Wisconsin: post-primary thoughts
I feel a great sense of relief at the GOP results from Wisconsin, but of course this is just one state. If Trump had won a resounding victory there, though, I would have said that his chances of getting a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the convention were fairly good. Now he still could do it, but his chances are looking considerably worse.
I have also noticed that the Kasich-Trump-Cruz results at the moment look quite a bit like a Fibonacci Sequence, in this case 14/34/48. I haven’t a clue what that might mean, but I like it.
At first when I saw this article about the Trump campaign’s post-primary statement this evening I thought it might be some sort of joke. But it’s on too many websites to be a parody, although it reads like a parody. Sadly, it seems all too real:
Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again. Lyin’ Ted Cruz had the Governor of Wisconsin, many conservative talk radio show hosts, and the entire party apparatus behind him. Not only was he propelled by the anti-Trump Super PAC’s spending countless millions of dollars on false advertising against Mr. Trump, but he was coordinating `with his own Super PAC’s (which is illegal) who totally control him. Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet”” he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump. We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee, in order to Make America Great Again.
Trump has become a parody of himself, and that’s saying something.
It’s almost unnecessary to fisk that statement, but I’ll just point out that:
(1) plenty of conservative talk show hosts and media outlets love and support Trump and have given him far more air time than they have given Cruz
(2) neither Trump nor his campaign have offered a single particle of evidence for the very serious charge they have made that Cruz illegally coordinated with his own super PAC
(3) everyone who has followed Cruz’s career for years ought to be aware that he’s been detested by the establishment, and that those from the establishment who are backing him now are only doing so with their backs to the wall and in desperation at the prospect of Trump
(4) there is also no evidence for the claim that Trump is the only candidate who can “secure the delegates” needed to win the nomination, since the rules permit delegates voting as they wish if no one gets the nomination on the first ballot (but perhaps Trump is unaware of the rules?)
(5) there is not even a scintilla of evidence for the idea that Trump can beat Hillary Clinton, much less that he’s the only candidate who could do it
When you read that statement it’s hard not to conclude that Trump is a very small man. And I’m not talking about his height, the size of his hands, or the dimensions of the male member he likes to brag about. I’m talking about his character.
[NOTE: It isn’t relevant, really, but I’ll also point out that “whomever” in that last sentence is incorrect; it should be “whoever.” I’m rather sympathetic on that score, though, because it’s a tough rule and I’ve made errors of that sort myself.]
[ADDENDUM to NOTE: After ruminating on it some more, I have to say I think that “whomever” might be correct. That sort of confusion is why I said I was sympathetic on that score. In fact (and here’s a confession), although I’m generally pretty accurate on grammar, I have come to avoid sentences in which I have to make a tough choice between “whoever” and “whomever,” because I find the rule so difficult to apply correctly, although I’ve read the guidelines many times.]
The guy is a jerk, has always been one, and will always be one.
Thunder snow and hail storm in my corner of Iowa. Appropriate for this weird season. I am glad Cruz walked away with a big victory and bernie toasted hrc’s panties. But the days ahead are filled with uncertainty.
Snuggling up with Mrs. Parker is a good idea. 48 years come August.
Oligopsychos is the word the Greeks used; the Romans then translated that to pusillanimous — we can just say small-souled for the gist.
I’m very happy. I think we will see Cruz change his message somewhat to overcome the not-liked meme. Donald has nowhere to go except more petulance and more bravado. He didn’t invest in staff or the ground game, and he hasn’t followed issues enough to appear competent. I think a lot of Trumpsters will be disillusioned and stay home in future primaries. After they shake off their hangovers, they may move to a serious candidate and tell themselves they were always being rational in their support of Trump.
If Cruz is smart, he will find a way for them to deal with their cognitive dissonance, and I think Cruz is very smart. He can now pick up on issues that Trump dominated, but he will provide a lot more substance.
I can’t wait to see how Hannity, Coulter, and Breitbart et al handle this. Will they say it was all about the issues Trump raised? Will they admit that Trump is not competent to deal with them? From now on, they will have to factor how their bad choice affects their own future.
