GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, March 2, 2016

In the news.

Welcome to IN THE NEWS. American and Texas government. I’m Eric McDaniel. And I’m Jim Henson. All right. So

Super Tuesday has come and gone and we start to see a little bit of mirroring

on the field, figure out who’s going to who’s going to stay and who’s going to go and who seems to have the lead

heading towards both the Democratic and Republican nominations. I also want to start off with

the Republican nomination. So the big winner yesterday was Donald Trump. So he was able to

capture several states. So several southern states. So he was.

And so you see Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia. So he

did he did fairly well. Polls a couple of states in the north, in the northeast. Now, let’s go real quick

to a discussion of his victory speech where he calls

out specific people in regards to the upcoming fights in the other states.

I know it was a very tough night for Marco Rubio. He had a tough night, but he worked

hard. He spent a lot of money. He is a lightweight, as I’ve said many times before. But

you know what? We’re going to go to Florida. We’re going to spend so much time in Florida. We’ve got about a 20 point lead.

I know that a lot of groups, a lot of the special interests and a lot of the lobbyists and the

people that want to have their little senator do exactly as they want. They’re going to put 20

or 25 million dollars into it over the next two weeks from what just came over the wires. And

frankly, I think that’s fine as far as I’m concerned, is fine. And if he wins, they’ll have totally control,

total control. But he’s not going anywhere anyway. But we’ll see what happens. But we’re going to spend a lot of time in Florida.

All right. So he’s previewing the upcoming Florida primaries where clearly Mrs.

Rubio’s home state and it also comes with a lot of boats who you think are really the big several

big fish. But California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio sinks a very

large populations. They they factor a great deal into these delegate counts. And so Florida is

really one those big pieces that need to be aware of. So, Jim, what do you think of his

comments about Marco Rubio? Well, I thought they’re hilarious. They’re classic Trump. Rubio really did not have a good

night on two on Super Tuesday. He he won in Minnesota

in the caucuses. Not a big Republican stronghold, didn’t

win anywhere else. If we take a quick look at the delegate count, we can see that he is

be hot. You know, he’s still running third in a pretty distant third. So

going into this, it was part going into Super Tuesday. Part of the issue was, can Rubio

win anywhere, Minnesota? Not exactly a big prize. He finished second, third

in a lot of places. The real big story of the night was Trump and Cruz.

So maybe now we should go to the excerpt we have from Ted Cruz. America shouldn’t

have a president whose words would make you embarrassed if your children

repeated that.

Our president should make us all proud, should inspire hope

in all of us.

We can nominate a Washington dealmaker, profane and vulgar,

who has a lifelong pattern of using government power for personal gain.

Or we can nominate a proven conservative who has fought consistently

for working men and women and to defend the Constitution. All

right. So you see there Ted Cruz, who won Texas and Oklahoma against sex, is a

really big prize because the size of the state and you see really calling out

Donald Trump and in in this in bases saying, you know, this pushback against Washington

insiders and a true conservative. And one things that Jim point out earlier is if

you look at the people, next time you have Dan Patrick, you have members of the state legislature who are known for being

conservatives in the state of Texas, really shoring up his crowd, saying, look, these are my people. I am.

They have me there. I have my back 100 percent. And there’s a real extreme dynamic on that in Texas. I was in a did a podcast

with the Texas Tribune this morning where there’s a big discussion going on about, well, what is

Cruz getting from this? And he does get some demonstration of support from conservatives

in Texas. And they work for him in other states. But really, the dilithium, the high

deliverable is for the people that are there that are, in a sense, glomming onto Cruz

as a national figure. So pretty interesting. Now, the other the other dynamic

here was how, as we were saying, how Marco Rubio did. Let’s hear what Rubio had

to say on a night where he had not done very well. Just five days ago,

we began to unmask the true nature of the frontrunner. So far in this race.

