Super Tuesday Primaries’ and Caucuses’ Results: Trump for Republicans; Clinton for Democrats!

Keywords or Terms: Donald Trump; Hillary Clinton; 1,237 Republican Delegates; 2383 Democratic Delegates; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; Anti-establishment Candidacy; Pro-establishment Candidacy; Trump’s haul - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia; Clinton’s haul - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Some presidential aspirants seem to have all the luck in the world during this campaign season for the White House oval office. They win more primaries or caucuses than five on Super Tuesday, they fly their personally owned private jet while others have to use a leased jet or junket to the next battle field or contestant state in a second class seat on a commercial flight, they overcome their use of loose language to characterize potential voters, who are different from them by reason of color, race, sexual orientation or national origin, they go on to amass three hundred and nineteen delegates, a little ahead and shy of one hundred delegate from their next rival and triple that of the candidate considered the preferred establishment candidate. They call their rivals by derogation and demeaning names or epithet, and still gets to be referred to as a transformation candidate who is trying to change their party to a more populist, nativist and anti-establishment party? If you ask me who I’m talking about, I’ll probably retort, who else do you expect?  I am talking about Donald Trump, who has three hundred and nineteen delegates as against two hundred and twenty-six of Ted Cruz and One hundred and ten of Marco Rubio’s, at the conclusion or completion of the super Tuesday exercise. Remember, the goal is to amass one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven (1,237) to be the eventual Republican Party nominee.

An emerging perspective among poll watchers, political journalists and junkets is that the Grand Old Party (Republican Party) is in a hostile take-over campaign by an establishment loathed outsider, whose brand continues to resonate rather well among the rank and file Republican voters. Some Republican establishment gurus say, it is probably the establishment’s resolute commitment not to be shaken and remain committed to another candidate or a negotiated conference in Cleveland, Ohio that will save the day; others insist that that is long past by now and it appears that the lucky guy has amassed ‘millions and millions' of supporters as he often says at his rallies or when he celebrates another of his party’s state primary or caucuses victory. The share effrontery of telling the establishment that he is determined to start a third party if the establishment does not play by his rule during this nomination cycle, says a lot about the party as well as its composition and or compulsion. The same reality that makes a Republican Party establishment observer say that when Donald Trump uses the ‘cat and whistle’ phrases in his campaign rhetoric, he is actually representing the inhibitions of most of his supporters and saying what is clearly obvious, but probably not to the party’s establishment, is an open truth, no matter how distasteful it is to rational America. While the real estate guru and Republican Party front runner conquered Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia, his closest rival, Ted Cruz, can only take credit for two, Oklahoma and Texas; and, the third runner up, Marco Rubio, only one state, Minnesota. If the momentum continues as the Super Tuesday results show, it may just be difficult for Ted Cruz, Trump’s closest nemesis, to make any inroad in the remaining primaries and caucuses across the nation, as it appears that Trump’s brand continues to resonate well in the Northeast, South and West, USA. Even if Ted Cruz is able to eke a victory in Alaska, he is precisely not the candidate of choice for either the establishment or the rank and file. For this moment and now, it is Donald Trump, who continues in his renegade posture with a new pronouncement that the former 2012 Republican Party nominee, Mitt Romney, is a ‘failed candidate’ who ‘does not know how to win’.

In this cycle of Republican campaign for party’s nomination, bragging and outlandish campaign messaging, including those meant to undermine the Republican Party establishment and or, disenfranchise and demean a huge segment of America’s population, appear to be paying off for the 2016 Republican front-runner. Comments that traditional political campaign strategists will never torch let alone voice on the campaign trail are not only pronounced, tweeted and re-tweeted, they seem to be actually propelling the candidacy of the front-runner to new heights and subsequent victories in states that are about to complete their primaries and caucuses. When the front runner is bold enough to say, if a top Republican establishment US House speaker does not get along with him, even though he hardly knows him or associates with him much, will have to pay [political] price, then the Republican party is ready for a shakeup; or, about to go the way of the Federalists, Southern Democrats or the Whigs. Further, no longer is the psychologist Konnikova’s classified narcissistic personality disorder of Donald Trump’s persona non-grata, it is actually the love of his supporters and most likely preferred to Rubio’s deft claim that the billionaire is a swindler. The current Republican Party is suffering from the same symptoms or failures of moribund parties of the past, where the flagship leader of the party is disorganized, disillusioned and disoriented just before the apocalypse of his party.

While former rival of the front-runner as Ben Carson, is Associated Press reportedly contemplating throwing in the towel, Donald Trump is surpassing predictions and braking the polls to the extent of placing his performance ahead of any rivals in upcoming primaries and caucuses of the States of Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine. While establishment Republican Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is vowing not to vote for Donald Trump if he turns out to be eventual party’s nominee and former New Hampshire governor, John H. Sununu, is joining forces with Hewlett Packard CEO and outside funding groups to raise millions to stop Donald Trump, the front runner’s choice to call rivals and successful men “losers” and foregoing tact in campaign messaging, including disparaging the military record of a genuine American hero, John McCain, is selling like hotcakes among his supporters; and, placing establishment Republicans in a smothered state of temporary amnesia.

