Cruz rising! At least, it seems that way. A lot of attention was paid to Kansas and his massive victory there, but it was really Maine that caught my interest. Jokes about the Canadian border aside, that’s really outside his jurisdiction. It’s important to note, however, that both Kansas and Maine are closed primaries, and closed primaries play to Cruz’s strengths. That could also explain his good showing in Minnesota. Which leaves the open question as to whether or not he can compete anywhere else in a primary system, which he will need to do in order to win the nomination outright. It’s… looking unlikely. It would seem to need both Rubio and Kasich to drop out, and while it’s possible that Rubio will after 3/15, Kasich has no real incentive to and seems relatively accepting of a Trump nomination if it’s not going to be him. So how does he Cruz get there?

The goal of #NeverTrump has shifted from trying to outright beat Trump and force a convention. That’s… far from ideal. Trump’s ceiling appears to be real – for now, at least – and seems to stand a decent chance of preventing him from getting to 1237.

Which brings us to the possible importance of Rubio and Kasich. Kasich in particular could be strong in the remaining states. He has no path to winning the nomination outright, but seems best positioned deny Trump the delegates that he needs until or unless Cruz can demonstrate a national viability that runs contrary to his entire campaign strategy.

Rubio is hurting pretty badly right now, and looks likely to lose in Florida a week from now (assuming he’s still in the race). He’s being hounded by a dour narrative and it appears his support is being eaten off at both ends by Cruz and Kasich. If he can win Florida, though, he’s back in the game to perform the role assigned to Kasich in the previous paragraph. It seems likely that even in the most optimistic of scenarios that Trump will have a plurality of delegates. However, if Trump can’t expand his share of the vote and #NeverTrump can point to a low plurality, and he starts losing, his winning at the convention seems far from assured. If Rubio or Kasich can have a good late run, they may be the beneficiary of recency bias and could actually get the nomination at a convention even with a lower delegate count. If we get to one.

On the docket today is Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho, and Hawaii. This is a pretty Trump-friendly state of affairs. Unless Kasich can perform a miracle, most polls have his opposition in Michigan pretty divided and while the delegates will be awarded proportionally, “winning states” feeds the narrative in a significant way. The opposition in Mississippi is less divided, but Mississippi has always been one of Trump’s best states. In a different universe, Rubio would be looking good in Idaho but he’s never polled well there and that’s an opportunity for Cruz. Rubio’s only opportunity is Hawaii, for which the returns will be too late to feed any narrative.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is in favor of Trumpism, but against Donald Trump. I can actually understand this, to a degree. But what raises my ire is when Dougherty and others are more excited about their correct prior diagnosis than disturbed by the actual prognosis.

Among the sillier attacks against Donald Trump are his allegedly short fingers. That works better than pointing out that he’s a national security threat, I guess? Whatever the case, it’s an accusation that really bothers him.

The ever-inspirational Chris Christie: “I wasn’t being held hostage.” He can say that all he wants, but the flood of endorsements that were supposed to follow didn’t. Nobody likes being a prisoner.

I’m not fond of linking to Uncle Steve when he’s directly talking about immigration, but his look at Merkel and Clinton contains some good analysis.

Gretchen explains how her life became restricted when she married a sex offender, affecting everything from where they live, whether they should have children, and perhaps where they can travel internationally.

Florida is stepping up enforcement against left-lane snails.

As a Twitter follower, I’ve seen directly Bethany Mandel attract the hate mobs of Breitbart, and it’s not pretty. It’s even creeped on to Facebook.

Mankind’s greatest enemy: The white man.

Too many movies fail the Bechdel Test, so some scripts are up for a rewrite.

The New York Times looks at some of the changes in store for Sesame Street under HBO management. Not sure I like the changes, but it is what it is I suppose.

Something that cuts against arguments right and left, Freddie points out that most PhD’s are doing pretty well, actually.

Bradley Birzer reviews a John J Miller story The Polygamous King, which sounds fascinating.

Emily Badger says cities haven’t run out of room so much as they’re shoo-ing away potential neighbors.

I haven’t read the paper, but the idea of conferring automatic relationship status on couples that have kids together strikes me as the law back home that says young girls who get pregnant can become emancipated from their parents early. Some added diceyness to incentives for gents and ladies who want to hold on to their partner.

Loneliness is a public health hazard that may be akin to smoking and obesity. Remember, though, how justified we are in socially isolating smokers and the obese because their behavior is so unhealthy.

