Ted Cruz-John Kasich Alliance Against Donald Trump Quickly Weakens
By ALEXANDER BURNS, MATT FLEGENHEIMER and JONATHAN MARTIN

The temporary alliance between Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, formed to deny Donald J. Trump the Republican presidential nomination, was already fraying almost to the point of irrelevance on Monday, only hours after it was announced to great fanfare.

With the pact, the two candidates agreed to cede forthcoming primary contests to each other. Mr. Kasich would, most crucially, stand down in Indiana’s primary on May 3 to give Mr. Cruz a better chance to defeat Mr. Trump there, while Mr. Cruz would leave Oregon and New Mexico to Mr. Kasich. It appeared to be a measure of last resort, but initially it seemed like a breakthrough.

Mr. Cruz trumpeted what he called the “big news” in Indiana, a state that appears pivotal to stopping Mr. Trump from winning a majority of delegates. “John Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump,” the Texas senator said.

But at his own campaign stop in Philadelphia on Monday, Mr. Kasich tamped down Mr. Cruz’s triumphalism. Voters in Indiana, Mr. Kasich said, “ought to vote for me,” even if he would not be campaigning publicly there. He added, “I don’t see this as any big deal.”

Under the best of circumstances, the arrangement between Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich would seem to be a long shot — more of an expedient to stop Mr. Trump from taking a big step toward winning the nomination next week in Indiana than a permanent joining of forces.

Far from forming any kind of unity ticket, Mr. Trump’s surviving challengers have both vowed to triumph in an open convention in Cleveland, and they remain irreconcilable on key matters of policy. Their agreement dealt only with three states, leaving an open question as to how directly they might compete with each other everywhere else.

Even in Indiana, emerging as the most important state, the Cruz-Kasich pact appeared something less than decisive. While Mr. Kasich’s campaign canceled his public appearances in the state, the governor was still slated to visit Indianapolis on Tuesday for a fund-raising event at the Columbia Club. And he still had meetings scheduled with a series of Indiana Republicans, including Gov. Mike Pence, according to a leading Republican in the state.

Mr. Cruz’s campaign privately advised supporters on Sunday not to endorse tactical voting, whereby his supporters might switch their allegiance to Mr. Kasich in states where the Ohio governor is running stronger against Mr. Trump. “We never tell voters who to vote for,” read the suggested Cruz talking point. “We’re simply letting folks know where we will be focusing our time and resources.”

Mr. Trump, who has taunted his opponents throughout the race for their Keystone Kops approach to undermining his campaign, seemed to relish the continuing strain between his remaining rivals. On Twitter, he mocked “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” and “1 for 38 Kasich,” referring to the latter’s dismal winning record in the Republican race, for being unable to beat him on their own.

“So they have to team up (collusion) in a two on one,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Shows weakness!”

At a campaign rally in Rhode Island, Mr. Trump boasted that his opponents were united against him, and said he welcomed their “collusion.”

“Actually I was happy,” he said, “because it shows how weak they are.”

Allies of both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich did not exactly disagree with that assessment, and acknowledged that the prospect of imminent disaster in Indiana had been the impetus to finalize their deal, such as it is.

Still, aides to Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich seem acutely aware that they risk turning off voters who find the arrangement unseemly. Even before his rivals’ agreement, Mr. Trump had complained repeatedly that the nominating process was “rigged” against him.

With Mr. Trump expected to win all five of the East Coast states that vote on Tuesday, the next opportunity to slow his campaign will come a week later in Indiana. Republicans believe he must be stopped there if they are to deny him the nomination.

“Indiana is a must-win for Ted Cruz, and it’s a must-win for anybody who doesn’t think Donald Trump should be the nominee,” said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative group opposed to Mr. Trump and supportive of Mr. Cruz. The group is airing an ad in Indiana urging voters to vote for Mr. Cruz, not Mr. Kasich, to stop Mr. Trump, and officials said they intended to keep it on the air despite the agreement.

On Monday, Trusted Leadership PAC, a group supporting Mr. Cruz, said it also planned to keep a previously announced attack ad against Mr. Kasich on the air in Indiana. The group added, though, that it had shelved advertising plans in New Mexico and Oregon.

Charles R. Black Jr., an adviser to Mr. Kasich, said it would be helpful to his candidate — and “a big blow to Trump” — for Mr. Cruz to win Indiana. The point of announcing the deal, Mr. Black said, was to indicate to outside “super PACs” where the campaigns and candidates were marshaling their resources.

Mr. Black played down the degree to which voters would cast their ballots strategically, switching allegiance between candidates to thwart Mr. Trump. “Either the guy gets to 1,237 or he doesn’t,” he said. “Voters don’t focus on this tactical, inside baseball stuff.”

