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Trump’s Big Colorado Lie

Trump’s Big Colorado Lie

False allegation Cruz won by “stealing” delegates in “voterless” convention

https://youtu.be/IrpIvo7mEF0

Donald J. Trump got crushed at the Colorado Republican state convention, where Ted Cruz swept the national delegate selection.

This sweep happened not because the convention was rigged, but because Trump did a horrible job of working the caucus process that led to the convention. Trump all but ignored the electoral process leading up to the convention, and didn’t even bother to go make a pitch himself at the convention, unlike Cruz who gave a speech on stage as Trump surrogates were furiously working to convince delegates to vote for Trump.

Throughout the process, there was no discernible complaint by Trump and his supporters so long as they thought they had a shot at winning, or at least eating into Cruz’s likely win.

Only after it was over, and Colorado together with Wisconsin created momentum for Cruz, did Trump and his supporters start alleging fraud and deceit. This was a classic “change the narrative” Trump ploy, much as he would roll out high-profile endorsements that morning after a debate.

Had Trump done better, there would not have been a peep. This controversy is not about principle, fairness or anything other than Trump losing and fearing his chance to win on a first ballot is slipping away.

If the process was rigged or unfair, the time to complain about the rules was before the process started, not after the game was over and you lost. I accept that a caucus and convention system may not be the most representative, but it’s also not representative to have winner-take-all states where Trump successfully has garnered more delegates than his vote percentage; or even modified proportional states where there is a statewide and district level competition that may garner a candidate a higher percentage of delegates that vote.

Guess who has benefited from this patchwork of state-level selection processes? Donald Trump, who has 45% of the delegates selected so far but only 37% of the vote. If anyone is “stealing” the nomination by following the rules, it is Donald J. Trump.

Instead of accepting that Cruz legitimately won Colorado, Trump tweeted out that the election was fraudulent and voters disenfranchised. That false claim was amplified by pro-Trump media and social media, including one pro-Trump Coloradan who falsely claimed in a viral video that he was improperly shut out of the convention.

Some Trump supporters are now doxxing the Chair of the Colorado Republican Party, publishing his home address and phone number in the spirit of Roger Stone’s threat to hand out the hotel room numbers of delegates to the national convention who “steal” the election from Trump.

That fish rots from the head. Trump personally is the head.

Last week I argued, after Trump’s post-Wisconsin psychotic tirade, It Matters that Trump is a Sore Loser:

Trump attacked Heidi in a fit of anger. Just like he accused Ted of criminal conduct in a fit of anger last night.

I’ve said it before — “Can you imagine Trump in control of the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.” 

Unfortunately, I can.

And I don’t want to wake up every morning wondering if our President is mad at us. Eight years of that is enough.

It still matters that Trump is a sore loser; an angry, petty, misleading sore loser at that.

None other than Rush Limbaugh, who has been accused of being too soft on Trump, debunked the theft claim, Ted Cruz Isn’t Cheating, He’s Winning:

RUSH: Now, there’s something else about these delegate fights that have taken place over the weekend where Cruz has just skunked Trump. It isn’t even a contest. It is fascinating to watch. And, of course, the Trump people think that games are being played and that tricks are being pulled. But that’s not happening. This is just somebody who understands the system using it….

Now, what happened in Colorado is, I’m sorry to say, it’s not a trick. What happened in Colorado is right out in the open. Everybody’s known how Colorado runs its affairs. Everybody has known. Nobody just chose to look at it. It’s no secret that Colorado was gonna have a convention and they’re gonna choose their delegates before the primary. It’s not a secret. It’s just nobody leaked it. Nobody talked about it. Nobody bragged about it. So it was left to be discovered by people who didn’t know. And it turns out that people on the Trump campaign didn’t know….

So I don’t see Ted Cruz lying and cheating his way to the convention. I see a lot of hard work. I see some people who know what they have to do, given where they are. They’re in second place in both the vote count and the delegate count. They’re serious about winning. The Cruz team is serious about winning. They have made themselves fully aware of how the process works, and they’ve been out working it for quite a while.

Here’s another explanation of what actually happened, Setting the Record Straight about Colorado’s Republican Caucus:

“All Colorado Republicans [registered more than a month] could vote in precinct caucuses, which chose delegates to congressional and state conventions, who voted for national delegates.” That’s my (unabbreviated) Tweet summarizing the way that Colorado Republicans chose delegates to the national Republican Convention. I should know; as a Colorado Republican I participated in the caucuses.

But apparently, for some Trump supporters, my experience participating in the caucus process is no match for a Drudge headline claiming it never happened. As of the evening of April 10, Drudge claimed on its main page, “Fury as Colorado has no primary or caucus; Cruz celebrates voterless victory.” ….

Many Trump supporters seem shocked to learn that American government is primarily representative in nature, not a direct democracy. Have they never heard of the electoral college? The Founders were very careful to create levels of representation; indeed, it is part of the checks and balances of constitutionalism. All we do in Colorado is keep an extra layer of representation in the process; we choose state delegates who then chose national delegates. One can argue that the caucus system is not ideal for whatever reason, but the fact that it is based on the representative model of government isn’t by itself a very good reason to oppose it.

For pointing out some of the basic facts about Colorado’s caucus system on Twitter, I was deluged by comments from Trump’s supporters, consisting mostly of insults, threats, and wild conspiracies. (For example, some people blamed me personally for the lack of a straw poll, even though I wasn’t even a Republican when that decision was made.) It turns out that such tactics don’t actually improve my opinion of Trump as a presidential candidate.

I’m glad I participated in Colorado’s Republican caucus system. From what I saw, it worked well.

The author of the above explanation tweeted out:

Even normally Trump-friendly cable news isn’t having any of it.

And another first hand account, Trump and Drudge Are Lying to You About Colorado Delegates:

Where to even begin with this parade of preposterousness? I understand that Drudge is under no obligation to present a fair and balanced picture and that he tends to highlight conservative victories and downplay our losses. However, this crosses over into sheer untruth with a heaping helping of rabble rousing.

How do I know that it’s untrue? I was a delegate to the Colorado State Republican Convention in 2008 and voted on delegates to the national convention, that’s how….

So, there I was on a cold night in February 2008 at a Caucus in Franktown, CO. I showed up that night with local political old-timer Jon Bond in my pocket who spoke in favor of my being a delegate to the county assembly. After delivering brief remarks placing my name into nomination, the votes and presidential preference poll were tabulated and I was selected.

Thus began the process where I voluntarily sacrificed multiple Saturdays that spring in the pursuit (ultimately) of being a delegate to the Republican State Convention. I remember seeing Mitt Romney speak to the crowd while Ron Paul’s contingent of 12 bearded malcontents marched in a circle on the convention floor holding signs.

The point is this: The reason both Trump and Drudge are lying is that the slate of Delegates to the national convention is voted on, and voted on by real people — not “party insiders” — unless you consider a guy who was at the time a 29-year-old novice a “party insider.” Here is a breakdown of this year’s results.

All it takes is time. The process is totally open and explicable — unless you’re a 69-year-old knothead who thinks that showing up and holding a rally equals “winning.”

Colorado Senater Cory Gardner — the conservative insurgent who defeated an incumbent Democrat in 2014 — tweeted out his outrage at the false claims:

Here are some other tweets of interest:

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/719597854612807684

https://twitter.com/AndrewStilesUSA/status/719621793980542976

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Comments

Meanwhile, the beat goes on in Arkansas.

Rubio and Cruz are teaming up to block Trump delegates in Arkansas.

Trump’s organization is as sloppy in Arkansas as elsewhere, just as Cruz’s is an efficient machine in state after state. This could ding the Donald, costing him as many as 25 delegates after a first inconclusive ballot. Cruz, who finished with 15 out of the available 40 delegates in primary voting, stands to gain all 16 Trump delegates and the 9 won by Rubio.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/cruz-rubio-join-forces-in-arkansas-to-block-donald-trump-delegates/article/2588237

    Arianna in reply to spartan. | April 12, 2016 at 10:51 am

    Trumps claim that Coloradans “weren’t given a vote.” proves that he either fundamentally doesn’t understand the process of becoming the Republican nominee or, more likely, is attempting to stoke the emotions of his followers and push a false victim-based narrative. Many Coloradans were at precinct-level Colorado caucus, and the voted.

    A couple of weeks prior to the Colorado caucuses to be held on Super Tuesday, March 1, registered republican voters received a flyer telling them when and where their precinct was holding its Republican caucus. Many had never attended a caucus before, mainly because in previous cycles it seemed apparent who the Republican candidate would be so it was seen as something that they did not need to do for their preferred candidate. Not this time.

    StotheOB in reply to spartan. | April 12, 2016 at 11:41 am

    It is mesmerizing how unliked & incompetent Trump and his “very best people” really, truly are. Everywhere you look we Grassroots activists are kicking his rear

    Getting Cruz/#NeverTrump people selected as the Convention Delegates is kind of like taking candy from a baby at this point. In fact, with how much whining and crying Trump actually does, its extremely similar to doing just that.

    I’m excited for my opportunity to go and do the exact same thing here in a couple days, and I hope that I too will get to have a part in sending Trump into yet another of his endless whinny temper-tantrums. Will be gratifying!

      spartan in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 12:02 pm

      The dirty little secret that Trump (and his henchmen) are not telling you is this process has been in place since 2003. It was put in place because the State of CO thought that paying for primaries was a waste of state money. Thus the State GOP had 1 of 2 choices; pay for the primary themselves or hold a state convention of delegates.
      It did not matter in 2004, 2008, and 2012, but because we are still in a contest, everyone notices.

      I will still maintain, this brouhaha has much more to distract from the WaPo article of Trump’s alleged “personal charitable donations” (they were “in kind” and “Other People’s Money”).

        StotheOB in reply to spartan. | April 12, 2016 at 1:32 pm

        Yep.

        And what they are complaining was canceled was actually a “straw poll” – not an actual election where voters were up and denied their chance to vote.

        North Dakota is really an absolute identical situation to Colorado, they just kept some for of the StrawPoll (which they ignored when it came time to delegate selection)

        This, like everything else Trump whines endlessly about, is all bluster and excuses so his following doesnt see him as the total loser he really is.

Cruz can’t get to 1237 anyway. Will he win if Trump doesn’t get to 1237? Doubtful, the fix is in. It will be some other candidate that few will vote for.

    smfoushee in reply to SickofIt2. | April 12, 2016 at 10:23 am

    At this rate Trump won’t get to 1237 either and to make matters worse we’re seeing the Republican frontrunner has no idea what he’s doing, has no ground game, and doesn’t seem to care one bit about learning how the nominating process even works. How can you claim Trump even has a chance to beat the Democrats in November while you’re seeing him being destroyed state after state?

    StotheOB in reply to SickofIt2. | April 12, 2016 at 11:50 am

    Have you just not been paying attention at all, man?

    All the embarrassing rear-end kickings Trump is receiving in places like Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, Arizona, etc with regards to the delegate selection are getting Cruz to 1237.

    See, let me explain the rules on nominations to you:
    Rule 1 – you must get to 1237 from primary process to win. If no one wins, it goes to rule 2
    Rule 2 – you must get to 1237 from convention floor process, where the Delegates are then the new set of voters.

    Everytime you hear about Ted Cruz crushing Trump on a state level with regards to Delegate selection, it means Cruz will have more votes stacked in hos favor on the Convention Floor once Rule2 comes about. When Ted Cruz has stacked 1237 voters, he will be the nominee.

    Trumps inability to grasp what Delegates are and what they will eventually do is the reason Trump has zero shot at winning the nomination on the Convention Floor, and Ted Cruz is as good as our nominee already (baring a crazy, unforeseen gaffe or something)

    Come November the vote will be between Cruz or Hillary – you can pretty much bank on it

    SpudmanWP in reply to SickofIt2. | April 12, 2016 at 11:57 am

    Rule 40 keeps that from happening. To change that rule, the “Rules Committee” will have to vote on it. Most of the people on the Rules Committee are put there by the candidates that win the Primaries/Caucuses/etc.

    Do you really think that the people who were primarily put there by Cruz and Trump would betray their candidate by voting for a rule that could jeopardize their candidates chance to get the nomination?

      Matt_SE in reply to SpudmanWP. | April 12, 2016 at 12:30 pm

      I would guess that he doesn’t really think that, but can see the writing on the wall and must have a rationalization for why Trump lost other than “he wasn’t a good candidate.”
      Too many Trump supporters have invested their emotional well-being in their candidate. Just like cultists.

      rotten in reply to SpudmanWP. | April 12, 2016 at 12:41 pm

      Rule 40 needs to be voted on by the delegates before it is effective.

      Why would Trump support Rule 40, when that just guarantees his eventual loss?

      A lot of these “Cruz delegates” are really #nevertrump delegates.

        StotheOB in reply to rotten. | April 12, 2016 at 12:48 pm

        Huh?

        Rule40 means more than just those who received 8 Delegate victories will be on the ballot.

        If Trump got rid of Rule40, like you seem to want him to do, then all of a sudden the ballot is not just Trump and Cruz but instead opened up to Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, Bush, Ryan and anyone else who wants to throw their hat into the ring.

        Do you really think Trump wants to try to gather 1237 delegates out of the hands of who-knows-how-many candidates?

        There is no way Trump is going to get rid of Rule40, and neither is Cruz. They will be the only names on the ballot and Cruz will win on the Second or Third vote

          If Trump got rid of Rule40 [sic], like you seem to want him to do, then all of a sudden the ballot is not just Trump and Cruz but instead opened up to Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, Bush, Ryan and anyone else who wants to throw their hat into the ring.

          Not quite.

          Rule 40 (actually, rule 40[b]) says that a candidate has to win at least 8 state primaries to be considered at the convention. Prior to that rule, any candidate who had won at least one state primary could be considered.

          Today, that would still rule out (heh!) most of the initial Republican candidates. We would be down to Trump, Cruz, Kasich, and maybe Rubio (did he win one state or not? I don’t remember now); we would probably not be back to 17 (or more) hats in the ring.

