Tag: 2016

Hey, I guessed wrong on where the Democratic convention was going to be!

Turns out that they’re having it in Philly after all.  Personally, I would have picked somewhere that wasn’t a day trip from NYC, but they didn’t ask me, either? …Seriously, though: security is going to be a really big issue for both conventions this cycle.  The Republican party is going to have to worry about crazy blackshirt progressive lunatics who want to disrupt the proceedings, and the Democratic party is going to have to worry about…  crazy blackshirt progressive lunatics who want to disrupt the proceedings.  The really major difference is that the Democrats probably have to worry a little bit less about the aforementioned crazy blackshirt progressive lunatics trying to kill them some delegates*.

Hey, maybe that’s why they picked Philly: the cops there have a certain reputation…

Moe Lane

*That’s not a joke.

Is *Hillary* Ready?

This is a very nice Townhall article by Conn Carroll on Barack Obama and how he was not the Left’s Ronald Reagan (unless you count the way that Barack Obama, like Reagan, has made the argument against big government – however inadvertently, in Obama’s case).  But I have a quibble. In short, I always have the same question in my head when I see lines like this:

Hillary Clinton will be a very formidable opponent.

…Why?

Enjoy your Sunday.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Does Hillary Clinton honestly and truly want to run for President?

Because stories like this suggest that maybe she doesn’t:

An internal debate among Hillary Clinton supporters about the timing of when she should launch her expected campaign for the presidency has erupted once again.

Several Democrats have told CNN that there is a desire on the part of Clinton and her innermost circle to go as late as possible. But the potential for a summer start to the official Clinton 2016 campaign, first reported this morning by Politico, is only one of the options on the table. The spring launch plan is still seen by most Clinton watchers as the most likely timing scenario. Under the spring scenario, Clinton could form an exploratory committee or other official vehicle, which has FEC-regulated restrictions for potential candidates, but would enable Clinton to publicly indicate her intentions and begin a new phase of the process without formally launching a full blown campaign until later in 2015.

Continue reading Does Hillary Clinton honestly and truly want to run for President?

Think that the Democrats will retake the House in ’16? Fine. Name the seats.

You’re going to see a lot of these types of stories in the next year or so: “House Democrats retake the House? It’s a long shot, but they’re getting ready to try.”  At least, if the 2012 and 2014 election cycles are any indication:

Continue reading Think that the Democrats will retake the House in ’16? Fine. Name the seats.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vermont) not wild about the Democrats’ brand for his 2016 bid.

I find I don’t really care one way or the other how Bernie Sanders runs: “Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is under intense pressure to run for president as a Democrat and not as a “spoiler” independent who could undercut support for the eventual nominee, according to several progressives.” …because either way it all ends in recriminations and tears for the progressive Left. If Bernie Sanders runs as a Democrat, he will be destroyed in the primary election by the Democratic establishment; and if he runs as an independent, he will be destroyed in the general election by the Democratic establishment.  The Democratic party’s path to victory is sufficiently narrow* that they cannot afford even a traditional Nader-level of ineffectual third-party shenanigans; Bernie Sanders is a luxury that the Left should not indulge in… and yet, they will. Continue reading Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vermont) not wild about the Democrats’ brand for his 2016 bid.

The demographic shriveling of the Democratic party continues.

Oh, dear. It’s worse for the Democratic party than I thought.

The GOP dominance in these predominantly white working-class districts underscores the structural challenge facing Democrats: While the party has repeatedly captured the White House despite big deficits among the working-class white voters who once anchored its electoral coalition, these results show how difficult it will be to recapture the House without improving on that performance. “The question is: Are we at rock bottom here?” says Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic voter targeting firm TargetSmart Communications.

These trends present Republicans with a mirror-image challenge. The vast majority of their House members can thrive without devising an agenda on issues—such as immigration reform—that attract the minority voters whose growing numbers nationally have helped Democrats win the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections.

