1. Donald Trump won impressive victories in Michigan and Mississippi. … Once the winner take all primaries kick in next week, I wonder how likely Trump is to secure a majority of delegates before the convention. Will we remain uncertain of the nominee before the convention?
2. Marco Rubio is toast. He won precisely zero delegates yesterday. …
3. Bernie Sanders secured an extremely close but extremely stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in Michigan. … Is it wrong to root for Sanders against Clinton? She is both evil and corrupt. Sanders is only evil. … It is a sorry season when we have to take our comfort from the disappointments of Hillary Clinton, but it is in fact a sorry season.
4. It doesn’t much matter what we want anyway. Jeff Zeleny et al. do the Democratic math: “Clinton actually won more delegates than Sanders on Tuesday, according to a CNN estimate, picking up 84 to Sanders’ 67. She now has 1,234 of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. That figures includes super delegates, party officials and office holders who have said they will back her. Sanders has 567 delegates overall.”
5. … What is to be made of Trump’s statement/press conference last night? I am a confessed member of the establishment (whatever that is) and an irredeemable elitist, but I found his performance to be utterly bizarre — bizarre beyond my poor power to add or detract.
________________________________
The Dem side is rigged. Bernie doesn’t stand a chance.
Meanwhile, Hillary’s earned more Pinocchios than Geppetto.
“It’s been one year since it was learned that Hillary Clinton had set up a private email system when she was secretary of state — a revelation that has dogged her campaign for the presidency.
The Fact Checker has run 10 fact checks on the issue, mostly regarding dubious statements that Clinton had made to defend her actions. (We also had one fact check each on the Democratic spin and the Republican spin on the issue.) Reviewing our conclusions again, it appears Clinton often used highly technical language to obscure the salient fact that her private email setup was highly unusual and flouted existing regulations.”
Donald Trump went on and on for nearly an hour, basking in his latest wins, razzing his rivals, slinging steaks — literally offering red meat — and repeatedly thanking a bygone Yankees legend for his endorsement. Not for one second did the television networks, even with Hillary Clinton speaking at the same time, cut away.
It doesn’t matter what Trump says, only that he continues to talk.
What less than a year ago looked to be the most talented Republican field in decades has been laid to waste by a candidate whose stream-of-consciousness monologues, opaque policy positions and racially charged populist nationalism have only made his reality show of a campaign — a hybrid of “Seinfeld” and “All in the Family” — impossible for rivals to compete with and too compelling for the country to ignore.
Trump’s ultimate test, however, is still one week away. …
________________________________________
While it’s true that Bernie doesn’t stand a chance to get the nomination, when he wins an upset over her in these primaries, he hits her one more time and leaves some damage. It also is forcing her further and further to the left, of course. 😦
The frustration is that, as the politico article says, this was supposed to be a slam-dunk year for a talented field of new Republican candidates. Hillary is/was(?) more than a beatable foe.
Trump is pulling in a lot of independents and (I’m convinced) some Democrats, too, in these open primaries, which makes it even harder to calculate what exactly is going on with the electorate as a whole in 2016.
… If Trump does lose Florida, the best this assault will likely do is prolong the nomination fight until the RNC convention in July. Then, the vexing question for the anti-Trump forces becomes: How can the GOP justify denying the nomination to the guy who got the most votes?
“The establishment waited too long,” said one GOP operative aligned with another campaign who requested anonymity to speak freely. “All these other candidates, they’re just fighting to position themselves as the clear No. 2 option heading into the convention.”
_____________________________
… This appears to be Sanders’s best performance with black voters so far this year. …
… this is a big hole in Clinton’s safety net. Clinton needs huge black margins to walk to victory. …
… More than a quarter of the vote came from independents and Sanders won seven-in-10 from that group. The number of voters under the age of 30 appears to be up over 2008, too — though that year was a weird one. Those aren’t really a big problem.
Race and money, though? These are warning signs — warning signs that are still hard to read and maybe warning signs that come too late for Sanders’s candidacy. But Clinton very much needs to hold onto strong black support and to avoid concerns over how progressive she’d be as president. (As we’ve noted, Democratic voters this year are consistently more liberal than in years past.) Black voters are her (ahem) trump card and economic issues her Achilles heel.
Making Michigan the exact opposite of what she wanted to see.
