November 25, 2015

Kathleen Turner, "Republicans' Playbook on Women Gets Even Scarier"

link; excerpt:

Last week, Ted Cruz promoted the endorsement of Troy Newman, an anti-choice leader who has gone so far as to say that a perfectly biblical society would execute its abortion providers.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Ted Cruz is so thrilled that someone who wants abortion providers to be killed is supporting him that he actually sent out a press release to celebrate the endorsement. Is that what this Republican primary has come to? Presidential candidates applauding -- not denouncing -- these radically extreme positions?

Regardless of one's view on abortion rights, I would hope we can all agree that abortion providers do not deserve to be put to death for their entirely legal work. For a presidential candidate to not immediately distance himself from an endorsement from someone like Newman -- and instead to actively promote it -- is horrifying.

November 25, 2015

Avg. Iowa polls in Nov: 50.5% Clinton, 43% Sanders; Iowa polls in Oct: 54.1% Clinton, 32.3% Sanders

So considering the average of the Iowa polls where the data was gathered in November compared with the average of the previous month's polling, Clinton is down 3.6% (on average) and Sanders is up 10.7% (on average) resulting in a 14.5% narrowing of the gap from October to November.

Can someone remind me how this trend spells doom for Sanders and inevitability for Clinton?

PS - O'Malley is also improving in Iowa in November: 4.5% average versus a 3.9% in October.

November 24, 2015

Salon: "Ted Cruz’s laughable plan to rebrand himself as a moderate"

link; excerpt:

a new AP report suggests that Cruz is attempting to rebrand himself in the wake of the latest attacks. His hope is to appeal to the supporters of people like Trump and Carson by emphasizing his experience and, I’m not joking, his moderation....You almost have to applaud Cruz’s chutzpah here. This guy has made a career of extremism. His strategy in the Senate, from the very beginning, has been to obstruct and to use his platform to appeal to the wingnut base of the Republican Party – showing little to no interest in advancing a credible legislative agenda. And he’s mouthed as many inflammatory idiocies as anyone currently running for president.... Here are just a few examples:

1.“Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, ‘Accept the Nazis. Yes, they’ll dominate the continent of Europe, but that’s not our problem. Let’s appease them. Why? Because it can’t be done. We can’t possibly stand against them.’”
2. “I think President Obama is the most radical president this nation’s ever seen … And in particular, I think he is a true believer in government control of the economy and of our everyday lives. In my judgment, we are facing what I consider to be the epic battle of our generation, quite literally the battle over whether we remain a free market nation.”
3. “You know, back in the ’70s — I remember the ’70s, we were told there was global cooling. And everyone was told global cooling was a really big problem. … The problem with climate change is there’s never been a day in the history of the world in which the climate is not changing.”
4. “The Obama economy is a disaster, Obamacare is a train wreck, and the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind — the whole world is on fire.”
5. “Net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet.”
6. “It’s not our job to be social workers in Iraq and put them all on expanded Medicaid.”
7. “I thought it was the job of a military chaplain to be insensitive to atheists.”
8. “You look at our constitution, you look at our Bill of Rights, this is an administration [Obama] that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights…I don’t know that they’ve yet violated the Third Amendment, but I expect them to start quartering soldiers in people’s homes soon.”
9. “In my life, I have never once seen an Hispanic panhandler. In our community, it would be viewed as shameful to be out on the street begging.”

November 24, 2015

"Ted Cruz’s Sophisticated Bigotry - This is how you bash Muslims while pretending to be principled"

Link to the great analysis from The Slate; excerpt:

Sen. Ted Cruz ... is repositioning himself, accordingly, as a statesmanlike alternative to Donald Trump. The tricky part is tapping into the same resentments Trump exploits—anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-black—without doing it quite so crudely.

There’s a fine art to this sort of manipulation. You have to touch the right nerves—fear of a black president, indignation at bilingualism, hunger for retaliation against Muslims—while cloaking your demagoguery in the language of terrorism, sovereignty, and the rule of law. Cruz, a skilled lawyer and wordsmith, is demonstrating this technique in his current campaign against Muslim immigrants....

