Big wins by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clarify the race for the White House. Hillary has pretty much locked up the Democratic nomination. Donald Trump will win more delegates next week in North Eastern states like Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland. Cruz will probably be in third place in all of these states. Kasich seems to be an insignificant factor. I can’t wait for the Trump vs. Hillary Presidential Debates!
A direct confrontation between the two should be interesting, george!
I’m already wondering how Trump will behave regarding Hillary – maybe some jokes about her husband’s sexual activities?
PS:
Surely you know that old Chinese curse:
May you live in interesting times!
Wolf, nothing will be out-of-bounds for Trump in the upcoming Presidential Debates. But Hillary is always prepared for verbal sparring. It should be great TV!
It may not be Trump.
ALL of the old-guard Republican Establishment figures are getting as much air time as they can to talk about how the Nomination is “supposed” to work, and how clear and well-established the Rules are. Haley Barbour even said the nominating rules had “been part of our democratic tradition for 200 years.” Obviously laying the groundwork to justify ignoring his clear lead among GOP voters.
Dan, the GOP Establishment knows it can’t control Trump. He’s self-funding his campaign so they don’t have any financial leverage. A third-party option is also on the table.
Re the Democratic primary: Yasssss!
Re the Republican primary: It’s taken the better part of five decades, but boy are the chickens coming home to roost. There will undoubtedly be violence (instigated by Trump supporters) in Cleveland this summer if their man is not the nominee. The delegates are going to need round-the-clock protection if the GOP goes to a brokered convention, which now seems likely.
Deb, you’re right about the GOP Convention in Cleveland. Chaos will reign! Even if Trump manages to come up with the 1237 delegates to win on the first ballot, I expect plenty of push-back by the Cruz supporters.
Still voting Green, unless I feel I Must vote Neoliberal to avoid a Neofascist. As you might gather, I don’t look too forward to those debates, particularly if Trump manages to get the nom and manages to obviously appeal to enough idiots, here in New Jersey (hello, Electoral College bullshit) and elsewhere. We’ll see if Kasich or someone else less flamboyantly reactionary, and still reactionary, gets the nod…which will be even more depressing.
Todd, this will be a very polarizing election. Trump supporters will be throwing dollar bills at Hillary (a great Bernie campaign tactic!). But where will the ardent Cruz supporters go? Third party?
The Constitution Party might well benefit from either a Trump nom or a Kasich nom with Trump stalking off to run indy. And we know HRC will only deign to pick up thousand dollar bills on up…I hadn’t heard nor seen any reports of any bill-tossing, and after the Clinton-sponsored “English only” lie in Nevada, I tend to want to see some clear evidence of any such claim…
Todd, Kasich only came up with 3 delegates in the NY State Primary. I can’t believe people are still proposing Kasich should be the Republican nominee! The guy has won ONE state (his own). Little Marco Rubio–who has suspended his campaign a month ago–has more delegates than Kasich.
His argument has been that he has a better chance (say the polls, fwiw) to beat Clinton than the more polarizing candidates, and the GOP establishment likes him better than the Glimmer Twins (they like cancer and Karl Marx better, perhaps)…he’d probably hurt “down-ticket” less than Trump or Cruz. 3 so far…eh.
Is there any chance Trump will sit down and learn something substantive to say. Like the stuff we all learned in PS 101. I doubt it. So far in the debates they have allowed him to get away with saying nothing because the others said very little. That is going to change.
I don’t know if Trump is capable of even acknowledging, let alone learning from, his mistakes. And it’s not so much that he says nothing substantive in terms of policy (which is true) but that he says such inflammatory things with a sort of “cry havok and let slip the dogs of war” shrug: the wall, urging violence against protestors, suggesting women who have abortions should be criminally prosecuted, tracking American citizens who happen to practice a certain religion, the list goes on. His approach is the very worst combination of nativism, know-nothingism, and “it sure would be a shame if the Reichstag burned down” incitement.
/Yes, I Godwin’d the thread.
//My husband’s uncle has a bumper sticker: “I never thought I’d miss Nixon.”
Hell, Reagan could make one miss Nixon a little. But, then, Bill Clinton was Nixon-lite.
