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Anti-establishment non-politicians top Iowa poll

I normally don’t bother reporting on polls. They are notoriously unreliable and often force one to the wrong conclusions. Nonetheless, this poll appears significant because it indicates that it isn’t just Trump that the voters are turning to in their disgust of the establishment political elite community.

First, it is the first poll since late July that does not show Trump with a lead. Instead, Ben Carson ties him. Second, Carly Fiorina with 10% and Ted Cruz with 9% come in second and third.

Finally, and most important, Bush, Kasich, and Rubio, politicians who have demonstrated by their actions that once elected they cannot be trusted get little or no support.

For months I have strongly believed that Jeb Bush was going to go nowhere once the voting began. The Republican base does not want another Bush. Similarly, Rubio’s betrayal of the tea party voters who got him elected by his support of the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration bill is well remembered by those tea party voters. They do not trust him.

Instead, I believe that it will be reliable conservatives or brash outsides like Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, and Trump who will get the votes. This poll suggests I might be right.

Having said this, I must emphasize again my mistrust of polls. It is just as likely this poll is a waste, and tells us nothing.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

17 comments

  • wodun

    Testing missing commemt

  • Cotour

    Me interviewing Jeb Bush:

    Me: Mr Bush what steps would you take to improve the economics of the United States for the people?

    Mr. Bush: Well we would have to look at tax cuts and in addition bringing jobs back from China etc, etc, etc. blah, blah, blah, BS ,BS, BS. Says absolutely nothing.

    Me, question number 2: Mr. Bush your father who was president also talked of “never raising taxes” and then he did, and in addition he was the first president to speak of a global type government, and your brother spent money like a liberal and presided over the banking debacle and The Patriot Act among many other things, what makes you think that the people of America want more of what has delivered them to the point in our history that we find ourselves today?

    Mr. Bush: He is now looking for his security people to remove me from the venue before I can ask my next question.

    Me, 3rd question: Mr. Bush, do you believe that the founders of the country that wrote the Constitution intended for political dynasties to be the desired result of their work, wasn’t the Constitution written to eliminate such arrogant and abusive behavior by those big money familial interests?

    Me, my fourth and final question before security gets to me: Do you really believe that only a Bush or a Clinton is qualified to be the president, where do you get your arrogant point of view?

    Me, I then leave and hopefully the remaining audience follows up on my questions.

    The family’s of the Bushes and the Clintons have brought us to the point that we find ourselves, I can only assume that there is an agenda behind their actions. Why would the people want more?

    The American people: Yes, I will take another kick in the head please, this time could you make it a little bit harder, you know, like you really mean it this time. (are these people serious?)

  • Edward

    Reminds me a bit of Kevin Bacon, in “Animal House”. Bacon plays The American people, and James Daughton plays the government:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ (1 minute)
    Bacon: “Thank you, sir! May I have another?”

  • Cotour

    Good call, I may have emphasized the wrong end. The American people appear ready to make a truly loud sound in the coming presidential election, lets hope its very, very loud and heard in Congress and heard around the world.

    Obama is in Alaska reconciling the white mans injustices forced upon the native Alaskin people. Lets hope that he leaves office before he can do much “reconciling”. I have had my fill of reconciliation, enough is enough.

  • Cotour

    Will the GOP / Democrat establishment insist upon there own candidate in spite of what the people demand? If they can’t have the one then they will take the other?

    http://observer.com/2015/08/will-mitt-romney-jump-in/

    The final rule of the laws of power or S.O.M. (Strategy Over Morality) : Power is never willingly surrendered. They will do anything, and I mean anything to acquire and retain what they see as theirs. And if they can not have power as of right, right off the bat, they will in time find a way to control it.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “Power is never willingly surrendered.”

    I’m not so sure about the absoluteness of that statement. We the People were recently talked into willingly giving up the power to choose how to spend our own money. The government convinced (too many of) us that Obamacare was such a bad idea that it could not survive unless the government took over control of the spending of our own money in order to keep the bad idea from going bankrupt. We now must purchase expensive, virtually-useless health insurance policies with our own money, otherwise the insurance business goes insolvent handling the uninsurable patients that government used to care for. Our taxes have not decreased, but our own expenses for healthcare have skyrocketed.

