Jeb Bush

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A trip to New Hampshire

Posted by noonante on February 9, 2016
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

My political junkie brother proposed a trip to New Hampshire in advance of the Tuesday primaries.  I thought it a brilliant idea and am embarrassed that I had not thought of it.  That would make me one of the few such junkies to not have done so.

We met a number of interesting people on our trip.  While my intent was to get the thinking of the state’s residents, most of the people we met were also political junkies.  The first two people we met were not only from Massachusetts, but one was from our home town.  Then there was the Philadelphia resident who had been making this journey since 1984.  Going to our second event of the day, we met three people who had come from the same event we were at, but one of them actually lived in the state.

We went to three events on Sunday, the day following the debate that will forever be known as the “Rubio debate” should his promising campaign collapse. We planned a second day in which we hope to see two of the most personality-challenged Republican candidates  –  Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz.  A major snow storm targeting Massachusetts forced us to cut our trip short and miss “Coffee with Carly.”

Serendipitously, our first event was a Rubio pancake breakfast in Londonderry scheduled for 8:30.  I was surprised to see a table offering muffins and fruit before the pancakes, but was even more surprised to hear that there would not actually be pancakes.  According to the campaign, the anticipated crowd of 800 forced them to abandon the plan. We then, however, had to wait 90 minutes for the candidate to appear, who then said that he “hoped” there was food.  I had hoped there was food too since I had not had breakfast.  But, the campaign could not find a Legion hall, Rotary, or local church that could handle pancakes for a crowd?

Rubio delivered a standard stump speech, including the comment about the President knowing exactly what he is doing –  perhaps the only thing he has said that I agree with. In fairness, however, I do not fault him for that.  I just drove around to three events that day and did not have to deliver a speech or otherwise perform, and I was tired at the end of it.

So Chris Christie’s event  –  yet another dose of serendipity  –  was a surprise.  I arrived late because I was talking to a real live New Hampshire voter in the parking lot.  He lived in the neighborhood and was taken aback by the number of cars which he estimated to be twice that of a recent Donald Trump event.  He is also the only person who told me who he was going to vote for  –  Jeb!

When I got in the Christie event, he was in shirt sleeves taking questions from the crowd, so I do not know if he began with his own stump speech.  There was none of the surliness or bullying that have often been ascribed to him.  (By the way, how can you bully someone running for President as some commentators accused him of doing with Rubio in the debate?)

The guy is a natural and gifted politician.  He was thoughtful, knowledgeable, charming and funny.  If New Hampshire is indeed a retail politics state where its voters appreciate direct contact, it is difficult to see how Christie could not be successful.

He had several compelling anecdotes.  One was about the little girl crying because her home had been destroyed by Hurricane Sandy and his response to her  –  “Your home is with your parents.”  Another about running into James Gandolfini at a Broadway play and being told “You know it’s all make believe.”  It wasn’t clear whether he was referring to his TV show, the Mafia or politics  –  or all three.

But his line that brought the crowd to its feet had to do with who would be the strongest candidate to face Hillary Clinton at the first debate.  Christie observed that she did not want to see him walk on stage “because she’s been running away from Federal prosecutors for six months.”  Not true, of course, but it got the crowd going.

From there it was on to a Bernie Sanders event.  I had been carrying a large camera bag to the previous venues without anyone asking to look into it.  This time it  –  and I  –  were searched by Secret Service agents.  If you thing the TSA is intrusive, don’t go to something being secured by the Secret Service.  When we got into the hall, there was a media corral that looked like something you might see at a major sporting event.

Sanders delivered his standard stump speech, and the event seemed more like a rally than a town hall sort of thing in front of undecided voters.

When we left and walked to our car in the distant overflow parking lot, we started counting the number of New Hampshire license plates.  It may not have been one of every ten cars, but it was surely at most one in eight.  And many of the people we met at the earlier events were from out-of-state.  While we attended three packed events  –  we could never sit down  –  it is not clear what percentage of the crowd were potential voters on Tuesday.

Yet there were New Hampshirites (Granite Staters?) who said they were undecided and attending events to learn more about the candidates.  It’s a testimony to our political system that so many were willing to wait 90 minutes, many standing the whole time, to participate in the process.

I was also struck by the people who were not only undecided, but undecided about which primary they would vote in.  I was surprised to hear that for some the choice was Bernie Sanders or one of the Republicans.

Yet another impression I had was that two candidates were viewed with a high level of animosity  –  Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So in a campaign that has produced surprises within each party, confounding the pundits and other “experts,” I think we can expect more of the same from New Hampshire and down the road.  As someone who often writes about horse racing and enjoys the occasional wager, I cannot end without a longshot prediction.  He may not win, but I think Jeb Bush is primed for a surprisingly good result tonight.

