Have you seen the anti-Trump video that features women quoting Donald Trump’s most offensive statements about women?
I just showed it to a woman. She thought it was funny. Apparently nothing that Trump says comes off as offensive to her.
The reason I checked with a woman is because I didn’t trust my own reaction. To me, the video looked like the most tone-deaf ad of all time. I would rank it as among the worst I have ever seen in terms of persuasion. I’m guessing it worked in Trump’s favor.
On the 2D level of reality – where we pretend people are rational – the video makes perfect sense. The makers of the video figured women voters would not like a candidate that says bad things about women. That seems totally logical. I can see why they made the video.
But on the 3D level of persuasion, what the viewer sees is several average-looking women in bad moods complaining about a guy being, well… a guy. I assume men won’t be offended by the video because Trump is no more of a jerk than most men. And men probably don’t get a warm feeling from the judgmental, angry messengers in the video. That video looks like a huge fail to me.
While I’m not on-board with Adams’ “people are just moist robots” thesis, I think he’s right about this video.
“Oh look, Reginald! That uncouth vulgarian is distressing his class betters again!”
The ad ignores the reality that a great deal of Trump’s appeal is his willingness to transgress against the unspoken shibboleths of the overclass. People are voting Trump because they can’t punch an NPR host in their smug face over the radio.
When a whole bunch of dour middle-aged feminist scolds (which is what it comes off as) read Trump quotes in the manner of “celebrities read mean tweets,” the result is laughter, not outrage. The real tone of the ad is “We know better than you, and Trump offends our finely-tuned sensibilities! Doesn’t our naked contempt dissuade you from voting Trump, you dim-witted flyover country rubes?”
No wonder they disabled video comments on YouTube.
So the Our Principles PAC (headed up by ex-Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush staff) should stop running this thing, as it’s only helping Trump.
“It is still mathematically possible for Cruz to get beyond 1,237 delegates. He will perform well in Utah and Wisconsin and has a solid ground game…There is a way to stop Trump. But that way is rallying to Ted Cruz. That is the only option at this point.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Mr. Rubio, 44, was felled by many of the same forces that drove other contenders from the race: a deep anger at the Republican leadership, a level of mistrust among the party’s most motivated voters, a field of candidates splitting up the vote, and an inability to stop Mr. Trump from exploiting all those factors.
But Mr. Rubio also notably lacked what both Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz could boast of: victories in a string of early nominating contests. Mr. Rubio carried only Minnesota, along with Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, sapping his campaign of critical energy and fueling the perception — no matter how hard he tried — that he was incapable of winning the nomination.
He claimed to be the only candidate who could unite the Republican Party, but he could never unite enough voters behind him to persuasively make that case.
It’s either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. Vote accordingly.
Only 10% of the vote in, but AP is projecting that Donald Trump beats Marco Rubio in Rubio’s home state.
It’s long, long overdue for Rubio to leave the race. If he doesn’t do that tonight, then he’s essentially declaring he wants to see Trump rather than Ted Cruz win the GOP nomination.
“The GOP has required that its nominees receive a majority of the vote from its delegates for 160 years now. And this requirement has been consequential: Along the way, multiple candidates have received a plurality of the vote, yet failed to become the nominee.”
“I’ve got nothing in particular against Rubio except that he let Chuck Schumer snooker him on immigration, but I keep hearing what a great candidate he is, and he keeps sucking in the actual votes.”
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, a group that opposes illegal immigration, supported Rubio in his campaign for Senate that election cycle, in part due to an hourlong-conversation they had with him on that fateful day in 2009. During that meeting, Oliver said, Rubio pledged never to support “amnesty or legalization of people” in the United States without documentation.
“He ran for president as a graceful way to exit. He would have lost the Senate seat if he had run for reelection.”
Ted Cruz has won the Wyoming Caucuses with 66.3% of the vote, picking up 11 delegates. Marco Rubio finished a distant second (or as he calls it, Rubio Gold™) with 19.5% of the vote, while Donald Trump came in third with 7.2%, each of them picking one one delegate.
Conservatives have had difficulty choosing a champion in the presidential race in part because it has featured so many candidates with very good claims on our support. As their number has dwindled, the right choice has become clear: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
We supported Cruz’s campaign in 2012 because we saw in him what conservatives nationwide have come to see as well. Cruz is a brilliant and articulate exponent of our views on the full spectrum of issues. Other Republicans say we should protect the Constitution. Cruz has actually done it; indeed, it has been the animating passion of his career. He is a strong believer in the liberating power of free markets, including free trade (notwithstanding the usual rhetorical hedges). His skepticism about “comprehensive immigration reform” is leading him to a realism about the impact of immigration that has been missing from our policymaking and debate. He favors a foreign policy based on a hard-headed assessment of American interests, one that seeks to strengthen our power but is mindful of its limits. He forthrightly defends religious liberty, the right to life of unborn children, and the role of marriage in connecting children to their parents — causes that reduce too many other Republicans to mumbling.
