Tag Archives: RealClearPolitics

national news, political news

Why not Kasich, indeed?

cruz and kasich

No one is talking about him this morning.

The political story line of the day — and perhaps for the rest of the week — will be the epic crash of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s Republican Party primary presidential campaign and the pending nomination of one Donald J. Trump as the party’s next standard-bearer.

But there is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, all alone in the corner, wondering what in the name of political punditry he’s got to do to get anyone’s attention.

As the co-founder of RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevan, has noted: Kasich is the one Republican candidate who polls ahead of Hillary Clinton — but the GOP voter base is rejecting him.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/03/tom_bevan_will_bernie_voters_shift_to_trump.html

From my vantage point out here in Middle America, it appears Kasich’s dilemma serves as a fitting metaphor for the demise of what we used to know as the Republican Party.

Kasich is a traditional Republican. He’s been a player in the “establishment” for more than two decades. He served in Congress and became a party leader. He chaired the House Budget Committee and worked with Democrats and fellow Republicans to balance the federal budget.

That’s a big deal, dude.

However, he’s getting zero traction — none! — on that record.

The GOP voting base is now turning its attention and showering its love on a guy who’s got zero government experience, no philosophy and seemingly not a scintilla of grace.

Those voters are angry. So they’re going with the guy who shares their anger.

Can this guy govern? No.

What the hell. That doesn’t matter.

The Grand Old Party as we used to know it appears to have died. Its demise wasn’t entirely peaceful. It’s being replaced by something that is still taking form.

One of those formerly important Republicans — Gov. Kasich — is now among its casualties.

 

media news, national news, political news

Speaking of polls, take a look at this

PollingFundamentals

Now that public opinion polls have become a staple of American political coverage, it’s good to look at the latest survey of Americans’ views of the job the president is doing.

RealClearPolitics posts a national average of polls daily.

The numbers are instructive.

President Obama now stands at 2.7 percent approval-over-disapproval in the average of polls that RCP posts.

Why is this important? It’s important because most of the remaining candidates for president — Republican and Democrat — keep talking about polls and their relative standing among them.

Donald J. Trump bellows constantly when the polls show him beating fellow Republicans Ted Cruz or John Kasich. Cruz counters with favorable poll reports when they suit his cause. Kasich keeps saying the polls show him as the only GOP candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.

Oh yes. Bernie Sanders keeps talking about the polls that show him “closing the gap” for the Democratic nomination with Clinton.

Polls, polls, polls …

Remember when pols said “the only poll that counts is on Election Day”? Not only longer. They keep yapping about the polls and the media keep reporting it.

Thus, they have become important.

Back to the RCP poll average.

President Obama’s poll ratings had been in the tank for most of his second term. They weren’t necessarily horrible; just flat, lingering in the mid-40 percent range. What’s most interesting is that his favorable ratings were usually significantly less than his unfavorable ratings.

Today, though, it’s different. His favorability rating, according to the RCP average, stands at 49 percent, nearly 3 percent greater than his unfavorable rating.

Two more quick points.

One is that the RCP average takes into account all the major polling results done. Conservative polling outfits are measured, along with liberal polling companies. They’re tossed in altogether and you get the average of all the polls.

The second point is that RCP’s average of polls about the job Congress is doing shows a 14 percent job approval rating.

 

 

national news, political news

‘Tis the season … of the polls

Polls%20and%20Surveys%20pic

Donald Trump loves polls, especially when they show him leading the still-large pack of Republican presidential candidates.

Barack Obama isn’t so much in love with them.

However, the great underreported story has to be Congress’s continued miserable standing among American voters, according to those pesky polls.

I follow RealClearPolitics summary of polls. I like tracking the president’s poll standing, not to mention the candidates seeking to succeed him a year from January.

But look at how poorly Congress is faring.

The RCP polls are a compilation of leading public opinion surveys. The last one, which I have attached to this blog post, puts Congress’s rating at 12 percent.

Twelve percent!

Nearly nine out of 10 Americans surveyed think Congress is doing a crappy job of governing.

President Obama’s latest poll standing, while not great, is at around 43 percent. There’s an 8-point difference between those who approve of the job he’s doing and those who disapprove. The congressional approval/disapproval spread? How about 63.8 percent?

I’m not usually one to rely too heavily on polls. I understand their nature, that they serve merely as snapshots that capture a political moment. Polls go up and down like Yo-Yos.

However, while Obama’s critics keep lambasting his lackluster poll numbers, they don’t seem to take into account that Congress’s poll standing is far worse — and it, too, hasn’t moved much at all for, oh, about the past three years.

Obama is a member of one party; Congress is controlled by the other party.

The president’s polling isn’t great. Congress’s standing is downright miserable.

 

political news

Only the ‘rich’ can serve in Congress?

Alcee Hastings must not be a wealthy man.

The Florida Democratic U.S. representatives wants a pay raise from the 174 grand he makes annually. He says “only rich people” are able to serve in Congress, given the paltry sum House members and senators earn each year.

