Hillary's braincramp about the Reagans and AIDS

I think 'brainfart' is about as kind a description as can be.

In an appearance on MSNBC Friday afternoon, Hillary Clinton found herself in a situation that called for her to say some nice things about the recently deceased former first lady Nancy Reagan, and she made the somewhat odd choice to highlight HIV/AIDS advocacy. According to Clinton, "Because of both President and Mrs. Reagan — in particular Mrs. Reagan — we started a national conversation. When before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it." 

Clinton described Reagan's role as "very effective low-key advocacy" and "something that I really appreciated."

Oops.

This observation of one first lady by another must have occurred in some alternate universe, because here on Earth -- in the United States, "in the '80's", as Clinton noted -- what she said happened actually did not happen.  Quite the opposite.

It's not another one of Clinton's lies and it doesn't make sense as a pander (why would any Republican be drawn to her campaign by her sympathizing with the plight of gay men with a deathly illness?  When in all of the history of the HIV in the USA has that ever been the case?).  Could it have been some desire to say something nice about someone on the day of her burial?  If so, she could have simply stated, "She looked good in red," and left it at that.

I'm going to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt here and say that she confused "Just Say No" with the AIDS crisis.  As comedienne Lizz Winstead observed, she couldn't have gotten it mixed up with Alzheimer's, because the Reagans didn't acknowledge that either until long after they were out of the White House.

I misspoke. Turns out Nancy Reagan was the WORST on HIV/AIDS. Sorry for the confusion. Oh and Reagan Vetoed Stem cell research also. kbye

— Lizz Winstead (@lizzwinstead) March 11, 2016

I don't think people making lame excuses for her is what she needs.  Apologies are cool, but it's still difficult to comprehend the thought process behind the 'misspeaking'.  Lacking any better or more coherent explanation however, let's just mark it down as the most recent in a litany of bad judgements and move on.

Update: NO, German Lopez and Garance Franke-Rute, this is not 'the best explanation', or even a good one.  Only if your thought process just stopped working in the '80s would this be even slightly plausible.

4) What Clinton said perfectly encapsulated the viewpoint of mainstream Democrats in the 1980s, before the party became gay friendly

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 11, 2016

And if Franke-Rute is correct that establishment Democrats beyond Hillary Clinton believed that the Reagans were AIDS advocates, low-key or otherwise ... what does that say about the Democratic establishment?

It's obvious with a cursory Google search that non-establishment liberal politicians -- not the same as mainstream Democrats, mind you -- were not thinking this.

Update II: Some people believe Clinton should do more than apologize.  And more from What Would Jack Do? with the harshest response of all, Dan Savage's, linked.

'Elegant' and 'civil', my ass

My POV was that Rubio had a very good showing in what they're calling the 'civil' debate.  Few other than red partisans agree with me, it seems.  Most of the chatter this morning is around harmony ... and discord.

Donald Trump was on cruise control for so much of the early going in the 12th Republican debate Thursday night that he teased his rivals about their timidity. 

“So far, I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here,” Trump said with a wry grin and a glance at Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. 

Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Gov. John Kasich all steered clear of open confrontation with Trump for much of the night on the debate stage at the University of Miami. It was clear that all the candidates, even Trump, were aware that the nasty tone of the last two debates had turned off many voters. 

The tepid atmosphere seemed to suit Trump, who held himself back this time from insulting the other candidates, in a departure from his recent practice. There were no references to “little Marco,” no labeling of Cruz as “nasty” or a “liar.” 

Trump has shown signs of trying to soften his roughest edges in the last few months, as he has tightened his grip on the Republican nomination. And more than ever Thursday, he sought to portray himself as more presidential than he has often appeared. 

After the debate, Trump referred to the evening as “elegant.”

Yes, it was ... if you don't consider discussion -- or the lack of it -- of waterboarding, or bombing women and children, or choke-slamming journalists or sucker-punch assaults at your rallies 'inelegant'.  If 'elegant' is defined as no dick-length comparisons, then hey, it was artful.

In the first half hour of Thursday’s debate, Trump and his GOP rivals seemed to almost go out of their way to avoid attacking one another even as they debated heated topics like entitlement reform and immigration. 

[...] 

At one point, Cruz trashed Democrat Hillary Clinton, suggesting she believed that Social Security could be made solvent by cutting waste, fraud and abuse. When a moderator pointed out that Trump had only minutes earlier voiced the same position and asked if he was comparing Trump to Clinton, Cruz backed off. “I’ll let Donald speak for himself,” he replied. 

Just seconds later, Trump and Cruz tangled over immigration—with the real estate mogul accusing his rival of previously supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. But instead of blasting Trump—as he has previously on the issue—Cruz just laughed it off. 

Trump repeated his charge—albeit in a softer tone—but then he notably shifted back to a more conciliatory tone. “We’re all in this together. We’re going to come up with solutions. We’re going to find the answers to things,” Trump said.

Peace, love, and understanding.  On the stage.  Off it, not so much.

Former GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush will meet with three of the four remaining Republican contenders on Wednesday and Thursday, perhaps to drum up a plan to deny Donald Trump the party's nomination. 

The news comes as Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have struggled to gain traction in a GOP race once thought to be dominated by the former Florida governor. 

Bush will meet with the candidates in Florida, where all three are campaigning ahead of Tuesday's primary in that state, an aide said. 

None of the three campaigns offered insight regarding what, exactly, the meetings with Bush will discuss, although it's speculated the Republicans are seeking a strategy to ensure the party's nomination goes to anyone but Trump, the party's current front-runner.

There's also a call for Condi.

A group of Republican donors and strategists has been working to persuade former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to make an independent bid for president, according to a memo outlining the plan obtained by POLITICO Florida.

The group has grown increasingly dissatisfied with New York billionaire Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner who has roiled the party’s establishment as he has surged ahead in the polls.

“The reality of the matter is that we will have President Trump or President Clinton — if we don’t have President Rice,” read the memo, which was written by Joel Searby, a consultant with Florida-based GOP firm Data Targeting.

POLITICO reported last month about a memo that a group of donors was working on with Data Targeting to look at the viability of a third-party run amid Trump’s ascent. The newest memo, sent Thursday, is an update on the firm’s work.

“We have been in touch with Dr. Rice through her chief of staff,” read the plan, which is stamped “confidential.” “She is reluctant at this stage. We are asking for anyone wanting to assist to encourage her to run.”

That should turn out as well as finding WMD in Iraq.  Perhaps this commentary from Josh Marshall is the prelude to the conversation that Bus, Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich are having later today in Florida.

