Hey, I'm Angry, Too!

Let’s Make a Deal with Donald

Donald Trump must immediately eat shit and die. Only a Trumpesquely huge act of self-sacrifice could possibly atone for the damage he has already done to the Republic.

OK, following the DrumpfCon Method, that was my initial negotiating position.  I’m willing to discuss something less than that.  For example, I’m willing to consider the notion that his public self-execution by copravorification could be delayed until the day before the election; that would please House Republicans desperate to avoid his taint and could give hope to the hapless sap lacking in dignity and self-esteem who accepts Drumpf’s VP nomination.  Another alternative might be for him to give up any and all of his positively-valued assets to the Veterans Administration and go into permanent exile in North Korea.  But I will not give on the stipulation that he must first consume massive quantities of his own turds on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Am I serious about these somewhat intemperate demands?  About as serious as The Donald is when he says he will build a beautiful wall with Mexico and make them pay for it, or apply a 45% tariff to all Chinese imports.  Al Franken calls it “kidding on the square”; it's exaggeration.   Am I being unkind, say, to his loved ones, in calling for his reduction to dust, non-biodegradable plastic, and a pile of crap?  First, he is little more than that now; secondly, I’m sure that Melania will be able to find another sugar daddy, even if--as I imagine is the case--he will leave her precious little.  So, no.

What about the profanity here?  I have generally avoided it in this blog, but excrement is a vital part of our ecosystem; we should recognize it for what it is.  We don’t need to bow down to it, as the Republicans are doing, but we should put it to work in fertilizing a better future.

Predictit.org Pricing as a Means of forecasting the Electoral College Vote

My hobbyhorse has opened markets on the outcome of a fair number of states--not all, but the ones where they feel there might be enough interest on both sides to make a market.  These are the two-part choice only:  will the Democratic party win the state (no names of candidates), and will the Republican party win it?  The prices go from 1 to 100 in one-cent increments only, and the opposing side has the complement (i.e., the price for No on Republican party winning=price for Yes on Democrat winning).  The absence of an “Other” I think is an unfortunate, minor omission I will discuss below    

The states are ranked below by their cost to buy Democratic Yes (yesterday’s price--I have today’s to show the amount of random variation/trending that one sees from day to day).   We can  go down the order and see, to a given market-driven level of probability, what states would be expected to go Democratic.  The states marked with a * are those I called true Toss-up states in my previous post with the electoral vote map.

So, we start with those that have no markets but are assumed to be safe Republican (including the 1 EV in NE that went for Obama in 2008; I’d love to see a market just on that one):

States (EV)	6/4 Price for Democratic Yes  (6/5 price if different)	Cumulative Repuublican EV
Solid R plus 1 NE EV	N/A	153
GA  (16); IN (11)	24	180
AZ (11)	33	191
NC (15)	39 (40)	206
FL (29)	56	235
OH*  (18)	58 (55)	253
NH (4)	59 (60)	257
IA* (6)	59 (57)	263
PA (20	63	283
NV* (6)	65 (70)	289
VA* (13)	67 (68)	302
WI (10)	68	312
CO (9)	69 (66)	321
MI (16)	69 (71)	337

Effectively, 25% of the cumulative market weight would have Trump at 180  Electoral Votes, that rises to 206 Electoral votes at 40%.  Then there is a fairly large gap, which passes the median (50%) mark, until it hits a group of states with between 50% and 60% likelihood of Democratic win.  Even winning all four of those, which has the support of 100-60=40% of the market weight, would not get Trump to 270 electoral votes; he needs PA to get over the hump (or, interestingly, NV without PA to get to 269, which, with the sizable Republican majority of House delegations, would almost certainly be enough to guarantee his victory). I differ with the markets somewhat; I think VA and NV less likely to go Democratic than the majority of Predictit.org bidders, while I am more optimistic with regard to FL (at least unless Trump goes with Marco Rubio or Rick Scott as his VP nominee).

Two other states currently have Predictit.org markets, NY and CA.  Each was at 86% on 6/4 (CA moved to 88% today) , which I find ridiculously low (I have invested a little in the obvious outcome in each), but if they went Republican, their combined  84 Electoral votes, with the other states above, would take Trump to a monstrous 421 votes and would surely signify the end of Western civilization as we know it.

I need to revisit the  unconventional call on NM in my previous electoral map as being only “Leans Democratic”, instead of being much more solid.  My earlier calculation was based on the Republicans' effectively mobilizing their downstate base  (Very West Texas, very right wing, and very anti-immigrant) and a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary in the highly liberal North.  Trump’s feud with Susana Martinez, which may be papered over but cannot be ignored, and his failure so far to get Ted Cruz to come out for him, together have put an end to my speculation along those lines.   I have to resist being stubborn about changing my expectations when facts are substantially changed.

Third-Party News

The ploy last week by Bill Kristol, the neo-con editor of the conservative National Review magazine, who announced that he had identified a "credible conservative" candidate willing to run against Trump and Clinton, someone with "a real chance" of winning, turned out to be largely a head fake. The name he had in mind was David French, a respected writer on the Review's staff, but someone with a name recognition rating approximately equal to the quantity of his "real chance", about 0.01%. Of course, with no party, no ballot access, it's probably lower than that, and French has only expressed his willingness, not a formal candidacy, with the clock ticking on getting signatures to be on state ballots.

So, for the time being, we are left--beyond the two major parties--with the finalized Gary Johson-William Weld ticket for the Libertarians, and Jill Stein for the Green Party.  The widespread antipathy for both Clinton and Trump does offer some hope to these outsiders, particularly the Libertarians. Some polling indicates their support is near 10%, not enough to get them on the debate platform, which might enable them, with a strong performance, to become a credible mainstream alternative to do some real damage, but, if that kind of number held up, could mean the difference in several closely-contested states.  History suggests, however, that third-party support fades a bit in the final days of the general election campaign, when voters have to get real about which of the two major-party candidates they can live with. 

The Libertarian ticket is designed to attract moderate Republicans:  both Johnson and Weld are what would be considered social liberals.  Neither is particularly pure as a small-government libertarian, I would say.  They also have a bit of an issue in that their policy platform doesn't differ enough from Trump's positions (to the extent coherent positions can be derived from his statements).  In this regard, they could draw more or less equally from independents who have more personal aversion to both Trump and Clinton; I don't know that they will be successful drawing Cruz-type Republicans dissatisfied with Trump.  Then there is Stein, who might capture a percent or two among Sanders leftists who can't reconcile themselves with Clinton but see no value in Johnson/Weld; no meaning here except opportunity lost for the Democrats.  If predictit.org creates a market for Johnson's popular vote in the general election--something they have not done but I would expect--I would bump up my previous expectation of 2-4% to the 4-6% range, if available. 

In predictit.org terms, someone who really thinks that a third-party  might win a particular state (and is later proven right) could win twice, a return of close to 100%, by buying No on both the Democratic and Republican markets.  I would, however, remind the reader that neither John Anderson nor Ross Perot ever won any states.  

Still more Predictit.org News

There is a market on the winning party of the Presidential election; this one includes "Other" as an option (currently at 4%; I still hold a couple of shares at 3% from when Bloomberg was thinking of running, which I thought would boost that price, which I could then sell at a profit); the 64-37% current Democratic/Republican markets are oversubscribed on the positive side, which I would expect to correct. This market is still open to new participants, whereas the market for the name of the person elected in 2016 (an old one, started last year, which has names like Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bloomberg, and all the failed Republican candidates) has the maximum allowed number of participants at 5000 and thus is closed to new participants for the time being. That one has Clinton 59%; Trump at 37% (those figures correspond well to the state-by-state markets tabled above) , Sanders at an unrealistic 7%, Johnson at 4%, and Biden at 6%--which I would describe as somewhat half-wishful thinking by those Clinton-haters expecting Hillary to be indicted and drop out, similar to the thinking I had with my semi-snark bids for Bloomberg previously. I never really thought he could win, but I did think the market could move up. In this game, there are the permanent bids, where you plan to hold until the end when the market is "resolved", and the market timing "investment" moves, when you like the price and buy in until such time as you don't like the risk/reward anymore.

