Dick Cheney hasn't endorsed any Republican candidates either. Ex-Prez's and Ex-Veeps wait until their respective conventions before making a huge scene to unite the rank and file behind the party nominee. Standard operating procedure.

Well, except there is now a former Prez campaigning for a particular candidate for Prez.

and Gore being his VP there would naturally be a stronger push from people to get Gore in for Hillary

Dick Cheney's endorsement would do more harm than good, and Bill doesn't have enough leeway in his marriage anymore to not endorse Hillary even though his own ideals lean closer to Bernie's than her's.

@y2k ... considering Trump advocates fascist ideals, his supporters are sympathizers. I didn't say they are fascists; I was careful not to. Don't misquote me.

Trump advocates for things that a responsible citizen would never support. It is easy to say that mutual anger at the status quo is common ground, but when do you see a Trump supporter and a Sanders supporter bonding over their mutual hatred of the establishment (which, ironically, Trump is a huge part of)? They don't. Trump spews hatred and creates fear through paranoia. Sanders capitalizes on the fact that fear and hatred are the foundations of tyrranical regimes like that in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, which is also how he differentiates himself from the socialism that uninformed idiots accuse him of being.

I'm glad you're running campaigns. Votes are votes no matter who casts them, but the enemy of my enemy isn't my friend. The point of getting Bernie elected isn't simply to get him elected, it's to lead the country toward better things, and Trump supporters run contrary to that motive.

the whole political debate/dialogue will radically change if/when the nominations end up being Trump/Sanders

honestly, i think the only person that has a shot at beating Trump is Jeb. he's the only one positioning himself to attack, and a successful attack on Trump that can't be parried is the only thing that will take him down.

beating Trump in the primary I mean

I think the American public would expect one family member to endorse another before the convention. That's just common sense. Bill is married to her and he endorses her. That's all there is too it. Anything else would be suspicious.

Interestingly, Dan Quayle has endorsed Jeb Bush. Not too surprising considering Quayle was veep to Bush I, but slightly out of character. The family ties are excusable in this instance. Other than that, Walter Mondale is the only one we haven't heard from yet, but he'll do his duty and wait until the DNC.

Trump vs Rubio vs Cruz vs Bush. One of those four wins, but too hard to say for sure. I'd bet on Rubio, but he seems just a bit too fresh-faced and hasn't expressed enough gravitas yet.

Jeb is an odd case, he's been explicitly hiding from the name "Bush"

Not that odd considering how "W" ruined the name.

i'm not saying it's odd that he's avoiding the name Bush, but odd in terms of how endorsements for Jeb would go down

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_for_the_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

Interesting to me how many "celebrities" have endorsed either Trump or Cruz, but relatively few have endorsed the other mainstream candidates (who naturally have the lion's share of political endorsements).

Fox News sensationalism has come home to roost.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/parody-song-ruthlessly-mocks-trumps-fascist-ideas-but-trump-fans-love-it-anyway/

this video was amazing

"I don't to live in some New World Order
Where you can't fun of a crippled reporter."
"And Trump is tired of losers.
Losers and ugly women."
"Thank you, rhyming dictionary."
"The last thing we need is a president with tons of government experience. What we need today is a leader who has absolutely no experience. Thanks again, rhyming dictionary."

I've been speculating that it will be as follows since early Summer:
Republicans: Pres - Rubio
Vice-pres - Cruz
Democrats: Pres - Clinton
Vice Pres - ???
That's just my two cents, I could be wrong for sure. If it did come down to Sanders vs, Trump though, I would think Trump would win.

Latest Quinnipiac poll has Clinton over Trump 47% - 41%, Sanders over Trump 51% - 38%

Seriously?

The word 'bugger' springs to mind...

Why? You'd like Trump to win?

Part of me would find it highly amusing, I have to admit...

But more importantly I may have rashly told an excitable friend that if Trump became president I'd run through Trafalgar Square naked. 47-41 is a lot closer than I was anticipating.

Rubio is a more likely vp than Cruz. What battleground state or demographic does Cruz bring into the fold? How does Cruz's lack of executive experience and relative youth balance Rubio? Rubio could choose someone like Susanna Martinez or Nikki Haley. Cruz could easily choose Jeb--a sop to the establishment and governor of a swing state--really, any of the establishment candidates *except* Rubio would achieve this. I would be somewhat surprised if Cruz chose Rubio and *very* surprised by the reverse.

Apart from the hypothetical Rubio-Cruz (or Cruz-Rubio) ticket's lack of synergy or balance (both Cruz and Rubio are 44-year-old Hispanic U.S. Senators), it's also pretty well-established that Cruz and Rubio despise each other. Assuming one of them wins the primary, I highly doubt either will choose the other as a running-mate.

Fiorina would be a good VP pick, especially if an "Establishment" Republican wins the primaries. She's never held elected office (a sop to anti-Establishment Republicans), is talented debater who has had some of the best anti-Clinton digs, and wouldn't come off as "sexist" for attacking Clinton vigorously because she's also a woman. Fiorina also has made "good governance" a campaign theme, which is both pragmatic and malleable. On foreign policy she sounds tough which, for better or worse, is what all Republicans (save Rand Paul supporters) want to see.

Good governance as a campaign theme? Well, that's me convinced. I've had enough with all those campaigning for mediocre governance, and as much as I admire the honesty of the inept governance candidates, as well as their track record of delivering on their promises, I feel it's time for a change.

Of course, no presidential candidate supports "bad" government. But so much of American politics is a fight over the proper size of government that a campaign focused instead upon the quality of government is refreshing. For me anyway, my ideal size of government is directly correlated with the quality of government. I.e., if the American government were as incorruptible and efficient as the Swedish government, I wouldn't mind paying half my income (or more) in taxes. If American government was irredeemably corrupt like Nigeria, I wouldn't want to pay a single dollar in taxes.

Fiorinia is by no means a perfect candidate (her comments on abortion make me cringe), but her businesswoman-outsider perspective makes her uniquely qualified to undertake reforms that will improve governmental efficiency.

We don't need to improve government efficiency (incredibly difficult to do), we need to fight government corruption by electing politicians that aren't slaves to the dollar.

That's impossible. You need to work on the whole system, starting with superpacs, though that's only the tip of the iceberg. The electing system favors states with sparely spread population, making it potentially possible for a technical minority of the people to elect the president (didn't that even happen with Al Gore or someone). Another major problem is that there are only two parties, which leads to constant black- and white-painting from both sides, especially in the media. How is it possible that formally independent media houses are semi-official propaganda machines for either party? The two-party systems also leads to constant lockdown of the government, which can not be the point of a GOVERNMENT (the term comes from "govern", not "do nothing and trying to annoy your political opponents as much as possible).

The system is beyond improvements or reforms, it should be recreated. As too many are too deeply dependent and empowered by the current system though, this can't and won't happen in a peaceful way, if at all.

Then again, as the rich will always wield power over the poor proportionately to their wealth, I guess there is not much point in that either...

*proportionally