Tuesday Open Thread [3.1.16]

National—NBC News/Survey Monkey–Trump 40, Rubio 21, Cruz 18, Carson 8, Kasich 7

In head-to-head match ups, Trump would beat Rubio, 52% to 46%, and top Cruz, 55% to 42%.

National—NBC News/Survey Monkey–Clinton 51, Sanders 41
National—Rasmussen–Clinton 53, Sanders 31
Texas—Emerson–Cruz 35, Trump 32, Rubio 16, Kasich 9, Carson 4
Texas—Emerson–Clinton 68, Sanders 26
Texas—FOX 26/Opinion Savvy–Cruz 36, Trump 25, Rubio 19, Kasich 9
Texas—ARG–Cruz 33, Trump 32, Rubio 17, Kasich 7, Carson 6
Texas—ARG–Clinton 58, Sanders 38
Massachusetts—Emerson–Trump 51, Rubio 20, Kasich 14, Cruz 10, Carson 1
Massachusetts—Emerson–Clinton 54, Sanders 43
Massachusetts—UMass Amherst–Trump 47, Rubio 15, Cruz 15, Kasich 11, Carson 2
Massachusetts—UMass Amherst–Clinton 47, Sanders 44
Alabama—Monmouth–Trump 42, Rubio 19, Cruz 16, Carson 11, Kasich 5
Alabama—Monmouth–Clinton 71, Sanders 23
Oklahoma—Monmouth–Trump 35, Cruz 23, Rubio 22, Carson 7, Kasich 8
Oklahoma—Monmouth–Sanders 48, Clinton 43
Georgia—WSB-TV/Landmark–Trump 39, Rubio 20, Cruz 15, Kasich 8, Carson 9
Georgia—WSB-TV/Landmark–Clinton 70, Sanders 23
Georgia—Trafalgar Group–Trump 39, Rubio 24, Cruz 21, Kasich 7, Carson 6
Georgia—FOX 5 Atlanta–Trump 33, Rubio 23, Cruz 23, Kasich 11, Carson 6
Michigan—MRG–Trump 33, Rubio 18, Cruz 18, Kasich 10, Carson 9
Michigan—MRG–Clinton 56, Sanders 36
Kentucky—Western Kentucky Univ.–Trump 35, Rubio 22, Carson 7, Cruz 15, Kasich 6

An Ohio farmer spells out “NO TRUMP” in cow dung.

“President Obama is to confer in the Oval Office on Tuesday with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, and Sen. Charles Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, about filling the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. If everyone maintains previously stated positions, it might be a very short meeting,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Obama is adamant that he will name a nominee to the court, most likely in the next few weeks. Republicans remain just as adamant that they will not even meet with Mr. Obama’s nominee, let alone hold confirmation hearings.”

The New York Times on Clinton’s plan to destroy Trump: “That strategy is beginning to take shape, with groups that support Mrs. Clinton preparing to script and test ads that would portray Mr. Trump as a misogynist and an enemy to the working class whose brash temper would put the nation and the world in grave danger. The plan is for those themes to be amplified later by two prominent surrogates: To fight Mr. Trump’s ability to sway the news cycle, Mr. Clinton would not hold back on the stump, and President Obama has told allies he would gleefully portray Mr. Trump as incapable of handling the duties of the Oval Office.”

“Democrats say they risk losing the presidency if they fail to take Mr. Trump seriously, much as Republicans have done in the primary campaign.”

This should help end the narrative that Donald Trump is a KKK-loving genocidal racist: “About 30 black students who were standing silently at the top of the bleachers at Donald Trump’s rally here Monday night were escorted out by Secret Service agents who said the presidential candidate had requested their removal before he began speaking.”

Politico: “Top Republicans — including governors who convened an emergency conference call on Monday on which Trump was Topic A — expect the real estate mogul to carry as many as 10 states on Tuesday night, an outcome that would deal a body blow to Sen. Ted Cruz, who has staked his campaign heavily on the Southern states holding nominating contests, and to Sen. Marco Rubio, who has yet to win a primary and isn’t expected to do so on Tuesday.”

“Trump’s march to the nomination has set off a wave of anxiety across the Republican Party establishment as top officials weigh whether to endorse him — or denounce him as anathema to the party’s values. Reflecting that angst, on Monday morning, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the heads of the Republican Governors Association, convened fellow governors for an unusual conference call to discuss how the primary was unfolding — and Trump was a central topic of conversation.”

