The Establishment Finally Strikes Back: Donald Trump Field Organizer Accuses Campaign of Sex Discrimination. Is it too little too late?

I'm no Herman Cain.  You'll have to do better than that!

(New York Times) - A former paid organizer for Donald J. Trump who was fired this month has accused his presidential campaign of sex discrimination.

Elizabeth Mae Davidson, 26, who was the Trump campaign’s field organizer here in Davenport, Iowa’s third-largest city, said in a discrimination complaint that men doing the same jobs were paid more and were allowed to plan and speak at rallies, while her requests to do so were ignored. She also said that when she and a young female volunteer met Mr. Trump at a rally last summer, he told them, “You guys could do a lot of damage,” referring to their looks.

The complaint was filed on Thursday with the Davenport Civil Rights Commission. In a telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Trump denied making the remark but did not address the other two allegations. “That is not the worst thing that could be said,” Mr. Trump said. “But I never said it. It’s not in my vocabulary.”

He added that he did not know Ms. Davidson but that in checking with his staff, he was told she was a disgruntled employee. “My people tell me she did a terrible job.” Read more.

Fake Pollster Frank Luntz Helped Shape Marco Rubio’s Entire Political Career, Faux News Did Not Disclose His Relationship With Rubio, and that Rubio Previously Paid Luntz

(Breitbart) - Pollster Frank Luntz has been instrumental in shaping the political career of Marco Rubio, raising grave concerns about Fox News’ decision not to disclose that relationship, and the fact that the pollster actually had Rubio as a [paying] client, before Luntz showcased an extraordinarily pro-Rubio focus-group after Thursday night’s Republican debate.

Breitbart News has learned from a high-level former elected Florida Republican that Luntz crafted Rubio’s messaging efforts when he was a rising state legislator in the Sunshine State a decade ago.

Luntz was paid to guide Rubio’s transition into a statewide political role and he even helped to fashion the famous “American Exceptionalism” speech that vaulted Rubio to national prominence, spending much face-time with the young lawmaker in the process.

Luntz took up a block of time on Fox News immediately after the debate Thursday night to show how his hand-picked focus-group declared Rubio the winner of the Donald Trump-free debate.

Luntz’s post-debate focus group was so skewed in favor of Rubio it was jarring [and in great contrast to his "focus group' after the first Faux Debate in September which universally bashed Trump].

Fair, balanced, and bloodless, Donald

“Megyn, you asked probably the toughest question of the debate. You gave the candidates no room to wiggle. You pressed him. And he responded,” Luntz gushed to Megyn Kelly, awkwardly referring only to Rubio before even mentioning him by name. “I want to begin with the most important and impactful moment of this debate. It was your challenge of Marco Rubio. And watch how well he did on immigration.”

The focus group, featuring what were advertised as ordinary Americans, delivered a theatrical love-letter to the junior senator from Florida.

Luntz notably did not reveal the names of the participants in the focus group, such as one young man who described Rubio as “aspirational,” leaving journalists unable to ask for additional comments from the pro-Rubio participants.  Rubio actually had Luntz on his payroll at one time. Read more.

GOP Insiders Can Pretend All They Want — Marco Rubio Is a Hardcore Neocon & Crony Capital Enabler

Rubio’s youthful exuberance masks his old and regressive ideas.

(Alternet) Marco Rubio has become the darling of the Republican establishment. Jeb’s implosion is partially responsible for this, but there is also a belief on the Right that Rubio is the best “mainstream” candidate in the field. If that’s true, if Rubio represents moderate conservatism, the GOP is in serious trouble.

Apart from his fresh face, virtually nothing about Rubio is new or endearing. His ideas are either conventionally Republican or uncommonly extremist. On foreign policy, Rubio is a rabid neoconservative. He wants to double down on the Bush Doctrine; he’s surrounded himself with neocon advisers; he supports the government’s unconstitutional surveilance program; he’s pro-torture; and he wants to dramatically increase defense spending even though America spends more on defense than the next eight nations combined.

On domestic and social issues, Rubio is no less extreme. Against the backdrop of record inequalities, he wants to reduce federal revenue and give the top 1% a massive tax cut (which would explode the budget). Like every other Republican, he wants to repeal Obamacare without offering a viable alternative to the millions of Americans who now have health coverage. Read more.

The Last Days of the Bush Dynasty?

NOT! This time!

Family loyalists watch the decline of JEB! Bush's presidential aspirations with a mix of sadness and resignation.