Trump is the one

Posted by noonante on January 17, 2016
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Near the end of Thursday’s debate among the top seven Republican contenders I came to the conclusion that Donald Trump would be the nominee.  Not only was this his best performance in any debate so far  –  a bar that is not too difficult to pass  –  but at times he was actually coherent and thoughtful.

When I began covering the last round of debates in 2011, I would take detailed notes to record interesting positions or statements that might require some fact-checking.  This time around I realized there was no point.  The positions of each candidate were predictable with only minor variations:  Obama is a complete failure  –  either a weakling who does nothing or a semi-dictator who openly flouts the Constitution to do what he wants;  Hillary would be more of the same;  Benghazi;  Planned Parenthood;  etc., etc., etc.

In the fact-free zone that is the right-wing fever swamp, the truth is what you say it is.  Thus, we have Marco Rubio saying that the President has “ten times” travelled the globe apologizing for America.  Mitt Romney tried the same approach four years ago and it was a claim debunked by impartial fact-checkers.  Chris Christie denied contributing to Planned Parenthood or supporting Sonia Sotomayor.  He did both.  And on and on and on.

There was a rare moment in this debate when there was actually a substantive discussion on an important issue, having to do with tariffs.  I could not begin to explain it, but, then again, neither could Ben Carson.

In the absence of meaningful policy discussions based on actual facts, the demeanor of the candidates becomes all-important.  The debate format places the candidates in order of poll numbers, with the most popular being center-stage and the least popular occupying the ends of the stage.  As the debate progressed, I visualized a giant saw loping off the ends of the stage with Jeb Bush and John Kasich falling off it.  Described by the pundits as the only adults in the room, neither has exactly captured the mood of the likely Republican electorate.  Kasich talks about his Washington experience from 20 years ago.  Bush, on the verge of being the biggest disaster ever on the national stage, at one point asked viewers to compare the present with the end of his brother’s presidency.  He apparently forgot the massive financial fraud that threatened the world’s economy, as well as the war waged on false pretenses that continued to claim American lives.  Carson can’t be far behind them in finally departing.

That would leave two remaining “establishment” candidates to confront Trump and Ted Cruz.  To say that each has significant flaws would be a major understatement.  Rubio clearly has no compunction at making stuff up  –  from the Obama apology tour to Clinton being investigated for criminal behavior to Obama wanting to take away guns  –  but telling the truth does not appear to be a prerequisite for a viable candidate in the GOP primaries.  But, he not only appears callow, but has a speaking style reminiscent of the articulate adolescent who thinks he can’t be caught if he keeps on talking.

Is there anyone who can really see Chris Christie as President of the United States?  His tough-talking shtick appeals to those who thing toughness means talking that way, even if what you are saying is hollow and meaningless.  Also, there is also a reason he is unpopular in New Jersey, and all those he has intimidated over the years will be coming out of the woodwork.  And while speaking the truth may not be a valued commodity in the political realm, two of Christie’s falsehoods  –  contributing to Planned Parenthood and supporting an Obama nominee to the Supreme Court  –  run counter to what the right-wing believes are essential values.

So we are left with Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.  In my opinion, Cruz is the most loathsome figure currently on the national stage.  It’s not just his smarmy oleaginous attitude, but his complete lack of doing anything that does not conform to his ideological world view.  Trump has raised a new birther issue with Cruz, who was not born in this country but has a mother who is an American citizen.  While I think it is an issue  –  regardless of the legal merits  –  that should not affect his being on the ballot, there are those in the Republican electorate who may think differently.  At least his place of birth, Canada, is predominantly white, unlike Kenya.

In in future dictionaries, the phrase “coming home to roost” will be accompanied by the smirking visage of Donald J. Trump.  Ever since Barack Obama became President, Republican leaders of all stripes have vilified him, whether for Obamacare or his supposedly weak foreign policy.  Nothing the man did or say could ever be given credit for fear of provoking outrage from the right.  Any actual compromise  –  rare as they may be  –  provoked charges of treason.  So it should be little wonder that a forceful and compelling figure could arise in this atmosphere and attract significant support among an electorate.

It is an electorate that tired of promises from Republican politicians that it would repeal Obamacare.  Never mind that even if they got the votes in Congress, they would not be sufficient to withstand a Presidential veto.  It is an electorate that is repeatedly told that Obama has weakened America abroad.  Never mind that he finally got Osama bin Laden, or that he reduced significantly the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.  All we really need, according to them, is someone who talks tough.

