It's clearer than ever that the GOP nomination process is only going to go downhill between here and Cleveland. (Maybe Trump or Cruz can set the Cuyahoga on fire?)
"Cyanide's" win in New York puts him in some sort of driver's seat, but nowhere near a catbird seat. He still needs nearly 60 percent of remaining delegates before the GOP arrives in Lake Erie.
How possible is that?
Let's look at what's still on the schedule.
Maryland and Pennsylvania are next Tuesday. Maryland is winner-take-all; Pennsylvania has a small number of statewide winner-take-all delegates, but the rest are chosen by Congressional district, kind of like Texas.
Indiana is winner-take-all a week later, but that's the only medium-or-larger WTA until New Jersey in June. And, Kasich is probably hoping for a spillover.
Trump has a solid lead in Maryland but not in the bag. His lead's bigger in the Keystone State but that doesn't mean as much.
There's little recent polling in New Jersey and none in Indiana, which may favor Cruz a bit more.
In proportional California, Trump has a moderate lead but nothing huge.
Anyway, right now, I give Trump 50-50 odds on closing the deal before Cleveland.
On the flip side? Even Sean Hannity is "sick of it" from Ted Cruz.
So, what's this all mean, for the GOP establishment, and the GOP media establishment?
First, there's just a 50-50 shot, if that, of the brokered convention that's the constant wet dream of the mainstream media establishment. (We can probably give Faux half a foot here, as well as solid standing in the GOP media establishment.)
That said, contra possible hopes of Mitch the Turtle McConnell and others, there is NO WAY they are working past both Arsenic AND Cyanade down to the Old Lace of Kasich, or Marco Rubio, or whomever. Nah gah happen, per Poppy Bush as played by Dana Carvey.
Cruz would settle for No. 2 if he could swing something like the "co-presidency" that Jerry Ford tried to pitch to Ronald Reagan in 1980, before Ronnie said wait a minute, Henry Kissinger and went with H.W. instead.
Trump isn't totally like Reagan; other than "Donald Trump," he doesn't have a lot of consistent political positions. But he is like Reagan (and Ross Perot, and other non-elected, never-officed businessmen who think being Prez is just like being a CEO) in that he doesn't care a lot for the nuts and bolts of government.
Cruz cares, even though he's spent nearly four years fucking up the nuts and bolts and levers and machines.
Sidebar: Trump is 70, and could die in office, though not too likely. Or, at a minimum, he could get bored and forgo a second term.
Anyway, a "brokered" convention would likely be brokered like that. Any ideas of a James Garfield in 1880, or James K. Polk on the Democratic side in 1844, let alone a John W. Davis in 1924.
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