          StotheOB in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 2:00 pm

          While youre absolutely correct, eliminating the Rule40 in question opens up the Ballots to more names. Once more names first get on the ballot, anyone getting to 1237 becomes that much more difficult. Once you go through a couple votes with no one getting to 1237, changing the rules further to open it up & find someone who can get to 1237 becomes more and more tempting. Eventually non-candidates would be given a chance.

          The entire WhiteKnight conspiracy theory hinges on 40b first going away. Thats why Trump and Cruz will not let whats referred to as Rule40 go away; ensuring only 2 names on the 1st, 2nd & 3rd ballots and one of those two people getting the 1237 needed extremely quickly (with only 2 candidates and 2472 people voting for one of said 2 candidates, its pretty difficult for someone not to get 1237 – you would need a huge percentage sitting out the votes)

          I just didnt care to go into that much detail to a person (rotten) who we all know probably isnt going to listen anyway, and instead hold onto his conspiracy theories aimed at hurting poor victim Trump

          StotheOB in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 2:04 pm

          Oh, and Rubio did win – pretty sure he has 3 wins in fact. Minnesota, WashingtonDC and one of the Territories (dont remember which)

          Ragspierre in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 3:09 pm

          Puerto Rico.

          The Rich Port. (We should all be so lucky…)

Henry Hawkins | April 12, 2016 at 8:40 am

I love the smell of whine in the morning.

Disenfranchisement is not pretty. They never have done this to the GOP rank and file. I don’t care who the candidates were or what kind of hissyfit they threw afterwards.

Disenfranchisement is not the hill the GOP should choose to die on. But, I am afraid that they did.

    persecutor in reply to MattMusson. | April 12, 2016 at 9:17 am

    Disenfranchisement is when someone is standing at the door preventing you from casting a vote you have a right to cast–if that happened, The Donald® has every right to get his panties in a twist.

    If you don’t take the rules seriously or figure your magnetic personality will win out, you weren’t disenfranchised, you were just plain stupid and lazy–or your brain trust isn’t the best in the business because they were just plain stupid or crazy.

    So either Cruz is diabolically effective in rigging 50 state primary rules, or The Donald® got his ass whupped when someone understood the “art of the deal” better than he did in Colorado.

    I suspect it’s the latter.

      princepsCO in reply to persecutor. | April 12, 2016 at 9:27 am

      Even more noteworthy is the fact that the rules in place have been pretty-much the rules since I’ve been involved with CO GOP since 2000. The only difference this round was the decision to not hold a straw poll during the initial precinct caucuses in February.

      And even so, as I learned during the three additional assemblies/conventions I attended this year from other delegates, nearly every precinct DID take a show of hands as to support for the candidates. In my precinct of 17 attendees: 4 for Rubio, 10 for Cruz, 1 for Walker, Trump and Paul (yes, I keep notes).

      So, in short, if you didn’t participate in the Colorado process and you’re complaining now–you’re full of bovine waste! And the Trump leadership and supporters let it all exit their mouths….

      Yeah… And The Mafia Has Rules Too…

    Ragspierre in reply to MattMusson. | April 12, 2016 at 9:27 am

    Can you not read? Or did you simply refuse to read?

    Nobody was “disenfranchised”.

    inspectorudy in reply to MattMusson. | April 12, 2016 at 10:17 am

    WTF are you talking about? Colorado sets its own primary rules and the people of Colorado either live with them or reject them. It has nothing to do with Cruz or Trump. Your idol screwed the pooch and now, as usual, blames everyone else but himself. Did the other states disenfranchise the voters? Does the stupid Iowa caucus seem silly? Do some of the other states primary rules seem biased? Of course they do. That is the system we have ALWAYS lived under. But hey, we could be like the Demorats and have superdelegates who are super important and allow the little people to act like they have a vote when they really don’t.

      The dumb GOP adoption of these dumb Rules has caused Colorado to become a solid Blue state.

      Colorado may not ever go Red again.

      Playing in a rigged game is for losers.

      That’s probably why Cruz has few/no real accomplishments of his own in the Senate. Sorry, reading Green Eggs and Ham to delay passage of a bill for one day is not an accomplishment.

    NC Mountain Girl in reply to MattMusson. | April 12, 2016 at 10:26 am

    The fault is entirely with the Trump supporters who didn’t show up at the party caucuses. The rules have been unchanged for years. The times and places of the meetings were posted on party websites, there were announcements in the media and in some cases advertisements in local papers.

    In my county the county precinct caucuses were held the Saturday after the primary, followed immediately by the county convention. The only business before the county convention was the selection of delegates for the congressional district and state conventions. All the new people who showed up were there to support Ted Cruz. Not only that, there weren’t enough people in total present who were willing to commit to attending the state convention, so the delegate slots were uncontested.

    For all Trump’s big talk about bringing new people into the process, it’s been Cruz who is doing so.

    StotheOB in reply to MattMusson. | April 12, 2016 at 11:56 am

    So when stupid or lazy people dont bother to learn what is going on in their specific area, they are then being “disenfranchised” …seriously?

    Who are you TrumpFs anyway? A bunch of BlackLivesMatter and Occupy freak imitating Conservatives/Republicans in an effort to get the biggest whiniest, most incompetent loser imaginable the nomination so Hillary Clinton can mop the floor with him in a 200+ EC vote landslide?

    Man I cant wait till this cult is relegated to the laughingstock of American history and actual adults get to carry the conversation again

      conservative tarheel in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 12:26 pm

      it must be genetic … Trumps kids (2 of em anyway)
      can not vote in the NY primary ,,, they didn’t bother
      to register as Republicans ….

      Matt_SE in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 12:34 pm

      I’m convinced the Trumpkins are the reincarnation of the John Birch Society, complete with paranoid conspiracy theories.

I for one have had enough of Trump and his spittle-flecked band of screaming caucus garbage babies.

So following the rules is disenfranchisement? Does trump need to give up all of his winner take all states?

    PaulM in reply to rdm. | April 12, 2016 at 9:37 am

    How about all the open primaries? Doesn’t having the vote of an actual Republican negated by a non-Republican in a primary designed to choose the Republican nominee count as disenfranchisement?

    Or, is something only disenfranchisement when goes against Trump?

    StotheOB in reply to rdm. | April 12, 2016 at 12:03 pm

    No, no, no, no, no… see what the problem is here is that Trump wants some big centralized power to come in and just hand him that which he feels he is entitled to have. The issue he has is that the States have individual rights and get to decide for themselves how they will handle their specific processes.

    Hes seriously showing himself to be a wannabe Dictator who demands Central Control of power nearly everytime he speaks on issues in depth (well, to the level he can speak of anything in depth)

    Its beyond frightening that his devoted Trumpeters dont see it either. We’ve had nearly 8 years of a narcissist trying to do the same thing, similarly whining when he cant get a central power to just give him what he demands be done. Trump is Obama to the 100th though, and his bootlicking drones just eat it up like this is exactly what we’ve always needed – a much, much, much worse Obama on our side…

Let’s consider what this incident tells us about Der Donald, because it is RICH in direct and indirect lessons.

Der Donald himself is perfectly happy to tell an outright lie in an effort to manipulate opinion among voters he pretends to respect and want to serve.

He will bolster that lie with an elaborate act, pretending to be outraged at the tactics of his opponent, Ted Cruz.

His hirelings are free to use lurid language (“Gestapo tactics”) to describe what are just normal, totally benign political processes, none of which are really even new, much less “wrong” or “cheating”.

T-rumpian blogs, long ago having abandoned their own integrity and objectiveness in full “suck T-rump” mode, simply have echoed and flacked the T=rumpian lies with NO critical thought or investigation.

That’s really just a scratching of the surface here, where the lessons are thick and…not good.

Conservatives have spent 8 years wandering (well not exactly) in the desert, trying to fight not just the Obama administration, but their own party.

We have learned how our party works instead of voting like sheeple. We have participated and learned from organizations like American Majority how to become precinct captains.

http://www.redstate.com/diary/ammaj/2013/01/21/an-army-of-precinct-captains/

We have gotten involved deep in the bowels of all the nominating processes, enabling amazing things, like Mike Lee’s nomination in Utah.

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/05/08/bo-bennett-will-not-be-re-elected/

We did this by figuring out the rules, getting into the bowels of the party, and taking folks on.

We didn’t always win. Thad Cochran comes to mind.

Some wins were partial. Marco Rubio didn’t live up to the hype (I say that as someone who contributed to him in the primary against C.C. and voted for him all around) but was way better than any other option.

Cruz was a huge win – triumphing over Dewhurst against all odds (yep, contributed there too! early and often!).

All were valuable lessons in a) you can’t win all fights, b) never fall in love with any candidate, they will all let you down sooner or later on something, c) but victory and progress are sweet, one step at a time.

This particular narrative that the Trumpkins push really pisses me off. Where were they during all these battles? What have they been doing besides whining for the past 8 years?

Join the fight or get out of the way. But we have been – if I may borrow the phrase – we have been conducting a ***legal insurrection*** against the system for 8 years, since I was wandering in the desert myself, scared about what this Obama candidate represented, into I wandered into the oasis of this and other blogs.

A couple angry voters finally wake up and say, change it now and my way? Join the fight, we are all angry. But channel it the right way, the way all of us have been doing for 8 long years. And this fight is going to last another 20 to see the results we want, and continue for a lifetime. Because freedom is never free, and evil and statism never yield without a fight.

Trumpertantrum short-term thinkers need to check out of their current cult and check out what’s going on, check in to the real fight, and and do a gut check on how long a fight this will be.

Thank you for efforts, Professor. Its been a pleasure fighting this phase of the legal insurrection against the corrupt for the past 8 years, thanks to you.

    Morning Sunshine in reply to PrincetonAl. | April 12, 2016 at 10:14 am

    This. So totally this. I am one of those newly-awakened to the party system 6 years ago when I stood up and said NO MORE to the Bob Bennett shill in my precinct. I feel kind of bad for her, even today – she was there to support the incumbent and our precinct attendance went from 8 attendees 2 years previous to over 40 that year, and less than 10% were in her favor.
    Precinct boundaries redrawn since then, and we have a tiny precinct with only 65 houses, meaning that a turn out of 12 households is a good percentage. Last meeting I was so proud of a new attendee who come out and supported his candidate – Trump, even in the face of everyone else’s opposition. I am not a Trump fan, but I was happy to see someone new there willing to get involved to show and share his thoughts on the issue. I hope he and his wife will come again.

      “I stood up and said NO MORE to the Bob Bennett shill in my precinct…”

      Hey wait, youre in Utah!

      …and everyone make sure they thank MorningSunshine, because Bennett was successfully taken out to put in Mike Lee.

      Did you know that Bennetts son is now touring townhalls and such and calling out that new crop of candidates who are more Liberty minded? Seen/heard him a couple times, most recently at one of the Chaffetz townhalls (the Sandy/District 49 one) he is currently taking part in

      You going to be there on the 16th for the SLCounty nominating convention, or you in another country?

    rotten in reply to PrincetonAl. | April 12, 2016 at 10:27 am

    Can’t take seriously anybody who

    1. has Bush on his campaign staff
    2. Throws in with #nevertrump a movement to replace elections with appointments
    3. Is in bed with the very people who are fleecing America
    4. Wants to change the American demographic makeup with new immigrants

    ———

    I am baffled by “conservatives” who think Cruz is conservative. If you can’t conservative the people, the borders, the language, and the culture, then everything else is lost, including the constitution.
    His involvement in the scheme to replicate the EU in North America ought to be enough to disqualify him.

    ——-
    #losewithCruz

    40 state landslide defeat, unless he can make this convention process appear legitimize. Democrats already outnumber republicans. If the Trump voters walk, Cruz’s base is tiny.

    spartan in reply to PrincetonAl. | April 12, 2016 at 11:32 am

    Very Well Stated ……

    I should note, this is exactly what happened after Goldwater’s defeat in 1964. Conservatives worked the system and sacrificed in drudgery for 16 years in hopes for a conservative candidate. That came to fruition in 1980. I should also point out that in 1980, Trump was supporting Jimmy Carter.

    Unfortunately, the Old Conservative Guard of the GOP had retired or were put out to pasture by the Bushies after the 1988 election.

    The GOP currently has two Establishment guys running running for POTUS; Kasich, who represents the Status Quo GOP and Trump, who represents the damn the consequences, we can still make deals with Hillary, GOP.
    If you don’t believe Trump is an Establishment candidate, then ask yourself why does Paul Manafort (who is as GOP Establishment as you can get) involve himself in an effort to help run a campaign for the presumably ‘anti-GOP Establishment’ Trump?

    Do you want to know another Trump lie?

    The Charitable Donations Donald Trump’s Been Bragging About Were Just Rounds of Golf and Other People’s Money

    http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/04/donald-trump-charitable-donations-golf

    Trump accuses Cruz of lying but it is Trump who lies.

holdingmynose | April 12, 2016 at 9:46 am

Shame on Trump for not accepting delegate selection by the state party oligarchs without voter input. That’s just the way it is and always has been Why do you try to change things that have worked so well? Just look at the labor participation rate, the national debt and the status of the middle class, all brought to us by “the way we have always done it” politicians.

    Ragspierre in reply to holdingmynose. | April 12, 2016 at 10:14 am

    Let go of your nose long enough to re-oxygenate your poor brain. Then you MAY want to read up some.

    The GOP voters of Colorado DID vote. They voted back in March.

    Or is that wrong?

    inspectorudy in reply to holdingmynose. | April 12, 2016 at 10:26 am

    What happened in CO is not about the “People” of CO. It is about the Republican party in CO. It has nothing to do with anything you referred to. The Republicans in CO agreed to this method and then it was enforced. Where is the problem? Oh, that’s right! Trump didn’t win so it has to be rigged.

      NC Mountain Girl in reply to inspectorudy. | April 12, 2016 at 10:40 am

      In state after state all Trump supporters had to do was to show up at the party meetings and offer themselves as delegates to the next level of meetings Of course, that involves hours of real work.

      In state after state the Trump supporters have not done so. They talk big talk on the web but when it comes time to do more than whine and moan they can’t be found.

kenoshamarge | April 12, 2016 at 9:53 am

Whining isn’t winning. And winners don’t whine. Trump does nothing else. Loser.

