Donald J. Trump is the weakest front runner in my lifetime. Tonight will determine if that status sticks or if he moves into a stronger or weaker position. Trump is a fixture of the media like Tony Campolo was at Evangelical chapels in the last decade. He is the guy you can pretend to hate while cashing the checks the attention brings.
Each of the “final four” Republicans reminds all sensible people of original Star Trek characters:
Donald Trump is Captain James T. Kirk (the hair!) in The Paradise Syndrome. He is put into a culture he knows nothing about and becomes the deity getting the best woman and trinkets. Sadly for the new god, he bleeds. Once he is seen to bleed, the end of deity comes quickly.
Ted Cruz is the Romulan Captain in Balance of Terror. He is an uptight man defending a decaying order with honor. This may not end well.
Marco Rubio is Chekov, the character the show introduced to appeal to the young people that never took off as hoped. While the show got canceled, Chekov came back for the movies showing there is a second act possible.
John Kasich is every a-bit-too-old red shirt to die on the show. Each allegedly was a trained security guard, but often functioned as amiable dunces there to die.
There are five primaries tonight and here is a quick summary of what is happening in each:
Ohio:
Kasich has to win or he is out. He might win, but no one is sure how many Democrats will cross over to kill the governor they loath. If this were a closed primary, Kasich would be headed East to keep campaigning already. This is winner take all and I believe it will be Kasich by 2/3 points.
Florida:
Marco has to win or he is out. He will not win unless there is a Michigan size upset and there is no evidence at this hour to say this will happen.
Marco Rubio ran a good campaign and his narrow loss in Virginia probably finished him.
This is winner take all so the margin does not matter, but I think it will be Trump by 42. By the way, if Trump were to fall out of the forties, this would be a sign of fatal weakness in a swing state.
Missouri:
This is the “upset” special of the night. It is not really winner take all, though a big enough margin will cause it to be that way. There is no good polling, but I am betting on Springfield and the Assemblies of God for Ted Cruz. I see him winning by 2/3 points over Trump.
North Carolina:
This may be the first return of the night and it is a Trump state (CSA) where he might lose. It has some Virginia characteristics as it has become more urban. If Cruz pulls an upset here, this could be a bad night for the Donald. I think he hangs on and wins by 3 or 4 points, but since this is proportional delegate allocation it does not matter except for bragging rights.
Illinois:
This is a big blue state that will test if Donald J. Trump can really put new voters in play. Don’t forget the southern part of the state is almost Dixie. This might be good Cruz territory. The Wheaton-type Chicago suburbs might be strong for Kasich and would have been Rubio heavy if he had not vanished to Florida.
If Trump is in the thirties here, then it is a sign anti-Trump ads worked. They ran heavily in the state.
Bottom line:
5/5 for Trump makes him a strong front runner, but it also gets Kasich and Rubio out of the races and forces him to face Cruz alone. This is not the best outcome for Trump.
4/5 Oddly the best outcome for Trump is winning all the states handily, but Ohio. This keeps Kasich in the race and we head to a brokered convention with Trump as the nearly sure leader.
3/5 This is a nightmare for Trump. Lose two states (assuming North Carolina is close) and he cannot realistically win a majority of delegates.
2/5 If Trump wins Florida and one other state, he will be seen as the loser of the night. This is highly unlikely.
1/5 If Trump only wins Florida, then Rubio is out, but Trump will be barraged with anti-Trump ads. This is actually the worst outcome for Trump.
0/5: Marco gets a second life, Trump bleeds like Kirk in This Side of Paradise and the knives come out. Weirdly, because all four remain, Trump will have some shot of recovery in Arizona. This is as likely to happen as my winning the lottery here in Texas.
Of the 367 delegates up for grabs tonight, Trump is likely to start with 99 out of Florida. He needs to start getting half the delegates (he has not yet) up for grabs.
Ignore the babblers who always want a winner for the night. The key is this: if Trump does not win Ohio, it will go to the Convention. Cruz could end up with more delegates than Kasich. The media is in a love-hate relationship with Trump and wants him to win.