____________________________________________
And for the record again, despite my concerns, I will have no trouble voting for Cruz. He’s smart and principled (if in need of a personality overhaul) 🙂
Ironic. isn’t it? Democrat voting in non-voter ID states is 285% higher than states that require voter ID. Yet we have been consistently told that on the Democrat side there hasn’t been any voter fraud at all, or very little.
“Most people now think Ted’s the best vehicle to defeat Trump,” said Charles C. Foster, a Bush family loyalist from Houston who served on Jeb Bush’s national finance team. “I would say some are enthusiastic for Ted, some are just saying, ‘OK, Ted’s not my first choice, but anyone that can beat Trump, I’ll support.’” – Politico
Now if he can become a general election candidate with wide enough appeal to actually beat Hillary …
NBC/WSJ poll: Clinton, Sanders demolish Trump in general election … Trump loses to both Hillary and Bernie Sanders by double-digit margins in this sample of 1200 registered voters, but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz look much more competitive:
Elvera and I voted today in the NC early voting. The voting date is Mar. 15.
I didn’t know all the people so I voted the Tea Party suggestions. That included Cruz..
The poll watchers want to see a picture ID, and verification that you live where you say you do.
It’s all on the driver’s license.
They permitted something that has never happened before. They allowed me to remain in Elvera’s voting booth to push buttons for her. So I got two votes.
But I always have.
You got to push buttons?
I just had a piece of paper with an alphabetical listing of names and a pencil to put an x in the box. Nothing else to vote about.
We still have those punch cards. But we don’t have to show ID. Because this is California. 🙂 We’re cool with that. I think I could take my dogs in with me.
Does everyone just know each other in Idaho anyway?
No, of course not. Though at the first table the lady said, Oh! Are you Mike’s wife? I don’t believe I know you.
When I showed my ID, I told them I hoped it was enough or I would bring my children in and that ought to speed things along. They laughed. Some of them knew me, but I did not know most of them. I was the only one there voting at the six tables and chairs they had set up. But there were eight women there to sign folk in. Didn’t see any poll watchers though.
1) Donald Trump is very, very close to clinching the nomination.
–Marco Rubio is toast. (yes, we’ve heard that already.) …
John Kasich has no path to the nomination, even if he wins Ohio. His only path was a deadlocked convention, and that won’t happen unless Trump falls down a manhole …
Ted Cruz is still standing but he has a hidden weakness. And it’s devastating. He has not been able to expand beyond his solid base of evangelicals and ideological conservatives (whether they are economic conservatives or values conservatives). In a normal year, that might be enough for Cruz to win the primaries. Not this year. Cruz has won a lot of delegates, but if you can’t win the Mississippi Republican primary, you aren’t going to win in the Northeast …
That leaves Trump. He faces grave difficulties in the general election, beginning with women and Hispanics, but he is on the glide path to win his party’s nomination. …
2) Hillary Clinton’s loss in Michigan won’t stop her steady march to the nomination.
3) The electorate is furious.
__________________________________
No electronic polling here. I was a Poll Clerk last election, that is the one who sits beside the Deputy Returning Officer and does all the paperwork. The Deputy Returning Officer is the one who approves a voter’s ID (requires both proof of name and proof of address – a driver’s license cover’s both, but other types of ID require two separate pieces) and hands them the ballot to fill out, which the voter takes behind the privacy booth to vote, and then brings back the folded ballot to drop in the box. It is quite a process, and both the Poll Clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer have to be present in order for people to vote at that booth.
Last night’s conversation at our house: As the commentators described Hispanic support for Sanders, my wife commented, “My people are stupid, too!” Then they gave the results of the Mississippi Republican primary and I replied, “My people are stupid, too!”
Wandering Views 
😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
“After last night”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/03/after-last-night-16.php
__________________________________
1. Donald Trump won impressive victories in Michigan and Mississippi. … Once the winner take all primaries kick in next week, I wonder how likely Trump is to secure a majority of delegates before the convention. Will we remain uncertain of the nominee before the convention?
2. Marco Rubio is toast. He won precisely zero delegates yesterday. …
3. Bernie Sanders secured an extremely close but extremely stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in Michigan. … Is it wrong to root for Sanders against Clinton? She is both evil and corrupt. Sanders is only evil. … It is a sorry season when we have to take our comfort from the disappointments of Hillary Clinton, but it is in fact a sorry season.
