Trump + Kasich = Trump vs. Hilary

In my lifetime I’ve done a lot of wrong things. Sometimes in willful defiance of what I knew was right. Other times I’ve done the wrong thing while sincerely believing that I was doing what was right…only to find out later that my choice was based on incorrect assumptions, a lack of knowledge, or faulty information. I am glad that God judges the heart—the honest intentions—and not the correctness of the action.

Still, acting in ignorance can cause a lot of damage, both to myself and to others around me who are affected by my action.

I suspect that there are a lot of people who have acted in ignorance during this primary season. For instance, many people cast their votes early (mail, absentee, etc.) for someone who, by the time of their actual primary, had dropped out of the race. In such cases, your vote became a mere statistic, serving only to demonstrate how that ultimate privilege in a democracy—your right to vote—can be rendered absolutely meaningless.

No condemnation from me for having done the wrong thing up to today, voting your conscience, etc., with good intentions. But going forward…the primaries yet to take place…let’s not act in ignorance! There is too much at stake.

I think there are a lot of people casting votes for Donald Trump who are doing so based on faulty information. Trump is carefully selling his personality …“we’re gonna make it all great”…and you are buying it. Donald has one principle which guides his life, and it isn’t about helping the country.  You have bought into the idea that he will fix the problem represented by sold-out-to-the-highest-bidder politicians…as though Trump is not literally the personification and root of that problem. You keep ignoring the fact that all head-to-head matchups for the general election show that Trump would lose to either Clinton or Sanders, meaning your man will never even have the opportunity to do all the things he promises!

Other voters have principles that won’t allow you to vote for a sleazy, adulterous man like Trump. So you thoughtfully considered what candidate is a man who shares your principles: Christian care for the less fortunate, protector of religious liberty, avid devotee to the constitution. Unfortunately, in a way, there have been several candidates who could arguably qualify for the best version of that.

Unfortunately, because it made it difficult to choose among them: Carson, Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, and Bush could all make their case…so “our” votes, the votes of Christian conservatives who should easily be able to select the Republican candidate, got split among those worthy candidates. As of two weeks ago, we still could have.

At this point, however, there are only two candidates who have a chance to get the nomination. Trump and Cruz. There is no possibility of any other candidate getting the 1237 delegates, or going into the convention with close to that many and being able to argue forcefully that they are “most chosen” by the voters. Cruz is a true crusader against the status quo and the Establishment; he's been in there proving it.

Kasich recently falsely asserted that Cruz would have to get something like 80% of the vote in order to get the nomination; truth is, Cruz only needs just over 50% in the right places, and polls show he would get that if Kasich would bow out.

Our nation is on the line. Instead of acting in ignorance, the intelligent person takes counsel from those who are experts on the matter. There is no more thoughtful, conscientious analyst than Michael Barone. Please listen to him, as he explains:

A Vote for Kasich Is a Vote for Trump

By Michael Barone

Perhaps the most important results of the March 22 Republican primary in Arizona and caucus in Utah were numbers that didn’t appear on your television screen, no matter how late you stayed up for the poll closing times. Those were the numbers of votes cast for Marco Rubio in Arizona — 70,587 of them at this writing.

That was 17,595 more than the 52,992 votes cast there for John Kasich, even though Kasich was an active candidate on March 22 and Rubio had “suspended” his campaign after his defeat in Florida seven days before.

One lesson from this is that it is wacky for Arizona and many other states to allow so much early voting in presidential primaries. The field of candidates can change rapidly, and many voters will be recorded for a candidate they wouldn’t have voted for on election day.

The other lesson is relevant to those planning to vote in the 18 Republican primaries and one caucus between now and June 7. And that is that a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump.

It’s true that if all the Rubio and Kasich voters in Arizona had opted for their second choice, Donald Trump would probably still have come out ahead, since he got 47 percent in his own right and thus would still have won Arizona’s 58 winner-take-all delegates.

And it’s true that Kasich’s 17 percent in the Utah caucuses did not prevent Ted Cruz from exceeding Utah’s 50 percent threshold (by a lot: 69 percent) and winning that state’s 40 winner-take-all delegates.

But Trump is not polling at anything like the 47 percent level in most states yet to vote. In Wisconsin, which votes April 5, he hasn’t topped 30 percent. Yet with the anti-Trump vote split, he could win the lion’s share of its delegates, awarded statewide and winner-take-all by congressional district.

That’s exactly what happened in Missouri and Illinois on March 15. Trump won 53 of Illinois' 69 delegates with 39 percent, to 30 percent for Cruz, 19 percent for Kasich and 8 percent for Rubio. If Kasich weren’t running or if Rubio had urged his voters to vote Cruz, as he urged them to vote Kasich in the latter’s Ohio, the totals and the delegate count would have looked very different.

Missouri was even closer, with Trump edging Cruz 40.8 to 40.6 percent. Cruz can be faulted for campaigning elsewhere in the last days, and he did end up with 15 delegates by carrying three of eight congressional districts. But Trump won 37 delegates.

The key here is that Trump must win 1,237 delegates — which is a majority at the convention, not some arbitrary number as he has suggested — in order to be nominated. If he falls visibly short of 1,237 it is highly unlikely that he can pick up the delegates necessary to win.

Current delegate counts have Trump at 739, Cruz at 465 and Kasich at 143, with 839 to be selected in states not yet voting. Trump needs about 59 percent of these to win. With divided opposition, he has an excellent chance; many remaining states select delegates winner-take-all statewide or by congressional district. Against Ted Cruz, he has a greater chance of falling short.

Trump has massive unfavorable ratings among general election voters and runs well behind Hillary Clinton in general election polls — his and his supporters' delusional denials notwithstanding. Cruz runs about even against Clinton. He’s not many Republican strategists' idea of an ideal candidate. But he’s in competitive territory against a Democrat with major weaknesses of her own.

Kasich supporters point to general election polls showing him running visibly ahead of Clinton. Similarly, supporters of Bernie Sanders point to polls that show him running better than Clinton against each Republican.

But few analysts of any stripe think Sanders' numbers would stand up under the scrutiny, not given to him so far, inevitably brought to a candidate who could actually be nominated. There’s reason for similar doubts about the durability of Kasich, who has had no significant scrutiny yet.

Kasich has won only one primary, in his home state, and finished second in three more, all in New England. The chances are vanishingly minimal that a convention, once Trump falls short of 1,237, would nominate him for president. But vice president? Maybe — if, despite Kasich’s recent claim that he would never be a running mate, his 143 delegates put Trump over the top. A vote for Kasich is a vote for Trump.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Original published here: http://patriotpost.us/opinion/41538