Tuesday Open Thread [10.13.15]

PRESIDENT

NATIONAL–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Morning Consult: Clinton 47, Sanders 20, Biden 17.

If Biden is out, Clinton leads Sanders 54-22.

NATIONAL–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Morning Consult: Trump 34, Carson 20, Bush 9, Cruz 5, Rubio 5, Fiorina 5.

NATIONAL–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Fox News: Clinton 45, Sanders 25, Biden 19, O’Malley 1, Webb 0, Chafee 0.

VIRGINIA–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—CNU: Trump 23, Carson 17, Rubio 14, Fiorina 13, Bush 9, Cruz 5, Christie 4, Huckabee 3, Kasich 2, Paul 2, Jindal 0, Santorum 0

VIRGINIA–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—CNU: Clinton 40, Sanders 23, Biden 23, Webb 5, O’Malley 2, Chafee 0

MARYLAND–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Wash. Post/Univ. of Maryland: Clinton 43, Biden 26, Sanders 20, O’Malley 4, Webb 1, Chafee 0

Pew Research says Democrats have become more liberal: “The share of Democrats who describe their political views as liberal has increased over the past 15 years. In surveys conducted this year, 41% of Democrats describe themselves as liberal, 35% say they are moderates and 21% say they’re conservative. In 2000, 43% were moderate, 27% liberal and 24% conservative.” Also interesting: 61% of Democratic primary voters said they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who offers programs similar to the Obama administration.

You know who gets credit for all this? Progressives and the Netroots. People like Markos Moulitsas and Jason Scott in the Howard Dean days who said “Damn straight I am a liberal.”

Tonight is DEBATE NIGHT! Finally, after enduring two evil and lengthy GOP debates where we discovered that how exactly the Republicans intend to wreak their terrible will on the nation, we get the adults. The reasonable and rational party. The party committed to social progress, equality, opportunity and the Constitution. The party that solves conflicts with diplomacy rather than immature saber rattling. The party that actually paid attention during science and social studies class. The party that believes that climate change is a problem created by man and can be alleviated by man. The party that is not racist, or sexist, or bigoted. The party that stands for the 99%.

The Democratic Party.

What must Hillary do?

The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner:

Clinton needs to get out of a self-infecting cycle of bad publicity, in which everything she does is dismissed as calculating and contrived, even when it represents creative movement on issues. Sanders merely needs to take care to come across as fighting for the forgotten American on the issues, as he nearly always does, but not too radical in his personal style.

In the past few weeks, Clinton has made several dramatic moves in Sanders’s direction. She has broken with the administration on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, on the Keystone Pipeline, and on the so-called Cadillac Tax on high quality health plans (she is for repeal; the White House is not). She is out-flanking Sanders to the left on gun control, and she is at least as comfortable talking about race.

…In the inside game, Clinton needs to persuade the activists associated with the Democratic Party, especially the labor movement, that she can be as much their champion as Sanders can. She needs to reassure her own core supporters (who might be tempted to defect to Biden) that her candidacy is not fatally damaged by recent missteps.

..Clinton, in short, is necessarily playing a much more complex game than Sanders. Much of her posture is directed at a potential candidate who will not be on stage–Joe Biden. A great deal of her positioning is aimed not just at Sanders, but at dissuading Biden from getting into the race.

What must Bernie do.

The Nation’s Joan Walsh:

On guns, Sanders has riled activists with a handful of votes against gun regulation. He voted against the 1993 Brady Bill, to allow weapons in national parks and checked baggage on Amtrak, and to offer gun manufacturers immunity against suits by gun victims. In condolence remarks after the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina last summer, Sanders didn’t mention the issue of guns.

But Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.

…The big question for Sanders is whether he can put together an electoral coalition to get the nomination, and win next November. On that score, the debate can’t help but help him. Sanders still polls dismally among African-Americans; in a recent YouGov poll he got 8 percent of their votes; in a South Carolina poll released Monday (that’s the first primary state in which the black vote will be significant), he was at 4 percent. But a lot of that has to do with his being much less known to black voters than Clinton or Vice President Joe Biden. The first debate gives him a chance to bring his appeal to a mass audience.

