Do the math, Senator Cruz

 photo credit: youtube

Desperation. From The Daily Caller:

Sen. Ted Cruz’s abrupt suggestion he might reenter the Republican presidential race went up in smoke Tuesday night as he suffered a crushing defeat against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Nebraska’s GOP primary.

Cruz suggested if he were to win in Nebraska and saw a “path to victory” at the convention, he would consider restarting his presidential campaign, despite dropping out last week after being beaten badly in Indiana.

“We launched this campaign intending to win. The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory,” Cruz told radio host Glenn Beck. “If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.” (RELATED: Cruz Says He Won’t Run Third Party)

Such notions were almost immediately crushed in spectacular fashion Tuesday night, as early results showed Trump racking up almost 60 percent of the vote in Nebraska, about 40 percentage points ahead of Cruz at 19.5 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was in third with about 14 percent of the vote.

Although no polling was conducted in the state, it was seen as a potential Cruz victory prior to him dropping out. But if Nebraska ever was a Cruz state, it stopped being one the moment he dropped out as GOP voters instead flocked to the party’s presumptive nominee.

Cruz also suffered a massive defeat in West Virginia’s primary, though that defeat was more predictable.

Nebraska’s 36 delegates are awarded on a winner-take-all basis, meaning Trump will take another big step towards the 1,273 delegates he needs to lock up the Republican nomination on the first ballot.

The delegate chart after yesterday's primaries:

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The Delegate Math

art credit: www.usnews.com

Ted Cruz just got thrashed in the five primaries yesterday, so today, he’s announced his VP running mate: Carly Fiorino. No surprise there. Cruz SuperPacs funders( Club for Growth, Keep The Promise and Robert Mercer) transferred funds to Carly’s campaign. See here and here. Meanwhile, the pro-Trump blogger Sundance runs the numbers following yesterday’s primary results:

The Delegate Math – Going into last night’s contest Trump was holding 848 delegates (Cruz 559).  There were 175 possible delegates available last night, however 54 are unbound from PA.

Based on preliminary results, it appears Donald Trump has swept every pledged delegate in Maryland [38] (won every congressional district), also Connecticut [28] (won every CD and took more than 50% statewide), Pennsylvania [17] (statewide delegates are awarded winner-take-all) and Delaware [16], along with 11 delegates in Rhode Island.

That’s a net pledged delegate gain of 110.  However, the math gets better because it appears Trump has also won 45 of Pennsylvania’s 54 “unbound” district level delegates (delegates declared for Trump, or declared intent to vote for CD winner).  So the approximate gain in delegates yesterday is around 155.

Add those 155 to the previous 848 and you get 1,003.

The Math Will Move In Direct Proportion To The Ideology – Most of the media totals will not include those unbound delegates from PA regardless of who they declared support toward.  Some media totals may include parts or portions of those unbound delegates – so you can expect to see some significant disparity depending on which media outlet is presenting their version of the data.

EXAMPLE:  CNN has a total for Trump of 988 (LINK) –  The New York Times has 950 (LINK)  – Politico is also using 950 (LINK) – and Green Papers has 956 (LINK).  It appears CNN is using “some” of the unbound PA delegates, and the latter three are not using any.

However, the fact that Donald Trump has resoundingly won every congressional district in Pennsylvania, and the fact Trump won the entire state with 57% of the vote total, gives Team Trump an easy leverage point to advance the argument they are entitled to the support of all 54 unbound Pennsylvania delegates.  Again, it appears 45 of them are already pledged to Trump or have agreed to vote for the CD/State winner.

[See here for the charts and map.]

Conservatively it is fair to say Donald Trump has won, at a minimum, 1,000 delegates as of this moment.

The goal is to reach 1,237.  But again, let’s be conservative and say –Moving Forward– Trump needs another 250 just for safe measure.  250 more delegates will easily put him over the top with wiggle room.

There are 502 delegates remaining in the next six weeks.  Indiana (next Tuesday) is holding 57 of those:

27 are district allocated to the winner in each of the 9 congressional districts.  Whoever wins the most votes in that district will receive all 3 convention delegates.

30 (10 base at-large delegates plus 17 bonus delegates plus 3 RNC delegates) statewide delegates are to be allocated to the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes statewide. (link)

Currently Donald Trump is slightly ahead of the polls in Indiana.  Senator Ted Cruz has planted his flag, and with it his entire campaign, on winning Indiana.

