How New Hampshire turned into a nightmare for the Republican establishment

WaPo ^ | 02-10-2016 | Chris Cillizza

[NRx]

It's hard to imagine the New Hampshire primary going any worse for establishment Republicans.

Desperate to find a candidate to coalesce around in hopes of stopping the populist insurrection of Donald Trump and the conservative uprising championed by Ted Cruz, the establishment instead got the opposite: a three-way split decision between John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio that ensures an extended, nasty and expensive fight simply to emerge as the third guy in the top tier.

The goal for most unaligned establishment Republicans heading into the eight-day gap between Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary was that Rubio emerge as the clear-cut favorite for their wing of the party with a second place finish -- behind only Donald Trump — in the Granite State. Rubio seemed on his way to doing just that until Saturday night's debate when he just kept repeating the same line about President Obama knowing exactly what he is doing.

That brain glitch, which was seized on and exploited by Chris Christie, stopped Rubio's momentum — a fact he acknowledged in the wake of his disappointing fifth place finish on Tuesday.

[TigerClaws]

Trump and Cruz divide up the southern states. Trump wins the east and west coasts. Trump wins the nomination.

Then we go after the folks who voted to fund ObamaCare, scamnesty, and bringing in 300,000 Muslim ‘refugees’ and kick them out, starting with Paul Ryan.

[HomerBohn]

So easy to despise the Obama enabling Republicrat Party!

The top elitist rank is full of fat-headed, fat-assed supercilious bastards.

[Lou L]

I saw a statistic that showed Cruz paid $12/vote, and Trump may have paid $20. All the other establishment candidates paid numerous times more.

[Responsibility2nd]

Idiot article.

Did anyone expect the NH primary to BENEFIT Republicans, conservatives, RINO’s, the GOP-e, or even Ted or Donald?

No Republican - not even trump - can take satisfaction away from a Red Hampshire primary.

It was something that had to be endured. But now on to important matters like South Carolina.

[HomerBohn]

What a great post-election strategy, Tiger!

There are so many RINOs in Congress that need to be kicked out on their asses.

One additional order of business should be to eliminate ANY future payments of any kind to the despicable, evil, infected Obama and his kin. He should be sent a bill for his vacation expenses with terms: net 10 days.

[MNJohnnie]

Who ever you support around here, you have to be happy with last night jamming up the Establishment’s “fast lane”

[TigerClaws]

I’m thinking an across the board 10% cut in government and new hires (Obama’s people) are fired first, unless there’s some extraordinary exception (specific need for that person’s skills).

[MortMan]

They don’t get it. NH is not the nightmare.

The GOPe is the nightmare - they have screwed their base so often that they are now haunting themselves.

The is the “anybody but GOPe” election year.

Also known as “2016 Survivor: Republican Island”

[Uncle Miltie]

So far, we have Trump and Cruz.

Kasich is an artifact of Democrat crossover and very liberal North East Republicans. He can’t muster 2nd place in any other state.

So, we’ve iced out the Establishment. COOL!

We need Trump and Cruz to continue as 1 and 2 or 2 and 1 throughout the South. If they go into the convention with 60%+ of the delegates, we win. Those two guys will figure out how to combine. Indeed, that may be the plan even today.

[Responsibility2nd]

I saw a statistic that showed Cruz paid $12/vote, and Trump may have paid $20. All the other establishment candidates paid numerous times more.

 

This one?

 

 

From the linked article:

CANDIDATE        SPENT
 Bush            $36.1m
 Christie        $18.5m
 Rubio           $15.2m
 Kasich          $12.1m
 Clinton         $10.8m
 Sanders          $8.1m
 Trump            $3.7m    <==
 Graham           $3.2m
 Fiorina          $1.8m
 Paul              $831k
 Cruz              $580k   <==
 Carson            $575k
 Pataki            $374k
 Total          $111.9m 

CANDIDATE       DAYS
 Christie       72
 Kasich         70
 Fiorina        55
 Bush           52
 Clinton        35
 Sanders        35
 Rubio          28
 Cruz           27	<==
 Gilmore        27
 Trump          27	<==
 Carson         16

---

** The above two tables make a strong case that in NH there were only two winners - based on money and days spent by candidate for their votes. **

For the breakdown of dollars per vote see:

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/new-hampshire-2016-donald-trump-bernie-sanders-get-bang-their-buck-new-hampshire

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeb-bush-new-hampshire-spending_us_56ba9c76e4b0c3c5504f6163

The last included this graph:

 

 

1 posted on Wednesday, February 10, 2016 10:41:23 AM by drpix

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[samtheman]

Trump and Cruz divide up the southern states.

---

I dont think so.

I think Trump wins on from here, with no more losses.

[NRx]

There is no one I am supporting. I am just enjoying the entertainment.

[Uncle Miltie]

The Wall Street Journal uses the phrase

"The Republican 'establishment', whoever they are..."

Not even realizing it is THEM.

The WSJ doesn't get that we are gunning precisely for THEM.

We want the GOPe DEAD!

We want the Uniparty DEAD!

We want the border secured, the laws enforced, the crony capitalists kicked to the curb, and 0bamacare undone.

THAT MEANS WE ARE OUT TO GET YOU, PAUL GIGOT!

[TigerClaws]

Cruz appeals to evangelicals. I can see him winning a few southern states.

[for-q-clinton]

I hope you’re right about Trump going after them. So far all I can tell is he said he’d make deals with Pelosi and Schumer. So I’m not sure he’s going to go after the right people.

[MortMan]

OK. I was just trying to counter the GOPe viewpoint - that its the voters’ fault. The GOPe only need look in a mirror to find the source of their issues.

[Uncle Miltie]

Dude.

Welcome to FR.

You must’ve loved Florence King.

[Uncle Miltie]

Ya gotta read NRx’s home page. Worth the time.

[Uncle Miltie]

Cruz appeals to solid conservatives. There isn’t anyone in the race espousing a more consistently conservative series of positions.

Everyone wants to nitpick that fact. But really, nitpicking over a guy who has the right basically locked down on all positions is nitpicking, not fundamental undermining.

Social Conservative.

National Security Conservative.

Fiscal Conservative.

Border Conservative.

Economic Conservative.

I think Cruz has consciously attempted to make sure he has coherent, full on conservative positions on each. Does that mean he has been perfectly consistent throughout his career? No. There are a very few instances where he strayed. But he got back on the reservation pretty quickly.

Folks may want their populist red meat. Fine. That still means the Uniparty loses.

But I’ll take as much actual conservatism as I can find every time.

Today, that’s Cruz.