THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016
And The Last Chance To Stop Trump
At this afternoon’s Political Strategy Seminar, Political Consultants were asking Beloved Whistleblower Publisher Charles Foster Kane if CNN’s Harangue in Houston will be the last chance for Donald Trump’s rivals to stop him, since tonight’s broadcast hosted by CNN, Telemundo, and Salem Radio, is the last major event before Super Tuesday, when Republicans in 11 more states can vote. “Trump has won three of the four contests held so far and leads polls in almost all the states that will vote on March 1,” Kane explained, “and a strong Super Tuesday could see him build up unstoppable momentum.”
Niall Stanage at The Hill says the state of the race could lead to fireworks tonight, and some of the things we should be watching include:
How hard do Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz go after Trump? Trump’s two main challengers have nothing to lose, so they should really be on the attack. But they’ll probably wind up fighting over the table scraps.
2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday suggested that Trump’s tax returns could contain a “bombshell,” an attack that the front-runner has batted back by suggesting that there is nothing surprising in his personal finances other than, “I pay a lot of tax and the government wastes the money.”
Does Trump mix it up or try to glide above the fight? According to the conventional laws of politics, a front-runner such as Trump would have more to lose than to gain by getting involved in heated exchanges. Then again, the businessman’s performance every step of the way has defied convention.
What part does the crowd play? The audience at the South Carolina debate, in Greenville, made its displeasure with Trump clear again and again. One reason for that became clear only in the aftermath: around 900 of the 1,600 available tickets had been given to local and national Republican officials — the demographic that is the core of the opposition to Trump.
Trump pushed back on the booing that came his way on-stage and his spokesman made a similar point afterward. “I think the RNC does a terrible job in allocating the tickets, to be honest with you. … They give them to the lobbyists and all the special interests,” Corey Lewandowski told reporters.
Telemundo’s involvement in tonight’s debate, plus its location in a border state, virtually guarantees that immigration will be a significant issue. Who benefits from that? Cruz and Rubio have tangled on the topic several times before, with the former suggesting the latter is too liberal and Rubio hitting back with charges that Cruz has also nuanced his positions at times in the past. But there has been no clear winner from those exchanges. Trump could end up being the main beneficiary. His proposal to build a wall along the southern border is often derided by his media critics but it appears to be wildly popular with the Republican base.
Does Trump claim victory already? In his triumphant speech after Tuesday’s Nevada caucuses, Trump was even more confident than usual that he would wind up as the Republican nominee. After outlining the various states that were still to hold contests over the next two months, he added, “We might not even need the two months, folks, to be honest.” No one knows if he will be more circumspect than that tonight in Houston. But the reality is that he is the red-hot favorite now, and it will be revealing to see how he, and his rivals, grapple with that in their remarks. [READ MORE HERE]
Meanwhile, armed with today’s Official DemocRAT Talking Points, our Disgruntled DemocRAT Neighbor We’ll Call “Dave” says: It’s crazy, but there is another R debate tonight? Nowadays, you almost need a special monitor like in the airports to keep up with the debate schedule. The Republicans have had about a dozen so far, plus 7 undercard debates. Added to that, there are seven or more DemocRAT debates. And more to come on both sides.That means there’s more debates this election cycle than in the entire first 200 years of our republic. By now, everyone except Ben Carson knows what everyone else on the stage is going to say. The only question is who is TRump going to insult this time and how many times will he say “Tremendous?” No matter what anyone says, they are all lying anyway, and besides, they really couldn’t do any of what they are promising, due to lack of authority, congressional obstructionism, the courts, and public opinion. Being president in these times is about what being Vice President used to be – not worth a bucket of warm piss. At least the VP doesn’t have to take the amount of abuse that the president does. VP is the best job in government. It pays well and there is nothing to do except check on the president’s health from time to time, unless he sends you to some big ass’s funeral so he doesn’t have to go himself.
The good news is that I have something better to do tonight. Got a hot date at the Chili Parlor with a waitress who promises to be very nasty.
Oh, and did you hear that Carson is really running to be the White House lawn jockey? Yeah, he is about as much of an inanimate object as most of them, but they will have to send him to some classes in history and government to be able to compete with the cast iron and cement ones for the job. Trump is already measuring him for a red vest and cap.
The Blower wonders what we’ll be hearing from our Disgruntled DemocRAT Neighbor We’ll Call “Dave” in 330 more days when President Trump gives his Inauguration Speech.