Prior to last night’s results, Indiana was a must win for Senator Cruz and the #NeverTrump team.  After last night’s results, Indiana is now an absolute MUST WIN for Senator Cruz.

If Donald Trump wins Indiana, taking most, many, if not all of the 57 delegates, the Cruz/Kasich/#NeverTrump scheme is completely wiped out.

However, IF Trump doesn’t win Indiana, and because of the overwhelming victory last night, not much mathematically changes for Trump.

Cruz’s VP announcement today may change the subject for a few days, but it is unlikely to make a significant difference in the remaining primaries.

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Party planner

art credit: www.freerepublic.com

GOPe to “We The People” Part 2: 

Drop Dead

(Part 1 is here). 

TheWashington Examiner (probably the most user-UNfriendly website) reports that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told pro-Cruz Charlie Sykes on WTMJ 620 Radio Tuesday that “the party” is choosing the nominee:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus cautioned supporters of Donald Trump who vocally disapprove of the GOP's delegate allocation and selection process.

"By the way, this is a nomination for the Republican Party," Priebus told 620 WTMJ in Wisconsin. "If you don't like the party, then sit down. The party is choosing a nominee."

Priebus said he does not think Trump will run as a third-party candidate, and added that he expects all remaining Republican candidates to support the party's nominee.

As far as the Republican Party elite are concerned, your vote does not count.

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Lyin’ media

Art credit: bnp.org.uk

Media bias is everywhere. And this morning, when reading about the misdemeanor charge of assault against Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, in Florida (an incident involving Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields on March 8 -- over a couple of weeks ago -- that was shown to be a nothing-burger), and then looking at the video that shows that nothing happened to warrant the charge, you just knew it was going to be bad for Trump.

Did we expect non-stop crawls on CNN and Fox, keeping viewer attention on the charge of assault? Turned on the TV to flip between the two stations. Yup. Wall-to-wall crawls. The report in the crawl was technically correct -  a charge WAS filed against Trump’s campaign manager. And that’s all that was needed to get the lyin’ media coverage. Never mind that the charge is baseless.

And here is what will probably happen, if they run true to form. The lyin’ media will run the headline as long as they can (and they've been including shots of the stop-action video that would make it APPEAR that there was some basis in fact for the charge, when in fact, there is no “there” there, as Gertrude Stein would have said). And maybe in a few days, or in a week or two, the charge will be quietly dropped, and if the lyin’ media covers it at all, they will bury it. 

And that’s the technique. Burn that impression into the viewer’s mind for a few days, and you’ve done the job. No matter whether it’s false, retracted, or withdrawn. Damage is done.

The tactic today got the lyin’ media a twofer: it shoved the Ted Cruz "Cuban Mistress Crisis" off to the side, and it threw mud at the Trump campaign.

Video is at Gateway Pundit, among other places.

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Utah Caucus irregularities

cartoon credit: thepoliticalcarnival.net

Some Cleveland Tea Party patriots will have already seen this report, since it was linked on Drudge today, but it is very disturbing:  

UTAH CAUCUS: First hand insider report - Incompetence, Manipulation, and Ballot Stuffing!!!

Just got back from my caucus... My head is still spinning.

Check in was slow but reasonably controlled. Super-long lines. I've never seen turnout like this.

Got my credentials, but no presidential ballot. They said those would be delivered to our caucus room.

Got to my caucus room. I counted about 120 people there (no idea how many were actually registered and credentialed). 

We elected Precinct Officers, State Delegates, and County Delegates - the typical incompetence and ignorance of the rules you'd expect to see from volunteers, but all went somewhat smooth.

...Then came the Presidential Ballot. 

Someone shows up with a stack of probably 250 ballots. The precinct chair splits them up, and starts handing stacks of them out and tells people "take one and pass it down". 

No checking credentials, IDs, NOTHING.

I'm sitting at the end of a row and people start handing me stacks of extras. I literally had over 50 ballots in my hand. 

We were told to mark our vote and place our ballot in a tin can. They then asked for a volunteer to hold the can. At this point, most people filed out the door. 

I cast ONE vote, then stuck around to see what would happen with the votes. 

About 15 minutes later, with only about 10 or so people milling around, someone walks in the room with an envelopes STUFFED full of "absentee" ballots - some envelopes having 2-5+ ballots. 

