The endgame of the 2016 primary campaign looms out west in California, the final big state on which the remaining presidential candidates are pinning their hopes. But to get there, they'll first have to make it through Indiana, where things aren’t looking so good for Ted Cruz. The Texas senator is pretty nearly finished if he cannot beat Donald Trump in the winner-take- all Hoosier state, whose delegates could easily set the Republican front- runner on a glide path to clinch the nomination. Cruz has been talking confidently about winning Indiana and ultimately denying Trump the delegates he needs to win a majority, triggering a contested convention. “At this point, no one is getting to 1,237. I’m not getting to 1,237 before the convention, but neither is Donald Trump,” Cruz said this weekend in California. But internally, his team is reportedly beginning to worry that its candidate is just one loss away from defeat.
According to several staffers who spoke to Politico, Cruz is nervous about the outcome of Indiana, where Trump has a significant lead. (The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, released Sunday, has Trump a whole 15 points ahead of Cruz.) One senior aide said that while the campaign hadn't discussed dropping out before the final round of primaries, which includes California, on June 7, Cruz wouldn't be likely to stay in if there was no longer any chance for him to win. “A Cruz loss in Indiana means lights out,” Scott Reed, the chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Politico. “Game, set, match.”
Recent moves made by Cruz seem to suggest he’s losing steam. Tapping Carly Fiornia to be his running mate—despite the fact that he’s nowhere close to winning the nomination—only boosted his polls slightly, and his bitter disavowal of an alliance with the equally-unlikely John Kasich quickly collapsed, dashing hopes for a combined effort to stop Trump. A big win in Indiana would change the developing media narrative that Trump has locked up the Republican race, while a loss would likely accelerate the growing number of G.O.P. elites, like Jon Huntsman, embracing the billionaire and calling on the party to unify behind him.
If it gives Cruz some comfort, at least he has a friend on the Democratic side. Bernie Sanders, who recently lost several major states to Hillary Clinton, has indicated that he won’t leave the race and also hopes to force a brokered convention—even if he doesn’t have a chance of winning enough delegates to make it past the first ballot. Last week, he began laying off hundreds of staffers, and on Sunday The Washington Post reported that his last round of fundraising only brought in $26 million in April, a massive decline from the previous month. Bernie’s occasional money bombs have been crucial to his ability to remain in the race, leveraging his army of die- hard, small-money donors to keep his insurgent campaign strong. With their support drying up, Sanders's prospects don't look so good. Perhaps he and Cruz have more in common than we thought.
#1: calcon To: All (#0)
calcon posted on 2016-05-03 15:47:53 Reply Private Reply
#2: ConservingFreedom To: calcon (#0)
No, Trump hitting 1237 - and nothing less - would be game, set, match.
ConservingFreedom posted on 2016-05-03 15:51:34 Reply Private Reply
#3: ConservingFreedom To: calcon (#0)
Nothing in the text of the article supports this claim.
ConservingFreedom posted on 2016-05-03 15:53:55 Reply Private Reply
#4: calcon To: ConservingFreedom, hondo68 (#3)
sent a bitchy letter to Vanity Fair then, I didn't write it.
hondo68 is a long time subscriber to Vanity Fair, he probably has influence
calcon posted on 2016-05-03 15:59:08 Reply Private Reply
#5: ConservingFreedom To: calcon (#4)
Try not to take things so personally ... when you post an article, by site default you get the comments on the article.
ConservingFreedom posted on 2016-05-03 16:23:29 Reply Private Reply
#6: sneakypete To: calcon (#1)
Do you REALLY think that sane people are going to still swallow that "lesser of two evils" line of Trump,and vote for a narcissistic sociopath because the OTHER narcissistic sociopath running is a female?
The ONLY way you could MAYBE get me to vote for Trump is for someone named Bush to step in and take the Dim nomination away from Hillary,and even that isn't a sure thing.
sneakypete posted on 2016-05-03 20:16:53 Reply Private Reply
#7: sneakypete To: ConservingFreedom (#3)
It's disinformation,published to sow panic in the ranks of Cruz supporters.
sneakypete posted on 2016-05-03 20:17:59 Reply Private Reply
#8: Vicomte13 To: calcon (#0)
But it's not over for Hillary. She is ahead, but Sanders keeps winning states, and Hillary is only kept ahead by her party Establishment. If they were to shift to Sanders, she would lose. Of course they won't, but the Democrats in the People at large are more and more with Sanders. What is happening with Sanders is what the Republican Party Establishment WANTED to do to Trump.
And therein lies the opportunity. Trump sees it, and he's already started to go there. You will hear more and more speeches in which Trump highlights aspects of Sanders' program that he, Trump, agrees with. He will highlight how he, like Bernie, ran without big money. He'll point out that Sanders is an Independent, not a Democrat, and how he himself had changed parties over time based on how they were governing.
