Damn You Rachel Maddow- Another DL e-mail

I have a confession to make.. I wrote this e-mail last night after a ruminating on a conversation I had with someone over the weekend. And then Rachel Maddow stole it from my brain. Makes me sad and happy all at the same time. So for you Maddow watchers: here is her version, which starts around 10:25: on.msnbc.com/1CY7ogF

For those who are unaware, the first Republican primary debate will be 08/06 at 9pm. (For those of you who usually play quizzo, we apologize now.)  However, did you know that unlike the clown car version that appeared in 2008 and 2012, Faux News will be cutting the field. In some ways, this makes sense. You can’t have (I have honestly lost track of what number we are up to) 15 people on stage at once answering questions one-by-one; there is 30 minutes right there wasted on opening statements. So Faux and the Republican party has decided to make their car appear more spacious by kicking out the crazy. Or so they hoped.

You see Faux news will decide their Top 10 by using  polling data from 5 national polls averaged. Now the problem with (in theory) 15 people and 10 spots is when you factor in the margin of error (assuming +/- 5%), the bottom kind of falls out. Statistically speaking no difference exists between 10 and 11 in their ranking. So basically this system allows the channel and the party to play favorites. Again, not so much a bad thing as this is intended to keep the supposed tea party rif-raf down to a minimum.

It was all going along so well until every late night show host favorite punch line decided to enter the race. Yes, Donald you fucked it up for everyone. It was supposed to be so easy, they could pick and choose who they wanted among the third tier because of Math and no one could argue because of Math. Then you, Donald had to come in with your insane comments and your earned media. Trump is second right now in most national polling. SECOND. (see this fun little tool by huffpo: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary). They can’t just ignore him. Which I guess sucks for some of the candidates that deserved to be there like a Lindsey Graham, John Kasich or even Chris Christie. 

It seems like every time I open twitter someone new is running from Trump or they are asking the other candidates about him.  Its like inverse Tinkerbell with this guy, for every person who says they don’t believe in Donald Trump his power just grows. And so does his poll numbers. Which is the most important thing to appear as legitimate in the republican (or really any candidate) field. A sad state for the Republicans who created this monster and now have to defeat it. For everyone else, lets grab a beer and watch the show.