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.
I think that Trump is a walking gaffe machine that only helps him with a limited demographic but which will undo him with the demographics of a general election including women and people of color. I do not believe that less than 40% support from a party which at most represents 40% of the people is a basis to say that Trump is a vote-getter. He is not.
I am preparing for a Hillary win no matter what. She is going to be presented as presidential to the American people and first female will be tried as well. It is a scary election no matter who gets our nominee.
I congratulate you for a reply that it as courageous as it is insightful.
You have the courage in the face of a swarm of Trump supporters to turn the search light of truth onto their delusions. I don't think there have been more than one or two replies in this thread which dared to tell the truth. For example, "Trump has run the most nasty, distasteful campaign in modern times." You make it clear that it is Trump, not Cruz, who has turned this affair into a shambles because Trump's "entire strategy has been to insult, belittle, tear down, smear, trash, etc, every other candidate in the race."
To dare without wisdom is merely brash but you coupled insights with courage and produced a praiseworthy analysis. Having identified the culprit in this affair you then succinctly characterized him as a "populist protectionist with some nationalism mixed in" thus exactly defining the political reality of the candidate. He is anything but a conservative and you tell us what the fact he is, "an opportunist pretending to be a conservative to get what he wants at this moment in time."
Many of us have said from the first day Trump entered the race that he was not a conservative, that he was incoherent and inconsistent in his policies, that his biography was deplorable, revealing a repugnant character unworthy of the highest office in the world. Every day his every utterance in this campaign has only confirmed our initial understanding of the man.
Having properly identified Trump as the man who has soiled the process, having accurately identified him as an unprincipled opportunist, you make the incisive value judgment:
If Trump were a real conservative leading a movement that could stand the test of time I would be willing to get behind his candidacy even if I knew it would not win this time around. But Trump isn't a movement, he's not even a conservative. This is a one off for him and his policies
All of this misplaced faith in Donald Trump is in the service of an unworthy cause. In fact, as you point out, there is no cause apart from the cause of Donald Trump himself. This is not Goldwater in 1964 courageously defining conservatism to young Republicans like me, this is a rogue off the reservation who is simply on the make. Trump is founding no new political philosophy, no movement, nothing worthy of the destruction he is bringing down on all of us.
There is no movement to be founded by Donald Trump because the entire campaign is a sham and the cynical application of reality television to the stump. It is shameless at its core because it is utterly selfish.
So there is no movement and there can be no victory with Trump, a reality which you point out and which the data relentlessly drives home to any observer with an open mind. Trump is the most hated potential presidential candidate in living memory, he has no hope whatsoever of making up the deficiencies among voters of color, women, or suburbanites with white males whom you properly identify as the realm of his support. With his stratospheric negatives, Trump will need about 80% of white males to win.
To quote you once again, Trump's debacle "would be a pointless loss since Trump represents nothing lasting." That is because Trump supporters on a gut level, as you point out, support the man and not a coherent set of conservative policies. When will we conservatives finally learn our lesson and properly vet candidates according to conservative bona fides? We are whoring after a contrived reality television image with no integrity. We will get not a conservative but a narcissist. This is so unnecessary when we have a bona fide conservative in Ted Cruz.
Trump supporters spend a lot of time castigating the GOPe, and there is much to decry, but they ought to ask themselves what sort of message are they sending to freshly elected conservative Representatives and Senators who see how fickle the conservative base is when it comes to supporting a man who stood on the floor of the Senate all night with a urine bag tied to his leg fighting for that conservative base. These newly elected representatives and senators will conclude, and rightly so, that there is no upside in fighting the good fight against the establishment in Washington because the base will desert them to go whoring after a mountebank who shows them a little leg.
It has been interesting to see so many completely abandon objectivity and reason this election cycle. It is not just confined to FR, people are seemingly unhinged everywhere. Trump v Cruz, Hillary v Bernie and the associated #nevertrump, #nevercruz, etc. movements. We’re talking about politicians. We should view them all with great skepticism.
The reality is, if we all don’t support the most conservative candidate left standing, we are going to be looking down the barrel of more socialism and loss of liberty. I prefer Cruz, but I will vote for Trump before I’ll sit idly by and watch Hillary or Bernie win.
I have long stipulated that I would support Trump if nominated
That was barf end using to say the least. I guess you like the loyalty pledge Cruz is making delegates sign now. Cruz is more communist by the second.
Nathonbrdford asked in part:
“...but they ought to ask themselves what sort of message are they sending to freshly elected conservative Representatives and Senators who see how fickle the conservative base is when it comes to supporting a man who stood on the floor of the Senate all night with a urine bag tied to his leg fighting for that conservative base[?]”
That Harvard Law school trains its future political heavyweights to do such things to trick juries and voters under the 300 level classes that cover “Trial Theatrics.”
