Tuesday Open Thread [8.4.15]

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Fox News: Trump 26, Bush 15, Walker 9, Carson 7, Huckabee 6, Cruz 6, Rubio 5, Paul 5, Kasich 3, Christie 3, Perry 1, Santorum 2, Fiorina 2, Jindal 1, Graham 0

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Bloomberg: Trump 21, Bush 10, Walker 8, Carson 5, Huckabee 7, Cruz 4, Rubio 6, Paul 5, Kasich 4, Christie 4, Perry 2, Santorum 2, Fiorina 1, Jindal 1, Graham 1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Monmouth: Trump 26, Bush 12, Walker 11, Carson 5, Huckabee 6, Cruz 6, Rubio 4, Paul 4, Kasich 3, Christie 4, Perry 2, Santorum 1, Fiorina 2, Jindal 1, Graham 1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Clinton 59, Sanders 25, Webb 3, O’Malley 3, Chafee 1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Fox News: Clinton 51, Sanders 22, Biden 13, Webb 1, O’Malley 1, Chafee 1

NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—WMUR/UNH: Trump 24, Bush 12, Walker 11, Paul 7, Christie 7, Carson 5, Rubio 3, Kasich 6, Cruz 5, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 2, Perry 2, Pataki 0, Jindal 2, Santorum 1

NEW JERSEY–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Rutgers-Eagleton: Trump 21, Christie 12, Bush 10, Walker 10, Carson 5, Rubio 5, Cruz 4, Paul 2, Kasich 2, Huckabee 1, Perry 0, Fiorina 0, Graham 0

New York Times: “After weeks of preparing for a smash-mouth debate with Donald J. Trump, 14 Republican candidates found themselves instead Trump-less but sandwiched into a constricting format on Monday night, delivering strikingly uneven performances just days before the first big test of the presidential primary contest.”

“Rather than making the other contenders look more presidential, however, the event, at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., seemed to shrink the candidates. Assembled in the front row, the Republicans gawked as each rival took his or her turn on stage, looking at times as if they were being forced to sit through a tedious school assembly.”

Relatively speaking, the Republican-controlled Congress has been calm during the first half of 2015. But when they return from Summer Vacation in September, things are going to get crazy, and that suits Hillary Clinton just fine.

Greg Sargent:

“Hillary Clinton has signaled that she hopes to run for president in part by painting the GOP-controlled Congress — and, by extension, the Republican Party — as a divisive, destructive, hidebound, reactionary force… And it looks as if the GOP Congress is set to hand Clinton a lot more material.”

What is going to happen come September? Well….

Politico: “Lawmakers have teed up a hellish final few months of 2015, as a series of high-stakes deadlines looms on everything from keeping the government open to doling out money for roads and then, for good measure, raising the federal government’s borrowing limit. It promises to be a major test of the Republican Party’s ability to govern as the GOP prepares to ask voters to continue one-party control of Congress…”

Ah yes. Budget deadlines and Debt Ceiling raises. And you have three current Senators, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, but most importantly Ted Cruz, who will bring Presidential politics into those deadlines, and vice versa. Remember, it was Ted Cruz that forced the last government shutdown over Obamacare. And he wants to do it again over Planned Parenthood. Politico:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Republicans “should do everything they can” to eliminate federal money for Planned Parenthood — “even if it means a government shutdown fight this fall.”

In addition, 18 House Republicans told leadership that they “cannot and will not support any funding resolution … that contains any funding for Planned Parenthood.”

“It’s a potentially ominous sign for GOP leaders desperate to avoid another shutdown debacle. While Cruz may be radioactive in the Senate GOP conference after calling his leader a liar, his analysis of next week’s vote has merit: With Democrats vowing to block the measure, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) won’t be able to get the 60 votes he needs to advance the bill next week, a result that likely won’t satisfy a conservative base itching for confrontation over abortion.”

And I haven’t een talked about the Iran Deal. Get the Popcorn.

The New York Times editorial board’s on President Obama’s new climate change plan announced yesterday:

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, announced on Monday, is unquestionably the most important step the administration has taken in the fight against climate change.

It imposes the first nationwide limits on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, the source of 31 percent of America’s total greenhouse gas emissions. It will shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and give fresh momentum to carbon-free energy sources like wind and solar power, and possibly next-generation nuclear plants. And when taken together with the administration’s other initiatives, chiefly the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, it reinforces Mr. Obama’s credibility and leverage with other nations heading into the United Nations climate change conference in Paris in December.

Matt Bai: “Trump himself doesn’t worry me. That’s because I don’t think for a moment that he wants the job. What Trump wants — craves, actually — is relevance. The man has a clinical phobia of obsolescence. He puts his name on every building he owns just to make sure people will have to speak it out loud.”

“He has no plan for actual governance and no ambition to actually govern. It’s possible that his daily barrage of insults and diatribes, each more outrageous than the last, is really a kind of self-sabotage, as if he’s trying to figure out how awful he can be before the show starts to lose viewers. Even if Trump managed to get the nomination (which he won’t), the broader electorate would recoil at the things he says, and he’s probably counting on it.”

“What does worry me is that Trump really is a proven visionary. He’s brilliant at seeing the next ego-leveraging opportunity. He’s the first interloping network star to jolt a presidential race, but no way is he the last… What Trump is doing, and it’s a twisted kind of public service, is showing all of us how easy it is now to successfully manipulate a media in economic distress and a presidential process that caters, more and more, to an ever-dwindling bloc of extremists on either side.”

William Saletan: “If Republicans win the White House next year, they’ll almost certainly control the entire federal government. Many of them, running for president or aspiring to leadership roles in Congress, are trying to block the nuclear deal with Iran. This would be a good time for these leaders to show that they’re ready for the responsibilities of national security and foreign policy. Instead, they’re showing the opposite. Over the past several days, congressional hearings on the deal have become a spectacle of dishonesty, incomprehension, and inability to cope with the challenges of a multilateral world.”

The New York Times looks amount of money raised by the presidential campaigns, super PACs and other PACs and nonprofits supporting each candidate.

The Cruz figure surprised me. And the Walker figure surprised me. I guess if Walker doesn’t win Iowa, he has to quit. Meanwhile, Cruz can stay in as long as he wants.

The chart above, courtesy of Huffington Post Pollster, aggregates all national polls of the GOP presidential primary. The black vertical line, as indicated, shows the date of Trump’s comments about McCain.

John Heilemann: “The Clintons and their adjutants.… comprehend, if dimly, that in the short term a Biden entry would make their lives sheer hell, and in the medium term could be quite dangerous, for three reasons beyond the obvious. First, it would radically exacerbate an already punishing set of media dynamics for Clinton…. Second, a Biden candidacy would escalate the Bernie Sanders threat…. Third, with Biden in the race, the Democratic establishment would have a viable alternative.”

“The absence of a plausible fallback option has been no small part of the reason the party’s panjandrums have been laboring to suppress their misgivings about the swirl of controversies around Clinton’s e-mail practices and her family’s foundation.”