Two months out Real Clear Politics has just nine Republican seats "likely" going Democrat: That's no blue wave

Democrats and liberals, however, want you to think it's already hopeless for Republicans. Like Al Hunt, who thinks Democrats will turn out because Trump is their great motivator to do so. Al, however, thinks the toss ups are already down to 20 to 25 seats. If it's true, as he thinks, that Republicans tend to reduce their polling deficits as the election nears, his already low estimation of the size of the field of prospects suggests this is a lot closer than he's willing to admit. The generic Congressional poll currently favors Democrats by +2 to +4 (Rasmussen). Remember Rasmussen had Hillary at +2. Al thinks the current math means Democrats need 23 seats to take the House. That means almost all of his toss ups have to flip.

Not likely!

Al Hunt's tortured logic about Wikileaks: Release e-mails when no one's paying attention in order to divert attention

Yeah, that makes sense!

Poor Al, he thinks voters are so stupid that whenever they hear or read something they are automatically programmed to do as instructed. Dumb lumps of clay are they. To believe otherwise would be unthinkable . . . to the journalist, the academic and the ad-man.

Here:

In early October, almost immediately after a video surfaced in which Trump bragged about groping women, WikiLeaks released its first leak of emails from the account of Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. This happened on a Friday afternoon, not the best time to leak a story if the object is to get attention; the intent was almost certainly to deflect attention from the Trump video. An indictment of 12 Russian operatives last week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller traced the email hacks to a Russian military intelligence unit.

HaHaHaHaHaHa!

And by the way, the indictment asserts, it traces nothing. That would be up to a jury to decide, you know, in an actual trial, which will never happen because it's a show indictment, not a real one.

Al, you are such a joke, just like your outfit with its "You have 6 free articles remaining" message. I'm counting the days.

Bloomberg's Al Hunt hurls the loaded term "denier" at Republicans

Here's Al Hunt, insinuating that the doubters of climate change are in the same class as Holocaust deniers:

"Still, Francis's message is unsettling to more than a few conservatives, particularly his focus on climate change and his initiatives to influence the United Nations' conference in Paris this year. Some prominent Republicans, such as Senate Environment Committee Chairman James Inhofe, are climate-change deniers."

Liberal Al Hunt Projects "Ideologue" Onto Traditionalists And Free-Marketeers

Liberal Al Hunt at Bloomberg, here, bemoans the erosion of liberal Republicanism and hurls the "ideologue" epithet at conservatives:

'Movement conservatives are motivated by ideology, sometimes small-government economics, other times the religious social agenda. They range from Paul Ryan, the small-government, economic policy-savvy vice-presidential candidate, to Todd Akin, the Missouri Senate contender who last week suggested that it is rare for women to become pregnant as a result of rape, saying “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”'

To a liberal Republican, apparently, preventing murder and national bankruptcy are unrealistic and idealistic causes.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are nothing if they aren't against ideology, and for life and economic solvency.

Conservatives define ideology as visionary speculation of an idealistic and unrealistic sort. They abhor notions of the perfectibility of man, and therefore also of man's social arrangements. They are not dreamy enthusiasts like President Obama who believes that "our union can be perfected."

Conservatives are ever mindful that human nature is a mixture of good and evil, and that just as self-government, the prerequisite of freedom, requires that human nature be checked by the individual's recourse to religion and morality to prevent sin and servitude, government above the individual level must also be limited by recourse to checks on its power to prevent crime and injustice. Above all, conservatives are mindful that there are no arrangements which will guarantee 100 percent success in these matters, only that some arrangements tend to work better than others, taught by long experience and reflection. They know that just because in the long run we are all dead doesn't mean there should be no speed limit signs.

It is a characteristic of liberalism to use intellectual categories like "ideology" not just to promote its (unrealistic) goals, but to attack its political opponents, after the manner of the Marxists who attacked bourgeois ideology. Nevermind that the bourgeoisie has hardly anywhere, ever been so self-conscious as even to think in ideological terms. But Barack Obama does, and self-consciously brings it up even when nobody else has: "I mean, that's my point, is that -- I am not an ideologue. I'm not." The term is left wing in its origin and development, and its continued use by liberals as an epithet and an intellectual category shows the close relationship between liberalism and the left which endures to this day.