Interesting idea out there that I ran across today has it that Trump did invest in a ground game of sorts – but on social media and twitter. That he purchased a very large number of false social media accounts, in order to dominate and control the political conversation from the get-go.
Which isn’t a traditional political battlefield, but if true, is fairly shrewd. And if Trump had been able to make the transition from salesman to actual candidate, it might have been a decisively winning strategy, since no one else could get any “oxygen”.
I suspect that, like Cruz studied and incorporated the best of Obama’s tactics, Trump’s social media tactics are going to be studied and become part of the mix in politics from here on out.
Trump has one more lethal problem in the Fall.
He’ll flatly run out of money.
He’s run a VERY cheap campaign to date.
That can’t possibly work in the Fall.
He’s stuck his finger in the eyes of every GOP big money source — while not replicating Bernie’s drawing power from the hoi poloi.
Hillary is running into financial issues already, as Sanders is out raising her with every passing month.
The super delegates will defect like Swiss mercenaries in the17th Century… en masse.
I am just so relieved!!! No other way to put it. I am also hopeful. Of course, I am an optimist but still… just feeling relieved and hopeful that Cruz can pull this out and that the Trump nightmare can end. Plus, I have been supporting Cruz since he began his run and would love to see him win any way. It is not just about Trump. But that makes it more important. For tonight, feelings of relief and celebration are allowed!
expat said,
If Cruz is smart, he will find a way for them to deal with their cognitive dissonance
Trump purposefully ramped up the rhetoric to force supporters to break from the norms. He intentionally burned his bridges. Now, the supporters will have to deal with the regrets of supporting such a clown, which will make leaving the cult that much harder.
You might call it the sunk cost fallacy.
Getting through that is extremely delicate. On the one hand, you must make them believe all is forgiven. On the other, if it comes off slightly wrong it will sound patronizing.
It would be like a mass deprogramming.
I think it’s more likely that we’ll see a bunch of bitter holdouts instead.
I am a Happy Badger!
I don’t believe that there is any way on earth that the GOPe will let Cruz be the candidate. When you listened to Cruz’s acceptance speech tonight, remember that every time you cheered a promise, a whole powerful group of important people felt horrified and doubled their efforts to prevent Cruz (and, it goes without saying, Trump) from being nominated.
Today, on FOX, and I can’t remember who was interviewing him, it may have been Hannity, Reince Priebus was asked several times if the Convention was going to let the nominee be Trump or Cruz. Priebus said that it would be someone who was running. The question was repeated, and the answer was the same, so the questioner recognized the clear inference to be drawn and asked, “You’re saying it will be Trump, Cruz, or Kasich?” and, Priebus said “Yes.”
As I said, I think the fix is in, that with all the shenanigans going on, there is no way on earth that the GOPe will let Cruz be the candidate.
So I want to ask everyone, please help me get rid of something that is really worrying me: what if, at the convention, after the first vote frees the Trump delegates that are willing to change, and there is no way that the second vote will go to Trump, but before the second vote is taken, someone pulls something like this. This is only one possibility, it is the KIND of thing I think might happen. Something LIKE this.
I am obviously not a lawyer, so this is going to lack the terms of art. Please take this seriously enough to point out exactly what would make it impossible.
Say, before that second vote at the convention, some important group brings up the question about Cruz’s birth. Yes, I know we all know he is perfectly qualified. But what if it is just brought up seriously? What if some court in, say, CA, grants standing to one or several CA people who donated to Cruz’s campaign, and who now say they think they were defrauded into contributing to a candidate who was unqualified and should have not run–or whatever argument CA can find to grant standing to ask a CA Federal Court for an emergency ruling, or whatever, and that court rules Cruz isn’t eligible and has to return the money or whatever. The ruling is immediately appealed by the Cruz people, it goes to the Ninth Circuit, who, being the Ninth Circuit, agrees with the lower CA court that Cruz is not eligible.
Then it goes emergency to SCOTUS, who ties, 4-4, which pushes it back to the Ninth Circuit ruling, which stands until the SCOTUS people get a full complement of judges. It won’t be a super-official ruling, of course, but it will prevent Cruz from being nominated, and the GOPe gets their guys, Kasich and Ryan or some such result.
