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2016 Election Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 06, 2016 32 Comments
Elizabeth Warren's claim to be Native American is an issue that just won't go away. It dogged her during the 2012 Senate run, but she was able to deflect the issue through the help of supportive media and reliance on supposed "family lore," Some of that "lore" was downright laughable, like the "high cheekbones" story which itself was questionable. Much of the "lore," or as much as was capable of being fact checked considering it was based on several decades-old stories, also was questionable. Warren turns questioning of her story into an attack on her family, as a way of shutting down inquiry.

Posted by New Neo on May 06, 2016 43 Comments
Republican Senator Ben Sasse has written an open letter to America. I agree with a great deal of it, but I wanted to take issue with something. Here's an excerpt:
In the history of polling, we’ve basically never had a candidate viewed negatively by half of the electorate. This year, we have two. In fact, we now have the two most unpopular candidates ever – Hillary by a little, and Trump by miles (including now 3 out of 4 women – who vote more and influence more votes than men). There are dumpster fires in my town more popular than these two “leaders.” With Clinton and Trump, the fix is in. Heads, they win; tails, you lose. Why are we confined to these two terrible options? This is America. If both choices stink, we reject them and go bigger. That’s what we do. Remember: our Founders didn’t want entrenched political parties. So why should we accept this terrible choice?
Sasse goes on to suggest a non-Trump non-Hillary candidate (not himself, by the way), but he doesn't say who that person should be.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 22 Comments
As he has repeatedly stated, Obama is confident that a Democrat will win the White House in November, and now Harry Reid is expressing that he is "fairly certain" that Democrats will take back the Senate this year. The Hill reports:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Sunday that he thinks his party will win back the majority in the Senate this year. During a radio interview with John Catsimatidis, Reid detailed the Democratic efforts against several vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection this year.
Considering that Democrats need win only five Senate seats (they currently have 46 seats, including the two Independents who caucus with them) to accomplish this goal and given the disarray on the right, Reid's prediction seems far less laughable than it would have only a year ago. The Hill continues:
“We only need four [seats] to take the majority,” he said. “With the numbers I’ve given you, it’s going to be a fairly certain thing that we can do that.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 01, 2016 79 Comments
I love my husband, but he is one of the "doom-and-gloomers" who insists Hillary Clinton will win in November, and in a landslide if the GOP candidate is Donald Trump. This post is my response to him, and all the other naysayers and pessimists out there I see in social media. There are a myriad of reasons any Republican candidate can win in the end. In light of recent developments in California, however, I would like to focus why Donald Trump specifically can achieve a glorious victory over Hillary Clinton this fall. I promise to prepare another, similar post if the summer conventions generate an alternative electoral battle combination. My case will begin with some remarks my hairstylist made this week, during my regular hair-coloring session.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 02, 2016 19 Comments
Thanks in large part to the Emory University students who pathetically panicked after seeing pro-Trump messages written in chalk on campus sidewalks, pro-Trump messages are now appearing on other college campuses. The whole thing is going viral on Twitter under the hashtag #TheChalkening. Here are some choice examples:

Posted by New Neo on March 28, 2016 19 Comments
I cannot recall a campaign season even remotely like this one, where the majority of American voters dislike both frontrunners.  This was hinted at following the Florida primary and is confirmed by a recent CBS News/New York Times poll:
Compared to frontrunners in previous presidential primary races, Trump and Clinton's unfavorable ratings (57 percent and 52 percent respectively) are the highest in CBS News/New York Times Polls going back to 1984, when CBS began asking this question.

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 27, 2016 8 Comments
The Republican candidates made a lot of pledges to the record-breaking pro-Israel crowd at last week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, D.C. Among them was the promise that they’ll move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So, if he becomes President, will Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich move the American Embassy to Israel’s capital city? Don’t count on it.

Promises, promises

Moving the embassy would break with over two decades of bipartisan White House policy to circumvent the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, a law which mandates its relocation. [caption id="attachment_128948" align="alignnone" width="600"]U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv Beach Satellite [U.S. Embassy location on Tel Aviv Beach][/caption]

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 22, 2016 14 Comments
At a campaign event in Washington State yesterday, the former president encouraged the audience to support his wife's candidacy while bashing the "awful legacy of the last eight years." Is Bill Clinton's advanced age catching up to him? The American Mirror reported:
VIDEO: Bill Clinton slams ‘awful legacy of last 8 years’ Bill Clinton is either losing it, or he’s ramping up his attacks on President Obama. Neither is good news for Hillary Clinton.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 17, 2016 18 Comments
To all the Trump supporters out there, and to The Donald, don't get your hopes up about Trump defeating Hillary in New York State in a general election. It's delusion. Trump does have a strong base of support in Upstate NY, the vast area north and west of New York City. Upstate NY Map But the downstate Democrat vote will swamp him, which is exactly what a Sienna College polling institute poll shows:

