Free Republic

Niall Ferguson is trying to wrap his mind around the idea of a Ted Cruz presidency. It is not easy, but Ferguson, arguably our most prominent economic historian, professor at Harvard and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is up for the job. He notes, with some accuracy, that Cruz is “a politics machine.” This means that Cruz has out-organized the other candidates politically. He has a stronger political machine across the country. Among other things, his local political operatives have chosen delegates who, no matter who they must vote for on the first round, are sympathetic to him. Why...

The presidential campaigns are becoming more active in Oregon, with Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Ted Cruz appearing to be the most organized in their respective races for the state’s May 17 primary. Sanders has opened four offices in the state – in Portland, Eugene, Bend and Medford – and his state director, Monte Jarvis, said hundreds of volunteers are gearing up for a major door-to-door canvassing effort in advance of the Democratic primary. On the Republican side, Cruz is recruiting a network of statewide volunteers and has already made a big push to get as many supporters as possible...

In 2008, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton nearly deadlocked in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Montana voters headed to the polls on June 3 not knowing who the party’s nominee would be. It was an exciting time for Montana Democrats because the state’s June primary election is usually too late in the nominating process to have an impact on the outcome. The presidential nominees are usually decided long before voters here get a chance to cast their ballots....

JUDY WOODRUFF: With eight days to go until vote-rich New York weighs in on the high-stakes contests for the Republican and Democratic nominations for president, candidates stepped up their criticisms of each other and made their best cases for more delegates today, the perfect moment to turn to Politics Monday with Tamara Keith of NPR, and Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report. And we welcome both of you. So, as we said, no voting this week, but delegate selection goes on. And we’re hearing a lot of complaining, Amy, from Donald Trump. We just heard him saying the process...

I am a delegate to both the North Carolina State GOP convention to be held in May and my Congressional District Convention next week. My political insider connection is that I showed up at my precinct caucus/county convention last month, where I expressed the willingness to commit to the time and expense of attending these other conventions. I have made a similar commitment every few years for the past three decades. When I lived in Chicago I was also a delegate to several Illinois State GOP conventions for the same reasons: I voted in Republican primaries, attended my ward Republican...

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner says Donald Trump has a “diminishing future” after his loss to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin’s primary last week. The Colorado senator was asked on the Kelley and Kafer show Friday about Trump’s former adviser, Roger Stone, threatening to publicize the hotel rooms of Republican convention delegates who don’t support Trump. “It sounds like to me like a consultant, a political consultant who has a candidate that is kind of wits end because they see a diminishing future, and I think you can see that turning point in Wisconsin as somebody else has caught momentum,” Gardner said....

The state will host what’s likely to be the contest's decisive primary in June, but the campaigns are already marshaling their forces. Ted Cruz lands in California on Monday for two rallies in a state where voters won’t head to the polls for nearly 60 days, but the West Coast swing is anything but a diversion. It’s preparation for the campaign’s endgame. If Cruz is to stop Donald Trump short of 1,237 delegates, the final, decisive stand will almost certainly come in California. And that realization has spurred a behind-the-scenes arms race, with Cruz, Trump, John Kasich and their allies...

On March 1, the Colorado Republican party prepared for 60,000 voters to arrive at nearly 3,000 precinct-caucus sites across the state. Those voters would select men and women to attend the party’s county assemblies and congressional district conventions, in the first step of a multi-part process that determined 34 of Colorado’s 37 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. To hear Donald Trump and his fans tell it, those tens of thousands of Republicans never arrived, never made their choices, and never had the chance to play a role in selecting the party’s delegates. Matt Drudge, the populist Right’s...

In “Through the Looking Glass,” the Queen tells Alice: “sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” She might have choked on her grits, however, at the thought of Ted Cruz becoming the Republican nominee. Until a few weeks ago he was low in the polls and loathed by the GOP establishment. Sen. Lindsey Graham joked about murdering him. But now, the impossible has happened: Cruz’s unlikely emergence as the favorite to beat Donald Trump. His transformative win in Wisconsin. And even his unthinkable endorsement by Graham. Can Ted believe this is happening? And does he —...

Donald Trump’s organizational problems have gone from bad to worse to flat-out embarrassing. Here’s Politico with the play-by-play from this weekend’s Colorado GOP convention, the latest scene of Trump’s delegate-securing failure: Trump’s last-minute organizing effort did not go well. The leaflet his campaign handed out listed a slate of 26 delegates. But in many cases the numbers indicating their ballot position — more than 600 delegates [were] running for 13 slots — were off, meaning that Trump’s team was mistakenly directing votes toward other candidates’ delegates. When the balloting results were announced Saturday evening, [Ted] Cruz picked up the 13...

