Primary Summary - Between the informally named Super Tuesday II and the weekend after St. Patrick's Day version

So we've crossed the Ides of March and St. Patrick's Day.  As Spring officially begins in a couple of days the primary race continues.  However, before we talk on that let's bring up the one that went down on March 15th (sometimes referred to as "The Ides of March").

Let's start with the Democrats.  Yes, it's true that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did win all five states that had primary elections on that day.  However, the wins weren't as big in a couple of states as the mainstream media wants you to believe.  She did win big in North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio (which was the big shock of the evening).  However, in Illinois she only won by slightly less than 2% (50.5 to 48.7) and Missouri could feasibly be called a virtual tie (49.6 to 49.4).. In addition, since the Democratic primary and caucus races seem to be proportional, the margins did basically keep her from a large amount of delegates.  In Illinois she received 68 delegates with Sen. Bernie Sanders receiving 67. As for Missouri, they each received 32 delegates as of this entry (there have been occasional reports of requests for a recount but I'll leave that for conjecture until any actual news emerges of such).

With this victory, the media amped up their Clinton is inevitable news script while her supporters continued to say Sanders should drop out of the race.  However, while Sanders does appear to be in trouble a case can be made that he can still compete.  For example, when super delegates are taken out of the picture Clinton only has 1,139 to Sanders' 825.  While that seems like a lot it's only 314 delegates.  Also, many of the upcoming states are in the west and states some feel will lean more towards Bernie than Hillary.  With Arizona, Utah, and the Idaho Caucus coming this Tuesday, that will be put to the test.  However, Sanders has picked up the endorsement of Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation at a rally in Flagstaff, AZ yesterday, which counters some of the Sanders supporters are all white liberals narrative.  Add to this the March 26th caucuses in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington State and a case can be made that he's still competitive.

This doesn't automatically win Sanders will catch up.  He still has to work to get those delegates and with a possible media blackout reinforced after Tuesday this could be an uphill struggle.  However, at this point (and possibly until the New York primary on April 19) Bernie Sanders still has a fighting chance. 

There are a couple of things I wish to address but they can wait until we discuss the Republican elections for the 15th. 

The Republican Party primary elections last Tuesday were in Missouri, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, and the Northern Mariana Islands.  One  big surprise from this was Marco Rubio suspending his campaign -I honestly thought alleged moderate (who's only slightly less extreme than Cruz or Trump) John Kasich would dropped before Rubio,  However, as expected the race is not Ted Cruz and Donald Drumpf, I mean Trump.  Where it becomes bizarre is the GOP Establishment choosing to focus.  Mitt Romney's saying he's voting for Ted Cruz is one case in point with Cruz being just as extreme as (and, according to some people, worse than) the Donald.  With their painting of Kasich as a moderate, the fact that there's a campaign to choose Cruz (which is pretty much universally hated) over Drumpf is a telling sign indeed.  It also makes trumps' recent statement that his supporters may riot if he doesn't win the noimination a very scary proposition indeed.

Since a trump-Cruz race may be the big thing here, it's inevitable that the media will have their somewhat surreal crush on Drumpf and hype him up until the GOP Convention.  However, this crush has led to one disgraceful thing on the part of the corporate owned media.

Bernie Sanders had a speech on Tuesday after the primary elections that the media chose not to cover at all.  Instead, the cable news networks showed an empty Trump podium and discussed the Donald in hopes they could hear his speech.  Trevor Noah of the Daily Show was right when he suggested they could've at least put the atrump podium in a box in the corner and aired Bernie's speech until the Donald chose to grace them with his presence.  "It's even shaped like a box" Noah replied. 

Instead the mainstream media chose to continue their Trump worship, giving him more free publicity while not fully countering his bullshit.  Other than proving why the Fairness Doctrine should be brought back, it reveals much about whether the establishment media actually has that liberal bias the right likes to whine about. 

While ti appears likely that Donald trump will be the GOP nominee (though the race is close), it's still a sonewhat competitive race for the Democrats - andone that will have to be watched to see what happens.

P.S.:  In a kinda related note there were reports of Bill Clinton appearing at or near a polling place in Illinois last Tuesday.  Why the hell are they letting him be near those places?  Even if it turns out to be innocent and not trying to influence votes (thus violating the law), the Clintons should know by now they're going to face more scrutiny from not just eh Sanders campaign but the American right wing (who hate them just as much, if not more than, Obama).  Because of this shouldn't it be prudent that keep either one of them away from a primary polling place unless they're casting a vote themselves?   Had to mention this.