Miscellaneous

Aaron Bycoffe and David Wasserman of 538.com just gave us a Christmas present.  It’s an interactive chart that allows you to adjust the 2016 turnout and a party’s vote share of five demographic groups:  college educated whites (CW), non-college educated whites, NCW), blacks, Hispanics, and Asians/others.  They take the 2012 results, after adjusting them to fit the 2016 demographic, as the starting point.  Then you can  make adjustments and see what happens  — instantaneously!  —  to the electoral college as a result.

They point out in an accompanying piece that the Hispanic vote isn’t that big of a deal.  It’s concentrated in non-competitive states, for the most part.  It mainly effects Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, which the Republicans would love to have, but can do without.  They also express doubt that the Black vote for Obama can be duplicated by Hillary.  Spot on, lads.

You should try it yourself.  The really cool thing about it as that it gives you instant feedback. Let me illustrate.  I start off adjusting the black turnout to normal levels, from 66% down to 60%. Then I reduce the Democrat percentage from 93% to 90%.  Perfectly reasonable, maybe on the pessimistic side, actually.  Voting for a black man to the Presidency was a huge thing in the black community.  There’s no way in hell Hillary can duplicate it.

Then I up the NCW turnout from 57% to 60%, the same as the black turnout model.  This, again, is entirely reasonable.  Then I start cranking up the Republican percentage of the NCW vote, starting at 2012’s 62%.  I go to 63, 64, 65, and voila!, at 66% of the NCW vote the Republican gets 272 electoral votes, flipping Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and Florida.

If I’m working on one of the campaigns I’m in love with this thing.  All else being equal, if the Republican concentrates his energy on the non-college whites of those four states he wins the election.  They’re the key.

Or one of them.  The beauty of this thing is that you can tinker with all five demographic groups.  I only adjusted two.

If you only adjust the Hispanic vote, the Republican would need 69% of it to get over 270.  Which do you think is easier?  Getting 66% of the NCW vote, or 69% of Hispanics?

It’s a beautiful tool, and I’m grateful to 538.com and these guys for coming up with it.

So San Bernadino was ISIS inspired.  The media is going to try to get us to move along, and may well succeed.  If the shoe was on the other foot, or if this was closer to the election, it could have had the same political impact as Oklahoma City.  But if there’s another one, all bets are off.  Forget all my talk of hundred year tides.  You don’t need any sort of political tide to win an election against a President and a party that has failed to keep this country safe.

We let in 680,000 Muslims on green cards in the last five years.  How many of them share the beliefs of the San Bernadino couple?  How can you tell?   It’s as though the Muslim population is infected with a deadly, invisible virus.  A virus that just killed fourteen Americans, far more than ebola ever did. But with ebola we cut off travel to the sources of infection.  The jihadi virus is more dangerous than ebola ever was.  There is no known disinfectant.

Why do we let these people into this country, when we can be virtually certain that some of them will try to kill us?

Maybe I shouldn’t be so inflammatory. Loretta Lynch may be watching.  Our AG says her “. . .greatest fear is the incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric . . .”.  She vows to prosecute what she deems violence inspiring speech.

It’s good to know that the American people are now fully aware of her priorities.

The media decides.  The Oklahoma City bombing in April of ’95 was a black swan.  The jihadi rampage in San Bernadino was not.

Before Oklahoma City, Clinton and the Democrats were on the run.  Newt Gingrich had taken charge of the House, and Clinton was whining that he was still relevant.  There was a lot of anger at the federal government, especially in the West.  The memory of federal law enforcement gunning down a fourteen year old boy at Ruby Ridge was still fresh, and the ATF deadly Waco fiasco was one year old.

The media was able to turn the entire attitude of the country around in the wake of Oklahoma City.  People who were angry at the federal government were potential domestic terrorists.  Before Oklahoma  City, Clinton looked vulnerable in ’96.  They’d just lost the House for the first time in 40 years.  The Democrats were on the run.  But Clinton and the media managed to cooperate in exploiting the tragedy so successfully that he could win reelection easily, despite his failures.

If it cared to, the media could turn San Bernadino into a black swan.  Islamic terrorism in San Bernadino?  That means Islamic terrorism just about anywhere in this country.  We let the Fort Hood shooters, and the Boston bombers, and the San Bernadino killers into this country.  Why?  What’s in it for us?  What justifies the risk?  How many of us have to die before we reexamine this whole idea of Muslim immigration?

