Friday Open Thread [6.5.15]

Bill Galston:

In these hyper-polarized times, it is no longer surprising when political partisans disagree vehemently about public policy issues. But in the early weeks of the race for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, another dimension of polarization is coming into view: the parties don’t even agree about which issues matter most.

Consider the findings of a recent Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll exploring the policy stances of Republican and Democratic Iowans who are registered voters and likely to attend their party’s caucuses early next year. “For each of the following issues,” a key question reads, “please tell me whether this is something you want candidates to spend a lot of time talking about or not.” Of the 20 issues on the survey list, seven received an affirmative answer from at least four out of five Republicans. Democrats also endorsed seven issues by this margin.

Hillary Clinton “attacked her potential GOP rivals, by name, and with sharp language,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mrs. Clinton typically offers more muted criticism but was animated on the subject of voting rights… She took on four of her potential rivals by name. She attacked former Texas Gov. Rick Perry for supporting a law requiring voter identification to cast ballots that allows a concealed weapons license for identification but not a student ID. She said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was wrong for cutting back early voting, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for vetoing a bill that would have extended early voting. And she said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was wrong for purging voters from Florida’s rolls ahead of the 2000 election.”

Good. Kick some ass, Hillary.

E.J. Dionne Jr. says that Bernie Sanders is the new St. Nick:

How is it that Democrats forgot about the joys Santa Claus can bring? How is it that Republicans managed to steal the Santa idea from the party of FDR and never let go?

Understanding why Bernie Sanders’s presidential candidacy is important requires revisiting the politics of St. Nick. The senator from Vermont has little chance of defeating Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he is reminding his party of something it often forgets: Government was once popular because it provided tangible benefits to large numbers of Americans.

At a time of rising inequality and short-circuited social mobility, Sanders is unapologetic about taking some wealth and income away from those who have a lot of both to ease the path upward for those who don’t. He has proudly called himself a democratic socialist, but he doesn’t spin abstract Marxist theories. He wants government to do stuff, and the sort of stuff he has in mind is potentially quite popular.

Political commentators routinely complain about politicians who are not specific enough. Sanders has more specifics than Ben and Jerry’s has ice cream flavors. He has called for $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. He wants the federal government to mandate a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour and restrict the ability of employers to declare normal employees as “managers” and thus rob them of overtime pay.

Hillary Clinton plans to call for an early voting period of at least 20 days in every state, the Washington Post reports.

“Clinton will call for that standard in remarks Thursday in Texas about voting rights… She will also criticize what her campaign calls deliberate restrictions on voting in several states, including Texas.”

Greg Sargent on the strategy of making political donations reform a leading issue for Democrats:

“This week’s New York Times/CBS News poll found that this issue should be a fertile one for Democrats. It showed huge majorities across party lines think money exerts too much influence over the process, and that this disparity benefits the rich…And yet, the poll also found that fewer than one percent name money in politics as their top issue…But as Ed Kilgore notes, there’s no need to give up and forever consign campaign finance to the realm of boring process issues that only matter to “snooty wine-track good government” voters. Dem consultant Stan Greenberg has long believed it can be used to appeal to blue collar whites who might be open to the Democratic agenda, but need to hear Dems speak to their belief that government is no longer capable of solving their problems…”

Sargent also quotes Greenberg and Rep. John Sarbanes, who says Dems should always cite political donations as obstacles to needed reforms, such as environmental protection, jobs and infrastructure upgrades. They should also cite strong lobbyists. Why is gun control impossible? The NRA. Why was healthcare very difficult to reform? The Pharmaceutical lobby and others.

Chris Matthews gets the GOP’s motivation in pushing voter i.d. bills exactly right on MSNBC’s Hardball: “The sheer brazen-ness of this move is one thing we can agree on. Seeing the demographic changes on the way (the rise of minorities in the American population, the rising number of single people, the changing attitudes among younger people on matters such as same-sex marriage) the thinkers in the Republican Party have decided their best bet is to make it harder for certain groups to vote. Let’s look at whom the GOP brain-trusters might like to see staying home on election day: Older people who live in big cities, especially minorities, are people who don’t have drivers licenses…Young people away from home at college…People who tend to vote for Democratic candidates…”

Trevor Timm at The Guardian writes that Republicans’ ‘plans’ for Isis would drag us into Iraq for another ground war. No shit. That is entirely their intention.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the groundwork being laid for US ground troops to return to Iraq for another indefinite war with no end game.

Republican presidential candidates (of which there now seem to be more than a dozen) have spent the past month ripping President Obama for his administration’s approach to the war against Isis, in which the US military has dropped tens of thousands of bombs, sent 3,000 troops back to Iraq, and killed over 12,000 people, all without any legal authorization. Predictably, the Republicans have no problem with the war technically being illegal, or the tens of thousands killed – only that we haven’t used more of our military weaponry yet.

The New York Times detailed many of the Republican candidates’ nebulous “criticisms” of the Obama administration, most of which assume a fantasy world in which Obama is not sending the US military to fight Isis at all, even though he’s authorized thousands of airstrikes per month in both Iraq and Syria. Most of the candidates, while competing with each other over who can sound more “muscular” and “tough”, are too cowardly to overtly call for what they likely actually want: another ground war in the Middle East involving tens of thousands of US troops.