Twitter Feed:

The Hill
@thehill

JUST IN: Rand Paul backs Trump: GOP primary rules favor the establishment

http://hill.cm/jfA23q7

http://pic.twitter.com/ddgZCOsiTI

5:53am · 12 Apr 2016 · SocialFlow

124 Retweets 121 Likes

    Ragspierre in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 10:51 am

    THIS JUST IN…!!!!

    Rand Paul (loser) states obvious.

    In other news, nobody knows what any one person means by “establishment”.

    In BREAKING NEWS, one outside candidate learns rules, runs the “art of the deal” on narcissistic opponent who whines and lies when schlonged.

    (Actually, that last is just a dog-bites-man story.)

    conservative tarheel in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    I see the resident troll shows up at 1000am.

    Evan3457 in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    False; he’s not “backing Trump”, merely reiterating his opposite to the attempts by the GOPe to rig the nominating process.

Trump Holds 66% Favorable Rating in New York – Leads Hillary Clinton by 19 Points in Empire State

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/trump-holds-66-favorable-rating-new-york-leads-hillary-clinton-empire-state/

The phrase, “Socialism is for takers, not makers,” seems to fit into the Trump phenomenon when it comes to his political skills…and given his bankruptcy history, maybe his business skills as well…

    StotheOB in reply to princepsCO. | April 12, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    Yes, this! I dont understand how no one seems to grasp this!

    I mean seriously, Trump is clearly a Nationalist. If you listen he is a Socialist. He insists hes doing it all for the Workers. and he is obviously his own Party, having absolutely nothing to do with the values of the party hes running for.

    …sooo, a Nationalist, a Socialist, for Workers, own Party… come to think of it, we’ve had a party like this before, haven’t we?

    Its scary as all freakin getout up in here. Luckily History doesnt repeat, it Rhymes – but still…

    conservative tarheel in reply to princepsCO. | April 12, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    how many people’s dreams where harmed or destroyed in
    the 4 Donald bankruptcies ?
    where he just “used the rules” to walk away from bad debt
    totally legal.
    but when someone else uses the rules to their advantage
    it is cheating … and this is someone we want to
    make yuge deals for us with China and Mexico.
    yeah right. maybe people are starting to wake up.
    the fact that his negatives are north of 60% and have been
    consistently, and that he hasn’t broken 50% in any primary yet.
    now with NY he might just might do that.
    maybe.

mumzieistired | April 12, 2016 at 10:11 am

This delegate thing has happened before – see Louisiana.

But there’s nothing fishy about it: all campaigns knew and agreed to the rules going into the game.

Sure, Trump whined a little about Louisiana.

Maybe the reason he’s whining so loudly about this one is that just prior to the Colorado delegate elections, news broke that in the 93 page long list of charitable contributions put out by his campaign, Donald Trump has not donated even a penny in cash to charity.

“Since the first day of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has said that he gave more than $102 million to charity in the past five years. To back up that claim, Trump’s campaign compiled a list of his contributions — 4,844 of them, filling 93 pages. But, in that massive list, one thing was missing. Not a single one of those donations was actually a personal gift of Trump’s own money.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-portrait-of-trump-the-donor-free-rounds-of-golf-but-no-personal-cash/2016/04/10/373b9b92-fb40-11e5-9140-e61d062438bb_story.html

Maybe his Colorado complaint is an intentional and yuge distraction.

Or maybe he’s just whining…

    MaggotAtBroadAndWall in reply to mumzieistired. | April 12, 2016 at 10:58 am

    According to Stephanie Cegielski, the former communication director for the “Make America Great Again” SuperPAC, Trump never wanted or expected to win. He wanted to run as a “protest” candidate and get maybe 10-12% support. It was always supposed to be a sham. He wanted to come in second to get him respectability that he’d later monetize for his own personal benefit.

    http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephanie-cegielski-donald-trump-campaign-defector

    That jives with what Nick Confessore of the New York Times wrote about him. According to Confessore, Trump once bragged that he could turn running for president into a profitable money making venture to benefit himself.

    All of that explains why he did not bother building a campaign to ensure delegates favorable to him would win their elections and be seated at the convention. He did not expect to win. That’s probably why two of his grown children active in his campaign never bothered to register as Republicans making them ineligible to vote for him in the NY primary. Because they never expected him to get this far. Trump never in his wildest dreams believed there were so many naïve, gullible Republican primary voters. Neither did I.

    StotheOB in reply to mumzieistired. | April 12, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    What happened in Colorado was mirrored almost perfectly in North Dakota too, where Cruz got all but 3 of the delegates.

    The difference between CO and ND is solely that the news covered CO and not ND.

    That is why Colorado has become the focus of Trumps whinny childish rants and conspiracy theories, but North Dakota hasnt. No one knows that Trump similarly got his rear-end handed to him in ND so there is no point in Trump trying to make pitiful desperate excuses for why hes such a loser there.

    (of course, its also possible Trump himself doesnt know he lost in ND as well. He doesnt seem to be organized or educated at all on any of this stuff, generally finding out about things only after they hit the news cycle – exactly like we’ve watched from Obama, btw)

    conservative tarheel in reply to mumzieistired. | April 12, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    they money they raised for the vets that Trump skipped
    a debate for … most of it stayed in the Donald’s bank account.

But Biasd = Rigged To Most Voters

Rand Paul: GOP Primaries Aren’t ‘Rigged,’ But They Are ‘Biased’

“No, I hear someone’s been saying they’re rigged,” Paul said. “I don’t think they’re rigged, but they are biased. And intentionally so.

“Rigged would mean that it was illegal, that it was somewhat shady,” he added. “No, it’s done somewhat in the open. But they are biased in favor of the establishment.”

Paul went on to point to his father former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), a candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, and how he was considered to be ineligible to be nominated based on Republican national committee rules, despite having acquired delegate throughout the process.

citation: http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/04/12/rand-paul-gop-primaries-arent-rigged-biased/

Serious Question: who are delegates supposed to Represent?

Are they supposed to represent their voters like representatives, or are they just stand ins for the monied class. The logical endpoint of the delegate chase is bribery, which the monied interests would not be bothered by.

If a process is not seen by the people as legitimate, then it is not legitimate.

    Ragspierre in reply to rotten. | April 12, 2016 at 10:25 am

    Yep. You ARE an idiot.

    tom swift in reply to rotten. | April 12, 2016 at 10:46 am

    Serious Question: who are delegates supposed to Represent?

    This question actually has a very interesting history.

    But you won’t learn anything about it here at LI.

    princepsCO in reply to rotten. | April 12, 2016 at 11:47 am

    Serious Question: who are delegates supposed to Represent?

    As a CO delegate, allow me to answer…I stood before the precinct in which I live and spoke about my Republican Party experience, my conservative values and my desire to vote for the most conservative candidate that showed an ability to win. I stated clearly and emphatically that my examination prior to March 1, 2016 (the precinct caucus date) pointed me to Sen. Ted Cruz.

    Three other attendees stood and described their POV and candidate of choice. Then everyone voted for the person they wished to represent them at the County, Congressional, and State conventions that would take place on three different dates in March and April. I was among the 4 elected delegates and alternates…oh, and there’s also a cost. Since the GOP doesn’t doesn’t have corporate sponsors, each delegate has to pay to cover the cost of running the convention. As a 3-level delegate, it cost me $95. However, each of the delegates from our precinct was blessed with financial support when a hat was passed amid the gathered caucus folks and split to help cover the cost for each person (so I really paid only $45).

    So not only was my local grassroots Republican neighbors confident that I would represent their values and POV, they helped pay for my attendance…As noted earlier in this thread, the majority of my caucus attendees also supported Sen. Cruz by a 10-1 margin. I simply represented the will of my precinct.

      princepsCO in reply to princepsCO. | April 12, 2016 at 11:50 am

      …and quick note, the Trump supporter at my caucus wasn’t interested in being a delegate, even after I let him know that attending the conventions was the only way to have a voice in electing the National delegates…he just wasn’t interested in ‘playing politics’. sighhh…

    StotheOB in reply to rotten. | April 12, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    Okay, let me explain Delegates to you…

    I am a Delegate

    I was “nominated” and “elected” by the voters in my district

    I will have a vote on who the Convention Delegates are

    …get it?

    There is no grand conspiracy like the whinny, incompetent Trump wants you to believe. The Grassroots did what they could to try and ensure the County/State Delegates were filled with Grassroots people so the Establishment couldnt keep a candidate like Cruz from being the nomination.

    Now Trump is fighting against we, the TeaParty-minded Grassroots activists who have been fighting the Establishment for years

    And we, the Grassroots are kicking the living daylights out of Trump and his so-called “best mind” and “best people” and “best organization”

Cut of the same cloth. “Wake up people” lol.

Trump claims Cruz cheats, lies, deceives to primary win.

Clinton claims misogynists reason for her loss to Sanders.

Perfect couple.

Twitter Feed:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

WOW, great new poll- New York! Thank you for your support!

#Trump2016
#NewYorkValues

https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10156919403295725:0

http://pic.twitter.com/WSVmdI8vfZ

3:13am · 12 Apr 2016 · Twitter for iPhone

2,952 Retweets 7,408 Likes

Trump has been selling himself as a winner (and perhaps suggesting that you, too, could be a winner by voting for a winner).

But perhaps he never thought through how he would modify this message if/when a time came when he was not winning?

Instead of leaving his old message behind and just moving on, his cry seems to be that since he’s a winner, if he’s not winning it must be because someone else is cheating? That’s a lame message and not very effective, but to move beyond it he might have to reflect on his actual strengths and weaknesses. And perhaps he’s just not capable of that?

In any case, it’s hard to see how this cock-crowing about being a winner followed by whining of perfidy when he loses could in any way make him a more attractive candidate to anyone.

When the rules are designes as they were in Colorado to create a corrupt process to deny the will/votes of the people it is corrupt.

It is NOT a defense of the corrupt process to say Cruz won by the rules. A corrupt process yields a corrupt result every time.

That is the point the Cruzbots and Trump haters skip over.

Demands for action against this kind of corruption will continue in many states.

Rules don’t make an action moral or ethical. I’ve encountered too many lawyers in life who believe legality = morality. Who operate by the code if it is legal for my client to cheat someone that makes it morally or ethically right for my client to cheat them.

In other news. New NBC poll out today shows Trump beating Cruz by 16% points 46% to 30% and Trump, but not Cruz, within margin of error against Hillary. That’s right Trump does better in General than Cruz.

Poll also shows 28% of Trump supporters will not vote for Cruz. That percentage will continue to rise as the corruption becomes more and more apparent.

    Kondor77 in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 11:14 am

    How are we to believe Donald Trump will be able to get America “The best deal, BELIEVE ME” every single time? When he can’t even prepare a team to do what Cruz’s team did? As the Prof stated, if you think the rules are rigged, you bring that matter up before the contest. Not afterwards when the results show your lack of understanding and effort to win.

    It’s clear, Donald would rather campaign in friendly NY state, where he’s projected to have a huge win – as opposed to doing his utmost to win a battleground state like CO. He’s deliberately choosing the easy road, avoiding you know, hard work. Remind me how he’s going to fight for the best deal?

    Every time he’s on the wrong end of a situation, excuses flow from his camp. Never taking personal responsibility for failing. Whether the blame goes to poor ground game, miscommunication, lack of (actual) campaigning, etc. It doesn’t matter, there is a discernible pattern. Incredibly narcissistic behavior akin to SJW permanent victim status.

    spartan in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Well, the second shift has arrived and they are bringing a bigger shovel.

    OK. Gary Britt wants to take the “high road”. Hear that everyone. Hold him accountable.

    Free speech is legal but is it always morally right and ethical when you post it Gary?

    Trumpkins is playing up the little pouty hurt boy routine. He has to drum up empathy. He can’t drum up smarts.

    Trump supporters are people who believe that they have been cheated by those they have given the power of their lives over to.

    Like Progressives they cry “Life is unfair.” They pray that their yellow god will swoop down from the heights of Trump temples and throw lightning bolts at the perceived bad guys.

    Evan3457 in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    Not correct. The choices in the matchup polls were Clinton, Trump, 3rd party, or Clinton, Cruz, 3rd party. They were not head to head matchup polls, and are not the same as prior polls.

    Evan3457 in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Also, the poll was of “adult”, not “registered voters” or “likely voters”. Bad poll.

RUSH: No, I don’t need to correct anything about Colorado. I said what I said and it’s right. I said everybody knew what Colorado did. They changed their procedure. They changed it in August. Everybody knew. This not sneak up on anybody. What happened was the Colorado Republican Party canceled the party’s presidential straw poll in August, purposely and specifically to avoid binding its delegates to a candidate who might not survive until the convention in July. So they purposely did this.

Now, they probably did it because of Trump. I have no doubt that they made this switch because of Trump. But they didn’t do it last night or Friday night. They did it back in August. They’re also shouting at me in Louisiana. “You really misstated what happened to Louisiana!” Okay, okay, okay. We have a statement here from the chairman the Republican Party of Louisiana. He said, “I want to assure everybody Trump received the number of delegates that he earned. Nothing unfair to him is occurring.”

There was NOTHING “corrupt” about what the Republicans did in Colorado.

There was no “hide the pea” game here. There was no “disenfranchisement”. There was a process that sought to let voters vote VERY early, while not having a vacant set of delegates that ONLY represented someone not still in the running at the convention.

But, of course, you’ll lie about anything for T-rump.

    Funny you should be quoting Rush after posting here on LI more less that he was a stupid known nothing arse.

    In this instance Rush falls for the logical fallacy that legality = morality or in colorado’s case, a corrupt process that is designed to screw a particular candidate and deny the expression of votes of colorado citizens is ethical as long as its done publicly and with notice.

    A corrupt unethical process is NOT made not corrupt and not unethical by simply giving some amount of public notice. That is the point you and the rest of the cruzbots and Trump haters overlook. It is the point that Rush in this instance misses.

    Trump is wise to point out the corruptions of the establishment and make a big deal out of them. It will anger and motivate those who support him and might support him. It builds a case for a third party run should the corruption in the GOPe make that necessary.