More Sports Urgency: Muhammad Ali

"The Greatest of All Times"
This boastful claim, which has now become a commonplace and is abbreviated GOAT (no periods necessary), was originated by our man Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.   I was truly a fan from the beginning--or at least from my beginning, I listened to the first Sonny Liston fight on the radio, read the articles in the Louisville Courier-Journal.  Yes, it's true--he was my hometown hero, though he was from far on the other side of town, and older, and he'd already moved on to bigger and better things by the time I was aware of him (I was too young to have noticed his Olympics exploits).

Being a fan of Muhammad Ali was not an easy thing to do--there was much to take in, much to overlook, and it required great patience.  The second worst was when he was barred from fighting during much of his peak age for the draft evasion rap that he eventually beat.  But he made up for it later, with what was the absolute worst, staying in the ring too long, after his skills had faded, taking too many punches.  He really didn't win any of the fights with Leon Spinks or with Earnie Shavers, and Larry Holmes--his former sparring partner--beat him up very badly.   And repeatedly.  Then there was the second Liston fight, in the tiny town of Lewiston, Maine:  Much as I wanted Ali to win that one, I will never believe anything other than that its result--in which Liston went down quick, to a phantom punch, and stayed down as Ali hammed it up--was a fix.

On the other hand, he was able to come up with unexpected, beautiful (or at least, as beautiful as boxing ever can get) sports triumphs--his first fight with Liston, others during his first reign as champion, the Thrilla in Manila (third Joe Frazier fight), and above all, his victory over George Foreman, who had literally lifted Frazier off the ground with punches in his fight with him and had seemed practically invincible before the fight.  The Foreman fight showed Ali at his very best, as he combined tactical excellence with incredible skill (in taking all the punches in his rope-a-dope pose without getting hurt), and even finishing with the powerful knockout--something that often eluded him in his many victories on points through his career.

It was not necessary for me, a kid, to stand up for him when he changed his name and joined the Black Muslims.  I didn't like that religion at all, but I felt no need to condemn someone for their beliefs.  Nor did I have any problem with his seeking conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War; when he threw off his "slave name" (though it has a nice ring to it), he went down the  path which led to rejecting the "involuntary servitude" of the draft, too.   I didn't share his views about the war at the time, though I did recognize at the time that his stance was sincere.

There was his personality:  a womanizer much of the time (not exactly standard Black Muslim stuff, I believe), narcissistic, but also very humorous, with a youthful, mischievous streak.  Much of the bragging, "uppity" stuff that put white people off to him was said in fun and was taken wrong; some of it was intentionally getting under the skin of the bigots, using the power he had to upset them.  I liked him, but he surrounded himself with too many sycophants, and he may have listened to them too much.

There was a side to him that was way beyond all that, though:  in his day, he was one of the most popular people in the world.  He reached out to the rest of the world from his humble beginnings in a small Mideastern city, and the world honored him.

Then there were his health problems later in life, the gradual erosion of his nervous system and motor functions.  There is little doubt that his boxing career contributed to them or caused them, and little doubt that it led to his eventual demise this week.  Still, his last years were dignified, honorable, and added tragic depth to his story, which is clearly one for the ages.  In sport, and beyond.

Urgent Sports Post

Test of Champions
I must get something in before the kickoff of the biggest football game of the year:  the Champions League final game, between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, from Milan (Fox, 2:30 p.m. Eastern).

Spain's La Liga clearly has the best club competition in the world, with its teams dominating the European club championships for the last 2-3 years.  Beyond that, of course, Spain has won the last two European Championships and the World Cup before the last.

Real Madrid is an all-star team of some of the highest-paid players, and their fans and owners expect the best results, so this game is a must-win for the current squad and its management, as they have no other trophies this year (Barcelona won the league title and the domestic elimination cup championship).  Atletico has been right there in all of the competition, but the expectations of their long-suffering fans, who are at least as passionate as Real's, are more realistic.  In that sense, Atletico has already accomplished a great feat, eliminating the two teams I would have expected to meet in this Champions Cup final, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.  To provide an analogy to American sports, Real is the Yankees, Atletico the Mets.

This year's league contest went down to the final game before Barcelona won narrowly over Atletico and Real.  Barcelona had an unusual run of bad play for a few weeks this spring, which caused their lead in La Liga to shrink to the verge, and Atletico caught them during this period to eliminate them from the Champions League tournament.  Atletico then topped it of with a narrow victory over Bayern--which has the core of the world champion German team, plus others.

The match has galvanized Spain in a way that their long-lasting, unresolved political stalemate cannot.  In a possible foreshadowing of a problem the US could face in a few years, the two parties which controlled national politics since the end of the postwar Franco dictatorship have rotted away from the inside and are being steadily replaced by new ones:  Ciudadanos ("Citizens") has posed a good-government, free-market alternative to the corrupt, patronage-based "Christian" Popular Party which inherited the remnants of Franco's Falange party, and Podemos ("We Can") has been eating away the support of the Socialist party, which once posed a lively democratic alternative but has failed to be a successful governing party.  Podemos stands for rejection of austerity and has mobilized the disaffected, particularly the youth.

The resulting four-party division of support, complicated by the possibility of secessionist referendum for Catalonia, seems to be impossible to resolve with normal parliamentary methods, because none of the four parties trusts any of the others enough to govern with them (and particularly their party leaders do not).  Last December's general election created the mess, and June's new election seems unlikely to make any change to the situation.   Some kind of non-partisan technocratic solution seems the only likely outcome. to create a government of some kind.  In the meantime, it's good that the Battle of Madrid will be resolved in a neutral location--I'm thinking Milano will be relatively unscathed, but the home city may have some dangerous moments.

I hesitate to predict the outcome of the final--a single game is very unpredictable on its dynamics.  One likely result will be that one of the teams will show itself up to the occasion and the other will show nerves early, which could be disastrous (think of the Spain-Brazil World Cup final, which got out of hand early); another would be scoreless stalemate with both teams trying to avoid losing.  I'm hoping for a third, more exciting result:  a freewheeling, open contest that remains close but is decided in regulation time.  OK, I'll go with that, Real Madrid, 3-2.

Not to Exaggerate, But..
The Preakness Stakes last week was probably the best horse race I've ever seen in that classic, which , when there are any proven great horses competing, is usually the predictable intermission between the wild-and-woolly Kentucky Derby and the often-dramatic  test presented by the longer race in the Belmont Stakes. This year there are two great horses, as shown by the Derby result.  If I were advising Exaggerator's team, whose horse closed strongly late but came up short against the undefeated Nyquist in the Derby, I would've said to wait out the Preakness, rest your horse, and beat him in the endless homestretch of the Belmont.  They knew better:  the Desormeaux brothers, trainer and jockey for Exaggerator, who earned their stripes at the Preakness' Pimlico race track, went for it there and got a great break from the weather:  Nyquist had never raced in a sloppy track like Pimlico had last week, while Exaggerator's best win had been in an off track.

Exaggerator had a perfect ride, saving ground on the rail the whole way, and made a brilliant move coming around the final turn.  My congratulations to the Desormeaux family and the owners of their horse, who will now be favored in the Belmont, due to a fever that Nyquist came down with after the race.

Baseball
Not too many surprises so far, as major-league baseball reaches the one-third mark of the season this week.  The biggest positive surprise is Boston's Red Sox, who have surpassed division rival Toronto as having the most potent offense in the majors; the biggest negative surprise is my pick for 2016 World Series champs, the Houston Astros, for which everything (hitting, pitching, fielding) seems to be coming up snake eyes.  It is not too late for them, though, as their division has a fair degree of parity (all three American League divisions are still competitive, first-to-last).

The National League is different, with very clear winners and losers.  The biggest positive surprise are the expected losers from Philadelphia.  The Phillies' rebuilding program is proceeding faster than expected and they are at least mediocre.  The Cubs' rebuild is complete and they are close to total domination of the league, though they will have to prove it against tough postseason pitching.  The Dodgers are disappointing, while the Giants--winners of the World Series in the last three even-numbered years--seem to be rising to the top once again.

