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In theory, Ted Cruz's best states are behind him. But at the Detroit debate, Cruz was clearly the class of the field and it's clear that no one should count him out as the delegate race moves into its next phase. The delegate math is complicated, but the basic gist goes something like this: Donald Trump has a commanding lead at the moment, but it is not a given that he will reach the 1,237 threshold he needs to clinch a majority. Simply put, Trump has failed to break through the ceiling of support he's held since New Hampshire even...

The results of last night's Super Tuesday primary elections would have, in a normal Republican Primary cycle, made Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee for President and most certainly driven the also-rans, Dr. Ben Carson and Ohio Governor John Kasich from the race. But in case you hadn't noticed, this isn't a normal Republican Primary election cycle. Normally in Republican politics the stronger a candidate for the nomination gets the more the self-interested powerbrokers in the professional political class come around to supporting him. However, this year the GOP appears to be fracturing into three segments: the "vote for Trump...

THE Australian Labor Party has launched an internal investigation after claims paid election staff sent to work on the presidential campaign may have breached US law. Four ALP election staff were sent to America last month and paid $60 per day to observe and work on the campaign for Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders. Under US law foreign volunteers cannot be paid or receive any benefits, however three volunteers have been caught on camera admitting they received a daily allowance, flights and accommodation form the Labor Party. ALP National Secretary George Wright denied the party had broken any laws but a...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-02/republican-elites-harden-to-trump-as-voters-flock-to-him

Civil rights leader Ben Jealous early Wednesday compared Hillary Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign to Mitt Romney's unsuccessful White House bid in 2012. "She's looking a lot like Mitt Romney did last time around," he told host Chris Jansing on MSNBC's "The Place for Politics 2016."Jealous said the former secretary of State is an "establishment candidate who looks like she should be the president and it's her turn." "Frankly, she has to earn it," the former NAACP president added. "I don't want to see the black vote taken for granted. I don't want to see any vote taken for granted. We...

The supporters of Donald Trump believe he might awaken a sleeping giant -- a cohort of white working-class voters that will propel him to the presidency. His more politically-minded opponents insist he will summon a colossal electoral disaster on Republicans that will not only secure the presidency for the Democrats but lose the GOP the House and Senate. I'll let the Trumpkins make the case for their man. I want to look at the potential for Republican disaster here. John McCain got roughly 60 million votes in 2008. Mitt Romney got roughly 61 million in 2012. Barack Obama secured 70...

A letter in the Financial Times Tuesday attracted attention online because it was written by a liberal couple who said they were considering voting for Donald Trump, even though they are "not the sans-culottes you see as the prototypical Trump voter." In the letter, Jon and Elsa Sands, who describe themselves as socially liberal affluent Americans, believe Trump is the only option even as they compare voting for him to voting for a "tameable Hitler in 1933." The letter reads: Sir, My wife and I are affluent Americans with postgraduate degrees. We are socially liberal and fiscally mildly conservative. We...

A Black Lives Matter protester was escorted out of a $500 per person Hillary Clinton fundraiser on Wednesday after she interrupted the Democratic presidential candidate's speech, which was being held at the home of a Charleston, South Carolina attorney. Video from the incident shows Clinton supporters hissing at the activist, Ashley Williams, while others call her protest "inappropriate." The encounter took place several days before Clinton faces Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary. Williams told the Huffington Post that she and another activist donated the $500 it cost to attend the event in order to confront Clinton...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/01/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-black-voters-primary-elections-2016-column/81150932/

ATLANTA — He tapped voter anger to emerge from a primary field full of experienced Republican officeholders. A political outsider, he had a name most voters recognized, a business background fused to a populist message and, given that he was funding his own campaign, a self-avowed freedom from lobbyists and special interests. Over the course of the year, Trump contributed more than $1 million to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but it was Perdue’s race that captured his interest — an interest that was less about 2014 than 2016. In Perdue’s Senate strategy, Trump saw the makings of a White...

