i'm not sure when the primary starts announcing results, but i want to make a few comments about trump. can he actually win?

well, if the republican field doesn't narrow pretty soon, he sure will. but, let's not be confused about what the "lanes" are.

the media keeps putting rubio in the "establishment lane". this is really some kind of hilarious slip-up, indicating that they're viewing their role pretty actively. "establishment" isn't an issue, or a place on the spectrum. it's a source of funding that indicates this guy doesn't care about you.

so, there is no "establishment lane".

there is a "tea party lane". that lane has cruz and rubio in it. they are each other's competition. one will absorb the other. it's also the "goldman sachs lane".

there is a "trump lane". he pays his own tolls. and, he's ringing his own bells, too.

then there is the "moderate lane" and just about everybody else is in it.

in order to beat trump, what the republican party needs pretty soon is to have the race narrowed down to a candidate from each of these lanes. the media gets this part right. but it seems to want to put rubio in the moderate lane, thereby actually making trump the most moderate candidate. which is horribly fucked up. but, what's really going on here?

my guess is that they wanted to initially go with rubio, but cruz pulled some strings. or his wife did. so cruz took his place as the bankers' darling. but, rubio is still on the pay roll. so, rather than throw him away, they're floating him as a "moderate".

despite the reality that he's off the spectrum.

it's cruz' wife that will need to take the blame when this whole thing collapses and trump pulls away by cementing moderate support, which rejects rubio as too extreme. because, that's what they're trying to do: run cruz on the right and rubio in the centre. but they're both on the lunatic fringe, in terms of policies. leaving trump as the least insane option.

so, can the rest of the field pull together? my money is on bush. the top three in new hampshire are going to be the same as in iowa, but it doesn't matter - it's whomever comes in fourth that really matters, and who needs to convince everybody else to step down.

if they can walk into the next primary with a reduced four candidate field, trump will bleed to the moderate and it's just a matter of time before the moderate eventually catches up - forcing the right to pick between rubio and cruz. and, then it's a two-way race - with trump reduced to irrelevancy under the challenge of a united party.

but, if they keep the field split, then that vote never coalesces and trump wins by default - because he's less scary than rubio or cruz.

whatever happens, i think it needs to be acknowledged that trump has irreversibly altered the nature of american politics.

the attack ads against him paint him as somebody that essentially has no political ideology. and, he doesn't seem to be really upset about it. and, voters don't seem to be, either.

this idea that money runs politics has been well understood by everybody for a long time. but, candidates reject these accusations as slurs.

trump seems to actually take pride in it. and, nobody seems to really be outraged or shocked by it. it's hard to see how that gets put back in the tube, now that it's out.