Basketball
Finally, to the NBA, where a huge game will be played today:  the big two of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, will have their big chance for postseason success take a final exam today.  They have a 3-2 advantage against the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors, who threatened, through their record-setting regular season, to change the nature of the game itself (small ball, 3-pointers), and the home game tonight in OKC could be viewed as the climax of the whole season.  Like Atletico Madrid, the Thunder has been earning their shot by toppling the favorites--first their dramatic victory over the Spurs, now, maybe, the Warriors.  If they do succeed, they will face Lebron James and the Cavaliers in a championship final that will be, like today's Champions League, difficult or impossible to predict because of the unlikely buildup.

OK, OKC over GSW (narrowly, tonight), and Cleveland over OKC, 4-2.

Intermission: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

This is the mea culpa moment for many a pundit, when they have to confess that they refused to believe the serious threat Trump presented to win the Republican nomination.  My own confession was that I did not take it seriously in July, 2015, when I stated in so many words that Trump "will not be...their ultimate candidate", though even then I noted his successes in attracting support. In my preview of the Iowa and New Hampshire contests, I did recognize that Trump's support was likely to materialize at the polls. After New Hampshire, there was no denying the threat (at least, I could not, much as I may have wanted to do so).  I always hoped that the adults in the party would get together and do something to foreclose on his prospects, and I was surprised that they did not.  (The miserably ineffective efforts of #NeverTrump and the stillborn Cruz-Kasich alliance of the past couple of weeks don't count as "doing something").   Yes, I was expecting Jeb Bush to win it; when he couldn't, I thought Rubio would, but I didn't doubt Trump's level of celebrity and showmanship could translate into electoral momentum.

So, this thing that I have been dreading for 18 months has come to pass.  It's not that I really believe those Trumpistas who have been convinced by the braggart that he can win in a landslide, that Hillary is a weak candidate, etc.  Neither do I think he is the weakest candidate they could have chosen, though, and I take little comfort from the squabbling of the Republican "leaders" and their reluctance to support him (or to appear on the stage with him, let alone on the national ticket with him)--they will be rounded up or suppressed by the time of the convention.  I expect none of them will be running as a third-party candidate for the "true Republicans" (or a "New Bull Moose Party", which would be an interesting and historically reverent move);  most of the party faithful will show up and vote as directed, even if unenthusiastically.

If I were looking for a candidate that would be easier to defeat in a general election, it would have been Ted Cruz, who would have won the hardcore party conservative vote but little more.  (If Trump loses big this year, the Democrats may still get to run against Cruz in 2020, as the far right Tea Party would still be seeking their True Conservative who could win--that should be promising.)  I have been fairly open in my personal preference for John Kasich, though he would have been the hardest one to defeat, and expressing my astonishment that the Republicans would not see this and move toward him.  My reason for this seeming illogic?  One cannot assume that any national party nominee, no matter how scurrilous, slow, or unqualified, could not win election:  we have examples such as Nixon, Reagan, Dubya to squash such thinking.  Kasich, for all his faults, was at least genuinely qualified, and not crazy, like Cruz or Trump are.

Doing Preliminary Electoral Vote (EV) Maps
In my last post, I addressed some of the major strategic questions that the Hillary Clinton campaign will face:  keeping the coalition together, picking a running mate, communicating on the issues.  I could have added a couple more obvious points, like using the threat of Trump to raise vast sums of money, enough that those big donors and PAC's should become almost unnecessary (which will help her cause, in the end, though I recognize a lot of that money will be paid forward and down on the ticket), or getting their hands on the names, software, and technicians who ran President Obama's hugely successful 2008 and 2012 web campaigns.

Moving to tactics, though, we must emphasize that this is decided in the end by the Electoral College, and ignoring its stubborn realities could be harmful to a candidate--of either party--whose campaign is focused solely on the popular vote.   The dreaded scenario is big wins in certain segments of the electorate, or regions of the country, combined with losses in some closely-contested states with large populations.  It caught up with Al Gore in 2000, and it could catch out Donald Trump in 2016, if he were wildly successful in his campaign, winning with large margins in some regions (the South, the Great Plains, the Inland West) but losing narrowly in states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Before we can address likely Electoral College outcomes, though, we must stipulate a couple of conditions for the basic scenario.  The first is that there will be no major third-party candidates, that the candidates on the ballot in most states will be Hillary, Drumpf, the Libertarian Party nominee (most likely it will be former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson), Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and apparently there will be a Constitution Party nominee named Darrell Castle. There is a movement among dissident anti-Trump Republicans to nominate someone, partially out of spite and partially in the hope to keep mainstream Republican turnout up, but at this point I see no takers, in terms of people willing to put their name out there, where it would be vilified by Trump backers until the end of their conscious lifetimes.  Some may also seek a challenger to Hillary on the left for the general election, or some sort of non-partisan moderate in the middle, but I think the outcomes in the two parties' primaries will eliminate those opportunities.  Still, I would expect this election, in this scenario, to produce a record vote  (2-4%) for the Libertarian party:  many Cruz-type conservatives might opt for that rather than a nose-holding Trump vote, and those will not be wasted votes:  a couple of percent withheld from Republican voters could mean the difference in a couple of states. The absence of a major third-party candidate would be another area where my guess was wrong:  I thought Hillary-Bush would be sure to produce a dissident candidacy, based on the "neither candidate is acceptable to a large number of voters" theory; though it's not Bush, the same applies to the Wherever Man (and I had Trump as #5 on my list of 10 likely possible 3rd-party candidates), but circumstances seem to be working against this complicating scenario.

The second condition would be that both Clinton and Trump each run at least a fairly competent campaign.  I have little cause to doubt Hillary, though there could be (in theory) some sort of "bimbo eruption" relating to her husband, a badly-handled outcome on the "damn email" case, or a brutally mishandled convention, relating to the supporters of primary opponent Bernie Sanders, which would turn off millions of should-be Democratic voters.  On the Republican side, it's hard to say exactly what would be a fatal mistake by Donald Trump, as he has made so many with so little cost to his support base--perhaps something in the Panama Papers about money he has hidden away, or a tape recording of how he really "hates those rubes" that support him.  A "47%" moment, or statements that indicate he is at heart bigoted against African-Americans, could really hurt him, as his supporters (mistakenly) are relying on the notion that he has their interests at heart, and some African-Americans might otherwise buy into his argument to shake up the status quo, which (even with Obama as President) has not been serving them well.

Anyway, one can build up the electoral map from scratch, or work from the map produced by the Obama victories of 2008-12; they will get to the same place: those states reliably Democratic in recent elections, those reliably Republican, the ones with an inconsistent pattern, and then the adjustment of the patterns for the peculiarities of this election.  In this case, the three most likely variations from recent norms are:  1)  a reduction in the turnout of black voters from their historic high points in favor of Obama; 2) an intensification of the support for the Democratic candidate among Hispanic voters and single women; and 3) an increase in the turnout and the support for Republicans among a group of voters I would describe as "middle-aged, white married people with status anxiety"--they would be the ones who will be most inspired by Trump's candidacy.

This last group is the true wild card of the election; their size is unknown but should not be underestimated.  Contrary to what some have found, I do not think they are that similar to Sanders supporters--one should note that the patterns of who won primaries in the two parties has been similar, but for the most part, it has been the Trump and Clinton victories that have been in common (or Sanders and Cruz).   Sanders and Trump both have populist appeals, but of different natures.