(The Atlantic) - HAMPTON, New Hampshire—It is never a good sign for a candidate when your supporters start feeling sorry for you, but that is what has happened to Jeb Bush.

“Poor Jeb,” said Tony Manix, a 54-year-old Air National Guard member in jeans and a puffy down jacket, who had come to see Bush speak—not for the first time—at a private school here, on a chilly, wind-whipped seacoast night. “I just don’t understand why his numbers aren’t up,” Manix added plaintively. “If you listen to him, if you hear what he says, he really has the best plan for our country. But the American people don’t seem to want to spend the time to dig into what the issues are really about.”

Poor Jeb. (Or, this being New Hampshire, “poah Jeb.”)

To a degree not common to other candidates, Bush’s supporters feel protective of him and grieved for his sake. They seem acutely aware that he was never supposed to be in this position—mired in the back of the crowded pack of candidates, struggling to be heard, on the edge of being counted out. A campaign that began with a frontrunner’s fanfare now averages less than 5 percent innational polls. It’s a situation that might be humbling or humiliating for your average governor or senator making a run at the title, but it takes on special resonance for a member of one of America’s royal families. Read more.

Desperation Second Act: George W. Bush: ‘Please caucus for Jeb Bush’

(Washington Post) - A new flier for Jeb Bush's presidential campaign that started hitting mailboxes Thursday includes a letter from former president George W. Bush to Iowa Republicans.

The campaign of the former Florida governor confirmed Friday that the mail pieces should arrive before Monday's caucuses.

In the message, George W. Bush writes that his younger brother "is a tested leader who has made difficult decisions during times of crisis. After 9/11, Florida's economy took a big hit. Jeb acted decisively to rebuild it, ultimately making Florida the national leader in job creation."

"As someone who has sat in the Oval Office, I know Jeb has the leadership skills to grow our economy, fix Washington, strengthen our military and keep America safe," the former president writes.

"On Feb. 1, please caucus for Jeb Bush," he concludes.

It comes about a week after former first lady Barbara Bush sent a similar mailer to Republican voters and appeared in a promotional video for Jeb Bush's presidential campaign.  Read more.

Trump, JEB! and the death of WASPy power

(USA Today) - “I guess I’m part of the establishment because Barbara Bush is my mom,” Jeb Bush said at last night’s GOP debate.

He guessed correctly. Never before has being white, rich and connected been such a burden as it is for Barbara Bush’s son.

There is a larger trend at work here, and it is a depressing one for rich white people whose ancestors used to rule the country and, by extension, the world.

The era of “WASP rule,” according to the New York Times, “is fast fading.” For proof, look no further than Jeb Bush, whose campaign travails, sayeth the Times, “can be seen as perhaps the last, wheezing gasp of the WASP power structure.”

As a stereotypical WASP, Bush underperforms in several categories. Not only does he speak Spanish, but he married a Mexican and converted to Roman Catholicism. At most, he is a WAS. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a proud WASP, the key word being “proud.”

Speaking at Liberty University the other day, Trump highlighted his WASP credentials to a crowd of predominately white Protestants.

He bragged about his religion. “I’m a Protestant,” Trump said. “I’m very proud of it.”

He bragged about his family. His uncle was, like Trump, a “brilliant guy.”

He bragged about his education, informing the audience, “I went to a great school, Ivy League School.”

He bragged about being part of the establishment (“I was total establishment”) and being its worst enemy (“Now I’m, like, the worst thing that ever happened to the establishment”).

But give Trump credit. Not once did he brag about being white.

Despite his credentials, Trump is not a WASP. You cease to be a WASP when you brag about being a WASP. Read more.

Trump, Sanders and the Revolt Against Decadence

Behold! The head of a hedge fund manager!

(New York Times) - ONE of the puzzles of the 2016 campaign, unexpectedly defined by the ascent of a billionaire reality TV star and a septuagenarian Vermont socialist, is why now? Yes, voters are angry, yes, they’re exhausted and disgusted and cynical about everything. But why is everything boiling over in this particular cycle, in this presidential campaign?

Consider: The economic picture is better than it was in 2012, when Republican primary voters settled for Mitt Romney and an incumbent president was re-elected pretty easily. (In both Iowa and New Hampshire, the unemployment rate is currently under 4 percent.) The foreign policy picture is grim in certain ways, but America isn’t trapped in a casualty-heavy quagmire the way we were in 2004, when Democratic voters played it safe with John Kerry and George W. Bush won re-election.

