Trump:34
Cruz: 18
Rubio: 17
Bush and Kasich: tied at 10
Carson: who care?
Carson drops but otherwise no clarity in the so-called traditional lane as both Bush and Kasich hopes the other drops and neither does, making a Trump outright delegate win an almost certainly. If Kasich or Bush do not tie then the lesser of the two should be dropping, making the possibility of getting to a contested convention at least not unimaginable. If Bush on top he could promise Kasich the VP spot in return for dropping, his support in Ohio, and any few delegates he’s got.
If either Trump or Cruz gets the nomination, it will be the end of the party currently known as the Republican Party. It won’t be long until a new party arises to take its place, and that new party may well be called Republican, but it won’t be the same party.
I don’t speak for Chronos, but I’ll point out two dates that stand out to me during my lifetime (I was born in 1977) that I think mark somewhat significant changes in the Republican Party.
The Gingrich wave election. The Republican Party took a turn to the right, likely in response to Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992. This version of the GOP lasted until 2008.
Obama wins the presidential election. The GOP lurches to the right again. This time it’s not so much specific policy changes in the GOP platform. Instead, the GOP becomes the Party of No, culminating with the passage of Obamacare along party lines and the 2010 wave election that ousted moderate Democrats and congressional Republicans that were more willing to compromise with Democrats.
Both of these changes will pale in comparison to what I think would likely happen should Trump or Cruz be nominated and (presumably) lose the general election. Should Rubio be nominated we would instead likely continue with the version of the GOP born in 2008, regardless of whether he wins or loses.
If Trump gets the nomination, true. If Cruz does, no. Cruz is just a far right Republican. Nothing about his nomination changes the party, it’s just a Goldwater rehash.
I mostly agree but think it’s a bit more complex than that. IMO …
If Trump is nominated, the Republican reformation / breakup / whatever begins the next day. And goes into high gear when he loses in Nov.
If Cruz is nominated and loses the general, nothing much changes. The same tensions between “go more centrist” and “go more extreme” will apply as do to each party whenever they lose the Presidency. The 2018 Congressional races will be slightly noisier than 2016’s, but no big difference.
If Cruz is nominated and wins the general, now we’ve got a new game. If he governs disastrously (by the R’s own standards) the Rs may lurch back towards the center. Or the public may love what Cruz does. Or most likely, 1/3rd will be overjoyed (or told that they’re overjoyed & come to believe it after enough repitition). And 2/3rds will be appalled and that’ll split the party.
The problem is that the party leadership can’t stand either of them, and so if either of them gets the nomination, that’s a sign that the nominal leadership no longer has control of the party.
The party will not be able to function as a typical political party if Trump wins. He will be unwilling and unable to service the hacks and other cronies. if Cruz wins, he will continue to service the hacks and other cronies and he will govern as someone slightly to the right of GWBush, but with less war.
Trump wins SC by less than 10 over Cruz. Rubio gets around 15. The also-rans get 10 or less.
Do they? I think a Bernie nomination would probably not lead to wailing and gnashing of teeth within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Maybe I just don’t know the right people, but do you really think that most of the Hillary Clinton supporters would vote Republican or stay home if Bernie wins the nomination? I just don’t see the same level of vitriol in the Democratic Party right now that I see in the Republican Party. I think the Republican Party is in far greater danger of an internal split than the Democratic Party.
The biggest reason is that the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party is not being held down by the Hillary wing of the Democratic Party, they are being held down by the Republicans. On the other hand, the Trump and Cruz wings of the Republican Party really are being held back by the Bush/Kasich/mainstream wing of the party.
Take health care as an example. If the Democrats had full control of the House, Senate, and the presidency, we would likely continue the move toward universal healthcare (no, Obamacare is a step in that direction but we aren’t there yet). The Bernie wing of the party would still have some input in the process under that scenario, they would just have to be patient while the process moves it way forward. If the Republicans had full control of the House, Senate, and the presidency, I don’t believe for a minute that they would go all out Tea Party and demolish Medicare and Medicaid the way the far right wants to. It really would be the corporate wing of the party telling the far right people that “we want your votes, but not your priorities or interests.”
You don’t think calls for “go more extreme” would ring a little hollow after a Cruz loss? I would think even the most ardent of the base would think they went about as extreme as possible with him.
Sure but they are left with having so-called moderate (Romney) having lost and bat-shit conservative extreme having lost … so the dynamic still holds. Which is less likely to lose next time? Which does better for them down ticket and further cements their hold in Congress and at state levels?
So, how does the new entity of GOP that is not what we know look under each of the Trump and Cruz nomination options, win and lose the general?
Accept that each of the four possibilities cements what has been an ongoing work in progress, that nominal leadership has no control … does new leadership of a different sort emerge? Does it function with various elements each fighting for the steering wheel as the car careens around the road? Do some elements abandon it, and if so, to where?
Of course we still have the inevitable march where more conservatives die than liberals and more liberals turn 18 than conservatives. Is the ‘conversion rate’ of aging liberals to conservatism enough to balance out the difference?
I started keeping headcount the night the Iowa results came out. Anybody leaving before then was a no-hoper anyhow.
Even if we accept your approach to counting (which is certainly a reasonable choice) the 10 folks you cite added up to about 12% support total in the days immediately pre-Iowa.
So the headcount *has *winnowed, but the total percentage of R voters who’ve had to accept that their champion won’t get the nomination is still tiny.
Assuming nothing much changes from now to the convention, the R nominee will be the first choice of about 1/3rd of the R electorate. IOW 2/3ds of R voters in Nov will be looking at their non-favorite on the ballot.
So far only about 12% of the eventual 66% percent have had to choose a new home. So how they’ve chosen isn’t necessarily real predictive of how the rest will choose.
In terms of primary voters, only a couple percent of all primary voters nationwide have voted yet. Even counting NV going on as I type.
All those future primary voters are still looking at a 6-way race. At least today.
SC you mean. I am curious how much they’ll focus on the delegate count over the popular percentages. SC is a hybrid system which will likely leave all the establishment guys with 0 delegates unless one can sneak into second place and snag a few. The obvious guess is they’ll mention the total percentages more to keep the horse race style narrative.
:smack: Thank you. In my defense I was thinking about the NV D caucus that is today. The NV R caucus is Tuesday 02/23.
As to the rest of your comments … I agree. Each candidate will talk about either popular vote or delegate count, whichever approach flatters their performance.
IMO it’s about time for the media to start the delegate tallying in addition to the popular percentage narrative. Both are ways of scoring the horse race, but only one of them has any trophies or prize money attached.
There are two bits of bad-tasting medicine the media will need to swallow to get onto the delegate narrative.
The first is the presence of super-delegates and such which are in effect “undecided” until the convention. The bad news is they make for a complicated narrative. The good news is they provide drama: We know *this *much of the story now; *that *much will be revealed after the break.
The other thing it will do is shine a light on how much rules lawyering goes on and how much the delegate count is disconnected from the aggregate popular vote. Everybody knows it intellectually, But a lot of the high-anger low-info voters are going to be confused at the disconnect.
The “good news” is the anger candidates on the R side are the ones who’ll clean up due to the threshold rules and the crowded mainstream field.
The “bad news” is the anger candidate on the D side is the one likely to appear behind in all the super-delegate & similar floating agent counts.