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A well-timed leak of the Trump remarks as prepared has sloshed its way into the hoopla machinery. One such transcript is here, at Politico. Over at Reason, the reasonable Matt Welch points out a few disquieting tones of authoritarianism. I have been watching Trump speeches since the primaries, since I ate crow about Bush. I will watch and re-watch this one tonight, as it is probably the most important speech by the candidate to date, and will probably garner the biggest TV audience of his run so far. My opinions on the success of the Cleveland conflab are scattered and mixed. I do think the Trump campaign fumbled Melania's speech, and fumbled Cruz's speech. Three days of fumbles and off-message incoherence bordering on chaotic mismagnagment, and the obvious dis-unity of the Republican party going forward to November. It is funny to see the Trump-side spin and fumbles. Shouldn't they be better at this? Anyhow, hope everybody will open their minds and listen to The Speech.

Objective eyes on November: Roundtable - May 11, 2016 Roger Bissell, Robert Campbell, and William Scott Scherk look through Objective(ish) eyes at the US presidential election. Get to know the spirit, humour and wit of the three amigos in the first of a series. Presented as an audio-only podcast at Conversations with the Greats | Show notes at November Eyes Notes

Since you think Rand would ideologically support Cruz after deriding Reagan on abortion, I have to consider you not to be much of an authority on her. It is very easy to analyze the 2016 campaigns and campaigners but very hard to actually observe what is going on and all projections are arbitrary. I've never seen anything like this is presidential politics. If Cruz drops out it will be because of his up in the air citizenship status. He may be the citizen of no country at all because he renounced his Canadian citizenship (2014). His parents declared him Canadian at birth. By Canadian law there is no such thing as dual citizenship. Nor was any paperwork ever filed with the US Government to the contrary. His mother was a US citizen. That's the only thing going for him. He may even be illegally a US Senator. Regardless, it looks like Drumpf will get enough delegates for a first ballet win. --Brant Peter, You've said this before and now, through repetition, you are treating it as if it were a fact. Where has Drumpf bragged about the women he has bedded? Michael Peter, As your man said to Donald, breathe. Calm down. Take some deep breaths. You can do it... Drumpf tends to have this effect on people when they think he's toast, except he doesn't know it, then they discover he actually won. Besides, after the dust settles, I wager you will start seeing Drumpf's virtues again. It's all good... Michael Is that interesting?

he Republican Crack-Up, Revisited, published three days ago, March 24.

Ha! In other words, it's a law of nature that if you consistently win polls, you don't win elections. That just doesn't happen to anybody. Double ha! Michael I don't know what 'everyone' knows or what you think about polls -- and I don't believe you hold the opposite corollary to your one-liner: "We all know Polls are Reality." Maybe somewhere in between is your considered opinion.[...] Did you read into the poll I mentioned above that broke out Drumpf supporter's views on various issues of policy, preferences and attitudes? Do you find yourself represented in those soundings? Anyhow, you are probably unlikely to give us an essay on polling. T Boy, did you get that right. My thing is human nature, not running stats on the answers to multiple choice questions.[,,,] Now we come to polling. [...] That's why I treat polls more like a score of a football game than the hard reality of what will happen if we get this election wrong.[...] Polls are like cotton candy for nutrition.

I am just getting around to watching and thinking about last night's debate in the Palmetto State. Here's the full programme for review.

I'll start off this thread by adding in Reb!'s guesstimate and mine ... REB: As for the upcoming Tuesday night vote, here's my prediction: Trump about 25%, Cruz and Rubio about 20% each, Christie and Jeb and Kasich about 10% each, Ben Casey 5%. (The last being a reference to an old medical tv series from 50 years ago.) WSS: I confidently predict Trump will garner 33% of the votes. I predict a mini-surge for Rubio, who will top 20%. As for Cruz, I think he will edge all the other also-rans, with about 12-15%. Fourth will be Kasich, with 10%, and Bush, Christie gaining about 5-7 tops. The remainder will not rise above 5%.(I reserve the right to change these guesses in AVS's thread). I am probably wildly wrong about Cruz in NH ... (I am already itching to change my opinion, but what the hell, I think I will keep it, even if I have some doubts in my own perspicacity) -- i can add a table of guesstimates on Monday, when we get a few more predictions in.

I will update and perhaps get finicky with this table. Not all of New Hampshire has reported, and not all its delegate allocations have been announced just yet. The delegate counts do not yet add up to 23 in NH. Number of crows needed to bake the pie: 1236 -- Mr Trump just needs another 1213 or so. When to get excited? March 11 Red means Winner-take-all Trump Cruz Rubio Kasich Carson Bush Iowa (30) 7 cum. 8 cum. 7 cum. - cum. 3 cum. - cum. proportional 24% 7 23% 8 28% 7 2% 9% 3 3% - New Hampshire (23) 10 3 3 4 - 3 proportional 35% 17 12% 11 11% 10 16% 4 2% 3 11% 3 Nevada (30) South Carolina (50) Alabama (50) Alaska (28) Arkansas (40) Georgia (76) Massachusetts (42) Minnesota (38) Oklahoma (43) Tennessee (58) Texas (155) Vermont (16) Virginia (49) Wyoming (29)

You thought wrong. You didn't have much to say about polls except that they are all the same, and I gave my reaction to that notion. I liked that part. Luntz's big news? I will look back in the thread for earlier discussion and links. Is this part of the coverage you remember? If not. fork up The Words and I will see if I can make an intelligent comment. I don't know what I think about focus groups -- as opposed to polls. The main benefit is that the people are real, embodied folks in a relatively-open setting, structured and monitored like ICU patients. The people seem to be expressing their own views, but how can one possibly assess their representativeness? I guess the best part is to explore 'memes' in the mind of the particular cohort. Off the top of my head, I wonder about how the Luntz cohorts are selected and screened, and just what the extracted messages are supposed to have been. You say the main extraction was Trump Slump in one of these ICU events. I don't know. Here is another Luntz excerpt. Maybe this one is which you mean? Source: Donald Trump