Monday Open Thread [3.7.16]
Michigan—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Trump 41, Cruz 22, Rubio 17, Kasich 13
Michigan—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Clinton 57, Sanders 40
Michigan—CBS News/YouGov–Trump 39, Cruz 24, Rubio 16, Kasich 15
Michigan—CBS News/YouGov–Clinton 55, Sanders 44
Michigan—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Trump 42, Kasich 20, Cruz 19, Rubio 9
Michigan—FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell–Clinton 66, Sanders 29
Michigan—NBC/WSJ/Marist: Clinton 52, Trump 36 | Clinton 48, Cruz 41 | Sanders 56, Trump 34 | Sanders 54, Cruz 36
The Washington Post reports Vice President Joe Biden poked fun at Sen. Ted Cruz as the Gridiron Dinner:
“An inspiration to every kid in America who worries that he’ll never be able to run for president because nobody likes him. He’s running. And look, I told Barack, if you really, really want to remake the Supreme Court, nominate Cruz. Before you know it, you’ll have eight vacancies.”
David Remnick: “It was all so funny once. For a long time, Trump, with his twenty-four-karat skyscrapers, his interesting hair, and his extra-classy airline, was a leading feature of the New York egoscape. The editors of the satirical monthly Spy covered him with the same obsessive attention that Field & Stream pays to the rainbow trout.”
“No American demagogue––not Huey Long, not Joseph McCarthy, not George Wallace––has ever achieved such proximity to national power.”
Neurologist Richard Cytowic told Quartz that the unusual movements of Sen. Ted Cruz’s face may make him seem less sincere to the human brain than other candidates.
Said Cytowic: “The normal way a face moves is what’s called the Duchenne smile, named after the 19th century French neurologist. So the mouth goes up, the eyes narrow and the eyes crinkle at the outside, forming crows feet. Cruz doesn’t give a Duchenne smile. His mouth goes in a tight line across or else it curves down in an anti-Duchenne smile. So he doesn’t come across as sincere at all.”
There is new polling from PPP in four swing states that suggests that it’s not just the blue state Republicans who need to be worried about their unprecedented Supreme Court obstruction: John McCain in Arizona, Chuck Grassley in Iowa, Roy Blunt in Missouri, and Richard Burr in North Carolina. All are up for re-election, and all face majorities of voters who want to see the Senate do its job.
All these Senators start out with pretty mediocre approval ratings. John McCain’s approval is a 26/63 spread, Roy Blunt’s is 25/48, and Richard Burr’s is 28/44. Only Chuck Grassley within this group is on positive ground and his 47/44 spread is down considerably from what we usually find for him as he loses crossover support from Democrats because of his intransigence on the Supreme Court issue. Further making life difficult for this quartet is the incredibly damaged brand of Senate Republicans. Mitch McConnell is vastly unpopular in these four states, coming in at 11/63 in Iowa, 16/68 in Arizona, 16/69 in Missouri, and 19/65 in North Carolina. McConnell will be an albatross for all Senate Republicans seeking reelection this fall.
Strong majorities of voters in each of these states want the Supreme Court vacancy to be filled this year. It’s a 56/40 spread in favor of filling the seat in Iowa, 56/41 in Arizona and Missouri, and 55/41 in North Carolina. What’s particularly important in the numbers is the strong support for filling the seat among independents—it’s 60/38 in Missouri, 59/37 in Arizona, 58/38 in Iowa, and 55/38 in North Carolina. Independent voters will be key to determining whether these incumbents sink or swim this fall, and they want the vacancy filled.
Super majorities in all four states—69/25 in Arizona, 66/24 in Missouri, 66/25 in North Carolina, and 66/26 in Iowa—want the Senate to wait and see who is nominated before deciding on confirmation. That’s Republican voters, too—56/35 in Arizona, 54/38 in North Carolina, 52/37 in Missouri, and 50/39.
According to a new poll conducted by CNN and ORC International, a majority of Americans believe Barack Obama should nominate a judge to replace the recently deceased Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Out of 1,001 respondents, 58% want Obama to nominate Scalia’s successor, while an even more resounding 66% said that the Republican-led Senate should hold a hearing when that nomination is offered.
National Review: “Graham and Cruz had a lengthy phone conversation on Thursday following Graham’s assertion that the GOP may have to unite around Ted Cruz in order to stop Donald Trump. Sources familiar with the call said the two discussed just that.”
