More election stuff the media won't tell you

Things I have noticed that amazingly is of no interest whatsoever to the media.

Trump underperforms the polls and Cruz outperforms them.  From the start when Trump was supposed to beat Cruz in Iowa, then didn’t, I began plotting the Real Clear average of polls in states vs. the outcomes.  Cruz is +6 and Trump is -5 points.  Sometimes this is violated, such as when OH came in exactly as the average of polls predicted.  But consider WI where Cruz held a 39-35 lead and the final result was 48-34.  Mystery?  I don’t think so.  Pollsters often Pollyannishly pretend that everyone is going to vote as they say.  But so many of Trumps voters are Independents who vote only half as often as partisans.  Cruz people are intense conservatives and vote when they say they are going to vote.  This brings up a thought.  From the beginning, the media’s message is entirely about polls. Has Trump been oversold because he polls well? Has the media been transfixed and given him too much free air time?

In OH two colleges studied who voted the Republican ballot.  28% identified as Independent; 8% said they were Dems; 64% were Rs.  With such high crossover this year, Rs are setting all sorts of records for turnout.  How much of Trumps votes are I’s and D’s?  I would venture a guess that half or more are.  Which explains somewhat the next observation.

The media is in love with the narrative that this is the race between establishment and insurgents.  But they never define establishment.  Is that the Congressmen who are the ones bearing the blame of selling out to lobbyists?  Or do they also include anybody who works with the Republican party who certainly haven’t sold out their opinions.  Or is it the well-paid pundit and opinion writer class?  All of these?  None of these?  Unless you insist that anyone who has ever attended a county party meeting is ‘establishment’, there’s a vital group never mentioned—grassroots activists.  It is those grassroots folks who get elected by other grassroots activists to be delegates.  Pundits seem to explain that Cruz has organized and blitzed the state organizations while Trump hasn’t.  Untrue for the most part.  The activists have been paying close attention all along and they have the agenda to elect other Republicans than just a President.  To wit: they aren’t impressed with Trump who offers no support for anyone but himself. (His mélange of policies probably would kill other Rs down the ballot)  Secondly, all the Trump supporters would have to do to win delegates is to attend their county convention and fill out a short form that announces they want to run for delegate at the national convention. Then get elected.  At our district convention, I went around asking if anyone saw a Trump supporter.  None to be found.  Hence all delegates were people who pledged to vote Cruz at the first opportunity. Have you heard a media pundit say the obvious? If Trump people would just get out of the Lazyboy and attend county and district conventions rather than bitch from afar, they would have some delegates.   

Now comes a disgruntled Trump accusing these activists—mom and pop active citizens who just take part in county politics—of being corrupt and using Gestapo tactics.  Here’s Trump on CNN.

“ We've got a corrupt system.  It's not right.  We're supposed to be a democracy.  We're supposed to be you vote and the vote means something.  And I want to tell you, it's a corrupt deal going on in this country, and it's not good.  It's not good.  And it's not fair, and it's not fair to you people.  They're taking your vote away.  They're disenfranchising people that want to see America be great again, and politicians will never do it.  They don't want to do it, they can't do it because their lobbyists and special interests are saying, "We're not gonna let you do it."  It's no good.  And we've gotta change the system.  And it's gotta change fast.”

And he told Ainsley Earhart on Fox,

“ In the Denver area and Colorado itself they're going absolutely crazy because they weren't given a vote.  It's a crooked deal.  And I see it.  And honestly I see it with Bernie, too.  I've gotten millions more votes, millions, not just a couple, millions more votes than Cruz.  Now they're trying to pick off those delegates one by one.  That's not the way democracy is supposed to work.  You know, and they offer 'em trips, they offer 'em all sorts of things.  What kind of a system is this?  I'm an outsider and I came into the system and I'm winning the votes by millions of votes.  But the system is rigged, it's crooked.”

            So there it is.  You grassroots people have disenfranchised, been bribed, cheated and are a bunch of crooks to have set up your state system and gotten elected delegates.  Say Mr. Trump, is this any way to win delegate votes and influence people? 

            Last item is that the number of conservatives hasn’t changed since Reagan.  1992 was 39% conservative, 43% moderates, 16% lib.  By 2000 it became 40% con, 39% mod, 20% lib.  2015, 39% con, 37% mod, 24% lib. So cons haven’t changed in numbers, moderates have declined and liberals are thumping their chests like King Kong and seeing their numbers swell.  Now think about this.  In 1992, libs were in disarray and no one wanted to admit they had the habit.  Today we are polarized, but the oft-repeated wisdom that the Rs cannot ever get a conservative elected again is BS, Barack Stupidity. The base of conservatives is just as strong as ever.  And this gets more interesting when you think that whites were 82% of voters during Reagan while they are headed for 60% in another ten years. Thus the non-white part of the population is getting increasingly conservative because overall conservative numbers are holding steady!  Which is like my Hispanic tree-trimming buddy who came from Chihuahua as a liberal and after years of running a business is now solidly conservative. Ditto my auto body guy. But do you ever hear this said in the media?

                Just thought you’d find this interesting.