Just off the top of my head I feel comfortable saying this is the first presidential primary election I can remember where Indiana’s vote may actually mean something. Usually, by this time in the election season, it’s all over but the shouting. Not so much this year. In fact, Indiana is being called pivotal in the Republican primary. That may be a bit overstated because I don’t really see how Ted Cruz or John Kasich can possibly believe they can stop Donald Trump. I know that’s the goal, it’s just not reasonable at this point. In fact, I would probably rate at about 2 percent the chance that Trump isn’t the nominee. Following Tuesday’s election, Trump had won 991 of the total 2,472 delegates available. He needs a simple majority of that total – 1,237 – to become the nominee. That means he needs 246 more delegates by the end of primary election season June 7. Ten states – including Indiana on Tuesday – still have to vote. The other nine are Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana and California. Among all those states, there are 502 delegates to be won. Anyone who can add can clearly see that there is no possible way that Cruz or Kasich can reach the magic number of 1,237. Yet they blather on about how they can still become the nominee. Their only hope is that Trump somehow falls short of 1,237 delegates. If that happens, Cruz and Kasich hope further that on a second, third or fourth ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, enough of all those Trump delegates will switch their allegiance to hand one of them the nomination. Here’s a flash: That won’t happen. The notion that the entire primary election process will be upended by delegates at the convention is preposterous. Do these candidates really believe that the Republican Party will ignore the will of millions of voters? Regardless, I think it’s highly unlikely that Trump won’t get 283 of the remaining 502 delegates so it’s going to be moot anyway. So after suffering bruising defeats in five states last Tuesday, Cruz comes to Indiana, calls a basketball hoop a ring and names Carly Fiorina as his runningmate. The latter is absurd because nobody names a runningmate before they are the nominee. If this is his strategy to get Hoosiers fired up to vote for him, he’s in dire need of a new campaign manager. Hoosiers are smarter than that. Meanwhile, Trump gets the endorsement of legendary I.U. hoops coach Robert Montgomery Knight. It will be interesting to see how things play out on Tuesday, but if the previous five blowouts are any indication, Trump will probably win Indiana, too. And after that, Cruz and Kasich will continue clinging to the hope that somehow, some way, they can steal the nomination from Trump. It’s actually starting to look a little childish. I am not a Trump fan by any stretch, but I can tell you this: If he’s the nominee, I’ll have to vote for him. Eight more years of Obama-like policies will bury what’s left of this economy. I am well aware of all the vile things establishment Republicans are saying about Trump. But you know what? He’s winning. And he’s not just winning. He’s mobilizing voters at a pace never before seen. Trump has 10.2 million votes so far. That’s more than Mitt Romney earned in all of the 2012 primary season. It’s more than John McCain earned in 2008. And he’ll likely surpass the record set by George W. Bush in 2000 – 10.8 million. And we’ve got the anti-Trump crowd trying to derail the candidate who will probably win more Republican votes than anyone in primary election history. So what is it that has driven so many people to vote for Donald Trump? I think it plays off his campaign theme, “Make America Great Again.” It’s not that America ever stopped being great, but I get the sense that a lot of people feel that way. A lot of people feel as if their county is being taken away from them. They see things like the easing of immigration laws, gay marriage and transgender laws, attacks on religious freedom laws, outsourcing of jobs, bad trade deals and weak foreign policy positions. They feel like elected officials have abandoned them. They hear that we all need to be more diverse and tolerant. That we need to accept refugees from places that produce a fair number of terrorists. And they wonder. They wonder why America has to be the tolerant, diverse nation that changes to accommodate the masses. Is anybody demanding that Mexico celebrate the Fourth of July? Is anybody asking that France or Spain or Saudi Arabia or China become more Americanized? If they like guns, they wonder why they’re labeled gun nuts. If they believe in God, they wonder why they’re labeled religious nuts. They wonder why there are fewer people working full time and more people on welfare. They wonder why they have to press 1 for English. They wonder why, when they call customer service, they have to talk with somebody from India. They wonder why there’s confusion about who should be using the men’s room. And they know that if they express any of these thoughts out loud, they will be harshly judged for their views. They know certain people will be offended. They see America as a politically correct place where dissenting thoughts can cause you to be vilified on social media and lose your job. So along comes Donald Trump. He is not politically correct. He says what he wants. He speaks for these people and he reaches them. He gets labeled a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a mysogynist for them. This is precisely why the more the establishment tries to stop him, the more voters he attracts. This is why the media’s 24/7 scrutiny of his gaffes doesn’t hurt him. Voters don’t perceive them as gaffes. It’s fascinating and I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