The media will downplay this whole episode.  Nothing to see here, move along.  But maybe the American people don’t buy it.  May be they say, for all to hear, no more Muslim immigration. Some of these people, and there’s no way to know which ones, want to come here and kill us.  Keep them out of this country.  They have nothing to offer us.  We don’t need them.  They are of no benefit to this country.

Obama will have none of it.  This is one issue I suspect he won’t budge on.  He sees himself as a world historical figure, personally bridging the divide between the Muslim world and the West.  Her cannot condemn Muslims any more than he can condemn himself.

Hillary will pay the price, and it will be steep.  Obama’s approval numbers are going to resume their slide, and he doesn’t care.  The American people don’t approve of him?  Well, he doesn’t approve of them, either.  So there.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the hundred year tide, and the prospects of it actually happening.  I’ve read a lot of Walter Russel Mead the last couple years, and his theory of the failing blue state model.  This guy’s no righty.  I believe he voted for Obama in ’08.  But his analysis supports the theory, if not the timing.  The Democrats are reactionaries defending a failing status quo.  If you go along with Mead, as I do, it’s just a question of when, not if, the whole thing blows up.  Momentum is escalating, and everything points to a political crescendo next year.

Absent a black swan.  But if some nuts start attacking Muslims in this country in retaliation, the media would do all it could to change the entire narrative.  But no one has any control over this, and all you can do is hope and pray nothing happens.

On a brighter not the Obama administration announced today that women can do any combat job that men can do.  On a day when we’re worried about our personal safety and national security, we can all feel better knowing that if a woman wants to be a member of Seal Team 6 there’s nothing stopping her.

Take that, jihadis!

Hundred year tides don’t appear in cycles of a century.  They’re just very rare, occurring when a powerful storm coincides with the regular high tides of the autumn equinox.  I submit we’re in such a moment, politically, today.

Because Hillary is seeking to succeed a relatively unpopular two term incumbent in a slack economy, the deck is stacked against her.  That’s the normal ebb and flow of politics, a typical tide.  But the political storm that threatens to break next year, in conjunction with this tide, is quite untypical.   It’s practically perfect.   Josh Kraushaar of National Journal has outlined the shape of the race, and listed most of the Republican advantages.

It starts with the candidates.  Hillary will be the worst politician nominated by a major party since the 19th century.  She is mistrusted and disliked.  She has no natural political skills, and her age and baggage weigh her down.  Add a sluggish economy, a nation convinced it is on the wrong path, national and homeland security anxieties, uncontrolled illegal immigration, an NRA on the warpath, and the Democrats, the party of government, arguing for more of it at a time when the government is held in almost universal ill repute, and you’ve got the storm.   It will turn a spring flood into a tide the likes of which we haven’t seen in a hundred years.

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

I’m off camping for a couple days with my friend Danny.  He’s a matchmaker,  the guy who told me to strap on a set and ask Babbie out on a date.

 

 

Demographers and other charlatans are constantly telling us that the Republican Party is headed to extinction because it’s the party of whites, and the Democrats are the party of the soon-to-be-majority everyone else.  Blacks, Latinos, Asians and other ethnic minorities will vote as blocs against the “white party.”  Disaffected single white women and young whites, along with a rag tag of special interest groups, get the Democrats to a majority.  There is nothing that can be done about any of this.  Because it’s demography, stupid.

But we’re not there yet, quite.  It will definitely happen in 2020, though, or 2024 for sure.

I find this kind of thinking odd.  We’re only a couple months from the Iowa caucuses, and no one really has any idea of how they’ll turn out.  But these  wizards can confidently predict our political future decades in advance.

When I was a kid in the 60’s everybody thought blacks were on their way to being a majority in this country.  You looked at the difference between black and white birth rates, did the math, and voila!, you can see a black America just ahead.  It’s demographics, don’t you know.

As I look around, 50 years later, blacks are the same percentage of the American population as they were then.  The pill, abortion, welfare reform, immigration and an evolution in attitude among upwardly mobile black women changed everything.  The demographers never saw it coming.  They never do, because they never think ahead.  It’s not scientific, so it’s not worth doing.

But politics is all about looking ahead, and if you’re any good at it you can see things coming.  As I wrote today in American Thinker, I look ahead to a tidal wave election next year, one that, in some ways, will be bigger than 1920.  If that does occur, you can throw your demography out the window, because we’re in a brand new ball game.  The Republicans, with the assistance of the Article V movement, will be able to make the fundamental reforms that are necessary to save us from ruin.

