The "birthers" are prime exponents of this phenomenon.

Drug dealers
Rapists
Disease

Latest additions to the GOP candidate pool?

A Cuban, a Canadian and a white supremacist walk into a bar.


Bartender says "What can I get you, Mr Cruz?"

To take the focus off Republicans, who we all know are hopeless racists, homophobes, zenophobes, etc, etc, and who should probably be deported to Europe where they do know something about nationalism, racial purity, untermenschen, rassenmischung, and problems with folks from Eastern Europe flooding into the Fatherland, and the like...

I'm having fun watching Hillary roping off the press and seeing my guy, Bernie, cut her lead in NH to 15 points. It would be hilarious if the press were to take the roping-off hint and give her one week of zero coverage in the press and zero coverage on TV - a total news blackout - to see whether she might get the message that you just can't take the Fourth Estate for granite in the Granite State.

Donald doesn't seem to have worked out this Twitter thing very well yet:

Donald Trump gets into Twitter war with Modern Family writer—is obliterated

At this rate, Trump will start calling Bernie Sanders a Nazi.

"We are sensitive to the argument that parsing Trump's words is like writing a dissertation on a fourth-grade book report, but Trump is currently one of the leading Republican candidates for president. "

Lmao.

Donald Trump’s lengthy and curious defense of his immigrant comments, annotated - The Washington Post

Trump is very Newt Gingrich-esque. It's some sort of weird late onset reverse Tourette's that manifests as adequate focus and hard work in young adulthood and devolves into lardy-assed incoherence and verbal douchebaggery in old age. The only relief from this condition can be found in the screwing women half their age (who totally and truly love them for who they are) and spending as much time as is humanly possible listening to the sound of their own voice while finding ways to get themselves a plethora of free air time on the TV machine.

OK, OK, we know very few here are fans of the Republicans, and especially Trump, except as he handily provides grist for the humour mill and substantiates so many BritExPats' views on Republicans in general - objectively deserved or not.

But how about some thoughts on Hillary, Bernie (my fave), Martin and Jim, one of whom will probably be our next 'Leader of the Free World?'

• Bernie is way too far to the left of the US political center to win a general election so if he wins the democratic primary, that's likely a shoe-in for the republicans unless they nominate a real wacko. Bernie is about 80 years too old since his best chance of winning a general election would have been in 1932.
• Jim is right of center so he's unlikely to win the democratic primary.
• Hillary is slightly left of center and if she wins the democratic primary, she's not a shoe-in for the general election if the republicans nominate a center right candidate especially since there are a lot of Clinton haters on the right, voters may want a significant change from current policies, and voters may not want another Clinton.
• Martin. Who?

If a democrat gets elected president (even Bernie), not much will change since the republicans will likely control both chambers of congress and even if they only control the house, it will be obstructionist.

Bernie Sanders is only 6 years older than Hillary.

And only a year older than McCain was when he ran in 2008.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Around the same as Reagan mid-presidency as well. I don't think age necessarily matters anymore. With milleniums the hipness factor could matter. I say "could" but I don't really know for sure, they seem to like Elizabeth Warren and she's the least hip person I've ever laid eyes on. Anyhoodles, Bernie Sanders is significantly more hip than anybody in the race thus far.

I don't actually consider Donald Trump a Republican. I don't know what he is, tbh. Most likely a freshman lab experiment gone horribly wrong.