Knowing CA and the Ninth Circuit, are you really, really convinced that this is impossible??? Or that something like this can’t be pulled somewhere, or several somewhere at the same time?
Or, if Cruz is the nominee, are you certain that the Democrats won’t pull this, say, in an October Surprise?
Cruz should have gone at the beginning to get a ruling on his birth–with Scalia on the court still, he’d have gotten it, and there would be no chance for nonsense now.
Just watch–they’ll use Cruz to stop Trump on the first, and SOMETHING to stop Cruz on the second. Or the Democrats will use it when it’s too late. Remember, it was Hillary who brought up Obama’s birth first.
Please tell me SPECIFICALLY why I shouldn’t worry.
Kasich is WRONG on the policies that matter — 100%.
I can’t imagine the delegates committed to conservatives … Trump, Cruz, Carson, Rubio are going to bolt for the Kasich.
Yes, I know that Trump is not a conservative — from my eyes or most others.
BUT.
The Trump crowd thinks that they are in the conservative wing.
Kasich is a darker horse than Harding ever was.
He can’t possibly win — as his policy suite is Hillary-lite.
20082 and 2012 proved that being Democrat lite = wandering in the wilderness.
Minta Marie Morze:
One can never be sure, but I think that the GOP would choose Cruz at the convention if his showing is strong from here on in. As I said, though, I am not certain.
However, I don’t think the legal scenario you sketch out about Cruz’s possible ineligibility is possible because of the problems with standing. I don’t know whether you read my piece on the subject, but if not I suggest you do. Your suggestion that “Cruz should have gone at the beginning to get a ruling on his birth” was never possible, for legal reasons. The Court would not have heard the case; Cruz does not have standing.
Now, it’s always possible that some court will do something completely strange and against all precedent. But chances are exceedingly low on this issue. As I said, that post I just linked to explains much of this; please read the whole thing.
And aside from the fact that Cruz himself could not have tried to get a judgment on this because the courts would not have heard it, the sort of donors you cited in your question would not have standing to sue either: “Standing cannot be had because there might be a speculative injury in the future. Speculative injuries are not yet ‘ripe.'” In other words, they have not been damaged unless and until Cruz is ruled ineligible and taken off a ballot, so they can’t sue because that has not happened.
Kasich is doing a giant disservice to the nation by staying in the race. Regardless of what he says, he has no chance. With him in the race, it unfairly skews the results as a good number will always vote for Kasich.
I am firmly convinced that if it was just Trump v Cruz, Ted wins going away.
And Fox is so shamelessly Trump that it is sickening. If we get HRC or Biden, I will blame Fox.
I can’t for the life of me understand the idea that a candidate cannot get a definitive, unappealable court ruling on his eligibility before putting his name on a ballot.
Yackums
The law is not self-enforcing.
Townhall has an article about freedom to choose….
it starts off like this:
“Should a Jewish baker be forced to bake a cake for a Nazi wedding?”
says a lot as to why people are willing to entertain Trump over others, under a hope, false or not, that he will act in a way that others wont… will he? wont he? only his hairdresser knows for sure… (old ad line)
the answer to the above question? under our current system, no, as the nazi is an unprotected class and the jew is falsely portrayed as a protected class, but not actually in practice…
however, if you wanted to force 99.97% to bend their will to the .03% then yes, if your in north carolina – and the very definition of the point i have described long ago that there are two ways to be powerful. the first way is to use power to do good, and do what people want that is good, in which you dont actually FEEL the power because its cooperative and positive… but if your the sociopathic sadist type, then you have to FEEL power, and you cant feel power unless you can force others to do things they dont want.
keep this in mind when watching as socialists tend to be the latter power, a thing noted completely in the long telegram, as their desire for power lacks any desire for good governance… this is why they have forced so much ill on the population, not for any progressive real goal, but for the addictive feel of power to force others to comply…
scapegoating makes it a lot easier, but in some ways a bit less satisfying, which is why the cousin to this is adulation when sadistic force is absent.
of course, only the put upon would be desperate enough to try to shed this behavior they have been subjected to literally all their lives by taking a desperate measure to try to move those who practice such dark arts, and those who do not want to oppose such arts and be victims of it instead of financially secure, and let it be the next persons issue, which it never is.
