Year: 2015

The editors of The Progressive discuss the real rift between Clinton and Sanders in the Democratic Debate:

The best moment of the debate came when Sanders, channeling FDR, welcomed the hatred of big corporations and Wall Street. The moderator had asked Hillary if, as a Fortune Magazine headline put it, “business loves Hillary.” “Everybody should,” she shot back—a perfect political answer. The moderator put the same question to Sanders” “Will corporate America love a President Sanders?” “No, I think they won’t.” Sanders replied simply. “So Hillary and I have a difference,” he continued. “The CEOs of large multinationals may like Hillary. They ain’t going to like me and Wall Street is going to like me even less.” “The greed of Wall Street is destroying this economy,” Sanders added. [...] The preposterous Washington consensus that you can be loved by Wall Street and, at the same time, serve the interests of ordinary citizens, is crumbling. So is the American myth of a classless society where everyone can get rich and we all play by the same rules.

It was Sanders' second best moment during the debate (his first being his apology to Clinton that all his supporters and his campaign should take a cue on). I liked Hillary's answer and I liked Sander's answer. Hillary's answer was perfect for the general election. Sander's wasn't, but he and his supporters don't really care. The Democratic Primary, and the Republican Primary really, are a showcase of the two theories of electoral politics. The first is that you need to moderate your rhetoric and/or positions in order to appeal to as many voters as possible in order to win a general election. The second says screw that, appeal solely to your base of support so that you can turn out as many of those supporters as possible. After George W. Bush and Karl Rove, the Republicans have fully embraced the second theory. They are constantly seeking the more and more conservative candidate. Many progressive Democrats likewise want the Democrats to pursue the second theory, positing that there are more of us than them, them being non-progressives. I personally would choose a combination of the two: appealing to your base of support with policies and moderates with rhetoric describing your policies. And that is what I feel Hillary is doing.

Eschewing the advice of poet Dylan Thomas, Lindsey Graham ended his campaign with a whimper, not a bang.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told CNN's Kate Balduan on Monday that he was dropping out of the 2016 race. The South Carolina senator said he was satisfied with how his unsuccessful campaign played out. “The one thing I feel really good about is I did it with a smile on my face," he told Balduan. "I talked about things that are important to me, and somebody better fix one day." Graham said that he planned to remain active in shaping Republican Party politics. "I will suspend my campaign. I'm not going to suspend my desire to help the country," he said.

Here are the revised standings:

Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post on the “great fracturing of the Republican Party”:

It is no longer possible to think of “the Republican Party” as a coherent political force. It is nothing of the sort — and the Donald Trump insurgency should be seen as a symptom, not the cause, of the party’s disintegration. It is no longer possible to think of “the Republican Party” as a coherent political force. It is nothing of the sort — and the Donald Trump insurgency should be seen as a symptom, not the cause, of the party’s disintegration. It makes no sense anymore to speak of “the GOP” without specifying which one. The party that celebrates immigration as central to the American experiment or the one that wants to round up 11 million people living here without papers and kick them out? The party that believes in U.S. military intervention and seeding the world with democratic values or the one that believes strife-torn nations should have to depose their own dictators and resolve their own civil wars? The party that represents the economic interests of business owners or the one that voices the anxieties of workers?

Andrew Prokop of Vox says the nomination of Donald Trump [or Ted Cruz] would likely be an utter disaster for the GOP.

It's a debacle for Republicans that would have been unimaginable at the beginning of this year. Yet it's happened so slowly, and so gradually, that the reaction from GOP elites still appears oddly muted. Even as summer stretched into fall, they kept comforting themselves by saying that it's still early — accurately pointing to the fact that early polls have frequently been wrong in the past, and that outsider candidates like Trump have lost in the past. Yet Tuesday night's debate was the final GOP debate of 2015 and could well be the year's last major campaign event. Before you know it, Christmas will be here, and New Year's will follow soon afterward. And then we're in January, and there's just one month before voting begins in Iowa on February 1. So it's definitely time for the Republican establishment to hit the panic button.

It has been a hell of a year. Wingnut reactions to things have ranged from predicable to entirely predicable. But “worst to best” doesn’t really fit. This list, is more ranked from "worst" to “even worse still”. 10) “The liberal media..(anything)” All of wingnut bluster about how liberal the media is goes back to a 1986 study that found that a majority of journalists at national media outlets such as The New York Times, and WaPo were Democratic voters. As if reporters had some kind of say in the political leanings of “the media.” It is laughable and you’d really have to have your head up your ass to observe that we have a “liberal media” while you watch your “One America News” (on a TV implanted in your descending colon) because Fox has gone soft.

I sometimes check in to Red State for some Schadenfreude. After Tuesday's debate, Leon Wolf, a Cruz and then Rubio supporter, was very displeased.

…people who realize that Trump represents an existential threat to the credibility and future existence of the conservative movement as a political force have been forced to grind our teeth as Cruz - who really has been a champion for our causes - held fire on this charlatan for months. Now we are treated to the spectacle of Cruz treating Rubio in the same way many of us wish he had treated Trump from day one? It’s frankly galling.

A existential threat to the future EXISTENCE of the conservative movement. LOL. I agree. Go Trump!

UPDATE: Congressional Candidate, Bryon Sort has called for Congress to lift the ban on gun violence research, and "to start supporting a data-driven and scientific approach to a solution." No word yet from Coons or Carney.