XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.elections, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: fecal.colored.city@wash.dc   
      
   Nikki Haley won her first presidential primary on Sunday. She   
   just had to wait for the D.C. insider crowd to vote.   
      
   Haley defeated Donald Trump in the Washington, D.C. Republican   
   primary, a contest that took place over the weekend in a   
   downtown hotel just steps away from the heart of D.C.’s lobbying   
   hub. Haley carried nearly 63 percent of the vote, according to   
   D.C. party officials.   
      
   Haley’s victory came after she was crushed by Trump in caucuses   
   in Missouri and Idaho and at a Republican convention in Michigan   
   on Saturday. Trump is cruising to the GOP nomination and is   
   favored to win primaries across 16 Super Tuesday states this   
   week.   
      
   But the GOP electorate in D.C. — where Republicans make up just   
   5 percent of registered voters — is hardly representative of the   
   conservative base found in most other parts of the country.   
      
   “This universe is a little more sophisticated than just about   
   any universe in any other state,” said Patrick Mara, chair of   
   the D.C. Republican Party. “I listen to the political podcasts   
   in the morning. I read the newsletters throughout the day.   
   That’s probably, like, half the people showing up at this.”   
      
   Dan Schuberth, who runs a trade association in downtown D.C. and   
   supported Haley in the primary, described his fellow D.C.   
   Republicans as “a pretty unique electorate,” perhaps the only in   
   the country where many of the voters personally know the people   
   working on one or both of the campaigns.   
      
   “You’ve got a really dialed-in political class,” Schuberth said   
   of the Republicans voting this weekend. “You know, folks read   
   POLITICO. They read The Hill. Folks here are reading the   
   Washington Post.”   
      
   Voting in the primary ran over three days at the Madison Hotel,   
   and Haley herself held a campaign rally there on Friday. Among   
   Haley’s supporters on Friday was Dana Milbank, a longtime   
   Washington Post columnist who said he had been a Republican for   
   just a few weeks — when he changed his voter registration in   
   time to cast a vote in the weekend primary.   
      
   It was part of an experiment for a piece he’s working on in   
   which Milbank has engaged in activities he said appeal to   
   Republican voters — such as, in his explanation, watching NASCAR   
   races, going to a Hobby Lobby and visiting a gun show.   
      
   “I’ve always been a RINO,” Milbank said, when asked how it felt   
   to be a part of the D.C. GOP establishment. “So I feel like I   
   fit right in.”   
      
   But the typical behavior of a Republican living in the nation’s   
   capital is vastly different from a Republican outside of the   
   district. And even those who showed up to vote for her said that   
   they were a unicorn breed in their own party.   
      
   “This is a more moderate area,” said Dennis Paul, a retiree who   
   has been a registered D.C. Republican his entire adult life.   
   “And I think people here think a little bit more rationally.”   
      
   Trump’s prospects in the D.C. GOP primary were never high. He   
   was trounced in the contest here in 2016, coming in third behind   
   Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Still, his campaign made a play for   
   D.C. Republicans this year, warning D.C. lobbyists that they   
   will be blacklisted from any future Trump White House access if   
   they didn’t show up to vote in the weekend’s primary.   
      
   Campaigning in Massachusetts on Saturday, Haley ripped Trump for   
   the effort, saying, “You can’t threaten people. You can’t push   
   them out, because that is not a winning combination.”   
      
   Despite notching her first primary win on Sunday, Haley has not   
   signaled she plans to continue her campaign beyond Tuesday’s   
   contests. Speaking to a roundtable of D.C. political reporters   
   Friday morning, Haley maintained that she was only “ thinking   
   about Super Tuesday,” and not what she plans to do beyond that.   
      
   Haley will campaign in Texas on Monday, but has no public events   
   or election night gathering scheduled for Tuesday.   
      
   At a rally in Portland, Maine, that wrapped up long before she   
   was declared the winner in Washington, Haley’s only mention of   
   the D.C. contest was another swipe at Trump for threatening to   
   cut off access to lobbyists who didn’t vote for him.   
      
   “If you’re a candidate running for president, your job is to   
   bring people in, not push people out of your club,” Haley said.   
      
   Haley had one win to celebrate on the spot, though — the support   
   of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who said she cast her ballot   
   for the former U.N. ambassador.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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