MAY 4, 2016
Photo: Getty
What a bizarre and amazing 24 hours in politics this has been!
On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump accused the father of his rival Ted Cruz of hanging around with Lee Harvey Oswald in the 1960s and intimated that Rafael Cruz might have been in on the plot to kill President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Tuesday night, Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States. Happy Election, everyone!
All this drama was prompted by Tuesday’s Indiana primary in which Trump soundly defeated Cruz 53%-37%. John Kasich, who had made an agreement with Cruz not to campaign in Indiana, ran way behind with only 8%.
Ever since the beginning of the campaign, Cruz has been itching for a one-on-one showdown with Trump, and when Kasich agreed to step aside in Indiana, Cruz finally got what he wanted. Cruz threw everything but the kitchen sink into Indiana, not only with his agreement with Kasich but with his announcement that Carly Fiorina would be his running mate in the general election and his confrontation with Trump voters face-to-face that didn’t go too well.
Most bizarre of all was Cruz’s press conference on Tuesday morning, as primary voting was going on, decrying Trump’s accusation, taken from a report in the National Enquirer and corroborated nowhere else, that Cruz’s father was pals with Oswald and speculated — he’s just raising a question as Trump is quick to remind us — that maybe Rafael Cruz knew more about JFK’s assassination than he lets on. He’s just askin’.
Ted Cruz exploded at this accusation, accusing Trump of specifically targeting his family and calling him a “pathological liar.” In defending his family, it was probably the most human Cruz has seemed during this entire campaign. But it was an unfortunate time to have this incident happen.
After the results became clear, the Cruz campaign realized that there was no viable way forward for the candidate to win the nomination. In a gracious speech that somehow managed to avoid the phrases “Republican Party” and “Donald Trump,” Cruz vowed that the fight for the conservative cause will carry on before announcing that he will be suspending his campaign. It remains to be seen whether, for the sake of party unity, Cruz will be willing to endorse the man whom he had just called “a pathological liar.”
Briefly the last man standing against Trump, Kasich bowed to the inevitable and suspended his campaign on Wednesday afternoon. Rumors swirled on Wednesday that Trump was vetting Kasich to be his running mate, but it remains to be seen if Kasich, or any human being in his right mind, would be willing to endure the humiliation of campaigning side by side by Donald Trump. Calling Chris Christie….
On the Democratic side, in what would have normally been the lead story about the primary, Bernie Sanders continues his winning ways with a convincing 53%-47% win over Hillary Clinton. Buried under the news of the psychodrama in the GOP, Sanders nonetheless keeps pressing on, arguing the case that he would make a stronger general election candidate against Trump than Clinton would. Unfortunately for Sanders, the proportional way Democrats allocate their delegates, despite his big Indiana win, he will get a grand total of 6 more delegates than Clinton.
Let’s see how everybody did.
REPUBLICANS
DONALD TRUMP (53% of the vote, 57 pledged delegates won last night) –– The man who fired Meat Loaf and Gary Busey is now the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States. Let that sink in for a second.
TED CRUZ (37% of the vote, zero pledged delegates won last night) — Cruz certainly gave it his all in Indiana. But, as they say, no matter how nice the packaging, if the dog won’t eat the dog food, you’ve got a lousy product. And Republican voters weren’t buying Ted’s dog food. See you in 2020.
JOHN KASICH (8% of the vote, zero pledged delegates won last night) — The one Republican who could have run a competitive race against Clinton was almost completely ignored. Enjoy the chocolates and roses that Trump will be sending you.
DEMOCRATS
BERNIE SANDERS (53% of the vote, 44 pledged delegates won last night) — Make no mistake, this was an impressive win by Sanders and gives him even more leverage at the convention to get platform concessions from the Clinton campaign should he fall short in the delegate count. And it almost guarantees that Sanders will be in it all the way through California.
HILLARY CLINTON (47% of the vote, 38 pledged delegates won last night) — Clinton had already pivoted to a general-election campaign — she spent exactly $0 in advertising in Indiana against Sanders — but the fact that the Republicans effectively selected their nominee before the Democrats has got to be a bit embarrassing.
For you fans of the horse-race, here’s where everybody stands, delegate-wise:
THE DELEGATE COUNT
REPUBLICANS (1,237 needed to win)
Donald Trump 998 (plus 57 pledged delegates won last night) = 1,055
Ted Cruz 564 (plus zero pledged delegates won last night ) = 564
The Ghost of Marco Rubio = 172
John Kasich 154 (plus zero pledged delegates won last night) = 154
DEMOCRATS (2,383 needed to win)
Hillary Clinton 2,151 (plus 38 pledged delegates won last night) = 2,189
Bernie Sanders 1,362 (plus 44 pledged delegates won last night) = 1,406
Next Tuesday brings two more primaries — West Virginia and a Republican contest in Nebraska. (We’re nothing if not thorough.) Be there or be square!
