Tragic Lane Change Kills Haley's Political Career

 The road to the 2024 GOP presidential nomination is congested.  Ted Cruz is in the right hand lane espousing balanced budgets and conservative values.  He is joined by Tom Cotton, who also straddles the Trump lane.  Marco Rubio keeps on making weird hand signals, so his lane is uncertain, but definitely small.   The Trump lane is clogged with Pence, Don Jr., Mike Pompeo, a bit of Cotton and a few other stragglers.

Before recklessly veering into the Trump pileup, Nikki Halley had a clear path.   She could run as the compassionate conservative following in the wake of George W. Bush, with the added benefits of an immigrant background, pigmentation and removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina state house grounds.  

Merging with Trump was political malpractice.  If Republicans remain the party of Trump, she will never be Trumpy enough, compared to Pence and Trump's eldest son.  But if Trump floundered she was positioned to be the shiny, unsullied object of political affection.   

Trump's Blues

Crowd boos Cruz, but it's the Trumps that lose.  Trump captured the nomination by winning news cycles.  He was the Lance Armstrong of news cycling.  But like Armstrong, the wheels are coming off.

He cannot even win a rigged contest.  Conventions are under the control of the campaign.  Yet he lost the first news cycle because his incompetent campaign gave Melania a defective device.  He lost the second cycle because his campaign did not know how to fix it.

Trump is supposed to be a master judge of people, the key to being a great deal maker.  Trump called Cruz' wife ugly and Cruz' father an aider and abettor of the Kennedy assassination.  So this business genius and his campaign handed Cruz a knife, and are shocked that he slashed their tires.  You don't have to be doping to be a dope.  No yellow jersey for Trump, just the blues.

GOP Is Clueless

Terrorists win when they control the agenda, causing overreactions.  The Republican presidential candidates universally proclaimed that Obama should have immediately returned to the US from Cuba, because of the bombings in Brussels.

A president must multitask.  Obama conferred with world leaders, provided assistance and green lighted a plan to take down the second in  command of ISIS while still on his trip.  But, some things require personal attention.  Attempting to put Cuba on a gradual road to a more open society took a personal touch, including enjoying baseball, the national obsession of the country.

The visit to Argentina was also of historic import.  The second largest country in South America has replaced a government aligned with Hugo Chavez, with an administration open to the West.  Forging a bond with the new president of Argentina, is one of the most positive developments in our relationship with Latin America in the past decade.  If a tango can reshape South America, than it is the dance of destiny.

Meanwhile, the top GOP candidates are busy attacking each other's dance partners.   

Who Won the GOP Miami Debate?

The clear winner was Rubio.  As a progressive, I can only be thankful that his campaign has been so mismanaged that it is too little, too late.  He was articulate, persuasive and personable.

Trump was running out the clock looking forward to another good night on Tuesday.  He was restrained and modulated, as close as he can get to presidential.  By emerging unscathed, he also won.  He made the big news of the night.  As all of us who follow him knew, he will not self finance his general election campaign.  He said that although he committed to  funding his primary campaign, he may accept help from major donors in the general election.

Kasich who won the last two debates by smoothly sailing through choppy waters, was indistinguishable in a sea of civility.  Cruz, always in unctuous prosecutorial mode, is wearing thin.

This was the most substantive Republican debate.  Ratings will no doubt plummet.

Who Won the Fox GOP Debate?

Now that the show is in reruns, pundits question whether voters will experience Trump fatigue.  To date the answer is no.  But Donald may be falling victim to the syndrome.  After assuring us that he was well endowed, he seemed bored with the rest of his own responses.

Kasich had a very good night.  He washed his hands while others were in a pissing contest.  Although a solid insult to both,  he is the Republican Hillary.  Like Hillary he passionately believes in the principles of his party, but also like Hillary, he is more of a problem solver than an ideologue.   As usual online polls have Trump as the winner, but for the first time Kasich is second.  He will get a boost.

Rubio and Cruz were as expected.  Cruz is a solicitor with a conservative core, and Marco is the young optimistic neocon.  Neither made a mistake.  Neither advanced their cause.

By not appearing, Dr. Ben had his best debate.

Who Won the Houston GOP Debate?

In a normal year Kasich won hands down.  His calm demeanor, sensible proposals and exposition of a resume that is on point for present problems would carry the day.  But this is not that year, and last night was not that day.

Carson, would be the clear loser, but given his lack of relevance and limited air time you would have to give him an incomplete.  His desperate plea for air time, "Someone please attack me," was the comic relief in a nasty brawl.  I doubt I am the only one who records the debate so I can fast forward through Dr. Ben.