Its done for show to create an Image (optics, perception) for the uninformed.
You have seen similar and also have seen Judges warn lawyers not do such before too.
At long last is there no obscenity to which Trump supporters will not descend?
Look,
He knew beforehand it had zero chance of doing anything. That he used a bladder bag shows he had foreknowledge it would not have any effect. If he had wanted to really do something he could have appended a bill to the budget. Instead, he did theatrics for his base. Ask yourself why?
His position since the beginning was to run for President. He was not a conservative when he was the DC Insider selling us out to the CFR’s NAU agenda. But hes smart. He knew that the Anger of the Tea party is a vehicle to power.
Its undisputed he will say and DO anything to win. Why then is it so hard to believe he plays people like you with what you want to see?
No it is undisputed, or should be, that when elected he will do exactly what he said he would do in order to win. He keeps his promises.
Of course he does theatrics for the base, that is precisely what a consistent conservative who wants to restore the country to its constitutional heritage should do. At the time of his filibuster the base was a great majority of Americans who in their anger had voted the Democrats out of the House and out of the Senate precisely to do that which Ted Cruz was on his feet in the Senate to accomplish.
All presidents and all presidential candidates will do theatrics to advance their conception of what is right for the country; that is why we have the panoply of the State of the Union Address, the Inaugural Address, Air Force One, Ruffles and Flourishes and Hail to the Chief. I applaud Ted Cruz for employing theatrics to draw attention to the cause of repealing Obama care. In the event he succeeded greatly in focusing the attention of the country on the mess in Washington and he performed an invaluable task for you as well is for me in exposing the Rino establishment for its failure to act on Obama care in a realistic way.
In a single night Ted Cruz exposed the uni-party establishment in Washington for the hypocrites they are.
After Ted Cruz stood alone, or virtually alone, that night on the Senate floor with the television cameras on him the mask was torn off the Washington establishment in front of the whole nation. How many Trump supporters have you heard extolling their hero for bringing matters to the attention of the country? They even excuse him for misogyny because he allegedly struck a blow at political correctness. There is apparently no grotesquerie too repugnant that will repel Trump supporters from finding virtue in The Donald for drawing the country's attention to some issue or other.
I suspect you might be right that Ted Cruz has intended for some time to run for president, for which he should be applauded and his constancy should be held up as a model. But the idea that he is a DC insider is utterly preposterous. He is and has been a conservative since he was an adolescent. It is consistent with his religious faith. It is consistent with his actions as solicitor general of Texas. His whole life is utterly consistent.
Ted Cruz has remained steadfastly loyal to the people to whom he owes loyalty which are his constituents in Texas. He fought the Texas establishment and the Washington establishment against grave odds and a mountain of money to come from behind to win his Senate seat in Texas. They hated him then and they hate him now precisely because he was not an establishment figure and precisely because he was in earnest conservative. He ran as an explicit conservative and, as I said in the beginning of this reply, he has kept every promise to those to whom he owes an ounce of loyalty. He owes the grifters in the Senate nothing.
His biography is consistent, he was not once a Democrat, then an Independent and now an eleventh hour convert to the Republican Party, a halfhearted conservative. He has always been what he is now. He is always been on the same side of virtually every issue with the exception of his change a vote on TPA and his change of position on H1B visas when it became known that they were being abused by companies like Disney. Otherwise, Cruz is as reliable a conservative as exists in America today who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Lee of Utah or Demint of Heritage.
When conservatives turn their back on Ted Cruz to whore after a phony conservative, a vulgar, egotistical mountebank like Donald Trump, they do grave damage to the conservative movement and they put the country in grave danger by handing the Oval Office to Hillary Clinton.
The people he went to school with and he works with are uniform on this. So there is nothing to dispute it.
As far as DC insider. I posted to you awhile back how hes been a Washington lawyer from even before he went to work for Bush.
I do not believe hes what we consider a conservative because of his Pro-NAU actions. That’s anti-American and negates the conservative talking points. Just being pro-life and talking up the 2nd is not enough. Its a forest vs trees thing. If we no longer have a country what does it matter if abortion is banned and pistols are allowed for self defense against the Muslim hordes (that he tried to double)?
The Reason I support Trump is because I believe he loves America and wants to try to save it. I know of nobody who claims Cruz loves America like that.
How many pixels wide would this picture be?
That hat is terrible, just terrible but hey its made in America...
New York City Values
Lots of people hate me too because I will not capitulate and that pisses them off.
Hat tip to you, you bear the same trait.
People hat me because I am beautiful LOL
For a song to be beautiful, the artist must be BRAVE.
Cruz is communist?
You Sir are a buffoon.
Its YUUUuuuuuge!!!!
Not a glass half full kind of guy, huh?
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.
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It won’t matter to them. They will just go hard left too.
Sorry you are so lustful to Cruz. Being in lust can be a sin by the way.
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