Kasich and Cruz agree to coordinate, almost unifying not-Trump vote

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 3 Comments
Around the fire at the GOP debate, former boxer John Kasich gets inexplicably hostile to Nick Adams.

Around the fire, a punch-druk John Kasich becomes inexplicably hostile to Nick Adams.

Confirming your uncle’s Facebook theories, John Kasich and Ted Cruz have agreed to stay out of each other’s ways in Indian, Oregon and New Mexico, in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination outright. Cruz gets Indiana, where he’s polling eight points behind Trump but lags by only two if Kasich leaves the race. Kasich gets a new blanket and a can of soup, and Citizens United v. FEC gets even more laughable in its ban on “coordination” between Super PACs and campaigns. Quote:

Both campaigns said they expected allies and third-party groups to follow their lead, and a representative from the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Kasich confirmed late Sunday that it would not advertise in Indiana.

That’s a totally independent group of citizen activists, right there, independently suspending their advocacy in order to adhere to a deal struck between two campaigns. But will it work?

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Trump almost never forgets 9/11

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 3 Comments
Donald Trump reports for jury duty in August 2015. Photo by Andrew Burton

Donald Trump reports for jury duty in August 2015. Photo by Andrew Burton

It’s callow to laugh at Donald Trump for misspeaking, especially when he says so much risible shit on purpose. But there’s something pleasing about this flub:

I think what I want to do is I want to talk just for a second. I wrote this out, and it’s very close to my heart because I was down there. And I watched our police and our firemen down on 7/11, down at the World Trade Center, right after it came down. And I saw the greatest people I’ve ever seen in action. I saw the greatest people I’ve ever seen including the construction workers, including every person down there. That’s what New York values is about.

As Rudy Giuliani will tell you, New York values are about running for president of September 11. Trump almost does that competently here. He declares police and fire fighters the bravest people on earth, and then expands that superlative to everyone in his field of vision. He makes heroes of us all. He almost never forgets. But then he says that thing about 7/11 and the whole edifice comes crashing down. Questions:

  1. Is this the first time America laughed at 9/11?
  2. Is this the first time Trump admitted to writing down a speech?

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Ted Cruz in: The Endorsements

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 2 Comments

Ted Cruz

The reader is directed to this correction in the National Review:

An earlier post stated that Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign was set to unveil a series of endorsements from Cruz’s fellow senators. The report was erroneous. As of this writing, the campaign has no pending Senate endorsements to announce.

Ted Cruz’s alarm went off at 5am. He hit the snooze, rolled over, and spoke extemporaneously on the subject of religious liberty until the alarm went off again. Then he got out of bed. He took off his nighttime suit and skipped merrily to the shower. It was Endorsement Day.

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And a super Tuesday to you, sir!

By Dan Brooks in Democratic Candidates, Republican Candidates 1 Comment
Arthur Digby Sellers in his iron lung

Arthur Digby Sellers in his iron lung

History will be made today, and I’m not just talking about this blog’s most obscure Lebowski reference. I’m talking about Super Tuesday—the finest Tuesday in the land, after Taco Tuesday, when 11 states hold their primaries and determine who is a viable candidate and who is Ben Carson. This year’s Super Tuesday is especially exciting. On one side of the aisle, the Democratic Party is poised to nominate either the first woman or the first socialist Jew. Which will it be? The woman, because she hasn’t threatened to disrupt the richest industry in America. But maybe something surprising will happen, and the socialist Jew will catch up.

The Republican nominating contest is even more thrilling. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are locked in a game of chicken, but it’s the kind of chicken where you both drive toward a cliff. Ben Carson is locked in a refrigerator at the dump. And Donald Trump, the billionaire reality TV star who announced his candidacy by calling America’s largest immigrant population “drug dealers and rapists” at a mall, is poised to destroy the Republican Party. Unless my dad finds a genie and causes John Kasich to win all eleven states, today is probably the day Trump clinches the nomination. Our outcomes from there are soft fascism, woman president and/or third party.

Today is a watershed no matter what happens. We’ve talked a lot about politics this year, and I keep making secret plans to knock it off after this election is over. You’ll notice, if you look at the most popular posts widget to your left, that none of them is about politics. But god dammit, this is the weirdest election of my lifetime. It’s way weirder than 2012. Whatever happens today, tomorrow is going to look a lot like history.

Gawker induces Trump to retweet Mussolini

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 0 Comment
I'll start with the white salad and move on to the Trumpolini with crabs.

I’ll start with the white salad and move on to the Trumpolini with crabs.

Early Sunday morning, Donald Trump’s twitter account retweeted this quote from Italian fascist and humorous World War II adversary Benito Mussolini:

This prank was the work of Gawker’s Ashley Feinberg, who created a bot account called @ilduce2016 that tweets quotes from Mussolini but attributes them to Donald Trump. It’s kind of funny, although the formatting of this particular tweet makes it look like @ilduce2016 was only tagging Trump, not citing him. But no matter: Trump saw this quote and thought it was insightful, plus maybe flattering to him, and he retweeted it to his 6.5 million followers. We can start calling him The Deuce now, right?

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