Month: December 2015

At Nate Silver’s 538.com they describe the Republican electorate as a five-ring circus, composed of Libertarian, Tea Party, Evangelical, Establishment and Moderate voters.  A candidate who can bring three of the rings together will be the winner.  Ted Cruz is the one who’s doing it.

With his pastor/father Rafael leading the way, Cruz has taken the lead among Iowa religious voters away from Ben Carson.  Their affection for the fervently Christian Carson is not enough to overcome his obvious weakness as a Commander in Chief.  Santorum and Huckabee are his other competitors in this ring, and neither has Cruz’s money or organization.  They’re going nowhere, and evangelicals like to go with a winner just like everyone else.  Cruz now has this bloc firmly in his grasp, and he’s not letting go.

Marco Rubio is Cruz’s main competition for the Tea Party ring, but he’s not putting in the time schmoozing with them that Iowans believe they’re entitled to.  Cruz has a far superior organization in a state that greatly rewards it.  While Rubio seeks to bridge the establishment/Tea Party divide, Cruz revels in denunciations of the Republican power elites.  He’s Tea Party born and bred, and it’s paying off.

Cruz’s third ring, the one that puts him over the top, is libertarian, where he competes with Rand Paul, a disappointingly tepid campaigner who seems a little lost.  He’s going nowhere in a hurry, and has to start thinking about winning reelection to the Senate.  It’s entirely possible he may drop out and throw his support to Cruz, who largely shares his ideology.

Part of that ideology is an aversion to foreign adventures, crusades, and immersion in the endless civil wars of the Middle East.  When Cruz continues to insist he will not put an American army into the middle of this hell hole, he appeals to a very important bloc of Iowa voters.  As Michael Barone, who knows these things, states in The Almanac of American Politics, Iowa is “. . . one of the most dovish, isolationist-prone states . . ” in the Union.

For the rest, here’s the link to American Thinker.

 

 

A couple hundred years ago soldiers were told not to shoot until they saw the whites of the eyes of the advancing enemy.  Not everyone has the discipline and self confidence required in such situations.  I’m talking about Republicans panicking over Trump’s popularity.

Polls at the moment show him far more popular than his rivals, and nervous Nellies worry that he could win the nomination.  This is as far fetched as it’s ever been.  There is a large majority within the Republican Party that opposes his nomination, and until that changes he can’t win.

The danger is a third party run.  It’s unlikely, but he’s an unpredictable man.  The longer he stays in the Republican nomination contest, the less likely, and feasible, that option becomes for him.  We want Donald in the race at least until Super Tuesday, March 1st.  After that a third party run would be impossible to win, and Donald Trump is not a spoiler.  By definition, a spoiler is a loser.  He will have lost his campaign for the Republican nomination.   He won’t want to go down in history as a two time sore loser.

The nominee will want his support and his followers.  He could lose without them.  They can’t be given the raw meat the Donald throws, but they can be convinced that the border will be sealed, illegal immigrants are not automatically made citizens, and that legal immigration will be reduced, and Muslim immigration paused.  If they believe the Republican will deliver on those, they’ll vote for him.  It’s up to the nominee to figure this out.  Cruz has, and I believe Rubio has, as well.

Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy the left go absolutely bat shit crazy over Trump’s outrageous, in your face, f… you attitude.  You’ve got to admire a guy that can dish it out like Trump.

But I don’t think he can take it.  But I don’t want the Cuban, whichever it is, to be the one to put him down.  Very bad idea.  Someone else has to do it.  Media, third party of some kind — anybody but the nominee.  This is basic. I assume the Cubans are smart enough to figure this out.

On January 21st, 2012, Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary with 40% of the vote.  He had just been endorsed by Sarah Palin and Gov. Rick Perry, who was dropping out.

I remember people thinking Gingrich was going to be the nominee, just like they think Trump can be the nominee.  Except Gingrich had actually won an election, instead of leading in popularity polls.

I had never met Gingrich, but I’d been watching him closely for years.  I attended some event in D.C. in the 90’s that he was supposed to speak to, but had to cancel.  So they play his canned speech on the big screen.  I had an instant, visceral dislike of this man.  He was arrogant, patronizing, and a man, deep down, who was unsure of himself.

So after South Carolina I wasn’t worried about Gingrich winning at all.  A guy with such obvious off putting character defects can’t win a Presidential election  in the television age.  He wouldn’t hold up.  And he didn’t.

Trump’s no Gingrich.  Gingrich was the architect of the ’94 Revolution and House Speaker.  Trump, on the other hand, has mastered the art of television.  He’s a media candidate, and a good one.  His faults are different than Gingrich’s, and far more disqualifying.  Three months is a very long time in a modern nomination contest.  More than enough time for his weaknesses to be fully revealed.

People who are heavily involved in politics, such as myself, sometimes forget that this fight has just begun.  After Christmas, things will really get serious.

I’ve gone, personally, from supporting  Rand Paul, to John Kasich, to Marco Rubio, and now, finally to Cruz.  I’ve got nowhere else to go.  This is going to be fun.

You better not pout, you better not cry, but Texas Ted Cruz is the odds on favorite to be our next President.

When Ted Cruz talks the conservative talk I hear a man who is saying what is in his heart.  He’s not telling us what we want to hear.  He believes it all just as much as we do.  And when he’s elected he’ll take the hard and unavoidable fights head on.  He won’t back down.

He’s smart as a whip.  He can do the job.  A lot will depend on who he surrounds himself with.  He’ll want a bunch of very smart, tough minded men and women.  They’re available.  Will he have the skill to be their leader?  He can’t do it all himself.

