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It Ain’t Over Yet: Part Two
Yesterday, the Republicans held a primary in Louisiana and caucused in Kansas, Kentucky, and Maine. Ted Cruz stomped Donald Trump in Kansas and defeated him handily in Maine. In Louisiana, he lost to Trump by 3.6 percent, and in Kentucky, Trump beat him by 4.3 percent. Marco Rubio came in a distant third everywhere but Maine, where John Kasich forced him into fourth.
What we have here in states where only Republicans can vote in the primary or caucus is a real horse race, and that, I believe, is what we are going to see down the line. In Rubio’s absence — and I suspect that he will soon be absent — Cruz may well snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Stay tuned!
Published in Elections, General
Exactly. Exit polls are click-bait and chatter-fodder for the 24/7 parade of talking heads. You can find a result for whatever conclusion you want to hype.
Exit polls are click bait when they work against image you like to believe in for your preferred candidate or the narrative you want to perpetuate about a candidate you don’t like.
I think you are exactly right. No crassness, no media traction. Did he understand it was a Christie-like turning point? I frankly wondered if Rubio’s own polls convinced him it was time to negotiate for a spot in someone else’s administration, so taking one for the GOP team was a strategic move for a guy with no net, unlike Rand Paul.
Northern Mariana Islands up March 15. You just wait!
I think Rick Santorum might have been president one day had it not been for his disastrous support of Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey, on “electability” grounds, let’s not forget.
Today PR, tomorrow Aztlan.
Santorum had 11 first-place primary wins in 2012, from North Dakota to Alabama. He’s barely an asterisk in 2016. Politics.
Don’t know if the Specter thing really resonated at that time outside of committed politicos. These days—with conservative voters highly energized—it would.
Rick Santorum was never going to be President of the United States. Never.
Per The Hill – yesterday’s polls in Michigan
Kasich 33%
Trump 31%
Cruz 15%
Rubio 11%
That is one poll and it is a real outlier. Take a look at the lot. Everyone else has Kasich in third or fourth place with at most 18%. Perhaps he has gone on a tear in the last two or three days, but I doubt it very much.
Hope springs eternal.
Unfortunately the scold part still exists. I cannot say how bad Hillary! is because my vocabulary isn’t big enough, but.. nobody likes a know it all or a scold. That will be the problem. Ted may win the Republican nomination but he seems to have the same draw as Mitt and we know how that ended up.
Palin actually made the Maverick viable. She almost made him a Republican, which is important to Republicans. I certainly knew who McCain was and I wasn’t sure that he was a Republican, let alone a conservative. I wanted to vote for her even knowing that VPs don’t run policy.
Hillary!’s warts are beauty marks to some people. Not me. I’ve vote Republican, but there are those who see Hillary! and are all in.
Hillary! has been Bill’s chief of staff for his war on women; therefore her credentials are anti-woman (perfect for a Democrat), tax and spend, anti-military, for sale to the highest bidder, and anti-man although dependent on Bill to some degree. We should not elect her.
Finding no support with his fellow Senators might be considered a blunder by some of us. Being at odds with the majority leader of the Senate might be considered, should one have to work with others to accomplish things.
I think he has a real chance to win the vote from his home as well. I’ll bet his wife votes for him.
Like Yogi Berra said, “Predictions are tough; especially about the future.”
Predicting the past is a little less challenging . . . so I think you’ve nailed this one. [:-)
BTW , the question was would he become the nominee . . . just to quibble a bit.
Kasich is from Ohio. Ohio and Michigan don’t even have diplomatic relations. I don’t see how he can be on the ballot.
It probably accounts for his staying power.
I think most people think of Mitt and Ted as rather opposite ends of the GOP spectrum, despite Mitt’s feeble and failed attempt to re-position himself as a conservative. As Jonah Goldberg says, conservatism was always a second language for Romney . . . one can’t say that about Ted Cruz.
That’s a bug to you? I’d call it a feature. There’s a lot of voters who think go-along, get-along is exactly what they no longer want in their GOP nominee. Campaign conservatives get outed regularly these days . . . Trump never campaigned before, but it’s catching up to him even as I type this. If you consider that up to now Trump was thought to be anti-Establishment, and that Cruz always has been, between the two of them they have 81% of the Delegates. I’m having trouble seeing “blunder” here.
Yes, exactly.
I’m also beginning to think Rubio’s charm might be backfiring. People don’t like feeling like they’re being taken in by a charmer. They’d rather have ugly and honest.
So, you voted for exactly who you were going to vote for whether Palin was VP or not . . . you just felt a little better about it. That’s precisely my point . . . the needle seldom moves even a millimeter because of the VP pick, and certainly doesn’t move significantly enough to change the outcome.
One can postulate a year 2000-Florida recount situation with a VP’s home state in play, but that’s in a probability range that makes asteroid strikes seem likely.
Cruz does bot come off as ugly and honest. He comes across as creepily earnest, calculated, affected, and insincere. That is what makes him unlikable.
And yet he owns 36% of the Delegates. Shocking! BTW – how does Trump come across? He owns 45% of the Delegates. There must be a trick!
Well, I think he’s ugly.
I also think he’s sincere. He’s the real deal. See Greg Abbott’s endorsement. See Jay Nordlinger. See Glenn Beck and Mark Levin. These are all people who mean it, and who don’t suffer fools.
Not to mention he’s argued nine cases before SCOTUS, defending religious liberty and other cool things. He’s top flight academically—Princeton and Harvard Law. Clerked for the Chief Justice . . . do you have any idea how many really, really bright kids try to clerk for the Chief Justice?
Google “real deal” and up comes Ted Cruz’ picture. [:-)
The only person in that list whose opinion I even care about or find persuasive is Jay Nordlinger, and he is a personal friend so I discount him. But just to be clear, I believe Cruz is a real conservative and would fight for good policies, but he is a bad salesman who seems to think he needs to affect this preachy, unctuous character with over the top, overly earnest rhetoric. It’s creepy.
I also think his various political stunts and tactics are purely positioning and brand building. I suspect he isn’t quite as conservative and unyielding as he puts on. I suspect he thinks this caricature is what sells to conservatives. He’s not completely wrong, it sells to certain part of the conservative movement. It doesn’t sell many other places, though.
You seem to be saying he’s a real conservative yet puts on an act to seem conservative. Huh? Look, he’s running for President. Yeah, he’s got to be ‘not quite as unyielding’ as someone who isn’t running for President.
Is he smooth-as-glass appealing in this hyper-visual, media age? Nope. So what? He’s actually smart and actually religious and actually does what he says. If that’s not good enough for a politician at his level, you’re living on the wrong planet.
This is untrue.