Sure, the big takeaway on Tuesday night was Donald Trump’s Indiana win and Ted Cruz bowing out.  But the big understated story was Hillary losing Indiana to Larry David.  Make that Bern Sanders, the trollish Brooklyn socialist who senators from boutique leftist Vermont. 

In the late autumn of the nominating process, Hillary, a pseudo-icon of the Democratic Party establishment, can’t close the deal with… Democrats.  Indiana should have been a cakewalk for Hillary.  Her party’s rank and file never much liked the cut of her jib, though.  Not in ’08 and not now.  And not, further back, when she was First Lady and Travelgating or Vince Fostering. 

Hillary is created from plastic mold injection.  Though her little self isn’t much suitable for dashboards.  She smolders and shrieks.  She shrugs about the impact of killing coal.  (After all, it takes a village to make a pogrom.)  She left Americans for dead in Benghazi.  She made a bigger mess in the Middle East.  She committed a “YUGE” felony with her server.  She and her husband, Clyde – Bill – run a fancy-named shakedown operation called the Clinton Foundation.  This shady dynamic duo raked in big bucks from Wall Street while denouncing Wall Street.  Hillary’s heart may be left but her bank account dictates anything.  Whore my not quite capture everything Hillary is.    

Of course, the Democratic establishment rigged its party’s nominating process.  So-called super delegates make a big difference in determining the nominee.  Democrat elites will rue the day that they helped grease the skids for Hillary.  They’ll rue putting the screws to every viable – or seemingly viable – alternative to Plastic Hillary.  Okay, so Joe Biden is sort of laughable.  Liz Warren is another leftist inbred.  But either might have had a better shot at the capturing the White House than phony-baloney, one day-criminal-case study Hill.

That brings us to November.  Hillary’s a dead candidate walking.  Got it.  Feelings are bruised among the #NeverTrump crowd.  Glenn Beck and Eric Erickson are mulling fighting a lost war in jungle mountains.  George Will might commit seppuku at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.  Disaster, they and others of their ilk say, awaits Republicans when Trump squares off against Clinton the Lesser. 

Once conservative true-believers and establishment Republicans took The Donald seriously, the spin throughout much of the GOP nominating process was that Hillary, in cahoots with her Democrats and the MSM, would make mincemeat of The Donald.  The hyperbole was understandable (let’s hope it was just hyperbole rather than Kool-aid drinking among those who should know better).  The game was winning votes, and persuading voters any-which-way was the way.

The facts, which matter – and not just to Joe Friday – are that Trump was one underestimated guy from the nanosecond he announced (no exception for this scribe).  He made quick work of establishment favorite, Jeb!.  He sent an overmatched Marco back to the Sunshine State.  Over time, Trump ground down the smart and tenacious Ted Cruz.  He beat Ted in states that were Ted’s natural turf (the Deep South).  He beat him in blue Northeast states, holding out the prospect of siphoning off lunch-bucket independents and disaffected Democrats.  He battled and won in much of the Midwest, the capstone being his coup de grace to Ted in Hoosier Country. 

Trump contested everywhere, he communicated without fear of, and, often, in conflict with, the MSM.  He even mud-wrestled Fox’s Megyn Kelly (advantage, Trump).  He took to social media, brilliantly exploiting that medium in trailblazing fashion.  His stump “speeches” were rambling conversations with his massive audiences, who ate it up.  Love or hate Trump, the guy is, well, a phenomenon. 

Trump’s nomination will remake the GOP and may well realign national politics.  Rather than sulking, movement conservatives should do everything they can to invest Trump’s campaign with strong conservative values, ideas, and proposals.  (Note that leftists never leave the field after a setback.  They keep on keeping on.)  Here’s a wager: Ted Cruz is gonna back The Donald.  Ted will grasp the possibilities.

Bernie Sanders has won 17 state contests and a plentitude of votes against a Democrat sure-thing.  He ignored the memo about Hill’s coronation, to his great advantage.  Survey research, focus groups, and man-in-the-street interviews with Bern’s backers tell the same tale: his voters don’t like or trust Hillary, verging on or at intensely.  Not all of Bern’s supporters are Red Millenials, either.  Many are protest-voting, using Bern as a place to park their votes against the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua.  They may be gettable for Trump – or just stay home come November.  The Democratic vote is depressed and not by a little bit.    

The true story of Hillary is that she’s a ham-handed pol, and transparently self-serving.  So is her husband, but charm papers over a lot.  Distasteful to this proud Dragon Lady but inescapable, Hill’s a national figure because she rode her beau’s coattails for years.  Otherwise, she’s connived, backstabbed, and assassinated whoever got in her way or was inconvenient to get to the top.  She lacks scruples on a scale that Dick Nixon never began to reach. 

Oh, and did we mention that Hillary may yet be indicted?  Or, at least, a referral to indict may come from the FBI for felonies related to mishandling state secrets and, perhaps, her pay-to-play foundation?  There’s a chance Hillary may not make it to November at all.