Note the weasel phrase in the last sentence, there: now that ‘Republicans can’t defeat incumbent Democratic Senators’ has joined ‘Democrats always win special elections’ in the great heap of Rules Of Thumb Past Their Sell-By Date you can expect to hear that particular factoid. Because Democrats won the popular vote in five of the last eight Presidential elections. And five of the last nine. Six of the last ten. Six of the last twelve. Eight of the last fourteen. Eight of the last sixteen. And that gets us to the end of the Truman administration. Put another way: hey, here’s a news flash! The Democrats and Republicans have been trading the White House every eight years or so since my mother was a child. Expect that to happen in 2016, too. Continue reading The demographic shriveling of the Democratic party continues.

The 2016 Senate Retirement Watch may now officially begin!

Generally speaking, it is considered polite to at least wait until the new Congress begins before one starts to speculate on who will be leaving it soon. It should be extra-exciting this year because there’s at least two Republican Senators (Paul and Rubio) who are eyeing the brassiest of brass rings – the Presidency – and both of them are up for re-election next year. Heck, both of them are freshmen. Two Democratic Senators are also contemplating their Presidential chances, too – Warren and Sanders – but I don’t think that either of them will quit the Senate in order to run, which is frankly sensible of them.

Should be fun! No, really. I love retirements. It messes up everybody else’s careful calculations, at least briefly. I feel that this is generally a good thing for people; teaches them that the whole thing can’t be turned into a spreadsheet.

Why 54 REALLY > 53 or 52, when it comes to Senate math.

And this is why you always try to grab as many seats as you can in an election, period: “Democrats are looking to reclaim their Senate majority in two years, but after losing nine Senate seats in 2014, their path back to that majority won’t be easy.”  Because it took us picking up nine Senate seats to get an article like that in the Atlantic. If we had ended at fifty-two or even fifty-three, the tone would have been much different. Continue reading Why 54 REALLY > 53 or 52, when it comes to Senate math.

The staffing positioning for 2016 continues.

So, about two months ago there was an email oppo drop on Robby Mook, who is/was presumed to be high up in Hillary Clinton’s eventual Presidential campaign. My (unpublished) take on that email oppo drop, at the time: Dear sweet God, but the Democrats really had no idea that they were about to get Smote, did they?

Mook continued: “This has been a tough cycle — midterms always are — but what’s been so amazing to me is how from the Senate to the House to Governor’s races and beyond, we’ve been keeping the other side on defense. So many of you have played leadershp [sic] roles building field programs, managing campaigns, or running programs from allied groups. It’s been incredibly insipiring [sic] to see.”

…That was written the day of an election where, in point of fact, the Democrats ended up not keeping the other side on defense.  Anywhere.

Now, I could never get that post to gel, for some reason: and that’s perhaps, like Maggie Haberman, I thought that it looked weird that people would drop stuff on Mook in the first place. Upon reflection, maybe it was just concern? After all, as Jammie Wearing Fools notes here there is a remarkable whiff of insecurity and general juvenile behavior going on: JFW calls them ‘snot-nosed twits’ and ‘foul-mouthed punks,’ which is both unkind and generally true.  Continue reading The staffing positioning for 2016 continues.

Scenes from the 2016 Democratic Shadow Gutter War: Clinton v. Webb.

Via Hot Air comes a whisper of the back-alley brawls that are even now starting to formover the 2016 election, out there where nothing is really too low a blow and everything can be denied later:

While they aren’t acknowledging [Jim] Webb publicly, [Hillary] Clinton loyalists are keeping an eye on him privately. The week before Thanksgiving, staffers of Philippe Reines, Clinton’s longtime communications guru, pitched talk radio producers on the racy, sexually charged writings in Webb’s novels, according to a source. Webb was forced to fend off a similar attack in 2006, when Allen accused him of “demeaning women.”

Webb also has previously apologized for writing that a Naval Academy dorm was a “horny woman’s dream” in a 1979 Washingtonian magazine piece titled “Jim Webb: Women Can’t Fight.” The piece’s central argument was against allowing women to take combat positions in the military. If Webb were to ever attain traction, Clinton’s allies would certainly lob the rhetoric back at him.

Continue reading Scenes from the 2016 Democratic Shadow Gutter War: Clinton v. Webb.