Republican Primary Nomination poll

[gobbler777]

Cruz for sure

[VaTuRkStOmPeR]

Trump is an abrasive, fascist and Cruz's perceptions of reality are dated by 30 years.

Both scare the hell out of me.  I'm a Kasich guy.

[Gooserbat]

Personally I like Cruz.  Trump is a close second.  Bro Jeb would be my last pick. 

[Tail Feathers]

You folks in the northern US better be careful.  Trump could have us in a shooting war with Canada in a year.
He is so abrasive I don't know how anyone could seriously consider him presidential material.  He has no substance.  It's all "winning, I'll be great, wait and see what I do".  He has no plan, he thinks he can wing it.  If you support Trump, listen carefully to his plan of action.  You won't find one.  All talk, no plan to get it done.
OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.

[Clardh]

I'm a Cruz fan. He says what he means and means what he says. After him it's up for grabs but in no way would I vote democrat. You gentlemen need to listen to Mark Levin!!!

[Swather]

I'm a Cruz fan. He says what he means and means what he says. After him it's up for grabs but in no way would I vote democrat. You gentlemen need to listen to Mark Levin!!!

I have been on board with Cruz ever since he was running for the Senate in Texas against the establishment candidate and Lf. Gov. Dewhurst.  Cruz started off with 2%, creamed Dewhurst in debates and campaigning, and defeated him.  A clearcut victory of Tea Party over Cocktail Party, and the Cocktail Party politicians still dislike Cruz.

What I like about Cruz is that he is a core conservative with a deeply held set of principles and I firmly believe that he will fight on principle and work as hard to advance conservative principles as liberals do to advance their ideology.  In that respect, Cruz is different than all the lazy, defeatist, surrender monkeys in the Cocktail Party wing of the GOP.  They don't develop ideas, they don't have ideals, they don't fight hard, they don't try to move the public on issues, and they are worried about what the median and Dems think about them and whether they'll keep getting invites to the cocktail party circuit in D.C.  Cruz clearly does not care about that and does not feel a need to be loved by liberals, the media, or the Cocktail Party wing RINO's like McCain and Graham.  He has consistenly made them look bad, and they resent him for it. 

Cruz has his weaknesses.  The biggest is that he did not grow up in a family business or work in a business, he was not supervising people and trying to get the lower class and lower middle class to show up every day on time and sober and try to get work out of them.  He has never been responsible for profit and loss in a business, and has never made a payroll.  He has also struggled mightily with the immigration questions, inclusive of all facets: annual quota, visas such as H1-B, and what to do with the various category of illegals here.

They all have trouble because Hispanics/Latinos are a fast growing demo in the US and they have the potential to decide future elections.  They perceive that the H/L block is sympathetic and putting brown before all else and standing with the illegals from the south over their fellow countrymen, and if they come across as shrill and hateful on immigration (and the media will do its best), they could alienate the voting block and suffer in future elections.

They also have trouble because the visa program were workers is complex, complicated, and confounding.  It can have a lot of benefit and allow the US to step out and bring in high level, select talent from around the world.  The tech industry in California is all about it, because half of the key players in Silicon Valley were born outside the US.  They can point to the facts there and make a good case for the H1-B visa program.

But the other side of the story on the visa program is that it has become a tool for companies to fill the mandate from Wall Street to contain costs by outsourcing IT work.  The visa program has therefore been abused and a lot of natural born citizens have been hurt, and the country is hurt because the foreigners work for less and OASDI/FICA are not withheld and paid in.  If American citizens were doing that work, Social Security would be collecting more.

Finally, the country has benefitted from immigration while it has also suffered.  The benefit from immigration is somewhat random, no one knew when Steve Jobs' father got a student visa that he would sire an American son that would start several companies and become a billionaire.  Jobs was a lot of brilliance and craziness wrapped up in one package.  No one knew that when the founder of Chobani came to the US in 1994 that he would found such a company and become a millionaire.  No one knew when Elon Musk was allowed in from S. Africa that he would start Paypal, become wealthy, and then start Tesla and Space X.

