There have already been a lot of unexpected twists and turns in the 2016 presidential race, but maybe the single most surprising thing to me so far has been just how miserably Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is doing. Take a look at the new NBC News/Marist poll out of New Hampshire. Since February, Walker’s support has been cut by three-quarters and he is now polling in ninth place, behind Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina. Only 4% of Granite State voters express a first preference for Gov. Walker.
It looks like in New Hampshire, at least, it’s Ohio Governor John Kasich who is emerging as the alternative to Bush. He’s in second place with 12%, way behind Trump and narrowly better than Ben Carson and the Jebster.
The headlines are pointing to the result in the Democratic race, however.
Over there, we see Bernie Sanders leaping into an 11% lead over Hillary, which is reduced to a nine percent lead if Biden is included as an option. This is a giant advance from the last poll in July that showed Sanders with a 13% deficit.
It’s beginning to look like the public is in no mood for Bush/Clinton showdown, even if that remains the most plausible outcome.
More later…
All of these analyses are ridiculous. The way to view the Republican vetting process is the Wheel of Fortune. The wheel turns, and someone is up. They look inevitable. They cannot lose.
The wheel turns.
Someone else comes to the top.
The winner will be the person with enough money to get off the wheel, or the person on top at the time of NH/IA/SC/FL delegate selections. This is why I don’t think Trump is going to win – he is on top now, but the wheel is turning. Carson is going up, Kasich is next. Could Pataki be behind Kasich?
If you have been on top, you have to wait for everyone else to be up. Second time around for the wheel will come in 3-4 months. Rubio, Perry, Paul, Cruz have all had their little moment on top. The wheel turned. They are not on top now.
This is not 2012.
But the media companies want to get that horse race going to stimulate ad buys. That’s where the wheel-of-fortune/musical chairs aspect of 2012 came from. Rotating the frontrunner to bleed their budgets and increase the donations they got slowly. And media companies are looking at a potential $4 billion or larger bonanza in this cycle. Keeping those horses running and swapping leads is important to keeping the eyeballs focused (rates) and pulling in the ads (volume).
Until the public tunes out in disgust.
They may prefer a horse race, but it would appear — from watching Msnbc and sampling CNN — they are perfectly happy with a largely single-person race so long as it involves Donald making waves with controversy and unpredictability, creating very good ratings.
I think they’ll ride him as long as he appears popular and can produce profit for them. Though they may not like his recent Tax the Rich comments, which get awfully close to Taxing the Corporations. Then they will turn harshly against him whenever they feel he’s getting too close to power. Possibly just before IA, maybe a little later when they can still influence the nom and install a more tax-friendly type like jeb? or Kasich.
The problem with Jeb(?) is that he echoes GWHB (1992) and Romney. GOP primary voters aren’t buying that he’s electable in the GE. They haven’t seen enough of Carson and Kasich to draw a similar conclusion. Carson might be bolstered by the most naive Republicans that have overgeneralized from the success of Obama.
GOP primary voters aren’t buying that he’s electable in the GE.
They were sold that line twice before, first in 2008 with McCain then in 2012 with Romney. As always, their response to any failure is that they weren’t conservative enough.
Their biggest weakness is that they dramatically overestimate the popularity of their party and positions. Generally “everyone” they know agrees with them, or nearly, so they assume – literally, I am not exaggerating – that the only people voting for Democrats are minorities, feminists, illegal aliens, and environmentalists.
As Trump has shown, a lot of GOP policies are actually deeply unpopular with their own party – it’s just that they are so blinded by anger and hatred that they aren’t aware of what their own party keeps voting for in the House.
“they assume – literally, I am not exaggerating – that the only people voting for Democrats are minorities, feminists, illegal aliens, and environmentalists.”
Sometimes I get that feeling from this blog too.
Not to mention this part:
I’m now convinced
A.) Hillary loses the nomination to Sanders, and we all go “Hurrah’.
B.) Sanders loses the general,
C.) The four horsemen of the GOPocalypse are let loose on the country
D.) Every surviving Democrat’s take-away, for a generation, will be — polls on the popularity of particular policies, in the abstract, divorced from personalities and parties notwithstanding — ‘Don’t get too far left… they’ll kill you if you’re too far left.’
