[stilloftyhenight]

George Will always supports the GOPe. No surprise here.
He is positively predictable and rarely adds anything new to a discussion.

Bush will not be POTUS. It isn’t just his name, it’s his progressive agenda.

[jobim]

I knew this would crumble into a bash-GeorgeWill-fest. I suggest we look at his conclusion:

Any candidacy premised on conceding those 18 states involves a risky thread-the-needle path to not much more than 270 electoral votes. Writing in Politico, Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik notes that in the six elections since 1992, a majority of states have not been "remotely competitive."

Thirty-one plus the District of Columbia (they currently have 344 electoral votes) have voted for the same party in those elections. Another eight (71 electoral votes) have voted for the same party in five of the six. This is why, Sosnik says, "almost two-thirds of the $896 million spent on television" by the two candidates in 2012 was spent in five states that have been competitive since 1992 — Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia.

The Republican nominee must crack the ice that has frozen the electoral map. Cruz cannot do that by getting more votes from traditional Republican constituencies.

I have given Cruz money twice this week, so I hardly am defending Will in general, but his electoral construct needs to be pondered. We still have much time.