Friday, January 29, 2016

Hillary Will Win Iowa

All polls have Bernie and Hillary within the margin of error in Iowa.  Given the difficulty of determining who will caucus, the margin may be understated.  Predicting is perilous.

Bernie has some advantages.  He stands to the left of Hillary, which is hallowed ground in the Iowa Caucuses.  Second, the only people of color in Iowa, have recently returned from wintering in Florida.  Third, judging from the size of his crowds, and recent polls, he may have the momentum. Finally, the flare up of yet another email story could hurt Hillary.

Hillary's key to victory is the demographics and regional dispersion of her supporters.  Bernie owns the youth vote, and could pile up big majorities in college towns.  But the number of delegates awarded are pre determined and not impacted by the number of caucus goers.  So Hillary's broader geographic base is an advantage.

Her supporters are older and more likely to have previously attended a caucus.  Of course, that means her supporters are more likely to attend.  But it means more.  The threshold for caucus viability is 15% of the attendees.  At most caucuses O'Malley will fall short, and attendees will be asked to align with Bernie or Hillary.  Hillary's more experienced caucus goers should be better at the process. Bernie's may suffer from the naive arrogance of youth.

Looking at social media, quips go both ways, but the vitriol, invective and profanity are one sided.  As soon as a college freshman tells a 50 year old librarian supporting O'Malley that she is an idiot to consider caucusing for Hillary, it will be all over.

Front Page

Donald Trump is a newspaper with banner headlines, but no stories.  Unfortunately, the biggest news is that a plurality of Republicans either believe he has the depth and breath to be President, or don't care that he doesn't.

But Republicans finally damned Ben's softly babbling brook.  Perhaps one day they will condemn Trump's campaign to the obituary page.


Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Grandpa Bernie

Sanders is the dotting grandfather.  He can give or promise anything.  Single payer medical coverage and cost free college are the frosting on a magical calorie free confection.

But after the weekend sugar high, it is time to come home to Hillary.  She has fought the healthcare wars and knows it is a near miracle that we passed Obamacare.  She understands that she just might be able to fund, and  enact, tuition free community college and cut the interest rate on student loans.  Governing, like parenting, is not art, but rather the art of the deal.

If idealists, and demonic GOP strategists, like Karl Rove, get their way, Bernie will be the nominee.  The resulting Republican victory will be a bitter pill to swallow.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Christie is Pro-Choice

No, Chris has not changed his position on reproductive rights.  Rather he has weighed in on something nearer and dearer to his heart, namely his stomach.  School children should not suffer the tyranny of Michelle Obama's healthy lunch initiative.  Choosing french fries over spinach is a god given right.

Chris Christie is ever the exemplar of caloric correctness.


Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Failing Flint

For most of us the Flint Crisis is a one off--a perfect storm of inadvertence, incompetence and inattention.  Unfortunately, it is an extreme example of a systemic Republican flaw.  The GOP is anti-science.

A broad swath of the party shuns evolution and ridicules climate change.  Environmental impact studies are regulatory choke points that strangle free enterprise.  No Democratic governor would have changed the tap water without first tapping expert analysis.

The Republican let it flow philosophy damned the children of Flint.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

New Hampshire Surge

Back in September I predicted that Kasich would be the GOP nominee, and have looked foolish ever since.  http://phoodphotospolitics.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-case-for-kasich.html

Recent polls have him moving into second place in New Hampshire.  Little mentioned in the conversation of the likely establishment candidate to take on Cruz and Trump, Kasich could emerge with a strong showing in the nation's first primary.


Sunday, January 17, 2016

The 4th Democratic Debate

Bernie struck two notes with clarion clarity.  Break up the big banks and get big money out of politics.  But two notes does not a symphony make.

Hillary conducted the Democratic 4th with a firm hand.  She intoned Flint with bravissimo,  Putin with tinkling irony, and pounded gun control with a relentless staccato.  Bernie has made inroads with the youth symphony, but Clinton appears best suited to lead the band.

While there were no losers, Hillary won the debate.


Friendless

Ted Cruz will never have an "Et tu, Brutus," moment.  To share Caesar's fate of being stabbed in the back by a friend, you need friends.  Ted has none.  No one has his back.  Not only does he lack friends among Democratic Senators, but more importantly, his GOP cohorts barely hide their distaste

Nor is this new,  as Caroline Bankoff reported in the Daily Intelligencer:

'Over the last year or two, certain Americans have delighted in screenwriter Craig Mazin's candid recollections of his time as Texas senator Ted Cruz's freshman-year roommate. According to Mazin, the current presidential candidate “endlessly hit the snooze button,” creeped out female peers by hanging around their hallway in a bathrobe, and “had SERIOUS body odor issues.” Other Princeton classmates haven't been much kinder, callingCruz  “abrasive,” “intense," “strident,” “arrogant,” and a “crank".'

Governance at its best, like friendship, centers on caring about, and for, people.   Someone who lacks the empathy to form friendships lacks the capacity to govern.  If people who need people are indeed the luckiest people in the world, then Ted is plum out of luck.  But if we elect him, the ill fortune is ours.  To quote the Divine Miss  M, "You gotta have friends."

