Delaware Liberal

Friday Open Thread [4.1.16]

Delaware Dem

WISCONSIN—PPP–Cruz 38, Trump 37, Kasich 17
WISCONSIN—PPP–Sanders 49, Hillary 43
WISCONSIN—FOX Business–Cruz 42, Trump 32, Kasich 19
WISCONSIN—FOX Business–Sanders 48, Clinton 43
NATIONAL—Pew Research–Trump 41, Cruz 32, Kasich 20
NATIONAL—Pew Research–Clinton 49, Sanders 43
NATIONAL—PPP–Clinton 48, Trump 41 | Clinton 45, Cruz 42 | Sanders 48, Trump 40 | Sanders 48, Cruz 41

Keep the complete and total Republican obstruction to him in mind when reading Daniel Henninger’s piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Barack Obama will retire a happy man. He is now close to destroying his political enemies—the Republican Party, the American conservative movement and the public-policy legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Today, the last men standing amidst the debris of the Republican presidential competition are Donald Trump, a political independent who is using the Republican Party like an Uber car; Ted Cruz, who used the Republican Party as a footstool; and John Kasich, a remnant of the Reagan revolution, who is being told by Republicans to quit.

History may quibble, but this death-spiral began with Barack Obama’s health-care summit at Blair House on Feb. 25, 2010. For a day, Republicans gave detailed policy critiques of the proposed Affordable Care Act. When it was over, the Democrats, including Mr. Obama, said they had heard nothing new.

That meeting was the last good-faith event in the Obama presidency. Barack Obama killed politics in Washington that day because he had no use for it, and has said so many times.

History does quibble, because Barack Obama did not kill politics and Republicans did not offer detailed policy critiques at that February 2010 meeting, but you can read Martin Longman to learn the true history of that day. But I rather agree with the first two paragraphs. When you think about Obama’s rivals, his Republican ones are destroyed, will be destroyed, or are destroying themselves, and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has embraced him and is running to continue his legacy, to do his work, rather than her own.

Tensions are escalating. Bernie Sanders and his campaign have been lying all year long that Hillary Clinton takes money from the fossil fuel industry. So a Greenpeace activist repeated that lie on a ropeline at a Clinton event last night, and Hillary could take it no more:

“I do not have — I have money from people who work for fossil-fuel companies,” Clinton said. The environmentalist tried to follow up, but Clinton overrode her: “I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me,” she said, punctuating each word with a finger jab. “I’m sick of it.”

A spokesperson for Sanders backed the activist up, telling CNN that Clinton “has relied heavily on funds from lobbyists working for the oil and gas industry,” but a Clinton spokesperson maintained that the campaign “has not taken a dollar from oil and gas industry PACs or corporations.” He went on: “The simple fact is that the Sanders campaign is misleading voters with their attacks.”

Clinton hasn’t taken donations directly from oil and gas companies — that’s against election law — but she has reportedly accepted more than $300,000 from people who work for those companies. (By that math, Clinton’s rep said Sanders has taken $50,000.)

Earlier in the evening, Clinton took aim at Sanders for his response to Donald Trump’s questionable abortion remarks. “Last night Senator Sanders agreed that Donald Trump’s comments were shameful, but then he said they were a distraction from, and I quote, ‘a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America,'” she said. “To me, this is a serious issue. I have fought on this issue. And I know, given what’s happening in states across our country, we need a president who is passionate about this.”

Sanders is being dismissive regarding women’s rights with his comment. A distraction??? Clinton is correct to point this out. I wonder if a Break Up the Big Banks Act made it to a President Sander’s desk with a Criminalize Abortion Amendment attached to it, would President Sanders veto the whole thing as he should, or would he sign it.

Back to the original issue, Sanders supporters will now say this is a quibble, that if you work for a fossil fuel company it necessary means that you are the fossil fuel industry yourself, or are at the very least a lobbyist for it. This is also not true. In my real life, I am a lawyer and I defend various companies. I like to joke that I balance out my life by voting Democratic, but that is not really a joke, it is true. My work doesn’t reflect who I am nor my political leanings. And that is true for many people. And to say otherwise is a lie.

In his interview with Slate, former Rep. Barney Frank shares my estimation of progressives purists and Bernie Sanders:

Barney Frank: I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about.

Isaac Chotiner: So it seems like you’re saying Bernie’s voters have a slightly unrealistic sense about the political process. […] I didn’t say slightly. […] Bernie Sanders has been in Congress for 25 years with little to show for it in terms of his accomplishments and that’s because of the role he stakes out. It is harder to get things done in the American political system than a lot of people realize, and what happens is they blame the people in office for the system. And that’s the same with the Tea Party. It’s “I voted for these Republicans, we have a Republican Congress, we voted for them, they took over Congress, they didn’t accomplish anything.” You gotta win at least two elections in a row.[…]

I think that part of the argument that people like Sanders would make is that, the financial system is corrupt fundamentally and that we don’t want to merely make it slightly more stable—. Well if that’s the case it’s even dumber than I thought. The financial system is people lending money to other people so they can do things. I do think that he overstates it when he says, “they’re all corrupt.” It’s simply not true. And by the way, when it comes to specifics, the only specific I have heard is Glass-Steagall, which makes very little change in the finance system. I think he gets a pass from the media. Other than Glass-Steagall, what did he propose in 2009 and 2010 when he was a senator when we were dealing with this? The answer is nothing. Why haven’t you looked at his record? […]

What do you make of Hillary’s campaign? I think it’s been good on the whole. I think she should have admitted earlier she made a mistake on the emails. I am struck by the fact that with all these emails of hers getting out, there hasn’t been a single really embarrassing one. I’m pleasantly surprised by that.

