Posted on 03/15/2016 6:36:57 PM PDT by WilliamIII
Summary: Keeping John Kasich in the race divides the anti-Trump vote.
Two months ago, based on a computer model I developed of the Republican delegate race, I wrote in The American Prospect that the GOP’s nomination rules tilted the playing field to Donald Trump’s advantage. For Trump’s opponents, the time window for counteracting many of those advantages and winning a first-ballot nomination has passed. Now the campaign enters a new phase, as Trump’s rivals try to deny him a majority of pledged delegates going into the convention. Simulating the remaining contests based on current polling data, my model picks up an unexpected wrinkle: Trump’s strongest position comes if he loses the primary in Ohio on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at prospect.org ...
I wish he'd hit Kasich, hard, on not putting the blame TOTALLY on the protestors at the rallies.
Of course I'm 100% Trump. The nation can't survive four years with any of the others as Pres. Just keeping it real here.
Kasich is a whack job who equates big government programs with being like Christ. He also has a horrible temper. Have you seen how he reacts when he is the least bit irritated? I feel sorry for his family. He must be a tyrant at home.
Granted, I don’t hang around a lot of liberals or GOPe types, my people tend to be on the conservative and libertarian side. Everybody I know was fired up and went out to vote, all voting Trump. Through some questioning, my 12 year old Poli-sci guru found out who his mother and grandmother voted for. Mother went for some woman with the Green Party (my son says Green is the new Red), knowing she is throwing her vote away but hates Hillary. Grandmother who is a dyed in the wool democrat crossed over and voted Kasich and is the only person I know that voted for the Governor. I will never vote for this @hole again, once against Strickland was bad enough, I see I voted for the wrong guy in that contest.
I agree. Trump is now deciding exactly how - he - is going to run America to the best of his ability. :)
If they did attempt to shove Cruz down our throats, you can be assured that Cruz will have sold his conservative principles downs the river and will be a complete establishment lackey.
If it's anyone but Trump, I sit home and don't give a damn about what happens. The country is done.
We shall soon see what he's made of. If he hangs and continues to try to leverage BS items against Trump, we can assume he's hoping for a brokered convention so he can pull a Barbour-Cochran on the People. If he's truly interested in the Nation and the People, he will gracefully drop out, endorse trump and even campaign with Trump as an ally - it would make an unbeatable campaign and cause Hillary to flail and curse as she watches her last chance circle the drain.
Not helpful (I say that as a former Cruz donor who changed to a Trump supporter but would also vote for Cruz).
The best bet we have is for Cruz to see the writing on the wall, opt out of becoming part of a cabal trying for a "brokered" convention, and team up with and campaign for Trump.
Between the two of them working for a common goal (and balancing each other a bit) they could really light a fire in "Elitistville" .
Yes. Based on what poll evidence I could find, I assumed that Trump would gain 1 of 7 Rubio voters, and that Cruz and Kasich would gain 3 of 7 each. I could be off in those assumptions by a little, but frankly, in most states Kasich doesn't have enough support that votes to him make any difference. It's the Trump/Cruz ratio that matters, and it's hard to imagine there were all that many Rubio voters left whose second choice was Trump.
So in CA Cruz and Kasich split and Trump wins?
No. Because Trump and Cruz were/are already neck and neck in California with Kasich way behind them. So the Rubio votes push Cruz ahead of Trump, but Kasich remains a distant third. California is a closed primary which helps Cruz, and winner-take-all by congressional district, which makes a big delegate gain in the state tough for either candidate in a close race.
Next week will be interesting to watch. I believe Cruz has a good chance of winning 98 delegates to none for Trump in Utah and Arizona.
OK, let's get real. Whatever you may or may not think of Cruz, the vast majority of the GOP establishment hates his guts. Everyone who hates him and everyone who loves him, analysts who love Bernie, editors who love Hillary, bloggers who supported any of the 14 GOP candidates who already left the race, and 99.99% of the people in between, all know that the one thing that most defines Cruz is that he is hated by the GOP establishment. Even your guy Trump points out in every speech that all the Republican senators hate Cruz.
So for you to come up with this accusation, shows me that maybe Trump supporters are even more out of touch with reality than I thought. Or just plain ignorant.
Trump supporters WILL stay home."
So let's say Trump goes into the convention without 1237 delegates, but has more than the 2nd place guy. If Trump can't make deals to get over the top, then he's not the great all-powerful dealmaker that he claims to be, is he?