Since you are replying to my comment, I have to confess I don’t get your meaning. But possibly you didn’t get my meaning. Then again, maybe you did.
What I meant was, yes, the Republicans do dramatically overestimate their own popularity. But we dramatically overestimate their popularity as well. A popularity apparently so great, that only Hillary Clinton has any chance of beating them.
And also what I meant was, I get the impression that not a few people here think Bernie Sanders couldn’t possibly be a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. After all, who the hell is Bernie Sanders. I mean, come on. Anyway, he’s too old. Only people in Vermont and New Hampshire will vote for him. He must pledge not to have a second term. The fact that the New Hampshire primary is a particularly important primary only makes it worse, because the “wrong” candidate might win it, only to go on to inevitable defeat against the Donald Trump, the most popular man in America.
Now, what did YOU mean?
The popularity of a 75-year old, unknown Socialist senator, from a state with a single US rep and one media market, who’s distinctly to the left of the country as a whole, could in a general election conceivably be less than we think it is, regardless of how well his policy positions taken in the abstract poll.
And if that candidate wins the nomination, but loses the general election, no Democrat to the left of Bob Casey even gets near the nomination for the rest of our lives…
Bernie’s issues and positions are where it’s at for a large segment of the population and he articulates them well, hence the response. But someone in our commentariat [Fladem I believe] lived in Burlington when Bernie became mayor and wrote that there is plenty the Rs will use against him if he gets the nomination (he gave some examples). for this reason I’m moving into the Biden camp. the economic issue, however one wants to phrase it, is yuge, as they say, and Hillary is on the wrong side of it in terms of her donors and the optics of her fund raising. who knows what she’d do in office, centerfielddj has extensive interesting comments on her record and may be correct; problem is she can’t credibly campaign on the issue at this point
Why Bernie, did you decide to honeymoon in the Soviet Union?
And about the Socialist Worker’s Party….
yes, I recalled you wrote that, just didn’t want to remind all the trolls reading our blog.
Too bad about O’Malley, I had hopes for his candidacy. But I’m also disappointed that he’s playing everything so safe, as if he’s running for the Inevitable’s vp slot. maybe I’m just not following his campaign as closely though
Really O’Malley was the best bet.
But what happened in Baltimore hurt him.
This.
I love Bernie Sanders’ positions on a lot of issues, but I think HRC destroys whomever she runs against. HRC has a lot of skeletons and has been around for a long time, but I still think she destroys the GOP candidate, especially Trump.
And I think she could have some long coattails, which would almost be as valuable, if not more, than a Bernie Sanders presidency.
The one thing I’m weary of is that Democrats tend to be more about personality than policy a lot of the time, in that Republicans have staunch positions on any number of issues, whereas Democrats look at Hillary, and look at Bernie, and say Bernie would be better. Yes, as a personality, Bernie would definitely be better, but even with his better policy positions, how much of those positions would he be able to enact with right-wing Republicans and center-right Democrats in Congress?
That’s my concern. Even if Bernie won…what exactly does he do that is more effective than HRC? Executive orders and SCOTUS appointments seems to be about the extent, unless somehow, someway the country moves way left.
I’ve been saying it for awhile, but if HRC is able to stay up in the polls, as I think she will, lefties/progressives should be running as many lefty/progressive candidates in as many down-ticket races as possible, just in case she has some long coattails.
The Republican party isn’t particularly cohesive at the moment as a national party, but it is still kicking the shit out of the Democratic party at the state level…and that starts at the local level by grooming politicians.
Doesn’t matter. Politicians don’t do. They be.
That’s what really matters. A true progressive in the White House. Isn’t that enough? What do you want, an egg in your beer?
The rest just happens. Wave election. New paradigm. Realignment. That stuff.
you forgot underpants gnomes
All I’m going by is how he’s actually doing, which is way, way better than I or any of you would ever have expected. Kind of like Obama. How could a black guy with a name like Barack Hussein Obama actually be elected president?
I, and all of you, would have said it was impossible — and yet it happened. Not only that, he’s turned out to be an excellent president.
