A triple bank shot from behind the eight ball

Hugh Hewitt says that if Cruz or Trump do not get 1237 votes on the first or second ballot, the nomination will go to John Kasich! Why? Because Cruz and Trump hate each other, and Kasich is the only other person still in the race.

Betsy Newmark writes,

Since Kasich has little hope of winning delegates in Wisconsin and his only hope is a contested convention, it should be in his best interests to get out of Cruz's way instead of splitting the anti-Trump vote and making it more likely that Trump will get to 1,237. Kasich's actions seem to indicate that he doesn't understand this reality.

Red Jahncke writes in the New York Sun,

Pennsylvania is the biggest of five contests on April 26. It will be the big prime-time story of the night. To lose the popular vote in such a huge state would be another crushing defeat for that guy who always wins. Moreover, a Kasich win in the Keystone State would be especially important as an offset to Mr. Trump’s almost inevitable win a week earlier in the proportional contest at New York.

Realistically, if Mr. Kasich doesn’t win Pennsylvania, his campaign will be dead and his entire effort and reputation will be colored permanently with all the pejoratives currently being leveled – quixotic, vain, crazy, self-aggrandizing, etc. His campaign may succumb to these characterizations even beforehand if he isn’t seen as refocusing his efforts on the one contest where his odds are good.

At present, the Ohioan is attempting a triple bank shot from behind the eight ball. He is trying both to deny The Donald and the Texan and to undermine the case for Senator Cruz as the alternative to the New Yorker at an “open” convention — while advancing his own chances. It is an impossible shot.