My bride’s state, Wisconsin, handed Ted Cruz a win on Tuesday this week, giving him 48.2% to 35.1% for Trump and 14.1 % for Kasich. Cruz walked away with 36 delegates to 3 for Trump. More significant is that Cruz is succeeding in state after state in having his supporters named as delegates to the convention. This is happening because the Cruz campaign is well organized in each state while the Trump organization is virtually non-existent on the state and local level. Many Trump delegates will be Cruz supporters, bound to vote for Trump on the first ballot, but not on subsequent votes. If Trump can’t win on the first ballot, his campaign will probably be defeated on the second.
If Trump can’t win on the first ballot, his campaign will probably be defeated on the second.
Sweet.
Trump won’t accept defeat. Let us give it to him anyways.
Politics ain’t beanbag. This is a lesson in on-the-ground campaign organizing that Mrs. Clinton learned about from hard experience in 2008. (The Bernie Sanders campaign’s success suggests that some of those lessons of 2008 didn’t stick with the Red Queen.)
Politics ain’t for multimillionaire dilettantes.
Trump, or someone near him, is smart enough to figure out that he’s not going to be able to actually win– notice how all this talk about “stealing” the election by following the rules, even though it was supposed to be sooooo clever when he gamed them, started up when Cruz started showing signs of life?