They will not only hold the House, they’ll pick up a few seats.  In the Senate they could expand on their majority to something close to cloture.  The new President, riding a wave of public support, proposes, and Congress passes, a series of bills that will have more impact than the first 100 days of the New Deal.

Entitlements are reformed, the budget is slowly brought into balance, regulations are slashed, entrepeneurship is encouraged at all levels of government, public lands are opened for development, the border is sealed, entire Departments of the federal government are eliminated, and an economic boom takes off that could surpass the Roaring 20’s.

And you’re telling me that demographics will, in the face of all or part of the above, put the Democrats back in power?  Because they’re for more immigration?

Oh, but I’m a bit ambitious, you say.  But this is what all, or virtually all, of the Republicans running for President are pledged to do.  They’ll have a mandate, and a Congress, to get it done.

Why the hell wouldn’t it happen?

Unchecked, demographics could doom the “white party” Republicans, but as even the most sanguine of Democrats will admit, we’re not quite there yet.  In fact, if the working class whites of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin turn out in 2016, the way they did not in 2012, the Republican can break the blue electoral wall and cruise to victory.

One reason they might is because of white racial consciousness.  This is a very taboo subject.  Brave men fear to utter the phrase.  Normally level headed guys like Ben Domenech at the Federalist get their knickers all twisted just thinking about it.

But it’s a reality in the South, and it’s moving north.  Kentucky is the latest indication.  Since Obama seems determined to drive the last white working man out of the Democratic Party, I predict it moves from southern Ohio north, into the Great Lakes and beyond.

It’s not a long term solution.  But for the Republicans, it’s enough to get them through 2016.

After that, it’s up to them.

 

Stanley Greenberg’s got a book out  — America Ascendant  — that will be closely read by the thinking left.  Stan’s been there for Clinton, Gore and Kerry, and he’s back chock full of advice for Hillary.

Don’t run for a third Obama term, he says.  Check.  Have bold policy proposals.   Check.  But wait.  The Democrats haven’t had such an idea in a generation.  So I go to Amazon to check out the opening of the book.  Stanley may be on to something.  This guy’s been around for as long as I have, except he’s operated at the very highest levels of Democratic politics.  He’s networked, wired and in the know.

It turns out his models of successful governance are California (which, he assures us, is the very best state for business)  and New York City.  I’m starting to breathe easier.  Stanley is delusional.  And then he sums it up  — “Democrats will have to make the case for governmental activism at the national level.”

That’s it.  More government.  Stan’s off his rocker, but he’s also right.  If the Democrats are unable to make the case for governmental activism they have no case to make.  They are the party of, by, and for the government.

This is not a winning message in 2016.  It’s a recipe for disaster.  But it’s the only one they’ve got.  They have one tool, one idea, one prescription: government.

O. K., I’m a libertarian, and I’m in the minority in the extent to which I despise government.  But my God we’ve just had a big heaping pile of government called Obamacare.  How’s that working out?  Do we really want another helping?

I keep reading about Obamacare is facing more and more serious difficulties.  Some very bad things could happen in 2016.  Pretty much what guys like Avik Roy and James Capretta have been saying for the last two and a half years, at least.  They’ve been on the money up til now, as far as I can tell.  Every time this story intrudes onto the campaign it hurts Hillary and every Democrat.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Black Lives Matter is going to college, and allying itself with a bunch of affirmative action crybabies.  What a spectacle.  There are a lot of good decent black Americans, and they have got to be appalled by all this.  They need to speak up.  In the mean time, BLM is more or less an official affiliate of the Democratic Party.  That will bring home those working class whites!  That’s the ticket!

Trump’s not getting the nomination, but I think he’s still doing the party a service.  He’s bringing attention to the whole process, and he’s pushing the party to the right on immigration.  These are good things.

The thing about the Donald is, someone is going to beat him, most probably Rubio or Cruz.  And whoever does is going to be a hero to everybody else in the party.  He saved us from Trump!  Either one of the Cubans will have a united party behind them.  So, in that sense, the longer the Donald sticks around, the better.

And then there’s Obama, Barack the Indifferent.  He just doesn’t care any more, and he doesn’t mind showing it.  And Hillary’s packing his baggage  all the way to next November.

This is all just too good.  Go away, black swan.