Two Candidates Running As Bernie Sanders Style Progressives In Michigan Threaten To Split Vote, With Only One Worthy Of Progressive Support

There has been a lot of talk lately about an anti-establishment fervor in the Democratic Party, largely fueled by both dissatisfaction with the status quo and the manner in which the DNC rigged the rules to block challengers to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Clinton’s inability to beat a candidate as terrible as Donald Trump cast more doubt on the party establishment’s strategy of promoting moderate candidates. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over party insider Joseph Crowley in New York’s 14th congressional district Democratic primary gave additional hope for progressive and true liberal Democrats hoping to beat the party establishment. In Michigan efforts to beat establishment candidate Gretchen Whitmer (who would still be far preferable to GOP front runner Bill Schuette) for the nomination for Governor might be thwarted by two candidates running as progressives in Michigan who are likely to split the vote.  However, only one is a true progressive.

While both Abdul El-Sayed and Shri Thanedar are running as Bernie Sanders style progressives, only El-Sayed looks like the real deal. The Intercept has had multiple articles exposing Thanedar as an opportunist. In a new article today, The Intercept shows how they differ on health care, but first recapped the case against Thanedar:

In Michigan, businessperson Shri Thanedar has spent millions of dollars on television ads casting himself as “the most progressive Democrat running for governor,” and promising that he would bring single-payer health care to Michigan.

“Health care is not a privilege; it is our fundamental right. I will bring single-payer health care to Michigan,” Thanedar says in a TV commercial. “Agree? Vote for Shri.”

But there’s reason to be skeptical.

Over the last year, investigations by The Intercept have revealed many facts which cast doubt on Thanedar’s progressive branding. He donated thousands of dollars to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, he was spotted clapping and nodding approvingly at a Marco Rubio presidential rally, and several Michigan political consultants have claimed that Thanedar once consulted them about possibly running as a Republican.

The Intercept interviewed Thanedar and found that “Thanedar’s much touted single-payer health care ‘plan’ appears to be nonexistent.” In contrast, they found that former Detroit Public Health chief Abdul El-Sayed “has a detailed strategy for how to accomplish it.” However, Thanedar is likely to split the progressive vote due to having spent much more on advertising. The Intercept notes:

Last month, he released a plan to establish “Michicare,” which would levy payroll and business taxes to establish state-funded public coverage for all Michigan residents…

But despite having a more well-developed plan, El-Sayed’s middle-class background means he does not have the same resources to advertise his health care plan as does Thanedar, who, not without controversy, made a fortune in the chemical testing industry.

As a result, there’s a real risk that the public might be misled.

The article also notes how this will impact the race against establishment candidate Gretchen Whitmer:

But by coopting a progressive message and splitting the progressive vote, Thanedar has helped Whitmer, an establishment candidate, take a comfortable lead.

Whitmer is the daughter of former Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Richard Whitmer. She’s the only Democratic candidate in the race who does not back single-payer, saying that it’s not “realistic” in Michigan at this time. BCBS Michigan lobbyists threw a fundraiser for Whitmer earlier this year. And she’s currently taking heat from an unidentified group who have paid for ads attacking her from accepting “big money” from insurance companies.

El-Sayed has been endorsed by Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, The People for Bernie, Our Revolution, the Progressive Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party, Democracy for America, and after her victory in New York, by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Whitmer has a long list of establishment endorsements. I am not aware of any significant endorsements for Thanedar but the Grosse Pointe Democratic Club has issued an anti-endorsement for Thanedar warning Democrats NOT to vote for him.

Donald Trump Fails The Country In Refusing To Stand Up To White Supremacists

The hatred and violence seen in Charlottesville this weekend raises the question of whether Donald Trump will ever stand up to his white supremacist base. His statement about the violence has been criticized by many for failing to call out the white supremacists and identify the evil behind the event. The Dallas Morning News stated in an editorial that, Amid the violence in Virginia, President Trump failed in a test of leadership:

Unfortunately, what we witnessed Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., revealed the ugliness of America. What’s worse is that in its aftermath, President Donald Trump had an opportunity to show real leadership but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

White supremacists, in a protest billed as a “Unite the Right” rally, gathered to rail against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a city park. The protests started out peacefully but as the day went on, fights broke out between the white supremacists and counterprotesters, including Black Lives Matter activists, faith leaders and the anarchist group Antifa…

Once police dispersed most of the crowd, a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of protesters, hurling people into the air, killing one and injuring 19 others. The driver put the car in reverse, sped backward and managed to escape before being arrested later.

