Miscellaneous

I like to think that I can spot a trend as quickly as the next guy. So I was thinking about how awful Hillary is, has been, and will be, and that she’s walking dead, politically.  So why not Bernie?  But he’s a socialist!  Well, so’s Obama, and Hillary for that matter.  They’re all a bunch of damn socialists.  Bernie’s just honest about it.  And then I read about this new British Labor Party leader who’s a little to the left of Trotsky.  There are a lot of interesting parallels between British and American political cycles, and I think this bodes well for Bernie.  So I decide Bernie has an honest to God shot at the nomination, something you can’t say about Trump, whose act is already wearing thin.  So I decide to take a look at Bernie on Face the Nation, and, bam!, I see CBS has a new poll showing him up by ten in Iowa and twenty-two in New Hampshire.  So I’m a little late to the party.

Now I see he’s drawing big crowds in South Carolina, in the company of Cornel West, who’s telling the brothers to listen to this man.  Mostly white crowds, it’s true, but it’s a start.

We’re told Bernie has no appeal to blacks, who are supposed to be crazy about Hillary.  Oh, really?  What’s she ever accomplished on behalf of black people?  What is the source of her great strength in the black community?  It’s got to be her husband, who did have real support there.  So, I guess, it just transfers to her.  I’m not buying it.  I think blacks can be detached from Hillary.  I can’t say this for sure, because I really don’t interact much with black people, except at baseball games.  But she is such an unattractive candidate, and race has nothing to do with it.  Black people look at her and see the same thing everybody else does, an entitled, humorless bitch, as phony as a three dollar bill.  You think black people can’t pick up on that?

Bernie has a bit of a dilemma, though.  Even though he’s a socialist, and therefor economically illiterate, he does seem aware of the fact that massive immigration of unskilled labor into this country is a very bad thing for blacks.  If he says this he pisses off La Raza, but it’s the one way he can prove to the blacks of this country that he’s got their back.  Man up, Bernie.  Even politicians should tell the truth once in a while.

Then I see Kasich on Fox, and he was in fine form.  He screwed up the birthright citizenship question, but, then again, he’s not a lawyer, so I’ll blame it on his staff.  You don’t need to amend the Constitution to end it, as Professor Rob Natelson has pointed out, here.  Congress passes a law interpreting and implementing the 14th Amendment in a way that ends the practice, the President signs and enforces it, and than it’s up to the Supreme Court to contravene the other two coequal branches of government and require birthright citizenship.  Which, depending on the attendant circumstances, it might not do.

But Kasich is very comfortable with Chris Wallace.  It’s like these guys used to hang out together.  As they bade farewell, Wallace looked at him with such affection that I thought he had a man crush on him.  Rein it in, Chris.

Kasich answered all the questions just fine, but that was not what impressed.  He was in a good mood, and he let it show.  At the end he was perfect.  The Happy Warrior.  It worked.  Now all he has to do is replicate that performance Wednesday night.  Johnny be good.

That’s what we say to our kids, here and in the Anglosphere.  Be good.  In France they say, Be wise.  In Germany, Get in line.

What do these crazy Islamic fanatics say, Death to Israel?

Maybe the smartest kid I knew at Cal was one of my roommates, Tom Bull.  He was a star student in physical chemistry, whatever that is, and Cal had one of the best faculties in the world on that subject.  He was very bright  — in science and math.  Naturally, he assumed he was smart about things like politics.  He was very impressed with the political thinking of Albert Einstein. Now Al was as bright as you get  — in science.  In politics he was a child, a half wit.  He had absolutely no idea of what he was talking about.

Herbert Hoover was one of the great engineers of the 20th century.  Politically, he destroyed the Republican Party for generation.  Jimmy Carter was an engineer, or so he claimed.  Read, and weep.  When I was elected to the Alaska Senate, the Republican Speaker of the House was an engineer named Joe Hayes.  He singlehandedly did more damage to the Republican Party in Alaska than any man I knew.