For months, rivals of the Republican front-runner have claimed that he has succeeded only because the anti-Trump vote has been spread among so many alternative candidates. That argument appeared to falter in New York last week, when Mr. Trump won 60 percent of the vote and captured nearly all of the state’s delegates.

Now that each of them has been granted a cleaner shot against Mr. Trump — in different states, and at different moments over the next few weeks — Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich will have no easy excuse if Mr. Trump continues to prevail.

While Mr. Cruz faces the more immediate test in Indiana, Mr. Kasich will have to make swift use of his free hand in Oregon. Though the state’s primary date is May 17, the election there is conducted by mail, and voters will begin to receive their ballots this week.

Ron Saxton, a prominent Kasich supporter in Oregon, said the deal “puts more pressure” on Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz to perform strongly against Mr. Trump. But Mr. Saxton, a former Republican candidate for governor, said there was catching up to do in his state.

“None of the three G.O.P. campaigns have any real Oregon visibility yet, just the national press,” Mr. Saxton wrote in an email. “Since Cruz’s name remains on the ballot, my guess is that he’ll get close to the same votes he’d get if he hadn’t ‘withdrawn.’ Is he going to actively encourage his supporters to vote for Kasich?”

On Monday, both candidates swatted away questions about whether the deal was something of an underhanded ploy.

Mr. Cruz said the agreement was aimed at empowering anti-Trump voters against the front-runner, denying that the effort to stop Mr. Trump was subverting the will of the people. “This is entirely about the will of the people,” he said. “This is about winning the votes of the Hoosier State.”

Mr. Kasich, in Pennsylvania, grew quickly agitated at the suggestion that his deal with Mr. Cruz reflected desperation.

“Me? No, I’m not desperate — are you?” he asked a reporter. “Are you desperate?”

封殺川普總統路 「魯凱」連線啟動

美國共和黨總統參選人川普的兩位競爭對手克魯茲和凱西克廿四日深夜宣布，雙方決定聯手，阻止川普獲得黨內提名。

克魯茲的競選經理羅伊發布聲明說，團隊會「把時間和資源集中在印第安納州，並為凱西克消除障礙，好讓他征戰俄勒岡和新墨西哥州」。幾分鐘後，凱西克競選團隊首席策略顧問韋福說，將把選舉資源集中在美國西部，「讓克魯茲團隊在印第安納發揮」。

川普先是在推特上對兩人開砲：「哇喔，就是宣布愛撒謊的克魯茲和凱西克勾結起來，不讓我獲得提名，還真拚！」後來發聲明說，克魯茲的選情「直線下墜」，凱西克目前累積的黨代表票比一個月前退選的盧比歐還少，「這兩個徹底失敗的對手串通起來，讓我的決心更堅定：為了共和黨、為了我們的國家，我一定要贏！」

印第安納州五月三日舉行共和黨初選，有五十七張黨代表票且採贏者全拿制，俄勒岡州五月十七日初選，有廿八張票，新墨西哥州六月七日初選，有廿四張。不過，本月廿六日就有五個美國東北部的州要辦初選，這五州民眾都偏愛川普，分別是馬里蘭（卅八張）、羅德島（十九張）、康乃狄克（廿八張）、賓州（七十一張）和德拉瓦州（十六張）。

在共和黨總統初選中，獲得提名的門檻是一千兩百卅七張黨代表票，川普已拿到八百四十五張，還差三百九十二張，克魯茲拿到五百五十九張，凱西克則僅取得一百四十八張。

印第安納州最新民調顯示，川普支持率四成一，克魯茲三成三，凱西克一成六，但如果只有川普和克魯茲對決，川普領先幅度將縮小到兩個百分點。英國廣播公司分析，對克魯茲來說，印第安納州很重要，他應該會希望能拿下凱西克在該州首府印第安納波利斯的票倉；至於俄勒岡和新墨西哥州，這兩州按得票比例分配黨代表票，而且民眾並未明顯偏愛某個候選人，所以克魯茲就算把這兩州讓給凱西克，在黨代表票上也不會損失太多。

紐約時報指出，克魯茲和凱西克並未直接呼籲選民改變投票對象，在這初選晚期階段，選民會不會如他們所願集中投給某人，還很難說。Politico新聞網指出，兩人達成協議「就是承認兩人都沒法打敗川普…不過可能太晚了」。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/us/politics/ted-cruz-john-kasich-donald-trump.html

Video：Cruz and Kasich on Partnership
Speaking at campaign stops in Philadelphia and Indiana, the Republican presidential candidates John Kasich and Ted Cruz discussed their planned coordination in a bid to stop Donald J. Trump.
http://nyti.ms/1NM1qF6

Video：Trump Criticizes Cruz-Kasich Deal
Donald J. Trump called his fellow Republican candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich “weak” and “pathetic” for the agreement they announced to limit campaigning in other primary states.
http://nyti.ms/1UcZXON

2016-04-26．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯李京倫