Tag Archives: Trump

The Likely Outcome Of The Latest Trump Revelations

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You know the problem. Not just the release of the “I’d grab her …” tape, but starting before that. Here, watch:

A roughly written Facebook comment by me, reacting to much of the reaction I’m seeing:

To everyone who is saying that Trump is out of the race because of his admitted preference for sexual assault as a way of getting women to like him: Sorry, you are wrong, and you may be living in a bubble.

Do a transect across humanity, in the US. You will find that a double digit percentage of both women and men (though I’ll allow you the possibly true but possibly not true idea that more men than women) view intersexual relationships exactly as Trump views them. Not only that, but they probably view this as both normal and, suddenly, politically preferred.

(While you are doing your transect of society, take notes on decals and bumper stickers on pick up trucks. You will see the correlation between “Trump for President” stickers and “Get her drunk and get her done” stickers.)

Putting this a slightly different way, now that sexual assault is part of the known Trump behavioral repertoire (it already was, but for some reason these remarks are being taken seriously while earlier indications were not), it is now a feature of Republican philosophy (yes, my dear friends and family who are Republicans, you are now part of the Sexual Assault is OK Party, so let’s see how long you can live with that!)

This revelation may affect the distribution of support for Trump at close to the level that a bad debate performance will. Not much, but a little.

Second point: All the talk about replacing trump, or how would that work, etc. etc. is pretty much information free yammering.
On one hand, it is virtually impossible to change a ticket.

No, you can’t replace the Presidential candidate with the VP candidate. It simply does not work that way.That is not what the VP candidate is or does. Even if a ticket was elected and the president elect died, the VP would not take over that position (this doe not apply after the electors have chosen, thanks to Steve for noting my ambiguity here). The VP has no role in party or national politics or governance other than to replace the president on the event of the president’s death, or in certain other situations.
On the other hand, the electors are not legally bound at the federal level to do anything in particular. They are bound at the state level. I’m pretty sure that faithless electors, say, the electors from a state that are supposed to vote for Trump vote for someone else instead, were charged by their state’s attorney, that would be thrown out of court at the federal level like moldy cottage cheese.

Of course, what electors would do this, and for whom would they vote? They’d be from that population of inexperienced but energized by Sanders or Trump to join up, who somehow got to be electors. There are probably no more than a handful of such individuals, most electors are experienced in the process. But in a close election it would only take a few electors voting for a third party to send the entire process to the House of Representatives. This is highly unlikely, but it would give us a non-elected Republican president for four years. Cruz? Romney? Gingrich? the fight would be epic.

It is possible that this process gets ruined so far down the line that this does not work either, and we get to the part in the Constitution that says something like, “Hand the problem over to The Congress and they will figure out, in a manner they deem appropriate, who the next president is”

(The process for the VP is parallel and different. Senate not house, etc.)

So, to summarize:

1) No, this revelation has no real meaning, no real new information, and will have no effect. Trump really is the candidate because he represents the party that nominated him, nothing has changed.

2) Most of the yammering about what might happen or what might be done is based on zero understanding or information about anything.

I made a big ugly graphic to summarize two possible effects: small vs. large. Unfortunately, the Monday debate will be conflated with this effect. Let’s check back on Friday and see.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-3-26-22-pm

Of course, according to my four day theory (there will be a major October surprise every four days until the election) there will be yet another big news story on Tuesday (plus or minus one day) so it may be impossible to test this hypothesis.

Who won the first presidential debate?

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It was a tossup, but in a rather complicated way.

Even the regular commenters with major network news, and PBS, clearly indicated that Hillary Clinton won this debate. And she did. She not only had better answers, but actual answers. Trump acted very poorly and Clinton acted presidential. Trump got caught in several lies, and made several more lies that were to be caught later. He made a fool of himself and Clinton did very well.

Therefore, it was a tossup. It was a tossup because a couple percent of the populous are former Bernie Sanders supporters with so much butt hurt that they will not vote for Clinton and may even vote for Trump, not because they like Trump, but because they want to punish the rest of us by supporting Trump since they did not get their way. A few percent of the votes are Special Snowflakes who know that the only way to advance civilization is if they vote for a candidate that can’t win in a single state and that no one will remember exists in two years, even if that mans Ralphing the election. It was a tossup because the worse Trump preforms the more his Deplorables love him, and the more likely they are to go out and vote.

Everybody who already supported Secretary Clinton thinks she won the debate, and now they are going to vote for her, just like they already were going to vote for her. Everybody who doesn’t care which of the two major candidates will win saw what everyone else saw, but they have been reminded that there is an election coming up, and are now more likely to either not vote for either candidate, or to vote for Trump out of spite. Everybody who was already supporting Trump was already going to vote for Trump, if they showed up at the polls, are now slightly more likely to show up at the polls.

So, perhaps, Trump won by a percentage point or two, with respect to how this debate will affect the outcome at the voting booth.

So, that’s what happened last night.

The most important single act you can carry out period.

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This is it. Don’t mess this up.

It isn’t that common that a single event can have a cascading effect on so many things. And if it does, such an event would not be that likely to have an entirely negative effect on all it touches. But, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States would be such an event.

Therefore, in turn and in opposition, your vote this November 8th matters as much as his presidency would matter. So, you must vote. (And please remember to NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP. That’s the point. Do not vote for Trump.)

Also please, make sure that if you intend to vote for a third party candidate because you have calculated that “my vote doesn’t matter in my state because my state bla bla bla” that you aren’t wrong. You might be wrong. A lot of people will be wrong this year because of the simple fact that the electorate is behaving differently than it has behaved in decades, so expectations that allow you to feel safe are not valid.

For example, if you live in Minnesota, and you think it is safe to vote for Stein or write in Bernie, you should know that there will not be helpful polling in this state, and Minnesotans tend to vote very conservatively, suddenly, and surprisingly, an din groups, now and then. This could be such a year. We sent the Worst Senator in the World to the US Senate, twice, because the other side violated a fundamental law of Minnesota culture, even though the DFL candidate was already widely recognized as the best candidate in all of the Senate races that year. We elected Jesse Ventura as governor. No, Minnesotans, your vote is not “safe.” Vote for Hillary Clinton. Anything else you do IS a vote for Tump.

This applies as well to all of the battleground states. Too much is at stake for you to let your special snowflake voting status, your own personal feeling of wanting to do the “right thing,” lead you.

Meanwhile, for those who have actually been paying attention to the careers and policies of the candidates for many years, Hillary Clinton is a great candidate, and it is a shame that so many of the smears against her, perpetuated by Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and the GOP, have convinced so many otherwise smart people that she is not. Sure, disagree with her on any issue you like, and advocate and activate on behalf your positions. But do recognize that she is a legit candidate and none of the others are.

Anyway, this all comes as introduction to the following video. Which, by the way, includes a LOT of people who supported Bernie in the primaries, but who are now warning of the dangers of Trump. Please pay attention to this. Special bonus appearances for West Wing fans. And, Mark Ruffalo, naked. Full Monty. But only if you do the right thing.

If you are not a voter in the United States of America you may disregard this message.

Here’s the link mentioned.

Hat tip: Julia

Trump’s Latest Outrageous Claim: Obama Born In US

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“After years of peddling a false conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Donald Trump — just 53 days before Election Day — now says he believes the president was born in the U.S.

“President Obama was born in the United States. Period,” Trump said at a campaign event in a ballroom in his new hotel in Washington. “Now, we want to get back to … (bla bla bla).”

That’s from NPR.

This is clearly going to hurt Donald Trump with his base. The accusation to begin with wad deplorable, after all.

That was today, a few minutes ago.

But yesterday …

Start about midway:

More here:

Science Questions for the Candidates

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ScienceDebate.org is an organization that, for years now, has been pushing to get the candidates running for President of the United States to engage in a debate over science policy, just as they debate foreign policy, or economic policy, etc.

And, ScienceDebate.org has had some success. Some of the candidates, at the primary level, have engaged in such a debate, and at the national level, some of the candidates have contributed written answers to citizen-generated questions about science policy.

And now, they’ve done it again.

The four main candidates (two actual main candidates and two “third party” candidates) were provided with several science policy related questions. Three of the candidates have provided answers.

The entire project is to be found HERE. There are 20 questions.

I’m still going through them. If you have comments on any, please post them, I’d love to hear what you think.

Personally, I think Trump’s answer on climate change was probably written by Bjorn Lomborg. Or, cribbed form something he wrote.

(I suppose someone should be running these answers through a plagiarism checker???)

Gary Johnson apparently has nothing to say about science policy. That makes sense. He’s a Libertarian, and Libertarians don’t believe in science policy.

Jill Stein gave an interesting answer on Vaccines.

Trump wants to stop the inflow of opioids into the United States. He may not have understood the question.

The word “wall” does not appear among the answers, though Immigration is asked about.

Interesting answers on space as well.

