Posts by Delaware Dem

This is a true open thread today, since today I am at an all day continuing legal education seminar, so I didn't have time to read all the stories I need to. So have at it.

Matt Yglesias thinks Donald Trump could do to the national Republican Party what Pete Wilson did to the California Republican Party:

Donald Trump might doom the Republican party. As he inches closer to the nomination, national polling suggests he is in a very weak position in the general election. A loss in November could leave the party in shambles, more divided than ever. That's a big deal, but some right-of-center Trump skeptics are trying to talk themselves into the idea that he's only a temporary setback to the party. RealClearPolitics' Sean Trende notes correctly that there is a long history of pundits over-reading single landslide elections and writing parties out of history, only to see them bounce back two or four — or even six — years later. Even a really bad 2016 election could be the just the same for the GOP. That may be right. But there's a chance that it could be wrong. Just ask Pete Wilson, the former governor of California who managed to turn a contested state into a Democratic stronghold by over-indulging a shrinking white majority's fear of uncontrolled immigration and ending up defining his party as permanently unacceptable to the state's new diverse majority. What happened in California should serve as a warning to future of the Republican party.

John Sides: “The longest-running measure of American attitudes about the economy is the Index of Consumer Sentiment. Before I had looked at these data, I was sure I’d find that sentiment was only a bit more positive than it was when Obama took office. But in fact, the upward trend — with the exception of the drop during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis — is striking. This upward trend is also reflected in data from Pew and Gallup.” “As of the first quarter of 2016, even with a slight downturn in the second and third quarters of 2015, consumer sentiment was as positive as it had been since the mid-2000s. It was also as positive as it had been in the mid-1980s during the recovery from the recession of 1981-1982. For example, the value of consumer sentiment at the end of 1983, as Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign was gearing up, was 91.6. In the first three months of 2015, it was almost exactly the same: 91.5.” “In other words, consumer sentiment is as positive as it was at the beginning of the election year when Reagan argued that it was ‘Morning in America.'” This is why Clinton is running a positive campaign embracing Obama and why it will work.

This coming Wednesday, May 4, at 7 PM, the Progressive Democrats for Delaware are hosting a Congressional Candidates Forum at their regular monthly meeting at the Delaware Democratic Party HQ at 19 E. Commons Boulevard, 2nd Floor. All of the candidates, Sean Barney, Bryan Townsend, Mike Miller and Lisa Blunt Rochester, are expected to attend At their next meeting on June 1 at the same location and time, they will be hosting the first solo forum (I believe) for the Insurance Commissoner candidates: incumbent Karen Weldin Stewart, current NCCo Sheriff Trinidad Navarro, and 2012 candidate Paul Gallagher.

Scott Lemieux says Hillary will govern like her last name is Sanders rather than Clinton:

Last week, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that voting rights will be restored for convicted felons who are no longer in prison. If his executive order is upheld, this will enfranchise more than 200,000 citizens of the state who have paid their debt to society and deserve a voice in their state government. It’s a bold, progressive action, exactly the kind of policy core Democratic voters are coming to expect from their leaders. Before assuming office, McAuliffe seemed like the ultimate political hack. This major progressive reform didn’t come out entirely of the blue, either. On his first day in office, McAuliffe signed an executive order banning discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation. In an action that foreshadowed his enfranchisement of felons, McAuliffe removed questions about criminal history from government job applications. He has been limited by a Republican-controlled legislature—his valiant fight to accept the Medicaid expansion ultimately failed—but he’s been a solidly progressive governor. What’s interesting about this is that before assuming office, McAuliffe seemed like the ultimate political hack. The Clinton crony and prodigious fundraiser seemed worth voting for only because the Republicans were running the odious former state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli against him.

Sound familiar?