The odds that Republicans will have a contested convention in July fell this weekend, while chances Democrats will face a fight at their convention increased, though not that much.
President Obama roasted Republicans in his final Washington Correspondents’ Dinner speech, outshone N-word dropping host Larry Wilmore, and announced Sunday that his daughter will go to Harvard next year. Two reporters got into a fight at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Trump nears nomination: The Republican presidential front-runner skipped the correspondent’s dinner, yet still got bashed by Obama and Wilmore. Trump’s hopes, however, of returning triumphant next year rose.
Two days before Indiana’s crucial primary, polls showed Trump with a 15-point lead over rival Ted Cruz, R-Texas. That is big, and it means Trump could net nearly all of Indiana’s 57 delegates. He also holds healthy leads in polls of California Republicans, positioning the celebrity businessman to grab most of the state’s 172 delegates in its June 7 primary.
Trump needs 241 delegates to claim the Republican presidential nomination before the convention. With New Jersey stronghold still set to award its 51 delegates and more than 200 up for grabs in western states still to vote, Trump is on pace to win before his foes can stop him on a second convention ballot in July.
“If we win Indiana, it’s over, okay,” he told backers in Terre Haute, Ind., Sunday. “Then we can focus on crooked Hillary. Please. Let’s focus on Hillary.”
Cruz’s various gambits: His early tapping of Carly Fiorina as running mate; his deal with John Kasich for the Ohio governor to steer clear of the state, and his efforts to cast Trump as a liberal have not helped much. The Kasich deal may even have hurt, as polls show voters disapprove of pact. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s lukewarm endorsement of Cruz mostly highlighted how unenthusiastic Pence sounds about the senator. Cruz’s botched reference to a scene in the movie “Hoosiers,” in which he called a basketball hoop a “ring,” certainly did not help.
Cruz has worked hard to pack Republicans’ Cleveland convention with backers who will dump Trump after the first ballot and switch to the Texan. But it’s looking like they will not get a chance.
The looming failure left Cruz’s motley collection of backers appealing to higher power.
“God is making sure that every single person, every single voice is being heard,” Cruz backer Glenn Beck, the conservative pundit, told a crowd in Lafayette, Ind.
“He wants you to know, in Indiana, that you are putting your name down on good or evil, liberty or slavery. You are making the decision,” Beck added.
“God wants every state to be on record,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, added.
Bernie Battles: While Trump moved to avoid a convention fight he might not win, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to start a convention fight that he will surely lose.
Sanders’ announced Saturday that his fundraising fell sharply in April. Those much-hyped $27 dollops are not flowing the way they did in February and March.
On Saturday night, President Obama ribbed his “comrade” with mostly friendly jokes. On Sunday, Sanders said that he will continue his challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton at the party’s convention in July. Sanders said he will push so-called superdelegates backing Hillary to switch their support to him.
“The convention will be a contested contest,” Sanders said at a Washington press conference Sunday.
Sanders assertion hardly means that Democrats will be in for the kind of a floor fight that Republicans have been expecting. Sanders’ complaint that superdelegates from states he won support Clinton may appeal to his supporters, but if every one of those officials switched to his camp, Clinton would still have a large delegate lead.
The Democratic race remains effectively over, leaving Clinton to prepare for the general election and vet VPs. The Democratic establishment that Sanders loves to bash is eager to move to the general election. They may give Bernie a good speaking slot, but have no intention of allowing him to stop their Philadelphia convention from functioning as a Clinton coronation.
But Sanders’ remarks Sunday suggest he is not ready for a Kumbaya chorus with Clinton. He hopes, it appears, to use continued candidacy as leverage to push the party’s platform leftward. His refusal to step aside could complicate Democrats’ plans to focus their fire on the general election.
Jokes, fists fly: Obama’s speech Saturday included shots at Clinton, Sanders, the media and here and there himself. But he trained much of his fire on Trump and the GOP establishment squirming over the prospect of the developer’s nomination.
“Guests were asked to check whether they wanted steak or fish, but instead a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan,” Obama said. “That’s not an option people. You may not like steak or fish, but that’s your choice.”
Acknowledging Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, a grinning Obama said: “Glad to see that you feel you’ve earned a night off.”
“Congratulations on all your success,” the president said.
Obama mocked Trump’s foreign policy ignorance and reportedly overstated wealth, but joked Trump might be able to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, due his experience in Atlantic City “running waterfront properties into the ground.”
Real partisan conflict occurred later that night when Ryan Grim, the HuffPost’s Washington Bureau Chief, reacting to a 2009 ambush interview of a colleague by a Fox News producer, Jesse Watters, approached Watters at an MSNBC party at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Grim began filming Watters with his phone.
Unhappy with the reversal, Watters grabbed the phone and pocketed it, setting off a scuffle in which other guests reported punches thrown.
“I assume Jesse is retiring from the ambush business since he’s shown he doesn’t like it,” Grim said via email Sunday.
“I got my phone back,” he added.
Watters wouldn’t comment. But a Fox spokeswoman used the attention to work in a plug. “Jesse will address the issue tomorrow night on The O’Reilly Factor,” she said.