      Ragspierre in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 12:04 pm

      “Funny you should be quoting Rush after posting here on LI more less that he was a stupid known nothing arse.”

      Annnndddda, of course you simply lie.

      What I have said…and will always say…about ANYBODY, is that they are sometimes terribly wrong in their analysis.

      In this case, you can’t support any of your bullshit about “corruption”. There was nothing illegal, immoral, or fattening about the process the GOP in Colorado adopted. In FACT, some have observed that it was biased IN FAVOR of T-rump. He just didn’t show up.

      Cruz DID. Personally. And VERY effectively.

      So, as Glenn Reynolds would say about Rush’s analysis of THIS process…

      Analysis TRUE.

      princepsCO in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 1:07 pm

      “…Rush falls for the logical fallacy that legality = morality or in colorado’s case, a corrupt process that is designed to screw a particular candidate and deny the expression of votes of colorado citizens is ethical as long as its done publicly and with notice.”

      So let me repeat to make sure I understand the implied complaint you’re sharing…

      The caucus process is corrupt, regardless of the rules used to run it.

      Do I have that right? When I gathered with a group of local Republicans from my neighborhood, we were immediately corrupted. By whom? In what manner? Can you please provide even one detail that leads to this conclusion?

      I participated in the CO caucus process in 2008 as a Ron Paul supporter. The process and delegate selection was exactly the same in 2008 as it was this year. No difference in selection. The only key difference was the bound/unbound aspect; to wit, in 2008, elected delegates were bound to Romney due to the straw poll process held during the precinct caucuses. Last year, seven months before the 2016 precinct caucus, the leadership in CO determined that unbound delegates would be a better option (as a personal aside, it’s looking pretty smart).

      At no time following the 2008 State convention did I feel the need to scream on the interwebs that Ron Paul was cheated by the system…was I happy at the outcome? Of course not, but I also understood the process and the necessary actions that were required to get a Ron Paul delegate sent to the national convention. And even then, that Ron Paul delegate would have been required to vote for Mitt Romney on the FIRST ballot. Only on subsequent ballots would the Paul delegate (had we gotten one) been able to vote their conscious…

      Thus, in the vacuum of your true understanding of Colorado Republicans, both ‘establishment’ (you know, the Area, District, and Precinct leaders that work in our cities and neighborhoods, the State Chairman and National Committeeman and -woman) and voters, are corrupt because the operate within the framework of established and communicated rules.

      …well, bless your heart.

      Evan3457 in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 1:22 pm

      So here we have a man who actually participated in the process in Colorado, telling you that it was completely fair, and not corrupt at all. So you now have two choices, it seems to me. Prove, with evidence, that it was corrupt, and that delegate votes were somehow bought or coerced, or give up repeating the Trumpian cant that the process was unethical, immoral or corrupt.

    StotheOB in reply to Ragspierre. | April 12, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    Yeah, Rush is an idiot…

    Ironically, it was specifically done because of Jeb, Rand and Ted

    See, last time Romney was the Bush candidate, RonPaul was the RandPaul candidate and they thought Cruz might be this years Santorum.

    In 2012 Santorum crushed it, easily beating Romney in voters selection. RonPaul worked his rear off in Delegate Selection though. And all they wished the delegates would go to Romney. Right now, Trump is in that Romney seat while Cruz has unified the Santorum & Paul spots.

    It was specifically done to help a guy in Trumps spot and hurt very specifically Cruz – which makes it ironic that Cruz went on to win what they were trying to keep out of his hands from the very start

Missouri actually held a primary election unlike the People’s Republic of Colorado, where The GOP Duma decides winners and losers instead of, you know, actual voters.

Breaking: Trump picks up 12 additional delegates after Missouri recount; Ted Cruz loses huge.

Twitter Feed:

ABC News Politics
@ABCPolitics

JUST IN: Missouri Secretary of State declares Donald Trump winner of the MO GOP primary.

http://pic.twitter.com/JxZEhnAxXF

8:34am · 12 Apr 2016 · SocialFlow

14 Retweets 11 Likes

There are a lot of people out there (and quite a few here as well) who do not understand the nomination procedure. I’m fairly certain they also believe we directly elect our President.

I totally am anti-establishment, a constitutional conservative. BUT trumps attacks and lies have made me a never trump. He claims he is winning, but 2/3 of the people voting are voting for someone else! Since when does 1/3 equal win ?

People are now trying to excuse the action of the Republican Party in Colorado by saying that these were the rules when the campaigns started and Trump knew about it. Therefor, when the state, predictably, went to Cruz, that he should say nothing. This is, of course, a valid argument. But, it misses the strategy that Trump is using to attempt to win the nomination.

Now, Donald Trump, and his campaign staff, may be incompetent. On the other hand, this may be a brilliant strategy. Trump, and to a lesser extent Cruz, are running as anti-establishment GOP candidates. In the past, this has meant that they would be running against the Democrat establishment and the faceless legion of lobbyists and influence peddlers, not against the establishment of their own party. This year, they are running in opposition to the the entire establishment, including that of the GOP.

The leadership of the Republican party set up the 2016 primary campaign to eliminate a viable Cruz candidacy and steer the nomination to a picked candidate. But, Trump came along and sunk that plan by running an extremely effective popular campaign, which the GOPe has been unable to combat, at the grassroots level. In fact, the leadership of the GOP actually went to war against one of their own candidates, a man who has proven to be overwhelmingly popular with the rank and file GOP voter. They were forced to do this as Trump’s candidacy threatened to achieve the 1237 delegates which the election strategy was designed to make impossible.

Now, I do not believe that Trump, and his camp, are incompetent boobs, when it comes to politics. He knew that he had NO chance of being nominated IF he played the game by the “rules” set up by the Republican Party. If he allows the Party to change the rules to eliminate him as a viable candidate, he loses. If he allows the party to violate the spirit of their inference that the will of the membership matters, he loses. And, as an outsider he has no internal leverage to use to fight the campaign being mounted against him by the leadership of the party. So, he plays to his strength, the rank and file GOP member, who supports him. His campaign will point out all the underhanded, though legal under the rules, acts of the party, which negatively affect his candidacy. He will, correctly, illustrate how the GOP leadership is actively attempting to thwart the candidacy of one of their own members. He is setting the stage for an easily believable charge that the GOP used underhanded political acts, something that much of the populous is thoroughly sick and tired of, to deny the will of their rank and file membership by denying him the nomination. This will, in turn, allow him to apply leverage by making a realistic threat to simply take his supporters home, thereby giving the Democrat nominee the Office of President, by default. This is masterful political strategy. And, the GOPe is losing the battles. They can’t really make it look as though the delegate process, in Colorado, is anything other than a way to allow the GOP leadership to hand pick delegates for their candidate. They can not make it seem that the selection of delegates who support a candidate other than Donald Trump, to be his delegates at the convention, is anything other than am attempt to make it easy to nominate another candidate, or even non-candidate, after the first vote. Then we have the panicked remarks of GOP leaders and insiders that rules will be changed and that delegates may not be required to vote for the candidate, for whom they are pledged, on the first vote. This would deny Trump the nomination even if he came into the convention with 1237+ delegates.

Political party leadership ALWAYS attempts to pick the nominee for any electable position. They do this so that they have an elected official who will benefit the goals and desires of the party leadership. But, when the goals of the leadership and their monied supporters is at odds with those of the rank and file membership, then they have a problem. And it becomes an even bigger problem when the party leadership continually promises the rank and file that the party represents THEIR [ the rank and file] desires and that THEIR [the rank and file] vote matters and then turns around and ignores the will of the people as expressed through their vote in the polls.

Trump keeps handing the GOPe a shovel and they keep using it to big a deeper hole for themselves. You have to admire the political genius here.

    Eskyman in reply to Mac45. | April 12, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    Well said, Mac45!

    Unfortunately here there are few who will appreciate what you have said. All they can see is what they want to see.

    It’s quite funny, in an ironic sense, that if the establishment do manage to stop Trump, the Cruz supporters think that then Ted Cruz will go on to win the presidency. That’s the funny part!

    But no. If Trump is stopped, then the GOPe will immediately dump Cruz for someone more to their taste. They already have (besides Teddy) bought & paid for Jeb! and Rubio, each of which is more congenial, and each of which will also follow orders.

    To complete the trifecta, the establishment-picked candidate will almost certainly lose to Hillary, thus preserving the fine china rice-bowls of the Very Important People who decide these things “for our best interests.”

    So you see, it’s really quite funny; too bad that if the Establishment wins, then this country will never recover. The whole land will become California writ large. That spoils the joke for me.

    I still miss the country that we once had, though it was already far from the USA that our Founding Fathers gave us.

      True that, Eskyman & MAC45.

      Trump haters are so blinded they help the GOPe Duma to disenfranchise themselves and Trump supporters.

      Hatred is blinding.

      The system is rigged and billionaires spends $100s of millions on attacking Trump as they plan to scuttle all but who they will pick.

      It may turn out that Trump & Cruz will join together in an independent bid at some point.

    Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | April 12, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    Good grief….

    How could I have MISSED this…!?!?!

    Losing, then lying about it and whining like a pre-pubescent spoiled brat is GENIUS…!!!

    (I know how I missed this. It’s crazy.)

      Evan3457 in reply to Ragspierre. | April 12, 2016 at 1:25 pm

      It is amazing that every Trump screwup and failure is regarded by his supporters as a back-handed act of genius.

      Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | April 12, 2016 at 7:34 pm

      You might like to read a copy of Sun-Tsu, the Book of Three Rings or even some Machiavelli. It would help you to understand strategy and politics.

      Trump was never going to win in Colorado. The State GOP leadership had changed the rules so that they directly controlled the delegate election process there. Unlike the fact that most voters know where their local poling place is, only people who are really intent on attending a “neighborhood” caucus would have any idea where it was located [maybe in somebody’s garage???]. So, realistically, only party hacks were likely to attend. And, as was made crystal clear, the PARTY leadership, in Colorado, was actively working against Trump. And Cruz did not sway anyone. The real reason for the changes in the delegate selection process in Colorado was not tio eliminate a Trump win, but a CRUZ win. These changes were all made before Trump was a candidate.

      So, Trump is faced with a serious problem. No matter how popular he is with the rank and file members of the Republican Party, it has always been evident that the GOP leadership, the establishment if you will, will not allow him to become the delegate. So, he embarked on a two-part strategy. The first part is to use the grassroots dissatisfaction with the political establishment in general, and the GOP establishment in particular, to overwhelmingly gain the popular vote to be the nominee. The second part of this strategy is to attempt to force the GOP leadership to “play fair” and not engage in sneaky political ploys to force him out, at the convention. He does this by pointing out every sneaky political ploy that the GOP engages in, knowing full well that the majority of the republican rank and file will view these machinations as being sneaky, underhanded ploys which will disenfranchise them.

      The rank and file do not view Trump as whining about losing. They view him as watching out for their right to have their voices heard; something that the GOP seems to have serious trouble doing. Trump is winning the delegate pledge battle. He may actually hit 1237, which may push the GOP leadership to taking steps which will essentially ROB him of the nomination and send the party back to the same loser status it had in the 1940s. Even if he doesn’t win, if he has the lion’s share of the delegates and the popular vote going in and loses, he will simply say that he was robbed and most people will believe that. At that point the GOP will lose all the Trump supporters and probably many others. They’ll stay home as they did in 2008 and 2012 and the Democrat nominee will become President. But, for the GOP leadership, that would not be a problem, as who occupies the White House does not affect THEIR power and perquisites; only that of the rank and file members of the party.

Professor Jacobson, thank you very much for a truly great article !! It seems really hard to get the actual facts out now.

Really another whiney post about how Trump supporters should bend over, spread their cheeks and accept the screwing from the Crtuz camp/ You sound like a mother nagging her kid to eat Brussels Sprouts.

In the meantime, when I first said Trump should go third party, no Trump supporter agreed. Now I’m hearing the talk more and more.
It’s gaining momentum.
Trump should go third party.

    rotten in reply to RodFC. | April 12, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    This corrupt cycle is making George Wallace look like a Genius.

    Found a regional third party with enough support to tip the election one way or another (and let’s face it: swing states are states that have been ill served by both parties), and use the ability to tip the election to assure that core policies (like not inviting terrorists into the country) get followed.

    Evan3457 in reply to RodFC. | April 12, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Sore loser laws exist, mostly in Republican states, so if Trump goes third part, most of the states he’ll be allowed to run in are the big blue ones, where his presence will hurt Hillary, and help the Republican nominee, who might turn out to be Cruz.

    Sheer genius, that Trump is.

    Of course, he can always get around that by putting up his wife as the candidate. Oh, wait. She’s not a natural born citizen. How ironic. Well, he can always put his son or daughter up for election, I suppose. Or maybe that great American hero, Corey Lewandowski.

    (The sore loser law states are: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Of these, only Oregon and Illinois are solid Blue states.)

      RodFC in reply to Evan3457. | April 12, 2016 at 3:30 pm

      Another idiot who spouts stuff he reads someplace else without learning more. Like the fact that those laws are easily avoided.

      The simplest laziest way run Don Jr. for Pres Don SR for VP and wink wink nudge nudge once they win and get sworn in Don Jr. resigns.

    Yeah, Trump should go overboard. His Titanic Ego is floundering.

Trump isn’t just a clown anymore, now he’s becoming dangerous.

In the meantime, Cruz supporters not happy in stealing the election from Trump are now trying to take the Eagle Forum from Phyllis Sclafly.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/breaking-eagle-forum-officials-meet-block-phyllis-schlafly-f/

Trump Gains 12 Additional Missouri Delegates Today Leading Into The New York Primary Voters’ Ass Kicking For Crooked Ted

Twitter Feed:

Ryan Struyk
@ryanstruyk

Updated @ABC delegate count:

Trump 755
Cruz 545
Rubio 171
Kasich 143
Uncommitted 54
Other 16

8:43am · 12 Apr 2016 · TweetDeck

3 Retweets 4 Likes

    Evan3457 in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    Why are you posting this a second time in the same thread.