At a time when such ugliness took place in the hometown of founding father Thomas Jefferson, Trump had a golden opportunity to condemn the violence and speak out against the white supremacists and white nationalists, many of whom supported him in the election against Hillary Clinton. The country needed the leader of the nation to forcefully call out these ugly — and un-American — interests.

There is no room for violence from any group, including Antifa. But on this day, it was all about white supremacists, neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

The best President Trump came up with is to say, “We want to get this situation straightened out in Charlottesville. And we want to study it. And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country.” He also blamed “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

The country needed to hear the president specifically condemn white supremacists and make clear to them that while they have a First Amendment right to express their views, their hatred and bigotry run counter to the values of the United States. There will be no toleration of violence.

On Saturday, President Trump failed his country.

Chris Cillizza called Trump’s statement incredibly unpresidential:

What Trump failed to do is what he has always promised to do: Speak blunt truths. The people gathered in Charlottesville this weekend are white supremacists, driven by hate and intolerance. Period. There is no “other side” doing similar things here…

There are moments where we as a country look to our president to exemplify the best in us. They don’t happen every day. Sometimes they don’t happen every year. But, when they do happen, we need the person we elected to lead us to, you know, lead us.

Trump did the opposite today.

While Donald Trump failed his country in  his response, others from all sides of the political spectrum did far better. Barack Obama quoted Nelson Mandela in a series of three Tweets: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion … People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love…For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Republican Senator Cory Gardner specifically called out Trump for failing to speak out against white supremacism. He Tweeted: “Mr. President – we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.” Marco Rubio also stated that Donald Trump needs to clearly denounce white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Ted Cruz had this statement on Facebook:

It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great Nation with bloodshed. Heidi’s and my prayers are with the loved ones of those killed and injured in the ongoing violence in Charlottesville. The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to speak their minds peaceably, but violence, brutality, and murder have no place in a civilized society.

The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate. Having watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.

These bigots want to tear our country apart, but they will fail. America is far better than this. Our Nation was built on fundamental truths, none more central than the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Update:

Trump Backtracks And Blames Both Sides, Including Alt-Left, For Charlottesville Violence

After Super Tuesday We Might Be In The Darkest Timeline: Clinton v. Trump

Trump Clinton Celebrity Death Match

Fans of Community are familiar with the concept of the darkest timeline. While nobody has clinched the nomination and there is still time for unexpected events to change the trajectory after Super Tuesday, the most likely outcome of the nomination battles is that we will have a habitual liar and warmonger running for president, and the other candidate will be Donald Trump. The two worst candidates imaginable. We might now be living in the darkest timeline.

Again, nothing is final. Super Tuesday was set up to benefit moderate Democratic candidates who would appeal to the southern states, with party rules set up to hinder liberal nominees even before the games played this election year. Clinton did very well in states she probably has no chance to win in a general election, but it was also disappointing to see both Clinton and Trump win in Massachusetts.

Clinton has more than enough baggage to normally derail any politician but, like Donald Trump, her supporters don’t seem to care what she has done. There is also a remote chance that the Republican race will turn into a two way battle with the survivor being to win enough winner take all states to overcome Trump’s advantage.

One hopeful sign is the amount of donations Sanders has been receiving, receiving over forty million dollars in February alone. Generally, when a candidate loses primaries, they are forced from the race as their money dries up. Sanders has the resources and will be continuing to take on Clinton.

If it is a general election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, one question will be how the nomination process led to the two candidates with the highest negatives for a general election winning each party’s nomination. While the outcome is analogous, the process was completely different. Clinton has benefited from being the establishment candidate in a battle rigged in her favor, without regard to the consequences. Trump has defied the Republican leadership, which has so far been  powerless to get in the way of voters rejecting the establishment.

In other words, the Democratic race has been totally undemocratic, while the Republicans have had a much fairer process. As David Atkins wrote about the Democratic process at Washington Monthly, “The Democratic Party should be true to its name and trust in democracy.”Republican voters have been right in rejecting the establishment, but unfortunately the wrong person has benefited from this.

An election between Clinton versus Trump will very likely break modern records for dishonesty and smears. With each candidate being so disliked on a national level, each will probably try to win by making voters hate the other even more.