Go look. Report back!

And, if you’ve not seen this, enjoy:

Trump Doubles Down on Immigration; Promises Tacos for Everyone

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I was half expecting Trump to soften on immigration. The logic of that? His main supporters, who hate all immigrants and are a bunch of racist slobs will vote for Trump no matter what he says because the are morons. But, the fence sitters, the amoral “Good Republicans” who would vote for him because they have learned to fear Democratic economic policies (this group are also all morons) might vote for him if he was less crazy sounding.

But no, that didn’t happen. Instead, he embarrassed our nation buy telling the President of Mexico, to his face, that he’s going to have to pay for this wall. Then he gave the most clearly hateful immigration speech yet.

But, there will be taco truck on every corner. Trump is going to lose and there will be taco trucks on every corner. THEY PROMISED!!!!!!

The gentleman speaking on behalf of Trump makes a very interesting, racist point. Mexican culture is dominant. The Spanish never conquered Mexico, we are told. If you don’t control Mexicans, they will take over. If you don’t realize that, it is just because you haven’t been to Mexico lately. Seriously, he said that!

And, he tells us that for this reason, if Trump doesn’t win this election, there will be a taco truck on every corner. Because, I guess, that is what a dominant culture does.

I’m going to be really pissed if there are not taco trucks on every corner at the end of this. Dammit.

The reason Hillary Clinton has cinched the nomination

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This is an excellent moment to revel in the complexity of life, and argument, and to appreciate the value of the honest conversation.

A candidate is the presumed nominee when she or he obtains the required number of pledged delegates to be at 50% plus a fraction in the total pledged delegate count. This is because a candidate must have a true majority to win the nomination when the delegates are all counted up at the convention, and the pledged delegates are required to cast their lot with the candidate they are pledged to, assuming that candidate exists at the time of the convention.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have not reached that bar. Therefore, neither is the presumed nominee for their party.

But then there are the unpledged delegates. Unpledged delegates can vote for whomever they like at the convention, and therefore, anything can happen. However, it is the practice among unpledged delegates to “endorse” or otherwise show support for a particular candidate. News agencies may use that statement of support to place that unpledged delegate in the column for a particular candidate.

Using this form of math, Trump did not reach a true majority of delegates a couple of weeks ago for two reasons. First, the Republicans have very few truly unpledged delegates. (The Republican and Democratic systems are not parallel or comparable, but the Republicans do have a certain number of delegates who can do what they want when the convention rolls around.) But then, one day, a bunch of unpledged delegates from one of the Dakotas made a statement. They said that they would definitely cast their ballot for Trump in the Convention. This was just enough to put Trump over the top, by adding together the pledged delegates that were pledged to him, and this small number of “unpledged” but now “pledged-ish” delegates.

That is still not clenching the nomination, because even though those Dakota delegates went beyond support or endorsement, to the level of actually promising to vote for Trump, they really still don’t have to vote for him.

But, the press took this as an event, and decided to go with it, and Trump became the actual nominee.

That may seem like a digression in a post about the Democratic primary, but it is relevant because the press has this thing they do where they balance or equalize. Therefore, even though the systems are not truly comparable or parallel, and the event in the Dakotas was actually meaningless, the press did in fact go with the “Trump is the presumed nominee” thing, and therefore, one should expect, even in the absence of a logical underpinning to the argument, the press to do the same in the Democratic party. That is only a small part of the story, but it is part of the story.

I should reiterate that unpledged delegates (in the Democratic party, unofficially called “Super Delegates”) are unpledged even when they pledge. That is a simple fact. But, there are nuances. For example, I know one Super Delegate that on principle will not declare for a candidate until the convention. But I also know that this individual liked Bernie Sanders. I suspect that this means that under some conditions, this delegate would vote for Sanders, but maybe not. I know another Super Delegate who has endorsed Clinton, and another who has endorsed Sanders, publicly. However, I do not assume that either one of them will absolutely vote for that candidate. An endorsement is not a pledge. If Bernie Sanders is found sitting in a hot tub full of fruit jello with the leader of North Korea on a yacht owned by the Koch Brothers, making a deal to trade nuclear warheads, that the delegate that endorsed Sanders will not cast a ballot for Sanders at the convention. But the pledged delegates from the same state will be forced to by the rules. (This is why we have Super Delegates. This is also why we can expect the Republicans to add a higher percentage of unpledged delegates when they rewrite the rules for the next primary season.)

The Dakota delegates, however, did something different. They did not endorse, or show support, but they pledged. However, their pledged is, in fact, legally irrelevant.