Trump will start making some of Bernie Sanders' arguments for him, in parallel with him.
This way when Sanders hits Clinton, Trump will be hitting Clinton on the same thing. She'll be getting it from the Left and from the Right, and that will extend the campaign. Sanders will be in the race, raising issues, and Democrats and Independents will be agreeing with Sanders against Hillary and the Establishment. Sanders will win more races, race after race, but at the end the insider politics of the Democrat party will do to Sanders what Republican corruption failed to do to Trump: they will knock him out.
Sanders supporters, the Independent and centrist ones, will be furious at their own corrupt establishment, and they will have heard Donald Trump taking some - by no means all, but some - of Sanders key positions.
They will cross over and vote for Trump, and that will seal Hillary's fate. She is the candidate of the Establishment. You had key Establishment Republicans last night tweeting "I'm with her". Of course they are.
The American people are sick of it. The Establishment failed, on both sides of the aisle. To win the general election, Donald Trump will continue to strike the outsider chord, and he will do it in parallel with Bernie Sanders for as long as the Democrat primaries continue.
When the Democrats finally cheat Sanders out of the nomination and crush down the will of the people, a lot of those angry people will migrate directly to Trump, just as Trumpists like me warned that we would go vote for Hillary if the GOP screwed our man.
And that is the majority maker.
So, expect to see Trump and Sanders talking about some of the same things. Trump has the GOP, without a contested convention. Now he is going to call out to the frustrated Sanders voters and give them a home when the Democrat Establishment crushes them in favor of Hillary.
They - the Trump Independents and Trump Democrats, plus the Republicans (minus the Establishment Republicans who side with Hillary) will be the pathway to a resounding victory for Trump in November.
And then Trump will either do what he promised on immigration, or he will be a failed one-term President.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-04 07:14:14 Reply Private Reply
#9: A Pole To: Vicomte13 (#8)
A Pole posted on 2016-05-04 07:43:51 Reply Private Reply
#10: Vicomte13 To: A Pole (#9)
I love it.
It would win the election, you know.
If the Establishment "Goldwaters" Trump, he should make Bernie his Veep.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-04 11:13:04 Reply Private Reply
#11: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#10)
Of course you would. It's in your commie Jesuit nature.
VxH posted on 2016-05-04 11:19:30 Reply Private Reply
#12: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#11)
You just hate everything and everyone, as is your nature.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-04 14:57:23 Reply Private Reply
#13: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#12)
Just just hate certain things - such as Commie Jesuits, Comrade.
VxH posted on 2016-05-05 11:35:39 Reply Private Reply
#14: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#13)
You and the site leader share this in common. Real hate takes too much energy. Truth is you love this feeling of hate. So that's why you focus your communications on someone you "hate", because it makes you feel good. So, let your hatred flow. It does you good.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-05 13:11:16 Reply Private Reply
#15: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#14)
If that makes you Jesuit commies feel hated then Boohoo for you.
VxH posted on 2016-05-05 22:05:55 Reply Private Reply
#16: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#15)
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-05 22:58:57 Reply Private Reply
#17: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#16)
Why did Trump Mortgage FAIL Your Worshipfulness?
ht tp://www.google.com/? gws_rd=ssl#q=Trump+mortgage+%22who+knows+more+about+financing+than+me%22
VxH posted on 2016-05-08 08:06:44 Reply Private Reply
#18: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#17)
Don't know. Don't care. Probably for the same reason other mortgage companies failed.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-08 16:36:39 Reply Private Reply
#19: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#18)
"Who knows more about financing than me?"
--Donald Trump on Trump Mortgage
FAIL.
VxH posted on 2016-05-09 09:34:28 Reply Private Reply
#20: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#19)
Why don't YOU run for President VxH. You are sure you know everything.
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-09 09:39:31 Reply Private Reply
#21: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#20)
Tell us again about the great state you and the Jesuit Commies built.
That was funny.
VxH posted on 2016-05-09 09:43:20 Reply Private Reply
#22: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#21)
I've got "Jesuit Commies" on this thread.
I've got somebody spewing racist nonsense on another.
I've got somebody going on about the apocalypse on a third.
I've got the site owner talking to me as though I were Satan's sidekick.
I've got "Christians" spouting evil absurdities that would make Jesus weep.
What the hell am I doing here?
Vicomte13 posted on 2016-05-09 10:00:58 Reply Private Reply
#23: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#22)
Talking out of your pretentious {edit} Commie arse as usual, Your Worshipfulness?
VxH posted on 2016-05-09 12:02:25 Reply Private Reply