Month: April 2016

The Cruz campaign gets way too much credit, and blame for that matter, for the fact that Trump is getting screwed at Republican State Conventions.  There was a big brouhaha over Louisiana, and how Cruz totally shafted the Donald.  But it really wasn’t Cruz.  It was just a few smart Louisiana conservatives, probably including Master Legislator Rep. Joe Harrison, who pulled it off.  They didn’t need any help, or guidance, from anybody.  They know what they’re doing better than any operative that Cruz might send in to help.  These are smart guys.  The “Rubio” delegates from Louisiana haven’t even been contacted by the Cruz campaign, though they have heard from the Trump people.  So  much for the superior Cruz ground game.

This comports with what has gone on, and is going on, in Alaska.  The Cruz campaign had nothing to do with Cruz’s 627 vote win in Alaska.  The Cruz guy in charge, Robert Uithoven  — a Las Vegas political consultant  —  had done  nothing when I started looking in to the situation there, a week before the caucuses.  One Cruz Co-Chair, Judy Eledge, was also a District Chair, told me she was too  busy getting ready for her own district convention to do anything for Cruz.  The other Co- Chair was in Hawaii on vacation, and would be back when the caucuses were over.   With the help of David Cuddy and a few others, I was able to throw together just enough of a “campaign” to pull it off.

As the Alaska State Convention approaches the Cruz campaign is again a non-factor.  Judy Eledge is running for Vice Chair of the Party, and is supporting Ann Brown of Fairbanks for Chair.  Ric Davidge is also running for Party Chairman, as is Tuckerman Babcock.  Uithoven has apparently aligned himself with the Brown-Eledge faction.  He has  no idea of what he’s doing.  I’ll be in Fairbanks to make sure everything goes down as it should, and I won’t need any help from Uithoven.

You see, Joe Harrison of Louisiana and I are co-conspirators, and we don’t need any help from the Cruz campaign..  He and I haven’t talked about it, we don’t have to.   We both know what we’re doing.  And we have a lot of fellow co-conspirators in just about every state in the union.  They know the Republican politics of their states as well as Joe and I do about Louisiana and Alaska.  In Minnesota, it’s probably House Speaker Kurt Daudt.  I know a few of these guys personally, and the rest by reputation.  They all know what they’re doing.  But, oh, I forgot, Paul Manafort knows The Rules.  Good luck with that.

I see where Sarah Palin cancelled a speech to the Wyoming State Convention tomorrow.  She hasn’t exactly been lighting up the crowd in recent appearances.  She’s such a prominent Trump supporter, it will be strange if she doesn’t at least appear at the Fairbanks Convention for him.  She’s lost a lot of friends in the Republican Party of Alaska.  It’s like she’s too big for Alaska.

Kasich is basically an annoying guy.  But he may be serving a purpose in New York.  Without Kasich on the ballot, I don’t think Trump would have any trouble getting to the 50% mark he needs to really win the state.  So hold off on the Kasich potshots until after Tuesday.  If Cruz and Kasich can keep him under 50%, that would be a very big deal.  These polls may be counting a lot of non-Republicans who think they’re going to be able to vote, but won’t.  So there’s that.

I hate the f word.  When people tell me something’s not fair, I know I’m talking to a whiner.  Whoever told you life was fair?   We live in a world of unfairness, and we deal with it every day.  If you can’t deal with it, don’t whine to me about it.

If Trump and his cult don’t like the way the Republican Party works, they can go start their own.  I’m sure it will be very fair.

Cruz and Rubio delegates total 716, to Trump’s 755.  Who are these Rubio delegates?  Will they, in fact, all go to Cruz?

That depends on who chooses them.  Take Alaska, where Marco has five.  A Juneau Republican, Paulette Simpson, is in charge of recommending a slate which will be presented to the State Convention on April 29th.  Five of the delegates on that slate will be Rubio delegates, because, according to the RPA rules, Rubio has only suspended his campaign, but he has not dropped out prior to the State Convention.  Once they are actually selected, they become free agents, since Rubio is not actively campaigning.  If Paul Manafort disagrees with this interpretation of the RPA Rules, he can make an appeal to the delegates at the State Convention.  If he loses that, he can take it up with the Credentials Committee in Cleveland.  Gee, maybe I’ll get a chance to argue about the Rules with uber-genius Paul Manafort.  Wouldn’t that be fun?

So these delegates will be unbound, as will the twelve Rubio delegates from Oklahoma, and the seventeen Rubio delegates from Minnesota.  Let me tell you a little bit about the delegates to the Republican State Conventions in Alaska, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.  Almost without exception, these are not Trump people.  The overwhelming majority of these people are among those of us who think Donald Trump is a nut.  They may be  Bush loyalists, or libertarians, or evangelicals,, it doesn’t matter.  We all think Trump’s crazy.

So who will these delegates at these State Conventions pick to  be Rubio delegates?   A hint:  no one who would have the slightest chance of ever supporting Trump.