We might see a breakdown in the red/blue state divide which has dominated recent elections. It is not unimaginable to see Donald Trump taking New York and the blue portions of the midwest in a battle with Clinton, who already is having problems in the traditional battleground states. On the other hand, Democrats might be lucky if Trump is the nominee as Clinton would have a much harder time beating Cruz or Rubio. The latest CNN poll , along with multiple other recent polls, agrees with this, showing both Sanders and Clinton beating Trump, with Sanders winning by a larger margin, but only Sanders being able to beat Rubio and Cruz.

The real reason that this is the darkest timeline is not the general election, but who we will have to live with as president for at least four years. A Clinton victory means a return to the neoconservative foreign policy view which has resulted in disaster. She will keep us on a path of perpetual warfare and strengthening of the surveillance state. She even received a major neocon endorsement last week. While Donald Trump is less hawkish on paper, I could still see him as being at considerable risk of blundering us into more wars. Both show little regard for First Amendments rights.

We would have a Democratic nominee who has proposed legislation making it a crime to burn flags in protest and a Republican nominee who has proposed limiting entry to the country based upon their religion. Neither is tolerable. I imagine that in the case of Trump we are dealing with what might be campaign hyperbole, versus an actual record on Clinton’s part of proposing restrictions on civil liberties and pushing for greater military intervention, but it is risky to trust that Trump will be more rational if in office. Just like it is risky to believe it when Clinton takes more progressive positions, on limited and selective issues. At least Trump has exposed the problems of big money in politics–not that I would count on him really reforming a system he has benefited from. It is no wonder that I am seeing so much talk about voting for the Green Party recently.

How The Democratic Establishment Is Trying To Steal The Nomination

LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 06:  Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton (L) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (R) on stage with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (2nd L) prior to the Battle Born/Battleground First in the West Caucus Dinner at the MGM Grand January 6, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The three candidates continue to campaign prior to the Nevada Democratic caucus, which will take place on February 20, 2016.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Democratic Party establishment continues to tilt the nomination battle in Clinton’s favor. First they gave in to her request to limit debates. They helped her out in Iowa by not releasing the popular vote, as has been done in the past, as Sanders was very likely the winner. When they realized that Clinton did not have an advantage over Sanders in fund raising, the DNC helped her out by relaxing the restrictions Obama had imposed on contributions from lobbyists. If this doesn’t work, there are the super delegates.

Most recently there was the Nevada caucus, which was full of shenanigans to help Clinton. The most significant was probably on the part of Harry Reid. John Ralston, a top reporter of Nevada politics, wrote:

Saturday may well be the day that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race, when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign, when she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends) and slingshotted her with new momentum into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday. Nevada may indeed prove to be the day that saved Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But the caucus, which Clinton won by about 5 percentage points, also cemented Prince Harry as a man Machiavelli would have bowed to, a man who with one eye who still sees the field better and is still more dangerous, effective and cunning as any pol the state (the country?) has ever seen. Clinton may not have won Nevada if Reid had not interceded last week when the man feigning neutrality saw what everyone in the Democratic elite saw: Sanders erasing a once mountainous lead and on the verge of perhaps winning Nevada and rendering inoperative the “Hillary is more electable” argument.

The story of the Nevada caucus is that a lame-duck senator and a self-neutered union conspired to revive the Clinton campaign in a remarkable bit of backroom maneuvering that helped Madame Secretary crush Sanders in Clark County, the key to winning almost any statewide election. Combined with a Clinton machine, erected last spring and looking invincible, that suddenly had to scrape the rust off its gears and turn out her voters, Caucus Day also was a remarkable story of an indomitable candidate, her nonpareil Nevada staff and a ragtag but committed Sanders operation that made them sweat.

But, ultimately, what turned this race was Reid, who clearly came home to find that Clinton’s insurmountable lead was being surmounted. Despite being furious with Team Clinton for its panic-stricken spin that Nevada was as white as Iowa and New Hampshire, undermining Reid’s argument why the state was given early-state status (and, you know, being false, too), the senator decided he would single-handedly save the state for Clinton.

In the middle of last week, Reid made a phone call, first reported by The New York Times’ Amy Chozick, to D. Taylor, the head of the parent of the Culinary Union local in Las Vegas. Before that call, the Culinary, facing difficult contract negotiations and seeing no advantage in enmeshing itself in a bloody internecine fight, had declared it was more Swiss than Hispanic. With the Culinary not endorsing and unwilling to even engage in the caucus, turnout at six casino sites on the Las Vegas Strip was forecast at a combined 100 or so. That is, insignificant.

