Happy Mardi Gras

If there is a day in the Carnival schedule best suited to rest and recuperation it is Lundi Gras.  The long Thoth/Bacchus Sunday is typically the height of the second weekend's mania. Fat Tuesday itself has its share of abandon. But it's an early day and requires a lot of planning and rest to pull off properly.   The best way to deal with Monday is to make sure you don't do too much.

We spent our day indoors prepping tomorrow's food and making sure we had enough party supplies at the ready.  In the evening we walked out and took a quiet casual look at Proteus.



The 135 year old Shepherd Of The Sea's procession is put on by an "old line krewe" but the parade is larger and more varied than those unfamiliar with it may expect.  Its floats ride on the old wooden chasis seen here below the signature "Dawn of Proteus" float so they have that distinctive wobble as the move down the street.



The design of these floats is nothing short of stunning. Proteus's theme this year depicted a selection of Hindu Gods. Below are Agni and Kali.





Between the floats, Proteus places more flambeaux than any parade I watched this year and as many marching bands as any of them.  Here is Roots of Music.



The Ninth Ward Marching Band has been a fixture in Proteus since that band's creation.



Other elements like this brass band



Or these stiltwalkers



As well as this drumming group from Switzerland, who I'd seen in several other parades, called Guggen Kamikaze Monthrey give Proteus a more diverse feel and sense of fun than what the club's genteel status might lead us to expect.



The parade is almost a deliberate review of every type of thing we might have seen in any parade during the season. That and the almost minimalist staging of the thing make it a great moment for (not quite) quiet reflection on the night before the big Tuesday finish.

But then Proteus doesn't close the evening on Lundi Gras. Orpheus does.  Maybe it's time to change that.



Orpheus, the most unnecessary "Superkrewe" of Carnival is an amazing parade. It has all the elements of a marquee event.

It has Celebrities. Here are Harry Shearer and Nathan Fillion.





It incorporates dance groups like the Pussyfooters and 610 Stompers. It has great marching bands. Talladega College led Monday night's parade. Mississippi Valley State was sort of a co-headliner. It also includes some of Carnival's most iconic signature floats such as the Smokey Mary and Leviathan.









At the same time, there's also something about Orpheus that feels less BIG than the other superkrewes.  Despite its impressive glitz, it isn't as insanely garish as Endymion or as loud as Bacchus. Orpheus is big but accessible. Orpheus is just right. 

But maybe it isn't just right for Monday. Orpheus is still a big elaborate event. And a big elaborate event is probably wasted on what is naturally the season's most chill evening.  A parade like Orpheus deserves to be seen by a crowd ready to let loose more than the fairly small group assembled but barely even drinking more than a beer or two on Monday night.

Tonight as we went through this lukewarm experience yet again we started asking whether or not it's time to move Orpheus to Fat Tuesday. The evening slot on Mardi Gras has been empty long enough.  Orpheus came into being at roughly the same time that slot was vacated by Comus. Over the intervening two decades, the parade has more than earned the right to fill it.

Besides even if Comus decided to parade again, the stuffy dismissive dash those blue bloods made in their haste to get to their Very Important Private Event was already a relic in the New Orleans of the 1980s and it certainly would not provide a fitting end to the Mardi Gras of the 21st Century.  What Tuesday night needs is an opportunity for residents and visitors to see one more impressive.. but not too overwhelming... event before the lights go out. Tuesday night needs something like Orpheus. Luckily we have one of those.  All we have to do is ask it to wait one day.

Welcome Carnival visitors

Please enjoy this authentic New Orleans experience.

A water main break in the Bayou St. John area is affecting water pressure throughout the east bank of New Orleans.

Officials said the areas most affected include Mid-City, the Central Business District and the French Quarter.

The issue started this morning when a pipe broke under the ground at the intersection of Grand Route Saint John and North White Street, according to officials on the scene.

All ur internets are belong to them

People are drawn to the web because it's a public square where they can share opinions and ideas.  They can meet and organize with people they would never have encountered living in their pre-internet bubble.  It has changed our civic life, revolutionized our media, and revived what's left of our democracy in all sorts of ways we take for granted.

The tech giants, telecoms, entertainment companies and speculative investors who run the internet infrastructure, though, have very different priorities. Such entities want it to work as a data collection tool where they absorb information about people and control the #content they see based on what will be most likely to help them know what they should buy. The consumer content bubbles they are building for us now will isolate us from each other in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Everybody dance now

A brief look back at some of the bands and dance teams we've happened to shoot video of so far this Carnival season.

