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Hillary Clinton: The Most Formidable Frontrunner Ever? |
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Sunday, 10 November 2013 09:12 |
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Enten writes: "Clinton's combination of a number of factors made her strength pretty much unprecedented. Clinton has, if anything, become stronger over the last 12 months."
Will Hillary run in 2016? (photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP)
Hillary Clinton: The Most Formidable Frontrunner Ever?
By Harry J Enten, Guardian UK
10 November 13
All the variables that predict primary winners from polling to endorsements are working more in her favor than in 2008.
 illary Clinton remains the most formidable presidential nomination frontrunner for a non-incumbent in the modern era. As I wrote about last year, Clinton's combination of a number of factors made her strength pretty much unprecedented. Clinton has, if anything, become stronger over the last 12 months.
Clinton's polling among Democrats is still incredible. The latest Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey has her at 67% of the vote among Democrats nationally. That compares to 61% in December 2012. The fact that her numbers have if anything gone up is a very good sign for her. It shows that her numbers weren't merely inflated because she held the non-partisan secretary of state position, as they were for general election electorate.
Some might want to dismiss the predictiveness of early polling. Some may want to point to Clinton or Rudy Giuliani in 2008. The problem with that point of view in my opinion is that most early front-runners didn't put up anywhere near the same numbers Clinton is doing for 2016. Clinton was about 30pt lower in 2008 than she is now. Giuliani was about 35pt lower than Clinton now.
Other candidates too were simply not close. George W Bush was stuck in the mid 20s for the 2000 Republican nomination. His father was in the low 40s for 1988. Colin Powell was in the mid 20s and mid 30s for his 1996 and 2000 no-goes respectively. Bob Dole was in the high 30s for 1996.
The only candidate anywhere close to Clinton was Al Gore for 2000. Gore had long been in the upper 40s to mid 50s. Gore went on to waltz to the nomination in the single strongest non-incumbent performance in the modern era. He won every single primary and took 76% of the primary vote.
Clinton's numbers look a lot more like an incumbent. Bush was in the low 70s for 1992. Clinton was in the low 60s to low 70s for 1996. Obama mostly was in the low to mid 60s for 2012, even when matched up against Hillary Clinton.
Moreover, Clinton's edge extends to the early caucus and primary states. You national numbers can be amazing, but if you don't win either Iowa or New Hampshire, you're likely not going anywhere. Clinton is in the mid 60s in New Hampshire and the low 70s in Iowa.
A peak under the hood should give Clinton more confidence. Her favorable rating among Democrats nationally per Quinnipiac is 90% compared to just 4% who viewed her unfavorably. That suggests that it isn't just name recognition that is catapulting Clinton at this time.
Almost all other factors that made Clinton strong when I wrote my last article remain the same. She's got the organization in place in the early states thanks to her 2008 run, while pretty much any other candidate would need to start fresh. Clinton remains incredibly well polished in public speaking, as she was in 2008. I mean she says pretty much nothing to possibly get in trouble.
Importantly, there is no sign of anyone like Barack Obama contemplating a run. Clinton's coalition of women, non-college educated whites, and Latinos was just beat out by Obama's of African-Americans, college-eduated whites, and young voters. All Clinton needs to do is take a little bit of Obama's 2008 base to ensure his nomination.
The only candidate in my mind who could catch fire, Massachusetts' Senator Liz Warren, has already declared her support for Clinton. In fact, every single female Democratic senator is behind Clinton. What a difference that is from 2008.
Much of the establishment was actually encouraging Obama to run in 2008. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid weren't backing Clinton. Claire McCaskill's endorsement of Obama in 2008 was particularly memorable. All three of them are now openly pleading for and endorsing Clinton for 2016.
That's big news because a candidate who clearly wins the "invisible primary" usually takes the nomination. Primary voters can get confused between candidates whose ideology is very similar, so they look to the party elders. It's how Mitt Romney was able to take down Newt Gingrich in 2012. Clinton will have invisible primary advantage, which she didn't have in 2008.
Overall, there are many reasons to think Hillary Clinton will win the 2016 nomination, if she were to run. There are not many reasons to think she's going to repeat her 2008 performance. Every factor that forecasts nomination winners points more strongly in her direction than it did eight years ago. Now none of this means Clinton will take the general election, though you have to get there first to have a shot.
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Pragmatists, Ideologues, and Inequality in America |
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Saturday, 09 November 2013 09:05 |
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Reich writes: "How will the 2016 election be framed? What will be America's choice? If the coverage of last week's two big winners offers a guide, the choice will be between 'pragmatism' and 'ideology.'"
Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)
Pragmatists, Ideologues, and Inequality in America
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
09 November 13
ow will the 2016 election be framed? What will be America's choice?
If the coverage of last week's two big winners offers a guide, the choice will be between "pragmatism" and "ideology."
The Washington Post called Chris Christie's huge gubernatorial victory a "clear signal in favor of pragmatic, as opposed to ideological, governance."
But the mainstream media used a different adjective to describe Bill de Blasio, last week's other landslide victor. The New York Times, for example, wrote of "the rise of the left-leaning Mr. de Blasio."
Again and again, Christie is described as the pragmatist; De Blasio, the lefty.
But these appellations ignore what's happening to an America in which almost all the economic gains are going to the richest 1 percent, median household incomes continues to drop, and the number of Americans in poverty continues to rise.
Given America's surging inequality, the pragmatist is De Blasio, who proposes to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to fund pre-school and after-school programs for the children of the poor and hard-pressed middle class.
The cost of child care is taking a huge bite out of the paychecks of many working parents, some of whom have been forced to leave their kids alone at home or rely on overburdened neighbors and relatives. A small surcharge on the incomes of the super-rich to pay for well-supervised child care is a practical and long-overdue response.
Meanwhile, the real ideologue is Christie, who vetoed an increase in the minimum wage in New Jersey. The current minimum of $7.25 is far lower than it was three decades ago in terms of purchasing power, and the typical minimum-wage worker is no longer a teenager but a major breadwinner for his or her family.
Apparently Christie isn't aware that many employers - including Walmart, the largest employer in America - don't pay their employees enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Which means the rest of us end up subsidizing these employers indirectly by devoting our tax dollars to Medicaid, food stamps, housing, and other assistance needed to make up for the lousy wages.
In fact, New Jersey voters found a way to circumvent Christie's ideological opposition to a raise in the minimum wage. They approved an amendment to the state constitution that raises the minimum to $8.25 (still too low) and subsequently indexes it to inflation.
The so-called "pragmatic" Christie also frowns on gay marriage and abortion rights, which puts him in the company of many Tea Partiers. But because Christie himself isn't a Tea Partier, and had the temerity to be seen in the friendly company of President Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy's devastation, he appears pragmatic in comparison to them.
The media is casting Christie as the pragmatist and De Blasio as the ideologue because of what's happened to their respective parties.
The civil war that's engulfed the Republican Party - pitting the Tea Party against the establishment GOP - is an admitted headache for Republicans focused on the 2016 presidential contest. For them, the size of Christie's win is a huge relief.
The Democratic Party, by contrast, has been the very model of civility. Establishment Democrats, mostly funded by big business and Wall Street, have dominated ever since Bill Clinton "triangulated" and moved the Party rightward.
Progressive Democrats and organized labor - those who the late Paul Wellstone described as the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" - have been remarkably tractable. Although they forced Obama to pull the nomination of Larry Summers, they've been all but ignored on the big stuff having to do with widening inequality.
When progressives wanted Wall Street banks to reduce the mortgages of underwater homeowners as a condition for getting bailed out, the White House and most congressional Democrats turned a deaf ear.
Progressives also pushed to go over the fiscal cliff and end the Bush tax cuts, sought a "public option" for health insurance, wanted an Employee Free Choice Act that would make it easier to form unions, tried to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act as part of financial regulation, objected to the President's proposed "chain-weighted CPI" for Social Security and cuts in Social Security.
On all these they got nowhere. Yet progressives in the Democratic Party took their lumps without declaring civil war.
Had the President and congressional Democrats reflected the Party's historic roots and risen to the challenge of widening inequality, De Blasio's proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy to finance better schools wouldn't appear conspicuous or even ideological. It would be another pragmatic attempt to deal with the nation's challenge of reversing the scourge of inequality.
In other words, Christie appears pragmatic and De Blasio ideological only in comparison with their own parties.
But in terms of where America is and what it needs, now and in the foreseeable future, these two labels should be reversed.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
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Frustrated Kerry's Peace Critique a Heavy Slap in Netanyahu's Face |
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Saturday, 09 November 2013 09:03 |
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Ahren writes: "For the first time since he managed to restart the talks in July, Kerry dropped his statesman-like public impartiality, and clearly spoke from the heart - and what emerged were a series of accusations that amounted to a forceful slap in the face for Netanyahu."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem. (photo: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Frustrated Kerry's Peace Critique a Heavy Slap in Netanyahu's Face
By Raphael Ahren, The Times of Israel
09 November 13
A patently bitter secretary of state asks why Israel keeps taking Palestinian land, and why the Israeli public doesn't seem to care about it
 n Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his old friend John Kerry in Jerusalem that he was concerned about the peace process, and asked the visiting US secretary of state to "steer [the Palestinians] back to a place where we could achieve the historical peace that we seek." John Kerry quickly responded by lauding both sides' "good faith," and said he was "very confident" the negotiations would succeed.