I have theories about why engineers are such lousy politicians, but what matters is that so many of them are political progressives, or liberals.  Silicon Valley is a gold mine for Democrats.  Almost all the megastars there are progressives, and they share their wealth for the cause.  This is a problem.  And this is why the Freedom to Work initiative is so important.  It drives a wedge between the techies and the Democrats.

I talked to Lew Uhler about it this morning, and he’s all in.  His NTLC has been heavily involved in  California initiative campaigns for over 30 years.  He told me the guy to draft this thing is a Sacramento lawyer named Tom Hiltachk.  For this sort of thing, he’s the go to guy in the state.  It turns out Bob Naylor, a member of our old College Young Republican crowd, is associated with this firm, so I asked Bob to get a quote on what it would cost.  The good thing about Hiltachk is that if anyone else was pursuing this idea, he would know about it.  Because if you know what you’re doing you would call him about it first.

Lew says we want to submit the language the first week of November.   The 60 day review process will be completed by January, giving us 150 days before the June cutoff date to get signatures.  Lew explained that because the 2014 turnout was low, we’ll probably only need half a million valid, or 750,000 total, signatures.  He says you want to “earn” 1/3 of your signatures, since that forms the basis of your campaign to pass the initiative once it’s qualified.  The other 2/3 you pay $2 each for.  His best idea was having all the Uber drivers in the state carry the petition in their cars, and solicit passengers for signatures.  I’m guessing there are 30,000 Uber drivers in California.  If every one of them got 25 signatures, you wouldn’t have to pay for any.

I think I’ve met a big Uber investor, a Kasich bundler named Greg Wendt.  I’ll see if he’ll take my call on Monday.  This is worth pursuing.

I found out this lawyer, Hiltachk, is a partner in Bell, McAndrews and Hiltachk, and the McAndrews in question is my old friend from Cal YR’s, Colleen McAndrews.  Colleen’s former husband, Pete, from St. Mary’s College, was the ringleader of our YR group, and he arranged for me to made Chairman of the Berkeley YR’s when I got back into Cal as a junior.  Colleen didn’t know any of us at the time, and she called me up, out of the blue, and said she wanted to meet me.  She’d been to some college Republican leadership seminar in D.C., and she had a lot of ideas.  I told her to come by my apartment Saturday morning and we’d talk, and then I forgot about it.  So when I answer the door I’m in my underwear.

She walked right in.

IQ, the standard measure of human intelligence for well over a hundred years, has two equally important components, math and verbal.  Just because you’re are good at one doesn’t mean you’re good at the other.  I’m almost two standard deviations, or 30 IQ points, better at verbal than I am at math. I get the impression that Silicon Valley is filled with people who have that ratio reversed.

Nate Silver and the gang at 538.com are math types, as are Sean Trende and others at Real Clear Politics.  These math guys are everywhere.  They’re always coming up with computer models and complicated equations to explain everything.  I don’t  buy it, but these guys do have their place.  Nate nailed it in 2012, and you can’t argue with results.  So I go their website once in a while to see what they’ve got.  Right now, they’ve got nothing.

A while back they tried to use their charts and equations to see how long Trump would last, comparing him to Bachmann, Cain, Perry and Gingrich from four years ago.  It was nothing but mathematical masturbation.  Trump bears no comparison to any of those people.  Now one of them has come up with some elaborate mathematical analysis of “continuation elections”, which occur when one party has controlled the White House for eight years.  In 2016, a generic Republican’s chances are directly tied to the Obama’s approval rating right now, in his sixth year in office.  Not his fifth, or eighth or seventh, but the sixth.

It’s science.

It’s also bullshit.  These guys are like the geeky baseball statistics guys who’ve never played the game, but have all the answers.  Baseball has been overrun by these nerds for years.  I turn off the sound watching a game so I don’t have to listen to the pitcher’s record against left handed pinch hitters in late innings.  Stop with all the numbers!

The Democrats are going to get their asses handed to them next year.  I don’t need a slide rule to figure that out.  It’s based on a long lifetime in and around politics, of reading, and thinking, and talking to people.  And it will be either Kasich, Cruz or Rubio who does the ass kicking.  That’s not based on some numerical analysis.  It’s based on understanding what I’m seeing with my own eyes.  These guys could make it.  The others won’t.