Why? Because the winds are shifting. Not simply people’s attitudes. The actual conditions of life in this country have shifted way too far over to the right. It’s fucking dangerous, people feel that. That’s why a genuine left-of-center is the only one whose answers ring true. It’s not ideological, it’s existential.
I’ll be happy to take any of these supposedly insurmountable obstacles seriously when I see them actually affecting his campaign.
I have this nightmare, too.
I am re-reading the Making of the President 1964. In that book there is a very relevant description of the establishment response to Goldwater, and its attempt to stop him.
Goldwater is amazingly similar in ways to Trump. Goldwater would just say bat shit crazy things on the trail. As crazy as anything this bunch is saying. The establishment knew he was a disaster. And Rockefeller would have beaten him in the California Primary (there were only 3 that mattered in ’64) but shortly before voting his second wife had a child – and his polling sank as a result.
What I found astonishing was how unchanging the GOP establishment is. In ’64 they knew Goldwater was a disaster, but they couldn’t find a candidate to beat him (and oh how they tried). The establishment has effectively kept the crazies from winning in every primary excepting 1980.
They win because they find a candidate who the GOP primary electorate concludes can win. They have multiple bets this time around (Bush, Kasich, Rubio). I am not betting against them this time around either.
But the barbarians are at the gates, and the ranks of the establishment have been thinned considerably.
More likely that the birth Junior in May 1964 highlighted Nelson’s and Happy’s divorces and their marriage a year earlier and it wasn’t the new baby that led to a drop in his poll numbers. Recall that Happy not only divorced her husband to marry Nelson, but also gave up custody of her four children to secure the divorce. It was also common knowledge that they have been engaged in an affair for a number of years before they were both free to marry. Divorce in and of itself wasn’t scandalous by 1964, but affairs while legally married were. And we know that that hasn’t changed much since then for Presidential candidates.
I have been reading the Perlstein books (Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan). He discussed the Happy-Nelson situation in some detail. In particular, the abandonment of the children was seen as absolutely unforgivable, by women voters. They abandoned Nelson.
How well is the media playing the ad buy game? Trump hasn’t been spending much money and Carson doesn’t have much of a SuperPac. With his poll numbers dropping, team Walker is now dropping serious money into ads in IA, NH, and SC. As there’s probably more from where that came from, might be a good move to give him more attention until his numbers improve a bit and then drop him until he spends more.
Haven’t heard that team Jeb(?) is stepping up with the bucks yet and they have by far the most to work with. Maybe they should show Perry a bit of love and raise his hopes enough that he squanders his somewhat fat SuperPac.
Expect to see team Clinton SuperPac spending a few coins to stem her slide.
CNN is charging far more for ads during the upcoming GOP debate than what Fox was able to charge.
A new Kaching! profit stream — GOP Presidential Debates. The might have to kickback some loot to Trump to keep this thing going until next June.
I don’t care what year it is. The Wheel of Evaluation is always there. It’s there MORE when there are 174 republican candidates, and the blank slate/wild card (Ben Carson now, Trump 4 weeks ago) is the most important candidate.
Carson is the wild card, so he is going up. Trump’s many flaws are being revealed – he has 3 more weeks or 2 months, but whatever, he will not survive.
Kasich is even less known than Carson, so he will come along when Carson’s flaws are starting to show.
Everyone eventually will, in turn, poll in double digits… given the size of the field, this in some cases will only happen after the candidate actually has withdrawn.
Kasich is even less known than Carson, so he will come along when Carson’s flaws are starting to show.
All the wingnuts forget, already, that Kasich used to be the vacation sit-in for Loofah Man(aka BillO the Clown)?
Nobody ever accused the wingnuts of having a memory span greater than a gnat.
you keep mentioning this as if it is supposed to matter.
It doesn’t matter.
It does matter because it shows Kasich isn’t a moderate. And I want to kick anyone who thinks he is, especially any Democrat.
I don’t think anyone here is confused as to how “conservative” Kasich is. Or for a split second would consider supporting or voting for him. His prior stint as a rightwing shill should be of importance to RWNJs, and apparently, they have either forgotten or he’s not sufficiently “conservative” enough for them to support him when more obviously rightwingers are running.