“If anything, the existence of a dialogue between the two reveals a newfound flexibility on both sides. Many had questioned whether Cruz would make overtures to the party establishment if he came close to winning the nomination, and it at least appears he is willing to do so. Graham, for his part — after asserting earlier this week that somebody could murder Cruz on the floor of the Senate and not be prosecuted — appears to have made his peace.”
Huffington Post: “Eight out of the 16 states that have held primaries or caucuses so far have implemented new voter ID or other restrictive voting laws since 2010. Democratic turnout has dropped 37 percent overall in those eight states, but just 13 percent in the states that didn’t enact new voter restrictions. To put it another way, Democratic voter turnout was 285 percent worse in states with new voter ID laws.”
The Hill: “As things currently stand, only a candidate who has the backing of a majority of delegates from eight states can even make it onto the nominating ballot. The easiest way to acquire such backing is to win eight primaries. But at present, Ted Cruz is four states shy of that mark, Marco Rubio has won only one contest and no other candidate, barring Trump, has won anything.”
“The eight-state rule would also plainly block the idea of some new candidate emerging at the convention — 2012 nominee Mitt Romney or Speaker Paul Ryan, for example — as a figure around whom Trump opponents could rally.”
One way out: “Delegates could change those rules again this year, to lower or remove the eight-state threshold — a move that would create uproar but would also be a huge boon to those hoping to stop Trump.”
Former President Jimmy Carter has shared some happy news on his health. Last August doctors discovered melanoma lesions in Carter’s brain, but thanks to radiation therapy and regular doses of a relatively new drug called Keytruda, Carter announced he was cancer-free in December. The 91-year-old was still undergoing treatment to keep his cancer at bay, but on Sunday he told the congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church in Georgia that a two-hour MRI showed he “didn’t need any more treatment, so I’m not going to have any more treatments.” His announcement was met with an “audible sigh of relief,” according to NBC.
Hillary and Bernie invading her space. #DemDebate #Bernie #Hillary pic.twitter.com/tJbC6nyNW1
— lizadonnelly (@lizadonnelly) March 7, 2016
Yeah, the “Excuse me, I’m talking,” was Bernie Sander’s Rick Lazio Moment. And enough of the raised finger, Bern. Hillary is not 5 seconds into her answer and you raise your finger to interrupt, as if in class.
In Maine and Lousiana this weekend, Democratic turnout in the caucuses and primaries far outpaced Republican.
In raw numbers, LA R '16 record turnout +114,683 from '12; Ds off their '08 high by 72,828; still, D turnout +10,435 over Rs in '16
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) March 6, 2016
Some thoughts on the Democratic debate last night:
Rick Klein: “The race for the Democratic nomination may be effectively over, or at least well on its way. But the populist fire that’s being stoked by Bernie Sanders’ campaign isn’t dying down -– at least if Sanders has anything to do with it.”
“Clinton and Sanders have kept the campaign about substance, for the most part, even if the same ground has been tread repeatedly. Given the noise being generated by the GOP these days, the passion on the Democratic side may be a welcome dynamic.”
Mark Halperin: “The usual rhythms of Clinton versus Sanders—feisty, crotchety, substantive, exasperated but respectful—were replicated in another one-on-one debate.”
Vox’s Dara Lind has the winners and losers from the debate: Bernie and Hillary are both winners, along with Flint, Michigan, the site of the debate, and whose water crisis was the subject of much of the first part of the debate. The losers were Don Lemon for his dumb questions about racism, and the entire Republican Party, for looking horrible in comparison to the substantive reasonable rational adult Democrats.
Don Lemon asked Clinton what her personal racial blind spots were, with a reference to “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” the (kind of racist) song from the Broadway musical Avenue Q. Then, when she gave an answer that talked about broader forms of racism, he asked the question again.
It was one of the more awkward examples we’ve seen during this campaign of the axiom that the questions debate moderators think are “tough” are often bad questions. Hillary Clinton’s personal racial blindspots, or Bernie Sanders’ personal experiences with other cultures, aren’t things they can answer during a presidential debate without putting their feet in their mouths.
Both Clinton and Sanders, to their credit, responded to Lemon’s questions with better answers than the questions deserved. The answers they gave were reminders of the entire premise of the argument between the two candidates, which CNN and Lemon totally missed: the real problem with racism in America is not the particular feelings in people’s hearts, but the systemic biases and inequalities that put people of color at a disadvantage even when no one is personally being mean to them.