As everyone has noted, Trump is now trying not only to pivot to the general election but reassure GOP party stakeholders with his restraint and smother his competitors with talk of unity. I thought Trump and Cruz did very well for themselves but in very different ways. Trump owned his frontrunner-dom, didn't deign to rise to the taunts of his competitors and didn't let the moderators -- especially Dana Bash -- orchestrate a confrontation. He didn't allow himself to get knocked off that game. A bit more tired by the end of the debate, he was a little less able to keep attack Donald under wraps. But overall, he kept it cool and restrained. He kept to his plan.

Cruz was attempting something very different.

He knocked Trump a few times here and there. But that wasn't his main goal. Most of what he was trying to do he could have done even if Trump wasn't on the stage. Cruz's main goal was to talk to the audience, to engage in a soliloquy of conservative purity and drive. There is a big basket of anti-Trump votes out there. And Cruz's goal was to scoop them up. So attacking Trump, except to set up his own perorations, was basically irrelevant. He was trying to swoop up the existing anti-Trump vote, not pull Trump's supporters away from him.

[...]

Rubio and Kasich both had some good moments. But they're both basically out of the game.

[...]

The upshot is that Trump has decided he has little need to attack his opponents any more and much to gain by smothering his opponents and defanging GOP stakeholders with expressions of unity and demonstrations of restraint. On the driving themes of his campaign though, economic nationalism, xenophobia and revanchist anger at losers, freeloaders and protestors, there was no shift at all.

Everything I saw tonight made me think that Trump is well on his way to becoming the GOP nominee. I see no big obstacle stands in his way. Just as important, if for whatever reason Donald Trump isn't the nominee, it is now extremely difficult to see how the nomination won't go to Ted Cruz. Maybe you can steal the nomination from one factional, plurality winner. You can't steal it from the guy who came in a close second too. That just won't fly.

Drumpf.  With a slight opening for Poop Cruz.  Those are the two end results from a raunchy ten weeks of conservative gang wars, and now comes the distillation down to one.

Not all that fun or interesting after all, was it?

Vox called it for the two at the front, declared civility both winner and loser, and the biggest losers were the #NeverTrump effort and international trade deals.  If it turns out that the GOP indeed chooses to deny Obama a win on the TransPacific Partnership, I can be happy about that.

Trump vs. Cruz (and not just tonight)

I think Bernie Sanders has a better chance (today, at least) of getting his party's nomination than Ted Cruz has of getting his, but your mileage may vary.  Matt Bai has posed the question to few cringing conservative insiders, and the results may not surprise you.

Imagine you have this incredibly valuable sports car, and when you drive it up to a valet stand there are two guys anxiously vying to take the keys. One of them looks wild-eyed and agitated, like he just drank seven Red Bulls. The other is a guy you remember from high school, except that you hated each other and he’s eyeing the hubcaps with contempt. 

Now you have a rough idea of how Republican insiders in Washington are feeling this week. With the season of choosing passing its midpoint, governing Republicans are slowly resigning themselves to what looks like a two-man race between the unpredictable Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, a man so universally disliked that if you Google “hated senator,” every single link that pops up is about him. (Try it yourself.) 

It’s an agonizing thing for them to contemplate, but in conversations with a half dozen of the leading Republican strategists and lobbyists this week, it became clear that a solid consensus is forming as to which guy they would rather see get the keys. When it comes to Trump versus Cruz at the top of the ticket, most in the so-called establishment would prefer the devil they know to the daredevil they don’t.

At least he didn't bury the lede.

The more likely scenario for denying Trump the nomination, at this point, is that Cruz can overtake him, or that he ends up mounting a serious convention challenge if Trump can’t lock up the delegates before then. And while the D.C. elites are none too jazzed about this possibility, they’re starting to almost embrace it. 

The reason Republicans in Washington don’t like Cruz is that even by the standards of Washington, where we think of blatant self-promotion the way most other Americans think about getting out of bed in the morning, he seems to stand out for his insincerity. 

Colleagues disdain the holier-than-the-rest-of-you image he has cultivated since arriving in the Senate just three years ago.But that same opportunism, they will tell you, is what ultimately makes Cruz a more palatable nominee. That’s because they assume that Cruz’s evangelical and anti-government purity is more a matter of political positioning than it is of actual zealotry. 

If nothing else, the insiders believe, Cruz is coachable and calculating in a way Trump is not, and he’s a more reliable conservative.

They will fall in line.  They always fall in line.  In this calculus, the White House is abandoned for the tenuous clench of the Senate.

With Cruz as the nominee, Republicans figure they have at least an outside shot at holding the Senate, mainly by giving their more vulnerable candidates some distance from him. Less so with Trump, whose insatiable need for controversy and incendiary appeals to emotion might overwhelm everything else. 

None of which is to say that Cruz has a better chance of winning than Trump. He doesn’t, and even most governing Republicans will admit that Trump could conceivably broaden the appeal of the party nationally, while Cruz almost certainly runs its aground. He’d have a better chance of landing his own show on MSNBC than he would of winning the popular vote — something Republicans have done only once in the last 20 years. 

But that might not be the worst thing in the world, either. If Cruz were to become the nominee and suffer a Goldwater-type thrashing in November (which probably can’t happen, given the polarized electoral math of the country today, but he could certainly do worse than John McCain or Mitt Romney), then governing Republicans might finally be able to go on the offensive against their own activists. 

The argument then would go something like this: “Hey, we tried it your way, and we nominated a purist, and we got dismantled, and now the Clintons are prying up floorboards in the Lincoln Bedroom and retrieving all the secret files they once squirreled away. So maybe it’s time to build a more tolerant party that actually governs.” 

It’s a bleak excuse for optimism, to be sure — half-hoping to lose in the expectation that you can make people understand how to win. But for Republicans in Washington, it’s all pretty bleak right about now.

There'll be a post in the future about whether the GOP can indeed hold the upper chamber -- highly doubtful despite the scads of money to be poured into competitive races -- but your takeaway ahead of tonight's showdown is that the Republican nominee loses very little of the vote, base or otherwise, to a third party nominee -- no matter who it is -- to Clinton, or to their crying rooms on Election Day.  (More on the potential Libertarian spoiler here.)

Oh yeah, fight night.

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio will face off at CNN's presidential debate on Thursday night in a state that could make one of the four men virtually unstoppable -- and spell doom for another. 