I raised a question and said, "isn't there an absentee process already in place? Didn't people have to register for that last week?" and was told "Oh no, this is completely normal". 

As I've mentioned in other threads, I was in Party leadership for 6 years and no, this is absolutely not normal.

I then asked if I could observe the vote count, and I was told my observations were not needed and to leave the area while the ballots were being counted. 

I left the room (things were already a complete Charlie Foxtrot at this point) and wandered over to my friends precinct caucus to see if it was just as much a cluster. 

His caucus was just getting to the presidential ballot, and as I walked in the door I was handed ANOTHER BALLOT. 

Again, no credential check, no ID check, NOTHING.

No, I didn't vote again... 

I went back to my precinct and they had the results: 

   74% Cruz

   14% Trump

   11% Kasich

Now just imagine this kind of outright incompetence/manipulation happening in 2000 precincts across the state.

As I left the building, I started overhearing results coming back from other precincts... Overwhelmingly numbers for Cruz... Like 70-90% or more. (In one precinct Cruz got around 100, Trump had 2, Kasich 0).

Bottom line... They basically are going to post whatever the hell numbers they want. 

There were no apparent controls, no credential checks, no ID checks, and ballots being handed around like napkins. 

UTAH RESULTS ARE A COMPLETE SHAM.

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GOP elites to Republican voters: Drop Dead

cartoon credit: niftyatheist.com

CNBC reports (h/t Gateway Pundit):

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota [and a Republican convention rules member], told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support for any one candidate because their states and territories don’t hold primaries or caucuses.

Even with Trump’s huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination before the convention.

This could lead to a brokered convention, in which unbound delegates, like Haugland, could play a significant swing role on the first ballot to choose a nominee.

Most delegates bound by their state’s primary or caucus results are only committed on the first ballot. If subsequent ballots are needed, virtually all of the delegates can vote any way they want, said Gary Emineth, another unbound delegate from North Dakota.

“It could introduce Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, or it could be the other candidates that have already been in the race and are now out of the race [such as] Mike Huckabee [or] Rick Santorum. All those people could eventually become candidates on the floor,” Emineth said.

And at Politico we see that (h/t HotGas)

Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

Wading into the GOP nominating battle for the first time since leaving office last fall, Boehner said that "anybody can be nominated" at the convention in Cleveland this summer.

The GOP establishment / elite (GOPe) couldn’t breathe life into the Jeb! campaign. Then they tried to push Marco Rubio as the Jeb! surrogate and that maneuver failed. Gov. Kasich’s job in the race was to deprive any momentum candidate of the 66 Ohio winner-take-all delegates. Kasich succeeded, but otherwise it is now a two-candidate race. Neither Cruz nor Trump is acceptable to the GOPe. So we are seeing the GOPe preparing to force a brokered convention. And it's now out in the open.

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Countdown to the Ohio GOP primary: Kasich and Trump

Photo credit: onpolitics.usatoday.com

It’s coming down to a contest between Governor John Kasich and Donald J. Trump.

From CNN Politics:

Internally, Kasich's team is encouraged by what they see happening on the ground. Save for a series of ad buys and a few appearances in the state, they've seen little else in the form of an organization from Trump in the state. Marco Rubio, focused solely on survival in Florida, and Ted Cruz, aren't planning any stops in the state.

The only remaining campaign stops in Ohio before next Tuesday's primary are tomorrow, Saturday, March 12, both rallies for Donald J. Trump:

In Dayton at 10a.m. 

In Cleveland at 2pm.

The latest polling at Real Clear Politics shows Kasich and Trump in a close race.

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No moderator, only a timekeeper.

Cartoon credit: cagle.com

Television date: The next GOP primary debate is tomorrow, Feb. 13 starting at 9pm, live on CBS, that’s Channel 4 in the greater Cleveland Time-Warner cable network. Moderator is John Dickerson, with panelists Major Garrett and Kimberley Strassel. The field is down to six: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, and John Kasich.

The venue in Greenville, South Carolina holds under 2,000. Audience members are allotted tickets based on their allegiance to the party establishment. Via Sundance:

The New Hampshire debate audience was Old School Republicans who cheered Jeb Bush and jeered the ‘next-in-line-jumper’ Marco Rubio.  However, South Carolina has already shown their most preferential candidate in the North Charleston debate, where party insiders were majority Rubio supporters.  Expect Greenville to be more like the latter than former.