    Ragspierre in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    PaulM | April 12, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    This just in: Missouri GOP voters disenfranchised by narrow Trump victory in ‘open’ primary.

    In spite of Trump getting only 40.8% of the votes (Cruz got 40.6%), all 12 at-large delegates are awarded to Trump.

    So Trump gets all the delegates, despite the fact – if past primaries are any indication – he may have actually received fewer actual Republican votes.

    ———————————–

    Thought that a very good reply to ONE of your posts reiterating the same thing.

    You’re either losing your memory or just lying.

I’m getting a little tired of the pet commentators on this site in one instance expressing high dudgeon over what they portray as a vile personal attack on one of their female favorites, when it was no such thing ; while on the other hand utilizing those very tactics against another female (Voting female) who they disapprove of. You boy’s are nothing but bully’s attempting to intimidate a woman you place on a lower social rung than you assume for yourselves.
I understand both parties claim corporate standing & privileges. I contend they have grossly abused that position. That standing & privilege should be indefinitely suspended. A full R.I.C.O. investigation on both should be conducted. A full audit as well. Both entities are not above the law. No matter how much both they & their crony apologists think they are.

    Ragspierre in reply to secondwind. | April 12, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    Nobody here has called any T-rump supporter a “worthless whore” (Gari, the liar, Britt.

    As to your crazy comment about a RICO prosecution…how like a Collectivist when they are loosing.

    See subpoenas, AGs Gorebal Climate Thingy.

      Rags repeats a LIE originally told by Fuzzy Slippers. I nor anyone else has ever called Fuzzy Slippers or any other female a “wortless whore”. Post a link LIAR or STFU.

        Ragspierre in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 5:05 pm

        I do believe that is EXACTLY what you called Fuzzy, you lying SOS.

        You post what you DID call her if I got that wrong. I’ll happily step up to a mistake, contra you, who lies and lies and lies.

          That is the link and the correct quote is “a worthless whore for Cruz” which is a metaphor or literary device and calling her a literal whore which is the lie you told. Besides applying to Fuzzy the same metaphor could easily be applied to you and several others in this thread all of you are worthless whores for Cruz.

          So stop lying.

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | April 12, 2016 at 5:26 pm

          I’m just DELIGHTED to leave that lie about your lie hanging there, for all to see.

          You are busted. Again. Some more.

          I LOVE punking you like this…!!!

          As I’ve mentioned here the last few days, the tone is set at the top. Trump shamelessly lies, so many of his fervent supporters shamelessly lie.

          Rags said I called Fuzzy a wortless whore and that is a lie. I called her a worthless whore for Cruz. There is a big difference. The former implies Fuzzy is like Cruz’s hookers mentionex in the National Enquirer and the latter says she sells her integrity to spread Cruz lies and propaganda. Yyuuuuge Difference. Yyuuuge.

          spl-n-ok in reply to Ragspierre. | April 15, 2016 at 4:33 pm

          I see nothing wrong with what Trump said. He said they would exit and come back the correct way. Period. Negotiable is how fast they can come back. Don’t be so lame.

        spartan in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 5:55 pm

        Hey Internet tough guy and pathological liar,

        Here is the comment you made verbatim to Fuzzy:

        “You are just a worthless whore for Cruz. No LI author can have any credibility or pretend to have a journalistic credibility while supporting as you do this hacked video and FABRICATED POST FROM LEVIN.

        You have no credibility Slippers you are just a two bit commenter caught in supporting the lies of others.”
        ……

        Now you say it was only a metaphor or literary device. Well, you did not get that right either. It certainly not a metaphor as you were certainly not comparing two unlike things that have something in common.
        If it were a literary device it would be under the category of calumny. Last I checked, calumny was not a literary device.

        Now, allegedly you are an attorney. I doubt that very much. Attorneys tend to be very structured and disciplined; you are neither. You have a problem with words and sentence construction. In effect, your writing and logic sucks.

        I have not gotten between you and Rags, and I have pleaded with Rags to knock it off. I did not read that comment to Fuzzy Slippers.
        You should be banned from posting here until you make an apology to Fuzzy. You also should not come back until you have completed community service at a battered women’s shelter; maybe then you will respect women.

        You must have been a proud graduate of the Corey Lewandowski School of Social Grace.

          Sparton when you try to draw an equivalence between tough talk to an internet Troll for Cruz like Fuzzy and actual battered women you denigrate real battered women and their suffering. Just like when a snowflake like Michelle Fields tries to create a crime out of absolutely nothing. She denigrates the cause for equality for other women. Michelle Fields doesn’t want equality with men she wants extra special treatment and to have Daddy tell her what a special little princess she is for participating.

        Arminius in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 7:36 pm

        Britt, get your resume in to the Trump campaign as soon as you can. Because if Trump sh*tcans Lewandowski you’ll be the perfect replacement. You already fit in with the other Trumptards on staff.

        1. Attack a woman.
        2. Lie and say it never happened.
        3. Get caught in your pack of lies.
        4. Claim your original attack was justified somehow.

        You can’t work for the despicable Trump unless you yourself are despicable. That’s really the only talent a Trump campaign staffer needs, and you’ve demonstrated you’ve got that talent by the manure truck load.

          As a sort of aside, this is why I don’t support calls for the banning of any of these pests. They do a better job of discrediting themselves and their causes than any one of us could do if we didn’t have their active and direct participation.

          Rags said I called Fuzzy a wortless whore and that is a lie. I called her a worthless whore for Cruz. There is a big difference. The former implies Fuzzy is like Cruz’s hookers mentionex in the National Enquirer and the latter says she sells her integrity to spread Cruz lies and propaganda. Yyuuuuge Difference. Yyuuuge.

          Ragspierre in reply to Arminius. | April 12, 2016 at 8:03 pm

          I’d recommend the FIRST RULE OF HOLES to Gari (the liar) Britt, but it’s FAR too late.

          He’s deep enough now that he’ll be prosecuted for polluting the Edwards Aquifer.

          Badly polluting…

          Rags you would be the resident expert on holes, eh butt boi?

          spartan in reply to Arminius. | April 12, 2016 at 11:04 pm

          Ahem …. you missed one

          When someone quotes you verbatim, always accuse them of lying.

          Arminius in reply to Arminius. | April 13, 2016 at 1:14 am

          “Rags said I called Fuzzy a wortless whore and that is a lie. I called her a worthless whore for Cruz. There is a big difference.”

          Learn that at Trump University, did you? It doesn’t work, nobody buys it, and the idea that there’s a difference between calling someone a “worthless whore” and a “worthless whore for Cruz” is a naked, laughable lie.

          But that’s the kind of thing they taught at Trump University; techniques that don’t work, that nobody falls for, and if not outright lies at the very least unethical and illegal in most states.

          Which is why your cult’s messiah is getting sued for fraud and RICO Act violations. I’m looking forward to his testimony next month in, I believe, one of the California cases.

    inspectorudy in reply to secondwind. | April 12, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    Yours is the same nonsense spouted by obama supporters whenever anyone disagrees with his policies. The only difference is that they cry racism instead of sexism. When you come onto a website and disagree with most of the regulars on that site, you are probably going to catch some grief. Just because someone use an avatar of a female or a name that typically is a female name doesn’t mean that they are necessarily female. “Voting Female” could just as easily be a man as a woman. Why not find a “Safe Site” so that you can feel protected from microaggressions and let us get on with our comments?

Twitter Feed:

Voting Female
@VotingFemale

Cruz Declares War On Drudge In Attempt To Silence GOP Voters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/04/12/daily-202-ted-cruz-s-war-with-matt-drudge-could-become-a-huge-problem-for-his-campaign/570be431981b92a22deda1b9/

#NYprimary #CTprimary

#nra #maga #tcot #ccot #pjnet

10:56am · 12 Apr 2016 · TweetDeck

You know nothing about me old man, yet you feel free to make assumptions.
I have no idea what you are talking about with your first sentence.
Have I stated a preferred candidate? Then you are making assumptions from very limited data.
My impression from what little I know about you is you’re a lawyer. With a lawyer of a types arrogance.
I’m 70 years old. Just so you know.

I accept that a caucus and convention system may not be the most representative,

Representative of whom? Who should be represented at the convention, if not party members? Not only do I think every state’s GOP should use this method, I think it doesn’t go far enough. To vote at the precinct caucus one should not just have been registered for a month, but should be an official dues-paying member of a local branch of the state or county party. The GOP is not a government, it is a private club, and should run the way almost every private club runs.

“With a lawyer of a types arrogance.”
Your inability to write coherently is consistent with your self-proclaimed inability to understand what others write.

Because all the RINO Trump-phobes and Trump haters hereon need to read it twice, because they’ve shown themselves too dense to get it the first time around. Trump is the new Reagan. The way the RINO Trump-phobes and Trump haters like you are trating Trump is the same way the RINO Reagan-phobes and Reagan-haters treated Reagan (“I paid for this microphone”) in 1976 and 1980. We’re not letting you get away with it again.

    Ragspierre in reply to maxmillion. | April 12, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    Der Donald is the OPPOSITE of Reagan.

    He’s a Collectivist FRAUD, running under false colors.

    WE are Reagan supporters. WE are supporters of the Constitution.

    We are not letting you get away with it again.

      Exactly correct.
      Living here in California I voted for Reagan in all California state and federal primaries and elections, and I was blessed to live with him as governor and then president.
      Trump is no Reagan.

      Cruz is the opposite of Reagan.

      Unlike Cruz, Reagan

      1. Was likeable and personable

      2. Was smart enough to know that purity above all else is stupid and used a 45% tariff to save Harley Davidson and its USAjobs from preditory abuse of free trade deals.

      3. And, most importantly Reagan didn’t believe he was annointed by god to be president with a sacred duty to prepare the world for the return of Jesus.

        spartan in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 10:56 pm

        You said ……

        Unlike Cruz, Reagan

        1. Was likeable and personable.

        Response: Typical millennial pablum (your slip is showing). You have no idea what Reagan had to endure in 1980. Reagan’s negatives were very high 6 months before the election. They were so bad, Bob Dole tried to recruit Jerry Ford to run for the office. No one (except for a few diehards) thought Reagan would win because of the negative perceptions.

        Now, someone who has allegedly voted for Republicans for a long time would have known that. My guess is that IF you have been voting GOP for a long time it was; Pat Buchanan in ’92, ’96, 2000, Ron Paul ’08 and ’12.

        I hope your response is much better than your last one. I have high standards for lawyers; especially in writing, thinking, and wit.
        P.S. I already know the answer because you told me in your last reply.

    Evan3457 in reply to maxmillion. | April 12, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    He’s not really like Reagan at all. I can’t convince you of that?
    Maybe there’s someone who can. Let me know when Trump EVER has or ever will make a speech like this one:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY

Sammy Finkelman | April 12, 2016 at 2:47 pm

National Review’s Morning Jolt describes the selection process as follows:

You vote for delegates at your precinct March 1; the delegates you elect vote among themselves for delegates to district and statewide conventions; at the district and statewide conventions, those delegates vote on who goes to Cleveland.

This is nothing but the old traditional caucus system, which did not use any form of straw poll.

Cruz endorsed slates, and showed up in person to show he was behind them and that the Cruz delegates were really Cruz delegates. Trump never organized a slate, and when he did it, it was wrong. It may have been sabotage because some of what his campaign did was really bad. Somebody may be lying to Donald Trump about what went wrong.

    StotheOB in reply to Sammy Finkelman. | April 12, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    There were actually roughly 65,000 people voting in the 8 Colorado elections (7 district conventions elections, 1 state convention election)

    The entire whinny bull being pushed by Trump and all his followers is nothing more than a pitiful excuse for his being a loser who lost.

    So they are acting all furious that those 65,000 people didnt take part in a StrawPoll and instead merely voted for their Delegates. Thats the huge disenfranchising conspiracy they are so concerned about

    The problem for Trump is his entire campaign is built off one simple lie; “Im a winner and only I can solve all the problems you see” – so when the media points out that he is losing in spectacular fashion he needs to come up with some grand conspiracy against him lest his “Im a winner” platform fall apart completely in the eyes of his diehards.

    Once his blindly devoted followers recognize he is infact not a winner, and instead a pitiful loser who cant even win against the Grassroots in local elections …well, that’s when his devoted followers finally see their supposed infallible leader for the fraud he is and leave him in droves.

    Trump got his information from Joe Paterno.

Twitter Feed:

Washington Examiner
@dcexaminer

New poll shows Donald Trump is just 2 points behind Hillary Clinton, wins Ted Cruz’s voters

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/poll-trump-just-2-points-behind-clinton-wins-most-cruz-voters/article/2588249?custom_click=rss

http://pic.twitter.com/C0z2L3V8Gw

9:55am · 12 Apr 2016 · SocialFlow

37 Retweets 23 Likes

VotingFemale | September 9, 2015 at 5:43 pm

Since this is the new direction of LI, I will delete my LI RSS feed and let the RINO swamp creatures have at it in peace.

If you want to contact me, Professor Jacobson, the only way is DM via Twitter. I dont do email. I love you like my own, dear. We’ve fought many political battles together. sad…

Promises, promises…

    It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind 🙂

    Funny, you seem to be a stalker…

    StotheOB in reply to Amy in FL. | April 12, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    As I sated in yesterdays thread, I really do feel its probably time the board mods take a stand and ban her because her posts are beyond asinine, mindless parroting of what shes been told and clearly done for the sole purpose of drowning out everyone elses voice.

    There were 163 totals comments in that “Cruz/Likeable” article I said this in – VotingFemale had 43 of them; or a whopping 26% of all the posts! Twenty-Six percent! Tell me that isnt insane!

    VF is obviously a troll, specifically here obsessively posting copy/past clips or parroted thoughts so other people cant talk seriously about anything. Its as plain as day, and it should be rectified, imo. It reflects horribly on the board as a whole to have such an annoying troll trying to forcibly take over so thoughts can not be expressed easily by others.

      Additionally, And for the record StotheOB, you posted 30 comments on that post yesterday with much of it trolling me and I was responding to your trolling as well.

      …so go procreate yourself, troll.

