Quick update: OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THEY MAKE IT STOP FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER YOU HOLD SACRED PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP WE MUST BE ABLE TO DO BETTER THAN THIS.
Clinton won the nomination in February, some people still hold out hope that isn't the case. Unfortunately "facts" and "math" are against Sanders, he'll stay on through the Democratic Convention because...reasons...but Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
Somehow, Republican voters demonstrated a feeling that can best be described as "ahh, fuck it" in five states that held primaries yesterday. The Scorecard (overall):
Trump - 954 delegates
Cruz - 562 delegates
Rubio (no longer running) - 171 delegates still bound to vote for him in the first round
Kasich - 153
Technically uncommitted, but their state vote for Trump - 57
Other - 16
Remaining to be awarded: 616 delegates in 10 primaries, with California being the largest by far (172 total).
Needed to win on the first ballot at the July convention outright: 1,237
Trump remaining to clinch nomination on first ballot: 283
Until recently, pundits would have said it was nearly impossible for Trump to get to 1,237. Given that he only has to win 45% of the remaining delegates, and that he can concentrate a lot of his time and money in California....it appears we should get ready for:
THE TRUMPENING.
Trump v. Clinton 2016 is coming, and it is going to be an absolute disgrace. Trump has already said that "If Hilary was a man, she would only be getting 5% of the vote"...so we're already into gendered attacks from a white male.
It's time we sat down and had a chat about Ted Cruz. Presented, in no particular order, here are some facts related to or about Ted Cruz the man, the Presidential Candidate his time as a Solicitor General, and his time as Senator:
(I'll provide links, but I promise these are all true)
“There is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals,” (Cruz, 2007)
Ted Cruz is a Republican Senator.
Another Republican Senator once said "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."
Bonus Fact: the Senator was Lindsey Graham, who was also a Presidential candidate at one point in this cycle.
Barack Obama spent a LOT of his '08 candidacy and early Presidential years defending the fact that he was American, going to the point of publicly releasing his Birth certificate to combat the so called "Birther" movement.
He travelled to Kentucky to demonstrate public support for Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to issue marraige licenses to homosexual couples after the Supreme Court ruled they could marry across the country.
This is the same woman the Pope accidentally met. Oops.
He disagress with climate scientific conclusion on climate change.
Which, by the way, does agree that the earth's climate naturally cools and heats. Just not at the extreme rates that we have created for ourselves. Sigh, climate change deniers annoy me.
I could go on, but I'll stop and let you draw your own conclusions from this information!
Some of you might not be sports fans the way I am. I have an undergrad with a Phys Ed major, and my favourite writers (Hunter Thompson, Bill Simmons, Chuck Closterman) all love(d) and write (wrote) about sports. Here is the link to how cursed the city of Cleveland is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_sports_curse). Its' pretty ridiculous.
So naturally, in the middle of the sumer, the culmination of the Republican process of picking their nominee will be in Cleveland. At this point, it has become pretty clear that THE DONALD will not have enough delegates to become the nominee. Additionally, nobody else will. Which begs the question.
WHAT THE FUCK IS A DELEGATE?
Let me take you back to Pittsburgh, 2008. I arrived in Pittsburgh having been told: "there are two staff members there. One has been there for a week, one has been there for two months organizing delegates and setting up the Western Pennsylvania campaign. Her name is Lauren Watts, and although we have lost touch there is nothing I wouldn't do for her.
Lauren was an organizer in New Hampshire in 2007/2008 for Obama, and they got their souls crushed when HRC came from behind to keep her campaign alive by Obama. In the aftermath, she was sent to Pennsylvania, which wasn't going to vote on Obama/Hilary for something like five months, to organize delegate selection. This meant that she went around Western Pennsyvlania, using contact lists of current low level democrat members who may have held office or sat on a committee, and asked them if they would go to Denver for the Democratic Party 2008 convention as part of the Obama team if Obama won their area.
Delegates are the people who are actually sent to the partie's convetion to vote for the candidate. For the past fifty years or so, they've had no influence, decision making, or power. They had been selected by their party (Democrat or Republican) to vote for a candidate (regardless of their person feelings/ideas), and for this generation every candidate has gone into the convention with enough votes to win on the first ballot.
So...you have to think about the kind of qualifications the party is looking for in a delegate:
Can you travel to a political convention mid-Summer
Are you willing to stand there and clap for your nominee while someone else casts their votes for you.
