Posted on 03/29/2016 1:10:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
On Face the Nation on Sunday, I argued that prior to the past week, Donald Trump had made just one tactical mistake: skipping the last debate before Iowa. This past week they made two: failing to grasp the importance of delegate operations and engaging in a misguided and unnecessary attack on Heidi Cruz.
The former is the bigger mistake: the Cruz delegate operation is forcing Trump to get to the delegate majority by working to ensure in states like Louisiana and elsewhere that Trump could lose on a second ballot. In the context of checks and balances, the arcane nomination is yet another way the institutions protect themselves and the people from demagogues and hucksters. Trump’s response has been a typical one: threaten lawsuits over the lost Louisiana delegates. But that won’t amount to much. And actually, should he prevail in decertifying Louisiana’s results, it would lead to fewer delegates for himself, and he’d still have to get to 1,237. Sad!
But the latter mistake speaks to Trump’s personality, and his inability at this stage to become a unifying figure without reversing course – just listen to what happens when Trump gets asked real questions by Charlie Sykes, and the degree to which he falls back on his typical attacks even in the face of demands for evidence not in existence.
At exactly the moment Trump ought to be transforming himself into a unifying figure, he is ensuring that is all the more difficult by stooping to baseless personal attacks and driving down his numbers among Republican women and social conservatives. In failing to recognize the importance of delegates and in engaging in these unnecessary personal attacks, Trump decreases his potential to win the nomination on the first ballot. If Trump is actually beaten because of these decisions it shows he’s not ready to lead a party anyway.
And lest you think this is just typical anti-Trump tendency, listen to his supporters: Ann Coulter, a more dedicated Trump defender than any, is getting frustrated with Trump for his late night Twitter shenanigans:
“I’m a little testy with our man right now. Our candidate is mental! Do you realize our candidate is mental?” Coulter said jokingly during a taping of an episode of the “Milo Yiannopoulos Show,” which is scheduled to air in full this weekend. “It’s like constantly having to bail out your 16-year-old son from prison.”
“For Coulter, Trump’s attacks on Cruz’s wife may have crossed a line, and she wished he, “would be a teensy bit less low-brow.” “This is the worst thing that he has done,” she said as her host laughed. “Everything else I could probably defend.”
The hilarious but occasionally terrifying Yiannopoulos, who Kevin Williamson described as having “done more to put homosexual camp in the service of right-wing authoritarianism than any man has since the fellows at Hugo Boss sewed all those nifty SS uniforms”, disagreed, defending the man he calls “Daddy”.
“The trashier he gets, the more I love him!” the host said. “I think it’s so outrageously funny. People are so sick of earnest pearl-clutching from the establishment. A presidential candidate — and not just a presidential candidate, but somebody who’s probably going to get the nomination is saying ‘you’re wife’s ugly and my wife’s hot’ — I think that’s amazing. It may not scream ‘presidential material…’ But some people are going to think ‘what a boss!’”
“Coulter responded, saying, “You know, I love him so much on immigration I’m not even going to argue with you. I say low-brow, you say amazing … Let’s just talk about what he’s good on. He’s the only one who’s going to build a wall, but please stop testing our patience on the rest of this stuff.”
Coulter is a lot of things, but she’s no dummy. She understands that by politicizing Heidi Cruz’s depression and her appearance, Trump is hurting his ability to ever receive the support of a growing portion of Republican women, particularly social conservatives and evangelicals. D.C. McAllister:
One thing I’ve learned through my own struggles with depression is those who don’t suffer from it can’t possibly understand what you’re going through. They think you’re just sad, but it’s so much deeper than that. Only you know the pain in your own heart. The window to your soul is closed to the world. This is why exploiting Cruz’s suffering is so wrong. It cheapens the real struggles of millions of people and exposes the personal pain of a lovely woman who has struggled to overcome a terrible illness and has done it with grace. We should show her, and anyone else wrestling with depression, that same grace.
When your most loyal media supporter is saying you’re mental, low-brow, and that these latest attacks are the worst thing your candidate has done, it should send a message to any normal campaign that you ought to reconsider your course. The acolytes Trump surrounds himself with, however, seem to have little capacity for such reflection. We shall see if they prove me wrong.
yes he is an asshole...but he is OUR asshole( I consider myself to be an asshole)
yes he is an asshole...but he is OUR asshole( I consider myself to be an asshole)
No, I'm explicitly stating that I prefer X as executive (not "leader") to the available alternatives.
You get to vote as your conscience guides you, and so do I and everyone else.
You believe that? It is to laugh.
Well, I’ll vote for one or the other, but not another.
I think you have to be crazy to want the job. I think they’re all bat-shit crazy.
Risky, as in TRUMP! Not suicidal, as in Bernie.
This is starting to feel like the Soviet Union. Miss one memo, and Zot! that’s it for you!
“Risky, as in TRUMP! Not suicidal, as in Bernie.”
Sorry, I still suffer from John Roberts syndrome. It’s similar to Stockholm syndrome, but you hate yourself instead of the perp.
Wait ... wait ... I’m a monthly donoooooooooor ......
Anyone who wants that job has to be mental.
I don’t think anyone here at FR liked Ann’s support of Trump. Once a MINION supporter, always a MINION supporter.
But I’m so glad you are concerned about the presidential nominee . . . cause that’s who he is.
I saw the tweet about saying he would “spill the beans” if Ted didn’t stop attacking his wife, but I never saw him actually define the “beans” as being her mental breakdown by the side of the road.
Did he ? I always assumed the “beans” were her involvement in the CFR and the North American Union cabal that Ted Cruz himself called a bucket of “snakes”. I have never seen TV news expose this Ted/Heidi contradiction the way it should be.
“We can vote for Mitt’s status quo grinning white teeth, Bernie’s skittles and rainbows and starvation, Cruz’s globalist totalitarianism, Hillary’s Auschwitz dreams, or for Trump to grease the treads of our tanks with the guts of our enemies ala’ Patton. “
Decisions, decisions ... yep, I’ll go with Trump !
No one knows what the ‘beans’ refer to.
No, most are just venal and power mad like the Obamas and Clintons. Some just think they can do a better job that anyone else available, like Trump. That may be unrealistic ego, but he is 69 and just making money doing the same kinds of projects over and over again must lose its appeal at some point. He has been Monday-morning Quarterbacking politics for decades. Time to put up or shut up, and Donald doesn’t “shut up” worth a damn.
On the face of it, stepping away from an enterprise that is earning you $400M/yr for a 24/7 job with low pay and lots of aggravation seems pretty crazy.
His record is one of not backing down from a challenge, and instead volunteering for challenges, and he has generally succeeded. I kind of think he didn’t expect to get this far but has now found himself “drafted” by the voters and sees it as a challenge he owes America to win.
So Coulter had no basis for equating the “beans” with the “depression” bout ?
That is reckless speech, even for Coulter.
More like no one wants to be the first one to stop clapping for Stalin. You'll be thrown under the bus for sure.
What economic position is not conservative?
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