Monday, February 29, 2016

SUPER TUESDAY

Super Tuesday is upon us, the participating states/territories are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming and American Samoa, with the Democrats also having a Democrats Abroad voting, allowing those off in foreign lands to participate as well, at the moment Democrats Abroad has opened in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the full schedule is available here. That will be open in various forms until March 8, and if we are honest it doesn't really matter much, with something like 17 delegates total at stake, but hey it's kicking off anyway.

For more details on the various states, 538.com has an excellent guide for both parties that you can find here as well

The Democrat side is relatively uninteresting, with only two serious contenders, the makeup of the states generally favors Clinton, and especially when the Superdelegates are considered, Sanders has a hill to climb but it is still possible for him to keep it close in most of the states an probably even win a couple.



Of more interest is the Republicans, the field has finally narrowed to a reasonable amount of candidates, they are:



 Of them Kasich and Carson have no realistic expectation of significant wins, and Carson is probably only in the race at this point because his entire campaign is a giant book tour essentially, with the added benefit that people give him money for free too.
Kasich seems to honestly think he can win something, but outside of his home state of Ohio that is pretty dubious, and Trump is outpolling him even there, possibly he is in it to secure a cabinet or VP slot from whoever makes him an endorsement offer, however his support is so low at this point I don't think anyone will.


Trump, Rubio, Cruz. The big three, Trump is dominating in all states except Texas, where he is still within the margin of error with Ted Cruz, I fully expect him to win big tomorrow. Rubio has been on an all out blitz of late against Trump, but he is about as incompetent as they come and his attacks have been shrugged off and drowned out by major endorsements for Trump by Chris Christie and Senator Jeff Sessions(R, Alabama) Sessions is a major player in the Senate, probably in the top five of influential people in that body, and his endorsement is a sign of the establishment fracturing very deeply, as well another piece of evidence for Trump's continuing dominance.



The GOP has been a surprisingly loosely controlled network of Capitalists, racists, and religious bigots kept in line by lies and treachery from the true power brokers who don't actually believe in anything except power itself, specifically that they should have it, but the coalition has held together long enough for true believers of the various factions to gain too much influence, the loosening of campaign finance rules has ironically allowed independent(ish) billionaires to pick candidates based on what they want, not what the party wants, and it is all going to hell right now.



If the establishment had any control, we would have seen endorsements an funding line up behind one of the candidates(probably Rubio) by the new year at the latest, but they didn't, because no one can agree on what they want, and the base actually holds power now. Their only hope is to screw Trump at the convention, but they need someone to keep it close enough now, on Super Tuesday, that they can barely get away with it, but since none of the candidates wants to admit defeat or cut off the money spigot so that support can coalesce behind one person, the support is fractured and they can't get close. Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, and that will cause the party to shed members, possibly to a new party, possibly to something like the Constitution party.
If they make it obvious they screwed Trump out of the nomination then he will take the party down with him, running independent or as a Libertarian will fracture the base just as, if not more effectively and will harm the down ticket races even more than if he was the nominee.


The only chance the GOP has of retaining any control at this point is to line up behind Trump and try to guide him, giving the appearance of control if not the reality, he will still lose, and he will still hurt the down ticket races, but the bleeding will be a lot less if they cover the biggest cracks, unfortunately for them they can't do that, as too many different factions in the party want to get theirs right now.


Going to be a helluva ride folks.


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