“He’s been extremely cooperative,” Reid told Chozick of Taylor. “Probably 100 organizers will be at the caucus sites and in hotels to make sure people know what they’re doing.”

But Reid did not stop there. He also called casino executives, sources confirm, with a simple message: “Let your people go.”

That is, he wanted to ensure the workers would be allowed time off from work to caucus. No one said no to Prince Harry.

Despite their common public neutrality, Taylor and Reid surely believe, as do most Democratic power brokers, that a Sanders nomination would be a disaster. Reid knew that Taylor would get his swarms of organizers to turn out mostly Latino workers, who would likely vote for Clinton.

A gamble? Yes. But like going all-in with a straight flush.

And it paid off…

This changed the whole narrative of the race. Imagine how different things would be if it was first reported that Sanders won the popular vote in Iowa, he had his landslide victory in New Hampshire, and then had a win in Nevada.

It is still premature to write off Sanders. Clinton won the Nevada caucus by approximately the same margin she won eight years ago, and that certainly did not prevent Obama from winning the nomination. Far less shenanigans can occur in a primary as opposed to a caucus. Plus young voters, who did not turn out as expected in Nevada, might be more willing to cast a vote in a primary as opposed to going through a more difficult caucus session. If nothing else, this might have reinforced the need for everyone to turn out to vote. Sander does also need to improve his vote among Africa Americans, but should do better when more northern states are voting.

Still, there is the danger that many people will vote for the winner without fully considering the candidates, and all the hype of Clinton winning big in Nevada could provide her with momentum. If that is the case, she might be able to thank Harry Reid for the nomination. However, by winning this way, along with her dishonest attacks on Sanders, the Democratic Party is looking far too much like the Republicans, which could greatly suppress turnout for Clinton in the general election.

While the Democratic Party leadership might get away with acting undemocratically in choosing its preferred candidate, the Republicans are in the opposite situation. Donald Trump has the lead despite opposition from the Republican leadership, which is now throwing its support behind Marco Rubio. It sure puts the Democrats in a bad light when they are rigging their nomination battle but the Republicans are leaving it more up to the voters.

Whether the Republicans nominate Trump or Rubio, Sanders has the best shot of handing the Democrats a victory in the general election.

Accusations Of Lying Dominate Republican Debate

It was a difficult week in debates for the truth. I already discussed the dishonesty from Hillary Clinton at the PBS Democratic Debate. At the CBS Republican debate in South Carolina (transcript here) there were accusations during the debate of candidates telling lies nineteen times. This doesn’t include any lies which fact checkers  have found.

Donald Trump was in the rare position of being the one telling the truth when he pointed out that George W. Bush got us into the Iraq war based upon lies:

“Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, all right?” Trump thundered when asked about his call for then-President George W. Bush to be impeached. “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none.”

Trump added, “George Bush made the mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty.”

Trump later pointed out that Jeb was wrong about his brother keeping us safe:

“The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe,” he continued. “The world Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton [didn’t] kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him. And George Bush– by the way, George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn’t listen to the advice of his C.I.A.”

“How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center…excuse me, I lost hundreds of friends!” Trump said as the crowd booed loudly.

On the other hand, I’m not sure how Bill Clinton could be blamed when the Republican Congress obstructed his attempts to fight al Qaeda, and they certainly did not give any credit to the president who did kill bin Laden.

Trump called Ted Cruz the biggest liar, probably a position he holds due to being his most serious challenger at the moment:

TRUMP: You probably are worse than Jeb Bush. You are single biggest liar. This guys lied – let me just tell you, this guy lied about Ben Carson when he took votes away from Ben Carson in Iowa and he just continues. Today, we had robo-calls saying. “Donald Trump is not going to run in South Carolina,” — where I’m leading by a lot.”

I’m not going to vote for Ted Cruz. This is the same thing he did to Ben Carson. This guy will say anything, nasty guy. Now I know why he doesn’t have one endorsement from any of his colleagues.

CRUZ: Don, I need to go on…

TRUMP: He’s a nasty guy.

CRUZ: I will say, it is fairly remarkable to see Donald defending Ben after he called, “pathological,” and compared him to a child molester. Both of which were offensive and wrong.

