Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton
The two winners are certainly acting as though it has begun. Having congratulated Bernie Sanders for sweeping his home state of Vermont, Mrs Clinton switched to attacking Mr Trump. “The stakes in this election have never been higher and the rhetoric on the other side has never been lower,” said Mrs Clinton. Mr Trump dwelt a little longer on his rivals, dismissing Mr Rubio as a “lightweight” with his usual relish. Then he switched to Mrs Clinton: “America is going to hell and Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a clue.”
To judge from her remarks, Mrs Clinton’s rhetoric will be about “breaking down barriers” while Mr Trump’s will be “about building walls”. Mrs Clinton will “make America whole” while Mr Trump will “make America great again”. Oddly for a race between two near-septuagenarian grandparents, it promises to be unusually nasty. Mr Trump has made clear he sees Mrs Clinton’s marital history as fair game.
There were also signs of where the heart of the battle will be fought. To a greater degree than usual, Mr Trump focused on “America’s forgotten middle class” and asked where Mrs Clinton had been in the past 12 years while their wages stagnated. If anything, he sounded even more anti-corporate than Mrs Clinton. US companies would no longer be able to rip off taxpayers by shipping jobs overseas, he promised. Apple would be forced to relocate its iPhone manufacturing from China to the US. After just 30 minutes in the Oval Office Mr Trump would be able to fix America’s trade problems. He would also be the “best jobs president that God ever created”. Though he reiterated his vow to build a wall on the US-Mexico border — “we have all the materials, we can do that so beautifully” — much of his rhetoric was to the left of Mrs Clinton’s.
In the next fortnight, the Republican establishment will make a last-ditch effort to find anyone but Trump. The search is almost certainly doomed. The only candidate who has proved he can beat Mr Trump is Mr Cruz, who has won three of the 15 states to have voted so far. But at least half the Republican establishment fears and loathes Mr Cruz more than it does Mr Trump. Moreover, the contest now moves beyond the Bible Belt to far less hospitable terrain for Mr Cruz. Mr Rubio, who is the only other alternative, has won just one state so far — Minnesota — and looks set to lose in Florida. His hopes are rapidly fading.
On Tuesday night, the outlines of the 2016 election started blurrily coming into view. On one level it will be a conventional battle to win the hearts and minds of the squeezed US middle class. Yet it will also be the strangest match up imaginable. It will be the first election where one candidate claims he paid the other to attend his wedding (Mr Trump married his third wife, Melania, in 2005. The Clintons were there). It will also be the first between a man and a woman. Alas, that is unlikely to lift the tone. In addition to everything else, 2016 will be a battle of the sexes.
On Tuesday night, the outlines of the 2016 election started blurrily coming into view. On one level it will be a conventional battle to win the hearts and minds of the squeezed US middle class. Yet it will also be the strangest match up imaginable. It will be the first election where one candidate claims he paid the other to attend his wedding (Mr Trump married his third wife, Melania, in 2005. The Clintons were there). It will also be the first between a man and a woman. Alas, that is unlikely to lift the tone. In addition to everything else, 2016 will be a battle of the sexes.
Edward Luce