Consolidation Must Happen

[bigbadjohn45]

Consolidation Must Happen
BySteve Berman | March 14, 2016, 05:55am | @lifeofgrace224

Tuesday’s primaries in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio will award more than 358 delegates (367 including Guam). Of those, 174 will be awarded on a winner-take-all basis.

Delegate counts stand at Trump 460, Cruz 370, Rubio 163, Kasich 63 with 1,401 unallocated. That means 26 percent of the unallocated delegates will be bound on the first ballot tomorrow.

If Trump wins both Florida and Ohio, he will get at least 165 delegates (orby my model, 277), giving him 737 delegates, just 500 short of the magic 1,237. That would make it highly likely, barring a complete collapse, that Trump will be the nominee.

To prevent that, Kasich must take Ohio–with the state’s GOP in his corner, it would be an embarrassment for him not to. Cruz must do well in North Carolina and Missouri, and even Illinois, where he has a chance in the southern part of the state. And Florida, with well over a million votes already cast, may be a lost cause.

All the attention will be focused on Florida though, because it’s seen as Rubio’s one chance at redemption. It would take a miracle for him to win it, and a bigger miracle for Cruz, who acknowledged his head-fake in the state and left it for Rubio to win.

After Tuesday, consolidation must happen. There’s no ifs, ands or buts. Both Kasich and Rubio must exit the race, and swing behind Ted Cruz. Endorsements no longer matter except for a small bounce. Days of robocalling by Mitt Romney did absolutely nothing. Hoping in vain for a brokered convention with a candidate who has won one or two states coming out the nominee is a recipe for disaster for the party. It’s pure vanity.

The time for vanity is over. Either the race will consolidate to Cruz versus Trump, or Donald Trump will be the nominee. There is no middle ground. Cruz can beat Trump, and with the negatives piling up on Trump’s violence-ridden campaign, I believe Cruz will beat Trump.

The die is cast for Tuesday, and then it’s down to two men. If I wanted to be overly dramatic, I’d say to the death, and in a sense, it is: The death of the GOP as we know it. Either we will inherit an heir to the Reagan revolution in Cruz, or we will inherit the wind.

 

[MTLynn]

 

[nashvillegoldenflash]

Well, let me ask Judge Jeanine, a Trump shrill like all the other New Yorkers, when Trump loses to Hillary (and badly), who are the Trump supporters going to blame? Because you know they aren't going to blame their savior, or themselves for his loss. That also goes for Hannity and O'Reilly. How are they going to explain their friend losing to someone who should be in prison and not in the White House. Will they say all the riots at Trump's rally's throughout the summer divided the country and this polarization prevented Trump from unifying the GOP? Because too many conservatives stayed home and didn't vote for Trump, their dear leader fell far short of the 65 million votes he needed to win the election. It couldn't be the fact that his "Make America Great Again" campaign was just as vacuous as Obama's "Hope and Change" campaign. Oh no, it couldn't possibly be Trump's fault that he lost. It must be that "loser" Romney and the hated establishment's fault.

 

[nashvillegoldenflash]

Krauthammer: Trump Is ‘Victim’ of ‘Totalitarian’ Left In Chicago, ‘Unconscionable’ He Doesn’t Condemn Punching Protester

Columnist Charles Krauthammer stated Republican presidential candidate and his supporters “are the victims” in the violence that broke out at one of his events in Chicago, and shouldn’t be blamed, but that it’s “really unconscionable” Trump wouldn’t condemn an attendee at another rally punching a demonstrator on Monday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.

Krauthammer said [relevant remarks begin around 2:30] “The one, obviously, what happened in Chicago, is organized, and this is the far left, also the far right, we saw it in the 20s and the 30s, the tactic of shutting the opposition down, and it isn’t only something happening in presidential politics. This is happening on campus all the time. Speakers who aren’t allowed to speak, outside of the Trumps and the others. We’re just talking about the norm on campus, which is that, the left acts in a totalitarian way to control who speaks. That’s a phenomenon. It should be condemned, and then Trump, and the supporters, who are the victims here, are not to be blamed.”

He continued, “There’s a second phenomenon. Which is other events which are happening in Trump events, and you get…Trump winking and nodding saying, you know, in the old days he’d be carried them in a stretcher, meaning, we used to beat people like that until they were unable to walk. We saw on tape, a guy hitting, sucker-punching a demonstrator, in the face, and saying, if we see him again, we may have to kill him. That’s lynch talk. And when asked about it, Trump said, ‘I don’t condone it.’ That’s great. But he refused to condemn it. And that I think is really unconscionable.”