These bagpipes were in either King Arthur or Carrollton. I've already forgotten which



We did see them also in Sparta where they were giving free lessons to children.



From the same day, here is the St. Paul's High School band doing.. some kind of thing.



Here's a snip of the Marine band playing "When the Saints go Marching In" during Druids.



They were also giving music lessons.



Finally here is a marching club from last night's Muses parade. They're called the "Ameila EarHawts" because... Get IT? It's funny!

Time to bust some heads

Stephanie Grace has some good advice for Governor Edwards ahead of the special session. 

Louisiana’s governorship comes with some major built-in powers, and the savviest governors know how to use them.

Most immediately, he can narrowly tailor the call for the special session that’s just over a week away. As Alford reports, Republican lawmakers are asking Edwards to give them a broader array of options, including some ambitious ideas to restructure government.

“We urge you to open the special session call to include reforms to Medicaid, the state pension systems, employee health care, sentencing and corrections, institutional reorganization, board and agency consolidations, and other areas that require strategic reform to deliver high-quality services at the most effective cost to the taxpayer,” Alford quotes from a draft letter to the governor.

All those conversations should happen, but having them in a session that will likely run less than a month, one that should necessarily be devoted to addressing immediate funding shortfalls of $750 million for this year and $1.9 billion for next, sounds more like an effort to head off the tax increases that Edwards is reluctantly seeking than to really solve problems.

Edwards has the power to set the terms of this debate, and he should take it.

Either  you're driving the purple party bus or that thing will drive you.

It's been fun

Aspiring Seahawk Brandon Browner is now free to pursue his dreams of becoming a Seahawk again. 

The New Orleans Saints appear to have parted ways with veteran cornerback Brandon Browner, who strugged through his one and only season with the team.

Browner posted a series of messages on social media Friday morning thanking New Orleans and referring to his tenure in the past tense.

Can confrim

U got to take the good with the bad, sometimes treat the wins like loses. Next Chapter every good book has up and downs #farewellneworleans

— Brandon Browner (@bbrowner27) February 5, 2016

And... just for old times' sake

This Is.....

Sparta!



The Knights of Sparta open up the evening of the first Saturday with what is probably the prettiest of the small parades.  The mule-drawn helmet gives it a nice traditional look as does the season's first appearance of flambeaux carriers.



Their theme had something to do with musicals. Here is their Pirates of Penzance float.



Bagpipes, meanwhile, may not appear often in musical theater. But these kids got a short lesson in how they work anyway.



In our last Carnival post, we mentioned the rising popularity of downtown events like Chewbacchus and 'tit Rex and the beneficial effect this has had on the uptown parade route.  The draw of Chewbacchus keeps the crowd manageable uptown. Even on a Saturday night. Despite the modest attendance, though, Pygmalion goes full Hollywood. Look at this huge garish LED-spangled Jester float.  



 They're also very proud of their signature "Pygmammoth"



Pygmalion appears to think of itself as a little Endymion ('tit Endymion?) deliberately styling itself after "The Biggest Parade In The World" but in miniature. After the signature floats, we see a procession of Endymion-esque duke and maid floats featuring elaborate headdress designs.  Even Pygmalion's theme, "Gods of Carnival" which celebrated the mythological namesakes of other parading krewes seemed like a very Endymion thing to do.



The floats themselves look pretty good too. This one depicts the goddess Nyx.



Here is Iris.



Of course Pygmalion doesn't come anywhere near to presenting an event of the bewildering scale and variety of Endymion.  But it also does not claim to be a "Superkrewe." For what it is, though, the 'tit Endymion parade is pretty good. If you happened be uptown-bound during Chewbacchus Saturday, you certainly could have done worse.

I'm still a little behind on parade blogging.  There's a lot of stuff to get through from Sunday (Femme Fatale was my favorite parade all season so far.) And I've got some photos from Nyx and Druids to upload before tonight's parades get started in a few hours. It's possible I'll get caught back up on Friday morning. It's also possible I'll be flat out dead by then. Stay tuned.

Do not go to jail during Carnival

Who knows when you'll ever come out.

When you enter the lobby of the Orleans Public Defender's Office, expect a bit of a wait, because receptionist Chastity Tillman will likely be busy on the phone.

"The jail calls. We get them every second," Tillman says.

