Big Night for Trump and Hillary – so what?

Trump and Hillary won big in the five states voting in Tuesday night’s set of nor’easter primaries.

Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island primary voters cast their votes on Tuesday and … nothing has changed – Hillary and Trump are still expected to be their respective party’s nominee. Trump even announced that he has determined that he is “the presumptive nominee” of the republican party.

While Trump is set to win all five states, Hillary looks to win all but Rhode Island.

I followed the news, analysis and talking heads during the day, the exit polling info and the results. I just couldn’t find a single thing that stuck out, sounded like things were changing or that the end result in June will be anything but a Hillary/Trump cage match.

While seeing that things were as they have been for weeks, I also re-affirmed that:

• I really don’t give a crap about Hillary’s coughing fits – either she croaks before the general or she’s about to get the best doctors in the country to fix it at my expense
• Hillary is de-energizing the Democrat base – but that won’t matter when Trump re-energizes them against him
• Trump has huge unlikeable numbers – but that won’t matter when Hillary re-energizes them against her
• Bernie thinks poor people failing to vote killed his run. Umm no. Upfront socialism doesn’t sell here – do it like Hillary and they’ll swallow the whole thing happily

Neither Hillary nor Trump is actually putting much of anything on the table. They use populist platitudes to keep things vague. Both have done it in the past and tonight is no different:

Hillary at her victory rally Tuesday night:

• “Climate change is a threat” – but doesn’t present her plan to address it – because it won’t work and will be unpopular
• “College should be affordable” – doesn’t actually say how she would accomplish this – remove tenure, reduce professor salary,  what?
• “If Trump is accusing me of playing the woman card. then deal me in!” – uh, ok, so the uninformed should vote for you because of your anatomy? Is your base that petty?

Trump at his Rally in New York (welp, the first minute or more of his speech had no audio so we missed it):

• if you have the opportunity, skip the first 5 or so minutes of self-aggrandizing
• “Chris Christie is fantastic” – no comment
• Went after Hillary on trade, but no specifics on how he would “go after China”

After Trump’s opening speech, he took questions from the press that had so many audio problems that most of us missed the questions and answers for the first few minutes. Once the sound came back in, it was all Trump congratulating himself.

• “Everywhere is a disaster, manufacturing down 30-40-50% .. whatever – ..” his plan is to penalize companies that invert, but no mention of fixing the tax code that causes them to find tax inversion attractive
• “because of California, Trump will be 5 million votes ahead of Cruz..” yes, he spoke about himself in the third person, but… well, the party doesn’t run popular elections .. oh wait, neither does the nation – it’s about delegates/electoral votes – doesn’t he know this?
• “if Hillary were a man he wouldn’t get 5% of the vote” – I have nothing here…   I guess the real question is which bathroom would it use?

Cruz at his not-so-victory speech from a state that didn’t vote tonight (Indiana):

• his team measured the height of a basketball goal and Cruz determined it to be the same as in other places… someone, please explain to me why this mattered .. at all (comment, email or whatever…)

Both Hillary and Trump are facing civil and/or criminal allegations. Trumps hearing is set “coincidentally” for the first day of the GOP convention. Hillary’s indictment may never happen and if it does the prosecution will throw the case or quickly convict so Obama can pardon her. Either way .. not a factor in the election. Sucks for the families of those lost in Benghazi, the filmmaker whose life Clinton ruined and the rest of us that want justice for the State Department’s failure to protect those Americans.

The real outcome of Tuesday’s results is that both candidates have momentum which does actually influence the undecided or kinda’ decided voters. It may also influence unpledged delegates for the dude in the red hat.

So what does it all mean? Next Tuesday is still on the calendar, but it may not be as important as the also-ran candidates were hoping – this is the Hill and Don show – whether we like it or not.