"He Can't Win" - 2016 Timeline

[Thunderbird is the word]

Kanye needs to have an attack ad on Hillary's Wall Street speeches to the tune of Golddigger which goes viral.

[Wells]

Kanye needs to have an attack ad on Hillary's Wall Street speeches to the tune of Golddigger which goes viral.

Why not?

The West campaign released said advertisement on November 1, to play in the states of South Carolina, Iowa, and New Hampshire (in order of which it was played most to least). This was big news since it was the first television advertisement the campaign had released. The last image (similar to this only with the words "Crooked Hillary" added in) caused a huge controversy and was taken off the air within a week. However, the controversy gained the advertisement publicity, and its attacks on the Clinton Foundation, email server, Goldman Sachs speeches, and campaign donors (all in 30 seconds) did seem to sway some Democrats. The video was quickly viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube, since it was posted and Kanye West VEVO and shared more than 10 million times on Facebook. The virality of the ad, due in large part to the controversy played into West's campaign manager's hands. Having run the Kardashians for years, she knew how to make headlines. But policy was a lot harder.

Attention quickly shifted to the Republican side for the rest of the week. Carson's odd views and lies were coming to light and it took attention away from the ad by the end of the week. This caused polls to tighten once again. But Bush wasn't there to take the lead this time. He had fallen down to third - behind Ted Cruz. (Rubio was fourth.)

National D primary poll - Marist
Clinton 39%
Sanders 30%
West 23%
O'Malley 4%
Undecided 4%

[libertpaulian]

Continue!

[Wells]

West needs the equivalent of a "ban all Muslims" "gaffe" so I'll come up with something.

After the Paris attacks, everyone was shocked. Except Kanye West, who wondered how he could make headlines again. In his response speech, he decided that he would go off script and said that it was Hillary Clinton's fault. He told the audience all the things she could have done while Secretary of State that somehow (he didn't specify that) could have stopped the attacks. "Hillary Clinton is just so completely incompetent." He reflected that sentiment at the next few debates.

These statements sparked outcry. There was no way Clinton could have known what to do in order to stop one bad event years in the future. West didn't even say exactly how being less afraid to use nukes would lead to no refugees (and people didn't want to think about it too much). But Kanye West's poll numbers stayed where they were and it just faded into another misstatement that was put in Breitbart's disclaimer at the bottom of all articles associated with him. (Very few Republicans were scared of Kanye West at this point. Half were either enjoying watching him rip apart Hillary, while the other half actually found it within them to hate West more than her and defend her from the attacks.)

On the Republican side, with carson a distant memory lost somewhere around 6-7% in the polls,
Bush struggled to keep afloat as well. Ted Cruz had taken a lead in Iowa a month before the caucuses, and he wasn't showing signs of stopping. His Canadian roots weren't yet an issue, so the election was only kept exciting with anticipation and worry about what West would do next. Iowa drew near, and West stayed oddly quiet. And then on January 15,

Let's do some polls before we find out, shall we?

Iowa Poll - PPP
Clinton 33%
West 29%
Sanders 27%
Unidentified Man 5%
Undecided 6%

New Hampshire - Monmouth
Sanders 34%
West 32%
Clinton 26%
Unidentified Man whocare%

Why not build even more suspense and wait until my next update?

[Wells]

Wolf Blitzer: Welcome everybody to the live coverage of the Iowa caucuses. Polls before now have shown Chris Christie and Bernie Sanders with solid leads in Iowa so far, but we have an entrance poll now to examine.

Exit Poll: 54% of voters want to see Obama's policies continue. Of those voters, Clinton gets 59%, Sanders gets 19%, West gets 16%. 26% of voters believe experience is the most important quality in a candidate. 29% want honesty and trustworthiness, of which 64% go for Sanders. Full results are Clinton 34%, Sanders 31%, West 29%, O'Malley 3%. Men go for West above Sanders by a 35-31 margin. Women go for Clinton over Sanders by a 40-31 margin.

Wolf Blitzer: These numbers are certainly disappointing numbers for Kanye West's campaign, who was hoping to pull out a win here.

Exit Poll: 13% of late deciders went for Christie, but he still leads by 3% over Cruz.

Wolf Blitzer: Neat. We'll be back with more results.

*ads happen*

[Wells]

9:30 PM (1% reporting)

Clinton 34%
Sanders 34%
West 32%
O'Malley 0%

Christie 29%
Cruz 28%
Rubio 15%
Carson 9%
Paul 5%
Who cares about the others 14%

9:45 PM (3% reporting)

West 35%
Clinton 33%
Sanders 30%
O'Malley 1%

Christie 30%
Cruz 28%
Rubio 16%
Carson 8%
Paul 5%
Who cares about the others 13%

Why is Christie surging? Because 1) he filled the gap that Trump's nonexistence left and 2) story purposes.