But there is a clear trend of self-inflicted injury from allowing muslims to enter the US.  Start with the student visa for Khalid Shiekh Muhammed, to his nephew Ramzi Yousef, to the 19 hijackers, to the two Boston bomber, to the Chattanooga shooter, to the San Bernardino shooters.  It is an undeniable trend to everyone except liberals, which is ironic, because the intolerant mandate of islam cut against all they supposedly believe in with respect to sex, abortion, sodomy, gay marriage, freedom of speech, etc.  There is no way that their liberal ideology flourishes with a lot of islam presence.

[Swather]

I have a hard time listening to Mark Levin, he has a nasally, whiney, yankee accent in the first instance and he screams too much.

The Donald Trump voters are just like the Obama voters in 08 and 12.  They had all the evidence they needed to see who the man was, including his own deeds and the very words from his mouth, but they voted for him anyway as if he were a centrist and populist that was going to change politics, eliminate divisiveness, and usher in a new way of business in D.C.  They ignored who he really was and voted for what he said he was, and they all got what they deserved.  They rest of us got plenty that we did not deserve.

Trump has told the world for years that he is a New York liberal with New York values.  He has told us for years that it is all about him.  He has recently told us that he likes Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and can make deals with them, as if Republican capitulation and Dem victory has not been the story of the last decade.  We don't need a deal maker and surrender monkey to flush principles just to get the issue behind them, we need someone with principles to make a stand, fight, and move people to his side of the issue.

If you folks vote for Trump and he wins, I am sure that you will get what you deserve.  But it troubles me that the rest of us are going to get it too and without deserving it.

I hope that Bernie Sanders keeps rocking and Bloomberg enters the race.  That would split the Dem votes and really help the Repubs. 

[C120]

Well, it will be a republican so that eliminates Trump.  I honestly believe America's best hope is Dr. Carson.  He is the only candidate that is trying to bring this country together instead of creating further separation.

[Fullfan]

Cruz is a career  politician and will be bought by the highest bidder, Trump on the other hand is not. Time to get the lazy off food stamps and welfare. Send the Mexicans back from where they came..

[VaTuRkStOmPeR]

On the contrary, candidates are supposed to be a voice of the people instead of "moving the people."

The majority of the American populous is moderate on social issues but financially conservative.  The GOP, as a fundamentalist party, is becoming increasingly more obsolete. We need a candidate who reflects America, not a candidate who wants to impose values that the separation of church and state was meant to prevent.

I believe we, as the United States, cannot discriminate against any ethnic or religious group without eroding the very principles the country was founded upon.  Roe vs Wade exists for a reason and protects a woman's right to have autonomy over her body whether you agree with the morality of abortion or not.  Government has gotten too big and needs to find its way out of people's personal lives.  We need to get fix entitlements, illegal immigration, and pass trade policy that promotes domestic production. 

Too many of these republican candidates are worried about imposing their morality/religion through public policy and too many of the democratic candidates want to give the country away through entitlements and promoting government dependency.  They all disgust me.

[Swather]

Ronald Reagan was a movement conservative, he brought people around to his way of thinking because he had ideals and articulated them.  The young people in particular are incredibly ignorant about about economics, and someone needs to inform them and move them to vote in their own best interests.

Furthermore, the notion that a candidate does not need or have to move people is absurd on its face.  There is a section in the middle called independents, and at least a small segment of them, in addition to the base and dedicated party voters beyond them, must be courted and won.  A good candidate will also get people to cross over, e.g., the "Reagan Democrats."

The states have the police power, which is the power to regulate for the "health, safety, morals, and public welfare."  Moral judgments inform laws, and always have.  Republicans did not make that up.  It used to be that people had much higher standards and better morals, and they used the police powers to prohibit things like abortion, prohibit sodomy, and to define marriage as between a man and a woman.  The states did not have to do it, but had the power to do it.  And if the atheists and agnostics with moral standards as low as an alley cat did not like the state's policies and the way the people voted to use the police power, they were free to move to kooky states like Vermont, Mass., and California.   

