The strategy against Trump: can it work?
John Hinderaker opines as follows:
The other candidates have spent months jockeying to be the alternative to Trump. The idea was that at some point, Trump’s campaign would implode and the nomination would go to whoever was still standing as the alternative.
It seems clear now that this strategy won’t work. Trump isn’t going away. It is hard to imagine a scenario that would cause his campaign to collapse. (What, he might say something dumb or inflammatory? He might be sternly chastised by Democratic Party reporters? Or some peccadillo could come to light?) So the remaining candidates are going to have to go after Trump and convince voters that they are the the best in the race, not the best other than Trump.
My sense is that the vast majority of Trump’s 1/3 of GOP voters are locked in. They’re not going to desert him. But the others are up for grabs, and that constitutes 2/3 of the GOP voters. That fact explains why the other candidates are for the most part not going after Trump, at least they’re not doing it until they reach the point where there’s one or two of them left standing. Until then, they have seen their path to victory as knocking the rest of the field out of the way and scooping up over 2/3 of the remaining 2/3 of voters.
Unfortunately for those who would like Trump to not get the nomination, in the meantime Trump is amassing delegates and each of the un-Trump candidates is hurting the others, weakening them. It’s something like a weirdo version of The Tragedy of the Commons, although this battle isn’t over scarce resources (unless you consider the electors resources, but that’s not really a proper analogy, either). As in the Tragedy of the Commons, the un-Trump candidates are all “acting independently and rationally according to their own self-interest” and yet behaving “contrary to the best interests of the whole”—that is, if they’re assuming that defeating Donald Trump is in the best interests of the whole.
Psychologists and counselors sometimes ask people to play cooperative board games to get to a common goal, and their strategies are studied. Usually the games pit self-interest against cooperation, and people have choices. The question can be whether people will act in their own perceived self-interest at the expense of their long-term interests, which would best be served by cooperation in the game. The 2016 campaign has become an example of one of those games of choice—and politicians are not exactly known for acting against their own self-interest.
Ted has started to go after Trump with his TV ad pointing out that Trump is no conservative. A brilliant ad featuring kids, eminent domain and an action figure Trump. That ad alone might win SC for Ted.
I was super impressed with the theatre of Ted’s Rally for Religious Freedom in Des Moines.
More candidates need to attack Trump.
If the Bush SuperPacs had any brains they would completely unload on Trump. Payback at a minimum for the “low energy” insults.
i dare you to find one article that is positive, and doesnt throw in bad bs…
Ted should try to be less pedantic. It doesn’t work anymore to sound like the smartest guy in the room. I think is is hard for him because he is so smart.
For example, I really liked the story he told about his half-sister and her drug addiction. I did not know that about him. However, he started rambling off the facts in a dispassionate way, so that it seemed as if he were using the experience for political gain, rather than explain that he understands very well the costs of drug addiction. He needs to find a way to relax, use smaller words and appear more human.
Continue talking in specifics about what he is going to do day one, how he will fix Obamacare, how he plans on handling Congress (who seems to dislike him), etc. That will be a good counterbalance to the less specific style of Trump.
Pretty disappointing to see Rubio joining the ” Cruz stole Iowa from Carson” bandwagon. Not true as well as yesterday’s news. If they’re too stupid to see that Trump is the biggest threat, they don’t deserve to win.
In database systems, you sometimes get what is called a “deadly embrace”. One user has record “A” locked so no one else can access it and another user has record “B” locked so no one else can access it. If the first user also wants to put a lock on record “B”, they have to wait until that lock is released. Meanwhile, the second user wants to put a lock on record “A”, but they have to wait until that lock is released.
That is analogous to what is happening here. #2 (Cruz) needs the supporters held by #3 (GOPe leader) while #3 needs the supporters held by #2. They will remain deadlocked until one of the two gains a substantial advantage. But, while they are locked in that deadly embrace, Trump marches forward through the South.
BTW, I thought the Cruz anti-Trump ad was trumped by Trump’s anti-Cruz ad. My wife’s immediate reaction was that you shouldn’t be using children like that.
Carson needs to go away. Bush needs to go away as does Kasich. Now. Quickly. They need to put aside their massive egos. All of them.
Karl Rove–yes,him; & and he is still very smart– pointed out that the campaign has really just begun. Everything so far is merely prelude. He made the point that for the next several primaries the delegates are distributed proportionally, so even if Trump wins, he does not win them all.
Rove did not go into it, but I think the preliminaries have been educational to the professional campaign people. They understand Trump now, and I will be surprised if he does not face “shock and awe” in the future. All they need to do is get under his skin enough so that he goes ballistic a time or two, and really scares people. I am putting a small psychic wager on that possibility.