Tsk, tsk. Donald Trump’s effort to reset his campaign following defeat in Wisconsin showed no signs of paying off this weekend, as a series of technical failures by his campaign set his hopes back even further. From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place...

The funniest part of this is when he says the rules in Colorado were changed to help “a guy like Cruz.” In reality the rules were changed to block guys like Cruz. Colorado used to award its delegates via a caucus, but that backfired in 2012 when Rick Santorum upset Mitt Romney there. That’s how it tends to go with caucuses — unlike a statewide primary, they benefit well-organized candidates with a passionate grassroots following, both of which are hallmarks of Cruz’s campaign. When the rules were altered last August, decoupling the caucus from the process of awarding delegates, it...

Two things are worth noting about Donald Trump’s whining over what he suddenly perceives as the “rigged” GOP nomination contest. 1. Trump is powerfully illustrating the fraud at the core of his case for the nomination. He claims that because he is a successful businessman he would be much more adept than conventional politicians at mastering the intricacies of problems and processes. He will, he brags, figure out how to deal with challenges in a way that maximizes American interests, assembling the best, most competent people to execute his plans of action. As a result, we are told, American will...

Organizers of a rally for GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz at the Town and Country Resort in Mission Valley are expecting a full house on Monday night. Reserved tickets for the 6:30 p.m. rally sold out in an hour. Doors will open at 5 p.m. Prior to that, the U.S. senator is attending a private function in San Diego and will leave the city immediately after the rally. It’s unclear how many attendees are expected; organizers say they’re expecting more than 2,000 to attend. They’ll remove chairs from the ballroom if necessary to accommodate a larger crowd. As of 1...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, there's something else about these delegate fights that have taken place over the weekend where Cruz has just skunked Trump. It isn't even a contest. It is fascinating to watch. And, of course, the Trump people think that games are being played and that tricks are being pulled. But that's not happening. This is just somebody who understands the system using it. You know, we could go into a little discussion if you want about insider versus outsider, and I've tried to tell people: "These insiders are not just gonna let this stuff go, folks. They're...

As the Republican presidential race moves toward its closing stages, more and more attention is being focused on the race for delegates. It is that contest that will decide whether front-runner Donald Trump can become the GOP nominee or whether someone else — his closest rival Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) or perhaps some compromise candidate who has not participated in the primaries — can wrest the prize away from him. Many elements of the delegate race are complex and confusing. Here, we try to answer the most frequently asked questions. What are the basics? There are expected to be 2,472...

The rap on Ted Cruz has been that his strength is limited to (1) caucus states and (2) states with large proportions of evangelical Christians. But Cruz undid that analysis with his double-digit victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin last week. Cruz beat Trump 48 percent to 35 percent in a primary election (so much for the caucus argument). And he did so by besting the New York billionaire among virtually all groups, whether defined by income, age, or educational attainment. Trump did manage to win, by 9 points, that quarter of the Wisconsin GOP primary voters who described themselves...

Just over a month ago, after TrumpÂ’s big win in Nevada and after CruzÂ’s SEC state southern strategy fell short amidst the Trump tidal wave across the south, it looked like Trump had the momentum to prevail against a fractured field. Trump thought it was over, and was confident enough to hold unifying post-primary press conference events like a President. As more March contests took place however, the persistent overperformance of Cruz (in places like Kansas, Wyoming and Maine) and underperformance of Rubio that led finally to RubioÂ’s withdrawal after Florida. Despite Kasich staying in, the race has winnowed and...

After Cruz’ smashing win in Wisconsin, it’s on to New York. Will the Empire State break Cruz’ momentum and give Trump back his lead? The key lies in the rules. Fourteen of New York’s ninety-five delegates will be elected at large and there remaining eighty-one will be chosen with three allocated to each of the twenty-seven congressional districts. If a candidate gets fifty plus percent of the vote statewide or in any congressional district, he gets all the delegates statewide or in any such district. But if he falls short of fifty percent, he gets only a proportionate share of...

Front-runner’s adult children huddle with their father as staff divides among three competing aides. Donald Trump’s campaign overhaul has inflamed an internecine struggle among three of his closest advisors, creating an atmosphere that multiple sources likened to a political “Hunger Games.” According to interviews with more than a dozen people on or close to the campaign, staffers are increasingly dividing themselves into competing factions aligned with Trump’s three top officials – embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who still commands deep loyalty among many of the people he hired; deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner, who has a growing group of supporters;...