I heard Tucker Carlson say today that Trump simply could not bluster and wing it anymore, that he has to start doing his homework and speaking intelligently on the issues. I just don’t think that is possible. I really do not think Donald Trump is very smart. Wily, yes. Street smart, yes. Crafty, yes. Intelligent, articulate, NO.
Althouse also thinks “whomever” is wrong, and there’s a minor discussion going on about the issue in the comments over there. A few minutes ago I plunked my hat in the ring in favor of “whomever” and then had second thoughts and deleted my comment.
But I’m fairly sure that “whomever” is correct. Here’s the argument for “whomever”: boiling the sentence down to its essential elements, you wouldn’t say, “Trump is the only candidate with the votes to defeat HE,” you’d say “Trump is the only candidate with the votes to defeat HIM.” Read that way, the clause is an object, not a subject, and should be “whom” or “whomever” rather than “who” or “whoever.”
But here’s the argument for “whoever”: looking inside the clause itself, you wouldn’t write “HIM is the Democratic nominee,” you’d write “HE is the Democratic nominee.”
However, the clause isn’t the subject of the whole sentence — it’s the object of the whole sentence. So I am pretty sure that it should be “whomever.” But I’m not all that sure, and either way it sounds terrible. I cast my vote for rewriting the sentence from scratch to avoid the whole problem, and also to avoid distracting readers into dissecting the grammar rather than thinking about the point.
No court would jump into a political convention. No court would rule on this issue. No court would have even a single member find against Cruz’s eligibility. This has been a strange year, but I can make those three statements with certainty.
Minta Marie Morze – I dislike the phrase “the fix is in.” It requires at least some evidence that people are willing to conspire to do something illegal to get a desired result. (For the record, I dislike it when people say it about Democrats as well.) Merely advocating, negotiating, and strategising is not a “fix.”
New York is in two weeks. It’ll get a lot of attention because the press live there, and it’ll be interesting to see how it affects momentum, but it’s not actually that important. If I have the numbers right, here are the remaining primaries and delegates:
Apr 19 – 95 delegates (NY)
Apr 26 – 172 delegates (CT DE MD PA RI)
May 3 – 57 delegates (IN)
May 10 – 70 delegates (NE WV)
May 17 – 28 delegates (OR)
May 24 – 44 delegates (WA)
Jun 7 – 303 delegates (CA MT NJ NM SD)
Whomever, whoever. Who and whom are still hanging on in common usage, and I suppose we can still care about that. But whomever is now archaic except in the cases of formal presentation, written or oral. It is an artificial construction now. There remains a parlor game that is played out, debating what used to be considered correct according to fairly arbitrary rules of usage which were enforced for cultural reasons.
Interestingly, I find that it is liberals who get most exercised about “correct” usage these days, in contrast to when I was younger. I suspect there is some element of Northeastern, liberal-arts cultural superiority about it. I write that as one who was raised with Northeastern, liberal-arts, Mayflower-descended expectations by librarian, schoolteacher, poetess, literary types. The rules of serial comma, not splitting infinitives, not ending sentences with prepositions, and correctly punctuating around parentheses were taken with my morning oatmeal.
It went down hard to have to accept that these were cultural, not “correct” in any real sense. But one can’t study usage, regionalism, and dialect in other languages without immediately realizing that our rules are just crap.
Since nobody mentioned it…
Trump’s statement, if accurate, reads like something out of the Soviet era (or the Nationalist Socialist era, as well).
Regarding any “theories” about the establishment “fixing” it so that Cruz won’t win the nomination either…
That is a whole lot more complicated than the Occam’s Razor notion that, dislike them as they do, they have no other legitimate path that can still get them a win in November.
To parachute some unicorn candidate in on the convention floor to sweep up the nomination would alienate BOTH Trump supporters AND Cruz supporters, as they would walk away from having a big time, money, and emotional investment in their candidates to see someone who hasn’t garnered many votes in the delegate contests to “win”.
The rules may allow for it, but it won’t keep the GOP intact for November.
Cruz as POTUS is a LOT easier to deal with than Clinton.
I have seen no polls on NE, but Cruz wins here easily.