Another person has entered the race for the 43rd Legislative District House seat. And if voted in, that person hopes to make history. Danni Askini has announced her intention to run for the 43rd Legislative District -- an area that covers much of Seattle's popular neighborhoods, including downtown, First Hill, Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, Eastlake, Wallingford, and Ballard. She announced Tuesday her intention to run for the position that will be left vacant as current State Rep. Brady Walkinshaw moves on to run for the US House of Representatives. If Askini wins, it could place a unique voice in...

An Open Letter to Virginia Republicans: Trump Victory Catastrophic for our Republican Party Never before have I grabbed a word like catastrophic to make a political point. It's like pulling a fire alarm; if you do it, there had better be a fire. There is a fire and it's raging within our Republican party. I am convinced that if Donald Trump becomes our nominee, the harm done to our party would be nothing short of catastrophic. I reject Trump as our nominee based on his judgment, temperament and character, all of which point to a reckless, embarrassing and ultimately dangerous...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered up a warning Monday to Donald Trump after the Republican presidential front-runner failed to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. "I think playing with dark forces [will] come back to haunt you," Emanuel said after casting his vote on the first day of in-person voting in Illinois. "This is not a joke." When asked whether Democrats should underestimate Trump, Emanuel gave what he called a larger statement on the issue. "Donald Trump, in 'The Apprentice' show, that was kind of a faux reality show, where you auditioned for a job,"...

Bernie Sanders, having just finished two rallies in Texas with crowds larger than Hillary Clinton could ever dream of -- a 10,000-person rally in Austin and an 8,000-person one in Dallas -- called Clinton to concede the South Carolina primary and got on a plane bound for Minnesota, a state whose Super Tuesday vote the media hasn't bothered to poll, but which Bernie Sanders is likely to win. If he listened to any of the coverage of his dramatic defeat in the Palmetto State while en-route to Rochester, he probably wondered at its accuracy and cogency. Here's five reasons he'd...

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton showed a rare moment of unity with rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as the two landed on the same side regarding Donald Trump 's delay in denouncing the Ku Klux Klan this week. "America's first black president cannot and will not be succeeded by a hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK," Sanders tweeted, which Clinton's account retweeted several minutes later. (TWEETS-AT-LINK)Trump, who is increasingly seen as the GOP's likely nominee, has walked into a firestorm of criticism this week after receiving an endorsement from white supremacist David Duke.....

The prominent conservative founder of Hobby Lobby on Sunday endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for president while ripping apart GOP front-runner Donald Trump David Green, founder and CEO of the arts-and-crafts chain store, said he will vote for Rubio this week in his home state of Oklahoma, which is one of a dozen states holding primaries on Super Tuesday. "Marco Rubio has impressed us with his preparation and the way he carries himself. But most importantly, Marco regularly exhibits humility and gives the glory to God," Green wrote in a statement. "I don't see humility in Mr. Trump, and that...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina, February 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - A pivotal member of Marco Rubio's campaign actively encouraged the Supreme Court to impose gay "marriage" on the entire nation by judicial fiat. Senator Rubio's deputy campaign manager, Rich Beeson, signed a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to redefine marriage in last summer's Obergefell v. Hodges case. The amicus curiae brief, which was signed by 300 Republican operatives whose names spill over 24 pages, argued that having the court discover a nationwide right to same-sex "marriage" served "conservative values." The state marriage protection amendments defining marriage as the union of...

An exchange on the BBC after the Nevada caucuses had given Donald Trump 46 percent of the vote said it all. A perfectly pleasant BBC interviewer asked a political consultant (as best I recall): "But how are the Republicans going to deal with Donald Trump?" "Well, at present they're voting for him," he said. Good heavens, so they are. Not fellows wearing three-piece suits in Washington, the consultant added, but people who think of themselves as Republicans or as conservatives in towns and cities across America. Now, that might not continue. It's always an error to suppose that the future...

Here's what Republicans would need to do to stop their own front-runner--and what they'd destroy if they failed. It wasn't so long ago that the political universe was licking its collective chops over the prospect of a contested Republican convention, a delegate fight that went all the way to July without a nominee. Now, with Donald Trump notching his most decisive primary win yet--and looking to pick off several more on Super Tuesday--we're hearing that the contest will be over by the Ides of March. That means Trump could walk away with a nomination that almost no traditional Republicans ever...