Cruz counterattacked with an attack on Donald Trump for supporting funding of Planned Parenthood. Trump then defended Planned Parenthood despite his current (but not past) opposition to abortion rights:

CRUZ: You said, “Planned Parenthood does wonderful things and we should not defund it.”

TRUMP: It does do wonderful things but not as it relates to abortion.

CRUZ: So I’ll tell you what…

TRUMP: Excuse me. Excuse me, there are wonderful things having to do with women’s health.

CRUZ: You see you and I…

TRUMP: But not when it comes to abortion.

In yet another exchange which came down to honesty, Marco Rubio made this accusation against Ted Cruz:

I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speak Spanish.

Cruz then responded in Spanish.

Stephen Colbert On Ben Carson & Marco Rubio At The GOP Debate

The top moments of the last Republican debate were Ben Carson’s entrance and Marco Rubio’s robotic repetition of a single line, even after Chris Christie had already started mocking him for this. Stephen Colbert mocked all three Republicans in the video above.

It remains to be seen whether this will hurt Rubio in today’s New Hampshire primary but with the results in as I am posting this it looks like he will do at best third, and possibly worse. However, at the moment, he is leading Christie.

Update: Now that the New Hampshire results are in, we know that this could have been the moment which destroyed Rubio’s chances at winning the nomination.It also might have been a case of murder/suicide for Chis Christie, who has dropped out of the race.

Trump Is Disgusting, And Other Bad News For Donald

Iowa voters might not like how the Rose Bowl game is going, and Donald Trump probably does not like this message  which was written in the sky over the Rose Parade: “America is great. Trump is disgusting. Anybody but Trump.” This was paid for by a donor for Marco Rubio, who says there’s more to come.

While none of this will necessarily impact the Republican nomination, this isn’t the only bad news for Trump. Buzzfeed reports that the co-writer of Trumps’s 2000 campaign book will not vote for him:

The co-author of Donald Trump’s 2000 campaign book says the Republican front-runner is a “no class” person whose political beliefs are difficult to pin down…

When asked if he would vote for Trump, Shiflett said no.

“I’ll tell you what really bugs me about him, where it really ripped it with me and Trump was the stuff he said about McCain,” he said. “McCain suffered severely and I had a son who did two tours in Middle East during the last war and we had kids from here who went over there and some of them got hurt. They ain’t gonna be the same.”

“That’s gonna come back to haunt him. For a guy who never served, to say something like that is just..,” he continued.

Asked about Trump calling people losers, Shiflett said, “It’s just no class, what it boils down to. What’s the point of doing that? He doesn’t have to do that.”

He also pointed out how progressive Trump’s past political beliefs were.

Trump mistakingly blames Barack Obama for one of his problems:

Donald J. Trump appears to be more concerned about the quality of his hair than the quality of the air.

Mr. Trump has offered little in the way of an environmental policy during his presidential campaign, but on Wednesday he said that President Obama’s concerns about the environment were infringing on his rights as a consumer. More pressing than saving the ozone layer, he suggested, was the freedom to buy aerosol hairspray.

“You can’t use hairspray because hairspray is going to affect the ozone,” Mr. Trump said during a rally in South Carolina. “They don’t want me to use hairspray, they want me to use the pump.”

Trump is as mistaken in this attack on Obama as in many of his other attacks:

Aerosol sprays were actually phased out in the United States in the 1990s, years before Mr. Obama was president, and the ban resulted from the Montreal Protocol in 1987, signed by President George H. W. Bush, which sought to curtail the damage aerosol products did to the disappearing ozone layer. Since then, the hairspray industry has been able to find substitutes that produce the same misty effect of CFCs and aerosol.

Related: Carly Fiorina Takes Pandering To A New Low During Rose Bowl

Outrageous Statements From Donald Trump Distract From Serious Flaws In Other Conservative Candidates (Including Clinton)

Trumps and Clintons

One of the many problems with Donald Trump’s outrageous statements (undoubtedly made more to attract attention and support from a certain segment of the Republican Party than out of conviction) is that it might be making people fail to realize that many other candidates running also have positions which in a normal year might disqualify them from serious consideration. This is most clearly true within the Republican Party, but Hillary Clinton also benefits from the non-stop vulgar and sexist attacks on her from Trump. Donald Trump’s views make the flaws in the other candidates look far less significant in comparison, but there remains reasons why other candidates would be unacceptable as president.

