Wednesday Open Thread [9.16.2015]

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—CBS News/NYT: Clinton 47, Sanders 27, Biden 15, O’Malley 0, Webb 1, Chafee 1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—CBS News/NYT: Trump 27, Carson 23, Bush 6, Cruz 5, Rubio 6, Huckabee 6, Paul 3, Fiorina 4, Walker 2, Kasich 3, Christie 1, Santorum 1, Perry 1, Jindal 0, Graham 0

The New York Times on these new national polling numbers:

Democratic voters seem more enthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton as the party’s possible nominee than Republicans do about Mr. Trump. Forty-eight percent of Democrats said they would support her enthusiastically, and 35 percent of Republicans said the same of Mr. Trump. […]

The [GOP] establishment candidates are battling fierce headwinds from a party electorate that vastly prefers a nominee from the business or private sector rather than a traditional politician, by 48 percent to 9 percent. Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, and Mr. Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, have lost the most support by far since delivering what many analysts called lackluster performances in the August debate. Eleven percent of Republicans viewed Mr. Bush as best positioned to win in the general election, compared with 23 percent in August; only 2 percent thought Mr. Walker was most likely to win, down from 8 percent.

Nate Cohn on Hillary’s drop in support:

Perhaps all of these voters would have opposed her in the primary anyway. Mrs. Clinton, after all, still has a big lead in national polls. It’s no longer a record-setting advantage. But it’s a big one, and it’s underpinned by all of the fundamentals that help determine the outcome of the primary contest. This time, she won’t be facing a candidate, like Barack Obama, who has the potential to peel away a big part of her coalition. Party elites haven’t begun to leave her candidacy either. Over the last month, Mrs. Clinton has rolled out still more endorsements. Reports from a meeting of the Democratic National Committee suggested that few party members were itching to jump ship.

Remember that a great part of the 2008 primary was announcing endorsement switches. Obama made a big show of it for a very simple reason: it was necessary for delegate accumulation and to convince Democrats to go with him. Bernie is going to need that too.

Predictwise has Hillary 68% chance of winning, Biden 15% and Sanders 14%. They also have the Democrats at 58% chance of winning the Presidency in 2016, with Republicans at 42%.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL–Washington Post/ABC: Approve 49, Disapprove 46. The higher President Obama’s approval, the better off the Democrats are in 2016.

NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—WMUR: Trump 22, Carson 18, Fiorina 11, Bush 9, Kasich 9, Cruz 5, Paul 4, Christie 2, Rubio 2, Walker 1, Huckabee 1, Graham 1, Jindal 0, Santorum 0, Pataki 0, Gilmore 0

NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Monmouth University: Sanders 43, Clinton 36, Biden 13, O’Malley 2, Chafee 1, Lessig 1, Webb 1.

FLORIDA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—PPP: Trump 28, Carson 17, Bush 13, Rubio 10, Cruz 9, Fiorina 7, Kasich 5, Huckabee 3, Walker 2, Christie 2, Jindal 1, Paul 0, Santorum 1, Perry 0

FLORIDA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—PPP: Clinton 55, Sanders 18, Biden 17, O’Malley 2, Chafee 1, Webb 1

NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Monmouth: Trump 28, Carson 17, Kasich 11, Fiorina 7, Bush 7, Cruz 8, Paul 4, Rubio 4, Christie 2, Walker 2, Huckabee 1, Graham 1, Pataki 1, Santorum 1, Jindal 0

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—YouGov: 43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States. More evidence that Republicans are Fascists.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—CNN/ORC: 43% of those who identify as Republicans believe President Obama is a Muslim.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Washington Post/ABC News: 56 percent of Americans say Hillary Clinton “has the personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president. Only 33% of Americans say that about Trump. Indeed, 63% of Americans say he
“lacks the personality and temperament to serve effectively -– and, by an even broader 67-29 percent, that he doesn’t understand their problems. Just 35 percent see [Trump] as honest and trustworthy.”

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Washington Post/ABC News: 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents favor Trump’s Holocaustian Immigration policies. But 57% of all Americans are actually humans, not racist, and oppose him on immigration. Hence, the GOP’s problem.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Washington Post/ABC News: Clinton has a 26-point advantage among college graduates, while Trump benefits from a nine-point lead among Americans who do not have a degree. Women who went to college back Clinton by a whopping 48 points, 68% to 20%.