Are you willing to stick around for a few days and fill seats for speeches
Will you please not say anything so outrageous that it make national news
Can you pay some/all of your own way.
Will you do everything your State boss tells you to do?
Will you volunteer for all of this?
If you do anything against what we are asking for, your future in the party is over.
It becomes pretty limiting pretty quickly. Anyone with a job that didn't plan a vacation has to say no. Parents generally have to say no. Etc. Every delegate I ever met was an...eclectic and unique...individual that I would not want to put in charge of picking my outfit for the day, let alone the next Presidential candidate for either major party. By and large, every delegate is allowed to vote however they would like after the first ballot. So if their state went to Cruz, they vote for Cruz the first time they are asked to vote. Every time they are asked to vote after that, they can vote for literally whoever they want. I could theoretically go to Cleveland and become the Republican party nominee, there is no need for a person to have participated in any of the voting so far.
So, THE DONALD is going to fall short of the 1,273 delegates he needs. Cruz will have less delegates than THE DONALD. Ultimately, this means that the actual selection of the Presidential candidate for the Republican party nominee will be done by delegates who are making snap decisions, who will be offered jobs/money/bribes and anything you can imagine. Picture a bunch of billioniares walking around a Best Western where they know the 40 Republican delegates from Arkansas is staying, ready to do whatever it takes to persuade these 40 individuals (who have regular jobs in their day to day life...a bunch of teachers/contractors/etc.) to vote a certain way for a Presidential nominee, and there is no way of tracking those conversations?
Also remember that THE DONALD has been inciting violence and offering threats, so assume that in addition to incentives, payoffs, and bribes, they will have beatdowns, private security forces, large scale fights and intimidation.
SO. MUCH. DOOM.
Coming up soon: If THE DONALD is offering the Moose Tracks of Doom, what flavour of DOOM is Cruz offering?
update: no really, you can buy delegates http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/04/politics/contested-convention-bribing-delegates/index.html
Before I get started: If you enjoy this blog you'll probably enjoy what I think is the best podcast out right now "Keeping it 1600" (Address of the White House: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). It's on a podcast network called Channel 33, easy to find from soundcloud, stitcher and itunes.
Like a snake eating it's tail, we may be approaching coming full circle around the doom continium. Here are some actual things that The Donald said while campaigning this week (I don't have links, you can find them easily enough):
He doesn't rule out using nuclear weapons. AGAINST EUROPE.
I'm going to interrupt my blog here. Donald Trump, in an interview about Nuclear Weapons, said he doesn't rule out dropping an atomic bomb on Europe. Because...Greek financial crisis? French fries? Soccer? I mean...what the fuck?
Back to the list:
The National Enquirer reported that Ted Cruz may have cheated on his wife. The Donald's campaign IMMEDIATELY SENT OUT A PRESS RELEASE SAYING "WELL....THE ENQUIRER HAS BEEN RIGHT BEFORE"
Sorry, have to interrupt my factual recap of the week again: THE FUCKING NATIONAL ENQUIRER? People my age will remember this as the magazine in grocery stores that reported on Alien babies. Why the fuck would a candidate for President of the United States, and passionate European bombing enthusiast, send out an unprompted press release about this from such a ridiculous source? Dear god.
Ok, I'm breathing normally again, there can't be anything else, right?
In an odd moment that must have been an esteemed interviewer (Chris Matthews) wondering what he could get THE DONALD to say, Matthews asked Donald if women should be punished for having abortions.
Uhh, not if women should have abortions...if they should be punished for having them. Quick note here, THE DONALD is the only Republican candidate to praise Planned Parenthood for the work they do for womens health. So naturally...
OH MY GOD. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. FOR REAL? NO. THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING. THE DONALD SAID WOMEN SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR HAVING ABORTIONS.
So...uhh...yeah. The Donald may have gone so far around the bend that he MAY not win the nomination. He will still get the most delegates going into the convention, but not enough to win. It's possible that he is now talking at such an extreme edge of crazy sh*t that, even if he only falls like 100 delegates short of the 1,237 that he needs, literally 0 delegates will switch from another candidate to join him....almost for sure making Ted Cruz the nominee.
Which, in our Ouroboros of doom, brings us back to the fact that Ted Canadian Cruz is not better than Trump. More on that someday soon.