This is who Al Hunt is, regrettably, and what liberal Republicanism is: an inherited thinly-veiled hatred of the middle class, which in its love of life and the enjoyment of its fruits stands in the way of the crackpots and schemers.

Al Hunt Blames Christian Anti-Mormon Bigotry For Romney's Troubles

Al Hunt for Bloomberg blames evangelical Christians for Romney's problems in this article:

Mitt Romney has a persisting Mormon problem. Less certain is whether this is limited to the Republican primaries or it’s a general-election worry, too.

“This nomination would be in the bag if it weren’t for the Mormon factor,” says John Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University who works on the intersection of religion and politics.

The exit polls from a plethora of primaries confirm that. Romney, a deeply devout leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gets clobbered among white evangelicals and those who believe the religious views of a would-be president matter a great deal. This has caused him to lose a few primaries and denied him decisive wins in others.

The trouble with this argument is that it is wrong and ignores the fact that Mormonism is a bigger impediment in a candidate for Democrats than it is for Republicans, who might well realize this and instead want someone without this baggage who can also garner Democrat votes in the general election.

Last June's Gallup poll is a case in point: 27 percent of Democrats are unwilling to vote for a Mormon, compared with 18 or 19 percent for Republicans and Independents.

But there is another reason for Romney's woes, a candidate with far superior organization and much more money than any of the rest: proportional primaries.

Joseph Curl discusses the advent of proportional primaries in the Republican Party here, in the wake of the 2008 candidacy of John McCain:

[T]his is ... the scenario Republicans set up in 2010. Party leaders felt the process was too front-loaded, tilted too far to establishment leaders. So, to extend and open up the nomination, the leaders moved from mostly winner-take-all primaries and caucuses to proportionate distribution of delegates based on popular vote.

“There were a lot of people on the [Republican National Committee] and other places who were not very happy after ‘08,” David Norcross, chairman of the party’s Rules Committee when the changes were made, told the Daily Beast. “We didn’t think it was right that four or five states got to pick the nominee. It was slam, bam, thank you, done - and I think we were not helped by that. In fact, some of us think [Sen. John] McCain was not helped by that because he was not forced to sharpen his candidate skills. It was over and he went on to wait for the Democrats to produce a candidate. Just sitting around waiting.”

The new system established hefty penalties for any state that sought to move up on the calendar, in essence halving the number of delegates a state could award if it were so brash. It didn’t work; Florida moved its primary up anyway, with disastrous results.

But the new system also suggested the stakes be ramped up after April 1. The idea was for states holding primaries and caucuses after that date to be winner-take-all. But many of the late-date states wanted the nomination battle to still be alive when their date came up, so they stuck with the proportional setup.

That is why, almost into April and just halfway through the primary calendar, front-runner Mitt Romney has less than half the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination. And while everyone’s math differs, it looks as if he has to win about half of all delegates from now until the final primary in Utah on June 26.

With 1099 delegates still to be apportioned as of today in the rest of the primary contests, Romney needs 576 more to capture the nomination. Santorum needs 871.

But under a winner-take-all scenario, Romney would possess 625 delegates already and could theoretically clinch the nomination by winning the next thirteen states through May 15th. It would take Santorum through May 29, winning all sixteen of the next contests to add to his would-be current total of  461 under winner-take-all, including such places as Maryland, DC, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Oregon and Texas. A dubious proposition.

Presumably the dynamic of the race under those conditions would look far worse for Santorum because of Romney's natural advantages in boots on the ground and money. What is keeping Santorum viable today, however, has little to do with what Christians believe about Mormonism. What keeps Santorum alive is proportional voting.

Santorum needs to capture 79 percent of the still available delegates to win it, which is crazy. And if he thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of carving out a role in any future administration after the things he's said this season, he's even crazier than I think.

Let's hope he puts us out of our misery and gets out before Pennsylvania humiliates him on April 24th.