I’ve written about this topic often, but it continues to fascinate me. The Republican primary is running in directions that nobody could have predicted. A year ago Jeb Bush was the presumptive nominee and he was swimming in money. It was his to lose.

But in June Donald Trump announced his candidacy and at that time few thought of him as a serious candidate. Don came with no experience in governing anything, a history of avoiding responsibilities for his mistakes by declaring bankruptcy, and very little experience as a Republican.

But for numerous reasons Donald’s numbers have gone up while Jeb’s tanked. Many of us (myself included) expected Don to flame out in late summer or early fall. Or late fall. Or early winter. Or…well, you get the point.

In an earlier post I spoke about the possibility that the Republican Party may well fracture because different Republicans point to different values. There are “mainline” Republicans who favor smaller government but see their path as one of cooperation and coalition building. Marco Rubio speaks to this group. Christian conservatives populate another faction. They strongly believe that we are one nation under God and we are subject to God’s laws. They agree with the idea of smaller government but they also believe that government must defend traditional marriage, ban abortion, and ensure Christians never be compelled to violate their beliefs. They see our future best defended by Ted Cruz. Donald Trump speaks to a group much larger than anyone expected. They believe that government is so broken that someone from the outside, someone who has a track record of getting things done, who is not afraid to say bold and even offense things gives us our best path forward. They look at Don and believe he can translate his success in real estate to making “America great again.”

Last fall I honestly thought that he would flame out, lose Republican support, drop in the polls, and announce an independent candidacy. As a Democrat I saw this as good news. Trump and the Republican nominee would divide the Republican vote and the Democrat would win.

Now I’m not so certain. It’s true that we are in the delegate count’s early stages (and you can track that here) but Trump continues to steam ahead. Perhaps he will still flame out, but the “Republican establishment” is trying to figure out what to do.

I suspect that if Trump’s momentum continues and his delegate count rises, he will not leave the Republican race. I suspect Ted Cruz might.

Ted comes to the 2016 race with decent Republican credentials. After graduating from Harvard Law School he clerked for William Rehnquist and later served as the Solicitor General of Texas. In 2012 he was elected to the United States Senate.

But as a member of the Senate he went out of his way to offend his fellow senators. House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882-1961) famously stated: “You have to go along to get along.” Ted never got the message. He has consistently claimed the “high moral ground” as a rational to prevent progress in Congress.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to write the annual National Budget for the President to sign. This gives the Congress the “power of the purse” and allows Congress to defund any program they don’t like.

Several times Congress has refused to fund the government over budget disagreements and when they do the “federal government” shuts down. This means that thousands of ordinary government employees (including my sister) stay home, don’t do their work, and pray that they won’t be docked the time they lost while Congress and the President can’t get along. It also means that National Parks close and a host of other services are out of reach.

This may be a long way around my point but Ted has made his career based on not playing well with others. Simply put, other senators hate his guts and not even Republican senators want him to be President.

Since Ted is behind in the delegate race, and since he has no loyalty to himself (and claims a loyalty to God), I wonder this: if Donald Trump appears to be winning the GOP nomination, will Ted leave the Republican party and run as a candidate of his own party? I think there is a real possibility that Ted will claim that he is God’s candidate and will found his own party (perhaps called the Christian Party). He will run on a platform that the only way forward for our country lies in following God’s Law.

A few days ago we got the results of the Republican primary in South Carolina and the Democratic caucus in Nevada. There was no surprise that Donald Trump won South Carolina and won all 50 delegates. It was closer in Nevada, but Hillary Clinton got he victory she needed. Interestingly enough the Republicans now travel to Nevada and the Democrats to South Carolina.

Jeb Bush called it quits, and even people like me who would never have voted for him feel a little sadness. Last year at this time he was seen as the presumptive GOP frontrunner but his campaign never got traction. Frankly, this had nothing to do with the man, and possibly everything to do with his last name.

We find ourselves at a time in our history when large swaths of our population grow weary of “politics as usual” and are apparently willing to gamble on outsiders without the experience, temperament, or skills to lead. Too many Republicans looked at Mr. Bush and had no stomach for another Bush/Clinton campaign.

I disagree with many of his positions, but I do respect him as a man, a husband, and a father. I wish him well.

I’ve begun to keep track of the delegate count in both parties here and I’ve removed Jeb from the table.

Four years ago I set up a table to keep track of delegates for each of the two major parties. I mistakenly believed that it would be an easy task, but instead soon found that different media outlets disagreed on the numbers.

