Posted on 02/25/2016 11:41:31 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
Okay, this is a bit of a mea culpa.
If today's Quinnipiac poll of Florida is even close to true, which has Rubio getting annihilated in his own home state of Florida in two weeks, than the Team Cruz strategy of believing they can get it down to a race between them and Trump absolutely has merit. There is simply no way Rubio could survive not winning his own home state, which is a pure winner-take-all, especially if it's a rout. If Rubio cannot show Jeb getting out of the way... can help him win even his own state, then I'm not sure what his path to the nomination is.
Of course, the exact same thing applies to Cruz in Texas on March 1st. He has to win that state.
However, if Cruz does win his own home state, the delegate math absolutely does lend itself to a strategy of him them waiting it out to see if Trump can take out Rubio in Florida. If you run the delegate numbers, which I did this morning, Cruz is far better off sweeping as many of the congressional districts in Texas as he can than winning Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee on Super Tuesday. Especially because those states are all proportional, too. So the likelihood Cruz could win enough in those states to avoid basically a three-way split in the delegates compared to winning more out of Texas is far-fethced. For example, despite Trump's rout in Nevada he only ended up with about 6 more delegates than second place.
In fact, after March 15th I have Trump winning 22 of the 31 contests on the calendar, and he's barely halfway to the 1237 necessary to win the nomination. And even if I'm wrong and Trump wins 30 of the 31 contest, sans Texas, the way the deleages could be proportionally allocated really wouldn't alter that math all that much.
If Rubio were to collapse after not winning his home state, that would effectively put Cruz opposite Trump one-on-one the rest of the way. And all the polls taken so far of Cruz vs. Trump head-to-head have Cruz winning.
So that begs an obvious question -- what is the Rubio strategy? Why are his people calling evangelical leaders and trying to get them to drop Cruz to stop Trump, when they can't even beat Trump in their own state? Why is he spending more money in Texas, a state Rubio can't win, then he's spending in Virginia, which is a state that he could?
When you're attacking rivals with the object of winning that's one thing. But when you do it with no reasonable expectation of winning that's another.
Steve Deace has a record of getting it right.
He’s a brilliant conservative political strategist/pundit.
Deace is a Cruz man because of course he is. But he might not be for much longer:
If anybody with the Cruz campaign ever apologizes to Ben Carson again, I may eunuch myself. Which will make my wife very, very upset.
Thank you GGG!
“Narcissists are not necessarily liars, but they are notoriously uncomfortable with the truth.”
It appears no one wants to comment on the article you posted. I read it and believe it’s factual and informative. I had reached the same conclusion long ago which is why I can never vote for Trump. None of his supporters want to face the possibility that Trump is mentally unstable or personality impaired. It could have something to do with the last sentence of the article.
Deace has been wildly inaccurate. That’s fact and was spelled out in my post. Deace is a Cruz supporter. Fact. Conservative Review is a pro Cruz publication. Fact. Levin runs CR and is an outright Cruz supporter. Fact. To make the outrageous claims that Deace does, most certainly makes him a hack and a loon as are most of Cruz’s supporters. You can choose to call yourself whatever you like.
No, what he says makes sense. If Rubio cannot win in FL he cannot win anywhere and the only reason why he would stay in would be to have a hung convention.
Why do you have to call people hacks or loons just because they do not agree with you. It would seem like if Trump was sitting that pretty he would seek to try to heal the party. Maybe you should take a cue and try doing so yourself instead of calling people names.
Love that pic!
Well we will find out soon enough because Rubio is definitely going to lose Fl and if he stays in it does not matter because all the rest of the primaries are winner take all and he won’t be winning any.
So you are smarter and more well informed than Mark Levin ?
Let me clarify something for you.
You’re not!
Let’s suppose the Establishment goes full Missouri on Trump:
Actively and publicly calling on Democrats to cross over and vote against Trump. Funding Democrats to do that. Advertising against the front-runner.
That idea was floated yesterday. They are really thinking about using the political left to protect themselves against Trump.
Do you still hold out in favor of Cruz? Or do you stick the knife right back into their backs by supporting Trump so the political left (Establishment) loses?
I gotta go for killing the Uniparty at that point. I’ll totally vote for Trump over my guy Cruz if the Establishment goes full Missouri.
Amen. People choosing between Cruz and Rubio (never Trump) should certainly consider how each is polling in his own state.
Cruz is the best kill shot for the Establishment
That is crystal clear. Jimmy Carter and Robert Reisssssch have also clarified that they see Trump as a workable political pawn.
The Estabslihment is already all in on using Rubio to character assassinate Cruz.
Everyone knows that the only real threat to the Establishment is the Man who shut down the Federal government in 2013: Ted Cruz.
I’m totally with you there. But odds being what they are, one may have to make peace with the next best thing.
Come Wednesday, we’ll know, and we can’t really affect the outcome from our keyboards. So we needn’t grind our axes too finely.
It’s interesting. I’m glad that either Cruz (long shot) or Trump (likely) will be the nominee, because they are a definite kill shot (Cruz) or a random destroyer of things (Trump) neither of whom are beholden to the Uniparty.
Thanks for playing Trumpsters.
Hopeful answer: He wants to force Cruz to take him as VP.
Likely answer #1: The GOPe wants him to prevent Cruz from winning.
Likely answer #2: Trump has cut a deal with Rubio to prevent Cruz from winning.
I pray that Rubio drops out, but I don't think he will.
Thanks. The Taj is really nice. Been there many times. Trump has great golf courses and they cater a hell of a wedding too. Trump SoHo is a great hotel. First class all the way. The Taj was great when Trump owned it, but he hasn’t since 2009. The Scores there is lousy though. Although much to the Cruz people’s chagrin, Trump doesn’t own that either.
Is it a head-to-head matchup in Texas?
The point of the article is that Cruz leads Trump by 8-15%, head-to-head, according to the polls.
It's a five-man race at the moment.
And as others have suggested, Trump has probably made offers to Kasich, Carson and Rubio to remain in the race.
If you doubt it, consider that Carson has talked about considering being Trump's running mate, despite Trump calling him a pathological liar and comparing him to a pedophile.
Trump offers the carrot first. If that fails, he offers the stick.
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