Clinton takes NJ.
Election 2016
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: I’m With Her, Too
Just in: Nancy Pelosi endorses Hillary Clinton, praises Bernie Sanders for "great invigoration." pic.twitter.com/eJCbUx3FbS
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 7, 2016
Nacy Pelosi plays the Good Cop. And the Bad Cop? Well, last week, there was this Politico report:
… “I’ve never been too good at math, but I can figure that one out. I think he better do a little mathing,” Reid said…
Reid went on to say that while Sanders has the right to continue his presidential campaign, he doesn’t recommend extending it.
“No, I don’t think he should. I don’t know what that’s going to prove. Sometimes you just have to give up. I’ve lost before. The numbers aren’t there.”
@chucktodd: How many superdelegates have switched to you in last few months?
Sanders mgr Weaver: I can't tell you that there are any
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) June 7, 2016
Sen. Sanders has had all the fun made the best impact he can in this election cycle. Anything less than a gracious concession, at the very least, is not going to make his future career path pleasant…
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: I’m With Her, TooPost + Comments (103)
INVINCIBLE!
Attention conservation notice (thanks, Cosma Shalizi): What follows is some political naval gazing, a trip down memory lane to scan the GOP primary just gone by. The TL:DR — what a craptastic effort by all concerned. If you’ve nothing better to do, read on, and snark at will in the comments.
Not to aggrandize one of our more feeble trolls, but something that personage produced in a comment yesterday caught my eye. Donald Trump, we were told, more than once, is INVINCIBLE (sic on the caps and bold).
What convinced our troll of this fact?
That the Gauleiter of Midtown Manhattan had defeated “the deepest primary field in history” (quoted from memory).
Well, a ruby in a dungheap is still a gem, and that remark caught my attention. So, in a waltz down memory lane, I went to look up that deep field, here in the order in which they formally entered the campaign:
Ted Cruz. Jeb Bush. Ben Carson. Chris Christie. Carly Fiorina. Jim Gilmore. Lindsey Graham. Mike Huckabee. Bobby Jindal. John Kasich. George Pataki. Rand Paul. Rick Perry. Marco Rubio. Rick “don’t Google me” Santorum. Donald Trump, and Scott Walker.
Let’s review:
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul*: first term senators of no accomplishment.
Carly Fiorina: a failed business tycoon whose sole claim to fame is her near-destruction of one of the most respected corporations in tech.
Ben Carson: a neurosurgeon who calls to mind the old joke: “What’s the difference between God and a surgeon?” “God knows he’s not a doctor.”
Jim Gilmore: Jim Gilmore.
George Pataki: George Pataki.
Rick Santorum: where to begin? Lost his last election by 30 points or more; hasn’t improved on extended acquaintence.
Chris Christie: not yet indicted.
Rick Perry: smart boy glasses didn’t work.
Bobby Jindal: Kenneth the office boy left the governor’s mansion in Louisiana as the single most potent unifier in state history: everyone, Democrat, Republican, Martian, loathed this incompetent poseur.
Mike Huckabee: book salesman masquerading as Torquemada.
Scott Walker: goggle-eyed homunculus almost instantly revealed as a small-time grifter utterly unsuited for the big time.
That leaves four: Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and the ferret-headed swindler himself.
Jeb?, Graham and Kasich had at least recognizably plausible credentials to mount a presidential bid. Jeb, of course, was burdened with the worst name in politics, a record in Florida that mostly consisted of having the good sense to preside during a housing boom and to get out before the crash, and an easily torpedoed post-government high-class business-grift career. Worst of all of course, he turned out to have zero talent as an actual working politician.
Lindsey Graham was always a “message” candidate. Yes, he’s a senator with actual legislative experience, and on paper he’s at least plausible. But at no time did he actually capture the interest of a significant faction of the party. It’s conceivable, at least, that if the Republican field had been the same size as the Democrats — five at the most — he might have had a chance to move from being McCain’s mini-me to some more plausible shot at the nomination, but if I were the Emperor of all the Indies, I’d be farting through silk, and that hasn’t happened either.
John Kasich, as a lot of commentators pointed out, was the most plausible “conventional” candidate on a paint by numbers sort of analysis: federal experience, re-elected as governor of a large, diverse and swing state, actual policy knowledge. (All bad policy, of course, but at least he understands the task.) For all that’s wrong with him on his actual merits, I can’t deny that at the start of the campaign season, he actually appeared to be someone who could say “I’m running for president” with a straight face.
Hence the obvious response to “INVINCIBLE!” This was the political analogue to a boxing undercard of stiffs, tomato-cans, punchers with slow feet, cuteys better at dancing than fighting and so on. These were the bouts you arrange so as not to undermine the confidence of a still-raw devotee of the Sweet Science. They were, as it turned out, palookas.
IOW: A well-stocked bench does not equal a strong bench, and it’s worth thinking about that a little as we move on to the general. The Republican party is in a dominant position in state governments and in Congress. Despite that, it has a dearth of those who can plausibly put themselves forward as national leaders. And it’s not getting better with the up-and-comers. Sasse? Cotton? Ernst? New Mexico’s Martinez, in a party now led by an anti-Latino bigot…and so on.