I do not think the net results of these three effects will turn too many states from their recent patterns. Here are a few comments, by region:
North East:  Most states will remain solidly in the Clinton camp.  Despite the indications from the NH primary (Trump won, Clinton lost), I see Clinton winning there, but I see ME as being a state where the Democratic support may be soft.
Middle Atlantic:  Trump bluster about NY is just that;  PA, NJ will have many passionate Trump supporters, but they should be outnumbered.  VA and NC are states where I see Trump strongly outperforming Romney's level.
South:  I don't believe winning GA will end up being a reasonable objective for the Democrats. Florida, as always, will be contested, but the result should reflect the national popular vote.   The rest of the states will be Republican, as usual, though Arkansas might be a bit closer than in recent elections.
Mideast/Midwest:  IN should go Republican; MI and WI Democratic; Ohio should be a tossup until Election Day, unless it is turning into a Democratic landslide.  MN should be safe Democratic; MO safe Republican (we should probably follow the SEC and include it in the South!)  West of Minnesota and Iowa (which I see as a pure tossup), and East of the Rockies, I don't see any Democratic states, with the possible exception of the one Congressional District in Nebraska that Obama won in 2008 (the attempt by Republican state legislators to close out that loophole failed this year).
Rocky Mountain states:  This may be one of the more interesting battlegrounds of the election.  UT hates Trump will but will still fall in line, but not by the usual overwhelming margin; CO should be safe for the Democrats.  I don't feel real comfortable about NM, though I should:  It has the highest Hispanic population %, the southern (Republican) part of the state should be more pro-Cruz than pro-Trump, and Gary Johnson could siphon off 5% or more would-be Republican votes.  On the other hand, I am strangely optimistic about the Democratic chances in AZ, where John McCain's strong opposition to Trump (in the midst of a somewhat desperate re-election campaign of his own) creates uncertainty, and in MT, where the Democrats have shown some strength.  Finally, NV should not be taken for granted; Harry Reid is determined to have a Democrat succeed him in his Senate seat, but the "middle-class anxiety" vote may work strongly in Trump's favor, and we should not forget Trump's big win in that state's early primary.
Far West: I feel that AK (Alaska) will be closer than usual; otherwise, the Pacific Coast should be solidly Democratic.

Here's my chart:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

That chart shows 212-151 Democrats in terms of safe EV; 289-205 counting "Likely" and "Lean", with 44 as toss-ups (307-231 if forced to decide today).  I would say that 289 likely Electoral votes indicates some reason for optimism but is hardly a safe bet.

You can do your own map at http://www.270towin.com/.  You could look at veteran Charlie Cook's early map at http://cookpolitical.com/presidential/charts/scorecard  (he has Clinton at 190-142 safe, 304-190 with leaners, with the same number--44--as tossups, though they are composed differently).

Betting on the Come
My (modest-sized) Predictit.org account has grown by 1/3 since last year.  I have played it fairly cautiously, with lots of small bets, looking for the odds or the outcomes to move my way, and have won much more often than not.  I did lose quite frequently on individual primary outcomes, but always with fairly small bets.  My larger gains have come from Clinton on the nomination (and on odds of winning the Presidency), betting against the GOP going to a second ballot, and betting against all of the Republican declared candidates at various times (the ones against Trump being losing bets).

Currently, I have some longshot money hopes on Evan Bayh being selected as the Democratic VP nominee (with smaller stakes on Deval Patrick, Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, and Al Franken); on the Republican side, I have a mix of positions:  against those who I think may have hurt Trump's feelings, in favor of those who flatter him with their support (plus Condi Rice, Marco Rubio, who failed to hurt him, and John Kasich).   Internationally, I am betting against Brexit, against Dilma in Brazil, and Rajoy in Spain (that one is still dragging on), against Boris Johnson as Prime Minister in the U.K., and in favor of the UN naming a woman as Secretary-General.

The new developments (just this week) are the individual state markets for some of the swing states in the general election:  PA, FL, CO, VA, and OH.  My initial positions are in favor of the Democrats in all five (in order to take a position and monitor movement), though my comments above would reveal I am not confident about the ultimate outcome in the last two of these. My bets are consistently against the Republicans/in favor of the Democrats in almost all of the contested Senate seat markets they have (PA, OH, WI, IL, NV, MD, NH, IN, though this last is at somewhat longshot odds), the exceptions being NC and AZ.   You should note that the odds vary on these, as do my own levels of confidence in those outcomes, and my sizes of bet. Finally, my bet on the range of number of House seats the Republicans will hold after the election is for 218-230 (and against all the other ranges); in other words, a very narrow Republican majority.

TMI, probably--sorry!

It's All Over--Let the Shouting Begin!

The decisive results of the five Mid-Atlantic primaries April 26 erased any  remaining doubt on the major parties' nominees. As such, they signal the end of Act II of the 2016 Presidential Drama--the remaining primaries should be conducted essentially offstage, and Act III will commence with the conventions in July.

I was anticipating that California's Republican primary on June 7 could be the finale for Act II, but the failures of the effort within the Republican party to stop Trump indicate it will be anticlimactic. The #NeverTrump movement is ending badly; the Kasich-Cruz cooperation, too little and too late, is poorly planned--New Mexico should have been a Cruz state, and Indiana a Kasich one--and poorly executed.  If it had started immediately after the Florida primary and Marco Rubio's withdrawal  (a mere 45 days ago), it could have succeeded, particularly with the skill that Cruz backers have shown to pick off possible Trump delegates in state conventions, but splitting votes in the states since then has helped ensure Trump wins in most states in the meantime.

It is clear that many in the Republican party who were appalled by the grotesque campaign of Donald Trump are finding their way to reconciling themselves with supporting him, or at least ending their opposition to his nomination.  It was ever thus in the party:  the magnetism of power will get  the filings in line.  Some will think themselves able to avoid contamination by dodging him, but it will only make them less likely to get the full support from the Republican base they will need to compete.

On the Democratic side, the eventual nominee has been obvious for months--perhaps  Hillary Clinton's nomination was never seriously threatened, at least since Joe Biden announced he would not run--but Bernie Sanders did a great job of keeping the primary campaigns  interesting and content-filled (unlike the Republican race, which has been shallow, echo-chamber vapidity combined with lowest-common-denominator personal insults and vulgarity throughout).  Alas, for those touched by the Bern, the dream is over.  Sanders' campaign has recognized the inevitable; he will keep his run going through the final primaries in early June, then work to get some favorable planks in the Democratic party platform and a say in the choice of the Vice-Presidential nominee of the party.

Clinton will be willing to concede some ground to Sanders on the former--he is essentially pushing on an open door--but I don't think she will give much ground on the latter.  The work to vet Democratic VP nominees for Clinton has begun.  I think the campaign will focus on the strategic choice among five alternatives:

1)  A Hispanic to lock in that vote  (Labor Secretary Tom Perez, HUD Secretary Julian Castro), particularly if Trump chooses a Hispanic VP;

2) A woman who can lock in that vote  (Amy Klobuchar), particularly if Trump chooses a woman VP nominee;

 3) Someone from the Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of the party, to help make peace with disgruntled Sanders supporters (besides Sanders or Warren, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson, environmentalist Bill McKibben);  

4)  A white male loyalist with moderate tendencies (Sens. Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, or Evan Bayh); or 

5) An established Democratic liberal who is not a Senator in a state with a Republican governor (Deval Patrick or Al Franken). 

As you might guess, I think the first three are relatively weak ideas (though I do like my selections of Anderson and McKibben from among the many minor political figures who have endorsed Sanders), but they cannot fully be discarded until the Democratic convention begins.  The choice between 4) and 5)  will depend on the level of confidence the Clinton campaign will have in their ability to get a decent share of white male voters who identify as independents--if weak, that would argue for 4), if strong, 5) might help generate additional enthusiasm in the base to run up the score.  I particularly like the choices of Patrick, who would solidify the feeling of smooth succession  from the Obama Administration (Patrick is a favorite there), and will feel like an unforced post-racialist choice of a respected African-American, or of Franken, who could make for an entertaining and effective "attack dog" nominee to go after Trump.  

Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker, and Elizabeth Warren herself are names who will merit mention but not selection, as they are Senators in states with Republican governors:  the governor would be able to name some Republican who would have the inside track at holding onto the seat.  In addition, their election as VP would also immediately create an absence in the Senate caucus, which will need a majority in order to organize the leadership committee chairs, etc. around support that will be critical for Clinton to govern successfully in 2017,  As for Sanders, I think he is wise enough to understand that he would not be included in the decision-making in a Clinton White House and that he can be more effective in the Capitol.

Learning from an Ugly Past General Election Campaign
This promises to be an extremely ugly Presidential campaign; the only one that I can recall that remotely compares to this one in the level of crudeness we should expect was the 1972 Nixon-McGovern campaign. That disastrous result, which embarrassed us before the world in the way that Trump's primary campaign has done for us this year, featured Nixon's CREEP (Committee to Re-elect the President), bloated with dirty money, paranoia, and megalomania, and fresh off successfully stonewalling the initial investigation after its stupid Watergate break-in.  The Republicans successfully framed George McGovern--a decent, but unlikely, antiwar candidate who had emerged from a contentious primary season without a unified party--with a caricature of hiss program as
 the "3A's--Abortion, Amnesty, and Acid" en route to winning 49-states and 520 electoral votes.  That smashing victory was, in turn, smashed by the investigation of the Watergate cover-up and Nixon's resignation (and the imprisonment of much of Nixon's team) in less than two years.

