An Obvious Choice

Whew Friends,

It feels as if we've come to a brief respite after a frenzied week in the race for the White House.

I do want to rub it in that Carly Fiorina, as I predicted, had the shortest Vice Presidential run in history.

Indeed, the political landscape changed overnight, and the headliner on the GOP ticket was settled unexpectedly early.

Donald Trump is the most controversial Republican nominee that I can remember since Barry Goldwater, and his nomination has had immediate repercussions within the party establishment.

Both ex-presidents Bush and former candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham will not back him, and House Speaker Paul Ryan also says no for now.

I have already projected what one solution to many of Trump's challenges would be, and I believe he's shrewd enough to know it.

He's already tipped his hand.

Yesterday, Trump said there's a 40% chance his vice presidential nominee will come from his former field of challengers. I say there's a 100% chance.

Alright, so I may look like a young tough right now but just wait
until I have a little grey hair and a couple of chins in eight years.

Sen. Marco Rubio, the third-place finisher is looking for a job and making overtures to the Trump campaign.

While other establishment Republicans are eschewing Trump, Rubio was one of the first to open the door to supporting the presumptive nominee.

He is the future of the Republican party, obviously has presidential aspirations, and has yet to hit his prime with regard to the maturity needed to be president. He is also obviously influential in the Latino community.

And if he didn't before, Rubio now believes from firsthand experience that winners, no matter how unlikely, find a way to win. He knows from his own personal pain that Trump has a genuine chance.

He's probably thinking that four to eight years as second-in-command would give him a clear pathway to the Oval Office.

And Rubio brings a lot to the table.

That includes giving the ticket instant credibility with many in the establishment who are either on the fence or worse.

Strictly as a detached observer, I can't see one flaw with a Trump/Rubio ticket (other than the obvious ones with the headliner himself), nor can I see a better one among the many possibilities.

Let's see just how smart the Trump camp is.

WorldsBestPundit

Bernie's Place on the Ticket

Almost the weekend, Friends,

And it's certainly been a YUGE week! While Donald Trump says that even he was shocked at how fast he actually attained the Republican nomination, Bernie Sanders found new life in Indiana.

The question is: what exactly is that new life, and how will it impact the Democratic presidential race?

The math is pretty apparent and is heavily stacked in Hillary Clinton's favor. She's just 160 delegates away from clinching the nomination because of her 535+ "super delegates," and nine contests still remain.

With all of them divvying up their delegates proportionally, Sanders would have to get nearly every remaining vote to take the nomination. So, he's hoping to force a contested convention by swaying some of her super delegates his way.

This may or may not happen depending on Bernie's momentum going into the Philadelphia convention at the end of July.

What's clear is that Bernie holds sway over a huge bloc of Independent and first-time voters whose likelihood of voting for Hillary is a complete question mark. I say most of them won't--unless Bernie is on the ticket too.

Alright, so we really don't like each other very much, and I think her values are pretty
screwed up, but I'll do anything to stop Donald Trump. Heck, I'll even be Vice President

I had this crazy thought yesterday morning after I wrote yesterday's post. Then, not two hours later, I happened to have NPR on the car radio, and someone casually mentioned Bernie as Hillary's potential running mate. I knew I was onto something.

I, for one, could actually vote for that ticket without holding my nose.

It would be a brilliant way to ensure The Bern stays kindled and he has a personal stake in the race, keep him out stumping where he's so effective, and capture a YUGE voting bloc.

He's already said he'll do anything to keep Trump from being president, and being Vice President ain't a bad way to do that.

I admit, I love Bernie Sanders...but his chances of winning the nomination are worse than that snowball we're always referring to.

A Clinton/Sanders ticket would win by a landslide.  To me, a lifelong political reporter and observer, it's an absolute no brainer.

I say it's going to happen, and remember where you read it first.

Dems Are Tone Deaf

Happy day after, Friends,

The Indiana primary could not have gone more as I predicted, even if I had written yesterday's post after the results were already in.

I absolutely nailed it, and I defy any other political pundit to make the same claim.

As I stated he would be this morning, Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

As I stated he would be this morning, Bernie Sanders is a rejuvenated candidate.

The problem is, the Democratic leadership is in denial about the latter.

Here's the deal. The leadership continues to blindly support a flawed and damaged candidate, while the Independent voters she needs to win a general election are screaming they will NEVER vote for her.

Well, this was last time. This time around, the big sign should probably have the word
"No" in front of it.

Their importance is pretty much borne out by the results so far. The states in which Hillary Clinton has won primaries are those in which millions of Independents have been barred from voting.

How ironic, considering the Dems are constantly pointing their finger at the GOP as the party of organized disenfranchisement. .

In a climate that's screaming for  disruption, the Democrats can only get their anointed one nominated by excluding millions.

This behavior demonstrates how detached the party leadership is from its electorate (which normally includes millions of Independents). It's almost as if they're so intoxicated by their own narrative of a Hillary presidency that they've stopped paying attention.

Independent voters are shouting loudly how they feel about Hillary Clinton, but the leadership hears only its own tune. They seem to be listening to a Golden Oldie from the Clinton glory days of 1992.

Being such a known quantity makes it virtually impossible for Hillary to reinvent herself in any significant way between now and November.

There are nine contests left, and aside from New Jersey, I forecast Bernie Sanders will take them. Momentum could even lead to a Sanders sweep of all nine.

A sweep will still not give Bernie enough delegates to wrest the nomination away from Hillary at the July convention. But Bernie will have won the majority of contests and have YUGE momentum going in.

If the party turns a blind eye to the all-important momentum factor and steamrolls Hillary to the Democratic nomination, it will set itself up for certain failure in November.

