However, Trump doesn't see it that way. He feels that if he doesn't get the nomination, he will run as an Independent candidate. He doesn't stand any actual chance of winning but he would claim some of the Republican votes (say 5-10%) on election day, making it a cake-walk for the Democratic candidate.

Why would he do this? Its blackmail. There's a good chance the heads of the Republican party would sabotage his campaign because of how unsuitable he is. This threat keeps them from doing that, because they would bury their party's chances in 2016.

The primary strategy by the Democratic Party and by establishment circles has been to make Trump seem as unpalatable as possible, hoping to make him so much less desirable than the historically untrusted establishment candidate that she may pull off a win at the ballot box.

Since the first-past-the-post electoral system functions to magnify strategic voting and minimize voting for values, the impression that Trump is a more dangerous and despicable candidate (traded by campaign dollars and personal connections to create information bubbles over the electorate), this strategy is not only effective but also smart.

In the end we've got two candidates we really don't want, a complete lack of examination of policy, and a 'default' to an establishment candidate seeking further erosion of civil liberties, checks and balances and civilian participation in government.

Operation Pied Piper, The DNCs 2016 Strategy From Wikileaks part of Podesta release

1) Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;

2) Undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents;

3) Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.

Pied Piper Candidates

Ted Cruz

Donald Trump

Ben Carson

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120.

see the attachment with email for the Strategy.

Game theory is funny that way.

So the Democratic primaries in today’s environment are a race to the far edges of the left, and this seems like a reasonable strategy to win that race. She would have to use a different strategy in the general election, and my guess is she will quietly abandon this platform if she wins the nomination.

If anything, the problem was too many candidates, combined with a first-past-the-post system. The majority of primary voters disliked Trump, but were split between several preferred candidates (who I group because they were far more similar to each other than to Trump). Trump got a certain segment of the vote all to himself.

Assuming you have more than one political party, I don't see how that's possible. All but one candidate in the general election will lose, even though they all won their respective primaries.

Politics isn't rational.

I mean the primaries are already half over and they're still trying to figure out if they can make Kasich the nominee somehow.

If that were true (of both parties), then President Sanders would be in his second term right now. The last two Democratic primaries were each taken by the most conservative candidate running.

I’m not sure which seat and which election you are talking about, but that would be consistent with the Republican strategy of trying to discourage more candidates from running, because that way vote splitting worms in their favor, maximizing their chance of making it into the top 2 and maximizing their perceived strength going into the general. Party leaders have been fairly open about their strategy of dealing with the top-two primary system.

> The Republican didn’t really even show up to various debates and round tables.

That's also a pretty common Republican strategy where there would be more than two candidates on the stage in California, on the theory (which has some support) that the hits coming out of such a forum will be on the candidates involved.

Especially when neither party has much to offer the average citizen any more, they have built their strength traditionally on low voter turnout where extreme factions loudly broadcasting gradually become over-represented in the most polarizing way.

As cycles continue only the most polarizing issues drive the turnout, and for turnout to grow beyond a certain point the majority of the potential voters must perceive the other party as a more serious threat, when compared to any security offered by their own party which they (might) have chosen because they found it less offensive (maybe only in past cycles too).

The parties no longer need to have as much to offer the average citizen as cycles go on, when they can get contending turnout from their own extremists combined with orders of magnitude more sympathizers who can be convinced to strongly fear what the _other side_ could take away.

Seems like after a party has been around for longer than any living person, they will not get support by having more to offer average citizens than in previous cycles, only by taking less away from them.

So the average citizen hasn't had a positive outcome within reach for a while.

Now it's too late, these top candidates are realistically as youthful as you can get compared to the grand old parties themselves, and regardless of personal integrity or leadership style can not offer anything above that from the parties alone.

Even in the case of Trump's extreme personality, which the Democrats did not even try to nominate a candidate having that feature, so this element was as one-sided as you can get.

I saw agreement from both sides that a wet dishrag could defeat Trump if only 270 electors represent voters who just plain dislike or hate him. Conversely it was recognized Trump would win if he had merely 270 electors of voters who dislike or hate one or more of the current items on the Democratic party platform.

Neither strategy can offer anything to the majority of the citizens in the political middle, the true average citizen, since turnout has been driven by fear not opportunity.

Building a coalition from a carefully-crafted extreme attention-getting position, and pushing hard from there so the other side ends up below the 50 percent needed to be in power, has turned out to prevail over representing even the middle 50 percent of voters which is how it was supposed to be at a minimum.

So once the issues and/or personalities representing them have reached full polarity, 50 becomes more of a constant to be converged upon from afar rather than a starting point to build a majority from in both directions.

Resulting in half the voters who turn out, and half the politically centrist citizens (which is a much larger group by a variable multiple of active voters) who will always be dissatisfied and these are two different groups (but having significant overlap), the latter of which is the core of the majority that all parties are supposed to be treating as constituents.

But the core of the majority in the middle doesn't have a voice because they don't have any party which represents them any more, the parties are doing other things with the money and the concerns of centrist citizens are given lowest priority.

The party gets more votes over the long run by fear-mongering against the other side regardless of who the candidates are at the time, and only declining resources can be justified which might actually benefit the majority of citizens.

Problem is, the majority are voting against their own best interest because their own best interest has not been available for a number of cycles. Rather each side votes against what's perveived as the other's best interest instead, since that's the only thing at stake anyway.

So the majority of voters end up speaking for the entire population as designed, but all votes are cast against someone's best interest because the minority party is voting exactly the same as the majority in this regard.

So it's unanimous by both parties that as few of the average citizens as possible should have their best interest be served, and to redefine democracy in that direction can not be accomplished during a single cycle or maybe not even a single generation.

Ending up with the choice between a trustworthy Joe and a dishonest Don the thing that doesn't really matter to half the voters as much as it should.

It would probably help if there were parties which were younger than the candidates.

Highlighting that is key to his platform succeeding.

Ideally candidates want to avoid alienating their base, but they also can't pick up more voters by pandering to them. So, everyone tries to appeal to independents and not energize their opponents base. The other strategy to to fight dirty which tends to suppress voter turnout, but that can easily backfire in a presidential election.

This also often results in coded language. Which lets you target messages to people that care about an issue without generally annoying other people.