“How I Went from Trump Curious to Anti-Trump.”

Link here. The essay describes how the author started out somewhat supportive and intrigued positively by Trump, and has ended up opposing him. Key quote:

You can read Trump in two different ways. You can see his bluster and lack of any policy knowledge as refreshing. You can see his hyperpersonal style and enormous ego as somehow “authentic.”

On the other hand, you can see a guy who’s entire life is devoted to persuading people to get into business with him. A salesman, trying to make a sale. And you can start to see that the salesman really has no interest in his actual product, and no real intent to abide by the terms of the contract. A salesman who is just willing to say whatever he needs you to say to sign the dotted line — and who will decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to abide by those contract terms, should they become inconvenient later.

The thing is, while I can’t make anyone see this way, I can tell you I went from being a Type 1 person to a Type 2 person. I would waver between these views of Trump, but then eventually I was won to the Type 2 way of seeing things, and now that I see it, I can’t not see it. [emphasis in original]

The essay describes exactly what I expect a majority of Americans will go through should Donald Trump get the Republican nomination for president. In the end, a majority will become anti-Trump, and he will lose.

Violence against reporter and protesters at Trump events

Link here. The article is focused on a protester getting punched at a rally yesterday but it also includes details of other similar events, as well as the story of Trump’s campaign manager physically manhandling a reporter for asking a question.

I realize that people are angry, both the Trump supporters and the protesters at his rallies. Nonetheless, the worst thing we can do is become violent over these disagreements, as that violence will do nothing to solve our problems. Instead, it will likely make them worse.

One more point however: So far it appears that this violence has only occurred at Trump events. Worse, Trump himself has sometimes encouraged his supporters to treat protesters roughly. From my perspective, it is exactly this behavior by him that will work against Trump in the general election. Americans will not take kindly to it, and he will be damaged by it.

A Ted Cruz surge tonight

As predicted a few days ago, Ted Cruz surged against Donald Trump in tonight’s four closed primaries.

Though each won two primaries, the numbers gave Cruz the win over Trump in delegates, 69 to 44 (the numbers now adjusted after all the votes have been tallied). Moreover, as noted at the link, Trump’s voting totals remain flat or have declined, while Cruz’s have been rising steadily. It appears that among Republicans either the love affair with Trump is fading, or there never was one and that his support in the previous open primaries came from cross-over Democrats..

In addition, the numbers for both Kasich and Rubio are going nowhere, which means voting for them in future primaries will essentially give Trump an undeserved win. Thus, expect the movement from them to Cruz to increase.

More here, confirming my analysis above.

Trump begins to “evolve”

The betrayal begins: At the debate last night Donald Trump noted that he is already beginning to consider easing his hardline immigration stance.

In Detroit, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly pointed out that Trump’s campaign website has a strong statement against increasing the number of H-1Bs, saying it would “decimate American workers,” and yet in one debate Trump spoke favorably of the program. “So, which is it?” Kelly asked.

“I’m changing,” Trump said. “I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So, we do need highly skilled,” Trump continued, “and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.

“So you are abandoning the position on your website?” asked Kelly.

“I’m changing it,” Trump said, “and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.”

I’ve said from the beginning that Trump is not a reliable conservative, that his roots are liberal, even if they aren’t radical leftwing, and that once he gets in power he will be no different than either George Bush or even Bill Clinton.

Thus, I am not surprised that he “softening the position”. What surprises me is that he is revealing this now, even before he has gotten the Republican nomination. I wonder if anyone will really notice.

Trump winning open primaries, Cruz winning closed ones

Link here.

If true, why does this matter? Because so far the primary calendar has been heavily tilted toward open primaries. But there have been four closed elections: the Iowa caucus, the Nevada caucus, and Super Tuesday’s Oklahoma primary and Alaska caucus. Ted Cruz won three of those four closed elections.

This suggests that, as a number of polls have indicated, Trump’s victories have largely been aided by moderate Democratic voters crossing over to vote for him, mostly I suspect out of disgust at the extreme leftist tilt of their own party.

