Donald Trump’s victory on the Ides of March (March 15) was amazingly broad.
In an 8,243-mile arc from Miami (where Trump picked up 99 delegates in Florida) to the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific (where Trump picked up all 9 delegates), Donald Trump won.
Trump won in Illinois and North Carolina. He seems to have very narrowly defeated Ted Cruz in Missouri (Trump is ahead by 1,700 votes as I write this) but his delegate lead in Missouri is estimated at 29 to 5 because of the distribution of votes across the state.
Kasich won in his home state of Ohio, where he is enormously popular. This proved that he is likely the best choice to be the vice presidential nominee since no Republican has won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
How did we get to a point where the most likely nominee is a complete outsider and his only plausible competitor is a freshman senator who made his name opposing business-as-usual in Washington and making enemies in the U.S. Senate?
Marco Rubio, in his very fine concession speech, captured where we are as well as anyone has:
That we find ourselves at this point is not surprising, for the warning signs have been here for close to a decade. In 2010, the Tea Party wave carried me and others into office because not enough was happening, and that Tea Party wave gave Republicans a majority in the House, but nothing changed. In 2014, those same voters gave Republicans a majority in the Senate and, still, nothing changed. And I blame some of that on the conservative movement, a movement that is supposed to be about our principles and our ideas. But I blame most of it on our political establishment.
A political establishment that for far too long has looked down at conservatives…as simple-minded people. Looked down at conservatives as simply bomb-throwers. A political establishment that for far too long has taken the votes of conservatives for granted, and a political establishment that has grown to confuse cronyism for capitalism, and big business for free enterprise.
Those who worry about the rise of Donald Trump would do well to read and ponder Marco Rubio’s words.
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