4. It doesn’t much matter what we want anyway. Jeff Zeleny et al. do the Democratic math: “Clinton actually won more delegates than Sanders on Tuesday, according to a CNN estimate, picking up 84 to Sanders’ 67. She now has 1,234 of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination. That figures includes super delegates, party officials and office holders who have said they will back her. Sanders has 567 delegates overall.”
5. … What is to be made of Trump’s statement/press conference last night? I am a confessed member of the establishment (whatever that is) and an irredeemable elitist, but I found his performance to be utterly bizarre — bizarre beyond my poor power to add or detract.
________________________________
LikeLike
The Dem side is rigged. Bernie doesn’t stand a chance.
Meanwhile, Hillary’s earned more Pinocchios than Geppetto.
“It’s been one year since it was learned that Hillary Clinton had set up a private email system when she was secretary of state — a revelation that has dogged her campaign for the presidency.
The Fact Checker has run 10 fact checks on the issue, mostly regarding dubious statements that Clinton had made to defend her actions. (We also had one fact check each on the Democratic spin and the Republican spin on the issue.) Reviewing our conclusions again, it appears Clinton often used highly technical language to obscure the salient fact that her private email setup was highly unusual and flouted existing regulations.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-republican-odds-220476
________________________________________
Donald Trump went on and on for nearly an hour, basking in his latest wins, razzing his rivals, slinging steaks — literally offering red meat — and repeatedly thanking a bygone Yankees legend for his endorsement. Not for one second did the television networks, even with Hillary Clinton speaking at the same time, cut away.
It doesn’t matter what Trump says, only that he continues to talk.
What less than a year ago looked to be the most talented Republican field in decades has been laid to waste by a candidate whose stream-of-consciousness monologues, opaque policy positions and racially charged populist nationalism have only made his reality show of a campaign — a hybrid of “Seinfeld” and “All in the Family” — impossible for rivals to compete with and too compelling for the country to ignore.
Trump’s ultimate test, however, is still one week away. …
________________________________________
LikeLiked by 1 person
While it’s true that Bernie doesn’t stand a chance to get the nomination, when he wins an upset over her in these primaries, he hits her one more time and leaves some damage. It also is forcing her further and further to the left, of course. 😦
LikeLike
The frustration is that, as the politico article says, this was supposed to be a slam-dunk year for a talented field of new Republican candidates. Hillary is/was(?) more than a beatable foe.
Trump is pulling in a lot of independents and (I’m convinced) some Democrats, too, in these open primaries, which makes it even harder to calculate what exactly is going on with the electorate as a whole in 2016.
LikeLike
More from the politico piece: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-republican-odds-220476
___________________________
… If Trump does lose Florida, the best this assault will likely do is prolong the nomination fight until the RNC convention in July. Then, the vexing question for the anti-Trump forces becomes: How can the GOP justify denying the nomination to the guy who got the most votes?
“The establishment waited too long,” said one GOP operative aligned with another campaign who requested anonymity to speak freely. “All these other candidates, they’re just fighting to position themselves as the clear No. 2 option heading into the convention.”
_____________________________
LikeLike
And an interesting analysis on Bernie’s upset win in Michigan and what it might mean …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/08/the-two-big-warning-signs-for-hillary-clinton-in-michigan/
___________________________________________
… This appears to be Sanders’s best performance with black voters so far this year. …
… this is a big hole in Clinton’s safety net. Clinton needs huge black margins to walk to victory. …
… More than a quarter of the vote came from independents and Sanders won seven-in-10 from that group. The number of voters under the age of 30 appears to be up over 2008, too — though that year was a weird one. Those aren’t really a big problem.
Race and money, though? These are warning signs — warning signs that are still hard to read and maybe warning signs that come too late for Sanders’s candidacy. But Clinton very much needs to hold onto strong black support and to avoid concerns over how progressive she’d be as president. (As we’ve noted, Democratic voters this year are consistently more liberal than in years past.) Black voters are her (ahem) trump card and economic issues her Achilles heel.
Making Michigan the exact opposite of what she wanted to see.
____________________________________________
LikeLike
Carly is backing the right horse…
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/carly-fiorina-endorses-ted-cruz-1382033549869110.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
And for the record again, despite my concerns, I will have no trouble voting for Cruz. He’s smart and principled (if in need of a personality overhaul) 🙂
LikeLike
Besides, he appears to be the only non-Trump candidate left at least partially standing. 😉
Onward.
