Thursday Open Thread [12.10.2015]

NATIONAL—St. Leo University: Clinton 59, Sanders 24, O’Malley 8
NEW HAMPSHIRE—CNN/WMUR: Sanders 50, Clinton 40, O’Malley 1
SOUTH CAROLINA—FOX News: Clinton 65, Sanders 21, O’Malley 3

NATIONAL—St. Leo University: Trump 29, Carson 14, Rubio 11, Bush 11, Cruz 9
NATIONAL—Zogby: Trump 38, Carson 13, Rubio 12, Cruz 8, Bush 7, Christie 4, Fioriona 3. No other candidate got over 1%.
NATIONAL—New York Times/CBS News: Trump 35, Cruz 16, Carson 13, Rubio 9. Everyone else is below 4%.
SOUTH CAROLINA—Winthrop: Trump 24, Cruz 16, Carson 14, Rubio 11, Bush 9, Fiorina 2, Graham 2, Huckabee 2, Kasich 1, Paul 1, Christie 1
SOUTH CAROLINA—FOX News: Trump 35, Carson 15, Cruz 14, Rubio 14, Bush 5, Graham 2, Paul 2, Christie 2, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 1, Kasich 1, Santorum 1

NATIONAL—St. Leo University: Clinton 51, Carson 38 | Clinton 49, Rubio 38 | Clinton 51, Trump 37 | Clinton 52, Cruz 36 | Clinton 49, Bush 35 | Clinton 51, Fiorina 32
NATIONAL WITH TRUMP INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY—St. Leo University: Clinton 45, Trump 26, Cruz 20 | Clinton 45, Trump 30, Fiorina 15 | Clinton 44, Trump 26, Carson 20 | Clinton 43, Trump 26, Rubio 22 | Clinton 43, Trump 30, Bush 20

Republicans say we have to bomb ISIS more, and they say it as if we aren’t bombing ISIS at all, or very little. Indeed, the Fox News-watching public also has that perception. Would it surprise you to learn that we have bombed ISIS so much that we have run out of bombs?

The U.S. Air Force has fired off more than 20,000 missiles and bombs since the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS began 15 months ago, according to the Air Force, leading to depleted munitions stockpiles and calls to ramp up funding and weapons production.

As the U.S. ramps up its campaign against the Islamist terror group in Iraq and Syria, the Air Force is now “expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh said in a statement.

“B-1s have dropped bombs in record numbers. F-15Es are in the fight because they are able to employ a wide range of weapons and do so with great flexibility. We need the funding in place to ensure we’re prepared for the long fight,” Welsh said in the statement. “This is a critical need.”The bombing campaign has left the U.S. Air Force with what an Air Force official described as munitions depot stocks “below our desired objective.”

Ed Kilgore says the progressive rank and file actually like and support Hillary. I agree. I am one of her progressive rank and file supporters.

Even as Hillary Clinton has regained her strong lead in the polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, there are suddenly angry voices denouncing her as a traitor to the progressive cause and even suggesting Bernie Sanders supporters consider taking a dive next November if Clinton is the nominee.

Perhaps the loudest such voice is from columnist H.A. Goodman, who created a stir last year by endorsing Rand Paul for president on the grounds that the right-wing quasi-libertarian senator would be more progressive on issues of war and civil liberties than Obama or his likely Democratic successor Clinton. Now Goodman’s more plausibly a Sanders supporter, and is making the rather bizarre prediction that HRC’s disqualifying identification as a “moderate” will doom her to a third-place finish in Iowa. Over at Salon, which is becoming to the hard-core Left Opposition within the Democratic Party what The Weekly Standard has long been among neoconservatives, Shane Ryan has a provocative piece up today toying with the take-a-dive strategy for 2016 if Clinton is the Democratic nominee. A Nader Redux strategy, he argues, would not only help purify the Democratic Party from the evil corporatist Clintons, but would scourge Americans with the realities of another Republican regime.

I don’t know that either of these gentlemen is a significant or representative figures among progressive elites, but in case such talk persists or spreads, it is helpful to understand that like the “primary Obama!” sentiment at this point four years ago (which was endorsed by none other than Bernie Sanders at the time), it does not seem to have any traction among actual voters.
According to an ABC/Washington Post poll last month, 90 percent of self-identified “liberal Democrats” have a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton, with over half (51 percent) having a “strongly favorable” opinion. Similarly a Quinnipiac survey released last week asks Democrats if there’s any candidate for president they “would definitely not support.” Only 8 percent of Democrats named HRC, and that number dropped to 2 percent among self-identified “very liberal” Democrats.

The certain progressive elites who say Hillary is hated and no progressive would vote for her are thankfully few, and those that would follow them and that line of thinking are very few indeed.

Former U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, like so many other Reagan-era Republicans, has sharply criticized the ignorance, bigotry, and extremism of this year’s rancid crop of Republican presidential candidates. In an interview on MSNBC earlier this week, Dole bemoaned the current state of the Republican party, which he said had become “an extreme group on the right.” Dole joined the growing chorus of Republicans who have harshly criticized fascist front-runner Donald Trump in the wake of his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Dole called Trump “over the top” and set that he “couldn’t understand” how people supported him.

Dole also had harsh words for the much-hated egomaniac and unabashed religious extremist Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), saying “Cruz is so extreme, he’s not a traditional conservative” and roundly criticizing his so-called Senate “achievements” of shutting down the government twice and calling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) a liar on the Senate floor. Dole also said that he doubted Ronald Reagan would win the nomination if he ran in the current extremist climate of the Republican Party.