It reminds me of all the attention lefty bloggers paid to Ron Paul’s documented racism. Now in that case, there were people hanging at lefty blogs that liked or supported Ron Paul; so, highlighting that aspect of his background had a purpose. Otherwise, it was a waste of time to highlight that because Paul never got any traction among racist voting blocs. He performed poorly in the south and his appeal in other states had little to nothing to do with racism. For those that vote anti-AA, they had better racists to vote for.
We here know exactly how Kasich developed his TV talking skills and recognize that it gave him a leg up on how to be nutty without appearing to be crazy. Doesn’t matter how he got here. Only that if nominated by the GOP, would be effective with “swing” voters who also won’t care how he developed a speaking style and mask of sanity. Thus, if he should be nominated, it would be more effective to focus on his rightwing track record than a TV job he once held.
No.
the wheel is running below Trump, his numbers haven’t really moved as the circle turns below him
looking forward to what you’ll add on this matter: could be very bad if race is between 2, neither of which the public wants. Can this influence Biden to enter race?
The public wants a different politics, one that will actually make things better. There is massive diasgreement about what it takes to make things better and huge defensiveness on the conservative side for the complete failure of conservative ideas of social policy, economic policy, and foreign policy. And anger on the conservative side at the politicians who have pandered them along on hot-button issues and then folded. And much confusion because of the media dishonesty in reporting politics and policy and the social media propaganda campaigns that have gone on for a quarter of a century or more. The Hunt brothers’ “Life Lines” used to come through the USPS in the 1960s.
The campaign dynamics have taken the media-driven form of musical chairs that slowly forces competitors out of running. Only this time the candidates are so incredibly well-funded and Citizens United has created candidate-centric funding silos that that attrition is likely to take a long time, even after primary voting starts–especially on the Republican side.
New Hampshire rates Bernie Sanders as a favorite son of sorts (well, nextdoor neighbor). Propinquity does add votes in an election because the candidate is better known for being within the media market areas for the state on a routine basis.
What will be interesting to watch about Biden is how he pulls from the Clinton or ABC camps. More from the first sandbags Clinton; more from the second functions as a stalking horse for her victory.
But mostly the public is aghast that they will have to put up with 14 more months of this puerile and superficial crap. And the trash-talking it induces in political activists.
The same reporters puffing Sanders’ recent NH polls simply threw out Kerry’s, Tsongas’, and Dukakis’ numbers because ‘NH is right next door’.
To steal a line from Polanski “Forget about it Jake, it’s New Hampshire.”
There’s massive disagreement about what it takes to make things better, but also about what better is. Kim Davis has a different definition of better. She says it’s imperative in her faith, but I decided that when I stand before God I want to be able to say I was not cruel to gays.
Regardless I think it says something that Trump is saying things like taxing the rich and it’s okay. That left and right free trade is not looked on favorably. There is tremendous dissatisfaction with the way elites run this country and the only thing voters really agree about is wanting someone that will rock the boat.
Man, I wish I liked the idea of Bernie Sanders as a candidate for president. He is so much closer to my policy preferences than Hillary, but I doubt very much that he has the toughness or leadership qualities that undeniably matter for the campaign trail (not to mention the office itself).
One does not have to be bombastic or agressive to be tough.
And tough on the campaign trail means getting the requisite number of votes to win when voting time comes. It’s an organizational quality, not a personal one. I think that the most graphic proof of that is Richard Nixon. His organization had to hide his person from the public in order to win against the jovial Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. (They also benefited from the divisions within the Democratic Party over the Vietnam War and progressive reforms.)
Don’t you mean that you wish Sanders were younger? So far on the campaign trail, he’s demonstrated more energy and toughness than any of the other candidates.
Except for being a bit hunched over, yes, Satch does show good physical and mental energy for an oldster. Rarely see him have a senior moment, long pauses as he searches for a simple word or name, or making a groaning gaffe.
However, he would still have to address the age issue in a fall campaign — the talk in the media, among other negatives like Socialism, would be about how he would easily become the oldest person to take office at age 75, and whether he would pledge to be only a one-term president.
Except Trump is only five years younger than Sanders and Clinton only six years younger. Added to that is that of all the candidates, Sanders has far more experience in public office and has a long track record of being consistent on public policy issues. He’s never dissed or denigrated any minority or women and most certainly hasn’t done anything like that when it could have been electorally opportune for him to do so. That’s one of the factors that makes the Clintons so loathsome to me.
