As the presidential gears up here in New Hampshire before the primary, along with the Iowa caucuses, I’m looking at something other than survey numbers. How about some evidence of real energy around a candidate?
On the Republican side, for all of the Donald’s flutter, I’ve seen only one property with Trump signs on the lawn. Just one. And, for that matter, not a single bumper sticker. Does he even have them? As for the others in the race? I’m waiting. (If I didn’t have a schedule conflict a few nights ago, I’d have attended the Donald’s appearance just up the road – but a rally’s not the same as a meet-and-greet, question-and-answer session where we get to size up a candidate. It’s only a special guest appearance.)
Where I do see the grassroots energy is almost entirely with Bernie. Bumper stickers, lawn signs, lapel pins, face-to-face events, canvassers ringing doorbells. All combined with a smoothly functioning organization. At the moment, his camp feels like a party, in fact. Along with the oft-repeated quip, “He’s the one who’s really telling it like it is.”
Jnana's Red Barn 
saw my first Trump 2016 sticker on a car a few weeks ago. Of course, it was in Western MA.
All I can say is “whew”.
Trump still leads the Republican pack in NH, IA, and SC. Still, there are many months left for an early lead to change to way behind. I was glad to hear Scott Walker was dropping out today.
One factor to watch is the strength of support. The kind that won’t move from one candidate to another in contrast to something more tentative.
I do think that Trump is causing the other Republicans running for nomination to shift more right-ward on certain issues notably immigration. This is because he has a lot of support from certain class and ethnic/racial demographics in the US population and they need votes. I can’t think of any word for what they are doing other than “depraved”.
For a party that says it needs to appeal to more Hispanics and women, his proclamations sound like a recipe for disaster. And what about the growing Islamic vote?
This is not playing out the way anyone would have anticipated, is it?
Perhaps, but I do think the true nature of the party is getting harder for the RNC to hide. Think of McCain/Palin and the “he’s not one us” rhetoric which was pretty blatant in its racism. It seems that for a long time the Republican Party has been a home to the more reactionary segment of US political thinking. When they created (via Freedom Works) and then welcomed the so-called Tea Party they sowed the seeds of their own downfall.