After an election season in which nothing they predicted came true -- their confidence that Donald Trump would never be the Republican nominee comes to mind -- you'd think our losing-streak corporate pundits would be reluctant to underestimate Trump's chance of winning the presidency in November.
An irresistible force meets an immoveable object.
The irresistible force is the sense of discontent with how things have been going during this young century. Americans are displeased with a sluggish economy that fell into a deep recession and with foreign policies that seem to have produced disappointing results.
"No modern precedent exists for the revival of a party so badly defeated, so intensely discredited, and so essentially split as the Republican Party is today."
When a presidential campaign wants to signal that it is turning from the nomination clash to the general election, “sources close to the campaign” make it known the Veep search has begun. Right on schedule, as Donald Trump has become the Republican nominee-presumptive and Hillary Clinton has maintained an unassailable mathematical lead on the Democratic side, both campaigns have reportedly hinted that they have started to vet possible vice presidential options.
President Obama's proudest accomplishment is increasing the number of Americans with health insurance. A better idea would be to help people escape government care altogether.
Social media giant Twitter's got 99 problems, yet the politically correct company is far more worried about the "optics" of cooperating with federal agents trying to stop jihadist plotters online.
The economy is gasping, the world shudders in violence, invaders heave across our southern border, and despair is etched on the faces of the American people. So, in the final year of his reign, what does our great Prophet of Hope and Change give us?
Bathroom liberation. Pee free or die! Equality before the commode!
John Quincy Adams, our greatest secretary of state (sorry, Hillary Clinton fans), thought that Cuba would inevitably become part of the United States. It hasn't, at least not yet, but two Cuban-Americans were serious presidential contenders this year.
Jason Riley has now joined the long and distinguished list of people invited -- and then disinvited -- to give a talk on a college campus, in this case Virginia Tech.
Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump.
Hey, Bernie supporters: Hillary has a talking point for you.
Republican party leaders may have worried that Donald Trump would not only lose the general election for the presidency, but would so poison the image of the party as to cause Republican candidates for Congress and for state and local offices to also lose. Now they seem to be trying to patch things up, in order to present an image of unity before the general elections this fall.
So Republicans now have a presumptive nominee -- one headed to a clear delegate majority without visible opposition -- sooner than the Democrats. It's another way in which this year's presidential race has defied expectations and ignored precedent.
"The two living Republican past presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have no plans to endorse Trump, according to their spokesmen." So said the lead story in The Washington Post.
The left has concocted a lucrative category of politically correct victims: "climate refugees." It's the new Green racket.
“The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973)
The Republican and Democratic presidential nominees have been chosen. Ignore the deluded supporters of Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz. It's over. The odds at ElectionBettingOdds.com make it clear: It will be Donald vs. Hillary.
The unexpected successes, forecast by almost no one 12 months ago, of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in winning 40 percent and 42 percent in Republican and Democratic primaries and caucuses is widely taken as evidence of raging discontent among American voters.
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
One of the problems with being a pessimist is that you can never celebrate when you are proven right.
Friday, a Russian SU-27 did a barrel roll over a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic, the second time in two weeks.
