Thursday Open Thread [6.4.15]

At The Atlantic, Matt Ford has a moving tribute to Beau Biden.

At Salon, Sean Illing takes on the lie about running the government like a business:

First, America isn’t a business. Businesses exist to turn a profit, to create wealth for shareholders; that’s their only reason for being. Countries exist to preserve a cultural identity, a way of life, of which the economy is a part. Conservatives often argue that this is an abstract distinction; that, practically speaking, overseeing a corporation and deciding national economic policy are fundamentally the same. […]

Business acumen is a terrible indicator of political ability, and for obvious reasons. Business and politics are separate spheres; they require different skill sets. CEOs are despots; they don’t persuade so much as dictate and they’re more inclined to fire those with whom they disagree. Presidents live in a non-zero-sum context, where cooperation is crucial and consensus is critical. Good presidents also tend to care about different things than successful CEOs. The only metric that matters in private industry is profit; this attracts a certain kind of person and cultivates a certain kind of disposition. There are no rewards for compassion and empathy in the corporate world. But compassion and empathy are precisely what we need in a president.

Alan Abramowitz: “The 2012 election saw the highest levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting since the American National Election Studies began tracking American voting patterns in 1952. Over 90% of Democrats and Republicans, including voters who claimed to be independents but indicated that they leaned toward one party or the other, supported their party’s presidential candidate. Close to 90% supported their party’s House and Senate candidates as well, and 83% cast a straight-party ballot for president, House, and Senate.”

“These exceptionally high levels of party loyalty and straight-ticket voting combined with increasing reluctance to openly identify oneself as a party supporter reflect a fundamental change in the way Americans relate to the Democratic and Republican parties — the rise of negative partisanship. A growing number of Americans have been voting against the opposing party rather than for their own party.”

Rush Limbaugh “thinks Republicans should reject Caitlyn Jenner, even if she agrees with them politically,” Politico reports.

Limbaugh said on his radio show that liberals are trying to “redefine normalcy” in an effort to stigmatize conservatives… Under this system, “conservatives and Republicans are the new weirdos, the new kooks and that is part of the political objective here in normalizing all of this really marginal behavior.”

Yes, Republicans, take Rush’s advice. Please proceed, Governor.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Fox News poll: Bush 12, Walker 12, Carson 11, Paul 9, Cruz 8, Rubio 7, Huckabee 6, Christie 5, Perry 4, Trump 4, Fiorina 2, Graham 2, Kasich 2, Pataki 2, Santorum 2, Jindal 1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Fox News poll: Clinton 57, Sanders 11, Biden 8, Warren 7, O’Malley 4, Webb 2, Chafee 1, Cuomo 1

Politico notes “the size of the presidential field is more than a punchline— it’s shaping the contours of the Republican nominating contest: forcing candidates to carve out narrower niches, making national polls relevant, and making it harder for activists and donors to commit.”

Lydia Saad reports at Gallup that “Half of Americans consider themselves “pro-choice” on abortion, surpassing the 44% who identify as “pro-life.” This is the first time since 2008 that the pro-choice position has had a statistically significant lead in Americans’ abortion views.”