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Politics : A Hard Look At Donald Trump -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1647)	4/15/2016 6:24:04 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Recommended By Bill Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46493

Donald Trump's Insincere Process Arguments Michael Barone · Apr. 15, 2016 “Gestapo tactics.” That’s how Donald Trump’s recently installed campaign manager, Paul Manafort, characterized the Ted Cruz campaign’s successful effort to win all 34 of Colorado’s pledged national convention delegates at the long-scheduled Republican congressional district and state conventions. “Today winning votes doesn’t mean anything,” Trump complained. “It’s a corrupt deal going on in this country and it’s not fair to you people.” Such complaints typically come from people who are not, in one of Trump’s favorite words, “winners.” Trump conspicuously refrains from complaining about how though he has won just 37 percent of votes cast in Republican primaries and caucuses, those votes have given him 46 percent of the delegates. That happened because of the rules. Trump has benefited from winner-take-all rules in states such as Florida and Arizona. He has benefited from split opposition: In only one state (Massachusetts) has he won more popular votes than the combined total for Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Anti-Trump candidates could have joined forces and encouraged tactical voting. When they didn’t (exception: Rubio advised his Ohio supporters to vote for Kasich, a favor not returned), Trump had no complaints. But he did have complaints when Cruz operatives worked successfully to win technically uncommitted delegates in conventions, as they did in Louisiana and North Dakota. Trump’s response: “I don’t care about rules.” It seems to run in the family. Trump’s son Eric and daughter Ivanka can’t vote for him in the New York primary because, as Trump explained, “They didn’t know the rules and they didn’t register (Republican) in time.” Even though the rules have been in force for years and are readily accessible online. The Colorado rules Trump complains about were adopted last August and available online in September. The Cruz campaign took note and started working to use them to maximum advantage. The Trump campaign didn’t. Whose fault is that? Plus, it is odd to hear charges of “Gestapo tactics” from a spokesman for a candidate who has encouraged supporters to beat up hecklers and offered to pay for their legal expenses. Nonetheless, it’s inevitable that some Trump supporters will find merit in his plaints and if, as seems likely but not certain, he fails to win in primaries and caucuses the 1,237 delegate votes needed for the nomination, they will start bellowing, “We wuz robbed.” Trump himself has suggested the 1,237 is just an arbitrary number and has encouraged voters to believe, as polls show most Republican primary voters do, that the candidate with the most delegates is entitled to the nomination even if he falls short of the majority. But requiring a majority is the opposite of arbitrary. The requirement is designed to prevent a party from being saddled with a nominee opposed by a majority of delegates. In the past, ever since primaries became the dominant system for selecting delegates, this hasn’t been an issue — because candidates who rolled up big delegate leads were broadly acceptable to non-supporters. Trump, who hasn’t won 50 percent in any primary or caucus yet (though he may in New York April 19), isn’t. He also has a lower percentage of popular votes at this stage than the leading Republican candidates in the contested 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012 races, all of whom had won 50 percent of delegates by early April. Of course there is always some basis for a loser to complain about the rules. The presidential nomination process is the weakest part of our political system and, not coincidentally, the only one not addressed by the framers of the Constitution. None of the successive reforms made since 1968 have produced a perfect system, and in a nation of this size, none can. A national primary would penalize all but a few nationally known candidates. Caucuses tend to favor candidates with constituencies of well-organized voters. Reasonable people can differ about whether it’s fairer to allocate delegates proportionately or by winner-take-all. Arguments over the rules inspired one of my Rules of Life: “All process arguments are insincere, including this one.” Losers' real gripe is not with the process but the result. It’s likely that Trump will fall short of the 1,237-delegate majority after the last contests June 7, and it’s entirely possible that well before the convention opens July 18 Cruz will get enough commitments to get to 1,237 on a second ballot. In which case Trump’s complaints about the process may become moot and the threat of riots at Cleveland could fizzle out. http://patriotpost.us/opinion/41948

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1647)	4/16/2016 12:49:46 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46493

Donald Trump Uses the Wall Street Journal to Prove He Is One Truly Stupid Person By: streiff ( Diary) \| April 15th, 2016 at 01:30 PM Donald Trump is a monumental incompetent. There is no kinder way of putting it. His name, in business is associated with an excess of hype followed by abject failure and bankruptcy. He is the poster child for the small-handed rich kid, who, being born on third base, trips over his own shoelaces, does a faceplant, and then demands to be given credit for a home run because he really could have done it if things had gone the way he wanted. His campaign is in crisis. He has divided his campaign staff into warring tribes that spend more time fighting each other for butt-kissing festivals with Trump than they do trying to run a national primary campaign. He is at the point where he needs a run of amazing luck to win the nomination on the first ballot and he has proved singularly inept a wrangling delegates to achieve that goal. So Donald Trump does what he does best. He whines. He mewls. He snivels. He befouls himself and rubs it in his hair in rage. You really need to read this op-ed to appreciate what kind of a sniveling, cringing coward Donald Trump becomes in the face of adversity. On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred. A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined. This is a lie that would have made Goebbels blush. Colorado Republicans were afforded the opportunity to vote on a candidate. They just couldn’t do it in the way that Donald Trump prefers. Nominating the GOP candidate is something that GOP voters are supposed to do. Trump brings in what can only be called carpetbaggers, that is, Democrats and independents, to vote in what is supposed to be a GOP event. The only people denied the opportunity to vote for the GOP nominees where people who were not Republicans and Republicans who had so little interest in the process that they couldn’t be bothered to participate. In other words, the quintessential Trump voter. As my colleague, Sara Gonzalez, points out, these rules were established last year and were, or should have been, well known to any serious candidate. Which is why Donald Trump was blissfully unaware of them. I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated. No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice. Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide. This system that Donald Trump is not interested in defending is one in which political parties are able to establish their own rules. No one forced Donald Trump to run as a Republican. In fact, his candidacy as a Republican is an exercise in the lowest kind of fraud… rather like the Trump University of voter registrations. No one cancelled an election. The state party decided to go from a primary (I got this so wrong, see the comments for the correct version) to a convention system. Anyone in favor of a less intrusive federal government and the concept of federalism should applaud it. The fact that Trump criticizes it is hardly surprising. Trump’s entire life has a been a landmark to the use of government to expand his own business interests, destroy competitors, and seek a monopoly wherever possible. Then he goes on to attack Ted Cruz for (Gasp. Clutch pearls. Look for fainting couch.) knowing the rules and playing by them. Likewise, Mr. Cruz loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of the expressed will of the people who live in that district. That’s because Mr. Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically eliminated by the voters. Trump has the same problem. He will arrive at Cleveland without enough delegates to win. Therefore, he, too, is mathematically eliminated. Following Trump’s juvenile logic, there can’t be a GOP nominee because each succeeding ballot would have to be the same as the previous. Will of the people, don’t you know. Trump will be getting exactly what he won: votes on the first ballot. The fact that his campaign was too lazy, too stupid, and too disorganized to actually care about delegate selection reflects upon the slovenly and unprofessional way Trump has run his campaign — rather similar to the way he’s run his business and personal life, when you get right down to it — not on some nefarious scheme by the GOP establishment, which supports Trump, or Ted Cruz to rob voters of their right to vote. Trump is just being Trump here. He knows he’s losing and the only way he salvages his self-image as a winner (perhaps self-delusion is a better word). Life is hard, they say. It is even harder when you are stupid. http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/04/15/donald-trump-uses-wall-street-journal-prove-one-truly-stupid-person/