
Bernie Sanders’ Success Attracting Small Donors Tests Importance of ‘Super PACs’ - nkzednan
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/us/politics/bernie-sanders-success-in-attracting-small-donors-tests-importance-of-super-pacs.html
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adventured
Sanders and Trump are both demonstrating what you can accomplish when voters
decide they've had enough of the status quo.

Trump might be able to pull off winning the presidency while spending a
fraction of what was spent in 2012. He's getting ten times the free press of
the other Republican candidates combined.

~~~
geofft
Is the party machinery realistically going to give the nomination to Trump?
(He's not going to win as an independent.)

I feel like Trump still being around is an attempt from the party to make
people believe the presidential election is a circus, provide cover for more-
reasonable candidates (both in behavior and in extremity of position), etc.
Sanders is telling voters who have had enough how to engage; Trump is telling
voters who have had enough how to disengage.

~~~
adventured
Another interesting thing about Trump on the Republican side, is how he's
showing the extreme weakness of the other candidates without even trying very
hard to do so.

Ted Cruz has a slim outside shot, behind Bush; so far he isn't lighting
anything on fire. Walker is lame as far as his campaign is going. Perry is
done. Christie is out before he even got started. Fiorina has come across as
more professional than most of the rest, but she hasn't managed to get much
national traction, her name recognition is incredibly low still. Ben Carson is
irrelevant and never had a shot. Rand Paul's campaign has all but imploded
before things even get serious, and he has shown zero traction.

All that's left is Jeb. He has some composure, and has a lot of money, but
he's like a cardboard prop: low energy, a relatively weak speaker, nothing to
get the voters excited.

The Republican Party might have no choice in the end, unless Trump's numbers
implode or Jeb's campaign finds some energy (either of which certainly might
occur). Their biggest concern of course is Trump going for the independent run
and guaranteeing the Democrats win. I think they fear that far more than him
winning the nomination.

~~~
deciplex
I wonder if the nominee would offer Trump a position in their administration
in exchange for not running as an independent, and if Trump would give a shit.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I was thinking through that same scenario the other day, but came to the
conclusion that The Donald's ego is far too large to ever accept anything but
the Presidency.

My guess is that we'll see a Clinton/Bush general election with a 3rd party
spoiler. Again.

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huac
I mean, on the other end of the spectrum, you have the Donald claiming he'll
spend a billion of his own money on the campaign. (of course, if he even has
that much in liquid assets is debatable)

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adventured
He has ~$300m in listed liquid assets. Estimates peg it at maybe half that in
freely available cash or equivalents. He could easily leverage his real estate
assets for some money as needed. A billion would push him to the red line
though. He's blustering of course, he won't risk it all for this run. He's
currently acting to raise money from voters precisely because he can't
actually afford to fund his campaign the whole way.

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dang
Most stories about politics are off topic here, of course, but maybe this one
falls under "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon".

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