Five days ago, we began to explain to the American people that Donald Trump

is a con artist. We are going to send the message that the party of Lincoln

and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con

artist. Con artists. That’s a little rough. Yeah. I mean, I know that Trump has

not been rough, but con artist is a pretty clear message. Not very ambiguous.

Not. It’s this direct to the point. I mean, even even Trump seems to be some very harsh things to say about me,

which is funny. Come you know, come from Donald Trump. It’s basically, you know, I punched you in the face. Why did you

hurt my knuckles? That was mean of you. Now, what these jokes about Trump

and we know there is the big within the party about Trump. He did have a response to these divisions and

how he can heal these divisions. So if you go back to that clip. I’m a unifier. No. People

are going to find that a little bit hard to believe. But believe me, I am a unifier. Once we get all of this

finished, I’m going to go after one person. That’s Hillary Clinton on the assumption she’s allowed to run,

which is a big assumption. I don’t know that she’s going to be allowed to run. And

I think that’s frankly going to be an easy race. You see the polls. I beat Hillary in many polls. I know one

thing. I don’t think Marco is going to be able to beat her. I don’t think in all fairness, I think Ted is going to have a very hard time.

But Ted at least has a shot because at least he’s won a little bit. So I just tell you this. We

are going to be a much finer party, a much. We’re going to be a unified party.

I mean, to be honest with you and we are going to be a much bigger party. And you can see

that happening. We’re going to be a much bigger party. So Trump is there from is

advancing the idea that, you know, he can bring the party together, that he can bring and also but

it’s a bigger tent party that isn’t allowed more people to come into play. And clearly, he’s saying,

OK, I’m a number one person for the Democrats. Go after is Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Paul to the side.

And again, he takes his his shot at Marco Rubio. You

know, he seems to be a little more supportive of Ted Cruz right now, saying no.

Ted’s once, you know, showing a little bit of respect to Ted, but saying, look, I’m the one who has a chance.

Now, he makes it argued that he can beat Hillary in a bunch of polls. But right before Super

Tuesday, seven polls came out saying that he would lose both to Hillary and Sanders. So

I’m not sure which polls he’s he’s using. But, hey, he’s found a poll where he can beat Hillary Clinton.

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was interesting the way he acknowledged Cruz. And it was a it was a very good night for

Cruz. Now, this was we had talked about this in recent weeks. This was really a critical

night for Cruz of Cruz and not one in Texas last night. His candidacy was pretty much

over, but he did very well. And in fact, to the extent that the post Donald Trump

election world has been about expectations and

Cruz being able to adjust his his initial game plan, Ted Cruz’s initial

game plan really hinged on dominating Texas and doing very well in the South overall

on Super Tuesday, he didn’t do especially well. Trump won

in virtually all of the other southern states. As we said, Cruz only won Oklahoma and Alaska,

which doesn’t really count as a southern state. But Cruz did exceed expectations

in Texas, given that Trump was powerful. So Cruz wound up. If you look

at the totals, Cruz wound up with about 44. Percent of the vote.

Trump with about twenty seven, this is rounding Rubio with about 18 and K-6

and Carson with just over four. This meant that Cruz got

a pretty good shot in the arm. Delicate what? Delegate wise? He’s come out with ninety nine delegates.

Trump got thirty three, just three for Rubio. This is very good for

Ted Cruz. And if you look at a map of Texas, you see just how well Cruz did

do the yellow in the map. If you’re looking at it, is where Cruz, one

of very few counties there, where where Trump managed to

win a majority. And if you look at some of those counties, it’s pretty meager pickings in terryl

County. Trump beat Cruz. Forty nine votes to forty two votes

in Little Hudspeth County. Forty six or seventy six for Trump.

Seventy one for Cruz. So these aren’t exactly major victories.

A very good night for Ted Cruz in Texas. What he needed and what we’ll see from here on out.

Certainly this week is Cruz making the argument that Rubio should get out,

that Cruz is the anti-Trump. I think there’s very little chances,

as Erick was saying with Florida coming up, that Rubio will get out before Florida.