Thursday's debate here comes just five days ahead of the next week's "Super Tuesday 3," when there are more than 350 delegates up for grabs, including in winner-take-all contests in Florida and Ohio. 

Both Trump and Rubio are predicting that they will be victorious here in the Sunshine State, and fully aware of how much is riding on Florida. For Trump, a win here would fuel his growing momentum and further grow his delegate lead; for Rubio, losing his home state could be the death knell for his campaign. 

Cruz and Kasich will also take the debate stage at a crucial moment in their campaigns. Cruz is aggressively trying to convince the Republican Party to coalesce around him, arguing he is the only candidate other than Trump capable of reaching 1,237 delegates; Kasich, who still has not won a single state, is eying his home state of Ohio with fresh optimism after a new poll this week showed him ahead of Rubio nationally. A Fox News poll released Wednesday showed Kasich leading Trump in Ohio, but the front-runner topping Rubio in Florida.

More there on what's at stake for each of the four men left standing, and more in the Twitter feed, top right column, as the bell rings for the main event this evening.

Sanders and Clinton square off in Florida

Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders clashed vividly over immigration reform, health care and Cuba during a contentious debate Wednesday as the two Democrats appealed to Hispanic voters and tried to outdo each other in assailing Donald J. Trump.

Mrs. Clinton, bruised by her surprise loss in the Michigan primary a day earlier, was on the attack throughout the debate as she sought to undercut Mr. Sanders’s momentum before the next round of primaries.

Aiming her remarks at viewers watching on Univision, a Spanish-language sponsor of the debate, Mrs. Clinton threw his past support for Fidel Castro and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua in Mr. Sanders’s face and repeatedly criticized him for opposing a 2007 bill that would have created a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.

“We had Republican support,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We had a president willing to sign it. I voted for that bill. Senator Sanders voted against it.”

She refused to let up when Mr. Sanders explained that he thought the guest worker provisions in the bill were “akin to slavery.” Mrs. Clinton argued that she, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Hispanic groups would never have supported such a bill. Her broadsides finally became too much for Mr. Sanders when she accused him of supporting “vigilantes known as Minutemen” on the border.

“No, I do not support vigilantes — that is a horrific statement, an unfair statement to make,” Mr. Sanders said. “Madam Secretary, I will match my record against yours any day of the week.”

This might be the only accusation that catches some traction against Sanders.  Otherwise his performance scored slightly better than Hillary's on the Bloomberg report card.

Initially positioned herself as the chief Democratic leader, focused on the GOP and party differences. Then shifted to dish out cherry-picked criticism of her rival’s congressional votes (sometimes in a misleading fashion) —but often bristled when he swiped back at her. Was given noticeably tougher questions than Sanders, and offered serviceable if pre-packaged answers on topics such as her email server, voters’ distrust of her, and Benghazi. Avoided any glaring oh-my moments that could have supercharged Sanders’ newfound momentum, but didn’t do anything to slow him down.

Almost exactly how I and others saw it, and how it's been unfolding for the past few scrapes.  Clinton's trust and honesty issues are cemented, and they are costing her dearly with the youngest voters.

Small wins aren't what Sanders needs at this point, as everybody who's been following closely knows, so the results next Tuesday in Florida -- and Ohio and Illinois and Missouri and North Carolina -- will tell us whether there was breakthrough in Michigan or not.

Gadfly took issue with Sanders' refusal to hit Clinton over Honduras, and The Onion had far and away the best snark ...

MIAMI—Surreptitiously grabbing the explosive device stashed inside her lectern and pulling its pin as soon as she heard moderator Jorge Ramos mention her support for the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailout, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reportedly threw a flash grenade onto the stage during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate to divert attention away from a question about her Senate voting record. 

“That’s an important question, Jorge, and one I’m happy to answer,” said the former secretary of state just as the military-grade M84 stun grenade exploded, emitting a deafening blast and blinding flash of white light that prevented anything on stage from being seen or heard for the duration of Clinton’s answer. 

After cowering with their hands over their ringing ears for approximately 70 seconds, rattled audience members, the debate’s moderators, and fellow candidate Bernie Sanders were said to have regained their vision and hearing just in time to make out the final sentence of Clinton’s response: “And that’s why I’ve always stood on the side of the middle class and working families.” 

At press time, a misty white gas was seen pouring from the base of Clinton’s podium toward the moderators’ desk as Ramos cited Clinton’s changing positions on gay marriage, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Tonight's Florida debate details

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will meet for their fourth one-on-one debate Wednesday evening in Miami — one night after Sanders won an upset victory in Michigan, reshaping their party’s presidential race as Clinton seemed close to clinching it. 

The debate is sponsored by The Washington Post and the Spanish-language network Univision. It will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern. 

Viewers can watch the debate live on The Post’s website or via The Washington Post app for Apple TV. It will also be shown on CNN. Spanish-speaking viewers can watch it on Univision. 

This debate comes at an unexpected moment of drama in the Democratic race.
Clinton is still the clear leader, in terms of states won and delegates accumulated. She added to her delegate lead Tuesday by winning a lopsided victory in Mississippi and dividing Michigan’s delegates nearly evenly with Sanders. 

[...] 

In the debate, moderators will probably ask about immigration policy, a vital subject in Florida — and a subject on which Clinton and Sanders differ significantly from the GOP candidates. 

Both Democrats have said they support a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are already in the United States. And both have said they would preserve President Obama’s executive actions, which are intended to stop the deportations of undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children and of undocumented parents whose children are U.S. citizens or legal residents. 

Sanders — whose father was an immigrant from Poland — would go even further than that. He says he would issue an expanded order that would protect from deportation all undocumented residents who have lived in the country for at least five years.

Besides contrasting their views on immigration with each other's -- and Donald Drumps's -- expect these things to also play out.

FLINT FACT CHECK: At the Flint debate on Sunday, Clinton appeared to catch Sanders off guard when she accused him of not supporting the auto bailout -- an attack that Sanders the following day said was "categorically untrue." Both candidates have since doubled down on their attacks and released ads on the issue. Tonight they could likely take it up again in person. 

TESTY EXCHANGES: Clinton and Sanders tend to remain cordial, but at the debate on Sunday, things got contentious. Sanders told Clinton, "excuse me, I'm talking," which Clinton's campaign aides described as "disrespectful" and "rude." Sanders responded by saying he thought Clinton was the one being "rude” since she was the one interrupting. Either way, as they share a stage tonight, keep an eye out for who tries to override who. 

