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Are You #NeverTrump?
For months, we’ve speculated, theorized, and (occasionally) hyperventilated over how we’ll vote in the general election. So — with the stipulations that the following poll makes no pretense of scientific accuracy and that the Ricochetti have polled quite differently than Republicans at large — let’s shed a little light on how members of The Smartest Conversation on the Right intend to vote this coming November:
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Once again spot on Soto. We should elect the most conservative candidate who can win: Cruz.
PS I am a never-Trumper because I am against amnesty.
So 91% of Ricochetti are Cruz supporters and 70% are voting for Hilary (staying home, voting 3rd party or voting for Hilary directly) if Trump is the Republican candidate? What a stunner.
Disagree; I think the same rule that applies to Trump applies to all — if they didn’t win the majority, it’s up to the delegates; if they can’t get the support of the delegates, the delegates are free.
The delegates aren’t establishment props, they’re chosen on the ground. It sounds like Cruz is cleaning up, actually. Practically, I think the convention should pick Cruz if Trump fails and probably will. I think the poll would be improved by “should the convention pick Cruz” first.
But if Cruz falls short, I really don’t want Kasich and don’t think most voters do either. And the same thing applies to the two of them as to Trump — rule’s a majority; if you can’t get the majority you’ve got no right to it.
Otherwise you are in effect limiting the delegates to people the voters have rejected.
Obama, with enough cover by elected Democrats in the House and Senate, combined with Republican wussiness, has run roughshod over the Constitution. President Trump will not receive such cover from the Republican party, the Democrats will obviously be against him, ergo any excesses he has in mind will not happen. A Trump presidency would actually be subject to the checks and balances absent under our current administration. He CAN’T be as bad as Hillary, even if he tries to be.
If you mean Rubio supporters, I think you’re missing that this is about conservatism for us too… we could probably actually agree on a candidate to cast a losing protest vote for…
Here’s what we’re down to folks…………….voting for the candidate that will oppress us the least.
I suggest there is a final poll question in its own category which was not asked and that is:
Are you aware that if you do not vote for the Republican candidate whom ever that might be, as a result of your strong personal views, conviction and philosophy, that you nevertheless, with reasonable mathematical likelihood, assist in the election of a democrat; most likely Hillary Rodham Clintion, former Secretary of State in charge of 2011 Libyan Policy and Champion of the Second Amendment?
YES:
NO:
This, the question of a Ted Cruz supporter, but before that an America supporter. I suspect many Richochetti may get the chance to test this question.
Well, yeah. I mean, we’ve been here a while…
Followed up by: if you’ve supported Trump in any way, yadda yadda, all that stuff you said.
I do not “assist” in her election. Please, I will have taken no action to mark the ballot by her name, or to encourage any other person to do so.
I do fully understand that the Republican nominee can’t win without the votes of people like me. But that doesn’t mean I am morally obligated to vote for a candidate I can’t morally support. That is why I am stating my position now — to do what very little I can to make her election less likely.
I understand it’s an action with consequences (speaking broadly). But nonetheless there are things one cannot do even for a good cause, even to block something terrible. I can’t promote one evil to prevent another. That does not mean I am “assisting” the other evil.
You’re a persuasive, thoughtful, and reasonable figure. If you secretly go into the ballot box and write in Scott Walker, your above claims work; I think that those selected to have the power to avert harm make that harm more likely if they choose to do nothing, and can thus be reasonably claimed to have aided the harm, but that’s semantics.
If you publicly model the behavior of not supporting Trump in conversation with likely Trump voters, though, and you influence others through that, and go further and advocate for such then you are actively objectively supporting Clinton. Voter suppression is just as helpful as GOTV. That’s not necessarily wrongful; there are conflicting concerns at play here, as you correctly note.
Why not vote for a libertarian instead, as a write in? Is it that your conscience tells you to vote for a significant party, or do you approve of the LP’s efforts to get public financing for their private political speech, public financing that would help ensure future Democratic victories?
Huh? How can this be when the Republican convention hasn’t even happened yet, and there’s still a real likelihood it will be brokered so that the nomination goes to someone perhaps more capable of beating Hillary in the general than Trump would be?
I think Leigh would be perfectly justified in arguing that right now, her public opposition to Trump is more likely to lead to Hillary being beaten than acquiescing to Trump would.
Trump is not the nominee yet, is less likely to become the nominee if people opposed to him don’t simply knuckle under, and, while head-to-head polling this far out is not as strongly predictive as we’d like, that it shows Hillary trouncing Trump more badly than she’d trounce others remains real, if imperfect, information.
