Michigan Post-Mortem

The results from yesterday's primary election in Michigan are an indication that we are headed to another Bush v. Gore-type standoff in the fall. Trump won, and he won by double digits -- 36.5% to Cruz's 24.9% and Kasich's 24.3%. But added together, his opponents won nearly 300,000 more votes in the Wolverine State than the celebrity billionaire. This points to something that Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin noted in their post-election frontpager this morning, "Bernie Sanders Wins Michigan Primary; Donald Trump Takes 3 States." Trump's negatives are on the rise:

Even before the votes were counted Tuesday, there were new signs that resistance to Mr. Trump’s candidacy within his own party was growing. The number of Republicans viewing him unfavorably spiked to 46 percent in a Washington Post-ABC poll released Tuesday, the highest figure recorded in that survey since Mr. Trump entered the race last year.

This percentage will likely grow as next Tuesday's GOP Battle of Armageddon takes shape. The Republican strategy is to block Trump from running the table next Tuesday. If Trump manages to win in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, his chances of avoiding a brokered convention and cinching the nomination are great. To prevent this, the Republican Party is concentrating its anti-Trump attack in Florida and Illinois. The problem for the GOP is twofold: 1) Rubio has collapsed as a viable alternative; and 2) Ted Cruz remains the most dominant "next man up."

With the Rubio charade thankfully retired by voters in Mississippi and Michigan, I'm sure that Republican power brokers would love everyone to get behind Ohio governor John Kasich. But Ted Cruz blocks the way with his Super PAC millions.

So the dynamic -- Cruz a solid number two stifling the emergence of an acceptable mainstream alternative -- that has led to the rise of Trump remains in place. Barring a surprise showing from Kasich, Trump sweeps next week. Let the coronation begin.

On the Democratic side, Bernie won a solid come-from-behind victory in Michigan. He did it by outworking Hillary on the ground and, like Trump, by hammering home the message of how trade agreements backed by ruling elites like the Clintons gutted the industrial backbone of the country. According to Yamiche Alcindor and Patrick Healy in "Trade and Jobs Key to Victory For Bernie Sanders":

Mr. Sanders pulled off a startling upset in Michigan on Tuesday by traveling to communities far from Detroit and by hammering Mrs. Clinton on an issue that resonated in this still-struggling state: her past support for trade deals that workers here believe robbed them of manufacturing jobs. Almost three-fifths of voters said that trade with other countries was more likely to take away jobs, according to exit polls by Edison Research, and those voters favored Mr. Sanders by a margin of more than 10 points.

This is good news for Sanders going into next week's contests in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. (Bernie seems to be largely conceding Florida and North Carolina.) Hillary managed to win more delegates last night because she trounced Sanders in Mississippi. And even if Sanders manages to win all three industrial states next week, but Clinton continues to rack up lopsided wins in heavily African American Democratic districts, Hillary will likely come away with more delegates.

But that shouldn't be the thing that concerns us. After next week the remaining segments of Hillary's Dixie firewall are all finished and the calendar is much more favorable to Bernie. The march to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will be weary and woeful for Hillary. She will arrive in the City of Brotherly Love exactly what she is -- a bloated political cadaver kept in a state of animation by untold millions in corporate cash.

The American people are in for a real treat this July. We will bear witness as the duopoly attempts to subvert the results of the primary election season.

Hillary 2016 D.O.A.

The local representative of the AFL-CIO walked into the office on Monday. He said that he has a friend on the ground in Iowa, and that friend told him, "Take it to the bank. Bernie is going to win Iowa."

This word-of-mouth report emanating from the Hawkeye State is basically the same message as that being relayed by "the newspaper of record" in the last couple of days. Hillary is in free fall in Iowa. She has squandered a 20-point lead and is now engaging in fear-mongering attacks on Sanders, saying he is captive to the gun lobby and that he will raise taxes on working-class Iowans.

All one need do is read "Hillary Clinton Races to Close Enthusiasm Gap With Bernie Sanders in Iowa," by Patrick Healy and Yamiche Alcindor, to get the sense of the dire situation Team Clinton is in:

A poll published on Tuesday, by Quinnipiac University, found that Mr. Sanders had jumped to a lead in Iowa, with 49 percent to Mrs. Clinton’s 44 percent, after trailing her by 11 points in mid-December. The Quinnipiac poll also found that liberal Iowans were the most enthusiastic about the election, and that Mr.Sanders was the favorite among these voters. A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Tuesday showed Mrs. Clinton’s once formidable lead shrinking from 20 points a month ago to seven points.

The tightened race is revealing a sharp generational divide within the Democratic Party, with primary voters under age 45 favoring Mr. Sanders by a roughly 2-to-1 ratio.

*** 

Mr. Sanders’s supporters point to his grass-roots strengths: He has more than 14,000 volunteers in Iowa, and he has spoken to more than 40,000 people at events in the state so far, huge numbers that include young people, independents and new voters who might not be on pollsters’ call sheets. (Mrs. Clinton’s advisers declined to say how many volunteers she had or people she had spoken to in Iowa.) 

“I think his secret weapon, maybe his silver bullet even, is the young adult population that hasn’t been involved in politics up until this point,” said Katie Mitchell, 28, a middle school teacher who lives in Des Moines.

Taking into consideration there is still almost three weeks to go before the February 1 caucus, I'm declaring Hillary dead on arrival based on a reading of just those four paragraphs. Iowa is a caucus state. Caucuses require commitment. It is not as if you can walk into a voting booth make your choice and get out of there. Caucuses require you to be in crowded close quarters with strangers who are sometimes hostile for an hour or more. Caucuses are not for the moderately motivated citizen. Caucuses are for the true believers. The New York Times in its coverage of the last few days is acknowledging in so many words, without saying it explicitly, that Bernie is going to win Iowa because his supporters are much more fervent than Hillary's.

What this means is that Sanders will win Iowa and he will win in New Hampshire and Clinton will have to rely on her Super Tuesday firewall of Southern states to save her bacon. This creates the unsavory scenario for Team Clinton and the Democratic National Committee where Hillary's candidacy is dependent on primary victories in red states she has no hope of carrying in the general. This has been my mantra when people ask me about the Democratic presidential race: Think twice about Clinton's viability in the general election.

Another stake in the heart of Hillary 2016 is the debunking of the Clinton-peddled talking point that she can win by returning the Obama coalition to the polls. She can't return the Obama coalition to the polls because we now know that one vital bloc of that coalition -- youth -- will not turn out for her. So until the Clinton campaign can come up with another model to explain how she wins 270 electoral votes we have to conclude that she is D.O.A.

At this point because of Hillary's strength in red state primaries I'm not willing to say Sanders can knock her out and win the nomination. What I'm saying is Hillary as the Democratic nominee has big problems. Maybe she could beat a Ted Cruz. Maybe. But Donald Trump? No way.