I knew Paulette Simpson by reputation in Alaska.  A straight shooter, no funny business.  But, if for some odd reason, she puts a Trump sympathizer on as a Rubio delegate, her slate will be challenged on the floor  by the Cruz supporters.   The Cruz people tried to do this at the North Dakota Convention and it didn’t work, so one Trump delegate slipped through.  But Alaska is no North Dakota, and we’ll win that vote if it comes down to it.

I believe the rest of Rubio’s delegates are bound to him in one way or another, but that  really doesn’t matter.  What matters is who they are, and that’s decided by the people who elect them, and those people all hate Trump.  Trump will not get one Rubio delegate, from any State in the Union.

So, if you want to look at it that way, Cruz is only 39 delegates behind.  Even if Trump sweeps the Northeast, Cruz will easily do well enough in the eleven remaining states to prevent Trump from getting to 1237.  There will be a lot of hype and hoopla in the next two and a half weeks, but that’s the state of the race now.

I have to give Trump credit.  He totally ignores Colorado until the last minute, totally screws up at the State Convention, loses 34-0, and comes out ahead in the polls.  Because he’s a victim.  A victim of his own stupidity, but a victim nonetheless.

So Tim Clark is Trump’s man in California.  He talks a good game.  I think he’s full of it, but we’ll see.  Paul Manafort picked him, and this is his big chance.  I think he’s a pretty bright guy, and I don’t envy him the job ahead.  I hope they’re paying you well, Tim, because you’re going to earn every nickel of it.

Right now the weather in the Gold Country, where I live, is the best of any time in the year.  All the wildflowers have bloomed, and for the next three or four weeks I walk through little fields of flowers.  We all have a lot to be thankful for.

There are a number of different Hasidic sects in New York.  Kasich’s campaign totally cocked things up, and sent him to spend four hours with a sect that votes exclusively Democratic.  He explained to them the significance of the Passover as it relates to Christianity.  Johnny is going to be pissed when he realizes he made a fool of himself.   His campaign is subject to this kind of error.  These people are over tasked and understaffed.

Kasich’s running on empty, and I have no idea where he’s getting his money.  I’ll assume he’s got enough left to stay in it for a while, but after the Northeast primaries of the next two and a half weeks he’s got to have money problems.  He’s got a few big buck true believers, and that’s all he’s got.  There is just no way he’ll have money to compete in California, in any meaningful sense.  If he’s got anything left at all he should spend it in New Jersey, hoping for a Hail Mary.  Cruz won’t be competing there, if he’s got any sense, and he does.

So effectively, if not technically, in the Big Enchilada, California, it’s one on one.  I heard on With All Due Respect that Trump has hired a California Campaign Director, who will be coming out here in two weeks.

Let’s parse that.  He waited until now to hire one?  He hired someone from outside the state?  And this guy is going to waste the next two weeks before he even comes out here?  Trump and Manafort are operating by the seat of their pants.  And they’re up against some true local pros, guys who know the Republican politics of this state as well as anybody.

I wasn’t old enough to vote the last time a California Republican primary mattered in California.  I was only eighteen.  This is a totally new experience, for all concerned, campaigns, and media,  and voters alike.  This is the kind of environment where local knowledge is critical.  Cruz has it, and Trump doesn’t.  And like the song said, “It’s too late, baby, it’s too late.”

So I’m feeling pretty good about California, and I read Nate Silver’s state by state analysis at 538.com, and I feel even better.  Nate has done his homework, and I’m going to agree with him, but only until he gets to California, where I have some local knowledge.  The way Nate has it, Trump wins 88-84.  That’s just wrong.  Cruz will get a big win in California.

Nate has Trump 83 votes short of 1237.  I think it will be at least 120.  Either way, it’s not close enough for Trump to win.  Not if you know who these people are, the way I do.  Because I’ve been one of them my whole life.

I think it was the night of June 6th, 1964, when the results of the California primary came in.  I was living with my mother and grandmother in Pleasant Hill, and attending Diablo Valley College.  I’d been reading National Review since I was fifteen, and I was a strong Goldwater man, even though I couldn’t vote.  Walter Cronkite called the election for Goldwater, and almost lost his composure, he was so shocked and disappointed.

That got me hooked on politics, right there.

Nobody knows any trigonometry, including the vast majority of people who took it in school.  Not only that, a great portion of the population has trouble with English, even though they speak it every day.  People are sloppy with language.

Maybe because I actually practiced law for a short time (about six years) I’m very sensitive to the proper use of words.  In a legal document, or in court testimony, words have very specific meanings.  When addressing the court, or examining a witness, you have to be very careful about every word you say.  It can, and will, be used against you.  And when opposing counsel speaks, you listen intently, ready to pounce on any misstatement.

Politics is like the practice of law, except there’s no judge, just a jury.  In court, there are rules.  In a campaign, you can get away with anything.

The only fun part of practicing law, for me, was final argument to the jury.  From the time they were seated, and throughout the entire trial, I’d been trying to get a read on them, as individuals and as a group.  And then I’d get up, walk over, and look them all in the eye.  Even when I didn’t really have a case to argue I’d raise so much hell that they always took what I said seriously.  I had a case like that in front of Judge James Fitzgerald, a truly legendary figure in Alaska history.  A great man.  After the jury was out for about four hours he called me and the Assistant U. S. Attorney into his chambers, and we all tried to figure out what the hell they were deliberating about.  It was an open and shut case.  I like to think that Judge Fitzgerald thought I was a pretty good trial lawyer.

