By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If this presidential election were a chess match, somebody like Sen. Ted Cruz would be calling checkmate on the Republican Party nomination about now. Instead, it’s checkers this year, and Donald Trump is winning because he knew that was the game being played.

What’s the difference? Chess is a game of strategy and subtlety and patience, and it takes a lifetime to master. Many people don’t understand it. Checkers is a simple, straightforward game that moves quickly and can be played decently by everyone. Republican voters this year didn’t want a practiced political master; they wanted someone who spoke their language and played their game. While Cruz and the other Republican candidates were staring at the chessboard and plotting their next moves, Trump was bouncing state to state around the checkerboard, reaching the back row, and shouting, “King me!”

The result is that he just kept winning states until, one by one, the others were forced to leave the board. He saw that Republican-leaning voters, particularly those who don’t usually vote, aren’t necessarily interested in typical Republican policies, so he didn’t offer them. Instead, he focused on issues those people talk about: immigration, political correctness, trade, and the failure of the political class to solve problems. His opponents followed a script while he was ad libbing, sometimes irresponsibly and sometimes by appealing to less than Americans’ best. Time and again, he said and did things that would have forced other candidates to offer a trembling apology. He didn’t bother. He had the good fortune of being the most outsider candidate in an outsider’s year, until his only remaining competition was the one candidate much of the party establishment dislikes more than he.

Cruz and most of the other 17 candidates who started this race looked at the wrong board from the beginning, starting with their early strategy of leaving Trump alone and attacking each other while they waited for him to fizzle. Cruz in particular played nice with Trump in hopes he would win over his voters later. He didn’t.

Still, despite Trump’s winning state after state, it looked for a while that he would not collect the required 1,237 delegates to sew up the nomination, resulting in a brokered Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The thinking was that at that point, party insiders would band against him, certain he would lose badly to Hillary Clinton and bring down the party with him.

So at the end, Cruz tried to play the delegate game, taking advantage of the party’s complicated rules to ensure delegates loyal to him attended the convention. If the race had gone to a second ballot, then those delegates could have switched to Cruz. Yes, he knocked over a few of Trump’s pieces. But again, wrong game.

The brokered convention scenario is now a memory. Trump dominated his home state of New York April 19. Then Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced they were forming an awkward alliance where Kasich wouldn’t compete in Indiana, where Cruz was stronger, while Cruz would stay out of Oregon and New Mexico, where Kasich seemed to have a chance. The move looked desperate, which is what Trump called it, and it played right into his hands at a time he already was telling voters the game is rigged. He went on to dominate five states April 26, bringing his total to 27, including Arkansas, compared to nine for Cruz and one for Kasich. Meanwhile, an NBC News poll showed Trump had reached the support of 50 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters, a major milestone. Now that Trump has won Indiana, it’s over.

Trump is not my candidate – at all. But Republicans would have made a huge mistake if they had tried to keep him off the ticket at a contested convention. For all of their fears of a Trump candidacy, they could not afford an ugly convention that permanently alienates the voters he has energized.

In other words, he’s reached the back row, and they’re going to have to king him.

Related: Kasich – What should have been

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Apparently we’ll spend the rest of the year with a 4-4 split on the Supreme Court, with the current vacancy left unfilled after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. So here’s a scenario. Hillary Clinton beats Donald Trump in the election. Democrats take back the Senate. And then Clinton fills the vacancy by nominating President Obama.

Of all the facets of that scenario, the only one that’s completely unlikely is the last, and it’s not unthinkable. Obama is an attorney who appointed Clinton as secretary of state, so she kind of owes him. When asked earlier this year, she called his being a Supreme Court justice “a great idea.” Democrats would love it if she stuck her thumb in Republicans’ eyes that way. And Obama wouldn’t be the first to move from the White House to the Court. President William Howard Taft has already done it.

The rest is more likely but hardly certain. The latest average of polls by Real Clear Politics has Clinton beating Trump by nine points, and that’s before a potentially nasty fight at the Republican National Convention. In Senate races this year, 24 incumbent Republicans are up for re-election while Democrats are defending only 10 seats, so Democrats have an advantage on those numbers alone.

If Clinton wins and the Democrats retake the Senate, Republican senators might have to make some difficult decisions. They’ve been saying the voters should help pick the next justice through their choices in the election, but what would happen if Republicans are voted completely out of power? Would they give Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, or another nominee a second look while they still control the Senate between November and January, rather than take their chances with a Clinton nominee?