Politico looked at The Wild Ideas You Missed While Donald Trump Was Talking, finding that many people are not noticing extreme views from other Republican candidates when Trump gets most of the attention:

The good news for Republicans, arguably, is that their rhetoric has been so consistently over-the-top that it has started to sound routine; academics call this “shifting the Overton window,” the range of what’s considered politically acceptable. I’ve watched all the debates as well as the undercards live, but when I reviewed the transcripts, I was amazed how many radical statements had slipped under my radar. Ted Cruz called for putting the United States back on the gold standard. Marco Rubio accused President Barack Obama of destroying the U.S. military. Huckabee said Bernie Madoff’s rip-offs weren’t as bad as what the government has done to people on Social Security and Medicare. Lindsey Graham said his administration would monitor all “Islamic websites,” not just jihadist ones. I had even forgotten Trump’s claim that vaccines caused autism in a 2-year-old girl he knew.

Vaccines do not cause autism. Goldbuggery is crackpot economics. The U.S. military is still by far the strongest in the world. And what the government has done to people on Social Security and Medicare is give them pensions and health care. But none of those statements drew any pushback from the other Republican candidates, or, for that matter, the media moderators. Neither did Ben Carson’s assertion that if the United States had set a goal of oil independence within a decade, moderate Arab states would have “turned over Osama bin Laden and anybody else you wanted on a silver platter within two weeks,” which is wackadoodle on multiple levels.

On the other hand, the Republican debates do present an extremely distorted view of Obama’s record, with nobody present to present the facts:

These are presumably winning messages in a Republican primary. It’s not clear whether they would be in a general election. The reality of the Obama era, for all its warts, is that unemployment has dropped to 5 percent, the deficit has shrunk by two thirds, illegal immigration has plateaued, far fewer U.S. soldiers are dying abroad and Americans are more likely to be killed by lightning than by terrorists at home. The question is whether the run-for-your-lives talking points will crash into statistical reality, or whether they will gradually help create a new political reality.

The Republicans do deserve some credit for being willing to display their views in public. The article does chastise the Democrats here in concluding that the Republicans are “acting like a confident party—perhaps an overconfident party—while the Democrats are acting like they’ve lost their feck.”

In reality, it is the Clinton campaign (which only wanted four debates) and the DNC, which expanded the number to six but hid most of them on nights when few would be watching, which are acting cowardly. Both Sanders and O’Malley have been pushing for more debates. I also think that Clinton has benefited from the exaggerated coverage paid to Trump. If not for his unexpected success in the Republican race, the big story of the year might be Sanders’ challenge to Clinton. After all, Sanders does beat Trump in head to head contests–and often by a larger margin than Clinton does.

Clinton benefits in other ways from Trump being in the race. The large number of lies from Trump dominated the year-end report from Factcheck.org. This led to a fairly long list of lies from Clinton being less obvious, posted further down in the story after Trump’s lies.

The concentration by the media on outrageous comments from Trump distracts from talk about the unethical conduct from Clinton, as well has the poor judgment she has shown throughout her career. Most importantly, it distracts from a more thorough look at Clinton’s views, including her neoconservative views on foreign policy, her conservative views on social/cultural issues, and her turn to the right on economic issues and health care. It also might be kept in mind that, with all his unacceptable statements and views, Donald Trump did oppose the Iraq war which Clinton pushed so hard for, and which turned out to be a disaster.

Debate Shows Why Republicans Cannot Be Trusted On Foreign Policy

Republican Debate Los Vegas

The Republican debate (transcript here) showed once again that most of the GOP candidates have not learned a thing from the mistakes made by George W. Bush. The debate did play towards Rand Paul’s areas of sanity in opposing military interventionism and infringements on civil liberties, and did not include the many other areas where Paul is no better than the others in his parties. Jeb Bush, whose candidacy was derailed partially due to attacks from Donald Trump of being low energy, did manage some good counter-attacks on Trump. Chris Christie, back from the kiddie table debate, showed moments of strength, for better or worse.

As Esquire pointed out, Rand Paul didn’t win the debate (primarily because most Republican voters would not go along with his views) but did raise the important questions.

BLITZER: Senator Paul, was getting rid of Saddam Hussein a pretty good deal?

