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538 Podcast: Is Trump Blowing It?

cpwill

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...Our elections podcast team takes stock of the recent Republican state conventions where Donald Trump failed to organize his supporters and secure delegates. Plus, in the first installment of Harry’s History, a lesson in strategic voting from New York’s 1992 Democratic primary...

A good breakdown of the Cruz v Trump campaign in terms of competence, and what that means.

Interesting points - Cruz is getting lots of props for superior organization, 538 points out, no, Cruz's campaign is a standard, professional campaign with a 50-state strategy. What is one major additional thing Trump suffering from? Lack of willingness to spend money.
 
I think Trump has made enough mistakes where a contested convention is more likely now. In that context then yes, he is blowing this campaign as he is putting himself in a position to have close to enough delegates but not obtain the nod. At some point the collision between Trump's support and establishment controls is going to happen. If it has to play out at the convention itself so be it, but I doubt Trump can win in that condition.

The podcast hints at many things, but for this conversation it might be more wise of us to discuss what is really happening within the GOP. Because the party has lost control (assuming they ever really had it) over all the factions within the party it is very likely that no matter what happens at the convention there will be various groups who continue to be alienated from establishment. I am on the fence on social conservatives being discarded for north eastern establishment type conservatives, but someone is going to be left out.

If Trump really does intend to walk away as the nominee of the Republican Party or fall back to an Independent run it seals the deal on the GOP losing control here. The convention then really only decides where voters end up going as I do not see Trump completely walking away from a GOP nomination loss.
 
A good breakdown of the Cruz v Trump campaign in terms of competence, and what that means.

Interesting points - Cruz is getting lots of props for superior organization, 538 points out, no, Cruz's campaign is a standard, professional campaign with a 50-state strategy. What is one major additional thing Trump suffering from? Lack of willingness to spend money.

I think this from 538 kinda makes the point clear that Trump is blowing it: Trump Made A Mistake By Overlooking Colorado | FiveThirtyEight

Colorado elects 34 potentially pledged delegates through seven district conventions and a statewide convention. (The state GOP decided not to hold a primary or caucus with a presidential preference vote this year.) But instead of putting together a top-notch convention team, Trump’s campaign was a mess: In one case, Trump delegates weren’t even on the ballot to be voted on by a district convention; in two others, Trump’s campaign didn’t provide his potential supporters with a list of pro-Trump delegates, so they didn’t know who to vote for.

The end result: Trump won zero delegates from Colorado; Ted Cruz won 34.

When you have a narrow, tenuous path to 1237, you cannot make mistakes like that.
 
A good breakdown of the Cruz v Trump campaign in terms of competence, and what that means.

Interesting points - Cruz is getting lots of props for superior organization, 538 points out, no, Cruz's campaign is a standard, professional campaign with a 50-state strategy. What is one major additional thing Trump suffering from? Lack of willingness to spend money.
At 44 mins, TL;DR (at least for me, this morning).

But I would like to comment in general: Mr. Trump is not "blowing it" - he likely *has* blown it!

He's not going to get 1237, and I doubt the GOP will give the nomination to him.

Hiring Paul Manafort , which is an otherwise excellent idea, is a classic example of 'too little, too late'.

In terms of his campaign, specifically the ground-game and post-caucus delegate gathering, Mr. Trump has been thoroughly inadequate! In essence, he's been unprepared & disorganized.

I suspect this is partly due to a combination of his narcissism and political naivete, combined with my belief that he initially never intended to do a serious run at the Presidency, but instead got caught-up in it as a groundswell of support erupted for him seemingly out-of-thin-air.

But his mantra of "I'll hire the best and brightest" has been found to be false bravado. Before he can 'make America great', perhaps he should make his campaign 'great', or at the very least 'adequate enough to prevail' in his bid to secure the White House.
 
I think Trump has made enough mistakes where a contested convention is more likely now. In that context then yes, he is blowing this campaign as he is putting himself in a position to have close to enough delegates but not obtain the nod. At some point the collision between Trump's support and establishment controls is going to happen. If it has to play out at the convention itself so be it, but I doubt Trump can win in that condition.
My sentiments, exactly!

