Dead at 79 on a vacation trip to Texas.
Literally between a post-bike ride shower and heading off to dinner, so possibly more later or tomorrow.
Some liberals on my Facebook timeline are openly celebrating…
Antonin Scalia, RIP
February 13th, 2016Damn It Feels Good to Be a Clinton
February 13th, 2016The Ted Cruz team hits it out of the park with this one…
How the Democratic Party is Going to Screw Bernie Sanders With Superdelegates
February 12th, 2016It seems that Bernie Sanders supporters are finally waking up to the fact that Democratic Party “Superdelegates” are designed to screw over mere voters unwilling to toe the party line. And this year, that means “Bernie Sanders supporters.”
Jim Geraghty explains how the screwing process works:
Every Democratic member of Congress, House and Senate, is a Superdelegate (240 total). Every Democratic governor is a Superdelegate (20 total). Certain “distinguished party leaders,” 20 in all, are given Superdelegate status. And finally, the Democratic National Committee names an additional 432 Superdelegates—an honor that typically goes to mayors, chairs and vice-chairs of the state party, and other dignitaries.
Here is where I would put a paragraph detailing the process by which the DNC goes about selecting Superdelegates…except I can’t find any online. As far as I can tell, DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is 100% in the tank for Hillary, gets to give her up to an additional 432 delegates. Or almost as many delegates as those chosen by all the actual Democratic Party voters in New York and Pennsylvania combined.
As of this writing, Hillary Clinton has 387 superdelegates. Bernie Sanders has 16.
“This is what makes Clinton so powerful in the Democratic race — even while she and Sanders battle it out among rank-and-file voters, she has a massive lead among superdelegates. Altogether, she already has 394 delegates and superdelegates to Sanders’ 44 — a nearly ninefold lead.”
Someone at Wikipedia has helpfully compiled a list of 2016 Democratic Superdelegates.
(Interestingly, among them is a Wendy Davis, but not the Texas Wendy Davis. This Wendy Davis is a city commissioner for Rome, Georgia, a small city of some 35,000+ people. And yes, she’s backing Clinton…)
Also note that list of 20 “Distinguished Party Leaders,” in addition to your Bill Clintons, Walter Mondales and former DNC heads, includes David Wilhelm, whose claim to being distinguished is…running Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign.
There’s a good chance that Sanders, the candidate whose popularity comes in large measure from complaining that the game is rigged against the little guy, is going to get screwed out of the nomination because the Democratic Party Presidential nomination process is rigged against the little guy…
“Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem”
February 11th, 2016That’s the actual, no kidding headline on this Washington Post piece by Chris Cillizza.
Well, the full headline is “Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem after New Hampshire,” which is true, but it works either way. Indeed, “Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem” is a demonstrably true statement anytime after 1991 or so, but the fact that the Washington Post has put it so bluntly is the story here.
Yes, Hillary Clinton has “a major honesty problem” in much the same way the late Amy Winehouse had a “major drinking problem.”
Hillary Clinton has “a major honesty problem” the same way Adolf Hitler had a “killing people” problem.
Hillary Clinton—
You get the idea.
Let’s quote some specifics, shall we?
Hillary Clinton has an honesty problem.
That point is driven home hard in the exit poll following Clinton’s 22-point drubbing at the hands of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. More than one in three (34 percent) of all New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said that honesty was the most important trait in their decision on which candidate to support. Of that bloc, Sanders won 92 percent of their votes as compared to just 6 percent for Clinton.
Ninety-two to six. That is absolutely unbelievable — even given the size of Sanders’s overall victory in the state. And it should be deeply concerning to a Clinton campaign that has been resistant to acknowledging the idea that the ongoing controversy over Clinton’s private email server while at the State Department is a problem for her.
Of course, the email scandal is just one of the most recent examples of Clinton’s long, storied career of serial dishonesty, stretching back past phantom sniper fire, stolen china, bimbo eruptions and cattle futures to the the Watergate hearings.
Her life is a rich tapestry of unbridled deceit.
But evidently it took the rise of Bernie Sanders before many liberals were finally willing to say what Republicans following her career have said for close to a quarter century.
“Hillary Clinton has an honesty problem.”
Glad the MSM has finally gotten around to noticing it…
New Hampshire Fallout
February 10th, 2016Coming out of Iowa, it looked we had a firm consensus on the shape of the Republican race: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as the top three contenders going forward, with everyone else as also-rans.
And then a week later New Hampshire comes along to declare “Psych!”
Desperate to find a candidate to coalesce around in hopes of stopping the populist insurrection of Donald Trump and the conservative uprising championed by Ted Cruz, the establishment instead got the opposite: a three-way split decision between John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio that ensures an extended, nasty and expensive fight simply to emerge as the third guy in the top tier.
Snip.
What New Hampshire did was ensure that the fight to be the establishment candidate wasn’t going to be a knockout but rather decided on a decision after 12 rounds of boxing. That’s a terrible thing for a party who faces not one but two existential threats in the form of Trump and Cruz.
If Ted Cruz is an actual “existential threat” to the Republican Party, for actually being for the things the Republican Establishment merely claimed they were for all these years, then the Republican Party deserves to die…
It’s going to take more than Miracle Max to revive his campaign… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Jeb “Low Energy” Bush spent $1,150 per vote in New Hampshire only to come in fourth place. At that rate, it will cost him $74,500,000,000.00 to get sixty five million votes in the general election. Jeb and his superpac have spent $70,400,000.00 this cycle and they’ve won 3 delegates. That’s $23,466,666.66 per delegate. At that rate, he would need to spend $26,845,866,666.66 to win the 1,144 delegates necessary for the nomination.
