Can you imagine having to look at that face and listen to that nasal voice for four years?
Posted on 04/15/2016 12:43:20 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Give Donald Trump credit for planning ahead. He is preparing to be a sore loser.
Trump’s complaints that he is being undone by a rigged system crafted by a corrupt Republican Party is the dress rehearsal for his campaign’s closing argument should it come up short in Cleveland. Trump will, in his telling, have been stabbed in the back by insiders and be fully justified in wreaking a terrible revenge on the party that he briefly sought to lead.
Facts and logic don’t particularly matter to Trump or his mouthpieces, yet the “rigged” charge is absurd even by the standards of his standard-less campaign.
Colorado occasioned the latest Trump fusillade. Listening to him, you would think that the state is run by a cross of the Pendergast Machine and Tammany Hall (which voted more people than existed in the voting population of New York City in one period of the 19th century). Colorado’s offense against fairness and decency was Ted Cruz winning all of its delegates in the same caucus system it has used for years.
The only change in the state, implemented back in August, before many people took Trump seriously, was canceling its presidential preference poll, which didn’t have any role in binding delegates anyway.
The Colorado system — precinct caucuses electing delegates to district and state assemblies, where they are selected for the national convention — isn’t undemocratic. But it rewards a different, more demanding and engaged sort of participation than a primary.
An accent on grass-roots organizing is not, by the way, a hallmark of establishment politics. In fact, it is the opposite. The classic conservative insurgent excels at organizing as a means to bypass the party’s gatekeepers and to make up for a lack of resources and media attention. Although the Cruz campaign is well-funded, it has the grass-roots DNA of this kind of insurgency, which it began as, and, in significant respects, still is.
Its success at the delegate-selection game is a testament to its ability to connect with and organize the party’s activists, rather than to any unfair advantages lent it by the establishment. If the Republican race had developed along more conventional lines as a razor-tight Cruz-Jeb Bush fight, surely Cruz would be trying to pick Bush’s delegate pocket, and with some success, just the way he is picking Trump’s now.
For understandable reasons, Trump would prefer that every contest be an open primary. The Republican calendar has plenty of those. But it has other varieties of contests as well, reflecting the different histories and characteristics of the state parties. The diverse, patchwork system forces a candidate to demonstrate strength all over the geographical map and in myriad ways.
If Trump is a master at message and free media — both driven by his outsize personality — the delegate game has exposed his campaign’s rank inferiority to Cruz’s. The Cruz team built for the long haul and learned the rules. Whereas Trump’s campaign is in the midst of messy retooling, turning to a longtime Washington fixer to right the ship, Cruz’s campaign hasn’t had a whisper of dissension, let alone had to go to bat for a staffer arrested for battery of a female reporter.
For all of Trump’s complaints, the nomination system was set up to favor the front-runner and get him over the top as soon as possible. It is a symptom of Trump’s weakness that, even as he romped through the first couple of months of the race and accumulated delegates out of proportion to his popular vote (about 45 percent of the delegates on 37 percent of the vote), he still might fall short of 1,237.
Still, the whining serves several Trump purposes. It feeds his psychological compulsion to never admit he’s been beaten or outmaneuvered; it creates something for the media to chew on until he runs away with the New York primary next week; and it sets the predicate for his argument at a convention (it’d be “unfair” if he didn’t get the nomination), and, more importantly, for ditching the party if he loses.
It is hard to think of a major presidential candidate, let alone a front-runner, who has ever had so little regard for the unity or interests of his own party or is so clearly preparing to bring it down, like Samson at the temple of Dagon, if it doesn’t bend to his will. Trump is in open conflict with RNC chairman Reince Priebus and doing all he can to delegitimize the GOP in the eyes of his voters.
Trump portrays himself as a perpetual winner yet also cultivates a sense of aggrieved victimhood that is clearly part of his appeal to his supporters. Most unsuccessful candidates seek to avoid the appearance of being a sore loser, no matter what their true feelings. In another departure from the rules of politics, Trump would embrace the role with gusto. His signature line would go from Make America Great Again to We Wuz Robbed.
Who fails first, Politico, NRO or Lowry?
Less than a minute after I posted, so I know you couldn’t have read the article.
“Who fails first, Politico, NRO or Lowry?”
All of them will fail, like ducks in a row, all will be shot down and fail. The above order would be fine, the reverse order would be fine, and the jerk in the middle failing first would also be fine. It’s just a matter of time. The sooner the better.
None of the ones you named......Teddy Cruz.
I’m at the point where I say give the whiny blovinator the nomination and I hope he does get elected, I can’t wait to throw it back in the trumpateers face, where is the wall?, where are the deportations?, what happened to those trade deals?, these clowns are so stupid falling for that New York Bull sheet.
I can’t wait to vote for the sheety candidate you thrust toward me. I also, can’t wait to throw back the facts later on.
the “2 cruz people in the audience” comment and a few others were unnecessary.
he will get to 1237, imho, and I think he is being coached to turn the election in a different direction.
I’m sure he has been told by now that he needs more than the 25 percent hardcore general election supporters to win.
I think it can be done.
Ted couldn’t win the south. How could he win the presidency.
Can you imagine having to look at that face and listen to that nasal voice for four years?
oh and I can’t wait to hear all the trumpateer excuses, it’s the house, it’s the senate, it’s the GOPe, the media is biased.
With a fool like trump you can guarantee he’d have shot down that unarmed Russian plane yesterday and we would be at war today.
Hey Trumpy, make sure you sign your gold plated entitled kids for the draft ok
yea right
give me a friggin break, had 10 southerners not been in the primary at the time Cruz would have easily swept the south
let’s put Pataki, Christie and maybe 8 other yankee northeasterners back in the election in NY and Trump would get swamped for sure.
Put him in, nominate him, I can’t wait to vote R this time. The last 2 times I held my nose and voted R, this time I was gonna hold my nose and throw up afterwards But now yep, I can’t wait to see what the whiney blovinator is really gonna do
Cruz fails first.
trump gets 50 percent of the very conservative vote here too.
Pataki, Christie, bush et. al. would have taken negligible votes from Trump.
whether it’s gonna happen or not, saying you want to build a wall and keep muslims out is not going to get you the moderate “yankee” republican vote.
I have to disagree with your assessment.
but I could be wrong. happens a lot :)
BTW, I have no idea what the @#$@#$ trump is gonna be like as president :)
I just think ted will be four more years of the same.
I can’t wait for the clown Kardashian blovinating whiner you thrust upon me gets the job. Thank God almighty I still have my senator )Cruz) to point out to you when your God falters and goes hard left.
And they called Romney a liberal. Jeez.
Looks like you agree: cruz will fail first before politico, nro, and lowry does.
3:30 am here, let me turn off this Ronald Reagan navy movie and put on Mike Murdock. He so reminds me of your blovinator con man. I love watching Mike Trump, he’s the comedy I get in the early morning.
It’s absolutely amazing how so many can be so easily led
I don’t always agree with Lowery, but I think this article of his got it right.
“But it rewards a different, more demanding and engaged sort of participation than a primary.”
That’s what is wrong. It is too difficult. Just give me a ballot with a D or an R after the name and I’m good. Although I do keep the fliers I get with the photographs. The better-looking people get my vote.
So, you’re against Trump, right? :)
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