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 16, 2016 15 Comments
It's amazing to see a politician who urged his supporters to argue with others and get in their faces, who told people to vote for revenge and whose party called Republicans hostage takers and terrorists suddenly concerned about political rhetoric. The Associated Press reports:
Obama Dismayed by Vulgarity, Violence of Campaign President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was dismayed by "vulgar and divisive rhetoric" directed at women and minorities as well as the violence that has occurred in the 2016 presidential campaign, a swipe at Republican front-runner Donald Trump that also served as a challenge to other political leaders to speak out and set a better example.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 11, 2016 6 Comments
In his latest video, Bill Whittle offers a calm, reasoned analysis of the 2016 election so far. Although he doesn't give any easy answers, he does a great job of allaying some of the anxiety many of us are feeling. Whittle opens by describing how ancient map makers would mark uncharted waters with the words "Here be dragons" and carries the metaphor through his breakdown of an election unlike any in recent memory.

Posted by Mike LaChance on March 03, 2016 32 Comments
One of the best things Republicans have going for them in 2016 is voter enthusiasm. So far in the primary process, voter turnout greatly favors the GOP over Democrats. Phillip Bump reports at the Washington Post:
1 million more people have voted in Republican primaries than Democratic ones We've been tracking the discrepancy between turnout in the Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses since Iowa — the night it became very clear that people coming out to vote for Republicans were turning out much more heavily.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 02, 2016 43 Comments
Professor Jacobson notes that socialism-embracing Sen. Bernie Sanders is enjoying a lot of "other people's money" in the form of donations. He suggested that Sanders is poised solidify his position as the designated nominee should Hillary "fall". I wanted to add another perspective on the current state of the Democratic Party's race. While some Republicans are initiating a #NeverTrump movement, there is a very robust and dynamic #NeverHillary faction among progressives. I would like to highlight some of their sentiments, as these opinions are likely to go under-reported by our elite media.

Posted by New Neo on March 02, 2016 41 Comments
Even before yesterday's Super Tuesday primaries, it seemed that Cruz and Rubio were locked in a game of Chicken, and it promised to be a bumpy ride. The same holds true now:
The game of chicken, also known as the hawk-dove game or snowdrift game, is an influential model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while each player prefers not to yield to the other, the worst possible outcome occurs when both players do not yield. The name "chicken" has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a "chicken," meaning a coward.
Although there are five players now left in the GOP primary, one is dominant (Trump) and the two second-place candidates have been trading leads (Cruz and Rubio), with the other two (Kasich and Carson) very far behind. Back when the game featured far more players, the GOP race seemed a variation of the Tragedy of the Commons:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 13, 2016 10 Comments
FOX News is running a special program this weekend called Voter Revolt which focuses on the rejection of establishment politicians in the 2016 election. Bret Baier hosts and covers both sides of the race in the balanced style anyone who watches him on Special Report has come to expect.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 08, 2016 22 Comments
Former Nanny Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a public statement indicating he is considering running for President. This represents a slight elevation of speculation and posturing. The NY Times reports:

Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, confirmed in an interview with The Financial Times that he was actively weighing an independent campaign for president in 2016.

Mr. Bloomberg said he was “looking at all the options” in the election and lamented the state of the race. “I find the level of discourse and discussion distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters,” Mr. Bloomberg told the paper.

The comments are Mr. Bloomberg’s first public expression of interest in the presidential race, but aides acting on his instructions have already drawn up detailed plans for a possible campaign.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 01, 2016 63 Comments
Logically, Donald Trump should be the worst candidate against the Hillary machine. He has a colorful history that would be an oppo-researcher's dream.  Like taking candy from a baby. And his negatives are in the stratosphere. Gallup just released a survey showing that Trump's negatives not only are high, they are of a historic nature:
At this point (two-week average through Jan. 27), 33% of Americans view Trump favorably and 60% unfavorably. It's that 60% unfavorable figure that I can focus on here. Hillary Clinton currently has a 52% unfavorable rating among all Americans, while Jeb Bush is at 45%, Chris Christie 38%, Ted Cruz 37%, Marco Rubio 33%, Bernie Sanders 31% and Ben Carson 30%. Trump's 60% is clearly well above all of these. Putting his favorable and unfavorable ratings together yields a net favorable of -27 for Trump, far above the -10 for Clinton and for Bush, the next lowest among the major candidates.... Looking across all of these candidates' unfavorable ratings outside of election years yields this conclusion: Only one of them, George W. Bush, ever had an unfavorable rating of 60% or higher. For Bush, his unpopularity crested in his final lame-duck year in office, with an unfavorable rating that hit 66% in April 2008.
In the RCP average Trump trails Hillary by 2.7% in a head-to-head match up, while Rubio is up 2.5% and Cruz is up 1.3%. Yet, it seems that notwithstanding the Dem spin that they fear Rubio the most, the Clinton War Room is preparing for Trump, and is confounded. Politico reports, How Clinton is plotting to go after Trump:
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