Tuesday Open Thread [2.23.16]

NATIONAL—NBC/Survey Monkey–Clinton 51, Sanders 40
NATIONAL—NBC/Survey Monkey–Trump 36, Cruz 19, Rubio 16, Kasich 8, Carson 8
OHIO—Quinnipiac–Trump 31, Kasich 26, Cruz 21, Rubio 13, Carson 5
OHIO—Quinnipiac–Clinton 55, Sanders 40
TEXAS—UT/Texas Tribune–Cruz 37, Trump 29, Rubio 15, Carson 4, Kasich 5
TEXAS—UT/Texas Tribune–Clinton 54, Sanders 44
GEORGIA—WSB-TV/Landmark–Trump 32, Cruz 19, Rubio 23, Carson 8, Kasich 8
GEORGIA—WSB-TV/Landmark–Clinton 72, Sanders 20
VERMONT—Castleton University–Trump 32, Rubio 17, Cruz 11, Kasich 10, Carson 3
VERMONT—Castleton University–Sanders 83, Clinton 9
NORTH CAROLINA—SurveyUSA\–Trump 36, Cruz 18, Rubio 18, Carson 10, Kasich 7
NORTH CAROLINA—SurveyUSA–Clinton 51, Sanders 36
NORTH CAROLINA—Elon University–Trump 28, Cruz 19, Rubio 16, Carson 10, Kasich 7
NORTH CAROLINA—Elon University–Clinton 47, Sanders 37
MICHIGAN—ARG–Trump 35, Kasich 17, Cruz 12, Rubio 12, Carson 9
MICHIGAN—ARG–Clinton 53, Sanders 40
ILLINOIS—The Simon Poll/SIU–Trump 28, Cruz 15, Rubio 14, Kasich 13, Carson 6
ILLINOIS—The Simon Poll/SIU–Clinton 51, Sanders 32
WEST VIRGINIA—MetroNews–Trump 40, Cruz 20, Rubio 15, Carson 10, Kasich 6
WEST VIRGINIA—MetroNews–Sanders 57, Clinton 29
NEW MEXICO—Albuquerque Journal–Cruz 25, Trump 24, Rubio 19, Carson 6, Kasich 4

Mark Halperin on why it will hard to stop Trump: “Cruz is making noises about winning Texas and Arkansas; Kasich is making a big play in Michigan and his home state; and Rubio is eyeing his own home state. But the reality is that Trump is in a position where he could win all or nearly all of the 30 states that vote in this period. Even if he lost a few, his most ardent opponents in the party now concede, based on his performances in New Hampshire and South Carolina, that he will win the lion’s share of the delegates in this skein. Republican rules allow winner-take-all contests to begin on March 15, making a delegate comeback more feasible than in the other party, but it would be unheard of in the history of modern politics for a candidate to win almost all of the first 33 contests and the bulk of the delegates and then lose the nomination.”

“A weekend of pressing strategists in both parties for the most likely scenarios under which Clinton and Trump don’t have their nominations effectively sewn up by March 15 produced nothing that sounded plausible as of now, let alone likely.”

Jonathan Chait on why Jeb!’s campaign died and Hillary’s has lived:

“Hillary Clinton is running as the heir to both [the Clinton and Obama] administrations, a figure who will build upon their success.

This strategy is working because Bill Clinton was a successful president, and Obama has been an extremely successful one. There may be shortcomings in both of their records, but both of them managed to govern intelligently, competently, and in a way that looked after a relatively broad spectrum of interests.

George W. Bush’s presidency did none of these things. His administration was an abject disaster both domestically and abroad. Jeb Bush never figured out how to divest himself from his brother’s failure, and by the end reduced himself to running openly as his heir, bringing Dubya to campaign with him in his South Carolina box canyon stand. The Bush disaster presented Jeb with a double trap he could never escape. His brand was poison for swing voters. And conservatives, who had fallen mostly in line with Dubya during his presidency, were forced to disavow him as a heretic by the end so that their ideology could escape the wreckage.”

“The direction of Republican politics since 2008 is mostly the continuing momentum of this explosion. One direction of Republican strategy has taken seriously the premise that Bush failed because of his moderation, and tried to steer the party toward a more austere version of the faith. That is the Cruz version. The Trump version is more of an inchoate rebellion against the party’s donor class and its ideas, embracing nationalism and affect. Marco Rubio represents the true continuation of Bushism within the party — massive tax cuts plus neoconservative foreign policy plus soft-pedaled social conservatism, all sold in a compassionate package with lots of high-profile outreach to Democratic constituencies. Rubio allows Republicans to double down on Bushism without saddling themselves with the liability of the Bush name or, by extension, acknowledging that they still believe Bush’s ideas work.”

Alex Isenstadt at POLITICO gives us a snapshot of the freakout among the Republican Party establishment over Donald Trump’s strength:

Establishment Republicans are reckoning with something they thought would never happen: That it might soon be too late to stop Donald Trump.

