This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on Feb. 25, 2016 This has been a year in which all of the con­ven­tion­al rules of polit­ics have been sus­pen­ded, at least tem­por­ar­ily. Much of what many of us have learned about cam­paigns and voter be­ha­vi­or sud­denly didn’t ap­ply. On the Demo­crat­ic side, we have be­gun to see a re­ver­sion to the norm. But in the Re­pub­lic­an Party, what we are see­ing con­tin­ues to be both un­pre­ced­en­ted and coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive. The rise of Bernie Sanders was cer­tainly a sur­prise. For a little more than 25 years, he had been a mar­gin­al at best fig­ure on Cap­it­ol Hill, rarely rel­ev­ant to the big is­sues and de­bates tak­ing place in the Sen­ate. That he was able to give Hil­lary Clin­ton fits, even for a short time, was re­mark­able. He will win or at least per­form re­spect­ably in caucus states, where pas­sion reigns su­preme, and in New Eng­land, the most lib­er­al re­gion in the coun­try. But the states with primar­ies, which have the li­on’s share of the del­eg­ates, are out­side of New Eng­land, and Sanders’s pro­spects

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