(05-02-2016 11:38 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: (05-02-2016 11:35 AM)Paul M Wrote: (05-02-2016 11:25 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: (05-02-2016 10:47 AM)Hambone10 Wrote: (05-01-2016 05:29 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: He's been mathematically eliminated.
It's entirely possible and even probable that ALL the candidates will be 'mathematically eliminated'. Which only means that nobody has enough delegates to win the nomination on a first ballot... which by definition means a 'contested' (nasty) convention.
While I certainly am no fan of Trump, it seems quite obvious (to both parties) that the 'anti' vote is VERY strong this year.
But it begs the question, to what end?
Cruz cannot go to a contested convention and come away with sweeping support. He can only come away as the back room candidate.
When you weigh that against the fact his opponent will most likely be the man who garnered more votes than any Republican primary candidate in history you see that Cruz is doomed.
If Trump doesn't win it before the convention and gets it there, it will be the result of the same "backroom".
It won't, and for one single reason, one man received about 4 million more votes than did the other one.
Cruz can only come away as the back room deal candidate, the one who finished a very distant second.
From a popular perception stance he has already lost.
you're missing something very important...
The entire purpose of meeting the threshold is to demonstrate that the 'yea' for your candidate is greater than the sum of the 'nay' against him... and in this case (or any case where nobody reaches the threshold) that isn't the case.
If Trump reaches the threshold, then it wouldn't matter how delegates (or voters) for Kasich or Rubio or Fiorina or anyone else would have voted if their preferred candidate had not been in the race... but if he doesn't, then they get another chance to vote... and that is what a 'brokered' convention is all about.
The bottom line is that these were all known to Trump and his people from day one... and it should have been obvious from day one that he wasn't the front-runner of the party establishment and obvious for many months that he was going to struggle to get to the threshold where it didn't matter...
and to be honest, I see all of this bellyaching by him (especially) as being destructive and childish rather than constructive. I understand his supporters want to suspend disbelief and that is 'ok', but for a candidate to act like he doesn't know how the program works is worse than childish. It's actually an admission of failure but blaming others rather than taking responsibility for it. Hardly a way to win friends and influence people.
Trump should be arguing that in the event that he doesn't get to the number, that he is confident that people will see that his candidacy is strong and can defeat Hillary and he will win on the second ballot... but what he seems to be admitting is that it isn't.
but going back to square one, the idea that if you fail to garner 51% of the popular vote that there is a 'run off' among the top two vote getters, regardless of how big the gap is not unique to this election.