As Michael Grunwald argued recently in Politico, the worst-case scenarios of the post-Great Recession era haven’t materialized. Obamacare is limping along without an imminent death spiral, and health care costs aren’t rising as fast as feared. The deficit has fallen a bit, and inflation is extraordinarily low. The stock market is wobbly, but we haven’t had a double-dip recession.

On the cultural front, out-of-wedlock births are no longer rising. Abortion rates have fallen. Illegal immigration rates are down.

The state of the union isn’t all that one might hope, but it could clearly be a whole lot worse.

So what are Trumpistas and Bern-feelers rebelling against?

One answer might be that they’re fed up with exactly this — the politics of “it could be worse,” of stagnation and muddling through. They aren’t revolting against abject failure, or deep and swift decline. They’re rebelling against decadence. Read more.

Adding Insult to Injury: JEB! Punk'd By A Madman at Tiny Forelorn Iowa Rally

(Bloomberg Politics) - A man is yelling at Jeb Bush, and Jeb is cowering.

The man’s name is Austin Sissel, 28, and, at an event in Sioux City, Iowa, he is screaming about net neutrality. Bush, who 30 seconds earlier was going into intricate, exhausting, stuttering detail about how he took on the teachers unions in Florida, had been speaking to a room full of supporters at Bev’s on the River, an upscale but still homey restaurant with a lovely view of the Missouri River that separates Iowa and Nebraska. He was taking questions from the audience and mentioned that he only had time for one more.

Sissell, who had asked a question already, blurted out, “What are you going to do about net neutrality?” Bush, after a moment, wearily trudged out a long, dutiful answer about free markets and government staying out of private business, a wonky, tech-heavy discourse that seemed to baffle the almost-exclusively elderly audience. But Sissell apparently didn’t like the answer, because he began shouting nonsense. “What are you doing about stalking people on Facebook? Why can people just go after anyone? Can’t you stop the stalking?”

Now, I had met Sissell before the event began, when he showed up with a baby goat. Read more.

Right to [Rule] Sees Donations Tank in Second Half of 2015

What's the world coming to when
you can't buy the Presidency anymore?

(Bloomberg Politics) - Right to [Rule] USA, super-PAC backing JEB! Bush, raised $15.1m in second half of 2015, compared to $103m in first half of yr, according to FEC filing.

The group spent $54.28m in second half of 2015, more than any other cmte, and had $58.58m cash on hand at end of 2015.  It only had one donation of more than $1m in second half of 2015, from C.V. Starr & Co., run by Hank Greenberg, former CEO of American International Group who contributed $10 million, or almost two-thirds of its total contributions in the second half of the year

Tax Cuts Can't Motivate the Republican Base Anymore

Don't you mean the Chinese job creators?

(Bloomberg View) - Yesterday, in discussing the lower- and middle-class workers who have been increasingly displaced by automation and trade, I wrote that both parties are simply reiterating longstanding policy preferences that are far more geared to the desires of their respective elites, than to the difficulties these people encounter in their every day lives. In another column soon, I’ll talk about why the standard Democratic economic package is not making more inroads with this group. But today, I’m going to talk about why what the Republicans have been offering -- tax cuts and deregulation -- falls so flat.

I’ve been urging Republicans to find an agenda beyond tax cuts for a while, with no notable success. Mostly I’ve focused on the budget logic, which is simply this: we’ve run out of our ability to cut taxes without substantial cuts to entitlements, and the collapse of Bush’s Social Security reform illustrated that Republicans have absolutely no stomach for cutting entitlements.

But that’s boring fiscal nannying, easy for both parties to ignore as long as debt markets are still willing to lend the government money. So today let me point out why the political logic fails as completely as the budget math -- why the Trump voters, and indeed, Trump-hating social conservatives like Rod Dreher, are not much moved by Republican promises to get those marginal tax rates down even further. Read more.

Revolt Against the Posh Boys: Right and Left Converge in Revolt Against Elites

(Bloomberg View) - Google, according to Rupert Murdoch, has overawed the "posh boys in Downing Street" and elsewhere. The News Corp. chairman was responding last week to news that the U.S.-based Internet giant would pay Britain the measly sum of $185 million in underpaid taxes. Murdoch continued, "Google has cleverly planted dozens of their people in White House, Downing St, other governments. Most brilliant new lobbying effort yet."