Any blue ticket will need to include Bernie Sanders in some meaningful and important way, or you can count on seeing Donald Trump take the presidential oath of office on January 20th.

The Landscape Changes Today

Happy Indiana Primary day, Friends,

By the end of the day, Donald Trump will have clinched the GOP nomination. That's not shocking news, but what may be the real story is that Bernie Sanders' campaign could be genuinely rejuvenated.

Last week, I said that Bernie's new strategy appeared to be to prevent Hillary Clinton from getting enough votes for a first-vote nomination at this summer's Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

I read Lew's Views last week and decided he was right. He said I
should shoot for a contested convention, and that's exactly what I'm
going to do! 

A day later, Bernie came out publicly and announced it.

At that point, it did not seem likely that Sanders even had a chance to win today's primary in Indiana.

But the poll numbers have tightened up, and now they show him in a virtual dead heat with Hillary Clinton.

Each time the poll's have forecast a contest this close, Bernie has come up the winner. I believe that will happen again in Indiana.

On the Republican side, the Indiana primary is a modified winner-take-all state, but not for the Democrats.

In all their primaries, delegates are awarded proportionally. That means in close contests, the pledged delegates are virtually split evenly.

At this point, Sanders is more than 200 pledged delegates behind Hillary.

And because the party has already awarded 16% of the total delegates (700+) to Clinton as "super delegates," she goes into each contest with a big lead. A Sanders win, even in a blowout, can actually result in Hillary getting more delegates,

That's why Donald Trump, and now increasingly Sanders, have been saying the system is rigged.

If Sanders wins today he'll already have won some 18 contests. He may wind up winning more than half of them, including the grand prize of California by double digits, and still lose the nomination to Hillary. The math says that's what will happen.

But Bernie will not go quietly, especially if he wins today and eventually winds up with more popular votes and pledged delegates than Hillary. It's still quite possible.

If  Sanders takes Indiana, and has momentum going into the remaining western-state primaries and one remaining caucus in South Dakota, he'll sweep those and go into the convention as the popular favorite.

Even though he'll still trail in super delegate votes, the party would have genuine hell to pay if it flouts the wishes of its voters.

We're not at this point yet, and Bernie first has to win today. But if  he does, the landscape in this crazy presidential race changes yet again.

Rubio Angling for VP?

Happy new work week, Friends,

It will be a dramatic turn of events, but it looks like Senator Marco Rubio is angling to be on the ticket with Donald Trump.

And what a GOP dream ticket it could be!

Presumptive nominee Trump has been saying for a good number of weeks that he intends to select someone who's familiar with the system to run with him.

I'd been thinking from early on that the master deal maker had already struck one with Cruz to be on the ticket with him. But that deal may have gone by the boards as the campaign progressed and got nastier.

Cruz, though a U.S. Senator like Rubio, may be popular with a significant bloc of voters, but is perhaps the most unpopular member of  the upper house.

Rubio, however, is a rising star within the GOP, is popular among voters, especially Latinos, and has strong support inside the Senate. He would make a much better and more strategic choice than Cruz to be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Okay, so I may be little, but I've got room to grow. Maybe in eight years I'll be able
to fill that big chair in the Oval Office.

The former candidate's office signaled yesterday that he may support Trump for the GOP nomination.  I think there's a lot more to that overture than just his endorsement.

According to the GOP's rules, more than 100 of  Rubio's 172 delegate's are unbound. If Rubio were to throw their votes to Trump, the race would be over by Wednesday.

I'm not sure when Rubio will announce his endorsement. Perhaps he'll wait until after Donald Trump takes tomorrow's Indiana primary. That means, we could have an announcement by Wednesday morning.

His choice as running mate would come after.

No one is talking about this, and again I'm sticking my neck out. But if the Republican ticket turns out to be Trump/Rubio, remember you read it here first.

Ted's Cruzin' for a Losin'

Good Sunday morning, Friends,

I just watched an interesting and revealing interview with Ted Cruz. NBC's Chuck Todd tried to get Cruz to answer a simple question, "Would you support Donald Trump if he gets the Republican nomination?"

Cruz managed to duck this simple yes or no question nine separate times!

Ted Cruz is smiling today, but two days from now he's
likely to be staked in the heart by Donald Trump.

At present, Cruz is Trump's most vocal critic, but 'Lyin' Ted' could not find it within himself to answer this question like a real person rather than a slithering politician.

Could it be that my prediction for Cruz way back in January is actually correct?

I said then that Cruz was pulling punches with Trump because the two had already struck a deal to share the GOP ticket. Cruz continues to give that theory credence by refusing to throw a knockout blow at Trump...and he's had a lot of chances.

Cruz could have proven my prediction wrong by simply answering that he couldn't support a Trump nomination under any circumstances. Instead, he fought Chuck Todd's question over and over again.

Having covered politics for decades, I can tell when a candidate is trying to keep the door open.

As of today, neither Cruz nor John Kasich have any mathematical possibility of gaining the GOP nomination on the first convention vote--only Donald Trump does. The former two's only hope for nomination is in a contested convention.

But this coming Tuesday will be their day of reckoning, as Donald Trump will take all of Indiana's delegates with a double-digit victory in the primary there.

After that, if Kasich and Cruz stay in the race. their role is reduced to that of gadfly. There is no way under current rules that Trump doesn't clinch the nomination, and the rules will probably not change.

All the machinations that Cruz has been pulling of late: teaming up with Kasich, choosing Carly Fiorina as his 'running mate', and lobbying delegates behind the scenes, have produced no relevant results.

Ted's simply Cruzin' for a Losin'.