Friday Open Thread [1.22.2016]

IOWA—Monmouth/KBUR: Clinton 48, Sanders 39, O’Malley 7
IOWA—CNN/ORC: Sanders 51, Clinton 43, O’Malley 4
IOWA—Economist/YouGov: Trump 38, Cruz 19, Rubio 14, Carson 7. No other candidate gets more than 4% support.
IOWA—CNN/ORC: Trump 37, Cruz 26, Rubio 14, Carson 6, Bush 3, Huckabee 3, Paul 2, Christie 1, Kasich 1, Fiorina 1, Santorum 1
IOWA—Loras College: Trump 26, Cruz 25, Rubio 13, Carson 8, Bush 6, Christie 3, Paul 3, Kasich 4, Huckabee 3, Fiorina 2, Santorum 1
IOWA—Monmouth/KBUR: Cruz 27, Trump 25, Rubio 9, Carson 11, Bush 7, Christie 4, Paul 3, Kasich 3, Huckabee 4, Fiorina 3, Santorum 1
NORTH CAROLINA—Civitas: Trump 27, Cruz 23, Rubio 10, Carson 7, Bush 4, Christie 4, Huckabee 2, Fiorina 2, Paul 2, Kasich 2, Santorum 1

Carly Fiorina is a truly evil person. She personally and literally, and I mean literally, kidnapped a group of children on a field trip to the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden and then used those children as props before a huge banner with a picture of a fetus for her speech about harvesting organs from aborted babies.

I hope she goes directly to hell when she dies.

First Read on why Cruz is getting attacked right now by all comers:

If you don’t stop Cruz in Iowa, it’s going to be hard for the establishment to stop either of them. Think about it — Cruz carries Iowa, and that could catapult him to second place in New Hampshire, while Trump would remain in the catbird’s seat in New Hampshire. That scenario could freeze out the establishment candidates like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich. But what if Trump beats Cruz in Iowa? Well, there’s more of an opening for a Rubio/Bush/Christie/Kasich to finish second in New Hampshire, strengthening the establishment going into South Carolina and beyond. Of course, if Trump wins BOTH Iowa and New Hampshire, it could be game over for the GOP nomination. But on paper, there appears to be more of an opening for the establishment if Cruz DOESN’T win in Iowa.

E.J. Dionne: “After Obama won, the main goal of Republican leaders of all stripes was to take back Congress as a prelude to defeating the president in 2012. The angry grass-roots right — it has been there for decades but cleverly rebranded itself as the tea party in 2009 — would be central in driving the midterm voters the GOP would need to the polls. Since no one was better at rousing them than Palin, old-line Republican leaders embraced and legitimized her even if they snickered privately about who she was and how she said things.”

“Today’s Republican crisis was thus engineered by the party leadership’s step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party’s lodestars.”

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) told supporters at a campaign fundraiser for his own re-election that he would vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders for president before Sen. Ted Cruz, the AP reports.

“Burr did not appear to be joking, said the person, who demanded anonymity to discuss the private gathering.”

Maeve Reston at CNN provides an overview of the Republican dilemma in choosing between Trump and Cruz — two candidates who are both horrible for the long-term branding of the Republican Party:

The bitter battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz escalated Thursday, as prominent members of the GOP fought over which one of them would do more damage to the Republican brand.

For months, the two Republican candidates have sparred over who could rightly claim the mantle of party outsider. But with some Republican leaders in open revolt against Cruz as he has surged in Iowa, Trump is pivoting to an argument that he is more electable than Cruz — suggesting that Cruz’s abrasive personality makes him unfit for the presidency. […] The conservative establishment, however, shows no sign of rallying around Trump.

Thursday night, the National Review unveiled a special issue: “Against Trump,” featuring essays by 22 prominent conservative thinkers from various ideological factions opposing Trump’s candidacy.

In a press conference, Trump brushed off the National Review’s criticisms, calling the magazine a failing, irrelevant publication.

New York Times: “For months, great quantities of ink, political-science brain power and polling resources have been expended trying to dissect, if not exactly diagnose, the Trump phenomenon — precisely who supports him and why. Far less energy has been devoted to sounding out a much larger segment of the electorate: those who reject him.”

“If you nominate Trump and Cruz, I think you get the same outcome. Whether it’s death by being shot or poisoning doesn’t really matter. I don’t think the outcome will be substantially different.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham, quoted by the New York Times.

Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker at The New York Times dive into the GOP primary and highlight the other 68% of Republican voters who don’t support Trump but don’t know how to stop his momentum:

So deep is the dislike for him in some quarters that people like Mrs. Cleveland’s husband, Doug, question the accuracy of polls that so consistently identify Mr. Trump as leading the field with around 32 percent. “I’ve never met a single one of them,” Mr. Cleveland said about those said to be backing Mr. Trump. “Where are all these Trump supporters? Everyone we know is supporting somebody else.”

These are the lamentations of the 68 Percent — the significant majority of Republican voters here who are immune to Mr. Trump’s charms and entreaties, according to a battery of voter interviews on Thursday at campaign events for his rivals.

For months, great quantities of ink, political-science brain power and polling resources have been expended trying to dissect, if not exactly diagnose, the Trump phenomenon — precisely who supports him and why. Far less energy has been devoted to sounding out a much larger segment of the electorate: those who reject him.

Paul Waldman examines the Cruz hate in some top Republican circles:

First, many believe that Cruz would be destined to not just lose to Hillary Clinton, but lose in spectacular fashion. He has always presented himself as an uncompromising ideologue, and his theory of the election is that rather than appeal to independent voters, the path to victory lies in offering such a rock-ribbed conservative vision that millions of new conservative voters who haven’t made it to the polls in earlier years will come out for him. Experienced hands believe the result of that strategy would be a repeat of the 1964 election, when Lyndon Johnson trounced Barry Goldwater by 23 percentage points and won 486 electoral votes. Even worse, Cruz’s extreme brand of conservatism could turn off voters to the whole party. As a Republican lobbyist told The New York Times, “Trump won’t do long-lasting damage to the GOP coalition. Cruz will.” Or as Bob Dole, who emphasized that he actually very much hoped Jeb Bush would win, said on Wednesday, if Cruz is the nominee, “we’re going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures.”

Cruz probably wasn’t too upset when he heard that, since it reinforces the idea that he’s the scourge of the Washington establishment.

Joshua Daar at FiveThirtyEight examines the Sanders ground game in Iowa:

If the Iowa caucuses end up as close as polls currently show, Sanders’s hopes in Iowa may hinge on his ability to follow Obama’s 2008 turnout blueprint, raising the question: How does his ground game compare to Obama’s? … Sanders’ organization does not equal Obama’s, despite his similar (if not loftier) goals for turnout and participation. In counties without paid staff and field organization, Sanders will be relying on another concept central to Obama’s 2008 run — hope — to get his winning coalition to the caucuses on Feb. 1.

This is why I believe Clinton will win Iowa. Her organization is much better than Bernie’s, and her coalition is made up of more reliable party members and more reliable caucus goers. Remember a caucus is not a primary. It is an involved and confusing process. Obama won as the outsider because from day 1, he set up a ground game in every county in Iowa, knowing that a breakthrough there was the only shot for his campaign.