And so Indiana spoke: settling the Republican 2016 Presidential nomination race in all but vote: billionaire showman Donald Trump massively defeated his chief rival, Tex. Sen. Ted Cruz, who then withdrew from the race. On the Democratic side, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders scored an upset victory over front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but few professional analysts believe it’ll be enough (even if he wins every last primary) to overcome Clinton’s delegate lead, which is partially in super delegates.

So the nation is now facing a Trump Clinton race — two candidates with whopping unfavorable ratings, and people in each party who suggest or vow never to vote for their own party’s likely candidate. In the GOP, some Republicans suggest they’ll emulate the reaction of moderate to mildly conservative Republicans in 1964 when Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater got the GOP nonmination and not vote for or even perhaps publicly disown their own candidate.

And, in the Democratic Party, some on the party’s left are once (again) suggesting they’ll teach their party a lesson if Sanders isn’t nominated and stay home or even vote for Trump. This wing of the Democratic party has taught it’s party (and themselves) a lesson when many voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 or stayed home because they viewed Al Gore as too conservative, helped Richard Nixon win the White House in 1968 and over the years helped the Dems literally fritter away their once-strong Supreme Court majority.

Democratic party progressives usually dismiss Rasmussen polls as being unreliable and GOP biased. But now some Sanders backers on Twitter are touting a Rasmussen poll that shows Trump beating Clinton (as I’ve always noted, partisans will tout polls they like and try to discredit those they don’t like). Other suggest Clinton isn’t the lesser of two evils against Trump. Or suggest voting for Trump to clean out the Democratic Party and regain power in four years (which ignores the fact its harder to beat an incumbent and could be exceptionally hard if the GOP ends up controlling all three branches of government due to the November vote). Still, the percentage of Democrats willing to not vote against Trump may not be that huge, unless Trump courts them (and loses more hard-core conservative support).

So victory may go to the party that loses the least part of its unhappy (Democratic liberals, Republican conservatives) wing. And then there’s this question. The smugly stated, pack pundit conventional wisdom which can change on a dime continues to be that Hillary Clinton is now likely to win.

Perhaps this will turn out like so much conventional wisdom, including on the chances of Trump going the distance in the GOP race: proven w-r-o-n-g.

Trump is an unusual candidate. Is the Clinton campaign prepared for what everyone knows will happen during the campaign in terms of tone and charges?(If not, they have to start reading the National Enquirer as a tip sheet, and all those books filled with unproven and sensationalist allegations about the Clintons that sell so well among conservatives.

Here’s a roundup of reaction to the vote offering various points of view.
The LA Times on Ted Cruz’s failure:

Ted Cruz was never expected to advance this far in the Republican presidential nominating contest.

The Texas senator was seen as too extreme for most Republicans, too despised by the establishment, too unknown by the rest of the country.

It turned out Cruz was right all along about what Republican voters really wanted in 2016: an anti-establishment rabble-rouser who would not apologize.

He was just wrong about the outsider.

On Tuesday, overshadowed like the other presidential aspirants by Donald Trump, Cruz suspended his campaign, saying he no longer saw a viable path forward.

“Together, we left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we’ve got, but the voters chose another path,” Cruz said in Indianapolis, his family by his side, as supporters shouted “no” at the news. “And so, with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.”

Cruz declined to congratulate Trump, whose path to the nomination was essentially cleared by the exit, though the businessman later praised his onetime rival as a “hell of a competitor.”

“He is a smart, tough guy,” Trump said at his own election night celebration at Trump Tower in New York. “And he has got an amazing future.”

The defeat was one of contrast: While Trump’s bombastic style and controversial ideas only enhanced his support, Cruz’s preacher-like delivery often rubbed voters the wrong way.

The New York Times on Sander’s win:

In the Democratic contest, Senator Bernie Sanders rebounded from a string of defeats to prevail in Indiana over Hillary Clinton, who largely abandoned the state after polls showed her faring poorly with the predominantly white electorate. But the outcome was not expected to significantly change Mrs. Clinton’s sizable lead in delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.

…“I’m really focused on moving into the general election,” Mrs. Clinton said during an interview on MSNBC. “And I think that’s where we have to be, because we’re going to have a tough campaign against a candidate who will literally say or do anything.’’

Yet the Indiana results were an embarrassing reminder of her vulnerabilities: Only slightly more than half of Democrats voting Tuesday called Mrs. Clinton honest and trustworthy, according to early exit polls, a remarkably shaky assessment for the party’s likely nominee. After closing the gap with blue-collar white voters in parts of the Northeast last week, Mrs. Clinton lost them by 30 points in Indiana. She also again suffered with self-identified independents casting ballots in the Democratic contest: 73 percent backed Mr. Sanders.