And now, we come to 2008. It could be said not too inaccurately that a point in time came during the 2008 nomination battle between now President Obama and Hillary Clinton, when it became apparent that Obama was going to win, the press said so, and Clinton took two days or so off and came back into the ring no longer fighting Obama, but now as part of his tag team.

And, it could be said not too inaccurately that this same moment came in the present election about now. Staring a few days ago, various members of the press began to note that this moment was upon us, and to imply that it would be unfair to Hillary to have given this moment to Obama in 2008, but not give it to Clinton now. I think the belief 48 hours ago might have been that this moment would definitely be on us by the end of the voting process in today’s primaries, but then another thing about the press came into play. The press has to treat everybody and every event like they are all identical blue Smurfs but they also have to do things first, to beat out their rivals, to scoop. In fact, this “moment of clinch” could have been after the Puerto Rico primary, or even earlier. And it was absolutely going to happen after Tuesday. So, AP jumped out of the gate and made it happen Monday, and this is now the True Reality.

So, let us review.

Hillary Clinton is the presumed nominee because she has almost enough pledged delegates plus a gazillion unpledged delegates.

However, part of the impetus for declaring this is that Trump got that courtesy two weeks ago.

But, Trump was the only person running in that race, and Clinton still has an opponent.

Still, numerically, Clinton can’t not get the nomination because she has many hundreds of Super Delegates and Sanders has only a few dozen.

On the other hand, Super Delegates are unpledged. UNpledged. We argue all along that they should not be counted. Then suddenly we count them. Is that fair?

One could say, however, that it is fair. At some point it becomes fair because the numbers become so tilted. If the hundreds of Super Delegates that have endorsed Hillary decided to randomize their preference using a coin biased in favor of Sanders, there would still be more than enough to put Clinton over the top.

It is only fair to Clinton that she gets the same treatment as Obama.

It is only fair to Sanders that she not.

And on and on it goes.

So, is there a good reason that Hillary Clinton is now regarded as the Democratic Party nominee for the office of the President?

Yes.

And no.

A good part of the reason that both answers are valid is because the press has painted themselves into a corner located between a rock and a hard spot and have only a Hobbson’s choice. That is a bad reason. Another reason is fairness. That is a good but not overwhelmingly good reason. There is no reason that the process one year needs to be the same as other years, since presidential election years are so different in so many ways. Another reason is math. While we wish to keep the Super Delegate count separate and let the pledged delegates do their job, at some point the Super Delegates should probably be considered as a factor, if not counted precisely. (See this, “Fixing The Super Delegate Problem,” for an alternative way of doing this whole thing.) That is probably reasonable and fair. If the numbers are big enough. But there is no objective criterion for when the numbers are big enough. So maybe not so fair.

So here is where the honest conversation part comes in. There really is no considered, informed, honest position on this that ignores the complexity and dismisses other opinions out of hand.

I hope you read this post on Tuesday, June 7th, because starting the next day it is not going to matter too much.

After the Primaries, What Next?

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Donald Trump is now the presumed Republican candidate for President of the United States. Prior to Cruz and Kasich dropping out of the race, it was not 100% clear that Trump would achieve enough delegates to “lock” the convention, but he was vey close. I am not sure if Trump will be the only candidate on the ballot for the remaining GOP primaries. Had Cruz and Kasich remained in the race, my estimate was that Trump would be about six delegates short of a lock, but even if those candidates are still listed on some future ballots, it seems likely now that Trump will win enough delegates to go into the Republican National Convention with the required 1237 votes to take the nomination.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is far enough ahead in the Democratic Primary process to enter the convention with a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders, though not enough to lock the convention from pledged delegates. However, she has plenty of unpledged delegates that are highly likely to support her. So even if Clinton goes into the convention with less than a lock with pledged delegates, she will still win the nomination on the first ballot.

So, broadly speaking, there are two possible outcomes between now and election day. 1) Trump represents the Republicans and Clinton represents the Democrats in the general election; or 2) Something else happens.

What are the alternatives?

All of the possible alternatives have to do with the Republican Party. I’ll go over them here, but this is a rough list and there are many things to be considered deep in the details. If you have information that modifies or precludes any of this, please put it in the comments.

