Cruz's Gambit

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We have a Republican presidential primary coming up on Tuesday along with two caucuses (Utah and American Samoa) — then two weeks until the next time voters go to the polls. Time is short — almost two–thirds of the states have been heard from now.

I hear a lot of talk of a contested convention, but there has only been one convention in my lifetime — the 1976 Republican convention — that went down to the wire. I have my doubts that this year's convention will be the second almost–contested convention in my lifetime.

See, the thing is that Donald Trump's candidacy is the kind of phenomenon that political observers have rarely seen. They function in a world of conventional wisdom, but what is happening is spinning conventional wisdom on its ear. In 1976 conventional wisdom eventually won out, and President Gerald Ford defeated challenger (outsider?) Ronald Reagan.

Trump reminds me more of Ross Perot in 1992 — a wealthy man who promised to run government efficiently, like a well–run business. Trump has gone far beyond where Perot ever did, perhaps because he has pursued the presidency through an established party rather than seeking the office as an independent.

Trump also reminds me, in a way, of Barack Obama eight years ago. Trump is not the first outsider businessman to seek the presidency, just as Obama was not the first black man to seek the presidency. But Obama capitalized on and exceeded the achievements of his predecessors, and Trump appears poised to exceed Perot's achievements as well.

It's easy to forget from the perspective of 2016 what Perot achieved in the general election of 1992. He didn't carry any states, but he received nearly 19% of the national popular vote.

On the Republican side it is, essentially, down to two candidates, Trump and Ted Cruz. There is a third candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, but he is already mathematically eliminated from a first–ballot nomination even if he runs the table the rest of the way in this new winner–take–all delegate environment. He is no longer focused on winning the nomination on the first ballot, when most delegates are committed to certain candidates by the voters of their states. He is looking beyond that.

However, with Marco Rubio out of the picture, Cruz appears to believe he has a chance to inflict some damage on Trump and, if not secure enough delegates going into the convention to assure himself of the nomination, have enough delegates committed to him to prevent Trump from winning the nomination on the first ballot.

Cruz has been talking about how well he has performed in closed primaries — primaries held in states where voters are required to declare their party affiliation upon registering and vote in only that party's primaries. And that's true.

But there are two sides to this coin.

Cruz contends he is the best choice to be a standard bearer for Republicans because he has outperformed Trump in primaries in which only registered Republicans can participate.

Trump has performed better in the open primaries where voters can declare in which party's primary they want to participate, and he has been drawing support from Democrats and independents. Some have been motivated by a desire to throw a wrench into the works, but others have been motivated by genuine support for Trump. Consequently, Trump can argue — with at least some validity — that his victories in the open primaries demonstrate his appeal for the broader electorate in the general election.

This phase of the electoral calendar may tell us who is right — or, at least, whose case makes the most sense to Republican voters.

The primary on Tuesday is being held in Arizona; it's a closed primary that will award all 58 of its delegates to whoever finishes first. Based on Cruz's logic, he should do well there, right? Well, the latest Merrill Poll, released just a few days ago, found the winner is likely to be Trump.

Kasich's strategy is different. He knows he can't win the nomination on the first ballot so his objective is to prevent Trump from reaching the magic number and force the Republican nominating process to a second ballot for the first time since 1948. If Cruz can win in the West, Kasich will be trying to win in the East — in places like Pennsylvania and New York.

Call it a triangulation theory. It's also a longshot, at least at this stage of the race. Trump is more than halfway to the number of committed delegates he needs to win the nomination on the first ballot.

The New York primary is a closed primary that will be held on April 19. According to the Emerson Poll that was released Friday, Trump has a decisive lead over Cruz there. Kasich is no help; he barely drew 1% in the poll. New York is a winner–take–most primary, which most likely means Trump will win about 80 or 85 of the state's 95 delegates.

Pennsylvania's winner–take–all primary is a week later — on April 26. The most recent survey I have seen from Pennsylvania was published about a week and a half ago. It was Harper Polling's survey, and it showed Trump with a 2–to–1 lead over Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign after losing in Florida about a week after Harper's poll results were published. Unless something dramatic happens, Trump seems well on his way to winning Pennsylvania's 71 delegates.

There will be other primaries, too, but the ones I have just mentioned are the ones that are likely to get the most attention in the next five weeks. Anyway, for Cruz and Kasich, the news doesn't get much better in those lesser primaries.