Krauthammer further said it was “even worse” that Trump was considering paying the legal fees of the man who punched the demonstrator.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So when Trump loses badly to Hillary, do you think Judge Jeanine, Hannity, and O'Reilly will ever mention Trump not condemning violence at his rallies as one of the reasons why he lost to Hillary?

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016...onable-he-doesnt-condemn-punching-protesters/

 

[nashvillegoldenflash]

Krauthammer Blasts O’Reilly for His ‘Weaselly’ Defense of Trump

Charles Krauthammer blasted Bill O’Reilly for failing to take Donald Trump to task for the role his incendiary language had perhaps played in the violence erupting at his rallies.

Responding to O’Reilly’s Talking Point segment, in which the host blamed protesters and let Trump off the hook for the disturbances at his events, Krauthammer accused O’Reilly of downplaying the role Trump had played in normalizing and encouraging violence.

Specifically, he pointed to Trump’s stated intention to the pay the legal fees of a man who sucker-punched a protester and enthused, “Next time we may have to kill him”; his expressed fondness for the days when protesters were carried out on stretchers; and the fact that he has expressed a desire to punch hecklers in the face.

“Are you letting Trump off the hook on this?” Krauthammer demanded.

“I’m not — I’ve said he has to readjust his rhetoric,” O’Reilly responded.

“Come on Bill! ‘Readjust the rhetoric’? What kind of weaselly words are those? ‘Readjust the rhetoric’?”

“All right,” O’Reilly demurred. “I’m — I’m trying to deal with this in a fair and balanced way.”

Krauthammer continued by charging that O’Reilly’s evasive defense of Trump was not enough to whitewash the candidate’s provocative language and his failure to condemn the violent acts of his supporters.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Trump's defense, O'Reilly said, "Trump speaks in an emotional manner....He doesn't have a filter....He doesn't censor himself....He doesn't think sometimes before he speaks."

That's precisely why Trump is unfit to be president and incapable of unifying the Republican Party.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-blasts-oreilly-for-his-weaselly-defense-of-trump/

 

[bigbadjohn45]

Flash, all good posts that all accurately depict the train wreck that is Donald Trump. I am especially disappointed in the following Trump apologists: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly. and Ben Carson. Never would've dreamed in a million years that these people (with the possible exception of O'Reilly) would've sold out the conservative cause--but they have. I guess big money talks.

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

you guys remind me of the folks who fought Clarence Thomas nomination and argued about "the seriousness of the charge". So the big issues facing us today are Trump doesn't have a filter. We have been run over by the left for the last 20 years. Lets focus on Trumps style and forget about the big problem facing us, its a slight of hand.

Never thought I would see a day where smart conservatives would fall for this narrative.

 

[bigbadjohn45]

you guys remind me of the folks who fought Clarence Thomas nomination and argued about "the seriousness of the charge". So the big issues facing us today are Trump doesn't have a filter. We have been run over by the left for the last 20 years. Lets focus on Trumps style and forget about the big problem facing us, its a slight of hand.

Never thought I would see a day where smart conservatives would fall for this narrative.

Mike, sorry to disappoint, but I haven't fallen for anything. Additionally, I'm not sure why you've chosen to disparage Flash and I's issues with Trump. Our concerns about Trump's lack of conservative authenticity and his lack of specificity with regard to problem solving is well grounded and is laden with endless examples which we've presented on this forum. We're both amazed and appalled that the American electorate has yet again fallen for an orator who speaks of great promises "Make America Great Again!", yet fails to deliver the pertinent specifics as to how he'll achieve this.

Ted Cruz has outlined specifics as to how we can fix many of the problems we face. Trump, quite simply, has not. It's real easy to talk in slogans and platitudes, but that doesn't solve anything. How far did "Hope and Change" get us?

For the ump-teenth time now, yes, I will vote for Trump if he's our nominee. For me, it'll once again be voting for the lesser of two evils. What a shame....

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

I am not disparaging you two...I am trying to point out how what you guys are doing is the same that the left has been doing to us for a generation....all this moral outrage over what a man "says", meanwhile we have others who actions are truly harmful and they are simply ignored when it matters most.

Obviously this is a hard conversation to have on a message board.

 

[MTLynn]

 

[MTLynn]

Scott Baio says what most Trump supporters are saying