Do you think she should release her Wall Street speeches? Yeah, but I don’t think anybody is really against her because she won’t. By the way, I think Sanders has been outrageously McCarthyite on that.

McCarthyite? Yes, I saw one commercial that said the big companies weren’t punished. Why? Well, maybe it’s because Hillary is getting speaking fees. So the secretary of state should have been indicting people? I mean, yes, McCarthyite in the sense that it’s guilt by association. He complains about what she did with regards to all this money stuff. Where’s the beef of that? What Sanders basically says is, “They’re trying to bribe you.” Well what do they get for money? He shows nothing. There have been a couple of cases of Republican senators trying to weaken the Dodd-Frank Act. Elizabeth Warren has been a much more successful defender of that bill than Sen. Sanders has been. There was this complaint, “Oh she had contributions from Wall Street.” So did Barack Obama. So does almost every Democrat because you can’t unilaterally disarm.

Staking out the absolute progressive position in Congress is a good thing. Bernie Sanders was good at it. And he should continue doing it…. in the Senate. It helps out for the Overton Window and for fashioning actual legislative compromise. But you cannot govern as a purist President. No bill that comes to you from Congress will ever be 100% perfect. Not even when you have two thirds majorities in the House and Senate. You cannot elect a purist President.

Even if Bernie wins every state going forward 51-49, he will lose the nomination to Hillary:

Matt Yglesias says Bernie Sanders is making unrealistic promises about his free college plan.

The bottom line is that electing Bernie Sanders president is not going to eliminate tuition for most American college students. Not because Sanders’s College for All bill probably wouldn’t pass even if he did win, but because even if it did pass the bill simply will not lead to the elimination of tuition in most cases. This isn’t Sanders’s fault, per se — it’s not sloppy legislative drafting — but it reflects the fact that the administration of public institutions of higher education in the United States is primarily a state matter. The federal government has a role, and it’s an important one, but it’s secondary. The fiscal cost of a total federal takeover of the system would be so prohibitive that Sanders doesn’t propose it, and that means his ideas can have only a limited impact on what happens on the ground.

That’s all fine, except Sanders’s rhetoric is raising expectations and mobilizing voters around promises of change that are completely at odds with what his policies and American institutions can actually deliver.

I’m telling you, if purist progressives thought they were disappointed by Obama, just you wait. They think the election of this one man will change everything, and everything Bernie has promised them will happen with the snap of his fingers. LOLz.

At The American Prospect, Paul Starr’s “The Democrats as a Movement Party” offers several perceptive observations, including: “Sanders’s purism on campaign finance–no super PACs, no big financial donors–can work in states like Vermont with low-cost media markets and in congressional districts with lopsided Democratic majorities. It might even be enough to win a presidential nomination, thanks to all the free media coverage. But it is not feasible in most congressional and statewide elections. Candidates who follow that approach are likely to be outspent by a wide margin, and the difference will doom many of them. That’s why most Democrats who want to reverse Citizens United and see more public financing have nonetheless decided to work within the regime the Supreme Court has established.”

First Read: “Throughout the campaign, instances of Trump changing or amending a statement – or at least enduring withering criticism from within his own party for something he said — have become routine. On nearly a weekly basis now, downballot Republicans are facing maddening political choices as they’re asked to comment on Trump’s constantly-changing policy positions and shocking pronouncements. And the constant whiplash makes for a compelling case for those inside the party who say it’s worth risking the backlash with Trump voters by doing whatever it takes to stop him.”

“By the fall, can Republicans running downballot really afford to respond almost daily to something Trump said? It’s been tough enough this spring, and it’s only going to get more complicated.”

James Hohmann: “Increasingly, Trump is endangering Republicans down ballot. Even if he’s not the nominee, he’s damaging the GOP brand. Don’t think him retracting the statement about punishing women who get abortions will prevent Democrats from running negative ads featuring the clip. Or, for that matter, pressing any Republican incumbent who appears with him on whether they agree.”

Alabama’s Republican Governor, Robert Bentley, has got himself into a combination of some Clintonian and Nixonian trouble and could face impeachment. He has acknowledged “that he had sexually charged conversations with a top aide,” but said he has “no intentions of resigning,” the New York Times reports. That top aide “resigned Wednesday, a week after he publicly admitted making inappropriate remarks to her but denied the two ever had an affair,” the AP reports.

Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that Bentley “pressured law enforcement officers to use federal and state resources to target those critical of his relationship with senior advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason,” according to the Alabama Political Reporter.

Therefore, Alabama state Rep. Ed Henry (R) told a local TV station, WHNT, that he will seek the impeachment of the governor based on “incompetence and moral turpitude.”

From Talking Points Memo:

“From the beginning of his second term he has done nothing but lie and deceive the people of Alabama and now we are seeing basically the fruits of that,” Henry told the WTVM. “If we are going to do anything for the next two years as far as economic development, bringing in industry, being effective if you will, we will have to do it without Robert Bentley as the governor.” […]

Bentley later said in a bizarre news conference that he did not have a physical relationship with Mason. But the governor did apologize for “the things that I said” that were reported in the press, calling those statements “inappropriate.”

Henry said that if his resolution passes the House, it would go to the Senate for a vote. If it passes there, the governor would be impeached.

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