Assistant Village Idiot, Mrs Whatsit:
I added and addendum on the grammar controversy, for what it’s worth.
I hate conspiracy theories. They do not serve the country well.
I agree with Assistant Village Idiot. I deplore the phrase, the fix is in. It implies a monolithic entity under the control of few puppeteers. Where is the evidence?
We know that it takes 1,237 delegates, out of 2,472, to win the nomination. I wonder how the conspiracy theorists think that the elites, establishment, or whatever pejorative term of choice, will pressure that many people to vote against their consciences, or their mandate?
It may be that neither Cruz or Trump will win. That will only come to pass if the vote becomes rather hopelessly stalemated. If that is the case it will be because somewhat more than 1,200 people decided not to vote for either; but, chose to cast their vote for someone else.
In another vein, I no longer listen to Hannity; but, what I heard Priebus say in one interview was that whoever got 1,237 votes would win–period, end of comment.
Trump does not even seem to talk about issues any longer, at least not coherently; but, rather his grievances because people are trying to deny him his rightful crown.
The win in Wisconsin won’t matter. Trump is determined to either get the nomination or destroy the party with a 3rd party run, emphasis on destroy either way.
The Other Chuck:
Oh, he’s determined all right. The question is will he be successful. Or has he already been successful. I’d say he’s inflicted serious wounds, but the patient still has a chance of recovering to some extent. Don’t forget, the Democratic candidates are wounded, too.
I am fairly sure that the “we was robbed” meme will be floated by the media, both to drive custom their way and to turn off Republican voters. However, the other scenarios don’t seem viable. Someone will get a majority, eventually, and, barring the aforementioned pot-stirring, there’s a decent chance that the nominee will will win. Devoutly to be hoped.
For the first time in a month, I think Trump won’t now get the majority needed to win on the 1st ballot. He will still finish within less than 100 or so of the needed first ballot number, though. Unless he makes a deal before the convention with either Kasich or Cruz, he won’t win a brokered convention. Kasich could possibly win a brokered convention, but I don’t think Cruz could- he is hated almost as much as Trump is by the party. If neither Cruz or Trump wins on the first ballot, I would put my money on Kasich.
There is a deal to be made between Cruz and Trump prior to the convention. I see two possible reasons for a deal between the two with either one at the top of the ticket. Cruz would take the deal to be VP if he knows he won’t win the brokered convention. I could see Trump throwing his support to Cruz (or Kasich) if Trump never really wanted the nomination in the first place (a theory a lot of people have), and was shocked that it was actually within reach. If the latter, then Cruz would have the ability to reach out to Rubio or Kasich to be the VP since Trump would want that office even less.
At this point, for me personally, I would much prefer Cruz at the top of the ticket with just about any of the other candidates filling in the VP slot- ideally Rubio or maybe Fiorina. However, I think this really only happens if Trump never really wanted the office the nomination in the first place- a theory yet to be proven.
On the issue that matters, I’m with Althouse: “whoever.” On everything else, I’m with neoneocon. (Of course, I was with her on the “whoever” until she became squish.)
If Trump won every single delegate through the end of May, he would have 1212. Not only will he not win NE at all, but may lose other entire states and will certainly lose portions of others.
According to Nate Silver’s predictions, Trump is on track for 1169.
yackums: It is very difficult to get a court ruling that what you intend to do (in this case, assume the presidency) is legal. Generally, it is required that you attempt to do what you want, and wait until some executive branch official (like the commissioner of elections) tries to stop you, and at that point you have standing to bring a lawsuit.
It isn’t limited to politics. If you want to build a building, you apply for a building permit, and only if the commissioner of buildings denies your application can you go to court. If you want to start a hedge fund, you file the appropriate papers with the SEC, and only if they deny you can you go to court. Etc.
Minta Maria Morzi – there have already been two state court cases challenging Cruz’s right to be on the ballot. Both have been dismissed. There’s no possibility that such a challenge would get past summary judgment. I don’t think a federal court would touch it with a 10-foot pole. No standing, no case or controversy, political question – a case probably wouldn’t pass a frivolous litigation motion.
