Posts Tagged ‘John Kasich’
Tuesday, March 15th, 2016
Another big primary day, with Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina voters going to the polls today.
Polls show that Hillary crushes Trump in the general. “Donald Trump is detested by the general electorate.”
Hell, Trump even loses to Bernie Sanders. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
So how did Republicans get Trump foisted upon us?
“‘Lending” the Republican Party to Trump for the next six months might mean you never get it back.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“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.”
“Ted Cruz’s campaign is pouring another half a million dollars into television and digital ad buys slated to run in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina ahead of the contests in those states on Tuesday.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
“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.”
Florida Tea Party supporters who voted for Rubio in 2010 are itching for a chance to help defeat him tonight:
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.”
The money behind John Kasich? George Soros. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elections, Florida, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Illinois, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Republicans, Ted Cruz
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Thursday, March 10th, 2016
Busy working on other stuff, so consider this an “instead of a real update” update:
If Marco Rubio and John Kasich had dropped out last week, Ted Cruz would already be ahead of Donald Trump. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Cruz has a vastly better chance of defeating Hillary Clinton than Trump.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
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.
Dear GOP: Unite behind Ted Cruz or Deserve Your Fate.
Camille Paglia praises Trump’s candor.
Trump rally T-shirts spelling out “Make America White Again” debunked.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Camille Paglia, Donald Trump, Elections, Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016
If you haven’t heard, Cruz is going all-in to deny Marco Rubio a victory in Florida…even if it hands the winner-take-all state to Trump.
Ace of Spades HQ makes a compelling case that this is the right call:
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.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, Florida, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ohio, Republicans, Ted Cruz
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Friday, March 4th, 2016
Enjoy another Friday LinkSwarm!
Justice Department grants immunity to former state department staffer who ran Hillary’s email. Hmmm…
The four laws Hillary broke in her email scandal. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Being a Democrat means never having to apologize for statutory rape. (Hat tip: Robert Stacy McCain.)
Ace of Spades reviews the latest Republican debate: “John Kasich: Continued playing to his core supporters of artisinal bong craftsmen and elderly public masturbators.” Donald Trump: “Added some substance to his foreign policy platform by declaring that he would force American soldiers to break the law and murder children. On other issues, he was less reassuring.” You’ll just have to go over and read the extended “clowns and burning blind children” metaphor for yourself…
Rich Lowry: “Cruz had a terrific night. He was strong and in command in his exchanges with Trump, and drew blood on Trump’s Hillary donations, his participation in the political influence game and the New York Times transcript.”
Why the Republican establishment had Trump coming:
Republicans promised to build a wall along the Mexican border, fix illegal immigration, balance the budget, rein in the IRS, cut waste and fraud, defund Obama’s illegal executive orders. But every time they’re handed the controls of government, they invent some new excuse for not delivering.
The last budget that Republicans in the House and Senate passed did the opposite of everything the GOP leaders pledged when trying to get these people’s votes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed to be sending out an email to every Republican voter: Sorry, we lied.
Moe Lane takes a look at this Saturday’s closed primaries.
Da Tech Guy further notes that Cruz was behind Trump in polling for the closed primaries in Iowa, Oklahoma and Alaska, but won all three. “Of the next 9 contests Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine (March 5th) Puerto Rico (March 6th), Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi (March 8th), all but Puerto Rico & Mississippi are closed primaries.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
“How the P.C. Police Propelled Donald Trump: By assailing sensible conservatives as sexists, racists, and imbeciles, they paved the way for a jackass who embodies their worst fears.” Oh, now you get it? Now, when it’s no longer convenient to ignore the truth for political gain? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.
“Racial justice is cool mainly when there’s something in it for the white liberal activist.”
If you didn’t notice on Tuesday, former senate candidate and International Man of Mystery Grady Yarbrough made the Railroad Commissioner runoff on the Democratic side along with Cody Garrett (who seems to tout how many unions he’s joined as a major achievement), and Wayne Christian and Gary Gates on the Republican side.
