[TheRealThing]

You have this annoying habit of assuming that you know what I would do in any number of situations. My political philosophy has not changed. I have supported the constitutional originalist and consistent conservative Ted Cruz for president since before he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. I have consistently opposed liberal Democrats like Donald Trump.

This is not rocket science, Trump has always been a liberal and supported liberal politicians. He has told lie after lie and flip-flopped like a gymnist this entire campaign. Before he spoke to AIPAC, he made statements that he would be neutral in his treatment of Israel and the Palestinians; and he also promised to make Israel pay for its own defense. Then, in his speech Monday night, he told members of AIPAC the exact opposite. But the important thing to you is that the audience clapped when they were suppose to clap. The lesson that you should have taken away from the speech is that Trump says whatever he thinks voters want to hear at a given point in time.

I have never had an issue with candidates remaining in a campaign until they have no chance of winning. I have always had an issue with candidates like Kasich, in this election, and Huckabee in past elections, staying in races to play spoiler for another candidate. Cruz not only still has a chance to win a majority of candidates, he also has a chance to win a plurality of candidates going into the convention if he fails to win the majority. Even if he does not pass Trump in the delegate count, if the race is close and neither get a majority, if he finishes strong and wins more Republican votes in key closed primaries, then he would be the favorite to emerge from the convention as the nominee.

None of that scenario violates the rules of the GOP convention. A candidate either wins the majority of delegates on the first ballot, or delegates become "unpledged" at some point in subsequent voting. That is how it has always been with conventions and I don't recall any candidate making veiled threats that his supporters will riot if that candidate failed to win the nomination with a plurality of delegates.

Whether Cruz withdraws from the race or not has nothing to do with "grace," but why would one care about "grace," when one supports the most graceless campaigner in modern history?

My position on candidates withdrawing is the same as it was when Romney and McCain ran for president, and it is the same as it would be if Cruz was in the lead. When McCain won the nomination, Huckabee stayed in the race all through the southern primaries, despite having no money and no chance of winning the nomination himself, and he did so to block Romney from having any shot at winning by splitting the conservative vote.

Sorry that you find the way that I criticize Trump a disgrace, because I find it a disgrace that there are actually people in this country who support such a clown. I also find it disgraceful that Trump supporters join him in ridiculing other people's religion. That is something that I have never done and will never do. Trump questioning the beliefs of Cruz, Rubio, and Romney, would be reason enough for me to deny Trump my support, but he provides so many other reasons, that it does not even make my Top 10.

Do you ever wonder why Trump still has not managed to put together a full team of foreign policy and economic advisers? My theory is that it must be very hard to get teams of experts to risk their careers by associating themselves with Trump's nutty ideas like reviving the kind of tariffs that deepened and extended the Great Depression, which is what the Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 did. Consumers pay tariffs and workers pay with their jobs when other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. We need better trade deals but we do not need another Great Depression triggered by a moronic president.

Trump is neither a creative nor a deep thinker. As I said, he says what people want him hear and, if elected, he will either abandon his foolish campaign promises, or history will repeat itself as he pursues policies that have alrady failed repeatedly. Promises of building a wall, which Ted Cruz proposed in 2012, and promising to "make Mexico pay for it" do not make up for Trump's many areas of extreme ignorance.

I have an annoying habit? LOL, you're the one spouting chapter and verse as if you know exactly what the future holds to the minutest detail about a Trump Presidency. Frankly, I'd rather see Cruz in there, but I would rather have Trump than Hillary. Heck, I'd rather have Kasich than Hillary, he's your liberal in Republican clothes, not Trump.

I've said this a few times but it bears repeating. There are a lot of good people out there supporting a Trump candidacy. Rudy Giuliani, Ben Carson, and Jeff Sessions are no slouches. I mean, I know this is your thread, but these guys and many others would not agree with your prognostications of certain doom. That doesn't mean they would only vote for Trump, that means they would go along with the primary results instead of dreaming up every slam and back room shenanigan to circumvent the process. And to beat all, they've been proud of their oppositionist machinations to the point where it almost seems as if they're bragging about it. Those doing it have lost their minds according to Lou Dobbs.

And you're wrong about what I think is significant about the AIPAC deal. You're so hair on fire bent to see Trump derailed, you chose to portray his mention of Palestine as evidence of what you say is his geopolitical ignorance. I just pointed out that Benjamin Netanyahu evidently is not up to speed on that either.

I don't like the idea that Trump says he must remain neutral in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But in his defense, if you ask Netanyahu if he'd rather have what he has gotten out of this administration or neutrality, my guess would be he'd pick neutrality. All I heard Trump say was if the US goes in with the PA and Israel with a prestated all-in for Israel point of view, that those negotiations are going nowhere. And very likely that is right. The Arabs may be hard people, but they're certainly not stupid as was demonstrated in the laughable Iranian nuke deal.

Hate me if you want. But I'd rather tick somebody off whose wrapped up in a false religion like Mormonism by stating the truth, than to be politically correct and allow them to believe a lie. Who knows, maybe they'll question why they believe and find their way to the truth?