Month: April 2016

It turns out Trump guru Paul Manafort doesn’t just know the Rules.  Last week he said that his knowledge of the Rules would get the Moron to 1237.  But Manafort also knows people, specifically the unbound delegates to Cleveland.  Asked on MTP how he intends to win them over, he said, “… have Donald Trump exposed…” to them.

That thought  —  Trump, naked  —  was enough to ruin my appetite for the entire day.  The  very concept of Donald Trump, exposed, in his birthday suit, is enough to make a strong man quake.

Exposing the man is, of course, the easiest way to dispose of him.  But you can’t tell Trump that.  Put him in a room of delegates who are uncommitted, and he’ll work magic.  His cosmopolitan charisma will simply overwhelm the rustics gathering from around the country.  He may actually believe that.   That’s why he’s the Moron.

This dumb bastard was in Rochester today, complaining about how he got screwed in Louisiana.  Get used to it, Donald.  It’s happened, is happening, and will happen all over the country.  Unless, of course, one time political wunderkind Paul Manafort’s incredible knowledge of the Rules prevents it.

I tell you what, Donald, send Manafort up to Fairbanks on April 29th Republican State Convention.  With his amazing knowledge of the Rules I’m sure you’ll love how it all turns out.  I’d like to meet Manafort.  I’m always interested in meeting people with such awesome knowledge.

Trump’s problem is that he’s so stupid he doesn’t understand what a political party is, or how it works, and what it’s for.  He thinks he can walk in and take it over.  That can be done, but it’s very hard, and takes quite a long time.  You can’t do it in one campaign.  It takes patience and intelligence and dedication.

This nitwit actually said at his rally, “We’re supposed to be a democracy!”  He’s so ignorant he probably doesn’t know the difference between a constitutional republic, like the United States, and a purely democratic system, where the minority has no rights.  I guess Trump University didn’t offer a course in Basic Civics.

I’ve read so many books about the War for Independence that I really don’t think I have that much to learn.  But I picked up a book at the library on a whim, and it’s outstanding.   Angel in the Whirlwind by Benson Bobrick, 1997, is a standard history of the Revolutionary War, but the author is so knowledgeable that he tells stories that I’ve never heard before.

I wonder if the story of the “Boston Negress”, Phyllis Wheatley, is told in women’s studies programs, or African-American programs.  Bobrick tells it so well I’ll just quote him.

She “… had been born in Africa and brought to Boston at the age of ten.  At seventeen, she had emerged as an accomplished poet, demonstrating, to the surprise of many, that Africans were capable of education and refinement.  In her autobiographical verses, she interpreted her own unlikely story in disguise:

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan Land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand,

That there’s a God; that there’s a Saviour too;

Once I Redemption neither sought nor knew,

Some view our sable race with scornful Eye,

“Their Colour is a diabolic Dye.”

Remember, christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin’d, & join the Angelic Train.

And she was proof of it, so many thought.  Nevertheless, when her poems were first gathered in a volume, it was deemed necessary to print certificates of authenticity in front of the book, testifying to her authorship.”

They really should teach this stuff in school.

 

 

 

Ted Cruz is shaking the pagoda tree in Vegas with Sheldon and his Jewish buddies.  Sheldon’s wife actually has more sense than he does.  She’s been for Cruz all along.  I can’t believe she’ll allow her husband to stay on the sidelines any longer.  Ted Cruz is as true a friend as Israel has in this country.  And everybody knows it.  So what’s the problem?   So, he sometimes  acts like a  Christian zealot.  Get over it.  There are a lot of people like him in this country, and the vast majority of them are on Israel’s side as well.  If you have some kind of anti-evangelical bias, you’ve got a problem you need to deal with.

Then on Monday he’s off to LA and Orange County, where all the votes are.  The only real problem he’ll have in California is cultural, just as I conjectured he has with Jews.  But he can make the adjustment easily enough.  Just talk economics in California.  Lord knows there’s plenty to talk about on that subject in this state.

I feel confident there are people on the Cruz team that understand California politics down to the precinct level.  Everywhere he goes, and everything he says, will be with a purpose.  He’s a better candidate now than he was at first.  Smart people generally get better at something the more they do it.  He’ll make progress here.  It’s a big state, and he’ll need to spend a whole lot of time here.  After Washington on May 24th, he’ll have an entire two weeks to dedicate to California.  I’d leave New Jersey to Kasich, and Montana, South Dakota and New Mexico won’t demand any candidate time.

Trump doesn’t even have a California organization yet.  I don’t even think he’s got a State Chairman.  I guess Paul Manafort knows the rules, so they’ve got nothing to worry about.  What will the Moron be doing for those two weeks before June 7th?   Having big rallies, I guess.  Peddling his same old B.S.  Rousing up the crowd.  What, he’s going to do that for two weeks?   That will get stale, quickly.  I don’t know what the hell he’ll do.  I just don’t think his shtick works in California, but I try to stay in the foothills as much as I can, and maybe I’m out of touch with all the Trump crowd.  Whoever the hell they are.

I do know one Trump guy.  This is one of the most ignorant men I’ve ever known, so it makes sense.

