I can tell you anyone who wants to win should support Bush because Walker is Romney 2.0

Were it not for the Tea Party, the GOP would be languishing in the wildness unlike any other time since the Great Depression, and it would entirely be because of Bush 43's time in office.

The rebellion against the GOP establishment began with the Immigration issue in 2007. We had passed a comprehensive bill before, but the enforcement never came to pass and there was never the firm desire to make it successful by enforcing the laws thereafter. There were legitimate concerns that one amnesty merely begets another either through intentional inaction or lack of concern for the matter. Either way, there was no desire to trust the same people who broke the system in the first place when they came back with the same promises. However, the real animating factor was the notion that Wall Street got rewarded for destroying the economy whilst middle class Americans who had not had a raise since the Clinton years, got left high and dry. The Tea Party in its first two years allowed for the running against both the Democrats who failed ot fix the economy and the Bush era GOP. The problem is that fringe, peripheral and perenial joke candidates like Angle and O'Donnel hopped on the bandwagon and hijacked the movement in several primaries costing us seats we should have won. The very thing that destroyed the Tea PArty was its inherent anger and mistrust of the people who got the country into the current mess.

I don't completely disagree with you. The tea party was started with good intentions. But I think they have strayed from what they originally were. You and I happen to disagree as to when the tea party began. The 2007 immigration bill had one major flaw, and that is that it had a pathway to citizenship as opposed to legal status, but I think that would have been better than the status-quo. In life, there are compromises. There is a time to fight for ideology, but also a time to govern. The tea party is only interested in ideology.

I didn't say the Tea Party began with the immigration issue in 2007, I said the Conservative Revolt began in 2007. For the first time, an organized reaction had opposed the Bush era GOP establishment and won. For the first time, the base was not going to defer to the same old broken promises. When they saw the bailouts, when they saw the stimulus, which was structured to divide up the tax rebate instead of sending lump sum checks, meanwhile Paulsen was handing out blank lump sum checks to Wall Street investors, there was not only a lack of deference, it was going to be war. Huckabee mocked this on his TV show illustrating just how lame the tax rebate was.

There is never a time for compromise for the sake of compromise. There is time for principled, result oriented compromise, and most of these so called packages rest on the same people to carry out the same promises they made and failed before. What incentive do Democrats have to end cyclical amnesty when they can just legalize them next time and get new voters? What incentive to COC oriented Republicans have when they can rebuild the supply of cheap slave labor? All that to gain and all you have to do is fail to adequately enforce the laws. That is why the comprehensive model failed in 1986 and why some many Republicans don't trust that the promises will be kept now. They want reform, as in an actual fix to the real problem, not a compromise that solves a political problem temporarily for a group of people who cannot appeal to anyone with a net worth below six figures. The same people who have deluded themselves into thinking that merely by turning the illegals into non-voting un-person "legal" laborers who will slave away (or more likely be undercut by the next wave who comes in and works under the table), they will be hailed as their saviors and rewarded with 70% of their relative's votes. Not gonna happen, because the next question will be, where do you stand on a $10 minimum wage and citizenship.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The moderates supporting Trump, I would assume are the same group of moderates that were attracted to Romney in 2007. Middle Class, Northern/Midwestern and Southwestern, Ancy about getting boned by free trade and/or hostile to illegal immigration, but maybe moderate on one or two of the social issues like abortion and/or guns. There is a parallel group of Conservatives with the same demographics and similar concerns, but are pro-life, pro-gun etc, but they prioritized the economy and immigration.

Remember, there was a debate in late 2007 where Romney criticized free trade agreements and called for a form of fair trade where workers got a better deal. He added to this a critique of Chinese currency manipulation and that is how he got Trump's support in 2012. There is definately a good bit of overlap between the two's bases simply because all the other candidates hoped on the legalization bandwagon and that left a good 15% to 25% without a candidate because these types are not conservative enough for Cruz.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Its not the fault of people like Fuzzy Bear that (to use NJ as an example) Kean and Wittman made deals since "it was a time for compromise" based on faulty assumptions (that the stock market would continue to increase like it was in the 1990's) and thus they could drastically boost benefits, not raise taxes and reap the political rewards in the short term and never have to face the long term consequences.

The sad part is that people like fuzzy bear are probably going to end up being boned not because of Chris Christie, but because Kean and Wittman f..... them twenty and thirty years ago. On the state level, you can only tax so much from the rich or they will move to TN, FL or TX, and Rick Scott, Greg Abbott, and/or or Bill Haslaam would love nothing more for them to move down to ole Dixie. Then you end up boning the middle class, which itself has not had raises since the 1990's, talent will flee and companies will locate where the educated workforce is. The end result, you end up with less money then you started with, and yep you guessed it, the state employees still eat it in the end. There is no taxing your way out of the municipal and state debt/pension crisis.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Remember the last time Rubio was facing an establishment candidate. Once he fell behind Rubio, it was curtains, Rubio just soared up and up and Crist eventually bolted because it was hopeless. So there is definately that history present.