PRAISE FOR SANDERS: Despite what could be some heated back-and-forths between the two candidates, Clinton has tried to pivot her rhetoric and attention to the general election -- part of which may include getting Sanders (and his supporters) on her side. In recent days, she's had some kinder words for her opponent: She’s called him an "ally" and said she "would hope to enlist" him to help should she be the nominee. Thus tonight, don't be surprised if Clinton finds moments to praise him as opposed to just knocking him down. That said, Sanders told ABC News' David Wright that that language was premature. After last night's stunning upset, will Clinton have to change her tune again? 

A BREAK-OUT MOMENT: [...] The pressure is still on Sanders. Yes, he scored a major upset in a large, diverse state, but Clinton won one too and actually expanded her delegate lead with her overwhelming victory in Mississippi on Tuesday night. Though the Vermont senator has said he is confident in his path forward, realistically he needs to find a way to translate his Michigan win into more solid victories in that region and beyond in order to tighten that delegate gap. His performance tonight could be his chance.

Follow the Twitter machine at the top right for my takes or at the hashtag #DemDebate.

Sanders stuns pollsters, Clinton with upset in Michigan

Nobody saw that coming.

Bernie Sanders pulled off his biggest win of the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday, defeating Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary on a night which also confirmed strong anti-establishment support for Donald Trump in the battle for the Republican nomination.

In an industrial state hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, the Vermont senator’s consistent opposition to free trade deals appears to have been a decisive factor, but he also showed signs of weakening Clinton’s dominance among African American voters.

The shock victory – 49.9%-48.2% with 99.3% reporting – comes despite Sanders trailing the former secretary of state by an average of 21 points in recent opinion polling.

538.com -- with the most egg on their faces and registering a much bigger loss than Hillary:

Bernie Sanders made folks like me eat a stack of humble pie on Tuesday night. He won the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 48 percent, when not a single poll taken over the last month had Clinton leading by less than 5 percentage points. In fact, many had her lead at 20 percentage points or higher. Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history.

Both the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning. That’s because polling averages for primaries, while inexact, are usually not 25 percentage points off. ...

The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwest states that are holding open primaries. I’m talking specifically about Illinois and Ohio, both of which vote next Tuesday. The FiveThirtyEight polling average in Illinois gives Clinton a 37 percentage point lead, while the average in Ohio gives her a 20 percentage point lead. If Michigan was just a fluke (which is possible), then tonight will be forgotten soon enough. If, however, pollsters are missing something more fundamental about the electorate, then the Ohio and Illinois primaries could be a lot closer than expected.

The delegate math still favors Clinton.

To be sure, Clinton will emerge from Tuesday’s primaries with the bigger net gain in delegates. Her Mississippi landslide may have been more predictable than Sanders’ nail-biter in Michigan, but it was also more profitable. The latest estimates show that while Sanders will amass 8 to 10 more delegates than Clinton in Michigan, Clinton will scoop up 25 to 28 more delegates than Sanders in Mississippi. And so Clinton’s total delegate lead will only grow once all of Tuesday’s votes are tallied — despite Sanders’ miracle in Michigan. In the end, this is the only measure that matters.

Among the surprises from the Wolverine State is the statistical reveal that Bernie narrowed the gap with the demographic groups that have voted Hillary en masse.

Yet, more tellingly, Sanders also held his own among demographic groups that Clinton dominated in her 2008 battle against Barack Obama — demographic groups that could prove crucial in the contests ahead. He won white women by five points. He won whites without a college degree by 17 points. He won voters who make less than $50,000 a year by five points. He even won union voters (by two points). And he lost the black vote by a much smaller margin than he has in the South.

Wayne County, home to Detroit, was supposed to be her firewall but that theory got Berned, and there are more states like Michigan and fewer states like Mississippi ahead on the primary schedule. He must still begin claiming some Clinton-esque wins.

... Thanks to an 83 percent to 16 percent win in Mississippi, Clinton gained in the overall delegate count on Tuesday and leads Sanders by more than 200 pledged delegates. Her strong performance in Mississippi also put Sanders further behind his FiveThirtyEight delegate targets. That may not be as sexy as the tremendous upset in Michigan, but math is rarely sexy.

Sanders, however, can breathe a deep sigh of relief that all the states in the Deep South have already voted. He can hope that tonight’s Michigan win will help propel him to victory or at least make him more competitive in states with large delegate prizes left like California, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. We’ll see if it does.

It might be the start of the political revolution, or it might be just one shining moment.  It could be the start of something yuuge, or it could be a flash in the pan.

On your teevee it's all about Trump. Turn it off.

Trump's ceiling, Cruz's rise, Rubio's last chance

The postulate that Trump's ceiling of support is somewhere between 35 and 40% has been, and continues to be, borne out by the polling and the results.  The latest:

Donald Trump’s facing a wall within his party, with Republicans who don’t currently support him far more apt to prefer Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in a two-way race -- or even to favor a contested convention to block Trump’s nomination. 

Trump continues to lead in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, with 34 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents who are registered to vote saying they’d like to see him win the nomination. But he trails both Cruz and Rubio one-on-one. And preferences for Cruz, Rubio and John Kasich have grown as others have left the race, while Trump’s support has essentially remained unchanged for months.

Lots of in-the-knowers question the premise that Trump has a ceiling, or even whether it matters, but let's look at the numbers ... 

Iowa's caucus results were Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3 and Rubio 23.1.  Since that time -- just five weeks ago -- Trump finished first in NH with 35.3%, first in SC with 32.4, first in Nevada with 46.1, first in Alabama with 43.4, second in Alaska behind Cruz, 33.5 to 36.4%, first in Arkansas with 32.8, first in Georgia with 38.8 and in Massachusetts with 49.3, first in Tennessee with 38.9, first in Virginia with 34.7, and first in Vermont with 32.7%.

He lost Texas and Oklahoma to Ted Cruz by 26.7 - 43.8% and 28.3 - 34.4%, respectively, and he lost Minnesota to both Rubio and Cruz, ending third with 21.3%, and Puerto Rico by a mile, 13-71 to Rubio.  These last two represent Trump's low-water marks to date.

Last Saturday he lost Kansas and Maine to Cruz by wide margins, 23.3% to 48.2, and 32.6 to 45.9%, but won Louisiana and Kentucky with 41.4 and 35.9%.

Throwing out the high (Massachusetts) and the low (Puerto Rico) and averaging the remaining produces a 33.46 average percentage (even if averaging percentages is a substandard evaluation method, it tells us something).  The only way we'll know what the ceiling is for Trump is when the Republicans boil it down to two.  Delegate counts are a different story, and Trump leads Cruz by a 384-300 margin, with Rubio well back in third holding 150 delegates and Kasich, lapped a couple of times by the field, at 37.

