primary

As of this moment, Donald Trump has 736 delegates and is (mostly) smoothly sailing to the nomination with Ted Cruz almost 273 behind him at 463. However, there is suddenly an all too real chance that 273 lead can melt to as little as 173 with Trump's delegate count dropping by 50 as a result of what happened during this week's CNN townhall meeting when as previously reported, Trump reneged on his pledge to support the GOP candidate. The reason is that by doing so, he may have jeopardized his hold on South Carolina’s 50 delegates.

Thursday was a rough day for GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

At a pre-recorded town hall meeting hosted by MSNBC and Chris Matthews, Trump got tripped up over a question about illegal abortion.

“Should [illegal] abortion be punished?,” Matthews quizzed. “This is not something you can dodge,” he added.

“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump responded, when pressed.

“For the woman?” Matthews asked, just so there would be no ambiguity.

“Yeah,” Trump responded.

To let CNN tell it, Donald Trump has women problems.

And we don’t mean in the sense that he has trouble finding an attractive dinner date:

Donald Trump has long taunted the media - and specifically Fox’s “crazy Megyn” Kelly - for failing to understand “math.”

Last July I wrote that Donald Trump was merely a “blip,” a novelty candidate who couldn’t do much better than 17 percent in the polls. He would swiftly go the way of Herman Cain.

In August, I still didn’t believe the Trump hype. The 2016 race, I predicted, would see an early surge for a religious right candidate, followed by the inevitable nomination of the establishment favorite, probably Jeb Bush. After the Iowa caucuses, I was sure my scenario was playing out, only with Rubio in place Bush.