Why is Trump Not Fighting the Delegate Battle so Far? (1 Viewer)

[Hawkeye10]

RUSH:

Now, the Trump people who are not engaging in this are calling it cheating. They're calling it, it's being rigged. They're describing it as the democrat process being bastardized. The truth of the matter is that Donald Trump has missed crucial deadlines in a number of states to lock up delegates who would stay loyal to him beyond the first ballot. The candidates are totally free and able and allowed to go into each state at each state's party convention and have a role in determining who those delegates are. Depending on how good the candidate's organization is, he could end up with 70% of the state delegation being in his favor.

Trump's not even playing the game. Trump has missed crucial deadlines in a number of states to lock up delegates who would stay loyal beyond the first ballot. Most of the actual delegates are elected at state and congressional district conventions run by party insiders, members of the party establishment that Trump has run against. The same thing would be happening if a third party was running. The third party wouldn't have any role whatsoever in a Republican Party convention. One of the reasons a third-party candidate doesn't have a prayer, because the third-party candidate can never get into one of these conventions and lock up delegates. Well, he can, but the party's gonna shut him out.

But Trump hasn't even gone into many of these states. He doesn't have an organization working these conventions, trying to influence who is chosen as delegates in state to state. And if a candidate doesn't go in there, then the powers that be will be, if any other candidates are there trying to make it happen, plus the party insiders. Trump's team has had very little contact with these loyal party activists. But Ted Cruz has spent -- it's incalculable the amount of time that Cruz has been spending actively courting delegates for months.
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So all these promises that candidates are being given now, these pledges, "Okay, I'm voting you, Ted, on the second ballot," who knows? People can get to 'em during the convention, wine and dine 'em. Any number of things can happen, and it may well be that that's Trump's strategy is to deal with this later rather than going to all these different states, 'cause he doesn't have an infrastructure set up to do it anyway.

Explaining the Rules to Trumpists and the Narratives to Cruzers - The Rush Limbaugh Show

Romney I see is claiming that this proves that Trump is incompetent but I kinda think Trump made the call that fighting for delegates in the establishments arena is a lost cause, that his best chance is to make deals with the actual delegates in Cleveland, that he thinks he has a better argument, that he has master stoke already planned. I have also seen a lot in the Corporate Class Propaganda Machine that Trump wants to lose in Cleveland, back to that argument we have heard from the start that he does not want to be POTUS, that he wants to be a protest candidate, less work for the ego boost he is supposed to be after.


IDK, I am just guessing to this point, but I want to figure this out.

Looking for opinions on the matter as well as argument/evidence to support it.

Thanks.

 

[notquiteright]

Romney I see is claiming that this proves that Trump is incompetent but I kinda think Trump made the call that fighting for delegates in the establishments arena is a lost cause, that his best chance is to make deals with the actual delegates in Cleveland, that he thinks he has a better argument, that he has master stoke already planned. I have also seen a lot in the Corporate Class Propaganda Machine that Trump wants to lose in Cleveland, back to that argument we have heard from the start that he does not want to be POTUS, that he wants to be a protest candidate, less work for the ego boost he is supposed to be after.

I believe Trump at first figured he'd have the nomination in his back pocket by now. He simply had no long term strategy for a drawn out fight or a contested convention. His lack of any sort of 'operators' until the odds of a contested convention became higher than his chances of winning outright which indicates he didn't feel the need to 'play the game'. His taking on 'operators', shunting his original amateur team to the side, shows that at this late stage he realizes how badly he miscalculated his campaign.

I don't see him having a better chance at the Convention if the delegates were hand picked by 'the establishment' or Cruz's team. No Master Stroke will win the day.

It appears the Donald, business man extraordinaire, didn't work on contingency plans. Difficult to believe he ran his Empire so simplistically but then again if he missed out on one business deal there would always be another- not so much when running for President... eace

 

[reinoe]

I believe Trump at first figured he'd have the nomination in his back pocket by now. He simply had no long term strategy for a drawn out fight or a contested convention. His lack of any sort of 'operators' until the odds of a contested convention became higher than his chances of winning outright which indicates he didn't feel the need to 'play the game'. His taking on 'operators', shunting his original amateur team to the side, shows that at this late stage he realizes how badly he miscalculated his campaign.

I don't see him having a better chance at the Convention if the delegates were hand picked by 'the establishment' or Cruz's team. No Master Stroke will win the day.

It appears the Donald, business man extraordinaire, didn't work on contingency plans. Difficult to believe he ran his Empire so simplistically but then again if he missed out on one business deal there would always be another- not so much when running for President... eace

I find it more likely that he never expected to do this well and so he never invested. After all, I didn't come around to taking Trump seriously until after he won New Hampshire by curbstomping everyone else.

