Thursday Open Thread [4.28.16]
VINE: American Idol meets American politics https://t.co/DtewxqicKk
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 27, 2016
“Quietly acknowledging that a direct path to the Democratic nomination is all but blocked, Bernie Sanders and his advisers are zeroing in on making policy changes to the party platform and reforming the presidential nominating process,” Politico reports. “The Vermont senator and his closest aides have been considering convention end-game scenarios for months, and they have already been in contact with the Democratic National Convention’s organizers to talk through the logistics of July’s party gathering in Philadelphia.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tore into Donald Trump’s speech on foreign policy, calling it “unnerving,” “pathetic” and “scary,” Politico reports. Said Graham: “If you had any doubt that Donald Trump is not fit to be commander in chief, this speech should’ve removed it. It took every problem and fear I have with Donald Trump and put in on steroids.”
The Lid on why Cruz picked Fiorina as a running mate: “On the plus side, Cruz was at least partially able to shake up a bad news cycle by teasing and then confirming the announcement. The pick of a woman who’s never held elected office and has a good record of fiery debates gives him a high-value surrogate who is eager to fight a two-front war against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And Fiorina is the kind of candidate who’s gotten under Trump’s skin before and could conceivably provoke a damaging reaction from the GOP frontrunner. But plenty of critics are deriding the move as desperate, presumptuous and calculating – themes that Donald Trump is sure to repeat for the rest of the week. And being perceived as desperate is a tough place for Cruz to be with a must-win contest in Indiana just days away.”
The only two plausible explanations for it are 1) blunting Trump’s news cycle yesterday to disrupt the CW that the primary is over and 2) somehow thinking Fiorina will help him with California Republicans. It was a desperate and short sighted move, for it removes his biggest piece of leverage at a contested convention (if it even happens): bargaining for the VP nomination. It was the last desperate move of a drowning man.
Josh Marshall on Clinton v. Trump:
These two candidates aren’t just appealing to different demographics or voting coalitions. They’re operating in what almost amounts to two different political universes. In linguistic terms it is almost like two mutually unintelligible languages. I guarantee you that everyone who has voted for Trump in any primary so far loved those remarks. They hate Hillary. They hate ‘political correctness’. More than anything else they love provocation itself. But this kind of talk, while a single instance itself, reminds us that Trump has already all but disqualified himself with huge swaths of the electorate. It’s like a long fingernail drag over the chalkboard for a significant majority of voters. Trump has a 70%+ disapproval rating among women; roughly 80% disapproval among Hispanics; and the list goes on and on. At the moment he’s even doing fairly poorly among whites! But we should expect those numbers to rise significantly as Republican partisans unify around Trump.
Meanwhile Clinton is talking about opportunity, inclusion across racial groups and the gender divide. It is a message framed around inclusion for rising groups, young people and incremental improvements in the safety net and wages for those just hanging on in the 21st century economy. It really amounts to a simple continuity message with the Obama presidency. What he did. My point isn’t to pump this agenda. This is an ideologically agnostic point. It is to point out how it is virtually incomprehensible in the Trump universe. Gibberish or nonsense in a worldview based on reclaiming things your supporters believe were or are being taken away from them by others, and a powerful leader reclaiming what you lost from domestic newcomers and foreign adversaries. They’re just categorically different, not just in policy terms, but in language, manner of acting in public, concept of leadership. Everything. They’re mutually incomprehensible, seemingly indifferent to what folks on the other side of the divide even think.
Think about it this way. Can you imagine Trump and Clinton actually debating or discussing a specific issue? Let alone engaging in a formal debate?
What worries Republicans profoundly and has Democrats what I would call cautiously ecstatic is that if both candidates are doubling down on these portions of the population – Clinton’s chunk looks significantly larger than Trump’s. The biggest driver in November may turn out to be gender. But seen through a racial prism, which seems more likely: that Trump will significantly drive up the white vote or that Clinton will significantly drive up the minority vote? Trump seems dramatically less popular with Hispanic voters than Romney and it is difficult to see him making up much of that ground. Remember too that there are fewer white voters in 2016 than there were in 2012.