        StotheOB in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 3:57 pm

        Oh my Lord youre an idiot… Fine, I will repost my reply to you from that thread which completely debunked your blatant nonsensical lies you’ve now repeated:

        “…*sigh*… Fine, I’ll reply to you once more just to point out how yet again you have posted complete and utter nonsense with absolutely no basis in fact:

        I count 6 replies of mine to you.

        I count 43 posts posts of yours in this article.

        So I have technically ignored 86% of your posts, not too far off of my hyperbolic estimate of 95%

        (I do also have one other post about you which was under one of your posts, but that clearly wasnt a reply to generate a conversation)

        Funny side-note: I count you as having 12 replies to me, meaning 28% of yours posts here have been to something Ive said. My having still kept replies to only 6 pretty much indicates how much Ive worked to just flat out ignore most of your obsessive, worthless, parroted input”

        …but go ahead, keep it up – we all know you will because clearly, we all seem to know exactly what you are; an obsessive, repressive troll here for no reason than to drown out other peoples voices and parrot propaganda in desperate defense of your pitiful candidate

      Ragspierre in reply to StotheOB. | April 12, 2016 at 4:05 pm

      Now, see, I personally LIKE having trolls to use as foils.

      I think they serve an excellent purpose.

      Consider the value of printing off the more loopy, virulent, NASTY posts of the T-rumpian cultists here (as apart from more normal people who support T-rump), and using them to show your friends, neighbors and others how crazy and mean these people really are.

      I have. I’ve found it very useful.

      Plus, it is FUN to punk trolls…!!!

    Ragspierre in reply to Amy in FL. | April 12, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    Sorry, Amy, I accidentally down-thumbed you.

    Yes, yes…memories!

    This was from back in the pre-pretend days when VotingTamale was a romping, stomping T-rump sucking name-calling partisan harpy who called ME a “RINO” and an “asshole” for not planting my lips…as she had done even back months ago…on T-rump’s ass.

    Then she went into mole-troll role-playing mode; “I support both Cruz and Trump supporters” (bats eyelashes).

    Yet, she can’t keep up the shape-shifting lie for long, and here she is, OUT, again…!!!

    I LOVE busting liars…!!!

You can shove your asinine opinions where the Sun don’t shine, NAZI.

“StotheOB | April 12, 2016 at 3:36 pm

As I sated in yesterdays thread, I really do feel its probably time the board mods take a stand and ban her because her posts are beyond asinine, mindless parroting of what shes been told and clearly done for the sole purpose of drowning out everyone elses voice.

There were 163 totals comments in that “Cruz/Likeable” article I said this in – VotingFemale had 43 of them; or a whopping 26% of all the posts! Twenty-Six percent! Tell me that isnt insane!

VF is obviously a troll, specifically here obsessively posting copy/past clips or parroted thoughts so other people cant talk seriously about anything. Its as plain as day, and it should be rectified, imo. It reflects horribly on the board as a whole to have such an annoying troll trying to forcibly take over so thoughts can not be expressed easily by others.”

Trump has nothing but contempt for his supporters. Frankly they’ve earned his contempt, and ours. Trump knows that if he gives them the choice of what to believe, the most obvious of lies coming out his mouth (or from his spox) or their own eyes, they’ll ignore the evidence in front of their eyes and believe the Trump lies.

Colorado is a case in point. Does anyone seriously believe that Donald Trump and his national organization didn’t know until after Colorado’s state GOP convention that they never held a preference poll for choice of candidates? Of course they knew that. They knew for months the CO GOP would only caucus to elect delegates. And CO isn’t the only state that does it this way. This is how WY and ND do it, as well as the territories of the USVI, American Samoa, and at least one other which I believe is Northern Marianas. I say at least as there could be more.

But now all of a sudden he’s pretending to be shocked, surprised, and outraged. “How does this happen?” he demands to know. He knows perfectly well how this happened. Notice I didn’t mention a state organization earlier. Because he really had none to speak of. He lost because he didn’t bother to compete.

But he also knows his gullible idiot supporters won’t know that. He knows his supporters only pay attention to what he says which is why lying to them comprises about 90% of his strategic communications strategy. I’m glad people are finally pushing back and pointing out the GOP rules benefit Trump more than they’ve benefited Cruz such as in winner-take-all states. Are any of the usual suspects who whine about Cruz and “ethics” and “disenfranchising” voters at all upset because 54% of FL voters have been by their own silly definition of the word “disenfranchised?” After all those FL voters voted for Not Trump, but Trump got their delegates anyway. Of course not; their cult messiah didn’t whine about it so it was never even on their radar.

Trump has gotten delegates all out of proportion to his percentage of the popular vote because the rules are rigged to favor the front runner by providing bonus delegates even in states that aren’t winner-take-all. For every 1% of the vote he has gotten 1.22% of the delegates. Cruz has won fewer primaries so he has only gotten 1.14% of the delegates for his share of the vote.

Trump and his campaign are incompetent so the rules have to be “rigged” in such a way to hand him an advantage. And he’ll take delegates he didn’t earn and shut up about it. But when Cruz plays by the rules and outhustles him and outmaneuvers him Trump will bitch and moan about as if he’s being cheated. He knows better; he’s not being cheated. Reince Priebus sat him down and explained things to him, and according to people at the meeting he turned to has staff and said they weren’t doing what they needed to do. But he also knows his idiot, gullible supporters. And he knows they’ll believe anything he says. That’s how cults of personality work.

Barack Obama 2.0 is an old white guy in 2016 running as an R. Obama had similar contempt for his supporters, too. He knew his personality cultists would ignore the evidence right in front of their eyes and believe the most obvious of lies. Since they voted to give him a second term I’d say that Obama, like Trump, knows his supporters inside and out.

    inspectorudy in reply to Arminius. | April 12, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    Of course he has contempt for his supporters. We all remember when their idol said that he could shoot someone in NYC and his supporters would still support him. Can the contempt be any greater than that? All he has to do is throw out a big lie and the zombies will repeat it over and over. They never bother to look to see if it is true or not. Didn’t we just go through this in 2012?

It’s Official: Ted Cruz, GOP Elites Support Tyranny – Spit on The People

Donald Trump stands with the people.
Ted Cruz stands with the party bosses.

On Saturday Ted Cruz, with the assistance from GOP elites and billionaire donors, took all 13 of the delegates up for grabs at the Colorado GOP Convention. The party leaders gave all of the state’s delegates to Ted Cruz in a voter-less contest.

But it was not without controversy.
There never was a vote – Party elites decided on who got the delegates.

read the rest here: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/official-ted-cruz-gop-elites-support-tyranny/

    Ragspierre in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    Jaaaaysus, you poor, daft LYING T-rump sucking thang…

    Resorting to outright lies from a cartoon blog?

    Pitiful.

      WOW! Trump’s Lead Surges to 60% in New York State – Tops Ted Cruz by 46 Points!

      WOW! Donald Trump surges to 60% in New York state!
      Leads Ted Cruz by 46 points!

      WOW! Trump’s Lead Surges to 60% in New York State – Tops Ted Cruz by 46 Points!

      Jim Hoft Apr 12th, 2016 12:11 pm 45 Comments

      WOW! Donald Trump surges to 60% in New York state!
      Leads Ted Cruz by 46 points!
      trump ny

      NY1 reported:

      Donald Trump has a commanding 43-point lead in the New York Republican presidential primary, and Hillary Clinton has a 13-point advantage in the Democratic primary, according to a NY1/Baruch College poll released Monday night.

      Running in his home state, Trump is supported by 60 percent of likely Republican voters, the poll found. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas trail far behind with 17 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
      “Trump is just killing it,” said Baruch College pollster Mickey Blum.

      Trump’s support in the April 19 primary is widespread, the poll found.

      “Every demographic group goes for him,” said Baruch College pollster Doug Muzzio. “Every geographic group, every socio-economic group. And with large majorities. Cruz ain’t doing it. And Kasich ain’t doing it.”

      More…
      Donald Trump leads in four upcoming states with Yuuge leads in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York.

      citation: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/wow-trumps-lead-new-york-surges-60-leads-ted-cruz-46-vote/

        gospace in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 6:12 pm

        Ah, the precious polls, wrong so many times this primary season. From what I’ve read of NY polling, they poll areas equally by population. NYC has about 42% of NY’s population,but only 14.1% of NY’s Republican voters. Where is Trump most popular? In NYC and immediate area. Where there are fewer Republican voters. I live in CNY. In 7 days I’ll be voting for Cruz. I post daily on facebook for all my NY (and other) friends a primary countdown post. Which I strongly encourage everyone to do. With reasons to vote for Cruz, a sensible decision for any conservative, or against Trump, a sensible decision for any sane person.

        Believing in polls at this point is as reasonable as believing in the tooth fairy.

      Fat chance of that now…

      Jeffrey Lord Calls for ‘Trump-Cruz Alliance’: ‘Ted Cruz Should Be Trump’s Vice-President’

      Jeffrey Lord, contributing editor to the American Spectator and a CNN political commentator, joined Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow on Tuesday morning to discuss the race for the Republican presidential nomination between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
      97%
      , and the prospects for each candidate in the general election.

      Lord thought Cruz’s fatal flaw in the general election would be his inability to carry the Northeastern states, a feat Trump might be able to accomplish.

      Recalling that Ronald Reagan overcame a 30-point polling deficit to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980 by winning in the Northeast, Lord said, “He carried New York State, he carried my home state of Pennsylvania, he carried Massachusetts, for heaven’s sakes. I’m not sure that Ted Cruz has that ability to do this, and this ‘New York values’ business, I don’t think helped him. I do think that Donald Trump does have that ability.”

      For that reason, Lord advised Trump and Cruz to think about joining forces. “I think that there should be a Trump-Cruz alliance. I’ve suggested that Ted Cruz should be his Vice President.”

      Lord said he was “amused” at the argument Trump was too cozy with Democrats like Hillary Clinton before he entered Republican presidential politics, because the same was once said of Reagan, before the conventional wisdom of the day re-framed him as a right-wing extremist.

      Referring to a YouTube audio clip from 1948 that has Reagan endorsing Harry Truman for President and Hubert Humphrey for Senator from Minnesota, Lord noted that the “Harry Truman values” Reagan endorsed included single-payer health care.

      “He himself later described himself as a ‘hemophiliac liberal,’ and he was,” Lord said of Reagan with a laugh. “People evolve. People change. Was Donald Trump there at one point in his life? Yes. Is he there now? No, he’s not. If all of this were true, he could have run for President as a Democrat, and he’d probably be beating Hillary.”

      Lord said Trump was making an effort to catch up in the delegate game, where Ted Cruz has been doing a much better job of wooing uncommitted delegates and getting supporters into key positions. He cited a report from Matt Boyle of Breitbart News on some smart moves by Trump’s new convention manager, Paul Manafort, who “took a page out of the Reagan playbook from 1980” in Michigan.

      “I do think that Paul Manafort, whom I know a little bit from years ago, is exactly the kind of person you have to have here, and I think the Trump folks are getting their act together on this,” said Lord.

      Marlow noted that Trump’s delegate struggles, especially the debacle in Colorado, were not only a stumbling block in his quest to reach 1,237 delegates and lock up the nomination before the convention, but also seriously undercut Trump’s campaign appeal as a skilled deal-maker who hires all the best people to handle the details.

      “This is the first time he’s ever run for office, so I do think that he probably took a little getting up to speed here,” Lord noted. “But, you know, he’s there. I think they’re going to do this, and I think they’ll be able to accomplish this. Paul is an exceedingly accomplished person, when it comes to this kind of thing.”

      “You can do a lot with these delegates here, that you can’t do with public officials in other capacities to woo them,” he explained, recalling the story of how an undecided delegate to the 1976 Republican convention found himself dining with Queen Elizabeth at the Ford White House by way of inducement.

      Marlow noted that the bitter feud over Cruz’s sweep of Colorado delegates, using tactics Trump’s campaign derides as “unfair” – while Team Cruz points out that the rules were changed and posted clearly for all to see, last summer – has produced flashpoints like Cruz taking the powerful Drudge Report to task for biased reporting, and Trump-supporting Border Patrol agents describing Colorado voters as “disenfranchised.”

      Lord, who supports Trump, said he could see merit in the arguments advanced by both sides in the Colorado battle. “I don’t think that that system was particularly wise, just in general, no matter who the candidates were,” he said of Colorado’s odd rules. “Somewhere along the line, I heard an audio clip of people jumping up, they had something like ten seconds to say what they were for. I just don’t think that that’s very smart, in general.”

      “That said, you do have to know the rules, when you go into these situations, and play them to the max,” he continued. “Clearly this wasn’t done. So there’s a problem there, for the people who didn’t do it, and in this case it turns out to be the Trump campaign. Lesson learned, I think.”

      He observed that the delegate rules are “enormously complicated” and different all over the country, citing the situation in his home state of Pennsylvania where Republicans are expected to vote for delegates based only on their names, with no idea which candidate they support. This makes it vital for the campaigns to reach out to voters and make sure they know which delegates to select.

      “These are the kinds of things that every campaign really has to bear down and understand, in fifty different versions,” said Lord. “I do think the Trump campaign has had a bit of a problem with it, but with the arrival of Paul Manafort, they are beginning to get this under control.”

      Looking ahead, Lord expected the backlash against the Establishment, especially on issues like immigration where the clear wishes of the public are wildly at variance with the Establishment’s position, to continue dominating the campaign.

      He mentioned the Boston Globe’s controversial “parody” front page this week, which he dismantled in detail at the American Spectator as “reflective exactly of both liberal hysteria and the bald hypocrisy that infects the left on a massive scale.”

      “The liberal media is just foaming at the mouth,” Lord declared. “I call it, as do some other people, ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’” As in his American Spectator piece, he noted that liberal organs like the New York Times were very enthusiastic about effective border security and deportations in the Eisenhower era, but “now, all of a sudden, Donald Trump is proposing the same thing, and you know, he’s a racist.”