One of the most revealing aspects of this GOP debate is the scorn heaped on the President for the American sailors captured by Iran.  Never mind that they were captured after mistakenly sailing into the waters of a foreign country or that they were released without harm within hours.  Never mind that the immediate release is undoubtedly the result of improved relations with one of the region’s two major powers.  It was the photographs of the capture.  Never mind that in the last Republican administration, they refused to allow photographs of American caskets arriving at Andrew Air Force base from the combat in Iraq.  Theirs is a hypocrisy that has no limits.

Trump is not only the logical result of a political view that cares little for reality, but he has now become what may be an inevitable nominee.  He was initially dismissed as a clown whose offensive statements and lack of political subtlety would sink him.  I think he is a clown and offensive, but has three traits that I think bring him the nomination.

The first is an uncanny sense of what appeals to the electorate  –  in this case those who vote in a Republican presidential primary.  His comments about Mexican and Muslim immigrants repulse many in the general electorate, but have apparently struck a chord among those in the Republican base.  He dismisses criticism of his bigoted statements as “political correctness,” a comment for which he is applauded.

The second is a quick-witted critique of those who are running against him or have criticized him.  It may not be his one-line comments about Jeb Bush that have reduced the presumed front-runner and most well-financed candidate ever into someone who could be out of the race in three weeks, but they certainly have not helped.  His assertion that “others” have raised questions about Ted Cruz’ eligibility to be President will necessarily distract the Cruz campaign.

Finally, this most recent debate has demonstrated that Trump has become a seriously improved candidate.  Lest you think that is insignificant, consider that Hillary Clinton, who first ran eight years ago, appears to not only have not upped her game from back then, but is repeating some of the same mistakes.  Trump handled two issues having obviously prepared for them.

The first was the comment made by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley following the State of the State in which she decried the anger that appears to animate the Republican base.  Trump embraced being angry, reciting his usual litany of why he is.  You don’t have to agree with him on the substance to appreciate that he handled the matter skillfully and with aplomb.

Then there was the odious Cruz’ remarks about “New York values.”  Trump devastated him to the extent that Cruz ended up applauding his answer.

In this second year of the campaign, Trump has gone from being universally derided by the “experts” as a charlatan or clown  –  or both  –  to being on the verge of springing the most remarkable upset in modern American history.

 

GOP candidates wilt after Paris attacks

Posted by noonante on November 18, 2015
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 Comments

What can you say about our country when a late night comedian addresses the horror in Paris movingly and tastefully, yet candidates for the Republican nomination are falling over themselves to see who can be the biggest jerk?  On Monday night’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert skipped his opening monologue while Jon Batiste and Stay Human played La Marseillaise.  Colbert then leavened his opening comments with an appropriate level of levity.

While compassion, restraint and dignity is the correct response to an attack on one of our oldest allies, the GOP candidates used the occasion as their latest partisan salvo, featuring yet another attack on foreigners hoping to enter the country.  Their justification  – if you can even call it that  –  is that the Paris attack was by refugees from Syria.  That is not true  –  there is confusing evidence as to whether one of the attackers came from Syria, but the rest were from Europe.

But the right in this country does not need facts to support their policies, and a provocative sound-bite is always better than a reasoned argument.  Their idea of a policy  –  and a popular attack against Democrats  –  is that we should be calling these fanatics “radical Islamic terrorists.”  How that is going to alter the facts on the ground doesn’t matter.  It is easier than coming up with a coherent policy alternative.

Now there is a movement to bar Syrian refugees who are Muslim from entering the country while admitting those who are Christian.  Even so-called moderates in the GOP field share this view, although calling any of them a moderate shows how far we have moved in this country from standard political definitions.  Jeb Bush favors this approach.  John Kasich thinks we need a new federal agency to promote Judeo-Christian values rather than running from them  –  something you may not have known was going on.

Barring people from entering our country because of their religion is not, of course, what we are about as a nation.  It is particularly appalling as we enter Thanksgiving week, a holiday commemorating our past of refugees fleeing religious persecution.  While the Pilgrims just had to step off a ship, entering the United States as a refugee now is a difficult and lengthy process.  While the know-nothing blowhard Donald Trump is talking about 250,000 Syrian refuges, the reality –  again that distasteful word  – is that less than one per cent of that number have arrived.

Even if we are willing to ignore the words on the Statue of Liberty and add another chapter to a disgraceful past in which we incarcerated those of Japanese ancestry and turned away a ship of Jews fleeing Hitler’s persecution, let’s contemplate the practical effects of such a policy.

For starters, there is the rather obvious issue of how one determines someone is a Christian and not a Muslim.  Even if there were a sensible way of doing this, it is safe to assume that a jihadist seeking to enter the country can successfully pass whatever test is presented.