Wall Street Journal: “Some 58% of Republican voters in Pennsylvania said the primary process had divided the party, exit polls showed. A far smaller share, 40%, said the primaries had energized the party.”
“Moreover, one-quarter of Republican primary voters in Maryland and Connecticut, and nearly that share in Pennsylvania, said they wouldn’t vote for Mr. Trump in a general election. That signaled a problem for Mr. Trump in one of his top tasks, should be become the nominee: unifying his own party.”
First Read: “Here’s something else that might give GOP consultants the night sweats: In battleground Pennsylvania, 69% of Democratic primary voters said their race was energizing their party, versus 58% of Republicans who said their nominating contest was dividing theirs.”
The Atlantic says demography, not ideology, is destiny: “On both sides, the leading candidates have established clear patterns of support—and have faced largely intractable pockets of resistance. For the most part, demography has trumped geography, with the big exception that in the Democratic race challenger Bernie Sanders has run much better against front-runner Hillary Clinton among several groups of voters outside of the South than in Dixie, including whites, the middle-aged, and those who describe themselves as very liberal.”
It was why Bernie lost the primary. Bernie’s success at winning 8 demographically favorable states in a row did nothing to change the minds of voters in demographically unfavorable states over the last two weeks.
William Galston says the Reagan Era in Republican politics is over: “The minute-to-minute coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries threatens to obscure the larger story: While Sen. Bernie Sanders is pressing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to move further and faster down the progressive road, Donald Trump is waging and winning the third major revolution in the Republican Party since World War II.”
“Mr. Trump’s candidacy has showed that the cadre of genuine social conservatives is smaller than long assumed, that grass-roots Republican support for large military commitments in the Middle East has withered, and that the business community is politically homeless.”
“So it has come to this: A mercantilist isolationist is the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.”
A federal judge sentenced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert to 15 months in prison for evading banking rules in what prosecutors said was a bid to hide sexual misconduct allegations from decades ago, the Wall Street Journal reports. Said U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin: “The defendant was a serial child molester.” The sentence of 15 months, plus two years of supervised released, was beyond the up to six months in prison that was suggested in the plea agreement he reached with federal prosecutors last year. I hope he gets what he deserves in prison.
Nathan Gonzales on how Democrats can take back the House: “As Democratic chances of taking back the House improve with the success of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, party strategists are trying to figure out exactly how and where it’s going to happen. It’s not too difficult to see Democrats gaining 10, or even 20, seats in November, but gaining the 30 required for a majority is more difficult and will require Democrats winning a large swath of seats where Republicans are currently heavy favorites.”
“In order to win the majority, Democrats likely need to win a clear majority of a batch of 16 seats, which includes pricey plays, scenario seats, late bloomers, and slippery targets.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning to lay off “hundreds” of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning California, the New York Times reports. “The Vermont senator revealed the changes a day after losing four of the five states that voted Tuesday and falling further behind Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite the changes, Mr. Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party’s summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved.”
Galston: “Mr. Trump’s candidacy has showed … that the business community is politically homeless.”
LOL… Charles Koch is Ready for Hillary. That’s a signal.
The business community wants stability, even if it comes with higher taxes and regulations, etc. Trump is so erratic as to be dangerous to business, particularly international business that needs stability to grow and prosper.
“The business community wants stability, even if it comes with higher taxes and regulations, etc. ”
So why did they support GWB, the most destabilizing President we have known?
Are these the down-ballot Democrats we’re supposed to support to bring about change?:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/house-democrats-hhs-drug-prices_us_5720e639e4b0b49df6a9c93f
“The business community wants stability, even if it comes with higher taxes and regulations, etc.”
@Mikem
Exactly. Business hates uncertainty. They can deal with almost anything else but not that. It doesn’t matter if it is uncertainty in regulation, markets, supply, production, etc. Uncertainty is a killer for them AND for investors.
A Trump Presidency would create so much uncertainty in so many areas that it would effectively kill growth and investment. If I am a business owner do I expand, contractor? Do I hire people? What if I can’t export or import? What about access to raw materials?