Cornhead — Kasich thinks that by staying in he guarantees himself a VP or third ballot nomination. He is badly mistaken. I haven’t been able to stand his whiny assertions that he is the most qualified to be president from the beginning of the campaign, and I still can’t.
Mrs. Whatsit — Your second analysis is correct: it’s “whoever” because that’s the subject of the clause, even though the clause as a whole is the object of the sentence.
Assistant Village Idiot — can’t agree with you there. If words don’t have meaning, if grammar and word order and punctuation aren’t important and relatively constant, we can’t communicate.
Old Jewish joke:
(This was in the days when telegrams were expensive, charged by the word, and punctuation counted as a word.)
Max isn’t feeling well, so he goes to Minsk to see a specialist. After being examined, he sends his wife Sadie a telegram: SAYS TO OPERATE OPERATE. Sadie sends back a telegram: SAYS TO OPERATE OPERATE.
The Czarist Secret Police come to Sadie’s door: “You’re under arrest as a spy. You’re sending coded messages!”
Sadie says: “Coded messages? You’re crazy! They’re in plain Russian!”
“Oh yeah?” says the secret policeman. “What do they say?”
“The first one is when my husband wrote me to tell me what the doctor said. “Says to operate. Operate?” The second is my answer: “Says to operate? Operate!”
Here in PA, Cruz ties with Hillary, which I find surprising– but Kasich leads her by 16 points! Pennsylvania! I for one am glad he’s still in the race and I admire him for it.
whoever/whomever: Whoever is a subject and whomever is an object. I always just turn the sentence around to make the determination and substitute he/him. “whomever is the Democratic nominee” becomes “The Democratic nominee is him”, therefore “whomever” is correct. But whom is to say? LOL!
Richard Saunders – nothing that I wrote implies what you accuse me of saying. There is a straw man in there somewhere. The best I can say is that you should read actual linguists – over at Language Log, perhaps, or John McWhorter, on the subject of usage.
@ neo’s note. Precisely. If a literate native speaker of a language, who pays close attention to what she is writing, does not automatically and intuitively know a usage rule, then it isn’t a real usage rule in that language – it’s an artificial imposition.
There are real rules in every language, which native speakers never break. Or perhaps I should say: Which speechers native no breaks nay never.
Surely you knew I’d show up. No need to visit Althouse–here I am, come to drop a grammar balm (sic) and then scurry off once more.
***
I may be a hack, but this rule of thumb hasn’t failed me yet:
ALWAYS USE THE SUBJECTIVE FORM WITH THE COPULA.
“This is she.”
“Are you he?”
“It is I.”
Granted I wouldn’t recommend talking that way under most circumstances.
***
You’re probably already aware that subordinate clauses takes priority when determining which form of the relative pronoun to use. So we ignore the rest of the sentence temporarily, even though the entire clause is an object in this particular case:
“whoever is the Dem nominee”
***
Protip: “whomever” is rarely correct in a subordinate clause unless you can clearly identify a subject and a good ol’ fashioned transitive verb. Which “is” is not, Mr. Clinton notwithstanding.
If the relative pronoun is by itself and an object, use “whomever”, but that’s also rare.
“Blood was coming out of whomever.” – DJT
***
You know I love it when you talk grammar to me!
Neo, I don’t think you have to “confess” that you avoid using “whoever” or “whomever.” I think it’s the best option if you want your readers to think about the point you’re making, rather than the words you’re using to make it (as it’s obvious that you do! Good writing doesn’t confuse and distract readers. Even if “whomever” is correct here, a lot of readers are stumbling over it and wondering whether it’s grammatical, rather than thinking about the underlying political point. It’s much better to avoid using the word at all than to build a stumbling block into the writing just to follow the rules.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, I write for a living, and when I catch myself arguing with an editor that I AM TOO correct in some point of usage, no matter what she says, and that her attempted correction is wrong, I’ve learned to stop arguing and rewrite the sentence to avoid the whole problem. First, of course, it’s often the case that I’m wrong and she’s right. And even if I am right, who cares? If it sounds wrong to the editor, it’s going to sound wrong to readers too, and they’re going to think about whether it’s wrong rather than whatever it is I want them to think about.
