
Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President - adwmayer
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/us/politics/ted-cruz.html?_r=0
======
Osiris
My theory for the reason that people like Trump is this: genuine.

People are sick of politicians and the game they play. Trump comes off as
genuine. Sure, most of what he says is wrong, but people don't care.

People don't like Hillary for the same reason, she comes off as the opposite
of genuine. The common refrain about her is that she'll say whatever it is
that she thinks you want to hear.

~~~
h43k3r
What Trump says feels safe and good to most of the people.

The human mind is lazy and doesn't want to think much if its gets satisfied
easily unless you force it to do. But how many people actually put their mind
while thinking about politicians. We just make conclusions from the things
that we want and pleases ourselves.

~~~
xlm1717
I'm not so sure this applies to most of the people. Trump is a very polarizing
figure. There are segments of the population for whom what Trump says feels
safe and good. At the same time, there are segments who feel outrage and
disgust at what he says.

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Aelinsaar
What an incredible moment in the history of a major political party in the US.
Trump is the man for the GOP, and it's hard not to imagine that it doesn't
mark the beginning of the end of the GOP in some form, in the long run.

~~~
trhway
GOP has been selling "Washington establishment/insiders" hate-story to its
electorate for a bunch of years, and finally that electorate bought it. One
reaps what the one sows. Or something about the cake.

Anyway, can't wait to see Bill back in the WH :)

~~~
bhouston
Hillary seems to be captured by special interest, almost completely so. She is
loved by banks, defense companies and oil and gas companies:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N000...](https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=2008)

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillarys-financial-
armada-2330336...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillarys-financial-
armada-233033648.html)

[http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaign-updates/hillary-
clint...](http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaign-updates/hillary-clintons-
connection-oil-gas-industry/)

She supported the Iraq war, and opposed the recent deal with Iran.

I am not sure what is a redeeming quality of Hillary as a democrat, she seems
like an establishment GOP candidate in her positions, excluding social issues,
more than anything.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I am not sure what is a redeeming quality of Hillary as a democrat, she seems
like an establishment GOP candidate in her positions, excluding social issues,
more than anything.

You just said it yourself: social issues. That's the only thing where
mainstream Dems and Reps differ. They use these "wedge issues" to give the
illusion of differences between the parties and keep us distracted from the
real issues.

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lampN
This is lining up to be a historic election. Both parties are set to nominate
two very divisive and unlikable candidates. I wonder how, if at all, this will
affect the two party system.

~~~
zxcvcxz
The non-crazies should annex a portion of Canada and start a new country.

~~~
gallonofmilk
or promote a moderate third party since most people are moderate anyways...

~~~
Grishnakh
Won't work, it's impossible.

A first-past-the-post voting system like ours _always_ guarantees a two-party
system. Once in a while there may be an anomaly, but in the end it devolves
back to two parties. It's impossible to have a stable 3-party system with FPTP
voting.

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SilasX
Wait, really ending for good, so he can't be nominated? What about all the
party/convention rules shenanigans they can do, where they can still nominate
anyone who won delegates? Was that a misconception? Or just the Democratic
Party?

~~~
Lazare
There weren't really any shenanigans available. The rules are:

1\. On the first ballot, pledged delegates will be counted as having voted for
their assigned nominee

2\. Thereafter they can do whatever they want. You can call this "politics",
or "the will of the delegates", or "shenanigans" if you want.

After Indiana, Trump will inevitably have enough pledged delegates to win on
the first ballot, so that's that.

> What about all the party/convention rules shenanigans they can do, where
> they can still nominate anyone who won delegates? Was that a misconception?

There was some vague talk about a rule change to unbind delegates on the
_first_ ballot, but that was never, ever, ever going to happen.

~~~
Grishnakh
>After Indiana, Trump will inevitably have enough pledged delegates to win on
the first ballot, so that's that.

You don't know that. Kasich is still in the race for a reason. All they have
to do is keep Trump from getting to that magic number of delegates, and then
they go to a brokered convention. It's a bit of a long shot, but it's still
possible, especially with Cruz out of the way.

~~~
Lazare
Trump has 1,047 pledged delegates; he needs 1,237 to win on the first ballot
without relying on unpledged delegates. That means he needs 190 more to remove
even a chance of losing.

There are 520 delegates still up for grabs; that means he needs just over a
third of them. Which...he's going to get.