While Murdoch sounded like Noam Chomsky, Donald Trump's recent screeds against hedge fund managers have seemed to invoke his inner Bernie Sanders. Multibillionaires are just the latest individuals to add their voices to a worldwide chorus condemning hyper-connected posh boys. They confirm that the hoary distinction between the left and the right needs to be updated.

Marine Le Pen, ostensibly on the far right, attacks France’s Socialist government for pampering "globalized elites at the expense of the people." She vows to replace the "neo-liberal" French establishment with an aggressively interventionist state. Nationalization of banks is on the agenda of far-right governments in Hungary and Poland, along with more predictable anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies.

The blending of left- and right-wing programs is hardly novel. The Nazis proudly called themselves National Socialists. And Mussolini, who started out as a diehard socialist, didn't give up his core belief in state control even after he found a more effective way of rousing disaffected Italian masses. From the late 19th century onwards, political movements and parties on the right have combined xenophobic patriotism and economic nationalism.

In all cases, they've tried to exploit widespread distress caused by uneven economic growth and political dysfunction.  Read more.

‘13 Hours,’ ‘Big Short’ capture why Sanders, Trump voters are furious

Here's Your Mortgage Backed Security,
Goldman!

(New York Post) - If you’re flummoxed by the current political landscape — one that sees self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders and Spy-proclaimed short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump at or near the top of polls in both of the first two primary and caucus states — you should check out a couple of movies currently in multiplexes: “The Big Short” and “13 Hours.”

Both films chronicle failures of the government. Both films are deeply critical of the status quo without doubling as overly partisan broadsides. And both films appeal to different, but similarly frustrated, audiences who view the political system as broken and the game of life as rigged.

“The Big Short” is likely to appeal to the Bernie Bros: those idealistic, socialistic sorts who see the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few people as the root of all our evils...

“13 Hours,” meanwhile, is the sort of film that is sure to infuriate everyone who thinks we need to Make America Great Again. Michael Bay’s tale of six brave men struggling against bureaucratic cowardice and incompetence in order to save the life of an ambassador stuck at an indefensible compound has found a disproportionate share of its ticket buyers in red states....Read more.

Joke of the Day: Does "Fatuous & Furious" have a plan to take the nomination away from JEB!?

(Yahoo Politics) - Chris Christie’s team believes he’s “starting to resonate” with voters. They’re also confident Christie can improve his standing in the Republican presidential primary because his opponents are “not as deep” as he is.

After the debate at the Iowa Events Center on Thursday night, Christie’s senior strategist Mike DuHaime told Yahoo News he believes “people want a governor.” DuHaime also explained how he believes Christie can remain viable after the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.

“I think we’re going to do better than people expect here in Iowa, and I think we’re going to do very well in New Hampshire after Iowa,” DuHaime said. 

On average, RealClearPolitics shows national polls of the Republican presidential primary field currently have Christie in sixth place. He’s in seventh place in Iowa and sixth place in New Hampshire. Still, DuHaime predicted Christie will be among the “four or five” candidates who emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire, which are the first states to vote. 

”It’s going to go down to four or five people. Christie will be one of those four or five people and, as the field narrows, that’s going to be great for us,” DuHaime explained. “Because the field narrows, the debates get more substantive, the other people get exposed as not as deep as Christie, and that’s going to be good for us.” 

Politically Incorrect Humor from the "Comments Section" (Drum roll, please):

No way he gets into the White House, but he certainly is welcome at White Castle!

He told a boy from New Hampshire that when he's President (Yeah! Right!) he can have all the Pizza and Fries he wants from the School menu.

He seems to have winning the nomination confused with winning the Nathan's hot dog eating contest at Coney Island.

Chris Christie’s team believes he’s “starting to resonate” after eating a big Mexican lunch.

It is okay to dream Chris! Now go ahead and have another hot fudge sundae!

Christie said " I will eat these other candidates for breakfast". And he meant it literally.

Christie intends to get all the other Republican candidates hopelessly lost in the traffic snarl of New Jersey. That has been the plan all along.

This buffoon has no shot at the White House. The only house he'll be spending most of his time in is the International House of Pancakes.

Not a snow balls chance in hell of winning anything except a pie eating contest.

Once the field narrows, Christie will become the heavy favorite.

I think Chris Christie has a great chance to get in the White House. He just needs to sign up for a tour.

Read more HERE.

