Posted on 02/02/2016 10:49:53 AM PST by nathanbedford
Like a downfield receiver who turns to run before securing the ball and muffs the catch, Trump turned his eye to the general election and began to run toward the middle and so he muffed the election in Iowa.
Trump believed the polls, he thought he had Iowa in the bag, he was counting on New Hampshire and almost immediately thereafter South Carolina; he thought he was unstoppable all the way to the nomination. All candidates by necessity project confidence in their ultimate victory but Trump went beyond that, in describing his upcoming tenure in the Oval Office he assumed he had already won the election. His narcissism kicked into high gear.
Like all narcissists he abandoned his friends and betrayed his supporters immediately it was more profitable to seduce a new group of potential friends, supporters and voters.
So Trump began to run toward the middle. He told us what great people Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were. He had praise for Mitch McConnell. He told us how he could "make deals" with all of them. He flirted with single-payer healthcare. He became less definite on immigration. Trump attacked Cruz from the left on the issue of biofuels in Iowa thus betraying an unseemly eagerness to pander. Trump demonstrated that as president his dalliances with big government crony capitalism would not stop, he would simply be playing the same game from the other side of the table.
The candidate who had achieved front runner status by pretending to champion the cause of disenfranchised conservatives against the GOPe/unitary party abandoned those who had supported him as the new Messiah to pander after a new pool of voters in the broader, richer, land of crony capitalism and government largess.
In short, Donald Trump unwittingly betrayed the kind of president he would be if elected, he would not be loyal to any conservative principles, he would not be loyal to the Republican Party, he would not be faithful to any cause except the advancement of Donald Trump. He did it because his ego told him he could get away with it because he believed he had already won the nomination and because it advanced, he thought, the fortunes of Donald Trump.
To the media yes that is true. What do you think the media is? My gosh you know this.
rubio can definitely beat hillary hands down and then we’ll get 15 million new dems.
Trump, nor Ted or Rubio, dropped the ball. Hell, the turnout was amazing!
“Cruz didn’t win”
I’m not sure where you learned math, but 8 > 7, so Cruz won. Deal with it.
If we weren’t being carved up by the “good” people already, your concern would register more with me. Satan energizes fake goodness every bit as much as he does blatant evil. The world, the flesh and the devil get us coming AND going!
Answer: Jesus Christ, the man of truth in whom there is NOTHING false (see: John 7:18).
Lousy organization.
Look, I realize you're a die hard Cruz supporter.
What will happen between now and this coming fall will surprise many, including you.
The establishment DOES NOT want Cruz and will NOT allow him to be nominated. I'm not wishing that on him. You can see it coming. The establishment is now fully invested in Rubio.
I would give Cruz the same odds of becoming the nominee that Huckabee and Santorum had after winning Iowa. He's up against the establishment and they are relentless, as you'll witness.
You can respond with ANY POV you can conjure up. It'll sure make you feel better defending your candidate, but it won't change what's coming down the mountain.
I'm just tellin' you.. prepare yourself for an all out establishment attack on Cruz to dismantle and destroy his candidacy. I don't think he'll weather the storm as witnessed by the number of times his efforts were thwarted and compromised in the Senate by that same establishment.
If the outcome shows I'm WRONG I'm sure you'll remind me.
If I'm correct I'll NOT remind you or gloat. Promise!
Sometimes, there are just things you intuitively know and see coming and this one is very apparent to me.
I've pinned my hopes on Trump simply because he seems to be the only one who can wade into the den of SNAKES & THIEVES and come out intact and with results.
I believe "someone" posted this earlier. No one WON!
Iowa was a three way tie. Cruz got 8 delegates, Trump 7 and Rubio got 7.
Cruz didn’t win, and Trump nor Rubio lost. It was a tie. And I see this as very reflective of the current state of the GOP.
Trump pulled roughly 1/3 of the GOP with mostly anti-establishment voters.
Cruz pulled roughly 1/3 with conservatives
Rubio pulled the establishment voters.
You want math, how about this. There are 1,237 delegates to win the nomination.
8/1237 is less than 1 percent
7/1237 is less than 1 percent
In fact, both round to 0.6 percent
That is a tie
8 is still greater than 7, no matter how you try to slice it. Trump lost. Deal with it.
Hey, I am a Cruz supporter.
But this was not the big win that many supporters are trying to spin it to be. In the real game, the nomination game, 1 delegate difference doesn’t even add up to one percentage point worth of difference this early in the game. This is going to be a long struggle and Iowa does not determine the leader. Iowa serves to eliminate the lower tier of also rans.