But on Thursday, he loosened the diplomatic straitjacket, and we all got a much better look at what John Kerry really thinks about progress - and blame - in the new peace effort he worked so strenuously to revive a little over three months ago. He turned directly to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and showed them rather more of his true colors. To the prime minister, it is safe to assume, they did not look particularly blue-and-white.
For the first time since he managed to restart the talks in July, Kerry dropped his statesman-like public impartiality, and clearly spoke from the heart - and what emerged were a series of accusations that amounted to a forceful slap in the face for Netanyahu. It was a rhetorical onslaught that the prime minister cannot have expected and one he will not quickly forget.
In an extremely unusual joint interview with Israel's Channel 2 and the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, a very frustrated Kerry basically blamed the Israeli government for stealing the Palestinians' land and the Israeli public for living in bubble that prevents them from caring much about it. If that wasn't enough, he railed against the untenability of the Israel Defense Forces staying "perpetually" in the West Bank. In warning that a violent Palestinian leadership might supplant Mahmoud Abbas if there was not sufficient progress at the peace table, he appeared to come perilously close to empathizing with potential Palestinian aggression against Israel.
"If we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis," Kerry warned early in the interview, "if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel [and an] increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel.
"If we do not resolve the question of settlements," he continued more dramatically, "and the question of who lives where and how and what rights they have; if we don't end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually within the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if we cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to non-violence, you may wind up with leadership that is committed to violence."
He later elaborated, expressing apparently growing dismay over continued Israeli settlement expansion: "How, if you say you're working for peace and you want peace, and a Palestine that is a whole Palestine that belongs to the people who live there, how can you say we're planning to build in a place that will eventually be Palestine? So it sends a message that perhaps you're not really serious." That was a critique that will have resonated widely among those many Israelis, and critics from outside, who have long argued that Israel should limit any settlement building to areas it envisages seeking to retain in a permanent accord.
Kerry seemed to place the blame for the failure to make rapid and major progress in negotiations overwhelmingly on Israel, with no acknowledgment - in his statements as broadcast Thursday - of two intifadas, relentless anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian territories, the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the constant rocket fire from the Strip. (It is important to note that Channel 2 aired only part of the full interview on Thursday. More is set to air Friday evening.)
In lamenting the IDF's presence in the West Bank, Kerry positioned himself directly opposite Netanyahu, for whom an ongoing Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley is a stated crucial condition for an agreement. Perhaps more surprisingly, he showed no evident concern over the danger of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank were the IDF to withdraw, disregarding a widely held concern - borne of the rapid ease with which Hamas swept Abbas's forces aside in Gaza in 2007 - that the official Palestinian Authority forces alone would not be able to hold sway.
His comments, which indicated an assessment that Israelis are unrealistic about where the region is heading, seemed particularly bitter. "The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a Third Intifada?" Kerry asked rhetorically, before lashing out at ordinary Israelis. "I know there are people who have grown used to this," he said, referring to the current relatively peaceful stalemate. "And particularly in Israel. Israel says, 'Oh, we feel safe today. We have the wall, we're not in a day-to-day conflict, we're doing pretty well economically.'
"Well, I've got news for you," he said, apparently addressing the Israeli public. "Today's status quo will not be tomorrow's or next year's. Because if we don't resolve this issue, the Arab world, the Palestinians, neighbors, others, are going to begin again to push in a different way."
That line of thinking reflects much international conventional wisdom on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the assumption that Israel could attain peace with the Palestinians if only it wanted to, but that it just doesn't want to enough. Many Israelis, Netanyahu most certainly among them, would counter that Israel cannot impose terms on a Palestinian leadership that, among numerous other problematic negotiating positions, still demands a "right of return" that would constitute suicide for the Jewish state. Many Israelis, their prime minister among them, too, would note that Israel is only too aware of how easily the relative calm could deteriorate, and thus are wary of relinquishing territory to a Palestinian leadership that, relatively moderate though it may be, might not be in a position to retain power and honor any accord amid sweeping regional instability.
