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« on: March 02, 2016, 07:10:08 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 3-2-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest
Mar. 2, 2016
THE FOUNDATION
“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” —James Wilson (1791)
TOP RIGHT HOOKS
Which Party Is Trump Winning?1
First, the obvious notes from Super Tuesday. Donald Trump further cleared his path to the Republican nomination — but he also underperformed expectations, winning seven and not 10 or 11 states. Ted Cruz won three states, bolstering his claim to being the only viable Trump alternative, though he now heads for less friendly territory. Marco Rubio finally won a state, giving him hope going into Florida and other states that are closer to Minnesota, where he won, and Virginia, where he nearly did (but didn’t because of John Kasich). At this point, the (narrow) path for either Cruz or Rubio likely involves a brokered convention.
Second, the underlying stories. Yes, Trump has won 10 of the first 15 states, but he only pulled a grand total of 34% of the vote Tuesday and has yet to win a majority anywhere. Combined, Cruz and Rubio have about 50%. And Trump’s share of the delegates declined from 66% before Tuesday to 49%.
Bottom line: The reason Trump is the frontrunner is because there have always been too many alternatives. Two is still too many, not to mention four or the original 16. And no one really took him on until five days before Super Tuesday2. We’ll see how he handles continued withering attacks on his record of hurting the very voters he appeals to3.
Drilling down even deeper we find that Trump is winning because of voters who aren’t Republican. His surprise loss in Oklahoma may demonstrate this, because it was a closed primary (only Republicans could vote). Massachusetts illustrates it too — it was Trump’s highest performing state (49%) and 20,000 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for him. Through March 15, another 10 states will vote and eight of them are Republican-only.
So as The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last put it4, “Trump is not leading a revolt from within the party, but staging a hostile takeover of it.”
Or put another way, it’s great to “expand the party,” as Trump boasted Tuesday night, bringing Democrats into the fold, but only if they intend to stay there come November. There’s plenty of evidence Democrats are crossing over now, and little reason to think they’ll stay. We’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but don’t think for a minute Democrats are above voting for Trump now to choose a weak general election opponent for Hillary Clinton.
Trump Adds to Clinton’s Inevitability5
Let’s do some quick political math. If Republican primary voters choose Donald Trump as their candidate — and they’re certainly headed that way — they will have essentially chosen Hillary Clinton to lead the country. Of all the candidates Republican and Democrat, Clinton had the best night of them all Super Tuesday. Clinton swept up Massachusetts and the Southern states (Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas) and shored up hundreds of delegates to rally for her at the Democrat National Convention. With her 1,001 Democrat delegates, she holds a comfortable lead on Bernie Sanders and his 371. Chances are rising that she really will become the inevitable Democrat nominee.
The question for Republicans becomes: Who can go head-to-head against Clinton and win? Forget the polls at this moment. Instead, look at the possible way the Electoral College will vote, as the Examiner’s Ryan Witt did in a recent analysis6. Needing 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency, Witt projected that Clinton would pick up 358, easily dominating Trump and his 180.
It comes down to which states are safe for each party to win. Clinton would easily win 217 delegates based on the states that voted for Barack Obama by more than 6% in the 2008 election. Meanwhile, Trump would win 164 delegates in states that supported Mitt Romney by at least 10% in the 2012 election, according to Witt. Most of the remaining swing states lean Democrat and contain high Latino and black demographics — which are fleeing Trump and falling behind Clinton. Of course, the head-to-head race is months away, and this projection is like all the others, a projection. But if voters are given the choice between two big-government New Yorkers who have track records of not telling the truth, most of them will probably cast ballots for the woman who told supporters at a Super Tuesday rally in Miami (a swing state city), “Instead of building walls, we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunity and empowerment.”
Broken ObamaCare Co-Ops Cheat the System7
During his weekly address on June 27, 2015, Barack Obama responded to a favorable Supreme Court ruling from two days earlier on the legality of ObamaCare subsidies by boasting, “This law is working exactly as it’s supposed to — and in some ways, better than we expected it to. … It is time to stop refighting battles that have been settled again and again. It’s time to move on.” If only we could. The reason we can’t (aside from the Supreme Court getting it wrong8 twice) is because the law is not working, no matter how you spin it. Not only is enrollment tanking9, but a new poll shows that very few people10 are seeing any benefits, and already 12 of the nearly two dozen ObamaCare co-ops have imploded. As for the rest? They, too, are on shaky ground.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unloaded a bombshell on Congress last week by revealing that eight more co-ops may soon be headed for closure. According to11 The Washington Free Beacon, “The agency’s chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that the 11 co-ops that remain are ‘being monitored closely,’ and that eight have a corrective action plan in place and are under enhanced oversight. Cohen explained that a co-op is put on a corrective action plan when the agency identifies issues with its finances, operations, compliance, or management processes.” If history is any indication, they won’t last long.
The news gets worse. A separate Free Beacon story published Tuesday says12, “Co-ops created under Obamacare reported net assets despite losing millions because they used an accounting trick approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. … In July 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services amended its agreement with co-ops, allowing them to list $2.4 billion in loans they received from taxpayers as assets.” So not only are co-ops closing left and right, but the federal government allowed them to cheat the system, all while CEOs pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars. If this was happening in the private sector, would Obama claim the system “is working exactly as it’s supposed to — and in some ways, better than we expected it to”?
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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Star Parker: Trump Not a Good Bet for American Greatness15
Michelle Malkin: The 2016 GOP Debate Debacle16
Terence Jeffrey: Will Obama and Kerry Declare ISIL Not Guilty of Anti-Christian Genocide?17
For more, visit Right Opinion18.
FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Will a Trump Nomination Cost GOP the Senate?19
By Louis DeBroux
With the Trump Train20 barreling through the South on Super Tuesday, racking up an impressive number of delegates and solid wins, it’s safe to say that while the GOP presidential nomination is not yet secured, it is at this point Donald Trump’s to lose.
What makes The Donald so formidable is that, unlike other Republican candidates, whose past comments, positions and histories are dissected on a molecular level for evidence of ideological impurities which render them unfit for the nomination, nothing Trump has ever said or done seems to dent the devotion of his loyalists.
Three marriages? He loves diversity! Bragging about serial adulterous affairs? Oh, isn’t that so “Donald”? Health care more socialized than ObamaCare? At least people won’t be “dying in the streets”! Support for partial-birth abortion and Planned Parenthood? He’s changed! Trade war with China? Bring it on! Appointing leftists like his uber-liberal federal judge sister to the Supreme Court? Marco Rubio is a sweaty choker! Legalizing millions of illegals? Not on Trump’s watch (though he has said repeatedly that he will do just that, not to mention hiring them to build his towers). A Christian who claims he has no need to ask God for forgiveness? Well, people interpret the Bible many ways. He robbed people blind with Trump “University”3? He makes great deals!
And so on down the line.
Yet his support is strong because angry Republican voters — and a whole lot of disaffected Democrats — think he will be different, and that he will “win.” |