First Read: “He simply has to come across as electable. Sure, he’s faring well in many general-election polls right now. But make no mistake: His comment on Meet the Press Sunday that he’s not a capitalist isn’t a winning general-election message, especially when being a socialist running for president is more unpopular than being a Muslim or an atheist.”

“Another question we have: How does Sanders hold up over two hours of debate? One way to judge tonight’s debate is to gauge who does a better job shoring up his/her weakness — Clinton’s not-always progressive views vs. Sanders’ electability doubts.”

What will the Others do?

Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas quote Martin O’Malley: “This will really be the first time that nationally voters see that there’s more than one alternative to this year’s inevitable front-runner, Secretary Clinton,” O’Malley said. “It’s a very, very important opportunity for me to not only present my vision for where the country should head, but also 15 years of executive experience, actually accomplishing the progressive things some of the other candidates can only talk about,” he said.

Ed Kilgore on O’Malley: “If there’s any justice, though, Martin O’Malley probably deserves a post-debate bump. The guy did things the way you’re supposed to, spending many obscure days and weeks in Iowa before anyone was even thinking about the presidential race.”

Rachel Weiner says “If there’s a chance for a wild card on the stage at Tuesday’s lead-off Democratic debate, the smart money’s on former senator Jim Webb of Virginia.” Weiner quotes Webb campaign spokesman , who provides a clue as to the persona Webb will try to project: “We have the best candidate to deliver economic fairness, social justice and common sense foreign policy, unbought and unbossed by anyone.”

Lucey and Thomas on Lincoln Chafee: “Expect Chafee, the former senator and governor from Rhode Island, to go after Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Chafee, at the time a Republican, opposed the invasion and he’s said Clinton’s support for the war, which she has more recently called a “mistake,” is at the center of his decision to run.

Rick Klein: “Hillary Clinton will be center stage. But that doesn’t mean the spotlight can’t find someone else. Democrats are coming in to their first debate of the election cycle with not one but two leading candidates, both with significant things to prove. In the expectation for combat that may not materialize, consider that it’s Bernie Sanders who is trailing in the race nationally; Sanders who will have to defend base-critical views on guns and immigration; Sanders who will see his temperament and agility tested like it hasn’t been before, with this kind of audience watching.”

“It’s also plausible strategy for a Martin O’Malley or a Jim Webb to target Sanders more than Clinton, based on the theory that the race will come down to Hillary vs. an anti-Hillary, and one of those slots is already taken for good. And from the other perspective, if Sanders’ goal is to win the nomination, not simply make the considerable statement he’s already made, he needs some fresh dynamics to come into play. He won’t get many better chances to put them there.”

New York Times: “After watching two viscerally divisive debates among the Republican presidential contenders, Americans are about to witness a confrontation by the Democrats that will most likely center on differences of degree, not direction, and on how hard they will push a liberal agenda, not where they hope to lead the nation.”

“The most telling aspect of Tuesday night’s debate in Las Vegas may be how much the candidates agree on the issues.”

Why Joe Biden isn’t running:

Daniel Drezner: “The only political reason for a Biden candidacy was an imploding Hillary Clinton, and she’s not imploding. Sure, Clinton trails Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, but not nationally, not in Iowa, and not in South Carolina or Nevada either. Furthermore, the poll numbers in recent weeks contradict the narrative of Clinton only trending downward. She’s improved her position nationally and in Iowa over the past few weeks, and her favorability numbers have also gone up. Her big money supporters seem concerned about Biden, but ‘are feeling encouraged for the first time in months.’”

“The biggest problem Clinton has faced has been the e-mail scandal, but two GOP own-goals in the last two weeks have, at a minimum, cauterized that wound.”