Friday, January 15, 2016

The Seven Dwarfs

On the debate stage we are down to the somnambulant seven.  After 150 minutes, I was sleepy and grumpy.  We learned that Cruz thinks he is eligible to be president and that Trump has a "New York State of Mind."

We learned that everyone has a tax plan that will help the poor by giving more to the rich.  We learned that any of us who think unemployment has been cut in half, the stock market has doubled, healthcare coverage has expanded and that Osama bin Laden is dead, live in a fantasy land.

We learned that although they do not like each other, they really hate Obama.  They think he is running again but wearing a pant suit.  Christie who was last seen hugging the president, is going to "Kick his ass out of the White House."  It is sad when a bromance goes bad.  In a constitutional democracy we assume Obama will leave in a dignified fashion.  We are not sure what Christie will do.  Dignity is not his strong suit.

Is Cruz Natural Born?

My constitutional law course, taken in 1973, hardly qualifies me as a constitutional scholar.  But I can frame the issue.   To qualify to be president a candidate must be a "natural born citizen."  This term is not defined in the Constitution.  Ted Cruz's mother was an American citizen.  His mother, and his Cuban born father, lived in Canada at the time of his birth in Toronto in 1970.

Most legal scholars believe natural born citizen means someone who was a citizen at time of birth, but a significant minority believe it means someone born on US soil.  There was a statute in 1795 that could support the temporal scholars, but its repeal in 1795 supports the landers.

Neither the Supreme Court,  nor any other appellate courts, have clearly opined on the matter.  The intent of the founding fathers lies in the murky mire of 17th and 18th century English common law.  Spoiler alert:  when you have to use the "way back machine,"  there is no clear answer.

Other candidates have been in this gray area.  Mitt's father, George Romney was born in Mexico.  But his candidacy drowned in his New Hampshire tears before the issue was litigated.  Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona of American parents, when Arizona was a territory, not a state.  In part because Arizona would have qualified as American soil during the term of his presidency, no serious challenge was made to his natural born status.

John McCain was born on a military base in Panama, the son of a Navy Admiral.  His case was strong because, although only leased, the base stood as under the sovereign authority of the United States.  To clarify the matter, Obama and Hillary joined in sponsoring a unanimously approved non-binding Senate resolution declaring John McCain eligible.

The case most clearly on point is that of President Obama.  Members of the birther movement asserted that Obama was ineligible to be president because he was born in Kenya, even though his mother was an American citizen.  The movement was undermined by Obama's birth certificate.  Cruz fits the birther criteria, born abroad of an American mother.

Invalidating an election would be a constitutional crisis.  Ted Cruz should seek a declaratory judgement to resolve this issue now.  A strict constructionist court might side with the temporalists or the landers.  Or, liberal constructionists might find a middle ground.  For instance,  a child of an American citizen who resides in this country might qualify,  even if the birth was on foreign soil.  That would cover vacations, and job assignments of fixed duration.

Ted has loudly asserted that his status is a settled issue.  But he was oddly quiet during the birther challenge to Obama.   How strange it is to agree with Trump.  Perhaps I have a "New York State of Mind."




Thursday, January 14, 2016

Obama: 13 Times Stronger Than Republicans

Facts:  Ten American sailors inadvertently drifted into Iranian territorial waters, were seized and then released within 24 hours.

In 2007 British sailors did the same thing and were released 13 days later.

Political Reality:  Historically, this country speaks with one voice when Americans are in harms way. The Commander in Chief is given some leeway to perform his duties.

Instead Republicans scored political points at the potential cost of American lives.  Trump, Cruz, Jeb!, and others, shot rapid fire tweets at the President claiming the seizure signifies executive weakness.  The tweets were misfires.

Of course during the bellicose Bush coalition it took thirteen times as long to achieve the same result.  Diplomacy works.  Partisan stupidity, not so much.

Wired

The well respected blog, Political Wire, echoes our concern about Hillary's unhealthy choice.


Clinton Attack on Sanders May Backfire


Rick Klein: “If Hillary Clinton truly isn’t nervous about Bernie Sanders closing fast, she might want to tell her campaign manager before he sends another exclamation-point fundraising appeal hyping concerns about the polls. Then she could think about telling her daughter, who is now responsible for one of the most brazen attacks of the Democratic race this year… You don’t have to go back into the archives to find Clinton’s previous support for single payer – or his attacks on Barack Obama for attacking her on health care, in 2008 – to recognize that this is at best a highly misleading claim to make about the independent socialist senator.”
“It may actually miss the mark more by more, though, on the politics: the Democrats’ liberal base isn’t likely to buy Sanders as insufficiently committed to universal health care. If anything, there’s lingering frustration that Obamacare didn’t go far enough, and that lawmakers like Clinton are responsible for those concessions.”

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Hillary's Unhealthy Choice

If, as I hope, Hillary is nominated she will need the youth vote that Bernie now enjoys.  Progressives backing Sanders will be scared into backing her by the regressive policies of the Republican nominee.  But, college students, and other young voters, might sit this one out.