With the controversial businessman the clear front-runner heading into Nevada and next week’s Super Tuesday contests, there’s an emerging consensus that the odds of dislodging him are growing longer by the day. Whispered fears that Trump could become the Republican nominee have given way to a din of resigned conventional wisdom – with top party officials and strategists openly wondering what the path to defeating him will be. […]

While the field has winnowed somewhat in recent days, the compressed nature of this year’s Republican primary calendar means there is precious little time for the anti-Trump field to consolidate. Should Trump notch his third consecutive win on Tuesday, some foresee him steamrolling through Super Tuesday a week later, when a quarter of the party’s delegates are awarded. A batch of newly released polls show him with sizable leads in several of those states, including Massachusetts and Georgia.

Tim Murphy’s Hillary and the Moms of Black Lives Matter: the story of their interaction and why these mothers are now Hillary’s strongest supporters.

The women—Maria Hamilton, the mother of Dontre Hamilton; Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis; Geneva Reed-Veal, the mother of Sandra Bland; Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin; and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner—spoke to small audiences at three black churches in the first round of a two-day trip that will culminate Tuesday night in a mega-rally with Clinton in Columbia. They talked emotionally about their faith and their families’ trauma, but they were there primarily to deliver a simple message about the Democratic presidential front-runner: You can trust Hillary Clinton.

[…] “We haven’t been prompted or prodded to say this,” Reed-Veal, whose daughter died in a Texas jail after being pulled over for not signaling a turn, told the 30 or so voters crammed into a side room of Lonely Hill Baptist Church in Holly Hill. “These are all things that each of us felt—a genuineness. She listened and followed through for us. You can’t fake that.”

They all described an intensive courtship by the Clinton campaign that began quietly, through back-channels, and outside the glare of the national media. Hamilton got her first meeting with Clinton after she promised on Facebook to shut down a Clinton rally with a protest in Milwaukee last spring. When the two met, they hugged for three minutes, and Hamilton cried on Clinton’s shoulder. Reed-Veal met Clinton at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner. “She walked up, held my hand, and she said, ‘What is it that you want?'” Reed-Veal recalled. She got a personal letter from Clinton afterward. Then she got a second letter, inviting her to a Democratic debate. After a Texas grand jury decided not to indict anyone for her daughter’s death, she got a third letter from Clinton.

Clinton sealed the deal, they explained, when she met with the five of them last fall in a conference room in Chicago. It was a low-key affair. The candidates’ staffers shooed reporters from the room before it began, and Clinton showed up with a notepad to jot down what she heard. They were told they had 30 minutes; the meeting lasted for two hours. “She knew which cases went to jail,” Fulton said, when she told the story at the second stop of the day, a church in Sumter. “She knew specifically what happened in our tragedies. She knew that information and she knew because she cares. She cares. Not only does she care about victims of gun violence but she cares about women, she cares about African Americans. She cares!”

“We sat there and collaborated with her and her staffers,” Reed-Veal recalled, sounding a little awed. “Our concerns are implemented in her policy. God is good! He was in the room. The Lord was was in the room! And Hillary was that mother, that grandmother, that sister.”

At The Week, Paul Waldman looks ahead to what’s in store for Rubio as he challenges Trump:

[N]ow with the Republican race effectively narrowed to three candidates, the one Trump hasn’t bothered to go after too often — Marco Rubio — must prepare for the mockery and rumor-mongering that will surely be coming his way from the frontrunner. Whether he can withstand it could go a long way toward determining how this race turns out.

Until now, Trump has been relatively soft on Rubio. But with the increasing possibility that Rubio could be the greatest threat to Trump winning the nomination, he’s almost certain to go after him. If the past is any guide, Trump will throw a bunch of different attacks Rubio’s way until he happens upon one that seems to resonate; then he’ll stick with it as long as it works. Trump is already dabbling in Rubio birtherism (though he doesn’t seem quite committed to it), but eventually he’ll find a line of personal criticism with just the right note of cruelty and derision.

Rubio already seems spooked.

MSNBC Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are being accused of asking softball questions for Donald Trump on their show which they later denied. Comedian and actor Harry Shearer later aired leaked audio on his radio show, Le Show, taken from Joe and Mika’s “town hall” interview in Charleston, SC on February 17. The off-the-air audio seems to clear up everyone’s assumptions that the co-hosts are indeed Trump supporters.

You can hear Joe, Mika, and Trump talking backstage. Trump commented on a clip they showed earlier on Morning Joe, “You had me almost as a legendary figure”.

Trump also directs Mika on what questions she should ask:
Mika: “You don’t want me to do umm…the ones with..um… uh deportation and paying for the wall?”
Trump: “That’s right, nothing too hard Mika.”
Mika: “Okay.”