PAUL: These are the fundamental questions of our time, these foreign policy questions, whether or not regime change is a good idea or a bad idea. I don’t think because I think the regime change was a bad idea it means that Hussein was necessarily a good idea.

There is often variations of evil on both sides of the war. What we have to decide is whether or not regime change is a good idea. It’s what the neoconservatives have wanted. It’s what the vast majority of those on the stage want.

They still want regime change. They want it in Syria. They wanted it in Iraq. They want it in Libya. It has not worked.

Out of regime change you get chaos. From the chaos you have seen repeatedly the rise of radical Islam. So we get this profession of, oh, my goodness, they want to do something about terrorism and yet they’re the problem because they allow terrorism to arise out of that chaos.

Ted Cruz said he wanted to “carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion,” and to have”sand can glow in the dark.”When asked about killing civilians, Cruz replied, “You would carpet bomb where ISIS is, not a city, but the location of the troops.” But ISIS is in cities. does he think they are just sitting targets out in the desert, away from civilians, waiting to be bombed?

Ben Carson bragged about being tough enough to kill children:

HEWITT: So you are OK with the deaths of thousands of innocent children and civilian? It’s like…

CARSON: You got it. You got it.

Donald Trump both spoke of closing portions of the Internet and killing the families of terrorists. Rand Paul responded:

I’d like to also go back to, though, another question, which is, is Donald Trump a serious candidate? The reason I ask this is, if you’re going to close the Internet, realize, America, what that entails. That entails getting rid of the First amendment, OK? It’s no small feat.

If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize that there’s something called the Geneva Convention we’re going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America. So when you ask yourself, whoever you are, that think you’re going to support Donald Trump, think, do you believe in the Constitution? Are you going to change the Constitution?

Carly Fiorina pointed out that, “Hillary Clinton has gotten every foreign policy challenge wrong.” That is generally true, as she has the same neoconservative views as most of the Republicans, who are no better.

Chris Christie did sound strong when he mocked Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz when they argued.

CHRISTIE: Listen, I want to talk to the audience at home for a second. If your eyes are glazing over like mine, this is what it’s like to be on the floor of the United States Senate. I mean, endless debates about how many angels on the head of a pin from people who’ve never had to make a consequential decision in an executive position.

But being tough does not necessarily mean being wise, and Christie showed a quite foolish attitude towards Russia. Again Rand Paul displayed a sense of reality lacking in both other Republican candidates, as well as Hillary Clinton, in their support of the no fly zone:

BLITZER: Governor Christie, if the U.S. imposed a no-fly zone over Syria and a Russian plane encroached, invaded that no-fly zone, would you be prepared to shoot down that Russian plane and risk war with Russia?

CHRISTIE: Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it. A no-fly zone means a no-fly zone, Wolf. That’s what it means.

See, maybe — maybe because I’m from New Jersey, I just have this kind of plain language hangup. But I would make very clear — I would not talk to Vladimir Putin. In fact, I would talk to Vladimir Putin a lot. But I’d say to him, “Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.” And yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now.

BLITZER: Senator Paul — Senator Paul, I want you to respond to what we just heard from Governor Christie. If there was a no-fly zone, you say that potentially could lead to World War III. Why?

PAUL: Well, I think if you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate. You know, here’s the thing. My goodness, what we want in a leader is someone with judgment, not someone who is so reckless as to stand on the stage and say, “Yes, I’m jumping up and down; I’m going to shoot down Russian planes.” Russia already flies in that airspace. It may not be something we’re in love with the fact that they’re there, but they were invited by Iraq and by Syria to fly in that airspace.

And so if we announce we’re going to have a no-fly zone, and others have said this. Hillary Clinton is also for it. It is a recipe for disaster. It’s a recipe for World War III. We need to confront Russia from a position of strength, but we don’t need to confront Russia from a point of recklessness that would lead to war.

This is something — this type of judgment, you know, it’s having that kind of judgment; who you would appoint and how you’re going to conduct affairs, that is incredibly important.

I mean, I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don’t like their friends; they don’t want to — you know, they want to (inaudible) a Democrat.

So I think we need to be very careful.

Jeb Bush didn’t have much of consequence to say on policy, but he did do a good job of responding to Donald Trump’s antics. He told Trump, “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency. That’s not going to happen.” He summed up Trump here:

So Donald, you know, is great at — at the one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate. And he’d be a chaos president. He would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe.