I’m also sure that Bernie would have preferred to campaign for someone like himself only younger had such a person entered the race than run for President himself. The problem is that the DLC has successfully purged such politicians from the party over the past two decades.
Yes, well except for Warren and a few others. And Warren made it clear that she’s not going to run for president but seemed to leave open the possibility of running for V.P. after her meeting with Biden.
And technically, there is no longer a DLC- but certainly the corporate interests that they represented are still there. There are popular progressives right now running for Senate seats- Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, etc… but they are being staunchly opposed by the money wing of the Democratic party.
The problem with the party is really that most of the overt blue dogs (aka the corporate corruption wing of the party) have been replaced by Republicans so that the Democrats that remain have solidly Democratic leaning voters, so they end up having to twist themselves in knots or out-and-out lie through their teeth to end up where all the money is. And while lies can certainly win a particular election, its hard to sustain that stategy long-term in the information age.
Technically Blackwater no longer exists either, but …
If the tea party ever gained full control of the GOP, it too would be dissolved.
Lots of Blue Dogs went down in 2014 b/c they followed the Clinton electoral strategy. Dismissing Truman’s words:
You mean Walker’s support has decreased by more than 67%. If it decreased by 300%, he would be polling about -30%.
Mixing percentages and absolute values, true.
Hasn’t Walker been stumping in NH during the past few weeks? Didn’t he also drop in Iowa once he started campaigning there?
Not sure what to make of Carson’s strong third and second choice numbers.
Team Clinton will dismiss this poll as another instance of near neighbor, favorite son preference in NH. Not without some validity.
With the exception of Kasich, the trendlines for the other candidates seem to be in line with what’s being seen in Iowa, SC, and nationally.
I understand Carson has been doing a lot of advertising in IA, where he’s a strong 2d. Presumably either not much adverting in NH, or else he just isn’t playing as well there among the locals.
Doesn’t matter — I confidently assert he’s a campaign bubble about to burst, even if a slow deflate. Smarter by far than the GOP’s last token black, Herman Cain, but politically there’s not a lot of there there. Trump and Theodore Cruz will be waiting to pick up his disillusioned supporters.
Or they could default back to Bush and Walker. Kasich may be drawing from Bush, Walker, and undecideds since the prior poll.
We are 6 months away for any actual voting. By way of reminder, Michelle Bachmann was flavor of the week at this point last time…
Nationally, Bachmann never was in the lead. At this point in 2012 she was fifth. And in one mid-Sept poll rose all the way to third. August-September 2012 was the rise and fall of Perry. She held on to better poll numbers in Iowa throughout the fall and that was cut in half by election day when Santorum cut into her fundie base, but her Iowa lead was gone by the first week of August and she never got it back.
What happens when a Bush guy, a Clinton guy, an Obama guy, and a Hillary gal are put on the same stage and asked about income inequality? They laugh at the rubes that fail to appreciate that all of them are “in the club” and were the rest of us aren’t. George Carlin tried to tell us.
I support Sanders’ campaign; have even sent Bernie a campaign contribution. But you know, at some point it’s valuable to deal with facts re. Hillary:
http://fortune.com/2015/07/24/hillary-says-capitalism-needs-a-reset/
“(Hillary’s) speech, delivered at New York University’s Stern School of Business, was the sort of numerate wonk-fest that’s come to characterize her early campaign — an effort aimed in part at comparing favorably with the sprawling free-for-all on the Republican side. It also helped advance the argument she aims to make the substantive centerpiece of both her bid and her presidency: Addressing economic inequality is the defining challenge of our time.“
You can question Hillary’s sincerity on this, as I’m certain you will. You can select troublesome portions of her record on economic policy and studiously ignore other important portions of her record which show her far to the left of any of the GOP POTUS candidates.
Even Fortune magazine can see that there are wide differences between the POTUS candidates for the two parties on economic and tax issues. And their views on same-sex marriage and family planning choice is representative of the wide polarization between their positions on social issues. It’s counterfactual to claim that there’s no meaningful differences between the Parties and their candidates, and it would be extremely dangerous to the health of our Nation if Americans were fooled into being that cynical when considering their votes.