The other loser was Cruz--the winners Rubio and Trump.  Marco and Ted spent most of the evening attacking The Donald.  Marco had the better lines and stuck the knife in with a smile.  Cruz was a cross between a stern high school principal and the smarmy adult in "Beach Blanket Bingo."

Marco exposed Trump for a lack of a replacement for Obamacare, and for hiring foreign workers rather than Americans.  But Trump had a few counter attacks and blustered through.  Since he was entitled to respond to each attack he dominated the air time.

Plus Trump had a big ace in the hole--Chris Christie.  Trump knows that for every person watching the debate, 20 form an opinion through sound bites.  Trump used the Christie endorsement to cover the post debate news cycle.

A Tale of Two Parties

The Grand Old Party has a field of children throwing spitballs at their debates.  Shouts of liar substitute for substance.   Cruz claims Mario was for immigrants before he was against them.  Chest pounding replaces foreign policy.  Cruz wants indiscriminate carpet bombing, Rubio wants boots on the ground, and Trump is for torture.  Carson babbles.

In contrast, Sanders and Hillary compare proposals on income equality, healthcare,  prison reform, and  campaign funding.   Bernie, who has only recently joined the party, considers attacks on his fealty to President Obama a low blow.  That was a love tap compared to the kicking and hair pulling amongst the disloyal opposition.

Cruz Loses 4 to 4

Nothing quite matches the titillating taste of irony.  Cruz is adamant in opposing Obama's right to appoint a replacement for Justice Scalia.  If he is successful in blocking an appointment, the court will operate with four liberal and four conservative justices.

A case has been filed to disqualify Cruz from running for president on the ground that he is not,  "A Natural Born Citizen."  Imagine if the case clears procedural hurdles such as standing, and an appellate court disqualifies Cruz.  The case would proceed on an expedited basis to the Supreme Court.

Liberal justices who generally take a more expansive view of the Constitution would almost certainly side with Cruz.  Strict constructionists on the other hand are the most likely to find that a president must be born in America.  The Supreme Court does not like to tread in the political arena.  A 4 to 4 decision has the benefit of not setting a precedent, but merely leaving the lower court decision in place.

For want of a 5th liberal justice, Cruz would lose.

The Lessons of Iowa

But for Trump's braggadocio, and a few polls, the story of Iowa would have been Trump's remarkable second place finish.  A seasoned candidate and staff would have spun this like a dreidel.  Trump trades in his wife every ten years for a newer model,  seldom attends church, and has only recently reversed his pro-choice position.  Trump believes Corinthians was the leather in the ill fated Chrysler Cordoba.  The GOP Iowa caucus electorate is 60% evangelicals.

Elbow grease beat chest thumping.  Iowa caucus goers expect to be wooed.  Trump never gave them a first date.  Cruz visited all 99 counties, brought in field staff and more than 12,000 volunteers.  Trump's giant rallies are too public for the love affair Iowans demand.  The multi-state primaries to come are better suited to Trump's tarmac campaign.  Wholesale will soon replace retail politics.

Iowa's caveat for Trump is what we pointed out in early August, http://phoodphotospolitics.blogspot.com/2015/08/trumps-money-problem.html.  Trump is a penny pincher living in a gold plated palace.  Free media has hidden, and perhaps excused, his limited air game.  But only his cheapness explains the lack of ground game.  Against all odds, Trump might have won Iowa with a high end, well financed, field staff training and deploying an army of volunteers.  Trump deployed a few rent a cops against the Cruz militia.

Going forward the question is whether his big mouth, and fat ego will ever be matched by a large wallet.

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."

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."

Lessons of San Bernardino

San Bernardino is not the California dream.  Per capita income is among the lowest of urban areas in the state, and air quality is 3rd worst in the nation.  But what can we learn from the San Bernardino nightmare?

As with Paris, the danger is home grown terrorists. Syed Farook was born in Illinois.  Evidence is mounting that he was radicalized before contacting and marrying Tashfeen Malik.  He sought a kindred spirit.  But for his extremism, she would not have entered the country.

Some casualties may be inevitable in a war of ideas, but incendiary language by Republican presidential candidates can only add to the toll.  Trump could well be terrorist recruiter in chief.  Moreover, to the extent Trump, Cruz and others alienate the Muslim community, cooperation with authorities lessens.  We could be flooded with threats with a mere trickle of information.

Second we need to ban military grade weapons.  Maybe guns don't kill people, and it is people who kill people.  But clearly people with automatic and semi-automatic weapons kill more people.  True, some terrorists might illegally obtain such weapons.  But, law enforcement is trained to track illegal weapons.  Terrorists may be spotted because they seek illegal weapons.

