Two things defined yesterday’s events. One was Chris Christie’s endorsement of
Trump which was a statement in itself that Trump might in fact be the
inevitable Republican nominee. The other was the new line of attack by Marco
Rubio, and to a lesser extent Ted Cruz, that Donald Trump is a con man.
Trump may well be a con man but we aren’t going to deal with that here. Instead, we will
look at the candidate dynamics behind such complaints.
Donald Trump was on the stage for nine Republican debates and in the first seven
neither Marco Rubio nor Ted Cruz got close to any of these issues. In the
eighth debate, they made a slight attempt and then, finally, in the ninth
debate Trump is a con man.
One of the most important aspects of multi-candidate field dynamics is that how you
treat your opponents over the course of a campaign matters. Dramatic
swings in a candidate’s approach hurt credibility.
In debate after debate, Trump was allowed to build a rapport with the Republican
base. Cruz welcomed his energy into the conservative movement and did not
suggest any problems. Rubio helpfully said next to nothing about Trump.
If a con man lays out the terms of his deal in front of two rivals and one says
the man is terrific and the other person says nothing, you are likely to sign
on if you like the terms of the deal. Now let’s say, at the eleventh hour
before the deal is to go into effect, those rivals come back and say never mind
what we’ve said for eight months this man is a con-artist. Well if the rivals
are still going after the same deal, they are likely to be utterly
unpersuasive. And if a third person who had been a rival for the deal
shows up (Chris Christie of course) and vouches for the “con man,” that’s the
end of the argument.
There is almost no chance that these arguments will work. A reasonable person will
ask: Why didn’t you inform people earlier? People who seemed to be in on
the con have little credibility in denouncing it. Thus, this argument, that
might have been effective at one time, now looks like the complaint of sore
losers.
More on the Republican dynamics tomorrow.
The Scorecard
The Scorecard is a political strategy and analysis blog. Our hope is to provide information and insight that can be found nowhere else into how and why things are happening in American politics. Unlike many political pundits, we will tell you who we think is going to win as an election approaches; we will tell you why; and we will give you a sense of our level of confidence. Ours is a holistic approach, one that takes in as many numbers as possible but is also willing to look past the numbers if need be. When we turn out to have been wrong, we will let you know. When we are right, we’ll let you know that too.
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About Me
Author Jason Paul is a longtime political operative who got his start as an intern in 2002. He has been a political forecaster for almost as long. He won the 2006 Swing State Project election prediction contest and has won two other local contests. He had the pulse of Obama-Clinton race in 2008 and has been as good as anyone at delegate math in the 2016 race. He looks forwards to providing quality coverage for the remainder of the 2016 race.
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