The Big Winner and Big Loser Last Night

I covered the overall debate in my last post. I think everyone did pretty well by staying in their own lane except Marco Rubio who in trying to out Trump Donald Trump is making himself look silly.

Winners and losers at GOP debate http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/03/marco-rubio-wants-that-one-back.html

He's also making it all about Trump. This is something that both Kasich and Cruz avoided. Kasich may have a very small window but at least he's telling you about John Kasich and not why you shouldn't vote for Donald Trump or why you should give him less than 1024 delegates.

But in the bigger picture it's clear who the big winner the big loser was last night.

1. The big loser was the GOP. Full stop. Listen to what a conservative is saying:

"50 years of conservatism ends w/ billionaire bragging about his genitals on national tv. I felt sick. My column."

https://twitter.com/continetti/status/705609222759833601

So let's look at Matthew Continettie's column:

"The spectacle made me ill. On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to criticize and try to stop him. And even then it may be too late."

"I sometimes wonder whether Trump chose to run as a Republican because he identified the GOP as the weaker of the two parties. His politics line up favorably with Democrats, and he has supported Democrats in the past. But the Republicans had been so buffeted by 20 years of inattention to the costs of globalization, by the growing estrangement of traditional constituencies who have lost status and resources in the twenty-first century, by the mistakes and narrow-mindedness of the party elite, that clearly the party of Lincoln was the easier mark. Trump called the bluff of the Beltway establishment. He proved that the ghost of Jack Kemp doesn’t move the party base. The ghost of Nixon does."

"There was no winner at the debate, but there was certainly a loser: The GOP. It started this election cycle in a strong position, and is now on the precipice of nominating a political neophyte, a caricature of everything liberals hate about Republicans, whose unfavorable ratings are sky-high and who loses to Hillary Clinton in practically every poll. The best hope of the anti-Trump forces is to somehow prevent him from winning the number of delegates necessary to secure the nomination outright, and deliver the nomination to someone else at the party’s convention. I’m skeptical. It’s a last-ditch attempt, and if the party wants to nominate Trump, that’s its choice. But in doing so it would crown as the heir to Lincoln and TR and Eisenhower and Reagan a man who every day finds new ways to polarize, repel, infuriate, exhaust, shock, and horrify."

http://freebeacon.com/columns/the-donald-turns-into-a-pumpkin/

Just remember, you can call Trump pathetic as long as you admit that the Republican party is doubly pathetic as this man has dwarfed the real GOP candidates. Continetti is right. Trump surely saw this party as a mark.

2. The winner last night was Hillary Clinton as even Frank Luntz allows.

https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/705626694560800768

The difference between the parties becomes clear when you compare how each handled the rise of an outsider who has attempted a hostile takeover. 

The GOP has utterly failed to rebuff Trump and their eleventh hour #NeverTrump junta is way too little too late. Rubio, the one who has embraced this most strongly, has utterly diminished himself. 

Ted Cruz is right: there will be bloodshed if the GOP tries to somehow insert Romney or Paul Ryan at the convention. 

The Dems on the other hand were able to strongly beat back the Bernie challenge. This is thanks to party unity. At the end of the day most Democrats do like their party. They don't see all our problems as solved, but the idea that the party needs to be blown up doesn't sell with most real Dems. 

Meanwhile, the party officials have shown the kind of unity impossible in the GOP. Like where Harry Reid delivered for Hillary in Nevada and James Clyburn did in SC. 

3. To be sure, the Dems can't be complacent. We are a much healthier part than the GOP. The GOP is scarcely a party at all anymore. 

But the Bernie challenge does show that something must be done about stagnant wages which is now a 40 year phenom. 

If not, we could see the US become more like Europe with a Far Right and Far Left party coming. As it is I think a Far Right party inspired by Trump is coming. 

The Dems still have time and the ability to stave off a Far Left uprising. But raising wages is of the essence. 

If not for stagnant wages none of this would not be happening. 

Ryan Cooper makes a good point here-though he's a Hillary bashing scold mostly. But a good point is a good point:

"I really wonder how this election would be playing out if we had a proportional parliamentary system."

"I''d guess there'd be 4 parties: Sanders-leftist: 25% Clinton-neoliberal 30% Rubio-conservative 15% Trump-rightist 30%."

https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/705043765778636800

The trouble is such groupings often hurt the Left more than the Right. Just check out the UK. Or Maine for that matter where the Emoprogs got the state Paul LaPage twice.

In a way having more parties makes it even less likely to ever find the Sensible Center.

So the good news is the Dems are a strong, healthy party,

Still they cannot be complacent.