Monday, March 7, 2016
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary L. Bauer
Weekend Results: Democrats
Democrats went to the polls over the weekend in Kansas, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska. Bernie Sanders won three states, while Hillary Clinton won only Louisiana.
But Clinton’s crushing win in the Bayou State (71% to 23%) offset her losses elsewhere. Clinton and Sanders essentially split the delegates up for grabs — 64 for Sanders and 62 for Clinton. In the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, Clinton leads the overall delegate count 1,130 to 499.
Weekend Results: Republicans
Senator Ted Cruz won Kansas and Maine by surprisingly large margins, while Donald Trump narrowly edged out Sen. Cruz in Kentucky and Louisiana. Senator Rubio convincingly won Puerto Rico.
The results from this weekend’s contests awarded 69 delegates to Sen. Cruz, 53 to Donald Trump, 41 to Marco Rubio and 10 to John Kasich. While the weekend results helped to narrow the gap, Donald Trump maintains a clear lead in the overall delegate totals:
Trump 384
Cruz 300
Rubio 151
Kasich 37.
The odds are increasing that no GOP candidate will arrive at the Republican National Convention this summer with an outright majority of delegates. There is increasing speculation of a brokered convention, which could be a disaster for the GOP.
The GOP Is Shattering
Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan had a column in the Wall Street Journal this weekend warning that the 2016 primary contest was exposing fault lines in the GOP that threatened to shatter the Party of Lincoln and Reagan. Responding to the establishment’s threats to form a new party if Donald Trump is the nominee, Noonan wrote:
“Do they understand what they’re ending? Did they ever? It started in 1860. Its first great figure was a man called Lincoln. ‘We’ll start a new party and call it Fred,’ they tweet. ‘We’ll be the party in exile.’ Implicitly: ‘And I and my friends will run it.’ Like little boys knocking over building blocks. . .
“But we are witnessing history. Something important is ending. It is hard to believe what replaces it will be better. No one knows where this goes. The top of the party and the bottom have split. They disagree on the essentials. . .
“If trends continue . . . Mr. Trump will win or come very close to winning by the convention in July. If party forces succeed in finagling him out of the nomination his supporters will bolt, which will break the party. . .
“If, on the other hand, Mr. Trump is given the crown in Cleveland, party political figures, operatives, loyalists, journalists and intellectuals, not to mention sophisticated suburbanites and, God knows, donors will themselves bolt. That is a smaller but not insignificant group. . . Party leaders and thinkers should take note: It’s easier for a base to hire or develop a flashy new establishment than it is for an establishment to find itself a new base.”
Goodbye, Nancy
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan passed away yesterday. She was 94 years old. She’s getting praise now, but as first lady, Mrs. Reagan was frequently berated by the left and media.
While Michelle Obama is celebrated for wearing designer dresses, Mrs. Reagan received much scorn. Her “Just Say No” anti-drug crusade was mocked by comedians and commentators. But from 1982 to 1992, drug abuse among American youth fell 50%. That’s a far cry from the left’s cultural message today, which is “Just Say Yes” to virtually everything.
Much has been written about the role she played in the Reagan White House. But the bottom line is that she had a constituency of one, and his name was Ronald Reagan. The strength of their love was evident to everyone who knew them.
She did not get intimately involved in policy, but she had a very sensitive radar when it came to personnel. At key times during Reagan’s political career, she intervened to ease out people she did not feel were serving her husband well.
Ronald Reagan was an incredibly successful governor and president. It is no exaggeration to suggest that without Nancy, he would not have been as successful.
The best thing to say about Nancy Reagan is to repeat what she said about the man she so loved. Two years after the former president was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Reagan addressed the 1996 Republican National Convention. She concluded her remarks, saying:
“As you all know, I am not the speechmaker in the family, so let me close with Ronnie’s words, not mine. In that last speech four years ago, he said, ‘Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will report that I appeal to your best hopes not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts, and may all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never, never lose your natural, God-given optimism.’
“Ronnie’s optimism, like America’s, still shines very brightly. May God bless him, and from both of us, God bless America.”
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