On April 5, Wisconsin holds a winner–take–all primary. It will be an open primary, too, so Democrats and independents can participate if they wish, and Wisconsin is the only state doing anything that day. Whoever finishes first wins 42 delegates. I haven't seen any polls from there so I don't know who is leading, but I can say that Wisconsin was one of those Rust Belt states that was hurt by trade agreements in recent years. That seems to have benefited Trump in Michigan and Illinois.

New York also will have the political spotlight to itself, but Pennsylvania will be one of five states holding primaries on April 26. Those states are mostly in the Northeast, which will be a test for Kasich's appeal to a presumably more centrist electorate.

The other four states to vote on April 26 are Connecticut (26 delegates), Delaware (16 delegates), Maryland (38 delegates) and Rhode Island (19 delegates). All but one of those April 26 primaries will be closed. Rhode Island's primary is "semi–closed" — whatever that means.

And most of the primaries being held that day will be winner–take–all contests. Connecticut is winner–take–most and Rhode Island is proportional. Since most of the primaries that day are closed, that should favor Cruz, based on his own assessment, but the region of the country should be more favorable to a moderate like Kasich. Polls indicate, however, that Trump is leading and may improve on his lead in the weeks ahead.

And, of course, looming out there on the Western horizon is California with its winner–take–all prize of 172 delegates. California Republicans won't vote until June 7, but in the latest poll I have seen 38% of likely voters favored Trump. It is worth noting that the poll results were released the day of the Florida and Ohio primaries. Rubio was still in the race, and Kasich had not yet won his home state, but both were included in the poll with Trump and Cruz. Rubio polled 10%, which by itself would not be enough for Cruz to overtake Trump. Neither would the 9% who said they were undecided.

Together, though, they would be enough — as long as not too many of those voters broke for Trump. That is how sizable Trump's lead is in California.

Clearly, it's a pretty steep mountain Cruz and Kasich must climb if they are to prevent Trump from claiming the nomination in Cleveland this July.

The Day FDR Died

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My parents were both teenagers when, 70 years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga. He was 63 years old.

Like millions of other teenage Americans, my parents could not remember a time when FDR had not been president — and, unless the 22nd Amendment is repealed, theirs will be the only generation like that. No succeeding president will ever be able to serve more than 10 years; if circumstances ever do permit one person to serve as president for 10 years (which can only happen if a vice president succeeds a president who has just under half of his current term left and then is elected to two four–year terms), it will be nearly, but not quite, as long as FDR's actual tenure turned out to be. Roosevelt was elected to four four–year terms, but he died only a few months into his fourth term so he wound up serving 12 years, not 16.

The authors of the 22nd Amendment made it clear the restriction would not apply to whoever was president when it became the law of the land. So Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt and was the president when the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, could have served more than 10 years. Truman, of course, did go on to win a four–year term of his own in 1948, but his popularity had deteriorated so by 1952 that Truman chose not to run again.

Thirty years from now, we may be able to find out if the New York Times was correct when it wrote, following FDR's death, "Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House."

That story is yet to be written, of course, and I often doubt that it ever will, so little regard do most people seem to have for history anymore. By the time 2045 rolls around, it is possible that few people will remember his name, let alone his actual existence. There will be fewer still who will remember him as a living, breathing human being who led his country through its worst economic crisis and a war to stop fascism.

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Here's a tip for anyone who may be reading this 30 years from now: Those who are alive in 2045 who want to know more about FDR's life and death should read Jim Bishop's book, "FDR's Last Year: April 1944 to April 1945." It is likely that those who read it will learn more about FDR and the decisions he made (and why he made them) than nearly all Americans knew at the time.

That isn't unusual, I suppose. At one time or another, every administration must operate in secret. Some do cross the line and use unlawful tactics, though, so a republic must remain forever wary, and the press must never lose sight of its primary role — watchdog.

Of course, there are certain things that were long considered personal and off limits that are not that way anymore. The members of the press who covered FDR knew that he was handicapped, but they never mentioned it in their articles nor did they photograph FDR in a way that showed the heavy leg braces he wore or the wheelchair in which he sat.

And it seems no one outside Roosevelt's inner circle knew that the woman with whom he had been having an affair for two decades, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, was with him at the Little White House, the cottage where he had stayed when he came to bathe and exercise in the natural spring waters of western Georgia, when he died. In spite of reports of an affair between FDR and an unnamed woman — and the mention in a book by FDR secretary Grace Tully, who was also there, of Rutherfurd as one who was present when Roosevelt died — the affair itself wasn't public knowledge until the 1966 publication of a book written by a former Roosevelt aide.

