Super Tuesday

Alabama, Alaska (Republicans only), American Samoa (Democrats only), Arkansas, Colorado (Democrats only), Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia will go the polls on Tuesday and this should be the knockout blow for those last few hanging-around candidates.

Democrats
Hillary Clinton easily won South Carolina and Nevada and looks to roll through Super Tuesday, after which Bernie Sanders will have nowhere left to go but home. Particularly in the southern states I expect Clinton to have an established base eager to show out for her, so is there enough of an established anti-Hillary base that Sanders can summon? I doubt it. Not liking Hillary is not the same as supporting Sanders. I suspect the support that Sanders has received so far is largely from folks that feel like they can always have Hillary, so they can ride Sanders until he falters and then shuffle over to the Hillary side. Sanders will take Vermont and possibly Massachusetts and maybe can shake out a last chunk of voters who feel Hillary isn't as Sanders-ish as they'd like. I expect Hillary to crush Sanders in most of the other states and that'll be the last we see of Sanders (except to stump for Clinton). (Weird prediction: I've got the strange feeling that Hillary will win in November and then serve only one term. I dunno why, just a feeling that the Dems will be back in Iowa in 2020, while Hillary is still in the White House)

Republicans
The Republican Party has been out of whack since 2000: the next guy in line at that time was John McCain but George W. Bush showed up with a famous name and a pile of money and he shoved his way to the top of the ladder; then as his de facto protege he chose Dick Cheney, a man too old to follow Bush, meaning that Bush upset the order and then guaranteed that the order would stay upset even after he left; McCain was too old to win by the time it was his turn to run; Republicans will some day look back on Mitt Romney and see the most perfect Republican ever built and think, 'Why didn't we vote for--oh, right, he's Mormon.' Bush could've let McCain have 2000 (where I think he would've lost to Al Gore) and then run in 2004 (where he may well have defeated Gore in the wake of 9/11) and then faced off with Hillary Clinton in 2008 (toss up depending on what the Middle East and economy would've been like at that time); then Mitt Romney would've had an incumbent support that may have looked past his Mormonism. But none of that happened and now the Republican Party is in total disarray. Throw in the death of Justice Scalia, a Senate built totally to obstruct, and the inability of governors like Scott Walker, John Kasich and Chris Christie to gain any traction (and whatever happened to Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal and Mitch Daniels?), and the Party is looking pretty bleak.

But, wait. Given that the Supreme Court has been controlled by Republicans since 1972 and has never overturned Roe v Wade, does it really matter that Scalia has passed? (If Hillary wins and a Democrat is added to the Court, look for Sotomayor to track to the middle and become the new Kennedy; just a theory) Given that the Republican House is now run by golden boy Paul Ryan and the Senate has Marco Rubio and Rand Paul as the potential emerging stars, Congress will still be firmly controlled by the Republicans through the next administration (I think). Throw in that this 2016 race will purge the party of Donald Trump, the Bush family name and Ted Cruz, I think the future is actually bright for the Republicans. Politics is always darkest before dawn: the party in power tends to fumble the ball right quick, power is elusive and the second place party is never too far from a power grab.

So what happens on Super Tuesday? I think Rubio will generally do better than Cruz, Kasich will have to drop out (and throw his support to Rubio), Ben Carson will go back to doing whatever it is Ben Carson does (and not endorse anyone). And I guess Trump will largely dominate. I have continually miscalculated the potential of Donald Trump because I just don't see where his support is coming from--and I still don't after all these months! The Tea Party crowd hates nothing more in this world than ObamaCare, which Trump supports; the 'establishment' doesn't want a billionaire interloper who isn't even a Republican; the middle class likes Trump's candor but they don't like what he says; the Christian crowd would rather see just about anyone else but Trump; the business crowd might not hate Trump but its hard to imagine they really like him; the intellectuals know that Trump has no grasp of procedure or the judiciary or foreign affairs or even the economy (dude, listen to Trump talk business...for a billionaire Wharton grad, he doesn't show any expertise of economic affairs). So who is it that likes this guy? I'm still not seeing it. And I can't help thinking that going head-to-head with Hillary Clinton will show her to be vastly more qualified for the job in a way that the electorate will have to acknowledge. I know there's a bandwagon mentality when a guy starts winning but, honestly, who is it that's voting for Trump?

After Trump with Cruz as his VP loses to Hillary, then Rubio and Ryan become the stars in Congress and lead the charge on Iowa in 2020, by which time Jeb Bush will be gone, Christie will be gone, Huckabee will be long gone, Trump will just be a vague nightmare memory, and Cruz will be nothing more than the next Santorum struggling to get 2% defending his title. And the Republican Party will be back to normal built on the still youthful Marco Rubio (not as white as Mitt Romney but much less Mormon) with Rand Paul, Paul Ryan and Scott Walker looking like wily veterans. Meanwhile the Democrats will be looking to aging Hillary Clinton and way past his prime Joe Biden and whatever new guy gets belched up in the next 3-4 years. Look for the Republicans to be strong again in 2020 and it could be a while before the Democrats have another worthwhile leader.