People seem to be a little slow on the uptick.  Everyone with half a brain knows that nobody gets to 1237, and that means there will be a second ballot, which Cruz wins.  Why is that so hard for people to understand?

Unless you’ve been an activist in the Republican Party like I have, you don’t understand how deep the pile of squat is that the Trump is sitting in.  The people who go to Republican State Party Conventions are not the same people who go to Trump rallies.  I’ve known these people, and been one of them, for 40 years.  They’re patriots who volunteer their time, and have for years, to something they believe in  — a political party, the Republican Party.  As a group, I doubt that you could find a more concentrated bunch of Donald Trump Despisers in the country.  He’ll never get any of their votes.  They can’t stand him.

The rain’s still falling, thank heaven.  At this time of year in the foothills, if you look closely enough, you can see a new sign of spring every day.

 

 

Because he knows the rules.  That’s why Paul Manafort can state with absolute assurance that the Moron will get to 1237.  This guy apparently really knows the rules!   I’m impressed.

Well, Paul, since you know the rules so well, how come Trump got shut out in CO-7 last night, failing to even offer a qualified delegate list to be voted on.  Three more solid Cruz delegates, zerozipnada for the Moron.  CO-7 is West Denver, an area that should be Trump’s best in the state.  This means that  Cruz will get 37 out of 37 in Colorado this weekend.   What happened, Paul, did they change the rules on you?

The rules of the Republican Party and all sub units of the party are not written in Swahili.  They’re in plain English, and if you’re a reasonably intelligent person, particularly if you’re a lawyer, they’re not that hard to understand.  Paul Manafort doesn’t know anything more about the Rules than I do, or if he does I can look it up and educate myself in a New York minute.  The important point is that guys like Manafort are a dime a dozen, and Trump didn’t avail himself of this fundamental knowledge until just now.  And you wonder why I call him the Moron?

Manafort looks like a hustler to me.  Kind of a con man.  He’s in it for the money and the notoriety.  He’ll keep this hustle going as long as he can, milking as much money from the gullible Donald as he can get.  Hell, he may be able to con Trump into paying him all the way to the Convention.  The gig of a lifetime!

Kasich is an interesting guy.  I think I know where he’s coming from.  If something happens to either Trump or Cruz, mortally wounding them, he’ll be one of the last two standing.  It used to be seventeen.  Fourteen are gone.  He’s still standing, and if lightning strikes, he’ll be available.  What’s he got to lose?  He’s not spending his own money.  Whoever is paying his bills might be getting tired of it, but maybe not.  By winning Ohio he kept Trump from getting to 1237, so he’s got every much of a right to compete as anyone.

In some states he’ll hurt Cruz, in others he’ll hurt Trump.  Nobody’s getting close to 1237, so what does he care who he helps, or hurts?  That’s not his concern.  He wants more delegates, the more the better.  Anything can happen, and has.

On the Alaska front, I’m going to try to have a poll conducted, of potential challengers to Murkowski in the Republican Primary.  There are four potential conservative candidates:  Sen. Mike Dunleavy of the Mat-Su, Original Dan Sullivan, David Cuddy, and Joe Miller.  One of them needs to file against her.  Who polls best against her, I have no idea.  I know who I think is most electable, and second most.  But that’s different.  I want a reputable national pollster to do it.  Now I have to figure out how to pay for it.

The Alaska Legislature is due to adjourn on the 17th.  That means some of the Republican state legislators will probably be at the State Convention.  John Coghill will be there for sure.  Of the guys I served with, only Lyman Hoffman, Democrat of Bethel is still serving.  I left in 1990.  For the last 26 years Lyman has kept plugging away, working for the people of his district, the Yupiks.  Lyman and I were bitter political enemies.  But we did enjoy a game of cribbage with each other every once in a while.  I stopped in to see him when I was in Juneau last year.  I’ll run into him one of these days.

It’s raining, but not too hard.  A wet spring would be nice.

Charles Lane of the WaPo has shown occasional good sense, usually accompanied by poor political judgement.  A year ago he thought the arguments against the Keystone Pipeline were ludicrous.  But then he showed his  misunderstanding of politics by predicting that Obama would eventually see the light.  Right, but wrong.

He seems reasonable, which is unusual on the liberal side these days.  So I pay attention to what he says.  He’s out today with a column predicting a big Cruz loss to Clinton.  He just won’t lose as badly as Trump.  He bases this on some Gallup polling which shows the voters are less receptive to the Reagan message today than they were in 1980.  And since the Cruz and Reagan messages are more or less the same, Cruz can’t duplicate Reagan’s victory.

He points out that the general election polls show Clinton with a small lead over Cruz.  He fails to mention that in March of 1980 Carter led Reagan 58-35.  In April, with the candidacy of John Anderson, Reagan’s support actually declined to 32%, with Carter at 40 and Anderson at 21.  So much for polling this far out.

Clinton is a far weaker candidate than Carter was.  He was honest, but incompetent.  Clinton is thoroughly corrupt, and more incompetent  by far.  Most people kind of liked Carter, and thought he tried to do the right thing.  Clinton is disliked, distrusted, and, at the least, will come perilously close to being indicted for God knows what.

