Ted Cruz won in Iowa.  The Republican establishment lost.  Donald Trump won in New Hampshire.  The Republican establishment lost.  We do not know who will win South Carolina yet, but odds are high the Republican establishment will lose, again.  At this point, we are unaware of any state when a Republican establishment candidate seems likely to win.

Now the Republican establishment and its supporters in the media are floating the idea of a brokered convention.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GOP_2016_RUBIO?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-11-03-46-36

There hasn’t been a contested convention since 1976, yet Republican National Committee officials have already had preliminary discussions about the possibility of no candidate securing a majority of delegates in the state-by-state primary contests in the coming months.

They simply cannot bear the thought of either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump winning the nomination.  If there is no chance of a Republican Establishment candidate actually winning the nomination, the plan is to muddy the waters to be sure neither Trump or Cruz win either.

The Republican establishment is desperate and completely out of touch with reality. This strategy is doomed to fail.  The nomination will be wrapped up sooner rather than later and it is probably going to be either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump.  But it would be much worse if this actually worked.  Can you imagine a brokered convention where a John Kasich, Jeb Bush or even Marco Rubio was handed the nomination without regard to actual results.  It would doom the Republican Party to the worse general election defeat in history.

The arrogance of the cultured elite is staggering.  Perhaps Lindsey Graham gave the most honest answer about this when he said the choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz was like choosing between getting shot or poisoned.  Graham, like Rubio, is famously part of the gang of eight that has successfully compromised with people like Chuck Schumer to help Democrats push through incredibly irresponsible legislation.  The gang of eight has repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  They are the reason Sonja Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are on the Supreme Court.  They tried and failed to push through immigration reform.  One of the reason they hate Ted Cruz is that he almost single handedly stopped them.

The Republican establishment thinks they are smarter than you.  They view true conservatives as Neanderthals who lack the cognitive skills to understand how things really work. Obama isn’t the only one who thinks conservatives are naïve evangelicals clinging to their guns and their religion.   In many ways they are like liberals who value their own feeling and opinions over inconvenient things like facts and actual results.

Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh was furious enough to tell his listeners the cold, hard truth.  Up until now he has been careful to not take sides.  Limbaugh avoids endorsing candidates.  He provided cover to both Trump and Rubio by refusing to let people define them as not having conservative values.  When he started to talk about this Wednesday, it was clear that members of his staff were trying desperately to get him off the subject.  Instead Limbaugh said something that is likely to have a major impact on this race.  He said that Ted Cruz is the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to be a true conservative.  He then said that if voters wanted a true conservative, Cruz was the only option.  He started to say that only one other candidate came close, but then he stopped and said no.  He wasn’t going to do that because there really is no true conservative other than Cruz.

If the Republican establish thought there was any chance that Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or John Kasich could win the nomination, there would be zero discussion of a brokered convention.  If only they stood up for the American people with the same determination with which they desperately cling to power.

TDM

Donald Trump won in New Hampshire.  That really matters, but it is important to remember that New Hampshire is an open primary state.  Democrats and Independents can and do vote in the Republican primary.  This reminds me of the 1972 Michigan primary.  There was no race on the Republican side because Richard Nixon was running unopposed.  So a lot of Republicans crossed over and voted for, wait for it, George Wallace.  Wallace ended up winning the Democratic primary.  This was not because Republicans in Michigan were all secret racists. A lot of them wanted to pick the worst possible candidate for the Democrats.  Plus it was fun watching Democrats, who claim to be the party of civil rights, try to explain how a Southern racist won their primary.  It was great sport but not necessarily that significant.

We can be sure that some Democrats voted for Trump because they like him.  But some voted for him because they think he is the worst possible choice for Republicans.  This does not mean they would automatically vote for Trump in the general election.  In addition, Trump was often profane and vulgar in New Hampshire.   Voters in New Hampshire just laughed and shrugged it off.   Don’t assume he will get the same response in places like South Carolina.

It was even more significant for John Kasich.  I saw one interview where this woman was torn between Hillary Clinton and John Kasich.  Nice!  Kasich basically moved to New Hampshire and ran as a moderate Republican openly appealing to liberals.  Good luck with that in South Carolina.

