Tuesday Open Thread [6.16.15]

E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—Hillary Clinton’s bet and challenge:

Hillary Clinton is tied as closely as a candidate can be to two Democratic administrations past. But she intends to wage her presidential campaign around a rich menu of policies and plans that are about the future.

She confronts a political discourse drenched in the cliches of political positioning — about moving left or right, “rallying the base,” “recreating the Obama coalition.” But like her husband before her, Clinton is trying to forge a new consensus and is unashamed to pile up policy proposals: on family leave, child care, college affordability, incentives to employers for higher wages, immigration reform, clean energy and limits on the power of wealthy campaign donors. […]

Saturday was an occasion for her brand of political jujitsu. Clinton’s Republican foes cast her as the candidate of the past, but it was the GOP, she insisted, whose ideas come from long ago and far away. Her Beatles reference — “They believe in yesterday” — may have been corny, but it made her point.

Paul Krugman thinks Democrats are being Democrats again:

On Friday, House Democrats shocked almost everyone by rejecting key provisions needed to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement the White House wants but much of the party doesn’t. On Saturday Hillary Clinton formally began her campaign for president, and surprised most observers with an unapologetically liberal and populist speech.

These are, of course, related events. The Democratic Party is becoming more assertive about its traditional values, a point driven home by Mrs. Clinton’s decision to speak on Roosevelt Island. […]

On one side, the success of Obamacare and related policies — millions covered for substantially less than expected, surprisingly effective cost control for Medicare — have helped to inoculate the party against blanket assertions that government programs never work. And on the other side, the Davos Democrats who used to be a powerful force arguing against progressive policies have lost much of their credibility.

I’m referring to the kind of people — many, though not all, from Wall Street — who go to lots of international meetings where they assure each other that prosperity is all about competing in the global economy, and that this means supporting trade agreements and cutting social spending. Such people have influence in part because of their campaign contributions, but also because of the belief that they really know how the world works.

As it turns out, however, they don’t.

GOP Rep. Paul Ryan gets brutally told by Michigan’s Democratic congressman Sander Levin, after Ryan’s latest cheap shot at Obamacare:

“What’s busted is not ACA But your attacks on it, endless attacks.”Sander Levin said calmly and deliberately. “Never coming up with a single comprehensive alternative all these years. So you sit as armchair critics while millions of people have insurance who never had it before. Millions of kids have insurance who would not otherwise have had it. People who have pre-existing conditions no longer are cancelled or can’t even get insurance. The donut hole is gone. Millions of people in lower income categories are now insured through Medicaid…Cost containment is beginning to work. The increase in cost net rate is going down. And so you are livid because it is getting better. That’s why you are livid…And the states that are denying their citizens further coverage under Medicaid, are essentially telling people, well get lost when it comes to healthcare…And you have a governor Mr. Chairman, who is running around this country talking about the evils of healthcare when millions of people are benefiting…Your frustration is millions and millions and millions of people are benefiting, have healthcare when they did not before.”

Hillary’s line on Saturday, that she may not be the youngest candidate running, but she would be the youngest woman president in American historyMy first reaction, is a very effective rebuttal to the charge she is too old. Why? Greg Sargent:

[I]t probably isn’t an accident that she noted that she’d be the first female president as a direct response to the fact that other candidates running for the White House are younger than she is. That’s what the argument will be, either explicitly or not: Even if it’s true that Clinton comes from an older generation of politicians than some of her Republican and Democratic rivals, the election of a female president itself represents change.

Celinda Lake, a pollster who is widely respected among Democrats, tells me that focus groups she has conducted show this has the potential to be an effective rebuttal — particularly among the voter groups it appears intended for.

“The two cohorts who feel most strongly that it’s time for a woman president, and appreciate the historical nature of this, are baby boomer females and their millennial daughters,” says Lake, who has been doing research for the non-partisan Barbara Lee Family Foundation for years on how voters perceive female candidates for executive office.

“We’ve learned that the inherent idea that this would be the first woman president in and of itself communicates ‘change’ to people,” Lake says.

IOWA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Morning Consult Poll: Walker 18, Bush 10, Huckabee 10, Paul 10, Rubio 7, Christie 6, Carson 5, Trump 5, Cruz 4, Fiorina 2

IOWA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Morning Consult Poll: Clinton 54, Sanders 12, Biden 9, O’Malley 1, Webb 1, Chafee 0

NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Morning Consult Poll: Bush 14, Walker 10, Paul 9, Rubio 8, Trump 8, Christie 7, Carson 6, Huckabee 6, Fiorina 5, Cruz 4

SOUTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Morning Consult Poll: Graham 14, Carson 12, Bush 11, Walker 10, Rubio 8, Huckabee 7, Cruz 6, Christie 5, Paul 5, Trump 2, Fiorina 1.

SOUTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–Morning Consult Poll: Clinton 56, Biden 15, Sanders 10, O’Malley 3, Webb 2, Chafee 1