      “The country is at stake, and I think that’s why you see such passion on the part of Trump supporters, and for that matter Cruz supporters,” he said. “They really feel that the Establishment has screwed things up. The ‘Ruling Class,’ as the saying goes. And they want to get things under control here. I mean, the debt – Donald Trump has said to me, personally, that we’re about $20 trillion in debt, if we get to twenty-four, he thinks the country could collapse economically.”

      read the rest here: http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/04/12/jeffrey-lord-lesson-learned-delegates-trump-folks-getting-act-together/

        William A. Jacobson in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 5:39 pm

        Please don’t post entire articles from Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, etc. here. If people want to read other websites, they can go to other websites.

          I don’t normally resort to posting such a big chunk but the resident stalkers here sorta PO’ed me.

          See, Prof, it’s simply not her fault. Just like nothing Trump does is his fault.

          Actually RICK, I knew better than to post a big chunk like that. I take ownership on it. I told the professor why I did it.
          It was an explanation, not an excuse.

          You, and your fellow trolling stalking little friends are out of control and beyond the pale.

          Actually, VotingV, first you claim that the devil made you do it, then on the second round you say that you take “ownership on it,” whatever that means.
          You have told us explicitly that you are entitled by the V to change your mind, so we know better than to expect consistency from you.

        Merlin in reply to VotingFemale. | April 12, 2016 at 9:32 pm

        Is it possible for you to be a more complete waste of digital space? Apply a little brevity to your shit show.

      Donald Trump Rally, Rome New York – 4:00pm EDT Live Stream…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cQAkcUgrk

      Twitter Feed:

      Paul Bedard
      @SecretsBedard

      Only @realDonaldTrump has agreed to speak at @NRA’s 145th Annual Convention

      http://washex.am/1S8kcdR via @dcexaminer

      http://pic.twitter.com/Zbaljgab4q

      1:26pm · 12 Apr 2016 · Twitter Web Client
      Virginia, USA, United States

        Only @realDonaldTrump has agreed to speak at @NRA’s 145th Annual Convention

        “Others speaking include: Sen. Marco Rubio, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.”

        This is why I so rarely follow your links. They’re usually either half-truths or outright BS.

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/levin-clears-up-the-colorado-controversy

People with a mind…much less an open mind…will listen and think.

    Levin is a fool with no credibility taking payoffs to be anti Trump. No wonder you love him.

    Colorodo GOP created a corrupt set of rules to disenfranchise voters for the purpose of denying Trump delegates. It is no defense to that corrupt process to argue the corruption was publicly known and Cruz followed the corrupt rules. A corrupt process yields a corrupt result every time. It matters not if the corruption is in public. Its still corruption.

      Zachary in reply to Gary Britt. | April 12, 2016 at 7:56 pm

      Boy you ain’t worth the paper Levin wipes his ass with.

      You really are the saddest sack I’ve seen in a long time.

      Evan3457 in reply to Gary Britt. | April 13, 2016 at 12:41 am

      Levin’s credibility is completely intact. Even the article written by Stone in the Daily Caller shows a link to an outsider group headed by Jim DeMint, not the “establishment”.

      There was nothing corrupt about the delegate selection process in Colorado. Nothing at all. It has been proven over and over, most of all by people who participated. The only corruption in the process was Monafort’s description of “Gestapo tactics”.

    Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | April 12, 2016 at 5:45 pm

    This was an exercise/invitation for people with a mind.

    You were excused on the terms of the offer.

conservative tarheel | April 12, 2016 at 6:41 pm

I really wish they had an ignore button
it would make life easier …
and it is better then a ban hammer.

Will someone not give the #ScreamingCaucusGarbageBaby a binky and put us out of our misery?

This was a comment I made in response to some of Gary Britt’s lunacy on the “Gestapo tactics” comment thread. Since that was another of Trump’s Big Colorado Lies and it’s appropriate to this discussion I’m going to repeat it here:

OMG!! Corruption! Corruption everywhere!

You know what that corruption consists of? The GOP, like all political parties, is a private organization, and as a private organization it is going to maintain at least some control of who, as a party, is going to be their nominee.

To call this corruption is idiotic. I expect this from leftists, who also are under the same delusion. They’ll protest Burger King because it’s not a vegan. They think fast food restaurants exist to provide people with jobs at 15 dollars an hour.

Gary Britt can not possibly be the life-long Republican he claims to be, because like all leftists he doesn’t know why private organizations exist. Like all leftists he thinks private organizations exist to give him whatever he demands. Now that he’s being confronted with the reality that this is not and never has been the case since the dawn of political parties in the US, he can’t deal with it and cries corruption.

genes nails it. You want to know what corruption looks like? Look at a picture of Donald Trump. He’s not much of a businessman. His “competitive advantage” was that he was born into a family already rich enough to pay to rig the system in their favor. And he brags about it.

Trump is now demonstrating he’s not much of a politician either. He can’t win unless the system is rigged in his favor. All his life Trump has paid to rig the system in his favor. Now that he can’t he’s whining about it.

It isn’t like anything that happened in Colorado was a secret or a mystery. All you had to do is go to the state republican party site, click on “about us,” click on “CRC bylaws,” and if you can read you’d have known exactly what was going to take place and how (emphasis mine).

http://cologop.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CRC-Bylaws-9-26-15.pdf

“ARTICLE XII: PRECINCT CAUCUSES
Section’C. Procedure.
4.b. NO PREFERENCE POLL OF ANY KIND SHALL BE CONDUCTED IF IT DICTATES OR REQUIRES THE BINDING OF DELEGATES to any higher assembly or convention. The participants at each precinct caucus, assembly, or convention of any county or district, alone shall determine if the results of any preference poll are to be a factor in the selection of individual delegates or alternates to any higher assembly or convention, and no candidate for delegate or alternate for any higher assembly or convention shall be compelled or required to identify the candidate he or she is pledged to support, but may do so at his or her option…

ARTICLE!XIII: ASSEMBLIES AND CONVENTIONS

Section A. Selection of National Convention Delegates…”

Everything Trump needed to know to compete is right there. It’s not written in effin’ hieroglyphics. It’s spelled out in plain English. But you see, Trump can’t compete. That’s why he bribes politicians; so he can write the rules so he doesn’t have to.

He’s not a great businessman, he’s not a dealmaker, he’s not the smartest guy in the room with the best mind and the best words who hires all the best people. The Colorado GOP can give Trump nearly a year to figure things out and he can’t make the cut. They can notify him in August 2015 that they won’t be holding any preference polls of any sort (because the RNC changed their rules requiring binding preference polls, and the CO GOP does not bind their delegates and hasn’t since at least 2003), and craftily “hide” the rules by posting them on the website where a six year old could find them. Too tricky for Trump, though. Trump just can’t adapt because he wins by corrupting the system. And he’s too old to change now.

These rules weren’t written to favor Cruz or Trump, as Rush points out. They were written to favor Jeb Bush. But the difference is Cruz can figure these things out, and he can win by these rules even when the rules are stacked against him. Trump can’t.

Trump and his Trumptards like Britt think being smarter or working harder than Trump (not hard to do) is cheating. Or, it means Cruz must be “GOPe” or “establishment.” Whatever lie that will work to comfort themselves so they don’t have to face the reality of Donald Trump.

Because if you’re not a member of the cult what Trump’s incompetence in Colorado, among other places, shows you is this. Trump will be a disaster as President. The process in Colorado was written out for him and actually is pretty straightforward. And it was still too hard for Trump to work that system to his advantage. But not Cruz.

Foreign relations, trade negotiations, national security, diplomacy in general is not going to be spelled out for Trump like the Colorado caucus system. The complexities of the international system is not going to be anywhere near as straightforward as what Trump is failing at now. And while the international system is corrupt like the pay-to-play system Trump is used to navigating so he doesn’t have to compete, Trump ain’t anywhere rich enough to bribe his way into the club that rigs that system in their favor.

Nobody cheated Trump in Colorado. Trump doesn’t know how to compete. Cruz does. Trump lost in Colorado because he’s a loser. Deal with it, Trump chumps.

Trump attacked Heidi in a fit of anger. Just like he accused Ted of criminal conduct in a fit of anger last night.

I’ve said it before — “Can you imagine Trump in control of the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.”

Unfortunately, I can.

And I don’t want to wake up every morning wondering if our President is mad at us. Eight years of that is enough.

So true, even truer if hillary wins.

Will someone kindly point me to the nearest exit for another universe? My wife had her highest opinion of Cruz at Christmas time and the Cruz Christmas tales…. all that was missing was “Comrade Bernie the Reddest Nosed Reindeer.” But it didn’t take an alpine skier to see it going downhill after Iowa and the Carson leaving the race incident. It hasn’t helped that now Cruz is portrayed as the savior of the country and anointed of G_d by Beck and Cruz’s father. Until the heavens part and a dove appears I will reserve comment. That said (as a Bible thumping family) it has been equally hard watching Trump stutter-step and rabble-rouse down a “non-presidential” path. Cruz may get his Pyrrhic victory of denying Trump a first vote. How we wish for the pre-primary Cruz willing to play non-establishment and angle for VP or SC justice…in partnership with a Trump in a non-Bronx cheer mode. OK… consider Trump the Republican Biden without the slimy qualities… Just wish Walker was in race than Ohio Boy.

http://beta.townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2016/04/12/new-jersey-judge-rules-ted-cruz-eligible-to-run-for-president-n2147656

Well, there goes THAT bullshit meme.

Should we put the T-rump suckers on suicide watch…???

In case anyone is still in doubt why Cruz is called “Lyin’Ted”

Twitter Feed:

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz

65K Coloradans voted–they just voted against Trump. That’s 11 elections in a row we’ve won. #WhiningIsntWinning

3:38pm · 11 Apr 2016 · Twitter for iPhone

2,001 Retweets 2,847 Likes

Retweeted:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

The people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians. Biggest story in politics. This will not be allowed!

5:50pm · 10 Apr 2016 · Twitter for Android

11,055 Retweets 25,282 Likes

    Evan3457 in reply to VotingFemale. | April 13, 2016 at 12:44 am

    That reply and the two tweets in it prove nothing; least of all that Cruz is lying.

    65,000 CO republicans voted in precinct caucuses for delegates to the county and district caucuses. Those caucuses voted for delegates to the state convention. Those delegates voted for the ones for the national convention. To be on the ballot people had to register and pay a fee.
    Some people were unable to follow clear directions.

    Arminius in reply to VotingFemale. | April 13, 2016 at 12:47 am

    Correction: I’ve never responded to you before, VF, and I don’t really plan on responding to you again.

    I really have to get rid of the malware that edits my text.

    And by the way, Cruz isn’t “called Lyin’ Ted.” Lyin’ Trumpy the insult clown calls him that because he knows people like you are stupid enough to parrot that as if it’s true. That way Trumpy can distract his Trumptards from what’s obvious to everyone who isn’t a brainwashed member of his cult. He’s a dumpster fire of a candidate.

I’ve responded to you before, VF, and I don’t really plan on responding to you again because you’re a stupid, uninteresting whackjob. But that’s actually relevant to the point I made @3:40pm today about how Trump has nothing but contempt for people like you who form his base, because his assessment of you is pretty much the same as mine:

“…Colorado is a case in point. Does anyone seriously believe that Donald Trump and his national organization didn’t know until after Colorado’s state GOP convention that they never held a preference poll for choice of candidates? Of course they knew that. They knew for months the CO GOP would only caucus to elect delegates. And CO isn’t the only state that does it this way. This is how WY and ND do it, as well as the territories of the USVI, American Samoa, and at least one other which I believe is Northern Marianas. I say at least as there could be more.

But now all of a sudden he’s pretending to be shocked, surprised, and outraged. “How does this happen?” he demands to know. He knows perfectly well how this happened. Notice I didn’t mention a state organization earlier. Because he really had none to speak of. He lost because he didn’t bother to compete.

But he also knows his gullible idiot supporters won’t know that. He knows his supporters only pay attention to what he says which is why lying to them comprises about 90% of his strategic communications strategy…”

How did the GOP “take away” anyone’s vote? They didn’t.

http://cologop.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CRC-Bylaws-9-26-15.pdf

“ARTICLE XII: PRECINCT CAUCUSES
Section A. Date and Location.
Precinct caucuses shall be held in even numbered years at 7:00 p.m. on the date provided by law or the rules of the Republican National Committee at a private place in each precinct or at a public place in or proximate to each precinct as determined by the county central committee or county executive committed and posted as required by law.

Section B. Voting Members
Voting members at each precinct caucus shall have been:
1. A resident of the precinct for thirty days;
A!resident!of!the!precinct!for!thirty!days; and
2. Registered to vote no later than twenty nine days nine days before the precinct caucus and affiliated with the Republican Party for at least two months as shown on the registration books of the county clerk and recorder or on the records of the Colorado secretary of state except that any registered Republican elector who has attained the age of eighteen years within the two months immediately preceding such precinct caucus or who has become a naturalized citizen within the two months immediately preceding the precinct caucus; or
3. Such other registered Republican electors as may be present and otherwise entitled to participate in the precinct caucus as may be required by law.
4. Voting by proxy shall not be permitted at any Republican precinct caucus”

The CO GOP has only been a caucus state since like for freakin’ ever. The never hold a binding candidate preference poll and they only caucus to elect delegates. Any registered Republican could have participated in the caucus. So it’s highly likely that a lot of Trump’s voters didn’t show up because like Trump’s own children they’re not registered Republicans and never plan to become Republicans. Then there’s the fact that Trumpy the insult clown is an incompetent candidate.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/cruz-sweeps-colorado-trump-campaign-issues-error-filled-ballots-n553586

“… Supporters in Colorado nonetheless said they were frustrated with the campaign’s chaotic and uncommunicative campaign, which failed to reach basic levels of competence.

“We could have had some things going, but the campaign decided to not put resources here,” Becky Mizel, a former Pueblo County GOP chair and Trump delegate candidate, told NBC News.

[Cruz Sweeps Colorado as Trump Campaign Issues Error-Filled Ballots]
Cruz Sweeps Colorado as Trump Campaign Issues Error-Filled Ballots 3:53

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Sen. Ted Cruz finished Colorado’s delegate fight the way he started it: With overwhelming victory.

Donald Trump finished it the way he started as well: With a disorganized and frustrated campaign plagued by mistakes.