A more important factor to consider, however, is that the primaries will be increasingly shifting to closed primaries in the coming weeks. This weekend alone there are four primaries/caucuses, and they are all closed. No Democrats can vote in them. If Cruz tops Trump in most, it will indicate Trump’s true weakness within the Republican Party, a fact that could make it far more difficult for him to achieve the nomination than presently indicated.

And if Trump does well in these closed primaries? Then the nomination is likely his.

The suicide of the GOP establishment

Link here.

Time and time again, grassroots and movement conservatives have expressed their opposition to all five of the key planks in Rubio’s platform. These Republicans do not support the Gang of Eight bill. They do not support Obama’s trade deals. They do not want to spend huge amounts of blood and treasure again in the Middle East. And they most certainly do not want the economy to look like it did in the fall of 2008.

These voters have tried, through every means available, to make their opposition felt. They are the reason that Eric Cantor is no longer in the House. They are the reason that the Gang of Eight bill didn’t pass. They are the reason that John Boehner is no longer speaker. And they are the reason that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have dominated the polls for months.

Many people have urged the Rubio donor network, think-tank fellows and media supporters to back off on their policy demands — to do more than simply acknowledge “the voters are right to be angry.” In fact, Gov. Chris Christie advocated for compromise during a speech at St. Anselm’s College earlier this year. People such as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote recently that the GOP must be more sensitive to the concerns of working-class voters, whom she dubbed the “unprotected.”

Nevertheless, even today, the Rubio supporters refuse to budge.

The Rubio supporters are also the same people in the GOP who tried to push Jeb Bush on us. The real tragedy is that if they had thrown their support to Ted Cruz, they might have been able to quell Donald Trump’s dominance in the polls. Instead, they have refused to face the reality that the general public does not support they policies, and have run like lemmings to the cliff by splitting the conservatives between Cruz and Rubio.

The result: The Republican Party stands a very good chance right now of nominating as its Presidential candidate someone who is as liberal as Bill Clinton and as reliable in what he says. Worse, polls continue to show him losing to the worst Democratic candidates offered in decades.

Trump threatens private citizens for opposing him

Fascist: Presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday threatened the owners of the Chicago Cubs because they have been donating to a political action committee that is running campaign ads opposed to his candidacy

His exact words: “I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”

As the link above notes,

This follows on him threatening Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) with a lawsuit for running an ad using old footage of him talking about abortion. And that follows on him threatening to sue a reporter who wrote about the failure of the Taj Mahal Casino. All of this has happened within the last four weeks.

I don’t like fascists, whether they are on the left or the right.

The Obama-like promises of Trump

During an interview on CNN yesterday, Donald Trump was asked about Obamacare and the insurance mandate. The first words out of his mouth were “I like the mandate,” which is what most conservative websites are focusing on.

I think it is more important to focus on Trump’s entire answer, which goes on for about two and half minutes. (I have posted the video below the fold, so you can listen for yourself.) As noted at the first link above,

Trump doesn’t have a freakin clue as to what he’s talking about. What he’s obviously done is extract a few focus group tested themes, like “dying on the street,” and “get rid of the lines,” and he simply says these over and over with connecting verbiage. The plan Trump refers to, the one that apparently suspends the idea of supply and demand and guarantees everyone a free lunch, simply does not exist. In the tech field it is a concept known as vaporware.

During Trump’s answer, he notes the dishonesty of Obama for making wild promises about Obamacare that were outright lies (‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.” and “Obamacare will cut costs by $2500 per family.”). Trump then proceeds to spout his own wild and unrealistic promises about what he will do about healthcare when he is President. And they sound to me as dishonest and incoherent as the promises Obama made. Both set of promises remind me of school elections when I was in junior high school, where candidates would promise free ice cream at every break and soda machines in the halls. Such promises are silly, childish, and unrealistic, and the voters should try to be mature enough to see that.