{Ed note: This was written prior to the GOP debate last night.}

The good news for the #NeverTrump crew, is that the momentum we feared for Trump did not especially materialize. He didn’t get 50% in Massachusetts, didn’t have a shutout or a near-shutout. He doesn’t appear invulnerable in the abstract. Yet.

The problem, of course, remains the rest of the field. Little long-term clarity was achieved.

Rubio lost by inches, but lost big. A couple couple points in Virginia and he’d look a lot better. A few points in some other states would have gotten him across the delegate threshold. Whenever I write these up, there is always something that I don’t talk about that happens. Usually it’s been a near-tie, so when I talk about placing second or third I didn’t account for the fact that #3-5 would tie in New Hampshire or #2-3 would tie in South Carolina. In this case, it was those delegate thresholds and the overall delegate count. Which I did actually consider, but did not convey. It turned out to be really important to the narrative. It’s become even more critical that he win Florida, and it’s become even harder for him to do so. The media’s comparative generosity towards him has run out, and what yesterday could have been a Rubio endorsement by Romney was instead a general anti-Trump speech.

While Trump did worse than I feared and Rubio worse than I had hoped, Cruz is the only one I can point to and say definitively “He had a good night.” Good enough that it props up an iffy narrative that he can be the Trump Alternative. The problem for Cruz remains that the rest of the map looks a lot more like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Minnesota than it does like Texas and Oklahoma. He has also continued to show no message agility and it just seems unlikely that he’s going to be able to pivot to be competitive in the North. There were three data points, two largely overlooked, that could give Team Cruz hope. First, while Rubio won Minnesota, Cruz came in a close second. Minnesota is a quirky little state and it had a closed caucus, but that’s still something! The second overlooked thing is that he won the Colorado straw poll, which was also a closed caucus and is unbinding, but take the three of them together and you can sort of paint a picture of Cruz being strong-ish in the west. I’ll need to run the math, but while he wouldn’t be able to win the nomination that way he could rack up some serious wins to help his narrative against a generally hostile media. Speaking of which, one of the reasons Cruz’s outing impressed me is that he did it largely being ignored by the media, but Cruz being Cruz, it’s entirely possible that helped him.

Kasich’s campaign rationale is starting to become a little bit clear. He doesn’t have much of a chance at the nomination by way of delegates, and is unlikely to get it in a convention even if it is in Ohio, but if you tilt your head you could see him starting to get a lot of attention as the guy who can possibly beat Trump in the north more realistically than Cruz. He’s probably about to get some money from people who just want to prevent Trump from getting 1237.

This weekend are Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine. Trump seems to have made Maine a priority, and it’s on his turf, so it’s easy to expect him to take it pretty easily. There could be a challenge from Kasich, however, as there was in Vermont. Trump looks strong in Louisiana, but I should point out that Louisiana has a closed primary and an unusually high number of ornery bubbas are still registered Democrats in that state. That dynamic carried Cruz to victory in Oklahoma and could do so in Louisiana. However, the gap in the polls is just too large to make that likely, and Louisiana has a soft spot for strongmen. Kansas and Kentucky are both closed caucuses and there’s not much indication that Trump has much organization there. Assuming that Cruz has organization just about everywhere, both bode well for him (especially Kentucky, which seems like Cruz country though the last and only poll there did not bode well for him). Rubio is competing in Kansas but seems to have ceded Kentucky.

Puerto Rico comes on Sunday, where it’s likely that Rubio would have the inside track. He is the only candidate to have paid it any mind and he’s received the endorsement of the Republican former governor. There has been no polling, however, and even if he does win it is unlikely that anyone will notice because most people don’t even know Puerto Rico sends delegates.

I am predicting a Trump win, however, because what the hell that’s just the sort of primary it’s been.

Megan McArdle talks to the #NeverTrump Republicans, and sizes up the Trumpkin response.

Meanwhile, John Podheretz and Matthew Continetti assess the virtues and ludicrosity of taking Trump to the convention and fighting him there. #BanPrimaries

On the vaping front, formaldehyde concerns are out and exploding ecigarette batteries.

Olivia Goodhill wants to know why we’re not researching how to treat period cramps.

Samuel Goldman takes exception to the “social science” of Trumpkins-as-Authoritarians. I nodded with solemnity when I read of the correlation, but I’m pretty sure Goldman is correct here.

I’m not sure how much the world needed Fuller House, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t need a Full House porn parody.

Elizabeth Picciuto reacts to the misportrayal in the media of Microcephaly (the product of the Zika virus).