The reason that decisions like Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, and Hodges v. Oberfell exist is because in each instance, 5 justices acted as oligarchs in black robes and mental gymnastics to find a way to undermine the Tenth Amendment and the states' exercise of the police powers.  Each of those subjects--homosexual sex (sodomy), abortion, and marriage had been regulated by the colonies and the states in the same way prior to passage of the constitution and beyond the addition of amendments, including the 14th.  That tells us that they knew that they were not relinquishing their rights to regulate them (or not) when they ratified the constitution and its amendments.  The leftists on the courts did not care, they were not going to let a little thing like the text or the clearcut historical uses and interpretations of police powers to get in the way of the result they wanted, and they weren't going to run for office to do it.  Roe in particular is an odious decision, with two female plaintiffs that openly admit that they regret having abortions and have felt loss and guilt, and the liberal lawyers involved admitting that they lied to SCOTUS about all the home abortions and injury and death resulting therefrom.  It was clearly a fraud upon the court.  Further, the recent videos from Planned Parenthood with discussion of discrete, identifiable body parts that could be separated and harvested from first trimester fetuses makes it painfully clear how inadequate a judicial process is to make the decision in Roe to draw the line at the first trimester.  It also belies the contentions of abortion apologists and proponents that there is nothing more at stake than a mass of cells and not a discernable life form.

The suggestion that women do not have autonomy over their bodies without abortion at will is absurd.  Women only need an abortion in a very small percentage of cases, usually due to an ectopic pregnancy and early death of a fetus.  Abortion law would easily accommodate that, but the liberals don't care about "need" until it comes to express, textual rights like the RKBA in the Second Amendment.  You will hear them talk about how no one "needs" and AR 15, or a semi auto handgun, or a "clip" that holds more than 5 rounds, etc. 

I want a Republican candidate that will advocate for my rights as fiercely and without apology as the godless liberal heretics advocate for abortion, sodomy, gay marriage, and a free gubmint cheese .  I don't want to hear a Republican tell me that I don't "need" a particular weapon and must jump through hoops and be on a registry when I have a clear, textual constitutional right borne from a violent revolution of young men that had guns and were therefore able to establish a free country.  And I certainly don't want a Republican restricting my textual gun rights to "need" while simultaneously supporting a judicial fiat right like abortion based on "want" and even being willing to throw my money at the issue such as appropriations to Planned Parenthood.

Finally, I will close by saying that those that believe a Republican can win an election without the support of social conservatives has a puerile and trivial understanding of politics, the core, and turn out.  Social conservatives are the base and the core of the Republican party.  End of story.  No candidate can win without them, as George HS Bush proved in 92, Dole proved in 96, McCain proved in 2008, and Romney proved in 2012. 

How did an unaccomplished, modestly intelligent candidate like George W. Bush get elected twice? Because he had the base and got them to turn out.  But he ran into trouble in 2000 due to the October surprise, which was a DUI Bush had gotten in Maine.  He had not been honest with voters and divulged it and addressed it, and he lost some of his support late.

[greentag]

i dont like politicians,and i always thought trump was an arrogant goody-two shoe,but my mind has been changed on the trump,if he really did what he says than im all for it,quite giving away food stamps so they can trade it for drugs,the free heat,they are selling kerosine everyday in my little town to buy drugs,that they got for free just because they are sorry,and send the muzlims and the like back instead of giving them free housing and not making them pay taxes.i hardly watch any thing to due with politics,i    live in a small country town,were we still have god,get to shoot our guns in our yards,and do what we want as long as its not bothering anyone,i think we need a president the same way,so far its trump,he doesnt care what people think and he hates obama,like me only im broke.

[hookedspur]

Well I'm just glad I'm allowed to vote for who l want.
There is so much more I would like to say after reading this post BUT I'm not .
I will vote my conscience and pray for guidance for who ever comes out the winner.

I'm not going to vote for another career politician, where has that taken us ?

[Herb McClure]

I have already voted by absents ballot and I don't mind telling anyone; it was for Trump. He's the only man that could start, to bring our government back from what it has been taken down the road to. herb mcclure   

[thenatural67]

I have already voted by absents ballot and I don't mind telling anyone; it was for Trump. He's the only man that could start, to bring our government back from what it has been taken down the road to. herb mcclure

I'm going with Trump as well . I'm tired of the same ole broken down politicians