Don't Let the GOP fool you, Cruz is Trump Lite.

Ted Cruz

I'm a beer drinker.   I prefer the darker, stronger beers like Ambers, IPAs and Bochs but I often have to go with the "lite" versions because as much as I like the stronger stuff, they have too many calories and carbs and I know they are more detrimental to my long term health.  Not that Michelob Ultra is the cornerstone of a healthy diet, but it's better than the alternatives that I prefer.   Such is the state of the current Republican Party establishment in the race for their party's nomination.   They seem to now be finally accepting the fact that the voters in their primaries prefer the stronger stuff (Trump), but it seems that they are now trying to push the lite version (Cruz).  But I would give Americans the same warning my doctor gives me with beer, the lite version may not be as bad as the real thing, but beer still isn't good for you.

Ted Cruz is the most despised politician in Washington by other politicians, that's a universally accepted fact.   But drip by drip, you see and hear rumblings of politicians that have publicly spoken of their disdain for Cruz endorsing him for the Republican nomination.  Even Lindsey Graham, who said publicly that choosing between Cruz and Trump was like choosing between "being shot or being poisoned", has evidently chosen the poison, endorsing Cruz.   The fear of the GOP establishment of the Trump phenomenon can be felt from coast to coast, and evidently they have now decided that Trump would be such a disaster that Cruz is an acceptable alternative.   But here's the rub.   If you look closely at their stated stance on public policy and issues (to the extent there is any stated policy by Trump, he's very thin in that department), Cruz and Trump are basically identical.   Choosing Cruz over Trump is like drinking lite beer and still getting all the calories and carbs.  

Let's look at some of the hot topics during the election.  Abortion?  Neither believe in a woman's right to choose.  Affirmative Action?  Both against.  Same Sex Marriage?  Both against.  EPA regulations too restrictive?  Both agree.  Gun control?  Both against.  Obamacare?  Both against.  Government stimulus for economy?  Both against.  Privatize Social Security?  Both agree.  Expand the Military?  Both agree.  So what's the difference?  The difference is although Cruz professes to be the one politician in Washington that refuses to play the game, the GOP establishment evidently has decided that he is more willing to play the game than Trump.   It truly appears to be the case of the lesser of two evils.

Donald Trump

It will be interesting to see what happens, because as much as the GOP establishment is trying to get their voters off of the real thing (Trump) and switch to the lite version (Cruz), the voters seem to realize that they get the exact same thing from both, so they for now are sticking with the real thing.  Although Trump may not get the required 1237 delegates needed to win the nomination before the GOP convention, he almost surely will enter that convention with more delegates than anybody else.   Will the GOP establishment snatch the voter's choice from them and try to stick them with substitute?  Only time will tell.   

Is Hillary Clinton the Mike Tyson of Politics? Does She Have a Glass Jaw???

Hillary Clinton

I've always been a huge boxing fan.   Like most boxing fans, I held Mike Tyson in high regard.   I had him ranked as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time.   Then a couple of years ago I was watching a documentary on Iron Mike's career.  The documentary detailed every fight he ever fought.  As the documentary progressed, I was certainly impressed by Tyson's awesome display of power and aggressiveness as he knocked out foe after foe.   Then something dawned on me.  None of the guys that Mike Tyson knocked out were great boxers.  Most of them were, in boxing parlance, bums.   His first loss was actually to a boxing bum, Buster Douglas.  As far as I can tell, Douglas was the first boxer to actually hit Mike Tyson.  He did beat Michael Spinks, who was really a light heavyweight.   But the only really good heavyweights Mike Tyson fought were Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and Andrew Golota.   He didn't beat any of them.  It turned out Iron Mike had a glass jaw.  He couldn't take a punch.