Trump might be a better choice than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but for Republicans to pick him as their nominee is insane. We can certainly do better.
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The stupid party

The nickname for the Republican Party for the past few decades has been that of the “stupid” party. Why it has this reputation can be explained in numerous ways, from how its leadership in Congress routinely gets hosed in negotiations with Democrats, from how its Presidents since Reagan have routinely allowed liberals from the Democratic Party to dictate policy, from how the party since 2000 has routinely picked losers as its Presidential picks, and from how it has squandered every election victory it has earned since the day Ronald Reagan retired in 1988.

I think two stories today demonstrate that the stupidity is not limited just to the party’s leadership. In the first, we find that in every poll taken comparing a head-to-head election with Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz does better than Donald Trump.

Polling has consistently shown Cruz to have an advantage over Trump in this regard: Fox News found that Cruz would fare 4 points better than Trump, beating Clinton by 7 points (50 to 43 percent) to Trump’s 3 (47 to 44 percent). NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that Cruz would fare 6 points better than Trump, losing to Clinton by 4 points (49 to 45 percent) to Trump’s 10 (51 to 41 percent). And Quinnipiac found that Cruz would fare 5 points better than Trump, tying Clinton (at 45 percent apiece) while Trump would lose by 5 points (46 to 41 percent).

Nor should we be surprised by this. Trump might sound good now, but when he has to face Clinton (or anyone) in the election, his negatives, which are yuge (to coin a phrase) will sink him. Meanwhile, Cruz’s smart campaign strategy and his remarkable skill at debate make him a wonderful candidate. To paraphrase what he has said numerous times on the campaign trail, I can’t wait to get him in a head-to-head debate with Clinton or Sanders. He will make them look like fools.

In the second story, we find that Trump is crushing all opposition in South Carolina. Cruz comes closest, but even his best poll there so far has him losing by a good margin.

It appears no one is considering the eventual election. Instead, Republicans appear posed to pick a cool reality television star who happens to have a lot of money, merely because he is a cool television star that happens to have a lot of money.

There is madness here, and that madness can only lead to the kinds of villainy that eventually led to the deaths of millions, in places that also put their faith in strong personality cults.

The candidates’ take on science

The journal Science today posted this somewhat useful review of the positions that the presidential candidates have taken on a variety of science issues.

One must read this article while recognizing that Science is not trustworthy on many of these subjects. For one, its position is always for more funding. If a politician even suggests that the rate of budget increases should be trimmed, Science will frame that suggestion as if the politician wants to slash all spending for science.

For another, Science is quite biased and agenda-driven when it comes to climate change, and illustrates that bias in this article in its reporting on Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and his position on this subject. To quote:

Cruz has used his position as head of a Senate subcommittee that oversees climate research to question recent temperature trends. Last fall Cruz called climate change a “religion.” Voted no on a measure affirming that humans contribute to climate change. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words above is a misstatement of what Cruz has said and serves to trivialize his position. He hasn’t questioned the “temperature trends”, which for almost two decades have been stalled. If anything, he has noted these trends as evidence that the theory of human-caused global warming has a problem. What he has questioned is the data that NOAA and NASA have been publishing. If anything, Cruz’s positions on the science of climate change have indicated that he has educated himself well on the subject, and has taken some thoughtful positions on it.

Nonetheless, this article is worth reviewing, as it reveals a great deal about the candidates. A close look for example at Rubio’s position on climate change reveals that he might not be consistent, and that his stated positions now might not match what he does should he become president.

Two thoughtful endorsements of Ted Cruz

While cable television and the general media goes nuts of the childish feud between Donald Trump and Fox News, Ted Cruz today got two different endorsements that not only supported his nomination for president, but also outlined in detail two completely different reasons for supporting him.

The first, at the website Legal Insurrection, outlined Ted Cruz’s consistent and long term history as a trustworthy constitutional conservative. Not only does the article review Cruz’s history in the Senate, where he did whatever he could to fulfill his campaign promises (often prevented from doing so by his own Republican caucus), the article also looks at his background before becoming a senator. Its conclusion?