Jailed suspects call to get their court dates and to see a lawyer. But for those accused of the most serious of crimes, there will be no visit from an attorney; no help in negotiating a bond; no investigation into their alleged offense. Public defenders say they don't have the resources to handle the city's indigent caseload after a million-dollar budget shortfall.

So they are turning away some suspects who can't afford to pay for their own legal representation.

Or, you know, if you'll ever come out. 

“The staff are not in control of the facility,” Susan McCampbell, who is overseeing a federally supervised jail reform effort, told U.S. District Judge Lance Africk.

“We had been very hopeful that when the new jail opened there would a decrease in the level of inmate-inmate violence and uses of force (by deputies) in the facility,” McCampbell said. “I’m here to tell you that has not happened.”

On tinterhooks

The fate of a nation could be swayed

The Republican presidential race is tightening, but former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal apparently isn’t ready to endorse a candidate yet.

A source close to Jindal told The Advocate that Jindal definitely won’t endorse before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, and it’s unclear when or if he will beyond that.

How to win at Carnival

Parade win list
Weather: good
Beer: lots
Hang out with friends and family: yes
Meet new people: yes
Help children catch lots of stuff: yep

— skooks (@skooks) January 30, 2016

Maybe Mardi Gras is a marathon. Maybe it's a sprint. Or maybe it's a triple jump or a sack race or a game of horseshoes where no horseshoes are actually thrown because that would be too expensive to insure. During the last two episodes of our fake radio show we've examined the possibility that it might even be a metaphorical football season. If that's the case, then our team is doing pretty well after the first weekend.

First, a quick note about what we didn't see.  We're based Uptown very near the parade route which makes getting across town to see 'tit Rex or Chewbacchus a tall order logistically speaking.  In past years we've gotten to see a few Barkuses but the Sunday schedule has become so overloaded on St. Charles, that even that doesn't happen anymore.

But, as much as I'd like to see the downtown parades, I think the full schedule is actually a good thing.  Chewbacchus Saturday, in particular, proves the city can, despite official protestations, handle simultaneous parades following different routes. This, in turn, takes some of the pressure off of either route from overcrowding or #KreweOfChad encroachment. I'm sure one of these years, we'll ditch on our neighborhood stuff and make a plan to be down there.  But, in the meantime, we're still catching all the uptown parades.  Here's how that went.



In some ways, it's easy to be Oshun.  Oshun is the opening act. It doesn't have to blow anyone's mind. It just has to show up and get things started.



People know what to expect from Oshun.  Its floats are very simple. It has only a few bands and marching clubs. Nothing fancy. For the most part, the crowd is just happy to see the parades have begun.  On the other hand, it's not so easy to be Oshun.  This is a parade, now in its 20th year, known mostly for its own modesty.  So, even though there are less impressive parades than Oshun on the schedule, Oshun is the parade people are most likely to attend expecting to be unimpressed. So what we have is either a case of managed expectations that are easily overcome, or a bad reputation that pre-ordains the response.



2016 Oshun, as it turns out, was a perfectly nice parade. The modest floats looked good. The riders seemed to be having a good time. I don't even remember what the theme of this parade was but it doesn't seem like that should matter very much.  What mattered was that it started to feel and look like Carnival season again.



Oshun was followed by Cleopatra.



This was also appropriate for a Friday night. Cleopatra is one of the displace West Bank parades that we've only seen a few of uptown now and we aren't entirely sure how to feel about them.  It's almost like what happens when a new sports team moves to your city.  You feel a little like you've stolen something from someone. Do you even want to enjoy that? Shouldn't they be "rocking" the neighborhood they came from?





Well we managed to make do under the circumstances. Remember if you bring a young child with you as well as at least one serviceable set of shoulders you can come away from even the opening night parades with a pretty impressive haul. 



Like so many other annoying people on social media this weekend, I tried to Periscope a little bit from the parade route.  The result was a 10 second grainy video of a band walking way with a pan over to a child yelling at the camera that a float was coming and she would need lifting. We won't try that again.  By the end of the night we were feeling our age.

That is, by the way, the same age as Captain Sam here.



I can't believe I was almost too hungover and tired to run out and photograph this fish Saturday morning for only the ka-jillionth time in history.   But that's fine. It's worth seeing an old friend. Besides, who ever wants to miss the Krewe of Pontchartrain's ridiculously easy fill in the blank puzzle floats?