From Paul Waldman on Scott Walker’s declared war on all workers:

I have no doubt that Walker is sincere in his desire to see every labor union crushed and every vestige of workers’ power banished — or, in his lingo, “flexibility.” I’d also be surprised if any of the other candidates objected to any part of it. So the plan is worth understanding if you want to grasp what today’s GOP is offering today’s workers.

While he doesn’t say so explicitly, what Walker seems to hope for is really a world without any labor unions at all, or at the very least a world where unions are so weakened that they are unable to advocate for anyone […]

But here’s what we know: union membership has been declining for decades, while incomes have been stagnant and Americans have felt increasingly at the mercy of employers who treat them like interchangeable cogs who can be manipulated, surveilled, and tossed aside at the employer’s whim. There’s no question that Scott Walker succeeded in creating a politically beneficial showdown with public sector unions in Wisconsin. But how many Americans think that the problem with our economy is that too much power in the workplace lies in the hands of workers?

Eugene Robinson says Hillary Clinton is still the one to beat:

The headlines screaming “Clinton’s Support Erodes” are true, but only in a relative sense. In the contest for the Democratic nomination, according to the polls, she has slid all the way from “prohibitive favorite” to something like “strong favorite” — not bad, given the way she has hobbled herself with the e-mail scandal. […]

Am I ignoring the big picture? Have I somehow missed the fact that the major themes of the campaign thus far have been disgust with politics as usual and rejection of establishment candidates?

No, it’s just that I believe the internal dynamics of the two parties are quite different. Clinton fatigue among Democrats is one thing, but the total anarchy in the Republican Party is quite another.

Vice President Biden took aim at Donald Trump’s hard line on undocumented immigrants, CBS News reports.

Said Biden: “I don’t want anybody to be down right now about what’s going on in the Republican Party. I’m being deadly earnest about this. I want you to remember, notwithstanding the fact that there’s one guy absolutely denigrating an entire group of people. Appealing to the baser side of human nature. Working on this notion of xenophobia in a way that hasn’t occurred in a long time. Since the Know-Nothing party back at the end of the nineteenth century.”

Politico: “The vice president offered no updates on his own 2016 deliberations. But he criticized the real estate mogul in unusually stark terms, while urging the crowd not to take ‘Trump and the stuff you’re hearing on the other team’ to heart.”

He is definitely running a shadow campaign in all but name. Which I like because I like Biden and we need people out there criticizing Trump. But I also don’t like it. Either announce or don’t.

Bill Kristol, the conservative pundit and editor of The Weekly Standard, said that he would vote for a third-party candidate if Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, The Hill reports.

Said Kristol: “I doubt I’d support Donald. I doubt I’d support the Democrat. I think I’d support getting someone good on the ballot as a third party candidate.”

Well, that’s a double standard. Trump had to go through the show of promising to not run as a third party candidate and then having to sign a ridiculous pledge, but Kristol doesn’t. Not that I am opposed to a conservative independent candidacy. Anything to split the vote on the right is great news.

“From June 16, the day he announced he was running, through Sept. 14, Mr. Trump has been the subject of at least 2,159 CNN reports,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“That is almost double the amount of time CNN has spent on former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who was leading the field prior to Mr. Trump’s rise. Mr. Bush has been mentioned in 1,087 stories during the same time. Next up is Ted Cruz with 416 mentions. No other candidates managed to crack 400 mentions on the Time Warner Inc. -owned news channel.”

Your so-called liberal media.

David Ignatius:

The political circus surrounding the Iran nuclear deal shouldn’t obscure the fact that President Obama won an enormous victory in negotiating the agreement and mustering the necessary congressional votes to sustain it. It’s the most determined, strategic success of his presidency.

Republican presidential candidates have denounced the deal as a sellout by a weak, feckless Obama. And polls make clear that the public is wary about a deal painted by critics as a bargain with the devil.

But Obama’s bet is endorsed by many leading strategists in the United States and abroad. Even in Israel, there’s grudging support from a growing share of the national-security establishment, who see the deal as preferable to any realistic alternative. The outliers are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S Republican leadership, who reject an agreement most nations endorse. The political reality is that Obama outfoxed them at nearly every turn.