Projections had him getting at least 133 delegates in California _before_ his
only serious rival dropped out, and he's got a lock on 51 delegates from NJ.
Add in the proportional share he'll get from Washington and Oregon based on
current totals, and...

...yeah. It's over. The reason Cruz dropped out is he can do the math. If he'd
won Indiana, _AND_ all the other contests still up for grabs, Trump could have
been stopped short of 1,237. With Indiana in his pocket, he can't be.

~~~
Grishnakh
>There are 520 delegates still up for grabs; that means he needs just over a
third of them. Which...he's going to get.

You don't know that; you're making assumptions. When this race started,
everyone thought the idea of Trump making it this far was utterly ridiculous,
because of their own assumptions at the time.

I admit it's a real long shot, but the elections aren't over yet. Anything
could happen. If it were really over, Kasich would have dropped out too. Cruz
dropped out because it's _both_ mathematically impossible for him to get 1237
votes, _and_ for him to get the nomination in a brokered convention (he's just
too unpopular within his party). Kasich will be an easy win at the brokered
convention if that happens, so he's staying in until Trump reaches 1237.

Finally, who knows what kind of things are going on behind the scenes. I
wouldn't be surprised if the GOP pulls some really dirty tricks to deny Trump
the nomination somehow. Face it, their survival depends on it.

~~~
Lazare
> If it were really over, Kasich would have dropped out too.

It was over for Kasich a _LONG_ time ago, but he stayed in.

> Kasich will be an easy win at the brokered convention if that happens, so
> he's staying in until Trump reaches 1237.

...I feel like we've been watching different races. With different candidates.
On a different planet.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP pulls some really dirty tricks to deny
> Trump the nomination somehow. Face it, their survival depends on it.

Both parties have survived worse nominees. The Democrats survived Mcgovern
after all.

~~~
Grishnakh
>...I feel like we've been watching different races. With different
candidates. On a different planet.

I guess so, if you really think the GOP actually likes either Trump or Cruz.
They haven't hidden their contempt for either of those two, and the idea that
either of them would win the nomination in a brokered convention is sheer
lunacy.

This is moot now, since Cruz and Kasich have suspended their campaigns. But
seriously, how can you _not_ think Kasich would be an easy win if, through
some miracle for the GOP, they got a brokered convention? Who do you think
would win?

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smegel
Trump was the mainstream candidate, no surprise there.

The idea that a far-right extreme conservative evangelical was going to beat
Hillary was, as Trump would say, laughable.

Trump may also not beat Hillary, but he does have mainstream appeal and can
connect with a much wider audience.

What will be interesting is how Trump now changes his outwards approach as he
tries to win over the mainstream, swing voters, even some democrats who don't
want an establishment figure, instead of registered republican voters that he
has been targeting until now.

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tzs
Shamelessly stolen from someone on Reddit:

Cruz: "We're going to have to layoff all of the staff." Carly: "IT'S MY TIME
TO SHINE!"

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vorador
The next few months are going to be interesting.

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supernintendo
He won't be missed.

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11thEarlOfMar
48 up-votes in 54 minutes?

Why isn't this on the front page?

~~~
clevernickname
Same reason why every vaguely pro-Trump comment has been flagged or downvoted
into oblivion.

~~~
dang
It isn't that it's pro-Trump, it's that it's pure politics. Such posts always
get heavily flagged, and it's hard to disagree with that, since they're
typically not posted to gratify intellectual curiosity.

~~~
clevernickname
On the contrary, purely political stories are constantly upvoted and allowed
on HN. They're just almost always left leaning stories.

    
    
      A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing
      542 points by warrenmar 17 hours ago | flag | past | web | 718 comments
    

I can almost guarantee that if/when Bernie drops out, a submission on it will
be allowed to stay and hit hundreds of points.

~~~
dang
Basic Income stories are political, but they aren't purely political. There's
an intellectual interest in thinking about and debating such a major social
change. Political horse race stories are the opposite.

People tend to see HN as ideologically biased in favor of whatever they
disagree with—that's a classic cognitive bias in its own right. Indeed there
are some biases on specific issues (Snowden detractors don't do well here),
but I'm not sure I agree they cut left or right overall. The community is
pretty divided, much as the larger population is.

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waitwhatt
Bye bye climate change denier.

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pizza
rangevoting.org

