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TRUMP UPS THE STAKES

Donald Trump is usually wrong in his manner and his statements, goes the thinking of most British people - and he may well be. However last night in the widely-televised Republican Presidential candidates debate in South Carolina, Mr Trump, no stranger to stating shocking things, made two comments that, at least to the ears of left-leaning Corbynistas, will sound familiar.

Mr Trump claimed that Mr GW Bush had lied and that the recent Iraq War was wrong - and also that under Mr Bush, America had not become safer. That is like a Democrat saying Obamacare is rubbish, or Clinton should have been impeached.

It just isn't done. So that was amazing and intriguing.

The debate was also worth watching to see Mr Jeb Bush rise to the occasion, and come out confident and strong. Mr Kasich would be a compelling candidate if he had a chance - a smart, and nuanced moderate, his ideas seem more suited to compromise than the current culture wars warrant.

Mr Rubio stated - always dapper and acute - perhaps incorrectly - that the US Constitution is not "a living breathing thing" - but set in stone. If so, how does he explain amendments, and the fact that time changes, and so new discoveries and issues arise, that may not have been foreseen by the admittedly wise founding fathers? Originalists, like the recently-deceased Justice Scalia (the most reviled of the remaining conservatives on the bench), tend to see everything through prose-coloured glasses.

Meanwhile, all contender claimed Mr Obama has no right to submit a name to replace Scalia, though he has 11 more months in office - as if his Presidency had abruptly stopped just when it might have the power to discomfit right-wingers. Not so. One theory is he could appoint himself, or wait for Mrs Clinton to appoint him if she wins the Presidency in November.

Likely Mr Cruz, Trump or Bush will be the nominee to beat Mr Sanders or Clinton, and both have a shot, given the current issues facing the land.

We predict that in the SC primary forthcoming, Cruz will come in first, Trump a close second, Bush third, Rubio 4th, Kasich 5th and Dr Carson, the strange soft-spoken surgeon, last - we then predict Carson will drop out, but the other 5 remaining candidates will try and stay in for Super Tuesday.

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