The Positioning in michigan
previewing the 11th republican debate

March 3, 2016 – After the SEC primary on Tuesday, Donald Trump continued to vacuum up delegates in a race to collect the necessary 1,237. With only 4 men left in the debates, (Dr. Ben Carson announced he is not attending and is presumed to be pulling out of the race) expect the insults to fly fast and furious. 

As always, Ballotball.com is going to play referee. We don't pick a winner—you, the voter, should decide that for yourself. But we do try to keep the bout civil by throwing flags and calling penalties in real time. There are essentially only 3 rules: answer the question, don't stray off topic, and don't compare any of your opponents to the Nazis.

The candidates

Donald Trump - Delegate Total: 319 (1,237 needed to win nomination)
26%
Game plan: Trump will want to drop a bombshell during the debate by saying something controversial. This strategy has worked for him so far. It has the dual benefit of drowning out criticism from his Republican opponents, and ingratiating himself with Republican voters who do not trust the main stream media because they believe it has a liberal bias. Best guess here is that since the Florida primary is coming up and his 2 main challengers are of Cuban descent, Trump's bombshell will revolve around the island nation 90 miles south of the Florida Keys.
Ted Cruz - ​Delegate Total: 226
18%
Game plan: Cruz picked up 3 more states during the SEC primary, so our guess is that he'll keep doing what he's been doing so far. Compliment Trump's character while simultaneously calling his temperament unstable and disqualifying to be the president.
Marco Rubio - Delegate Total: 110
9%
Game plan: Rubio, more than any other candidate left in the race is trying to take on Trump directly. This directness has not come from erudite Socratic dialectic, but mostly in the form of pants wetting jokes and calling Trump a con-man.
John Kasich - Current Delegates: 25
2%
Game plan: Lay back and think of Ohio.

The Penalties

With the NBA season heating up, we've instituted some new basketball rules for the debate.

Candidates can receive a foul for the following infractions:

  • Failing to answer a question
This one is pretty self explanatory. Candidates might have a good reason to avoid the question, but this is a debate and if you're not here to answer the questions, then it's just a televised press conference. 

  • Failing to stay on topic
For instance, in an earlier debate, Lindsey Graham was asked about his opinion on the right of bakers to refuse to cater a gay wedding. He responded: "Whether you're the wedding cake baker or the gay couple or the Baptist preacher, radical Islam would kill you all if they could."

  • Candidates can receive a technical foul by comparing their opponents to the Nazis.
​​This rule might be controversial due to the innumerable times Donald Trump's opponents have compared his xenophobic policies to Nazism. However, going back to the first debate, we, at Ballotball, have held a zero-tolerance policy towards Nazi comparisons. We flagged Lindsey Graham for comparing ISIL to the Nazis, and we were watching Governor Mike Huckabee closely after he compared President Obama to the Nazis after he agreed to the Iran nuclear deal (this didn't happen during a debate, so no penalty was issued). The reason for this rule is threefold:
  1. Nazi comparisons are lazy. If you'd like to compare Donald Trump's ban on Muslims entering the country to a historical precedent, why not try McCarthyism, or the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, or the Jim Crow south? Instead, people always grab the low-hanging fruit of the Nazis to make their point.
  2. Nazi comparisons ignore the fact that there are still Nazi parties alive and well in many countries. They have not receded to the dustbin of history and currently have at least one member sitting on the European Parliament. 
  3. This is a debate. And nothing shuts down a debate faster than a Nazi comparison. It is our strong opinion that such comparisons send all parties to the barricades and prevent anyone from actually communicating. Disagree strongly, and make your case the best you can, but leave the Nazi metaphors at home, please.