These were all based on state nicknames. Such as...



Here is "The _ _ P _ R _ State"



The Treasure State



And, of course, The Prostitution State



Menckles wasn't even out of bed yet so I was out by myself with the camera during Pontchartrain. I took a walk up and down the route just to check stuff out. Here's a quick little report on that.

The #KreweOfChad infrastructure really starts to get heavy as you move uptown above Washington Avenue.  All this was up around Sixth and Seventh streets, I think.



This guy was selling Icees from what looked like a pretty innovative little rig.  He said they are non-alcoholic, unfortunately.



I ran into another guy selling beers out of a big aluminum tub he had set out on a portable table in a driveway.  On the ground in front of the table was a pool cue as well as a "whole set" of billiard balls in a plastic grocery bag I could have had for $60.  For $150, I could have had a framed sepia toned photo of what looked to be some nuns sitting in a room.  "It's an antique," was all the guy said when asked to explain  it.

Even more ridiculous, though, nine dollar sandwiches.



The retrograde social commentary just down the street from there was free.



Speaking of retrograde...





Seemed like the appropriate guy to ride with Choctaw (another West Bank transplant krewe) and its increasingly uncomfortable redface theme-ing.



Still, in all, the award for worst parade of the weekend has to go to Freret, enthusiasm of its King-For-Life City Councilman Jason Williams notwithstanding.



Freret looks like it may be having trouble filling out its membership. Several of its floats were half-empty to mostly empty.



According to the Arthur Hardy guide, Freret has 250 members. That makes them about the same size as Oshun. But Oshun fits its riders on smaller floats whereas Freret rents a set from Blaine Kern. You can read on the sides of the floats a list of which parades each is designated to appear in this year.



And there's nothing wrong with that. As you can see, several krewes do it like this.  Unfortunately, this particular set of floats are too big for Freret's membership.  For viewers, the experience is kind of like opening this "Party Size" bag of Zapp's  and finding out the "Party" only fills about a third of the package.





Anyway, if you're looking to join a parading organization next year. Consider Freret. They could use the help.

That's probably enough for one post.  We'll look at the Saturday night and Sunday parades in a subsequent entry.

What's it like to be Mary Landrieu?

What must it be like to devote one's life, career, and passion to vigorous defense of the corrupt unjust status quo? Besides lucrative, I mean.

Just tell us who the donor is

Instead of having to listen to all this crap, why not just so what you're supposed to do and make city receipts and expenditures transparent? It's hardly worth this.

Officials for the Landrieu administration disclosed their intention to seek bids on the project at a City Council committee meeting Tuesday, (Feb. 2) but did not expound on why they were dropping a plan to select a contractor from a pool of pre-approved companies available for work on small projects.Monument supporters had for weeks decried the move's opacity, but the administration brushed aside such complaints.

The administration's about-face -- and the revelation that ALL Crane may never have been officially hired for the project -- drew pointed questions from City Councilwoman Stacy Head, who engaged Cedric Grant, the city's deputy mayor for infrastructure, in a terse exchange.

Head: "These are not city funds."
Grant: "No."
Head: "There are no plans to use city funds."
Grant: "No."
Head: "If you knew of a plan to use city funds, you would tell us the truth?"
Grant: "Yes, I would."

This is dumb. The monuments should be down by now.

Besides, it's John Cummings. Everyone knows this. 

Presidents madamed

Who could he mean?

Attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley has sued senators and Supreme Court justices. He’s been a write-in presidential candidate. He represented the “D.C. Madam,” whose black book included a sitting senator.

Now Sibley claims that some never-before-aired information found in the records of said madam “could be relevant” to the upcoming presidential election.

Given the time frame we're probably not talking about Cruz or Rubio. Maybe Jeb! only because his family is always in D.C. but that's still not likely. Bernie and Hillary too but that also strains the limits of probability.  The timing is right on Kasich and Santorum but who would give a shit?  Is it Trump?  It's probably something to do with Trump.

Groundhog Day

Looks like this contractor poked a head out of the ground and saw its shadow.

An area crane operator previously reported to have been hired to move three Confederate monuments in New Orleans now says it has no involvement in the project and "is not providing equipment or manpower" for their removal.

Lawyers for Mayor Mitch Landrieu had previously touted the involvement of ALL Crane, a national firm with a Louisiana branch, and a federal judge had cited the company's expertise as one of the reasons he felt comfortable allowing the removals to continue, denying a bid from preservationists to have him order the statues left in place for their own protection.

