Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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Game changer in Wisconsin?

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and his wave Jane acknowledge the crowd as he arrives for his caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Monday, Feb. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Bernie Sanders has scored the victory he was expected to get in Wisconsin.

Does that change the Democratic Party presidential primary game? Not just yet. The U.S. senator from Vermont has another big test ahead of him: New York. More on that in a bit.

The game now does appear to have changed in the other primary, the Republican one, where U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz drubbed Donald J. Trump in the GOP primary.

Cruz has cruised — pun intended — to a 20-point-plus victory in Wisconsin.

This sets up a longer-range battle as the GOP field slogs its way to the national convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Trump’s insults, his inattention to detail, his innuendo and his inability to articulate a detailed policy platform on any issue under the sun finally — finally! — seems to have caught up with him.

Is the Texan, Cruz, any better? To my way of thinking, well, no. He’s not.

There well might be a situation setting up whereby Trump arrives in Cleveland a good bit short of the delegates he’ll need to win the nomination on the first ballot. After that? All bets are off. Let the chaos reign!

As for Sanders’ victory in Wisconsin, he’s now heading into the belly of the beast. New York ain’t Wisconsin.

My concern about Sanders is that he is singing a one-note aria. Income inequality? The shrinking middle-class? Big banks? Wall Street hedge fund manager? What in the heck does Sanders intend to do about any of it?

The more I think about it, Sanders is sounding almost as demagogic on his pet issues as Trump is sounding on his.

Is Hillary Rodham Clinton the perfect candidate? Far from it. She’s flawed, too. But she’s been pounded and pilloried by her enemies for more than two decades. She’s still standing, still fighting back.

The way I see it, that speaks to this woman’s political courage.

Moreover, she did represent New York in the Senate for eight years and by all accounts — even from her Republican colleagues — became an effective senator for the Empire State.

I will await the next primary round to commence in New York. We’ll see if the game has changed for the Democrats as much as it appears to have changed for the Republicans.

 

media news, national news, political news

Polls, polls … and more polls

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Is it me or have the media become more obsessed with poll coverage in this presidential election cycle than ever before in the history of mass media in this country?

Of particular interest to me are a certain type of intraparty poll that measures candidates’ relative strength against each other.

These surveys drive me nuts. Bonkers, man!

Why? They’re meaningless.

Here’s the latest: NBC says Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a nine-point lead over Democratic Party primary rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. That’s nationally.

What, I ask, does that mean? Does that mean if we had a national political primary that Clinton would beat Sanders by nine percentage points?

Maybe. Except that we aren’t going through a national primary election cycle. Candidates are trudging through these primaries state by bloody state, where the voters in each state have different perspectives, different worries and concerns, different philosophies.

Wisconsin is going to have its Democratic and Republican primaries today. Sanders is favored at this moment to win the Democratic primary; U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is favored to win the GOP primary.

Still, the media keep reporting that Donald J. Trump holds a diminishing national lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a national poll of Republican voters.

I’m running out of ways to say this: I do not care about national intraparty polls. They are not relevant to anything.

Some TV pundits the other evening were saying that they perceive fewer “horse-race” questions coming from the media as the primary campaigns head toward the home stretch. They say they’re hearing more “policy-driven” questions … allegedly.

More policy and fewer polls, please.

 

national news, political news

Intrigue builds around Speaker Ryan

ryan

Oh, how I love the intrigue that’s building around House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Will he “save” the Republican Party by emerging in Cleveland as the party’s compromise candidate for president of the United States?

Is the speaker going to toss aside every one of his (half-hearted) statements of non-interest in seeking the presidency?

This is fabulous! I am not going to predict what Ryan will do, but it certainly has me licking my chops at the chaos that would develop if the speaker actually jumps in.

Ryan keeps saying most of the things that would suggest he’s not going to run. But there remains wiggle room in every one of his so-called statements. The room ain’t huge. He’s not going to shake his booty while saying these things.

