2016 April 26^th

Senator Cruz and Governor Kasich might not have truly colluded, depending of course on your usage of that term, but they do seem to be conducting a cabal. Either way, whatever you call what they’re doing, it is provoking much hilarity and very little reduction in Donald Trump’s appeal.

The unacknowledged plan seems to be for Cruz to campaign unimpeded in Indiana while the favor is returned to Kasich in Oregon and New Mexico. Kasich has cancelled his campaign events in Indiana so that fits. This morning on Matt Lauer’s program Kasich was interviewed and Lauer asked him how he would advise Indiana voters to vote. His response was that he would not presume to tell anyone how to vote. In most cases, candidates for public office explain why they believe you should vote for them and then ask you for your vote. Now we have Kasich in Indiana who is running for his party’s nomination but claims that he doesn’t care for whom Indianans vote. That is very generous of him.

This is simply ridiculous; if these two Republicans really want to keep Trump from the nomination then why don’t they agree that Kasich will simply drop out of the contest and give Cruz a clear field? But what does Kasich get out of that scenario? Zilch! Loyalty for politicians is first to their own egos, then to their party and finally, if any is left, loyalty to their country. Regardless of the disaster they believe Trump would be as President they will be happy to vote for him rather than for Clinton…as I said, party comes before country. This is why George Washington was so opposed to the rise of political parties in this country. At this point the Stop Trump Movement has spent 2 million dollars on its efforts; Trump, during the same period, has spent less than a million. When tonight’s results are in, Donald Trump is expected to win the primaries in all the states; the only question is by how much?

Then there is the Hillary-- Bernie contest: It is getting more and more testy. Bernie prides himself on appealing to small donors who keep him very well-funded while he accuses Hillary of getting huge sums for speeches to groups to which she must certainly have promised something venal to get all that money. So far we don’t have an official copy of the Goldman-Sachs talks so we can’t know how incriminating they are. The fact that Clinton is keeping them from public view is not a comforting sign for her supporters.

Speeches aside, Clinton has to be concerned about two things: The crowds Bernie is getting are enormous and so is the funding coming into his campaign; then there are his unremitting attacks against her, which will surely be taken up by whomever her opponent is in the general election. Again, Bernie doesn’t seem to care if he reduces her chances in the general election, all he seems to care about are his very unlikely chances to win the Democratic nomination. Political egos are no respecters of party….and I voted for this guy!