Free Republic

The conventional wisdom is that though Ted Cruz can excite the conservative-activist base of the Republican party, he can’t beat Hillary Clinton in a general election. But the recent head-to-head polling tells a different story. Unless your name is George W. Bush, it’s tough to win 270 electoral votes without winning the popular vote. And Cruz is hanging in there against the Democratic front-runner. The RealClearPolitics average puts Clinton at 46.4 percent and Cruz at 43.9 percent; the most recent McClatchy-Marist survey has it a tie. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, hasn’t led Clinton in any national poll...

Candidates like Donald Trump are exciting. Trump is guaranteed to bring out thousands to his events and generate copious decibels of noise. He has built a campaign on telling it like it is and refusing to be politically correct. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, is boring. He brings hundreds to his events and utters Ronald Reagan’s name a few times to get the crowd going. His demeanor is confident but not quite as in-your-face as Trump is. But for those afraid of what Trump stands for, Cruz may be the far more dangerous candidate. For one, Cruz is much...

Donald Trump is waxing wroth these days about Ted Cruz's rounding up of Colorado delegates and has called the whole GOP delegate selection process "rigged and crooked." He says this to audiences who probably know less about the state-by-state rules than he does. It is the blind leading the blind, telling the assembled mob to grab their torches and pitchforks and storm the establishment castle.

I am a delegate to both the North Carolina State GOP convention to be held in May and my Congressional District Convention next week. My political insider connection is that I showed up at my precinct caucus/county convention last month, where I expressed the willingness to commit to the time and expense of attending these other conventions. I have made a similar commitment every few years for the past three decades. When I lived in Chicago I was also a delegate to several Illinois State GOP conventions for the same reasons: I voted in Republican primaries, attended my ward Republican...

On the surface, things are looking pretty good for Donald Trump’s efforts to capture the Republican nomination. He’s received more votes, and has more pledged delegates, than any other candidate. After Missouri certified its race on Tuesday, Trump’s delegate lead was 755 to 545 over Sen. Ted Cruz, with 1,237 needed to win the nomination. Trump is about to overwhelmingly capture his home state of New York, and is poised to do nearly as well in Pennsylvania. And Trump has the full backing of some crucial parts of conservative media, notably The Drudge Report. And yet there’s an increasing desperation...

Ted Cruz rejected Donald Trump's claims that the GOP race is rigged, telling Glenn Beck on Tuesday that Trump will continue "to scream that they're stealing the election" as long as they continue to successfully wrangle delegates before a possible contested convention this summer. "Apparently, when anyone votes against him, it's an act of theft," Cruz said on Beck's online radio show. He also told Beck the Trump campaign's "inability to even show up and win elections" makes it appear the front runner "can't run a lemonade stand." "Donald, it ain't stealing when the voters vote against you -- it...

Donald Trump is right: The system is rigged. It’s rigged in favor of front-runners. That’s why Trump, who is leading the Republican nominating contest, has a larger percentage of delegates (46 percent) than of votes (37 percent). Unsurprisingly, Trump never mentions when the rules have helped him. He much prefers to whine and peddle conspiracy theories when they don’t. Trump’s latest tantrum is over Colorado, where Ted Cruz just swept all 34 of the state’s available delegates. Trump is calling the results “totally unfair” and on Twitter he asked: “How is it possible that the people of the great State...

You see, contrary to the impression that many people have been left with over the past couple of days, Colorado’s traditional caucus-night poll had never been a binding, primary-like election. That’s not how it worked. It was a simple straw-poll — nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t the process used to distribute delegates to the candidates. The nomination procedure in this state has been driven by the election of representatives for over a hundred years (except for from 1992 to 2002). It starts with grassroots caucus attendees from local precincts voting on congressional-district delegates (their neighbors) to represent them, and...

Donald Trump has repeatedly labeled his political opponents liars. He dubbed Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Lyin' Ted when it became clear that Cruz was a serious rival for his nomination; he called Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) an "even bigger liar" than Cruz. He dubbed Dr. Ben Carson a "pathological liar" and said former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's lies were almost as bad as Cruz's. Trump has termed virtually every mildly adversarial media member a liar, too. But there's only one truly massive liar in this race: Donald Trump. When Politico attempted to measure how many lies Trump told over the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, there's something else about these delegate fights that have taken place over the weekend where Cruz has just skunked Trump. It isn't even a contest. It is fascinating to watch. And, of course, the Trump people think that games are being played and that tricks are being pulled. But that's not happening. This is just somebody who understands the system using it. You know, we could go into a little discussion if you want about insider versus outsider, and I've tried to tell people: "These insiders are not just gonna let this stuff go, folks. They're...