What is going on in New Hampshire?

[Krugminator2]

There won't be any Social Security if it's not reformed. It will go bankrupt. Is that what older voters want?

Yes. They are on the whole selfish and immoral degenerates.

[Crashland]

There won't be any Social Security if it's not reformed. It will go bankrupt. Is that what older voters want?

Maybe they can just keep pushing it so it doesn't go bankrupt until they are done collecting it...
Either way though, very few politicians who support social security reform say that anything should be changed for current retirees or people nearing retirement. But even so people still get spooked whenever someone even mentions anything about social security. "Promised benefits" means absolutely nothing to me as a 27-year-old. I look at the SS withholding on my paycheck and I see a *tax*. A lie, not a "promise", because I know I will only ever see a fraction of it again, if anything.

[Liberty74]

That's likely because they only poll landlines and not cell phones, which hurts Rand since Rand's supporters are mostly young people who don't have landlines. But even 2-3% better would only put Rand at 5 or 6%, which still isn't good at all. So it's not really a meaningful difference.

Stop with the landline v. cell phone nonsense theory. It's been disproven time and time again. PPP polls and every other poll includes young people whether landline or not. Their polls are not going to have 75% college students with cell phones only. Why not? Because it's not who votes. Again, if Rand doesn't do well with the old voters who make up the vast majority of votes, the 40 plus crowd, he might as well pack it in. He does have plenty of time to win them over.

[PCKY]

Same poll 4 years ago:

So that's half the number of candidates... So on par pretty much? Maybe a tick behind.

[Brett85]

Stop with the landline v. cell phone nonsense theory. It's been disproven time and time again. PPP polls and every other poll includes young people whether landline or not. Their polls are not going to have 75% college students with cell phones only. Why not? Because it's not who votes. Again, if Rand doesn't do well with the old voters who make up the vast majority of votes, the 40 plus crowd, he might as well pack it in. He does have plenty of time to win them over.

Um, you're missing my point. I acknowledged that Rand is doing very poorly and needs to really change the way he's doing things. I don't think that PPP's polling is off by a lot. But, it's a fact that PPP regularly polls Rand about 2-3% lower than the other polling organizations do. Just look at the polling averages for New Hampshire on RealClearPolitics, for example. You can claim that PPP is correct and all of the other polling organizations are wrong, but it's just a fact that Rand performs more poorly in the PPP polls than the average of the other polls.

[Liberty74]

I never claimed PPP was acurate and all other polling is wrong. ALL legit polling companies do a very good job at grabbing a snap shot of the voters. My point is that too many people in here start claiming nonsense like the landline vs. cell phone theory just because it might jive with their perception as to where their candidate is or should be. We all went through that $#@! in 2011/12. Let's know how to win this time. It's getting OLD people out to vote for Rand.

And that 2-3% difference you talk about is within PPP's margin of error.

[Keith and stuff]

For whatever reason New Hampshire really loves Trump.

New national poll has Trump as 40%. Ben Carson at 13%. Rand Paul at 1.5%

http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/po...mination-poll/

[CPUd]

New national poll has Trump as 40%. Ben Carson at 13%. Rand Paul at 1.5%

http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/po...mination-poll/

Gravis/OAN, same people who had Rand at 0.8% and Carson with the best debate performance.

[Valli6]

I’m a somewhat older voter.

Why not make the plan to gradually increase the age you receive social security more familiar to people? I really don't think people hear about it much. They hear only the words "cuts to social security" and immediately reject it. Those currently collecting, or soon to collect, would be unaffected - so they should feel secure and not complain about it. Later - as I understood it - people would work for another year or two or three, before they could collect, with another possible age increase some time down the road.

Was this found to not cut enough? Or is it unworkable for some other reason?

Also, doesn’t Rand support making social security payments tax-free, which would be like an increase for many?

And of course, finding and ending payments to those who collect fraudulently matters. How many illegal aliens collect S.S.? How many people are receiving S.S. before retirement age? Have they been made to prove they need it? By more than one doctor? How many dead people are collecting social security? How many people who are incarcerated collect? How much is actually lost to fraud? Can we hear about more efficient plans to end fraud?

[Liberty74]

I’m a somewhat older voter.

Why not make the plan to gradually increase the age you receive social security more familiar to people? I really don't think people hear about it much. They hear only the words "cuts to social security" and immediately reject it. Those currently collecting, or soon to collect, would be unaffected - so they should feel secure and not complain about it. Later - as I understood it - people would work for another year or two or three, before they could collect, with another possible age increase some time down the road.

Was this found to not cut enough? Or is it unworkable for some other reason?

Also, doesn’t Rand support making social security payments tax-free, which would be like an increase for many?

