Posted on 04/01/2016 3:10:36 PM PDT by Jeff Head
Ted wouldn’t be in this spot had he not taken the South for granted. He thought he had us in his back pocket. He didn’t. Shame on him
True words
Oh, dear Jeff, IMHO, if the nomination process is to be decided at the convention, I'm afraid it's too late. It's already a done deal by then -- GOPe will do everything in its power, including rewriting convention rules at the drop of a hat, to stop Trump. But my suspicion is, they would just as soon be rid of Cruz, as well. They detest Cruz nearly as much as they detest Trump. What GOPe is likely to do is to nominate someone who didn't even run in the primaries, by hook or by crook. Say a Mitt Romney or a Paul Ryan or a Jeb Bush. Which is so laughable -- I mean we started the nominating process with 17 candidates, all of whom were regarded as well-qualified to run. The survivors of that winnowing process -- Trump, Cruz, and even Kasich -- are all unacceptable to GOPe. So we the people get totally stiffed.???
The only way to preempt this development, which looks pretty inevitable to me, would be for Trump and Cruz to combine right now. Announce a Trump/Cruz ticket, and have the latter appeal to his followers to vote Trump. If Trump has a lock on 1237+ delegates before the convention, the GOPe plan totally fizzles.
But I strongly doubt that would ever happen. Cruz is in it to win it, come hell or high water; and he thinks he can prevail in a brokered convention if he fails to have 1237 delegates on the first ballot. At least that seems to be his bet.
If the GOPe subverts the will of the people as you so capably describe, then I am going to have to go back on my pledge to vote for the GOP nominee, whoever it is. But what the heck, everybody seems to be going back on his pledge these days.
I would have to vote for a third-party candidate. I hope that would be Trump. I look at it this way:
I discern that what this election is truly about is the answer to the question: Is American government a system of, by, and for the people? Or is it a system of, by, and for the "expert" political class? (Of both parties.)
I note that Donald Trump is the only candidate of either party who is not a bought-and-paid-for creature of the political class. He is vociferous about the abject failures of this political class, foreign and domestic; and when he speaks, he speaks for millions of middle Americans who share his concerns.
All of which is deeply disturbing to those cocooned in the political class. They view Trump as an existential threat to themselves and their interests. They would dearly love to make him go "bye-bye."
To me, the GOPe is simply suicidal. But in their arrogance, they think they can pull off their strategy and get the president they want. And American democracy be damned.
God help us.
Thanks so very much, dear Jeff, for your outstanding analysis.
Mrs. Sooner and I talking this over right now... out of 17 Republicans starting the campaign, 15 of them were singing from the same hymnal, all saying the same Republican stuff. Some of it scripted IMO, particularly iCarly's moment when she piped up and interrupted someone else to tie a couple of points together elegantly, and Marco in the CBS debate when it turned out that CBS had bullet point graphics edited and ready to go to help illustrate Marco's new position on border security and immigration. How convenient.
Of the other two, Trump and Carson that is, Carson's a nice gentleman but he might have tried the senate or something else first. Same for Trump in a way but thank God he ran now and that he's still in it...
Any reconciliation between Trump and Cruz is a long shot...
First, I'm not totally convinced that Cruz is what he claims to be, in spite of having said many of the right things and having argued at least one of the right cases in the Supreme Court, so any reconciliation he makes with Trump would be on behalf of whom, Constitutional Ted or The Real, IMO (GOPe) Ted, and Heidi?
Second, Captain Obvious tells me the animus between Ted and Trump is deeply personal... started with psycho Glenn Beck actually back last summer holding up racy pictures of Melania Trump on the radio and saying "Look here..."
Third, there's little if any way for Trump to negotiate himself out of certain things he's pointed out about Ted, truthfully, IMO...
So now here we are with Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan probably taking us to the political equivalent of a big church fight in Cleveland, with Milt Romley (I like to call him that) looking down on everything from the skybox. None of those guys have any kind of hidden agenda, have they?
+1 on God Help Us.
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