In short, Cruz has a long (dating back to his early teens) record of being a conservative in both principle and action.  He didn’t bound out of bed one day, put his finger to the wind, and decide to become a conservative (as was charged against Mitt Romney, among others); he’s always been a conservative. [emphasis in original]

Conservatives have been complaining for decades that they can’t get a reliable conservative nominated to run for president. With Cruz, we actually have that chance, and he will be running against the weakest Democratic candidate since George McGovern.

The second article outlines Cruz’s particular advantages for cleaning out the bureaucratic corruption in the Justice Department and elsewhere in the federal government.
» Read more

Trump: “I can be the most politically correct person you’ve ever seen.”

For those who support Trump because they think he is an outsider who will change Washington and the leftwing politics that dominate it, I think the quote above demonstrates that these hopes are false ones. He will do nothing significantly different once he is in power. Or as the writer at the link notes:

He’s aggressive and anti-PC on the trail, in a knife fight with 15 other candidates, because that’s what it takes to win, but if winning at the job of the presidency requires a different tone, then that’s the tone he’ll take. This must be the first time in American history where it’s impossible to predict not only what a major-party frontrunner would do as president — given Trump’s volatile political history, all we can count on is that there’ll be “deals”.

Be warned. Picking Trump as the Republican candidate for president might be the worse decision conservative voters ever made. He might be better than Clinton, but he certainly will not be what conservatives want.

Posted from Tucson International Airport. I am on the way to very cold Michigan to give a lecture for the AIAA, and will be back Wednesday night..

Trump: “Let’s get to be a little establishment.”

In attacking Ted Cruz today, presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed exactly why I really don’t trust him, and consider him no different than Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney, and all the other fake conservatives the Republican Party has been foisting on us for the last twenty years.

“You know what? There’s a point at which: Let’s get to be a little establishment,” Trump told the crowd at the South Point resort and casino. “We’ve got to get things done folks, OK? Believe me, don’t worry. We’re going to make such great deals.”

In other words, expect from Trump (who still is essentially an old-fashioned liberal Democrat) the same kind of horrible budget and political deals we been getting from the Republican leadership for the six years — doing nothing to stop the Democratic Party’s leftwing agenda.

Trump criticized Cruz for being “strident”, thus preventing him from compromising with the Washington leadership. To that I say, “Amen!,” and loudly. The time has come for some real stridency, not the verbal fake stridency of Trump, who sometimes sounds like a tough guy but in the end is going to endorse everything the Democrats have been pushing, albeit in a less radical way.

Once again, I must add, that should Trump be the Republican candidate, I will still vote for him. Trump is not the radical leftwing ideologue that is Sanders. Nor is he corrupt like Clinton. He will at least act to delay the worst leftwing policies, thus delaying the final collapse slightly. And delay is still good in this context, as it will give us an opportunity to right the ship later before it sinks.

A cold-eyed look at Trump’s actual record

Link here. Key quote:

While Sessions, Cruz, and others on the outside like myself were fighting the worst immigration bill of our generation in 2013, Trump was promoting the Dream Act. When it really mattered he wasn’t with us.

Moreover, what sort of judges would Trump nominate? Where does he stand on proposals to rein in the lawless courts? If he believes the courts are the law of the land, even when they violate the most fundamental rights or original intent of the Constitution, as he did with religious liberty, what will he do when the courts inevitably use the same phantom 14th Amendment legal theory to toss out his immigration proposals?

While I will vote for Trump in a heartbeat should he be the Republican candidate running against either Clinton or Sanders, he isn’t yet that candidate, and conservative voters have an obligation to look at him honestly. From my perspective, he is not the candidate I want, as he in the end will likely not really change anything as President, but instead continue the general policies that have gotten us where we are. He might make some radical changes around the edges, on hot-button issues like immigration, but overall his political philosophy is that of a traditional liberal East Coast New Yorker.

Bush, Cruz, Carson, and Sanders on space policy

This article takes a look at the positions on space policy of four candidates for President.