In the here and now, Trump may have his 25-to 30 per cent locked in, but Cruz whipped him in Iowa, while competing with multiple others for the rest of the vote. I put no stock in New Hampshire at all. So, we will see how it plays in South Carolina.
K-E,
Have you visited tedcruz.org?
Another way to deal with Trump is just to co-opt all of his issues. Other candidates should promise to build an even bigger wall, deport all the illegals, and just ban Muslims and Islam forever.
Maybe if the other candidates just say that Trump is right, just praise Trump, just say that they will do what Trump does but even more, then they will do better. Rubio can certainly help himself by saying he was wrong in 2013. Why not double-down and out-trump the Trump?
@Yankee:
The problem is that the GOP has promised so much and delivered so little that they have lost the trust of frustrated moderates and conservatives.
To go down that route would leave them labelled as flip-floppers. Two of the top contenders are already trying shake that label.
@parker. I have been to his website, but long ago…if you can believe it I actually donated money to him last year (small amount). Wanted him to be encouraged to stay in the race.
Not sure why I need to go there. I’m giving my view of him when I see him on TV and in debates. That is how everyone else seems him. They don’t hang out at websites…at least, the majority don’t.
I want him to be less smarty-pants and more human. Maybe he can’t do this. He is who he is. Just pointing out what his problem may be compared to Trump.
It seems increasingly likely to me that Bloomberg will come in and Hillary go out, but who knows? If Bloomberg comes in as an independent, that pretty much guarantees a Dem win, because he sucks up the middle and the Dem base is bigger than ours and they can get theirs out much better than we can. (After all, how can they lose when even the dead vote straight Democrat?)
If Bloomberg comes in as a Republican, and it comes down to him and Trump, I would certainly go with Trump.
Nothing epitomizes “Progressivism” more perfectly to me than banning over 16-oz sodas because the nannies have decided they’re bad for your health.
As between the guy who wants to ban large sodas and the guy who finishes the 4-year stalled Rockefeller ice-rink restoration on-time and under budget, I’ll take Trump any time.
Trump is a real-estate guy, and I’ve dealt with real-estate guys virtually my entire adult life. I know exactly what narcissistic, selfish, bullshit artists they generally are, and he certainly is.
That being said, I’m quite sure he genuinely loves this country, and that he would not make an Iran deal, would smash ISIS, would build a wall, would make Mexico pay for it, would build up the military, would improve the treatment of veterans, and would go through the budget with a razor blade and an red pencil.
That’s not everything I would like, but it’s a hell of a lot better than we would get from Hillary, Bernie, Joe, or Michael.
As I’ve posted before, we have to pick the most conservative ELECTABLE candidate. If that turns out to be an obnoxious asshole, so be it.
On that note, have the statisticians broken out how the independents who crossed over to the Republicans voted?
K-E,
If anyone wants to know more about a candidate, I suggest one does more than watch TV interviews and debates, or “hang out at websites”, although the info at websites can be a valuable. Other valuable sources of info include attending campaign rallies and a good look into the candidate’s history. Plus, looking at the consistency of a candidate’s positions over a long time span.
I’m not lecturing, merely noting that candidates often tell us who they really are through a combination of information sources.
Richard Saunders:
“[Trump would …] would smash ISIS”
Ground operations, including long-term peace operations?
Trump may believe that if he can get to a brokered convention while his activist allies have redefined, chipped away, and re-arranged identity groups into his orbit and, if necessary, set conditions a la the 1968 Democratic convention, he can make a deal for the GOP to sell the rope.
G. W. Bush is heading to South Carolina to help Jeb, and the Jeb campaign is running this radio ad made by G. W. It’s a good ad, I think. Will this give Jeb a boost? And what if he does better than Rubio there?
Ann:
My guess is that if Jeb can finish third in SC (which I think is what you’re talking about), he will replace Rubio as the “establishment” hope. Actually, “replace Rubio” is a bad way to put it, since Rubio was always far too conservative for them and they only had just started gravitating to him out of despair at Jeb’s poor showing. If Jeb picks up the pace, they will breathe a sigh of relief and it will be “Marco who?” again.
In that case, and if Rubio starts falling more precipitously in the polls, my prediction is that it’s likely to lead to Cruz picking up strength and pulling significantly ahead of Bush. Cruz vs. Rubio splits more evenly, I think, than Cruz vs. Bush. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see Bush having the charisma to pull a lot of people to his side.
The situation is nothing if not complicated.
Richard Saunders:
I have many problems with Trump, but one big one for me is that I do not think he’s electable.
Now, of course I could be in error about this, and I agree that if support for the Democrat sinks low enough, then even I could be “electable.” “A player to be named later” could be “electable.”