Rudy Giuliani

What does any of this have to do with Hillary Clinton?   I've observed Hillary Clinton's entire political career, which for the purposes of this post I will start with her time as First Lady of the United States.  I watched her run for the Senate in New York.  While many thought her primary opponent would be heavyweight contender Rudy Giuliani, he ducked the fight and instead she ran against Rick Lazio who could be the Buster Douglas of politics except he never had a big win.   In boxing parlance, Lazio would be a bum.  I watched Hillary perform admirably in the Senate.    In her Senate re-election campaigns, she quickly dispensed two more political bums, Jonathan Tasini and John Spencer, with the same ease that Mike Tyson defeated Michael Spinks.   By the time she announced that she would run for President in 2008, she was every bit as intimidating as Tyson was that night in Tokyo before he fought Buster Douglas.   I vividly remember a politically active friend of mine asking me to help raise money for a then relatively unknown first term Senator from Illinois named Barrack Obama.  Even though I really liked what I had heard from Obama I asked my friend what was the point?   I told him Hillary was inevitable.  If he could show me any way that Obama could possibly defeat Hillary I would raise the money.   He couldn't.   We know the rest of the story.  The relatively unknown first term Senator, in boxing terms, knocked her out.

But Hillary made an impressive comeback as President Obama's Secretary of State.   She had a few hiccups along the way but left that office appearing to be at the top of her old "Iron Mike" form.   By the time she announced that she would be a candidate for President in 2016 she seemed so inevitable that she drew no serious contenders to run against her.   The two sacrificial lambs that threw their hats in the ring were Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders.   Clinton was expected to mow both down easily, and O'Malley did go down early in the first round.   But Bernie Sanders not only refuses to go down, he has started to hit Clinton.   His win in Michigan last night was his hardest punch yet, and it appears to have the Clinton campaign staggering.  

Donald Trump

As dominating as Hillary Clinton has appeared to be as a politician, she has yet to defeat a heavyweight.  Let's be honest, Bernie Sanders is no heavyweight.   No one gave him any chance to compete at the beginning of this process and hardly anybody who covers politics for a living gives him any chances of winning the nomination.   Yet he's still in the ring, still throwing punches, and still connecting.   Meanwhile, awaiting the winner of this contest is a true heavyweight the likes of which we've never seen before, Donald Trump.     So it will be interesting to me to see how Hillary reacts.  If you will remember, when Mike Tyson realized that he couldn't beat Evander Holyfield he resorted to street fighting, biting Holyfield's ear during the fight.   When Hillary Clinton intentionally misled a national television audience in Detroit during a debate by saying that Bernie Sanders had voted against the auto bailout, a claim that almost all political observers say is false, to me it was the equivalent of biting Bernie's ear during a fight that she sensed she might be losing.    

So where does Hillary go from here.  We know what happened to Mike Tyson.  He went from being feared to being hated to being pitied to actually becoming a sympathetic figure. He had his own fairly successful one man show and has made bit appearances in movies and TV sitcoms. In my opinion Mike Tyson is not only the most overrated boxer of all time, but he may be the most overrated athlete in the history of sports.  He never beat a good heavyweight, not once.   I'm not saying that's Hillary's future.  She does have an incredible resume and she has shown a remarkable ability to leverage that resume into revenue, so I don't see the one woman show in her future.   But as a lifetime boxing fan I can tell you that once the world discovers you have a glass jaw, your best days are usually behind you.   Time will tell.

Republicans Still Don't Get It. The People Want Trump!!!

Donald Trump

Often over the last eight years I've said that our American system of government only works if the American people respect the results of elections and consent to be governed.   I've also said that the current breakdown in both our governing and our politics can be traced back to the fact that the American people, particularly those in the Republican party, no longer respect the results of elections and increasingly refuse to consent to be governed.  For eight years Republicans have acted as if President Obama had not been elected not once but twice by a majority of the American people.  Despite those elections, they insisted that the American people preferred their policies, not his.   They have virtually shut down the ability of our government to get anything done because they refuse to acknowledge that they lost the last two Presidential elections.  Super Tuesday provides the latest example.  Republican voters across the nation are sending a message through their votes that they want Donald Trump to be their nominee for President.  But the Republican establishment is once again telling the voters "we don't give a damn what you want, we know what's best".   It seems they will never learn.