    The power of free choice was given away, approved by the SCOTUS, and then we reelected the person who made it happen instead of electing the person who said he would undo that tyranny. Reelecting Obama is why I say that we willingly surrendered this freedom and this power. Had we elected Romney, then we would have demonstrated that we were not willing to give up this power.

    Over the past century, we have been slowly but willingly surrendering freedoms to our government. The government keeps claiming that it is benevolent, but the income tax eats into our ability to hire household help (before the income tax, the middle class commonly were employers), and it otherwise harms the economic growth of our nation. People who willingly go on the government dole give up several freedoms, including the freedom to make a living wage — at the expense of the rest of us working class — and this likewise harms the economy, as able bodied people stop being productive and stop contributing to economic growth.

    And now we willingly have allowed Obamacare to discourage full-time employment and to siphon away our money from buying goods and services and toward buying more administration and bureaucracy in our healthcare system.

    This is what we are getting from “establishment” politicians. It seems that under the rule of the hippy generation, the protest is on the other foot. The hippy generation advocated freedom, in the 1960s, but now they rule more tyrannically than the government that they opposed, back then.

    I think what you mean, Cotour, is that *governments* rarely willingly surrender their own power. The only example I can think of in which a government willingly surrendered power was the Founding Fathers, who — as the first rulers of this nation — surrendered their power as rulers to power for themselves as citizens (and for the rest of us citizens). For the individual Founding Fathers, the power shift was largely neutral (though they gave a whole lot of power to potentially poorly informed citizen voters), but they seemed to believe that a free press and a free people would keep everyone informed enough to make reasonable decisions.

    If only they had seen the tyrants of the current establishment Democrat Party, establishment Republican Party, tyrannical president, treacherous Supreme Court, and useful-idiot “free” press, they would have added something more to Article V of the Constitution to allow the states to take back lost freedom and power. Or they would have added a Second Amendment to allow We the People to take back lost freedom and power, should the states fail to do so.

    As for the loud noise in the next election, let us hope that this time we elect people who will obey the will of the American people — unlike the 2014 election, in which we elected too many establishment politicians, who turned out to be more interested in their own power than in the will, freedoms, or power of their voters.

  • Phill O

    There was road construction somewhere in British Columbia (you north of Washington). Traffic was detoured through a native reserve. People were forced to pay by the band. The chief later apologized but significantly, no reimbursement made. No who is screwing who?

  • Cotour

    Power was not given away by the people, power was retained by the empowered. Now your working the wrong end Edward. They lied Edward, and lying is well within the scope of the rules of operations in order to acquire or retain power, they just do not call it lying. Watch what they do, do not listen to what they say.

    I re-post the rules of power for the general public to refresh their memory :

    STRATEGY OVER MORALITY / S.O.M. JGL 2011

    EXTREME LEADERSHIP THOUGHT PROCESS AND ACTION WHERE THE ENDS ALWAYS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS, WHERE MORALITY IS ONLY A HUMAN CONCEPT, ADHERED TO BY “OTHERS”.

    How civilizations, governments and wars throughout history are founded, fought and must at their existential core operate.

    EXPLAINATION:
    Strategy Over Morality describes a two-tiered “conversation” between a Public and their Leadership where the Public believes there is only a single, no tiered conversation occurring and that single conversation relates to the Public’s morality model perspective.

    A model in which leadership can choose to formulate an interpretation of their core fiduciary responsibilities which becomes paramount over and above the public’s morality model. Where plausible deniability can be claimed when “immoral” acts or strategies are employed by leadership or by arms length leadership proxies.

    In this “conversation”, leadership steps “down” to the public’s level and presents information, agenda or strategy in a tailored, palatable package the public can believe and comfortably accept. Leadership then steps back to their “higher” level, formulates and executes “necessary” agenda and strategy where the public’s interpretation of morality is not relevant.

    CONCLUSION: The public lives and operates under a moral code perspective which they assume their leadership is constrained by. This is a subjective false perspective conclusion on the part of the public, in fact leaderships core fiduciary responsibility requires that leadership is or can be selectively or necessarily void of “morality”.

