There are two obvious conclusions to draw from the current state of the Republican presidential race right now -- in fact, they're so incredibly obvious that (of course) they're being almost completely ignored by the punditocracy comfortably ensconced within the Washington Beltway. The first is that the only scheme for successfully derailing Donald Trump's march to the Republican nomination would be for either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio to almost immediately drop out of the race. The second conclusion is the obvious corollary to the first -- that this is simply not going to happen. Meaning Trump is getting very close to being undeniably the presumptive GOP nominee.

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It's not often during a presidential election season that the campaigns get shoved aside in the political universe because something bigger happened, but that is what took place last week with the unexpected death of sitting Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The implications for the future of America run deep, which is why it has already become a monumental and historical political fight.

The immediate ramifications are obvious. We will have only eight justices voting on all of this year's cases, and probably most of next year's as well, if the Republicans follow through with their plans of obstructing anyone Obama names. The only other way out of this mess is if President Obama were to make a recess appointment some time this weekend, which is a longshot at best (although the White House notably hasn't completely ruled such a thing out).

However, we're only going to mention the political fray over the upcoming nomination and confirmation fight in passing, because we are devoting our talking points section this week to a full-on rant about the Republican position espoused most inanely by Senator Orrin Hatch (who really should know better). Also, we devoted two articles earlier this week (on Monday and Tuesday) to how we think all of this is going to play out politically. We'll have many weeks to hash the whole situation over, precisely because this is such a political earthquake.

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The mainstream media, or "Fourth Estate" (as it likes to call itself), is supposed to play an important role in how America chooses our presidents. It is supposed to "vet" these candidates, which means digging into their backgrounds and exposing any dirty laundry -- or refuting stories of dirty laundry -- while the voters still have time to make up their minds before they vote. Once again, however, the media is doing a particularly dismal job of doing so.

What astonishes me about this whole sorry state of affairs is that most of the dirty laundry eventually comes out -- but usually too late to make much of a difference. As just one example, Barack Obama wasn't faced with the controversy surrounding Reverend Wright until after he had pretty much sewn up the Democratic nomination. By that time, it was too late for Democratic voters to consider an alternate candidate.

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Yes, we've got two primary races to be decided this Saturday, in two different states and two different parties. Democrats in Nevada and South Carolina Republicans will both vote on the same day, for no real logical reason. Confused? Well, it'll only get more confusing, since next week Republicans in Nevada will caucus and South Carolina Democrats will vote in their primary -- on different days. So at least this week we'll be able to see two results on the same evening.

Before I begin prognosticating on the Silver State and the Palmetto State, though, I've got to bring my record up to date. If you're playing along at home, you can check your picks against my record so far, because I believe everyone should be accountable about their wild predictions (me, most especially).

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Because the death of Supreme Court Justice Scalia is such a monumental political event, I'm going to spend a second day speculating about how the nomination process is going to play out. In specific, there are two last-minute options that might get a lot of scrutiny in the coming months.

I'm assuming for the sake of conversation that President Barack Obama will make his third Supreme Court nomination within a few weeks and also that the Senate will slow-walk it to death in one fashion or another, right up to November's election. At this juncture, that all seems like a pretty safe bet. However, what happens during Obama's lame-duck period could get mighty interesting.

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With the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the November election may decide the fate of all three branches of the United States government. That's a pretty unique situation, and it may boost turnout on both sides of the aisle. In most presidential elections, there's a wonky argument to be made about Supreme Court picks, but it's not usually so front-and-center with most of the voting public. Hardcore partisans tend to care deeply about this kind of thing, but the average voter usually doesn't think about it all that much in the voting booth. This year, things will obviously be different.

If the next nine months go as expected, President Obama will nominate an eminently-qualified person to the highest bench, and the Senate will either ignore him or vote his nominee down. Republicans from Mitch McConnell on down wasted no time upon hearing of Scalia's demise to loudly proclaim that: (1) Obama shouldn't even nominate anyone, he should just hand off the nomination to the incoming president at the end of his term; and (2) any Obama nominee simply would not be confirmed, no matter his or her qualifications for the job.

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For those readers who weren't alive (or old enough) to experience the 1960s, this week we had somewhat of a history lesson, packaged as a Democratic debate. Now, part of why this happened is that the Democratic presidential campaign has entered into a "convince the minority voters" phase, since the upcoming two states to vote have a lot of Latino (Nevada) and African-American (South Carolina) voters. So there was quite a bit of attention spent on the Civil Rights era, which will continue right up to Super Tuesday, at the very least. We keep waiting for Bernie Sanders (or a moderator, for that matter) to bring up the term "Goldwater Girl" in a Hillary Clinton question, and last night would have been a dandy opportunity. But PBS held a much more "polite" debate, meaning lots of softball questions and ignoring any unseemly discomfort for the candidates (at least, for the most part).

Think about it: in the time that has passed since the last Democratic debate, there have been a number of interesting stories from the campaign trail, but almost none of them were brought up last night. The Clinton Foundation got subpoenaed over the whole Hillary email investigation. Her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts (which she promised, at the last debate, that she'd "look into" releasing) were not mentioned -- even though Politico ran an article this week quoting someone who was in the audience at one of those speeches saying:

It was pretty glowing about us. It's so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a rah-rah speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.

Bernie wasn't questioned about an apparent dirty trick in Nevada by some of his campaign supporters. Neither candidate was questioned at all about Nevada (we don't even think the word was used, the entire night), even though it will be the next state to vote. Nevada politics is interesting for both candidates (they both have strengths and weaknesses there) but you have to check the local press to even hear this discussion. We saw the debate as somewhat of a draw. Bernie made some good points, but so did Hillary. Both attacked sharply here and there, and both stammered through a few answers.

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To ask that headline question at the present time may seem almost insane. Trump? The favorite candidate of the establishment Republicans? Preposterous! Well, maybe so and maybe not -- hear me out before you either reject the notion out of hand or start rolling around on the floor laughing. Because it might just be more plausible than you might initially think. And remember, a lot of other things previously considered insane have already happened this election cycle.

The Republican race has not actually moved much since before the voting started in Iowa. Donald Trump is the strongest candidate, followed by Ted Cruz. Then there is a traffic jam (with apologies to the recently-departed Chris Christie) for the "establishment lane" -- or, in other words, for the white knight who is going to ride in and save the party from the likes of Cruz and Trump. Right now, there are three contenders for this position: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich. The only real change between now and a few weeks ago is that Chris Christie is not in the running for the chosen establishment candidate anymore. Otherwise, the situation remains the same.

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Last night, New Hampshire shook up the presidential race and roiled what were already less-than-calm waters, in both the Democratic Party and the GOP. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton looks a lot weaker than she did a few weeks ago. Republicans, meanwhile, are having to finally come to grips with a fact that's been staring them in the face for months: Donald Trump is indeed their frontrunner, and he might actually win their party's nomination.

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While we're all sitting around waiting for the New Hampshire primary results to begin coming in, I'd like to take a moment to point out something which I hadn't really noticed before. Nevada is the Rodney Dangerfield of early primary states -- it don't get no respect.

I'm not sure exactly why this is, but it's hard not to notice the difference in the way the media and the pollsters -- and the politicians themselves -- treat Nevada differently than Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Take a look at the difference in polling. New Hampshire and Iowa both have had oodles of polls -- dozens released in the final days, in fact. Nevada, to date, doesn't even rate a polling-overview page on Real Clear Politics, since there haven't been enough polls conducted to even figure out an average. Pundits routinely forget to mention Nevada, and speak of the post-New Hampshire race as taking place solely in South Carolina.

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