Damon Linker looks at Trump’s campaign through the prism of history:

It’s on the right that America is witnessing a genuine revolution — with the ghost of George Wallace attempting nothing less than a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.

It’s important to recognize that this isn’t a reenactment of 1968, when Wallace ran as an independent, outside the structure of the two parties. Had Trump run for president as an independent, he might have done quite well and created all kinds of problems for the GOP by attracting large numbers of its voters. The Republican Party would have felt the need to move in Trump’s direction to lure those voters back. But the party itself wouldn’t have been broken in two — any more than the Democratic Party was shattered by the defection of the Wallace voters in 1968.

What Trump is attempting is potentially far more destabilizing.

Dana Milbank at The Washington Post writes about the GOP’s big gamble:

I have for months urged Republicans to call Trump the bigot and racist he is, and I’ve noted his similarities in style and substance to Mussolini. But Republicans failed to unify against Trump when it could have made a difference, and now they have a likely nominee who: approvingly quotes Mussolini; tries to discredit a federal judge by invoking ethnicity; reacts to a demonstrator by saying “I’d like to punch him in the face”; taunts other protesters by asking, “Are you from Mexico?”; declares that he is going to change free-speech laws to make it easier for him to sue news organizations; and refuses requests by the Anti-Defamation League and others to distance himself from white supremacists. (After declining Jake Tapper’s invitations to do that on CNN Sunday, Trump issued a tweet repeating an earlier disavowal of David Duke, but he said nothing about the hate groups supporting him.)

Republican leaders had incorrectly gambled that ignoring Trump would make him disappear. Now it’s time for them to take sides – and the divisions are telling.

“The New York Times is sitting on an audio recording that some of its staff believes could deal a serious blow to Donald Trump who, in an off-the-record meeting with the newspaper, called into question whether he would stand by his own immigration views,” BuzzFeed reports.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) “raised serious concerns about Donald Trump’s surging presidential bid, becoming the highest-ranking congressional Republican to express fears about the real estate mogul’s candidacy,” CNN reports.

Said Cornyn: “We can’t have a nominee be an albatross around the down-ballot races.”

Jonathan Chait: “The old Rubio strategy was not successful at winning primaries, but it was successful at making people like Rubio. Rubio has ranked at or near the top of lists of voters’ favorite second-choice candidates. As Nate Cohn points out, Rubio has time to catch up and overtake Trump, even if he loses every state on Super Tuesday. But Rubio’s strategy hinges upon successfully taking down Trump without losing his own currently wide, but relatively shallow, base of support. Will Republicans still like the new, mean, pee-pants-calling, dick-length-mocking Rubio just as much as the old, winsome version?”

“It is possible that Rubio’s mockery will finally bring down Trump. But even if so, Rubio’s popularity might come down along with him. In that case, the conflict will redound to the benefit of the candidate who is currently running the now-discarded Rubio game plan: John Kasich. The Ohio governor is using versions of the old, well-received Rubio message about refusing to attack fellow Republicans and bringing people together.”

Ed Kilgore asks if Bernie Sanders can bounce back after Super Tuesday (i.e. today)?

If Sanders can win all five of his winnable states tomorrow, it might offer him a bridge to March 5, where Kansas and Nebraska look good for him; March 6, where Maine should be in the bag for Bernie; and then March 8 and March 15, where big labor-oriented states plus Florida offer a very different kind of challenge. Sanders’s safe haven doesn’t arrive until March 26, when he should be favored in caucuses in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. But assuming his financial situation continues to look good, there’s no reason for panic unless he’s limited to a Vermont win on March 1.

As in so many other respects, however, Clinton is on a path to the nomination that mainly depends on stockpiling delegates — which she should do tomorrow with her expected large margins in the South — and knocking holes in any plausible scenario for a Sanders nomination. You should watch the results in Texas for a possible example of this last Clinton opportunity: If she wins Hispanic voters as handily as polls have shown, and wins black voters as she’s done everywhere else, and wins or comes close with white voters, the psychological impact will be even bigger than her likely delegate harvest. If Sanders cannot count on winning outside New England anywhere other than states with dominant white-liberal participation and/or caucuses, the end will come soon enough.

I expect Bernie will win Vermont, Minnesota and Colorado. Clinton will win Oklahoma, Tennessee and Massachusetts, plus all the other 5 states that are in her bag already (Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Virginia, and Arkansas).