Tuesday Open Thread [1.5.2016]
NATIONAL—NBC News/Survey Monkey: Clinton 53, Sanders 36, O’Malley 2
NATIONAL—NBC News/Survey Monkey: Trump 35, Cruz 18, Rubio 13, Carson 9, Bush 6, Christie 4, Fiorina 3, Kasich 2, Huckabee 2, Paul 2, Santorum 1
The single biggest problem is that there are no acceptable alternatives to Trump. Jeb was supposed to be their guy but he just can’t get any traction. Scott Walker and Rick Perry have already dropped out. Ben Carson’s campaign is in free-fall. Chris Chistie was once a hot commodity with the billionaires, but the closing of the George Washington Bridge put an end to that romance. Marco Rubio has his Miami Vice problem, and if there is one thing that Jeb campaign has been largely successful at in this campaign, it has been warning big donors about the skeletons in Rubio’s closet. Other than Ted Cruz, that leaves no one with the finances, polling numbers, and potential to win that billionaires need to see before they get invested.
But Ted Cruz is so loathed by his colleagues in Congress and particularly in the Senate, that the billionaires would alienate the most powerful Republicans in the country if they started supporting him. To be sure, a handful of these Daddy Warbucks characters don’t care and are giving Cruz money, but they aren’t about to do it as a class.[…]
There’s no way to convince the base to go with a safer more electable choice because that choice doesn’t even exist. The base cannot be reached because no one controllable has credibility with them. And political advertising doesn’t work the way it used to.
There are no tools in the toolbox. Yet, even if they had some tools, all this talk about stopping Trump is kind of irrelevant because no one better is standing in the wings. The party has basically come apart.
Ted Cruz is doing considerably better in polls of Iowa than he is in national polls. Chris Christie is doing better in New Hampshire than he is with all Americans. Donald Trump is doing worse in both Iowa and New Hampshire than he is in the country at large.
Just as during the 2012 general election, state polls and national polls disagree. And our advice this year is the same as it was then: Trust the state polls. In fact, there’s evidence the national polls may be a negative indicator once you control for the state-level survey results. If you’re a candidate who wants to win one of the first two contests, you’d rather have good state polls and bad national polls than good state and good national polls.
Taegan Goddard on the five candidates to watch in Iowa:
Ted Cruz is the new front runner in the latest HuffPost Pollster polling averages. As Craig Robinson, former political director of the Iowa Republican Party notes, “The Iowa Caucuses are Cruz’s to lose.”
Donald Trump is the wildcard in this race. He’s obviously dominated the race so far and is able to generate huge rallies. The big question: Does he really have a plan to actually get his supporters to the caucuses? It’s not clear he does but no one is willing to count him out.
Marco Rubio is becoming the establishment choice but he hasn’t sealed the deal. Doing better than expected in Iowa could help him the following week in New Hampshire.
Chris Christie is finally regaining some of the shine he had four years ago when many Republicans tried to draft him into the presidential race. He’s running a smart campaign and will compete with Rubio for a top three finish to gain momentum heading into New Hampshire.
Mike Huckabee is a former caucus winner and Robinson calls him the dark horse of this race: “Cruz benefits greatly from the fact that neither Huckabee nor Santorum are considered viable in the eyes of voters. Just remember, viability is based entirely on polling numbers and fundraising numbers. I think both candidates are better positioned than the polls will ever suggest, and between the two I think Huckabee is more likely to surprise.” Huckabee has said he needs a top three finish or he’ll quit the race.
The Republicans are stuck in the 90’s:
According to CNN, the heckler stood up just a few feet from Clinton and shouted at her. Clinton rebuked her once, and then when the heckler tried again to get Hillary’s attention during a lull in the action, she started shouting again. That’s when Clinton shut her down. “You are very rude and I’m not never ever going to call on you. Thank you.” That shut down New Hampshire state Rep. Katherine Prudhomme O’Brien, who later admitted she was there to try and bring up Bill Clinton’s sexual pecadilloes in the town hall.
How is Hillary responsible for Bill’s indiscretions? It is the height of sexism to suggest that she is. This has been Sen. Rand Paul’s hobbyhorse, saying that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be president because Bill Clinton is bad.
[J]effrey T. Kuhner, a WRKO radio host in Boston asked Paul if sexual harassment and assault claims against former president Bill Clinton “and her role in trying to cover it up and protect him” were a legitimate campaign issue. Paul initially replied that it is not “necessarily her fault,” that “her husband has committed serial infidelities,” but then slammed the former Secretary of State for having spoken out against sexual assaults in a recent campaign speech.
First off, this is the first time I have ever heard any Republican allege that Hillary herself was involved in covering up Bill’s affair with Monica. All accounts, including such partisan accounts as the Starr Report, state unequivocally that Hillary was in the dark about it until Bill told her in August 1998, before his national address admitting the affair.
Second, I don’t get the Republican logic here: If one’s husband has a consensual adulterous affair, that means the wife cannot ever speak out against or even oppose sexual assault?