 

[Hawkeye10]

I believe Trump at first figured he'd have the nomination in his back pocket by now. He simply had no long term strategy for a drawn out fight or a contested convention. His lack of any sort of 'operators' until the odds of a contested convention became higher than his chances of winning outright which indicates he didn't feel the need to 'play the game'. His taking on 'operators', shunting his original amateur team to the side, shows that at this late stage he realizes how badly he miscalculated his campaign.

I don't see him having a better chance at the Convention if the delegates were hand picked by 'the establishment' or Cruz's team. No Master Stroke will win the day.

It appears the Donald, business man extraordinaire, didn't work on contingency plans. Difficult to believe he ran his Empire so simplistically but then again if he missed out on one business deal there would always be another- not so much when running for President... eace

Well, there was a 2 week period where he was saying that he would get 50% +1. However we all know we cant always take the guy literally. He has also recently been saying that this business is a very dirty game, that he had not understood this when he started. Amazing as this is I think maybe Trump has been undone by his unjustified optimism in the political system, in the people who run it. That would be ironic considering that he is running on a platform that politicians suck. To this Romney says (paraphrase) " you snooze you lose, this be the game!"*partial sarcasm*

 

[Hawkeye10]

I find it more likely that he never expected to do this well and so he never invested. After all, I didn't come around to taking Trump seriously until after he won New Hampshire by curbstomping everyone else.

The problem with that theory is that even after the voting started and he knew that 5 months of polls had been correct and that the Trump Army would not bale at the last minute he still made almost no effort to upgrade to a professional politician quality of organization. He says "I figured what I was doing was working, so dont change anything" but that seems like a dodge to me, he has to know that as the work and challenges grow he needs to have the right sized organization to deal with it corectly. He had to. So the $10 million question is why did he not do it?

One theory that is out there is that he thought that he could run an anti politician organization, that for him this is not just branding but a revolution in how we play the game, and that he was going to drive a rules of the game change, but damn that is some massive arrogance right there..I dont believe it.

 

[notquiteright]

I find it more likely that he never expected to do this well and so he never invested. After all, I didn't come around to taking Trump seriously until after he won New Hampshire by curbstomping everyone else.

I'd say nobody BUT Trump thought he'd do this well. Trump wasn't pretending. He can smell blood in the water, a great unrest in the PUB ranks that Cruz, Rubio and Carson would never be able to tap as well as a seasoned performer. Reagan learned from an earlier loss and so did Trump. Give the people what they want- it doesn't have to make sense, just tap EMOTION. Jingo over boring nuance. Notice there were no details, just boasting, pandering to fear, hate, and envy- a pox on the ones who did this to them (did anyone really do anything to them?)

Trump put his fortunes on a carefully crafted blitz, an overwhelming attack, massive force on a narrow front- Trump as both battering ram and Pied Piper, but like all high stakes gambles he was a bit too optimistic. His hope was all the opponents would all shatter before him. He crushed Jeb, Graham, Rubio, Christie, Paul, Huckabee... but he couldn't pincer and crush them all. His own strength- a small hard hitting team- couldn't sustain the victories and the survivors rallied to dig in and stop the avalanche. No one opponent can beat him, but the survivors working together could deny him even as he could see the prize ever so close but no longer having the strength for that final push.

His calculation that the establishment he blasted would sit idly by and not stop his hijack of the GOP while he ravaged the candidate pack was flawed. He thought the establishment was gutted after the TP revolt, Boehner being tossed aside. But I believe the establishment wasn't as wed to the hard right ideology that drives the Trump supporters and sees that platform as wrecking the GOP, and possibly the nation.

No Trump was in it to win it, his opponents made several huge miscalculations- biggest being he was just setting up a new reality show. trump named his last boy child Barron- he doesn't lack in ambition or sense of self importance... eace

 

[notquiteright]

Well, there was a 2 week period where he was saying that he would get 50% +1. However we all know we cant always take the guy literally. He has also recently been saying that this business is a very dirty game, that he had not understood this when he started. Amazing as this is I think maybe Trump has been undone by his unjustified optimism in the political system, in the people who run it. That would be ironic considering that he is running on a platform that politicians suck. To this Romney says (paraphrase) " you snooze you lose, this be the game!"*partial sarcasm*

Trump didn't have optimism in the system, he had unjustified optimism in his ability to drive a revolution and make the establishment moot.

 

[Hawkeye10]

The stampede is deafening, pretty much nobody thinks that the RNC has standing to nullify the will of the people....who ever has the most delegates going in wins. New Republic is just the latest to sign on.