Last night was the final Republican debate before the New Hampshire primary election.  It started with mind numbing incompetence.  Ben Carson didn’t hear his name, so he kind of hovered off stage while the other candidates just calmly walked past him.  The moderators didn’t even notice he was missing.  Donald Trump showed up and decided that he would stay by Ben Carson.  I am not sure why.  Eventually they did announce Carson loud enough so even he could hear and then announced Trump.  Incredibly, one of the other candidates had to remind the moderators they had also forgotten John Kasich.  This looked like a bad SNL parody of a debate.

There was a little dust up between Cruz and Carson, but it didn’t matter. The problem for Carson is that he made it easy to understand why the Cruz campaign thought he was toast.  If he wanted to make Cruz look like an evil creature from the dark side, he came up a bit short.  Instead, Carson looked pettish, weak and pathetic.  This will have little impact on Cruz.

Christie took on Rubio and both lost big time.  Rubio was humiliated and had a Quail/Perry moment.  He literally kept repeating the same talking points right after Christie ripped him for repeating talking points.  It was awful.  I think the image of Rubio as the smooth campaigner who can beat Hillary Clinton was shattered into oblivion.  Christie, on the other hand, came across as an ass, and this probably hurt him almost as much as it hurt Rubio.

Donald Trump was hammered by Bush with regard to eminent domain and it stuck.  At one point Trump was literally booed.  I don’t think that was all Bush supporters.  Trump already had unfavorability ratings north of 60%.  Odds are they are even higher after last night.  If the pundits don’t think Trump was hurt by this, they were not watching the same debate.

Trump is at his maximum.  The only place he can go is down.  The only question is how far.  Rubio lost big time and he is likely to shred support.  Cruz is likely to gain the most; Kasich is also likely to gain some.  The remainder of the candidates will either stay the same or drop even further.

The pundits are in a state of shock.  They cannot believe what is happening.  To them, Ted Cruz is the ultimate nightmare.  They just don’t like him.  They can’t understand why anyone would like him. They do not grasp the level of anger and frustration at the Republican establishment.  They know Trump is damaged goods.  They know Rubio is unlikely to recover from being humiliated by Christie.  They keep hoping that one of the governors will surge to the top because deep down they know that right now everything is pointing toward President Ted Cruz.

The pundits also missed something else.  Only one man on that stage looked and acted Presidential.  That was Ted Cruz.  He was the only adult on the platform.

TDM

In 2004, Howard Dean was soaring in the polls with his strange group of followers he called the “Perfect Storm.”  They frequently showed up in orange hats.  Dean was drawing record crowds and going into Iowa he was leading in the polls by over 20 points.  But, Dean not only didn’t win in Iowa, he came in third.  The person who won in Iowa was John Kerry.  Kerry had spent a lot of time there and had built up a major organization.  Sound familiar?  When Dean realized he lost, he melted down with the famous scream during his “victory speech.”   It was obvious that Dean was not Presidential material.  John Kerry had the nomination wrapped up by March 2.

The similarity between the Howard Dean campaign and the Donald Trump campaign is obvious.  Both were drawing huge enthusiastic crowds.  Both seemed to be immune from attacks by other candidates.  Both were soaring in the polls.  Both expected to win Iowa.  Both lost.  Both melted down.  If anything the Donald Trump meltdown was even worse than Dean’s.

I  couldn’t help but notice that both Dean and Trump tried to kiss up to evangelicals by quoting scripture.  Dean said his favorite New Testament book was Job.  Donald quoted from two Corinthians.  It didn’t work.  Evangelicals are not that stupid.

Howard Dean never recovered from his meltdown after Iowa.  If history repeats itself, Donald Trump may not recover either.  In both cases the candidates looked like they were defying gravity.  t was obvious to a lot of people from day one that neither man had the temperament to be President of the United States but it didn’t seem to matter.  Until it did matter.  We really didn’t learn anything new about Donald Trump after Iowa.  He just made the problems impossible to ignore.

Trump may literally be laughed off the national stage.  I do not know who will win New Hampshire, but I sure won’t be surprised to see Trump do poorly.  I also expect Bush and Christie to do poorly.  Kasich may improve some, but it is unlikely to be enough to matter. We could easily have a two man race between Cruz and Rubio after New Hampshire.

TDM

It has been obvious for some time that Fox News is pumping up Rubio big time.  At first I thought they were just dumping on Cruz, but the following article from Breitbart offers a more sinister explanation:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/03/5-basic-questions-megyn-kelly-forgot-ask-marco-rubio/

 Fox News’s vice president of news and Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, is the father of Marco Rubio’s press secretary, Brooke Sammon.