Michigan and Mississippi both poll strongly for Trump, as does Idaho and Hawaii (no polling there) also voting today.  But the numbers are very consistent: 30% to 40% for Trump and the rest divided among the remaining field.  So there will be louder calls for mano y mano with Cruz tonight, and a week and a day from today, unless Rubio can win Florida in some kind of convincing fashion, and he will be coming from well behind to do so.

The GOP debate just ahead of the Florida primary happens Thursday night in Coral Gables, and Florida's devout Cuban-Republican contingent will be as riveted to the action as any.  Rubio will bear the brunt of the attacks from Trump and Cruz in a somewhat altered dynamic.  There may be some snarking at each other in Spanish (I sure hope so).

It's entirely possible that a week from tomorrow, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are the last three people standing for the presidency.

Last night's town hall, Michigan votes today, and the debate Wednesday

-- The town hall format, with contestants questioned separately by the moderator and selected audience members, demonstrates again its superiority over both candidates' arm-waving and shouting from podiums.  There is no interrupting, hence there are no misused allegations of sexism (satire, yes; uncomfortably close to reality.  Not the virtual reality that dwells in the fevered minds of the SHills at Blu Koolaid Drinkers Revue).

Both candidates showed well.  Bernie stood out simply for his sincere and direct stands that go against the doctrine held by the average Fox viewer.  Hillary was grilled over Libya and her emails, as predicted, but emerged unscathed.  The Twitter responses ranged from the customary unhinged conservatives freaking out over soshulism or Benghazi or abortion -- a topic mentioned for the first time in a Democratic debate or forum -- to Republicans saying both Clinton and Sanders were their second choices after Trump, to the spinners for both blue sides working overtime.  It was one of the more diverse ideological event hashtags I've followed during this cycle.

-- Another stellar performance by him and another adequate performance by her is unlikely to move the needle in Michigan or Mississippi, both of which are casting ballots today.  There will be more calls for Sanders to pack it in when these states get called shortly after the polls close tonight, but with Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio all on deck to vote next Tuesday, no verdict will be rendered on his campaign's fate before then.

But it shouldn't be long after that.

Update: Mark Kleiman is ready to sign the death certificate.

-- Debate night is Wednesday in Miami with Amazon's Washington Post and Univision moderating.  The WaPo has made no secret of its Hillary bias.

The GOP get their own post coming up.

A bounce-back weekend for Bernie

But a last hurrah as well.

Sunday's debate brought a little more clarity to the state of play for the Democratic presidential nomination; our favorite mensch got the best of the exchanges between he and Hillary Clinton last night, and that dovetailed with the news that he had prevailed in the Maine caucuses, after winning two other caucuses -- Kansas and Nebraska -- on Super Saturday (Clinton won Louisiana's primary in a walkoff).  This continues the pattern of Sanders winning mostly Caucasian states that caucus (no pun intended), and Clinton running up large leads in Southern states that vote the usual way.

Sanders' good weekend is just not going to be enough.

While the crowd seemed to be with Bernie, and some punches were landed, he did not deliver the knockout punch many pundits said he needed to turn around his prospects for a Michigan primary win this coming Tuesday. 

RealClearPolitics.com’s most recent report of polling within Michigan shows Clinton leading Sanders by an average of 20%. While Michigan’s 148 delegates will be allocated proportionally, a loss of that magnitude would be devastating for Bernie. 

Enthusiasm may get a candidate votes; the right number of delegates gets a candidate the party nomination.

[...]

... short of a new scandal or the worsening of an already existing scandal, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

More from Politico, including some unsolicited advice.

With Sanders now having won a total of seven primary or caucus contests to Clinton’s 12 (he lost even liberal Massachusetts, his neighboring state)—he is sailing into ever-more challenging electoral waters ahead. Party operatives have begun gaming out just how and when Bernie should say “when.” He doesn’t want to give up too easily. Nor should he stay on so long that he severely harms Clinton—now more than ever the likely nominee—in the fall. 

In his election night rally in Vermont on Tuesday, Sanders declared that his campaign was, among other things, “about dealing with some unpleasant truths that exist in America today and having the guts to confront those truths.” 

The big unpleasant truth is this: Sanders may have already changed things in this campaign as much as he ever will. By credibly challenging Clinton in the early days of the race, Sanders moved the needle—and Clinton herself—on the issues he cares most about, from trade to Wall Street regulation to expanded access to health care. If history is any judge, there is only so much more that Sanders could expect from a victorious Clinton, or that she would be willing to give him. It seems all but inconceivable that she’d choose him as her running mate ( he is too old, and too unpalatable to too much of the country). She would not offer him the one Cabinet post he might covet (say, Treasury Secretary?) and it’s unlikely he would trade his perch in the Senate for one she might proffer (say Labor or Health and Human Services). 

[...] 

At 74, Sanders knows this is it for him. He’s too old to run for president again, and his small-donor fundraising base makes him immune to the sort of establishment pressures that might induce a more typical candidate to drop out. (On Tuesday morning, his campaign announced he had raised $42 million from 1.4 million contributions, averaging $30, in February alone.) 

“At the end of the day, what does he care if he alienates Hillary Clinton?” asks Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Bill Bradley’s ill-fated challenge to Al Gore in 2000. “He’s got an 80 percent approval rating in Vermont. He’s still going to be a senator, in a closely divided Senate, and if he walks out on the Democratic Caucus, he could cost them control, so he is pretty untouchable. But the real thing to think about is why he is running to begin with—which is his message, his belief that the progressive wing of the party was not going to be represented in the process if he didn’t run, and all that speaks to me of the place he may really want to use his accumulated delegates—that is, the platform.”

Read on there about the Democratic Party's past platform negotiations, the comparisons to Jesse Jackson's quixotic '88 bid, the conciliatory plum of a speaking slot in prime time during the convention, and ... that's it.  A little more unity hoo hah, and then "it's time to GTF on the bandwagon, you dirty hippies".

The same old song and dance every four years from our shitty corporate Democrats.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not falling for the banana-in-the-tailpipe, Kucinich/Jackson/Dean head fake any longer, even when it ultimately comes from Sanders himself.  No matter the hugs and kisses and browbeatings about the Supreme Court that will eventually replace things like this ...

