SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

SESSIONS – Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a conservative mainstay in the Senate, has endorsed Donald Trump for president.  This is two days before the heavily southern Super Tuesday primaries.  Trump is neither a conservative nor a Republican, but the endorsement came nonetheless.  If you were to ask me what the Republican Party stands for these days, I'd be hard pressed to answer.  If Trump gets the nomination, we'd have to wait for the party platform at the convention to find out what his views are.  I think parties have to be reasonably flexible, and open to being the "big tent" necessary to win elections.  But they can't be all things to all people.  I fear that's what happening in both parties today.

MAJOR POLITICAL NEWS – John Kasich makes a decision.  From The Hill:   Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said on Saturday that he will drop out of the race if he doesn't win his home state of Ohio.  "I will beat Donald Trump in Ohio, and that will be the beginning of a new day," Kasich told a crowd in Nashville, according to the New York Times.  "Some of the other candidates, if they can't win their home state, they got to get out, OK?" he added. "If I don't win my home state, I'll get out. But you know what? I'm going to win Ohio."  John Kasich is a good guy, and has been a fine governor.  But you know, Johnny, isn't it a little late in the game to be depending on your home state to give you a boost?  I mean, what about all those other states?  What are they, chopped liver? 

DEM ENTHUSIASM DOWN – From Daily Caller:   Democrats have seen a 26 percent decrease in the number of voters and caucusgoers who have showed up to the polls this year compared to 2008, when the party last had a competitive primary race.  Interestingly enough, that steep decline is the inverse of the spike in Republican turnout this cycle compared to 2012, when Mitt Romney earned the party’s nomination.  Clinton routed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in South Carolina on Saturday, winning 74 percent of the vote to Sanders’ 26 percent. While the huge margin of victory is good news for Clinton — polls had her winning, but more narrowly — the overall voter turnout must set off alarms for her campaign, as well as for the Democratic party. Whereas 532,000 South Carolina Democrats voted in 2008, only 367,000 showed up Saturday.  There is nothing about the Democratic Party to arouse enthusiasm.  At least our side can promise an exciting circus.

February 28, 2016