Buried lede in the story about Cruz’s father saying that God sent a message to Cruz’s wife, Heidi, that Ted should run for president: even God doesn’t want to talk to Ted.
Shake-up in the Cruz campaign gives you the sense that Cruz creates a milieu of petty viciousness, dishonesty and casual malignity around himself.
The bogus kerfuffle over a supposed “gaffe” about women that John Kasich made this morning at a rally outside of DC was kicked off by a misleadingly edited video clip. Here’s what he really said.
In the last hundred years four Democratic presidents have been elected to a second term as president. Only two did so winning a majority of the popular vote in both elections – Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama.
Countless reasons why Trump’s frontrunner status is stunning, unexpected, earth-shaking and all the rest. But I can’t get past the fact that they guy who won New Hampshire and South Carolina openly and sneeringly bucked GOP orthodoxy on George W. Bush’s 9/11 record. I didn’t expect any Republican candidate to do that in my lifetime and win.
What’s the number of times one Republican has scored dominating victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina and then gone on to lose the nomination? Exactly. Never. And this isn’t some kind of special magic to one state or even group of states. Though it was disappointing against expectations, even the second place showing in Iowa confirms the general narrative. Yes, things could change. Nothing is certain in politics. But it’s time to dispense with any faith-based logic that disputes the fact that Donald Trump is now the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination. Overwhelming.
After a lot of fake drama at the top of the hour, the cable nets are projecting a Trump win in South Carolina. The focus in the initial coverage was “three-way race” and “top-tier candidates” but Trump won. Period. The silly notion of strong third place finishes and dominating second place showings and related pablum should not obscure that Trump just won in core Republican, white, Southern, religious South Carolina. So much for New York values.
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.