Saturday Open Thread [3.26.16]

Michigan—EPIC-MRA–Clinton 47, Trump 37
Michigan—SurveyUSA–Clinton 49, Trump 38

A new CNN/ORC poll finds that 57% of American voters say that President Obama and not his successor elected in November should be the one who gets to nominate the next Supreme Court justice.

A Quinnipiac University poll released found that 62% of voters said the Senate should consider Merrick Garland’s nomination, and a CBS News/New York Times poll suggested that 53% of Americans would like the Senate to vote on his nomination.

A new Gallup poll finds that just 30% of Americans say the presidential election process is working as it should, down from 37% in January.

“The decline is driven mainly by Republicans’ increasingly cynical views as the campaign season has progressed. The percentage of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say the election process is working has fallen from 46% to 30% since January. Democrats’ and Democratic leaners’ views haven’t changed.”

David Wasserman: “Cruz and Kasich would be odd bedfellows within today’s GOP. But the truth is, if they want to thwart Trump, their only hope may be to coordinate a last-ditch, two-front assault on the front-runner. If they don’t start divvying up turf, Trump is much more likely to prevail on the first ballot in Cleveland.”

“It’s possible, as Sean Trende has persuasively argued, that Kasich’s continued candidacy helps Trump much more than it hurts him. We may never know. But even after being mathematically eliminated from winning 1,237 delegates, Kasich seems to have made up his mind. And rather than piling on with calls for Kasich to drop out, #NeverTrump forces might be better off considering Kasich’s usefulness in the later stages of the race.”

“There are still a few states that award their delegates proportionally where a continued three-way race could help drive down Trump’s share of delegates: New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.”

When members of your party are saying this about your national convention…you have a serious problem on your hands. “Things could get pretty testy,” the Nevada Republican [Sen. Heller] told KSNV-TV, Channel 3, which reported Heller had seen recent protests at Donald Trump rallies. “Frankly my biggest concern is security, whether or not I feel it is safe enough to attend a convention.”

Hillary Clinton has been getting lots of complaints from pundits over “shouting” during public appearances, meaning raising her voice to the same level that every other politician uses when speaking to a group. This has caused at least several of them to get the vapors.
Can’t win for losing, apparently.

Fox News host Heather Nauert and guest Monica Crowley criticized the former secretary of state Wednesday for being “a little too calm” while delivering a foreign policy speech at Stanford University.

I prefer my leaders be calm when talking about foreign policy, rather than raving lunatics.

Terror attacks in Europe used to be more frequent and more deadly. But that doesn’t fit into the media narrative.

Someone is actually knocking the hell out of ISIS, and it's not a reality TV blowhard. #ThanksObama https://t.co/cwlxIyqln7

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) March 25, 2016

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.

In order to understand the ISIS attack in Brussels, it might be important to understand what is happening to them in Syria and Iraq.

As European governments scramble to contain the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force.

In the latest setbacks for the militants on Thursday, Syrian government troops entered the outskirts of the historic town of Palmyra after a weeks-old offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, and U.S. airstrikes helped Iraqi forces overrun a string of Islamic State villages in northern Iraq that had been threatening a U.S. base nearby.
These are just two of the many fronts in both countries where the militants are being squeezed, stretched and pushed back. Nowhere are they on the attack. They have not embarked on a successful offensive in nearly nine months. Their leaders are dying in U.S. strikes at the rate of one every three days, inhibiting their ability to launch attacks, according to U.S. military officials.

Front-line commanders no longer speak of a scarily formidable foe but of defenses that crumble within days and fighters who flee at the first sign they are under attack.

So, if you add a relatively good economy, a popular outgoing President and a possible military victory over ISIS in Syria and Iraq in the fall, coupled with a disaster of a nominee in either Trump or Cruz, the election might be a massive blowout.

First Read says Hillary is turning her attention to the General: “Note her public events since Tuesday: a counterterrorism speech at Stanford after the attacks in Belgium, and then a homeland security forum at the University of Southern California. And today, per NBC’s Monica Alba, Clinton surrogates like former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will hold a conference call contrasting her foreign-policy/national security approach with the Republican candidates.”

“Now that pivot could be somewhat risky for Clinton, given that Bernie Sanders will likely close his delegate deficit in this weekend’s three Democratic contests. But the trends are unmistakable: Democrats are turning to the general, while Republicans are likely bracing themselves for another four months of what we saw this week.”

It’s not risky when you consider that these few contests today are likely among the last that Bernie will win.

Jonathan Chait on why the GOP Elites hate Trump: “First, they recognize that his deep unpopularity among the general public makes him a historically awful nominee. Second, his egomania, lack of interest in policy, and history of off-the-reservation statements and behavior give them justifiable reasons to doubt he will stay committed to their agenda even if somehow elected. And third, they find his persona repellant.”

“That last factor — the visceral loathing for the man himself that pulsates among his opponents — has become the highest-order question in the Republican race. Other Republican candidates, who began the race defining themselves on their own personal and ideological terms, now define themselves in relation to Trump’s persona.”

Noam Bramson says Trump’s message is undeniably fascist: “Comparing any contemporary American political figure to Hitler can be extravagantly unfair. A disclaimer is required: Donald Trump gives no indication of being a would-be mass murderer or world conqueror (sadly, torturer and war criminal cannot be ruled out, given his explicitly supportive statements on these topics.) It’s not even clear that Trump is a real bigot – his pronouncements have the air of opportunistic demagoguery more than of genuine personal prejudice. Is Trump a crypto-fascist? Who knows? It seems just as likely that he has no coherent political philosophy whatsoever, beyond self-aggrandizement.”

“But that’s where the disclaimer ends, because whatever Trump’s inner thoughts, Trump’s candidacy, his message, is fascist – fascist to the core.”