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Op-Ed: U.S. presidential contest narrows to two viable candidates

On the Democratic Party side, Bernie Sanders, a Socialist who has belonged to three political parties and is currently running as a Democrat, was never in the race. He baited some college kids with a promise of free tuition and suggesting the government should drastically reduce student loan rates, and automatically got the support of Occupy groups and hard-core American socialists by suggesting he is a modern-day Robin Hood who would steal from the rich to give to the poor – which would be them.
The main problem with the 74-year-old contemporary Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest is that he is the rotted tree blocking his supporter’s view of the forest. The trunk of his platform goes something like this:
As President, I will invest $1 trillion to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure to put 13 million Americans to work in good jobs, invest $5.5 billion to employ 1 million young Americans and provide job-training to hundreds of thousands of others, and create a Clean-Energy Workforce of 10 million good jobs through a 100% clean energy system.
Sound familiar? $1 trillion is largely earmarked for national infrastructure at any given time. Stuff wears out; bridges become unstable, roads deteriorate and government officials are always looking for high-rent real estate to lease government offices. If Mr. Sanders had $5.5 billion to employ 1 million young Americans and provide job-training to hundreds of thousands of others, to whom would he give the money? Not young Americans, it would be doled out to corporations and government bureaus in the same way that it always is with insanely similar results. Furthermore, training hundreds of thousands of workers is futile if you don’t have hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And his Clean energy workforce of 10 million good jobs with a 100% clean energy system sounds like a cliché from a junior college term paper. It’s only words, and words are all he has, to take your love away, to borrow a line from the Bee Gees.
The Democrat’s real goal is and has been from the get-go to find a way to complete the coronation of its battered princess of truth and justice, Hillary Clinton. Other than being a low energy candidate that no one believes whom is the subject of an FBI investigation that will crack wide open in the coming months, Hillary Clinton has already inspired a huge drop in primary participation for Democrats. Nevertheless, she is currently the only viable democratic candidate for the Democratic nomination. For his part, Mr. Sanders will soon reemerge as Vermont’s political Pillsbury Dough Boy of the Senate, perhaps as early as Tuesday evening.
In the Republican Party, The irrepressible John Kasich of Ohio still believes the political tooth fairy is going to leave 1,000 or so extra delegates under his pillow. “I just had to be patient,” he said aboard his campaign bus en route to Cleveland on Saturday evening. He added, “I think [if] we win Tuesday, it’s a whole new ballgame.” Victory over Trump, he said, would show that “the emperor has no clothes.”
Naked emperors notwithstanding, Kasich is the candidate with plenty of suits but no delegates. A close win in his home state of Ohio would simply delay the inevitable, even when using Common Core math to decipher the delegate count.
The wobbling candidacy of Florida’s hooky-playing Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who is trailing in his state by double digits, will also crash on Tuesday. Without Florida, and perhaps with, there is no path forward for the freshman senator who is most infamous for skipping Senate votes.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both won seven of the 11 states voting on Super Tuesday

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both won seven of the 11 states voting on Super Tuesday
, AFP/File

As for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, last year he was the mean-spirited outsider the mainstream media is trying to paint Donald Trump as now. While Cruz could probably crush the average high school debate, he is despised by his own political party almost as much as the mainstream media. Still, his is the most interesting campaign other than the political movement created by Donald Trump. The problem for Cruz is that his Beltway support is as thin as a credit card and media pundits are tying him to the tracks with disposable support rope to derail the Trump train. Perhaps weaker yet is the support Cruz musters in Florida, Ohio and large northeastern states like New York where he could not win even if he stole Naked Cowboy’s guitar and crooned for votes in his skivvies.
The above analysis leaves Donald Trump the Republican nominee. Mr. Trump, despite the odd orange glow of his face, will be the Republican nominee. With everything mainstream media has done to destroy his campaign, he simply calls out its reporters one by one, ridiculing the ones he doesn’t like and complimenting those who “treat him nice.” The Trump movement has defied the Beltway Republican establishment as effectively as it has painted a graffiti characterizing mainstream media as hopelessly bias. Debate tested, Trump has used mainstream media criticisms as gas to throw on flames of support. Mr. Trump has successfully defined his campaign as a struggle between himself and entrenched old guard battalions of status-quo media, Democratic Party money launderers, a horrified Republican establishment and violent left-wing militants set on disrupting his events.
After Tuesday evening, the primary picture should be clearer as Mr. Rubio prepares to drop out, John Kasich figures out the math and Ted Cruz scrambles back to the helm of his listing campaign ship to steer into ominous northern winds. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, may have to buckle up inside the Trump Jet in preparation for a relatively minor spate of turbulence. However, the two nominees will be clearly identifiable after Tuesday. It will be time for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to take off the gloves and enter the real political boxing ring. It will be entertaining as the highly partisan mainstream media morphs into Hillary’s corner-man while we wait to see whether Mr. Trump or the FBI investigation swirling around her delivers the knockout punch.

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