Essentially, while establishment Republicans as former Texas Governor Rick Perry are saying Donald Trump is not offering [Republican] conservatism, Karl Rove lambasting him as a complete moron and Senator Lindsey Graham referring to him as a jackass, the rank and file of the party, are just readily flocking to him, both non-degree and degree holders are now being counted as his avid supporters, no more or longer, just the uninformed. The establishment Republican preference to winnow down the contesting candidates so there can be an alternative candidate to Donald Trump, has probably come too late at this stage of the game. The enigma to the challenge ahead for the Republican establishment is that, they probably underestimated Donald Trump campaign brand and responded too late to some of his utterances at the beginning of the campaign exercise. Republican insiders who suspected that there was going to be some form of mutiny within the party with the rapid influence of Tea party members, now acknowledge that party leaders failed to estimate the disaffection within the party for the good old traditional ways of the party, endemic corporate cronyism, corporate-controlled voting machines, slashed environmental deregulation, cuddling of banks, insurance companies, and health management organization, devastation of the environment and, or encroachment on federal lands by the moneyed and privileged group. Across a wide spectrum of rank and file Republicans is the notion that their interests have been largely ignored by mainstream establishment Republicans. It is this disaffection from the rank and file, with a slight tint of endemic bigotry or white supremacy that Donald Trump’s campaign is tapping into and drawing energy from. How the establishment Republicans going to catch up with this new reality is the dozy of a life time for the GOP in the round of 2016 fight for the White House oval office.

On the Democratic Party side, Hillary Clinton continued to solidify her front-runner status in a two-person race against Bernie Sanders. She amassed a little over five hundred and eight (508) votes, but not before Bernie’s supporters delivered him at least a minimum of three hundred and forty-two (342) delegates. At the beginning of the night, there were eight hundred and sixty-five (865) delegates to fight for; and, to a greater extent, it appeared that the race for delegates was for the former Secretary of State to lose. Coming out of an overwhelming victory over her rival in South Carolina, the wind was behind the back of the New York Senator who was fighting a sitting Vermont Independent Senator for the Democratic Party nomination. With more than one thousand and fifty-six (1,056) delegates, including super delegates, it appears that former US secretary of state is closer to the two thousands three hundred and eighty-three (2,383) delegates needed to clinch the party nomination. For Bernie Sanders, the number of delegates accumulation came out of four states: Colorado, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Vermont. Unfortunately, his share of delegate wasn’t as much as what Hillary accumulated in seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

If Democrats are going to retain their occupancy of the White House, it may be in their best interest to rapidly whine down the nomination exercise soonest; and, if Republicans are going to snatch the political power from the Democrats, it may be essential that Republicans stop talking about the con-artist labeling from Marco Rubio and face up to the reality of the Donald Trump’s whirlwind support from their party’s rank and file. Hillary Clinton is rallying and garnering likely Democratic voters more than any Republican aspirant, except Donald Trump is doing on the Republican side; she is sending out slogans of unity and creating an inclusive society. Dramatically, Donald Trump of the Republican Party has been dazzling the party’s establishment by winning in states that are not overtly conservative, but more liberal ones as well, including of all places, the State of Massachusetts. Sadly, at this stage of the campaign exercise, the preponderance power-brokers and Republican Party strategists are not united behind the likely GOP nominee because they have the reservation that Donald Trump’s campaign brand can do well in the November general election. In the coming immediate future, if the focus of the Clinton’s campaign messaging is to take on Donald Trump once the eventual party’s nominee is established, it may be necessary for her campaign team to undertake a study of the reservation inhibitions of establishment Republicans toward Trump’s campaign and investigate objectively, Donald Trump’s campaign messaging to see how they can turn those against him in a general election.

Back to the Democratic side of this exercise, notwithstanding the commanding lead of Hillary Clinton on the delegate’s count table, Senator Bernie Sanders is defiant and not giving up; he has promised to continue to take the fight to the former US Secretary of State in other states with primaries or caucuses. Given the current results from Super Tuesday, it is imperative that Bernie Sanders channel his effort and money into a more provocative stance to destabilize the current and growing affinity for his rival’s brand in the Democratic Party nomination process. Albeit, there is projection that if Bernie Sanders is going to have a clearer path to the Democratic Party’s nomination, he will have to win in most of the big states henceforth; and, win with greater margin than ever, to have a convincing impact on the race and accumulate more delegates against the former US Secretary of State. Yes, it is okay to want to take the fight to the floor at the Philadelphia convention; however, at what cost when you consider that the alternative candidate at the helms of the opposition party is close to a party’s nightmarish apocalyptic candidate, who will say anything, or tweet anything, to undermine the creed and principle of his party.

The current claim by nationalist Republican Party tea party faction that the party is due for a shake-up, has not only ramification for the Republican Party membership. It probably signals a message of better unification within the Democratic Party behind a candidate and the party’s creed and principles, if the party is not to suffer the apocalyptic failures that seem to have, or is about, to throw the Republican party into an unending chaos, with a quixotic fascistic Mussolini-like leader, with a diarrhea political campaign mouth. Mary, Times are a ‘changing! And as Dad, I don’t know what to tell you!