I guess my personal problem with Cruz has always been just that, personal.  I like to think of myself as an easy going, Marco Rubio kind of guy.  I have trouble liking uptight guys like Cruz.  It’s not that his intelligence is any kind of turnoff.  I guess it’s because he seems so cocksure of himself.  He comes across as a little arrogant.  Has he ever admitted to a fault, or misjudgement?

That’s a problem, politically.  But in 2016 it’s one we can overcome.  As a libertarian conservative, his politics fit nicely with mine.  What finally brought me around is his refusal to reenter the Mideast quagmire.  Carpet bomb the bastards back to the stone age  — not much of a distance, really.  But don’t send an American army to fight in Arab civil wars, for God’s sake!  Insanity, refined.

His reaction to Trump’s ban on Muslims was the only one that made sense, politically.  Maybe a third of this country agrees with Trump.  These are voters.  You don’t want to piss them off.  So you politely disagree with Trump and offer a reasonable, but very tough, plan of your own.  Was that so hard to do?

For just about every other candidate, it was.  There’s something about politicians that gets them up on their high horse, preaching self righteousness.  It satisfies their emotional needs, somehow.  It’s a status thing.  Look at me, and see how much better a person I am.

While Cruz has never been, personally, my cup of tea, Trump is a guy I just don’t like at all.  So I underestimate him, like everyone else.  This ban the Muslims idea was, tactically, brilliant.  Once again, Trump is all anyone is talking about.   A week from tonight they debate in Vegas.   People will once again tune in to see Trump.  We’ll be looking for fireworks.   Some of these guys were very harsh in their criticism.  Will they repeat it to his face?  How will he react?

Reality TV, baby.  It gets the ratings.

Just don’t confuse ratings with votes.

I’ll admit to having a bit of of a man crush on Marco Rubio.  But that’s not why I’ve been rooting for him.  If he’s our nominee we’d have the best natural politician since Jack Kennedy.  He’s just so good with the ladies  — compare his support from women with Cruz’s.

Which got me thinking back to 1960.  I shook hands and looked in the eyes of both Kennedy and Nixon.*  Kennedy was just a cool guy.  You couldn’t help but like him.   Nixon was, well, Nixon.  He had no interpersonal skills.  Not very many people actually liked Nixon, and if you met him you knew why.

In a close race, such as 1960, the likability factor will make the difference.  So, go with Rubio, right?  Except I am completely convinced, barring black swans, that 2016 isn’t going to be close at all.  It’s going to be a blowout.  We could nominate Christie or Kasich and still win.

Cruz just doesn’t have the natural people skills that really good politicians have.  He’s no Nixon, but he comes across as kind of phony.  Because he’s not really being himself.  This guy’s a brainiac who enjoys the company and conversation of equally intelligent people.  He didn’t marry a hottie, like Rubio did.  He married a woman who may be as smart as he is.

It’s not that he doesn’t like people.  He does.  But he’d rather not be pretending to be palsy walsy with every hog farmer he runs across in Iowa.  And it shows.  What also shows is that he is a tightly disciplined man, uptight, as we used to say.  His mannerisms seem to be copied from someone else.

This is a flaw in a candidate, but not necessarily in a man.  Most men can’t go around kissing babies all day and pretend they’re having a gay old time.  I’ve known some outstanding men, who would have done a tremendous job in office, if they could get elected.  Lacking strong political skills is not a disqualifier, in my opinion.

And to hear his Senate colleagues tell it, he’s an arrogant asshole.  Well, so are most of them.

I’m a lawyer, and let me give you a tip.  Don’t hire a nice guy to be your lawyer.  Hire an asshole.  Maybe the same thing goes as President.

And here’s another thing about the 1960 election between Mr. Charming and the Rat.  We’d have been a hell of a lot better off if Nixon had won.  Kennedy, with all the good intentions in the world,  stumbled and fumbled so badly in foreign policy that he wound up getting us into Vietnam.  There is no way Nixon would have let that happen.  So much for pretty boys in the Presidency.

So Rep. McCaul, Chair of House Intelligence, reports that ISIS has been trying to use the refugee program to infiltrate us. So Trump puts out a statement calling for the prevention of any Muslim from getting into the country.   Kasich and Bush and Christie are horrified.

Advantage, Trump.  He’s a little overboard, but at least he’s headed in the right direction.  If Cruz or Rubio are smart, they would respond not by condemning Trump but by coming up with their own, more realistic ways to restrict travel from certain Muslim countries.  Sen. Paul’s amendment in the Senate last week is a good example.

I don’t envy Paul Ryan.  He is in a very delicate situation.  This will be a real test of his political skills. I don’t think he’s operated at this level before.  If there is one thing I think he should insist on including in the budget omnibus it’s a temporary halt to the Syrian refugee program.  If Obama refuses to accept that, and promises a veto, take him up on it.  If he wants to shut down the government rather than restrict Syrian immigration, let him do it.

That is a fight he would lose, and would be the effective end of his Presidency.

 

*Well, actually I didn’t see Nixon until 1966.

A new CNN poll shows Rubio beating Hillary 49-48.  The internals show him beating her 60-37 among whites.  This is very much in line with the scenario I outlined yesterday, using 538.com’s election do-hickey, where the Republican wins with a 2% increase in support of whites, and a small decrease in black support.  This is unpredictive, but useful.  It’s a sign that the 538.com tool works as advertised.