Monday Open Thread [10.12.2015]

NEVADA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–CNN/ORC: Clinton 50, Sanders 34, Biden 12, Webb <1, Chafee <1, O’Malley <1

SOUTH CAROLINA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–CNN/ORC: Clinton 49, Biden 18, Sanders 24, O’Malley 3, Webb <1, Chafee <1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–CBS News: Trump 27, Carson 21, Cruz 9, Rubio 8, Fiorina 6, Bush 6, Paul 4, Christie 3, Huckabee 2, Kasich 2, Santorum 1, Jindal <1, Graham <1, Pataki <1

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY–CBS News: Clinton 46, Sanders 27, Biden 16, Webb 2, O’Malley >1, Chafee >1

There was a steady stream of polls over the summer in which the size of Clinton’s advantage over Sanders was steadily shrinking. This and other survey data suggests that trend has leveled off, with the former Secretary of State maintaining a national lead of around 20 points.

As for Vice President Biden, the near-constant speculation about his plans has been a major topic of conversation, but the spotlight has not yet given Biden a bump in national polling.

Without Biden in the race, the CBS News poll shows Clinton’s lead over Sanders growing to 24 points, 56% to 32%.

This party thinks it should be handled the Presidency as a matter of right:

Republican problems continue in the House by ewillies

So yeah, Benghazi is over. The New York Times reported on allegations raised by a former Benghazi Committee investigator, Bradley F. Podliska, a major in the Air Force Reserve.

A former investigator for the Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi plans to file a complaint in federal court next month alleging that he was fired unlawfully in part because his superiors opposed his efforts to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in the Libyan city. Instead, they focused primarily on the role of the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said.

What we should investigate is the House Republicans lying about Benghazi.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) told Politico that with all the instability in the House leadership, it’s time to turn to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Said Cotton: “Look, these are trying times for our nation. It’s important to have a steady hand on the helm during times like this. I think experience really counts in a matter like this. I think House leadership experience really matters. And as you know the speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the House: So therefore, Vice President Cheney for speaker.”

Cue Darth Vader music. Who next? The reanimated corpse of Reagan?

You know what Cotton is saying here: that no House Republican can provide a steady hand on the helm. Now that is cross chamber intra party support!

First Read says time is running out for Joe Biden:

“More than 10 weeks have passed since that Maureen Dowd column floated the possibility of a Biden run, but he continues to run — or stand — in place. Now, it’s very likely this was decision weekend for Biden, and either we’ll hear a firm ‘no’ from him in the next 48 to 72 hours, or we’ll see the building blocks of an active campaign (website, staff hires). But what is unsustainable is continued inaction, because it won’t be helping his party (if the Democratic nominee needs to raise $1 billion to compete in the general election in this Super PAC Era, Biden still hasn’t raised a cent); it won’t be helping Hillary Clinton (see the latest CBS poll, which shows her leading Bernie Sanders by 24 points without Biden, but by a smaller amount — 19 points — with him included in the contest); and despite experiencing his highest poll numbers during this limbo period, it won’t be helping Biden himself, either (if you want to compete in the early states, build an organization to win, and simply meet the upcoming filing deadlines, you’ve got to jump in ASAP).”

“The 2016 train took off months ago. If Biden wants to catch up to his fellow Democrats, he’s got to hop on Air Force Two now. And if he’s not ready to make that move, he owes it to his party and its presidential frontrunner to end the limbo.”

President Obama “heads into the 2016 campaign season in a position few in the White House or anywhere else expected a year ago: in demand,” Politico reports.

“The president and his aides are expecting to capitalize on that popularity, according to people familiar with the planning, taking a more active role this election cycle than during last year’s midterms. Those plans include Obama hitting the campaign trail as early as the spring to help unite the party after the primaries and to sound off on Republicans he portrays as not serious enough for prime time.”

He is a good campaigner. I hear he won some unexpected victories at the ballot box recently.

Frank Bruni on the twilight of the Republican elite: “Donald Trump’s stamina and the ascendance of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina suggest as much. The three of them, who have led national polls since mid-September, aren’t just political outsiders, which is the label hung on them most frequently. For Republicans (and perhaps for Democrats, too) this is a season of rebellion, as the chaos in the House of Representatives vividly illustrates. A consequential share of the Republican majority there have made it clear that they will not bow to precedent, not follow any conventional script, not have anyone foisted on them.”

“Those bomb throwers are mirrors of the voters who are saying no to Jeb Bush, no to Chris Christie, no to John Kasich, no to anyone who was once or could soon be the darling of the northeastern Acela corridor. And they’re pointing the Republican primary in a genuinely unpredictable direction.”

“There’s almost no measure by which we’re not better off than when I took office and when we started this process for change. But it does kind of make you wonder. Why are so many Republican politicians so down on America? Why are they so grumpy?” — President Obama, quoted by Yahoo News.

True.

George Will on what Ted Cruz is counting on: “Cruz’s audacious ‘base plus’ strategy … aims to leaven the electorate with people who, disappointed by economic stagnation and discouraging cultural trends for which Republican nominees seemed to have no answers, have been dormant during recent cycles. … Whites without college experience include disproportionate numbers of nonvoters whose abstention in 2012 … produced Obama’s Electoral College victory.”

“The Cruz campaign’s substantial investment in data scientists serves what [Cruz chief strategist Jason] Johnson calls ‘behavioral micro-targeting,’ changing behavior as well as gathering opinions. If a person drives a Ford F-150 and subscribes to Guns & Ammo, he probably is conservative. The challenge is to make him a voter by directing to him a package of three- or four-issue appeals tailored to him.”

Hillary Clinton “faces a complex task when she takes the stage Tuesday in Las Vegas for the first Democratic presidential debate: sell her vision for the nation while directly challenging a surging Bernie Sanders for the first time,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Since midsummer, Mrs. Clinton has been laying out policy proposals—on energy, health care, gun control, Wall Street regulation and more—but they have been overshadowed by stories about her private email arrangement as secretary of state and the rise of Sen. Sanders, who is drawing crowds with an unapologetic call for a political revolution that will take down the ‘billionaire class.’Now, Mrs. Clinton needs to help Democrats get comfortable with her again as their standard-bearer and begin her appeal to independent voters who tune in to the nationally televised forum.”