Take Jeb!  The 538 boys look at the amount of money he’s raised, the number of high profile endorsements he’s received, and any other numerical metric they can get their hands on.  Then they figure his chances.

What they don’t understand is that he never had a chance.  I figured that out two years ago, and it wasn’t based on any number.  It was based on exactly who Jeb! was, and exactly where I knew he would be coming from.  He’s a Bush, to his core.  We’ve had two of them.  We don’t want any more.  It’s that simple.

It’s not that Jeb! is a bad person, or was not a conservative governor.  He’s a Bush, which means he can’t be trusted.  We’ve had it with “kinder and gentler” and “compassion”, and now “joy”.  Stop, now!  We don’t want anymore of that soft shit in your mouth Bush bullshit.

Here’s a nugget from some poll in Iowa.  For every voter who chooses Bush, there are four who say they’d never vote for him.  Maybe it’s time to add another exclamation point, Jeb!!  Now that you’ve got Eric Cantor’s endorsement, maybe you should go down to Mississippi and call on Sen. Thad Cochran.  If you can wake him up, you might get his endorsement too.  That’ll get you some real grass roots enthusiasm.

We’re in the middle of a fire zone, and I can’t see across the valley because of smoke from a fire 40 miles away.  Yesterday two spot fires broke out less than two miles from our house.  CDF was right on it, with truck crews, airdrops, and helicopters.  They kept it to 80 acres.  I watched the whole operation.

It was good, really, to see that an arm of government can work so efficiently.

Thank you, firefighters.

The Donald has given her a once-in-a-campaign opportunity. By criticizing a woman’s appearance, hers, he’s opened himself up, as never before.  She’s holding her fire, for now, which is smart.  She’ll want the whole country watching when she sticks it to him.  At the debate next week, preferably in the early going, she needs to turn to Trump and say, “I must say, Donald, that your hair is just fabulous tonight.”   After the debate she can tell the press that she’s hoping the Donald will share his hair stylist with her.

God knows how Trump would react.  Reality TV, baby.

Fiorina looks like she’d be a good Secretary of State.  I saw her in person at ALEC two years ago, so I’m not surprised at her success.  She can get through to people, and has a great story.  If she really wants to rip into Trump she can talk about her start in business: typing envelopes.  She could compare it to the Donald’s, who started with a few hundred million from Daddy.  Money which, if invested in an index fund, would have produced as much profit as all of the Donald’s vaunted deal making has produced.

Jindal’s out today calling out Trump as an egomaniacal opportunist.  All well and good, Bobby, but you need a stiletto, not a broad sword.  Needle him, have some fun.  One of these candidates is eventually going to display some wit, which will be helpful.

Punditry is a tough  business.  Stu Rothenberg is a guy worth reading.  He actually has some interesting analysis.  But, like a stock picker buying at the top of the market, he chose the moment of Trump’s peak popularity, yesterday, to announce a major shift in his thinking.  We now have to take the Donald seriously.  Gee, thanks, Stu.  Way to time your call.

Yesterday I said Sanders had a way to appeal to blacks, starting in South Carolina.  In the WaEx Byron York does some excellent reporting on Bernie in Iowa, where, as of today, he’s leading.  I’m getting the impression that Democrats don’t mind the Socialist tag on him.  At least he’s a genuine socialist.  Hillary’s a genuine Clinton, which means she’ll say and do anything: whatever it takes.  All she’s really got going for her is her victimhood.  Her husband has made a fool of her, taken advantage of her, and used her.   Seduced and abandoned.  A lot of women sympathize.  It’s just not enough.

