Well, here we are. Another primary Tuesday come and gone.
What was most surprising about yesterday’s primaries was that they went just as most people predicted. Trump did well. Hillary did well. It was close where people expected it to be close ((i.e., Missouri) and not-so-close where expected. There were no “Bernie upsets” like in Michigan last week.
So Hillary won every state voting yesterday (Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, and Missouri), although Missouri was/is so close that a recount is possible. It probably would not make much difference in delegate count — Bernie and Hillary will split Missouri. But she had large wins in Florida and North Carolina, and a fairly decent one in Ohio. She cannot be said to have difficulties in the Midwest.
Bernie is staying in, even though the math does not favor a Bernie victory. There’s not call for him to get out, and frankly, he earned the right to stay in. Plus, it keeps focus on the Dems a little longer.
But Hillary pivoted to the general election in her victory speech last night. It was the second time she did that, and she had to backtrack when it looked like something was happening in the Bernie mini-surge (again, Michigan). This time, I am confident, she won’t have to backtrack.
On the GOP side, Trump did well as usual. He absolutely trounced poor Marco Rubio in Rubio’s home state of Florida; Rubio only took one county (Miami-Dade). And he bowed out of the race is style. The concession speech showed a more human side of him — probably something that would have benefited the campaign had it emerged earlier (rather than Mr. Roboto).
Kasich managed to defeat Trump in his home state of Ohio. That was nice, but one has to ask why Kasich is still in it, if Rubio, who accumulated more delegates, saw fit to drop out. Kasich is obviously hoping for something to happen in the contested convention scenario.
Maybe the only surprise of the night was how well Cruz did in Missouri. He lost it by less that 2,000 votes. Essentially, a tie with Trump from a delegate standpoint. Cruz says that he is the only one (besides Trump) with any statistical possibility of getting a majority of delegates prior to the GOP convention, and he’s right. But when he says that, it is like everyone in the GOP nods and returns to their plan of trying to figure out a way to stop Trump.
Cruz is the conservative candidate that the right wing blogs have dreamed about since 2004. He’s not middle guy like Bush or McCain or Romney. But he is just so… awful. Polished, but in a phony way. Unctuous. And maybe Republicans are not as keen on “conservatism” as they once were. Or perhaps they know it won’t win in the general election. Either way, Cruz — the only person who can dump Trump without a convention fight — is getting absolutely no love.
For the GOP, watching Trump plod his way to victory must be like watching a car accident in slow motion. You just watch and hope something will intervene to not make it worse. And nothing does.
The GOP is starting to face the inevitable. And this is where I insert a memo from Ed Goeas. This is his recent memo to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC. If nothing else, read the last paragraph to see where he ends up. In short, he says, Trump is inevitable, Trump will lose to Hillary, Let’s save the down-ticket candidates:
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