But I don’t think it will get to that point. Short of that situation, I think Trump will not win the general. Too many people on both sites hate and fear him. His supporters like or even love him, and they see him through the rose-colored glasses of that emotion and think he’s electable. I’ve seen a lot of claptrap about how he would get blacks and Democrats and even NY, etc. etc., but I have seen absolutely on evidence of it and plenty of evidence against it.
Parking Lot: power for personal gain.
On Meghyn Kelly, Krauthammer just called Bush a “Reform Conservative”. That sounds pretty good to me.
I know that Jeb is anathema to many hard core Conservatives because he has been labeled as “establishment”. Most people who look on him with disdain, know very little about his life story and record.
Everyone in the running is “establishment”. None more so than Trump. He is just part of a different establishment. Rubio and Cruz are Senators, the most closed establishment in the land. Kasich, eighteen years in Congress. Folks need to get real.
I ham a twenty-five year Navy veteran, and conservative to the core. By that I mean a limited government Constitutionalist. I also understand that democracy functions through reasonable compromise.
I have had other choices; but, \I have always liked Jeb. Nothing has changed.
Oldflyer:
I’ve watched the anger build for a long time, and I’ve fought against it for a long time. When I say “it” I don’t mean the anger and frustration itself, but what I see as the sometimes irrational reaction to the anger. The right prides itself on rationality vs. emotion (particularly as compared to liberals), but in recent years—particularly since the passage of Obamacare, the re-election of Obama, and then Obama’s immigration executive actions and Congress’ lack of ability to stop it—I’ve seen the anger rise to a fever pitch and take on a strong emotional, destructive, nihilist, and reckless element.
Angry people want something. Right now what a lot of them want is vengeance. Many Trump supporters are very up-front about this—they don’t care as much as one would think what Trump does or doesn’t do (except for immigration), as long as he destroys the GOP. Jeb Bush? No one wants to study his actual record; what he’s said on immigration puts him beyond the pale, as does the Bush name and his tenure as governor and his insider status. He also lacks fire and charisma. So he’s going to be hated for all those things.
I would have thought—had you asked me a year or two ago—that people on the right who have been so angry and dissatisfied, and so wanting someone conservative who fights, would be strong supporters of Cruz’s candidacy. Trump? Why Trump? He’s almost a liberal, after all. It seems to make no sense.
I am convinced, however, that Cruz vs. Trump separates the actual small-government conservatives from those who have no problem using executive power to force the country to the right—to out-Obama Obama, as it were—and to do it with a candidate (Trump) who seems as though designed to be the perfect vehicle to express their anger and their F-you attitude: to the press, to the left, and in particular to the GOP establishment they are angriest at because the GOP is seen as the betrayer.
It reminds me—and I’ve written this before, somewhere—of a child who has been abused by one parent, and yet blames the other for not protecting them. The rage can be much greater at the parent who failed to protect, rather than the abusing parent.
@neo-neocon:
Watching a video of Trump’s rally in Louisiana. The audience is good natured and enthusiastic and cheers almost every line. It is somewhere between a rock concert and a Billy Graham rally. Never seen anything like it on the conservative side, although Palin gave a glimpse when her rallies were beating McCain’s. 10,000 people inside and thousands more outside who couldn’t get in. Depending on your point of view, it is either frightening or heartening.
Neo, if the American electorate chooses a Trump because of anger, then God help us. You postulate a deranged electorate. Unfortunately, after 2008 and 2012 I cannot refute the assessment.
I, too am angry. That may be too strong; frustrated. However, I want the country to right itself and move toward what it is capable of being. A Trump presidency would be a big step backward.
Although I always respect what you write, your comments about Bush reflect the shallow thinking of the uninformed. (I don’t mean you personally, but the opinions that you cite) Bush is written off for superficial, one might say fallacious, reasons. In many ways he has demonstrated the qualities that the country needs most; a proven, steady, and competent leader who is invested in American values. Fire? In this climate, I actually fear a leader who fires up one segment of the populace. Need I cite the leaders in the past century who could do just that? Well, let’s review. Hitler was a master. So was Mussolini. Castro wasn’t half bad, and neither was Hugo Chavez. There were others. No, Obama has badly divided the nation; we need a healer to bring us back together.
A number of candidates who fit the mold have fallen by the wayside. A couple are still standing. Jeb is one.
Oldflyer:
That long post I wrote about Trump’s supporters broke it all down into factions. Not all Trump supporters are as I described in my last comment here, but there is a large core group who are, and they are the most active and vocal ones, leading the others.
They are political activists and truth and fairness is not what they’re interested in.
You write, “if the American electorate chooses a Trump because of anger, then God help us. You postulate a deranged electorate.”