That forthrightness is worth emphasizing. Conservatism should not be merely combative; but especially in our political culture, it must be willing to be controversial. Too many Republicans shrink from this implication of our creed. Not Cruz. And this virtue is connected to others that primary voters should keep in mind. Conservatives need not worry that Cruz will be tripped up by an interview question, or answer it with mindless conventional wisdom when a better answer is available. We need rarely worry, either, that his stumbling words will have to be recast by aides and supporters later. Neither of those things could be said about a lot of Republican nominees over the years.
Not sure it moves the needle much, since National Review has made its preference for Cruz over Donald Trump clear over the last year, but maybe it will help some of Marco Rubio’s wavering backers push him more strongly to get out of the race.
There have been adultery accusations popping up on Rubio’s campaign trail, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything. However, I was surprised to read they date back to at least 2010.
Think California is boned? Europe’s pension crisis is even worse:
Europe’s population of pensioners, already the largest in the world, continues to grow. Looking at Europeans 65 or older who aren’t working, there are 42 for every 100 workers, and this will rise to 65 per 100 by 2060, the European Union’s data agency says. By comparison, the U.S. has 24 nonworking people 65 or over per 100 workers, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which doesn’t have a projection for 2060.
Also this:
The global decline of the blue model stands to inflict even more pain on Europe than on the United States. Europeans are worse at making babies than the United States, worse at integrating immigrants, worse at saving money to pay boomer retirement bills—but no worse at making promises to voters that they will be unable to keep.
“Venezuela’s accelerating economic meltdown is rapidly turning into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis. For too many in that country, the pervasive shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and other basic goods are making everyday life a nightmare.”
“UC-Berkeley Law School Dean Resigns After Being Sued For Sexual Harassment.” (Hat tip: Instapundit, who asks “Why are leftist institutions such cesspits of sexual predation?”)
Nate Silver: “Even if Trump wins both Ohio and Florida, Cruz might run relatively well against him in a one-on-one race from that point forward.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
Guy who voted for Rubio says the best way he can serve his country is getting out of the race.
However, let’s look at the flip side — what happens if Rubio and Kasich win? In that case, both men will declare victory — obviously — and then say this proves what they’ve been saying all along, that America is now ready to embrace them, that the map looks better from them starting with Guam, that they’re going to take it all the way to the convention.
And then we continue on with the field unwinnowed, and Trump continuing to win more delegates than Cruz by 43% to 36% margins. Not huge margins — but they’ll get you there, and if you’re not gaining on Trump, you’re losing to Trump.
Thus, the way I see it, the downside to Cruz of delivering Florida and Ohio to Trump is less down than the downside of letting Rubio and Kasich get their stupid fucking Participation Trophy and their excuse (and financial backing) to continue dicking around in a race that neither man can win. Neither of these guys can win more delegates than Trump now; both are hoping just to have a contested convention, and then hope that the Establishment reaches past the 1st and 2nd place finishers to deliver the win to the third or fourth place “winner” — Rubio Gold come literally true, in other words.
This makes no sense from Cruz’s perspective.
It’s time to take them both out, and then take his chances one-on-one with Trump.
Snip.
if Rubio and Kasich stay in, and continue kneecapping Cruz from winning (or winning these crucial Winner Take Alls by 50% – Cruz would be ahead of Trump if Rubio hadn’t played in Texas or Idaho), then there is no shot to get Cruz anywhere near Trump’s tally — and Trump wins the nomination.
So tell me the Truth, guys: Is #NeverTrump a real thing, or is it just a quick dash of new paint on the #Rubio4Ever thing you’ve had going for a year now?
If you want to stop Trump, you need to end these Rubio fantasies and let the only guy with an actual chance of stopping him start getting into two man races with him.
Otherwise, your #NeverTrump slogan is a lie — you’re perfectly fine with Trump. You just are using that as another pretext to lobby for Rubio.
So yeah, from Cruz’s point of view, and frankly from any sane Republican’s point of view (that is, apart from the Rubio and Kasich diehards) — it’s time to cash these two guys out. Out.
These guys are throwing the race to Trump.
And their supporters will not give up on their fantasies until those fantasies are violently torn from their hands, set on fire, and then buried under a swamp.
Clowntime is over. The time for Rubio Fantasy Love Scenarios is over. It’s time for real, tough decisions to be made, or to be made on behalf of those who just can’t get over it.
Cruz won Idaho and was second to Trump everywhere else last night.
It’s past time for Rubio and Kasich to exit the race, but for either ego or strategic leverage at the convention both refuse to do so. So Cruz doing whatever he needs to in order to boot them off the stage is the right call.