Oh there's no shortage of lunatics on Reddit, but the difference with their opinions and say those of lunatics arguing the merits of a horse race, is that their opinions can affect the outcome. I tend to use it to try and gague temperature (albeit you do get coegent contributions in amongst the morass too) You won't be too surprised to learn incidentally that quite a few Redditors claim to know what the Selzer poll is going to show with some tenuous inside line! (I did discount those from my thinking)
I'm not convinced that Trump will benefit for ducking Megyn Kelly. I think there has to be a decent chance that people will see through it in an age of cynicism, and there is of course the extended snub that Iowans might percieve, to factor in.
The early ratings suggest his rally fared badly against the debate (CNN cut away from it after 15 mins, talked over him, and then reverted to the studio). It's too early to tell what the fallout will be, but if Trump was a truly smart strategic political operator (and I'm far from convinced he is - I think he's a big mouth) he should have the humility to congratulate Kelly on moderating the debate as well as she did, and conceed he under-estimated her ability. He could reiterate his point that he doesn't believe that the political agenda should be set by broadcasters and reinvent this as his central objection (without losing face) and give her a commitment to take part next time Fox's turn comes round. At a stroke he could show contrition and draw any potential sting without having to expose himself to the grilling. Hell, if he framed it right he might even be able to present himself as a listening candidate who is both reasonable, and rewards people on merit. He won't do any of this of course
I can't believe that Cruz isn't going to cop some damage from not really having the support of the Iowan party fixers behind him, but its a bit like one of these terrible horse races where you can make pretty good cases against the field, until someone points out that there does actually have to be a winner
I tend to agree that the evidence is pointing to Trump plateauing at the moment, with the field as it currently is. Initially I estimated his support to have a 20-25% ceiling, (no science behind it, just a hunch based on societal observations). It's always possible that the correct figure should have been 28-32%? The orthodoxy at the time was he'd struggle to even hit double figures. What if my initial guess was right though? and what we've seen so far are protestors and apathetics who won't participate? Where does that leave him? We aren't talking about swing here, we're just talking about no shows, which is of course a very different dynamic. I don't think we've seen any evidence to suggest that Trumps support migrates to either Cruz or Carson. It's either there or it isn't?
By contrast (and it's not just in Iowa) you can see that Carson and Cruz both lend and take from each other as they seemingly rise and fall in correlation (perhaps God is the common factor?). If Carson does get a bounce, then I think he damages Cruz more than Trump. Trump once said the Bible is also a good book (when plugging one of his own books) and that's about as far as he's gone with that constituency
Bloombergs a work in progress with me. I haven't finalised where I think I am with him. I actually suspect however that Hillary will reassert and he'll keep out the fray, but the way this circus is going, who knows?
