First Ballot Or Bust At The GOP Convention

Fivethirtyeight: The basic reason is simple. Most of the 2,472 delegates with a vote in Cleveland probably aren’t going to like Trump.

Trump’s delegate problems stem from two major issues. One is his lack of organization: Trump just recently hired a strategist to oversee his delegate-selection efforts; Cruz has been working on the process for months. The other is his lack of support from “party elites.” The people who attend state caucuses and conventions are mostly dyed-in-the-wool Republican regulars and insiders, a group that is vigorously opposed to Trump. Furthermore, some delegate slots are automatically given to party leaders and elected officials, another group that strongly opposes Trump, as evident in his lack of endorsements among them. (read the whole thing)

All the Trump gaffes appear to show a man, as the pundit lingo goes, 'not ready for prime time'. Imagine that. The reason why you don't hear that sort of epithet said about Trump, however, is because it's inconceivable that a man who spent so much time on camera can be said to not be ready for it. And yet... the fact that Trump is not a polished politician is one of the most mentioned charms invoked by his loyal followers. A bit of a catch 22 Trump is.

"Keep yourself busy for a better chance of getting things done"

"People with a full schedule gain momentum and bounce back faster from missed deadlines."

If you want something done ask a busy person, goes the adage, but research suggests that this might well be true.

The busier you are, the more likely you are to complete tasks, particularly those whose deadlines have been missed, found Keith Wilcox of Columbia University and his team. Getting behind is demoralising, but Professor Wilcox discovered that busier people are better at bouncing back from a missed deadline and are more likely to get the task done — and more quickly. The theory is that while you may have missed one deadline, with other tasks completed and with others on the go, you feel that you are still winning the productivity war.

“Our research shows that being busy is one way to reduce the sense of failure,” he says.

According to the study, keeping yourself and your staff busy is a simple way to continue getting things done, even when deadlines have been missed. Rather than giving yourself or others more to do, you should instead break down larger tasks into smaller ones. This will make you feel busier without increasing your workload. But make sure you are busy with productive tasks and not simply those that occupy time, says Prof Wilcox. (more)

"State Dept. breaks judge’s deadline on Clinton emails"

“We have worked diligently to come as close to the goal as possible, but with the large number of documents involved and the holiday schedule we have not met the goal this month. To narrow that gap, the State Department will make another production of former Secretary Clinton’s email sometime next week,” the department said in a statement.

It’s the latest embarrassment for the department, which has repeatedly struggled to handle the more than 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton returned to the government nearly two years after she left office.

The department is under a federal court order to release emails every month since the summer, but broke the order by missing the first deadline under that order. It had caught up, but has now fallen behind again.