Posted on 03/08/2016 10:00:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
By all accounts, Ted Cruz had a great day on Saturday, scoring surprise wins over Trump in Kansas and Maine (by fairly comfortable margins), tying him in Louisiana, and narrowly losing Kentucky. Cruz narrowly closed the delegate gap with Trump and just as importantly increased the space between himself and the other non-Trump candidates.
Today, Ted Cruz needs to do three things in order to keep his momentum going, in no particular order.
1. Beat Marco Rubio (and John Kasich) in Michigan. Donald Trump is probably going to win Michigan. Cruz's strategy in Michigan is to beat two guys who have been saying for months that Michigan is the sort of state they would both do better in than Cruz: Marco Rubio and John Kasich. The knock on Cruz has always been that after Super Tuesday, the map shifts to more non-evangelical, non-conservative states. Rubio and Kasich have been saying all along that they would beat Cruz in states like Michigan. If Cruz beats them both, he scores a convincing win for his narrative that he is the best anti-Trump candidate across the board. Of course, in Kasich's case, it might not matter, since Kasich is a deluded fool, but to some of Kasich's voters, it might. And it definitely will to Rubio voters.
2. Win Idaho. No one knows what is going on in Idaho, but Cruz has been campaigning hard there with the expectation of a win. In fact, Cruz gave his victory speech on Saturday from a rally in Cour d'Alene. Idaho is a primary, but it is closed. Cruz needs at least one outright win today to keep the narrative "I am able to consistently beat Donald Trump" going, and Idaho is probably his best shot. Idaho's a small state, but there's important symbolic value in adding outright state wins to the tally.
3. Win (or effectively tie) Mississippi. As much as Cruz will not admit it, the loss of several deep South states stung his chances against Donald Trump in a serious way. The worst losses of his campaign were the shellackings he took in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. The collapse of Rubio allowed Cruz to turn that around in Louisiana and Kentucky to draw very close to Trump. It would be an enormous feather in Cruz's cap if he could claim an outright win in the Deep South. Probably, he wants this to happen worse than anything today, although it is the least likely thing to happen. At the very least, he needs to claim a delegate tie (or close to it) like he got in Louisiana.
Wild Card: Hawaii. Who even has the vaguest clue what is going to happen in Hawaii? I sort of assume Trump is going to win because it's a pretty liberal state but I assumed the same thing about Maine. Maybe Cruz wins? Maybe Kasich wins? Maybe Reagan's corpse wins? I think if Cruz is even close to Trump in Hawaii he gets to claim another win.
Another illegal alien murderer.
The pressure is on Rubio and Kasich to stay in through their respective home states.
RNC has some idea they can keep Trump or Cruz from taking these winner take all states.
That’s campaign cash, he has many tens of millions in SuperPACs.
Lol
I was like what’s he saying?
Lol I was thinking ole Jeff likes to exaggerate.
Trump called it, "Little Marco."
Having said that...Marco would still be a far better choice than Hillary or Sanders.
But it is just not going to happen and whether he is willing to admit it or not...it was his willful decision to renig on his campaign commitments and join in with the gang of eight that did it to him.
Choices have consequences.
Mormons...that's all.
Drudge has this photo above his main headline
Yes, he’s in between a rock and a hard place.
Did you see that Neil Bush, W's brother (Fredo?), has been hired by the Cruz campaign to run their finances? If you don't think they GOPe is going to fully get behind Cruz with a ton of money, you might be missing something.
They want a brokered convention, and will use Cruz to do it; they aren't done when Kasich fails.
It will take some time for those PACs to re-tool and start to support Kasich instead of Rubio. And that is time they don’t have at this point.
They have 7 days until 367 delegates go up for grabs. 14 days until another 107. Counting all of the small contests between, there will be 511 delegates won or lost in that time frame.
The PACs will need to be moving tonight to have a chance to cut ads, buy air time, and consolidate a message that melds with Kasich’s in that time-frame. All without contact with Kasich’s team.
Possible? Yes. But Kasich will be on his on for the next two weeks, and he is out of hard money to make an impact outside of Ohio.
I was talking about Cruz, not Kasich.
Both Rubio and Kasich are done...might as well stick forks in ‘em.
IMHO, any PACS o other donors holding on to some kind of campaign to support them is simply throwing money down rat holes.
Answer me this: Will the GOP establishment give Cruz the nomination if there is a brokered convention?
If not, why would he help them give the nomination to someone who else?
It makes no sense whatsoever for Cruz to be working for people who despise him, for people like Lindsay Graham who just two weeks ago joked about killing Cruz on the Senate floor.
Cruz will release his delegates and endorse Trump when Trump names Cruz his running mate. And then Cruz will owe the establishment nothing.
Well, yeah. Cruz has well financed PACs as well. He is in it for the long haul.
He can only go to heavily red caucus states.
OR rely on the Rubio-Katich tag-team to hold Trump down enough that Cruz makes it "look" close.
The missing element in the calculus,is how many of those voting "really" want their guy to win, vs. how many GOP-e lackeys spitefully trying to deny Trump what is by now obviously rightfully his.
Any normal, honest, non-corrupt human would have dropped out by now if they were Rubio or Kasich: what % do either of them have to pull, from here on out, to win the nomination?
One thing is for sure...this will be a much different race once Rubio and Kasich drop out.
Boy howdy!
The RNC can’t mingle their money with Cruz’ money. It is against the law. Neil is there to manage the money Cruz raises. This has nothing to do with the RNC. The RNC does not spend money in a primary on candidates...they don’t do that. That would be unfair to the other candidates. Now, others can start Super PACS, but that is not RNC money.
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