sinewav wrote:Lucifer wrote:In the US, Kasich took Ohio (his first real win), and the pundits are trying to predict a contested convention.
After Kasich took Washington DC I realized that he was the new Establishment candidate. Now the Establishment needs to do something with Cruz so they can tackle Trump. I bet there are a lot of unconventional back-room deals going on right now.
The problem there is that Cruz doesn't deal, that's why we hate him as a senator in the first place. I don't see Cruz and Kasich making a deal. Kasich can court many of the same voters Trump can court, but he's coming off too often as something of a crackpot. He's wildly popular in Ohio, and he apparently was quite the governor there, so he's eminently qualified. But Cruz doesn't deal. He shuts down.
So I'm not sure what options there may be. I really hoped Rubio would fare better, and I hate to say this, but I also retroactively wish Bush had done much better. Trump might still be the frontrunner, but if Rubio and Bush had run better campaigns, they might be able to guarantee denying Trump the nod before the convention at this point. Instead, Cruz and Kasich are the last hopes, and they're not good hopes (Kasich is a good hope, but his campaign isn't that strong. I really think he's been running for the Veep position this whole time).
Lucifer wrote:Meanwhile, Bernie's staffers are saying that Hillary has blown her load and the rest of the map looks very favorable to him.
Quite possible. Mrs. Clinton's campaign is probably surprised at the amount of resistance they are seeing, but I wonder if statistically there is nothing the Sanders campaign can do other than "keep the message out there."
I think Bernie underperformed too much in early states. Yeah, sure, he can still win the nomination, and the rest of the map is favorable to him. But it's not solidly favorable, and Hillary still has the best chances, I think. So, I guess we'll have to see. It's a toss-up, but it's a toss-up that strongly favors Hillary. When it was Obama in 2008, at this point, he was pulling ahead in pledged delegates. Of course, he also ran a brilliant campaign, the likes of which had never been seen before, and still haven't been seen again (his 2012 campaign was much more traditional since it was for re-election).