Republicans have a counting problem

It makes no sense to me how Republicans called their Iowa caucuses a victory when three of the candidaates earned less than 30 percent of the party's support. In my mind Cruz-28 %, Trump = 24% and Rubio claiming 23% were medicore results. Nevertheless, "Cruz to loose" the junior Senator Ted Cruz from Texas was popping champagne because he led the pack of 20 percenters. Makes no sense to me. Of course, post the FITN New Hampshire primary (first in the nation= FITN) there is now another famous front runner. Donald Trump received 99,839 votes, or 35 percent of the Republican support. 

It made for a pretty pie chart picture....Senator Bernie Sanders took a huge chunk of the "pie chart" in the New Hampshire primary.

At 35 percent, Trump hardly received whole hearted GOP endorsement for his presidential candidacy; yet, his win was a significant margin over the second place John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, whose campaign stump speech was about "being nice". Kasich received 44,595 votes, or 16 percent of the Republican vote. Hmmmm, I don't see 16 percent as anything to get excited about and it's not likely to carry him into Cleveland's national convention hall.

In fact, if counting "counts" in an election, the winner of the FITN New Hampshire primary election was unquestionably Senator Bernie Sanders!

Although Secretary Hillary Clinton received an impressive 94,770, usually enough votes to carry a winner in a New Hampshire primary, her competitor for the Democratic nomination, Senator Sanders, wolloped everybody with 150, 403 vote count.

In summary, the Republicans have a counting problem.  It was Senator Sanders who won the FITN New Hampshire primary. All the other candidates came in behind hs amazing tally!

As for Trump's 35 percent....he has yet to claim even close to 50 perecent of the Republicans' support.  Certainly, he's not a national candidate until he can bring in votes the way he claims to fill stadiums for his Trumponian rallies. 

Following presidential primary negativity- Republican wooly mammoth

Two major lies are at the root of the Republican presidential primary's negativity campaign- (a) Repbulicans have been in charge of the "do nothing Congress", yet they criticize President Obama; and (b) America's economy has grown in spite of Republican obstructionism.  

Let's face it, if the Republicans didn't pay plenty to spread lies and negativity, there would be no campaigning at all. People are more or less being asked to vote for the most convincing negative candidate. Only Governor John Kasich-R of Ohio, is trying to counter the Republican negativity tsunami of commercials and stump speeches. Yet, even Kasich's positive stump speech isn't truthful about Ohio rejecting "Obamacare", when he went against his state legislature to pass the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion.

Negativity among the 2016 Presidential candidates flows like volcanic lava. If Americans are to believe the Republican candidates, there hasn't been one moment during the past 7 years of the President Obama administration when our nation has been well served. Nevertheless, what Republicans fail to acknowledge is how their political party have obstructed progressive policies while being in charge of both houses of the US Congress.

Copious amounts of money is being spent for the purpose of politically taking candidates down and dismantling the President Obama administration. Being in Maine, watching the New Hampshire news coverage is difficult to watch. In fact, if all the advertisements and stump speeches are to be believed, none of the candidates should be considered qualified to be elected "leader of the free world". Even worse, if Republican candidates are believable, the nation hasn't prospered under President Obama, even though his administration saved the nation from experiencing an economic crises, parellel to the Great Depression.

Republican political ads and stump speeches resonate like a reinvented "elephant" logo, ie like they are really the scary and extinct wooly mammoth.

Regardless of who among the GOP line-up eventually becomes the Republican presidential nominee 2016, the remainder of this political year will be saturated with negative campaign ads like mud left behind after a storm surge.  In my opinion, the Democrats can present voters with a clear and convincing image to establish a positive vision for America.  

Making this clear distinction between "positive" (Democrat) and "negative" (Republican), should perculate throughout all the political campaigns. Most importantly, an upbeat message should resonate at the top, with the presidential nominee.  

In fact, the Republican logo, being the elephant, should probably be the extinct "wooly mammoth"; while the Democatic logo, the donkey, should be redesigned as a triple crown winning stallion.