Wednesday Open Thread [1.6.2016]

CALIFORNIA—Field: Cruz 25, Trump 23, Rubio 13, Carson 9, Paul 6, Bush 4, Christie 3, Fiorina 3, Kasich 1

Rick Klein: “It’s Big Dog season, and who better (who else, really?) to welcome Bill Clinton to the campaign trail than Donald Trump? The challenge for Clinton will be to be helpful without being harmful – and that means being approximately as non-controversial, even boring, as he’s capable of being in the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire.”

“Enter Trump into this equation, with his mocking Tweets and outright threats to make the former president’s sexual indiscretions into fair campaign game. Barack Obama’s rise got under Clinton’s skin in ways that weren’t helpful back in 2007-2008. This time it’s Trump who is most likely to get Clinton off message; unlike Obama, he’s actually trying to do just that. Clinton may be more disciplined than he was eight years ago. But rope lines near Bill Clinton will be the most interesting place in politics for the next few weeks.”

Mike Allen: “For all you Republicans and pundits who are still talking about a Cruz-Rubio final, here’s a wake-up data point: It’s been 168 days since Trump took a big lead in national polling, and he has widened his margin by 10 points since then. It’s 28 days to Iowa, 36 days to New Hampshire, 47 days to South Carolina, 50days to Nevada and 57 days to the SEC primary. If you think voters will suddenly get serious – and that Trump is a ‘lampshade candidate’ who’ll eventually wear out his welcome — you’re running out of time to be right. But at least it’s 309 days to Election Day.”

New York Times: “The series of skirmishes that flared last week offered a preview of the more focused and intensive assaults that will come with the new year, as a volatile race featuring 12 candidates and divergent fronts in Iowa and New Hampshire turns even more combative and complex.”

“Supporters of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are poised to unleash a wave of ferocious attacks this month, according to Republicans familiar with their planning, plunging the muddled contest into a multidimensional war in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.”

Josh Kraushaar says a Christie surge could sideline Rubio: “All told, many party op­er­at­ives fear that a Christie vic­tory—or strong second-place fin­ish in New Hamp­shire—would be a worst-case scen­ario for the GOP, side­lin­ing the es­tab­lish­ment’s best hope in Flor­ida Sen. Marco Ru­bio, and po­ten­tially split­ting the cen­ter-right wing of the party in­def­in­itely.”

Norm Ornstein on the cause of Trumpism: “The willful suspension of disbelief by so many political professionals and analysts had multiple roots. One part was a deep belief that history rules—since rogue and inexperienced candidates had always faltered before, it followed that it would happen again. Another was that nothing has changed in a meaningful way in American politics—there has not been real polarization, only natural “sorting,” and the establishment will rule, as it always does. A third was that there are certain characteristics expected of a president—prudence, civility, expertise—that would eventually cause Trump and the other outsiders like Carson, Cruz, and Fiorina to fall by the wayside.”

“Those roots remain resilient in the punditocracy and political community. They were and are wrong. Both Trump and a broader phenomenon—call it Trumpism—are stronger and deeper than most veteran political analysts realized or were willing to acknowledge.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders will pledge in a speech today that if elected president he would act within his first year to break up banks deemed “too big to fail,” the Washington Post reports. Said Sanders: “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. When it comes to Wall Street reform, that must be our bottom line.”

Rick Klein: “It’s part of a more aggressive push from Sanders in the closing weeks before Iowa, designed to put Hillary Clinton’s record and positions under fresh scrutiny. Sanders is also now regularly squaring up against Donald Trump, mentioning the GOP frontrunner far more than Clinton these days as he seems to relish the potential general-election matchup. It’s by tapping Trump-level anger on the left that Sanders has the chance – even if a remote one – to make the Democratic race a true contest. And, like Trump, he’ll need to find clear lines of demarcation to make that happen. Breaking up big banks isn’t a border wall, but for a segment of Democratic primary voters, it may as well be.”

A new Monmouth poll finds 70% of Americans say that the world’s climate is undergoing a change leading to more extreme weather patterns and sea level rise, including 41% who call climate change a very serious problem.

Key takeaway: “There is a significant partisan divide in this view. A majority of Democrats (63%) and a plurality of independents (42%) see climate change as a very serious issue, while just 18% of Republicans agree. On the flip side, a plurality of Republicans (43%) believe climate change is not happening at all, compared with just 17% of independents and 10% of Democrats who feel the same.”

Wall Street Journal: “With less than a month before the first ballots are cast, Mrs. Clinton is hoping to rewrite her history in Iowa as the caucuses are again taking on an outsize importance to her presidential aspirations.”

“It was Mrs. Clinton’s third-place finish and decisive loss to then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 caucuses that made clear her campaign, initially seen as inevitable, was in real trouble. This time, she faces a tough opponent in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is challenging her from the left for the Democratic nomination. She is ahead of him in recent Iowa polls, though some surveys put her lead in single digits.”