Fox News’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, is a co-chair of what is arguably one of the biggest immigration lobbying firms in the country, The Partnership for a New American Economy. Via his lobbying firm, Murdoch has endorsed Rubio’s 2013 amnesty bill, as well as Rubio’s 2015 immigration expansion bill. Murdoch has also endorsed President Obama’s trade agenda, which Rubio has said would be the “second pillar” of a President Rubio’s three-pillar foreign policy strategy.

One could make the argument that the Fox moderators had a mission to take down Cruz and elevate Rubio.   Granted Megyn Kelly asked a tough question regarding Rubio on amnesty.  But she also tossed him some pretty nice softballs and she accused Cruz of supporting legalization, only to admit, after the debate, that the records show he most definitely did not support legalization.

Chris Wallace asked Chris Christie to slam Cruz about his vote regarding the NSA legislation and then wouldn’t let Cruz respond because Christie didn’t mention Cruz by name.  When Cruz complained, Wallace arrogantly rebuked him and later Fox used this exchange as evidence that Cruz had a bad night.

Fox News didn’t seem to notice that following this “terrible” debate performance by Cruz he gained several points and won the caucuses.  Cruz was right that many of the questions were openly asking other candidates to explain to Ted Cruz why he is wrong.  He made a mistake when he became defensive about this, but Fox News is at least partly to blame.  It sure looks like they goaded him into this and then mocked him when he responded.  We expect that kind of crap from MSNBC.  We shouldn’t tolerate it from Fox.  I doubt that Cruz will make that mistake again.

In the meantime, Fox News constantly promotes Rubio as the big winner.  Is that having any impact on his increase in rating?

Look at the questions Breitbart wanted Megyn Kelly to ask Marco Rubio.  Note that Breitbart is not supporting Cruz, it is just pointing out that these are legitimate questions.

I actually like Marco Rubio.  He is charming and is great at explaining conservative positions.  But bias is bias and we should all be aware of it when we see it.  We shouldn’t let the Republican establishment choose the republican nominee.  We also shouldn’t let Fox News decide that either.  They liked John McCain and Mitt Romney too.

TDM

Everyone is piling on Ted Cruz for running a dirty campaign.  It turns out that the Rubio campaign was doing the exact same thing.  Jeb Bush and the other guys pulling about 2% would have definitely done the same thing, if they had figured it out in time.  At least Cruz had the decency to own up to it and apologize.  We can’t even imagine Donald Trump doing that.  If Trump and Rubio and the irrelevants  try to dump on Cruz about this during the debate Saturday night it could backfire big time.  Cruz is extremely good at handing this kind of thing, especially when he knows it is coming.

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/02/rush-limbaugh-february-3

Ben Carson is the one who created the rumor by his own comments.  That is why the rumor started.  Carson was sounding like someone ready to call it a day.  The press picked up on it.  Who can blame them when Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum all folded their tents.  I think it is entirely possible that Ben Carson was seriously considering ending his campaign, until he learned that he did better than expected in Iowa.

Perhaps Rush Limbaugh said it best.  When asked why the Cruz campaign is being attacked from all sides on this while Rubio is ignored:

“Cruz is the frontrunner!”  “They don’t think they can go after him on issues.”

Forget the media spin.  People are attacking Cruz because Cruz is winning.  There are worst things than a candidate dedicated to doing whatever it takes to win an election.  Actually, it is about time we picked someone readying, willing and able to take on a fight.   The most unethical thing a Republican candidate can do is lose to someone like Hillary Clinton of Bernie Sanders.  Nice guys don’t finish last, they just finish second and inflect the country with President Barack Obama.  John McCain and Mitt Romney rain nice pleasant campaigns.  The results were catastrophic.

Why would we count on the main stream media to tell us which candidate is most electable.  Haven’t we made that mistake too many times before.  Perhaps the most electable candidate is not the guy who flashes the most charm.  It is the guy ready, willing and able to throw a few elbows.

TDM

Donald Trump is now claiming that Ted Cruz stole the election in Iowa.  There is no doubt that Ted Cruz’s campaign was ruthless in getting the win in Iowa.  Just like the Trump campaign and all the other campaign.  Cruz just did a better job.  The story about Ben Carson leaving the race was generated by CNN, not the Cruz campaign.  Trump knows this just like he knows that Cruz is clearly eligible to be President.  Trump is starting to look and sound desperate.  If he attacks Cruz with this during the debate Saturday Cruz will eat his lunch.