I always thought Newt had a better idea: let the candidates debate amongt themselves:   "No moderator, only a timekeeper.”

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Another GOP Debate tonight

Cartoon credit: cagle.com/tag/this-tall/

NOTE that some of the candidates caricatured here have suspended their campaigns.

The next GOP debate is tonight at 8pm from New Hampshire. Watch it on ABC News (channel 5 in greater Cleveland). Still too many candidates onstage. Still no objective moderators; from Conservative Treehouse:

Progressive favorites David Muir and Martha Raddatz will moderate the debate, and position the narrative to expose the Republican party to as much ridicule and marginalization as possible.

As of today, Real Clear Politics is showing the top five candidates:

Trump at 30.7

Rubio at 16.4

Cruz at 12.0

Kasich at 12.0

Bush at 9.1

Fiorina, Christie and Carson are in single digits.

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The Omnibus spending bill and the Uniparty

photo credit: jamesaltucher.com

Last Friday, Jim Robb at NumbersUSA reported on the Omnibus spending bill that sold conservative voters down the river:

This week, Congress pushed through a horrible Omnibus spending bill to fund the government through next September.

The bill amounts to a betrayal of American voters, especially on immigration matters.

Where do I begin to condemn this? I'll start with House Speaker Paul Ryan.

It didn't take long for Ryan to break all his promises on immigration, did it?

When he was running for Speaker two months ago, Ryan promised he would not bring up immigration bills that did not have the backing of a majority of Republican House Members.

Yet as soon as he got the chance, Ryan snuck several huge immigration giveaways into the Omnibus spending bill Congress approved today. It goes further:

Nearly QUADRUPLES the number of H-2B low-skilled foreign workers allowed in this year. This could raise the total of these workers this year from 66,000 to 264,000.

Not only that...

FUNDS a large increase in Syrian and other refugee resettlement in this country. Instead of a timeout and a full security review, Congress handed Obama everything he wants.

FUNDS Obama's catch-and-release policy that virtually stops deportations.

FUNDS Sanctuary Cities, so that cities like San Francisco that refuse to turn over jailed illegal aliens to the feds will face no cut in funding.

MAINTAINS tax credits to illegal aliens in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit. That is, if a family is poor enough, they not only pay no income tax, the government pays THEM. Yes, that includes illegal aliens! Also, Congress continues to allow illegal aliens to claim child tax credits on their tax returns.

FUNDS the continued relocation into America of the unaccompanied minors who are marching across the border into Texas and states. The numbers of these crossing the border is way up again this year.

Even with all these outrages I've mentioned, there are still MORE terrible things hidden in the Omnibus bill, which passed both the House and the Senate. A hopeful sign is that 95 House Republicans joined with 18 House Democrats, and 26 Senate Republicans joined with 6 Senate Democrats to vote NO on this monstrosity. Yet, most Republicans and most all the Democrats voted yes, and it passed.

The House roll call votes are here; the Senate roll call votes are here.

Voting YEA on this irresponsible bill were Rep. Marcia Fudge, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and House Republicans from Ohio Steve Chabot, Brad Wenstrup, Bill Johnson, Michael Turner, Pat Tiberi, Tim Ryan, David Joyce, Steve Stivers, and James Renacci.

Rob Portman, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul voted against the bill. Marco Rubio did not cast a vote. Also disappointing were Congressional freshmen who ran on conservative values and then voted for this “monstrosity,” such as Mia Love and Martha McSally.

As Conservative Treehouse concluded,

the Omnibus Spending and Tax Provision bills, used by Republicans in lieu of an actual Fiscal Year 2016 budget . . . passed. . . .

Summary:  [conservative voters] gave Republicans large majorities in both the House and Senate so they could push-back against ridiculous progressive big government spending.   What did the REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP do with the majority?   Republicans constructed big spending on behalf of the Democrats and voted with them to end up with the same result if Democrats were in control.

….THAT IS A UniParty !!

This blog will be taking a close look at the UniParty as we head into next year.

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First GOP debates

cartoon via Lucianne.com 

Vodkapundit Steven Green will NOT be drunkblogging the debate this evening, so you may have to actually watch Fox News:

Fox News 5pm-6pm : candidates who did NOT make it into the top 10

former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham; former New York Gov. George Pataki; and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore

Fox News 8:50pm–11pm : Primetime Debate: candidates who did

real estate magnate Donald Trump; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich

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