In the early 90’s Babbie and I were friends of his son-in-law, a lawyer, and we were at his house for some cocktails or something, and all of a sudden there’s Judge Fitzgerald.  He’s old enough to be all of our fathers, and it seemed a little odd.  And then he started talking to me, and I was  very flattered.  I was kind of in awe of this guy.  He had presided over the trial of the North Slope Gang, a bunch of thieves who had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the North Slope Borough.  The election of George Ahmoagak in 1984 as Borough Mayor spelled doom for their game, and they were all indicted on numerous felonies in Federal District Court in Anchorage.

It was a huge, complicated prosecution, with multiple defendants and very high priced defense lawyers, many flown up from the lower 48.  The U. S. Attorney for Alaska, Mike Spaan, and his small staff, were simply overwhelmed.  They just didn’t have the resources you need to conduct a prosecution of this type, and almost all these criminals got away clean.  Judge Fitzgerald told me all about it.  Most of what he told me has never been publicly understood, or even revealed, as far as I know.  Because Mike Spaan, with the encouragement and support of Judge Fitzgerald, had asked for help from the Criminal Division of the Dept. of Justice in D. C.  In a case this big, it should have been granted routinely.

But it was denied, and Judge Fitzgerald let me know why.  Ted Stevens was in bed with half of these criminal defendants, and he made damn sure Mike Spaan never got the help he needed.

Lisa Murkowski is the political heir of Ted Stevens.  He put her where she is.  I’d really like to see her go.

Back on topic, let me say this.  The word majority has a very specific meaning.  Everyone needs to understand that.  That’s how we’ve always decided things in this country, and how we always will.

And a majority is not more than anybody else.  That’s a plurality.  Look it up.

He was a Communist who was elected President of Chile with 37% of the vote.  It took a military revolution to get rid of him before he destroyed the country.  The Founding Fathers were familiar with this sort of story.  They read about it in their study of Greek and Roman political history.  If you love knowledge, read Plutarch, all of him.  Many of the Framers did.  And they learned about men, and situations, like Allende in Chile.  They were determined to design a system where that couldn’t happen.

And they did.  It’s in the Constitution.  To win the Presidency, you must have a majority.  If you can’t get one in the Electoral College, you have to get one in the House, among the top three.   And if  no one can do that, the Vice Presidential election in the Senate, between the top two, decides the election.  By a majority of the Senate.  Always a majority.

If Trump gets a majority on the first ballot, he’s the nominee.   If not, there’s a second ballot.  Some of Trump’s delegates will stick with him, some won’t.  The same thing is true of all the delegates,  no matter who they voted for.  Some are still bound to their candidate, others are not.  If not, they’re free to vote as they see fit.  Nobody owns them.

Trump will lose hundreds of delegates on the second ballot because the delegates who are bound to Trump are not, for the most part, selected by Trump.  They’re selected, by and large, by State Conventions, which are controlled by the delegates who attend them.  And these people hate Trump, and everything he stands for.  And the more he talks about it, the more pissed off these people are going to get.  And don’t try to intimidate them.  It won’t work.

Looks like it might get down to Indiana on May 3rd.  If Trump kicks butt in the Northeast, he’ll still have a shot if he can also win Indiana.  If he loses, his shot at 1237 is gone.  Indiana is a lot like Wisconsin and Ohio, politically.  Solid, experienced and deep Republican organizations.  Gov, Daniels, the Gov. Pence, are outstanding political leaders.  I think Cruz wins Indiana like he won Wisconsin.  So this will be his firewall, if he needs it.

And then there’s California.  Does anybody on the Trump campaign have any idea of what they’re doing in California?  Well, of course, Paul Manafort knows the Rules, so all is well.  Based on what we’ve seen in Colorado and North Dakota, Trump has done no preparation in California.  He’s got nothing going on.

Trump’s right about NATO.   We ought to get out.  What’s in it for us?   What, the Europeans are going to come to our defense?   Of course not.  No one’s going to invade us.  It’s a one way street.  It’s all for their benefit.  If the Germans can’t handle the Russians, it’s not our problem.  We’ll give them a few years to arm themselves, if they want to.  It will be up to them.

Since he’s right about something that big, I’m  not going to call him the Moron anymore.  Donald Trump has the balls to say common sense things that no politician does.  You have to give him credit for that.

There’s a great story in Angel in the Whirlwind about a world class British sniper named Patrick Ferguson.   He’d done shooting exhibitions for the King.   His was one of the first breech loaders, a lightweight weapon of his own design.  Washington was out on some sort of tour of the front and this guy had a clear shot at him.  But he said he didn’t quite feel right pulling the trigger, and he didn’t.  He didn’t know who it was.  He just liked the look of him.

Thank you, Patrick Ferguson, wherever you are.