Embarrassing GOP Debate Shames America

by | Mar 3, 2016 | Debate Analysis

Tonight’s Republican debate was an embarrassing spectacle. It made me embarrassed, ashamed and humiliated for my country. I think it shames America before the world that so many Americans can support people who behave so childishly. Anyone who could vote for a candidate who engages in schoolyard taunts on a presidential debate stage — and here I’m talking specifically about Donald Trump and secondarily Marco Rubio — has no respect for the presidency or America’s image before the world community. If you can watch Trump allude to the size of his penis tonight and think he should be our nation’s face to the world, I really don’t even know what to say to that.

I don’t agree with Ted Cruz on anything and would hope he never becomes president. But he generally behaved like an adult tonight, for which I will give him grudging credit. It is sad that merely not acting like a child deserves special mention.

Regarding John Kasich, I don’t agree with him on very much either, but he’s the only candidate on that stage who wouldn’t cause me to seriously consider emigrating if he became president. He at least behaved with the dignity and respect I would consider minimal requirements to lead a nation.

As to who won and who lost, hell, who can say? I joked on Twitter tonight that nothing could sway Trump’s followers and that if he walked over and set Kasich on fire, they’d cheer. I might have been half-joking on that one. Nothing has hurt him so far. Tonight was certainly his lowest, worst and most disgusting performance, but I’m not convinced it’ll cost him any support.

Cruz didn’t do anything to hurt himself and probably remains the leading challenger to Trump.

I thought Kasich was the most presidential and he handled himself well, but he’s so far behind, I don’t know how much good it will do him. I expect he probably will at least win Ohio in 12 days, which might keep him alive, and right now, that’s the name of the game.

Rubio diminishes himself every day, and tonight was no exception. I don’t think he helped himself at all, and I expect he’ll continue to swoon. I doubt he takes Florida in 12 days.

I’m not sure there were any winners tonight, but I can say without any doubt whatsoever that America lost.

The Democrats’ Diversity Divide Is Saving Clinton, Sinking Sanders

by | Mar 1, 2016 | Election Analysis

If anything became crystal clear tonight, it’s the stark diversity divide between Bernie Sanders‘ supporters and Hillary Clinton‘s supporters. Her big wins in the South tonight demonstrated that her shellacking of Sanders in among black voters in South Carolina on Saturday was no fluke.

The one constant throughout the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far has been that the fewer black voters a state or portion of a state has, the more Clinton struggles. She barely won Iowa, got clobbered in New Hampshire, and got clobbered tonight in Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma and Vermont, but absolutely destroyed Sanders in Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. And while Massachusetts is pretty white, it’s more diverse than Iowa or New Hampshire; the small percentage of Massachusetts voters who are black very well could have been the difference for her in that state tonight. Clinton won the cities; Sanders won the lily-white rural areas.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Any candidate who cannot win a significant number of votes in diverse communities cannot win the Democratic nomination. There is no way to put together a coalition in the Democratic Party that doesn’t include voters of color. If Sanders can’t start making serious inroads into communities of color very soon, he has no chance of reversing his fortunes.

Super Tuesday: No Changes In Either Race; GOP Establishment Takes It On The Chin

by | Mar 1, 2016 | Election Analysis

The Republican establishment took it on the chin once again tonight, as the big winners were Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio finally got his first victory in Minnesota, but he desperately needed a win in Virginia and couldn’t get it. John Kasichmight eke out a win in Vermont (still not called as of 11:25 Eastern), but with only 16 delegates, it won’t count for much.
 
Trump remains in very solid shape to win the GOP nomination, and Cruz has reestablished himself as Trump’s chief competition. Rubio comes out of tonight looking weaker than ever. Both Rubio and Kasich will come out of Super Tuesday with, at most, one win apiece. That’s enough to keep them alive for their own home state primaries in Florida and Ohio, respectively, two weeks from tonight, but they’re going to have to start winning in some other places to be viable contenders.
 
