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The Bern Report reports
Dr. Rick Hardy and Dr. John Hemingway have been leading Mock Presidential Elections [at Western Illinois University] since 1975. During that time, students who have participated in these mock elections have chosen the winning party with 100% accuracy and have an astonishing record in selecting presidential winners.
On the Democratic side for the Primaries Sanders won[1] by close to a 2 to 1 margin over challenger Hillary Clinton.
[...] After nominating Sanders, the student Democrats put him up against Jeb Bush, who received the Republican nomination, with Bernie winning the electoral college by nearly a 4 to 1 margin and a decisive win for the popular vote.
This simulation always takes place the year before the presidential election year, and three months before the actual Iowa caucuses. The genesis of this mock presidential election began at the University of Iowa in 1975 with two political science doctoral students, John Hemingway and Rick Hardy. In that year, students selected Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford--long before anyone really knew of Jimmy Carter.
In the years that followed, Rick Hardy expanded the format and engaged thousands of students at the University of Missouri-Columbia where students registered a perfect record of selecting the subsequent winning presidential party. In 2007 and 2011, Hardy and Hemingway teamed up again to conduct a massive campus-wide simulation at Western Illinois University. In 2007, Western students selected Barack Obama as president at a time when no one thought he could win! And, in 2011, students narrowly re-elected President Obama.
[1] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday November 15 2015, @05:18AM
Well your argument basically boils down to it being the money men who establish the current position of the Overton Window so Trump is operating outside of it by virtue of not needing them. That means the Republicans find another self funding zillionaire that agrees with Trump on immigration enough to siphon votes while somehow being beholden to the establishment enough they would approve of him/her and being more desirable to the base. So unless they find this unicorn in the next few weeks, say hello to President Trump. Not sure whether I hope you are right or wrong.
Can think of one other option. The establishment could decide to accept the facts on the ground and 'permit' one of the other candidates to adopt the 'full Trump' position on immigration and keep the donor money coming in. The danger, from their perspective, is that doing so would in fact move the Window and then permit a stampede of one upmanship on who would be the most severe immigration hawk. I suspect they would never do this, far preferring to risk a Clinton victory to losing control of an issue near and dear to their plans for a borderless transnational world.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 15 2015, @07:32AM
I wouldn't say the Trump is operating outside of the Overton Window, but rather that he's operating outside of the Window as presented by the MSM. This means that he's operating within the_actual_ Window. I suppose we could discuss whether the idea of an actual versus an apparent Window even make sense, but I think that for the sake of expediency we should just accept that this is so.
Trump's main issue of course is immigration. Everyone knows this. Apart from Trump, the 2016 Republican position on immigration has been that of course we_can't_actually deport all of the illegal immigrants because doing so would be "UnAmerican". And we can't enforce the laws or control the borders because that would be impractical and un-American. This is basically values argument. The problem with this position is that for the Republican base, this is an economic issue, and a simple one at that.
This is Microeconomics 101. And the supply and demand curves are both labeled "labor". In the 80s and 90s, this issue primarily affected US farm workers and the urban poor. That is to say "black people"-- not exactly the Republican base. Since then, through H1B visas and other policies, this issue has grown to significantly impact the middle class... including the "Important" white male demographic that is the core of the Republican Party.
Within the past week I saw an article on CNN.com where the "impartial" reporter and tried to explain just how much it would cost to deport all of the illegal immigrants in the US. I think it's clear that the monied interests and have realized that they have to at least speak to the economic issue. Of course old habits die hard-there was still plenty of discussion in the story about how bad it would look and about how "un-American" it would be to do such a thing.
If someone wants to beat trump in the Republican field, they're going to have to make an economic argument. They're going to have to explain why open borders and trans nationalism makes sense -- and I mean economic sense-- to rank-and-file Republican voters.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @09:35AM
and I mean economic sense
Why economic sense? I don't oppose the NSA's unethical and unconstitutional mass surveillance because it's bad for the economy or because it doesn't work, but because it violates the constitution, our principles, and our fundamental liberties. 'Practical' arguments hardly factor in at all, so it is mostly value-based. Why do you want to limit the discussion to economics in this case?
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 15 2015, @10:26AM
The immigration issue is, at this time, an economic issue. At least it is for a large portion of Trump's supporters. It is difficult to counter an economic argument, which is fairly concrete, with the values argument which by its nature is somewhat less concrete.
There are lots of issues that are primarily values issues either because they don't have an economic component, or because the economic ramifications are not clear. You mentioned mass surveillance. Abortion rights and gun rights are also good examples. If one of these is most important to you, you'll probably care about your candidates values position with regard to it. In fact you might be offended if someone were to make an economic argument on some of these issues.
So no you don't need to have an economic argument against mass surveillance. But if you are pro open borders and want a Trump supporter to vote for you, and economic argument would sure help.
...but you HAVE heard of me.