In a refreshing break from the traditional rhetoric of the Republican Party, where acknowledgement of even the slightest positive achievement by President Obama is seen as traitorous, Dole also praised the president as a “very good man.” While saying that he probably wouldn’t support Hillary Clinton in a potential general election matchup with Trump or Cruz, Dole suggested that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to vote for either of those Republican demagogues, saying with a laugh that he “might oversleep” on election day.

Sarah Posner:

Donald Trump doesn’t have a salvation story. He is, in his mind, the savior, The Art of the Deal his scripture, and “make America great again” his testimony. He’s erased Jesus (anyone’s Jesus, whether you’re a conservative Christian nationalist or a progressive, social justice Christian) from the campaign.

Just as Trump appeals to voters who say they are tired of politicians-as-usual, he appeals to voters weary of theo-politicking as usual. No more false piety. No more favorite Bible verses. Let’s go straight for a bellicose, xenophobic, nationalist id. Unlike his “weak” rivals, Trump isn’t afraid to deliver the “truth” about Muslims. …

For the evangelicals who are (rightfully) horrified by Trump’s latest, perhaps it might be time to put Islamophobia at the top of their religious freedom agenda, way, way above wedding cakes and insurance coverage for IUDs.

Is there good news in the latest Monmouth University poll in Iowa, which has Cruz leading Trump among that state’s all-important evangelical voters, by a 30 to 18 percent margin? Yesterday Cruz offered no condemnation of Trump, saying only Trump’s Muslim “shutdown” plan “is not my policy.” If he continues to rise, Cruz may very well be the beneficiary of Trump’s reinvention of the religious right’s ideal savior-politician.

John Avlon: “The thing about the strongman candidacies is that they are secretly weak. They feed off feelings of fear and inadequacy. That’s why they target minority rights first.”

“And that is what’s happening here. We’ve seen brushfires of fear sweep through this election season, with mayors calling for internment camps, governors refusing refugees, and presidential candidates trying to win over the angriest inmates of the hyperpartisan asylum. This competition to connect with the reptile mind is beneath the country Lincoln once called ‘the last best hope of earth.’”

“This is a time for choosing between our best traditions and our worst fears.”

I’m old enough to remember when the Internet was shut down to Iranians during the Iranian elections. Then there was that time in Egypt during the Arab spring where they cut them off. Syria, too. Remember how we all decried the dictators who did that?

Donald Trump said the United States should consider “closing up” the Internet to curb radical extremism, The Verge reports.

Said Trump: “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet. We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said some very nice things to the Washington Examiner about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Said McCain: “I obviously am in strong disagreement with him on his basic philosophy of the role of government, but as far as an honest individual, to work with, to reach agreement, I respect Bernie Sanders.”

He added: “I will also say to anyone who will ask, Bernie Sanders is an honest man. He’s an honest man and his word is good. Once we reached an agreement, that agreement stuck. And now he’s brushing his hair, which is really a remarkable thing.”

Donald Trump told CNN that it’s “highly unlikely” he’ll run as an independent but also noted that “the establishment is not exactly being very good to me.”

Trump said: “If they don’t treat me with a certain amount of decorum and respect, if they don’t treat me as the front-runner… if the playing field is not level, then certainly all options are open… I’ll know that over a period of a couple months. We’ll go through the primaries. We’ll see what happens, and I’ll make a determination.”

The conventional wisdom in the polling community is that polls generally may be overstating Trump’s actual support among likely voters. Here is the counterfactual from the National Journal, which states that polls may be underestimating Trump’s support.

“It turns out that a non­trivi­al share of these same work­ing-class, anti-im­mig­rant voters won’t tell a live per­son who they sup­port but will share their true feel­ings when their sup­port is secret—like on Elec­tion Day. This is no sur­prise: Sup­port for im­mig­ra­tion and glob­al­iz­a­tion are per­haps the only polit­ic­al sen­ti­ments that unite elites from both busi­ness and the academy, from right and left. Openly sup­port­ing an anti-im­mig­ra­tion can­did­ate can risk so­cial op­pro­bri­um, ri­dicule, or worse. In oth­er words, for every group of vo­cal Trump sup­port­ers, there are prob­ably a lot more who just don’t ad­vert­ise it.”

Thomas Edsall in a column about Hillary’s toughness:

The men and women in the focus groups were not all Clinton loyalists – indeed, most told Hart and Bennett that they supported someone else for president. Nearly half of the men and women were critical of, or outright hostile to, Clinton, using the words and phrases “dishonest,” “a liar,” “not good vibes,” “don’t trust.” At the same time, no one suggested that Clinton was weak.

Hart asked the 12 male participants to first consider the wide scope of responsibilities — from foreign policy to the economy — a president faces and to then indicate with a show of hands “who can do the job?”

“How many people say, yeah, I think Donald Trump could do the job?” Hart asked. Six raised their hands. For Bush, six also raised their hands. For Carson, it was three.

“How many say Hillary Clinton could do the job?” Hart asked. “Eleven out of 12.”

In the women’s group, Bennett asked the question in negative terms: “Is there anybody who you do not feel comfortable that they could handle the enormity and the complexity of the job?” For Trump: seven raised their hands; for Bush: also seven; for Carson: 11. For Clinton: none.

Some of the comments made during the focus group sessions indicated that the Benghazi Committee created by House Republicans in May 2014to damage Clinton’s presidential prospects had backfired. Referring in part to Clinton’s performance during an 11 hour interrogation by the committee, a participant identified as Thomas noted: ” Her ability to walk through what she’s had thrown at her just in the last six months should give you an idea that the woman has definitely got some strength. She’s there. I don’t necessarily agree with where she’s coming from, but still, you cannot knock what that woman is like.”

Alan, another participant, added: “I don’t necessarily agree with her positions, but she is definitely strong. For lack of a better term, she’s got some balls, you know. She stands up and stands firm.”