@queenofdorkdom @PDiddie FUCK YOU Everyone, especially Bernie is blaming Hillary for everything her husband did. Guess that part is okay.

— Dakota (@doodlebug0) March 7, 2016

@PDiddie Bernie would be. He has perverse sexual fantasies. Can't imagine being in bed with that fuckhead.

— Dakota (@doodlebug0) March 7, 2016

That's what passes for the Clinton campaign's outreach today.

I'll pass on standing with folks like that.  At any time in the future.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates all the winners of last week's primary elections as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff explored the pros and cons of universal vote by mail.

Libby Shaw ,contributing to Daily Kos, argues that there are under-the-raar tactics taking place at election polls, at least in Harris County, that discourage voter turnout. The Texas Blues: The More Subtle Aspects of Voter Suppression.

Socratic Gadfly says RIP to Ponzi-scheming fracking grifter Aubrey McClendon and his apparent suicide by vehicle.

In an unrelated Ponzi scheme, the Lewisville Texan Journal reports that the FBI and SEC are investigating a Grapevine real estate investment trust after recent allegations of such.

So is Democratic turnout in primary elections to date up, or is it down? PDiddie at Brains and Eggs is asking for a friend.

This week's Texas primary went as expected for most races, but Texas Leftist was happy to see some history made as Democrat Jenifer Rene Pool became the first transgender candidate to win an election in Texas. With so much news dominated by Trump and Cruz, it's great to have some progress worth celebrating.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sad to see the tuition at Texas public universities go up. Oligarchs pay low taxes and greedy lenders get more student debt payoffs. Republicans like the rich best.

Stace at Dos Centavos reviews his predicted wins and losses from last Super Tuesday.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston describes the process by which the people standing behind the candidate at political rallies are chosen.

Neil at All People Have Value visited the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Texans for Public Justice is keeping an eye on the TxPUC's $17-billion takeover of Oncor Electric, and how it benefits one of Greg Abbott's largest campaign contributors.

Tar Sands Blockade checks in after a hiatus with the recent inspection reports from KXL's southern leg revealing the falseness of TransCanada's claims about "the safest pipeline ever built".

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers tells the inconvenient truth about early voting.

The TSTA Blog reminds us that elections especially have consequences for education.

The Lunch Tray interviews Sen. Debbie Stabenow on child nutrition.

BOR pens a letter of greeting to the new Travis County GOP chair. And Newsdesk digs a few of the ads he's placed in the Austin Chronicle from their archives.

Grits for Breakfast laments the results of the Republican primaries for the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Better Texas Blog explains the Texas coverage gap.

The Makeshift Academic assures us there will not be a contested convention.

Finally, the TPA maintains neutrality in the breakfast taco wars.

Last night's results, tonight's debate

Vox has the most straightforward report on last night's returns: Trump wins Kentucky and Louisiana, Cruz wins Maine and Kansas.  Sanders wins Nebraska and Kansas, Clinton wins Louisiana.  Rubio and Kasich falter everywhere, and Trump calls on Rubio to drop out.

“Marco had a very, very bad night. I would call for him to drop out,” Trump said at an event in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

He went on: “I would love to be able to take on Ted one on one. That would be so much fun, because Ted can't win New York, he can't win New Jersey, he can't win Pennsylvania, he can't win California. I want Ted one on one, OK?"

Rubio is closing on Trump in Florida, which votes on March 15, so that's not going to happen unless he loses to Drumpf in his home state (and then Rubio will quit the next day).  There will be one more GOP debate between now and then, on March 10 in Miami.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will debate this evening in Flint, MI and appear at a town hall forum tomorrow night hosted by Fox.  Expect the former secretary of state to be asked questions about Libya and about her e-mails.  Michigan (and Mississippi) vote on Tuesday, March 8 and Clinton still has a big lead in the polls.  On Thursday Wednesday March 9, she and Bernie will debate again, also in Miami.

Next week's events -- tonight through next Thursday evening -- will culminate what has been a furious month in the two leagues' championship semifinals.  In nine days, we'll know whether we have a Clinton-Trump fall classic, or something else.

In other developments ... Godwin's Law no longer applies.

Donald Trump makes members of his Orlando crowd raise their right hands and swear to vote in the primary. pic.twitter.com/EVenRilJrV

— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) March 5, 2016

Trump supporters have also been read quotes from Adolph Hitler, and thought they were Trump's words.  We've crossed the Rubicon, y'all.

More Democratic voters seem to be looking for the exits.  Hillarians still seem confused as to why, and they're lashing out again at Sandernistas.  The fault lines are cracking further open, even as some former Democrats move over to Trump.

For these reasons, it’s clear that progressives should be wary of arguments that recessions or financial crises lead to opportunities for progressive policymaking. Rather, they foster exactly the sort of divisiveness that strengthens right-wing movements, at least for whites. For all the talk of “the working class” supporting Trump, few pundits have noted that the working class is increasingly diverse. The idea that economic peril alone creates Trump support is belied by the fact that working-class people of color aren’t flocking to Trump. The reason so many liberal and moderate whites are flocking toward Trump is simple: racism.

"Working class", indeed, is not a racial demographic.  It is in fact exactly what socialism in historical context is all about.  But that won't stop Clinton's people from calling Sanders' folks racist.

Sunday Funnies

Is Democratic turnout up or down?

Charles Kuffner has the numbers that indicate local turnout is just fine in historical context, even if the 2016 Blue Team scoreboard is about half the Republicans'.  In the national analysis, a few poli-sci profs have been quoted in recent days as saying there's nothing for Dems to worry about.  Two links for your deeper dive, one from NPR and one from AMERICAblog, with the abridged version being "competitive primaries increase participation and uncompetitive ones don't'.  One pull-quote:

These circumstances tell us a lot about why turnout is what it is in the parties’ respective primaries, but they tell us very, very little about what voter turnout will look like in a Trump/Clinton general election. A more telling predictor is the fact that the general election is likely to be polarized to epic proportions, which on balance has been shown to increase turnout, among other forms of political participation. The causal story for this jives with everything we know about rational political behavior: When voters perceive a greater difference between two candidates, there are greater benefits and costs associated with the outcome of the election. This increases the incentive to cast a ballot for one candidate or the other.

That's all reasonable enough.  I still contend that a universe of Americans where about half the population is not registered to vote, and the other half don't show up at the polls on a regular basis isn't very healthy for democracy, but none of the system's players really care about that or intend to do anything about it.

The duopoly and its enablers in the corporate media would rather see everyone quarreling over the personalities involved; not so much the actual policies.  That is, until they tire of that.

