Unbelievably, the initial results after Tuesday night’s 4th Republican Debate are in and nearly unanimous – the Donald continues to dominate! The unscientific, but very large online polls showed Trump as the nearly unanimous favorite among Republicans. The Right Scoop poll of 33 thousand, Trump leading by double digits with 35%. The massive Drudge poll of 350 thousand showed Trump leading by double digits with 35%. The Time magazine poll of 40 thousand shows another similar result with Trump leading by double digits with 39%. The Fox 5 San Diego poll showed Trump with 42%. This last poll is from the Syracuse Post-Standard, the major daily of Syracuse, New York – perhaps the bluest of the blue small town dailies. Yet the results are remarkably similar. Trump 37.6%, leading Rand Paul by 12, and Cruz by over 20 and the rest of the pack by over 30 points. How can this be true? What is Trump’s secret sauce of appeal – even across party lines? Let’s go to the video tape: Trump’s answer on the immigration question was basically the correct one – that we must remain a country of laws: [insert Trump] But both Bush and Kasich were quick to pounce: [insert Bush and Kasich] Noteworthy is that neither of these two polled over 4.2% in any of the post-debate polls. Trump’s response sounds a bit harsh: [insert Trump] To his credit, Ted Cruz jumped in to defend Trump. [insert Cruz] However, there is an even better, more succinct way to counter the “heartless” argument. Trump could point out: “If we would just enforce the laws on the books – namely a program called E-Verify -- then most of the illegals would leave this country voluntarily because they wouldn’t be able to work. “E-Verify is a very successful government database that employers in some states must use. It quickly identifies illegals with an error rate of less than an 8%. “If this program would be expanded to all states and all employers, we would no longer have an illegal alien problem.” As the night wore on, my worries about a Trump candidacy started to fade as one-by-one I remembered the problems with the other candidates: [insert Fiorina] Fiorina is a born & bred leftist. She talks a good game, but her failures at HP were significant. She needs a job because big business probably won’t buy her smooth talk again. She is sinking in the polls. Marco Rubio is also a smooth talker. He memorizes well-crafted answers beforehand. [insert Marco] I don’t even know what Candy Crush is. But as pointed out in Still Report #451, Rubio was the leader of the Gang of 8 – a bi-partisan group that pushed for Obama’s open border plan. That’s why Cruz called a Rubio candidacy the party of amnesty. But if that wasn’t enough to scare you, what if there is a giant smoking gun just waiting to ambush Senator Rubio and if no one talks about it in the Republican debates, Hillary will surely hold it for an October surprise if Rubio becomes the nominee. Senator Rubio, if this allegation discussed in SR 451 has no merit, then please release your brother-in-law’s parole hearing papers. Ted Cruz says the right things, but is now desperately pandering to the well-heeled goldbug crowd: [insert Cruz] What Cruz glosses over is that while on the gold standard, the U.S. saw its most turbulent period – the wild money creation of Roaring 20’s followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s – exactly the thing he believes gold will prevent. Also, his contention that gold favors working men and women flies in the face of well-known U.S. history. As William Jennings Bryan put it in his famous 1896 Cross of Gold speech. “… they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which the common people of any land ever declared themselves in favor of a gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have.” But Cruz has another problem that disqualifies him for the presidency, but not for a cabinet appointment, like Attorney General. As detailed in Still Report #416, Cruz is a natural born Canadian and only renounced his Canadian citizenship last year when that began to surface in the Texas media. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen, just not a “natural born citizen”, as required by the U.S. Constitution. Kasich was a favorite of mine when he was Chairman of the House Budget Committee, but he made a mistake getting into the race to late, and now has adopted a desperate, pushy tone to try to get some attention. He too is sinking in the polls.Besides, both Kasich and Jeb Bush’s last job was as a big banker. That’s the last thing we need. Even if Bush can hang in and make some sort of a run -- as we covered in Minute Memo #165 -- he sold out Florida’s pension funds to Lehman Brothers just before the Lehman crash in exchange for a job as a Lehman big banker. There is no way – zero chance – that Hillary would not hold this for an October surprise in a general election.