Rubio is out. Before burying him, let’s admire him. He made some “nasty” remarks about Trump’s physical appearance, but generally ran a forward moving campaign. He had a strong group of Evangelical and Catholic intellectuals helping him. Why didn’t it work?
Bush killed him early and then he failed, just barely, to win Virginia. He was a good candidate, but he never shook his compromise on immigration. My own belief is that Bush was right: Marco should have owned the bill. There were many of us who are not into deportation and Marco might have owned that minority. Still Senator Rubio was not a nasty man and he has a future in Republican politics.
So far this is looking like a “meh” night for Trump. He will win Florida, big time, but looks to be losing Ohio. He cannot win the nomination in reality.
If Trump comes out early, it will be a sign that the other four states may not be looking great. Will the East coast obsessed media remember the other three states?
Trump needs 180 to 190 delegates. Florida has given him 99. From whence do the rest come? If he loses Ohio, and he will, and North Carolina is close (and it will be) then he needs a big win in Illinois and Missouri.
The nominee will be either Trump or Cruz.
This was a horrible night for Marco Rubio, but so far a not so great night for Trump. Let’s be clear: Trump has failed to end the campaign and will not win the majority in any state.
Marco Rubio is giving a better speech than Donald J. Trump is capable of making. “He wants to love all the American people . . . ” That was the best speech of the campaign. Like Lincoln and Reagan who lost, Rubio was taller in defeat than the man who beat him.
The Republic is built for our foolishness of the voters, our foolishness. We can endure our bad choices. The plurality in Florida has chosen a candidate who is a misogynist, racist, and incompetent. Thank God we are a Republic.
Facts are stubborn things and the future will be Hispanic in many states, certainly Texas, Florida, and California. We are a majority minority country and the Republican Party must not embrace the mindless demagogue. Rubio was a flawed messenger for the cause, but partly he was undone by his sense of decency. He grew angry and personal and later apologized. He was bad at being bad . . . and so he ended again as the good, decent family man he has always been.
Kasich just won Ohio. Trump has a problem.We will see, but now he is near 55% of the remaining delegates to win.
HRC is the worst speaker in this campaign than anyone not named Donald. Of course, Trump does not give speeches, but performance art . . . Will he be QVC Trump tonight? Subdued Trump? Generous King Trump handing out rings to his servants? Who will we get?
Now HRC is stealing Sanders and Trump lines in the least authentic speech in ages. She speaks in grad school catch phrases: complex, first-place. She lacks passion and so has fallen into the bad speaker’s trick of yelling. She has finally found a different tone after hollering her way through the first part.
I was wrong.
John Kasich is a worse speaker. He is dull, tedious, and self-centered. If a Democrat becomes a pompous ass, this is a flatulent elephant. He just passive aggressively said he would not be aggressive. We are now to terminal boredom. Somebody intervene.
Trump has won Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina. He lost Ohio. He may or may not win Missouri. We will see how the delegates come out, but this is the way one expected it to be.
Trump is subdued. Does not acknowledge Rubio. He wants to make “a deal.” He wants to cut a ten minute deal on these issues. Trump is now talking about lowering business taxes. We have to bring “out party together.”
Not with my help. . .
Trump now begins a random list of things. He gets to terrorism and was about to say how it was “a whole new meaning” and started talking about himself. Beside him on the podium, Trump has placed his abusive campaign manager being investigated for assaulting a reporter. Of course.
The bully boy now talks about needing the rich to make the country “great.” Get ready poor Americans . . . he is going to throw us under the bus.
“Marco is tough, smart . . .”
“Nobody has received the kind of negative ads . . . ” That is lie. Trump lies like a car puts out exhaust. . . it belches from him like gas. Now we hear about his shame watching a golf game at his resort and having to see negative ads as he sipped his Trump water. Poor Trump . . .
Magnanimous in victory . . . he calls reporters “disgusting.”
We are now certain to have a brokered convention.
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Ritual bias alert: I have given some money to Ted Cruz in the past. I have also friends in the Trump, Rubio, and Cruz campaigns.
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