Not surprisingly, there is not much substance to what these candidates have said. They mostly mouth positive platitudes about space, and often indicate by those platitudes a general lack of knowledge about the subject.

What is more important to consider is their overall political philosophies combined with legislative actions they have actually done. Cruz for example is clearly in favor of reducing the cost and size of government. He has also made it clear by his actions in the Senate that he considers space an important national priority. These facts tell me that, should he become president he will likely move to end SLS while shifting resources to private space, since it costs a lot less and the government (and nation) will get more for its money.

Sanders meanwhile has consistently voted for a smaller space program in all his years in the Senate. As a socialist and a liberal who sides with the Democrats routinely, he, like them, has generally opposed spending any money on NASA or space, generally arguing that the money would be better spend solving problems on Earth. While he might mouth support for NASA now, I would expect him to try to kill it once in office.

Ted Cruz, Sitting Pretty

Link here. The author makes a strong case for Cruz’s smart strategic positioning during the campaign, as I have. Right now, should the other outsiders Trump or Carson or Fiorina falter, Cruz is in exactly the right place to pick up their supporters. Moreover, unlike the others he has been very carefully building support within the organizational base of the Republican Party, which has been as disgusted with its leadership as the voters have been.

A lot can happen in the next year, but I must say that I continue to be impressed with Cruz’s campaign work.

I say this not as a partisan Republican advocate. I do not trust any of these politicians, including Cruz. They want power, which makes me always suspicious of everything they do. However, I as a voter have to try to pick the best candidate who can also win the election. Cruz’s politics since his election in 2012 have been right on the money, while his smart strategy in the campaign speaks well for him as a candidate.

Best of all, imagine him debating Hillary Clinton in the main election. His calm but intelligent thoughtful debating style will eat her alive!

Anti-establishment non-politicians top Iowa poll

I normally don’t bother reporting on polls. They are notoriously unreliable and often force one to the wrong conclusions. Nonetheless, this poll appears significant because it indicates that it isn’t just Trump that the voters are turning to in their disgust of the establishment political elite community.

First, it is the first poll since late July that does not show Trump with a lead. Instead, Ben Carson ties him. Second, Carly Fiorina with 10% and Ted Cruz with 9% come in second and third.

Finally, and most important, Bush, Kasich, and Rubio, politicians who have demonstrated by their actions that once elected they cannot be trusted get little or no support.

For months I have strongly believed that Jeb Bush was going to go nowhere once the voting began. The Republican base does not want another Bush. Similarly, Rubio’s betrayal of the tea party voters who got him elected by his support of the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration bill is well remembered by those tea party voters. They do not trust him.

Instead, I believe that it will be reliable conservatives or brash outsides like Cruz, Fiorina, Carson, and Trump who will get the votes. This poll suggests I might be right.

Having said this, I must emphasize again my mistrust of polls. It is just as likely this poll is a waste, and tells us nothing.

Scott Walker reveals his inner Democrat

In a disappointing move, Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate, has announced his support for state funding for a new basketball arena, which would require increased taxes as well.

It seems to me that Republicans, no matter how conservative, always eventually disappoint and evolve into big government stooges. This happens partly because they are politicians, who are generally a lower form of life, and partly because politicians tend to do what the voting public wants. Sadly, for the past century the American voting public — even the so-called conservative voting public — has consistently voted for more government handouts, which is why Republicans evolve to the left with time.

For Walker this is unfortunately seems to be happening sooner than I had hoped.

Romney’s energy policy proposal announced today would redirect science funding towards basic research.

Mitt Romney’s energy policy proposal, announced today, would redirect science funding towards basic research, according to this mostly positive analysis from the generally liberal journal Science.

Personally I’d like to get the federal government out of all this. Let the private market decide where the money should be spent for research. Moreover, we still have that federal debt to pay off. Where will Romney get the money?

“Are they prepared to listen to reasoned arguments articulated by Ryan about the need for entitlement reform, or will they succumb to simplistic liberal cant about pushing grandma over the cliff?”