Other steps may need to be taken such as tighter Visa background checks.  But the key is welcoming Muslim citizens into the flow of American life, and denying armament to those who seek to dam and damn that flow.

Bush Got a Brazilian

Bush got trimmed.  Not a good sign when your post debate campaign spin is, "Jeb is a doer not a debater."  Staying on message, the candidate explained, “Look, there are two types of politicians. There the talkers and there the doers. I wish I could talk as well as some of the people on the stage, the big personalities on the stage, but I’m a doer.”  The only good news is they replaced the stupid exclamation point.  The signage is now "Jeb?"

As to the new front runner, Doctor please heal thyself.  Ben proclaimed that he has changed many of his positions now that he has actually studied some of the issues.  If elected, he would be the first president to leave office for a book tour.

Substance aside, Rubio, Cruz,  and to a lesser extent, Christie and Fiorina, had a good night.  But oh, that pesky substance,  Fiorina wears her 4 Pinocchio rating with pride.   Even if Obama personally handed out pink slips, he could not achieve her mind numbing claim that 93% of the jobs lost were by women.

She, and the rest of the field danced the same old soft shoe.  While in the spot light they glibly glided through the downbeat news of income inequality and wage stagnation.  But the incongruous two step solution was lowering taxes on the wealthy and reducing regulatory protection for workers and consumers.

Cruz Control

Ted Cruz has a  phony facial expression that betrays the conceit that he is the smartest person in the room.  He is probably right, at least when he is staring at his contenders for the Republican nomination.    Cruz capped off an ivy league education with a degree from Harvard Law School.  His rhetorical skills were honed as national debate champion and Texas Solicitor General.   More importantly, he is the top GOP political tactician.

From his first day in the Senate, Cruz surveyed the potential presidential field.  He was locked out of the establishment slot by Jeb, pre-bridgegate Christy, Walker, Rubio, and potentially Kasich.  His attacks on his own party leadership were strategic.  He positioned himself near the line, so no hits could get through to his right.

His analysis was flawless.  Current polls show that disgust with party leadership, has anti-establishment candidates dominating.   But as a religious man Cruz should appreciate that, "Man plans, God laughs."  Cruz is hanging on as Trump's rump, hoping for a turn around.  But, if Trump falters, Cruz is best positioned to pick up the droppings.

Swimming Up Stream

With a tip of the hat to Barry McGuire, in 2012 Republican candidates were ever, "On the eve of (self) destruction."  Who can forget such hits as, "9-9-9,"  "47%," and on the senatorial side, "I am not a witch."

Although my progressive allies may titter and twitter, in 2016 the Republicans have streamed a field of well schooled candidates.  Marco Rubio is energetic, photogenic, and articulate.  He has a powerful personal story, speaks fluent Spanish, and hails from the key state of Florida.  Walker and Kasich as purple state warriors, could make inroads in the Midwest.  Kasich could lock down the Republican must win state of Ohio, where he enjoys a remarkable 60% approval rating as governor.  His resume rivals Hilary's including 9 terms in the House, serving as  Chair of the Budget Committee.

Ted Cruz is prepared to carry the ultraconservative water if Trump starts leaking support.  Cruz has Ivy league credentials and was a national debate champion.  Jeb is a cash machine.  Even competing with 15 other panderers, he has nearly doubled Clinton's take, even though she has no competition for major liberal donors.  Like Mario he is Florida based and speaks Spanish.

The GOP will fail to cross the electoral divide not because of the quality of candidates, but because there is no rightward passage.  The Republican nominee will be cut off from Hispanic votes by xenophobic positions on immigration.  For gays, the young, and many independents, the GOP has lost its way on gay marriage.   A barrage of intemperate remarks keeps women, particularly single women, out of reach.  Attacks on voting rights, has made outreach for Black support, a bridge too far.

Even a strong candidate will stumble on a shaky platform.

Republican Candidates: Liars or Lunatics?

Republican presidential candidates are day one divas.  In 2012 Romney promised to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office.  Not to be outdone,  Walker has promised to repeal the Iran Treaty after swearing the oath of office.  Rubio, Cruz and Bush echo those sentiments.

Are they too young to remember "One (is the loneliest number)" by Three Dog Night?  Neither Russia and China, nor our allies, would renege on the agreement.  It is a near miracle that Hillary Clinton cobbled, and held, together the sanction odd fellows.  We would stand alone with useless unilateral sanctions and no ability to enforce constraints on Iran.

If by some miracle,  a Republican president could rebuild the sanction alliance, Iran would have between a 100 and 150 billion dollars and no treaty obligations.  Is this crop of Republicans just spreading  fertilizer?   I hope so.  Better duplicitous than dumb.