A sure way to turn off the youth vote is politics as usual, exemplified by misleading attacks.  Gun control is a fair issue.  There is daylight between Clinton and Sanders.  Electability is always a reasonable issue.  Healthcare is not.  Bernie is an ardent advocate of universal healthcare.  He might prefer a single payer system, but he would not dismantle Obamacare unless he could implement an even more inclusive system.

Many voters feel burned by the establishment.   Hillary, please do not add fuel to the fire.






Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Bigotry of Birthers

A sizable minority of Republicans challenged the legitimacy of the Obama presidency based on their mistaken belief that he was born in Kenya.  With the exception of the opportunistic Trump, most of them seem comfortable with the candidacy of Ted Cruz.  We can now comfortably call "birthers" hypocrites and racists.

Ted Cruz is, what birthers imagined Obama was.  Ted Cruz was born, and initially raised, in a foreign country, Canada,  the product of an American mother and a non-citizen father.  In fact, Ted Cruz had dual citizenship until 2014.

The only discernible difference between the imagined status of the president, and that of Senator Cruz, is that Canada is predominately white and Kenya is predominately black.  Birthers are bigots.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Is Governor Snyder Guilty of Genocide?

Extremist claims of genocide,  have pointed out discrimination, disparate impact, and bad public policy, but never a systematic effort to wipe out Black Americans until now.  Governor Snyder and his cronies perhaps initially inadvertently, but later knowingly, poisoned the predominantly black population of Flint, Michigan.

The first step was to render the people of Flint defenseless, by having a governor appointed emergency manager take over the city.  A powerless mayor could not protect his citizens from the Snyder dictatorship.  As a Republican, Snyder had no problem with disenfranchising Blacks.  Taking the vote away from minorities is a GOP touchstone.

Second, in the name of cost cutting, safe water from Detroit was replaced with local river water.  The water if tested would have been easily, and clearly, shown to have chemicals which would leach lead from city pipes.  Lead poisoning is irreversible, and in addition to various illnesses, reduces the IQ of any children exposed.

After being presented with evidence of the lead content of Flint water, Snyder and his appointees sipped bottled water while attesting to the purity of Flint water.  Only after Rachel Maddow shined a spotlight did they notice the test results that had been on their desk for nearly a year.

Intentional genocide may be a stretch.  More likely this is a case of indifference, hubris and right wing dogma.  Still a criminal investigation is warranted.  Snyder and his henchmen may plead immunity based on acting within the course and scope of their governmental duties.  We shall see.  Had they taken a bribe they would be in prison.  If Black Lives Matter, destroying a generation of children should result in penalties at least equal to those for petty corruption.  Poisoning your citizens is not good governance.


Tuesday, January 5, 2016

The Agnew Problem

The Republican establishment has an Agnew problem.  For those too young to remember the resignation of Richard Nixon, there was a key precursor--the resignation of Spiro Agnew.

Nixon's paranoia clouded his judgement, but  Vice President Agnew was a bombastic crook who had been on the take as governor of Maryland.   Only after an investigation forced Spiro out of office could Nixon be impeached.

If Trump were forced out today, the GOP would be under Cruz control.  Ted would power glide to the nomination.  Polls show he is the second choice of a plurality of likely Republican primary voters.

Ted is more savvy, more articulate, and more dangerous than "The Donald."  Until they find a way to take down number 2 the GOP is forced to leave Trump alone.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Questions About the Trump Campaign

The year of Trump has ended.  Will 2016 be a continuation?  Four  questions may hold the answer.

When it comes to having skin in the game, Trump has been the man in a burka.  When his businesses fail, his employees are on the street, his suppliers are holding the bag, and his lenders are bottled in worthless bonds.  Trump's gold plated life goes on unabated.  So we ask, will his self financed campaign be more self, than finance?

His first ad does not answer the question.  Production values are low, and the content is a repeat of his applause lines.  The size of his ad buy has not been confirmed.  Given his wealth of free media, ad spending is probably not the issue, but rather money spent on the ground.  No where is this more important than Iowa.

Answering a pollster is not the same as spending 4 hours in a school gym on a cold winter night.  To succeed you need paid organizers to develop and train precinct captains. Supporters must be contacted and recontacted.   Getting supporters there is not the full game.  Well schooled caucus goers pick up additional support from neighbors pledged to candidates who do not meet the threshold set for viability.

Second, will Donald's thin skin finally burn him.  Already the flip side, his reaction to praise, has led to a strange bromance with Putin.  Will he so overreact to an attack as to hemorrhage support?

Third,  after portraying himself as a winner, can he survive a likely loss in Iowa?

Finally,  is his high floor matched by a low ceiling?  As the field narrows will his numbers  stagnate while the remaining challengers gain ground?

Appropriately, we should know by April's Fool Day.









Saturday, January 2, 2016

Thanks

Thanks, and the happiest of New Years to all of you who have taken the time to read my blog.