So far “the American electorate” has done no such thing. About a third of the voters in the GOP primaries have. That means approximately a sixth of Americans so far. Some of those are just the followers who are following the group I described, the activists (the most angry ones, playing on the anger of the others). So maybe the angry/nihilistic group I’m describing is 10% of Americans or something like that. Thing is, if there are so many other candidates that the non-Trump vote is split many ways, Trump could be the nominee without having a majority of GOP voters, much less Americans (and not all of his voters are at a white-hot pitch of anger, either).
Then there’s the general. I happen to think he would lose. That’s why I think the Trump or Hillary choice, or the Trump or Sanders choice, are both tragic choices. It didn’t have to happen this way, but it may be headed in that direction. It’s especially tragic because this year the right had many good alternatives (Cruz, for example). It’s as though the country marches towards its doom, with most people not in favor of it, but perhaps powerless to stop it.
Trump is not Hitler, but remember that Hitler and the Nazis only got a third of the vote of the German people. The rest were powerless to stop him—in part because of the parliamentary system there, in part because of backroom deals, in part because of his intimidation and power plays on the opposition. We have been fortunate for the most part so far in America, in part because of the 2-party system—a system people are angry at but which has in some ways protected us from what the Founders called factions.
Neo,
“a child who has been abused by one parent, and yet blames the other for not protecting them”
I have been trying to think of the correct Trump phenomenon metaphor, and I think this nails it. So many are angry at the Dems, yet furious at the GOP for not advocating an alternative something over the last 7 plus years. It all has been a bait and switch. I will never vote Trump, yet I am totally in line with the anger at the Republican leadership ineptitude for so long.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/trump-v-sanders-the-first-debate-213614
@neo-neocon: Had to throw the Nazi card in there, didn’t you?
Trump has 30% of the GOP vote. That is 15% of the popular vote. He has a long way to go to match Hitler’s share and he’s working inside a political system that still has some checks and balances, including, in extremis, an armed citizenry.
We don’t really have two parties anymore. We have a political class and we have the people. What we the people say and how we vote matters little to the political class, except for a brief period called “Reelection Campaign” when they pay lip-service to we the people.
Proof? Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell gave Obama everything he wanted in the omnibus bill. Did any ordinary GOP voter approve of anything in this awful bill? Answer came there none.
Who Really Chooses the Nominees?
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/459294/who-really-chooses-the-nominees/
A good read on the Trump phenomenon-
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/02/10/trumps-america/
PatD:
I guess you had to throw in the “had to throw the Nazi card in there.”
I keep saying you’re not a troll, but you sure act like one sometimes. So if you don’t want to be treated like one, don’t act like one. And if that remark was your attempt at humor, it’s not funny.
And what part of “Trump is not Hitler” do you not understand?
Bringing up the fact that people don’t always have to have a majority (or even close to it) to get elected, and that such a thing can sometimes have tragic consequences, is not “throwing the Nazi card in there.” Every time I have brought up Hitler or Nazis in the context of Obama, or Trump, or any other modern figure, I have always put in a disclaimer like “of course, so and so is very different from Hitler/Nazis.” You know what? I’m tired of always doing it.
And by the way, either you are an extreme night owl and just like to stay up very late and comment, or you time these troll-like comments for very late at night so they will stay up there unopposed and unanswered for the maximum possible time.
Neo, I certainly agree that the Trump phenomenon does not reflect the majority of the electorate. Of course when you add Trump + Hillary + Bernie, it can get scary.
Referring back to my early comment; it is a lengthy process that has really just begun. I hope that attitudes do not harden this early to the point of irrationality.
We are all frustrated with the Boehner-McConnell leadership. That does not mean that we have to go off the deep end to find responsible leaders. We do need to pay attention to past performance, and perhaps above all, character.
Yesterday I heard Trump with my own ears state that the candidate we see now, is not the candidate we will see later. What? So, who is the Trump who would govern this country? We need to know.
@neo-neocon:
I take your point. I just dislike the way the media have called Trump a Nazi. I know you weren’t doing that, but it read like “a demagogue only needs 1/3 of the vote to gain power so beware”. I apologise.
Yeah, I’m a night-owl for now. Lots of software to write.
Does anyone besides me suspect that Trump would run as an independent if he did not get the nomination? For that matter if he does not get the Republican nomination he would probably try for the Democratic Party’ s nomination.
Bob from V
Donald does not investing in losing.
It’s really that simple.
As for crossing parties.
What’s in your bong?
blert
1) Trump’s vanity dictates his behavior, not his logic.
2) Getting the Democratic nomination was a brilliant satirical comment on his past views, not a serious prediction.
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