Posted on 04/05/2016 7:02:12 AM PDT by justlittleoleme
The most recent propaganda angle with Team Trumpster has been that 'a vote for Cruz is a vote for an open convention in Cleveland... where the 'Establishment' is going to ram-through Paul Ryan on the 2nd ballot.
'So you gotta vote for Trump- don't you see?'
Except that Paul Ryan is running out of ways to say 'I'm not running'.
Yes, the strategy in gaining his current position as Speaker of the House was 'Aw shucks, I'm not interested'... waiting until the demands for him grew louder and wider... then -reluctantly, of course- accepting the will of the people and a powerful new seat.
But he was prepared for that position, and for the Speaker's chair he faced weak competition anyway, with no real challenger to worry about- with the GOP primary contest, it's another story entirely: Ted Cruz will go into Cleveland with a whole lot of delegates, perhaps a # closely approximating -even exceeding- Trump's total by then.
Ted Cruz's path to pre-Clevo 1237 is admittedly a narrow one- but it does exist. Trump on the other hand is facing imminent defeat in Wisconsin which should all but guarantee he's going to the convention while short of the mark..
When Trump goes down on the first ballot, it's all over - and a whole lot of his delegates are going to bail on him. I'm sure there's no shortage of people in early-voting states that regret supporting Agent Orange already and who would be delighted to avoid a lifetime of guilt by it going some other way now.
And forget Trump hints of '3rd party run' now that he's dropped his pledge to support the GOP nominee...
(Excerpt) Read more at reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com ...
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/02/trump-pals-around-with-george-soros
But that's not going to happen, and neither is Ted Cruz's "theoretical" possibility to win the nomination.
Ted can win by helping deprive Trump of the outright majority, and hoping he is picked over Trump on the second round. He does run a real risk that if he doesn't get it on the second round that someone like Ryan (or Mittens himself) gets it on the 3rd, 4th or 5th.
I have provided all the numbers, see post 100 in this vanity thread from last week:
Ted Cruz supporters at this point are voting for the GOP Establishment to Choose the nominee.
Sadly, for you, the win in Wisconson doesn't change this.
Soon enough Cruz will need > `100% of the remaining delegates to win outright.
Cruz probably would prefer to win as a spoiler to a actually gaining more delegates. It seems more his style.
“Even if Trump won every single remaining delegate he could not get to 1237. Due to no chance of winning Montana and South Dakota, Trump is effectively eliminated at the end of May.
Trumps campaign staffers have done this math. That is why they are increasingly laying the groundwork to call for Cruz to exit the race when he is eliminated from a majority. They know Cruz is the second ballot favorite, and that Kasich is a non-factor.”
“I dont believe in mysticism. And Ill take the real Bible-believing candidate over anyone else, knowing I will have to account for my vote in the presence of God when the only issue of any value is the protection of the unborn.”
Wow. Another cult member who believes that Cruz is the “face of God” and that Non-Cruz voters are going to hell for not voting for your messiah. That’s blasphemous and sick.
Cruz is just another politician. I ask you, how do you know if he’s even a Christian? There’s absolutely no proof that he even believes in God. His father is a leader of a heretical cult.
You are against abortion, as am I. But, I believe that you are indifferent to the most important issue of the election: Open Borders. If we don’t close our borders, abortion and other issues won’t matter anymore.
The illegal invaders will naturally vote democrat and soon conservatives will be outnumbered. The democrats will permanently rule the US and abortion will never be outlawed. Of course, with the GOPe being what it is, there isn’t much difference between the two parties. Bluntly speaking, if we don’t close our borders NOW, our nation is gone, dead.
You have no idea if Cruz is “bible-believing” so get off your high horse and learn some humility. Cruz could be another “Elmer Gantry” for all you know. His family is certainly not the most stable. He is away from his wife and girls most of the time and his wife is at work most of the time. They have a nanny who raises their daughters. Doesn’t sound like the perfect Christian family to me.
Your mischaracterization of my comments is very trollish. Congrats.
Here is a calculator that Nate Silver and the crew at FiveThirtyEight.com put up a few days ago.
If you select "Follow the Experts" it fills in the numbers based on the teams best guess, and the total is 1182. In other words 55 short. There are many ways for Trump to gain those 55 from the remaining pool that are plausible. For instance, he might get some of the unallocated delegates, who number 125. Getting 1/2 of them would assure him the nomination.
