Posted on 02/21/2016 2:33:24 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Obviously, at a most basic level Trump was a winner here, and the decisiveness of his ten-point win shouldn't be minimized. He is clearly the front-runner in the race right now and he looks to have won all of South Carolina's delegates. On the other hand, it is not just attempting to paint a bright picture for the Trump alternatives to say that Trump's results showed he is still quite beatable.
New Hampshire was a blowout for Trump. He beat his real competition there 35.3 to 22.3 (The combined share of Cruz and Rubio in NH) In South Carolina, things were much more competitive. Cruz and Rubio combined to take 46% of the vote, a number well in excess of Trump's-and there is no reason to believe that much of their vote, or anyone else in the race, will go Trump's way if one of them eventually dropped out.
In many ways, Marco Rubio had the best night, getting a badly needed second place finish (barely nipping Ted Cruz 22.5 to 22.3). I had argued previously that with the top three endorsements in the state, he needed a top two finish, and while his top-line number wasn't all that impressive given the number of heavyweights who lined up behind him, it was good enough to finish second. But what was more important for Rubio is what happened immediately after South Carolina when Jeb Bush suspended his campaign. It's not that Bush, who was polling at 5% nationally will send that many votes to Rubio (if anything, polling seems to suggest that many will go to Kasich), but loyalty to Bush had kept a great number of important GOP figures and donors on the sidelines. Many of these influencers figure to migrate to Rubio, when faced with a choice between him, Cruz and Trump, especially as the fairly dismal performances of Carson and Kasich confirmed that this is a three-man race. The trick for Rubio, however, is that he has to move quickly.
The most recent finance report announced Saturday showed Rubio with just $5 million on-hand, a trivial amount with which to run a national campaign. He has concentrated his efforts predominantly on the first few states (including Nevada, which votes Tuesday) But because he is not nearly as heavily organized as Cruz is in the Super-Tuesday states, he will have to rely on momentum, including an expected raft of expected new endorsements, to carry him through the next couple of weeks while he restocks his war chest. Regardless, having vanquished Bush, he leaves South Carolina far stronger than he left it.
For Cruz, last night was a mixed bag. Cruz actually outpolled his RealClearPolitics polling average by 3.8%, the most of any GOP candidate, and essentially finished in a dead-heat for second with Rubio. Furthermore, he cemented his claim as one of the clear three survivors in what is now effectively a three-man race. He continues to have the most cash on-hand of any candidate and sports the best organization in the upcoming Super Tuesday states. But for a campaign that has built much of its outreach strategy on evangelical voters, and has dominated in evangelical endorsements, losing this voting block to the profane Trump must be dispiriting, and it is a disquieting omen for the Southern "Super Tuesday" states on which Cruz has staked a great deal of his campaigns fortunes.
On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that Cruz is well positioned to do better on Super Tuesday than his respectable SC showing. Every candidate was on the ground numerous times in all of the early primary states (Iowa, NH, South Carolina). Leaders from each have been courted for many months now, and the candidates spent weeks on the ground in each state.
That simply isn't true for the Super Tuesday states, fourteen of whom vote on March 1st. Many campaigns have had almost no presence there and little organization. Their airwaves haven't been saturated with political ads, and with so many states to cover, voters won't be able to be won over with personal appeals. Turnout figures to be substantially lower than it was in the first three states. All of these factors award the best-organized candidate, and right now that candidate his Cruz, who, with his allied SuperPACs have concentrated most of their resources on these states from the very beginning.
The stakes will be high for Cruz on March 1st, but with a strong showing, including, perhaps a win in the biggest prize, his home state of Texas, Cruz could easily wind up in a very strong position after Super Tuesday.
However, if the goal is to stop Trump from winning the nomination, both Rubio and Cruz may have to alter their strategy going forward. Head-to-head polling regularly shows both Cruz and Rubio beating Trump one-on-one. It's partly for this reason that the two have trained their fire on each other, each hoping to be the one to take on Trump. What South Carolina shows is that this choice, appealing as it may be to each campaign in theory, may not really be available in practice. Neither Cruz nor Rubio seems likely to be able to easily vanquish the other. It may be that their only path to victory going forward is to work together to take Trump down.
Yeah, you’re worried about Trump’s sister. Mrs. Cruz and her CFR/NWO ties are a bigger concern. How does Mr. Constitution square her actions with his ? The CFR wants America to be part of a North American Union, similar to to Euro-peon Union. That’s ok with Ted? Big disconnect if Ted is who he tries to portray himself as.
“If you want mass deficits, endless wars, Amnesty, continued destruction of the United States, Common Core from someone who has never done anything in the Senate, then vote for Rubio.”.............
Or Hitlary, you’ll get the same results.
“If you want mass deficits, endless wars, Amnesty, continued destruction of the United States, Common Core from someone who has never done anything in the Senate, then vote for Rubio.”.............
Or Hitlary, you’ll get the same results.
Did you ever get the feeling you're maybe not controlling the narrative?