There’s always the D word, of course,  — dreaded demographics.  But in 1980 the Democrats could still claim to be the champion of working class whites.  Now they seem to go out of their way to alienate them.

And what, precisely, is the theme of the Clinton campaign?  Competence?  Experience?  Stay the course?  Happy days are here again?  No, it’s higher taxes and more government.  More immigration, more Middle East refugees, more kowtowing to any zany left wing idea Socialist Bernie can come up with.

What will Clinton do differently, or better, than Obama?  Aside from her gender, and her worthless husband, what is it about her that turns on the voters?  She’s old and tired and cranky.  She’s shrill and reeks of entitlement.  She’s just the worst Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

But Cruz is an extremist, and wants to do radical things like abolish the Dept. of Education.  Well, I suppose the teacher’s unions are aghast, but what have we got to show for almost 40 years of this political payoff to the NEA?  Nothing.  Our system of education has declined ever since this Department was created.

Let Clinton try to make the election a referendum on the virtues of keeping the federal behemoth intact.  Cruz will campaign on the economy, jobs, opportunity, and personal liberty.  He’s got a great case to make, and is an effective communicator, and getting better.  He’s learning as he goes along.  That’s what smart people do.

In 1980 Reagan had the Cold War to win, and was elected, in part, to accomplish just that.  Cruz has ISIS and Al Qaeda to destroy, and he will campaign as the man who will do the job.  Clinton’s record in foreign policy is an unmitigated disaster.  The Libyan debacle, and the Benghazi farce, are on her plate.

One Big Thing that Lane doesn’t see is that the utter failure of Obamacare marked a turning point in our politics.  No Democrat can come forward with a proposal for some massive federal program to solve some pressing national problem.  It won’t fly, politically. after the lies they told, and the mess they made.  All they can do is promise to make the federal government more efficient, do a better job.  It’s a status quo, even a reactionary, agenda.

Once Cruz has dispatched the Moron he’ll unite the rest of the party behind him.  If nothing else, the fear we feel for our country, if Clinton is elected, will motivate Republicans to back him.  Some of Trump’s people will walk away, it’s true.  But what about Bernie’s people?  Are they all going to get on the Clinton bandwagon?

But the biggest thing that Lane misses is the general attitude of the American people toward the federal government.  Most of us feel the same way toward it as we do to Clinton  — dislike and distrust.  The Democrats are the party of government.

2016 will be a Cruz landslide.  If Charles Lane wants to make a bet on that, I’ll oblige him.

There will be 27 elections in 27 Congressional Districts in New York.  The 14 other  NY delegates are chosen statewide.  In some of these CD’s, as few as 3,000 Republicans turn out on primary day.  Double that, since this is a big election.  Nonetheless, if  Cruz can go into a CD and prevent the Donald from getting 50%, and gets more votes than Kasich, he wins one of the three delegates at stake in each of these districts.  If he can get 15 or 20 delegates that way, it’s sure as hell worth it.  Every delegate counts, so I’ve no doubt this has been, and is being, looked into.

Cruz has some of the brightest micro-targeters in the business, and they may very well have a way of identifying likely  Cruz voters in these CD’s.  Trump doesn’t have that capability.  He could pay someone to do it, but it’s a little late, and he’s cheap.

I have got to believe there are CD’s where this could work.  Is Trump really that well liked by Republicans, real Republicans who believe in conservative principles?  It is a closed primary, so only Republican “regulars” will be voting.  Trump has given money to Democratic NY politicians that these Republicans hate.  Are these people so enamored of Trump’s brash Noo Yawk attitude that they don’t care about any of that?  Who the hell are these people, any how? A Republican in New York?  What the hell are you doing living there?  Making money, or too lazy to move, I guess.

I talked to one of the nominal Cruz Co-chairs in Alaska, Judy Eledge.  I guess they’re having a teleconference to talk about the State Convention. I’m getting a booth myself, to promote my Senate candidate, and Cruz doesn’t have one yet.  The guy in charge of Alaska for Cruz, a consultant from Las Vegas named Uithoven, has yet to show any understanding of the state, the party, or the players in Alaska.  He just needs to stay out of the way, and  not make a nuisance of himself.

The Reagan campaign sent a guy up from California to help out at the ’76 Convention in Anchorage.  I was just a District Chairman, so I wasn’t on the inside.  As far as I could tell, he just camped out in his hotel room, and kept to himself.  Completely worthless.  We lost the crucial vote 87-86.  Turns out we had a woman from the Kenai who was for Reagan, but she didn’t understand the significance of the vote.  It cost Reagan around 20 delegates.  Sheer, unadulterated stupidity.  Having stupid people in charge of things always winds up costing you.  And having smart people always helps.

Cruz has the smartest guys in the business around him.  He’s as smart as they are, so there’s no problem.  With Trump, it’s a little different.  No self respecting man would brown nose their way into Trump’s inner circle.  So he’s got mediocre people around him, when he needs top flight people.

It’s tough being a Moron.