Please. Stop.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/19/congressional-pay_n_7337282.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

Have members of Congress earned a pay raise? Consider a little bit of information here.

The latest average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com puts congressional approval rating at about 15 percent. Fifteen percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. The polls don’t ask voters, more than likely, whether they think Congress deserves a raise.

As for Hastings’s assertion that only rich people can serve now, I want to add two quick points.

One, did he not know how much the office paid when he chose to run for Congress when he was impeached by Congress and tossed off the federal bench after being convicted of bribery and perjury by the Senate?

Two, there exist plenty of examples of members of Congress enriching themselves while serving on Capitol Hill. One example that comes to mind immediately is my former congressman, the late Jack Brooks, a Democrat from Beaumont, who used to cite how poor he was when he was elected to Congress in 1952, but who acquired tremendous wealth by virtue of his serving on a number of bank and other corporate boards.

The only possible positive I can see in Hastings’s demand for more money lies in the U.S. Constitution’s 27th Amendment, which says: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

 

 

media news, political news

Clinton needs to do more of this: answer questions

Hillary Clinton has been keeping a low profile of late, steering clear of nosy reporters whose job is to inform the public about the men and women who seek to lead the powerful nation in the world.

But she relented — finally — to reporters’ curiosity about a number of issues that have dogged the presidential candidate of late.

She spent time answering questions, jousting on occasion.

There must be much more of this as Clinton’s campaign continues to develop.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/20/reporters_press_clinton_on_25m_speaker_fees_emails.html

Clinton’s Republican foes have chided her for her absence in front of reporters. They have needled her because she’s answered so few questions relating to private emails, her enormous speaking fees, her participation in the Clinton Foundation — all these matters that speak to a number of questions people have about the Democratic Party candidate.

It goes with the territory, which Clinton surely knows already.

She spent eight years as first lady, six years as a U.S. senator and four years as secretary of state. Every one of those posts requires accessibility for the media, which act as the agents for the public.

Alex Semindinger writes for RealClearPolitics: “The former secretary of state is a practiced communicator. Most of what she told the scrum of national media echoed what she’s said before. Nevertheless, her words ricocheted through social media and cable television in an instant, revisiting subjects she’s strained to bury.”

Clinton needs to toss the shovel aside and stop seeking to bury these issues. They’re out there and she needs to explain herself.

 

national news, political news

Let's not quibble over use of 'thug'

1 Comment

Allow me this request.

How about stopping the quibbling and quarreling over the use of the term “thugs” to describe individuals who loot, pillage, burn and otherwise destroy other people’s property — not to mention injure or kill others — while rioting?

Dennis Prager, writing for RealClearPolitics.com, seems to think liberals have gotten thin-skinned about using the term. Liberals, according to Prager, seem to think it connotes someone’s race.

I consider myself a liberal thinker. I know other liberals, friends of mine. I’m unafraid to use the term. I mean nothing other than to describe the activity of the individual doing the misdeed. A thug is a thug. Period.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/05/why_the_left_wont_call_rioters_thugs_126496.html

It doesn’t. Honest. The term covers many aspects of misbehavior. If you mug someone on the street, you’re a thug. If you like to fight others just to prove your manhood, you’re a thug. When I was growing up, if you “TP’d” someone’s house with toilet paper, you were a thug; these days, such activity is considered a compliment if you’re a teenager.

This notion that the rioters who destroyed businesses in Baltimore and other communities of late were labeled “thugs” because of their race is ridiculous on its face.

A team wins the World Series or the Super Bowl or the NBA championship. Fans who live in the city of the winning team are so delirious they storm the streets, turn over cars, light them on fire. Last time I witnessed one of these events on TV, I noticed a lot of white folks among them. They’re thugs, too.

Thuggish behavior knows no racial boundary.

 

national news, political news

'Spunk' drives Obama's poll spike? Perhaps

Polls are fun to follow. I do so regularly.

The most interesting and authoritative poll is actually a compilation of public opinion surveys. RealClearPolitics.com compiles the results and publishes a running average of all the polls. The key subject of these polls is President Obama’s approval ratings.

Lately, they’re going up … significantly.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/14/obamas_new_spunk_lifted_ratings_white_house_says.html

As of this morning, the president has earned a rating of just less than 45 percent of Americans who approve of the way he’s doing his job.

Two quick points about these findings.

(1) They belie the notion that Obama’s poll numbers are “plummeting, skidding, spiraling downward” or whatever nasty verb the right-wing media keep using to describe his standing among Americans.

(2) White House aides believe the polls reflect his newfound “spunk” in dealing with the loyal opposition that now controls both legislative houses of the U.S. Congress. I agree with that, to a point. I think they reflect Americans’ continuing distrust of Congress, whose approval rating is still languishing at around 14 percent, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll average.

Juxtaposed with Congress’s dismal standing among Americans, the president is looking pretty good.

What does all this mean for the future? My strong hunch is that it means Congress needs to govern more and obstruct less. Believe it or not, view is that Americans actually want their federal government to work for them. It takes cooperation between the two governing branches — the White House and Capitol Hill.

Pay attention, folks.