They will hunker down and wait to see what happens. With Clinton, they may get higher taxes, but at least they can offset that with higher prices or by selling more.
Excellent point.
“I hope he gets what he deserves in prison.”
I hope this isn’t advocating for rape as a form of punishment.
Not rape. But child molesters do not have an easy time of it in prison. And I am sorry, but I am not going to feel bad about that.
Of course not. /sarcasm
the down-ballot Democrats we’re supposed to support to bring about change?
The conversation was about supporting like-minded down ballot candidates — like Mayor Fetterman — so that there might eventually be a Congress that would prioritize voter’s interests over corporate ones. It wasn’t about supporting the status quo.
How did GWB create instability for business? I wasn’t a fan of him, but business loved the deregulation and war. Of course, it created the bubble because of shady unregulated practices that then popped…
I know two girls that I just adore,
I’m so happy I can see them more
because we travel on the bus all day we get to play.
we get to play…
WHAT…THE… FUCK !?!?
“How did GWB create instability for business?”
“Of course, it created the bubble because of shady unregulated practices that then popped…”
Asked and answered. Good job!
@p “LOL… Charles Koch is Ready for Hillary. That’s a signal.”
Follow the money. This is the thing to watch for… Does the money from the billionaire class start to flow to Trump? or does it head for down-ballot races.
That’s the way to learn whether they’ve really surrendered to Hillary.
The point was that the election of GWB didn’t create uncertainty, the presidency of GWB created uncertainty (ex post facto)
Thank you LG for clarifying…if anything, his presidency created too much certainty.
On a lighter note: Former House Speaker John Boehner called Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh,” in a withering interview at Stanford University published Thursday.
“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/politics/john-boehner-ted-cruz-lucifer-stanford/index.html
Um…the point is not that they’re “surrendering” to Hillary but that they found a lot of similarities already in place.
Meanwhile, Obama fires the shot I want Hillary to second, in no uncertain terms:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-gop-candidates-economic-plans-defy-logic_us_57221188e4b01a5ebde4984e
My goal for this election, and Sanders has done all he can to further it (he’s only hurting himself if he attacks Clinton and wanders off his real message) is to destroy the fiction known as “conservative economics” as a set of viable talking points.
Their proscriptions have been tried and shown themselves to be spectacularly wrong about how the world and its economy work. Laffer and his acolytes maintain the Kansas disaster happened only because a single tax break was more devastating than they anticipated (which says everything about their ability to extrapolate the future from a data set). Don’t know yet what their excuses are for Louisiana (oil prices crashed?), Wisconsin, etc.
Yet Democrats not only fail to talk about this, many of them still believe in these fantasies themselves (see Jack Markell, Pie Grower, or John Carney, Pie Grower in Waiting).
This is important because it’s a classic case of the Overton window. Despite David Stockman’s tell-all, journalists and other beltway insiders have for 35 years treated Reaganomics and its theories as if it all worked. Instead of pointing out the ways it fostered unfairness, some Democrats (technocrats, mostly) benefited from it and “fair trade,” so they didn’t challenge the Austrian School nonsense that underpins it all. So now that’s the window through which people inside the beltway engage with economic issues.
The point of the Sanders campaign was, I think, to shatter that consensus, which can only exist if Democrats don’t challenge it. I am afraid Hillary will not challenge it.
Keynes’ view of the economy is dated, but much closer to the real world than anything cooked up in Chicago or Austria. We know how to solve our economic malaise. We just refuse to do it because Republicans hide behind these theories of which they know almost nothing. This can only change if enough people realize it really is voodoo economics, and that can only happen if politicians point it out. They don’t have to run on that platform — they just have to say it frequently.
As I noted about her Social Security page, her language seems tailored to avoid offending the rich. That’s not going to help.
” point was that the election of GWB didn’t create uncertainty, the presidency of GWB created uncertainty (ex post facto)”
In 2000 the country changed horses in the middle of the stream of peace and prosperity. Bush campaigned on recession fears and then made them a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bush promised and made good on his promise to upend the tax policy that had governed the prosperity. His donor corporations weren’t made whole again until Obama bailed them out.
