Archives for March 2016

The man Time Magazine named “The Republican Savior” in a front cover spread just a few years ago has quit the Republican presidential race. The candidate embraced by the Republican establishment as their new white knight after Jeb Bush’s disastrous campaign, has gone the way of the other thirteen Republican presidential candidates before him … home.

After suffering a humiliating blowout primary loss yesterday in his home state of Florida, Marco Rubio’s career as a politician appears done for. To quote a favorite expression of Richard Nixon, his political career seems “deader than Kelsey’s nuts.”

Rubio’s days as a Florida senator are numbered… literally. His senate career will come to an end at the end of the year, having promised not to seek reelection. At a press conference in West Palm Beach, Rubio told CNN, “January of next year, I will either be president of the United States or I will be a private citizen. If I never hold elected office again, I’m comfortable with that.”

We’ve all heard the expression, “What a difference a day makes,” right? In Rubio’s case, it was more like, “What a difference a debate makes.”

After Rubio’s unexpected strong third place finish in the Iowa caucus, which he and the media hailed as a resounding victory, things were looking up for Marco. It appeared the Republican elites had found their man. He would be the one to go toe- to-toe with the two hated frontrunners, Trump and Cruz.

But then we know what happened next… the New Hampshire Republican debate.

Held just days before the New Hampshire primary, Rubio laid about as big an egg as a candidate could on a debate stage. For some inexplicable reason, he kept repeating the same talking point about President Obama, over and over. An aggressive Chris Christie relentlessly mocked him on what appeared to many to be a computer glitch in Rubio’s brain. A few days later, all the Rubio momentum was gone. He finished a distant fifth in the all-important primary.

Many political analysts are wondering if Rubio has hurt his brand so badly that a 2018 run for the Florida governorship is now out of the question.

At the age of 44, Marco Rubio was the youngest remaining Republican candidate to compete for his party’s nomination. In view of his age, many pundits believe his political career, and fortunes, can be resurrected.

While Barrack Obama was about the same age, and had the same skimpy political resume, as Rubio, the Florida senator proved he did not have the same intelligence, charisma, wit and political skills as the President.

In the words of the late Lloyd Benson who famously said to a youngish Dan Quayle during the 1988 vice presidential debate, “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Marco, you are no Barack Obama.

Photo |triton.gfd.si

After last night’s disappointing primary losses in the all-important states of Florida and Ohio, reality is starting to set in for Bernie Sanders supporters. Many had hoped last week’s massive upset victory in Michigan would be the springboard for another surprise win in the neighboring rust-belt state of Ohio. Big “Mo” was on Bernie’s side, supporters proclaimed.

But, oh, that political gravity!

Not only did Hillary Clinton prevail in Florida and Ohio, she also racked up victories in Illinois and North Carolina. The fifth state where Clinton and Sanders faced off, Missouri, was too close to call late Tuesday night. Sanders held a narrow lead of 49.9% to 49%.

While Sanders has repeatedly said he will remain in the race up until the nominating convention, the math just doesn’t add up for him. He is trailing badly in the number of pledged delegates and is being swamped in the number of “super delegates,” almost all of whom are committed to Clinton.

Yes, Bernie’s message still resonates with Democratic primary voters and he has a large chunk of money in the bank, but the nomination itself is looking increasingly out of reach. It’s not impossible, just highly improbable.

The blogosphere was abuzz with Progressives consoling one another over the crushing defeats, with many vowing to sit out the general election if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.

Here are a few actual comments:

Write him in and continue the revolution…We will survive Trump as a nation. We will not survive Hillary in the Democrat Party.

As a Sanders supporter, I don’t think Hillary is an alternative. Won’t show up definitely.

Most people I know will not vote for Hillary. We may be giving the election to the Republicans if that’s the case. We need to do away with Super Delegates

If it does end up being a contest between Clinton and Donald Trump, I am willing to bet that a good many of the “Bernie or Bust” Democrats will get over their bruised egos, think clearly and support the Democratic ticket.

There is no doubt Bernie’s candidacy has stirred up passion in a great many people, especially the young, who demand real change. But as all Progressives should know, and all reform movements have shown, change travels in the slow lane of social justice.

Photo | theguardian.com

There is a George W. Bush joke that goes something like this: asked to define “denial,” Dubya answered a river in Egypt.

Unfortunately, today’s GOP is in denial as defined by the actual meaning of the word. It is a party that chooses to keep its head buried in the sand while its world is collapsing all around it.

Republican Party elites still think there is time to stop the Trump runaway train. They are dreaming of a contested convention in July. They are hoping Trump does not enter the assembly hall with a majority of the delegates (1237) needed to win the nomination on the first ballot.

Could another candidate accumulate the needed number of delegates to win the nomination? Mathematically yes, but not likely.

One of two scenarios will be playing out for the Republicans. Either Trump, and only Trump, secures the number of delegates needed to prevail or he comes up just short but still has the most delegates of any candidate.