Anybody who reads this blog knows that I'm no fan of Trump, but the fact is he is winning election after election fair and square.  Yet all I see in the news this week are efforts by the GOP establishment to deny Trump the nomination.    They appear to have conceded now that he will go into their convention in Cleveland with the most delegates, they are just hoping to keep him below the 1237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.   All indications are that if that happens, there will be a concerted effort by the powers that be to nominate someone other than Trump (my prediction is Mitt Romney, because maybe the third time is the charm lol).  Just how dumb are the people running the Republican Party?

Mitt Romney

It's too late to stop Trump.  The horse is out of the barn.  The voters want him.  The man has finished first in 10 of the 15 primaries and second in 4 of the other 5.  There is no doubt that the people who voted in GOP primaries thus far want him to be the nominee more than any of the other candidates.   Yet there is a concerted organized effort among the party leaders to stop him.   The aforementioned Mitt Romney plans to give a formal press conference today for no other reason than to try to derail the Trump juggernaut.  The time for this unified front against Trump was months ago, before the people started to vote.   Now that the people are speaking, and saying unequivocally that they want Trump, what does it say to the voters if the party says no?   What can the party possibly hope to achieve by denying the people their choice?   We have seen this before, the Democratic Party tried it in 1968 and it didn't work out so well.   If the Republicans have seen any of the footage of the crowds that are showing up at Trump rallies how can they expect not to have a repeat of Chicago in 1968 if they deny Trump the nomination?

Democratic Convention 1968

Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand why the grownups in the GOP don't want Trump.   He's not what you want as the face of your party.  He lies repeatedly, he's a blowhard, he's embraced racist and bigoted rhetoric to win support, he makes promises that will be impossible to keep, he's narcissistic, and he's basically funding his own campaign so he will be almost impossible to control as the nominee.   I get all of that.  But the people want him, and isn't that what this country is about, we the people (or in this case, they the people.  I don't think Trump will win the general election)?   Like I said, respect for elections and the consent of the people to be governed are the two fundamental principles that make our democracy work.   I think what the Republicans should have learned by now is that if you keep encouraging people to ignore the results of elections, eventually those people will refuse to consent to be governed by those that won the elections (the Cliven Bundy incidents are great examples of this).  

And what exactly does the GOP establishment expect Trump to do if they are successful in denying him the nomination, quietly go away and encourage all of those who voted for him to support the party nominee?   Trump will launch a third party run quicker than a #blacklivesmatter supporter gets thrown out of one his rallies.   There is no doubt his voters will go with him and he will get more votes than the GOP nominee in the general election.   Denying Trump the nomination if he gets the most delegates is telling the voters of the party that we would rather Hillary Clinton be President than respect your votes.    Is that really the message the party wants to send?

So my advice to the GOP?  Ride it out.   If the people elect Trump, you have to give them Trump.   And the argument that he is only getting 40% of the votes so that means 60% of the voters prefer someone else is hilarious on its face.   He's getting more votes than any two other candidates combined.   Respect your voters and honor their ballots.   There are many that voted in the Democratic primaries that do not necessarily want to see Hillary Clinton become the nominee, but it appears the majority of those voting prefer her.    The Democrats are going to give their voters what they want.  I don't think the GOP wins the White House with Trump, but I am 100% certain they lose the White House (again) if Trump gets the most delegates and they deny him the nomination.  At least with Trump they have a chance.  Of course then they would have to deal with President Trump.   But one thing I've learned about the GOP, they have no issues obstructing everything a President wants to accomplish, despite what the voters say.   I've seen them do it the last eight years very effectively.   The one thing I know for sure is this, if we keep ignoring the results of elections in this country, eventually the people will refuse to consent to be governed.  When that happens, the whole house of cards collapses.