Trumps campaign which features the large rallies in different places everyday would seem to work well on Super Tuesday precisely because it doesn’t depend upon a “ground game” All he has to do is get his supporter excited enough to go to the polls. As such I think that Rubio may have a chance to be overwhelmed if he only has a bit over 5 million on hand. Rubio does not appear to have the money, at this time to run the necessary TV adverts in the Super Tuesday States to win enough of them for there to be a clear path to the nomination. He need probably two to three million per state and I don’t know where that will come from. Bush pumped the well dry.
In order to obtain the nomination Rubio will also actually have to WIN some primaries and honestly, I don’t see that happening. This is not like the Tour d’France where the overall winner can gain the points to finish first over all by coming in second every time. Right now, it looks likes Rubio’s best shot is Florida since Bush dropped out but I am not sure he can wine even there.
If Rubio cannot finish first in at least two and probably three of the Super Tuesday primaries he is toast and if he finishes third in most of them he is burnt toast.
Honestly, I see Kasich doing better than Rubio in the coming primaries if for no other reason a third place finish or two would exceed expectations. Plus he following points:
1. Loyal GrOP-e soldier
2. Defensible record economically in Ohio
3. Not associated withe gang of 8
4. Maybe viewed as more of a Washington outsider than Rubio.
Kasich also probably doesn’t need to spend as much because he doesn’t actually have to win a state.
Kasich doesn’t really have a path to victory outside a brokered convention but I think he’ll do better than Rubio. He may, at this point also be running for a VP slot to either Trump or Cruz.
I’ll give Texas to Cruz but he’d also need at least one other Super Tuesday state and I don’t know where that comes from. I do think he stays close enough to make it interesting
Trump is, love him or hate him, a passed master at using free media exposure for getting his face and at least the broad shape of his ideas out there. The rest of the GrOP-e could really learn a lesson in this regard.
The three I see going forward would be Trump, Cruz and Kasich not Rubio.
I’ve been wrong before.
Who writes this stuff. With the vicious Cruz attack ads on Rubio, there’s no conceivable way that much of the support for one would go to the other.
Not as far as I know.
LOL! That “Game of Thrones” video is brilliant.
The CNMI Northern Marianas want to be defacto independent but still receive subsidies from the Feds.
At least Guam lets the US plant a huge AF base and Navy base here. The CNMI are simply freeloaders and racist. You can’t even buy a house there if you aren’t a native Chomorro.
As we get more in tune with Trump's campaign style, it's getting easier to tell when he's being provocative and when he really means it.
On the dirty campaign stuff, Trump really means it. He's a businessman, and as such his reputation in being a straight shooter with deals he makes is his gold. Notice how he came to Dr. Carson's side after those vote shenanigans? Notice how Trump, Rubio, and Dr. Carson seemed to be together in condemning Cruz's campaign?
Cruz on the ticket can't win. Why? The biggest concerns about hillary are she lies and she makes bad decisions. Cruz's campaign has introduced him to the casually informed voter as someone who lies and makes bad decisions.
Why, you Trump supporters make it pretty clear that our votes are neither wanted or needed. Just look at the post below yours # 48. Trump is a Democrat, I don’t vote for Democrats
I learned three things:
1) No patriotic American gives a crap what the GOPe rag National Review thinks.
2) Never trust a NBC/WSJ poll.
3) Trump won.
Carson paid back Cruz for his sins. Cruz might have gotten second without Carson in the race. Cruz must regret his Iowa tricks now.
Ted/Heidi remind me a lot of a younger Bill/hillary. It’s one of the factors that turned me off on Cruz, once I saw the info about her resume, and that she’s “on leave”, not resigned, from Goldman Sachs.
Once again, the 2nd place finisher is the real winner.
The last polls I’ve seen from NV would tend to point to another big win for Trump coming up on Tuesday. Then, the following Tuesday is Super Tuesday, when 12 state contests take place. The polls in those states, mostly pre-NH and SC, have Trump with solid leads in 10 of them and Cruz with small leads in 2 (TX and AR). But, with 3 big wins to his credit (if NV goes his way), Trump could win 10 states, and maybe all 12. Then what do Cruz and Rubio do, they have to win somewhere, but after 13 or 15 straight loses, do the donations to Cruz keep coming in fast enough to make him competitive in the races on March 15th, and after. With no wins to his credit, will Rubio be able to raise any money at all?
Trump has a good chance of completely knocking out all of his completion in the next 3 weeks.
Of course, we will all have to wait and see what the voters actually decide.
Trump has the highest negatives of any candidate in the field. He reinforces this with every outbreak of verbal diarrhea, which is the real Trump. Should he be nominated, he will be radioactive by November.
Hillary is one smiling happy harpy.
The only one who has higher negatives than her is winning the GOP primaries.
In head to head polling of Hillary vs Rubio, Hillary vs Cruz and Hillary vs Trump the only one she can beat is winning the GOP primaries.
Hillary is one smiling happy harpy.
Obama had McCain and Romney, Hillary wants her some Trump.
“Trump has the highest negatives of any candidate in the field.”
I don’t think his negatives are higher than the PIAPS, they might balance out. I also think that national polls this far out are not very reliable
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