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Special Bulletin. Is It Over?

Is the contest for the Republican nomination over? Well, not quite, but it’s on a very thin edge. If the results of the New York primary were depressing, the results of this week’s primaries were devastating. Trump won every one of five states amassing a vote of more than fifty per cent in each. Senator Cruz was shut out, winning no delegates and finishing behind Governor Kasich in all but one. For his part, Kasich won a handful of delegates and had the distinction of finishing second in four states. Unfortunately, however, finishing second at this point is something like being given the Miss Congeniality title in a beauty pageant—it may provide a passing boost of morale but it gets you no closer to a tiara. The margin of Trump’s victories showed that, for reasons we still find baffling, his support within the Republican Party seems to be broader than many of us had assumed and hoped.Read More »Special Bulletin. Is It Over?

Blog No 94. Kasich: Horatius at the Bridge?

John Kasich’s defeat of Donald Trump in the Ohio primary was a necessary—but very far from sufficient — condition for his winning the Republican nomination. Even with the addition of Ohio’s 66 delegates, and the exit of Marco Rubio, Kasich remains a rather distant last in what is now a three-man race. He has no chance of winning a majority of delegates before the convention in July, and his hopes rest on a contested, or “brokered” (though there are no real brokers) convention.  An optimistic view was expressed in a Kasich campaign memo Tuesday night: “With the electoral map shifting significantly in our favor, Governor Kasich is positioned to accumulate a large share of the almost 1,000 remaining delegates and enter Cleveland in strong position to become the nominee.”Read More »Blog No 94. Kasich: Horatius at the Bridge?