Over the years, I have become convinced that the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt should be a cautionary tale for presidents and their doctors. Indeed, in some ways, I guess it has. Bishop's book showed that the president's doctor knew FDR was dying, could see it in his face and body, for at least a year before Roosevelt finally died, but he did not stop Roosevelt from doing many of the things that were accelerating his decline. Presidential physicians seem to have more authority with their patients now.

Bishop's passage about the moment when FDR was stricken paints a vivid domestic picture of a spring afternoon. It was lunch time, and Roosevelt was posing for artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff, who was painting his portrait. It seemed like a fairly ordinary kind of lazy afternoon when Roosevelt began rubbing his temples. "I have a terrific headache," he said, almost in a whisper, then slumped and his hand fell to his side.

One of the women on hand thought perhaps the president had dropped something and asked him what he had dropped. Roosevelt's eyes were on Rutherfurd who was standing straight ahead, Bishop wrote, then he slipped into unconsciousness. Shoumatoff screamed and never got back to the portrait she had been painting as the folks on hand focused all their energies on trying to save the president's life. For the last 70 years, her painting has been known as the "Unfinished Portrait."

As a veteran of newsrooms, I have often wondered what it must have been like for people who were working on days when important, truly historic events, like the death of a president, occurred out of the blue. Oh, I've had my share of races with the deadline clock, but there haven't been any major unexpected events on days when I have been at work at a newspaper. So it was that I read with interest Val Lauder's recollections of being a young copygirl for the old Chicago Daily News, an afternoon daily, when FDR died. When the news came racing across the newswire, she wrote, the newsroom was sucked into "the silence of shock."

Newsrooms are noisy places. When a cloak of silence descends upon one, it becomes an eerie place.

Then, like an aftershock, the newsroom sprang into action. "The Daily News, an afternoon newspaper, was strictly limited in the hours it could publish," Lauder wrote. "Only an hour or so remained for EXTRAs."

Observing that "I knew clips would be needed," Lauder made a beeline for the newspaper's morgue. A newspaper morgue isn't a place where bodies are kept (well, I guess that is a matter of opinion); it is or was, basically, a newspaper's library where clips and photos were kept in file folders (perhaps they are now extinct, like photographers' dark rooms, with everything being stored digitally).

Anyway, Lauder discovered there was a lot of material on FDR but not so much on the new president, Harry Truman. It reminded me of the first time Ross Perot ran for president. I was working for an afternoon daily in Texas, and we had just finished putting together that day's paper and the presses were running when the news came that Perot was officially in.

It was a chance for the managing editor to go to the pressroom and say something I've always wanted to say — "Stop the presses!"

Which he did.

And I was dispatched to gather information from our morgue for a story on Perot — but I found, when I went to the morgue, that the material we had on Perot was sparse, even though Perot had been a prominent Texan who had been making news as an entrepreneur for 30 years. We went with the newswire story instead.

By the way, an observation here: From time to time, a populist candidate like Perot will gather some momentum, presumably on the logic that, as a political neophyte, such a candidate has not been corrupted by the system. For some, there is a desire to return to the days when it seems it was possible for someone to rise from the ranks of ordinary civilian to the highest office in the land. But political neophytes are apt to make mistakes, which is why they almost never win the presidency — unless they happen to be General Eisenhower fresh from winning World War II against the Nazis.

And which is why I don't think a Ben Carson candidacy will get very far, regardless of what some have told me.

But I digress.

For those who had been close to Franklin D. Roosevelt, his death 70 years ago today was a loss, but it may not have been a surprise. For the rest of the nation, though, it must have been a shock. Roosevelt's appearance clearly had changed in his 12 years in the White House, but many people could rationalize that as normal aging. In the aftermath of his death, they had to come to terms with some unpleasant facts.

The Dearborn (Mich.) Press & Guide probably summed things up for many when it wrote recently, "This year marks the 70th anniversary of several events huge in our nation’s history. None stunned us more than the sudden death in office of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ..."

It was a milestone in mass communication, though, as the Press & Guide observed: "It had been 22 years since President Warren G. Harding had died in office in 1923, and there were no networks then. Radio news, if there was such a thing, meant an announcer grabbed a newspaper and read it on the air. ... In 1945, within minutes of the 5:47 p.m., Eastern time, INS announcement, the sad message had been flashed to a nation."