There are several reasons. The road from vote count to delegates won can be arduous. In the 2012 Iowa Caucus Mitt Romney appeared to be the winner, but the final results showed that Rick Santorum edged him out. Additionally, both parties invite unpledged delegates (oftentimes called “superdelegates”) who may voice a preference but don’t have to cast their vote until the convention.

And so once again I’ve built a table that tracks several media outlets and their delegate count. I only have a few now, but I suspect that as time goes on, more media outlets will have their own trackers.

Interestingly enough, as I write this, all three media outlets show exactly the same numbers. I suspect they are all getting their numbers from the Associated Press.

You can find my tracker here.

We woke up this morning to find the winners in New Hampshire. It was a good night for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and the end of the road for Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina who both suspended their campaigns.

By any metric this campaign is one for the books. Trump and Sanders are sucking up most of the interest and neither are faithful members of the parties whose nominations they seek. I wrote about this in a previous post: Trump has bounced around to several parties and Bernie describes himself as a Socialist while caucusing with the Democrats.

Despite reams of articles who claim that these are signs of the apocalypse, I don’t believe that either of them will ever be President. It’s become fashionable to decide that government is broken and needs new people or new ideas or whatever.

But at the end of the day we have a large and complex government. We expect our government to protect us from foreign invaders (and even the Libertarians believe this). But we also demand that our government embody our basic values.

Our government was born on September 17, 1787 when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the final document. To this day, 229 years later, we all look to this document (and the amendments that followed) as the blueprint of how our nation runs.

Today the role of President demands a skill set that would have bewildered our founders. We live in a nation and a world much more complex and nuanced than ever before. The idea of a “gentleman farmer” who leads for a few years and returns to his farm is quaint but obsolete.

Politicians in the 21st Century demand an understanding of how to get things done. We will elect a President in nine months who will lead our nation from 2017 to 2021 and perhaps to 2025.

I’m not telling anyone how to vote but I pray we Americans vote for someone who possesses the skills to respect where we’ve been and envisions where we should go.

The Iowa caucuses gave us our first snapshot in the 2016 campaign, and also gave a few of the GOP candidates the news they didn’t want to admit: they were done. Today we learned that Rand Paul and Rick Santorum have both suspended their campaigns.

This means that there are only 10 viable candidates for the Republican nomination. In a few days we’ll have the results of the New Hampshire. Let’s see who drops out after that.

I’ve updated my Presidential 2016 page.

We woke up this morning to some surprises in Iowa.

For the past several months America’s attention has focused on Iowa and the practice of caucuses instead of primaries. Only Iowa, Nevada, Alaska, and American Samoa caucus.

Caucuses present a nightmare to pollsters. Simply put it’s hard to predict who will actually show up and participate. Two days ago the Des Moines Register reported that Republican Donald Trump led with 28% and Ted Cruz followed with 24%. Marco Rubio commanded only 15%.

That’s not what happened. Today we learned that Ted leads with 28%, Don follows with 24%, and (most surprisingly) Marco surprised everyone with 23%.

On the Democrat side of the isle Hillary Clinton feared a defeat, given that Bernie Sanders is heavily favored in New Hampshire and losing the first two states bodes ill in the long run. It was close, but it appears Hillary won by a razor thin margin. To quote her campaign: a win’s a win.

Not surprisingly these results did winnow the field, even if a little. On the Republican side Mike Huckabee, and on the Democratic side Martin O’Malley, both suspended their campaigns. They made good choices. Neither were viable candidates and needed to leave.

This makes the Democratic nomination a two person race. On the Republican side, several candidates need to do the same thing. Right now Marco Rubio is the candidate of the “mainstream” wing, Ted Cruz is the candidate of the “Tea Party/Evangelical” wing, and Donald Trump is the candidate of….geez I can’t even describe this.

In any case the ultimate nomination lies in one of these three people. If you’re an Abraham Lincoln or a Teddy Roosevelt or a Dwight Eisenhower or a Ronald Reagan Republican, you need to come together and support Marco Rubio.

As a Democrat I hope you’ll ignore my advice but I have to confess a fear: there’s always a chance that the Republican nominee will win. If that happens I think we can survive a Rubio Presidency. Indeed we survived (but paid the price for) the Presidency of George W. Bush. But a Ted Cruz Presidency would lead us to a Christian Caliphate where our laws won’t lead us to freedom but instead to a nation that cares only for those who look like Ted and believe in his homophobic and exclusionary agenda. A Donald Trump Presidency would make us so xenophobic that our collective fear would drive all of us into poverty.

Here’s my plea to Republicans: Don’t nominate someone who will destroy us.