Tuesday Open Thread [11.10.2015]

NEW JERSEY—Quinnipiac: Clinton 56, Sanders 23, O’Malley 2

NATIONAL—McClatchy/Marist: Carson 24, Trump 23, Rubio 12, Cruz 8, Bush 8, Paul 5, Kasich 4, Fiorina 3, Huckabee 3, Christie 2, Jindal 1, Santorum 1, Pataki 1
NEW JERSEY—Quinnipiac: Trump 31, Carson 16, Rubio 15, Christie 8, Cruz 7, Bush 4, Fiorina 4, Kasich 3, Paul 1, Jindal 1, Santorum 1
SOUTH CAROLINA—Monmouth: Carson 28, Trump 27, Rubio 11, Cruz 9, Bush 7, Fiorina 2, Huckabee 2, Graham 1, Kasich 1, Paul 1, Christie 1

NATIONAL—McClatchy/Marist: Clinton 56, Trump 41 | Clinton 50, Carson 48 | Clinton 50, Rubio 45 | Clinton 52, Bush 44 | Clinton 53, Cruz 43 | Clinton 53, Fiorina 43 | Sanders 53, Trump 41 | Carson 47, Sanders 45 | Rubio 45, Sanders 48 | Sanders 51, Bush 41 | Sanders 51, Cruz 39 | Sanders 53, Fiorina 39

Eugene Robinson calls out Ben Carson’s cowardice:

Ben Carson’s woe-is-me whining about media scrutiny is more than just a sorry spectacle. It shows the extent to which a culture of victimization has infected the conservative movement. […] Imagining some kind of media conspiracy will not help the conservative movement. Instead, Republicans should try coming up with policies that voters see as reasonable, inclusive and fair.

And as for Carson: Stop complaining, already, and start making sense.

From the The Chicago Tribune:

It’s probably a good thing Ben Carson didn’t seek his fortune on the gridiron. He’d be going to the referees after every play to demand: “Why are you letting these guys hit me?”

Politics, like football, is a contact sport. Once Carson, a political novice, decided to enter the presidential race, he should have prepared himself for the bruises he was bound to incur. […]

If he wants to make a serious bid for the nomination, he needs to admit where he’s fudged the truth, substantiate claims that are accurate, avoid over-the-top hyperbole and get up to speed on topics unfamiliar to him.

Oh, and one more thing: Buckle his chinstrap. The game is not going to get any gentler.

Charles Blow at The New York Times adds his take:

Carson has pushed back on the biographical charges with more verve than he has exhibited at any of the debates. That is because the biographical charges don’t simply threaten the Carson campaign, they threaten Carson the corporation — the former I have always contended was simply a vehicle for the latter. Has no one else wondered why Carson’s chief media surrogate isn’t his campaign manager or communications director, but his business manager, Armstrong Williams?

Carson may no longer be a practicing physician, but he is a full-time profiteer, selling his story in books and speeches and paid handsomely to do so. Good work, if you can get it. But these new charges threaten to reduce the legend to a fairy tale, and thereby threaten the checks to be cashed after the votes have been cast.

Richard Cohen at The Washington Post looks at different kinds of lies.

I have come to the conclusion that Ben Carson is a bit nuts. I say that not because I disagree with him politically, but because he doesn’t seem to know what the truth is. Donald Trump, in contrast, does. When challenged, he becomes more forceful. He exhales a gale of fibs and just shoulders his way through until his interrogator, some hapless journalist, surrenders. Carson, though, is unusually serene. He gives me the willies. […]

Carson’s lies fall into a troubling category. They seem to be entrepreneurial, created by him to advance his own narrative. They are not defensive attempts to explain bad behavior. Bill Clinton lied about his extramarital sex, but, then, who wouldn’t? Trump lies when confronted with the truth, since any crack in his narcissism might spread like an Ebola of the soul and he would deflate like one of Macy’s balloons on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Carson has struck back in a so’s-your-mother fashion. He has accused the media of being both cynically and secularly distrustful of him while having given Barack Obama a free ride when he was a candidate. This is not the way Obama would see it. He was questioned about his mad pastor, his middle name and even his birthplace. Had Carson looked down the debate dais, he would have seen The Donald himself, who, in his own telling, dispatched private investigators and possibly the doormen of his Fifth Avenue building to prove that Obama was born not in Hawaii, but in Kenya or someplace. How’s that for scrutiny?

Washington Post: “As Trump has become the defining character of this Republican presidential primary contest, the race itself has seemed to take on elements of his personality — in particular, his aggressive, seemingly shameless rejection of the idea that he has ever been wrong.”

“The influence is especially strong in Fiorina and Carson, the two other political outsiders, who have risen in Trump’s slipstream. All three will be onstage Tuesday evening in Milwaukee for the fourth televised GOP debate.”

“As with Trump, some of these outsiders’ most memorable debate moments have come when they uttered statements that turned out to be exaggerated or untrue. And, like Trump, they have played to a distrustful electorate by criticizing the fact-checkers and refusing to acknowledge that any facts were wrong.”

Reality has a liberal bias. Not the media.

The New York Times on what to watch for in tonight’s debate:

“Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee will bring the eight leading contenders together at a time when two are confronting questions about their pasts, one faces mounting doubts about his seriousness, and another who began the race as a favorite is under intense pressure to show he can be as forceful as he was cracked up to be. Yet their ability to address those problems could actually depend on whether Fox Business Network, the host of the debate, fails to deliver on its promises for a policy-driven evening focused on sober economic issues.”

Rick Klein wonders if any Republican on the debate stage will take the lying Doctor on: “The doctor is in, and he may be safe. The hottest storyline entering Tuesday night’s Republican debate involves Ben Carson and the multiple storylines involving his personal history. But who will want to take on the good doctor? Seven in 10 Republican view him favorably, in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Media bashing, moreover, has intensified in the two weeks since the last debate.”

“Donald Trump may go there, and the risk to his support posed by Carson is real and acute. Trump, though, he seems certain to be alone in wanting combat with the genial Carson, who could easily fade into the background, as he has at previous debates. That will leave additional scrutiny on Jeb Bush, whose attack on Marco Rubio last time around seems only to have backfired. And one thing observers and participants have learned since the last debate: Pay close attention to Ted Cruz, who tends to be a longer game than his rivals on debate stages.”

Gerald Seib: “It may seem an odd thing to say on the verge of the fourth Republican presidential debate, but the fight for the Republican nomination has never felt more unsettled.”

“The next month or so figures to be critical in determining the shape of this most unusual of races. The 2016 cycle has shown so far that nothing is certain, but it is highly likely things will look different by year’s end, when actual voting will lie just ahead.”

Jonathan Chait notes that Marco Rubio’s tax plan “would reduce federal revenue by $11.8 trillion over the next decade. The entire Bush tax cuts cost about $3.4 trillion over a decade, making the Rubio tax cuts more than three times as costly.”

“Among the Republican presidential candidates, Rubio is widely considered to be a moderate on fiscal issues. The clarity with which we can now examine Rubio’s plan, juxtaposed against recent events, provides a sense of the ongoing relationship between the Republican Party and economic reality. It remains deeply hostile.”