One potential YUUUUGE weakness for Trump that emerged tonight: look at his numbers in Minnesota, where he is running a distant third. He also lost Iowa. The results thus far during the primary season indicate that Trump is not particularly strong in the Midwest. This might not cost him the nomination, but it certainly could lose him the general election in November; of all the nation’s different regions, the Midwest is the “swing” region that determines elections.
 
But that’s down the road. Right now, there’s no reason at all to think that Trump is not still the favorite on the Republican side.
 
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton did herself a huge favor by winning Massachusetts. If Bernie Sanders had won Massachusetts, he would have gotten out of tonight winning all five of his target states and fighting Clinton to a near draw in the number of states won. Even considering the fact that she’ll come out of tonight with a huge delegate lead (by virtue of her crushing victories in the South), if Sanders had won five of 11 states, it would have been a big hit to Clinton in terms of perception. Winning a key state right in Sanders’s backyard was a big win for Clinton.
 
In short, nothing changed tonight. Trump and Clinton are still well ahead in their respective races, and there is going to have to be a major change in the trajectory of either race to change that fact.

Analysis: Rubio Hits Trump Hard, But He’s Still Losing

by | Feb 25, 2016 | Debate Analysis

The conventional wisdom will tell you that Marco Rubio won tonight’s debate and turned this campaign around. It’s wishful thinking. Fundamentally, nothing happened here tonight that we haven’t seen many times before during this campaign season. Donald Trump got hit hard. That’s happened before, and he’s always gained in the polls.

Nothing that happened tonight changed the dynamics or the trajectory of the race. As long as there are more than two candidates, Trump will continue to prevail with pluralities from state to state. In a year in which Republican voters hate the establishment, the fact that Rubio has nearly consolidated the establishment means little.

So Rubio may have won the debate on points, but in terms of the direction of the race, nothing has changed. Trump is winning and is likely to continue winning.

But here’s tonight’s big loser: Ted Cruz. He was a nonentity in tonight’s debate. He didn’t help his cause at all. That’s actually bad for Rubio, who reportedly is counting on a strategy of getting to the convention with no candidate having a majority of delegates, thereby creating a brokered convention. For that to happen (and it’s highly unlikely), he needs Cruz to stay in the race, because a good number of Cruz’s supporters are much likelier to go to Trump than to Rubio.

John Kasich was also a loser tonight. He’s trying to be the calm, rational, sensible candidate, which is not what this year’s Republican electorate wants. He’s not going to get anywhere throwing broccoli to the wolves.

And Ben Carson remained a nonentity. His whining about speaking time was pathetic. He’s going nowhere, and everybody seems to understand this but Carson himself.

Bottom line: tonight’s debate didn’t change anything. Trump’s still in the lead and poised to pull a near-sweep on Super Tuesday.

Forecasting Nevada GOP Caucuses, South Carolina Democratic Primary

by | Feb 22, 2016 | Election Analysis

There seems to be no doubt that Donald Trump will win Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada. Jon Ralston, the foremost political analyst in Nevada, knows the political pulse of the state inside and out. When he says Trump is sure to win in the Silver State, I know I can take it to the bank. So I’m predicting Trump wins.

There has been a lot of talk that Marco Rubio has worked hard to build an organization in Nevada. What little polling there is shows he’s in a tight battle with Ted Cruz for second place. I’m going to take Rubio to place and Cruz to show, with John Kasich beating out Ben Carson for a distant fourth.

The key question here is whether anybody but Trump will get any delegates. Despite placing second in South Carolina on Saturday, Rubio (and the rest of the field besides Trump) claimed no delegates; all 50 went to Trump. According to TheGreenPapers.com, Nevada awards 30 Republican delegates: 10 to the statewide winner, four to the winner of each Congressional district, five “bonus” delegates and three party delegates. If Trump wins by a large margin, he may well sweep Nevada’s delegates as well, a fact which will render the remaining order of finish essentially irrelevant.

Barring one of the most stunning collapses in the history of U.S. politics, Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in to win the Democratic primary in South Carolina on Saturday. Her polling leads in the Palmetto State have consistently been massive, and Bernie Sanders has not come within 20 points in a week’s time. For Sanders, anything less than a 20-point loss would be a positive result.