[Hoot Gibson]

As you probably know, establishment Republicans are getting behind Cruz to stop Trump from getting the required number of delegates to prevent a contested convention. Then they will dump Cruz and install their own candidate who no one voted for and who will lose to Hillary. I'm having a hard time believing you don't realize Cruz has zero % chance of being the next President.

That's not why some establishment Republicans are getting behind Cruz. The convention just does not work that way. Delegates decide the rules of the convention and Cruz, unlike Trump, has been very busy getting his own delegates named to the convention.

Delegates could theoretically change the rules to anything they want, but unlike the Democrat Party, there is no large number of super delegates hand picked by the Republican establishment to control the process. For example, Romney's delegates were responsible for the rule that requires a candidate to win the majority of delegates in at least eight states or territories to be named a nominee. The purpose of the rule was to prevent Ron Paul from disrupting the convention with a small number of delegates when Romney ran for a second term.

Now, it is debatable whether the delegates could simply decide to vote for a candidate whose name has not been placed into nomination, but that is a very unlikely scenario as well because of the number of delegates who will be there supporting Trump and Cruz.

I have a hard time believing that you actually believe Trump's claim that Cruz has zero chance of being the nominee. If Trump does not win on the first ballot, and that is a very real possibility, I think Trump will have very little chance of winning on any subsequent ballot. Why? Because he has done a very poor job organizing his campaign and still does not understand the rules. Cruz is one of the top lawyers in the country and his team has been working hard at state conventions getting delegates named who will support him if there is no first ballot winner. To Trump, that is "stealing" delegates but for people familiar with political conventions, that is just part of the selection process.

That is why Trump is whining so much and calling Cruz a cheater. He is trying to play a game that he does not understand and expects to be able to change the rules in the middle of the game. Trump should have been busy learning the rules of the game instead of wasting time and damaging his own campaign by insulting people on Twitter. (Trump's failure to grasp the rules resulted in him leaving the campaign trail in Wisconsin to meet with Reince Priebus in DC. The establishment had to explain the convention rules and the fact that every state has its own rules for selecting delegates.)

I think Trump has about a 50/50 chance of winning the nomination and maybe a 10 percent chance of becoming president and that assumes that he is learning from his endless string of blunders.

Polls show Cruz has a better chance of winning in November than Trump if he is the nominee but he probably has only a 25-30% chance of winning the nomination. If neither Trump nor Cruz wins the nomination after the third ballot, then the delegates may start seriously discussing alternatives, which at that point would not be an unreasonable thing to do.

Delegates are real people, most with strong preferences and opinions. They are not going to abandon their favorite candidate just because Reince Priebus or some other RINO says they should do so after one ballot. Nobody should feel cheated if they cannot convince a majority of delegates to support them after three or four rounds of voting.

I think that if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates before the convention, Cruz has an excellent chance of winning the nomination. Cruz has won a lot of support and respect during this campaign. Republican incumbents would rather lose with Cruz than than with Trump because Cruz will be less likely to drag them down with him the way that a blundering Trump might. Cruz is not prone to make unforced errors.

I have seen Cruz go toe to toe with Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein and other members of the establishment in the U.S. Senate and it was a thing of beauty. I have watched Trump fold like a cheap lawn chair when matched against media lightweight Chris Matthews. Anybody who thinks Trump would be a more formidable opponent for Hillary than Cruz has not watched Cruz much.

There are some very good reasons why Trump refuses to debate Cruz head to head. Hillary is not in the same league as a debater as Cruz, but she will destroy Trump in a head to head debate, just as Cruz would do. Democrats are salivating over the prospect of running against Trump. A know-nothing man who loves to insult women is just the type of candidate Hillary needs to divert attention away from her crimes and incompetence.