Somewhere along the way, Taco Bell quietly became healthy.

BBC looks at the gender imbalance in Sweden, which among 16-17yo’s outstrips that of China.

According to a new study, segregated schools mean more crime

I ran across an article on a weird way to hijack cars the other day, and so of course I had to Snopes it, and turns out it’s a myth. This is not as bad as fearmongering Halloween candy, but the drip-drip-drip is really deleterious to the public health.

Here are the things that immigrants were pleasantly surprised about in the US.

If it’s immigrant tolerance that you seek, look not in Denmark but in Texas.

Meet the 500-lb man wanting to bike across the county.

If things don’t go well in 2016, the GOP really needs to do this with just about every demographic. They don’t have to rearrange their agenda to maximize popularity, but they (just as with the Democrats, though it’s less pressing for them) do need to know exactly which stances are hurting them and how much.

Ellen Wexler at Slate discovers that student loans may be inflating tuition costs.

Diversity in the workplace may boost creativity, but it’s exhausting employers. I remember when I was at Mindstorm and a project leader on another group talked about, in the most apologetic manner possible, how difficult it is managing a team compromised of a half-dozen nationalies and religious traditions.

Ben Domenech explains the evangelical appeal of Donald Trump, and Elizabeth Breunig explains how Ted Cruz lost it.

I could see Trump doing this after Tuesday, if he wins by enough.

Uncle Steve pings for names of the anti-Trump third party. Given the speaker and the audience, most suggestions are not complimentary. For my own self, I dig into historical named: New Federalist Party, National Union Party, or Constitutional Union Party.

It is things like this that help make the guns debate no-hold-barred for me.

I didn’t leave my home city for college, so I can’t imagine going to Germany, but nonetheless it seems like kind of a sweet deal even if the universities are a bit less posh.

If you were raised poor, college doesn’t reap the same gains as if you were raised wealthy.

This makes sense: According a new study (PDF), ability grouping raises outcomes in competitive cultures and lowers them in cooperative cultures.

Having a child has likely changed my politics in some subtle ways I do not realize, but one overt change is my views on funding PBS, so this makes me happy.

Florida is stepping up enforcement against left-lain snails.

For Sale! The most troubled half of one of our most troubled states.

Well, with all of the babies being born in Utah, I suppose this was bound to happen at some point.

Ostana, Italy, has welcome a young baby into its community. The first since 1987.

Mental Floss has fifteen facts about Blockbuster, including the whole Alaska thing.

Nevada went mildly worse than I had feared, though my predictions for who wins remains unblemished. That likely ends today with so many states up.

Everything is increasingly coming up Trump. The main sources of uncertainty with me had been (a) What about caucuses, (b) he wasn’t picking up momentum, and (c) the other campaigns hadn’t targeted him. With Nevada and in the week or so since, he’s won a caucus handily and seems to have started picking up momentum despire a barrage of attacks ranging from the substantive to playground taunts. So far, it appears he is unfazed. If there is momentum against him that has not been picked up by the polls (which is possible) then we will find that out today.

I can’t do the historical placement marking today because first place, second place, and third place don’t matter nearly as much. We’re going to be getting a large number of results at once. Ostensibly, the thing that matters the most will be the delegate count. However, Rubio and Cruz have other metrics by which their viability will be judged. So here is what each candidate needs to accomplish:

Donald Trump needs only to establish the status quo. He can actually afford to slide a little and still be in the catbird seat as he will still win most of the states and has a good chance of picking up over 50% in one of them. But even failing that, he is in the position that a nominee is usually in. He has special liabilities, but it is what it is. If he can win Texas and sweep the map, or if he can win every state but Texas, it becomes very difficult to see how he loses the nomination even if Trump fatigue starts to set in and even if it becomes a 1-on-1 race with Cruz or Rubio.

Ted Cruz needs to have a good day. He’s had a bad week of being eclipsed by Rubio in the press. On the other hand, the press has always been unusually hard on him and his numbers have held up better than Rubio and others would have hoped. So he has a good chance of accomplishing his goal of both (a) winning Texas and (b) winning more delegates than Rubio. This primary is in his home turf. He could do better than that by winning some other states. If he can win more than just Texas, and Rubio doesn’t win anything substantive (or only wins Minnesota), he could be the go-to-guy if Trump ever does implode. Given that this is his turf, though, he has limited margin of error. The map only gets tougher from here.

