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I can't evaluate a candidate on one misspeak
I doubt anyone does or would. But look at how often Trump "misspeaks." He's up to 95 times now, that's up from 83 when I checked last week. In fairness, his occasions of telling the truth have gone up too. They are now at three, up from last week's two.
And that is the problem with Trump and what he says. All the enthusiasm in the world isn't worth a hill of beans if it's based on things that largely aren't true. When one has a higher increase in the mostly false (or worse) statements one makes than in the bump in true ones, that's a real problem because it indicates one cannot rely on what the man says.
As I've said before, it illustrates that by and by a large margin, if the man's mouth is open, he's snoring, eating or lying.
Well I prefer to draw my own conclusions about the truthfulness of what people say and I base those conclusions on what I know about the subject. If I don't know a great deal about the subject, I reserve my judgment until I do.
I do however take anything Politifact says with a grain of salt. I have caught them in far too many questionable 'rulings' myself and I don't seem to be the only one:
Who’s Checking the Fact Checkers?
As well you should. I won't accept someone else's assertions about what is so or not so without reading the details of the situation. With quite a lot of PolitiFact (PF) remarks, I do bother to "click" on the summary numbers to find out what they offer as an explanation for their judgement call. I have come across instances whereby they and I have differing assessments about things. Most often those things fall into these categories:
- PF says it mostly false and I say it's wholly false.
- PF says it's "wholly false and I say it's only mostly false.
- The same "flips" as go true and mostly true.
- I have yet to disagree with their assertions of "pants on fire" false or with what they say is fully true.
- Generally, I ignore half true because that stuff is also half false and it's not likely to be fully true or fully false. Were a given individual on the margin, so to speak, then I'd look at the "half" stuff.
Isn't it sad that we can't just find sources for facts that are agreed upon to both sides? No wonder we rarely get to have a serious political debate in our country!
The problem for Kasich is that GOP voters don’t want a brokered convention: 51% say the candidate who enters the convention with the most delegates should be the nominee. Just 34% think the delegates at the convention should choose the nominee by voting for whomever they want.
The problem for Kasich is that GOP voters don’t want a brokered convention: 51% say the candidate who enters the convention with the most delegates should be the nominee. Just 34% think the delegates at the convention should choose the nominee by voting for whomever they want.
Well, it's all well and good that that's what they say, but the fact remains that the convention rules of their very own party require a majority of voter support not a plurality of voter support in order to secure the nomination of the GOP on the first ballot whereupon the delegates representing the voters vote in accordance with the wishes of those voters. Accordingly, if the voters fail to demonstrate a majority during the course of the primary process, they must accede to the decision of their delegates.
Nobody forced those voters to be members of the GOP. Nobody forced them to vote in their jurisdiction's primary or for a GOP candidate. By choosing to belong to the GOP, one does not get to choose which provisions of the party one will accept and which of them one rejects.
Take the Tea Party, for example. They call themselves a party, but at the end of the day, they don't have the "cajones" to form an actual party and so they exist within the GOP and thereby shove the mainstream of the GOP to the right rather than standing on their own and making the case for their position. The friggin' pansy-ass Tea Partiers haven't even enough confidence in their own positions to stand on their own and make their case. No. They piggy-back on the GOP and try to make the whole party, and the rest of the rest of the country really, succumb to their will by force majeure rather than on the strength of cogent arguments.
Frankly, I thought Trump should have, from the get go, run as an independent. He has the money do so. He then as now got more than enough "free press" not to need the support of an established party. He could have been the founder of a third party; he could have been seen as a founder of something far bigger than himself or his company. Did he do that? No. He joined the GOP. One consequence of that is that he must play by the GOP's rules a goes obtaining the GOP Presidential nomination and its support in his electoral campaign to become a GOP President. All the other members of the GOP must do the same.
As we near the Democratic convention, it is possible that the Democrats too have a "brokered" convention. If they do they do. You don't see Democrats having conniptions over the prospect of having to "do it" in accordance with the rules of their party, now do you? Do you think that might be because Democrats aren't folks who want to have and eat their cake? Hmmm....
the GOP party bosses now seem to be threatening to throw out those rules in favor of new ones....There is a great deal of resentment about that, and rightfully so.
if nobody gets a clear majority, then does not a plurality count for something?
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election...
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's?
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's? Or what does it say about Kasich who has only won one state? Or all the others who are technically still candidates but who have suspended their campaigns because they were consistently losing everywhere?
if nobody gets a clear majority, then does not a plurality count for something?
It does count for something, but that "something" isn't necessarily the GOP's nomination for President of the U.S. Until that nomination is obtained by someone, it's rather hard to say for what the plurality you mention counts.
In the case of Trump, it's especially hard to say for what it may count because he's the one GOP candidate who has some degree of appeal to non-GOP registered voters. Just how much is anyone's guess as far as I'm concerned, but most folks know (hopefully) that the man has spent the majority of his adult life as a Democrat, and the idea that his time as such didn't affect his political stances is preposterous.
