Thursday Open Thread [11.5.2015]

NATIONAL—FOX News: Clinton 56, Sanders 31, O’Malley 2
NATIONAL—Quinnipiac: Clinton 53, Sanders 35

NATIONAL—FOX News: Trump 26, Carson 23, Rubio 11, Cruz 11, Bush 4, Kasich 4, Paul 4, Huckabee 4, Fiorina 3, Christie 2
NATIONAL—Quinnipiac: Trump 24, Carson 23, Rubio 14, Cruz 13, Bush 4, Christie 3, Fiorina 3, Kasich 3, Paul 2, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1

Dr. Ben Carson on Wednesday night confirmed his belief that the pyramids in Egypt were built for grain storage by Joseph, even though archaeologists have concluded that the pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs.

“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said in a 1998 speech surfaced by Buzzfeed News on Wednesday. “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”

I have a lot of my own personal theories too. I think the pyramids in Egypt and those built by other ancient civilizations were built by aliens. But I am not really serious. When I get serious, I tend to defer to those who have much for education and training in a particular field. For example, I know very little about ancient Egypt, and what I do know comes from the movie “The Ten Commandments” and the HBO TV series “Rome.” I also have never been to Egypt. So I assume that someone who has been to Egypt, that someone who has studied their ancient culture and history, that somebody who has studied the field of archaeology, would know much more than me. And thus I refuse to make a fool of myself by insisting that I know better than they.

Ben Carson has no problem making a fool of himself, as we have seen time and again.

Former President George H.W. Bush, the relatively good Bush in comparison to the disasters he raised, has a new biography coming out wherein he goes after his Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

In “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush,” author Jon Meacham quotes Bush as saying that Cheney and Rumsfeld were too hawkish and that their harsh stance damaged the reputation of the United States, the cable news network said.

Speaking of Cheney, who was vice president under President George W. Bush, the senior Bush said: “I don’t know, he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” according to the report. […]

“The reaction (to Sept. 11), what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East,” Bush told Meacham in the book to be published next Tuesday.

Bush believes Cheney acted too independently of his son by creating a national security team in his own office, and may have been influenced to become more conservative by his wife and daughter, Lynne and Liz Cheney, the report cites the biography as saying.

On Rumsfeld, secretary of defense for most of the two terms served by his son, Bush is even more critical. He is quoted as saying: “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the President,” referring to his son.

“I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that. Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow,” he was quoted as saying in the biography.

Even though the Democrats lost the Kentucky Governorship on Tuesday, they do look poised to win in Louisiana. The most recent poll shows the Democrat, John Bel Edwards, leading the diaper-wearing prostitute-loving David Vitter (R) by 20 points, 52-32. And now the New Orleans Times Picayune reports that Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne (R), one of three Republicans that run during the open jungle primary where the top two finishers advance to the general, plans to endorse Edwards this morning in his race against his fellow Republican Sen. David Vitter (R).

“Endorsing a Democrat in a high-stakes general election carries significant risk for the Republican Dardenne’s future political career, particularly if Vitter is ultimately elected governor. But Dardenne has said he has no plans to run for political office beyond his campaign for governor.”

Ouch.

Republican frontrunner Ben Carson is not necessarily dumb. He does have a medical degree and was a neurosurgeon, so in reality, he cannot possibly be dumb. But….. he is not knowledgeable, at all, in many areas. Which makes sense. He spent many years specializing in neurosurgery to the exclusion of all else, and on top of that, he is a Seventh Day Adventist, so he fills in the areas he doesn’t know with some crazy beliefs. And that makes him wholly unqualified to be President. The Hill:

Carson admitted during an interview that he was in the dark on policies toward those coming to the U.S. from the island nation, according to The Miami Herald.

“You’re going to have to explain to me exactly what you mean by that,” he said when quizzed by the Herald on the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy. “I have to admit I don’t know a great deal about that, and I don’t really like to comment until I’ve had a chance to study the issue from both sides,” Carson said of the rule letting Cubans who reach U.S. soil stay here.

He then stumbled over the Cuban Adjustment Act, which permits Cubans to apply for legal residency after 366 days in the U.S. “Again, I’ve not been briefed fully on what that is,” the retired neurosurgeon said.

