Narrow victories in the Kentucky caucuses and the Louisiana primary, the largest states decided on Saturday, have moved Donald Trump one step nearer to the nomination.
Primaries in Michigan, Mississippi, and Idaho on March 8, and in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina on March 15, may prove decisive. If Marco Rubio does not win his home state of Florida, he is cooked, as is Gov. John Kasich if he does not win Ohio.
Jonathan Chait has a pretty good article about why Trump puts such fear into the hearts of GOP establishment intellectuals:
Driving home from Texas yesterday, I heard NPR’s Rachel Martin interview Don Reid, a genial Republican — he sounded like the kind of guy you’d love to have a cup of coffee with — and former city council member in Charlotte, NC. Reid is a Trump supporter. Excerpts from the interview:
DON REID: I just absolutely love the fact that Donald Trump is challenging the establishment Republicans. He’s redefining the party and, hopefully, destroying the power that has been in that little oligarchy of establishment Republicans in Washington, D.C.
Rand Paul’s campaign for the White House ended with a fifth-place finish in Iowa. But Senator Paul has a more important job than running for president, and the conclusion of his presidential bid lets him get back to it. He does, of course, represent the people of Kentucky in the United States Senate. But he represents something else as well: the best foreign-policy traditions of the Republican Party.
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other… Anything different—that's what they're gonna talk about—race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything they can do to keep us fighting with each other, so that they can keep going to the bank!”
- Comedian George Carlin