Well yesterday was Super Tuesday. On the Democrat side Bernie Sanders won Oklahoma, Minnesota, Colorado, and his home state of Vermont. Hillary won everything else, and she’s going to be the Democratic nominee.
Ted Cruz won Oklahoma, Alaska, and his home state of Texas. Marco Rubio won Minnesota. And Donald Trump won everything else, and he’s quite likely to be the Republican nominee for President.
It could hardly have gone better for Donald Trump yesterday. It’s to his advantage to have several candidates remain in the race against him, for several weeks, to divide the anyone-but-Trump vote. Had Cruz lost his home state of Texas, he may well have dropped out. But Cruz won Texas, so he’ll be staying in. Rubio won Minnesota, and came close to Trump in Virginia. So Rubio did well enough to stay in the race until he gets to his home state of Florida in two weeks. And John Kasich did well in Vermont and Massachusetts, although he didn’t win in either, so he’ll stay in until his home state of Ohio, which like Florida, is on March 15th. And Ben Carson – well he’ll probably stay in the race until he’s good and darn ready to get out.
The so-called “establishment” hates Ted Cruz, and fears Donald Trump. It fears Trump because there’s concern that if he’s the Republican nominee, not only will he lose to Hillary Clinton in November, but he’ll take down a lot of Republican candidates with him.
Why? Principally because he’s made so many offensive statements concerning women, Hispanics, Muslims, POWs, disabled people, and on and on, that every Republican candidate will be asked ad nauseam whether he agrees with Trump on these things. And although the mainstream press has not only given Trump pretty much a pass on his foibles in the primary (and so have Hillary and the Democrats for that matter), once Trump is the Republican nominee, I expect to see negative Trump stories and vicious anti-Trump attack ads of unprecedented proportions. This is likely to be, by far, the most negative presidential campaign in American history.
One other thing. Richard Nixon once said that a Republican presidential candidate wins by running to the right in the primary, and moving to the center in the general election (or something like that; I couldn’t find the exact quote.) And by that definition, Trump may actually be better positioned to win in the fall than the so-called “establishment” believes. Yes Trump has expressed some pretty hardcore positions, like building a wall, and making Mexico pay for it; and rounding up 11 million (at least) immigrants, and putting them on the other side of the wall; and not only killing ISIS terrorists, but taking out their families along with them; and bringing back waterboarding “and a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”, and so on.
But he’s also been criticized by conservatives for expressing more moderate and even liberal positions, on a number of pretty big issues. He supported the bank bailout, and the auto bailout, and Obama’s economic stimulus package. He’s pro-eminent domain, pro-Putin, and pro-Planned Parenthood (except for the abortions). He says hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, (even though they’ll go broke if they’re not reformed, and soon.) Like the unions, he’s against free trade, and would even slap a high tariff on goods coming into the United States from China and Mexico. He sounds like Michael Moore or a Code Pink protester in his over-the-top criticism of George W. Bush on Iraq (Bush lied, people died.) And he’s given a lot of money over the years to Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton.
So if the Republican base will stick together and vote for him in the fall (and that may be a big if), he may have some appeal to voters in the middle, or even on the left, with these decidedly un-Republican points of view. And perhaps most importantly, the energy of Trump’s supporters have resulted in much higher Republican turnout in the Republican primaries and caucuses than normal. And this enthusiasm seems to be lacking in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. Even though Hillary’s winning, she’s not exciting or inspiring anyone. So maybe Trump actually has a reasonably good chance of beating Hillary in the fall, even though the “establishment” doesn’t think so right now.
Anyway, that’s the way I see it. Maybe I’ll change my mind next week.