There is no calculator for "Get Ted to 1237" provided, as it's beyond the realm of possibility.
Handy calculator:
Here is the link.. must have been something wrong when I pasted it...
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/cruz-and-trump-likely-to-miss-delegate-target
The reason is that two candidates with no path to the nomination through the normal process of accruing a majority of delegates are staying in the race soley to deny the leader (Trump) that victory. This is extremely unusual.
For instance, in 2012 Romney's three main opponents got 8.6 million votes to his 10.0 million. Had all of them worked to deny him the nomination we might have had a brokered convention then.
For instance Gingrich: "On May 2, 2012, Newt Gingrich "mothballed" his campaign saying that a second term of president Obama would be disastrous. Gingrich mentioned Republican front-runner Mitt Romney during his press speech, but did not endorse him. He intended to officially endorse Mr. Romney at a "to-be-scheduled event" featuring both Republican leaders. "Today I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship,"
For instance Santorum: On May 7, 2012, after Romney visited him, Santorum urged his supporters to back Romney's campaign and said, "You can be sure that I will work with the governor to help him in this task to ensure he has a strong team that will support him in his conservative policy initiatives."[69] "We both agree that President Obama must be defeated," Santorum, 53, said in a e-mailed statement last night, "[Romney] clearly understands that having pro-family initiatives are not only the morally and economically right thing to do, but that the family is the basic building block of our society."[70]
These were honorable men who did what was best for the part and the nation and quit after they saw they had no plausible path to winning the delegates required for the nomination.
Even Ron Paul, who many in the GOP considered a poorly mannered outsider, eventually got out: On May 14, Paul announced that he would halt campaigning in states that had not yet at that point held their primaries, citing a lack of money needed to do so. Instead, the Paul campaign sought more delegates in state conventions in states that already held primaries.[71]
It was as a result of these man acting this way that Mitt went into the convention having won the nomination. That's the normal way primaries work, to arrive at a consensus. This is something that most people have understand is a good way to get there, and it helps with party unity in the fall.
Ted Cruz and John Kasich are not acting in this way.
Is it dishonorable? Well that might be a little harsh, it's certainly unconventional.
If Ted Cruz admitted hes' unable to reach 1237 then he should resign. If he did that today then Trump would have no problem reaching 1237.
Everything is a religious issue to Ted. Him being the nominee is more important than the GOP winning. Go back and read what Newt said. Newt was a Statesman.
Somehow (maybe it's the annointing?) Ted's various crusades always is for a larger reason ("saving the GOP from Trump") but always puts him in the cat-bird seat, too. In every case I'm sure he believes that "what's good for Ted is good for the GOP" and "what's good for Ted is good for America".
So, Trump is not the ONLY candidate with narcissistic personality disorder. (BTW: If the rumors of Ted's philandering are substantiated after he has destroyed Trump and won the nomination by intrigue then you will really see the costs of ignoring his personality disorders to the nation).
By the way, very good article. He’s done a great job of counting the numbers, but of course when you guess outcomes in 20 states you are going to be wrong about a lot of them.
Thanks for the reasonable debate and comments. So hard to come by lately on FR.
This chump is a sure loser. He has no chance to win the general election. Just a terrible person.
I hope he gets booted soon.
This is an even bigger pill to ask Trump supporters to swallow than the usual pill that conservatives are asked to swallow in supporting someone like Mitt or McCain - who did at least win the conventions outright.
I don't believe that many Trump supporters would move to Cruz, as evidenced by the comments around here.
And, of course, Cruz also has little appeal outside GOP circles, and so seems unwilling to do any better than Romney or McCain in the general election.
If Cruz had won conventionally he would have made an excellent test-case for one of the claims made here on Free Republic all the time: that a "true blue" conservative can win where a moderate can't. "If we nominate another Reagan, we can win ..." goes the Mantra.
Sadly it's going to be an impure test of that. Cruz may well win the nomination on a later ballot and lose the general by a very wide margin. It's likely though that the Cruz camp will attribute that to Trump, not to Cruz, and (sadly) the damaged GOP will be likely to go through all this again in 2020.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.