The choice of the electorate in November: “Are they prepared to listen to reasoned arguments articulated by Ryan about the need for entitlement reform, or will they succumb to simplistic liberal cant about pushing grandma over the cliff?”

Sadly, at this moment in the campaign we don’t know what the electorate will do. What we do know is that the Democrats are going to use some of the most absurd, hateful, and despicable attacks against both Romney and Ryan, as they did in 2008 against Sarah Palin and have so far against Romney. It is their idea of civility.

Much has been made in the past few days of this NYT/CBS poll that found the Presidential race to be a dead heat.

Oversampling Democrats: Much has been made in the past few days of this NYT/CBS poll that found the Presidential race to be a dead heat. This article however is the first I’ve found that notes this key fact about the poll:

Among registered voters, the NYT/CBS poll also oversamples Democrats and Independents: D-33/R-27/I-41. There’s no way the 2012 electorate will only be made up of 27% Republicans.

That’s right, this NYT/CBS poll purposely skewed the results by polling 6% more Democrats than Republicans. In other words, the race is likely not such a dead heat. Obama is significantly behind, especially since all polls have consistently found that voting enthusiasm is far higher among Republicans than Democrats.

Why the Presidential race looks so close: Too many pollsters are oversampling Democrats.

Why the Presidential race looks so close: Too many pollsters are oversampling Democrats.

An honest poll would reflect the actual split of Democrats to Republicans. Instead, pollsters seem to repeatedly assume there are many more Democrats in the country than there actually are, which falsely skews the results to Obama’s favor.

The thing is, this oversampling will do the Democrats no good this coming election. It gives them the false impression that they are doing better than they are, which means they will not do what they should to make up ground. Moreover, too many people today are aware of this biased polling, and thus less influenced by them.

Finally, and most important, these biased polls illustrate a fundamental unwillingness of many on the left to recognize the country’s real political state. These leftwing pollsters reflect the attitude of many Democrats, who refuse to believe the majority of the county opposes their policies, even when the 2010 elections should have told them different. They are in denial, and when November comes they are going to be very surprised by the results.

In the Oklahoma primary last week Barack Obama only garnered 57% of the vote, and actually lost in 15 counties, 12 to a pro-life activist and 3 to a state’s Democratic senate candidate from 2010.

What does this tell us? In the Oklahoma primary last week Barack Obama only garnered 57% of the vote, and actually lost in 15 counties, 12 to a pro-life activist and 3 to a state’s Democratic senate candidate from 2010.

What it tells me is that there is a much stronger upwelling of hostility to Obama than anyone in the political world right now imagines. Granted, this is Oklahoma, a very conservative state. Nonetheless, for a sitting President to do this poorly among voters in his own party does not bode well for that President — or his party — come November.

Santorum and Freedom

Santorum and freedom.

People could live with big. It’s too big that’s getting to them. Under the Obama presidency, something outside the norm happened. Amid ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the $800 billion stimulus injection and a federal spending boom, something snapped in the steady-state relationship between many citizens and Washington. A lot of people feel the government, finally, is really starting to crowd them. It has made them uneasy. For the Santorum audience, the call-and-response word to push back against the unease is “freedom.”

Santorum talked himself out of the nomination

“Santorum talked himself out of the nomination.”

As did all the conservative alternatives to Romney:

The auditions are just about over. Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all had their chances to be the conservative champion of the nation. Each blew it in his own special way. They soared like rockets and faded away.

In Santorum’s case, it was this:

Late-breaking voters went overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney in today’s Michigan primary as Rick Santorum’s robocalls to Democratic voters, who failed to turn out in big numbers, apparently encouraging Republicans to turn out to back the former Massachusetts governor.

If you are going to run as a conservative, don’t campaign using Democrat Party talking points: Santorum tried to win Democratic union votes by criticizing Romney for not backing the auto bailout. Since the auto bailout is generally despised by conservative voters, they heard this and abandoned Santorum in droves.

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