This is a lose/lose situation for the GOP but a win/win for Clinton

I fixed your post.

I fixed your post.

For the sake of argument, let's say that the GOP represents 30 percent of the electorate. Let us say that of this 30 percent, 42% are fans of The Donald. So these people comprise 0.42 x 0.3 =12.6% of the electorate. The article indicates that one-third of Republicans Trump supporters said they would not support the party in the general election if the businessman is blocked from the nomination. So, 33% x 12.6% = 4.2%, that is 4.2% of the electorate would not vote for Cruz on election day.
But as November approaches, the righteous anger of The Donald supporters at having been cheated should notably subside, so that that 4.2% will decrease still further. This is just reasonable conjecture, but perhaps half will ultimately decide to vote Republican in the November presidential race, so 50% of 4.2% = 2.1%.of the electorate not voting because The Donald got cheated. This 2.1% is not that much, and is not all that helpful.
One of the reasons that it is not all that helpful is that it may likely largely be countered by the "Bernie or Bust" movement, which may to a good degree take away a not insignificant number of votes from Hillary. All the lies and flip-flops associated with Hillary have deeply angered a significant portion of the Democrats, and moreover, have dismayed at least some Independents.
The safest candidate for us is Bernie, who does not have a 55% disapproval rating, and is doing better among Independents according to exit polls. Bernie also does notably better than Hillary in poll results for general election contests against Cruz.

Regardless of who the Democratic candidate is, the GOP in disarray is good for who ever we choose. Trying to pluck a positive for one of the Dems out of this is totally missing the point.

are planning for a major landslide vote against whom ever they select,and now it is a all in deal to save the Senate. The Koch Brothers and other Mega money donors appear to setting up slush PAC's to save McConnell at any cost.

Fun fact: a lot of Trump delegates actually prefer Ted Cruz.

If it goes to a second ballot ...

You know the outcome before the judge is seated.

This is a public relations campaign to generate political energy.

Trump was the only one of the GOP political class who thought he
was going to be the candidate. He used them, and they've used him.

Now on to Ryan-Kasich, which incidentally is quite a midwest blockade
for Hillary or Bernie to scale.

Democrats won't venture with a southern electoral strategy, Republicans
won't attempt a northeast one. Even the west coast is not in play enough
to matter to the GOP. So they go to the midwest.

I've not bought the idea that Democrats are on the rebound.

We have lost state legislatures, governor's chairs, court appointments,
redistricting. We have not the Citizens United cash. We have uninterested
voting blocs. We have excellent if unarousing candidates.

If the Republicans go midwest and 'mainstream' with Ryan-Kasich, we are
in a horse race.

He said thanks but no thanks all the way to the Speakership

if there's one thing the Republicans have shown an affinity for, it's falling in line when the time comes

who will just return to being non-voters if he's not on the ballot.

options, at least for them.

For me they all look fantastic. I enjoy watching them break on the rocks.

He's been very quiet lately. I just have this feeling that Romney's name will come out with the Panama Papers. I might be way off.

They can either excite their frothing base or appeal to swing voters. They can't do both.

Last edited Sat Apr 9, 2016, 10:35 PM - Edit history (2)

what. AND THEY ARE RIGHT. The number who wont vote for Clinton is growing each month. Last poll was 25% up from 14% a month ago, and 7% the month before that. Clinton is losing would be Dem leaning votes in the GE and seriously threatening the election going to Dems at all. It won't go to the Dems if she is the nominee.

I haven't followed Trump enough to see if the number who won't vote for him no matter what are growing too.

The people on this site who want to accuse the people of being "Non-Democratic" who won't vote for Clinton need to realize that most of the people who won't vote for Clinton refused to join the Democratic party, or left it because of corruption. They owe the Dem party NOTHING. And, the Dem party is in serious jeopardy of losing a large chunk more of their base this year over blatant election fraud.

The Democrats and the Republicans need the independent voters. They can no longer rely on cows following the herd just to vote for one of the two parties. They cannot even begin to win an election if they don't appeal to the independents who owe them nothing.

This is why Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are not valid candidates. They cannot win a general election. Hillary failed to get the independents to vote for her. Trump the Republicans. And, they turned off their own parties so bad that the only thing this is leading up to is a mass exodus of a large chunk of the remaining members of both parties(republicans for the contested election.)

If you go down the list, Hillary and Bernie match on most of the fundamentals. They believe in expanding health care. They believe that climate change is real. They support a woman's right to choose. They support higher taxes for the wealthy. The differences are mostly ones of degree. Now, despite the bad blood that was raised between Hillary and Obama, President Obama won.

On the Republican side, I think there is a more fundamental schism between the RNC donors and kingmakers, Roger Ailes, Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers for example, and their base. The donors have seen fit to whip the base with appeals to racism, religion and guns, but there is very little commonality between them and the base.

On the Democratic side, you do not have donors like the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson who can single handedly dump over a hundred million dollars to hand pick their candidate. The closest person I could think of is George Soros, who at most gave $30 million to defeat Bush, which pales in comparison with the hundreds of millions that Adelson and the Koch Brothers have spent. Put another way, the Democrats do not have a singular god father like Roger Ailes (Fox News), Adelson (Israeli issues), or the Koch Brothers (oil) who pretty much can hand pick their candidates.

So, under your logic, Barack Obama was not a valid candidate, since polls showed that half of Hillary's votes in 2008 would not back President Obama if he was the nominee, which is far worse than how Hillary is doing with Bernie voters.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/06/exit-polls-half-of-clintons-supporters-wont-back-obama/

Just how badly is the Democratic Party divided?

According to the exit polls, half of Clinton's supporters in Indiana would not vote for Obama in a general election match up with John McCain. A third of Clinton voters said they would pick McCain over Obama, while 17 percent said they would not vote at all. Just 48 percent of Clinton supporters said they would back Obama in November.

Obama gets even less support from Clinton backers in North Carolina. There, only 45 percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama over McCain. Thirty-eight percent said they would vote for McCain while 12 percent said they would not vote.

Obama voters appear to be more willing to support Clinton in November. In Indiana, 59 percent of Obama backers said they'd vote for Clinton, and 70 percent of Obama backers in North Carolina said they'd support the New York Democrat.