So did Ted Cruz actually win Louisiana?
Cruz outmaneuvers Trump.
We all know that Donald Trump won the Louisiana primary.
As to delegates it was a tie. Right?
Maybe not.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Cruz may walk away with as many as 10 more delegates than Trump:
Donald Trump beat Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this month in Louisiana’s Republican presidential primary by 3.6 percentage points, but the Texan may wind up with as many as 10 more delegates from the state than the businessman.
Mr. Cruz’s supporters also seized five of Louisiana’s six slots on the three powerful committees that will write the rules and platform at the Republican National Convention and mediate disputes over delegates’ eligibility this summer in Cleveland.
The little-noticed inside maneuvering that led to this outcome in Louisiana is another dramatic illustration of the inside game that could have an outsize influence on the bitter race for the GOP nomination. A similar process played out three weeks ago in Coweta County, Ga.
While Mr. Trump leads in winning primary and caucus elections, and has won more delegates, the Cruz campaign is proving superior at the arcane game of picking the people who will be the actual delegates to the convention, where they will help write the rules and ultimately choose the nominee.
The impact is beyond mere delegate account, WSJ notes:
That means that if Mr. Trump fails to reach the delegate threshold to claim the GOP nomination on the convention’s first ballot, committees dominated by Cruz supporters could work to block him from winning enough delegates to claim the nomination on any subsequent ballots.
Trump is not exactly sitting still. He’s working to shore up delegates to stick with him even after the first ballot, and to convince unbound delegates to vote for him, as NBC News reports, Revealed: Donald Trump’s Big Plan to Stop a Contested Republican Convention:
While Trump publicly dismisses talk of a battle in Cleveland, he is quietly assembling a team of seasoned operatives to manage a contested convention. Their strategy, NBC has learned, is to convert delegates in the crucial 40 days between the end of the primaries and the convention – while girding for a floor fight in Cleveland if necessary.
The outreach is already underway.
“We are talking to tons of delegates,” says Barry Bennett, a former Ben Carson campaign manager now leading the delegate strategy for Trump….
Bennett says the campaign has planned two distinct phases for winning in an open convention.
First, there is a window to lock down delegate commitments between the last primary on June 7 and the convention start on July 18.
“You’ve got 40 days between the last primary and the convention,” Bennett says, “to go woo the appropriate number of unbound delegates.” It’s a long time if the gap is small.
“You still have a chance to put together 50 or 75 delegates to win on the first ballot,” Bennett says, “that’s Phase One.”
The campaign could obtain signed, public commitments from those delegates in June — signaling to the rest of the party that Trump will be the nominee. Sources in the Trump campaign say this approach thwarts a key premise of the “Stop Trump” effort, which assumes a long floor fight if Trump finishes the primaries without a delegate majority.
The campaign believes, however, that it could line up those personal commitments from the remaining delegates. Then it would march into Cleveland with an orderly victory on the first ballot.
SomeTHING tells me this is going to get interesting.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
But I thought Trump was this super-competent businessman who hires the best people?
Yet he can’t close the deal on delegates in a state he won? God, but you people are stupid suckers.
if Republican ignoring of the Tea party gave us Trump, then what will ignoring Trump give to the country?
Governments that are opposed by the will of the people do not last long.
Oh, and Cruz will not be the nominee. His new friends Mitt Romney and company dislike him as much as Trump.
The screeching of a minority of Trumpaloos does not represent “the will of the people”
It’s interesting that the Trump fans are so insulated that they really believe they speak for the majority . . . all while doing everything they can to anger and alienate people who are right-leaning.
Trump has proven to be just as divisive, just as damaging as Obama . . . and not in general terms but within their own spheres. Obama can get away with it because his side is so fearful of being labeled RAAACIST. Trump can’t.
No one outside his rabid embarrassing base will jump to Trump’s defense; the media, the GOP, people like me who loathe the GOPe but see Trump for what he is, the Bernie commies, the Hillary shills, the Obots, the evangelicals, the list goes on and on. Trump has carved out one base for himself, and he–and his rabid, nasty fans–have ensured that no one else will ever join them.
Even if he wins, he loses. I kind of like that.
Trump 739
Cruz 465
How is this for screeching? Whopping Cruz!
I really do not see Trump winning the general
he has to high of negatives.
he may well be a plant by the Dems
destroy everyone ala Romney
and then lose in the general because
everyone stays home.
and alot of Trump supporters sound just like Obama supporters.
really scary …
Trump hasn’t managed a majority of the GOP vote in a single primary so far, and is widely disliked by independents. Trump likely will not win a majority of delegates, which means he will not be the nominee.
Perhaps Trump and his brain-dead minions should have considered that possibility before they spent the last 9 months alienating every other Republican candidate and their supporters.
“Take care how you treat the people you meet on the way up, because you will meet them again on the way down.”
