Subject: STITCH — Cruz In Danger of Losing 1st-Ballot Delegates to Trump, Book Chat with Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, America Rising Expands
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 12:44:40 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** THE BIG QUESTION

What's the best argument Cruz can make to try to keep unbound delegates out of Trump's column?

UNBOUND 'CRUZ DELEGATES' ARE WAVERING ON 1ST-BALLOT CHOICE
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Over the weekend, TED CRUZ continued to rack up delegates who say they'll vote for him if the Republican convention requires multiple ballots to pick a winner. But there are delegates who had previously been identified as Cruz backers on the first ballot who are considering voting for Donald Trump.

SEEMA MEHTA & MELANIE MASON quote Saul Anuzis, the former Michigan Republican Party chairman and Cruz delegate-selection aide, on Cruz's effort to pick up second-ballot support in Arizona, Virginia and elsewhere.
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"It’s incumbent on us to recruit as many people that we can that would have Cruz as their second choice."

—Saul Anuzis/L.A. Times (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-cruz-california-arizona-conventions-20160430-story.html)

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BUT THAT WON'T MATTER MUCH if the trend that National Review'sBRENDAN BORDELON picked up on among North Dakota's delegates is indicative of broader sentiment among delegates across the country who are not bound on the first ballot. Nearly half a dozen North Dakota delegates who have been identified as Cruz backers told Bordelon that they are at least considering going with Trump.
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"What I have said is I’m leaning towards Cruz, but I’m not committed to anybody. ... And after [Tuesday’s vote], I think Trump has the momentum going forward.”

—North Dakota state Sen. Dick Dever/National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434793/ted-cruz-delegates-reconsider-supporting-donald-trump)

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Trump's 15-point lead in Indiana, long-billed as the establishment's last chance to stop Trump, has put the writing on the wall even for the most unwilling to accept the likelihood that the billionaire real-estate mogul will be the GOP nominee.

Republican strategist NICOLLE WALLACE, speaking on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday, noted that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's endorsement of fellow conservative Cruz was "half-hearted" and came along with acclaim for Trump. By underwhelming, Pence may have actually hurt Cruz.
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"Cruz is, like, losing by winning now."

—NICOLLE WALLACE/"Morning Joe"

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Just playing with delegate numbers a bit, if Trump were to win Indiana while losing two congressional districts (51 out of 57 delegates), sweep New Jersey and West Virginia (85 delegates total) and win 60 percent of California's 172 delegates, he'd pick up another 239 delegates. AP has him at 996 right now. That would put him two delegates shy of the 1,237 he needs without getting a single delegate from several other states.

CRUZ IS CONCEDING NOTHING, THOUGH
Asked repeatedly on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he would back Trump if Trump wins the nomination, Cruz dodged time and again.
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"I am going to beat Donald Trump. We are headed to a contested convention, and we're gonna win, and I'm not willing to concede this country."

—Ted Cruz/Meet the Press (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ted-cruz-refuses-say-he-won-t-support-trump-n565526)

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Democratic strategist BOB SHRUM raised an interesting mechanical wrinkle on Sidewire Sunday.
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"With Trump closing in on nomination, question: Could Trojan Trump delegates and alternates, bound on the first ballot, go to dinner instead of casting a vote? And what could/would Convention Chair Paul Ryan do then? Send Sgt at Arms to corral them?"

Bob Shrum/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/76e75876d31c8e43d61e06e4e9d3f59c/commentary/54443bd6-7b04-44d4-97cc-6d302aad5d6f)

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It's hard to see an organized sick-out among delegates bound to Trump by the results in their home states, but a quick reading of the existing GOP rules confirms that a candidate has to win "a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention" — that's a hard 1,237, not a majority of those voting — to win the nomination.

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**
CLINTON AND TRUMP RAMP UP RHETORICAL BATTLE
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Is it still a pivot when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go after each other? Nah. Now it's the early stages of a nuclear-bomb-exchange of a presidential campaign.

Trump reasserted over the weekend that Clinton mostly derives benefit from her gender on the campaign trail, and he tried to frame her as a candidate who is running solely on her gender identity.
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"“The only card she has is the woman card. ... Even women don’t like her. If she were not a woman, she would not even be in this race.”

—Donald Trump/Fox News Sunday (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/01/trump-replays-clinton-woman-card-defends-pull-out-middle-east-strategy.html)

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CLINTON HAS SAID SHE'LL IGNORE such attacks from Trump. BUT SHE WENT AFTER HIM, TOO, at an NAACP event on Sunday. as DAN MERICAreports for CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/01/politics/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-donald-trump-naacp/index.html) .
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"We can't let Barack Obama's legacy fall into Donald Trump's hands. ... We can't let all the hard work and progress we've obtained over the last seven-and-a-half years be torn away.”

—Hillary Clinton/CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/01/politics/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-donald-trump-naacp/index.html)

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And her campaign, playing off her call to "deal me in" after Trump first raised his "woman card" complaint, has produced a deck of "woman cards" for purchase through her campaign website.

Trump, who referred to Clinton as an "enabler" a few days ago, is pushing Clinton into familiar territory in which she ends up fighting defensively about something that could be a strength — in this case, her gender — rather than finding ways to push her opponent onto his heels and into defending his political turf.

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**
TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
On this day in 1536, less than three years after becoming Queen of England, Anne Boelyn was arrested on charges of adultery and witchcraft. She would be beheaded less than three weeks later.

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
BOB SHRUM was the first to correctly respond that Roger Branigin, then the governor of the Hoosier State, finished second to Robert F. Kennedy in the 1968 Indiana Democratic presidential primary.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Bob: In 1932, FDR gave a speech promising to cut government spending. Campaigning for re-election in 1936, he asked his speechwriter Sam Rosenman to come up with "a good and convincing explanation" for the spending and deficits of the subsequent 4 years. Rosenman went to work and then told the President there was only one answer. What was it?

Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person to respond correctly wins the right to pose tomorrow's trivia question.

PLEASE SEND TIPS, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections andthe CIA memos outlining the plan to recreate the bin Laden raid on social media to [email-masked].

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**

'AMERICA RISING' CREATES FOR-PROFIT DIVISION TO WAGE BATTLES FOR COMPANIES, INDIVIDUALS
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PATRICK O'CONNOR of the Wall Street Journal scoops the expansion of the "America Rising" empire. The political nonprofit is adding a for-profit division that will take on business from companies and deep-pocketed individuals who need muscle in the oppo research and communications.
Co-founder JOE POUNDER, who hinted at the move in a Sidewire Newsmaker of the Week interview (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/e351521a2f59b9945c0e0014a7d6be13)  two weeks ago, told O'Connor that businesses need to fight the kind of sophisticated public-relations battles that are a staple of political campaigns.
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"What we’re seeing is a realization that these CEOs, their corporations, their clients and their professional associates are being treated like political candidates. ... They can do the multimillion-dollar campaign on brand management, but they also have to know what they’re up against and who they’re facing and add that in to their messaging.”

—Joe Pounder/WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/political-operatives-find-demand-for-their-skills-in-business-world-1462136874)

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** BOOK CHAT: ED MORRISSEY'S 'GOING RED'
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Join us in the Stitch at 10 a.m. Eastern for a chat with Hot Air's ED MORRISSEY, whose new book, "Going Red (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533790/going-red-by-ed-morrissey/9781101905661/) ," explores the nation's premier presidential battleground areas and the people who live in them to explain what conservatives must do to win the White House in 2016.

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—30—

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