In the delusional world of the GOP establishment, if scenario #2 plays out, they believe they will be able to deny Trump the nomination by bringing in a reject such as Marco Rubio or a white knight such as Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan.

Talk about denial!

If the nomination is taken away from Trump, and the party leaders try to ram an establishment candidate down the throats of their voters, look for all hell to break loose.

Trump supporters are, if anything, a loyal bunch. Look for mayhem both inside, and outside, the convention hall if party bosses try to pull a fast one. Trump supporters have shown themselves to be the kind of people who would not meekly accept an “un-democratic” outcome.

Even by the Bushian definition of “denial,” one could say Republicans are in deep water with no rescue boat in sight.

The best bet for the GOP would be to accept Trump; try to work with him; and brace for the inevitable defeat such a candidate would bring their party. They could then do another post-mortem like they did after Romney’s loss; regroup for the 2020 election; and try to stop the Democrats’ presidential winning streak at three.

Of course, all this assumes the survival of the GOP as we know it.

Image courtesy of fantasista at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As much as he is hated by the GOP establishment – and its mega-donors – Rafael Edward Cruz is starting to get some serious consideration and support from his former foes. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime critic of Cruz who famously compared the choice between Trump and Cruz “like being shot or poisoned,” has come around to his fellow senator.

“At the end of the day, I know what I’m getting with Ted Cruz,” Graham said, noting that he would still personally prefer Rubio. “If Ted is the alternative to Trump, at least he’s a conservative Republican.”

To the GOP establishment’s dismay, Marco Rubio is going nowhere fast. Some of his own advisors are counseling him to bow out of the race now before an embarrassing lose in his home state of Florida next week.

Carly Fiorina, another former rival, has also warmed to Cruz, claiming he is the only candidate who can beat Trump.

Calling Cruz a “real constitutional conservative,” Fiorina said, “he is a fearless fighter and reformer, and he didn’t care much whether he got invited to the cocktail parties in Washington, D.C.”

Billionaire GOP mega-donor Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota media mogul who has donated $10,000 to an anti-Trump super PAC, has said “He wasn’t my favorite guy, but I’ll say one thing about Cruz. I don’t think he tells lies. I don’t like liars.”

Hubbard confessed that Trump’s surprising dominance is forcing donors to consider backing candidates they might have otherwise shunned. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “Well, that’s life.”

Yes, that’s life for today’s GOP … the unenviable choice between the “twin terrors,” Trump or Cruz. Pick your poison, or firing squad.

Unfortunately for the GOP, Graham had it right. No matter which candidate the party goes with, it is marching to its own death.

The only chance the Republican Party has of denying Trump the nomination is if he comes up short in accumulating a majority of the Republican delegates and there is a contested convention.

If that were to happen, and the guy with the most delegates (Trump) does not get the nod, watch for all hell to break loose.

Photo | wbdaily.com

Hold the presses! That Bernie Sanders obituary needs to be saved for another day.

Going into yesterday’s Michigan Democratic primary, polls showed Hillary Clinton with a commanding lead of about 20%. A Clinton win would deal the Sanders camp a devastating defeat and amplify the conventional wisdom that her candidacy for president was inevitable.

But the polls got it wrong. Way wrong. Bernie Sanders pulled off an upset victory in a state most pundits had labeled “Clinton country.” After all, Clinton won Michigan in 2008.

Said pollster Steve Mitchell, of Mitchell Research and Communications, “No one predicted this. And only did we not get it right, no one was less than double digits for Hillary Clinton.”

“I think this changes it dramatically,” continued Mitchell. “This is coming into a major industrial state where Hillary Clinton had a strong network in place, where there is a quarter of the voters that are African American that should’ve been much more strongly in support of Hillary; they weren’t. She only won that vote by a 2:1 margin, according to exit polls. I think this changes it dramatically.”

While the media loves to talk about polls, Sanders’ win in Michigan shows us once again that polling is not voting.

“Polling drives momentum; it drives how people think. We wouldn’t be having this same conversation if we just were looking at the vote yesterday, but it’s such a dramatic thing because all these polls were showing her 25, 27 points up, which, quite frankly, I never believed,” said Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

Clinton did have a blowout win in yesterday’s Mississippi Democratic primary, carrying the state 83-17 percent over Sanders. And, at the end of the day, she did secure more delegates than Sanders, adding 84, compared with a net gain of 67 for Sanders. But that is not the big news. The takeaway from yesterday’s stunning Michigan victory is that the Sanders momentum cannot be blunted by the continued talk in the media of Sanders’ demise.

As George W. Bush once said, “You can’t listen to the polls. What do the Polish people know about American democracy anyway?”

Next up on March 15th, the big primary contests in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina.

Let the pollsters poll. Let the voters vote. And never the Twain shall meet.

Photo | cnbc.com