He doesn't deserve the nomination if he can't get a majority of delegates. And let's not forget that most of his wins so far have come in states which allow Democrats and Independents to vote in the Republican primaries. In closed contests, Cruz has actually won more than Trump. If Trump proves he can win first place among REPUBLICANS, fine. Then he'll likely get the nomination. The jury's still out.
As for Trump voters staying home. Who needs 'em? I'm not convinced they're essential. Head-to-head polls still consistently show Cruz beating Hillary. On the other hand, polls consistently show Hillary beating Trump, in large part because Republicans who DON'T support Trump will stay home. And in case you hadn't noticed, in 27 of 28 contests so far, more people voted AGAINST Trump than FOR Trump.
I'm just telling you what the polling data and math indicates. I don't give a darn whether you believe me or not. Watch and see what happens, and feel free to rub my face in it if I'm wrong. I don't claim to be perfect, but I have a good track record of modeling voting.
A lot of Rubio voters find Kasich too liberal. And some just want to stop Trump and know Cruz has a better chance of that than Kasich. My research indicates that Rubio voters will split to Cruz and Kasich in roughly equal measures. But since Cruz is running close behind Trump and Kasich is way, way behind the two of them in most states, the net benefit accrues to Cruz. It could even put him over the top of Trump in a couple of winner-take-all states.
If no one has the requisite 1237 and we end up with a contested convention, a Trump/Cruz deal is probably the most likely outcome. It just doesn't make sense for either one of them to allow anything else. If one of them was really, really close to 1237, then a deal with Kasich or Rubio would become a secondary possibility, but still makes less sense. For both of them, working together improves their chances of beating Hillary by guaranteeing some sort of win for them and keeping their supporters happy.
But even though this makes sense, the sticking point is going to be who gets the top of the ticket. Personally, I'm hoping for a contested convention, not just because I prefer Cruz over Trump, but also because if I have to vote for Trump over Hillary, I want some contested convention evidence that he's as good at making deals as he claims to be. Anyone can write a book.
All those frickin' buildings don't mean anything?
Got friends in Florida, too?
Will you stay home if they screw both Cruz & Trump or will you march blindly to the polls and pick Ryan?
And Trump seems to me to have a similar personality to the guy I saw almost blow that deal. Since you don't know that guy, I'll spell it out. In real estate, being an a-hole during dealing is not only acceptable, but expected. That's not necessarily the case in other fields. Trump doesn't seem to consider that some of his words and actions alienate people he may later have to deal with, like, say, VOTERS among others. Or other candidates whose delegates he may need to reach a majority.
Like I said, for ME at least, I'd really like to see a contested convention because I want to see if Trump can seal the deal. I doubt he can, but I'd feel better about voting for him if he proved me wrong than if he wins the 1237 the easy way.
It may be irrelevant who they push. A lot of the delegates are handpicked by the candidates. And a lot of other ones are likely to be conservatives who won't go along with the national establishment. As reported by Newt Gingrich who probably knows the way conventions work far better than you or I, it will be very, very hard for the establishment to deny two candidates who together account for around 80% of the delegates.
Unlike stupid idiots who give the elections to Democrats to ruin our country just because they are pouting about their personal Republican choice not winning, I would go to the polls FAR FROM BLINDLY, but HOLDING MY NOSE if an establishment Republican got the nomination.
Hell, I'd have to HOLD MY NOSE just as much for Trump, because even though I personally can't help but like him a little and enjoy the havoc he creates, I don't agree with 25% or so of his stated policies, don't trust him to implement the ones I agree with, and most of all because he's a self-absorbed unethical bully.
I'd rather put a bullet between John Kasich's eyes than vote for him, but I'd still vote for him to stop Hillary or whatever other left-wing stooge the Dem's put up when she's indicted. That answer your self-righteous question about marching blindly to the polls well enough?
Like maybe television? Branding?
I think what you have is more of a case of associating Trump with the only experience you have in his field than any sort of actual read on Trump.
The RNC is the devil.
That Trump often treats people horribly is undeniable. I don't believe he is a misogynist or a racist, simply that he is often horrible to all people, men, women, whites and minorities included. Many of them often deserve what he hits them with. But some don't. And that can ruin deals in a lot of fields. In real estate there's always another building to move on to. But in other fields opportunities can be few and far between, and the "I can walk away from any deal" attitude typified by real estate dealers doesn't always work well.
Now, If I'm wrong, and if you're right that he's a great deal maker, then he should have no problem at all with a contested convention, right?
Seems to me the massive paranoia by Trump supporters that he'll be out-dealt in a contested convention is at odds with their stated belief in his ability. That's all I'm getting at.
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