South Carolina

 
Two fun things came out of the South Carolina primary today, the first is that Trump pretty closely performed to his polls and won in a heavily evangelical state, beating ultra-religious Ted Cruz as well as the establishment candidates, the other is that JEB!, after almost a year and something like a hundred and fifty million dollars spent, came in around fourth and has suspended his campaign.

What does it mean? Well it means my impressions on Trump after Iowa keep getting wronger, I thought any stumble would have him shed support, also that we can't tell by polling what actual turnout he is going to have, but it looks like his base is more loyal, and motivated than I had previously thought, which has to be terrifying for the GOP establishment. According to exit polls, the majority of self identified evangelicals also voted for Trump, this tells me three things, the first is that evangelicals are a lot more about hating outsiders than they are about religion, the second is that Ted Cruz has no chance at all of catching up to Trump if he can't win at least the evangelicals in South Carolina, it seems he is just too unlikable even for those who should be his strongest supporters, the third is that Trump is probably going to win the Republican primary unless he gets ratfucked out of it somehow, which is possible, there are a few potential tricks the GOPe has if they want to completely give up hope at getting the presidency, but I think in the end they will buckle down and support Trump because they have no balls at all.

Seriously, the lesson nobody learned from something like eight months of campaigning now is that they all left Trump alone, Right to Rise, the superPAC that supported JEB! spent less than 1%  of it's budget on attack adds against Trump, and Trump spent almost literally his entire campaign attacking JEB! at every opportunity, provoked or otherwise. I said it the other day, no one in the campaign is actually good at campaigning, the field flailed wildly at each other while almost completely ignoring the only competent campaigner, an the on who was vastly outperforming them at the polls, it was completely ridiculous.

Now I think JEB!  was damaged goods at the start, no one wanted another Bush presidency and everything about the man, from his credentials to his manner of speech, to his posture(seriously man stop hunching over all the time) portrayed someone who didn't want to be there and was just kind of awkward to be around, like it or not the idea of being able to "have a beer" with your president really attracts people, it was that, and the Supreme Court stealing the election, that got W. into the office in 2001, and JEB! either ignored advice or was completely incapable of making himself seem approachable, or even likable, the best he got was pitied.

It may be too late to stop Trump getting the nomination, their last hope is Rubio it seems, even though Kasich holds up to pressure better, but it is looking like Rubio gets most of JEB!'s support and donors. None of the campaigns has shown any sign of going after Trump in any organized fashion though, and as long as he controls the narrative he wins, it really is that simple.

Which isn't bad really, not if you are a Democrat anyway, Trump is going to get the vote out against him in a way that no one else can, and his hatefulness will work against him in the general, so go Trump I guess.