With ALL Crane out, it's not clear who would be available to take the company's place, as several other companies with the expertise and equipment have already declined to be involved in the controversial project, according to a consultant supervising the removal.

So, I guess, six more months of monuments.

Coin tosses

Did Hillary win six in a row? Or four out of six? Or was it six out of eight? I'm not clear even after the clarification here.

At least six caucuses were split between Clinton and Sanders, The Des Moines Register reports, and thanks to an old, obscure Democratic Party rule, the winner of the county delegates had to be decided by a coin flip. Those up-for-grabs delegates, while not the same as the statewide delegate equivalents that constitute the final results, were factored in to the equation that determined the final tally of 700.59 for Clinton and 696.82 for Sanders. Clinton won all six coin flips, according to the Register, apparently proving Sanders’s point about the influence of money on politics. (Update: 1:30 P.M. Tuesday: At least two coin-flips in Sanders’ favor were later reported Tuesday by NBC News’ Frank Thorp.)

Earlier this was a source of some controversy. Winning or losing six consecutive flips is technically a 1 in 64 chance. But every individual coin flip is a 50/50 shot so don't be too surprised when it happens.  Hell, the Saints once lost 11 coin tosses in a row. 

Heckuva job, Marlin

Consent decree isn't going so well.

In September, when Sheriff Marlin Gusman opened the city’s new $150 million jail, he declared the notorious Orleans Parish Prison to be “closed forever.”

But much of the dysfunction that defined OPP has cropped up in the newly opened Orleans Justice Center, where an “absolutely unacceptable” level of violence has already taken hold, a team of outside corrections experts reported Tuesday.

“The staff are not in control of the facility,” Susan McCampbell, who is overseeing a federally supervised jail reform effort, told U.S. District Judge Lance Africk.

“We had been very hopeful that when the new jail opened there would a decrease in the level of inmate-inmate violence and uses of force (by deputies) in the facility,” McCampbell said. “I’m here to tell you that has not happened.”

The 1,438-bed lockup is not only severely understaffed, she added, but the deputies Gusman has managed to retain “do not know how to run” the jail.

So the brand new building didn't solve the problem. That's disappointing.  Thought for a second there we might not be throwing bad money at something.  Gusman, as usual, says the problem is he's going to need more money. The jail is indeed understaffed and the staff are indeed underpaid. But there's a longstanding dispute over who is responsible for resolving that. Gusman's authority derives from the state while his budget comes from the city and there's a permanent fight over who decides who pays who for what and... well, it's a whole thing, really.

Gusman's people brought this up again at the hearing.

The Sheriff’s Office has blamed Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration for its staffing crisis, saying it can’t recruit new hires because the city refuses to raise deputy pay.

“Until that happens, we believe we’re going to continue to experience these high turnover rates,” said Blake Arcuri, a Gusman attorney. “We cannot compete with law enforcement agencies in this region right now.”

McCampbell, however, said salary is only one of many reasons deputies are quitting. “My experience tells me that the wrong people were hired,” she said.

That's disappointing also. We had been led to believe Mitch and Marlin had kissed and made up. 

Krewe of Comatose, Mitch & Marlin Make A Porno, @KreweduVieux #nola pic.twitter.com/vO3klvtwMq

— liprap (@liprap) January 24, 2016

If you want to vote in the Louisiana Presidential primary

You need to register before the next parades rolls.

Louisiana voters who want to take part in the March 5 presidential primaries have through Wednesday to decide whether they will do so as Republicans or Democrats.

The presidential preference primary is a rare closed election in Louisiana in which only registered Republicans can vote in the GOP primary and only registered Democrats will cast ballots in the Democratic primary. It’s a departure from recent statewide elections here, including those held last fall, that haven’t been restricted by party.

Secretary of State Tom Schedler warned that the shift can create confusion for some voters. “To avoid confusion, now is a good time to check out our website and our voter app to see what’s on the ballot as well as check your registration if you want to participate in the (presidential primary),” he said.

How we might get to President Rubio

I'm not saying Rubio is on top or anything. So please don't take this as any sort of a prediction. Rather it's just a speculative observation. Rubio may have finished third tonight but he's a lot better off now than he had been. He has a chance now to unite establishment Republicans now that Trump is demonstrably no longer omnipotent and people like Chris Christie (1.8%) and Jeb! (2.8%) begin to prove themselves not viable.