Markos “Kos” Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, a popular liberal web site, wrote a blogpost on Friday asking the site’s community of writers, readers and commenters to begin moderating their criticism of Clinton starting on March 15, in the likely event that Clinton solidifies her hold on the nomination with additional primary wins. 

If Sanders does not turn the tide, Moulitsas wrote, “then on March 15 this site officially transitions to General Election footing. That means, we will focus our attention not just on Donald Trump or his rivals, but also on the Senate, the House, and state-level races.” 

Markos tipped this shot across the bow earlier in the week when he called people who suggested that Hillary was winning primaries in states she would lose in the general election "dicks".  Kos has, throughout his rise to (alleged) Democratic pre-eminence, often arbitrated disputes, brokered agreements, and made official pronouncements and declarations of this type.

Moulitsas went on to lay out specific guidelines for talking about Clinton if she becomes the nominee. 

He distinguishes, for example, between “constructive criticism” of Clinton from a progressive perspective, and using “right-wing tropes” to attack her. He even prohibits liberal-themed name calling, like saying “she’s a sell-out corporatist whore oligarch.” 

Writers and commenters who violate the rules will make themselves eligible to be banned from the site.

Online Democrats, for those unfamiliar, are significantly more Caucasian, older, and progressive -- not the Clinton definition, the actual one -- than Democratic primary voters (in others words, Berners).  So this "get on the bandwagon or GTFO" deadline is being met with considerable derision.  I spend more time at the other place where Democrats hang out online, Depleted Uranium, and I can testify that there's been a serious cleaving of the Sanders camp from the Clintonites.

The powers that be at DK and DU (they can read the ominous Clinton GE polling, too) are trying to stitch up the wounds that the primary battle has blasted open before they face wholesale desertion among the partisan, straight-ticket-voting ranks.  If you don't frequent either of those two websites, you've surely seen the same dynamic play itself out on Facebook and Twitter.  It's also rational to start enforcing this command now because, left to fester, the intramural snipe fest will continue to endanger Clinton's inevitable march to the White House.

If this sounds like sheepdogging, it's more like herding cats.  Still, the fence-mending needs to start happening or else the low turnout (yes, it is) will indeed be exacerbated by the lingering resentment of the Sandernistas, and they very well might defect to the Greens ... or return to electoral apathy.

We'll have to watch this development and see if the cuts are too deep or if some scabs grow over them in time for November.  Almost nine months; you can make a baby in that time, from "Netflix and chill" all the way to DOB.

No bets taken on whether it will be a boy or a girl until later this summer.

Update: Kuff also posts and links to the Texas Observer's article that I interpret as another portent of low Democratic turnout in the fall.

Wheels come flying off for GOP in Detroit

From a frat house food fight to a porno shoot in just one week.  It's really not that much devolution if you take it in context.

Polls. Head to head. Flexibility. Hands. Strong core. Little Marco. This is all just a very bad porno. #GOPDebate

— Liz del Carmen (@LizMartinezG) March 4, 2016

See?  Size does matter in context.  But offensive and defensive penile length comparisons weren't -- for those watching closely -- the most gross thing we saw last night.

Also proof that Ted Cruz is made of polystyrene foam https://t.co/mNb4S5MD2W

— Ben (@rebenjamint) March 4, 2016

I don't think it was spittle; it looked firmer and larger than that.  It certainly wasn't a booger.  It could have been a piece of breath mint or even a chip of tooth.  Whatever it was, it eventually went back to where it came from.

I can never unsee this pic.twitter.com/jx0uApPsNM

— Sarah Parnass (@WordsOfSarah) March 4, 2016

Closer views, more spot analysis, and Zapruder-film-like GIFs at many links.

What little policy was discussed was completely overwhelmed by the insults.  I thought it was much, much worse than last week's takeoff on the Three Stooges.

The Three Stoopids
My morning project, in honor of last Thursday night's absurdities...
Posted by Carol Rosenthal on Friday, February 26, 2016

But truth to tell: all of these Republican debates have left me both highly entertained and completely exhausted.  Some people think Herr Drumpf has been dinged by the Cuban double-team, or by his own too-small hand.  I thought that was the case four months ago, but his endurance has proven me wrong.  The three slowly-receding challengers are falling in line, and it won't be long before their armies do the same.  Since The Donald won't #ReleaseTheTranscripts of the conversations with the New York Times regarding what he really thinks about immigration, he's still on the rails to victory.

The topic of climate change never came up, and the quality of Flint's water was only mentioned briefly enough for Rubio to defend Gov. Rick Snyder.  There was some foreign policy discussed, but it also had the air of a George Carlin schtick about missiles and bombs and penis size.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton debate on Sunday and Michiganders vote on Tuesday.  Recent polling reveals Trump and Clinton with solid leads.

The dying throes of the GOP establishment

When all else fails, send in ... Mitt Romney.

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will deliver a scorching indictment of Donald Trump on Thursday, calling the candidate a “phony” and a “fraud” who’d threaten America’s future. 

Romney is due to speak Thursday in Utah at the Hinckley Institute of Politics Forum on the state of the 2016 presidential race. Already a vocal critic of Trump, excerpts released ahead of the speech show Romney will go a step further in his attacks on the Republican frontrunner.

Gravitas.  I have great confidence that Trumpers and Trumpettes alike will respond favorably to the slings and arrows being slung and shot by the Man of 47% of The People.

Okay, moneymen: now it's your turn.

Wall Street is getting ready to go nuclear on Donald Trump. 

Terrified that the reality TV star could run away with the Republican nomination and bring his brand of anti-immigrant, protectionist populism to the White House, some top financiers are writing big checks to fund an effort to deny Trump a majority of delegates to the GOP convention. 

The effort is centered on the recently formed Our Principles PAC, the latest big-money group airing anti-Trump ads, which is run by GOP strategist Katie Packer, deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012. 

The group, initially funded by $3 million from Marlene Ricketts, wife of billionaire T.D. Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, wants to saturate the expensive Florida airwaves ahead of the state’s March 15 primary with hopes of denying Trump a victory that could crush the hopes of home state Sen. Marco Rubio. 

A conference call on Tuesday to solicit donors for the group included Paul Singer, billionaire founder of hedge fund Elliott Management; Hewlett Packard President and CEO Meg Whitman; and Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, one of Joe and Marlene Ricketts’ three sons. Wealthy Illinois businessman Richard Uihlein is also expected to help fund the effort. Jim Francis, a big GOP donor and bundler from Texas, was also on the phone call on Tuesday.