LikeLike
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/is_democrat_voting_a_vast_criminal_conspiracy.html
Ironic. isn’t it? Democrat voting in non-voter ID states is 285% higher than states that require voter ID. Yet we have been consistently told that on the Democrat side there hasn’t been any voter fraud at all, or very little.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Most people now think Ted’s the best vehicle to defeat Trump,” said Charles C. Foster, a Bush family loyalist from Houston who served on Jeb Bush’s national finance team. “I would say some are enthusiastic for Ted, some are just saying, ‘OK, Ted’s not my first choice, but anyone that can beat Trump, I’ll support.’” – Politico
Now if he can become a general election candidate with wide enough appeal to actually beat Hillary …
But first, there’s still Trump.
LikeLiked by 1 person
New head-to-head national poll:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/09/nbcwsj-poll-clinton-sanders-demolish-trump-in-general-election/
NBC/WSJ poll: Clinton, Sanders demolish Trump in general election … Trump loses to both Hillary and Bernie Sanders by double-digit margins in this sample of 1200 registered voters, but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz look much more competitive:
LikeLike
Elvera and I voted today in the NC early voting. The voting date is Mar. 15.
I didn’t know all the people so I voted the Tea Party suggestions. That included Cruz..
The poll watchers want to see a picture ID, and verification that you live where you say you do.
It’s all on the driver’s license.
They permitted something that has never happened before. They allowed me to remain in Elvera’s voting booth to push buttons for her. So I got two votes.
But I always have.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You got to push buttons?
I just had a piece of paper with an alphabetical listing of names and a pencil to put an x in the box. Nothing else to vote about.
LikeLike
We still have those punch cards. But we don’t have to show ID. Because this is California. 🙂 We’re cool with that. I think I could take my dogs in with me.
Does everyone just know each other in Idaho anyway?
LikeLike
A poll watcher has to activate the machine for every votger.
LikeLike
No, of course not. Though at the first table the lady said, Oh! Are you Mike’s wife? I don’t believe I know you.
When I showed my ID, I told them I hoped it was enough or I would bring my children in and that ought to speed things along. They laughed. Some of them knew me, but I did not know most of them. I was the only one there voting at the six tables and chairs they had set up. But there were eight women there to sign folk in. Didn’t see any poll watchers though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been pitched story ideas before
LikeLike
More analysis:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/03/09/three_clear_messages_from_tuesdays_primaries_129921.html
__________________________________
Three things out of last night:
1) Donald Trump is very, very close to clinching the nomination.
–Marco Rubio is toast. (yes, we’ve heard that already.) …
John Kasich has no path to the nomination, even if he wins Ohio. His only path was a deadlocked convention, and that won’t happen unless Trump falls down a manhole …
Ted Cruz is still standing but he has a hidden weakness. And it’s devastating. He has not been able to expand beyond his solid base of evangelicals and ideological conservatives (whether they are economic conservatives or values conservatives). In a normal year, that might be enough for Cruz to win the primaries. Not this year. Cruz has won a lot of delegates, but if you can’t win the Mississippi Republican primary, you aren’t going to win in the Northeast …
That leaves Trump. He faces grave difficulties in the general election, beginning with women and Hispanics, but he is on the glide path to win his party’s nomination. …
2) Hillary Clinton’s loss in Michigan won’t stop her steady march to the nomination.
3) The electorate is furious.
__________________________________
There’s more.
LikeLike
No electronic polling here. I was a Poll Clerk last election, that is the one who sits beside the Deputy Returning Officer and does all the paperwork. The Deputy Returning Officer is the one who approves a voter’s ID (requires both proof of name and proof of address – a driver’s license cover’s both, but other types of ID require two separate pieces) and hands them the ballot to fill out, which the voter takes behind the privacy booth to vote, and then brings back the folded ballot to drop in the box. It is quite a process, and both the Poll Clerk and the Deputy Returning Officer have to be present in order for people to vote at that booth.
LikeLike
Last night’s conversation at our house: As the commentators described Hispanic support for Sanders, my wife commented, “My people are stupid, too!” Then they gave the results of the Mississippi Republican primary and I replied, “My people are stupid, too!”
LikeLiked by 1 person