Mr. Sanders, speaking to reporters after winning Indiana, had some toughest words for Mrs. Clinton after a week when he toned down criticisms of her and shifted his focus to their policy differences.

“I understand that Secretary Clinton thinks that this campaign is over,” Mr. Sanders said. “I’ve got some bad news for her. Tonight we won a great victory in Indiana. Next week we are going to be in West Virginia. We think we have a real shot to win in that great state. And then we’re going to Kentucky, and we’re going to Oregon. And we think we have a pretty good chance to win there as well.”

The Washington Post looks at the dilemma now facing some GOPers:

Anti-Donald Trump Republicans are starting to consider whether their opposition to a Trump presidency is so strong that they would be prepared to fight him in the general election — even if that means helping put an avowed enemy, Hillary Clinton, in the Oval Office.

One strategy under discussion is to focus on helping down-ballot GOP candidates while sitting out the presidential race under the belief that Trump will lose to Clinton no matter what. A more drastic and difficult option: rallying support for a third-party candidate who could uphold traditional Republican positions but would almost certainly steal votes from Trump.

“You have to bet on sanity,” said GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, who helped lead the campaign of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. “If this is one of those moments in history where for various reasons the party has to play out nominating someone who is completely unelectable .?.?. so be it.”

The dilemma came into focus Tuesday night, when Trump scored a decisive victory in Indiana over Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — prompting Cruz to say he was dropping out of the race — despite an all-out effort by the anti-Trump forces to turn the state into a firewall to halt the billionaire’s march toward the nomination.

Trump triumphantly declared in an interview that the so-called “never Trump” movement was “dying a fast death.”

Vox’s Ezra Klein says Trump’s victory “proves Republican voters want resentful nationalism, not principled conservatism.” He gives several points. Here’s the first sentence or two of them (go to the link to read it in full). These are only excerpts:

1. On Tuesday night, the Republican Party confirmed the worst suspicions liberals had of it…
2. Credit where it’s due. The Republican Party is what congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein said it is: “ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”…
3. Donald Trump tends to trail Hillary Clinton by about 10 points in general election polls — a landslide in contemporary American politics…
4. The result is Hillary Clinton is a weak candidate in a commanding position. Her favorability numbers trail far behind what Barack Obama enjoyed at the outset of the 2008 election — he hovered around 55 percent, while she barely clears 40 percent — but her potential vote share far exceeds anything he could plausibly have hoped for….
5. But making that landslide real requires Clinton to strike a difficult balance.
6. One thing Clinton need not worry about is Democratic turnout…
7. Could Trump win? Sure. Anything can happen in American politics. But those pointing to Trump’s victory in the GOP primary as evidence of his potency in the general election are misguided. The electorates are very different..
8. In theory, Trump could run to the center. In practice, he cannot…
9. Even if Trump loses, he has exposed a Republican Party many in the GOP will wish had stayed hidden…
10. Many Republicans see this, and they are ashamed by it. But #NeverTrump will fail, and for a simple reason: there is no alternative vehicle for conservatism besides the Republican Party…
11. Meanwhile, Trump offers an opportunity to Democrats: if they can manage to hold their left flank while attracting a few percentage points worth of disgusted independents and moderate Republicans, they can consign the GOP to minority status for the foreseeable future — much as happened to the California Republican Party after Pete Wilson.

Read it in full, since these excerpts only give the basic points.
NBC News points out that Sanders’ upset victory means he’s a “third wheel” in the national campaign:

Bernie Sanders is now a third wheel in the presidential election — though Democratic primary voters may want it to stay that way, at least for now.

The Vermont senator’s upset victory Tuesday in the Indiana primary shows Democrats are not quite ready to end this thing just yet. Every time the race seems headed to the finish, voters decide to extend it, as they did in Michigan in March. But that could change now that Ted Cruz has dropped out and Donald Trump has effectively secured the Republican nomination, putting Hillary Clinton squarely in the billionaire’s sights.

Sanders’ win does nothing to knock Clinton off her glidepath to the nomination, since the few delegates he picks will barely dent her massive 300-plus pledged delegate lead.

But it will be a much-needed fundraising and momentum boost to a fading candidate who has pledged to stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention in July, even though his only path to victory involves improbable landslides and fanciful schemes to flip superdelegates.

Clinton’s campaign and nervous Democratic leaders may now reassess their indifferent attitude to Sanders. They had hoped for a head start on Trump, but the Republican will instead have the drop on them and Clinton will face incoming attacks on both sides.

Sanders is still slamming the Democratic front-runner on releasing the transcripts from her paid speeches — he did so again Tuesday evening — while Trump has ramped up his attacks on Clinton, his likely general election rival.