As one of many, many examples of their differences on economic issues, I invite you to discuss the actions of the National Labor Relations Board under the W. Bush and Obama Administrations.
She doesn’t mean it. Because banksters.
And she’d going to bomb Iraq.
(I saved that as a macro in Firefox — can type it in one pair of keystrokes. Speeds up things enormously on progressive websites…)
Campaign rhetoric and promises aren’t facts. The plausibility of such rhetoric and promises requires evaluation of the candidate’s past record and current affiliations. If this latest leftward economic tack from her wasn’t also currently fashionable, do you really think she’d be spouting it? Why hasn’t it made her Wall St. backers nervous? B/C they’re not dumb enough not to recognize it for what it is, an election schtick.
Senior citizen don’t dump their long-held political views and orientations. Why is that so hard for liberalish Democrats to recognize?
Remember the “When the people lead, the leaders follow” bumper stickers?
We must have been less cynical then…
Hillary has a solid record to examine, if one wishes to examine it fully.
Perspective from a Bernie supporter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sa
nders.html?_r=0
“Hillary Rodham Clinton is a liberal Democrat on domestic matters, and Bernie Sanders is a socialist. They voted the same way 93 percent of the time in the two years they shared in the Senate.”
Her Senate voting record:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/31/1374629/-Hillary-Clinton-Was-the-11th-Most-Liberal-Member-o
f-the-Senate
“As it turns out, with a first-dimension score of -0.391 based upon her entire service in Congress, Hillary Clinton was the 11th most liberal member of the Senate in each of the 107th, 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. That places her slightly to the left of Pat Leahy (-0.386), Barbara Mikulski (-0.385) and Dick Durbin (-0.385); clearly to the left of Joe Biden (-0.331) and Harry Reid (-0.289); and well to the left of moderate Democrats like Jon Tester (-0.230), Blanche Lincoln (-0.173), and Claire McCaskill (-0.154).“
Her Senate votes on tax issues:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2015/04/13/what-hillary-clintons-voting-record-reveals-abou
t-her-tax-plan/
“Of course, because a Democrat currently resides in the White House, (Hillary’s) plan will likely focus on minor tweaks to the existing body of law, as opposed to the dramatic overhauls — or some would say, abolishment — of our current income tax regime that will be pitched by Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, who both favor a flat tax.
So what tweaks can we expect? A quick look at Clinton’s voting records lends some insight:
Shortly after becoming the first female senator in New York history, Clinton voted against the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, or as the bill has become known: the Bush tax cuts. This bill was the first phase in sweeping tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush. It dropped rates for all taxpayers, with the top rate on ordinary income falling from 39.6% to 35%. Clinton did, however, go down swinging, voting yes on two amendments to the bill that failed to pass — the first would have increased the tax deduction for college tuition costs from $5,000 to $12,000, and the second would have limited the reduction in the top two tax brackets (39.6 and 36%) while expanding the standard deduction and the 15% tax bracket for married couples.
Two years later, Clinton again voted no on the second round of Bush tax cuts — the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003 — which dropped the top rate on long-term capital gains from 20% to 15%, and the top rate on dividends from 39.6% to 15%.
Also in 2006, Clinton voted against permanently repealing the estate tax. Months later, she again voted no on a bill that would make increases to the estate tax exemption and reduction in the estate tax rate enacted as part of the Bush tax cuts permanent. In subsequent years, Clinton would repeat her stance against an enhanced estate tax exemption, voting against raising the exemption amount to $5 million in both 2007 and 2008.
Finally, as her run in the Senate came to a close and the Bush tax cuts were nearing expiration, Clinton voted to restore a top rate of 39.6% on those taxpayers with taxable income in excess of $1,000,000.”
A broad summary of statements:
http://www.ontheissues.org/Hillary_Clinton.htm
To conclude for now, it’s worthwhile to note an official response from the Republican Party to Hillary’s record on health care reform:
https:/www.gop.com/hillarycare-obamacare
If Hillary is a Republican in Democratic clothing, why has her record made her Republican opponents nervous?
