Ignorance

Political Cartoon is by Stuart Carlson at carlsontoons.com.

Hillary Supporters Are As Passionate As Bernie Supporters

It is a common theme in the media these days (especially the cable news networks) that the supporters of Bernie Sanders are passionate about their candidate, while supporters of Hillary Clinton are not. I don't believe that for a second. Hillary's supporters may not be as loud and obnoxious as some of Bernie's supporters, but they are just as passionate in their support of her candidacy.

I am not alone in that assessment. Here is most of a column by Paul Krugman (pictured) in the New York Times

I’ve talked to a few friends who are Sanders supporters, some others who are Clinton supporters, and I have some impressions. This is not reporting; just a personal reaction.

The appeal of the Sanders campaign, at least to people I know, is that it brings a sense of possibility. For those who were joyful and uplifted on inauguration day 2009, the years that followed have been a vast letdown: American politics got even uglier, policy progress always fell short of dreams. Now comes Sanders — very different in personal style from Obama 2008, but again someone who seems different and offers the hope of transformation. And some people really want to hear that message, and don’t want to hear that they’re being unrealistic.

But there’s something else, which I keep encountering, and which I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice: even among progressives, the two-decade-plus smear campaign against the Clintons has had its effect. I keep being told about terrible things the Clintons did that never actually happened, but were carefully fomented right-wing legends — except I’m hearing them from people on the left. The sense that where there’s smoke there must be fire — when the reality was nothing but Richard Mellon Scaife with a smoke machine — is very much out there, still.

Unfortunately, that underlying Foxification of perceptions marries all too well with the tendency of some — only some — Sanders supporters to assume that any skepticism about their hero’s proposals or prospects must reflect personal corruption. Something like that was probably inevitable in a campaign whose premise is that everything is rigged by the oligarchy, but it interacts with the vague perception, the product of all those years of right-wing smearing, that there’s a lot of Clinton dirt.

Even among those who don’t believe in the phony scandals, there is, as there was in 2008, a desire for someone new, who they imagine won’t bring out all that ugliness. But of course they’re wrong: if Sanders is the nominee, it will take around 30 seconds before Fox News is nonstop coverage of the terrible things he supposedly did when younger. Don’t say there’s nothing there: a propaganda machine that could turn John Kerry into a coward can turn a nice guy from Brooklyn into a monstrously flawed specimen of humanity in no time at all.

On the other hand, that history is, I think, one factor behind a phenomenon we saw in 2008 and will see again this year: there’s a lot more passionate support for Clinton than either Sanders supporters or the news media imagine. There are a lot of Democrats who see her as someone who has been subjected to character assassination, to vicious attacks, on a scale few women and no men in politics have ever encountered — yet she’s still standing, still capable of remarkable grace under fire. If you didn’t see something heroic about her performance in the Benghazi hearing, you’re missing something essential.

And Clinton’s dogged realism, while it doesn’t inspire the same kind of uplift as Sanders’s promise of change, can be inspiring in its own way.

The truth is that both Democrats have a lot of genuine, solid support. Both had 80 percent approval among Democrats in the DMR poll released yesterday. One item from that poll that seems to have surprised reporters:

There’s no enthusiasm gap — it’s just different forms of enthusiasm.

GOP Voter Outreach

Political Cartoon is by Mike Stanfill at ragingpencils.com.

Right To Work ?

Universal Healthcare (Still Just A Dream In The U.S.)

Bookies Favor Clinton To Win Presidency By Large Margin

The folks at Bipartisan Report decided to see who the online bookies thought would be the next United States president. These guys are not infallible, but they have picked the winner 91% of the time. And they still think Hillary Clinton as the odds on favorite to become the next president.

They give Clinton 8/11 odds -- significantly better than Trump (4/1), Rubio (9/2), Cruz (10/1), Bush (22/1), and Sanders and Christie (Both 25/1). The primary/caucus season is just starting today, but it looks like the smart money is on Hillary Clinton.