Third, if this is all they’ve got, Republicans better start planning for a 40 state wipeout and the loss of the House.
“Despite initially focusing his campaign’s efforts on New Hampshire, in recent weeks, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has shifted strategy as he eyes an opening in Iowa, not to win, but to place ahead of Bush,” Time reports.
“One of the major reasons for Christie’s new optimism is that he found he will be able to capitalize on his longtime friendship with the top Republican in the state. Though Gov. Terry Branstad is officially neutral in the Iowa caucus, Christie’s Iowa team is run by Phil Valenziano, who was the political director for Branstad’s 2014 re-election campaign.”
Greg Sargent wants the President’s critics to take him to court over his new gun control executive orders:
As early as tomorrow, President Obama is set to roll out a series of new executive actions on guns, and the GOP presidential candidates have already decided they are unconstitutional, even though the details of them are not yet known. Marco Rubio insists they will “undermine our Second Amendment rights.” Jeb Bush opines that Obama’s “first impulse always is to take rights away from law-abiding citizens.” Donald Trump claims they will be an “assault on the Second Amendment,” and adds: “Pretty soon you won’t be able to get guns.”
So opponents of these new executive actions should take them to court.
It might actually be valuable if foes did try to get Obama’s executive actions on guns overturned. Here’s one reason why: The end result could be a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of background checks, a topic upon which the Court has not yet ruled. And that could be “clarifying,” in the words of one expert I spoke with today, for purposes of a debate that may well continue for years.
The most contentious of Obama’s executive actions is likely to be his effort to subject more gun sales to federal background checks than are currently covered by them. Other expected actions include requiring federally licensed firearms dealers to report lost or stolen guns.
The New York Times’ editorial on President Barack Obama’s plan to use an executive order to combat the country’s gun violence epidemic:
In the hope of combating America’s intolerable levels of gun violence, with Congress refusing to pass hugely popular gun-safety measures, President Obama is issuing a modest, limited set of executive actions on guns.
Most of the actions are aimed at making it harder for criminals and other dangerous people to get their hands on a firearm. But to listen to the Republican presidential candidates, who weighed in before they even knew the details, one would think Mr. Obama had declared martial law and called in the tanks. […]
Spare us the bluster. Mr. Obama is not taking away any law-abiding citizen’s guns or changing the Second Amendment. To the contrary, his actions are in line with the stated priorities of gun-rights activists: keeping guns from people likely to use them in crimes, and enforcing gun laws already on the books.
Volkswagen was sued by the U.S. Justice Department after it allegedly violated the Clean Air Act by installing illegal emissions devices on nearly 600,000 diesel cars.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sued in Michigan District Court on Monday, and VW could be facing penalties of billions of dollars. Previous estimates have put the number at $19 billion.
Volkswagen is accused of intentionally tampering with emissions control systems of its cars in an effort to skirt federal laws. Last September, the company admitted to installing “cheat” engine management software, also called “defeat devices,” in its 2.0 liter diesel vehicle models
Republicans, however, are preparing an enormous corporate bailout, according to The Fiscal Times. The so-called “Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act,” also known as the “VW Bailout Bill,” introduced by House Republicans, will be voted on in the House in early January, and would nullify the thousands of “non-injury” class-action cases that have been filed by Volkswagen owners who are angry that they were lied to—and that their cars have lost nearly all trade-in or re-sell value. The bill isn’t likely to make it through the Senate, however. And the President will veto the bill if it did. So this is all an exercise in showing how much the Republican Party is on the side of business rather than the consumer.
It is easy to see what the game is here. The GOP knows that voters are pretty intellectually lazy and that “single issue” voters are very dependable. The national referendum on the 2ndA is this year’s “special rights for gays”
Bingo
“How is Hillary responsible for Bill’s indiscretions? It is the height of sexism to suggest that she is.”
We’re talking about the same folks who would tell you that when a husband cheats, it’s the fault of the wife for not adequately satisfying his sexual needs (see Duggar scandal), the same folks who would tell you that rape isn’t possible in a marriage (see radio comments from Texas state legislator), and the same folks who would tell you that Tamir Rice bears the bulk of culpability in his own death because he was playing with something that looked like a gun or didn’t immediately (i.e. in less than two seconds) respond to officers directions to lay down his heinous assault weapon (an airsoft gun)
The News-Journal loses another one:
“Delaware State Housing Authority (DSHA) is pleased to announce that Jonathan Starkey has joined the agency as its new Director of Public Relations. A Delaware native, he arrives at DSHA after spending almost six years at the News Journal, where he worked as a reporter for the state’s largest daily newspaper, covering Delaware business, state government, and politics.
In his new position, Jonathan will oversee media relations, marketing, and other public relations efforts to support DSHA’s affordable housing and homeownership programs.”
When a good reporter bolts the paper of record for a PR job with the Delaware State Housing Authority, it says a lot more about the paper than the person doing the bolting.