Okay, this is a small thing, but I don’t get it: How are staying home, voting, third party, and actually voting for Hillary all considered varieties of “voting for Hillary?”
If one of my liberal friends decides that he just can’t bring himself to vote for Hillary, that’s a good thing in my mind, but it’s significantly different from getting him to vote for Ted Cruz, no? Different class.
I don’t think so Tom. Of course, on an individual basis, no single vote decides an election. But if you look at a class of people, or a demographic, their collective vote can decide an election.
In order to win, a Republican candidate needs the Republican base to turn out for him. I mean the real base; the people who vote Republican up and down the ticket every time. If those people refuse to vote for Trump, then Hillary wins. I think it is fair to say that they, as a group, have decided the election in Hillary’s favor. To say that they “cast a vote for Hillary” is shorthand for what happened, but the effect is the same.
In other words, this is what is meant by the statement that Trump is unelectable. He is unelectable because people who otherwise vote Republican always and everywhere will not vote for him. And you can complain all you want about the Ricochetti for whom this is true, but we are only an unusually politically aware sampling of the large number of Republicans who feel the same way.
One observation: the fact that it matters so much who is President, just like it matters so much who is on the Supreme Court, means we’re doing it wrong. Nobody was supposed to be that powerful.
But that ship has long since sailed.
I should add that if you are genuinely concerned about this situation, you are not powerless. You can donate and volunteer to try to ensure that Ted Cruz is the nominee.
I agree. For the huffing about now not voting for Trump ensures a Hillary Presidency, it seems to me that nominating Trump ensures a Hillary Presidency, so if you want to say anything is a vote for Hillary, a vote for Trump in the primary is a vote for Hillary.
I voted for the first time ever in a primary so I could vote against Trump, which didn’t change the outcome and Hillary will carry Illinois even if she’s indicted, so my vote is meaningless all the way around.
Trump needs to convince the base he is capable of being a good President, but every interview I read of his (eg, the recent NY Times one), I become more convinced he isn’t.
Sure, a large percentage of the uninformed voter will vote for the reality TV star (as Trump says, he loves the poorly educated), but if Trump can’t convince the Republican base that he deserves to be President, he should not be President.
My point was not to argue about Trump’s merits as a candidate, but to militate against those who think vote abstention is somehow a principled act. It isn’t because it is direct assistance to Clinton.
Of course I have doubts about Trump. He isn’t a typical politician, though, so we must be careful not to use incorrect metrics in evaluating him, or to trust the hysteria emanating from the beltway crowd.
As my comments stated, he is no better than Clinton.
what incorrect metric do you think people are using to evaluate Trump?’
I understand this point of view and don’t fault you for it. Heck, many people hold it. I don’t personally feel moved to vote for one unfit person in order to prevent another unfit person from winning. I despise both and will not have a hand in either of their candidacies. You may say that abstention is “direct assistance to Clinton” but voting FOR trump sure as hell is direct assistance to him and I’m not doing that either.
Just about every word or picture originating from the DNC/RNC/Media complex is anti-Trump, virulently. This doesn’t square with the number of citizens who support him. He is an existential threat to the coterie residing within the Federal behemoth, who dependent on the current state of affairs in our government.
Trump has been criticized, for example, as being too cozy with Democrats in the past. Well, he’s a businessman and as such must play on the field as constructed, so…
…Remember, fascism is at root an economic model wherein all decisions reside with the State, which is defined as the entire collection of government bureaucrats, industry leaders who are dependent on government largess or decisions for survival, and all media who are dependent on the status quo. The trains run on time, but they don’t go where you want to go.
So, it’s unfair to criticize a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency for inviting the presumptive Democratic nominee to his wedding and bragging about having to pay her to do so?
Naw, I think that is a correct metric.
In order to play ball in the corrupt field of crony capitalism that is NYC real estate development, was it necessary to call Hillary Clinton “terrific” as Secretary of State? Why is pointing out that he called her terrific unfair? Now, he says she did a bad job as Secretary of State? Has he articulated what changed his mind? I haven’t seen it.
Do you have any other metrics that people are using to evaluate Trump that you feel are incorrect?
Trump has won 37% of Republican primary voters. He has won 21% of total primary voters. This is not really all that impressive.
And primary voters as of March 8 had made up 29% of the electorate in the states that had held primaries. (I can’t find more recent data.) So at that point he had won about 6% of the electorate in those states that had held primaries.
So?
This is textbook ad hominem. Just because someone you don’t like says something doesn’t make it not true.
Come again? I thought Gary Johnson was a libertarian? Or do those guys have the same internecine, “you’re not one of us!” arguments we conservatives do?