Posted on 02/29/2016 2:28:07 PM PST by Kaslin
So here we are on the eve of Super Tuesday, that momentous day when a candidate can win more delegates than any any other single day of the primary.
'The Republican candidates can win about half of the 1,237 delegates needed," Wikipedia tells us. "The two remaining Democrats are after 880 delegates, roughly one-third of those needed to win. The number of delegates from Texas is much greater than the other states: 155 for Republicans and 252 for Democrats."
The rules for how the delegates are apportioned differ between the Democrats and the Republicans. "For the Democrats," the Constitution Center explains, "about 22 percent of all convention delegates are selected for the national convention on Super Tuesday, with 11 states, American Samoa and overseas delegates in play. All votes are counted proportionately."
For the Republicans, there is a more complicated set of rules to select delegates in a "winner-take-most," and in a proportional fashion, for the 12 states in play. Depending on how well the leading candidate does, he can scoop up most of a state's delegates, or only about the same number as a third-place finisher:
The "winner-take-most" states account for 438 delegates, or 70 percent, of the delegates picked on Super Tuesday. Of the 12 Super Tuesday GOP states, eight states follow "winner take most" rules that require the leading candidate to have more than 50 percent of the vote among congressional districts and at-large groups to get most of the delegates. Without a majority winner, the delegates are divided among candidates who receive at least 15 percent or 20 percent of votes.
And that model doesn't favor a candidate greatly who is the voting leader, with less than 50 percent of the vote within a state.
This system provides a potential lifeline to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both of whom trail Donald Trump in most of the polls (except Texas, where Cruz is ahead). Ben Carson and John Kasich are both likely to get clobbered tomorrow, but Kasich, at least, can hope to do well in the coming weeks when big, "winner-take-all" northern states like Ohio -- his home state -- are decided:
After March 14, GOP primaries are allowed to use "winner-take-all" rules to settle their elections. In all, 15 states use winner-take-all rules, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois on March 15, and the winner-take-all states account for 36 percent of the national convention delegates. It is the winner-take-most states that account for about 37 percent of the national delegates, with proportional states and caucuses making up the remaining 27 percent.
So it's likely that we won't know who the Republican nominee is at least until March 15, and possibly not until the convention.
But here's a prediction. If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, the whoops of joy you'll hear will be from the Democratic strongholds. A Trump nomination will more or less assure a huge Democratic victory, and one in which the Senate and possibly even the House will be up for grabs.
Why do I say this about Trump when he is riding high, nabbing endorsements from RINOs like Chris Christie and staunch conservatives like Jeff Sessions, and comes in trailing a crowd of loud, thuggish supporters that B. Mussolini or Huey Long would have been proud of? Because, notwithstanding his noisy claque, Donald Trump is unelectable. Here is a man who didn't know what the nuclear triad was, who has lied repeatedly about the size and sources of his wealth, who first promised to release his "beautiful" tax returns and then reneged because he had been audited for 12 years running (why would an audit prevent the release of a tax return? It wouldn't).
As a businessman, he is thoroughly disreputable: a liar and a cheat. Then there is the matter of Trump University, a "massive scam," as Ian Tuttle put it in a masterly piece, a scam that has earned Trump three class-action law suits, two in California, one in New York. The New York suit alone represents more than 5000 people. "We started looking at Trump University," former NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in 2013, "and discovered that it was a classic bait-and-switch scheme. It was a scam, starting with the fact that it was not a university."
As Tuttle points out, although Trump is attempting to bully his way out of the charges -- he has countersued some of the plaintiffs and has brought a $100 million counterclaim against the New York Attorney General's office (good luck with that, Don), it's not working. Trump himself, Tuttle reports:
... will have to take the witness stand in San Diego federal court sometime during the election season -- and because of the timeline of the cases, a "President Trump" would be embroiled in these suits long after November.
So one of two things are going to happen. Either people are going to expose Trump now for the reprobate that he is, or the Democrats will do it in the fall when he is the candidate. If you don’t want a Democrat in the White House come January 2017, now is the time to wise up to what a clueless low-life Donald Trump really is.
Memo to the ancien regime:
Madame Defarge has acquired much yarn and a folding chair.
Roger Kimball (born 1953), an American art critic and social commentator, is the editor and publisher of The New Criterion and the publisher of Encounter Books. He was educated at Cheverus High School, a Jesuit institution in South Portland, Maine, and then at Bennington College, where he received his B.A. in philosophy and classical Greek, and at Yale University
(Nice tie there, Rog)
I’ve had enough of all the pundits, Rush, Hannity, Levin, Erickson, National Review, Bozell & MRC, etc. Too many to name now!
And at the end of the day, simply a hall of mirrors.
Goin’ down with the Tedtanic!
Your heart will go on.
You are right, Trump doesn’t lie, he just changes the facts and his stories every few minutes. I guess you like Trump giving money to Reid, Pelosi, Hillary, Al Sharpton and I guess you think Planned Parenthood does a bangup job. I bet you were for the bailouts just like Trump. Did you just jump off the amnesty bandwagon 2 years ago like Trump?
Kimball and the GOPe suffer from serious butthurt.
LOL.. That is great..
Boy they sure are pulling out all the stops aren’t they :(
If Trump will be so easy to defeat in November, then what does it say about the rest of the GOP and their inability to defeat Trump now? I thought our bench was deep.
If the GOP was this determined to stop Obama as they are with Trump, we would not be in this situation.
Turns out he doesn't have any, just another drive by wailing and gnashing.
music to my ears.
I think it should be repeated over and over.
Off your meds, again?
Rat Romney and his supporters like you know who
are the ONLY reason Obama was in the White House, both times.
The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.
"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."
"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"
"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"
"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"
"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"
"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"
you just don’t get it, do you?
there is presently no viable conservative candidate. It is either trump or the democrat
don’t tell me you’ll cop out again and not vote....... won’t hear that crappy irrelevance again
Nicely done!
But here's a prediction. If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, the whoops of joy you'll hear will be from the Democratic strongholds. A Trump nomination will more or less assure a huge Democratic victory, and one in which the Senate and possibly even the House will be up for grabs.I think you are in for a rude awakening and a shock.
You know, I was around for and voted in the 1980 election. Many people thought Ronald Reagan did not stand a snow ball's chance.
And yet he won in 1980 and again in 1984 in land slide victories.
I personally believe that some of the same blindness os going on today.
The people supporting Trump know about his crass nature, about his irreverence, and about his past.
But they are supporting him anyway. Why?
Because they are SICK of establishment politics. They are sick of campaign promises that turn to lies and to nothing. And they are sick of the United States being run into the ground by the same.
People believe that Trump will reverse all of that, and despite his nature, are supporting him to do so.
That freight train is going to bowl a lot of establishment types, a lot of the MSMS, a lot of the progressives, etc. over in this election because they simply cannot imagine it.
Why should I expect anything different from a brain less Trump bot?
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