You remind me of colleagues that ignored my assessments of accounts and found what I considered to be minutia to support their call. After that I wouldn’t see or hear of the accounts for two to four years when they blew up. To the shock of my colleagues (or had the account been within my jurisdiction and I dumped it, shock of a competitor that got stuck with the POS). Then I was called in to do the post-mortem. A couple of times a competitor contacted me with, wtf did you see that I missed? In every instance, the fail was some combination of not fully perceiving the forest, not getting far enough down into the weeds, and putting too rosy a gloss on a couple of the trees that appeared unusually healthy. OTOH, they also missed the rare “diamond in the rough” that I went out on a limb for and have become good, solid businesses.
You make your call, and I’ll make mine.
I’m a Bernie supporter, so it’s hard for me to see how the conclusion to your anecdote describes me or the info I’m sharing at all. Like Bernie, I’m spending my time talking about the dangers of a Republican Presidency, not the dangers of Hillary. Note that Sanders avoids Hillary-bashing even with the mighty efforts of many reporters to draw him into it.
And it’s amusing that you’re now asking us to consider Hillary’s Senate voting record on economic issues as “minutia”. Upthread, you were demanding that we look at her record, not her rhetoric. So, major and relevant portions of H. Clinton’s economic record which are inconvenient to your argument that “Hillary is a conservative” are…not part of her record?
Then, why did you feel the need to jump and defend Hillary when my comment was nothing but a link to how four Bush/Clinton/Obama guys responded to the issue of income inequality? Seemed to be an authentic moment for those four. If viewers conclude that it also reflects poorly on Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Hillary, so be it.
We here spend a lot of time considering the character and the not so well policies of past presidents through their associations and senior advisers. That’s interesting in figuring out how we got from “there” to “here,” but would have been really important information to have in real time to avoid all the crap this nation has been put through in the past forty odd years. In real time there were voices that did see and did attempt to forewarn. For the most part they were silenced by various quarters. How many Democrats had a clue in the 1990s while they were defending Clinton over a meaningless extra-marital dalliance that he was gutting important legal and regulatory components of the New Deal? Why were we silent? Oh, because that wouldn’t have been good for Gore’s and Hillary’s 2000 election, and yet, wrt economic policies at the executive level, Democrats and Republicans have been more similar than different.
IMHO dismissing or obfuscating that fact does no good for the people. And at some level, they are getting it. Hence, the current interest in Trump and Sanders. Sure, Trump is playing the scapegoat game wrt to immigrants and minorities and outsourcing manufacturing to low wage countries causing economic difficulties and angst among white people, but he’s also the only GOP candidate calling for higher taxes on the wealthy and stopping and isn’t hostile to some form of Medicare for all. Nor is he out there beating the god, gays, and guns drums. Sanders offers a more integrated and coherent economic position and it does seem to be connecting with people at an emotional level. However, it is more sophisticated than Trump’s demagoguery and we know the latter sells more easily.
OK. So, I didn’t look at the video you linked; I responded to the words of your post. Now I’ve looked at all five minutes. I’ll start by noting that the video doesn’t tell us anything about Hillary at all, unlike the inference of the statement you made which included that link.
“…an authentic moment…” from Paulson, Geithner and Rubin? Are you not hearing everyone in the room laughing derisively at the joke? The joke, to them, is the cartoonish image that people have conjured up of these Treasury Secretaries cackling away, “We’ve fucked the working class intentionally! How can we do more of it?” They’re pretty irritated by that image; that is what comes off as authentic in that video.
Listening to the rest of the five minutes posted, you hear Paulson saying that if world leaders do not come up with better responses that reduce economic inequality, it will threaten democratic governance in the U.S. and elsewhere. We also hear Geithner talk about the need for government to do the things only government can do like run schools and complete more infrastructure construction projects. I concede that their other statements are pallid bromides, and I’m not happy with their basic philosophies, but these guys aren’t acting like you described.
I gave a summary of Hillary’s Senate record which was wildly different from her Republican Senate colleagues, and in fact significantly to the left of the Democratic Senate caucus. This was done to refute your consistent line, one you infer here again:
“…wrt economic policies at the executive level, Democrats and Republicans have been more similar than different.“
While it’s difficult to refute such a broad opinion, I bring forth Hillary’s voting record to display that her record does not support your opinion. Let’s move on to a direct, brief consideration of the specific claim above.
