We all know nobody in congress likes Ted Cruz. A couple days ago John Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as "Lucifer in the Flesh" and "I'm never worked with a worse son of a bitch". We know it was very much against Senate protocol for a Junior Senator from a state to go to the other House and organize the overthrow of its speaker within your own party. We know about the filibuster of shutting down the government. We also know how Shawn Hannity defends Ted Cruz at every turn for these same actions. But we also know that Trump is leading Ted Cruz in Indiana by eight points even after announcing that Carley Feurina would be his vice president. Some considered this move an act of desperation since "opperation Kasich" didn't work, to get Kasech to tell his people to vote for Cruz. Trump was still leading by eight points. In a move that may or may not interest you the Orion Federation finally came out officially against Trump (as if there were any doubt) by pointing out that any sembelence of independence from the Republican establishment will vanish once the fall campaign gets going. Trump never criticized President Bush in his foreign policy statement. You have the seeming divergence between Trump and the people who want the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. Trump will slowly shuffle over to the idea that the TPP is really a good idea and he's all for it. Trump will abandon his anti Wall Street and anti Big Money in the Campaign rhetoric since that's what the Republican establishment wants him to say as a price for gaining their support at the convention. Trump will give up his anti NATO stance and anti UN stance and will stop making remarks about "getting the best deal" in trade or dealings with other nations. One issue he will hold on to is building the Wall along the Mexican border. That one has the support of Shawn Hannity and the Republican establishment in general. John Mc Cain this morning talked about getting tough on Vladimir Putin because of breaking the cease fire and dropping bombs on Syrian refugees in hospitals, which is probably a war crime. Trump will abandoned "making nice" with Putin. In short Trump will indeed undergo a makeover. My same source said nothing about reversing himself on preserving Social Security but my guess is that will be the next Trump position to fall by the wayside. What you will have left is a lot of this sexist rhetoric against Hillary and bigoted rhetoric against minorities. Today he told a story about General Pershing executing 49 our of 50 suspected Islamic terrorists in the Spanish American war. What we will have in the fall is a Donald Trump who is indistinguishable from the sort of candidate the Republican Establishment alias the "Republican base" and Shawn Hannity and all the rest of them want. If you're a working man voting for Trump thinking he'll raise your wages- - - I'd give up on that idea too. Because we know how much the Republican establishment, despite their rhetoric, really likes the minorities here driving down the wage base.
Norman Goldman and others have pointed out that this is a campaign year you'll tell your children about because it's so unusual. This is particularly true with the Republicans but it's also a little true with the democrats. On both sides you have someone with a lock on the nomination and yet the other rivals haven't dropped out yet. Bernie Sanders will eventually tell his supporters to vote for Hillary even though a lot of his supporters can't stand Hillary. I myself find myself in disagreement with Hillary on a whole host of issues on the right and on the left- - and am unsure at this point whether I'll bring myself to voting for her. I am shall we say not inspired by her campaign rhetoric so far. Hillary has more military money supporting her than any candidate on the Republican side. Today we hear that up and down the ticket mainstream democrats are winning in primaries for Senate and other offices against their more progressive counterparts. So we seemed destined to have a repeat of 2014 where the democratic candidates run away from their base and people get discouraged and don't show up to vote and the Republicans win. This idea of keeping Bernie's ideas alive in the fall campaign seems to me only a pipe dream by Norman Goldman and Thom Hartman. Once the candidate goes- - - all of this progressive rhetoric will also die out. We've seen this movie before where Obama campaigned on progressive issues early on but by the fall campaign he was already backtracking heavily. I would not equate Obama verses Hillary in the same terms as Hillary verses Bernie. There is a far more fundamental difference between Hillary and Bernie than there was between Hillary and Obama in 2008 and the media knows it. The media embraced Obama in 2008 and people like Randy Rhodes were pronouncing him "the winner" in late February despite the fact that 2008 turned out to be a very close race. One thing we have in common then as now is we dare not go to the convention in the slightest way divided. Logic would dictate that the Convention is a place to work out our difference and air grievences there. But that won't happen. Their mindset is "It's better to have the Illusion of unity on TV at the convention and have nobody show up in the fall to vote" than to resolve differences NOW and have a higher percentage coming out to vote. Hillary has only shown antagonism to Bernie's voters and is hardly saying anything to encourage them to come out and vote for her in the fall.
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