    TERM DEFINITIONS:

    PUBLIC: The individual citizens of any civilization, society or country.

    LEADERSHIP: Any macro governing body concerned with the formulation and implementation of laws, strategies and policies, both civil and military.

    LEADERSHIPS CORE FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES: Above all else the promotion and survival of the society, culture, boundaries, power and treasure.

    Related questions:

    1. Who’s benevolence and self interest model would you rather live under, yours or your enemies ?

    2. What steps will you not undertake in order for your benevolence and self interest model to prevail ?

    3. When does morality trump power and treasure ?

    4. What influences leadership and agenda ?

    Answers and Rules of operation:

    1. You never want to live under an enemies benevolence and self interest model.

    2. You will take any steps in order to live under your benevolence and self interest model.

    3. In order for “morality” to be implemented it is initially trumped by survival and power. “First we eat, then civilization”

    4. The possessors of power and treasure always influence leadership and agenda.

    5. Leadership never willingly gives up power.

  • Cotour

    I wrote that purely in the objective.

    My position on the “Native Americans” and the world wide apology tour that Obama has been on for the last 6 plus years reconciling the natural expression of power by the superior force that is America is that things are the way that they are because that is the way that they are. Pure liberal existential BS and an indication of a sick suicidal tendency disguised as “morality”.

    I make no apologies for America, and the Chief because he can do what he did also makes no apologies.

  • Cotour

    I also refer you to my re-posting of S.O.M. below to better understand my position.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “Power was not given away by the people, power was retained by the empowered.”

    No, I’m not buying it.

    We the People used to be empowered to spend our own money as we saw fit, but now we no longer have that power. The government never before had the power to direct us as to how to spend our money, and what tyranny ever did? They were never empowered thusly; only we were. Now they are, and we are not (at least not as much).

    However, now the government has removed our power to direct our money as we wish, and are able to direct us to purchase health insurance, whether we want to (or can afford to) or not. And we willingly let them take it. The government now has the power that we had only two years ago.

    Taking this power is not only what they said they would do, but it is what they did, too. When the SCOTUS ruled that the US government was now a tyranny with the right to have this power, rather than We the People, then all three branches of government became complicit in this power grab.

  • hondo

    We do indeed live in interesting times. Kind of sad I’ve gotten old and lame. I find myself totally dependent on the whims and winds of gov’t. Army pension, VA disability, SSDI, and VA healthcare (free (essentially) for what that worth). I guess I’ll just have to sit and watch how things turn out.

    God help me if it all comes crashing down – then all I’ll have left is the my ability to teach.

  • D.K. Williams

    Polls matter from a practical standpoint as, for better or worse, they are being used to seed the debates. I would prefer three GOP debates, with five or six candidates in each, chosen by lot.

  • Cotour

    You have countered your own argument, and who has retained and gained power? The people or those who have been empowered by the people?

    WE THE PEOPLE are in a constant battle for power / freedom with the people WE have empowered (our representatives / politicians). Any Democracy has the same eternal problem. The empowered have the potential and many have the capacity to lie, cheat, steal, murder etc. in order to retain power (does the name Hillary ring a bell?).

    Our system has been set up to at least give the people a chance to retain their freedom against such primal urges and simply put, that is what the Founders were intent on accomplishing through the scheme they formulated called the Constitution.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “You have countered your own argument”

    No.

    The power to determine how we spend our own money was *not* retained by We the People, the ones who were previously empowered to do so. It was willingly given over to the government (although in a typical confidence scam, the government lied that it was the only way for the insurance companies to be sustainable — and insurance prices would be lower — after such a tyrannical take-over), which was explicitly *not* previously empowered to direct us as to how we spend our own money (see the US Constitution, especially the Tenth Amendment).

    Lies and confidence scams are what we are getting from “establishment” politicians. I suspect that We the People are now willing to try citizen politicians, as the Framers intended.

  • Cotour

    “Lies and confidence scams are what we are getting”

    That means that “they” are winning Edward.

    Again, you argue against your own point.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “That means that “they” are winning Edward.”

    I am confused as to how this is not my point, or more accurately: what I wrote that led you to conclude that this is contrary to my point.

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