The Republican National Convention Goes Rogue

It is not entirely clear that the Republicans, at the convention, are required to simply vote in a ballot with pledged delegates casting their preference for the expected candidate. That is required by a rule of the convention, and the rules of the convention don’t exist until they are voted on at the outset of the convention. It is possible that the rules could be changed, and all of the delegates could be released to vote for whomever they want on the first ballot. I am fairly certain that there is not a hard and fast way to prevent this, even though it would be very messy to do so.

If that happened, Trump would probably not get a majority of votes on the first ballot, simply because other candidates, especially Cruz, have played a better ground game than Trump in several states. A good number of the delegates pledged to Trump will jettison The Donald the first chance they get.

This will not bring an alternative candidate to a majority position, or even close. But it would allow the convention to proceed pretty much as though the entire Republican Primary season never happened. Likely it would allow any name to be entered into the nomination.

If, at the start of the convention, the pledged delegate rule is changed or thrown out, expect a strategy to be in place, for one or two candidates not including Trump (and, likely, not including Cruz either) to be nominated. In other words, for this extreme event to happen, there will likely be people in the party with a plan to nominate someone in particular. My money is on Paul Ryan, but that is mainly because he is so adamant on not being a nominee for president, which is a sure sign with Ryan that he wants to be a nominee for president.

An Full On Independent (third party) Candidacy Emerges

Is is possible for a third party candidate, running as an independent, to emerge from the apparent wreckage of the Republican Party. This would have to happen before the convention.

In order for an independent candidate to run, it is generally the case that a petition with a set minimum number of names has to be submitted to the state authorities before a certain deadline. A few deadlines are in June, many in July, but I think most are in August. To get a name on every state’s ballot (plus DC) about 880,000 signatures in total would have to be obtained. This would also require all the efforts in each state to pick one candidate to get behind, presumably. This is extreme, but doable, and if it is going to be done, you’ll know about it soon because those petitions would start circulating within the next few weeks.

A Spoiler Independent Candidate Emerges

The independent candidate does not have to be on all of the state’s ballots to affect the election.

Assume that Hillary Clinton is going to beat Donald Trump, and thus, in a two way race, achieve an electoral majority. But, also, assume that some people who would vote for Clinton over Trump would vote for an independent candidate rather than Clinton. If this could be forced in just one state or two, that could put Clinton at below 50% of the electoral vote, beating Trump who would also be below 50% of the electoral vote.

This would mean that the Electoral College would not be able to chose a candidate, and the decision goes to the House of Representatives.

But could you really do this? Because the Electoral College is generally winner take all, the spoiler candidate has to get a majority vote in a state to take those Electors away from the main candidates. But, since this strategy would emerge among Republicans and their ilk, but be directed against Clinton, that would require getting a LOT of Clinton voters to switch to the third party candidate.

There are some indications that a double digit percentage of Sanders supporters (between 10 and 20%) are “Bernie or Busters.” One might assume that there are more Bernie or Busters in states Bernie Sanders won in. This would have to be a state Clinton is likely to win in during the General, since the idea is to take away some of her Electoral votes. So, such states could be targeted with the independent candidate. Perhaps the independent candidate could even run a campaign that would specifically appeal to former Sanders supporters. Sanders won plenty of small states where a huge effort might allow an independent to grab those electoral votes. If the difference between Trump and Clinton is small enough, Clinton’s majority could be forced below 50% with one state.

Nebraska and Maine do not have winner take all rules. Sanders won both states, but Nebraska is red, while Maine is blue. I’m going to guess that the Bernie or Bust movement is at least average-strong if not very strong in Maine. Maine has 4 electoral votes, so even winning the entire state would not take a lot of Clinton votes away, but the point is that a number from 1 to 4 could be removed from her column in Maine.

Among blue states, Sanders did well this primary season so far in Hawaii, Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan, and a few others. He will likely do well in California. So, using the idea that states where Sanders dis well in the primary are ripe for picking off Clinton with a third party, a focus on Michigan (16 electoral votes), California (55 electoral votes) and a couple of others might work. However, these larger, bluer, states are less likely to be fooled into voting for an independent.

A better strategy might be two work the marginal states where Sanders did well. These are states that Clinton could win, but where the right third party candidate could take that win away. Florida comes to mind. Imagine a strong Florida candidate running as the independent. Even better might be a coalition of smaller Sanders-favoring not too blue states, such as Wisconsin.

(Yes, you may be thinking at this moment that this strategy could be run for Sanders himself, but remember, the strategy here is to take a few electoral votes away from Clinton so a Republican House gets to decide the outcome of the election.)