The podcast hints at many things, but for this conversation it might be more wise of us to discuss what is really happening within the GOP. Because the party has lost control (assuming they ever really had it) over all the factions within the party it is very likely that no matter what happens at the convention there will be various groups who continue to be alienated from establishment. I am on the fence on social conservatives being discarded for north eastern establishment type conservatives, but someone is going to be left out.

If Trump really does intend to walk away as the nominee of the Republican Party or fall back to an Independent run it seals the deal on the GOP losing control here. The convention then really only decides where voters end up going as I do not see Trump completely walking away from a GOP nomination loss.
To the bolded:

Those moderate old-school Northeast Republicans best represent Conservative values to the electorate as a whole, in terms of national electoral success. The GOP will have to decide as to whether to tact for electability, or presenting more hardcore conservatism that is less acceptable to the general electorate a'la Goldwater v Johnson.

It comes down to 'winning' v 'influencing', and right now with the opportunity to gain two of the three branches of government immediately, and then soon after heavily affecting the third, I sure know where my thrust would be if it was my party to steer!
 
I'm not sure what is so shocking about it.


In fact the OP doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Trump is the leader, he has the other guys worried as hell.

His opponents are playing a feint hope game in the final stages to try to deny him the nomination.

The question should be what mistakes caused this scenario and/or, what does Trump have to avoid to get what he wants.

Nobody but his most inside people give a **** about his mistakes, he's winning
 
My sentiments, exactly!

To the bolded:

Those moderate old-school Northeast Republicans best represent Conservative values to the electorate as a whole, in terms of national electoral success. The GOP will have to decide as to whether to tact for electability, or presenting more hardcore conservatism that is less acceptable to the general electorate a'la Goldwater v Johnson.

It comes down to 'winning' v 'influencing', and right now with the opportunity to gain two of the three branches of government immediately, and then soon after heavily affecting the third, I sure know where my thrust would be if it was my party to steer!

Goldwater was a social liberal and fiscal conservative and now the GOP should become less like Goldwater by adopting his positions...
 
In fact the OP doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Trump is the leader, he has the other guys worried as hell.

His opponents are playing a feint hope game in the final stages to try to deny him the nomination.

The question should be what mistakes caused this scenario and/or, what does Trump have to avoid to get what he wants.

Nobody but his most inside people give a **** about his mistakes, he's winning

Hes not winning because hes not on track to get 1237 delegates on the first ballot, and its clear he has no chance if he doesnt win on the first ballot. Trump hasnt got a majority in any state yet, that shoul tell you how much hes not winning. The GOP defeated itself by letting to many candidates run for way too long.
 
At 44 mins, TL;DR (at least for me, this morning).

But I would like to comment in general: Mr. Trump is not "blowing it" - he likely *has* blown it!

He's not going to get 1237, and I doubt the GOP will give the nomination to him.

Hiring Paul Manafort , which is an otherwise excellent idea, is a classic example of 'too little, too late'.

In terms of his campaign, specifically the ground-game and post-caucus delegate gathering, Mr. Trump has been thoroughly inadequate! In essence, he's been unprepared & disorganized.

I suspect this is partly due to a combination of his narcissism and political naivete, combined with my belief that he initially never intended to do a serious run at the Presidency, but instead got caught-up in it as a groundswell of support erupted for him seemingly out-of-thin-air.

But his mantra of "I'll hire the best and brightest" has been found to be false bravado. Before he can 'make America great', perhaps he should make his campaign 'great', or at the very least 'adequate enough to prevail' in his bid to secure the White House.
The funny part, if you are a Dem, is that Trump will scream that he was Robbed and his fan club will agree and with that the Dems are assured of a win in Nov. I personally would have hoped that the Repubs would have learned a few lessons over the last couple of years and fielded a set of high quality candidates to oppose the Hillary and Bernie show, but once again I was disappointed and stuck with an even worse than the lesser of two evils choice, will simply skip over the Presidential vote this time around and stick to voting on what my vote actually counts for.
 
Hes not winning because hes not on track to get 1237 delegates on the first ballot, and its clear he has no chance if he doesnt win on the first ballot. Trump hasnt got a majority in any state yet, that shoul tell you how much hes not winning. The GOP defeated itself by letting to many candidates run for way too long.



WoW! I never knew that!

You're a genius!

It's been front page for over a ****ing week.
 