I see that Spotlight won the Oscar. Consider the source and take this piece with several grains of salt, but it suggests that the movie got the story all wrong and that some innocent priests were swept up in the same moral panic and “repressed memories” junk science that defined the McMartin Preschool case, with an added dollop of greedy trial lawyers on top.
My review of Hail, Caesar!
Newly discovered Mozart-Salieri Score.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Ace of Spades, Border Controls, Cody Garrett, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Grady Yarbrough, John Kasich, LinkSwarm, Moe Lane, movies, Neil Goldschmidt, pedophilia, Railroad Commission, rape, Republicans, Rich Lowry, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2016
According to early returns, Donald Trump has won five states on Super Tuesday: Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Virginia, while Ted Cruz has won Texas and Oklahoma. In states not called yet, it also appears that Trump will win Vermont (over John Kasich) and Arkansas, while Marco Rubio has a very early lead in Minnesota.
I suppose I should be encouraged that Trump didn’t break 50% in any of those races, but it’s obvious that Cruz can’t win against Trump unless Rubio, Kasich and Carson drop out…and possibly not even then.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won everything but Bernie Sanders’ home state of Vermont and Oklahoma. Sanders has a small lead in Colorado and Clinton a small lead in Massachusetts and a slightly larger lead in Minnesota.
If Cruz can’t win in Georgia and Alabama, it’s hard to see where he stops Trump with Rubio and Kasich still on the ballot.
If Sanders can’t win in Massachusetts and Minnesota, it’s simply over for him.
We’re slowly slouching toward a Clinton-Trump Presidential election.
God help us all.
Update: Both Rubio and Sanders win Minnesota.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Alabama, Colorado, Donald Trump, Georgia, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Super Tuesday, Ted Cruz, Texas, Vermont
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2016
Coming out of Iowa, it looked we had a firm consensus on the shape of the Republican race: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as the top three contenders going forward, with everyone else as also-rans.
And then a week later New Hampshire comes along to declare “Psych!”
“It’s hard to imagine the New Hampshire primary going any worse for establishment Republicans.”
Desperate to find a candidate to coalesce around in hopes of stopping the populist insurrection of Donald Trump and the conservative uprising championed by Ted Cruz, the establishment instead got the opposite: a three-way split decision between John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio that ensures an extended, nasty and expensive fight simply to emerge as the third guy in the top tier.
Snip.
What New Hampshire did was ensure that the fight to be the establishment candidate wasn’t going to be a knockout but rather decided on a decision after 12 rounds of boxing. That’s a terrible thing for a party who faces not one but two existential threats in the form of Trump and Cruz.
If Ted Cruz is an actual “existential threat” to the Republican Party, for actually being for the things the Republican Establishment merely claimed they were for all these years, then the Republican Party deserves to die…
“My guess is that Tuesday night will be the highlight of Kasich’s 2016 campaign…I think the big winner of the night is Ted Cruz.” (Hat tip: Conservatives for Ted Cruz.)
Jeb Bush claims he’s not dead yet.
It’s going to take more than Miracle Max to revive his campaign… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Indeed, “Bush plans scorched earth attack on Kasich, Rubio.” Because why go after the guy in first place when you can go after the guys who placed second and fifth? Also this from the Bush campaign: “Rubio has demonstrated no respect for the nomination process and expects this to be a coronation.” Which is pretty rich coming from Jeb…
Ace of Spades HQ does some math:
Jeb “Low Energy” Bush spent $1,150 per vote in New Hampshire only to come in fourth place. At that rate, it will cost him $74,500,000,000.00 to get sixty five million votes in the general election. Jeb and his superpac have spent $70,400,000.00 this cycle and they’ve won 3 delegates. That’s $23,466,666.66 per delegate. At that rate, he would need to spend $26,845,866,666.66 to win the 1,144 delegates necessary for the nomination.