Unlike other Republican hotheads, Cruz is careful to frame his anti-Muslim rhetoric in the language of radicalism and terrorism.
Then came the attacks in Paris. An anti-Muslim backlash swelled on the right. Standing against terrorism wasn’t good enough anymore. To stay on the cutting edge, Cruz needed a broader target. So he coined a new menace: “Syrian Muslim refugees.”...The new message serves three purposes. It conveys vigilance. It appeals to popular anger at Muslims. And it positions Cruz as a defender of Christians. Winning the religious right is a pillar of Cruz’s campaign strategy. That’s why, in one appearance after another, he has emphasized that his segregation of Muslim from non-Muslim immigrants is designed to protect Christians. As he explained to Beck:

Christians are being crucified right now, Glenn. They’re being beheaded. And the president says it’s offensive and un-American to want to provide safe haven. Just three percent of the Syrians that this administration has let in are Christians. He’s ignoring the [genocide] directed at Middle Eastern Christians.

... There’s no principled reason to accept Syrian Christians but not Syrian Shiites. Shiites, broadly defined, are more numerous than Christians in Syria, yet they’re less likely to be admitted to the United States as refugees. Cruz says it’s outrageous that only 3 percent of the refugees we’ve accepted from Syria are Christian. But we’ve accepted four times as many Christians as Shiites. Why doesn’t Cruz speak up for Shiites? Because they’re not a powerful constituency in Republican primaries. Under his policy, Syrian Shiites would be denied entry to the United States—and instead resettled, at their peril, in “majority Muslim countries.”... Unlike Trump, Mike Huckabee, and other hotheads, he’s careful to frame his anti-Muslim rhetoric in the language of radicalism and terrorism. But occasionally, the mask slips. For Crowder’s Webcam interview, the senator, looking tired after arriving home at the end of a busy day, shed his jacket and tie. He listened as Crowder outlined “four winning issues for Republicans.” The host didn’t mince words: “Islam, now, is a winning issue: calling it out for what it is.” Cruz nodded vigorously and responded, “Yep.”

November 24, 2015

Edging right, Clinton seeks distance from Obama on ISIS

Source: The Hill

Hillary Clinton is putting space between herself and President Obama on the issues of national security and terrorism, even at the risk of offending the most dovish members of her own party.

... “Like President Obama, I do not believe that we should again have 100,000 American troops in combat in the Middle East. That is just not the smart move to make here.” But she added that U.S. forces should be utilized to “support local and regional ground forces in carrying out this mission.”

Clinton drew an even sharper contrast with Obama at the second Democratic presidential debate, declaring that ISIS “cannot be contained, it must be defeated.”

Obama has received considerable criticism for saying that ISIS was “contained” the day before the attacks on Paris that killed 130 people. Aides emphasized he had been using the word to describe the organization’s control of territory, rather than suggesting the threat had been neutralized.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/261157-clinton-seeks-distance-from-obama-on-isis

November 23, 2015

The Chicago Tribune: "Hillary Clinton's weaknesses hidden by Republican chaos"

Here is a link to the thoughtful analysis in today's Chicago Tribune, "Hillary Clinton's weaknesses hidden by Republican chaos," and here's an excerpt:

There's cause for concern in Hillaryland, the constellation of Democratic advisers, supporters and politicians counting on the former secretary of state to lead the party to a sweeping victory next November.
...
The worries of some Clinton insiders are focused on the general election. There is an "enthusiasm gap." She doesn't excite important constituencies: young people, independents, possibly even minority voters.

... Clinton has a striking problem with young voters. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed a solid plurality of young voters has a negative view of Clinton. She did even worse in Bloomberg Politics national poll.

Here's a result to unnerve her Brooklyn campaign headquarters: Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton get a 60 percent favorable rating with 18- to 29-year-olds. She gets 35 percent approval and 57 percent unfavorable.
...
Clinton also has big problems with independent voters. In the nomination contest, she's running well ahead of her chief challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. But she loses to him among Democratic-leaning independents. Over all, independents are negative about her by a margin of better than 3-to-2.

If Clinton supporters spent less energy attacking Sanders, I believe the campaign would be running more smoothly.

November 23, 2015

The Week: "Marco Rubio has no clue how to defeat ISIS"

link; excerpt:

A couple of weeks ago, ISIS was a serious challenge the next president will have to deal with, but in the wake of the attacks in Paris, candidates are now expected to have an ISIS plan, a specific set of actions they'll take that will eliminate the terrorist group once and for all. Not everyone has come up with one yet, but what we've seen so far is not going to inspire a whole lot of faith that ISIS's days are numbered come January 2017.

