2016 March 26^th

Primaries of interest today are in Washington State, Hawaii and Alaska. Given the time difference, the results will be available too late for me to comment about them. The big prize is Washington where Clinton has some political endorsements and Sanders is the pick of the Seattle Times. Washington is a caucus state so both sides will get some delegates. Breaking News; Sanders has won both Alaska and Washington on the basis of huge early leads!

Meanwhile, we can do a “sleaze report” on the Republican primary race. Here is a quote from Senator Cruz, “Donald Trump may be a rat but I have no desire to copulate with him.” Yes that’s accurate; now, can you imagine the context in which this might have been said by a Harvard educated debate champion running for President of the United States? It isn’t easy. The “National Inquirer” ran stories alleging Ted Cruz’ multiple affairs; all of which Cruz vigorously denied. It is very important that Cruz jump on this right away because he gets much support from evangelicals who would be horrified if there were a shred of truth to these allegations.

Enter Roger Stone; this man is a notorious dirty trickster. Dirty tricks have been a staple of right wing political campaigns for decades. For example, Carl Rove circulated a rumor that John McCain had fathered a black child and that rumor cost McCain the South Carolina primary and gave the primary that year to George Bush. Nixon’s use of the IRS to irritate his many “enemies” is in the same vein. Stone is a master of these dirty tricks. His premier move was to open a bank account with a “Socialist etc. name plate” and then send a donation from this ‘Socialist” account to a struggling Republican‘s campaign, making sure the newspapers got the message. Guess what happened. That is Roger Stone’s typical contribution. Could he have had something to do with the National Inquirer’s story about Cruz? The real Prince of Darkness here was Lee Atwater who managed the dirty tricks for the Bushes and Nixon. This is where the term “rat f******” came from; it simply refers to these dirty tricks.

(The expression has its origins in the military. If you get a carton of MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, you can open all of them and just take out the good sections and trash the rest.  The “Rat” here is short for “ration.” This is where the “Rat obscenity” originated. How it was transferred into politically dirty tricks I have no idea.)

Why Cruz could not have said something like, “I have no wish to trade dirty tricks with the National Inquirer.” Instead of talking about “copulating with Donald Trump” I can’t fathom. Cruz is supposed to be very bright; he may be that, but it doesn’t mean that he is very imaginative.