Contributors

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Trump the Loser

After leading in the polls for months, Donald Trump came in second to Ted Cruz. He beat Rubio by a scant margin. He had polled as much as 10 points higher than Cruz, but in the end he lost by four.

In other words, Trump is a loser.

In 2013 Trump famously quoted Walter Hagen: "No one remembers who came in second." This time, though, will be different. People will remember that the big blowhard came in second to the man Trump said everyone hates.

Why did Trump lose? Chickening out of the last debate might have a lot to do with it. Caucus goers who decided at the last minute broker for Cruz and Rubio in a big way. Hearing Trump whine about how unfair it is to be asked questions by a girl may not have impressed a lot of voters.

But the two bigger reasons were organization and a misunderstanding of how political campaigns work. Trump thinks that running for office is like having a top-rated TV show: if your ratings are high, you'll win. But that's not how you get elected president.

Trump's campaign ridiculed other operations in Iowa for running their own polls. "Why do your own polls when the media does it for free?" one of his operatives said in a tweet.

The reason, as anyone who's mounted a serious campaign will tell you, is that by running your own polls you identify people who will support you. You can call them back and remind them to go vote. You can ask them for money later on. You can ask other questions that will help you refine your message. You can engage in "push polling," putting ideas in voters' heads that will make them reconsider their support for someone like Trump, and vote for Cruz instead.

Finally, winning the nomination isn't just about getting the most buzz on national TV. It's about recruiting delegates for the national conventions. These are the actual people who will show up at the nominating convention next summer. Some of these people are selected in a long drawn-out process through caucuses, primaries, district conventions and state conventions. But a lot of these people are "super delegates," party bosses and office holders who actually cast the votes on the floor of the convention. These people have a lot of sway over the other, less experienced delegates.

Ted Cruz knows how that system works. Donald Trump doesn't. He still thinks he's on a reality TV show.

In 2012 the Republican campaign had a different leading candidate every month: Cain, Gingrich, Santorum. But they all pooped out because Mitt Romney owned the political machines in the various states, and recruited the super delegates by contributing tons of cash to the reelection campaigns of office holders in critical states.

If Trump were to win outright majorities in the primaries, it would be hard for super delegates to support other candidates at the convention. But it doesn't look like that will happen. If Iowa is any indication, there will be three or four candidates in contention for the long haul. And because of the incredible amount of Super PAC money floating around from billionaires who want to own their own presidential candidates, some non-viable candidates (Bush, for example) may hang on for much longer than they might have had the Supreme Court not screwed up the American political system with their catastrophically stupid Citizens United decision.

If there's no winner on the first ballot at the Republican convention, a lot of the delegates who were committed to Trump because of primary results may be quick to desert him. They will have no allegiance to him, because he isn't a real Republican or even a real conservative. He's just a two-faced big-mouthed New Yorker who insults everyone.

The idea of a "brokered convention" is the slim hope that establishment Republicans have been holding out for someone like Rubio or Bush winning the nomination.

In the end, a huge part of politics is about loyalty. Trump does not inspire it, and he does not practice it. He will tell Megyn Kelly she is a fabulous interviewer one day and then whine that she's a bitch the next day. He will say Ted Cruz is a great guy one day, then contradict himself the next.

With Trump, it's clear that the only person he cares about is himself. Cruz suffers from the same problem, but at least he's been a real Republican for his entire career. Both Cruz and Trump have a history of screwing people whose support they could use in the future.

Guys like Bush and Rubio have burned fewer bridges, and in the end that may mean the difference between being a winner and being a loser.

No comments: