Politics: All the Latest Headlines from Real Clear Politics

Here is the latest Political News from Real Clear Politics.

Trump Plans AIPAC Surprise
Eli Stokols, Politico
The GOP front-runner wants to look more presidential. But some Jewish leaders are planning to protest Monday.

Donald and Decadence
William Kristol, The Weekly Standard
John Feehery is a Washington lobbyist and former spokesman for the disgraced ex-speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. Last week, Feehery explained to the AtlanticÃ¢??s Molly Ball why he’s reconciled to accepting Donald Trump as the nominee of his party:If it weren’t for all the idiotic and racist comments, he would be kind of a breath of fresh air, Feehery said. He’s someone who wants to get stuff doneÃ¢??a politician who’s not beholden to any kind of ideology, not beholden to special interests. I don’t think he is George Wallace in his heart of hearts. He’s not a strategic threat to the future…

How Trump Dog-Whistles the Business Establishment
William Greider, The Nation
Even as Donald Trump woos working-class voters by trashing Washington politicians, he is sending a reassuring message to the business-financial establishment: DonÃ¢??t worry, IÃ¢??m on your side, heÃ¢??s telling corporate execs in coded language.

Donald Trump’s White Lives Matter Movement
Toure Neblett, Huffington Post
We should just call it what it is: Donald Trump is the leader of the White Lives Matter movement. Someone had to start it — they were gettin’ out of con…

Ted Cruz Can Stop Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
Carly Fiorina, USA Today
That’s why I back his effort to take Washington back for the rest of us.

Trade Myths and Realities
Robert Samuelson, Washington Post

Trump’s New Coalition Of Voters Who Put America First
Stephen Moore, IBD
If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, which looks probable — though I’m still hopeful Ted Cruz can catch him — he will have reshuffled the deck in a way no one has since Ronald Reagan transformed the GOP into a conservative party.Trump is remaking the GOP into a populist/reform party of working class/evangelical and entrepreneurial class voters. He is completing what Ross Perot tried to build in 1992 with his Reform Party.

Election 2016: Fascist vs. Capo
Joel Kotkin, The Daily Beast
Trump envisioned and created todayÃ¢??s city of white boxes for rootless new money types, who dominate the city even as they leave little mark here.

Bret Baier to Donald Trump: Stop Trashing Megyn Kelly
Lloyd Grove, The Daily Beast
The Fox News host on TrumpÃ¢??s vitriolic obsession with his female colleague: Ã¢??ItÃ¢??s not at all comfortable.Ã¢??

The Man the Founders Feared
Pete Wehner, New York Times

Trump the Candidate of Hope & Change
Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times
I was in Florida last week, attending Donald Trump rallies and talking with the voters who love him. My question was straightforward: What’s the secret of the front-runner’s appeal?

If Trump Wins, I’ll Eat This Column
Margaret Wente, Globe & Mail
Forget about hope and change Ã¢?? this presidential election is all about fear and loathing

When Trump Beats Hillary
Pat Buchanan, The American Conservative
Washington is in a panic. But rebellion is often followed by renewal.

How Trump vs. Clinton Could Reshape the Electoral Map
Dan Balz, Washington Post

Cuba’s ‘Reforms’ Are a Myth
Jan De Deken, The Daily Beast
As Obama heads to Cuba, islanders reflect on their revolutionary pastÃ¢??and their uncertain future.

The Unstoppable Transformation of Cuba
Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald
Cuba far from being a free country, but it’s opening up and loosening up

Lessons of Trump: The GOP Must Change – or Die
Andrew McCarthy, National Review

GOP Must Get Control of Its Own Party
Nolan Finley, Detroit News
A desperate Republican establishment is now hoping to stop Trump at the national convention in Cleveland

Reject Trump & Cruz. Vote Kasich Instead

No Climate Change Heresy Trials

Obama’s Message to the People of Cuba

Postcards From Cuba

Was Michigan State the Biggest NCAA Tournament Upset Ever?
Nate Silver, 538
Having grown up a few minutes from the Michigan State campus, IÃ¢??m a little bit upset about todayÃ¢??s upset. After two decades of Michigan State coach Tom IzzoÃ¢??s amazing record in post-season play, weÃ¢?Â¦

10 Senate Seats Most Likely to Flip in 2016
Lisa Hagen, The Hill
Here’s how the races are shaping up as Democrats hope to regain control in November.

Obama Is a Political Narcissist
Matthew Continetti, Washington Free Beacon
Russia announces the withdrawal of its forces from Syria. The decision is a surpriseÃ¢??President Obama is shocked. This is a feeling he experiences often. He was astonished when Vladimir Putin inte

How Trump Helps ISIS
Carl M. Cannon, Orange County Register
MIAMI BEACH — The fruits of Donald Trump’s rhetorical excess at the expense of Muslims and immigrants was brought home, literally, to Abdullah Antepli earlier this year. It left his teenage…

Carrier Workers See Costs, Not Benefits, of Global Trade
Nelson Schwartz, NY Times

Trump Voters Aren’t Really Angry About the Economy
Kevin Drum, Mother Jones

George Will’s Misguided Attack on Senate Republicans
Ed Whelan, National Review

The Supreme Court Is Not Above Politics
Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
The Republicans are stopping Merrick Garland, as they would stop any Obama nominee, for the simplest of reasons: because they can.

Obama to Make History With Cuba Visit
Alexis Simendinger, RealClearPolitics
After nearly 90 years, and traveling just 90 miles from the United States, President Obama will make history Sunday in Cuba, traveling to the tiny dictatorship to argue on behalf of the…

Cruz & Kasich Playing Right Into Trump’s Hands
Josh Kraushaar, National Journal

Why It’s Time for a Trump Revolution
Michael Goodwin, New York Post
My friends are worried about me. They insist something is not right and suggest prayer, counseling, even rehab. Ã¢??Take a break,Ã¢?? they urge. Ã¢??Get away for a few days and clear your head.Ã¢?? They are wiÃ¢?Â¦

We’ve Never Seen a Party This at War With Itself
David Shribman, Pitt Post-Gazette
The day dawned after the Florida and Midwestern political contests with an astonishing, perhaps unprecedented, realization and revelation. In a mature democracy with the experience of more than 50…

Michigan State and The Biggest NCAA Tournament Upsets Ever
Nate Silver, 538
Having grown up a few minutes from the Michigan State campus, IÃ¢??m a little bit upset about todayÃ¢??s upset. After two decades of Michigan State coach Tom IzzoÃ¢??s amazing record in post-season play, weÃ¢?Â¦

Putin’s Syria Gamble Has Already Paid Off
Tobin Harshaw, Bloomberg
Allies, adversaries and potential buyers were likely impressed by Russia’s military hardware.

Making Sense of the Mideast Oil Muddle
Kevin Sullivan, RealClearWorld
Analysts often speak in generalities when discussing the relationship between oil and the Middle East. While the all-important commodity is widely understood to be the lifeblood of many, if not most,…

Will Christianity Survive in the Middle East?
Daniel Allott, Washington Examiner
Doran discussed the origins of the current perilous state of affairs in the Middle East.

Open The Books on California’s Checkbook
Adam Andrzejewski, RealClearPolitics
It’s national Sunshine Week across America. During this week, good-government groups advocate for open government and transparency in public spending. One massive area that remains hidden is the…

Will Trump Be Dumped?
Maureen Dowd, New York Times
“We need strength in this country,” he told me Friday morning, speaking from his Fifth Avenue office. “We have weak leadership. Hillary is pathetically weak.“She got us into Libya and she got us into Benghazi and she’s probably got 40 eggheads sitting around a table telling her what to do, and then she was sleeping when the phone call came in from the ambassador begging for help. You know, the 3 a.m. phone call?”I asked the brand baron if he’s concerned that his brand has gone from fun to scary, from glittery New York celebrity to “S.N.L.”…

Trump Is Manifestly Unqualified To Be President
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard
HereÃ¢??s the new line from Donald Trump’s cheerleaders in the conservative media: A refusal to support Trump is a de facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It’s an argument they’re making out of necessity, not conviction, trying to use peer pressure to achieve the unanimity their previous exhortations failed to produce.First, they asked us to believe Trump was a conservative. But that argument couldn’t survive a cursory look at his background, and it falls apart further with nearly every policy pronouncement Trump makes. Then they said he was antiestablishment. But Trump financed the…

The Chaos Scenario for Democrats
Ben Kamisar, The Hill
It’??s the scenario that Republicans dream of and Democrats believe is all but impossible.

Why The GOP is Doomed, Doomed, Doomed
Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo
As you’ve seen from our reporting, there have been a number of groups of Republicans, generally fairly sad sack, who’ve met to plot a third party candidacy on the assumption that Trump either cannot or should not be denied the nomination in Cleveland. In the nature of things almost all these embryonic efforts have proceeded on the belief that the independent candidate must be a “movement conservative.” But this exposes a key problem with the whole concept – indeed, a key driver of the crisis itself.

At March Pace, Trump’s on Track for 1300 Delegates
Nate Cohn, New York Times
If the rest of the primary season goes as it did in early March, Mr. Trump could win the nomination with around 1,300 delegates, based on a model of how demographics have correlated with the strength of the candidates so far.The model isn’t perfect — it struggles to some extent with the big variations in Mr. Trump’s strength on the Plains and out West, where there have been relatively few primaries so far. It also can’t capture the potential effect of strategic voting (like not voting for your favorite candidate in an attempt to help him in the future) or of the…

Trump Scrambles American Politics; Dems Should Worry
Ed Rogers, Washington Post
Republicans don’t know how to run with Donald Trump and Democrats don’t know how to run against him. That notion is perfectly illustrated in a piece Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti wrote yesterday, entitled, “Democrats sound alarm against Trump.” In the opening paragraph, Debenedetti writes, “Leading liberals and progressive groups are turning their gaze away from the Democratic primary and toward efforts to unite the left against Donald Trump, framing him as a dangerous and unprecedented candidate who poses an existential threat to the progressive…

Arizona and Florida Expose Early Voting Debacle

Merrick Garland Deserves a Hearing

Pushing Back Against Progressive Bullies

Trump Trods a Well-Worn Path of Bigotry

Obamacare’s Birth-Control ‘Exemption’ Still Tramples Rights
Constance Veit, NYT

Inside Tim Cook’s Fight With the FBI
Lev Grossman, Time
Your privacy, AmericaÃ¢??s security, and the stakes in the battle over encryption

Debriefing Mike Murphy
Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard
Los AngelesOn a pleasant Super Tuesday afternoon Ã¢?? one of 10 or 11 Super Tuesdays we seem to be having this March Ã¢?? I am standing in the bloated carcass of that much-maligned beast known as The Establishment. In the unmarked suite of a generic mid-Wilshire office building (The Establishment can’t be too careful, with all these populists sharpening pitchforks), I have come to Right to Rise, Jeb Bush’s $118 million super-PAC, to watch Mike Murphy and his crew pack it in.If you’ve been reading your Conventional Wisdom Herald, you know that Murphy, one of the most storied and furiously…

How Hulk Hogan Bodyslammed Gawker
Lloyd Grove, The Daily Beast
With Gawker on the hook for $115 million in damages to Hulk Hogan after publishing his sex tape, is this the end of Nick Denton’s Empire of Snark?

Comedy Central Is Basically a Clinton SuperPAC
Brent Bozell & Tim Graham, NY Post
No one doubts that the Ã¢??Ã¢??fake newsÃ¢??Ã¢?? shows on Comedy Central are propaganda organs for liberalism. NPR and MSNBC hosts have swooned over the soothing satirical nightcaps for the snarky liberal. AppÃ¢?Â¦

What Russia Won in Syria
Simon Saradzhyan, Boston Globe
Putin had specific goals for intervention Ã¢?? and he largely achieved them.

Does GOP Believe Trump Will Make a Good SCOTUS Choice?
George Will, WaPo

How Hillary Beat Bernie on Trade
Annie Karni, Politico
Her broader economic message, combined with skepticism about TPP, won the Rust Belt.

A New Theory of Trump
John Podhoretz, Commentary
Why Trump? Why him? Why now? As is ever the case with a phenomenon that defies conventional wisdom, analysts have sought to explain his rise by asserting he has risen to prove exactly the point they have been making for years but nobody was listening. So: Immigration restrictionists say it’s because he took up their cudgels. Trump himself suggests as much when he declares no one was paying attention to immigration until he brought it up. That is, of course, just one of the 10,000 transparently ridiculous things he has said, since immigration has been a dominating feature of the…

How a Contested Convention Complicates the Veepstakes
Karyn Bruggeman, NJ

Ted Cruz Can Beat Donald Trump
Maggie Gallagher, National Review Online

Gaming Out the Bruising, Trump-vs.-Clinton Race
Bill Scher & Matt Latimer, Politico
And how Hillary beats Trump. Two game plans for the bruising race we’re about to see.

How the Quiet, Elusive ‘Hillary Voter’ Wins Her Elections
Eric Sasson, New Republic

Frontlash for Trump Outpaces Backlash as Nomination Nears
Conrad Black, NY Sun
Those who initially saw the Trump candidacy as an exercise in buffoonery and exhibitionism, and gradually accepted it as an insurgency, now see it as an attempt to hijack and ravish the Republican Party and even to hoodwink the entire electorate. The alternative interpretation has been that Donald Trump, though a billionaire, had the genius of expressing public grievances in an Archie Bunker style that mocked political correctness and was popularly seen as plain talk from the only candidate not in any way complicit in the terrible blunders of America’s political class since the end of…

An Excruciating Choice for GOP Leaders
Julian Zelizer, CNN
Julian Zelizer says it’s difficult for elected officials to tie themselves to Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, and there’s no way of telling what he’ll say next

How the Republican Party Abandoned Political Norms
Paul Waldman, The Week
When you treat governing like a joke, you wind up picking a joke of a presidential candidate

Dividers, Not Uniters; Obama Begets Trump
Jonathan Last, The Weekly Standard
ThereÃ¢??s plenty of blame to go around for the creation of Trumpism. The p.c. insanity on college campuses. Globalization and the hollowing out of the working class. ISIS in Paris and San Bernardino. The broadcast media that donated $1.898 billion in free media to the cause. Let’s stipulate all of that and much else besides.But for a moment, consider the contributions of Barack Obama. Because as divisive as Donald Trump is, all he has done is raise the bar set by the most divisive president since Reconstruction.As an empirical matter, it’s maybe more precise to say that Obama is the most…

Trump’s Hatred Could Lead to Another Kent State
James Robenalt, Politico
Donald Trump is now openly inciting violence at his rallies. In Kansas City, he mouthed the words, “I’ll beat the crap out of you,” when describing what he would have done to a protester who charged him in Dayton, Ohio, earlier in the day. “Boom, boom, boom,” he said, mimicking a schoolyard beat down with his fists. “Part of the problem is … nobody wants to hurt each other anymore,” he yelled at protesters in St. Louis who were being physically ejected from his event. “The audience hit back,” he said earlier at a news conference in…

The Role of Highways in American Poverty
Alana Semuels, The Atlantic
Little Rock is a fascinating city. With its river and renovated warehouses and bustling River Market district, it reminds me a little bit of Pittsburgh, where I lived a decade ago when I was starting my journalism career. At that time, Pittsburgh was still the butt of many jokes, though determined city planners were starting to drive the transformation that’s made it so popular. Today, there’s a growing population downtown and tech companies are locating in the city once known for steel.

Donald Trump’s Trademark Move
Carl Cannon, RealClearPolitics
Twelve years ago today, an online news site called The Smoking Gun had a nice little scoop involving Donald Trump. It seems that the New York real estate tycoon realized from the start that his new reality television show was a huge hit — and he and his lawyers conjured up a comically brazen scheme to profit from it. “The Apprentice” premiered on January 8, 2004, featuring 16 contestants. At the end of the season, audiences were told, one of them would be hired as an “executive vice-president” in Donald Trump’s real estate company at a salary of $250,000 a year.

An Open Convention Would Be a Mistake for Republicans
Roger L. Simon, PJ Media
Call me an idiot, but I thought Donald Trump had all but sealed the Republican presidential nomination on March 15th’s Super Tuesday II after winning four of the five contested states, including the biggest prize, winner-take-all Florida, by a sizable margin. He was leading now by over 270 delegates and upwards of two million votes over his nearest adversary. (Recent polls show Trump up 12% in Arizona and 16% in delegate-rich California.)

No, Not Trump, Not Ever
David Brooks, New York Times
The voters have spoken. In convincing fashion, Republican voters seem to be selecting Donald Trump as their nominee. And in a democracy, victory has legitimacy to it. Voters are rarely wise but are usually sensible. They understand their own problems. And so deference is generally paid to the candidate who wins.

So ISIS Is Committing Genocide. Now What?
Julian Pecquet, Al-Monitor
Now they’re demanding he do something about it. “It would be travesty if we were to mistakenly take solace in this designation, if the designation did not then yield some sort of action,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a statement after returning to Congress following his withdrawal from the presidential race. “It is time for US assistance to be better targeted to help these persecuted communities and to ensure that they are not lost in the human chaos left in the wake of Syria’s devastation and Iraq’s instability.”

The Biden Standard Dictates No Nominees This Year
Timothy Carney, DC Examiner
Joe Biden in 1992 took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to call for Reform of the Confirmation Process, as he titled his speech. The Delaware senator’s lengthy discourse Ã¢?? the longest of his Senate career at that point, according to Biden Ã¢?? touched on many ways in which Biden felt the judicial nominating process needed reform.Biden timed the speech for the end of the Supreme Court session, because, in his words, that was the eve of the time that historically the Supreme Court Justices make judgments about whether or not they are going to stay on for another year.One of Biden’s calls for…

Republicans’ Disgraceful Treatment of Merrick Garland
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
Heading into Wednesday morning, my thoughts about Barack Obama’s nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat at the Supreme Court were focused on Sri Srinivasan. It was assumed widely that Srinivasan would be the pick, because he was a moderate, approved by a 97–0 margin just a few years ago, and because it would be the sort of big legacy pick (first Asian justice, first Hindu justice) that has mattered so much to the president in his prior nominations to the high court.

Did Trump Protest Tactics Backfire?
Rep. John Duncan, The American Conservative
As I drove away from Reagan National Airport on Monday, I heard a report on WMAL radio that a group supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders had tweeted out a congratulations to those who had forced the cancellation of Donald Trump’s speech in Chicago. The tweet called the cancellation a “great victory” and saluted the “thousands” of people and “dozen” groups that had helped bring about the protest. By the next day (Tuesday), the “victory” did not look so great.

John Kasich’s Challenge
Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal
The obstacles that stand between John Kasich and the White House are substantial. He cannot win the delegate math before Cleveland. He has picked up only one state—his own. He is hovering at 12% in the national polls. But before John Kasich even confronts those hurdles, he has a bigger, more immediate challenge: He must convince the GOP electorate to overturn all its usual assumptions about what counts as a victory.

Dems Shed Crocodile Tears Over Politicized Nomination

In the Land of Missing Persons
Alex Tizon, The Atlantic
They found what was left of him in the spring of 2014. Firefighters battling a huge blaze on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula first spotted a boot in the dirt. Then they noticed some bones scattered across a wide grassy area. Fire crews in Alaska are used to seeing the bones of moose, caribou, bears, and other large creatures that live and die in these woods. So it wasn’t until crew members found a human skull that they stopped to consider that the pieces might go together. The skull was resting on its side, the face angled toward the ground. A few blackened molars clung to the upper jaw….

An Open Letter to the Virginia Tech Community
Charles Murray, AEI Ideas
Last week, the president of Virginia Tech, Tim Sands, published an “open letter to the Virginia Tech community” defending lectures delivered by deplorable people like me (I’m speaking on the themes of Coming Apart on March 25). Bravo for President Sands’s defense of intellectual freedom. But I confess that I was not entirely satisfied with his characterization of my work. So I’m writing an open letter of my own. Dear Virginia Tech community, Since President Sands has just published an open letter making a serious allegation against me, it seems appropriate to…

We’ve Been Measuring Inequality Wrong
Auerbach & Kotlikoff, The New Republic
Despite appearances to the contrary, this year’s presidential follies have managed to feature at least a few policy discussions amid all the name-calling. Income inequality in particular has animated voters on both sides of the partisan divide, but the solutions advocated by candidates from each party are markedly different. Democrats claim higher taxes on the rich and more benefits for the poor are the best ways to reduce inequality. Republicans argue what we really need is more growth, accomplished by lowering taxes to spur work and investment with, it seems, benefit cuts to make up…

Refusal to Consider Court Nomination Is Dangerous Obstructionism

On Supreme Court, Republicans Are Playing by Democrats’ Rules

Defend Our Democracy, Stop Trump at a Brokered Convention

Clinton’s Private Server Undermined Open-Records Act

Idea of Third-Party Option to Trump Loses Steam
Rebecca Berg, RealClearPolitics
As some Republicans have latched on to the idea of a contested convention as the last, best chance to stop Donald Trump from winning the party’s nomination, another less likely option has seemed to quietly fizzle: a third-party alternative if Trump is indeed the nominee. There is still some ongoing discussion of this nuclear option among pockets of conservative activists. Political watchers were sent into a minor frenzy Thursday over a Washington Post report of a meeting among a small group of “GOP operatives” and “conservative leaders,” which included talk of a…

How Trump Can Raise His Game
Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal
The Ides of March was kind to Donald Trump. He swept five of six contests and passed an important milestone, capturing 40% of the votes cast. Still, he’s not a lock for the nomination. Mr. Trump holds 673 of the 1,463 delegates selected so far, meaning he must win nearly 56% of the 1,009 delegates left to secure a majority. That may not happen, especially since only 217 of those remaining delegates are in winner-take-all states. The primary may end in the chaos and drama of an open convention.

Clinton’s Bold Vision, Hidden in Plain Sight?
Hacker & Pierson, New York Times
With a string of major wins in Tuesday’s primaries, Hillary Clinton finally seems to have a secure hold on the Democratic nomination. Yet her struggle to define herself in the race remains a top challenge of her campaign. Mrs. Clinton has put forth an ambitious and broadly popular policy agenda: family and medical leave, continued financial reform, improvements in the Affordable Care Act, investments in infrastructure and scientific research, measures to tackle global warming and improve air and water quality, and so on.

Trump’s Appeal Is Starting to Worry Labor Leaders
Stein & Jamieson, Huffington Post
Over the course of five weeks, Working America, the non-union affiliate of the AFL-CIO labor federation, did extensive canvassing in union-dense, blue-collar areas of Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They called it a “front porch focus group.” The idea was simply to listen — to let likely 2016 voters sound off about their thoughts and concerns headed into the presidential election.

Menace in the Political Air
Charles Krauthammer, New York Daily News
By international and historical standards, political violence is exceedingly rare in the United States. The last serious outburst was 1968 with its bloody Democratic-convention riots. By that standard, 2016 is, as yet, tame. It may not remain so. The political thuggery that shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago last week may just be a harbinger. It would be nice, therefore, if we could think straight about cause and effect.

10 Appalling Moments From the Duke Lacrosse Case
Mary Katharine Ham, Federalist
On the evening of March 13, 2006, a fateful party at a house in Durham, N.C. plunged the nation and its media into a frenzy of assumptions, social crusading, and miscarried justice. When the Duke men’s lacrosse team hired two exotic dancers during a night of drinking, one of the dancers accused three team members of a brutal gang rape in the bathroom of a run-down rental house just off of Duke’s tree-lined East Campus.

The Grim Reality of American Politics
Ornstein & Mann, The Atlantic
Where do we go from here? To a large swath of Americans and most of the rest of the world, American politics have careened out of control, lurching from a role model of sensible policy making and civil discourse to gridlock over even modest proposals with bipartisan buy-in, and to a presidential campaign with the kind of angry populist bluster, coarse language and sectarian division formerly associated with Peron-style banana republics.

By Hamilton’s Rules, the Senate’s Right & Obama’s Wrong
Seth Lipsky, New York Post
Somewhere Alexander Hamilton is smiling. For the battle that’s beginning over President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court vindicates the famous Founder’s assurances on judicial appointments. Hamilton knew that Americans would find their protection from would-be kings in the wisdom of the Senate. He marked this point in 69 Federalist, one of the columns he wrote back in 1788 under the pen-name Publius.

The Risk of Playing Politics With the Supreme Court
Gregory Craig, New York Times
I WAS not there, but I can imagine President Obama in the Oval Office posing this question about Judge Merrick B. Garland: “Given this man’s lengthy history on the bench and his impeccable reputation, what can be said against him serving on the Supreme Court?” The answer from his advisers might have been: “Nothing, sir. But the Republicans don’t want to give up their decades-long control of this court, and they would rather ignore the Constitution and freeze the government than allow that to happen.”

Republican Establishment Is Stale and Out of Ideas
Timothy Stanley, Daily Telegraph
Sadly it’s often the case that politicians give their best speeches when they’ve lost. Exhaustion overwhelms them; emotion takes over. In that moment, it’s possible to forget what a terrible candidate they really were. On Tuesday night, Marco Rubio conceded his home state of Florida to Donald Trump. He announced that “it isn’t part of God’s plan for me to be elected president in 2016” and quit the race. He was proud, he said, of coming from an immigrant family – the kind of family that makes up the patchwork of America – and he begged the…

Rubio’s Loss and the End of Republican Optimism
Rich Lowry, National Review
Marco Rubio’s speech suspending his campaign after his crushing loss in the Florida primary was a requiem for an entire style of Republican politics. Rubio represented an upbeat, opportunity-oriented vein in the GOP that ran through George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism back to the late supply-sider Jack Kemp, who practically made a civic religion out of optimism and inclusivity.

Clinton Is Following Obama’s Path to the Nomination
Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
Hillary Clinton may have had a sense of dÃ©jÃ vu. Eight years ago, after being ahead all night in Missouri’s Democratic presidential primary — the Associated Press erroneously called the state for Clinton — she lost after Barack Obama surged ahead with late-reporting votes from St. Louis. This time around, the shoe was on the other foot. Late Tuesday night, Bernie Sanders led Clinton by about 2 percentage points in Missouri. But Clinton pulled ahead after midnight on votes from St. Louis City and St. Louis County.

Will the Republican Party Break Apart or Evolve?
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
Super Tuesday II didn’t so much yield results as reveal continuing trends. Donald Trump up, Hillary Clinton up. This is what I hear from Washington’s Republican political leaders and operatives: Wait and see. There’s still time for Mr. Trump to self-destruct, for voters to start to see through him. In the meantime, get all the delegate-selection rules, all the names and contact points for every delegate picked so far. If we have to fight it on the floor, we fight it on the floor. Or, more delightfully for sentimentalists, in smoke-filled rooms. But he must be stopped.

Crackpot Party Crackup
Timothy Egan, New York Times
Long ago and far away, in the days when white men in power ties and women in funny hats gathered in air-conditioned caverns to hammer out the Republican Party platform, it was a predictable affair. The G.O.P. was for less taxes and less government, free trade and free people, a scolding of victims and grievance-mongers, and a vision of social norms circa 1952.

Dems Beware: Trump Finds Success Well Outside the Fringe
Doyle McManus, LAT
Visits to campaign rallies in Florida this week confirmed what polls have been suggesting for months: Donald Trump is leading the race for the Republican nomination in large part because he’s winning over throngs of nonhabitual voters. The latest challenger to fall: Sen. Marco Rubio, who lost his home state in a landslide Tuesday and dropped out of the race.