We're Doomed: Keep on Dooming.

Still doomed. Very, very doomed. Not just talking about my March Madness Bracket. Doom. I'm still going to use humour in this, but the recent violence around Trump Rallies has moved this into the "Are Americans about to start attacking eachother in the street" on a large scale category. Between Black Lives Matter, and the violence/anger of the Trump candidacy...it's scary. Here's hoping sanity is on the way.
(Inside joke for my Obama campaign friends: Any chance that Jason Green/Paul Tewes/Jeremy Bird/Joy/Maggie/Jack/Homer/Katy/etc are going to save us?)

Donald Trump needs 550 delegates to become the Repulbican nominee, there are 900 delegates left in the remaining Republican Primaries. All his competition has dropped out, except Ted Cruz. Fun Fact: Ted Cruz is not more sane than Donald Trump. No seriously, you're reading this right now thinking "ha ha Robert, Donald Trump is the Mayor of Crazy-Pants-Town", but no: YOU'RE WRONG. Ted Cruz says the same things, maybe a little less misogynistic, but doesn't do it with the style of Trump.

Regardless, Trump would need to get a hair over 60% of the remaining delegates, but since he struggles to get over 40% of the vote, he won't. Cruz has no mathematical path to get the remaining delegates,

So, we're headed to a convention where no candidate has the majority of the Republican delegates and the Republican Party will light it's hair on fire. I'm not sure that's a joke, someone may literally light their hair on fire.

HRC has won the Democratic Primary, "The Media" are just dragging out the Sanders campaign chances so they have something to write about on the Democratic side. The next story to happen here will be her VP choice...I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed for Booker. Failing that: Warren. Maybe a successful Latino mayor as third choice?

The biggest story coming after that? The FBI indictment. If it comes, she could face anything from no punishment to a fine and probation to jail time. If it happens, she will get absolutely beat down in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin. She'll need to win three of those to be President.

I haven't seen any reporting on what happens if she drops out of the race after the conventions mid-summer. I imagine it will be unpleasant.

We're Doomed: Yup!

More US States voted to select their Republican and Democratic preference for nominee over the weekend. Quick recap:

Hilllary Clinton (HRC) is still 100%, definitely, absolutely going to be the nominee for the Democratic party. It might be worthwhile to start thinking about who her Vice President will be. A couple things that she may be thinking about:

1. Who is she comfortable having take over for her if she passes away while in office?
2. Will the attract support she doesn't already command? 
3. Who can she select that will make a natural Presidential candidate in 8 years?
4. Who can attack the Republicans while she stays out of the mud?
5. Who can she find that balances her weaknesses and strengths? Alternatively: Who can she find that will reinforce her strengths?

The answers to question 2 and 5 are intriguing and related to me. She doesn't poll spectacularly well with Liberals and the far left. She doesn't poll spectacularly well with blue-collar men, and she doesn't do spectacularly well with a younger demographic.
The answer to question 3 seems to be Warren and Booker (to me, anyway), both of whom would do well in addressing her weaknesses as well. Alternatively she may turn to someone with a military background or a strong tie to that community (like Jim Webb). I don't see her going with an older white male. The former mayor of San Antonio, Castro, gets mentioned in this debate publicly, but I don't know enough about him to comment.

Meanwhile let's catch up with the Republican Primary:

 Cruz "won" two states and Trump "won" two states. The updated delegate count:
Trump - 384
Cruz - 300
Rubio - Michael Jordan crying face emoji (151)
Kasich - 37

Although it looks close between Cruz and Trump, it is REALLY hard to close a gap of any kind as almost every state awards delegates proportionally to percentage of vote, and Trump polls between 25-35% of support basically everywhere. Expect Cruz, Rubio and Kasich to all pick up more delegates than Trump this week, as each of their home states vote and a couple are winnter-take-all for delegates. Expect this to not impact Trump maintaining his lead, but potentially not getting the 1,237 delegates he needs.

update: Gawker.com implicitly agrees with my premise. http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-please-help-us-we-have-no-idea-how-to-stop-d-1763284642

We're Doomed: Are we still doomed?

Super Tuesday has come and gone...and largely there aren't a lot of surprises. The trends from the last two weeks continues:
 Republicans Melting Down like a cheap fondue

• THE DONALD has now fought with the Pope, took days to disavow an endorsement from the KKK, endured insults to his sexual prowess and endowment, had to talk about the lawsuit he is facing for TRUMP University....and is now an even bigger front runner than before. 

• In the primary/cacuss system, very few states are winner-take-all, where the nominee hopeful takes all of the votes from that state. Instead, they are broken down by percentages, with a bottom end threshold needed to get the minimum number of delegates. There are some large winner-take-all states coming up (Florida), but it is nearly mathematically impossible for Cruz or Rubio to catch THE DONALD, without THE DONALD all of a sudden getting less than 15% of the vote for the rest of the primary.
• Rubio did so poorly, and got so few delegates (82) on Super Tuesday, that he is all but out of the race. His only reason to hang on at this point is to hope for a brokered conention, much like John Hines from The West Wing (note: did not work out well for Hines).
• The current people in positions of influence of the Republican party, like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Mitt Romney are running around like chickens who's heads were cut off 20 years ago and they still haven't realized it. They are openly talking about not supporting THE DONALD if he wins and insinuating that the party may splinter. They appear to not be taking into account that it is members of the Republican party who are voting for THE DONALD. So...#leadership?

 Goodnight, Sweet Bern

• Bernie Sanders has told us we need a revolution, and he's the guy to do it. The Democratic Party voters have told him "No Thanks!" HRC is going to be the Democratic nominee, I'd guess there's backchannel conversations about how the Bern can gracefully leave the race.
   
• Next question for the Dems: Who will HRC pick as VP? (fingers crossed for Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren). How will she go after Trump?
• Oh yeah: and did she knowingly email top secret, secret, or confidential information using her person account? If she did: Did this information end up with people it shouldn't have? Is she going to face charges? http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/02/396823014/fact-check-hillary-clinton-those-emails-and-the-law