THE NEXT EIGHT DAYS – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  We are about to see the most critical eight days in the campaign thus far. Michigan votes tomorrow.  The polls, except one, are aligning for Donald Trump.  If Trump can trounce, he takes away John Kasich's argument that he, Kasich, is the king of the industrial Midwest.  And Trump will regain the momentum that he may have lost last week, in his defeats by Ted Cruz.  A week from tomorrow Ohio and Florida vote.  That may be the decisive day.  As we've noted, Kasich must win his home state of Ohio, and Rubio must win his home state of Florida.  If Trump captures both, and that's where the polls are heading, he may well be impossible to stop, unless there is a contested convention.  The anti-Trump forces have waited too long, but they are fighting.  And don't be shocked if a third party, or some third force on the political scene, emerges.   From Fox: 

Mitt Romney said Sunday that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz winning two primary states this weekend proves the Texas senator can stop front-runner Donald Trump, but declined to rule out his own White House scenario.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and the Republicans' 2012 presidential nominee, repeated remarks from last week, telling “Fox News Sunday” that he wouldn’t launch an eleventh-hour campaign for president. But he declined to reject being “drafted” at the GOP convention in July to be the party’s general election candidate.

“It would be absurd to say that if I were drafted I’d say no,” Romney said. “We have four strong people running for the nomination. One of them will be the nominee.”

Romney has occasionally weighed in on the 2016 GOP race. But he emerged in full force Thursday when he gave a speech in which he called Trump a “phony” and urged voters to instead back an establishment candidate like Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“It was a big night for Ted Cruz,” Romney said Sunday about the Texas senator's Saturday wins in the Maine and Kansas caucuses. “That’s because people are starting to take a better look at Donald Trump.”

Romney returned to his argument that Trump touts being a successful New York real estate magnate and billionaire businessman. However, he has a long list of businesses failures including a commercial airline and his Trump University real estate school, Romney said.

“He’s not the real deal,” Romney told Fox. “He’s a phony.”

COMMENT:  Douglas MacArthur once said that all military failures begin with two words:  Too late.  Same with political failures.  Trump's appeal, and his rise, weren't detected early enough by the Republican Party to mount a sustained opposition centered on a candidate.  But the fight going on now is real.  It is intense, and mean.  It's the closest thing to a party civil war that I've seen since the Dixiecrats walked out of the Democratic convention in 1948. 

If I had to bet, I'd say that Trump will be the nominee.   The stop-Trump movement, if it goes all the way to an open convention, can result in Trump leaving the party with his troops if he's not nominated, and that would mean probable defeat for the Republican who does get the nod.

And the FBI has Hillary Clinton on its mind.  What a novel this is.

March 7,  2016