Category Archives: 2016 presidential campaign
Republican Establishment Melt Down
In the run-up to the New Hampshire primary Byron York began asking Republican establishment types if they knew anyone who supports Trump. Here’s what he found:
“I don’t know anybody who supports him.” They’re politically active and aware, but they said they have no contact in their daily lives with even a single person who supports their party’s front-runner.
After that conversation, I began to ask everyone I met: Do you know anyone who supports Donald Trump? In more cases than not — actually, in nearly all the cases — the answer was no. I asked one woman Friday night, and she said she hadn’t thought about it. I ran into her the next morning at breakfast, and she said, “That was a good question you asked me last night, and I’ve given it some thought.” And no, she didn’t know any Trump supporters.
…”So what explains the polls?” I asked.”I don’t know.”
Republican Establishment
They never knew what hit them. NPR reports Jeb Bush spent $36 million for 30,000 votes. Trump spent $3 million for 100,000 votes.
David Frum in The Atlantic says, “The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans”.
John Nolte in Breitbart says 32% of Trump’s angry and pessimistic voters in New Hampshire were college grads.
Tucker Carlson, in Politico, sums up the Trump revolt against the Republican establishment as “shocking, vulgar, and right”.
Democrat Establishment Melt Down
The Democrat establishment is worried about a Clinton campaign melt down.
Hillary says, “no worries.” She’s not the establishment. She’s “a woman running to be the first woman president.” Then, again, Bernie Sanders is a Jew running to be the first Jewish president.
The first woman lost New Hampshire to the first Jewish Democratic Socialist by 22 points.
Hillary wasn’t even the first woman to be Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright was.
Democrat Establishment
Albright says, “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help women.” Evidently, that’s where you’ll find millennial women these days. They’re voting like crazy for Sanders. That’s because “that’s where the boys are,” according to Gloria Steinem. Kathleen Parker says there’s a more likely explanation:
…young liberal women, like their male counterparts, are attracted to the cool old guy because he’s promising a dream in which the rich have less and the poor have more. Robin Hood is so awesome.
Maureen Dowd thinks Hillary “is establishment enough.” Her sense of entitlement is her problem:
She has long been driven by a fear of being “dead broke,” as she put it — and a conviction that she deserved the life and perks she would have had if she had gone into the private sector. That led her to do her suspiciously lucrative commodity trades while Bill was Arkansas attorney general and to make Wall Street speeches on the cusp of her 2016 campaign, even though she and Bill had already made more than $139 million between 2007 and 2014.
Dowd says “Hillary isn’t likable enough for the young women who were supposed to carry her forward as a Joan of Arc.” At least not compared to “chick magnet” Bernie Sanders.
Campaign Economy
Daniel Henninger and Robert Samuelson both say the economy should be the main issue in the 2016 campaign. Here’s Henninger:
The Iowa entrance polls reveal that Mr. Trump got 44% of the vote from people who believe immigration is the top issue. Unfortunately, at least in Iowa only 13% think that.
He says 60% of Iowa voters considered “economic concerns” to be the top issue.
Iowa Coin Toss
Did Hillary actually win convention delegates with a coin toss?
National Review says Sanders won by actual votes. Hillary only wins by coin flips:
The final count of delegates to the state convention (aside from the seven won by Martin O’Malley) was Clinton 699, Sanders 695. But by actual voter decisions, the count was Sanders 695, Clinton 693, and six ties. Sure, Clinton right now goes to the state convention with four more committed delegates than Sanders, but she didn’t win her margin via voters, but by a mathematically bizarre series of coin flips.
Bern is flipping out.
Coin Toss
CNN says it ain’t so. Here’s Norm Sternberg a former director of the Iowa Democratic Party:
“I can say with almost absolutely certainty this election would not have been changed because of the coin flips. It would take a very large number of these to make that kind of impact, and one candidate would have to win them all. Our empirical evidence and anecdotal information shows that one candidate didn’t win them all, and that coin flips are not that frequent.”
Now the Des Moines Register is calling for an audit of the Coin Toss Caucus.
Hill and Bern in Lockstep
Hill and Bern left the Hawkeye State in lockstep with the FBI hot on the trail. They finished in a virtual tie in the Iowa Caucus.
The NYT reported on Friday that the State Department refused to release 22 emails on Hillary’s home brew computer because they are too highly classified.
Ed Kline reports that Hillary’s inner circle of Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, and Jake Sullivan have been told by the FBI to be prepared to testify.
