Poll just closed in South Carolina. CNN and MSNBC say the GOP primary there is a three-way race that is too close to call among Trump, Cruz and Rubio. That’s not what was expected with Trump dominating in South Carolina polling for weeks. His numbers had softened in that last few days a bit, but he still held a 14 pt lead in the TPM PollTracker Average.
It’s looking like Bernie Sanders pushed Hillary Clinton harder in Nevada than anyone would have expected just a few weeks ago, but she has prevailed in what really was a crucial win for her. A loss wouldn’t have decided the nomination, or even come close, but it would have seriously undermined her claim, indeed her campaign’s whole rationale, that she has broader and deeper appeal with core Democratic Party constituencies than Sanders does, constituencies that were not well represented in the heavily white first two primary contests. More on Clinton’s win.
It’s genuinely worrisome. Could Marco Rubio make a come-from-behind showing in South Carolina? As I said a few days ago, establishment Republicans won’t let Marco Rubio go down, no matter how many times he stumbles.
Here’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who had been wavering slightly on the nomination issue, parroting the same moronic nonsense about the tradition of presidents not nominating Supreme Court Justices during an election year – the same nonsensical bullshit we discussed in this post with Marco Rubio.
I urge Pres. Obama to follow a tradition embraced by both parties and allow his successor to select the next Supreme Court justice. (4/5)
— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) February 19, 2016
It is genuinely amazing the kind of lockstep fealty the GOP can muster, getting non-comatose members of Congress to publicly say things that are completely nonsensical with a straight face. They’re like derptonian robots.
The only positive thing is reading the Twitter thread will restore some of your faith in humanity. It actually kept me laughing for a good ten minutes. Seriously, it’s choice and hilarious.
This is a small part of the larger avalanche of truthy non-facts about the rules for nominating Supreme Court Justices. But particularly because of the speaker, Marco Rubio’s comments are worth looking at closely. As a repeater rather than originator of ideas, spin and so forth, his words give us an up-close view of the alchemical process through which bullshit and nonsense are transformed into readily accepted viewpoints that journalists are apparently incapable of not accepting as actual ideas.
As we’ve discussed, since quite a lot is at stake in the replacement of Justice Antonin Scalia, Republicans have decided to go to the entirely unprecedented step of refusing to hold a confirmation vote on President Obama’s nominee, on the hope that a Republican will win the presidency in 2016 and thus avoid changing the composition of the Court.
Speaker Paul Ryan tries to match Trump for Scots cred and self-awareness by issuing call to “unite the [GOP] clans” to fight for “freeeedoooom.”
I learned one thing and remembered another from last night’s Trump townhall, especially from the latter 10 or 20 minutes of it. The first is that Trump has friggin’ huge eyebrows. I’m not sure how I missed this. But they’re huge — and yuuuuuuge, I guess. I’m not sure how I didn’t know this before.
Evidence
Donald Trump seemed eerily rational and human in the last 15 minutes of that townhall interview.
This is a painful moment. I need to defend Ted Cruz and his campaign. I didn’t think it would ever get to this point. But it has. So here goes.