Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Karl Henning]

      After a little housekeeping I return to my post as rabid partisan:



      Bill Clinton’s odious presidency: Thomas Frank on the real history of the ’90s

      Evaluating Clinton’s presidency as heroic is no longer a given, however. After the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the corporate scandals of the Enron period, and the collapse of the real estate racket, our view of the prosperous Nineties has changed quite a bit. Now we remember that it was Bill Clinton’s administration that deregulated derivatives, that deregulated telecom, and that put our country’s only strong banking laws in the grave. He’s the one who rammed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress and who taught the world that the way you respond to a recession is by paying off the federal deficit. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare, two of Clinton’s other major achievements, are the pillars of the disciplinary state that has made life so miserable for Americans in the lower reaches of society. He would have put a huge dent in Social Security, too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious.

     Pow!

Clinton fatigue: this time, it's personal.

[drogulus]

You call them morons. I call them  citizens just like you, with their own hopes and fears and with their own worldview.

     There's nothing paradoxical about citizens having hopes and fears and worldviews while acting like morons. Some of this is a matter of the decline of Red State economies, with the rise of declinist pessimism. A Red State is not a good place to improve your circumstances, Red State politics both reflects and amplifies the downward trend. It encourages the gifted and ambitious to move to urban centers where there are better jobs, intellectual and cultural synergy, a virtuous circle.

      Look at it from a Red State proto-moron perspective. One imagines they want Blue State jobs and schools with Red State taxes. The only way to get them is higher subsidy from the hated liberal bastions, but that would require non zero sum analysis. Pessimists don't do that, all pies either expand into other pies or they don't expand. The practical experience of pies not expanding stifles the imagination. Red State politicians fan the flames, as they constantly remind their constituents that politics is about taking from the undeserving to give to the "real Americans". People only climb ladders by kicking other people off, never ever by helping each other up. If you're a low information voter who are you going to believe, the politician appealing to your fears, or your stifled hopes? Optimism looks "expanding pie" in the sky, easily caricatured, nothing on the ground looks like it. The pessimists look like truth tellers, and so the vicious spiral goes.

[Gurn Blanston]

Good to see a professed conservative man up instead of run. Is it possible that poison is better ascribed to you and yours instead of your intended victim?

If it makes you happy to wish me dead rather than accept our differing POV, more power to you.

[Karl Henning]

"... a minor negative."

http://www.youtube.com/v/zWlUgI4cB4M

[drogulus]

     No Cure for Stupid: Seattle Min Wage Edition

     

[(poco) Sforzando]

http://tinyurl.com/h4srk3a

What an asshole.

[Karl Henning]

http://tinyurl.com/h4srk3a

What an asshole.

And he needs them to call him "the king."

[(poco) Sforzando]

And he needs them to call him "the king."

But don't forget, he's "one of us."

[Karl Henning]

All those now gone who, in hindsight, partly enabled El Tupé   

[Johnll]

My question too. Cruz is a weapon grade shit-weasel, he would win any "who is the most f****-up" question you cared to pose, and yet he was left off the list. Curious omission. 

This is your ego poison that you squirted on the assembled. It is incredibly dishonest that someone objects wishes you dead you poor pitiful pretend victim. This will be my last comment unless you squirt again.

[Gurn Blanston]

This is your ego poison that you squirted on the assembled. It is incredibly dishonest that someone objects wishes you dead you poor pitiful pretend victim. This will be my last comment unless you squirt again.

Back at'cha.

[kishnevi]

All those now gone who, in hindsight, partly enabled El Tupé   

One may now add a senator from Florida to that assembly.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/15/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-campaign-republicans/81653420/

[Gurn Blanston]

One may now add a senator from Florida to that assembly.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/03/15/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-campaign-republicans/81653420/

Saw his concession speech; it was the most eloquent he has been since day 1. Pity for him he couldn't tap into that before now, he wouldn't have been in the position he is, I think.

[kishnevi]

Saw his concession speech; it was the most eloquent he has been since day 1. Pity for him he couldn't tap into that before now, he wouldn't have been in the position he is, I think.

He was handicapped by being for a sane immigration policy before he was against it.

[Gurn Blanston]

He was handicapped by being for a sane immigration policy before he was against it.

Yes, it is strange times when I have to concede without argument that being sane is a major handicap...

[Johnll]

Yes, it is strange times when I have to concede without argument that being sane is a major handicap...

No comment as I promised

[drogulus]

     I think we passed the fail safe point tonight. Trump will be the nominee. It's not so much the delegates Trump has, it's the percentage of those remaining Cruz needs has gone above any number he plausibly could win. Cruz can't do it and there's no one else.

     The GOP's Establishment 'Lane' May Have Always Been A Dead End 

In a rare and candid interview in October, the top consultant to the pro-Jeb Bush super PAC Right to Rise USA laid out his theory of the GOP race. Mike Murphy told Bloomberg's Sasha Issenberg, "I think we are the campaign who can consolidate the winning largest lane in the party," adding that Donald Trump was a "false zombie front-runner. He's dead politically."

As it turns out, the "lane" Murphy conceptualized — the one populated by less confrontational Republicans favored by the party's DC elites, and the one John McCain and Mitt Romney traveled to the nomination in 2008 and 2012 — didn't just bottleneck in 2016. It might as well have had a "Dead End" sign at its entrance.

In fact, if these types of Republicans want to contend for the presidency, they might be better off ditching the GOP and starting a third party.

      Maybe, but if the Repubs have been torn to pieces between ultraconservatives and populists, how are the evicted remnants supposed to matter any more? Not only were the old GOP stalwarts crushed, they looked like they barely resisted until it was too late to do anything but die quietly. What great cause would signal their rebirth? Who can they outflank to grab votes? Hillary has the run up the middle thing locked down. No, if I'm the Repub establishment I go home and rebuild at the local level, hoping to de-extinct the party after the deluge.

[Pat B]

This is where horse-trading comes in.  Rubio agrees to work his delegates and steer them toward Cruz in exchange for, I don't know, Defense, or whatever.  This would only matter in a contested convention.  If Trump hits the magic number, it's all over anyway.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/march-15-primaries-ohio-florida-results-presidential-election-2016/?#livepress-update-10017581

I wish she had mentioned Minnesota, Georgia, Virginia, and Oklahoma (the states where Rubio had the most delegates) but that will probably be covered soon by somebody.

ETA: oh, and Puerto Rico.

[Madiel]

The geographical spread of primaries still to come is quite different to those that have already happened (and this applies to both parties). It's this that makes me think there is still room for some surprises.

[Florestan]

Somebody please explain me the logic behind all this primaries stuff. Why is it better than simply having all candidates run in November and let the one who gets more than 50% of the votes win, or if nobody gets that, let the first two go for the runoff?