Failed Again

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bernie's "Super-PAC" Claims Are Disingenuous

In his latest Iowa species, Bernie Sanders is claiming he made the decision not to have a Super-PAC in his campaign -- inferring that his opponents, primarily Hillary Clinton, did create a Super-PAC. That may sound good to his supporters (and other opposing the misguided Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court), but it ignores the current campaign law -- and misleads voters.

The fact is that NO candidate can form a Super-PAC. Super-PACs are formed by outside groups -- and it is illegal for that Super-PAC to coordinate with the candidate's campaign in any way. The Super-PACs may spend collect and spend money to support a candidate, but they cannot have a working relationship with that candidate's campaign organization. That means that NO candidate of either party has created a Super-PAC.

Sanders also tries to give the impression that, while their are Super-PACs supporting Hillary Clinton, there aren't any supporting him. That is not true either. There are at least three Super-PACs supporting Sanders' campaign -- two from progressive organizations and one from a nurses union. I know that some of his supporters will claim he didn't want Super-PAC support, but the fact is that he does have it. And trying to give the impression that he doesn't is just not honest.

Bernie (and his supporters) like to question the honesty and trustworthiness of Hillary Clinton. I think his talk about Super-PACs raises the same questions about him. He has shown a willingness to mislead voters.

Wishful Thinking

Political Cartoon is by Kirk Walters in The Toledo Blade.

Last Iowa Poll Before Caucuses Has Clinton With Slim Lead

Crazy Only Works For The GOP

Political Cartoon is by Mike Stanfill at ragingpencils.com.

Charlie Cook: On The Iowa Caucus And Beyond

Respected political analyst Charlie Cook (pictured) has written an interesting piece on the Iowa caucuses and the race beyond that for the party presidential nominations. Here is some of what he said in his article for the National Journal:

The Iowa Caucuses on Monday night can be ex­pec­ted to provide some clar­ity in the con­tests for the Demo­crat­ic and Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­en­tial nom­in­a­tions, but don’t ex­pect too much. One way to look at the res­ults is to think of what out­comes would sur­prise you, and change your as­sump­tions about the state of each con­test and where each is headed. Any­thing con­trary to your ex­pect­a­tions should be con­sidered po­ten­tially sig­ni­fic­ant.

In the Re­pub­lic­an race, the fight between front-run­ner Don­ald Trump and Ted Cruz is ex­pec­ted to be very close, though most as­sume that Trump has an edge. If either won by, say, five or more points, that would be sig­ni­fic­ant. If Trump won by a healthy mar­gin, many (though not me) think that giv­en his big lead in New Hamp­shire polling, he would be un­stop­pable.

Con­versely, if Cruz wins by a hand­ful of points, Trump’s big Gran­ite State ad­vant­age could ser­i­ously erode. Part of Trump’s ap­peal is that he is seen by his sup­port­ers as a win­ner, a guy who can do any­thing. A loss by more than a few points, be­sides pos­sibly caus­ing Trump’s head to ex­plode, could peel back a lay­er or two of his aura of in­vin­cib­il­ity.

Cruz clearly has the su­per­i­or or­gan­iz­a­tion, and that might well mat­ter, though the ar­gu­ment for Trump is that he can mo­tiv­ate voters, even those without a his­tory of polit­ic­al in­volve­ment, to turn out on their own as they have for his ral­lies. Should an­oth­er can­did­ate—say, Marco Ru­bio—squeeze in­to a second-place show­ing, that would be a de­vel­op­ment of some sig­ni­fic­ance.

One of the most im­port­ant ques­tions in this race is which one of the four es­tab­lish­ment-ori­ented, con­ven­tion­al can­did­ates—Ru­bio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, or John Kasich—will emerge as the win­ner of this brack­et and how long it will take. The worst thing that could hap­pen for the es­tab­lish­ment is for three or four of these con­ven­tion­al can­did­ates to sur­vive past New Hamp­shire. The best-case scen­ario is for three to drop out be­fore the South Car­o­lina primary.

