Super Tuesday: So Yuge It’s Apocalypse Now

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, the not-so-holy day when nearly a dozen states hold primaries or caucuses — mostly in the South which is why its also referred to as SEC Tuesday in some quarters — from which Republican and Democratic presidential candidates can reap delegates, gain momentum or be labeled winners or losers or potential drop-outs.

Call it Super Tuesday, if you will.  If you look at the Republican race for the presidential nomination, you might as well as call it Apocalypse Tuesday.

It’s come to this.  Insurgent candidate, businessman, developer and television celebrity Donald Trump is threatening to run away with the process and the party after three straight, convincing primary wins in states as diverse as New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada (he finished second in the Iowa caucuses).  An alarmed GOP establishment as represented by the party, Super PACs from the now defeated Jeb Bush campaign, the media, especially old-line print stalwarts, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Trump’s principal rivals, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator and Christian evangelist presumed darling Ted Cruz are finally fighting back by all available means necessary.  The collateral damage, of course, is the American electoral process and perhaps the Republican Party, as we understand it.   

Such damage became evident in a fractious spectacle of a CNN-sponsored debate Feb. 25, when both Rubio and Cruz attacked Trump, taking turns questioning Trump’s conservative and party bona fides. Rubio, especially, since he appears to have inherited the financial backing of Bush allies, seems  to have decided that the only way to trounce Trump is to descend into the muddy, mucky waters of personal attacks, questionable claims made repeatedly and without letup, exaggerations and rumors, accusations and claims mixed together artlessly and loudly.

Artless assertions are the kind of things that Trump has done from the get-go, broad promises—no Muslims, Mexican rapists, thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey and on and on goes the list.  He has attacked opponents, critics, media members, the president, women, members of Congress and the judiciary, and his rivals, with Bush a particular piñata for him, as he continuously and in the crudest terms questioned Bush’s courage, stamina, energy, and manliness.  During all this, Cruz, and Rubio—who also took on Bush—stood by without standing up to Trump. They were for the most part, silent.

Now, it’s Trump’s turn to receive sustained criticism: for his not disavowing the KKK, hiring foreign workers and Poles, messing with his makeup, mis-spelling words on twitter, supporting Planned Parenthood, not make his tax returns public— could there be a Mafia connection? — and so on.

The debate battle in Houston, with Rubio shouting over Trump and Trump calling both liars and idiots, was a spectacle that tempted many people to change the channel to reruns, any reruns, or to run to the bathroom.   It’s been like this non-stop ever since, with the media at once tut-tutting, grilling Trump to little avail, while seeming to enjoy the drama.  The strategy, certainly on the part of Rubio, the candidate around whom the media and the so-called establishment seems to have gathered, is to take off the gloves and go on a 24-7 attack mode.

Mind you, this is not about a cogent strategy to deal with ISIS or the Middle East or creating jobs or balancing the budget and policy.  This is about hair, makeup and pants stains and foreign workers and calling Trump a con man, something many of us have known for a long time.  If you listen to the Conservative Solutions ad for Rubio, you see a chin-held-high, young but seasoned man, “a Reagan disciple,” strong and looking to the next generation of Republicans to lead. That generation apparently includes the likes of Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, but never mind. The contrast with Rubio, the presidential-timber candidate and the campaign trail and debate Rubio, his teeth sometimes bared into a gleeful smile, as if he’d just stolen some brash kid’s marbles, telling people to google Trump and Polish workers, or looking at his Blackberry for misspellings or talking about Trump wanting a full-length mirror to check for pants stains couldn’t be more dramatic and sadder.

This is what the campaign has come to and is bound to continue.  In order to fight Trump, his rivals — Rubio and Cruz and some media types — have decided they must become Trump.  On appearances, they seem to have succeeded.  Most of the information and surely some misinformation that’s splashed into newspapers, talk shows and news shows, must have been out there for months.  If political courage and character are such highly valued qualities by the GOP and its candidates, where were Rubio and Cruz all these months when Trump was making outrageous claims, insulting women, apparently lying about his record?  They stood back, content to watch others fall by the wayside, and to assume, like most of the experts and the media did, that Trump would sooner or later implode from the sheer weight of his bull and that people would see that the developer had no clothes.

Instead, Trump appeared to re-invent newer and strong versions of Teflon. Yes, he deserves the treatment he’s getting, but perhaps he should be getting it from better men than himself, instead of from people who are imitating him.

Is it working?

Well, a CNN-ORC national poll out Monday — not state by state — shows that Trump is at 49 percent with GOP voters, with Rubio trailing at 16 percent and Cruz at 15 percent.   A RealClearPolitics poll has Trump leading in nearly all of the Super Tuesday states, except Texas, where Cruz is expected to win.

It’s telling that the one moderate—Governor John Kasich of Ohio, who has a primary in mid-March—is trailing behind even Ben Carson.

Meantime, Democratic Party leader Hilary Clinton, fresh from a big win in South Carolina and a squeaky one in Nevada, is heavily favored to garner big primary wins March 1.