The next time that a president died in office — John F. Kennedy in 1963 — many Americans got the news and followed the developing story on television.

We've had no presidential deaths since then, but the next time we have one, my guess is that most Americans will get the news via the internet — or whatever technology is dominant at the time.

Trumping the Presidency

I've seen this before.

Nearly 20 years ago, the economy was in a bad way. Not as bad as it is now, but still bad by contemporary standards, and many Americans were desperate for a president who could restore economic equilibrium.

I don't know if many of the people who voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988 did so because they believed he could handle an economic downturn. In fact, my memory of the 1988 campaign is that the economy really wasn't discussed at length — and, when it was, it was mentioned in terms that were favorable to Bush, who, as the incumbent vice president, sought to share in the credit for the things that were perceived as good about the Reagan presidency.

And one of those things was the strong economy.

Things turned sour during Bush's presidency, though, and, by 1992, America was caught in a recession. Americans were looking for a president who understood that "it's the economy, stupid" and would govern accordingly.

The person to whom many Americans turned in 1992 was a man who had demonstrated his ability as a businessman — Ross Perot.

Perot didn't take the nomination away from Bush. He didn't even try.

He did run as an independent. He didn't win the election, of course. He didn't carry a single state. But he captured nearly one–fifth of the popular vote. It was the highest share of the popular vote taken by a third–party candidate in 80 years.

You can still find some people who will tell you that Bush would have been re–elected if Perot had not been on the ballot — even though every exit poll I saw in 1992 said that about 20% of Perot's supporters would not have participated at all if he had not been a candidate and the rest would have been divided about evenly between Bush and Clinton.

Those numbers never added up to a Bush victory if it had been a two–man race.

I didn't vote for Ross Perot in 1992, but I always felt that I understood the reasoning of most of those who did. They believed that someone who had been a success in business would have special insights for dealing with a recession.

I didn't disagree that Perot had been remarkably successful in business, but I never felt that his business skills were applicable to the presidency. An entrepreneur does not have to at least try to resolve conflicts to everyone's satisfaction; his word is law. If two of his employees don't get along or if they disagree, he can reassign — or dismiss — one of them. Problem solved.

That isn't how it works in a democracy. A president who blithely dismisses Congress' input does so at his peril — particularly when one of the chambers just flipped decidedly to the opposing party.

Until last November's midterm elections, Barack Obama's party controlled both chambers of Congress. For awhile, the Democrats' margin in the Senate reached the elusive filibuster–proof 60. But that advantage disappeared more than a year ago. That makes compromise a necessary skill.

In a divided government, the ability to compromise is crucial, and Obama brought no relevant experience with him to the presidency. But neither would this generation's Ross Perot — Donald Trump — whose name is on everyone's lips, it seems.

After Perot ran unsuccessfully for president in 1992 and 1996, Trump toyed with the idea of running as an independent in 2000. But he didn't — ostensibly for several reasons, but I think just one was decisive. The economy in 2000 wasn't bad enough. The Clinton presidency had produced a budget surplus.

I think that tells you everything you really need to know. Still there are people who speculate about why Trump might get into the race this time.

At The Daily Caller, John Ziegler writes that Trump's rise in the polls is the result of a "celebrity–obsessed culture."

And Eugene Robinson's column in the Washington Post says the "birther" issue is fueling the Trump–for–president movement.

It's true that Trump has said he won't disclose his tax returns until Obama discloses his birth certificate — but, frankly, I don't think the "birther" issue is what's driving people to promote Trump for president. Nor do I believe a celebrity fetish is behind it.

It's the economy, stupid.

The Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy, predicts gas prices will be up 40% over last year during the summer driving season. That isn't good news for folks who wanted to hit the road and get away from it all, at least for awhile, this summer — or the people who depend on summer tourism to carry them through the cold and bleak months of winter.

If there is good news to be found in that, it may be that gas prices are already up by about 33% over their level at this time last year — so the increase isn't likely to be as severe as what motorists have already experienced this year.

But no increase will be welcome. You'd think that Obama would be doing anything he can to boost the economy under these circumstances — a Washington Post survey shows that twice as many respondents say they "strongly disapprove" of Obama's handling of the economy as say they "strongly approve" — but he isn't, at least not with the sense of urgency one might expect.

Things are a lot worse in 2011 than they were in 1992, and a lot more voters may be receptive to what Trump has to say.

Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner warns that Trump is no Perot.

But to stressed–out consumers who are weary of waiting for the economy to turn around, it may not matter.