\u201cWe\u2019ll have one more to go this fall when we beat Hillary Clinton here because I\u2019m in the best position to beat her and we\u2019re going to get a lot of momentum. We have a lot of people now joining us who they were on the sidelines. They want to come now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kasich won 66 delegates in Ohio\u2019s winner-take-all-contest. Asked if he believed he could make it all the way to the convention if no candidate amassed the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination outright, the Ohio governor\u2019s response was optimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yeah, look, I may go to the convention before this is over with more delegates than anybody else,\u201d Kasich said. \u201cThere\u2019s 1,000 yet to pick.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Back in the real world, Kasich won one state. \u00a0And to win that state, he played spoiler in other states \u2014 presuming that his supporters would have chosen Cruz over Trump, that would have easily handed Cruz victories in Illinois and Missouri, where instead the winner-take-all nature of the elections allowed Trump to grow his delegate lead over Cruz. \u00a0(Florida\u2019s a different story anyway \u2013 no one had a chance.)<\/p>\n
From here on out, the primaries and caucuses are increasingly winner-take-all (though I\u2019m coming up empty trying to find a link that summarizes the nature of the contests), which means that every contest in which Kasich stays in, is another contest in which his chance of winning is remote, and the chance that gains a small share of the vote, and enables Trump to win is very strong \u2014 though, admittedly, at this point we\u2019re now a bit blind, as we have no statewide polls to go on.<\/p>\n
So:<\/p>\n
Does Kasich truly believe that he has a strong chance at winning outside of Ohio, that he\u2019ll gain Rubio\u2019s voters and cruise past Cruz?<\/p>\n
Is he simply so self-centered, so fixated on the possibility of becoming president that he doesn\u2019t care about the risk, even strong likelihood that he\u2019s giving Trump the victory in winner-take-all contests?<\/p>\n
Does he\u00a0simply think each of Cruz and Trump are as bad as the other, so it\u2019s irrelevant which of them wins? \u00a0Perhaps he is quite OK with a President Trump because of the operating\u00a0assumption that his hard lines on immigration, trade, etc., will vanish and he\u2019ll govern from the center or even the left if he makes it into office, and perhaps he doesn\u2019t really care about Trump\u2019s various disturbing statements but it\u2019s all just moral posturing on his part.<\/p>\n
And one further incidental comment: \u00a0if either Rubio or Kasich had left before yesterday, they\u2019d have had some negotiating power to promise Cruz they\u2019d leave in return for some genuine say in a Cruz administration platform. \u00a0Now they\u2019re in a much weaker position, unless we make it to Cleveland without a majority-Trump delegate count.<\/p>\n
Update: \u00a0a liberal facebook friend shared an article, \u201cHere\u2019s a Long List Showing That Ted Cruz is As Bad As (If Not Worse Than) Donald Trump<\/a>,\u201d from a \u201cprogressive\u201d website, which, while I don\u2019t buy into their accusations, makes me think that the third of my possibilities above is the most likely, that those of us who object to Donald Trump in a principled manner are giving men like Kasich too much credit when they appear to do the same. \u00a0If Kasich is pretty much indifferent as to whether Cruz or Trump ultimately take the nomination, if he doesn\u2019t get it, it would explain his decision much better than delusion or vanity.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ann Althouse this morning links to her son\u2019s blog, Jaltcoh, which links to an article in Talking Points Memo, \u201cKasich: I May Go To Convention \u2018With More Delegates Than Anybody Else\u2019\u201d which says, \u201cWe\u2019ll have one more to go this fall when we beat Hillary Clinton here because I\u2019m in the best position to beat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[275,347],"class_list":["post-4123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-althouse","tag-kasich"],"yoast_head":"\n
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