Spot-on, Estragon. Trump and his supporters underestimate the rancor their tactics have caused, and along with that underestimation is the truth that no one who is not now on the “Trump train” never will be. Ever. Trump will be, should he win the presidency, a lame duck from his first day in office.
But much like Obama and his Obots, they don’t see two feet in front of them . . . let alone a year down the road.
I down voted you because of the insult slinging of thousands of people you cannot possibly know. Without Trump, this election would have been Jeb’s, with Rubio as VP or some other choice that would not fly with the people who are now coming out to vote. Do you not realize what Trump has done for Cruz? Cruz stood a snowball’s chance in hell without Trump as a force. He would absolutely never have been in a position to legally manipulate the rules. He would have been out with Rand Paul. Trump being ugly with Cruz’s wife should bring you joy. Peeling off voters is what he needs. How can you not be grateful to Trump? Can you deny the uptick in voters that Trump has brought? I believe that Trump or Cruz are interchangeable for voters who are coming out of hiding.
And people claim Cruz is not GOPe.
He sure can manipulate the rules like one.
Last candidate pulling this stuff was Ron Paul.
Very GOPe, he.
Wait, so the GOPe are the only ones who use rules to their own advantage? Someone needs to do their homework on Donald J. Trump. Fast.
Cruz was Establishment his entire career until he decided to run for Senate as an outsider. Clerk for Rehnquist, two jobs with Bush Campaign, two more with Administration, appointments as Texas SG & a coveted part-time faculty spot at Texas Law – and married to a $1 million+-per year Goldman Sachs exec, it’s an establishment resume, all right.
But Cruz merely followed the rules, he didn’t “manipulate” them, and it certainly isn’t his fault Trump is too stupid and incompetent to pay attention to details. Guess Trump didn’t get “all the best people,” eh? He has no one to blame but himself. Some “super-duper businessman,” eh? Except he isn’t, and never was. Don’t be a sucker.
As I said before. The GOPe will do anything to deny Trump the nomination, no matter how slimy.
Just wait till Cruz can no longer get to 1237 then run on the Reform Party.
How can Trump clean out the government if he can’t even solidify his own “won” delegates.
You have got to know the rules to play the game….
If you think it’s supposed to be a friggin’ game.
But they do. And they still cannot figure out why the little people are so enraged.
But, stupid, it IS a game.
Just like the law. It HAS rules. You learn the rules, and you wins the game.
Lawyers know that procedures often matter more than substance.
I do have to wonder what the comments would look like if it was Trump who played the system to get the extra delegates…
The summary here does not explain how Cruz got the extra delegates, but the story explains that Marco Rubio’s 5 delegates that he is entitled to probably will support Cruz, and there are five unbound delegates, although it doesn’t explain how they were selected.
I thought there were 3 uncommitted delegates per state (selected on the basis of a party position they held * – really Republican superdelegates) except that they had to vote for the statewide winner on the first ballot, which was Trump in Louisiana.
Is anybody publishing anything about with all the details as to how delegates are actualy selected?
The WSJ article also says Cruz delegates are getting on the Rules and the Platform and a third committee.
* State Chairman and the make and female national committte members.
You have a FAN.
Carlos Danger must be laughing at Teddy Bear.
You know there are some people claiming that one of the people is a “shemale”. Carlos Danger in a wig … hmmm…probably not.
How does it feel to be fully outed as lying POS T-rump sucking cultist, after all those months of pretending otherwise?
Most of life is following a seemingly boring set of processes to some desired end, whether it be constructing a simple shaker table or taking a landmark case to the Supreme Court. Trump has largely ignored the painstaking process of obtaining actual living breathing delegates in each state as opposed to the schmoozing for hours with TV hosts in order to gain a plurality in preference elections.
Cruz is so well organized I was astounded that he has two coordinators in my small, rural and overwhelmingly Democrat precinct.
This extends into SOUTH CAROLINA:
Working against Trump is the fact that South Carolina’s potential delegates may only be drawn from the 925 party insiders who attended the state’s GOP convention in 2015. It’s a pool of party veterans who helped reelect the state’s GOP chairman Matt Moore — who has been vocally critical of Trump — with 83 percent support last year.
Some of the insiders who staffed that reelection fight are now working to help Kasich recruit delegates, even though the Ohio governor was trounced in the South Carolina primary, winning just 7 percent of the vote and finishing fifth among six candidates.
But it’s Cruz who enjoys support from much of the conservative activist class and seems best positioned to reap the support of double-agent delegates. Many prospective delegates contacted by POLITICO voiced support for Cruz and indicated they’d strongly consider voting for him on a second ballot.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/south-carolina-delegates-convention-221253
Any wonder why the smear from the Trump-endorsed National Enquirer?
BTW, Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker is reporting that unless Trump totally disavows the National Enquirer story, Trump will be losing his Michael Savage endorsement.
Michael Savage has it on good authority that the allegations against Cruz are 100% false.