Posted on 04/13/2016 2:36:02 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Captain obvious here again, but NeverTrump/NeverCruz is not the way. We all have our favorites, but don't lose sight of the mission.
The mission on FR is to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our POSTERITY!!
It's a lot bigger than you or me or our personal opinions or egos. It's about the very survival of our nation and the promise of freedom for future generations.
Reagan said that freedom is never more than one generation from extinction and he was 100% correct.
President Clinton or President Sanders means the end of freedom in America.
Do not let freedom expire on our watch!!
Free Republic will support our Republican nominee whoever he is against the godless Marxist/socialist Democrats in November!!
How so? I’ll support Cruz to the hilt if he’s the nominee. But how exactly can he be?
“I’m a Trump guy but will GLADLY pull the lever the Cruz. I don’t understand the animosity with nevertrump or nevercruz.
Cankles or Rumplehair will be the end.
They MUST be beaten.”
Vise-versa here but otherwise agree wholeheartedly.
I agree. I’m for either one. Voted Cruz here in Texas, but I’ll take Trump in a heartbeat. However, I won’t accept Kasich.
amen brother.
Do you think that Cruz constant blaming of everything on Trump does not deserve an apology? Both could man up and admit America is more important than they are, but apologies should run both ways if that is to occur.
Where does the Constitution talk about how a party nominates its candidates for office?
A Sealed election CANNOT be unbound.
What does that sentence mean? What is a "sealed election"? How can an election be "unbound"?
Delegates and party leaders should be arrested and imprisoned.
On what charge?
Delegate is meaningless fraud.
Another "meaningless" sentence. Is English your first language?
When those conventions were held, many states did not select their delegates by primaries. In Lincoln's day, most had a state convention. In Eisenhower's day, many states still selected delegates by state convention or some other method that selected a prominent party figure to go to the national convention to represent the state and its interests. Those were the days of the smoke-filled rooms, when the person who was in charge of a state delegation made a deal with someone who wanted the nomination and the party bosses chose the nominee.
In 1976, there were still enough states that did it this way that the convention was open. Reagan and Ford both had lots of delegates from the primaries, but neither had the majority, and there were many delegations that were completely available to either candidate on the first ballot.
That situation does not exist any more. The closest we have to that is Colorado, where they didn't have a primary at all, but a delegate selection process, but even there, we know going in who won those delegates. So, in this day and age, and every primary since 1980, there has not been a convention fight because when it became unrealistic for a candidate to win a majority of the delegates in the primaries, they would drop out. There was no bundle of open states that they could hope to woo at the convention, and so there was no point to them staying in, except to try to be a spoiler.
And so, ever since 1980, no candidate has stayed in the race just to deny a majority to the front runner, although it could easily have been successful many times over the years. To do so would generally be pointless, and even if a majority could be denied to the front runner, the convention fight would tear the party apart and guarantee its defeat.
That is why Ted Cruz should have dropped out after March 15. He had, and has, no realistic chance of gaining a majority of the delegates. His mathematical odds will be gone after New York. So he is staying in on the hopes of keeping Trump from getting a majority. In doing so, he is hoping that the delegates will nominate him on a second or later ballot. In that eventuality, he guarantees a President Clinton.
Jim can say that we must all agree to vote for Trump or Cruz no matter which gets the nominee, and I can agree with that as a general proposition. No matter how much I have grown to dislike Ted Cruz (and I started as one of his biggest supporters), I can agree with the statement that he will be better for our country than Hillary. Even if he has been compromised to some extent by the establishment. Even if he would agree to some form of amnesty. Even if he would not fight for American trade and jobs. He would slow our decline but not reverse it; Hillary would accelerate it.
But I think what many of us who support Trump recognize and many of the Cruz supporters here do not, is that the end result of a Cruz win in a nomination battle is a President Hillary. Whatever we say and do here, there are millions of people out there who support Trump who will not vote for Cruz. He is not palatable to the broad electorate. He cannot grow the Romney map. He cannot even defeat Trump; the only thing he can do is try to maneuver the establishment into giving Trump's win to him. That will end in a devastating defeat and a democrat President.
It is ok in principle to say that we will vote for Trump or Cruz if either get the nomination. But I believe it should also be the position of this forum that Cruz should get out of the race and work with Trump, not against him. His scorched earth tactics against Trump divide a party that should be, at this point in the game, coming together, and make Hillary more likely.
Jim is right. But I still think Cruz is wrong, and should drop out and work with Trump against the establishment that works against us and our interests, and indeed, wants us gone so they don't have to pretend to care about our values and interests. If he doesn't drop out, and a miracle happens, I will support him in spite of everything. And I will be very angry when I see President Clinton taking the oath of office because of him.
People have been doing that for many years now. And each time America goes deeper and deeper into decline.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The head of FR thinks Cruz should drop out; that obviously sends a message that one of the two candidates is unacceptable to cheer for.
Amen!
That may be what Cruz honestly believes. But does he believe it because his people have personally vetted a majority of delegates, or is he taking the word of some GOPe snake who's whispering reassurances in his ear?
The most likely scenario based on past performance is the GOPe backstabs Ted at the convention and nominates a sure loser.
Has the Tea Party made enough inroads into the party apparatus during the last few elections (and do they support Ted?) to counteract the GOPe?
I guess we'll see.
Cruz supporters need to face the truth, even if by some miracle he ended up being the nominee he still needs votes in November. That is something he has not shown that he can do.
Any miracle that I can think of that would make Cruz the nominee would be seen as underhanded by at least the difference in the number of voters between Trump and Cruz.
Cruz supporters need to be realistic, at this point there is no way Cruz can become the nominee on the first ballot. Anything that happens after that point to make Cruz the nominee will cause Cruz to lose the election.
Cruz voters think he has figured out how to win by corralling delegates without winning primaries by vote, but without the voters to put him there he will not get the votes when he needs them in the election.
All Cruz can do at this point is try to block Trump, if he succeeds in doing that we all lose in the end.
At this point Cruz and his supporters need to ask themselves what their goal is. Is their goal to win the Presidential election, or fight to the bitter end for a miracle that would weaken the resulting nominee?
“And Jeff Sessions doesn’t know it. neither Does Palin, Ingraham, Schlafly, Jan Brewer, Falwell, and Sheriff Joe.”
Good argument. I trust Mr. Sessions completely. He’s been fighting for the American people for 30 years. And he has never endorsed a primary candidate - until now. He’s worked with Cruz, so knows more about the man than any of us - and he chose Trump to be the only primary candidate he’s endorsed in 30 years.
I also trust Sessions enough that I would probably vote for Cruz if he was the nominee, as much as his sleazy politician actions have made me so mad - numerous times - that I swore i could never vote for him. Sessions said that Cruz is a good man, and I’ll take Mr. Sessions at his word.
of the 65,000 folks that went to the CO convention , 40% are new voters.
These western states to include maine and alaska are largely sending tea party type delegates.
I disagree that "You can't, so forget it."
The answer is for those of us with the longer view to ratchet up our disapproval of the NeverTrump and NeverCruz minorities. If either of these groups stays home in November, then Hillary wins.
I would like to believe that most of those two groups would, in fact, support the Republican in November over Hillary or Bernie. Certainly some will.
But their intranisigence now is costing us. If it is true that they would support Hillary over Cruz or Hillary over Trump, then I think they are in the wrong place and should have discussions with Bernie supporters on some other forum. As long as those people are here, then the focus of the rest of us should be to help them understand the stakes and get them to commit to keeping Hillary or Bernie out of the White House.
Is there anyone on this forum who believes that the Democrats are better off having Bernie challenging Clinton? With any luck they will each eventually destroy the other. We should learn from their experience and avoid that.
You are misinterpreting most of what Trump’s positions are. But I won’t waste my time with the details except to point out one thing - if Trump was really for touchback amnesty, do you really think Jeff Sessions and Sheriff Joe would be heartily endorsing him?
I elaborated on Mr Sessions in post 154.
Do you have a reference that 1237 delegates have been required since the GOP began? I haven’t been able to Google that.
Agreed.
It’s hard to reconcile wanting us to get along and then stating that one of the candidates is not worthy to stay in.
VERY frustrating.
I agree; Cruz will not get 1,237 before the convention. I disagree that he needs to. Months ago, I told myself the polls were lying. There couldn’t be this many GOP voters supporting Trump. I have accepted the polls are not lying. However, it’s these same polls which consistently say Cruz would outperform Trump in the general election. So, I disagree that Cruz can’t win in November, but Trump can. If Trump can, so can Cruz.
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