Random Thoughts

• Long ago my Republican friends talked excitedly about their party’s “deep bench” of presidential candidates. Donald Trump, who wasn’t even on the team then, has now sent the entire line-up – with the lingering exceptions of Rubio and Cruz – to the showers. His strategy has been to belittle his rivals in a way that demeans both them and the entire process. Meanwhile, John Kasich, still at the end of the bench but moving closer by subtraction, seems ever more a voice of reason and humanity amid the nastiness.
• Following her all-too-familiar pattern, Hillary Clinton is refusing to release transcripts of her lucrative speeches to Goldman Sachs. Is it a strategic delay – holding out so Bernie can't see them and then releasing them in the general election to woo Republicans voters?
• Meanwhile, Cruz fired his communications director for spreading an improbable story questioning Rubio’s faith and thus escalating their competition for the piety vote. “All the answers are in [the Bible],” asserts Rubio. Asked by a fundamentalist pastor about submitting to Jesus as "the king of the President of the United States," Cruz replied, "Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country." Still unclear is whether they apply the same Scalia originalism to the Bible as they do to the Constitution (except perhaps for the “king-of-the-president” reference). The pastor favors the death penalty for homosexuality.
• “I promise you, Donald,” said Cruz last night, “there’s nothing about you that makes anyone nervous.”

Really?