1. Hillary is in real trouble. Will she panic? The Clinton team, hunkered down in a grubby Manchester Radisson saturated in booze and overrun by ill-kempt Morning Joe groupies, knew it was going to be a terrible, not-good night by mid-afternoon: The exit polls showed big turnout among young voters and, ominously for her, liberals who think Barack Obama isn’t liberal enough. It was a complete and humbling defeat: Sanders beat Clinton among all demographic groups – including all women, a remarkable rebuke eight years after she “found her voice” by tearing up at New Hampshire diner.
Clinton prides herself on hanging tough through adversity, and she’s got her share now. How does she react? If history is any guide, she’ll freak out at first, then grudgingly make adjustments. But what adjustments can she make when many progressives think she’s so day-before-yesterday.
On Monday, my colleague Annie Karni and I reported that the Bill and Hillary Clinton were pressuring campaign manager Robby Mook to enact strategic, “messaging” and staffing shifts that would take place if Sanders trounced the former secretary. Duh, that’s done.
Forget staff. The problem is, as I’ve written over and over again, with the candidate herself: She’s a less limber, more tone-deaf politician than she was in 2008 (after years of being kept sharp by the New York tabloids) and she has blown past staff suggestions that she simplify her message to match Sanders’ pound-one-nail anti-Wall Street mantra.
Plus: “Marco Rubio isn’t the droid you’ve been looking for.”
My own analysis? Every week Kasich and Bush stay in is a bad week for Marco Rubio. It’s looking more and more like a Trump vs. Cruz race, and if Rubio can’t win at least one primary between now and March 1 (when the “SEC Primary” of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia occurs), he’s toast for this cycle…
New Hampshire Update: Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Rubio?
February 9th, 2016New Hampshire primary returns are still coming in, but right now the results are:
- Donald Trump
- John Kasich
- Ted Cruz
- Jeb Bush
- Marco Rubio
Trump is way out front, with Kasich a firm second, and a dogfight for third that Cruz currently leads.
Just like exactly nobody predicted two weeks ago…or even yesterday.
Could what looked like a 3-way race end up being a 5-way race?
Could Bush think his improved showing is a sign his strategy is finally working?
Does Kasich cash the cache of his second-place finish with a fresh infusion of cash?
Tried to work him in, really I did…
Can Rubio bounce back from a disappointing showing?
Do Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson drop out?
For the answers to these questions, and many others, tune in to the next episode of Soap…
Hillary Concedes to Sanders in NH
February 9th, 2016Hillary Clinton has conceded to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire Democratic primary before all the New Hampshire polling places had even closed.
Way to hang your supporters out to dry…
“The Case Against Marco Rubio And For Ted Cruz”
February 9th, 2016DrewM over on Ace of Spades HQ makes the case for Ted Cruz and against Marco Rubio. It’s well worth reading.
Is Rubio “The Establishment’s” first choice? No. Jeb is next in line. Are members of “The Establishment” comfortable with him as a second choice? I’d say it seems so. Is there any doubt that in a Rubio-Cruz showdown “The Establishment” would go with Rubio? So, yeah.
Yes, Rubio supporters can trot out his Heritage Action score but that only shows he goes along, not that he’s going to lead anywhere. They simply can’t show a single time he’s bucked the party, not just with a vote but by publicly putting his neck on the line. I simply don’t believe that when push comes to shove a President Rubio will be any more forceful in breaking up the consensus than Senator Rubio has been.
I would make somewhat different points, and the “Cruz is a bastard” point I disagree with (Cruz is quite a likable guy in person), but it’s true that one of his great strengths is his willingness to buck the leadership of his own party rather than compromise conservative principles. “If you want someone to change DC and the direction of the country, you have to elect someone who has shown they understand that there’s a problem, someone who has shown a willingness to point at people in his own ‘leadership’ and say, ‘they have no clothes’.”
Read the whole thing.
Florida Man Outdoes Himself
February 9th, 2016Florida Man has really outdone himself this time:
Authorities in Florida have arrested a man accused of throwing a live alligator through a restaurant’s drive-through window.
Investigators identified Joshua James, of Jupiter, Fla., as the man who tossed the 3 1/2-foot reptile into a Wendy’s last fall, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission incident report.
He faces three charges related to the incident: Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; unlawful sale, possession or transporting of an alligator; and petty theft.
Pro tip: Try not to commit felonies for laughs. Though I’m sure the story will get a chuckle from his future cellmate.
See you later, alligator…
LinkSwarm for February 8, 2016
February 8th, 2016I emptied the link bucket on Friday, but lo and behold, a whole new torrent of news has come rushing down the pipes:
According to entrance polling, among the roughly half of all Republican voters without a college degree, Cruz won 30 percent of the vote, eclipsing Trump’s 28 percent. Marco Rubio was a distant third, winning the support of just 17 percent of voters without college degrees. Cruz did 5 points better among voters without college degrees than among college grads (30 percent to 25 percent), while, among all candidates included in the entrance polling (Cruz, Trump, Rubio, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders), Rubio was the candidate who had the lowest portion of his support come from those without college degrees—he did 10 points worse among voters without college degrees than among college grads (17 to 27 percent).
According to the entrance polling, Cruz also fared better than Trump or Rubio among younger voters. Among voters under the age of 30, Cruz won 26 percent of the vote to Rubio’s 23 percent and Trump’s 20 percent. Among voters in their 30s and early 40s, Cruz won 30 percent of the vote to Trump’s 23 percent and Rubio’s 21 percent. (Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton got clobbered among younger voters, winning less than 30 percent of the vote among those under the age of 45.)