On Friday, March 11th, 2016, I was responding to one of Chris's posts and wrote the following: "Anecdotally: we walk our dog around the neighborhood every day, criss-crossing several blocks in different patterns. The other day I stopped to talk to a lady out raking her yard (a middle-aged black woman -- a stranger) and asked her if she was leaning Hillary or Bernie, anyone else, or no one. She said Hillary, because she thinks Hillary is experienced, going back to having been married to a president, and will know how to handle the job. She said she likes Bernie but he's old and she's not sure he'll make it through the campaign season, but Hillary seems so energetic."

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We're really in the home stretch of the Democratic primaries now, as the last few territories and the last eight states will all be voting in the upcoming weeks. Tomorrow night, Oregon and Kentucky will weigh in, and then the last six states (who, for some unfathomable reason, all decided to go last this year) will finally get a chance to vote on the seventh of June: California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

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Today, let's just start with some silliness. It just seems appropriate, somehow. Maybe because it's Friday the 13th? For whatever reason, silliness seems like the place to begin (and end) this week. Because, after this silly start, we're going to end this column with a contest to come up with the best playground taunt to call Donald Trump -- and you can't get much sillier than that!

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Bernie Sanders, once again, is enjoying a resurgence of attention, after handily winning West Virginia's primary earlier this week. He'll likely pick up Oregon next week, and even has a good shot at Kentucky as well. If he hasn't dropped out by then, he's even got a decent chance to upset Hillary Clinton in the biggest blue state of all, California.

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Tomorrow, all eyes in Washington will be on the meeting between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. Some Republicans hope this "summit" between two of the leaders of the Republican Party will signify how the party as a whole will move forward with Trump as the presidential nominee. Ryan surprised some last week by his refusal to endorse Trump -- yet. The big question is whether the two will exit the meeting with their arms around each other (figuratively if not literally), step to the microphones and announce that Trump will support Ryan's congressional agenda while Ryan will support Trump's candidacy. Anything short of full-throated enthusiasm for each other will be big news, to put this slightly differently.

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As we await the primary results from West Virginia, we have to note we've reached a milestone in the "predict the primaries" contest. With the exit of Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the Republican race, Donald Trump now stands alone, as he's the last Republican still in the race. Since he is now the presumptive nominee, we will not be calling any future Republican primaries (starting tonight, by ignoring the West Virginia and Nebraska GOP results). This is because calling a race with only one candidate is so easy it counts (in our rules, at least) as cheating -- pumping the score up by calling contests that are foregone conclusions. So what this all means is that I've now got a final score for my 2016 Republican primary picks.

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Last week, the Washington Post ran an article titled "Five Not-Totally-Crazy Electoral Maps That Show Donald Trump Winning." The article was a cautionary note to Democrats who are blithely assuming Hillary Clinton will easily beat Donald Trump this November. In it, the authors provide five maps that show Trump beating Clinton, by winning anywhere from 270 Electoral College votes (the minimum necessary to win) up to 283 Electoral College votes. I'd like to answer them back with five maps of my own, which show scenarios that are a lot more likely to become reality. I do understand why the Post authors wrote their article -- Democrats getting complacent about their chances of victory is indeed a danger this election cycle, and who knows how many crossover votes are going to happen (in either direction)? But at the same time, it is easy to see the monstrous advantage any Democratic candidate for president now enjoys, and it's a lot easier to see a very wide and gentle path to victory for Hillary Clinton.

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It's been a pretty momentous week in the history of American politics, folks. The Republican Party is going to nominate Donald Trump to run for the highest office in the land. Politics and entertainment are now one. The trend that Ronald Reagan began -- furthered in no small part by Sarah Palin -- is now complete. In other words: welcome to the next episode of Who Wants To Be President?

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As I predicted last month, President Barack Obama consolidated his recent gains in public opinion polling in April, and only showed very slight improvement in his job approval and job disapproval numbers. While this doesn't sound very exciting, it does show that Obama's recent gains were not temporary, but instead show some real staying power. Let's take a look at the new chart.

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It is now official. Seventeen candidates ran for the Republican presidential nomination, and the sixteenth of these just suspended his campaign. This leaves Donald Trump as the last man standing. A whole lot of people who never thought we'd arrive at this point are now going to have to get used to the phrase: "Donald Trump, Republican nominee."

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