1902

Yeah, I thought the exact same thing.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter even if he were a fake though, because it doesn’t change the fact that he advocated for ethnic cleansing and trump let it go.

1903

Holy shit, the guy on CNN is interviewing trump live right now and he is just self destructing. He even flat out asked him, “if he had said, ‘we have a problem in this country, and its called blacks,’ would you have said something?” And trump actually said no.

A New poll came out showing that fiorina and rubio jumped a lot in the polls, and trump is losing his lead.

1904

Polls are in from the second debate, and they show more or less what you’d expect: Trump still leads (but does not increase his lead), Fiorina jumps to second, Carson slides to third, Rubio/Bush/Cruz are still mired in the middle, and everybody else - which now includes Scott Walker - bringing up the rear.

Next debate is October 28. Now we wait to see who of the “everybody else” follows Rick Perry out the door.

1905

Trump is a salesman and deal-maker, not a politician. His customer is the electorate. You don’t gainsay your customer unless it provides you a critical advantage in making the sale.

1906

Did anyone watch Fox News Sunday today? I was a little surprised how Chris Wallace handled the Fiorina interview, he didn’t pull many punches.

Wallace questioned her on the “watch the video” moment during the last debate, the HP layoffs, and the HP/Iran thing. I realize she’s going to be questioned a lot more on those topics, but isn’t she supposed to be the Goldengirl of the Repubs now?

1907

He may get dinged a bit more after his interview on Meet The Press today. http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ben-carson-does-not-believe-muslim-should-be-president-n430431

A Muslim shouldn’t be elected as our President, but for Congress, well that’s okay.

HUH?

1908

I live in Rochester. Even though it’s part of the Portsmouth-Dover-Rochester SMSA (hour north of Boston) there are plenty of nutjobs with their stupid signs and bumper stickers. But like most places it’s the (even) more densely populated areas (Nashua-Manchester primarily) that are blue strongholds (the only exception to this rule is VT.) During the '08 election when I took my car to a mechanic he said “Isn’t Obama Muslim?” - guess it was a thing even then.

Just an observation: I took the question at the town hall “When are we going to get rid of them” to mean “get rid of the ISIS camps in the US.” Still really stupid though.

By the way, Ben Carson at least thinks we should never have a Muslim President, so there’s that.
Edit: Oops didn’t see the post above mine.

1909

Sheesh. Well, now we know that the news cycle for the next week will be dominated by the press chasing down each candidate to ask them: “Would you support a Muslim presidential candidate?”

Spoiler alert! Here’s their answers:

Democrats: “Yes, of course”
Some republicans: “No!”
Most Republicans: “Blather, blather, word salad” (maybe?)

1910

There’s multiple levels to it though. I’ve read a lot of the responses, but it doesn’t seem like most seem to grab every way in which it’s appalling.

The genocidal nature of the statement is the most egregious and absolutely abhorrant if anyone doesn’t point it out. Then there’s the outright lie about Obama’s background and religious beliefs.

But those are just blatantly terrible and immediately visible on the surface. There’s also the fact that people are using “being a Muslim” as an inherent attack. It’s not just that they’re calling Obama a Muslim, it’s that in doing so, they think they’re attacking Obama.

(But considering that Carson is now saying that he would never support a Muslim president, it’s not at all surprising of course. It’s just standard fare religious bigotry)

1911

Wallace is a Democrat, and far more importantly his father’s son. I think I’ve seen Mike Wallace give more soft interviews than Chris Wallace. But of course Mike’s done a lot more interviews over the decades.

1912

Walker falls to 0% in latest CNN poll. Fiorina seems to be main beneficiary.

As a couple of poll watchers point out, even when Kerry in '04 and McCain in '08 were being counted out, neither was polling 0%.

1913

While I can’t think of anyone in the R field who wouldn’t be worth celebrating the sudden disappearance of, Walker is particularly vile in his own very special way. A preemptive good riddance!

1914

Hear, hear. It would be fitting if the next governor and legislature in Wisconsin undid all his horrible state laws and malicious policies, too.

1915

It’s at least partially refreshing that the Koch’s golden boy can’t even get to 1%. But I wouldn’t underestimate what that Koch money can do once it kicks in.

1916

The Kochs have Kasich. If that fails Rubio. Hell, they got about 10 marionettes in there.

1917

So the newest teapot-tempest is Carson’s line on Sunday that he doesn’t think that a Muslim should be president. He then later clarified his position to say that he doesn’t believe that a Muslim should be PREVENTED from becoming president… he just thinks that the Muslim faith is antithetical to American values. Good job there buddy.

The response from the other candidates was a bit more strong this time; even Ted Cruz pointed out that the Constitution specifically forbids a religious litmus test for elected office.

1918

Well, to be fair to Carson, what he actually said was:

When asked if he thought Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said, “No, I don’t, I do not.”

And to be fair, he’s kind of right in that Islam actually does prescribe a set of civil law which is incompatible with the constitution of the US. This isn’t to say that a muslim can’t put that aside, but Islam itself doesn’t quite play well with secular law.

1919

We’ve had this same discussion many times here. Yes, a strict, nearly fundamentalist following of the Koran and the various Islamic strictures that followed in the eight century would be at odds with the US Constitution and democracy in general… but Indonesia seems to be puttering along with free elections just fine. And of course the Old Testament also sets out civil laws alongside religious ones, a large number of which would be in conflict with the US Code and a few of the more popular Constitutional amendments… but we don’t have people saying that Judaism or Christianity should disqualify someone for office.

1920

Yeah, insofar as I’d like to see faith removed from governance altogether, there’s a certain kind of logic to that. If we get a Pro-Life Republican in the hotseat in '16 and he gets to put as many Judges on the high bench as people are saying he will, the faith of a Christian president could cause lasting and serious harm to women’s health and rights in this country.

But, for better or for worse, our forbears saw fit to say that people of any faith could rule, and those are the rules that Carson and the rest of us get to play by–barring an amendment, I guess.

1921

No, we have quite the opposite though, with religious practices being used as a qualifying mark in certain areas. I mean Romney’s Mormon faith was used as a vector of attack for many Republicans up until the moment he got the nomination, as if his non mainstream Christian beliefs should disqualify him.

People have this perverted notion of our countries founding. Incorrectly stating, with sincerity, that our nation was founded as a (protestant/ evangelical) Christian nation. Not understanding that our founding fathers designed a constitution explicitly rejecting such a founding, and for good reason!