WWTBAM Bored

Holy Mother of God-I have never seen anything like it. Obviously, I went to the Republican Caucus.

Love Trump or Hate Trump-he is drawing people in.

I have been going to caucuses since the early 90's and while to say that turnout was 10 times normal might be a slight exaggeration-it certainly would not be that far off.

Left after voting so will hear from a friend with the results later.

Looks like your state put Rubio on the board. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:Looks like your state put Rubio on the board. --Bob

Like being voted "Best Dog" at a Cat Lover's convention.

BackInTex wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:Looks like your state put Rubio on the board. --Bob

Like being voted "Best Dog" at a Cat Lover's convention.

On this one, you're exactly right. Roughly one-third of the country has already had a primary or caucus, and Minnesota of all places is the state where Rubio thinks his comeback has started? I know he wants to stick around for the Florida primary... but stick a fork in him. The robo-candidate is done. Might be time for Carson to get out as well. He hasn't taken first in anything, and I don't see a path to the nomination for him anymore.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... -night.php

Without knowing our county's results yet-I concur with much of what John Hinderaker noticed as a precinct chair in his precinct.-in that the new attendees were not necessarily all for Trump. If I had to guess, I would suspect that Cruz won my county-but I will not be surprised if Trump won-i doubt Rubio, but that is possible as well. I am sure that Hinderaker is probably from a wealthy Twin Cities suburb-the type of area that definitely gave Rubio his victory. As opposed to the small rural county that I caucused in.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hinderaker>>>Republican turnout in our area was overwhelming, as it has been around the country. GOP caucuses are usually held in one high school; this year, there were overflow crowds at two high schools. Around 80 people showed up from our precinct. It was striking how many participants were new to the caucus process–a large majority, in fact, were caucusing for the first time. We assumed that most of these would be Trump voters, but that turned out not to be true.<<<<
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<,
Most years -the relatively few caucus attendees are mostly highly motivated pro-lifers. This year I noticed (for lack of a better term) a much more "establishment" crowd-ie-prominent local businessmen and so forth-sprinkled throughout the tables. There were also more attendees from the lower end of the wealth/social standing spectrum. In general, the crowd was much more diverse (from a wealth and social standing perspective0 than the normal caucus attendance is.

One (two actually) conversations that I had might be illustrative of the higher draw that Trump may have among men VS women. A couple that lives near us is probably best described as a good example of evangelical Christians. She started talking to me and asked how much research I had done on the candidates and who I was for-I could tell she was a very motivated voter and I was going to be made aware,ad nauseum, of the merits of her candidate. I guessed correctly who she was for and said "Cruz?" Even if I had been for Trump/Rubio-there was no way I was going to tell her that and get a 10-minute lecture(LOL).

The funny part is that a few minutes later-I was visiting with her husband and he was genuinely undecided between Trump and Cruz even just a few minutes before voting.

When I got home, my kids jumped me about who I voted for-I said I don't want to tell you-Apparently, I have a pretty strong Cruz household and they said you better not have voted for Trump and started taking things-like my glasses and phone away from me because I wouldn't tell them. I told them I believe in the sanctity of the secret ballot-as you might imagine, that didn't go real far with them. So once again, even if I didn't vote for him-I had to say Cruz. Not saying I didn't vote for Cruz-but no way was I going to say Trump, even if I had, under those conditions.

Spock wrote:So once again, even if I didn't vote for him-I had to say Cruz. Not saying I didn't vote for Cruz-but no way was I going to say Trump, even if I had, under those conditions.

And this is why we can't rely on the exit polls. Kids.

Cruz won my 7th Congressional District (Not surprised). This is the big Northwest district. He also won the big Northeast district (8th)and the northern Twin Cities exurban district. I haven't found County breakdowns yet.

Rubio won the other 5 districts.

Carson did surpisingly well in these 2 northern districts 12% and 10% respectively. If he had been a viable candidate at this point-I think he would have done very well here as there was still evidently a strong residue of support for him.

I'm kind of surprised that the non-Trump candidates are divvying up the winner-take-all states among themselves. For example, the other non-Trump candidates ask all of their Florida supporters to vote for Rubio, while a similar request is made for, say, Kasich in Ohio. I don't think any candidate other than Trump has a path to a majority of delegates on the first ballot, but if they can coordinate, they have a realistic shot at denying that majority to Trump.

Of course, true believers in the Republican Party have not demonstrated in Congress any ability to coordinate in a strategic way. So I think the odds are pretty heavy that it'll be Hillary against The Donald.

If nothing else, I think it's becoming fairly clear that a majority of the country does not support the conservative policies that the other Republican candidates are advocating. --Bob

Spock wrote:http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... -night.php

Without knowing our county's results yet-I concur with much of what John Hinderaker noticed as a precinct chair in his precinct.-in that the new attendees were not necessarily all for Trump. If I had to guess, I would suspect that Cruz won my county-but I will not be surprised if Trump won-i doubt Rubio, but that is possible as well. I am sure that Hinderaker is probably from a wealthy Twin Cities suburb-the type of area that definitely gave Rubio his victory. As opposed to the small rural county that I caucused in.

The Virginia race pretty much went the same way; rural counties universally favoring Trump, the more urban areas tending towards Rubio.

Bob78164 wrote:If nothing else, I think it's becoming fairly clear that a majority of the country does not support the conservative policies that the other Republican candidates are advocating. --Bob

Which begs the question -- assuming that Trump loses in November (that's a big if), will TPTB in the Republican Party go back to the approach "the real reason we lost is because our candidate wasn't conservative enough, so we need someone even more hard-line conservative"?

And, like him or not, part of the appeal of Mr. Trump is that he's not one of them, "them" being the professional politicians.