Listen to the full audio below:

Cracks in the GOP Wall: Both Illinois Senator Mark Kirk and Maine Senator Susan Collins say the President has a duty to nominate a replacement for the late Justice Scalia and it is the duty of the Senate to conduct hearings and to vote up or down. But Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio have to act unconstitutionally, and it may cost them their seats, according to new polling from PPP:

-Strong majorities of voters—58/35 in Ohio and 57/40 in Pennsylvania—think that the vacant seat on the Supreme Court should be filled this year. What’s particularly noteworthy about those numbers—and concerning for Portman and Toomey—is how emphatic the support for approving a replacement is among independent voters. In Ohio they think a new Justice should be named this year 70/24 and in Pennsylvania it’s 60/37. Those independent voters are going to make the difference in these tight Senate races, and they have no tolerance for obstructionism on the vacancy.

-Voters are particularly angry about Senators taking the stance that they’re not going to approve anyone before even knowing who President Obama decides to put forward. By a 76/20 spread in Pennsylvania and a 74/18 one in Ohio, voters think the Senate should wait to see who is nominated to the Court before deciding whether or not to confirm that person. Toomey and Portman are out of line even with their own party base on that one—Republicans in Pennsylvania think 67/27 and in Ohio think 63/32 that the Senate should at least give President Obama’s choice a chance before deciding whether or not to confirm them.

Tom Clark says Progressives may not want President Obama to nominate the next Justice:

Because he confronts a recalcitrant Senate, one strategy forward for Obama might be to choose a nominee who splits the Republican senators — trying to “peel off” enough votes from the GOP to side with his Democratic allies and get the nominee through the confirmation process. This kind of moderation might be particularly painful for progressives if it undermines the few areas where they have had some success in the Court during the past decade.

Nah, he’ll appoint Sri Srinivasan, a relatively liberal judge who got a vote of 97-0 upon his confirmation to the DC Circuit Court, the farm team for the Supreme Court. Obama knows that the GOP will either block or vote down his nominee, so he will appoint the most well qualified liberal.

Kevin Drum:

So is Trump really wrecking the GOP? I don’t see it. The GOP wrecked the GOP. They’re the ones who have spent the last 30 years building the kind of party that Trump appeals to. If Michael Moore entered the Democratic race, do you think he’d have the same effect? After all, he’s loud, he’s funny, and he’s unapologetically liberal.

But he wouldn’t have any serious impact. He’d build a small movement and get some good press, and that would be that. There just aren’t enough Democrats around who’d find his brand of rabble-rousing convincing presidential material. The Democratic establishment hasn’t spent the last 30 years building that kind of party.

So let’s knock off the crocodile tears about Trump wrecking the Republican Party. This is the party the Republican establishment built. They found it convenient, and they were pretty sure they could keep it under control. But they couldn’t. They started a bonfire to keep the rubes good and fired up, and now they’re getting upset because someone else is throwing in a few logs and taking ownership of it. Boo hoo.

Nancy LaTourneau agrees: post-policy Republicans gave us Trump.

By now we all know the story about how a group of Republican leaders met the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 to plan their next move. Their task was epic. The Bush/Cheney years had resulted in the largest terror attack on American soil, the country becoming mired in two seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, and the Great Recession. As a consequence, not only did the country elect a Democratic president, the party had control of the House and would eventually (for a few months) have a super-majority in the Senate. Republicans had to come up with a strategy to keep their Party alive.

Of course the strategy they decided on that night was total obstruction of anything Democrats tried to do. There were risks associated with that plan. In order to pull it off, they had to convince their base that the newly elected President was a threat. Given that he had been elected based primarily on the idea that “there is not a blue America and a red America, but a United States of America,” that was going to be a challenge. But the one thing they had going for them was the “otherness” of his biography and ethnicity. And so they capitalized on how Sarah Palin had defined the “real [read: white] America” and the idea that Barack Hussein Obama had “palled around with terrorists.” That led to everything from the birther movement to death panels to the whole of idea that this President was actually a Kenyan socialist. In other words, to rally their base behind the strategy of total obstruction, these Republican leaders fanned the flames of fear and anger.

Being the party of “no” meant becoming post-policy. As such, it was not necessary to deal with the policy failures of the past administration.

Trump offers no policy ideas other than the Wall, which is just a metaphor to racism.

Republican Attorney in Arizona wants Scalia’s votes to count in cases he has already sat on. He wants the dead to vote. Irony.

Frank Rich:

Trump is still running against a divided field. Anyone who thinks Ted Cruz is going to get out any time soon is in denial. This is a guy who shut down the government despite the pleading of his own fellow Republicans in the Senate and who indeed basks in the hatred of his peers in the GOP. He has the fattest war chest in the race, and he’s certainly not going to back down now. Kasich also has an incentive to stay in, at least until his home state of Ohio holds its primary on March 15. And Carson — well, he is on record saying this race is just finishing its first inning. Even in the unlikely event any of them were to drop out soon, the assumption that their votes would automatically go to Rubio is, as Trump himself has said, highly dubious. As the South Carolina exit polls showed, Trump had far and away the broadest base of support in the Republican electorate in South Carolina, which as much as any is representative of the national GOP voting pool. It’s entirely possible that he would pick up a decent share of Cruz and Carson voters and even some Bush and Kasich voters if any of them were to depart. The Times is reporting that even some big Bush donors are already flirting with shifting to Trump.