The reason Donald Trump lost is easily explained by looking at the numbers.  The first number is Donald Trump’s unfavorability rating.  It is at 60% which is the highest since Gallop started measuring this around 1992.  This means that in any election, anywhere, if people change their mind at the last minute they will almost never choose Donald Trump.  He is currently running about 38% in New Hampshire:

http://www.whdh.com/story/31126831/hiller-instinct-7newsumass-lowell-new-hampshire-tracking-poll-day-3

Note that the article describes Trump as “frozen” at 38%.  That is pretty accurate.  Trump has hit his ceiling and the only possible direction for him is down.  He may win in New Hampshire, but he will get a lot less than 38% and it will be viewed as another loss.

Another number is the percentage of people who were motivated by someone who shares their values.  New York values play well in New York and on Fox News.  They didn’t play well in Des Moines.  The people motivated to vote for Cruz showed up in droves.  Most “experts” thought that if turnout was over 130,000 that Trump would easily win.  The theory was that all these new and excited voters would probably be for Trump.  Most experts felt that the only way Cruz could win was if there was bad weather and only the old predictable die-hards showed up.  This explains Charles Krauthammer saying this looked like a good night for Trump while the banner showing Ted Cruz racking up the vote totals was playing in the background.

Yes a whole lot of people showed up, but they weren’t people lured by the siren call of the Trump celebrity tour.  They were people who were most concerned about getting a President who shared their values.  The pundits assume that all of these people were evangelicals.  Keep in mind that the pundits were wrong before and they are wrong now.  While Cruz openly solicited the votes of evangelicals, so did Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.  That is why Trump brought out Jerry Falwell. Evangelicals are not single issue voters.  If you doubt that, ask Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.  The values that brought out the voters were standing up to the establishment, defending the constitution, defending religious freedom and defending the second amendment.  The results were stunning.  The turnout in Iowa exceeded everyone’s expectation and a huge percentage of the additional voters went for either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

There is one more number and this one really matters.  The only one with a higher unfavorability than Donald Trump is the United States congress which has an unfavorability rating of over 75%.  People in both parties are sick and tired of the establishment.  Cruz understands this better than anyone.  That is why he said you gave Republicans a big victory in 2012 and 2014 and nothing changed.  People are sick and tired of getting burned by the Republican establishment.  Donald Trump exists because he looked like the guy to stand up to the establishment.  Now he is embracing them and bragging about their support.  He is hammering Ted Cruz for being hated by everyone in Washington.  He is right about that.  Cruz is also clearly hated by Fox News.  That just may be the best possible reason to vote for him.

TDM

Last night while Fox News was examining the entrance polls showing a big victory for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz was wracking up a big victory with the actual results playing in the background.  Fox News has been on the Trump bandwagon for months.  The rest of the main stream media was fanning the flames.  Fox did this because they really thought Trump was the best candidate to win the general election.  They didn’t notice the Gallop poll showing Trump with the highest unfavorability rating since they started measuring this.  Many top conservatives united behind Ted Cruz because they realized two things Fox News missed.  Donald Trump is not a true conservative.  Donald Trump was the only major Republican candidate capable of losing to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

I wrote a column titled New York, New York early in January.  It came true last night:

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

Biggest winner:   The American people.  The Trump experiment is over

Grand Prize:         Ted Cruz

Second Place:       Marco Rubio

Show:                     Ben Carson

Biggest Loser:      Donald Trump

Other losers:         Fox News, Sarah Palin, Jerry Falwell, John Jefress, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum.

Fox News still doesn’t get it.  The ladies on “Outnumbered” cannot seem to comprehend what happened.  They all clearly hate Ted Cruz and are desperately trying to avoid the obvious.  Cruz won and there’s nothing they can do about it.  New York, New York.  Nice place to visit, don’t want to live there.

TDM

I was beginning to wonder if I was delusional about the debate last night.  Then I watched the following video by Dick Morris and he saw this just about the same way as me.

http://www.dickmorris.com/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=signup&utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports

I had the same reaction as Morris with regard to immigration.  I also agree that Jeb Bush buried Rubio by agreeing with him.  Morris also put in finger on something important.  Cruz handled the debate like a President.  The difference in gravitas between Cruz and the other candidates was enormous.  The question is whether the voters in Iowa noticed.

TDM

If you watched Fox News or CNN, Marco Rubio won the debate.  All of the main stream media wants us to believe that Rubio won the debate.  They are all terrified that Ted Cruz might be the next President of the United.  He terrified Republicans, because he does not play the game and because they really believe a strong conservative will lose in the general election.  The Republican establishment, much like liberals, believes a lot of things that are not true.  They really believe that they need a charming RINO to win election.  They definitely believe that Ted Cruz will lead them to disaster.  Plus, they hate him.