These are not gotcha questions. These are substantive policy questions that any candidate must have knowledge of and an opinion on. What possessed him to make him think he should run for President without such knowledge and opinion? Ah… like Jonathan Chait yesterday, he is not running for President. This is a scam.

Dave Weigel:

The 2015 elections were rougher for Democrats in redder states, as they suffered a surprisingly large defeat in the Kentucky governor’s race, failed to win a majority in the Virginia Senate and saw voters thump an LGBT rights ordinance in Houston. But in blue states and cities, the party held or gained ground. As the parties head into a new presidential year, the country’s partisan divide has deepened.

Republicans walked away from Tuesday with the big wins. Democrats walked away with fresh confidence that their map can win a third presidential election in a row.

Nate Cohn:

When Ted Cruz announced his run for the presidency, the big question was whether he had only a small chance to win or no chance at all. Since then, a lot has gone right for him.
Mr. Cruz still does not enjoy an easy road to the Republican nomination, not by any means. But it is a testament to just how strange this year has been that a candidate like him, who is despised by many of his own Republican colleagues in the Senate, now has a plausible path to the Republican nomination.

Some of his opportunity is the result of his own strength. He has succeeded in building a robust campaign organization, buoyed by fund-raising tallies of the sort we generally haven’t seen from anti-establishment, conservative candidates. Fund-raising isn’t everything, but it’s a big part of why candidates like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum have not been serious contenders this time.

A lot of Mr. Cruz’s opening, however, reflects the weakness of his rivals, not his strength.

David Wasserman: “There are plenty of reasons to be cautious of national polls that show Trump and Carson leading. They may fail to screen out casual voters, for instance, and leaders at this point in past years have eventually tanked. But perhaps the biggest reason to ditch stock in these polls is that they’re simulating a national vote that will never take place.”

“In reality, the GOP nominating contest will be decided by an intricate, state-by-state slog for the 2,472 delegates at stake between February and June. And thanks to the Republican National Committee’s allocation rules, the votes of ‘Blue Zone’ Republicans — the more moderate GOP primary voters who live in Democratic-leaning states and congressional districts — could weigh more than those of more conservative voters who live in deeply red zones. Put another way: The Republican voters who will have little to no sway in the general election could have some of the most sway in the primary.”

Don’t laugh. The Jeb Bush victory scenario:

Yet there is a not-crazy scenario in which Bush could rise again, not to dominate the race but to be in the running when the four candidates ahead of him self-destruct, kill each other, or run out of gas.

JebWorld held a focus group in New Hampshire the day after Bush’s disastrous performance at the Republican debate in Boulder. According to a source deep inside JebWorld, the result was not only not terrible, it pointed to five areas of promise for Bush:

1) A large majority of group members were undecided and felt no rush to decide anything. It’s not even time to narrow their list of favorite candidates.

2) After all that has happened, the New Hampshire voters still had a positive, or mostly positive, impression of Bush. They see him as smart, mature — and dull.

3) They like Donald Trump — think he’s fun — but are concerned about giving Trump the vast powers of the presidency.

4) They love Ben Carson as a non-politician with a gentle bedside manner but are a little discomfited by his offbeat views on a number of topics.

5) They see Marco Rubio as a perfect vice president and wonder if he is too young, and has too few accomplishments, for the top job.

[…] JebWorld continues to believe the New York billionaire doesn’t have what it takes for a long, grueling campaign. But if Trump does last, the still-rich Bush Super PAC Right to Rise will have the ability to unleash millions of dollars worth of negative ads to exploit the doubts voters already have about him.

Next Carson. JebWorld believes Republicans are drawn to him because of his natural likeability and because he stands so far outside the political system. But they believe Carson’s support is particularly soft, with 80-plus percent of Carson supporters saying they might eventually vote for someone else. That, plus Carson’s own weaknesses and the heightened scrutiny he will inevitably receive atop the polls, will eventually bring him down.

That leaves Rubio and Ted Cruz, who could emerge as the two leaders after a Trump-Carson fadeout. One good-for-Jeb scenario would be that Rubio and Cruz then engage in an internecine battle so vicious, bitter, and bloody that Republican voters come to believe neither is suited for the presidency.