Or think on the surrogates the two nominees-presumptive can bring to bear on the campaign at hand. As lots have noted, Hillary gets POTUS, FLOTUS, Uncle Joe, Senator Professor Warren, and some guy named Bill as her starting five. Combover Caligula (thanks Betty!)? Chris Christie. Somebody. Somebody else. Somebody’s twin nephews. Or, if we take his former rivals expressions of support seriously: Christie, Rubio, and I don’t know, maybe a couple more.
I’m not writing this to gloat or to suggest that the election is over. It’s not. Trump is many things, but what makes him dangerous is that he has a dedicated, too-large base of support he knows exactly how to motivate. We let our guard down, he and they win; the country and the world loses.
But that phrase “a deep bench” still needs examination. The 2016 Republican primary is, as our troll suggests, a measure of the state of the party. There’s no doubt it commands power. What’s striking, though, is how thoroughly mediocre are those who wield it.
Which is, of course, why they must be destroyed, their cities sacked, and their fields sown with salt.
Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
*Via commenter Richard Grant, “Rand Paul, whose latest accomplishment was blocking The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act…”
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools, c. 1494-1510.
How Did We Get Here?
Samantha Bee brilliantly sums up the state of the race:
Man, she’s good. Open thread!
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Onwards!
Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee. https://t.co/40Jz20OX1q pic.twitter.com/nY2loMiOZq
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 7, 2016
We’re flattered, @AP, but we've got primaries to win. CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ, SD, vote tomorrow! https://t.co/8t3GpZqc1U
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 7, 2016
Claire Landsbaum, at NYMag‘s ladyblog The Cut:
…[A]s Clinton said in her graduation speech at Wellesley College in 1969, “We found — as all of us have found — that there was a gap between expectation and realities. But it wasn’t a discouraging gap, and it didn’t turn us into cynical, bitter old women…It just inspired us to do something about the gap.”
Since last April, Clinton has been doing something about that gap. And with her presumptive nomination tonight, she’s finally shattered “that highest, hardest glass ceiling.”
Remember when AP declared this for Trump and everybody accepted it as reality? Yeah, this won't be like that. https://t.co/ihgxwPV60R
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 7, 2016
Still some primaries today, of course — CA and NJ are getting the most attention — and chewing over the results should make for a busy evening regardless.
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Wish I Could Have Heard This Conversation
President Obama called Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday afternoon, according to a source familiar with the conversation, reports CBS News’ Julianna Goldman.
While the source didn’t characterize the conversation, Sanders spokesman told CBS News’ Kylie Atwood that the two have spoken on multiple occasions.
The call between the two lasted 30-45 minutes, CBS News’ Nancy Cordes reported. Sanders also spoke with the president by phone in mid-May.
The Vermont senator took the president’s call on the side of the road in the financial district in San Francisco, at around 2:30 p.m. ET. Atwood said that as the press bus drove by, Sanders could be seen standing on Market Street, legal pad in hand, as he talked on a cell phone.
The best part of this primary ending is that Obama can start beating Trump and the Republicans about the head and neck in support of Hillary because he no longer has to be neutral.
Wish I Could Have Heard This ConversationPost + Comments (77)
Excellent Read: “Did Hillary’s Campaign Have to Be This Hard?”
This came out before last week’s speech in San Diego; every time I went to post it, something new had happened. Rebecca Traister, at NYMag, on “Hillary Clinton vs. Herself”:
… All the epic allusions contribute to the difficulty Clinton has long had in coming across as, simply, a human being. She is uneasy with the press and ungainly on the stump. Catching a glimpse of the “real” her often entails spying something out of the corner of your eye, in a moment when she’s not trying to be, or to sell, “Hillary Clinton.” And in the midst of a presidential campaign, those moments are rare. You could see her, briefly, letting out a bawdy laugh in response to a silly question in the 11th hour of the Benghazi hearings, and there she was, revealed as regular in her damned emails, where she made drinking plans with retiring Maryland senator and deranged emailer Barbara Mikulski. Her inner circle claims to see her — to really see her, and really like her — every day. They say she is so different one-on-one, funny and warm and devastatingly smart. It’s hard for people who know her to comprehend why the rest of America can’t see what they do.
I spent several days with Hillary Clinton near the end of primary season — which, in campaign time, feels like a month, so much is packed into every hour — and I began to see why her campaign is so baffled by the disconnect. Far from feeling like I was with an awkward campaigner, I watched her do the work of retail politics — the handshaking and small-talking and remembering of names and details of local sites and issues — like an Olympic athlete. Far from seeing a remote or robotic figure, I observed a woman who had direct, thoughtful, often moving exchanges: with the Wheelers, with home health-care workers and union representatives and young parents…
The sexism is less virulent now than it was in 2008, she said, but still she encounters people on rope lines who tell her, “ ‘I really admire you, I really like you, I just don’t know if I can vote for a woman to be president.’ I mean, they come to my events and then they say that to me.”
But, she maintains, “Unpacking this, understanding it, is for writers like you. I’m just trying to cope with it. Deal with it. Live through it.”
Here, Clinton laughed, as if living through it were a hilarious punch line…
Excellent Read: “Did Hillary’s Campaign Have to Be This Hard?”Post + Comments (294)