For Netanyahu, watching Kerry's from-the-heart interview must have topped what was already a pretty lousy day. In Geneva, the six world powers were inching toward a deal with the Iranians that the prime minister fears would leave Tehran with an enrichment capability even as the sanctions are eased - something Netanyahu considers a "historic error."
Kerry weighed in on that, too, in the interview. Ultimately, if Iran doesn't "meet the standards of the international community," said the secretary unhappily, "there may be no option but the military option." But, he quickly insisted, "we hope to avoid that."
Just the sort of message Netanyahu has been urging the US not to deliver to Tehran.
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The Long Reach of Dead ACORN |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Friday, 08 November 2013 15:20 |
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Pierce writes: "Please explain to me now, slowly, and in small words that I can understand, what the Democratic party gained by kicking ACORN in the teeth so hard that it died?"
ACORN members protest the home foreclosure epidemic October 2007 at the Manhattan offices of Countrywide Financial. ACORN was dissolved in 2010. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The Long Reach of Dead ACORN
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
08 November 13
ne of the underappreciated sellouts of your modern Democratic party - and they are many and varied - occurred in 2009 when, armed with a freshly elected president and majorities in both houses of the Congress, and acting in the face of artificial outrage ginned up on the right through the use of manufactured evidence produced by a vicious little ratfker, the Democrats boldly used their legislative majorities to cut off congressional funding for ACORN, a longstanding network of neighborhood groups that, among other things, was indispensible in getting people to register to vote. (Did the courtier press, which generally prefers its politics to occur only in nice white marble buildings with pretty statues of famous people, go along for the ride? Why even ask the question?) The White House, of course, bought the selectivelt edited tapes entirely and scrambled to assuage the injured fee-fees of the people who want to burn the president in effigy in Lafayette Park.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said the conduct seen on the tapes "is completely unacceptable." He said the Obama administration "takes accountability extremely seriously" and noted that the Census Bureau had determined that ACORN could not meet its goal for conducting a fair and accurate count next year.
(Having proven his Beltway bona fides, Gibbs has moved on to a seat as one of MSNBC's 9875 "political contributors.")
The bill passed the Senate - which had, as it does today, a Democratic majority - 83-7. It effectively killed ACORN as an entity. This, of course, was another slap by the Democratic party - like the General "Betrayus" controversy regarding MoveOn - against some of its more effective outside activist groups and it was supposed to immunize the party against charges of "extremism" and lay the issue to rest. All it proved was that the congressional leaders of the Democratic party didn't watch anywhere near enough Roadrunner cartoons as children.
The ACME Democratic Party.
What it did was create a permanent imaginary bogeyman - ACORRRRRNNNNNN!!!!! Run and hide! - for the Republicans to use as a scary beast whenever they want to. Hell, the House voted to defund ACORN again last July, despite the fact that the organization doesn't, you know, exist any more. And now, as the effort to demolish the Affordable Care Act moves to a new and more serious phase, in which the strategy will be not to defund or repeal the law, but to whittle it down piecemeal until it simply cannot function, the latest tactic is to ruin the credibility of the "navigators" who will help people thought the process of applying for health-insurance. And, glorioski, guess what organization - which currently is off the twig, having kicked the bucket, shrugged off this mortal coil and joined the bleeding choir invisibule - is getting some run as a reason to delay the full implementation of health-care reform?
On the Senate floor yesterday, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) took this to an almost comical level. "We've already heard anecdotal reports about Obamacare navigators, including a woman who had an outstanding arrest warrant at the time she was hired - along with former members of an organization known as ACORN, that's had its own share of problems with corruption and lawbreaking. "As I said a moment ago, these people will be allowed to collect some of the most sensitive personal information that we have as Americans."
Please explain to me now, slowly, and in small words that I can understand, what the Democratic party gained by kicking ACORN in the teeth so hard that it died? Did it prevent what happened in 2010, when the country elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic? No. Did it kill off ACORN? Well, yes, as an effective way to empower poor people to vote, but not as an effective spur to the fevered imaginations of the lunatic right. (Here's a two-rail shot of paranoia that combines ACORN with Scary Moooozlims!) In the long run this seems to me to have been a bit of a bad deal for Democrats. But, then again, my gifts at eleventy-dimensional chess are notoriously limited.
Charlie has been a working journalist since 1976. He is the author of four books, most recently "Idiot America." He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.
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and Paul's acolytes often claim the senator gets marginalized because of his ideas. It's because he's a libertarian, they say, that he's not treated fairly by the media. It's a hard argument to make. Paul is a staple of the mainest of all mainstream media, the Sunday shows, and widely considered a 
