Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Trump Humbled

Maybe he should have attended that debate:

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5 comments:

Ares Olympus said...

Hurray, but couldn't the NYPost come up with a better verb than cruz-ified. But it is a HUGE symbolic win for Cruz, even if delegates are awarded in proportion.

I thought Trump's speech was gracious in his loss, at least no one was name-called for one night.

David Brooks was relieved by Iowa's wisdom and unimpressed by Trump's new humility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/opinion/donald-trump-isnt-real.html "His concession speech was an act of pathetic self-delusion."

Although Brook's comparisons to Trump's Wrestling connections is less convincing, given Minnesota elected Wrestler Jesse Ventura as Minnesota Governor in a 3-way race.

The coolest thing is that Iowa Republicans had a record turnout, 189k people, compared to their previous record in 2012 of 121.5k, and 2008 of 118.7k.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/iowa
http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/iowa-caucus-results/

So we can imagine Trump added say 30k new people came to support him, and 30k new people cam to make sure he lost. I wonder if anyone can deconstruct that in more detail?

In any analysis it's a big win for Iowa republicans to show they care about their special role as the first blood state. And Trump can take heart in that.

And we can also praise Iowa's sensibilities for rewarding Rubio with a surprise strong third. So as Brooks says, Rubio has his window of opportunity to exploit.

Delegates will be divided Cruz 8, Trump 7, Rubio 7. That is a perfect 3-way race.

On the next 3, I expect Carson will fade because he is too low in energy as Trump says, and only Jeb or Rand with their 1 delegate have a tiny chance at inspiring another state or two, if Rubio fails in his duty to stop Cruz. But its Rubio's race to lose, not theirs to win.

The horserace has finally begun!

A-Bax said...

Winning is better than not-winning, for sure, but I was pleasantly surprised to read that Trump was relatively gracious in defeat. (Or perhaps "placing", like in horse-racing, is the better term). Mixed result for Trump, I'd say. On the one hand its remarkable that a secular blowhard from Manahattan would do so-well in bible-thumping corn-country, but on the other he was crushing it in the polls, and many of his supporters (myself included) thought he'd win.

But, hey, IA is not the best predictor of the nominee, as Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum can attest. If Trump doesn't win NH, I'll begin to worry. But, even then...

Contra our host, I doubt skipping the debate had much impact. The "body of Christ" voters weren't going to support a guy who doesn't know the collection tray from the communion tray.

In the end, it's a great result. We said adios to the premier Cuckstablishment candidate, ¡Jeb!. That douche is toast. The cucks will now rally around the dim-witted Schumer-stooge Rubio, and give up on everyone else. Hopefully Rubio will be denied the nomination as well (if not, this guy's staying home in February.)

Either Cruz or Trump would be okay. I'd prefer Trump, but Cruz will do. Moutie Ted does have some cajones (see: shutdown), and is not totally a tool of the cucks, from what I can tell. Plus, he's wicked book-smaaht, if nawt street-smaaht.

If it's Cruz, I'll show up dutifully and vote and hope that he wins. If it's Trump, I'll enthusiastically talk him up to whoever will listen and watch election results like it's the final four. If it's anyone else, I'll sit it out. (If ¡Jeb! somehow arises from the ashes like a phoenix, I will vote the DEM ticket.)

A-Bax said...

staying home in "November" not Feb. Oy, need to lay of the medical marijua....

Stuart Schneiderman said...

The Donald disagrees: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/02/politics/donald-trump-iowa-new-hampshire/

To be fair, I only suggested that we could not know the outcome until we saw the outcome. I did oppose those like Scott Adams who thought that Trump's strategy was a win before he saw the outcome.Thus Scott has been eating crow....

Ares Olympus said...

So much for graciousness. Apparently lying about other candidates to gain votes is no longer simple strategy, but actually fraud. Trump says so!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-cruz-idUSMTZSAPEC23ZBL9YS
"Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified," Trump wrote.

So we now have a definition of Cruz-ified.