Marco Rubio needs to win a state. Winning a state is really a symbolic gesture, but attempts by the campaign to define expectations down so that he doesn’t need to win a state are – at least for me – unsuccessful. If he doesn’t win a state, and Cruz wins Texas, the rationale of his candidacy starts getting much more difficult. If he doesn’t win any states or only wins Minnesota, but Cruz wins multiple states, the same applies. He might be able to continue a zombie candidacy as the candidate to whom people with nobody else to go to go to, but it will probably lock him out of Florida and, by extension, any reasonable chance at the nomination either with delegates or a convention. Further, even if a poor showing does not lead to consolidation around Cruz, the party may more openly start exploring other options which will again undermine his candidacy (and, in effect, be ceding the nomination to Trump.)

Elizabeth Picciuto pushes back against the mockery Donald Trump received for saying five magic words:

What is funny about saying “I love the poorly educated”? Of course Trump loves poorly educated voters. Who else would be asinine enough to buy his tripe?

But some of the same people who have been laughing because he said he loves the poorly educated also denounce voter ID laws. Why? They disenfranchise Americans who are disproportionately lower-income workers, minorities — and poorly educated.

They denounce the laws because they believe — rightly — that an education is neither necessary nor sufficient for thoughtful democratic participation.

Michael Drew also put together a Tweet Storify on the subject, with a similar theme. Because he tends to split his tweets mid-sentence, it’s hard to embed a tweet, but the best part is:

If you self-identify as undereducated and feel bad about it, you’re allowed to hear those words and take them at face value. Even if you’re poorly educated, the guy “loves” you (after a fashion) and wants to be greedy for you.

I might go a step further than Drew and say you don’t even have to feel bad about it. You just have to know that other people see you that way. And so Trump’s comment may have used the wrong word, but because of the message he gets the benefit of the doubt among potential Trump people in a way that someone else, or a different Trump with a different campaign theme, might not.

I confess that my original response to hearing the phrase was a bit of an eyeroll, but some of the pushback (both of these and others) convinced me otherwise.

The other factor is that, of course, Trump is Trump. One of the challenges of opposing him is the benefit of the doubt that he gets by virtue of being himself. He really can say things that nobody else can. A substantial minority of the population really wants to like him.

To look at the other side of the equation, you have Ted Cruz. I’ve seen bafflement from more than one place that he has been so quickly disregarded for such small margins. Cruz fans are upset that he’s getting the reputation for being a mean attack dog when Rubio is similarly on the attack. They’re also exasperated that while Cruz has gone after Trump, he’s still being remembered as the guy who cozied up to him.

But that’s exactly what happens when people have no reason to want to like you. A lot of people want to like Trump because of his novelty. Some love his outrageous comments, but yet others will let the ones they disagree with go because you take the bad with the good. Cruz just doesn’t have that well to draw from. He speaks to a narrow audience, and so people that are not a part of that narrow audience have no reason to cut him some slack.

And, of course, the media, which has a lot of reasons to like Trump – albeit not like-like him – and fewer reasons to like Cruz.

I’m not sure whether the tendency of former French presidents to get indicted is because they demand integrity, are particularly corrupt, or prosecution-as-politics, but is the sort of thing that makes me think it’s not so bad that Ford pardoned Nixon.

Of course, Republican governors have a tendency to become subject to very overzealous prosecutors when they plan to run for president, such as Rick Perry, whose charges have been dismissed.

The Trump phenomenon has so many fathers (such as), and is yet an orphan. For my own part, I find fault in my own ideas regarding the party that gave way to Trump, most notably in my dismissal of immigration concerns. On the other hand, it’s really not all about immigration.

Clay Shirky explains how political parties have become hosts for independent campaigns.

Attention Gannon! If you’re out there. In England and Wales, more babies are being born to women 35 and over than women younger than 25.

Jason Bedrick takes a crack at the study that found poor results from Louisiana’s voucher program, arguing that the problem is regulation. Maybe, but the regulations they cite actually seem prudent to me.

As immigrants assimilate and intermarry, it’s becoming harder to see the lines and count the people on each side.

Edwin Lyngar is worried that we have become addicted to fear. I agree, and might cite this as an example.

If you want to live to 112, the solution apparently involves chain smoking. Maybe this is why advocates are trying to convince me that my smoking cessation wasn’t good for my health.

The EPA says that it has cleaned up after the Gold King Mine disaster, but locals aren’t so sure.

Having a child has likely changed my politics in some subtle ways I do not realize, but one overt change is my views on funding PBS, so this makes me happy.

