Donald Trump keeps saying that he will surround himself with the best people and negotiate better trade deals once he is president. Indeed, he lambastes Washington as filled with "stupid" people who are consistently out-negotiated by America's adversaries and friends. Trump claims that he will out smart those friends and enemies and get us much better deals. In Trump's favorite phrase, America will "win again" once he is president.
It worth keeping this argument for Trump's campaign in mind when you consider what has been happening to the Trump campaign recently. Yesterday, we learned that Trump's children are not going to vote for him in the New York primary. They can't. They're not registered Republicans. That means that Ivanka and Eric Trump, et al., weren't smart enough or aware enough to realize that only Republicans can vote in the primary in New York. It also means that not one of the "best people" surrounding Trump bothered to tell the Trump offspring that they needed to spend the five minutes required to register as Republicans. It's an embarrassing failure.
Then there's the struggle in states like Colorado and elsewhere for the delegates who will go to the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer. The rules for delegate selection have been known for each state for at least nine months; they were made public last summer before Trump even entered the presidential race. Those rules have not been changed at all in the ensuing months. It has always been the case that there are two sets of contests. First, there are the primaries and caucuses that direct the delegates in most states for whom they must vote on the first or first two ballots in Cleveland. In most years, this is the only contest that matters. But there is a second contest; it is for the selection of the delegates who actually go to the convention and vote. Trump and his "best people" completely ignored this portion of the race. As a result, in state after state, the delegates selected have not been Trump supporters, but rather folks who are unlikely to vote for Trump once the mandate of the primary/caucus expires. If Trump does not win on the first ballot in Cleveland, he is almost certainly not going to be the nominee because he never tried to elect delegates loyal to him. This is a failure by Trump and his "best people". The rules for delegate selection are not that complicated. They are different in each state, but surely the Trump forces could have managed to figure them out. The Cruz people certainly did. If Trump cannot even handle something easy like selecting delegates for Cleveland, how can we think he would be able to manage trade negotiations or anything else?
It worth keeping this argument for Trump's campaign in mind when you consider what has been happening to the Trump campaign recently. Yesterday, we learned that Trump's children are not going to vote for him in the New York primary. They can't. They're not registered Republicans. That means that Ivanka and Eric Trump, et al., weren't smart enough or aware enough to realize that only Republicans can vote in the primary in New York. It also means that not one of the "best people" surrounding Trump bothered to tell the Trump offspring that they needed to spend the five minutes required to register as Republicans. It's an embarrassing failure.
Then there's the struggle in states like Colorado and elsewhere for the delegates who will go to the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer. The rules for delegate selection have been known for each state for at least nine months; they were made public last summer before Trump even entered the presidential race. Those rules have not been changed at all in the ensuing months. It has always been the case that there are two sets of contests. First, there are the primaries and caucuses that direct the delegates in most states for whom they must vote on the first or first two ballots in Cleveland. In most years, this is the only contest that matters. But there is a second contest; it is for the selection of the delegates who actually go to the convention and vote. Trump and his "best people" completely ignored this portion of the race. As a result, in state after state, the delegates selected have not been Trump supporters, but rather folks who are unlikely to vote for Trump once the mandate of the primary/caucus expires. If Trump does not win on the first ballot in Cleveland, he is almost certainly not going to be the nominee because he never tried to elect delegates loyal to him. This is a failure by Trump and his "best people". The rules for delegate selection are not that complicated. They are different in each state, but surely the Trump forces could have managed to figure them out. The Cruz people certainly did. If Trump cannot even handle something easy like selecting delegates for Cleveland, how can we think he would be able to manage trade negotiations or anything else?
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