At first I had trouble figuring out who was most effective.  It was obvious that this was a Cruz – Rubio debate.  No one else mattered.  Rubio did have his good moments.  He is a very charming guy and the moderators gave the chance to glow in the spotlight..  But then it dawned on me.  The truly great performer is the one who can silence the crowd.  There is an old story about when Elvis performed in a singing contest, before anyone knew him.  He started singing and the crowd went completely silent.  They didn’t even clap when he was done.  He thought he had done poorly.  Instead, he had shocked them into silence.  Last night Ted Cruz silenced the audience.  He silenced the moderators who literally stopped asking him questions.  He silenced the other candidates.  No one even mentioned him during the last few minutes of the debate.  I believe the reason was that he stunned them with how eloquently and effectively he presented his position.  Now the real question is how the TV audience and more importantly, how the voters in Iowa responded.  If they saw what I saw, Ted Cruz will win Iowa big time.  If they didn’t, then Rubio will surge past him in the polls and Donald Trump will be the nominee.

TDM

Donald Trump is threatening to boycotting the Fox News debate Thursday:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/26/trump-will-definitely-not-participate-in-fox-debate-campaign-says/?tid=sm_tw

“I probably won’t be doing the debate. I’m going to have something else in Iowa,” 

His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, confirmed that Trump would “definitely not” participate in Thursday’s Fox News Debate.

This could be a game changing decision.  This is strong evidence that Trump’s arrogance has reached the point where he thinks he is invincible.  This is consistent with his argument that he  could shoot somebody on 5^th avenue and no one would care.

I am absolutely certain that Chris Wallace, Brett Baer and Megyn Kelly are seething with anger at this.  They are all professionals and they will try to hide this, but the anger will be there.

Fox has already responded with the following:

“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

Those people opposed to Donald Trump were just handed a major gift.  The chink in his armor.  Notice that Fox News is taking the position that Donald Trump is afraid of them.  The man who is bragging about standing up to everyone is apparently terrified of Megyn Kelly.  Ouch!

Some in the media think this will help Trump, because the debate will be all about him and he won’t have to say anything.  They could be right about that.  But I suspect a lot of people will recognize that this behavior is childish and immature.  It is fun to watch, as a celebrity candidate.  It will not be fun to have a President of the United States even more thin-skinned and childish than the current one.

I wish everyone in the Debate Thursday night would just ignore Trump, but of course that won’t happen.  Trump thinks that ratings will go way down because he is not there.  That may not happen either.  In fact, the opposite may occur.  People may tune in just to watch the fireworks.  If that happens, this was a huge blunder by Trump.

I learned this when I was eight years old.  If someone gets mad, picks up his ball and goes home the ultimate revenge is to play the game without him and have a great time.

TDM

Incredibly the “evangelical” establishment has jumped on the Trump bandwagon.  The main stream media assumes that people like Jerry Falwell Jr., Sarah Palin and Dr. Jeffress speak for all evangelicals.  I am not sure that is true.  I hope it is not true, because they are being naïve and stupid.

If Donald Trump and Ted Cruz compete for the nomination, that benefits everyone, particularly evangelicals.  At a minimum, Cruz will force Donald Trump to commit to strong conservative positions.  But if everyone jumps on the bandwagon and nominates Donald Trump by public proclamation we are almost certain to see the “old” Donald Trump return sooner rather than later.  We could be experiencing severe buyer’s remorse before the RNC convention.

Trump will rapidly move toward the political center to position himself to win a general election.  He will signal his willingness to work with Democrats to end the gridlock.  He will become even more arrogant. Some of that arrogance will be directed toward naïve conservatives.  In other words, Trump will become exactly like the Republican establishment we hate.  This is a guy who literally said he could shoot someone on 5^th Avenue and it wouldn’t matter.  Seriously?

I firmly believe that one of the reasons Barack Obama got elected in 2008 was the Rick Warren interview at Saddleback Church.  That was interpreted by many people as evidence that Obama was at least friendly with the evangelical community.  Obviously, the opposite was true.  This is the most anti-Christian President in our nation’s history.  Frankly I am sick and tired of a handful of pastors from Mega churches pretending they speak for all evangelicals.  They don’t.  To be blunt the Evangelical establishment is every bit as dangerous to our freedom as the Republican Establishment and the Democratic establishment.  Power always corrupts and that is just as true for the clergy as it is for politicians.

Conservatives are on the brink of a radical change in our nationals politics.  It will be a real shame if we allow the establishment, to once again decide what is best for the rest of us.

TDM