Bill Clinton was very dissimilar to H.W. Bush and Reagan when he worked with Congress to pass a substantial tax increase on the top marginal tax rates, and when he attempted to pass health care reform which was more liberal on balance than is Obamacare. Republicans in Congress and their wealthy benefactors screamed like stuck pigs, and they immediately won back much control of Congress in the next election. This simply doesn’t fit with your premise. Welfare reform and the repeal of Glass-Steagall, bad as they were, do not constitute the whole of the Clinton policy record, and the terrific job market throughout the Clinton Presidency is not explained by a tech bubble alone.
Obama was dissimilar from W. Bush when he worked with Congress to pass the largest economic stimulus package in the history of the United States, along with the ACA, Dodd/Frank, the Ledbetter Act, and the many other accomplishments by the President and his first Congress. It’s an excellent record in the face of absolute and monolithic Republican opposition, and the most intense, fact-challenged propaganda campaign against a seated President that any of us have ever witnessed in the U.S.
Tell the Republican Congress, the President’s opponents in his POTUS campaigns, and the GOP/TEA Party rank and file that Obama’s economic policies are similar to Reagan’s. It’s a laughable claim, and the vast majority of Americans, regardless of ideology, can see that.
As an example of the things the Obama Administration has moved forward with Congressional help now unavailable, I invited you to consider the record of the NLRB in recent years. I invite you again to do so, and to tell us that the Obama Administration’s operation of this important Agency “is more similar than different” from his GOP predecessors.
Doesn’t matter.
She’s going to bomb Iran.
Plus, banksters.
I just read a NYT article on Hillary’s plan to wrap up the primary be the end of March. So the public may not see what they want so much. Trump-Palin, the word salad duo, will truck on to the delight of the MSM (not, I pray).
sounds like part of the inevitability approach
Walker, Rand and Perry. Walker’s problem is that the more people see him the less they like him; campaigning is counter-productive.
I love Booman, but this is some seriously bad analysis.
So, just a quick check of recent polling from Real Clear Politics (Average of the last 4 polls:
Florida – Clinton leads by 38
South Carolina – Clinton leads by 57 (Yes 57)
Iowa – Clinton leads by 18
Nationally Clinton leads by 26
New Hampshire – Sanders leads by 8.
Essentially Clinton leads (and by a lot) everywhere except New Hampshire. And she still leads among non-white voters 71-9.
Now let’s take a look at Bush:
Florida – 3rd place at 11%
Iowa – 5th place at 6%
New Hampshire – 3rd place at 9%
Nationally – 3rd place at 9%
Where exactly is Clinton even remotely comparable to the position Bush currently occupies?
Clinton (except for New Hampshire) leads everywhere, while Bush leads nowhere. It seems as if all political analysis of this race is totally detached from what is actually happening.
If you believe that a poll taken 16 months out, before either field is even fully filled, has any validity, you are seriously confused. Polls at this point do not mean SHIT, and by SHIT, I mean SHIT.
Polls mean nothing now. Because HRC is well known and many of the R folks are somewhat unknown.
And because the issue of the campaign has not yet been settled upon. Until the end of the primary, polls should be absolutely ignored. They are just so much crap, because they are not based on any serious consideration. It’s all vaporware at this point.
You’re basically yelling at someone who is asking someone else a question.
I’m not yelling. I’m objecting to the line of reasoning using polls 16 months before polls have any meaning.
Let me be more specific.
You’re yelling at a guy who is yelling at a guy who is using polls 16 months out from an election.
actually the first contest is in 5 months not 16
The point is that people are saying that HRC beats any R. That’s moronic. You can’t compare HRC (who is in a very strong position) to any R candidate at this point, because none are in the same strong position. All polls suck at this point, because they are absolutely and totally pointless. The actual question being addressed by a poll is totally unclear. That means that the numbers are just worthless.
I think they probably mean that if things stay pretty much the same as they are now in the country. Clinton whips any R which is probably true. The problem is there’s no way to know the shape of the world this far in the future for the primaries or the general.
And I don’t care if it’s 5 months or 16. 2 months out, maybe. 1 month out, useful.