Arkansas’ two senators are taking different approaches. Sen. John Boozman says the next president should nominate the next justice, period. In a statement, he said, “Our country is very split and we are in the midst of a highly contested presidential election. My colleagues and I are committed to giving the American people a voice in the direction the court will take for generations to come.” His spokesman, Patrick Creamer, said Boozman’s position would not change even if Democrats win everything in November.

Sen. Tom Cotton, however, left himself some wiggle room. In his statement, he said, “In a few short months, we will have a new president and new senators who can consider the next justice with the full faith of the people. … The nomination should not be considered by the Senate at this time.” His spokesperson, Caroline Rabbitt, pointed to the “at this time” part and did not rule out Cotton considering Obama’s nominee after the November election.

At the very least, the Supreme Court sometimes will look like Congress in these coming months: divided and paralyzed. A 4-4 decision means the lower court’s ruling in that particular case will stand. Let’s hope those positions get filled if they come open.

This kind of standoff was bound to happen, I guess. The country, like the Supreme Court, is so divided that nation-changing court decisions will come down to one Supreme Court justice. In some ways, choosing that justice is more important than choosing the next president.

One other issue at play is the Founding Fathers’ really bad idea to give Supreme Court justices a lifetime appointment – to insulate them from politics, ha ha. Because of that lifetime appointment, presidents tend to pick someone as young as they can get away with. To Obama’s credit, Garland is 63, unlike the early-50-something-year-olds who have been nominated lately, or Justice Clarence Thomas, who was in his early 40s. Still, Garland could rule from the bench for at least two decades.

One good thing about this controversy is that it has reminded voters of the importance of this presidential duty. The next president could nominate at least four justices. In addition to Scalia’s replacement, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83, Justice Anthony Kennedy is 79, and Justice Stephen Breyer is 77.

What happens if, after November, one party still controls the White House and the other the Senate? Will the two branches ever be able to agree on a pick before more vacancies occur?

Let’s hope so. Somebody has to do this job, and no one lives forever.

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

“For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been!’” wrote the poet John Greenleaf Whittier.

I’m thinking that line is appropriate regarding the presidential campaign of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Perhaps some Republican party types are thinking that as well. If not, they may be after November.

After winning his home state of Ohio, Kasich is now the last candidate standing between the nomination and Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz – candidates many Republicans, particularly those in the establishment, can’t accept (Trump) or don’t like personally (Cruz).

Despite that victory, Kasich is now mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination. At best, he can win enough delegates to deny Trump a majority, leading to a contested convention when Republicans gather in Cleveland in July. And then, the theory is, maybe he can emerge as a consensus candidate. It’s possible, but it’s a long shot.

Yeah, I voted for Kasich – I and 15,304 other Arkansans, or 3.72 percent of Republican primary voters.

I did that because I believed he’s the most experienced, qualified candidate with the best record. He was chairman of the House Budget Committee in the 1990s, the last time Congress came close to balancing the budget, and then he became governor of Ohio and led the state in turning that state’s deficit into a surplus. No other candidate, Republican or Democrat, can say anything like that.

I also voted for him because of his common decency, a quality that has been unfortunately uncommon in this ugly election year. More than any other candidate, he has avoided disparaging others and has offered a positive, unifying vision for the country.

If Republicans really want to win the election and deny Hillary Clinton the presidency, Kasich should be their first choice. An average of polls by the website Real Clear Politics shows, in hypothetical match-ups, Clinton beating Trump by more than six points, while Cruz is leading Clinton by .8 of a point, a statistical tie. Sen. Marco Rubio, who dropped out of the race after losing his home state of Florida, was leading her by four points. Kasich, however, is beating her by more than seven points.

Those are national averages, but the United States does not actually have national elections. Instead, it has 51 state ones counting the District of Columbia, and of those, only a few are competitive, including Ohio, which has 18 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio. Kasich is beating Clinton there by an average of almost 18 points.

Also really important is Pennsylvania, with 20 electoral votes. It’s voted Democratic in each of the last six elections, but some have been close. According to a recent Mercyhurst University poll, Kasich was trouncing Clinton 49-36 there. Meanwhile, she was beating Cruz 45-42 and Trump 43-35.

A Republican who wins both Ohio and Pennsylvania would be your next president.