Consider, for example, Marco Rubio, the establishment's golden boy and one of the "serious" GOP candidates. When it comes to foreign policy in particular, people will look to Rubio, since by virtue of his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he's better informed than most of his primary competitors. Rubio delivered his plan to defeat ISIS last week, and it's a remarkable document. Let's walk through its main points.

Rubio begins with the requisite statement of steely resolve: "When I am president, what I will do to defeat ISIL is very simple: whatever it takes." Inspiring! Then he dives into the details. "First, I would protect the homeland by immediately stopping the flow of Syrian refugees into the United States," he says. I won't bother going over again how wrong it is to think that stopping Syrian refugees will protect us from an attack, but we can at least all agree that doing so certainly won't help "defeat" ISIS.
...
The problem isn't that Marco Rubio is some kind of idiot, even if you'd be tempted to conclude that upon reading his "plan." The problem is that ISIS presents an unusually difficult challenge, where every possible course of action is either foreclosed before it begins or brings huge complications along with it. That's why when Hillary Clinton — who has more foreign policy experience than all the Republican candidates put together — gave a speech last week outlining the course she'd like to follow on ISIS, it was terribly frustrating, in many ways more hope than plan. Clinton at least acknowledges the complexity of the situation — for instance, our ally Saudi Arabia isn't helping us fight ISIS, while our adversary Iran is, all while the two countries wage proxy battles against each other. If the next president can untie that knot, it would be a wonder.

November 23, 2015

New York magazine: "What Marco Rubio Doesn’t Want You to Know About His Abortion Position"

Link; excerpt:

Marco Rubio opposes the legal right to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. This extreme position would pose a significant liability in a general election. But since Rubio still has to win the nomination, he can’t wriggle out of it yet. Instead he is obfuscating. Rubio’s explanation of his position to Evan Osnos left Osnos scratching his head:

When I asked Rubio about it, he said, somewhat confusingly, “Look, I personally believe that all life is worthy of protection, and therefore I don’t ever require, nor have I ever advocated, that I won’t support a law unless it has exceptions.” After some more twists and turns, I sensed that we had reached the line he plans to use in a general election: “My goal is to save as many lives as possible, and I’ll support anything that does that. Even if it has exceptions.”

Here’s what Rubio is up to. Rubio wants to restrict access to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. He doesn’t want to say that, though. So instead he is changing the question to "Would you support a bill to restrict abortion that did not contain exceptions?" And yes, Rubio says, he would. But that does not mean he wouldn’t also support a bill that restricted abortion with no exceptions.

November 23, 2015

Bernie Sanders Leads TIME’s Person of the Year Poll

Source: Time

With eleven days left to go before TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year poll come to a close, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the upstart candidate for president, holds a wide lead over global notables among TIME readers even as he trails Hillary Clinton in voter polls and fights a long-shot battle for the Democratic nomination.
...
Sanders is also beating Donald Trump in the reader poll. Trump told supporters at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, Saturday that he believed the magazine was considering him for the annual recognition.

Sanders, who was little-known when he began his unlikely bid for president in April, has become a hero on the Democratic left among progressives disillusioned by growing income inequality and money in politics. With a little over two months until the Iowa caucuses, Sanders faces tough odds to win the Democratic nomination. But he has cast a long shadow over the Democratic primary with his ability to introduce a progressive wish-list including breaking up the big banks, instituting public financing of elections, socialistic single-payer healthcare system and tuition free college at public institutions.

Read more: http://time.com/4124110/bernie-sanders-leads-times-person-of-the-year-poll/

November 23, 2015

Sanders leads New Hampshire, he's seen as change candidate and his approach to Wall Street preferred

"In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Democrats see Sanders as more of a change candidate; they are more likely to think Sanders would bring 'big change' to the country."

Current polling also shows more voters prefer Sanders' approach to Wall Street regulation and find Clinton too closely tied to Wall Street:

Clinton has been criticized as being too close to Wall Street. In Iowa and New Hampshire, her policies are viewed as being too easy on Wall Street, while Sanders' policies New Hampshire are seen as about right. Fifty-three percent in Iowa feel her policies might be too easy, and forty-four percent say they'll be about right. Seven in ten feel Sanders' policies would be right, in their view.

If you were to read the title of the news story reporting this great-news-for-Sanders polling, you'd get the impression that this polling was good news for a different candidate.