We’re not really talking about it here, but one of the people released by Iran in the prisoner swap was Amir Hekmati. He is a game designer that was working for Kuma Reality Games on a DoD contract to develop a language video game. He went to Iran in 2011 to visit family, and Iran snatched him up and accused him of spying.
Timex
4303
Dave Wasserman is one of the best analysts and writers about how processes effect outcomes in the business. He just wrote a fantastic piece for Fivethirtyeight.com that should be essential reading for anyone who is really interested in how this could play out in the next 8 weeks.
Forget Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It’s all about Florida and Ohio for the GOP nominee.
Short version: Rubio a much better possibility of being the nominee than he’s being give credit for in the mainstream media.
RichVR
4305
It annoys me, as a registered Independent, that Florida is a closed primary state.
LMN8R
4306
Apparently Trump’s special guest today in Iowa will be Sarah Palin. I never thought I’d see a more perfect match of the detestable.
Timex
4307
He’s trying to win over the bible thumpers, because he doesn’t know how to quote scripture correctly.
Interestingly, just minutes ago Rubio’s campaign released his strategy, and…it’s not crazy. They’re calling it the 3-2-1 plan. 3rd in Iowa, 2nd in NH, 1st in…South Carolina?
Well, that could be a problem. But the 538 weighted polling currently does indeed have him running 3rd in Iowa, 2nd in NH.
For SC, he’ll need Christie to drop out, and for FL he’ll probably need Jeb to be completely tanked. Both could very reasonably happen.
It’s easy enough to change your party affiliation in Florida, at least in my county. I switched from NPA (no party affiliation) to Democrat a week or so ago so I could vote in the primary. You have to fill out a form and mail it in, or go to a public library, fill out the form, and have them mail it in (what I did). I will probably switch back to NPA after the primary.
But Christie is polling at just 2.5% in SC.
He’ll need other tumblers to fall as well with establishment candidates. That’s the biggest flaw in his plan, I think. The other two major establishment candidates still in the race besides Rubio and Christie are Kasich and Bush. I can’t see either of those two guys leaving the race before the date of the Florida and Ohio primaries.
Timex
4312
I think that after NH, there is gonna be some serious pressure for some folks to get out, like anyone below 3rd/4th in NH is gonna have to really think about what they’re doing. Even 4th is gonna have a hard time justifying it, unless it’s like Cruz, and he just won Iowa.
Anyone who doesn’t place in the top three in at least ONE of Iowa and NH is gonna have a hard time justifying going forward I think. But that doesn’t mean they won’t anyway. Their money is gonna start drying up though.
Fair enough.
I wonder what he’d be polling if the other moderates dropped out.
I can’t see either of those two guys leaving the race before the date of the Florida and Ohio primaries.
Which in turn might doom Rubio. That must be frustrating for his camp.
Unforced error by Sanders—his rally in Birmingham took place in an auditorium normally used as a warming station for the homeless on cold nights.
I think you’d be right if the states weren’t so lined up for a couple of guys who look like longshots.
I do think that after NH there’ll be no reason for the candidacies of most of the field, including Fiorina. Christie seems to have found a twinge of momentum that may be polling noise…but he may be out by that point too.
Jeb would normally be out. His donors would be expecting him to be, to free them up to throw some funds at another without guilt. But again…Florida primary. Winner take all. How does he leave before that? Not saying he won’t, but it’d be a little bit surprising.
Same for Kasich. Why get out before that Ohio primary?
And for Rubio, that’s the real frustration. Neither guy leaving, and both of those winner-take-all states have their respective primaries on the same day. Even if there was a four-day gap there, it’d help him considerably to have Kasich or Bush duck out of one or the other.
That is such a weird situation. I wonder if it was the Secret Service that made the decision to keep it closed at the last second? Nothing else makes much sense. I would assume the city would have found some alternative had it known well ahead of time, and the campaign likewise could have changed their arrangements. That said, it’s still bad optics no matter who is to blame.
For all of his talents, he didn’t have a very good read on the electorate. I think that, more than competition from people like Bush and Kasich, doomed him.
Sucks. Sounds like the ball was dropped on the city’s side and the campaign’s side.
“I knew last week that the city used the warming station upstairs, but not downstairs. We had no idea that the warming station would be closed. We were downstairs, they would be upstairs. That’s what we knew,” said Kelvin Datcher, state director for the Sanders campaign.
“There was never any conversation about the warming station. Not only did the senator not know, I didn’t even know. They were relying on me to relay information up the chain. Had that been a concern, we absolutely would’ve acted on it,” Datcher said.
Bad communication.
The Donald has invoked the endorsement of The Palin. Weep, ye mighty, and despair.
RichVR
4321
I’ll have to look into that. Thanks.