For all practical purposes, it was a tie.
If we (GOP) are going to celebrate, then we should celebrate that our turn out was SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Dem turn out.
Points well taken and all very big concerns for conservatives across America.
If Trump is going to continue his momentum he is going to have to:
1. Clarify what he means by 'make deals' with the the likes of Pelosi and Reid. We conservatives do not want any deals with democrats. Period. We want to dismantle their socialist system they have created in D.C. I know, you're the deal maker, but as you know better than anyone, sometimes it's just best to walk away with no deal. No quarter should be our deal making thought process. The democrat socialists, if you'll pardon the expression, are domestic terrorists in my mind who want to dismantle America. We do not negotiate with terrorists.
2. A definite clarification position statement on health care. Yes, we want Obamacare repealed for sure. We do not want it replaced with anything. We already have Medicare and Medicaid. That's enough. They will eventually go bankrupt as it is. People can discuss medishare accounts and other private healthcare options, but Trump has to clarify this, and soon. For me this is a total deal breaker. No single payer talk. Why? Vladimir Lenin said, "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State." That's why.
3. His personal attacks on Cruz did not help him. Let's keep it at least civil and let's focus on Hillary and everyone focus on their position statements, their platform, what each intends to accomplish as President. The personal attack stuff is not Presidential. Don't act like the left.
4. His past positions on things not conservative that have 'evolved' are still troublesome. How do we know he will maintain his current positions? Whom is he going to appoint to the Supreme Court? We're one Supreme Court justice away from possibly losing the 2nd Amendment. A statement saying her would only appoint a tried and true conservative would help and would garner votes. People are very worried about the Supreme Court.
Certainly some discussion of The Constitution would help and vowing to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, etc. Discussion of the Constitution, The Founders and our Heritage would help immensely.
There's a lot to like about Trump. If he can overcome these doubts by addressing them head on with clear definitive written policy statements he would be assuage the fears of many people. It would serve his interest to do so this week.
Will he get attacked by all sides? Sure, but so will Trump or Rubio or anyone else. Personally, I think there may be some skeletons still to come out of the Trump closet, but we will see. The point is, whomever is the nominee will get attacked. You think Trump will handle it better - I think Cruz will. We can agree to disagree.
That.
“For all practical purposes, it was a tie.”
It wasn’t a tie. It was a win.
You can say there’s only a slim lead in the delegates, it was a close race, whatever. But to say it wasn’t a win is just false.
And it is equally false for the media to claim that there is any clear leader coming out of Iowa or that Trump got schloonged, whipped, embarrassed or blown out or any other of a half of a dozen adjectives I have heard recently.
Cruz got 0.6 percent of the delegates needed for the nomination. Trump also got 0.6 percent of the delegates needed. Rubio either got 0.6 or 0.5 percent depending on the number of delegates allotted (some have said 7, others 6)
A 1 delegate difference when 1,237 are needed for the nomination is a difference that is so minor as to be irrelevant this early in the game. So my point has been and continues to be that Iowa serves the purpose of narrowing the field. Historically it has not be very good at selecting the nominee. However, it has been good at eliminating the bottom tier candidates and also rans. In other words, the focus should not be at the top of the field but rather who drops off the bottom.
“Trump got schloonged”
When Hillary came in 2nd to Obama, Trump said Hillary got schlonged, so by Trump’s own standards, Trump got schlonged.
Trump got the same percentage of delegates required for the nomination as Cruz did (0.6 percent). Allow me to make a foot ball analogy:
Team 1 - on their first possession of the game, got 8 yards but no first down and punted
Team 2 - on their first possession of the game, got 7.5 yards but no first down and also punted,
At the end of the first possessions, who is winning?
Remember this game is about the nomination and if no one has enough delegates to ensure a first round of voting win at the convention, then they are tied and we go into over time (floor fight for the nomination). What is the difference right now between first and second place is .08 percent of the required delegates. A candidate needs a 120 vote lead in order to even have 1 percent difference.
I say all of this not to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. Rather I point out the reality to encourage the top tier candidate’s teams to work harder and for the bottom tier candidates to drop out and narrow the field. Two have already done so.
Understand that I say all of this as a Cruz supporter. My guy “won”. But by such a narrow margin as to be of little impact on the race other than possibly increasing some MSM coverage. And I tell other Cruz supporters, look, this is not a time to brag or to slack off. If anything, the “win” was so close that we should be redoubling our efforts.
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