Just remember their names.  They are the poster children for a post-Citizens United world gone horribly wrong (in their opinion).  Whoever thought buying politicians would be so difficult?

You just can't hire good help.

This person said Singer, who is worth close to $2 billion, is fully dedicated to making sure the group has all the funds it needs to inundate the airwaves in Florida and other states viewed as not entirely friendly to Trump, a group that includes Illinois, Missouri, Arizona, Wisconsin and other states in the Northeast and West. Ohio could join the list if Trump moves ahead of the state’s governor, John Kasich, in the polls. 

“The money is not going to be a problem. We will raise what we need to do what we need to do,” the person close to the new anti-Trump PAC said. “Yes, there are people who are skeptical, but there are just as many ready to write big checks. The question is only whether Trump truly is really Teflon.” 

The theory, this person said, is that voters are still largely unaware of the full case against Trump. “We have not seen how he holds up to real sustained attacks over the KKK and David Duke stuff, over Trump University, over Trump Mortgage. People don’t really know about that stuff. We are about to find out what happens when they find out about it.”

Good luck ... I guess.  It's not personal; it's strictly business.

The pitch to Wall Street titans and other CEOs is that a President Trump would be disastrous for markets and the economy. Many economists say that if the U.S. were to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants in a single year, the immediate hit to gross domestic product would lead to a depression. And slapping massive tariffs on goods from Mexico and China could dramatically increase prices for U.S. consumers and create destabilizing trade wars. “The most important thing about Trump is, he is completely unpredictable and volatile, and the one thing business needs is predictability,” Packer said. 

But prosecuting that case will take tens of millions of dollars spread across multiple states. 

And many Wall Street donors are already burned out after pumping over $100 million to Jeb Bush and his Right to Rise super PAC with nothing to show for it. Wall Street’s support is also splintered among candidates at the moment. Singer is backing Rubio. Financiers Stanley Druckenmiller and Ken Langone are backing Kasich. And many senior executives say trying to stop Trump now is a foolish crusade that will wind up burning cash with nothing to show for it.

Buyer's remorse on Jeb!  Who would have ever believed?

The one thing most of Wall Street agrees on at this point is that Trump’s grasp of economic policy is weak at best. And should he manage to defeat likely Democratic nominee Clinton in the fall, already turbulent markets could go completely haywire.
“[Trump] has a kindergarten view of economics. The man says China is manipulating currency. China is in the biggest currency run in history, they’re losing $100 billion a month,” Druckenmiller said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday morning. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about. The stuff that comes out his mouth just astonishes me.” 

Other Wall Street analysts say the biggest risk from Trump is that no one really knows what his core beliefs really are. And it is not clear what kind of people he might appoint to critical jobs in his administration. Trump thus far has floated only billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn as a possible economic adviser in his administration.

Someone buy these suits a copy of Idiocracy, for crine out loud.

It's not going to work, but it will be most amusing to watch them try.  Here is your buried lede:

That leaves many Wall Street Republicans with the same conundrum as naional party leaders: Figure out a way to make peace with Trump, pray for an independent bid by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg or quietly hope Clinton wins the general election in November. 

Clinton has many supporters on Wall Street — something that has complicated her primary campaign against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — and plenty of Republicans who don’t like her would still prefer her to Trump. “I could never support Hillary,” the Wall Street executive who raised money for Bush said. “But plenty of my friends will just hold their nose and vote for her.”

Ahahahahaha.  And people say that Democrats and Republicans aren't alike.

D for Drumpf Day, D for Debate Night in Detroit

Thanks to John Oliver for the original German.  And mad props to Dr. Ben Carson, who finally woke up and smelled the coffee.  It must have been something that God Ted Cruz put on his heart.

The Republican presidential candidates come to Detroit to debate Thursday night at the Fox Theatre with businessman Donald Trump maintaining a 10-point lead on his closest competitors in Michigan's March 8 primary in a new poll commissioned by the Free Press and other media outlets.

Trump is at 29%, Cruz 19%, Rubio 18%, Kasich at 8 and Carson at 7.  18% of Wolverine State GOPers are still undecided.  That allows for a lot of assignment, and reassignment, of loyalties.

The debate will turn the political spotlight squarely on Michigan, which with its 59 delegates to award, is the biggest prize among states voting March 8. Others include Hawaii, Idaho and Mississippi. Four other states, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine, have nominating contests in the meantime, on Saturday.

I wonder if the topic of the water in Flint will come up.

In many ways, Detroit represents the state's biggest comeback while Flint reflects its largest setback. 

Expect GOP candidates to credit Republican Gov. Rick Snyder with Detroit's successes while the Democrats will continue to criticize him for his handling of the Flint water crisis. 

"I think Detroit exemplifies the best of what our state has to offer at every level," said Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel.

Most of the carping I've seen from conservatives about Detroit has been about how horrible it is and how Democrats were to blame for it, so this is a refreshing change of pace at the very least.  It is also disaster capitalism at its very finest.  Leave it to the spin doctors to demonstrate the contrast.

Karl Rove, senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to former President George W. Bush, said that while Detroit may not be a huge part of the GOP debate, it showcases Republican success. 

"I'm not sure it will be a major point, but I think it could be a point," Rove said. "There will also be probably the opportunity to point out that it's also a sign of a Democratic failure that was rescued by Republicans, because Detroit has had a Democrat mayor and a Democrat council and a Democrat city government for literally decades." 

Rove and Jim Messina, former campaign manager to President Barack Obama, are slated to speak at Michigan Political Leadership Program events early next month. 

Messina said it wouldn't work for Republicans to claim Detroit as a victory. They opposed things like the auto bailout and the Affordable Care Act — actions from President Barack Obama that helped the city. In other words, they have a deeper problem. 

"They opposed everything that worked in Detroit," Messina said.

Much more at that link about Michigan, Detroit, and Flint, where the Dems will debate Sunday.  Fox is moderating tonight's affair; you remember what happened the last time.

In the first Fox News debate, he seethed at her. Before the second debate began, he walked. 

But on Thursday night, Donald J. Trump and Megyn Kelly will be back on stage together for the 11th Republican presidential debate, and Fox’s third of the primary season. 

As the front-runner for the nomination and coming off a string of Super Tuesday wins, Mr. Trump will be at center stage, fending off attacks from his remaining rivals and questions from what could be fairly described as his least favorite moderating team.

Don't expect anybody to be on their best behavior (as usual).