Plutocrats and Prejudice

(New York Times) - Every time you think that our political discourse can’t get any worse, it does. The Republican primary fight has devolved into a race to the bottom, achieving something you might have thought impossible: making George W. Bush look like a beacon of tolerance and statesmanship. But where is all the nastiness coming from?

...It’s important to understand how America’s oligarchs got so powerful. For they didn’t get there just by buying influence (which is not to deny that there’s a lot of influence-buying out there). Crucially, the rise of the American hard right was the rise of a coalition, an alliance between an elite seeking low taxes and deregulation and a base of voters motivated by fears of social change and, above all, by hostility toward you-know-who.

Yes, there was a concerted, successful effort by billionaires to push America to the right. That’s not conspiracy theorizing; it’s just history, documented at length in Jane Mayer’s eye-opening new book “Dark Money.” But that effort wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far as it has without the political aftermath of the Civil Rights Act, and the resultingflip of Southern white voters to the G.O.P.

Until recently you could argue that whatever the motivations of conservative voters, the oligarchs remained firmly in control. Racial dog whistles, demagogy on abortion and so on would be rolled out during election years, then put back into storage while the Republican Party focused on its real business of enabling shadow banking and cutting top tax rates.

But in this age of Trump, not so much. The 1 percent has no problems with immigration that brings in cheap labor; it doesn’t want a confrontation over Planned Parenthood; but the base isn’t taking guidance the way it used to...Read more.

Q&A: JEB! Bush Is Looking Past Iowa, and Right at Donald Trump

After I take out Marco, I'm coming for YOU, Donald!

(Bloomberg) - The one-time front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Jeb Bush has spent months trying to climb back to the top of crowded race with little success. In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Politics, the former Florida governor says his campaign will last for the weeks and months to come. 

He's hoping to "exceed expectations" in Iowa, have a strong showing in New Hampshire, and have his brother, former President George W. Bush—"the most popular Republican alive"—join him on the campaign trail, probably by South Carolina. 

I'm sooooooo scared Jebbie! Just no energy, that guy.

Bush called on everyone of the Republican field to follow his lead—and Mitt Romney's advice—and release their tax returns. He also questioned U.S. Senator Ted Cruz's foreign policy credentials; said his fellow Floridian, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, was "hypocritical" for complaining about political attacks; and said Donald Trump's campaign was about personal ambition.

Here is an edited and condensed partial transcript of the conversation during a 30-minute ride Wednesday in his campaign's SUV...Read more.

The Top 25 Donors to JEB! Bush’s Super PAC

(seattlepi.com) - Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, once the front-runner in the presidential race among Republicans, polls at a meager 1 percent in Iowa, according to a recent CBS poll. Despite his abysmal polling numbers, Bush trudges along, his super PAC Right to Rise USA standing by his side. According to OpenSecrets, Right to Rise USA has raised over $103 million to support Jeb’s campaign.

While Bush’s campaign may be floundering, he is still flush with cash. To put it into perspective, $103 million far surpasses all other PAC and super PAC funds alternative candidates raised. Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that supports former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, collected $15.6 million thus far, while Keep the Promise PACs, four super PACs supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have brought in over $38 million.

Unlike other candidates who have multiple super PACs supporting them, Right to Rise USA undoubtedly flexes the most muscle for Bush. His secondary super PAC, Millennials Rising, has raised a paltry (in campaign terms) $54,538. So far, Right to Rise USA has dished out over $63 million of its funds in its attempts to put another Bush in the White House.

But who exactly is funding this deep-pocketed super PAC? Using data from the Sunlight Foundation, InsideGov found the 25 largest donors to Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise USA. These 25 donors are ranked from smallest to largest amount contributed. Read more for the list.

Rick Sanchez: JEB! Bush proves he’s what Rubio and Cruz are not

(Latino Fox News) - ...It would have been so easy for Bush to turn his back on my ideals as a Hispanic American, or even those of his wife and his children, but he didn’t.  In Des Moines last night, he remained the same Jeb I first met at the Omni Hotel, a building that isn’t even there anymore, but Jeb still is. No one would have remembered whatever promises he’d made, but Bush remembered. So last night, the two Hispanic surnamed senators were in a verbal fistfight over which of them will treat Hispanic immigrants worse. These two guys named Rubio and Cruz were solidifying their bona fides as anti-Mexican, and promising the white, non-Hispanic people of Iowa that they would deport 5 percent of the U.S. workforce, Jeb Bush never looked so tall in his defense of Hispanics. Read more.