[Wells]

10:00 PM (10% reporting)

Clinton 36%
Sanders 36%
West 28%
O'Malley <1%

Cruz 29%
Christie 28%
Rubio 18%
Carson 10%
Paul 4%
Who cares about the others 11%

10:15 PM (20% reporting)

Sanders 39%
Clinton 33%
West 27%
O'Malley 1%

Cruz 29%
Christie 26%
Rubio 19%
Carson 10%
Paul 4%
Who cares about the others 12%

10:30 PM (35% reporting)

Sanders 39%
Clinton 34%
West 26%
O'Malley 1%

And since I don't feel like making a bunch of Iowa Republican updates, here are the finall numbers for them:
Cruz 28%
Christie 25%
Rubio 18%
Carson 11%
Paul 6%
Who cares about the others 12%[/color]

11:15 PM (70% reporting)

Sanders 41%
Clinton 34%
West 24%
O'Malley 1%

The networks called it for Sanders and Cruz around this time. The final R results can be seen above, the final D results were:

Sanders 41%
Clinton 35%
West 24%
O'Malley <1%

Delegate Count:

Sanders 20
Clinton 16
West 8

[Wells]

I meant to post this before the Iowa caucuses, but here's a flashback I guess:

Bringing it back. I left on a cliffhanger cool. I forgot what it was, so I'll assume that West pulled a Trump (as usual) and pulled out of the debate. The final debate before Iowa. West accused the moderators of the debate of being biased against him, since they reported on his scandals. Opponents of his campaign called him a coward and other things, but he said he would have his own rally in support of "young black boys everywhere".

And so, on Sunday millions of Americans had a choice between Kanye's rally and the debate. Naturally, the rally had higher ratings because Kanye West was in it. Many pundits agreed that the rally would help his campaign. He made a speech with a teleprompter that left him with no gaffes or other questionable statements, though every few minutes he would go off-script about what a really great thing this rally was or how the debate was probably a disaster and he once mentioned that he was one hundred percent sure that Taylor Swift would vote for him. After his speech he performed a few of his songs and walked off the stage.

Meanwhile, the debate was viewed as a negative for Hillary Clinton, who received sustained attacks from both Sanders and O'Malley. Other than that, no candidate in the debate was seen as helping themselves.

Going into Iowa, the polls showed a tight race. The final Selzer poll of Iowa showed Sanders with a small lead.

Sanders 31%
West 29%
Clinton 28%
O'Malley 2%

[Thunderbird is the word]

If West does manage to win the nomination Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota would be a good running mate for him and a good analogy for Pence, Midwestern governor that appeals to both the party establishment and the grassroots that was alienated. I'm also thinking Cenk Uyger as Kanye's version of Bannon.

[Wells]

If West does manage to win the nomination Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota would be a good running mate for him and a good analogy for Pence, Midwestern governor that appeals to both the party establishment and the grassroots that was alienated. I'm also thinking Cenk Uyger as Kanye's version of Bannon.

I have another VP in mind. That Cenk Uyger idea is good though, I'll use it. In the meantime, we'll skip to New Hampshire.

After Iowa, all the dropouts are the same as real life. The delegate counts on the Reoublican side are Cruz 8, Christie 8, Rubio 5, Carson 3, Paul 2, Bush 1, Fiorina 1, Kasich 1, Huckabee 1. Rubio made the same debate mistake.

Blitzer: You are currently watching live coverage of the 2016 New Hampshire primaries. First, let's take a look at the exit polls:

Sanders 46%
West 36%
Clinton 17%

Cruz 22%
Christie 22%
Kasich 17%
Bush 13%
Rubio 10%
Carson 7%
Fiorina 6%
Others 3%

Blitzer: Wow, both of these races look very close!

8:15 PM (<1% reporting)

West 54%
Sanders 29%
Clinton 17%

Kasich 21%
Bush 19%
Cruz 18%
Christie 14%
Rubio 12%
Fiorina 7%
Carson 6%
Others 3%

8:30 PM (1% reporting)

West 43%
Sanders 40%
Clinton 16%

Kasich 25%
Bush 20%
Christie 15%
Cruz 14%
Rubio 10%
Fiorina 7%
Carson 6%
Others 3%

8:45 PM (3% reporting)

Sanders 46%
West 33%
Clinton 21%

Christie 25%
Kasich 18%
Cruz 17%
Bush 14%
Rubio 11%
Carson 6%
Fiorina 4%
Others 5%

At this point both races were called for Christie and Sanders. Hillary Clinton vowed to continue in her concession speech, while West said that he was going to win the nomination in his. "We should be celebrating right now," he said. "My new album will change so many minds." Many pundits and betting markets at this point had Sanders as the favorite for the nomination, however. After New Hampshire, Fiorina and Kasich dropped out. The final results of both:

Sanders 44%
West 35%
Clinton 19%

Christie 24%
Cruz 19%
Kasich 17%
Bush 16%
Rubio 10%
Carson 7%
Fiorina 4%
Others 3%

Delegate Count:

Sanders 33
Clinton 18
West 17

Christie 14
Cruz 12
Rubio 7
Bush 5
Carson 5
Kasich 5
Fiorina 2
Paul 2
Huckabee 1