What I hope for is Trump running as an independent, which will split the rep. vote and ensure a very necessary dem. win. I sound like a broken record, but I really wish Eliz. Warren had run.
I won’t be watching the debates, with my flat screen tv, any object thrown at it, no matter how light, would surely topple it.
Maggie, I suspect that if the GOP deny Trump the nomination, he will go Third Party.
Trump can’t say anything substantive because He. Knows. Nothing.
That is, he “knows” whatever pops into his mind (like “thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City he supposedly saw celebrating on 9/11 – or is that 7/11?). He can’t acknowledge his mistakes because in his mind he doesn’t make any. Yet the press has let him get away without releasing any tax returns on his bullsh!t lie that the IRS is auditing his last five years. What about 6 years ago, then?
I’ve been waiting for the “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment since Trump announced, but apparently there are a lot of very stupid people out there who buy the smoke and mirrors.
I still believe the moment is coming, and I can’t wait.
Jeff, Trump is a stream-of-consciousness candidate. His speeches just ramble all over the place.
If the debates don’t convince people that Trump is delusional and totally unprepared for leadership of the free world, America is doomed.
Beth, the new Trump “handlers” will try to make him appear more “Presidential” but if Hillary pushes the right buttons in the Debates, he’ll go off like a fire-cracker!
Yes, well. What a friggin’ disaster Trump is making of things, and the wholesale idiocy of those voting for him is staggering and very scary. Terrifying, actually. Yet I know two people, Cap’n Bob and another, who will vote for him, both seem otherwise sane. The Republicans have made this mess but it seems we will all have to let in it.
Rick, I know dozens of people (mostly my students) who voted for Trump yesterday. But they really wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders!
That’s LAY in it.
Well, Bob Napier isn’t any more required to vote for whomever the GOP puts up than anyone else is. I still assume Jill Stein and Gary Johnson will repeat runs for the Green and Libertarian tickets, among so many other options, Hating HRC is no excuse for voting for Trump or even Kasich…since the GOP hierarchy is still attempting to dump Trump and might well do so. Beth might well still get her wish.
Sorry, Maggie might get her wish, that is.
Todd, Bob Napier is supporting Bernie Sanders.
Yes, and has said that if Clinton gets the nom there, which seems likely, that he’ll ?probably vote for the Republican.
He’s also said he would move to Costa Rica, so….
Costa Rica not off the table completely! True, my mantra is ANYBODY BUT HITLERY, but I might write in for Bernie rather than go with the GOP guy! My reasoning is that my state will go with the Democrat so it doesn’t matter who I vote for! Right now my most fervent wish is that Hitlery has a massive stroke! It would simplify things greatly!
Bob, I shudder to think of what the mailing charges for OWLHOOT would be if you moved to Costa Rica!
Don’t you have a reverse mortgage, Bob? Can you really afford the move out of the country?
Having a reverse mortgage doesn’t mean I can’t sell the place, but Costa Rica is a very remote possibility! Most of my family would have to die first, and I don’t want that to happen!
Trump gets help from Russia:
The explicit endorsement of Trump by Aleksandr Dugin, the leading Russian fascist ideologue and a very important media presence in Russia, is particularly alarming. The premise of Dugin’s “Eurasian” movement is that Russia and the West are artificially separated by enlightened ideas of the rule of law and individual rights. Once leaders of the West understand that these are artificial (Jewish) implantations, they can join Russia in the embrace of fascism. Dugin accordingly praises the American people, calling upon them to shed their “oligarchic” elites and return to their true (fascist) values. I read Dugin’s use of “oligarchic” to mean “Jewish”—a suspicion confirmed by Dugin’s reaction to an actual oligarch who enjoys the backing of American neo-Nazis: “Trump is the voice of the real right wing in America,” he writes. “Vote for Trump!”
The Russian expectation is that a Trump victory would be ruinous for American power, and that such power as remains will be deployed to support Russian interests. Trump’s fantasy friendship with Putin is one more reason to expect that a Trump victory would also be disastrous for American values and institutions.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/19/trumps-putin-fantasy/
Wolf, Trump knows ZERO about foreign affairs. The GOP is hoping Trump surrounds himself with experienced experts. I’m not sure that’s the answer for an actual Trump Presidency.