Sunday Open Thread [4.10.16]

The National Review wonders if we Democrats are underestimating Ted Cruz. No. We are not.

“Democrats can keep telling themselves that, but they ignore a powerful new reality: Ted Cruz is the underdog who is at long last uniting every strand of conservatism to face down an existential threat. He defends his wife against Trump’s vulgar sexism, he’s the young Hispanic counter to Trump’s loathsome alt-right fans, and he’s attacking Trump not with the language of the gutter but with principle and conviction.”

“Moreover, if Cruz were to emerge victorious from a contested convention, it would be a moment of high drama in which tens of millions of Americans witnessed Cruz in his finest hour, defeating an ugly, crass, and vicious movement — a movement comprising large numbers of men and women who are more Democrat than Republican. And as he did so, the pressure to unify would be overwhelming. There is a large #NeverTrump movement on the right. There is no meaningful #NeverCruz movement.”

LOL. This is comedy. Ted Cruz as a likeable unifying figure? Trump supporters are Democrats, not racist Republicans? And where do Trumpicans after the nomination is stolen? To Cruz? No. They stay home.

Evil Duck bigot Phil Robertson for some inexplicable reason delivered the invocation before the NASCAR race yesterday, and he prayed for “A Jesus man” to be elected president in November. That automatically excluded Hillary Clinton (who is not a man) and Bernie Sanders (who is not Christian) from consideration.

Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Caucus yesterday, but his margin of victory (55% to 44%) leads to a 7-7 pledged delegate split. Hillary already has the endorsements of the 4 Wyoming superdelegates, hence the 11-7 delegate margin above. That means Bernie gained no ground on Hillary yesterday, and indeed, since one more contest is over, he actually lost ground.

The New Yorker says Trump will argue that the convention is rigged: “It’s easy to mock Trump for his thin-skinned fixation on the size of his audiences, but that misses a deeper point: you can’t have a riot without a mob. Even before he was a candidate, Trump displayed a rare gift for cultivating the dark power of a crowd. In his role as the primary advocate of the ‘birther’ fiction, he proved himself to be a maestro of the mob mentality, capable of conducting his fans through crescendos of rage and self-pity and suspicion.”

“And therein lies the key to Trump’s ability to introduce menace into the convention: he does not need to call upon his supporters to do anything but protect their newfound sense of identity and purpose. Stone, the political operative and self-described practitioner of ‘dirty tricks’—a man who (again, no metaphor) has a tattoo of Nixon on his back—has mapped out the fantasy that they will offer to their people, to explain what happens if Trump falls short of the twelve hundred and thirty-seven delegates he needs to secure the nomination.”

Politico: “According to interviews with more than a dozen people on or close to the campaign, staffers are increasingly dividing themselves into competing factions aligned with Trump’s three top officials – embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who still commands deep loyalty among many of the people he hired; deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner, who has a growing group of supporters; and newly hired strategist Paul Manafort, who was elevated this week and is building his own fiefdom.”

“Indiana hasn’t cast its ballots for president yet, but Donald Trump is already losing,” Politico reports.

“Republican Party insiders in the state will select 27 delegates to the national convention on Saturday, and Trump is assured to be nearly shut out of support… Indiana GOP insiders are working to engineer slates of delegates — three from each of nine congressional districts — that will turn their backs on Trump at a contested convention in July. Another 27 will be elected at a state committee meeting next week.”

In a Boston Globe op-ed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tore into her Republican colleagues, arguing that since President Obama was elected, they have “refused to try to make government better — opting instead to try to shut down government altogether rather than to accept a functioning government led by someone they didn’t like.”

Wrote Warren: “For seven years, through artificial debt ceiling crises, deliberate government shutdowns, and intentional confirmation blockades, Senate Republicans have acted as though the election and reelection of Obama relieved them of any responsibility to do their jobs. Senate Republicans embraced the idea that government shouldn’t work at all unless it works only for themselves and their friends. The campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are the next logical outgrowth of the same attitude — if you can’t get what you want, just ignore the obligations of governing, then divert attention and responsibility by wallowing in a toxic stew of attacks on Muslims, women, Latinos, and each other.”

“If Senate Republicans don’t like being forced to pick between a bullet and poison, then here’s some advice: Stand up to extremists in the Senate bent on sabotaging our government whenever things don’t go their way. Respect the oath you took to uphold and defend the Constitution. Show some courage and put that oath ahead of party politics. Do your job — and start by considering the president’s nomination to the Supreme Court.”

David Wasserman: “Sanders’s reliance on extremely low-turnout caucus states has meant the pledged delegate count overstates his share of votes. To date, Sanders has captured 46 percent of Democrats’ pledged delegates but just 42 percent of raw votes. So even if Sanders were to draw even in pledged delegates by June — which is extremely unlikely — Clinton could be able to persuade superdelegates to stick with her by pointing to her popular vote lead.”

Washington Post: “Cruz is the disciplined strategist who stays relentlessly on message and runs a by-the-book organization filled with aides and state chairs … Trump, by contrast, runs what amounts to a DIY presidential campaign.”

“While the approach has left Trump with little established infrastructure as the race turns into a brawl for delegates, it has also allowed him to be nimble.”

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that 7 in 10 people, including close to half of Republican voters, have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump.

“It’s an opinion shared by majorities of men and women; young and old; conservatives, moderates and liberals; and whites, Hispanics and blacks — a devastatingly broad indictment of the billionaire businessman.”

Gallup: “Seven in 10 Democrats have a positive view of each of their party’s two contenders. Clinton has a little more negative baggage, with a 26% unfavorable rating compared with Sanders’ 13%. Sanders has a somewhat higher percentage responding ‘Never heard of/Don’t have an opinion.’ But they are both well-liked.”

“This is significantly different from the Republican side, where the percentage of Republicans who like Donald Trump is 55% and those who like Ted Cruz is 52%. Plus, Trump’s unfavorable rating among Republicans is 40%, while Cruz’s is almost as high at 38%.”