The tea leaves suggest Chris Christie will drop out. If Rick Perry hurt his chances by running poorly in 2012, Christie hurt his by not running in 2012, where he was riding high as a Republican hero. Now? I’m glad he won’t be the GOP nominee, but he probably is about the most conservative Republican who can get elected governor in New Jersey…
Republican turnout is shattering records. Democrats? Not so much.
Five takeaways from New Hampshire:
1. Hillary is in real trouble. Will she panic? The Clinton team, hunkered down in a grubby Manchester Radisson saturated in booze and overrun by ill-kempt Morning Joe groupies, knew it was going to be a terrible, not-good night by mid-afternoon: The exit polls showed big turnout among young voters and, ominously for her, liberals who think Barack Obama isn’t liberal enough. It was a complete and humbling defeat: Sanders beat Clinton among all demographic groups – including all women, a remarkable rebuke eight years after she “found her voice” by tearing up at New Hampshire diner.
Clinton prides herself on hanging tough through adversity, and she’s got her share now. How does she react? If history is any guide, she’ll freak out at first, then grudgingly make adjustments. But what adjustments can she make when many progressives think she’s so day-before-yesterday.
On Monday, my colleague Annie Karni and I reported that the Bill and Hillary Clinton were pressuring campaign manager Robby Mook to enact strategic, “messaging” and staffing shifts that would take place if Sanders trounced the former secretary. Duh, that’s done.
Forget staff. The problem is, as I’ve written over and over again, with the candidate herself: She’s a less limber, more tone-deaf politician than she was in 2008 (after years of being kept sharp by the New York tabloids) and she has blown past staff suggestions that she simplify her message to match Sanders’ pound-one-nail anti-Wall Street mantra.
Plus: “Marco Rubio isn’t the droid you’ve been looking for.”
Hillary goes all in on race-pandering to black voters. “Clinton is set to campaign with the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.” Because there’s no possible way that might alienate independent voters…
My own analysis? Every week Kasich and Bush stay in is a bad week for Marco Rubio. It’s looking more and more like a Trump vs. Cruz race, and if Rubio can’t win at least one primary between now and March 1 (when the “SEC Primary” of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia occurs), he’s toast for this cycle…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Chris Christie, Chris Cillizza, Donald Trump, Elections, George Zimmerman Trial, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, New Hampshire, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2016
New Hampshire primary returns are still coming in, but right now the results are:
- Donald Trump
- John Kasich
- Ted Cruz
- Jeb Bush
- Marco Rubio
Trump is way out front, with Kasich a firm second, and a dogfight for third that Cruz currently leads.
Just like exactly nobody predicted two weeks ago…or even yesterday.
Could what looked like a 3-way race end up being a 5-way race?
Could Bush think his improved showing is a sign his strategy is finally working?
Does Kasich cash the cache of his second-place finish with a fresh infusion of cash?
Tried to work him in, really I did…
Can Rubio bounce back from a disappointing showing?
Do Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson drop out?
For the answers to these questions, and many others, tune in to the next episode of Soap…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, New Hampshire, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Monday, September 21st, 2015
Just more proof that, when it comes to 2016 presidential race, Nobody Knows Nothing: Scott Walker dropped out of the Presidential race tonight.
If you had asked me six months ago who would get the nomination, I’d have guessed Scott Walker had the best chance as a candidate acceptable to both movement conservatives and the GOP Establishment. I couldn’t imagine the possibility that Walker would be polling less than John Kasich. Such is the wild, woolly nature of the 2016 race, partially due to Donald Trump widely surpassing expectations of early popularity, and partially due to signs that voters on both sides are Tired Of The Same Old Bullshit.
Who benefits most from Walker dropping out? Maybe Ted Cruz. With Walker out, Cruz has a bigger claim on being the race’s true conservative candidate, one who (unlike Marco Rubio) hasn’t stumbled on the hot button illegal alien amnesty issue. It also looks like Cruz’s decision to jump in early was much sounder than Walker’s decision to jump in late.
But a crazy race just got even crazier…
Edited to Add: Well, that was quick. The Cruz campaign is already poaching some of Scott Walker’s people.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, amnesty, Border Controls, Elections, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »