A Pivotal Night in Michigan

MichiganHow great would it be to have a President Trump that could bring his magnanimity to the office, and an official line of Trumpster swag for sale to his loyal underclass constituency.

Fresh off winning a big victory in Michigan, the top industrial battleground state in the nation, Donald Trump decided this was the perfect opportunity to hold an infomercial for the Trump brand.

Hey I get throwing red meat to conservatives, but seriously, Trump brought out raw steaks, along with bottled water, wine, and an issue of Trump magazine.

I guess there is the argument that he needed to set the record straight after Mitt Romney took him to task the previous week for all his failed businesses, but it also put on display one of the great inferiority complexes in history.

Trump had a big night winning Mississippi, Michigan and Hawaii, increasing his delegate lead to 456, with Ted Cruz at 363, Kasich at 153 and Rubio with 54.

Cruz had a respectable night in winning Idaho and finishing second in the states where Trump won.

It can’t be overstated in how badly Rubio has fallen. He finished a distant fourth behind Kasich.

Last night also should put to rest the idea that Kasich will suddenly catch fire in the Midwest. It’s looking questionable that he will even win his home state of Ohio.

It’s a strange phenomenon that when the electorate is polled about its feelings toward the Donald, only 25 percent respond positively and 64 percent negatively, yet the man is steamrolling to the GOP nomination.

On the Democratic side we saw an inspired upset victory by Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in Michigan.

Clinton was up in the Michigan polls, but Bernie successfully attacked Hillary on her free trade stance and spoke to the high level of foreclosures that hit this state, particularly in the African-American population and it resonated.

Funny thing is Bernie won but Hillary ended up taking home more delegates for the night, behind her landslide victory in Mississippi. Her total delegate lead stands at 1,193 to 569.

Michigan changes things. For Trump this was supposed to be where his crass statements and the “Never Trump” movement were to hinder his progress and that was not true.

If Trump takes Florida and Ohio he can secure the Republican nomination, and all discussions of a brokered convention will be over.

For Hillary this surprising loss means she cannot pivot to begin focusing on the general election. Several upcoming primary states have similar trade issues as Michigan and feature smaller African-American populations, making them competitive for Sanders.

Hillary’s problems remain that she is not inspiring, she is not authentic and she is not connecting well with voters. Clinton has an amazing pedigree, but she needs to focus on the primary against Bernie and find ways to be less scripted and more personable with issues that matter to voters.

Mathematically, it’s tough for Bernie to catch Hillary with her current delegate lead, but he is winning enough to hang around, maybe all the way through to the convention.

To earn this nomination Clinton has to fight it out with Sanders state-to-state on the issues, not just painting broad strokes and moving to the next contest.

Trump will hit her even harder in the general election, so look at this as practice for the big game. It takes a lot of practice to make it to “The Show.” She needs to dig in and not take any crap, but please save the cheap shots.

This should be a fun Democratic debate tonight in Florida.

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