…For now, at least, Sanders has a powerful argument on his corner: The Democratic electorate seems to want to extend the contest, even if they don’t want Sanders to end up as their nominee.

A new NBC News/Survey Monkey online poll out Tuesday found 57 percent of national Democrats want Sanders to stay in the race through the Convention, while only 16 percent said they think he should drop out now.

Josh Barro on what Trump’s win means to conservatism:

Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president, and this alarms ideological conservatives for several reasons:

1. They think he will lose badly to Hillary Clinton, perhaps so badly that Republicans lose control of both houses of Congress.

2. They are afraid that he will damage the brand of the Republican Party, making it harder to win future elections.

3. They believe that he lacks the temperament and character to serve as president.

These are all good reasons to be alarmed, but there is also a fourth reason for alarm that is perhaps the most alarming of all for conservatives: His nomination could signal the death of orthodox conservatism as one of the two main forces in American public policy, since he is running away with the nomination despite being exposed as a nonconservative.

Trump is the candidate who finally figured out how to exploit the fact that much of the Republican voter base does not share the policy preferences of the Republican donor class, and that it is therefore possible to win the nomination without being saddled with their unpopular policy preferences.

He will not be the last candidate to understand this.

The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky contends the Clinton made a big mistake in not focusing on Indiana — and that Sanders has now bought himself another month.

The gas tank of the people’s revolution may be running low, but Indiana, birthplace of Eugene Victor Debs, turned out to be a badly needed little refueling stop for Bernie Sanders, who won the Democratic primary Tuesday night over Hillary Clinton.
It was in some respects a surprising outcome, and a confusing one. Sanders was up by 12 in the exit polls. Yet Clinton led in every public poll coming in, and she enjoyed a 6.8 percent lead in the RCP averages. Polls haven’t been that far off since Michigan. Granted they were much farther off in Michigan, but this is still pretty extreme.
What explains it? Working theory: The Clinton campaign decided the state didn’t matter and made no effort there. Sanders spent a lot on TV, she spent nothing. At the end of last week, she was appearing in other upcoming states. Then, her campaign seems to have noticed that despite her best efforts to ignore the place, she was still leading in the polls, and it threw together a hasty rally in Indianapolis Sunday. But people of a state can tell when they’re being written off, and the written-off partisans tend to stay home.
It doesn’t matter in the long run mathematically, of course. Sanders will pick up maybe nine delegates Tuesday night, still leaving him close to 300 behind her in pledged delegates.
But I think it was a mistake on Team Clinton’s part to skip this one. If they’d won Indiana, the door would have been slammed shut. Sanders couldn’t talk any more of that surrealist gibberish about why superdelegates should back the guy who’s 3 million votes behind, like he was spouting Sunday at that unhinged press conference. Now that will go on for another month. That, plus another month’s worth of Goldman Sachs mentions. Great.
The Clinton campaign is saving up its resources for the big states to come, but I still think it made a mistake not trying to nail the Hoosier State down. Nobody’s going to care in October who won Indiana. Still, a race that is mathematically over could also have been emotionally and psychically over.
But on we go.

The Huntington Post’s Howard Fineman beat me to it: I have wanted to do a post or syndicated column on reasons why Donald Trump CAN win. I may still do it, but Fineman’s is one that needs to be read in full. Democrats still seem dangerously complacent about Trump. Here are his key points. Go to the link and read it in full:
Here are seven reasons why Donald Trump could actually become president:

“It’s the Economy, Stupid.” That’s another famous Carville dictum (from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign).
Divided Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders is determined to carry his crusade through to July’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia and to play the role that another failed candidate, the late Ted Kennedy, played in 1980 in New York: the star of someone else’s show….
Republican Weakness. Some Republicans and conservative commentators, such as The New York Times’ David Brooks, are warning Republicans that they face a “Joe McCarthy Moment,” in which they must repudiate Trump or risk the wrath of history’s judgment. And some Republicans are still vowing never to back Trump.
But GOP leaders such as Chairman Reince Priebus are more interested in immediate peace than their place in history, and amenable characters such as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman have said that nominating Trump is no big deal…
Journalistic Weakness. It comes in two flavors. One is false equivalence…Journalistic Weakness. It comes in two flavors. One is false equivalence…That means more billions in “free” media for Trump.
Hillary the “Incumbent.”
Trump Turns. The flip side of having no voting record and no consistent views is that you can reshape your positions at will to suit the moment. Watch Trump, the master huckster, play more to the social middle from here on.
The Numbers. Shockingly – given his outrageous, race-baiting and even violence-tinged rhetoric – Trump is not that far behind in the horse race as the “fall” campaign informally begins.

It’s also worth noting that Arianna Huffington puts this tag paragraph under all posts that deal with Trump:

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

SOME TWEETS:

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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