I see Kasich being taken seriously here and there.  It’s real simple, folks. If you assume Jeb! crashes and burns, where does all that support go?  Christie?  Fuggedaboutit.  Walker?  The man is simply not that bright.  I hate to engage in looksism, but as I study the man closely, especially about the mouth, he looks a little slow.  His lower lip sags down toward his chin, giving him a mildly retarded look.  He’s smart enough to be an extremely successful Governor in a very tough environment. I read his book.  He is unintimidated.  It accounts for his success.  But he is not an intellectually curious man, and he has been so focused on his job as Governor that he doesn’t really understand what’s going on in the rest of the world.  He’d make a great Cabinet Secretary, maybe Secretary of Labor.  Just kidding.  Or not.

Which leaves Don Juan of Florida.  A 44 year old one term Senator of no particular accomplishment.  His big try at legislating was an immigration bill that he had to walk away from.  Oh, he’s Hispanic.  I was born and raised in California, and moved back here fourteen years ago.  Let me tell you something about Chicanos in particular, and Hispanics in general.  They don’t give a rat’s ass that Rubio is “Hispanic”.  He’s not one of them.  Trust me on that.

So, take your pick, Rubio, Kasich or Cruz.

They’d all kick ass.

We’re there, or close.  I doubt we’ll see a lot of erosion in his support for a while.  But he’s at or near his peak.  At the Iran rally today he was off his game.  He wasn’t ready to explain his opposition, other than to call it the worst deal he’s ever seen in his life.  He got off a good line, guaranteeing the return of four Americans held in Iran if he’s elected.  We just have to trust him on that.  His main point was that he is a winner, and we’ll win so much when he’s President we’ll get bored with it.  Then he tried to top himself.  We’ll not only be winning, but “winning bigly”, whatever that means.  It was awkward, off key.

Contrary to Parson Cruz, and most of the Trump Tribe, he wants to let Syrian refugees in.  This isn’t going to win him any supporters.  The Parson’s more of a hard ass than he is, on this issue.  His support of affirmative action is going to cost him, once it’s well known.  I’m sure he’s got a few more tricks up his sleeve, but the basis of his appeal has been out there for some time, for all to see.  If you haven’t bought in yet, you’re not likely to.

In Colin Woodard”s American Nations, he says New York City ( or New Netherlands, as he calls it) is a separate and distinct American subculture, as unique as New England, the Midlands, Appalachian Scotch-Irish, and all the others.  It’s a money culture, cosmopolitan and amoral.  Trump is the embodiment of New York City, which has never been popular in the rest of America, and is not today.  This will catch up to him.

The fact is that the Donald has always been a crony capitalist.  His Dad showed him the way long ago, when he was the largest non-family donor to the Hugh Carey campaign for Governor of New York in 1974.  Real estate developers expect a return on their investments, in property or in politicians.  You can’t operate in the real estate game in New York without greasing the wheels.  It’s all just business.  But it is corruption, too.  At some point, perhaps soon, he’ll have to defend his career of pay to play.

Joe Biden’s a likable guy, just not that bright.  On Labor Day he’s pounding the podium, yelling about American workers’ stagnant wages.  I guess he doesn’t realize that the price of labor is subject to economic reality.  When you increase the supply of labor, by massive immigration, you lower its price.  We want workers to be scarce, and make employers compete for them.  This is what Big Business abhors, which is why they’ll subvert their own country for cheap labor.  Trump gets that part, and it accounts for his performance to date.

Oddly, Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat who also does.  Bernie just doesn’t talk about it too much.  Maybe he will when he gets to South Carolina.  Blacks don’t care much for Bernie, we hear.  Maybe if he tells them the truth, that the Democratic Establishment is selling them down the river in exchange for Hispanic votes, maybe that will make an impression.

As I’ve mentioned occasionally, politics is arithmetic, and includes division.  In political division, you try to divide the opposition.  You want factions on the other side fighting with each other.  Blacks and Hispanics are the two building blocks of the Democratic coalition.  But blacks don’t like immigration, despite what their political leaders may say.  And, on the ground, blacks and Hispanics don’t like each other.  Most prison violence, and high school fights, at least in California, are black vs. Hispanic.  Hispanics and blacks wage gang turf battles in southern California constantly.

If the California Republican Party has a future, it is in luring Hispanics away from the Democrats with the promise of economic development and good, high paying jobs.

Actually, that’s how we can win blacks, too.