He also questioned Trump’s source of information, referring back to a previous statement from Donald Trump that he obtained information on foreign policy from television shows:

HEWITT: Governor Bush, a commander-in-chief question. You’ve said that Mr. Trump is not qualified to be president because he’s not qualified to deal with Vladimir Putin. Why are you better qualified to deal with Vladimir Putin than Mr. Trump?

BUSH: Because I — first of all, I know what I don’t know. I know what I don’t know. I would seek out, as I have, the best advice that exists. I won’t get my information from the shows. I don’t know if that’s Saturday morning or Sunday morning. I don’t know which one.

None of the candidates was remotely qualified to be president. (While Rand Paul was generally right in this debate, his economic views and opposition to reproductive rights, which did not come up in this debate would disqualify him.) Unfortunately the Democratic front runner holds essentially the same views, even if Clinton uses different rhetoric in appealing to Democratic as opposed to Republican primary voters. Bernie Sanders represents our best hope to both have a president who has not made the errors which destabilized the region, and who can inspire voters to turn out to defeat the Republicans in a general election.

Poll Suggests Epic Presidential Battle Between The Lesser Of Two Evils–Please Give Us Another Choice

Clinton Trump Sanders

The latest USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll shows problems for both major political parties. The bad news begins with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton maintaining the lead for the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively. Trump could conceivably win the GOP nomination while being disliked by many in the Republican mainstream while Clinton could win the Democratic nomination with the support of the Democratic mainstream, but not many others.

…there is an almost even divide among those who have an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Clinton: 45% say they dislike Clinton more; 42% dislike Trump more.

“Their mantra is ABCT— Anybody But Clinton or Trump,” says David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center in Boston. More than one in five of those surveyed fall into this category. “If each is their party’s respective nominees, the poll tells us that the majority of the country does not see either candidate as acceptable, which means that the race for president may come down to which candidate voters view as the lesser of two evils.”

How things have changed from last summer, when the mantra was no more Bushes or Clintons. Now Jeb is hardly a factor, while Ted Cruz is this month’s leader as top challenger to Donald Trump.

The bad news for the Democrats is also that the poll shows that Clinton would have a tough time against the major Republican candidates: ” Clinton leads Trump by 4 percentage points, Cruz by 2 and Ben Carson by 1. Rubio leads Clinton by 3 points.” Battleground state polls, where Clinton has preformed poorly, suggest she would have an even tougher time in the electoral college.

The biggest news out of this poll is that 68 percent of Trump’s supporters say they would vote for Trump if he ran as an independent, while only 18 percent say they would not.  While I wouldn’t put it past Trump’s ego for him to run as an independent, it is hard to see how that actually comes about. Even if his current lead in the polls does not allow him to run away with the nomination, most likely he will be competitive for the next several months, probably dissuading him from going third party for quite a while. By the time the GOP nominee is determined, it could be too late to launch an independent bid.  In the event that Trump performs poorly in the early primaries, he would then be tarnished and look like a loser, making a third party run less likely to obtain support.

But maybe someone as unpredictable as Trump will run and perhaps even more candidates will get in the act. Jesse Ventura has been making noise about running, and possibly other candidates will arise. While unlikely, maybe 2016 will be the year which ends the dominance of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are showing that there is a significant number of voters who are unhappy with the establishment choices from both parties. Plus there is a large pool of potential voters among those who have not voted in recent elections should a candidate be able to motivate them to vote.

A race between a DLC Democrat such as Hillary Clinton and an establishment Republican would not differ significantly on policy, even if their primary rhetoric is different to attract two different partisan bases. Theoretically a third party candidate could go far if they could convince voters that both Clinton and the Republican establishment not only offer essentially the same thing, but that their policies are the policies which have been screwing up America.

Of course that will never happen. The voters from both parties are a bunch of suckers. Republicans have convinced their base, including the Tea Party, to express their rage against government by voting for the Republicans–the party which has dominated both the federal and most state governments. The Democratic base is looking just as delusional, supporting a candidate who opposes so much of what Democrats claim to support and has spent her career undermining liberal principles.

Perhaps a third party candidate can come along and convince voters of the folly of voting a Republican, or a Republican-lite candidate such as Clinton. Donald Trump might have the showmanship to pull this off, but he is also bat-shit crazy.

Our best hope remains that Clinton can be defeated in the Democratic race, with Bernie Sanders building a new coalition to change the status quo.