Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves to attendees during a campaign stop at the Signature Flight Hangar at Port-Columbus International Airport, Tuesday, March 1, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. (John Minchillo | Associated Press)

I was driving around the other day punching the buttons on the radio when I came across a sports-radio talk show.



They weren't talking about sports.



They were talking about the Republican primary - as if it were sports.



In fact it is, and the most entertaining sport of all.



Let's face it: Donald Trump is a phenomenon unlike any ever seen before in the history of politics.

The Super Tuesday results proved that yet again.

It's hard to see how the Republican establishment can keep Trump from the nomination after Tuesday's results.

Marco Rubio may hang on till Florida. But he's the establishment's last hope.

I don't think the political class here in New Jersey has yet adapted to that.



But they should, at least on the Republican side.



The Trump phenomenon offers us a chance to right a wrong that has been inflicted on us for the entire millennium.



When I wrote the other day about Donald Trump being the best choice for the Republican nomination, I mentioned a column from the New York Post's Fred Dicker.



In it, Dicker reported that some internal polling done by Democrats in New York State had them worrying that the Donald could give Hillary Clinton a run for her money in her adopted home state.



That got me thinking about the question of why every Republican leader in this state should join Chris Christie in endorsing the Donald.





The answer? If you look at it from the angle of purely parochial interest, they'd be crazy to support anyone else.



For the past four presidential-election cycles, New Jersey Republicans have been committing the equivalent of political suicide.

Ever since the 2000 race, we've been voting to nominate candidates who not only can't win in this state but aren't even bothering to run here.



The last presidential candidate to campaign seriously in New Jersey was Bob Dole in 1996. I saw him at an appearance at Toms River High School South.



He did his best. But he got clobbered here.



On the other hand, he got clobbered everywhere. So it didn't hurt him to campaign in Jersey.



But when George W. Bush got the nomination in 2000, he promptly turned his back on the part of the country where he was born and had family roots, which is the Northeast.



Instead he ran in the red states pretending to be a Texan, which is a nice trick for someone born in Connecticut who went to Yale and Harvard.



Bush made a token visit to Drew University in Madison, but that was the extent of his campaign here.



That was because his supposed svengali, Karl Rove, adopted a strategy of writing off "blue" states like New Jersey - even though it wasn't blue until the hapless W. ran that those states became reliably Democratic.



In the six elections before 2000, New Jersey went Republican four times, for Gerry Ford Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. It went Democratic just twice, for Bill Clinton.



We've elected Republican governors over Democrats at about the same rate.



So why is the national party writing us off?



Personally, my politics are more aligned with those of Ted Cruz.



But imagine that either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio were to get the nomination.

What are the chances he'd campaign here?



He'd ignore us and go to some swing state.



As for the Donald, he'd be on New York TV all the time, giving Hillary fits with his wisecracks. He'd also be firing up the Republican base.



That's important. The Democrats are planning to make a run at the most conservative congressman in New Jersey - and one of the most conservative in the House - Scott Garrett.



Having Trump at the top of the ticket could fire up the GOP base.



I ran this by the politician who was the first Jersey guy to support Trump, state Sen. Mike Doherty of Warren County.



"He's putting New York in play," Doherty said. "The establishment guys say it's about winning elections and here you have a guy who could actually win the election."



Doherty's hardly alone in thinking this. Bill Clinton's having the same thoughts according to a front-page New York Times article on how the Clintons are worried that Trump could change the political landscape.



That landscape needs changing.



Right now, there are about 40 states that are considered either so red or so blue that the parties don't wage serious fights over them.



Let's look at the red states like Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma. What are the chances they'd go for Hillary?



Zero.



Now look at states like New York and New Jersey. Against Cruz or Rubio, Clinton would have them locked up.



Against the Donald, who knows?

If just one such electoral-vote-rich state were to flip to the GOP, the entire calculus of the campaign would change.



I find it endlessly amusing that the Republican establishment is in a panic over the prospect of a Trump nomination.

I suspect his wise-guy New York persona drives them off.

Well, it's not any different from our wise-guy Jersey persona.

When I hear him speak, I get the joke.

If the rest of the country doesn't, that's because they're a bit slow on the uptake.



Would he lose?



Maybe.



Would Cruz, Rubio or Kasich lose?



Maybe, too.



But then the real GOP insiders are hoping for Trump to fall short of 50 percent on the first ballot so they could substitute their candidate.



Who's their candidate?



Well, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are on the short list.



Can you read that with a straight face?



I can't.



These guys who run the national Republican Party did more to get Donald nominated than Donald ever did.



As for us Jersey guys, we need to pay less attention to the national Republicans and more to our state's Republicans.



And the state's Republicans should support the candidate who's going to actually campaign here.





And they should support the candidate who cares about our interests.

As nutty as the Donald might sound, he's right about the way we've been ignoring our infrastructure.

Do you want a New Yorker running the country?

Or some Southerner?

Given the fact that we here in New Jersey are providing them with all sorts of benefits through our tax dollars, I'd go with the New Yorker.