After Super Tuesday the Little Trump Train is still chugging... Oh, what is a party to do?

Now that Super Tuesday is history, one has to wonder about the future. The Donald Trump train looks a little less like a juggernaut than it did yesterday… but just a little. Of the 11 states contested, Trump won 7, Cruz won 3 and Rubio won Minnesota. Seven out of eleven sounds pretty staggering, but when you look at the delegates it’s a little less so. Overall, after 30% of the contests (including Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) the math looks thus:

• Trump has 285 delegates and earned 34.54% of the votes cast. Those 285 delegates however represent 50.35% of the delegates pledged.


• Cruz has 161 delegates and earned 24.17% of the votes cast. Those 171 votes represent 28.45% of the delegates pledged.


• Rubio has 87 delegates and earned 22.27% of the votes cast. Those 87 delegates represent 15.37% of the delegates pledged.

So Trump’s 35% of the votes has translated into victories in 77% of the contests and earned him 50% of the delegates so far. For better or worse, that’s what one calls punching above your weight.

But the juggernaut may not be so robust going forward. Indeed, in order to secure the nomination Trump will have to do exactly as well going forward as he has done thus far. That might get harder. If you watched Thursday’s debate you saw something utterly different than you have seen previously. You saw Rubio and Cruz take out the knives and attack Trump in a way he had not been targeted before. But it wasn’t just style, it was substance as well. Going forward we will likely see not only more of that during the debates – unless Trump hides – but commercials that in many cases use Donald Trump’s words to expose him as the liberal that he is.

Of course, for what appears to be a base of about 30% of the GOP, none of that will matter. And if Democrats in other blue states jump parties to vote for him, (as at least 20,000 did in Massachusetts, giving him his highest percentage yet 49%) that could put him over the top. But for Trump going forward, everything has to go his way if he wants to win the nomination. For the other guys they just have to keep Trump from getting a majority of delegates before the convention. Or... if Rubio, Kasich and Carson drop out, Cruz could very well win the nomination outright. But that doesn’t seem to be happening now.

If it goes that far, a convention fight would likely result in someone other than Trump emerging as the GOP nominee… with Rubio being the likely winner, although at that point the field would be wide open. Of course the prospect of backroom deals and inordinate establishment influence is exactly what a majority of GOP voters are fighting against (Trump + Cruz voters) but I’ve learned never to underestimate the ineptitude and stupidity of GOP leadership.

A convention outcome with anyone but Trump will likely lead to Trump running 3rd party… which in turn might well throw the election to the House… and another opportunity for the GOP leadership to screw the American people and put one of their Democrat light darlings in the White House.

Like a Trump presidency, that would lead to the end of the Republican Party. Conservatives would decamp and start their own party… or more likely parties. At that point they would become spoilers in the American political scene, not winning, but keeping the GOP from winning. Like a zombie, the GOP would likely limp along for a while until conservative opposition coalesced around a unifying party that could put together a viable slate of candidates. Of course the country they know might be gone by the time they get around to doing so as the Democrats would be running the place…

The bottom line is, unless this thing plays itself out just right, the Trump phenomenon may very well be the end of the GOP. Odds are at this point that the nomination will either go for Trump or head to the convention, and who comes out the other side of that will likely determine the outcome in November. The GOP will have three choices at the convention:

• 1) Give the nomination to Trump and watch a sufficient number of disaffected voters sit out or go third party to give the election to the Democrats.


• 2) Give the nomination to one of their establishment darlings and see Trump bolt and run 3rd party, resulting in a Democrat victory or a House vote.


• 3) Give the nomination to Cruz and potentially see victory. The difference between Cruz and any other potential non Trump nominee is that Cruz is a small government guy, a real reformer and the GOP establishment hates him, and thus, many who threw in with Trump could be convinced to return to the fold in a way that they might not if a squish is on the ticket, particularly on immigration.

Whatever the outcome, this election has everything that is the worst in American politics. From smoke filled rooms with power brokers and moneymen to populist charlatans to a sizable portion of the electorate knowing few facts and caring even less, one can’t but help but wonder what the rest of this decade will look like. It also has something we've not had in a while... a candidate who promises to reduce the power and influence of government while at the same time championing liberty and individual freedom.  It would be nice to see what a Cruz White House would look like...

Bush, Kasich and Carson should quit... and probably Rubio too, otherwise say hello to President Trump

I don’t remember the context at all, but I once heard someone put forth a theoretical dilemma… “You have a choice: You can save the world, but the person you loathe most in the world would get credit for it and be hailed as the hero of mankind… or, you can yourself be hailed as the hero of all mankind but in reality do nothing and the world is not saved. Which would you choose?”

That is basically where we stand today in the GOP primary. If it is saving the country that they are interested in rather than personal glory, the three guys who come in last in South Carolina tomorrow would drop out of the race and the fourth guy might consider it too if he doesn’t pull at least 10%. Why? Because, unless Donald Trump dies of a heart attack, those guys simply aren’t going to win. The fact of the matter is, in a six man race, a five man race, a four man race, and probably a three man race, Donald Trump will win and become the GOP nominee. It’s simply a game of numbers. Trump is leading in South Carolina and the opposition is divided five ways. This is like that cartoon where the bear is chasing two guys in the woods… one guy says to the other “We can’t outrun him” and the other guy says “I don’t have to out run him, I just have to outrun you!” Donald Trump doesn’t ever have to get above 50% to win the nomination. All he has to do is get more votes than any one of the other five guys most of the time and the nomination is his. Sixty five percent of the GOP don’t want Donald Trump, but as long as the opposition is fractured, he wins.

Sure, you can say we’re only two states into this thing, but the writing is on the wall. In New Hampshire Donald Trump came out as part of the progressive “Bush Lied, Soldiers Died” camp. He came out as a fan of Planned Parenthood. He stood up as a big fan of the abuse of imminent domain. He still won and may have even added to his lead in South Carolina. It appears to be the case that there is this core of around 30% of the GOP who will vote for Trump regardless of what he does or says. As such, the only way to beat him is to have a race where there are two men facing one another so that voters are forced to choose between Trump and a single actual rival rather than some amalgamation of five guys. One on one Cruz (and maybe Rubio IF he can throw off the immigration yoke he saddled himself with) would shine like a conservative rock star against the liberal, big government Trump. When given a distinct choice of contrast, most conservatives will go with the guy they agree with 90% of the time vs. the guy with whom they agree with maybe 50% of the time. But in a six man race that’s not the choice they have to make.

So, while everyone wants to be the hero who saves the country, the reality is, by staying in the race these laggards are going to be doing exactly the opposite. They are empowering Donald Trump and letting him gain momentum and delegates. Politics is about perception, and the more Donald Trump wins the more Donald Trump is going to be seen as the winner and that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If these guys wanted to really help the country rather than dream of themselves as the next “World’s most powerful man”, they’d drop out and become cheerleaders for the guy who comes out of South Carolina as the strongest rival to Donald Trump. At that point they could play kingmakers, they could vie for the VP slot, and would no doubt put themselves on the short list for secretary positions in a Cruz… or Rubio administration. In a two man race Trump would be toast, in a three man race it would be a real competition… anything else we’re looking at Trump being the last man standing in Cleveland.

Come Sunday morning the also-rans in South Carolina really need to look themselves in the mirror and examine their motivations. Is it the good of the country or their ego that is driving them? What they do next will tell us everything we need to know.