On Wednesday morning Steyn started the day with Toronto's Number One morning man, John Oakley, live on AM640. After John's noting of the Aussie Foreign Minister's kind words about Mark, they discussed the US presidential race after yesterday's Super Tuesday primaries. Steyn noted the delegate count:
Trump 285
Cruz 161
Rubio 87
Kasich 25
Carson 8
In other words: Trump 285, everybody else 281. [UPDATE: The delegate numbers have since shifted.]
As Mark saw the arithmetic, there are only two remaining scenarios: either Trump wins the nomination outright, or it's a contested convention. He suggested that the donor class' decision to go to war against a plurality of Republican voters would be unlikely to end well. Click below to listen:
~Mark's pre-Super Tuesday analysis considered various scenarios:
A ten-state victory for Trump will still be a super-duper Tuesday for him, and a stinker for Cruz and Rubio.
It was not quite so super-duper. Trump won seven states.
[Cruz's] base-maximization strategy relied principally on a twin appeal to ideological conservatives and evangelical Christians. So far the conservative pitch is working better than the evangelical one, which went nowhere in South Carolina...
It went nowhere in the rest of the south, either.
At some point even a media darling has to win something. Rubio has the best shot at denying Trump victory, but, absent a total collapse of the mogul on Tuesday, Marco can't win the nomination himself except via some brokered-convention machinations. And too many distant second- or third-place finishes from Oklahoma to Vermont risk turning him into spring's Jeb: a man who (as Clive James remarked in another context) has all the qualities of leadership except followers.
That remains the case - although he did win something (Minnesota).
By March 16th there will be three candidates in the race. But, if Trump's percentage in states he wins on Tuesday is closer to Nevada's 46 per cent than to New Hampshire's 35 per cent, the other two won't matter.
Trump won Alabama with 43 per cent, and Massachusetts with 49 per cent. All the rest were down in New Hampshire territory.
~Toward the end of his appearance on the Oakley show, they turned to the "refugee" situation. As John mentioned, Mark will be debating the Great Migrations with Nigel Farage of UKIP, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Louise Arbour and distinguished historian Simon Schama on stage in Toronto on April 1st. More details here. Tickets are available here.
~As for that cat picture that AM640 have embedded in their audio file, that's Mark and his beloved cat Marvin during the photo shoot for their new CD Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats. The album has a four-and-a-half star rating at iTunes and continues to rack up five-star reviews at Amazon, including this one from Carol Lynn Baril:
Cats and jazz - you will LOVE this! I Do!
I bought this cuz I love cats and I was pleasantly suprised how good this is..! IEach song is such a treat to listen to and I find myself singing along with the backup singers! Way to go Mark!
Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats is available on CD. But, if you can't wait for the mailman, it can be yours in seconds via digital download from Amazon or iTunes.