Unfortunately, leading Arkansas Republicans did not bet on this horse. Thirty legislators endorsed Rubio. Gov. Asa Hutchinson did, too, during that brief period after Jeb Bush dropped out and Rubio became the darling of the establishment.

Hutchinson chose the candidate who seemed to have the best chance of beating Trump, despite Hutchinson’s having a lot in common with Kasich, including serving together in the U.S. House of Representatives and both accepting Medicaid expansion dollars under Obamacare as governors. Rather than refuse the money, Arkansas created the private option, which Hutchinson wants to continue as a program he is calling Arkansas Works.

Another 18 legislators and Secretary of State Mark Martin publicly endorsed Cruz Feb. 24.

If Hutchinson or anybody else instead had come out swinging for Kasich, it wouldn’t have made much difference. Voters don’t base their decisions on endorsements by elected officials – or newspaper columnists, thank goodness. Still, no Republican legislators or state officials endorsed the candidate who balances budgets, reaches across the aisle, and has the best chance of winning the general election. That’s notable, I guess.

Kasich and some of his supporters are still holding out hope that something crazy will happen at the convention. Maybe something will, but more than likely, they and some other Republicans will be left wondering what might have been. Actually, what should have been.

Related: For president, governors no longer need apply.

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I cannot believe I’m writing this, but last week saw two of the four remaining Republican presidential candidates commenting about the size of Donald Trump’s “hands.” I’m 46 years old, which means I’m at the age when I start looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but I’m pretty sure presidential elections have never sunk this low in my lifetime.

How did we get here? Donald Trump ran for president and appealed to a part of the electorate that wasn’t inspired by anyone else. The other candidates each thought he would eventually go away, so they ignored him and focused on each other. Then one day, they realized that, dang, Trump was winning this thing. So Florida Sen. Marco Rubio nicked him with a few zingers and, reveling in the attention, decided to go straight to the gutter by saying Trump has “small hands.” Trump joined him, or was already there waiting for him.

The other two remaining candidates, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, refrained from discussing body parts. Of the two, Kasich has the more proven record as both a congressman and governor, and he has run a positive, unifying, Reagan-esque campaign, to the point that he alone often refused to join the competition in insulting Democrats.

In Arkansas, he won less than 4 percent of the vote March 1.

Trump, meanwhile, won almost 33 percent of 409,828 votes cast in the Republican primary. He beat Cruz, who had 30.5 percent, by more than 9,000 votes.

How did he do that? An analysis by the consulting firm Turtle Target and by the media outlet Talk Business & Politics found a high percentage of this year’s early voters had participated in only one or none of the last three primaries. Most of the early voters were above the age of 50, and two-thirds voted in the Republican primary.

Something about this election was different enough that it motivated those people to vote. Trump is the most different candidate.

Until Tuesday, it looked like Trump’s act might be wearing thin. After basing his candidacy on being a straight-shooter, he’s been flip-flopping lately, including on immigration, his signature issue. The establishment finally is hitting him hard. But he won Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, while Cruz won only Idaho.

Can Trump still lose? Sure. No one can say for certain what will happen next in this crazy primary season, including the pollsters. In a recent speech at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, pollster Andrew Smith said polling is much harder during the primaries, when voters are choosing between like-minded party candidates, then in the general election, when it’s the Republican versus the Democrat. In primaries, voters wait very late to decide. In New Hampshire this year, 47 percent of Republican primary voters made up their minds in the last three days before the election.

That’s one way you get such wild swings as what happened recently in Michigan, where Kasich went from having 15 percent support in a CBS News/YouGov poll taken March 2-4 to 33 percent support in another poll by American Research Group taken March 4-5. That second poll occurred entirely after that Fox News debate in Detroit when Trump said his “hands” were big enough while bickering the entire night with Rubio and Cruz. Kasich stayed above the fray and was generally considered the night’s winner.

Other polls had Kasich still behind Trump, and on Tuesday, he came in third place in that state, just behind Cruz.

Next are Wyoming and the District of Columbia March 12. Then comes the big day, March 15: Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri. If Rubio and Kasich lose their home states of Florida and Ohio March 15, they’re out. They’ll have lost the only poll that matters, the one in the voting booth, among the people that know them best.

Trump is increasingly looking like the nominee, though I’m not predicting that or anything else this year. Not only is he winning among the Republicans, but on the Democratic side, the Clinton machine can’t put away a 74-year-old socialist who’s not even a Democrat.

Crazy, huh?