And in 2004, the uncertainty was facto and not ex post.
“As I noted about her Social Security page, her language seems tailored to avoid offending the rich. ”
In a line that is too-clever-by-half, Hillary pledges to oppose any Republican efforts to raise the Social Security age.
@Dave: Does Lucifer have standing to sue for libel?
Puck… so your implication is that if a Democrat proposed raising the retirement age, she would support it? Ok….
You know, you all have plenty of ammo to be critical of Hillary. There is no need to actually invent stuff.
The only Democrats I can imagine wanting to raise social security, lost their jobs in 2010.
I guess you’re right DD. No Democrat would ever support Social Security cuts, certainly not a Democratic president. Go back to sleep…
Hah. Social Security. Something I am quite sure will be a traded-away hostage, long before I’m old enough to ever see any of it.
I have basically structured my retirement plan under the assumption SS will go away…. which it will if we ever have another R-controlled government.
“so your implication is that if a Democrat proposed raising the retirement age, she would support it? Ok…. ”
Yeah, I also caught the (unintended?) inference as well. Because her statement was not all inclusive, there must be an intended exception. And if she included Democrats it could have been an inferred that she thinks a Democrat just might do that.
I think it is literally true that in Clinton’s case, it’s damned if you, damned if you don’t. As long as everyone pulls the right lever on judgment day, I’m ok with them thinking that the glass is half empty.
^Yep. You can make me vote for her, but you cant make me happy about it.
“And if she included Democrats it could have been an inferred that she thinks a Democrat just might do that.”
Just to put it on a lower shelf, she reserves raising the Social Security age as part of a bipartisan Grand Bargain.
anonymous says:
April 28, 2016 at 12:12 pm
@Dave: Does Lucifer have standing to sue for libel?
^Bravo^
I’m going to be a little crass, which is not my usual behavior…
When I saw what Boehner said, I had an Aha! moment I realized that all this time I was seeing photographs/videos of Cruz, I had there was some resemblance in the back of mind that I couldn’t place and it has been bugging me to no end.
The Aha! moment was an image of Cruz as a caricature of devil. This is what I imagined: https://isthatinthebible.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/the-devil-in-the-movie-legend.png?w=750&h=404
Not much of a resemblance I know, but I have a vivid imagination. Let me just say, that Cruz looks like he acts.
A better resemblance than I knew. But if he were really Satan, wouldn’t Bobby Knight have endorsed him?
This is brilliant:
The GOP’s Eve Of Destruction
“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
At long last the famed Lloyd Bentsen comment has been equaled if not surpassed. That being in, abbreviated form ” I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, your no Jack Kennedy”. However you are Lucifer in the flesh. And late in life I find total agreement with John Boehner……… Maybe Bernie does have a chance……
“This is brilliant:”
Agreed. It is. He paints a devastating portrait.
Still, I will become complacent, for a time, on November 9.
Trump has continually been underestimated.
People are easily swayed by broad “feel good” themes.
@Cassandra, Thanks for that link.
And the Satanists movement has weighed in as you’d expect:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/satanists-are-furious-that-boehner-compared-ted-cruz-to-the-dark-lord/
“Trump has a 70%+ disapproval rating among women; roughly 80% disapproval among Hispanics; and the list goes on and on.”
This is fascinating. Trump’s unfavorability ratings are cited. But Clinton’s? Total silence. Instead there’s the implication that people will be swept up in a visionary glow over her progressive values (like her support of fracking, I suppose) and will embrace her without reservation. I guess that 50+% unfavorability rating she has now won’t cause a challenge to voters to vote for her. We can just ignore that fact when we fantasize that Hillary will have tremendous appeal. Maybe that way we won’t have to account for the real reason she’ll defeat Donald Trump: namely, she emanates less of a stench than Trump does. Way to pick them establishment Democrats.
Thanks for that link, anon. The Satanists make an excellent point!