Friday, March 11, 2016

My predictions for the outcome of the Republican Primaries and Caucuses

There is a lot of speculation about who is going to be the republican nominee for president of the United States. Although Donald Trump is clearly the front-runner now, he is hated by the folks in the republican establishment, who would rather see someone like Jeb Bush getting the nomination. Now that none of their favorite candidates are in the race, it boils down to one of the four who are in the race. The second in line right now is Ted Cruz and he is also someone the folks in the GoP establishment love to hate. The other two simply don't have the numbers. The question is why are they still in the race. Marco Rubio is in because he is expected by the GoP establishment to win Florida, a winner takes all state, and deny Trump or Cruz (mostly Trump) a majority needed to ensure automatic nomination. Similarly John Kasich is still in because the GoP establishment hopes that if he wins his home state of Ohio, another winner takes all state, Trump will not be able to gain a majority, denying him an automatic nomination. If all this works, the GoP establishment can field a preferred candidate - someone like Mitt Romney - who will replace Trump, despite not being in the race. But what the pundits at the GoP are not calculating is that Cruz and Trump can broker a deal wherein they could say one of them will get the presidential nomination and the other will be the running mate. It is win-win for them both. Ideally, Trump will become the presidential candidate for the republicans and Cruz will be his designated deputy. Since Ted Cruz is relatively younger he can get a good shot at occupying the White House after Trump's term there - i.e., if Trump gets elected as President. But even if Trump loses the presidential race to the democrats (most likely to Hillary Clinton), it is no big deal, Ted Cruz will still be a favorite candidate for the republications the next time around. So he has a lot to gain by joining hands with Trump. But assuming that doesn't happen and the GoP establishment fields a non-contender as their presidential candidate, this will piss Trump and Cruz off and both may run for president as independents. This will make victory easy for the democrats in this years presidential race. I would not be surprised if Hillary even wins with the highest victory margin in American history if this happens.

1 comment:

Rakesh Vanamali said...

With so many things having happened and continuing to happen, it is increasingly clear that this is gonna be one nail biting contest!