Wednesday Open Thread [7.8.15]

Hillary Clinton escalated her criticism of her GOP presidential rivals during a campaign stop here in Iowa, “knocking the field of candidates on immigration reform, health care and LGBT issues while steering clear of directly attacking her Democratic primary rivals,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Clinton: “How many people running on the Republican side try to demean immigrants, insult immigrants, cast aspersions on immigrants? They know as well as we know, we are not going to deport 11 or 12 million people living here. I hear the Republican candidates — and it’s not even the most vitriolic — none of them any longer support a path to citizenship. All of them would basically consign immigrants to second-class status.”

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) issued an executive order “prohibiting state government from taking action against clergy members or religious organizations that deny services to couples based on religious beliefs,” the Wichita Eagle reports.

“Among other things, the order is intended to protect religious organizations that provide adoption services for the state from having to place children with gay couples if that conflicts with their beliefs.”

New York Times: “The order comes nearly two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, paving the way for gay couples to marry across the country. It is the latest sign that the battle has shifted to the issue of religious liberties, and how much leeway people of faith have to opt out of providing services to or recognizing gay unions.”

We will now have a decade of lawsuits to enforce the ruling. Just like after Brown v. Board of Education.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) “is poised to become the 15th Republican to declare his presidential bid, with at least one more candidate expected to enter soon after. But at this point, his campaign advisers said this week that they see just two principal rivals for the GOP nomination: former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio,” the Washington Post reports.

“For months, Walker’s team has been preparing for a race against Bush’s money and Rubio’s compelling personal story. Advisers said Walker’s record as governor is more current than Bush’s and draws a sharper contrast with President Obama. Rubio has attributes that Walker has spoken about favorably in private conversations, but the governor’s campaign advisers consider the first-term senator far less tested. Walker’s path to victory, as outlined by his closest advisers, is not significantly different from that of his rivals, but his team says the calendar sets up well for him.”

“Iowa is the key: Walker is leading the polls there and, as a neighboring governor, he has easy access to the state. His advisers expect him to win the Iowa caucuses early next year, and they say he can follow that with top-three finishes in New Hampshire and South Carolina. They also think he can score an early victory in Nevada’s caucuses.”

Walker must win Iowa. If he does not, he is done. Jeb Bush must win New Hampshire. If he does not, he is done.

First Read crunched the numbers from the last five national polls — two from Fox, one CNN, one NBC/WSJ, and one from Monmouth — and below are the polling averages. The first debate on August 6 is restricted to the top 10:

1. Jeb Bush – 15.4 %
2. Scott Walker – 10.8%
3. Ben Carson – 10%
4. Marco Rubio – 8.8%
5. Rand Paul – 7.6%
6. Mike Huckabee – 7.4%
7. Donald Trump – 6%
8. Ted Cruz – 4.8%
9. Rick Perry – 3.8%
10. Chris Christie – 3.6%

Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham and Bobby Jindal are left out.

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos with a very interesting analogy and analysis:

[T]his early version of Sanders appears to be an eerie carbon copy of the Howard Dean 2003 campaign—wildly popular with the party’s white, educated, middle-class base … and few others.

The most recent CNN national poll had Sanders getting 19 percent of the white Democratic vote, and just 9 percent of the non-white vote. Clinton’s numbers were the opposite, getting 53 percent of the white vote, but 61 percent of the non-white vote. Given that non-whites will make up around 40 percent of primary voters, Sanders needs to gain with those groups if he is to have any shot at the big upset.

And that’s not even considering the huge gender gap already emerging. In that CNN poll, Clinton gets 50 percent of men, and a whopping 63 percent among women. Meanwhile, Sanders gets 20 percent of men, and just 9 percent of women. We see that same gender gap in Iowa, where Clinton gets 46 percent of men and 56 percent of women. Meanwhile, Sanders gets 37 percent of men, and 29 percent of women.

Being a white male is finally a disadvantage somewhere. Clinton benefits from an age gap—in the CNN national poll she gets 61 percent of voters over the age of 50, and 53 percent of those under 50. Sanders is stronger with younger voters, which is exciting, sure, but a group of voters not generally inclined to vote. And then there’s education. Sanders gets 19 percent of the vote from Democrats who have attended college. But he gets just eight percent from those who haven’t. So younger, whiter, more male, and more educated. Yup, that’s the Dean coalition, and unless Sanders can bust beyond it, his fate will be the same as Dean’s.

I likewise have this feeling that Bernie Sanders is a boomlet that can’t last. But here is hoping that Hillary Clinton is no John Kerry.