The GOP debate winner was. . . JEB! Bush?

Bush friendly media jump at the chance to boost the Crown Prince after a Trumpless debate.

(Washington Post) - The winner of Thursday’s Republican debate was. . .Jeb Bush?

This is the first time in the GOP presidential race in which the candidate who was the most credible on the issues also won the debate. Maybe Donald Trump’s absence gave Bush a confidence boost — or at least permitted him to get a word in edgewise. Perhaps Bush, with little to lose at this point, relaxed. Or maybe he is just more polished after months of campaigning. Whatever the reason, he spoke with more conviction and dominated the stage at several points in the debate. And he used some of those moments to bring policy specifics and high principles into an otherwise dismal conversation.

While the other candidates pretended that pumping up the military, ranting about “radical Islamic terror” and ordering saturation bombing is a strategy to defeat the Islamic State, Bush called for pumping up the military — but also establishing a no-fly zone, creating safe zones for refugees and training a Sunni ground force to retake territory. (In truth this is roughly what Hillary Clinton wants to do, but no one pointed that out, so it was safe to propose.) Read more.

EndorsementWatch: JEB! gets endorsement of former Minnesota Sen. Coleman

What can I say? I'm in it to WIN, er, BUY IT!

If you believe the blogosphere and punditocracy, the GOP donor plutocracy has already written JEB! off, and is now desperately trying to sell Rubio (as a Bush by another name) to the angry base.  Yet JEB! is still throwing SuperPAC money at the Judas Marco, and he is still getting new party apparatchik endorsements (albeit this time from an old hack voted out of office).

(Politico) - Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman on Monday threw his support behind Jeb Bush, contrasting the former Florida governor with Republican poll leader Donald Trump. “If you’re just being angry — if you want someone to mirror your anger, then, you know, Donald Trump may be your guy,” Coleman said on Fox News’ “Happening Now.” “But if you want someone to fix the problem that is making you angry, then Jeb Bush is your guy.”

Read more.

Notes From the Center Ring of Cirque du GOP: Will JEB! Walk Across the Tightrope, or Flop onto the Canvas?

The Crown Prince, that "joyful tortoise" of neoconservatism and plutocracy, is now within striking distance of second place in New Hampshire in more than one new poll. Most recently Suffolk.

JEB!'s strategy is to limp into second place in New Hampshire as the "alternative" to Trump, wash out Rubio there (by hoping he places no higher than fourth behind Kasich), and then secure the public endorsements of SC Governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (to go along with Missy Graham's endorsement he already has).  Trump knows this, and has been able to secure one endorsement himself, that of the SC Lt. Gov.

JEB! must prevent Rubio from a strong third place finish in Iowa which is why he is trying mightily to destroy him now with his SuperPAC money.

If JEB! gets second in NH, and runs second to Trump or Cruz in SC with the help of the state party leaders, and ahead of either Trump or Cruz, then does second in some of the SEC Super Tuesday primaries, and a close third in a few, Rubio is then gone and JEB! will look to gather the establishment around him and launch an all out campaign of relentless destruction against either the emergent frontrunner Trump or Cruz to knock them off and win Florida with Rubio out of it.

At that point the primary races begin to shift to "closed' primaries where registered independents and Democrats can't participate, and Bush as the emergent Establishment choice will place in the top three consistently, and win outright many of these closed contests.

That's the play.  Pretty much his only play.

And it looks increasing like it will be Trump over Cruz, at least going into New Hampshire. Trump's big gamble with FOX BNN and Ailes looks like it might pay off big for him.  His "fund raising" rally tonight in Iowa at Drake University is sold out according to CNN (which certainly will promote it, and cover it live), and Huckabee and Santorum are going to be there for tacit, if unintentional, support and endorsement of his strategy.

Cruz appeared certain to win evangelical-centered Iowa before this play by Trump, and before Jerry Fawell, Jr.'s endorsement of the thrice married casino mogul Trump, but now it could be a whole new race. It all depends on whether or Donald's "fans" will show up to vote.  But if they show up for rallies, and especially if he has a big crowd tonight, and these are people who paid to be there, then perhaps they will show up to vote.


Right now the likely scenario (assuming both Trump and Cruz remain viable) is indeed a Trump, Cruz, Bush primary season stalemate and a brokered "big tent" convention where Cruz plays king clown maker between Trump and Bush, or Romney is drafted.