McGovern's general election campaign was honorable, honest, earnest, and incompetent.  The worst mistake was the mishandling of the VP nomination (the "Eagleton affair", leading to his withdrawal and replacement by Sargent Shriver; more generally, McGovern won the nomination of a divided party, split on the Vietnam war issue, roiled by the candidacy (and assassination wounding) of George Wallace, and denied the candidacy of Ted Kennedy, the most popular potential candidate, and the one Nixon was worried about when his cronies greenlighted the Watergate break-in and other dirty tricks. His general election campaign relied on the proposition of ending the Vietnam war, which Nixon countered with his "secret plan to end the war".  Regardless of whether there was really such a plan (there was--the notion of negotiating a truce, then leaving after the famous "decent interval"), it was no great trick for Nixon to pretend he had one.

The circumstances are different now:  Trump will be the underdog, Clinton the leader of the incumbent administration's party, and the wars are less central of an issue (because Americans are not currently dying in them).  Nevertheless, there are lessons Democrats should take from that experience.

1.  No Holds Barred. -- The Drumpfentruppen will come at Hillary with everything they have. Trump's approach is to go hard early, try anything, see what sticks, and then rub it in at every opportunity.  While The Candidate Herself should remain "Presidential" and refrain from the low blows--something Donald can only wish he could pretend to be or do--Hillary will have a deep team of surrogates to counter his attacks with well-crafted truth, and they should be ruthless with counterattacks.

Trump has several weak spots which were exposed in the primaries:  the first is his thin skin, and his shocking lack of self-esteem (given his overweening pride and ego).  The second is the false nature of his appeal; blue-collar workers have nothing to gain from his tax plan, his protectionist trade policy.  An additional one that I recommend is to impugn his ethics and his integrity (something the Republicans will do for Hillary); it is inconceivable--"blind trust" or no--that he can govern in a way that is neutral towards his many business interests, and I see no reason to grant that he would be altruistic or self-sacrificing in the slightest.

2. Unity of Objectives -- In 2016, there is a single imperative:  crushing electoral success, from the top of the ticket, in the key Senate contests, and to maximize the gains in the House.  All else--the Supreme Court seat, control of the Senate, any hope for a legislative program--will depend on that success. The loathing toward so-called DINO's, the splittist tendencies of the Old New Left, these must be put on hold, for the greater objective of putting down Trump and the other Republi-Cons. Plenty of time to work out those problems later.

3.  The Issues Matter -  and it's not just one issue, or just three.  The good news is, our candidate has a better handle on all of them.  She is well-informed, has a progressive view on most or all, and she will have the benefit of advice from among the best in the business, not least of which will be her husband, Former President Clinton (the name I think he will take in the White House), the ultimate policy wonk, with outstanding political intuitions and who still manages a sky-high approval rating. She should welcome televised debates, which will showcase her superior grasp of the issues, as long as she can prepare for the traps he will try to spring.

To return to the party platform, the Clinton folks should accommodate Sanders' on issues like the minimum wage, the ultimate objective of universal health care, climate change, infrastructure investment, and most especially, on military spending and military adventurism.  Assuming Trump will be the nominee, Hillary cannot afford to be branded the "pro-war" candidate; that is the one area which could cause her to lose support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

Three Things Donald Trump Has Right
Like the proverbial broken clock, and unlike his rival Ted Cruz, who is consistently wrong about every single thing, Donald Trump occasionally gets something right, and I think that deserves to be recognized.

First, Trump has been correct on the negative effects of the status of campaign financing, and that the Clinton campaign has a problem here.  Though Hillary has taken a responsible position in favor of overturning the Citizens United decision, or if necessary, passing a constitutional amendment to do that, he has a superior position in being able to say that he has no Political Action Committee as an unregulated ally with secret funds supporting him, and Hillary should find a way to cut that off--she will have plenty of conventional campaign funding support for the general election, for herself and for party allies.  It's true that Trump comes from a privileged position, due to his wealth, which reduces his dependency on fund-raising, but the facts remain.

On social issues--apart from those of minorities and women's rights--he has been relatively brave in his positions that run out of line with conventional Republican thinking.  Though he has insisted he is firmly anti-abortion, he has not supported defunding Planned Parenthood or overturning Roe vs. Wade, and he has avoided gratuitous insults to the LGBT community on issues like same-sex marriage and the newest, the absurd transgender bathroom issue.  He has also avoided parading his religious beliefs and imposing them on everyone.

When it comes to our foreign military entanglements in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Iraq, he has again staked out a position at odds with conventional Republican neo-con thinking.  This does not mean his position is coherent, or that his claim to have always been against the Iraq war is factual.  In place of the certainty he would get us ensnared, we at least have reason to be uncertain what his Presidency would bring in this area.  As in so many others.

There Was a Prince Among Us

Mercurial. That would be the one-word description I would use for the recently-deceased rock star whose given first name was Prince.  Shiny, hard to contain, impossible to pin down, temperamental. I also choose it because of the word's reference to the Roman god Mercury (Greek name: Hermes), the flighty, mischievous, androgynous (or is it hermaphroditic?) messenger of the gods.

Prince's life does leave us a message:  it is the triumph of sheer talent and bravado.  When it comes to musical talent, he had every aspect of it, in abundance.  He was a great songwriter, with well-crafted lyrics, simple but effective musical structures, and his songs told interesting, evocative stories.  He paid great attention to recording standards, and he was a fabulous performer until the end.  He could and did play all the instruments in the standard guitar-rock ensemble, and his voice was a flexible instrument.  He had a broad range, not to mention his trademark emotional squawk, though I would say he might have overused his "sexy" falsetto.   The only person to whom I can compare the range of his talents in the field of popular music is Stevie Wonder, and I would suggest that the arc of their careers (so far, for Stevie) are similar.

His earliest songs were among his best.  "Little Red Corvette" is a hit with timeless qualities (like the car, I suppose), a song that sounded like a classic from the first time I heard it.  Next came "1999"--a song that may have captured the true nature of the '80's better than any other.  1984 was, for me, his peak, with the album "Purple Rain", which produced several hits, and a hit movie.  In it, Prince may have given us a glimpse about what made him tick: The story of the movie is a fictional one, about a bandleader like Prince, with a background like Prince's, and a lifestyle like Prince's was. The song that I have always loved best, and for which I will be forever grateful to Prince for doing, is "When Doves Cry"--the album version, please. It is a passionate plea--with Hendrix-like guitar riffs--to stop all the fighting, both domestically and, implicitly, more broadly.

He had a few more hits--"Raspberry Beret" being one of his better post-P.R. tunes, and "Kiss" is truly a high-water mark in the history of pop song seduction.  He also contributed excellent songwriting that others capitalized upon, such as Chaka Khan with his "I Feel For You" and Sinead O'Connor with "Nothing Compares 2U".   His singular achievement, which has been highly influential ever since the '80's, was the degree to which he successfully integrated rock and funk.  The breadth of the tributes coming after his death shows the degree to which his formula has remained hugely popular, though hard to imitate.

Here, though, I have to kvetch a bit.  The question a fan like me, interested but not intently following his career, has to ask is:  What was he doing the last 20 years?  It seems he was doing some good things behind the scenes, helping some out with their careers, some community service that he insisted on keeping out of the public eye, performing live shows when he felt like it.  I have read--but cannot confirm--that he converted to Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001, gave up drugs and reduced his carousing behaviors. We could recall that Bob Dylan had a conversion experience at a similar age; the difference for Prince, unfortunately for his legacy, is that he did not live long enough to snap out of it and return to the level of creativity with which he began his career.

I would not speculate on the reason he died; we may eventually learn, and maybe it doesn't matter so much.  As far as I know, he doesn't leave behind bereaved spouse or offspring, and I don't claim that he owed the public anything; he earned the right to be as weird as he often acted.  I think his messages--when comprehensible--were always positive, in favor of tolerance, understanding, peace.

So, Rest In Peace, our Prince.

Tax Weekend Special

Sports:  Back in  the Swing
There's a brief period in February, after the Stupid Bowl, when the NBA takes its mostly unwatchable All-Star break, and there is next to nothing going on in sport.  I suppose there is hockey, as it takes its even-more-ridiculous break a little earlier, though, as with pro football, I have a very low level of interest in the regular season.  College basketball is in the middle of its conference season, but, as we have learned, the conference play means little in a real sense, diminished by the season-ending conference tournaments which determine the automatic tourney berths (with the single exception now of the Ivy League).

That period is, happily, now in the rear-view mirror.  The NCAA men's basketball tournament was one of the best in recent years for your generic viewer (i.e., not tied to a specific team).  It was open--as shown by the wild first- and second-rounds, full of upsets--but also narrowed down to something like normalcy, with the most reliable teams surviving to the end.  I didn't make a pick for the champion, but I did name the four most consistent teams, and three of them made it to the Final Four (the fourth, Kansas, was beaten in the regional final by one of the other three, the eventual champion, Villanova).  The one exception, which made the final rounds more fun, was Syracuse, a team which barely made the tourney field, and a #10 seed in its region.  I have mixed feelings about the Orangemen, who are serial rule violators, who deserted the Big East Conference for what appeared to be the greener pastures of the ACC, but who play a consistently strong, streetwise brand of the game, drawing many of the best prospects New York produces.  Their dreams ended at the hands of another ACC rule-violator, North Carolina.  Then there was the championship game, with its thrilling finish--again, one of the best ever.

The NBA playoffs have now begun.  The first round matches usually go fairly quickly, with a couple of  exceptions.  The ones this time appear to be the middle-seed matchups of Hawks-Celtics and TrailBlazers-Clippers, but also #2 Eastern seed Raptors vs. Pacers.  The Pacers pulled off the road win in Game 1, and it did not appear an upset, either.    LeBron and the Cavaliers should cruise to the Eastern Conference championship with little difficulty, but the Western Conference will be well-contested:  the defending champion, all-time regular season record-breaking Warriors are favorites, but they will meet a tough opponent in the conference finals.  Everyone would like to see the showdown against the Spurs--the matchup denied last year when the Clippers beat the Spurs in the conference semifinals.  With the addition of LaMarcus Aldridge and the continued development of Kawhi Leonard, the Spurs are even more talented than in recent years, and could provide a worthy challenge to Golden State, but we can expect San Antonio to have its hands full in the semifinals against the highly-motivated Oklahoma City Thunder, as the league's top 1-2 punch (even better than LeBron and Someone, or Stephen Curry and Someone) of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant has what appears to be one final chance to fulfill their joint destiny there.

Lastly, on this topic, spring has sprung, and with it, the start of baseball's regular season.  The American League has greater parity, but the National League has several excellent teams, ones that might even be viewed as better than the AL's best.  I'm thinking of Pittsburgh, St. Louis, the New York Mets, the Washington Nationals and above all, the Chicago Cubs, broadly anointed as the best team in the majors this year.  I am going to root for the Cubs for my father's sake this year:  he has just reached his 90th birthday, has been a Cubs fan all his life, and deserves to see a world championship for his team.  Of course, the playoffs are a bit of a crap shoot, but I'm hoping for a little magic comes to Wrigley this year.+

Celebration of the Lizard
A relatively slack period of four weeks in the Presidential primary season, with only one significant contest, comes to an end Tuesday. The winner of New York's primary in each party should be a foregone conclusion, though Bernie Sanders does seem to be closing the gap there, as he has done in the past--probably in part the result of superior field organization.  In the Republican primary, the only question is whether Donald Trump will exceed 50% of the vote--a level he has not yet reached, and one that would allow him to get nearly all the state's delegates.

The one major primary in recent weeks was in Wisconsin, in which Bernie pulled off yet another victory,  with a healthy margin over 12%, but one that barely put a dent in Hillary Clinton's delegate lead.  The next few primaries are likely to be less favorable, and should erase any doubt, even among Sanders' most avid supporters, of the ultimate outcome.  But Bernie will fight on, no doubt--I hope he has been planning the mode and style of his ultimate concession such that it will do justice to the fine campaign he has conducted.

Wisconsin provided Ted Cruz with his greatest moment--much more significant than the win in his home state of Texas on Super Tuesday--the only state he won--which provided some initial legitimacy in those days when the candidates were falling fast.  Cruz overcame his reptilian, off-putting visage and patterns of human interaction, the Trump endorsement of the state's governor, and achieved a significant win in a populous, open primary.   His exultation and his victory speech sounded tones familiar from other nights:  I check all the boxes on the conservative agenda, I am not Donald Trump, you conservatives can somehow stomach me.

The next couple of weeks will be much less friendly for the TrusTed one:  his comment about "New York values" will set the stage for a third-place finish in the Empire State, and the five primaries in other mid-Atlantic primaries the following week will be little better.  Cruz has no chance at a first-ballot victory at the convention, though he may still have a chance as the leading Not-Trump candidate if the leader can be stopped, the key being a successful last-ditch stand by him and by Kasich in California on the last night of primaries, June 7.   My bet on predictit.org is for Trump to have in the range of 1150-1199 of the 1237 delegates pledged as the party goes to convention, which will put him close enough to win the nomination if he can make a few of the deals for which he claims such expertise.

As for my opinion of  Cruz, I will cite the impenetrable words of King Crimson (1969) as my advice to his supporters:

Wake your reasons' hollow vote
Wear your blizzard season's coat
Burn a bridge and burn a boat
Stake the lizard by the throat.

In other, more comprehensible words:  your cause is doomed to fail, get ready to dump your saurian candidate, bolt the party and its nominee, and sail off into the sunset on your lonely misanthropic adventure.

Senate Race Outlook
I think it is timely for me to give a brief update on the critical battle for control of the US Senate.  The Democrats need to net a four-seat gain (if the Democrats win the Presidency) to regain control of the upper house, and they have a rich variety of state targets with which to do that.  The do-nothing charge against the Republican-controlled Senate is reinforced by their refusal to consider President Obama's Supreme Court nominee; while party diehards may endorse the hardball constitutional stance, Independents will not.

Wisconsin, with Russ Feingold, and Illinois, with Tammy Duckworth, are the two best chances; the incumbent Republicans are inept (Ron Johnson) and ill-fitted (Mark Kirk), respectively.   Those are both in the range of 80% chances for picking up seats.  Ohio and New Hampshire are slightly better than 50-50, with strong challenger candidates and likely favorable headwinds from the states' Presidential contests (assuming nothing disastrous happens to Hillary).  Arizona and Missouri are tougher challenges, but the Democrats have good candidates and the polls suggest the Republican incumbents (McCain and Blount) may be vulnerable.

There are two states in which we may presume the Democratic challengers will have a good chance, even though their nominees are not yet decided.  Florida looks like at least a 50-50 shot for the Democrats to gain the seat Marco Rubio is giving up; the Republicans have a crowded field in the August primary but none of the candidates look very strong, while the Democratic nominee will be one of two Representatives: either a moderate establishment candidate, Patrick Murphy, or an extremely non-establishment one, the humorous, irascible, possibly indictable Alan Grayson.  Grayson's emails are the best that I receive, but I am not convinced he would be the best shot to win the seat, which is an imperative--and he has a legal problem with his handling of an offshore hedge fund that he runs, a surprising and disappointing handicap.   The other is Pennsylvania, which like Wisconsin, has a highly conservative Senator whose best hope is to run away from his policy positions in the general election. The Democratic nominee will be decided in the state's primary April 26:  there is a very interesting three-way race between the candidate hand-picked by the party establishment, Kathie McGinty, a radical and interesting Sandersesque candidate, mayor Ron Fetterman of the town of Braddock, and the loner, former Navy Admiral, former Representative, and 2010 losing nominee Joe Sestak.    Sestak is leading narrowly, probably reflecting higher name recognition.

If one adds up all these and factors in the correlation coming from a likely substantial Democratic victory in the Presidential campaign, it seems quite possible that the Democrats could pick up 5-6 seats from all the above opportunities, but there is one potential glitch:  the seat in Nevada which Minority Leader Harry Reid is giving up.   Democrats there have rallied around former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, while Representative Joe Heck seems the most likely candidate for the Republicans. This is a 50-50 race which will be very high-profile, and its outcome could decide control of the Senate.  Cortez Masto might be the best single Senate candidate to support at this point. I am staying neutral in the PA and FL ones, and also in Maryland, probably a safe seat for Democrats to hold, but with a nomination battle which will be resolved April 26 as well.

Brief Obits

• (April 12) Gianroberto Casaleggio, 61, Italian entrepreneur, co-founder of Five Star Movement.  This is a major loss for the independent, anti-Establishment political movement in Italy.  Casaleggio was the strategist for Cinque Stelle from the beginning, with former comedian Beppe Grillo the (loud) mouthpiece.  The Movement was suffering in recent months, possibly in part because of Casaleggio's prolonged illness, but came within an eyelash of becoming the largest party in the country in the two previous legislative elections, when the economy was in the dumps and leadership was lacking.  Now, their time may have passed, with the anti-immigrant Lega Nord (Northern League) emerging as the loudest voice of populist outrage against responsible government.   
• (April 2) Gato Barbieri, 83, Argentine jazz saxophonist, pneumonia.  Barbieri was one of the best protagonists of the international jazz-fusion movement of

      the 1980's.  He wailed. 

• Andrew Grove, 79, Hungarian-born American electronic executive, CEO and chairman of Intel Corporation, Parkinson's disease.  Grove was one of the most successful US job creators of the past quarter century; Intel was a consistent leader in the development of ever-improving semiconductor chips, the key component in the digital revolution, and Grove's company chose to keep its factories in the US.  Famous for the quote, "only the paranoid survive", his influence on the corporate culture of the '90's and '00's can hardly be overstated. 

Taxes

Like the weather:  everyone complains about it, nobody can do anything about it.   I will only say that, partly due to the overseas assignment I had in 2015, mine are obscenely complicated. 

 Fortunately, my employer is paying for someone competent to prepare them, and that I won't be penalized for filing late. 

+ For the record, my picks: 

AL West--Houston, Texas, Seattle, Oakland,  LAA, 

AL Central - Cleveland, Minnesota, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit

AL East - Toronto, Boston, NYY, Baltimore, Tampa Bay

Wild Cards - Boston, Texas 

NL West - Arizona, LA, SF, SD, Colorado

NL Central - Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati

NL East - NY Mets, Washington, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta

Wild Cards - Washington, Pittsburgh. 

The leagues learn the trick to keeping St. Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco from wreaking their postseason magic:  keep them out entirely!

World Series:  Astros defeat Mets.  A variation on the  classic 1986 NL championship series (venue and outcome, but with similar extra-inning heroics). 

Trump: BFJ, Not Funny

And the joke is on all of us.  Turns out Trump did do this thing as a lark, thinking that he would finish in The Middle of the Pack in Iowa and then be free to return to his regular gig.  But no, he crushed his performance—which we’ll come back to defining in a moment—and methodically knocked out candidate after candidate—“And you’re fired!”

The amazing thing was, some of the guys he knocked out came back to him.  Ben Carson, Chris Christie.  Other people so deeply into character (Sarah Palin) that they could not leave the show.  Some new characters in the farce:  The Campaign Manager with the nasty streak; the woman with the imagination to do the American thing and file charges. 

Please, Trumpistas, listen.  He’s been toying with you.  He’s been pulling your strings like a sitar virtuoso.  The sounds resonate for you, and you come away from your encounters with his pitch convinced.  This is not a used car, though; not only do you have to kick the tires a bit more before you buy, but you’re hiring him to drive it, too.  And Trump has shown, over and over again, that he is not prepared to be President.   Even worse, if we refer to our countrys experience with St. Ronnie Reagan, he doesn’t seem to have the sense to hire people who are more responsible, more professional in their professional demeanor than he is.

 

#NeverTrump Update
More significant than the “Drumpfengaffen”—this week, the ones on abortion “punishment” for women, on Japan and South Korea’s response to North Korea’s aggressive nuclear policy, to the “unaffordable” cost of leading NATO’s protection of European freedom and prosperity, all of which just reinforce the known narrative of Trump’s limited understanding of the few issues the Republican campaign has addressed—more important than the outcome of the primary in Wisconsin (a solitary event in the extended blabfest of Act II, Scene 4, after the critical mid-March primary results, which firmly established Trump and Clinton as the frontrunners for the parties’ nominations), there is a quiet movement finally forming within the Republican parties’ meeting rooms (in olden days they would have been smoke-filled) which have the objective of blocking Trump’s first-ballot selection for the nomination.

Leading this quiet, not-quite conspiracy, in the sense that there is no agreement on the strategy, only on the intention, are the canny, hardened party pros working on behalf of Ted Cruz who work, state by state and district by district, to deny Trump committed delegates.  Some are ideologically committed to Cruz, others recruited merely out of the desire to keep the party’s control out of the hands of amateurs. Where they can, they work within the rules of the states to pick up Cruz-pledged delegates, but it is enough to get delegates who will not be pledged for Trump on the first ballot.  The success in the theft of a few in Louisiana caught the frontrunner’s attention, but there are also maneuvers afoot in Tennessee, in Georgia, in Missouri.  Then there is John Kasich’s candidacy, which exists to deny both Cruz and Trump access to his small share of delegates, though so far it does not seem able to add to his chances to promote a viable bid for the nomination.  The Kasich and Cruz campaigns had some initial discussions on cooperating, surely the most effective approach, but Cruz rebuffed the overtures and his campaign and associated PAC are attacking the Ohio governor vigorously in Wisconsin; except for the cirumstances—his weak placement in the horserace—Wisconsin would be a great state for his prospects, but he stands to finish a distant third because of the focus on the two leaders’ contest. 

The Real Kicker

With all the chitter-chatter of a possible contested convention--one to which Trump does not bring a majority of delegates committed to voting for him on the first ballot--the story that has gotten very little attention, but which I predict may be decisive in the contest, is the fate of  the delegate slots won by Marco Rubio, numbering 159 at the time he dropped out of the race just after his massive failure in his home state of Florida (the 159 are about 6.5% of the total).  Rubio “suspended” his campaign, which normally would have released his delegates, but he did not formally release them, and in fact he has followed up with letters to the states where he won delegates to say specifically that he was not releasing them.   I did find one somewhat authoritative voice to address the question in the aftermath of Rubio’s retirement from active campaigning, the lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who said that the results would vary based on individual states’ rules.

I predict that the Republican convention's (Republi-Cons, for short) Rules and Credentials Committees will have to deal with questions of the possible enforcement of pledges of “Rubio delegates”, even in the probable absence of Rubio actually being nominated on the floor, and possibly of voting to decide among competing delegate slates, and that the outcome of these challenges could be decisive (as they were in the last competitive convention, in 1976—the result of those contests put Ford over the top prior to the first ballot).

Finally, in this unofficial anti-Trump conspiracy, there is the notable example of the behavior of Speaker Paul Ryan, Congressman from Wisconsin, who has spoken scornfully of Trumpian rhetoric, but has noticeably not endorsed his chief rival, Cruz, in the lead-up to his state’s primary.  One can only speculate on the reason, but I suppose it is a combination of three possible but not mutually exclusive ones:

   a) Ryan detests Cruz as much or more than he does Trump,
   b) secretly he is hoping Kasich’s candidacy can survive, despite lacking Ryan’s significant endorsement, and/or
   c) he believes that they may come to him in the end, as his Congressional colleagues did when they were stuck for a viable candidate for Speaker of the House, and he is leaving the door open for that if the convention delegates can not agree on Trump, Cruz, or Kasich.

In any case, his lack of endorsement does provide for a fair three-way contest this week and leaves his options completely open.

Act II, Scene 4 will be the Wisconsin primaries in both parties, the results of each should provide for entertaining viewing this Tuesday.  In terms of Predictit.org, Cruz and Sanders are heavy favorites, with secondary markets on the margin of the winner:  will the Republican winner have a margin or greater than or =8% (currently  the market is at 56% Yes, up from 52; I'm betting Yes on Cruz' momentum or Trump's lack thereof.  Secondly, will the Democratic primary winner have a margin greater or equal to 5% (market is at 55%, down from 64%, at which point I bet No)..

Scene 5 will be the series of primaries in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, which will have various storylines (Trump and Clinton’s home state of New York, the outcome of the vote of the “two Pennsylvanias”, the urban centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and their suburbs, vs. the Appalachian-flavored rest of the state, the Atlantic seaboard battles for Kasich to make headway), and then the final scene, which will be the California primary on June 7, which will either clinch the nomination for Trump, or for Clinton, or possibly set the stage for a drama in Act III, the tale of the Two Cities of Cleveland and Philadelphia.  Those scenes’ scripts have not yet been drafted.

Midweek Update

We lead with an obituary of a person who had great influence on global society, operating behind the scenes, and move to some commentary motivated by current events. 

Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
He was honored in many ways, including the British knighthood, Grammys, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but above any others, there was the unofficial title of "the fifth Beatle".  There are others, such as their first manager, Brian Epstein, or the drummer who preceded Ringo Starr in the group, who have been named so, but he truly deserved it. George Martin's record production revolutionized the popular music industry, using superior recording technique, his classical music training, and by helping the rock group experiment with new instrumentation, clever arrangements, and mixing rock 'n' roll instruments with all kinds of sounds.

Martin worked with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison to help them turn their songwriting into the best recordings possible.  They recognized Martin's contributions, and his efforts helped change the Beatles from "just a pop group" to the world-changing artists that we remember.

Martin did a lot of other good work with other groups afterwards, and even recorded instrumental pieces and movie soundtracks under his own name.  My family and I recall with "Love" the musical by that name that he put together, from original Beatles recordings, released and unreleased, which we saw performed in Las Vegas by Cirque du Soleil.

McCartney described him as a "true gentlemen", a man whose behavior just added to the respect due to the Beatles and their groundbreaking recordings.  Martin died today, at the age of 90.

Act II, Scene 3 (continued)- From Super Tuesday to Winner-Take-All
Super Tuesday didn't provide many surprises or too much drama (if one doesn't get too worked up about who finishes second in Republican primaries); the most significant close race was Hillary Clinton's narrow win over Bernie Sanders in Massachusetts.   On the other hand, last night produced some significant, unexpected drama, with the upset victory of Bernie Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary.  His two-point victory defied all the polls leading up to the voting, which had an average lead for Clinton of 13%, and which Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com gave Clinton a 99+% of winning.  Here are some takeaways from that shocker:

• Sanders showed the ability to produce huge turnout in the college towns, and, from exit poll data, dominated the votes of independents participating in this open primary (no party registration required).  Clinton's campaign must counter with comparable turnout efforts in any competitive primaries, while the vote of independents is a long-term issue which could be decisive in the general election. 
• Polls have sometimes been good in these early primaries, sometimes not (and in most of the caucus states, hardly present).  There are real issues about developing statistically valid samples properly representing the share of voters who do not have land lines, and the percentage of phone responders willing to take these surveys continues to drop (if you've ever done one, you would know what an irritant it can be).  And you can discount heavily any polls developed online. 
• Michigan's primary once again defied predictions or reasonable expectations. I will remind the reader that George Wallace won its Democratic primary in 1972, and there are other historic examples of the state producing these surprise results (Henry Ford won the primary there vs. Woodrow Wilson in 1916); however, Michigan has been more predictable in general elections, going consistently (if narrowly) Democratic in every Presidential election since 1992. 
• Despite the narrow victory in Michigan, Clinton actually won more delegates than Sanders because of her enormous victory margin in Mississippi, and thus added to her substantial lead in elected, pledged delegates (not even counting that huge one in unelected superdelegates).   What Michigan did for Sanders was keep his contest legitimate for at least another month. 
• At this point, I should admit that he has done much better generally than I expected, particularly due to his success in caucuses in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.  Prairie Populism, indeed, from a Yankee Jew from Brooklyn!

It's good to have such a dramatic moment to rekindle interest in the Democratic race.  In my view, Sanders has already won, putting his selected issues front-and-center onto the table for Democrats, noticeably moving Clinton's positions toward his, and showing once again that People Power can be translated into meaningful results on the natonal stage.  I am certain that Sanders never expected to win the nomination when he entered this race, but he found, to his surprise, that there was more of an audience for his message, more broadly, than he suspected. Which is not to say that he has much of a chance to win the nomination, still; predictit.org has it at 18% tonight, up from 10% after Super Tuesday.

In other Scene 3 developments, the threat of a third New York multi-millionaire in the general election, after Trump and Clinton, receded a bit in these days when former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided not to file.  The relevant facts at the time were that his entering would play into he hands of Trump or Cruz, and that the Clinton's likely ultimate nomination would give him a candidate he could get behind.

Is There Still Hope to Stop Trump? 
Well, there's hope, but not much substance to the effort.  Marco Rubio joins a long list of candidates who dared to take on The Donald and whose carcasses lie by the side of the road.  Rubio's descent into mud-wrestling was particularly humiliating.  Rubio's candidacy is not officially dead yet, but it depends entirely on his being able to pull off what now appears to be an upset victory in his home state.  If he could win Florida--a winner-take-all primary next week--he would be able to go forward, raise more money (he is spending huge amounts this week, in Florida, and, I can testify, in Illinois), and make the math for Trump getting the delegates to get a first-ballot nomination much more difficult.

The general expectation now is that he will fail in Florida and drop out.  John Kasich--the last, best hope of reasonable Republicanism--will face a similar challenge in Ohio the same night.  His odds of winning on his home turf, and of winning all the state's delegates, are a lot better, but he is even further behind the pace, not having won a single state's primary or caucus so far.   His support has been weak in most of the primaries, though improving some since the field has gotten smaller.

Ted Cruz' argument that he is the only one who can stop Trump, and that Rubio and Kasich should get out of the way, is founded in facts but doesn't pass the smell test.  He has won several states, ones with sufficiently large hardcore conservative voters, but not all of such states.  Trump has trounced him in states with large populations (except his home state of Texas), and especially those with open primaries, due to Trump's own strength with independents.   Cruz' argument of being an authentic, reliable conservative, and its corollary, that Trump is an unreliable one, may be correct but it won't make him a good bet to win the nomination, and it would make him a worse general election candidate.  That doesn't matter too much to me, but it should for Republican regulars.  My suggestion to voters in Florida or Ohio is to vote for the home state guy--Rubio or Kasich--no matter what party or Presidential candidate you prefer--as long as its not Trump or Cruz.

The Supreme Court Nomination
In a few days, President Obama will fulfill his constitutional duty, showing an amazing lack of regard for my advice to him (snark), and nominate someone to take the seat and robe of the Supreme Court which was filled by Antonin Scalia.  My thinking was that the Republican Senate majority in this Congress would never confirm an Obama nomination to take the place of Scalia and his hard-right Constitutional interpretation.

I'm sure my belief was correct, but other considerations will hold sway.  The Republican candidates, and their Senators, headed by Majority Leader McConnell, were so unseemly quick in announcing that no Obama nomination should even be considered, that the natural reaction to such extremism was to challenge it.  Clearly, there is some political advantage for the Democrats if they can, once again, make the Republicans in Congress look unreasonable and obstructionist.  It has worked before.

Based on the rumors, there have been a number of candidates apparently being considered, all of whom meet Obama's announced criteria of being fully qualified, confirmable by a Republican Senate, and having some kind of real-world understanding and experience (that is, beyond the academic and judiciary experience).  Tactical considerations may enter the selection:  one candidate from Iowa would put Judiciary Chairman Grassley in a tough spot.  Grassley, who has a fairly strong challenger for re-election in Iowa this year, would be under pressure to allow her to have hearings, though he has already announced that, though she may be qualified, he has pledged not to allow it.  Another candidate might add Asian-Americans to the list of majority groups the Republicans have permanently alienated.  Women and African-Americans figure prominently among the candidates. In the desire to actually get someone who would be approved, or at least seriously considered, there was consideration even for a Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, before he took himself out of the running.

At the end of the deliberations, I have no doubt Obama will do the right thing, nominate someone very qualified, with absolutely no chance of being confirmed--unless it is by the next Senate, which is becoming ever more likely to be controlled by the Democrats.  That appears to be the real point of the political confrontation which will follow his announcement, and the battle for control of the Senate is due to be the subject for my next political blogpost.