Again I don't think he's the favorite for the nomination yet but he is intriguing for this reason. If Rubio is the nominee, he is an establishment favorite, yes, but he still will benefit from the continued rabid support of the conservative base Trump and Cruz are currently invigorating. Trump/Cruz voters are mobilized because they "want to take their country back" from perceived enemies among non-white, anti-Christian, and foreign threats. Regardless of who the GOP nominee is, the perceived enemy will still be the Dem candidate for them. This is even more pronounced if the nominee is Hillary Clinton who has (justifiably or not) been a major focal point of right wing hatred for decades.  Rubio might not be their favorite son. But he's less boring than Jeb! and they will definitely turn out to stick it to Hillary.

Contrast this with the Democratic side where it doesn't really work that way. Bernie's voters are mobilized specifically because they want to overturn the crushing influence of the money power. If Hillary is the nominee they will have already seen the campaign as a failure. Many of them will still vote Hillary but they won't turn up in great numbers or with much passion.

So in a Rubio vs Hillary race you're going to end up with an enthusiasm gap which will greatly advantage Rubio. This would also be the case in a Trump/Cruz vs Hillary scenario but the advantage of Rubio is that fewer people will show up just to vote against him.

Anyway so there's your path to President Rubio. Not saying that's a lock. Just that it's a thing you can map out now.

Doomed

Doomsday is coming

State government is running out of money and will have to find an additional $750 million to $800 million to meet its obligations over the next five months. Continuing the same spending into the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1, will require about $1.9 billion of adjustments in order to cover the revenues that will not be realized.

“It requires unprecedented, dramatic, profound changes in the delivery of service at every level of government,” Dardenne told the Press Club of Baton Rouge. “It’s not pretty. Legislators are not going to like it and the public isn’t going to like it.”

I've mentioned this before but if you remember the Roemer years you have a pretty good template for what the next four will be like. A politicaly cornered Governor will be faced each year with a slumping economy and irreconcilable budget puzzle.

Knives will be out on all sides. And I can promise you right now if the administration's only card it has to play is,"Shared sacrifice," and "Well at least we're honest about this bad news we keep bringing you," then reelection will be one heck of a challenge.

How does a caucus work?

It's freaking weird is how

Current mood

Torn up



Lots of parades and such this weekend. I'll try to catch up on all the doings later on. Meanwhile, here's Oyster's pre-Iowa post. His point number one is especially interesting to me.

A Trump nomination, which is still unimaginable, yet tantalizingly possible, would mean:

1) The conventional 'rules' of presidential campaign politics are woefully incomplete if not fatally flawed. Outsiders can run and win. Twitter is more important than commercials. Debate performances are more decisive than campaign infrastructure. Scripted campaigns are boring compared to off-the-cuff star power. The donor class doesn't always call the shots. Republican kingmakers like tax jihadist Grover Norquist can be bypassed.

Also, if Trump wins the nom, data pundits and the 'Party Decides' crowd get a rich comeuppance. That's a delicious prospect. I've always felt that the unpredictable and volatile nature of presidential races (ex: Clinton '92, Obama '08...) carried some utility. If there is far less control over the process than one might expect, then perhaps there is more political potential than we assume. Yet, this year— of all cycles!— too many data pundits became convinced, based on a very small set of contested elections, that endorsements are a predictive indicator instead of (at best) a lagging one.

Forget for a minute whatever it is you think of Trump and what he may or may not represent.  In the context of the nominating process, he is an insurgent candidate. He has attracted supporters who feel like the system isn't working for them and they aren't gonna take it anymore.

A similar thing is happening on the Democratic side where Bernie Sanders's insurgent anti-Wall Street campaign fed by small donors has drawn even larger crowds than Trump's. Trump and Sanders have very few things in common. But each does appeal directly to voters who see themselves being marginalized economically and excluded from a political establishment rigged to respond only to elites and insiders.

Say what you will about the "electability" of either candidate or the political practicality of implementing either's policy platform. Neither of these campaigns is really about any of that. Instead they are about breaking American politics out of the malaise imposed by "data pundits and the 'Party Decides' crowd" and the money power all of that is set up to defend. Regardless of who the nominees eventually are, the fact that the early primaries are looking this radically different from what the mainstream punditry might have predicted five months ago, that's a pretty good sign these campaigns are succeeding at their core purpose.