Trail Mix

David Gergen on CNN last night: “Trump has a whole lot of voters turning out who are dissatisfied, angry and feel betrayed by the establishment. And now the leaders of the establishment are coming out and saying we don’t give a damn what you think, we really don’t care. We are going to put our own person in there” 

“This was an establishment that insisted Donald Trump take a loyalty oath, that you must be loyal to the person who emerges in the party, that’s what we expect of you. But is there any loyalty being shown to Trump now that he has emerged?” 

“I do think he has the possibility of morphing into something. I think he could be housebroken before this is over.”

You know you are in trouble when Mitt Romney is your last resort. Republican elites, having watched their supposedly golden retriever Jeb Bush turn into dog poop, are now anticipating Romney’s plans to blast Trump in a much hyped speech tomorrow. Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?

Are Democrats about to make the same mistake Republican leaders made, underestimating Donald Trump, ridiculing his supporters and dismissing what appears to be the political phenomenon he has created?

Well, Dems did it those many years ago when laughing off Ronald Reagan, as his own party elites had done to their dismay.

Trump won the optics last night against Hillary and that should be a warning sign for Democrats, commanding far more TV air time by taking sometimes hostile press questions in his victory appearance, compared to Clinton’s reliance on a teleprompter speech obviously written by aides who were plagiarizing the Sanders message.

If the apparent failure of Republican elites to stop Trump is a lesson for Democrats, get this: ditch the teleprompter, forget the conventional empty rhetoric and understand, replicate the colloquial language of the modern TV age. And most of all do not indulge in the personal insults against him that only seem to strengthen him.

In other words, don’t fight his game. Create your own, so long as it is outside the box.

Optics that communicate traditional politics are deadly in a marketplace of voters who truly despise the status quo of our brain dead institutions.

Who gets the bigger night? Hillary or Trump, or both?

Poll Closing Times (ET)

• Alabama, 8 p.m.
• Alaska, midnight
• Arkansas, 8:30 p.m.
• Colorado, caucuses begin at 9 p.m.
• Georgia, 7 p.m.
• Massachusetts, 8 p.m.
• Minnesota, caucuses begin at 8 p.m.
• Oklahoma, 8 p.m.
• Tennessee, 8 p.m.
• Texas, 9 p.m.
• Vermont, 7 p.m.
• Virginia, 7 p.m.
• Wyoming, various times for caucuses
• American Samoa, caucuses begin at 2 p.m.

Like it or not, it is likely today’s news will be all about Donald Trump sweeping Super Tuesday. Hillary will too, but everyone expects that she has already won the nomination.

Will Rubio win anything? And if he loses his home state of Florida on March 15th how does he remain viable? If Kasich doesn’t win his home state of Ohio March 22 he has said he will be gone.

If Cruz wins his home state of Texas today he stays in. Meaning that the Republican race ends up Trump vs Cruz? What is an intelligent Republican voter to do?

Watching Trump’s wife, Melania, on CNN last night I see something coming from their camp, an effort to diffuse and tame his beastly image. For instance, she criticized his choice to repeat that horrible word at one of his rallies. Also beginning to see him walk back some of his foolishness, in his own weird way.

Call it the “Just Kidding” pivot. ‘Hey folks I was just sounding like a dumb ass to get dumb ass votes.’ Kinda like when Reagan said trees cause pollution, and lots of other dumb stuff.

Still don’t know whether Reagan believed the nutty things he said or if he was just taunting Democrats into self destructive distraction. Suspect the latter.

Dems can hope that Trump is as crazy as he sounds. But what if he isn’t, and there is a fox in there somewhere?

Wouldn’t be the first time that liberal Democrats were fooled and beaten by cynical anti-intellectualism.

Housekeeping: Many thanks to our volunteer artist, Claudine Hellmuth, who designed our new logo banner above, very newspapery and, as PatD noted, kind of citified. Nevertheless it’s still okay to read and write in your bathrobes and sweat pants, so long as they are reasonably clean.