Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Trump 845 versus 924: does he need 1237?

The supposed debate in the RNC's circles is whether Trump needs 1237 to win the nomination. Just another example of people who believe themselves to be smarter than they are.
Of course Trump needs 1237 to win. Why?
Because that is when all other options are over. If Trump has 1237 committed delegates, nobody else can get them.
There is no more gamesmanship by Cruz or Kasich that can be attempted.
There are no more articles to be written with different scenarios.
There are no more opinions to be offered that seem credible.
With 1237, any other answer than "Trump wins" sounds stupid.
So if Trump must have 1237, what is this about "less than 1237" can win? It is poor writing and thinking mascarading as Jack Handey's "Deep Thoughts" from Saturday Night Live of old.
These discussions are really about analyzing uncommitted delegates to vote Trump.
Right now Trump has 845 delegates on the first ballot. There are 924 delegates that are committed to other candidates or are uncommitted. After Pennsylvania, the number of uncommitted will go up substantially. New England offers around 104 delegates. Then Trump has to deal with some less favorable locations. No doubt he will leave those states with close to 949 delegates. Only 20 up on the field.
There will still be more than 300 delegates in play. He will like do well with those 300, but he will have to do overwhelming well to get to 1237.
In the meantime, we get to experience the joy of simple minds writing overwrought logic. Lovely . . . .

Monday, January 25, 2016

Is Trump the 21st Century Hoover?

If you read Amity Schlaes's The Forgotten Man you will learn about Herbert Hoover the great engineer and business manager. His penchant for micromanagement (duplicated by FDR) fed many of the problems worsening the Great Depression. Hoover came to office on the heals of his unambiguously great success in helping Europe recover from WWI.

Now Trump seeks office with a smimilar resume and goal. He wants to manage the bureaucracy better.

Does that make Trump the second term of Herbert Hoover?

Hoover came to regret his presidency and sought to teach others how to avoid his errors through the great Hoover Institute at Stanford.

If Trump learns the right lessons, he could lead better than Hoover without the notion of managing the economy to health. He could manage the bureaucracy to empower law and order and self sufficiency.

If Trump repeats Hoover's errors, he would be arguably Obama's third term.

I don't trust Trump. He's philosophically unmoored. He is clearly a great student of human nature and organizational management and motivation. So was Hoover.

Hoover was a poor student of economics at a national scale. He learned that too late.

If Trump learns the power of Harding, Coolidge, and Reagan in managing the economy, then his managerial skills could make Trump extraordinary in office.

If Trump's lack of learning of philosophical lessons were to hold true, he could be more damaging than Hoover. 

Trump has the big personality of Harding, who slashed the government budget in half on entering office and set off a huge economic era. While history treats Harding as corrupt, little evidence suggests this playboy was corrupt, just egotistic. I doubt Trump would have the real courage to cut the budget like Harding, so I pass on the subject. 

 Hoover is an object lesson for Trump. What lesson will he take?