Among the most ideo­lo­gic­ally con­ser­vat­ive can­did­ates, any res­ults that give Ben Car­son, Carly Fior­ina, Mike Hucka­bee, Rand Paul, or Rick San­tor­um a new lease on life, pro­long­ing their can­did­a­cies, would be sig­ni­fic­ant and not a great sign for Cruz, who’s on the cusp of ef­fect­ively shut­ting down this brack­et.

For Demo­crats, any­thing dif­fer­ent from a close out­come between Hil­lary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders would be worth your at­ten­tion. This is a con­test between Clin­ton’s care­fully con­struc­ted or­gan­iz­a­tion and the ideal­ist­ic and pas­sion­ate band be­hind Sanders. Sanders is gen­er­at­ing more en­thu­si­asm, an al­most cult-like feel, but can emo­tion trump or­gan­iz­a­tion? Sanders’s en­tire cam­paign is pre­dic­ated on do­ing ex­tremely well in Iowa and the 14 oth­er caucus states, as well as New Hamp­shire and the five oth­er New Eng­land states, which com­prise the most lib­er­al re­gion in the coun­try. If he man­ages to dom­in­ate the caucus states and New Eng­land, he will need to ex­pand his sup­port bey­ond the young as well as soy-latte-drink­ing, Birken­stock-wear­ing, Subaru- and Volvo-driv­ing white lib­er­als. Los­ing Iowa by more than a few points would put in jeop­ardy his big lead in New Hamp­shire.

Keep in mind two things. First, don’t put all your eggs in the mo­mentum bas­ket. New Hamp­shire voters have demon­strated a tempta­tion or even will­ing­ness to re­peal the Iowa out­come, re­in­for­cing their claim as the pick­er of pres­id­ents. Second, nom­in­a­tions are about del­eg­ates, and very, very few are se­lec­ted in Iowa, New Hamp­shire, or, for that mat­ter, South Car­o­lina and Nevada, the oth­er two Feb­ru­ary con­tests. March is the month that is the moth­er lode of del­eg­ates; then the pro­cess ex­tends at a more muted level un­til the Cali­for­nia primary on June 7.

At this point, my gut sug­gests that by the time we get deep in­to the pro­cess, Trump will ap­pear to have the sup­port of the pop­u­list, less ideo­lo­gic­al third of the GOP, roughly where he is now; Cruz will have con­sol­id­ated con­ser­vat­ives and roughly one third of the party; a con­ven­tion­al can­did­ate (Bush, Christie, Kasich, or Ru­bio) will be pulling about a quarter, with the re­main­ing fifth up in the air. That spells a con­tested con­ven­tion.

On the Demo­crat­ic side, Clin­ton may well have a chal­len­ging first two weeks of March, maybe a little longer. But keep in mind that the caucus states are re­l­at­ively small—the largest are Min­nesota, Wash­ing­ton, and Iowa—as are the New Eng­land states, with Mas­sachu­setts by far the largest. Caucus and New Eng­land states are re­l­at­ively front-loaded in the pro­cess, so things should get friend­li­er for Clin­ton as we get deep­er in­to the cal­en­dar.

I think he's generally right. The Democrats will have a nominee by convention time. It will be close between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders early, but Clinton will start to separate herself in the Super Tuesday primaries, and I believe, will be the eventual nominee.

The interesting part of what he says is in what will happen with the Republicans. He believes they could  go to their convention without a nominee having a majority of delegates, and that would make for one of the most interesting (at least for us political junkies) conventions in many years. I believe it could happen, but it will depend on whether Republicans decide they can stomach a Trump candidacy or not. A recent Gallup Poll showed him with a 60% unfavorable rating with Americans (the highest of any nominee in recent history).

Whoever gets the nominations of the major parties, this is already shaping up as a very interesting campaign season.

If It Happened To The Rich

Political Cartoon is by Jen Sorensen at jensorensen.com.

Just Imagine