In any event, there is probably an analysis one could do that estimates Clinton’s electoral lead, then finds states where Clinton would likely win but where a third party candidate could take that lead away from her, which add up to enough electoral votes to manage this, and then find the right candidate. I’m fairly sure that somebody in the GOP is working out these numbers as we speak.

The House proportions itself out to 50 votes, one for each state. (DC is left out of the process). The majority of members in a state must agree on a candidate, or that vote is simply lost (i.e., if there is a tie among members of the house for a given state). Obviously, this gets pretty complicated. A state with mostly members of one party might vote for that party’s candidate, but if there is a third candidate, that could split out the majority causing the other party’s candidate to win, or causing a tie, in a few states.

If the House is unable to elect a president, this goes tot he Senate.

By the way, the Congress that would be doing all this is the newly elected one. So, that might be a Republican House, or maybe not. It might be a Democratic Senate. Or maybe not.

Electors Go Rogue

The Electors in the Electoral College, from most states, are required to vote en masse (winner take all) for the candidate that won that state’s popular vote. (There are a few exceptions.) But the Federal system does not require this, and from the point of view of the national election, the Electors can do what they want. The states compel the electors to follow the state’s rule with various threats, possibly including jail time, often a fine. However, it is not clear that these threats can be carried out. This has not been tested sufficiently in court. Were it to be tested, it might be tested in the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court is short a Justice, so who knows how that will go.

It is also conceivable that rogue electors would not be punished if they went rogue this year. It is even conceivable that some rogue electors will be given a ticker tape parade.

But what would these electors do? They could ignore a third party candidate that happened to win their state, or they could vote for the minority candidate because they can’t stomach the majority candidate.

If something like this happened, this might be the year we see a serious movement to amend the part of the Constitution that specified the Electoral College. Then, we can witness the fight between the small states (they benefit from the current system) and large states!

Probably none of this will happen. Probably, Trump will be anointed at the convention (after a few broken bones and maybe a few shots fired). Clinton will mop the floor with him in November. But, who knows?

I do expect an outcry from various quarters to reform both the primary and election processes. I expect that outcry to die down and be forgotten, but a few reforms to be put in place in the Democratic Party anyway, because people in the party are already part of that outcry. And,really, the big question is what is going to happen in Congress this year, and in two years. Don’t lose sight of that very important question.

Trump may be 9 delegates short of a lock

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UPDATE May 26th 2016

Moments ago, Donald Trump’s delegate count effectively went above the number needed to guarantee the nomination at this summer’s Republican National Convention.

As reported by NBC, “Donald Trump now has the support of 1,238 delegates — just a hair above the 1,237 threshold needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination”

UPDATED

The update includes adding actual delegate counts for races so far, recognizing that for Pennsylvania this means only 17 delegates out of 54, even though he won there, because Pennsylvania is strange. Also, some other revisions.

This estimate still uses a combination of polling data and information in this discussion at FiveThirtyEight by Nate Silver, as well as polling data.

My NEW estimate puts him at 1228 delegates, or 9 delegates short. Here’s the data:

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 10.45.12 AM

Throughout the primary season, Trump has not played the ground game, and Cruz has. That’s why I picked the “Trump shooting himself in the head” picture for the top of the post.

From the original post:

Here’s what I mean by that. Say a state awards 10 pledged delegates to you, and 12 to your opponent. Your opponent. Your opponent is a really great guy, I mean, really great, everybody loves him, and he knows, really knows, how to close a deal. So he figures he’s closed the deal and moves on to the next primary. But you, being a more experienced politician with a ground game, start making calls. You got a 10-12 split, and that will be reflected at the convention when this state casts the first ballot, but after that, the delegates at the convention will be to some degree able to change their vote on the next ballot. So you make these calls, and make sure that all of your own supporters show up at the right time and place to position themselves as national convention delegates. So when the national convention happens, you have 18 people who like you and your opponent has only 4. That does not matter for the first ballot, but it give you a win in that state for the second and beyond ballots.

It is not quite that simple, and the lack of simplicity makes your ground game stronger. There are rules that vary somewhat across states that say that only some of the delegates are free to choose on the second ballot. There are also unpledged delegates from most states, and they vary in number and they vary in how much influence you may have over them. So you expend your resources efficiently to maximally bring delegates, both pledged and unpledged, into your fold. At the end of the day, you win the nomination. And maybe your name is Ted.

I don’t think anybody outside the campaigns has a good idea of what might happen on the second ballot. Even within the campaigns there has to to be a lot of uncertainty. It will be an interesting convention!

A bit of discussion on this on the Rachel Maddow Show: