Bernie or Bloomie

It's not over in New Hampshire yet, but it is. So what's next?

• While I know John Croman and the rest of the local cheerleaders are very excited about Our Amy finishing third in New Hampshire, she has no path forward. She doesn't have enough money to compete on Super Tuesday and she has no ground game in Nevada or South Carolina. Her modest success has probably put a torpedo under the waterline of Pete Buttigieg, however. As long as they both stay in the race, and they both will because they can for the moment, they'll drag each other down to the bottom. 
• Bernie won.  And he's likely to win a few more states coming up. Do you see either Buttigieg or Our Amy beating Bernie in any upcoming state? Maybe Our Amy wins her home state. That's not enough.
• Nanny Bloomberg has more money than King Canute, and if he continues to spend hundreds of millions on his own campaign, he can drain all the oxygen out of the room. Even if Klobuchar and Buttigieg had the money to buy ads in the upcoming states, Bloomberg has bought most of the available air time already. 
• So if you're a Democrat, would you rather have a crazy commie or a nasty scold from the Lollipop Guild? Because those are likely to be your choices.

Iowah-wah-wah

So no one knows who "won" the Iowa caucus, even this morning:

A technical meltdown in Iowa Monday night set off bedlam in the critical first contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, triggering competing claims of victory and stoking doubts about the legitimacy of the eventual outcome.

No results had been reported by midnight Eastern, and two campaigns told POLITICO that after a conference call with the Iowa Democratic Party, they didn’t expect any returns until Tuesday morning at the earliest.

Here's an on-the-spot report from Des Moines:

At this point, no one is going to believe the results, no matter what they are. All the Dems will claim victory and nothing at all will be decided. But remember, the Democrats are going to save the country from the Bad Orange Man.

My favorite quote so far? Probably this one:

Sanders' supporters were already crying foul. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who campaigned for Sanders in Iowa this weekend, tweeted, "Democracy dies in the darkness!”

If you're inclined, the entire Politico piece I've linked is a laff riot. One more fun observation contained therein:

If one thing was certain from Monday's debacle, Iowa had just signed its death warrant as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen said.

“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Yepsen said. “The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for ... nothing.

“I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”

All those pork tenderloin sandwiches for nothing.

Get to it

Back in 2016, this feature's political stance was NeverTrump. Once the election was decided, it no longer made any sense to hold that stance. Never was negated. So it was, at least in my mind, time to judge Trump on his performance in office, rather than his uncorrected personality traits.

We now have a 3+ year sample size of Trump as president. He's had successes -- the economy is generally going well, but it's not perfect. He's done less war mongering than any of his predecessors going back to Grover Cleveland. He's worked with Mitch McConnell to largely remake the federal judiciary, including adding two new justices to the Supreme Court. And he's spent much of his time dealing with a political opposition that has come at him with relentless ferocity. He's been impeached, but to no effect. If anything, impeachment has made Trump marginally more popular, because the behavior of his tormentors has been on prominent display and hasn't been a good look for any of them.

Trump would like a second term in office. Although I approve in broad outline of Trump's performance in office, even now I could be persuaded to vote for someone else, mostly because I tire of the drama. Yet, none of the current candidates on offer are even close to acceptable substitutes. It's increasingly possible the Democrats will undergo a hostile takeover by Bernie Sanders and his Jacobin followers. The other Democrats are mediocrities -- Biden was found wanting 32 years ago, Warren is a fraud on various levels, Buttigieg is a marketing campaign disguised as a candidacy, and no one else has any traction, including our local Senator of Small Things. Meanwhile two plutocrats even more dire than the Bad Orange Man, Nanny Bloomberg and the environmental grifter Tom Steyer, flood the airwaves with focus group invective.

If you want to get rid of Trump, I understand -- I really do. But do you see a plausible alternative? If so, it's time to make your case. Get to it.

Random observations

Still not too focused on blogging, but I do have a few thoughts:

• We were having trouble with our television last night (dang it, Comcast), so even if I'd wanted to watch the Dems debate I wouldn't have been able to. But there was no appetite for the topic in our house. The post-mortems indicate Elizabeth Warren didn't have a great night and that Bernie hasn't let a heart attack stop him from yelling at clouds. In a deeply divided nation, it's possible one of the luminaries on the stage might be president in 2021, but I wouldn't count on it.
• Yes, the officiating in the NFL is screwed up. Did it benefit the Packers on Monday night? Everyone seems to think so. To which I respond -- fine. But to hell with the Lions anyway. If the Lions want to assuage their wounds, they can take their frustrations out on the Vikings this week. Benster will likely have a few words about this topic later in the week.
• Congratulations to the Nationals, in the World Series for the first time in franchise history. I wonder what the fans of the Montreal Expos think about it.
• It was always argued that "Seinfeld" was about nothing. The Dems are running a Seinfeld impeachment.

The field, at the moment

Where I see 'em, right now.

Biden: He’s still the front-runner, but is generating no enthusiasm. He’s supposedly electable, but he’s never won an election outside of the state of Delaware -- being Obama's Veep doesn't count. Not seeing it.

Warren: Somehow, she’s not dead, but it’s likely she's gaining on the rest of the Dem field because no one is currently reminding anyone of her flaws, which are manifest. I don’t suppose Trump will be too reticent about mentioning those flaws.

Sanders: A hateful crank, but crankery is always a growth industry on the Left. Running on little more than bile, however, and it’s difficult to see how he’ll hold off Warren.

Harris: I thought she’d be a stronger candidate, but she’s got the Ted Kennedy problem of the Roger Mudd variant. She’s running but she doesn’t seem to know why. And she can't hide her nasty streak.

Buttigieg: The more he says, the more repellent he becomes. As sanctimonious as John Marty, but without the bow-tied fashion sense. Of course, he’s actually running for vice president.

Booker: A classic senatorial windbag. His greatest asset is his self-regard. Coincidentally, it’s his greatest liability. Also running for vice president.

O’Rourke: A complete moron. Married well, though. Every generation throws a Kerry up the pop charts.

Klobuchar: Her magic surname means nothing outside of Minnesota, but her mediocrity shines through. Perhaps she could move to Illinois, change her name to Kupcinet, and try again in 2024.

Castro: One-time HUD secretaries often run for president – Jack Kemp and Ben Carson did, too. He won’t get any farther than they did, though. And he's not nearly as serious as either of them were.

Williamson: I really think she means well. She’s a gust of helium, but a successful one because we live in an unserious world and she has had the wit to monetize her foolishness. Too nice to be president.

Yang: Giving away other people’s money is always a popular position, at least if its not your money being given away. But he’s going nowhere.

Gabbard: She’s the most serious candidate in the Dem field and her antiwar bona fides are undeniable. But her gloomy worldview is a mismatch for this moment and her surfer packaging doesn't square with her overall message.

I understand there are other candidates, too. Maybe you think they're worth discussing, but I can't see why.

Clown Show, Part 2

Then, there was the second Democratic debate on Thursday night. A spectacle. Quick impressions:

Would you care to respond to Senator Harris, Vice President Biden?

• A commenter on another blog compared Joe Biden's evening with Sonny Corleone's visit to the toll booth in The Godfather. It was a setup, for sure, especially the exchange with Kamala Harris regarding busing (more about that shortly). Biden has never done well running for president; he's an old back slapping politician who was past his sell-by date in 2008 and his status as the front-runner was always more about name recognition than anything else. He's not going to make it. 
• I've never understood why people like Bernie Sanders, although I will say this -- he's the most honest totalitarian of the bunch. He's an instantly familiar type -- an angry old man railing against his lifelong enemies. His rhetoric is infused with sulfuric acid. He cannot understand why the world doesn't bend to his will. He's implacable. He's only happy when it rains. He had a moment in 2016 when his opponent was the odious careerist Hillary Clinton, but he's not going to make it out of a 20+ person field.
• Kamala Harris is really a nasty piece of work. She put the cap into Biden about busing, even though it's doubtful her story about being a second grader on a bus in Berkeley will check out (and I'm sure Biden's panicked staff is going full oppo on it). Her parents weren't sharecroppers or factory workers who were part of the Great Northern Migration; they were academics. Like Ted Cruz, she grew up in Canada, graduating from high school in Montreal. She is trying to position herself as a champion of the downtrodden, but as a career prosecutor she's going to receive flak for sins of omission and commission. She will certainly be in position to be the nominee, especially since the California primary is early on the schedule, but I expect the other campaigns are going to do everything they can to take her out tout de suite, as they say in Quebec.
• Pete "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg is a more polite demagogue than Harris or Bernie, but he's a demagogue nonetheless. His disquisition on Republicans and Christianity was particularly dishonest; while a Venn diagram of Christians and Republicans would show considerable overlap, Buttigieg purposely distorts cause and effect. Conservative Christians support Republicans because Republicans are not, in the main, as actively hostile to Christianity as the Democratic Party regularly reveals itself to be. Doing so isn't an abdication of values; rather, it's a tactical move to survive a party that would stomp out dissent. Mayor Pete is a clever guy who is really running for Vice President, but my guess is his smug style will begin to grate and some of the other candidates will use recent events in South Bend to send him back there.



Dear Lord Jesus, I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Joe Biden doesn't, as you well know.

• I've not seen "Election," the 1999 Reese Witherspoon vehicle, but the character she played in the movie, Tracy Flick, has become part of the culture -- the overweening high school steamroller who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Kirsten Gillibrand is like that. She was obnoxious on the debate stage and the recipient of dirty stares from just about every other participant. No one wants to deal with people like her, so she's not going to make it. 
• The two Coloradans on the stage, John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, both tried to be moderate in varying ways. They aren't going to make it.



I have $100,000 in student loan debt and dirty diapers, so I'm going to take your guns away!

• There's something about Eric Swalwell's smarminess that causes a visceral reaction for me, so I'll have to tread carefully. He reminds me of the Greg Marmalard character in Animal House -- smug, phony, sneaky, the sort of guy who would stick a shiv in your back without blinking an eye. Fortunately, he's got no chance. 
• Andrew Yang is the most interesting candidate in the field, by a long shot. Unsurprisingly, he got about 3 minutes to talk. His website is brimming with ideas, some daft, some quite good. I especially like his stance on data privacy: Consent should be informed and active – companies are responsible for ensuring that they collect a positive opt-in from each user before collecting any data, and this opt-in should be accompanied by a clear and easy-to-understand statement about what data is being collected, and how it is going to be used. You can waive these rights and opt in to sharing your data if you wish for the companies’ benefit and your own convenience – but then you should receive a share of the economic value generated from your data. I don't want Yang to be president, but once his campaign hits room temperature Donald Trump ought to adopt some of Yang's ideas for his own campaign.
• Marianne Williamson is your sophomore year college girlfriend. She wrote you a poem called "Mensch and Moonchild" and gave you a few mind-blowing memories behind the stadium, but ultimately you're grateful that she went on a field term to Ecuador in the second semester.

Hillary wins!

I think the sky writer misspelled Bernie

So the AP calls it for Hillary, the day before the California primary? Gee, I wonder what that's all about.

This is what the Bern feels like

A series of cautionary tales at Chicago Boyz about life in a socialist paradise, Venezuela. Of course it couldn't happen here.

Bernie's dilemma

The report from the inspector general of the State Department is out and it tells us what we more or less already knew:

Hillary Clinton and her team ignored clear guidance from the State Department that her email setup broke federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers, a department audit has found. Her aides twice brushed aside concerns, in one case telling technical staff "the matter was not to be discussed further."

If it's up to the praetorian guard that has surrounded Mrs. Clinton from the get-go, the matter won't be discussed further. It's not, however. The Donald will certainly bring the matter up in the upcoming general election campaign. But with Clinton's current adversary, Bernie Sanders, still kinda in the race, will Sanders let it slide?

From the outset, Sanders declared the matter unimportant and off-limits. Does he still feel that way? Should he? Consider some of the key findings:

The 78-page analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says Clinton ignored clear directives. She never sought approval to conduct government business over private email, and never demonstrated the server or the Blackberry she used while in office "met minimum information security requirements."

Twice in 2010, information management staff at the State Department raised concerns that Clinton's email practices failed to meet federal records-keeping requirements. The staff's director responded that Clinton's personal email system had been reviewed and approved by legal staff, "and that the matter was not to be discussed any further."

The audit found no evidence of a legal staff review or approval. It said any such request would have been denied by senior information officers because of security risks.

So we're faced with the usual Clintonian word games here. Are rules the same thing as laws? And "legal staff" who are not otherwise identified apparently grant an imprimatur to whatever the lady wants. And the matter is not to be discussed any further. Capisce?

It's a target-rich environment. But does Bernie dare to broach the subject? Something worth watching, I'd say.

Meanwhile, from the port side

A tidy synopsis of the problems Hillary faces, from the reliably left Salon:

Imagine if you had 22 Top Secret emails on your computer?

Would you be able to claim negligence?

Also, the issue of negligence is a canard. Clinton and her top aides were smart enough to understand protocol. For every legal scholar saying that indictment isn’t likely (because it’s difficult to prove Clinton “knowingly” sent or received classified intelligence), there’s a former attorney general and former intelligence officials saying that indictment is justified.

Ultimately, every question asked of Hillary Clinton by James Comey will benefit the Sanders campaign. In a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, one candidate is being investigated by the FBI and has negative favorability ratings in ten national polls. The other candidate, Bernie Sanders, just raised more money in February than Clinton, without the help of Wall Street or oil and gas lobbyists. If Clinton gets indicted, the Democratic establishment and superdelegates will have no choice but to rally around Bernie Sanders.

The author of the piece, H. A. Goodman, posits ten questions that Hillary will have a difficult time answering. The first question is the best one:

1. What was the political utility in owning a private server and never using a State.gov email address?

Goodman has the right answer, too:

As stated in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “the only believable reason for the private server in her basement was to keep her emails out of the public eye by willfully avoiding freedom of information laws.”

We can’t even see Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches, do you think Clinton wanted the public to know information about her foundation?

I suspect we know the motive. We may yet find out the particulars. Read the whole thing, as we say in the bidness.

Ted and Bernie Win Badgerland

It wasn't particularly close, either:

Cruz control

On the port side?

Bern notice

Thoughts? Yeah, I have a few:

• Ted Cruz does his homework and he knows how to block and tackle. He could have split the vote with John Kasich and Trump would have been able to get another plurality victory, but Cruz was organized and got the key endorsements he needed in Wisconsin. Cruz may not be the perfect candidate, but he understands what it takes to win. Some of the snickering libertarians on my social media feed insist that Cruz can't win north of the Mason-Dixon line, but he seems to be doing that with regularity now.
• Trump could have won Wisconsin, but he ran a lazy and frankly stupid campaign. First off, insulting Scott Walker was a completely boneheaded move, especially when the claims Trump made were easily debunked. People in Wisconsin are probably more immersed in politics than just about anyplace else in the country, given the drama that's taken place there over the last five years. Trump and his people should have known that and tailored their approach to fit the electorate. Instead, they went in with the usual bombast and got their asses handed to them. Didn't exactly break my heart to see that happen.
• If anything, Bernie Sanders was more impressive than Cruz. I am continually told that Hillary is the candidate to beat and that she has broad support. Are we really sure about that? No matter how much institutional support she has, she's not a good candidate. The DNC might be able to drag her across the finish line against Sanders, but she's not making the sale.
• I am told that Trump and Hillary will win New York and that the narrative will shift back to what it has been. We'll see. 

Meanwhile, back on the hustings

You may not have noticed, but this feature was a campaign-free zone for the past week. It got interesting again over the weekend, though:

Bernie Sanders did not just win all three states that voted this weekend -- Washington, Alaska and Hawaii -- he won them by overwhelming, impressive margins. The presidential hopeful won every county in Washington, and some of his biggest victory margins came from the state's most rural and traditionally conservative areas.

The win will likely mean a fundraising boost for the small-donor driven campaign. Sanders does not have a super PAC and instead has enjoyed injections of cash from his fans after big wins or important nights in the election calendar. According to the campaign, supporters from Washington State already give to his cause at disproportionately high rates, so these wins will likely produce another windfall.

These were routs -- Hillary Clinton got crushed in all three states. And that's a problem for her. It won't do to pretend that no one supports her candidacy, but if she were a more popular candidate, she wouldn't get crushed. The prevailing wisdom is that Clinton is going to be the next president, but we thought that eight years ago as well. She should have flicked a septuagenarian socialist away long ago, but here we are.

Meanwhile, on the port side

It was a bad night for Bernie Sanders. I'll know how bad as the day goes on and all the "feel the Bern" folks I encounter on social media react to events. I expect it to get all Kubler-Rossy before too long. Yes, some people are truly addled enough to believe that Bernie's insane math works, but my sense is that a lot of Bernie supporters simply recognize that Hillary Clinton is a horrible candidate and a worse human being. That hasn't changed, even as the Hillary campaign slogs through the spring mud.

My take -- there are ambitious Democrats out there who sat out this cycle primarily because they were terrified of crossing the Clintons. If I were a Democrat who wanted to be president, I'd be secretly rooting for Hillary to lose to Trump, because that loss would clear the Clintons from the field once and for all. And if Trump were to get bored with being president, or preside over a disaster, it would set the Dems up nicely for 2020.

Of course, that would assume there's a viable Democrat out there who could run. There has to be one, right? Can you name one?

Not sure if I believe this, but...

If you are looking for a reason to support The Donald, and I'm not, you could do worse than to consider whether John Hayward is correct:

Trump definitely doesn’t have trouble staying on offense.  He’s already done an amazing job of swatting Bill Clinton aside, after decades of Republicans chasing him around like Wile E. Coyote trying to bag the Road Runner.  Maybe he really can maul Hillary Clinton, in a way other Republican candidates would fear to attempt — allowing themselves to be pushed into a beta role where they spend all of 2016 sounding faintly apologetic about daring to run against the First! Woman! President!, as they spent 2008 and 2012 running against the First! Black! President!

For a taste of things to come, consider the Washington Post op-ed flaying Bernie Sanders on feminist grounds — not for rudely talking over Clinton during a debate, but for failing to let her interrupt him.  The First! Woman! President! Is entitled to special privileges on the debate stage to compensate for centuries of patriarchal oppression, don’t you know!  Good luck trying to lash Donald Trump with this wet-noodle feminist-privilege nonsense.  He’ll tear quite a few pages out of Clinton’s playbook and throw them right in her face, then laugh when her friends, donors, and former employees in the media have the vapors over it.

Maybe that approach will hurt Trump more than his supporters believe, if politically-correct attitudes have a death grip on society… but they really want to watch him try it.  If he does successfully face down media bias and the feminist battalion of the P.C. army, it could be a game-changer for many other candidates to follow.

And there's more (emphasis in original):

One other thing about Trump’s possible effect on the Democrats: it’s true that if he does manage some sort of cross-party fusion, it could weaken conservatism within the Republican Party.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and to be brutally honest, the state of the 2016 race so far would suggest conservatism isn’t terribly strong in the GOP right now.  We shouldn’t really be surprised, because conservatives have been complaining about how the Party establishment betrays them for a long time, especially since the rise of the Tea Party movement.  Trump’s campaign is not the cause of that situation, but a consequence of it.

Let’s knock off the foolishness about President Clinton being better for conservatism than President Trump right now.  She won’t listen to conservatives at all.  She thinks of them as enemies at best, and turkeys to be carved up for her dependent constituents at worst.  If the Democrats win in 2016, they’re going to push hard with a variety of social-engineering techniques to make sure they never lose again.  That task will be made much easier if the GOP lies in disarray after a vicious internal battle.  You can harbor all kinds of doubts about a Trump presidency, while still accepting that it’s wouldn’t be worse for conservatism than the worst-case scenario of Clinton finishing Obama’s “transformation of America.”

I'm not certain if what Hayward is arguing represents his drinking Kool-Aid out of a brandy snifter, a form of trying to intellectualize vulgarity as a potential for public good. And the idea that Trump represents a potential for political realignment is, at best, a dubious hypotheses. It's quite possible, even likely perhaps, that rank and file Democrats will eat their spinach and dutifully pull the lever for Hillary, but Hayward knows the reason they might not (again, emphasis in original):

And look: a big part of Trump’s appeal is the way he speaks, without reservation, of America as the team he’s playing for, the team he wants to win.  That really is an alien idea for the modern Democrat Party, whose ideology is driven by loathing for American history, the multi-culturalist conviction that it’s nothing special (or that it’s especially bad), and the ironclad conviction that grievance is more important than opportunity.

Somehow we’ve reached the point where a slogan like “Make America Great Again” is reflexively spit upon as chauvinist, nationalist, nativist, or even racist.  If the idea that America’s President should be one hundred percent focused on what’s best for American citizens, and American taxpayers, finds some purchase in the Democrat coalition, it’s going to tear through them like a computer virus.

If Trump could do no more than convince a substantial number of Democrats to demand solid government value for our tax dollars, it would spark a revolution among blue-collar Democrat voters.  They’ve been sedated for generations into accepting ridiculous wastes of tax money, because they think fresh dollars can easily be printed up in the Treasury basement after Obama’s inept mega-government flushes each billion dollars down the toilets of corruption and incompetence.  If I were a top Democrat, or one of their Republican Establishment junior partners, I’d be scared to death about the prospect of my voters awakening from that trance.

We'll see about all that. I am pretty certain of this much -- the last two candidates who are likely to be standing at the end of this month will be Trump and Ted Cruz. The ol' GOPe couldn't have envisioned a worst-case scenario that matches what seems likely to happen. A change is coming; what the contours look like is still an open question. Oh, and by the way, read the rest of Hayward's piece.

Must be the bread

So what happens when you force feed a crap sandwich? Well, this:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has won the Michigan Democratic primary, according to the Associated Press, narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton in a stunning upset.

Clinton had been widely expected to win the Rust Belt state, having led Sanders by double digits in polls leading up to Tuesday's primary.

But the Sanders campaign deemed Michigan a “critical showdown,” and aggressively attacked Clinton for her policies on trade and her ties to Wall Street. Sanders is hoping his win in the delegate-heavy Midwestern state — second in delegates only to Texas so far — will show that his populist economic message can resonate elsewhere.

A few gentle reminders are in order:

• Hillary Clinton is a terrible candidate. She has all the institutional advantages, but she can't make the sale because her resume is actually a crap sandwich and people who study the matter find that out quickly. She's failed in just about every endeavor she's undertaken and has the personal warmth of Frau Blucher to boot. If her surname was anything other than Clinton, you would have never heard of her. Joe Biden has to be muttering to himself in the ol' Naval Observatory.
• Bernie's "populist economic message" has always been popular, because those who rob Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul's support. In a place like Michigan, there are a whole lotta Pauls.

Meanwhile, it appears that Donald Trump's victory speech last night was half speech, half infomercial:

A host of Donald Trump-branded products, including Trump Steaks, Trump Water and Trump Wine, made cameo appearances at the businessman's victory speech Tuesday night in Jupiter, Florida.

Trump flaunted the products as a rebuttal to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who last week condemned Trump's presidential bid and criticized some of his failed business ventures.

Trump paraded his products one by one, touting them as testaments to his business acumen.

Must. Avoid. Kool-Aid. Joke.

What a comprehensively bad campaign this has turned out to be. It's astonishing, really.

That's Really Super, Super Tuesday

I didn't go to the caucuses on Tuesday, but I didn't need to. Plenty of other people did and in Minnesota, it appears that Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders won. Here's a screen shot from the Secretary of State's office:

A disappointing night for Rocque "Rocky" De La Fuente

The most interesting number is the one you need to compile, which is the total number of voters for each party. In this caucus, more Republicans cast ballots than Democrats. In Minnesota, that's significant. And it also appears that this turnout wasn't a Jesse Ventura-like moment, since Trump finished a distant third.

Marco Rubio won the vote, but it doesn't mean he won outright. According to the latest numbers, here is the delegate count for Minnesota:

A win, but not a win

Ted Cruz, by finishing second, nets the same number of delegates, at least for the moment. It appears that six additional delegates are not yet accounted for; perhaps they will go to Rubio.

The upshot is this -- nice result for Rubio here, but otherwise, in nearly every other place, he got his ass kicked last night. And while Ted Cruz ended up winning three states, it's difficult to say he had a good night, either. The winner last night was the Donald and there's no point trying to spin it any other way.

On the other side of the aisle, Bernie Sanders dominated here, but it doesn't matter much, because Hillary Clinton won big most everywhere else. So where are we at?

• Trump doesn't have things wrapped up yet, but he's definitely closer to that goal now. Cruz needed to win more states last night than he did and it's difficult to see where Marco Rubio is going to win next. Barring a deus ex machina moment, Trump is likely to be the GOP nominee.
• Hillary is winning, but she's laboring to get it done. Every time I see her on television, she just looks like hell. I also don't see much enthusiasm for what she's selling, either.
• We're now in the game theory portion of the contest. Carson and Kasich probably should go home now, although they'll probably stay in for a little while longer. The question at this point is who will be the last Republican standing? The GOPe hates Cruz, but would they really be willing to let The Donald take over the party by shunning Cruz? Grab that microphone, Lindsey Graham:

Former presidential candidate and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday Republicans might have to support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in order to stop Donald Trump from winning the nomination—just days after he joked about killing Cruz on the floor of the Senate.

“Ted Cruz is not my favorite by any means, and I don’t wish him ill—I was making a joke about Ted—but we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump, and I’m not so sure that would work,” Graham told CBS, as Trump solidified his position as frontrunner with a string of Super Tuesday victories.

Asked to confirm if he would rather support Cruz than see a Trump nomination, Graham laughed. “I can’t believe I would say yes, but yes,” he said.

• Ever the comedian, that Lindsey Graham.
• One last aside -- the "Donald Drumpf" joke is lame, lame, lame. He's never had that name, since it was his parents who changed the family surname. I understand that people hated hearing Trump making fun of the sainted Jon Stewart for changing his name, because one must never speak ill of Stewart, but come on, man. We can do better than that. And I'm sure we will.

Mad as hell and not going to take it any more

One would think that, after seven glorious years of administration of Barack Obama, that everything would be copacetic. Happy days are here again and all that, right? So how do you explain this split screen image from the Star Tribune?

We'd tell you to get off our lawns, but lawns are not a public good and probably filled with chemicals from those Monsanto bastards anyway

Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were in the Twin Cities yesterday, shaking the money tree and dispensing bile from 55-gallon drums. They were here for a fundraiser that carries the name of the eternally sunny Hubert Humphrey, who was known far and wide as the Happy Warrior. These people are not exactly happy warriors, are they? It's frankly bizarre that the party of Hope and Change now presents these two dyspeptic fugitives from Madame Tussauds as their prospective standard bearers.

Considering that these two seasoned citizens are career politicians, and all they see around themselves is failure and injustice, doesn't there seem to be a disconnect between their promises and their demonstrated ability to ameliorate social ills? I suppose it's impertinent to ask.

Bernie and the Jazz Butcher

Just in case you weren't clear:

We're not sure who Bernie Sanders' favorite secretary of State is, but we've got a pretty good sense who his least favorite is. 

Hillary Clinton has said positive words about Kissinger in the past, and he has of her, and when the topic came up at Thursday night's Democratic debate in Milwaukee, Sanders unloaded. 

Kissinger was "one of the most destructive secretaries of State" in history, he said, and he was just getting started. 

“I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend," he added. 

“Count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger."

Maybe it's just me, and it probably is, but that particular disquisition made me think of this old song:

Chernenko was my friend
And Brezhnev was my friend
And Andropov he just dropped off
Now Gorbachev is my friend

He's got yer detente right here, pal.

Give Me or Die

Bern, Baby, Bern:

Senator Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton among nearly every demographic group in the Democratic New Hampshire primary, according to exit polls.

He carried majorities of both men and women. He won among those with and without college degrees. He won among gun owners and non-gun owners. He beat Mrs. Clinton among previous primary voters and those participating for the first time. And he ran ahead among both moderates and liberals.

Hillary Clinton is a terrible candidate. It's mind-boggling that she could lose in so many demographics, but there it is. Our guides in the MSM would prefer not to discuss Clinton's ethical challenges and serial dishonesty, but people understand it. The real question at this point is whether Barack Obama feels any need to continue protecting Madame Blue by slow-walking the investigations over her conduct at State.

Bernie Sanders is an idiot, but he's sincere. In a time of mendacity, that sort of thing stands out.

Meanwhile, we have The Donald:

Don't worry your pretty little heads about the details. We're gonna win so much, so fast, it'll be huge.

On to South Carolina.

Heh

The indispensable John Hayward on Hillary's not-so-good night in Iowa:

She was supposed to be giving a victory speech on Monday night, not tap-dancing around the fact that a weird old radical she was beating by over 50 points last year in Iowa just fought her to a draw.  She’s still trying to co-opt Sanders’ appeal to the “revolutionary” Left, loudly declaring herself a “progressive who gets things done for people.”

She then proceeded to rattle off a list of issues where Democrats have had absolute dominance, under Obama and often for decades beforehand, and declare them all disasters.

“I am honored to stand in the long line of American reformers who make up our minds that the status quo is not good enough, that standing still is not an option, and that brings people together to find ways forward that will improve the lives of Americans,” Clinton said.

That’s pretty harsh on the Democrat who’s been in office for the past seven years, isn’t it?  Only Hillary Clinton can pull us out of the Obama quagmire!

Don't think our famously thin-skinned incumbent didn't notice all that, either. More, a lot more, at the link.