Hes not winning because hes not on track to get 1237 delegates on the first ballot, and its clear he has no chance if he doesnt win on the first ballot. Trump hasnt got a majority in any state yet, that shoul tell you how much hes not winning. The GOP defeated itself by letting to many candidates run for way too long.

Actually, if you take a look at the 538 projections he'll be back on track for 1,237 if he takes NY with 50% and the majority of the districts (which it's looking more and more like he'll do). Further, Lyin Ted has taken 50% in two states. His home state and one other. NY is Trump's home state and it's polling like he'll take 50% there and some of the states upcoming on the calendar.
 
WoW! I never knew that!

You're a genius!

It's been front page for over a ****ing week.

Then why would you make the ignorant claim that Trump is winning? I think you meant to say he is in the lead, which is to say nothing at all.
 
Actually, if you take a look at the 538 projections he'll be back on track for 1,237 if he takes NY with 50% and the majority of the districts (which it's looking more and more like he'll do). Further, Lyin Ted has taken 50% in two states. His home state and one other. NY is Trump's home state and it's polling like he'll take 50% there and some of the states upcoming on the calendar.

Trump is 70 short of being on his target and his target in NY is 58 of 95 delegates even if Trump sweeps all 95 he will still be 33 short of his target
 
The funny part, if you are a Dem, is that Trump will scream that he was Robbed and his fan club will agree and with that the Dems are assured of a win in Nov. I personally would have hoped that the Repubs would have learned a few lessons over the last couple of years and fielded a set of high quality candidates to oppose the Hillary and Bernie show, but once again I was disappointed and stuck with an even worse than the lesser of two evils choice, will simply skip over the Presidential vote this time around and stick to voting on what my vote actually counts for.

What? the GOP fielded pretty much every high quality candidate they had and that turned out to be a horrible idea as no one could stand out
 
Trump is 70 short of being on his target and his target in NY is 58 of 95 delegates even if Trump sweeps all 95 he will still be 33 short of his target

Yup, and he'll be within a percentage point of reaching his target with a number of delegate rich Trump states to go.
 
What? the GOP fielded pretty much every high quality candidate they had and that turned out to be a horrible idea as no one could stand out

Actually they did not I can think of two that did not run that would be able to win the General with no problem and Trump is not even a Republican, maybe they will learn next time around, or maybe not.
 
Actually they did not I can think of two that did not run that would be able to win the General with no problem and Trump is not even a Republican, maybe they will learn next time around, or maybe not.

Who? the biggest names that didnt run are too inexperienced an to old and have already missed their chance.
 
Who? the biggest names that didnt run are too inexperienced an to old and have already missed their chance.

Well for one Romney, he has the experience and has gone up against Hillary and while people did not want to support him over Obama I doubt the same can be said for Hillary. Another would be the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, he is well spoken and probably one of the better true Leaders in Washington hence why the job was offered to him and some want him to replace the GOP candidates through the Brokered Convention, he said No. I am sure there are more out there, but instead we got a Democrat (Trump) and one of the most hated Repubs in Washington and I mean within his own Party (Cruz), not good. Yeup the GOP has ensured they did everything they could to ensure Hillary Clinton becomes the next President of the United States of America and Bubba will be the first First Man (notice I did not say Gentleman). God Help Us All.
 
Well for one Romney, he has the experience and has gone up against Hillary and while people did not want to support him over Obama I doubt the same can be said for Hillary. Another would be the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, he is well spoken and probably one of the better true Leaders in Washington hence why the job was offered to him and some want him to replace the GOP candidates through the Brokered Convention, he said No. I am sure there are more out there, but instead we got a Democrat (Trump) and one of the most hated Repubs in Washington and I mean within his own Party (Cruz), not good. Yeup the GOP has ensured they did everything they could to ensure Hillary Clinton becomes the next President of the United States of America and Bubba will be the first First Man (notice I did not say Gentleman). God Help Us All.

Ryan doesnt have the experience. Yes he ran as a VP but other than that hes just been in the house. Very few GOP nominees have only just been a house member before becoming the nominee. As far as Romney I dont know if he could win Romney fatigue could be a real issue Romney vs Hillary would be billed as a match up of left overs.
 
I'm not sure what is so shocking about it.

Well, for one thing it still hasn't figured out how to lock down delegates.
 
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