And of course, finding and ending payments to those who collect fraudulently matters. How many illegal aliens collect S.S.? How many people are receiving S.S. before retirement age? Have they been made to prove they need it? By more than one doctor? How many dead people are collecting social security? How many people who are incarcerated collect? How much is actually lost to fraud? Can we hear about more efficient plans to end fraud?

To answer your question, SS, Medicare and Medicaid fraud/waste account to about $200 BILLION per year. That's $2 trillion over 10 years at the minimum. Also, 71% of illegals with children collect some form of welfare. That's fraud in my books too that probably isn't counted in that $200B.

The problem with bigger government is it also means trickle down fraud, waste, and corruption. It gets bigger as well. Rand needs to tie all the crap in a nice little package and relate to the voters unless things change drastically, there won't be SS for those about to go on it. If so, it won't be of much value. Real inflation by the way is not 1-2%. It's more like 8-10% according to Shadow Stats.

[65fastback2+2]

Talk show hosts like Levin and Beck DESPISE Mitch. They frequently give Rand a hard time for supporting Mitch. These labotomized posters frequently do as their told.
if you want to understand the Rand/Mitch relationship look no further than this past weekend in Frankfort. That would never have happened without Mitch.

beat me to it. Rand needed someone to back him running for 2 offices at once that KY would listen to and oblige.

[PCKY]

beat me to it. Rand needed someone to back him running for 2 offices at once that KY would listen to and oblige.

Make no mistake...Mitch built the current GOP in KY from the ground up. He owns them. Antagonizing Mitch at any juncture would have ended Rand in the Senate and there would be no campaign. People like to think that Rand beating Mitch's hand picked guy for Bunning's seat is a big anti-Mitch move. It wasn't really. Rand went to Bunning for his support and got it. Bunning had some influence in the state and his supporters weren't too happy with Mitch for running Bunning out of office. Couple that with the emerging Tea Party and the Ron Paul Revolution and Rand wins! Mitch saw which way the wind was blowing and supported Rand against that ridiculous Jack Conway. But....Mitch extracted a promise from Rand that he wouldn't interfere with his leadership moves, which is really what Mitch wanted. But for his efforts, I believe, Mitch staved off a run by the Chamber of Commerce against Massie. So I think Rand was a voice in that. I can't prove it, but Massie had virtually no money and the Northern Ky Chamber was mounting a run when they just disappeared.
Aren't politics fun?

[r3volution 3.0]

Talk show hosts like Levin and Beck DESPISE Mitch. They frequently give Rand a hard time for supporting Mitch. These labotomized posters frequently do as their told.

Nevermind that their idol is even less conservative than Mitch (which is quite a feat)!

if you want to understand the Rand/Mitch relationship look no further than this past weekend in Frankfort. That would never have happened without Mitch.

Yup, it had to be done.

[PCKY]

Gravis/OAN, same people who had Rand at 0.8% and Carson with the best debate performance.

So Rand is up then?

[PCKY]

Nevermind that their idol is even less conservative than Mitch (which is quite a feat)!

I know! That blows my mind! Not really sure about Levin but the Beck crew are all in for Cruz.

Yup, it had to be done.

Cruz doesn't buck Cornyn too much...just sayin'.

[Krugminator2]

I believe, Mitch staved off a run by the Chamber of Commerce against Massie. So I think Rand was a voice in that. I can't prove it, but Massie had virtually no money and the Northern Ky Chamber was mounting a run when they just disappeared.
Aren't politics fun?

I said that a while back. Massie endorsed Mitch. A guy who seemed like a perfect candidate to beat him was about to run, then all of sudden that went away and no one really noticed. I think same thing happened with Amash. The Chamber endorsed his opponent and then ended up spending no money to beat him in a close race.

[PCKY]

I said that a while back. Massie endorsed Mitch. A guy who seemed like a perfect candidate to beat him was about to run, then all of sudden that went away and no one really noticed. I think same thing happened with Amash. The Chamber endorsed his opponent and then ended up spending no money to beat him in a close race.

I was in a meet and greet with him in our county seat and I asked him if Boehner was coming our way (this was Fall of 2013?) and he answered me with a Pro Mitch response about trying to work with a Senator as Conservative as Rand and as centrist as Susan Collins...made no sense. Then I saw that he was stumping for Mitch with Comer and Elaine Chou. 2+2...I'm happy though, because I didn't want to lose Massie to some douche from northern Ky.

[Valli6]

When Ron says (about Rand):

...He knows the Business cycle. He knows about Mises. He went to hear these lectures very early on...

I wonder how old Rand was when he started attending such lectures? Sounds like he was probably still in his teens. Pretty impressive.