But Rubio is going to face an even more challenging situation

than Cruz faced in Texas when he gets to Florida. There is polling showing that that,

in fact, Trump is leading crew is leading Rubio in Florida

as a very bad scene for Rubio. And it’s hard to see how Rubio really continues

past the 15th, particularly if he doesn’t win Florida. Yeah, I mean, so Casey could still

stay in Ohio. We just received word that Ben Carson is dropping out

or he says he sees no real way that he can win. So he should be dropping out momentarily.

So we’ve gone down from five to four and probably next couple weeks will be down probably,

too. And so things are starting to play themselves out. Now, on the Democratic side,

we saw a big win for Hillary Clinton. So she basically swept the southern states

with Bernie Sanders winning Minnesota, Vermont, his home state, Colorado

and Oklahoma. And so you think of Minnesota and Vermont as kind of bedrock

states for the Democratic Party. It’s not not that surprising, but it’s really important to see

how well Hillary did in the south. And with more southern states coming up, it’s

not faring well for Bernie Sanders. Yeah, this was this was a great night for Hillary Clinton. I mean,

if you if you look at the map, you notice also that Bernie Sanders lost,

albeit narrowly, but he still lost in Massachusetts. And Bernie Sanders can’t win in Massachusetts.

I mean, he’s pretty much toast in Texas. There was you know, there were very

high expectations for Clinton, but she even exceeded those. She really just crushed Sanders in

in Texas. And I think ultimately it’s pretty much it’s pretty much

done for Sanders after last night. Yeah. I mean, so if we go Rookwood, the Hillary Clinton speech, she kind

of talks about a little bit. She gives her victory speech, kind of what she wants to do with what the nation.

And we know we’ve got work to do. But that work

that work is not to make America great again, America never stopped

being great.

We have to make America whole. We have to have.

Fill in what’s been hollowed out. So clearly that’s hear taking your shot at

Donald Trump with it. Make America great again. Even Donald Trump said something about her.

Make America whole. You’d like what I think. Make America better. Get us better. You know, it was it was one

of those things where you’d kind of like Trump being Trump. Now, Bernie Sanders

also has some some stuff to say, basically reminding his supporters that

he wasn’t done yet. But they did come a very far when he wasn’t ready to quit just yet 10

months ago. As you know better than any other group in America, when we were out on the lake,

we were at 3 percent in the polls.

We have come a very long way in 10 months.

At the end of tonight, 15 states will have

voted. Thirty five states remain. And let me assure you

that we are going to take our fight for economic justice,

for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of geese.

OK. So you see Sanders still rallying the troops and we don’t want to write

him off completely, it’s a little unfair, but he is at a disadvantage right now. He really, really

kind of took it in the chin less on the chin last night. If we look at the delegate count and where this race

is right now, Clinton’s got five hundred eighty one delegates. Sanders

is something like three hundred eighty odd delegates.

She really won a lot of delegates last night in super in super more than he did on

Super Tuesday. And she’s got a really significant percentage advantage over

Sanders. And then if we look at the at the map of Texas and we look at how he did

it, at how she did in Texas. Again, Sanders got a few counties here

and there, but Clinton really dominated that map. You see that Sanders did, as expected,

win in Travis County, but barely. You know, just by a few percentage

points. And I think as we were watching election returns come in last night, one of the things that

was really an indicator that it was going to be a rough night for Sanders in Texas and that

Hillary Clinton was going to way outperform what expectations were was in the early voting came in

and Clinton won the early voting. And in Travis County, that was a sign that the Sanders vote

among white voters and among young voters really wasn’t going to materialize in the way that people had

anticipated. Yeah. And this kind of leads to really next point. It’s really

important talking about the Democratic primary. That is the black vote. And it’s been pointed out that any state

with a greater than 10 percent black. Bernie Sanders not been able to win. And so we talked last

week about a lot of attempts to bring out the black vote. They’ve been very active

in it. Hillary Clinton’s clearly done, done well. So in Alabama, I believe she received 93

percent of the black vote. I think the worst she didn’t any state was maybe about two thirds of the black vote. She’s really

winning them over. And one of the ways that she’s winning them over is that she’s basically pulling out all the

stops. So if you look at this video real quick, well, we’ll show what she’s doing.

Some of you may not know who that is. That is Charlie Wilson, former lead singer of The Gap Band.

Now, why is Charlie Wilson important for Hillary Clinton black people? Well, I put it to like this. If

you go to a black reunion, you’ll be two things you’re gonna hear. Frankie Beverly and the Gap

Band. All right. So just understand this. This person is very central to this now.

Again, Bernie Sanders has talked about how, you know, he’s basically been mauled by in terms of getting the black

vote. Now, there are reports that he was seen at a Harold’s Chicken in Chicago wearing a free Tupac

T-shirt as a way to get the black vote out. But I’m not really sure. But again, this has been

one of the major issues, unconfirmed rumors, unconfirmed rumors. You know,

this story is also about a who was wearing that as well. But again, these are some of the big issues

related, ready to bury Bernie Sanders campaign that while he’s gotten Spike Lee,

Eric Garner’s daughter, Buche, people to kind of speak out about how he is

a champion for race issues. It didn’t seem to be carrying over. And Hillary Clinton seems to be giving those. But

Hillary Clinton got Morgan Freeman doing the voice over in her ads. That’s that’s pretty heavy. Yeah.

I mean, that’s and that’s kind of the that’s a really big thing there. You know, you bring out you know,

you bring out Morgan Freeman. I think, you know, she might if she if if

Bernie gets Denzel. It might be a bit of a competition. But you know where Bernie is

going, he might bring out Wesley Snipes. And that’s no more. What, Wesley fell off a bad kung fu.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bad kung fu than tax problems. That’ll do it. So.

Now then there are also questions like, well, to what degree can Republicans appeal to appeal to

blacks? And Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show actually covered this a few months back.

Black folks already wrapped up, man. Is Trump.

Trump. Yeah. Larry is in his 90s hip hop all day, man.

Think about it, Larry. Trump likes gold. He rolls deep. He

had his own vodka. He’s got his own cologne. He’s got tons of baby

mamas here. He’s had court appearances and he’s dealt with bankruptcy.

Wow. That is amazing. So wait, hold on. So you think black people like him because he’s

he seems like a 90s rapper, 90s early on. Whatever. The race is over, brother.

Do you think Trump is going to win the Republican primary? Yes. Why? People love hip hop, too. And Republicans

love it even more when it’s coming from a white guy. OK. Trump is a Macklemore candidate,

brah. Yeah. OK. Open up the guy.

All right. Let me ask you this, Mike. Does that mean you think Trump can beat Hillary? He means shut night.

All right. So you see their comparison and you got Macklemore versus Should Night. Who’s going to

win? Now, before we leave, there’s one thing that is going on in Texas politics speaker series

that Jimi want to tell us about. We’re going to have four great reporters who have been following

the 2016 campaign, not just in Texas, but the presidential campaign.

Lorne Bigeye from The Dallas Morning News, Ross Ramsey from the Texas Tribune, David

Schiliro from the San Antonio Express-News, and Jonathan TYLA from the

American statesman who has been on the road with Donald Trump, in fact, for a lot of the

last month. And this is this is this Friday, the 4th of March at 2:00 p.m.

He’ll be in the capital room. They say it’s at the Blan, but it’s actually in that building right across the walkway

from the Blanton. It’s free. Come on by. It’ll be fun. We’ll talk politics. If you’ve been listening

to this to this podcast or this newscast, you’ll know a lot about what’s going on and you can ask

really good questions. So come on down. All right. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us this week.

Have a good week.

The government 310. And the news podcast is hosted by doctors Jim Hansen and Eric muqdad

and it’s produced by the Liberal Arts Ideas Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College

of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.