[MaxFlint]

I agree with all that about both Cruz and Trump, but my concern with Cruz's political skill goes beyond tactics. It gets to who he is. He reminds me of the Christian right intellectual whose grasp of the Bible is astonishing, able to rattle off chapter and verse on any subject perfectly from memory... and whose merciless fire and brimstone dogma the non-fundamentalist audience regards with absolute horror, if they don't laugh out loud.

Cruz isn't that bad. (Santorum was the worst in that regard) But he's lawyerly in the way fundamentalists are legalistic, which is a cold approach. No one is particularly fond of lawyers or dogmatists. That the more fanatical Cruz opponents frame everything in personal moral terms ("Trump's wife was a NUDE MODEL! He owns CASINOS!") does nothing to alleviate the worries of those of us who place a bet now and then and who may have, at one time, read Playboy for the articles.

By the way, Melania's notorious nude photo is rated PG at worst, she's just posed on a rug, all the naughty bits carefully concealed. That's what has some Cruz fans on FR so worked up.

[lancium]

All of the polling data I’ve seen for South Carolina is at least two weeks old and before the Tim Scott endorsement. Does anyone have a newer polling data?

[Cboldt]

- - ... read Playboy for the articles. --

LOL. Really good post all around, and that phrase made it all the more enjoyable.