Hindsight;"Had it been any candidate other than Trump, this race would have been effectively called weeks ago. Trump led virtually wire to wire in this race. He systematically knocked out heavyweights within the GOP -- from old bulls like Bush to rising stars like Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. He barely even stumbled in his march to the nomination."
The GOP's 2015/6 presidential primary ended in Florida, everything after that was theater, media bumf and a good training ground for the winner Donald Trump.
The media spent yesterday beating their collective breasts (those with a shred of dignity that is) about how the got it all wrong. Their mea culpa's ranged from spending their time in the DC bubble and not talking to the great unwashed to allowing personal bias to cloud over mathematics to, and showing they have learned nothing, "misreading the Republican base who turn out to be motivated by racism, jealousy and "being left behind."
The "personal bias/DC bubble" reasons are, of course, the correct ones. Not only did their personal bias make them not see the figures that were as clear as day, but they missed the simple facts of recent political history that a first year political science student could see as obvious.
The 2015/6 campaign was not, as they keep repeating "a unique experience in American political history" rather it is the mirror image of John McCain's campaign in 2008 even down to the personalities of the candidates, their key opponents and the states that decided the election.
Both men portrayed themselves as outsiders, McCain's as a "rogue' Trump as having not been part of the DC political establishment.
In 2008 McCain was written off by the media (as was Trump in 2015) lost the Iowa caucus (a sure guarantee of having an outstanding chance to be the nominee) as did Trump. He then made his big comeback in New Hampshire and scored his major wins in South Carolina and Florida. At that point McCain and Trump never looked back on their way to the required delegate numbers.
McCain, as Trump, lost to the candidate who ran as a religious conservative (Huckabee/Cruz in Iowa) defeated the establishment candidate Romney/Kasich in liberal New Hampshire, won in the deep south, supposed fertile territory for Huckabee and Cruz. McCain destroyed establishment candidates Giuliani/Romney in Florida and ended his campaign just as Trump did the same to Kasich/Rubio who similarly ended his.
After that there was no stopping McCain and Trump, with both having the occasional setback which were just bumps in the road.
The media was so obsessed with "proving" with graphs and charts that "we seen all this before flash in the pan candidates rising and falling and Trump will just another example" showed that their bias and attachment to a model that had no basis in reality blinded them to see the obvious parallels to a campaign from only 8 years ago