Florida is stepping up enforcement against left-lain snails.

For Sale! The most troubled half of one of our most troubled states.

Well, with all of the babies being born in Utah, I suppose this was bound to happen at some point.

If you’re looking to leave the country when Donald Trump becomes president, Nova Scotia may want you!

So Elizabeth — when she was young, very charming, very, very charming. Could't have a baby. Sad. Really sad. https://t.co/9RRlJUZzyb

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) February 23, 2016

I mean, she just wanted a little baby. Waited years and years. Didn't happen. No kids. Very sad. I mean, years go by. Years.

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) February 23, 2016

(more…)

It’s a two-man race! Or a three-man race! Or a four-man race! It depends on how you count it. There are four credible candidates remaining, three with a chance at winning the nomination, and two with a credible chance of winning the nomination. Or so it appears at the moment.

The immediate response after South Carolina was: Good for Trump, Goodish for Rubio, Bad for Cruz. My own account, almost immediately, was that it was very good for Trump, kinda bad for Rubio, and really bad for Cruz. The second-place tussle between Rubio and Cruz ended up being a sidestory. They effectively tied. The big news were the gaps between the two of them and everybody else. To the north of them was Trump, whose ten point victory was extactly what the anti-Trump faction(s) did not need. Below them was a 10+ point gap with everyone else, which was exactly what those two needed. Which gap was the bigger deal? I’m rather strongly inclined to believe the first, and after a couple days of trying on narratives, it appears that the consensus is with me.

I’m not yet convinced that Trump cannot be beaten, but for the first time I am putting his odds at greater than fifty percent (roughly 55%-25%-10%-10% for Trump-Rubio-Cruz-??). It would be even better had Cruz managed to beat Rubio with just a bit of daylight, but it was more than enough. The good news for Rubio is that as not-great as his night was, Jeb is out and Cruz’s night was so bad that it ultimately redounds to his benefit as well as Trump’s as he starts getting the nationwide establishment support he has long needed. Cruz’s path to the nomination was already narrow, and he could run some rather bad publicity going into Super Tuesday.

Or maybe not, and that’s Rubio’s problem. Nevada is almost all downside and no upside for Rubio. It had been an afterthought, but I’m convinced that it is critically important for the two major candidates not named Trump. And it’s important for Trump, too. But it offers Cruz an opportunity to reverse his fortunes just when he needs to. And that would, of course, be terrible news for Rubio whose main path to the nomination involves Cruz abandonment on Super Tuesday. It’s Ground Game vs Fundamentals. The Fundamentals should favor Rubio between the two of them. He has ties to the state and ties to Mormonism. If not for the Trump Cloud, he would probably be winning that state. Cruz, on the other hand, has the legendary campaign apparatus and in a caucus that matters a great deal. Advantage: Cruz. And by extension, Trump. Trump can survive a loss, but he does need to win. The polling is so favorable to him right now it will open up questions if he doesn’t (despite the fact that polling in Nevada is notoriously unreliable). But Trump is Trump, and momentum has not proven to be worth anything this primary.

This is going to be the last week that placement matters. On Super Tuesday, it will be all about delegates and states. I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it for the post but I do have some ideas. Here we go for this week:

Donald Trump
1st Place: This doesn’t have to happen, but it’ll be a big hit if he doesn’t. And if it does, it’ll cause a week of party uncertainty that will serve him very, very well.
2nd Place: He’ll be okay. The good news about being the frontrunner is that you can afford stumbles. This would qualify as a stumble, though.
3rd Place: This would qualify as more than just a stumble, but nothing he can’t rebound from. If the news feedback is bad, it could make it truly a three-person race. The press may shrug, though.

Ted Cruz
1st Place: Worst-case scenario for Rubio. This doesn’t necessarily make him competitive, but it would help.
2nd Place: This would be a very good outcome, assuming that he beats Rubio. He can point to Rubio’s connections with the state and institutional advantage and say “And I beat him anyway!” It’d be the first time he beats the expectations game.
3rd Place: Not a good outcome. If he keeps it close he will be okay. If not, the press (which is already hostile to him) will be mercilous and he has to start really worrying about Super Tuesday. Best case for him here is that the press spends more time talking about Rubio.

Marco Rubio
1st Place: This could make it a competitive two-person race, but probably not. It could, at least, break the fever of Trump’s inevitability. It wouldn’t necessarily even do that.
2nd Place: This keeps him going.
3rd Place: This makes it really hard for him to do what he needs to do to win the nomination.