I would certainly prefer to see Cruz crawl back under his rock. But there’s a lot more dirt yet to be unearthed and flung at every candidate. Including Trump.
If Cruz’ team can get traction for some sleazy money controversy aimed at some rivals this latest series of adverse events can be just one more bump in his road.
From a game-theoretic POV it’s ideal for the candidates in the pack to single out one target at a time and force them off the island piecemeal, rather than engaging in a Battle Royale firing scandal bombs at everybody everywhere all at once.
Whether they can show the discipline and *[sub]sub rosa[/sub] *cooperation to pick the wounded off one by one will really determine whether this thing becomes a two-horse race well before the wire, or is a 10-man scrum all the way to the convention.
Trump is now ahead of Rubio on Predictwise: 34-32.
This race has become even more unpredictable in the new year. I thought Cruz would pull ahead and win comfortably in Iowa but as mentioned Trump has pulled even and Cruz now faces increased scrutiny over the Goldman Sachs loan and even his eligibility to run. At the least, these issues will be an unwelcome distraction for his campaign in the home stretch in Iowa.
Frankly, I am blown away by the fact that Cruz can run a campaign as the outsider and a critic of Wall Street bailouts when he is literally in bed with one of their top people. With his wife such a part of his campaign I really don’t get it.
Despite my comments in post 441, I hardly consider being nibbled at by two ducks to be a decisive attack.
@CarnalK
That’s a mighty big bulls-eye painted on Cruz. Whether his opposition can get past the wall of willful ignorance surrounding Cruz’ followers is the operative question.
Willingness to ignore undesirable facts seems to be a hallmark of many voters and especially the ones backing the “radical” candidates.
IMHO, Cruz’ fan club is, and will continue to be, more upset that some ‘undeserving’ poor people get an extra few thousand bucks, than they will be that Goldman Sachs gets billions extra that it doesn’t deserve.
It drives me nuts, just as I’m sure it drives some of you nuts, but people are weird like that. So I don’t expect that to hurt him very much.
OTOH, the eligibility issue, which I regard as total bullshit even in a case like Cruz’ which is way closer to the borderline than Obama’s ever was, is probably causing a nontrivial number of people to rethink their support for him.
About the last place you’d expect me to quote- Rush Limbaugh. I heard him say it today, stating that his source was the New York Times. Rush, of course, doesn’t normally get his source from there and I don’t normally use him as a source, so there you are. I feel dirty, but I might as well wait till I watch the debate on FBN to take my shower.
An interesting tidbit from Politico. Both Jeb and Kasich worked to make their states winner take all whereas most Republican primaries and caucuses are proportional. In a long delegate hunt race, that’s a nice advantage for Jeb, Kasich, and/or Rubio. Kasich most of all, since his popularity in Ohio would probably get him Ohio’s 66 delegates even if he’s not winning squat elsewhere. The article speculates that Kasich may hang around just to collect those delegates and thus, leverage if it’s a brokered convention. Christie did the same with NJ’s 51 delegates.
Well, it would be a nice advantage for Bush or Rubio if anyone is still giving them the time of day by March 15. And that goes double for Kasich, who (barring a breakthrough in NH) won’t be getting a nontrivial number of votes anywhere by then. Ohio looks like the perfect Trump state, really: the Rust Belt is ground zero for angry working-class white men.
But back to Florida a moment: the latest Florida Times-Union poll, taken Sunday 1/17, shows a race for Florida that’s basically unchanged from a month ago. Rubio’s down a few points, which may or may not be statistical noise, but that’s about it. Trump and Cruz are still running 1-2 at 31% and 19%, respectively; Bush and Rubio are essentially tied for the 3-4 slots at 13% and 12%; Carson’s at 7%, and everyone else is at or below 4%. Winner-take-all might be the way Trump piles up a ton of delegates. (ETA: I see Politico says, “A single candidate who wins both Florida and Ohio would pick up a trove of delegates, which would make it almost mathematically impossible to catch that candidate, thus effectively ending the contest here and now.” If any candidate can pull that off, it would be Trump.)
And there’s a poll of Georgia, taken yesterday. Trump and Cruz 1-2 at 33 and 23, respectively; Rubio, Bush, and Carson essentially tied for the 3-5 slots in the 7-8% range, and everyone else at or below 4%.
I keep on waiting for some late movement, but it’s like this race is on autopilot. 13 days to Iowa, and it’s steady as she goes.
As President Giuliani can tell you, we can’t put the crown on The Donald quite yet. This time 8 years ago a Giuliani-Clinton final was pretty much a given. What really seems to be unique about this year is near universal disgust for the mainstream GOP candidates. I’m thinking that Rubio gets the establishment lane while Trump and Cruz split the extremists- normally you’d think this greases the skids for Rubio but I’m not sure even being the only mainstream guy will be enough.
Funny, that’s not what you said at the time. (“Hillary is not going to win the nomination.” - BobLibDem, 11/4/07. :))
Also in that thread, we havethe news on 11/12/2007 that Rudy had given up on both Iowa and New Hampshire. At which point his inevitability was history.
ETA: I really didn’t go looking for a quote from you, Bob - I found that thread by doing a search for Giuliani in threads 8+ years old. But I couldn’t resist that quote once I saw it.
Looking at the charts, it looks to me that the last 2 polls by ARG had him at 13 then 14. Even if it was 12 then 14, pretty big leap to think that shows this isn’t an outlier.
If you are willing to compare polls from different sources then why not choose the Fox poll where he was at 7, then he leaps to 14 . Then 20 this doesn’t look so crazy.
Yeah, but it’s ARG. I’ve mentioned my lack of regard for them before. I’ll believe Kasich has jumped to 20% in NH if another pollster corroborates it.
And that’s despite the fact that I’d kinda like that result. I believe that if Rubio were at 20% in NH, that might be his stepping stone to eventually winning the nomination. I have a much harder time believing that about Kasich. The effect of a Kasich win of the Establishment lane in NH, IMHO, would be to delay the point at which an ultimate winner of that lane emerged. (Winning the primary itself would make that more true, not less, IMHO.)