Survival Tuesday

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Voters are going to the polls today in five states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. For Democrats, 691 delegates are at stake. For Republicans, 358 delegates are up for grabs.

Some pundits have taken to calling today's round of voting "Survival Tuesday" because Republicans are entering the first round of "winner-take-all" contests, and the stakes are so high for Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Donald Trump is hoping for a clean sweep of all five states, which would cement his status at the clear front-runner. He appears poised to win all of Florida's 99 delegates, where he enjoys significant double-digit leads in the most recent polls.

But the race is much closer in the other states. Recent polls show Senator Ted Cruz within striking distance in Illinois and Missouri, and he is likely to split delegates with Trump in North Carolina, which awards its delegates proportionally. Meanwhile, Governor John Kasich is leading in the winner-take-all state of Ohio.

While it is possible Trump will score a decisive victory tonight, a split decision seems more likely, with the campaign grinding on into the spring.

On the Democrat side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to win Florida and North Carolina, while Senator Bernie Sanders could score victories in Illinois, Missouri and Ohio.

All Eyes On Ohio
There are growing indications that the GOP establishment is preparing to go all in for Ohio Governor John Kasich, especially if he wins tonight's primary and if Senator Rubio comes up short in Florida. But why Kasich?

A lot of people argue that Trump isn't a conservative and has to be defeated. I understand that -- he's more of a populist than a conservative. Ted Cruz is a conservative with a very clear record. John Kasich is not a Reagan conservative as I understand it.

He justifies the expansion of big government by quoting the Bible, a favorite liberal tactic. He favored forcing Christian businesses to cater same-sex weddings. Now he's endorsing amnesty.

Looking at the results of previous primary contests, Trump and Cruz together are getting 60% of the vote or more for their brands of populism and traditional conservatism. Even if he wins Ohio, John Kasich has no path to securing the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. Ted Cruz could.

But there are key people in the party establishment who think that the appropriate response at this stage is to come up with another candidate in the mode of McCain and Romney. (By the way, Mitt Romney was campaigning with Kasich yesterday.) And we know how that strategy turned out in the past.

"The Circus"
If you want to see GOP insiders in action, check out this brief clip of a new documentary about the 2016 race called The Circus.A group of "graybeards" sat down for dinner with reporter Mark Halperin to lament the state of the GOP primary. At one point, one of them actually says about Trump, "He's not articulate. He's not poised. He's not informed. All he has going for him is a lot of votes."

For a moment, I thought I was watching a Saturday Night Live skit! Sadly, I think he was serious.

Hillary's Latest Hits
For all the talk about the crazy things Donald Trump says, is anyone paying attention to Hillary Clinton?

Clinton recently said she wants to eliminate virtually all fracking, which has been a huge boon to America's drive for energy independence and lower gas prices. During a debate on March 6th, Clinton declared, "By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place."

She took another shot at America's energy industry Sunday, saying, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." She's also threatened to put gun manufacturers out of business.

In a time increasingly known for a "blue collar revolt," Republicans should be able to make great use of these quotes in coal mining states like Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

And last night, while comparing the situation in Syria with her intervention in Libya, Clinton said this: "So yes, Libya was a different kind of calculation and we didn't lose a single person."

Pardon me, Madam Secretary, but we did lose four Americans in Libya -- Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Disgusting. Not only did the Obama/Clinton team manage to forget our ambassador and special operators on the night of September 11, 2012, they have seemingly forgotten they ever existed!
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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