Cruz took all 13 of the delegates up for grabs on Saturday to complete a clean sweep of the state. Delegates endorsed by his campaign swept all seven congressional district conventions held over the last week as well, which added another 21 delegates. Another three slots are reserved for state party officials.

“Today was another resounding victory for conservatives, Republicans, and Americans who care about the future of our country,” the Cruz campaign said in a statement Saturday night.

Trump’s aides set expectations at rock bottom heading into Saturday’s contest, citing the state’s unfavorable demographics and a complicated process that empowers local party activists to vote on delegates.
[Boston Globe Takes Front Page Jab at Trump With Fake Article]
Boston Globe Takes Front Page Jab at Trump With Fake Article 2:31

Supporters in Colorado nonetheless said they were frustrated with the campaign’s chaotic and uncommunicative campaign, which failed to reach basic levels of competence.

“We could have had some things going, but the campaign decided to not put resources here,” Becky Mizel, a former Pueblo County GOP chair and Trump delegate candidate, told NBC News.

Related: Trump’s Colorado Supporters ‘Feeling Demoralized’ as He Battles Cruz

On Saturday, Trump backers passed out flyers at the convention site with official campaign slate of 13 delegates and 13 alternates accompanied by their three-digit number position on the 600-plus person ballot. Seven of the names, however, directed people to the wrong number and one delegate’s name was misspelled. Other candidates did not have errors on their slates.

In one case, an erroneous number corresponded with a Cruz supporter. A second flyer handed out by the Trump campaign contained four mismatched names and numbers.

Among the names listed incorrectly on both flyers: Becky Mizel.

It was the second major error concerning campaign materials this week. On Thursday, a Trump slate of three names in the 7th Congressional District convention contained two that weren’t listed on the ballot. The campaign’s state director, Patrick Davis, said they failed to pay the necessary fees to qualify…”

It looks like his voters and delegates who could have participated are just as incompetent as their cult’s Messiah. Math is hard; they couldn’t figure out how to pay a small fee. Maybe they can’t tell time and didn’t know what 7:00 p.m. means, or they couldn’t figure out addresses.

So, nobody is in doubt about why Trumpy the insult clown is calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.” I wouldn’t run for President if I couldn’t put together a campaign capable of at least achieving basic levels of competence, but then I have no plans to become a reality TV star either. But if I woke up in a nightmare and found myself in Trump’s shoes and wanted to distract my gullible idiot supporters from the fact I had no one but myself to blame for running a disorganized, incompetent campaign? I’d start making up transparent lies about my opponent knowing my supporters are stupid enough to buy it.

And along comes VF to demonstrate that Trumptards deserve the contempt their own cult messiah has for them.

    Arminius in reply to Arminius. | April 13, 2016 at 12:50 am

    Like Skynet my laptop has become self-aware and I have no idea what it’s going to do.

    Arminius in reply to Arminius. | April 13, 2016 at 1:05 am

    I’m sorry Professor if I pasted too much text. It must be the malware. I didn’t actually copy all of that but apparently my computer, Skynet, did.

Larry Wayne Lindsey showed up at the Colorado State Republican Assembly on Saturday looking to vote for Donald Trump. Only problem? He wasn’t listed as a delegate. He posted videos to social media about how he believed he was a victim of an elaborate conspiracy to disenfranchise Trump voters. Though no substantiating evidence was provided and without talking to members of the Colorado Republican Party, Drudge Report picked up his story. It went viral. Trump personally called him and tweeted out his belief that the Colorado election was unfair. On his Facebook page, Lindsey says he’s arranged interviews with NBC, MSNBC, FOX News, and a bevy of other media outlets.

I debunked the story yesterday, thanks to a series of phone calls with local GOP officials in Douglas County, Colorado. Colorado republicans nominate candidates at regional and state assemblies, and delegates are picked for assemblies at local caucuses and regional assemblies. Lindsey did caucus with his neighbors and was even elected to be a delegate at his county assembly. But he never showed up at that assembly, and he was not elected a delegate at the state assembly.

Lindsey’s story is a great anecdote for helping explain why Trump’s operation was not up to snuff in the delegate game for Colorado, but it’s not the story of disenfranchisement that national media are running with.

Early on in the saga, Lindsey wrote, “This year, I decided that as important as this election is to the future of our nation, that I needed to be involved in the Colorado Caucus. I attended the Douglas County Assembly, and then the County Caucus and was elected as a delegate.”

OK, hold up right there. Lindsey would have had to first attend a precinct caucus before a county assembly. Douglas County caucuses are actually held by precinct, an administrative district set by the county clerk. The Douglas County GOP divides into a few dozen districts, each of which contain a handful of precincts. Lindsey did attend his caucus on March 1. And he was even elected to serve as a delegate to the Douglas County Republican Assembly.

But he never showed up to that assembly. Lindsey later wrote, after the GOP revealed he hadn’t shown up to his county assembly, a few different versions of events.

In one Facebook update he said that he was accused of having not shown up to the state assembly, even though he had video evidence of trying to get in. But no one claimed he hadn’t showed up to that assembly. They noted that he had not shown up to the prerequisite event — the county assembly.

He wrote:

I did find out just today, that I missed a precinct meeting, but only because this person had called me and told me that the meeting had been cancelled. She told me not to worry, because she said I was already a delegate and all I had to do was to show up at the State Convention.

There is no evidence to support his claim, and much to counter it. In addition to previously revealed information, one elected official says he personally talked to Lindsey about the importance of going to the county assembly — and has the phone record to back it up.

State Rep. Patrick Neville (HD-45) represents Castle Rock, the county seat of Douglas County. Neville’s website describes his political position. “I am a principled conservative with a passion for protecting life, liberty and the Constitution,” he writes, listing among his core beliefs:

The size and scope of the government must be decreased.
School Choice is a Civil Right.
I am 100% Pro-Life with no exceptions.
The Business Personal Property Tax should be eliminated. Fees should only be collected for their intended purpose, not used as a revenue stream for politicians.
Colorado needs to reject Obamacare by repealing its health exchange program and promoting cash services.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/12/colorado-trump-voter-who-cried-foul-was-told-of-county-assembly-never-showed-up/

Yeeeeeeup. The grass-roots (i.e., NOT “establishment”) showed up for Ted Cruz.

The careless and the liars showed up (or didn’t, actually) for the careless liar, Der Donald.

“Representative”, indeed.

The big lie is trying to tell people that disenfranchising an entire state in order to stop the people’s choice –Trump– is the way things are done in the democratic way.

    PaulM in reply to maxmillion. | April 13, 2016 at 10:02 am

    Some people might consider calling someone who has gotten less than 40% of the votes cast so far, and only in the GOP primaries – so an even smaller percentage of total votes cast in all primaries (likely less that 20%), “The people’s choice,” as a bigger lie.

    Then again, others might consider whining about only the ‘disenfranchisement’ that works against your candidate, while ignoring it when it helps, to be dishonest as well.

The whole system is rigged by the insiders who make the rules to fit their needs. I guess it is ok if one supports the current GOP plan to support Cruz in order to deny Trump the nomination….Until it’s not and Cruz is stabbed in the back. Let’s see what all the Cruz supporters say after the rules are changed to DENY Cruz’s the nomination…

    Arminius in reply to DrJim77. | April 13, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    You mean, are Cruz and his supporters the same whining crybabies constantly getting mugged by the reality of the primary system that was clear to everyone for nearly a year as Trump and his supporters are proving to be? Uh, no.

    Did you Trumpsters think this was going to be simple and straightforward? Do you think Cruz doesn’t know the party is against him? None of this is a surprise to Cruz or his supporters, but you Trumpsters are constantly being blindsided by reality.

    The system isn’t rigged because if it were, Bush would still be in the race. But it is biased toward establishment candidates like Bush, who was the presumed nominee when the states’ rules were published by September 2015.

    The system was set up to favor candidates who had the most cash, the largest organizations, and the best insider advisers so they could navigate wildly different primary set-ups in 50 different states, D.C., the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and US territories. They were purposely trying to make it too hard for an outsider, without insider support and insider cash, to figure it out and play to win. And even within states they were trying to discourage outsiders. Colorado, again, is a case in point. Candidates had to have a statewide organization on the ground, that knew the rules inside and out, ready to scrap for delegates at the precinct level. Again, that presumably would favor the candidate whose campaign would feature the attributes of an establishment campaign. Which in August/September 2015 was Bush; nobody figured he’d have been driven out by March 1st 2016.

    Trump certainly didn’t think Bush would be out. From the NBC article that I cited in my 12:37 a.m. comment about the Trump campaigns comic ineptitude in Colorado (but the essential elements apply to Trump’s campaign nationwide).

    “…Trump’s aides set expectations at rock bottom heading into Saturday’s contest, citing the state’s unfavorable demographics and a complicated process that empowers local party activists to vote on delegates.

    …’We could have had some things going, but the campaign decided to not put resources here,’ Becky Mizel, a former Pueblo County GOP chair and Trump delegate candidate, told NBC News.”

    See, the Trump campaign made the decision not to compete in Colorado months ago. They looked at the rules and decided they couldn’t win by them and gave up on the state. Which was exactly what the state and national GOP conventions wanted. Cruz didn’t cut and run. That’s the difference. He decided he could win by the rules even though they were stacked against him.

    Cruz is clearly the superior tactician. He prepared to go all the way to the convention and win there. Trump started winning and thought it would be a walkover. But he never had a plan. His campaign has been called chaotic, uncommunicative, disorganized, and incompetent. And that’s by his supporters, who are dismayed when Trump’s campaign can’t support them in the states where they are willing to work for him.

    There’s no reason Trump couldn’t have done what Cruz has done. No reason except that Trump is incompetent and disorganized. For instance Indiana’s primary is May 3rd. But the deadline to become a national convention was a month ago. Cruz was on the ground working to get delegates loyal to him. Trump was clueless. As I understand it, it now doesn’t matter who wins the Indiana primary. Not a single delegate will be loyal to Trump after the first ballot. If Trump wins the primary they’ll vote for Trump in the first round, but after that except the 3 RNC delegates each state organization gets the other 54 all for Cruz.

    Winning a contested election is a three step process. First you get as many votes as you can. Second, on the state level you fight for every delegate you can. Third, you have a plan to prevail at the convention.

    Just because Trump and his supporters didn’t know there was anything beyond step one, what makes you think everyone else is similarly clueless? Do you actually think Cruz doesn’t know the “Washington cartel” of both parties that he continually rails against won’t have their knives drawn and be out to get him in Cleveland? He knows all this. He knows that he didn’t make any new friends when he refused to go to D.C. and kiss the ring; to apologize to McConnell for calling Mitch a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz isn’t going to apologize for telling the truth; McConnell is a liar.

    You do correctly point out one thing; they’ll have to change the convention rules to beat Cruz. Nobody needs to do that to beat Trump. Trump is losing by rules that have been in place for nearly a year. Trump had nearly a year to plan for him, and he just couldn’t get his act together. Cruz, on the other hand, has his act together. As I said, Cruz is the superior tactician. He’ll have his act together at the convention, too.

    That’s one advantage Cruz has by putting as many double agents in the Trump contingent as possible. Trump may have more bound delegates than Cruz at the start of the convention. But the way things are shaping up with his close second in numbers of bound delegates, supporters among the free-agent unbound contingent, and double agents among the delegates bound to Trump, Cruz will actually have more loyalist delegates than Trump. And candidates can’t tell delegates how to vote. It isn’t as if candidates own delegates like a rancher owns cattle. Except for the delegates bound by state law or GOP rules to vote for the winner in their state on the first one or two or whatever ballots, they’re free to vote their consciences when they’re released, unbound, or on rule changes. The delegates must vote to approve rule changes, and the Cruz loyalists aren’t going to vote to screw Cruz.

I’m troubled by the inaccuracies (sins of omission) in this article. I’m not a very great Trump fan, but dishonestly reporting what went on in CO., etc. does not help Ted Cruz at all. There were indeed serious problems reported in CO. at the convention.

But what really troubles me about this article, is it completely misses Drudge’s and Trump’s point. The people did not get to vote for their presidential preference. The CO. GOP kind of skipped that messy part so that all of their delegates would be UNBOUND. That is the truth and calling people liars for stating this obvious truth does not help the article’s credibility in the least.

How is that serving the voters’ best interests when they don’t have the ability to choose delegates who will reflect the will of the people? Because of the lack of a presidential preference vote, we don’t even know the will of the people.

This is the type of the stuff that we have typically laughed at the Dems for doing. Methods matter and believe you me, the entire process in CO. stinks to high heaven. The GOP in CO. not only didn’t care about the will of the people, they actively went out of their way to suppress their will.

Not Good.

Never ever let your sight be so blinded that you deny problems where serious ones do exist. Calling your allies liars for pointing out the obvious is not a good way to win friends and influence people.

Step back, take a deep breath and admit that Trump had some valid points (even though he is not totally innocent either). The CO. GOP screwed up and decided that they knew better than the voters. That is plainly and obviously anti-democratic. That is how totalitarian regimes rig elections.

That troubles me seriously. I really would like to vote for Cruz, but actions such as these by – dare I say it? – the fanatics of #NeverTrump push me more towards Trump. The fact that Cruz hasn’t come out against these actions as well as others (such as in Georgia) make me fear that he is one of these people who will sell their soul to become president.

And yes, yes, I am quite aware of all the problems with Trump. But with him, at least WYSIWYG. Not so much with Cruz.

    So you’re saying that I, as a Florida primary voter, should be screeching “UNFAIR!!” “STEAL!” “RIGGED!” from the rafters because my vote for Cruz didn’t “count” and Trump got 100% of my state’s delegates but won less than 50% of the primary vote? My guy didn’t even get one lousy delegate.

    Colorado can decide its own state’s delegate selection process just as Florida can. And I’m not sure if you know this, but at the end of the day, no one’s vote “matters” in the way you think it should . . . or think it should in some cases but not others. Delegates, ultimately, select the party’s candidate. Voting in primaries is relatively new (early 20th century) and was never intended by the Founders who believed in representative government, not mob rule.