The most troublesome  –  if not disastrous  – aspect of a policy discriminating between Christians and Muslims is that it furthers the goals of the jihadists to demonstrate that theirs is a war between Muslims and the “crusaders.”  Is there a better way to inflame young Muslims in this country, or to serve as a jihadist recruiting tool both here and abroad, than to have a national policy incorporating this bigotry?

The sad group of GOP candidates has now demonstrated  –  if there had been any doubt  –  that there is not a leader among them willing to assert American values that may be unpopular to some.  It is laughable that they talk about being tough  –  in contrast to the weak Obama  –  but now are afraid to admit three-year old orphans who were born to Muslim parents and are now fleeing persecution or death.

GOP kicks off 2016 political season

Posted by noonante on August 7, 2015
Posted in: Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I don’t know how we made it through the last 33 months without a presidential debate, but thankfully our nightmare is at long last over.  In words a thought I would never utter, Fox News put on a spirited, lively and informative debate last night.  At least the second group of moderators  –  Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace and Bret Baier  –  did.  More about the crew moderating the “kids’ table” debate later.

Although the chances of my voting for any of the 17 candidates in a general election are pretty low, here are some impressions from the two events:

  • John Kasich surprised me with his grasp of issues, as well as for his empathetic views on those who are less fortunate and on same-sex marriage.  He has run afoul of Republican orthodoxy for having the temerity to actually accept federal Medicaid dollars for low-income Ohioans, but explained it to voters who twice nominated a so-called “compassionate conservative” for the presidency.
  • Marco Rubio also impressed me.  He was articulate and knowledgeable.  One thing that surprised me about him is how large his ears are  –  a feature that is not exactly an impediment to becoming President.
  • Jeb Bush and Donald Trump were the least surprising candidates.  Bush continues with his plodding style that is unlikely to get anyone excited.  Trump, of course, gets lots of people excited  –  some for, some agin.  He did candidly acknowledge that he gives a lot of money to candidates  –  including Democrats  –  because he expects something in return.  He contributed to Hilary Clinton so she would come to his wedding!
  • The moderators in the earlier debate –  the “kids’ table” or the “happy hour” debate  –  were as bad as the later group was good.  Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer appeared to be auditioning for promotions in the Roger Ailes/Fox News hierarchy.  The underlying assumption to many of their questions was an acceptance of right-wing heterodoxy as reality.  Should mosques be placed under surveillance?  How do we stop government hand-outs?  The second group, by contrast, asked specific policy-related questions, often tailored to a particular candidate’s previous positions.
  • Lindsey Graham will take us back to war in Iraq with ground troops.  Ben Carson  –  a doctor  –  will resume waterboarding because he is opposed to “politically correct wars.”
  • Carly Fiorina was clearly the star of the early group.
  • It is unclear why either Jim Gilmore or George Pataki is running.  Neither adds anything not offered by another candidate, although you could say the same about at least another half-dozen.  Both of the former governors stress they were in office on 9/11  –  a dubious qualification at best, and reminiscent of how Rudy Giuliani was able to convert that into winning exactly one delegate.
  • Rick Santorum remains capable of turning any issue back to abortion.  In response to a question on same-sex marriage  –  a group that likely does not have many unwanted pregnancies  –  into his staunch record opposing a woman’s right to choose.  Apparently, this was in case anyone does not already know that about him.  Mike Huckabee topped that with a statement saying “scientists” have proven that human life begins at conception because of some muddled description of DNA testing.

In terms of actual policy positions, there is not much variability among the 17.  All are opposed to funding Planned Parenthood, but with one exception opposed to abortion.  (Pataki is the lone pro-choice candidate, and as one moderator pointed out, a pro-choice candidate has not won a Republican primary in the last 35 years.)  All are opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran, although Fiorina seems to be the lone pragmatist acknowledging it was the best we are going to get.  Immigration?  You can probably guess.  Obamacare?  Please.

The most remarkable omission from the list of debate topics is a subject that should have been foremost  –  race relations.  There was no mention of it during the first debate.  In the second debate, there was a question to one candidate (Scott Walker) about “Black Lives Matter,” but nothing approaching a discussion.  Then the last question of the more than three hours of debate was one about the state of race relations  –  to Ben Carson.  There were, however, questions to several candidates about whether he had received a “word from God,’ that was then incongruously mixed in with a question about veterans.  In fairness, however, the Democratic candidates have not exactly covered themselves with glory when the matter of race comes up.

All in all, however, I thought the second Fox crew did an excellent job in managing an unwieldy group of 10 candidates in the two hours (including commercials) allotted.  We at least know more about each candidate than we did two days ago.