Wednesday Open Thread [2.24.16]

NATIONAL—Rasmussen–Trump 36, Rubio 21, Cruz 17, Kasich 12, Carson 8
NEW JERSEY—Rutgers-Eagleton–Trump 38, Rubio 11, Cruz 10, Carson 5, Kasich 8
NEW JERSEY—Rutgers-Eagleton–Clinton 55, Sanders 32
MARYLAND—Goucher College–Clinton 58, Sanders 28
GEORGIA—FOX 5 Atlanta–Trump 34, Rubio 22, Cruz 20, Kasich 9, Carson 8
GEORGIA—FOX 5 Atlanta–Clinton 57, Sanders 29
UTAH—Utah Policy–Rubio 24, Cruz 22, Trump 18, Carson 9, Kasich 4
UTAH—Utah Policy–Clinton 51, Sanders 44

David Corn:

The Trump bloc appears to be a blend of Perot independent voters (who were attracted to the billionaire’s concern about federal spending and the national debt), Reagan Democrats (who were drawn to that conservative’s big-stick approach and racially-tinged welfare-bashing), and Buchanan Republicans (who were in synch with the commentator’s right-wing populism and America-first nativism). The Trump voters don’t seem to share much in common with the voters in the other lanes. Those I’ve spoken with come across as outsiders to Republican land and people who have not been fully engaged in politics prior to the Trump campaign. Even if they have voted as Republicans in the past, they don’t think of themselves as loyal members of that tribe. […]

There are three warring factions within the GOP right now: the evangelical and purist conservatives who are looking for their Reagan or Goldwater to wage an ideological crusade, the mainline Republicans who want a draw-inside-the-lines conservative with crossover appeal who is no fiery revolutionary, and the Trumpist interlopers who have crashed the party’s gates eager to place their Cromwell on the throne. The latter group has the advantage at the moment: more early wins, better standing in the polls. With Jeb Bush recently vanquished and Kasich and Carson voters perhaps soon in play, the landscape could shift.

Still, at this stage, each rival camp remains quite distinct from the others, and it is tough to see how one side finally attains majority dominance.

“So we won with evangelicals. We won the young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. With the smartest people, with the most loyal people.”

The first true thing he has ever said. Trump loves the rubes. The knuckle dragging white trash. They are dumb enough to buy his bullshit.

Bloomberg on how Rubio helped Trump: “When Marco Rubio called Ted Cruz a liar in the Feb. 13 debate, he was trying to defend himself from Cruz’s portrayal of him as a timid conservative. But the Floridian also ended up helping Donald Trump fend off the one candidate attacking him, as the brash billionaire won his third consecutive blowout victory Tuesday in Nevada.”

“Since then, both Trump and Rubio have pounded away at Cruz’s integrity without attacking each other, and the dual assault has helped blunt Texan’s momentum… By working relentlessly to brand Cruz a liar, Rubio has also handed Trump a shield from the only campaign waging regular attacks against him, and also a sword to turn it around on Cruz.”

Rick Klein on Trump’s growing coalition: “The ‘chaos candidate’ is thriving on chaos. Now, he’s actually building something out of it, too. Even with Jeb Bush gone — his description of Donald Trump living on — and the establishment falling in line behind Marco Rubio, Trump rolled to victory in the Nevada caucuses. He benefited, again, from divided opposition.”

“Yet this win looks like more than that: With a third straight victory, Trump is showing signs of growing his own base of support, smashing supposed ceilings the way aging casinos get knocked down on the Strip. Trump again ran strong among evangelical voters, delivering another blow to a lagging Ted Cruz. He ran strong across issue areas and education levels, consolidating Republican support in ways his opponents have claimed only they would be able to do.”

Man, is Marco Rubio a little coward. He told the Today Show that he isn’t planning on more forcefully attacking Donald Trump. Said Rubio: “I don’t have any voters begging me to attack anyone. I’m not in this race to attack any Republican. I didn’t run for office to tear up other Republicans.”

Taegan Goddard:

It’s a convenient narrative to suggest that both political parties are in turmoil this election year. But this is really all about the Republicans. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders … actually agree on many more issues than they disagree. […] Their differences are the type of arguments that political parties have had internally for generations.

Donald Trump, however, is running firmly against the Republican party and primary voters seem to want what he’s selling. He’s running against GOP orthodoxy of tax cuts and free trade. He bashes the last GOP president mercilessly. He trashes the last two GOP nominees as “losers.” […]

Forty years ago, the Republican party establishment made a deal with white working class and mostly religious voters: The party would support socially conservative issues in return for backing tax cuts and free trade. It worked extremely well. But in the aftermath of the Great Recession, these folks woke up and said the deal is off. Tax cuts, free trade, immigration and a Wall Street bailout has done nothing for them.

The Republicans also really did not hold up their end of the bargain. There was never any serious effort to ban abortion or gays. When you think about it, Roe v. Wade should have been overturned long ago if Republican Presidents were actually serious about it. But Reagan and the elder Bush nominated three Justices (O’Connor, Souter, and Kennedy) have voted to uphold it.

The PredictWise prediction markets give Donald Trump a 68% chance at winning the Republican presidential nomination, followed by Marco Rubio at 30%. Cruz is at 1%.

Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite for both the Democratic nomination (90% to 10% for Sanders) and the general election (61% to 39%).

The Republican Party as we have known it is now officially dead. Flatline. The new party created by Trump in its stead must be called the Nationalist Party from now on.

Politico: “Suddenly, […] it is Trump’s new alliance of angry populists that is ascendant — and on the precipice of dominance.”

Washington Post: “The rise of Donald Trump has baffled the so-called establishment of the Republican Party. It’s become just as confounding to the libertarians, conservatives, and ‘constitutionalists’ who used to be called the “Tea Party.” While Cruz had spent the days before these caucuses pre-spinning a loss, the size of the Trump victory challenged notions about who, exactly, was a conservative.”

Amanda Carpenter on CNN was realistic about the end of her party:

“I’m really struck in thinking about what a Donald Trump nomination would actually mean,” she said. “I really think it’s the end of the Republican Party. It’s a natural effect. We’ve watched what’s happened by a lot of people who have wanted to save power so badly they didn’t listen, didn’t listen, didn’t listen to the grassroots. They didn’t listen in 2010, they didn’t listen in 2014 even though we won those midterm elections. Nothing changed.”

Nate Silver and Harry Enten:

Tuesday night’s results were very bad news for Cruz. It’s not just that it was his third third-place finish in a row. It’s also how Cruz lost. He carried only 27 percent of the white born-again and evangelical Christian vote, behind Trump’s 41 percent. Cruz also lost this group in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But, unlike in South Carolina, Cruz also trailed among “very conservative” voters in Nevada, 34 percent to Trump’s 38 percent. Finally, Cruz continues to struggle among “somewhat conservative” and moderate voters. He earned just 16 percent and 7 percent among those groups, respectively, according to the entrance poll.

How about Rubio? Well, he just got blown out by Trump in a state that was once thought to be the most favorable for him of the first four contests. He’ll also have to suffer through a few news cycles of mockery over his second-place “victories.” The good news for Rubio: He beat Cruz for the second state in a row. No, second place is not winning, but Rubio would have better chances against Trump in a smaller field, and the fastest way to shrink the field is to beat Cruz. Rubio did beat his polling average for the third time in four states, although there were no Nevada polls conducted after South Carolina.

Ezra Klein says the Republican Party is broken:

The party doesn’t have any magic powers. All it has is its credibility with its voters. Because, in the end, parties can only influence — it’s voters who actually decide. And the Republican Party has, for whatever reason, lost its ability to influence its voters. Donald Trump is winning this thing, and so far, Ted Cruz, the only guy elite Republicans hate more than Trump, is vying for second place.

Parties are vehicles for structuring information. Their role is literally to help voters decide by helping them choose whom to trust. The fact that Republican voters seem to prefer candidates whom their party is screaming not to trust reveals a profound failure in the GOP’s core role. The Republican Party is broken.

Dara Lind says the two winners from last night’s GOP Caucus in Nevada are Donald Trump and the Democrats:

As the Democratic primary appears to be speeding toward a conclusion, the longer the Republican primary is in chaos — especially Trump-led chaos — the better it is for Democrats. Because even though Trump won Nevada easily, Republican elites aren’t just going to lay down and accept him as the nominee — they’ll fight. Yet none of Trump’s rivals won a convincing enough second place to seriously narrow the field. Chaos continues. Democrats rejoice.

Brian Beutler wonders when Republicans’ denial will end:

[I]t’s both redundant and stunning to note that what’s happening in American politics right now is completely novel: An unwelcome insurgent is commandeering one of the country’s two major political parties, and its leaders are simply pretending not to notice.

This is a uniquely forbidding turn of events for journalists, who must somehow bring life to a dark turn of history where the only people equipped to stand athwart it have instead stood aside yelling, “Nothing to see here!”

Trump has now won three consecutive nominating contests, after barely losing the first under uniquely challenging circumstances. He is poised to crush his competitors a week from now on Super Tuesday. And yet there appears to be no plan in place, and perhaps no feasible plan even in theory, to avert this catastrophe.

Steve Benen on the return of the Public Option in Hillary Clinton’s Improving the ACA Plan:

It’s worth noting for context that this doesn’t come as a complete surprise. For example, Clinton supported a public option as a candidate in 2008, though she’s said little about the policy since. Her press secretary, Brian Fallon, expressed support for a public option during an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in January, but the campaign’s official position on health care wasn’t changed until yesterday.

For progressives, it’s an important step. In fact, the closer one looks at the circumstances, the more encouraging they appear: Clinton just won the Nevada caucuses, she’s likely to win the South Carolina primary, and one might expect her to feel less pressure, not more, about appealing to voters on the left. Clinton is probably feeling more confident about her chances now than at any point in quite a while.

In other words, her support for the public option isn’t some kind of desperation move, made in haste in the hopes of winning over progressive skeptics; it’s largely the opposite.

Postscript: I’m very much inclined to give The New Republic’s Brian Beutler credit for keeping this issue alive, by the way. Brian published a good piece in mid-January, making the case for the public option, not only on the policy merits, but also as a political winner in a Democratic nominating contest. His commentary appears quite prescient now.