Dear Internet, Stop saying Trump beat Cruz in Louisiana. It never happened. They both won Louisiana...
Dear Internet,
Stop saying Trump beat Cruz in Louisiana. It never happened. They both won Louisiana, tying for first place, with 18 delegates each.
This Politico article is an example of what is so completely ignorant about much of the media coverage of the GOP nomination fight. It never mentions the fact that the only thing that matters is how many delegates you win, and that Trump and Cruz tied in delegates based on the close result. Therefore, they both won. It could not matter less -- except in the perception of people who do not understand the system -- who ended up with more votes, because it was a tie.
And the reason this matters is because now people are arguing that because Trump "won" Louisiana, therefore he should get more delegates.
The system is complicated, but at root, it is very simple. Follow along at home:
* The presidential nominee for the party must get a majority of delegates at the national convention to vote for him to be the nominee
* Each state sends a certain number of delegates to the national convention, and chooses how those delegates are chosen based on established rules
That's it. It's not about votes, it's about delegates. The difference in votes between Cruz and Trump in Louisiana only matter to the extent the rules in Louisiana's GOP says it matters. And in this case, the difference is such that the rules say the difference does not matter. Therefore, Trump did not beat Cruz.
And the rules in Louisiana say some other things, that delegates bound to a candidate (in this case, Rubio) who has dropped out of the race are free to vote for whomever they wish ... and that means they will probably all vote for Cruz, because they are mostly conservative Republicans, and Trump isn't and Cruz is. Further, there's five additional unbound delegates in Louisiana, and they too will likely vote for Cruz, for similar reasons.
Trump can scream about how it's not fair, but he's lying. It is entirely fair, because it's the rules of the game, rules he knew and agreed to. And they aren't even complicated rules.
This is just another example of how Trump is completely unprincipled. He doesn't want a fair fight: he wants to win even if it means doing it unfairly. Even if a majority of the party opposes him -- and so far, from the beginning, that has appeared to be the case -- he still thinks they should just support him because there's more people supporting him than any other one candidate. That's stupid, but that's what he says.
Stop saying Trump beat Cruz in Louisiana. It never happened. They both won Louisiana, tying for first place, with 18 delegates each.
This Politico article is an example of what is so completely ignorant about much of the media coverage of the GOP nomination fight. It never mentions the fact that the only thing that matters is how many delegates you win, and that Trump and Cruz tied in delegates based on the close result. Therefore, they both won. It could not matter less -- except in the perception of people who do not understand the system -- who ended up with more votes, because it was a tie.
And the reason this matters is because now people are arguing that because Trump "won" Louisiana, therefore he should get more delegates.
The system is complicated, but at root, it is very simple. Follow along at home:
* The presidential nominee for the party must get a majority of delegates at the national convention to vote for him to be the nominee
* Each state sends a certain number of delegates to the national convention, and chooses how those delegates are chosen based on established rules
That's it. It's not about votes, it's about delegates. The difference in votes between Cruz and Trump in Louisiana only matter to the extent the rules in Louisiana's GOP says it matters. And in this case, the difference is such that the rules say the difference does not matter. Therefore, Trump did not beat Cruz.
And the rules in Louisiana say some other things, that delegates bound to a candidate (in this case, Rubio) who has dropped out of the race are free to vote for whomever they wish ... and that means they will probably all vote for Cruz, because they are mostly conservative Republicans, and Trump isn't and Cruz is. Further, there's five additional unbound delegates in Louisiana, and they too will likely vote for Cruz, for similar reasons.
Trump can scream about how it's not fair, but he's lying. It is entirely fair, because it's the rules of the game, rules he knew and agreed to. And they aren't even complicated rules.
This is just another example of how Trump is completely unprincipled. He doesn't want a fair fight: he wants to win even if it means doing it unfairly. Even if a majority of the party opposes him -- and so far, from the beginning, that has appeared to be the case -- he still thinks they should just support him because there's more people supporting him than any other one candidate. That's stupid, but that's what he says.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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