Indeed, for my part, I think the only reason he registered and has run as a Republican is because he saw the prospect of running against Mrs. Clinton as too daunting for in terms of actually knowing details and procedures related to elections and governance, she'd run rings around him; he's far too out of his depth to have engaged her from the get go in primary races. In contrast, Cruz is so extreme, Rubio so "new," and Bush so establishment, that he had a good chance of being able to hold his own against them. Unfortunately, for Trump at least, he didn't "brush up" on content/substance -- matters of governance or GOP electoral mechanics -- and "do his homework" in time and now that's biting him in the ass because all he's got to offer, even now, is political pablum, and complaints, and the primaries and electorate have moved to a deeper level.
That said, save for political junkies, the electorate hasn't overall become so demanding that they wouldn't still support Trump in the general election. The one thing he has going for him against Mrs. Clinton is that there are a lot of dolts and "knee jerk" voters who will choose him over Mrs. Clinton largely because he's entertaining, they don't know much about him other than what they saw/see on The Apprentice, and finding information about Trump that he may not care to have well or widely known isn't easy because he's been a private citizen for so long.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Like it or not, that aphorism works in Trump's favor....And for the record, I don't like that it does, but I accept that it does and understand why it does.
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election...
The folks who so conclude are loons because the majority that matters most is the majority of pledged delegates. One need not crack 50% in any GOP primary election to obtain the majority of GOP pledged delegates. That's just the way the GOP primary rules work. One ignores those rules, which are not new, to one's dismay, as Trump is finding out.
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's?
Nothing, logically speaking. The premise is sophistic to begin with as noted above. What of merit is there to take/make from an invalid premise?
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's? Or what does it say about Kasich who has only won one state? Or all the others who are technically still candidates but who have suspended their campaigns because they were consistently losing everywhere?
Again, nothing. One may posit all manners of things about those other candidates, but based on the premise you've offered, there's no basis for any of it.
if nobody gets a clear majority, then does not a plurality count for something?
It does count for something, but that "something" isn't necessarily the GOP's nomination for President of the U.S. Until that nomination is obtained by someone, it's rather hard to say for what the plurality you mention counts.
In the case of Trump, it's especially hard to say for what it may count because he's the one GOP candidate who has some degree of appeal to non-GOP registered voters. Just how much is anyone's guess as far as I'm concerned, but most folks know (hopefully) that the man has spent the majority of his adult life as a Democrat, and the idea that his time as such didn't affect his political stances is preposterous.
Indeed, for my part, I think the only reason he registered and has run as a Republican is because he saw the prospect of running against Mrs. Clinton as too daunting for in terms of actually knowing details and procedures related to elections and governance, she'd run rings around him; he's far too out of his depth to have engaged her from the get go in primary races. In contrast, Cruz is so extreme, Rubio so "new," and Bush so establishment, that he had a good chance of being able to hold his own against them. Unfortunately, for Trump at least, he didn't "brush up" on content/substance -- matters of governance or GOP electoral mechanics -- and "do his homework" in time and now that's biting him in the ass because all he's got to offer, even now, is political pablum, and complaints, and the primaries and electorate have moved to a deeper level.
That said, save for political junkies, the electorate hasn't overall become so demanding that they wouldn't still support Trump in the general election. The one thing he has going for him against Mrs. Clinton is that there are a lot of dolts and "knee jerk" voters who will choose him over Mrs. Clinton largely because he's entertaining, they don't know much about him other than what they saw/see on The Apprentice, and finding information about Trump that he may not care to have well or widely known isn't easy because he's been a private citizen for so long.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Like it or not, that aphorism works in Trump's favor....And for the record, I don't like that it does, but I accept that it does and understand why it does.
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election...
The folks who so conclude are loons because the majority that matters most is the majority of pledged delegates. One need not crack 50% in any GOP primary election to obtain the majority of GOP pledged delegates. That's just the way the GOP primary rules work. One ignores those rules, which are not new, to one's dismay, as Trump is finding out.
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's?
Nothing, logically speaking. The premise is sophistic to begin with as noted above. What of merit is there to take/make from an invalid premise?
If we conclude that a majority of people don't want Trump because he has never cracked that 50% in any primary election, what does that say about Cruz who has won far fewer primaries and his percentages when he does win have been much lower than Trump's? Or what does it say about Kasich who has only won one state? Or all the others who are technically still candidates but who have suspended their campaigns because they were consistently losing everywhere?
Again, nothing. One may posit all manners of things about those other candidates, but based on the premise you've offered, there's no basis for any of it.
Again, alas, I think you completely missed the point that Dr. Sowell and I were making.
My concept is that using that logic, far more people do not want any other candidate than do those who don't want Trump.
So he is correct that more people do not want Donald Trump to be President than want Donald Trump to be President.
There is reason to think that if fewer candidates had been running in this primary season, that enough of the votes that went to other candidates would have instead have been case for Trump, that he could be over the 50% mark.
If the convention is going to be decided by the delegates at the convention instead of by the people who vote, why have the people vote at all?