The surprise was that Ted Cruz, who rarely visited New Hampshire, spent very little money there and was ignored by the main stream media still came in third.  To put this in perspective, Ted Cruz spent $700,000 in New Hampshire but still finished ahead of Jeb Bush who spent $35 million.  In addition, the media praised Jeb Bush for his great debate performance while rarely mentioning Cruz.  Last week Ted Cruz ran a total of 29 ads, while Kasich, Bush, Rubio and Christie inflicted the New Hampshire voters with 1,435 ads.  The bottom line is that if Bush, Rubio and Christie could not beat Cruz in New Hampshire they can’t beat him anywhere.

John Kasich is out of money and has no organization.  He is not likely to do well in South Carolina.  Chris Christie appears to be folding his tents.  No surprise there.  It doesn’t matter what Fiorina, Carson or Gilmore do.  Bush is going storm into South Carolina and he is even going to trot out “W.”  Odds are high he will still finish behind Cruz and if that happens he is toast.  Perhaps Rubio will stage a comback, but first he has to endure a week where Kasich and Bush are both out to destroy him.  Even if he survives that, he has yet to beat Cruz anywhere.  Unless something changes, this will soon be a two man race between Trump and Cruz.  Before anyone assumes Trump will win that battle, remember that Trump has a 60% unfavorability rating.  That means there are 2 “no Trumps” for every “Trump.”  At some point, that will really matter.

Ted Cruz has a nationwide organization and more cash than Bush, Rubio, Kasich, and Christie combined.  While everyone else was launching stupid and ineffective personal attacks on Donald Trump, Cruz was keeping his power dry.  When he did take on Trump, in Iowa, he hurt him big time.  It is always a good idea to pay attention to the man who is keeping his power dry.  At some point, he is going to use it.

TDM

I have been in New Hampshire, for about fifteen minutes.  We were staying in Boston and decided to drive up the coast to Maine.  We stopped in Portsmouth, Maine so we could chalk another state off our been there, done that list.  For a long time I didn’t even realize I had been in New Hampshire.  I think that describes the New Hampshire primary.  A lot of people go there in the hopes of arriving someplace else.

This time New Hampshire matters more than ever, but probably not in the way most people think.  While all of the attention is on the Republican race, that probably won’t change much, at least at the top.  It will send a lot of people home, which is a good thing.  But the real question tonight is how Hillary Clinton does.  If the polls are accurate, she is about to suffer a humiliating loss.  That may change everything. It is increasingly clear that the FBI is close to recommending an indictment.  If Hillary wins in New Hampshire or even comes close, the Obama administration try to find some way to delay things until after the election.  But if she loses, the opposite may be true.  It is a lot easier to kick someone when they are down.

Some top Democrats may want to see an indictment so they have time to draft a Joe Biden before it is too late.  Yes, things are THAT desperate.   It is pretty obvious that if Bernie Sanders gets the nomination the Democratic Party is headed toward a catastrophic defeat.

By the way, did anyone notice Bill Clinton?  He looked awful.  This is clear evidence that the Hillary Clinton campaign is desperate.  In addition to all the obvious baggage he looks old and feeble.  He also hasn’t been that sharp. For example, he said that sometimes he wishes he wasn’t married to Hillary so he could speak more clearly.  Not quite sure what he meant by that.  Ouch.

TDM

There is a storm brewing in New Hampshire.  A Nor-easter is hitting the state with about 8 inches of snow.  If that happened in Atlanta it would bring everything to a screeching halt.  In New Hampshire it probably will have minor impact.  Another political storm is brewing and no one can predict the damage from this puppy.

We don’t know what will happen but we do know some things.  Donald Trump was strangely subdued during his interview with Brett Baer today.  Is that a coincidence?  Everyone, and I do mean everyone, thinks that Rubio is going to plummet because of his Quayle/Perry moment.  At a minimum, he is a far cry from the candidate who was soaring in the polls just a few days ago.

Bush, Rubio, Kasich and Christie have invested big time in New Hampshire.  According to Bloomberg just last week these guys ran 1,435 ads compared to 29 by Ted Cruz.  The governors went all in on New Hampshire. One of them has to pass Cruz by a big margin, or it’s over.  Kasich is starting to look like the Republican establishments last hope.   If they can’t win in New Hampshire they can’t win anywhere.  If Cruz does anything at all, it is a remarkable accomplishment.

By the way, New Hampshire has introduced voter id.  They are actually going to limit voting to registered voters who identify themselves.  It boggles the mind to consider the implications of this.  Hillary must be quaking in her boots.

TDM

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