Forgot to close the parenthesis after “do!” It is an inviolable rule that, in any discussion of correct usage, punctuation or typography, a grammar grinch will make a mistake in usage, punctuation or typography.
You were right the first time. The direct object of “defeat” is the phrase “[subject] is the Democratic nominee” and the subject has to be nominative — i.e., “whoever”.
Neo, others, thank you for relieving my mind about the “standing” issue.
When I said, “the fix is in”–I’ve got to stop writing comments in the middle of the night!–I didn’t mean it was a fait accompli, just that the GOPe are going after BOTH Trump and Cruz, and people shouldn’t believe that insiders siding with Cruz during the primary means they won’t try to bring in someone else when it comes to the convention.
Again, thanks.
Whomever? Whoever!
I’m glad we got that settled – and have bookmarked that very useful grammarian’s site.
On the other, less important, issues:
Cornhead Says:
April 6th, 2016 at 7:58 am
And Fox is so shamelessly Trump that it is sickening. If we get HRC or Biden, I will blame Fox.
***
There is dissent in the ranks at Fox, apparently (I don’t listen to TV news/pundits).
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/06/lord-flies-internal-meltdown-fox-news-trump-coverage/
***
blert Says:
April 6th, 2016 at 7:02 am
Kasich is WRONG on the policies that matter – 100%.
***
I agree with you, although apparently some people still thank that he could win the nomination and the general, despite never breaking into double-digits on any poll or primary except his own state.
http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/04/06/john-sununu-trump-cruz-afraid-john-kasich-can-beat-clinton/
***
Hillary for Prison 2016
Grammar hack nailed it. “Whoever” is correct.
Just going to blip in and out. Yes, I have read more on this coordinating and what is ‘legal’ and ‘illegal.’ To whit, Cruz’s PACs host events for him, which he attends with no $$ out of his pocket. Apparently that is on the up-and-up. However, there was at least one PAC event that the PAC filmed and then used the audio and video for pro-Cruz commercials…legal? illegal? I think Trump has a point. These are events paid for by PACs that are directly set up to benefit Cruz and his campaign on the trail.
You can discuss amongst yourselves.
G.H.W. Bush knew that political momentum was a huge factor in primaries.
And I’m convinced that Trump has lost a LOT of momentum.
1) He’s shown — to many — too many — that he’s not done his ‘homework’ — STILL.
Walker’s campaign imploded over this one very matter. His policy and controversy knowledge was too provincial.
Ditto for Sir Donald.
It’s revealed truth that Barry does not attend to critical duties — the weekly national security briefings, and more.
If anything Sir Donald is even more self-exalted.
What tops EVERYTHING is that Sir Donald has not looked far enough down the road to provide ESSENTIAL Fall campaign financing.
The MSM will absolutely NOT give Sir Donald the free media exposure — in the Fall — that they’ve been willing to proffer in the Primaries — to rip the GOP asunder.
blert:
“It’s revealed truth that Barry does not attend to critical duties – the weekly national security briefings, and more.”
Actually, it’s the daily national security briefings he hardly ever attends, because he already knows more about that stuff than the generals and the CIA. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. Oh, and golf.
“What tops EVERYTHING is that Sir Donald has not looked far enough down the road to provide ESSENTIAL Fall campaign financing.”
But…but…but, he’s self-financing, doncha know? That’s a key component driving the slavish devotion of his acolytes, because he can’t be bought.
So when Hilary throws a cool billion at him, the “unbiased”, “objective” “news” media gives her a couple billion more in free puff pieces and attack coverage against him, and ten thousand Soros/Steyer-fed “non-partisan”, “public interest” 501c(3/4/27) orgs pour in another billion plus riot troops, he’ll willingly liquidate his entire empire to fight back.
I doubt if anybody will pony up the 3 billion he says the mere mention of his name is worth, though.
Congrats to Cruz on his win in Wisconsin. Every Cruz win is a good win. We’ll see how well he can maneuver in delegate world over the next few months.
As for the Cruz “birth” issue, it didn’t work on Panama McCain or the Kenyan kid, so don’t count on it working with the Maple leaf.
All the #neverTrump folks should focus on actively supporting the only all around, life long Constitutional conservative in the race, unless of course your goal is to just be a wrecker and elect Rodham.