February 22, 2016 11:47 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (Feb. 22)

• 7 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

George Washington would be 284 years old today if he were, you know, not dead. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► The race for the Republican Presidential nomination moves to Nevada on Tuesday before the next two super duper Tuesday contests (which includes Colorado). From The Washington Post:

In a clear admission of Trump’s dominant standing following decisive back-to-back primary victories, his top two rivals — Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — are not even pretending they can best the billionaire mogul on March 1, or Super Tuesday, when 11 states hold primaries or caucuses.

Cruz hopes to win his home state of Texas, but otherwise he and Rubio, as well as John Kasich and Ben Carson, are charting strategies to accrue convention delegates by surgically targeting slivers of the states.

The Super Tuesday contests award delegates proportionally and cover wide swaths of the country, from Massachusetts to Virginia to Alabama to Colorado. Together with the Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio winner-take-all primaries on March 15, they could prove determinative in the nomination battle.

Look on the bright side: We many only have to put up with all of this shouting from the GOP for just a couple more weeks.

► Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump was on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, and he had trouble explaining himself when a question came up about the Iraq war. From “The Fix”:

“I really don’t even know what I mean, because that was a long time ago, and who knows what was in my head,” Trump said. (You can read the full back and forth here.)

Ok. Let’s take a step back here. Trump is the clear favorite for the Republican presidential nomination.  He has insisted that his lack of experience in elected office is a non-issue because he has demonstrated the good judgment that many of his politician rivals have not.  Point number one of that argument has always been that he was the only Republican candidate running for president who opposed the Iraq war from the start.

Except that he didn’t. And, his explanation for that fact?  1. It was a long time ago. 2. And I quote: “Who knows what was in my head.”

The Republican Party is on the verge of nominating a man for President who doesn’t even understand his own policy positions. If Trump selects Ben Carson to be his running mate, the entire GOP ticket will be unable to explain itself.

► Supporters of a plan to change redistricting/reapportionment requirements are back with a new version of a proposed ballot measure after their original attempt last year was widely panned. James Mejia also seems to be missing from the effort this time.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Need to get caught up on everything that happened in the South Carolina and Nevada Primaries over the weekend? Check out the comments from this thread.

► Jason Salzman takes a look at how Americans for Prosperity (AFP) managed to convince so many Republicans to oppose the “Hospital Provider Fee” despite widespread support from business groups in Colorado.

► Ben Carson will not be elected President in 2016. That doesn’t mean that Ben Carson will stop campaigning, however, as “The Fix” reports:

After finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, he limped to an eighth place finish in the New Hampshire primary eight days later. On Saturday in South Carolina, Carson finished sixth — but only because there were just six candidates still running.

All of which what makes Carson’s speech following the Palmetto State primary all the more, um, well, interesting?

“There are news people here who think I’m going to make a concession speech,” Carson said. “This is a just the beginning speech.” But, wait! There’s more. “People are being easily manipulated and told what they are supposed to think and who they are supposed to follow when in fact we have this tremendous brains with these enormous frontal lobes,” Carson added.

It’s been obvious for several months that Carson isn’t going to be the Republican nominee. (The national spotlight shone on Carson briefly last fall but moved on quickly when it became clear his foreign policy knowledge was close to nonexistent.) And yet, Carson is in Nevada now, campaigning in advance of Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in the state.

► Data and facts are just a liberal bias when it comes to fracking.

► State Sen. Tim Neville announced his first group of endorsements as he seeks the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

► We’re not saying Bernie Sanders can or cannot take Colorado at next month’s caucuses; anybody who says they know what will happen is just throwing darts at the wall.

► Former President Bill Clinton was in Colorado over the weekend stumping for his wife, Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) has been traveling the state talking about his legislation to expand the Childcare Tax Credit.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The Colorado Democratic Party is trolling some of the more well-known Republican candidates for U.S. Senate.

► The Colorado legislature will again debate the issue of rain barrels today. Similar legislation failed to advance in the 2015 legislative session.

► Who are these people, and how did they make it into the White House press corps?

ICYMI

► Al Sharpton says that Donald Trump is the “white Don King.” That is a gloriously absurd sentence.

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