If you have a racial blindspot, how do you know you have a racial blindspot? Aren’t you blind to it? See, stupid dumbass question and kudos to both Hillary and Bernie to move past the questions and give good answers on systemic racism.
Those who watched last week’s cringe-worthy GOP debate know it represented a generational low point for the party. The school-yard bickering, the vulgar rhetoric, the superficial understanding of public policy, the casual falsehoods, the substance-free nonsense – there’s a reason Jamie Johnson, a former aide to Rick Perry’s defunct presidential campaign, said during the event, “My party is committing suicide on national television.”
No Democrat said anything similar last night. There simply wasn’t any reason to.
The substantive exchanges between Sanders and Clinton on a variety of issues – Flint’s water crisis, trade, the rescue of the auto industry, health care, reducing gun violence, fracking, the Export-Import Bank, et al – certainly matter. I suspect the debate didn’t change the broader trajectory of the Democratic race, though I also imagine the audience learned a few things.
But the end result was two candidates who obviously take their responsibilities and their platforms seriously, which is more than could be said about their rivals’ debate from four days prior.
Among Eric Bradner’s “5 takeaways from the Democratic debate”: “The debate was a strong sign that both candidates still see room to gain or lose ground among liberal voters. They spent so much time jockeying to get to each other’s left that there was virtually no talk of Republicans at all…Clinton and Sanders defended government spending and intervention, teachers’ unions, gun control, clean energy programs and efforts to fight climate change.”
“They spent so much time jockeying to get to each other’s left..”
A proper topic for a Democratic primary debate.
Bernie: “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor.”
My Republican friends are playing up this quote. I think it was a poor choice of words. Thoughts?
Agreed, Mike. It was a clumsy statement that comes across as out of touch. The reason it resonates is because it hits Bernie’s weak spot (true, or not).
It’s one of those, you can see where he was trying to go.. white privilege, but he missed the mark. But leave it to the GOP ditto-heads and ratings-driven media to laser focus on it, but Give Drumpf a pass for all the shit HE’S said.
Yeah, you all know I am no Bernie supporter, but I didn’t touch that misstep because I knew what he was trying to say, but it came out wrong.
I believe that everyone who heard that comment knows exactly what he meant and anyone believing otherwise is being embarrassingly disingenuous.
Yes, it could have been stated more clearly. He said “white” as shorthand for affluent or privileged, which is exactly how it’s framed in regular discourse all day every day. Does anyone think Bernie Sanders doesn’t know there are poor white people? The idea the Sanders is out of touch is risible.
It’s a manufactured “controversy” for the big TV/internet audience hanging onto every word of this entertainment program.
My apologies, DD, if this looked like a reply to you. I had a comment sitting there that I hadn’t finished and hadn’t read what you wrote prior to posting. Totally agree with your comment.
The problem is, at this point, assuming we end up with Trump as the nominee on the other side, much of the angst that he appeals to when acting as a populist is poorer whites. This statement, which the right wing spin machine enjoyed, only plays to their fears (and Trump’s narrative) that “regular” white America is under threat and unnoticed. Manufactured or not, the reality is most people don’t play as close attention as we do and they’re going to buy whatever their media of choice is selling.
Again, not defending that view…I know exactly what Bernie meant and appreciate it. But, the way this campaign is playing out and has played out so far, it was a very careless statement.
It’s true. GOP candidates are allowed to say whatever they want about whoever they want, and the Media spends a little time talking about it. One Dem says something that could be taken as controversy, and it’s use like a club for years.
If your plan is to massage the message so that barely literate marginally racists rubes don’t misunderstand it I think you may be on what is sometimes referred to as a fool’s errand. The most perfectly wrought, elegant and concise argument is not going to convince a Joe the Plumber type.
I know most of you are very engaged and committed to this political idea that there are persuadable people out there that may be reached with a message better delivered. If those people exist I’ve never seen or spoken to one.
The worst thing Sanders could do is alter the message to make it palatable to Trump’s supporters. I can’t think of anything more pointless.
Unless Sanders gets some very bad advice from some very dim people, I dont see him doing that.
And on a lighter note still laughing my posterior off over the bit about appoint Cruz to the supreme court and get 8 vacancies in short order. Such is the power, the myth and the legend of Cruz, obnoxious done far right.
Hopefully, Joe comes in. Anyone is better than these idiots……..on both sides. At least you know what your getting.