Every pundit since shortly after the Civil War keeps waiting for the so-called Shermanesque statement. You know what I mean. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman said, “If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve.”

Everything the speaker has said so far falls so far short of that categorical disavowal of any interest in running for the presidency.

He told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt today that “you have to run for president to be president. I am not running for president. Period. End of story.”

He is “not running for president.” Isn’t that what he said? It’s tantamount to the standard dodge that pols use when they don’t “intend to run.”

Let’s parse that for a second. I take that to mean that Ryan “is not running” today, in the present tense. He says not a single thing about what he might do this summer.

The only possible circumstance that is going to quell this “draft Ryan” talk is if Donald J. Trump wins enough delegates to sew up on the nomination on the first ballot.

Let’s remember that the speaker said he didn’t want to be speaker, either. Then the Republican House caucus drafted him to take the job as the nation’s top GOP elected official.

And the intrigue will continue.

national news, political news

RNC chairman warns Trump of ‘consequences’

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RNC chair

Reince Priebus has given Donald J. Trump fair warning.

He might face “consequences” if the fails to fall in line and support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee if it happens to be someone other than Trump his own self.

The RNC chairman might have little actual power to inflict damage on the still-presumed frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

Those consequences, though, could take on lives of their own if the convention in Cleveland gets out of hand.

Listen up, Donald.

Let’s flash back — shall we? — to 1972. The other major political party, the Democrats, had a raucous gathering in Miami, Fla. They had gone through a rough-and-tumble primary season and from the rubble of that protracted battle there emerged a candidate to seal the nomination.

U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota became the Democratic nominee. His campaign theme was as simple as Bernie Sanders’s theme is today: Bring the troops home from the Vietnam War, which Sen. McGovern opposed with every fiber of his being.

Well, he didn’t win the presidency that year. He lost it huge to President Nixon in that 49-state wipeout.

It might be that a partial reason for the huge loss was the timing of his acceptance speech.

The convention delegates had battled day and night over rules changes. McGovern’s forces had sought wholesale change in the rules, which usually are a sort of work in progress as the convention unfolds.

They fought, squabbled and bickered on the convention floor.

Finally, after all that fighting, Sen. McGovern strode to the podium and urged the nation to “come home, America.” It was quite a stirring speech. I watched him deliver it from my apartment in Portland, Ore., where I lived with the girl I had married less than a year earlier.

He gave the speech at 2 a.m. That’s 2 in the morning, man. It was 11 p.m. on the Left Coast. But he wasn’t really talking to us. His remarks were meant to  be heard by that big voter base back east.

A lot of those voters had hit the sack by the Sen. McGovern accepted his party’s nomination.

As I look back on it now, I figured that was a “consequence” of Democrats failing to have their ducks lined up.

There well might be a similar consequence this summer in Cleveland as Republicans gather to send their nominee into battle against the Democrats.

Will it be the work of Chairman Priebus? Maybe.

Then again, he might not have to do anything to make Trump pay for his rebellion.

 

 

 

national news, political news

C’mon, Bernie; show us your tax returns

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Sen. Bernie Sanders tries to make a lot of hay about his authenticity, that he’s just one of us, that he’s campaigning for the little guy.

I get his message as he battles Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

But this morning on CNN, the distinguished gentleman from Vermont fluffed a direct question from “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper: Why won’t you release your tax returns, as Secretary Clinton has done for the past eight years?

His answer? “My wife does our tax returns and I’ve been a little busy.”

OK, senator. Enough already.

Americans heard some kind of song-and-dance from Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump, who said he couldn’t release his returns because he was being audited for the past 12 consecutive years. That, too, is a stretch.

However, these returns have become part of the effort to improve transparency among all the candidates running for president.

It seems to many of us that it’s especially critical to see the tax returns from candidates who keep purporting to be champions for “wage equality” and who keep blasting the “top 1 percent” of income-earners for getting rich while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet.

Mrs. Sanders does his tax returns? They’ve been “busy”?

Get real, senator. If your returns are straightforward and uncomplicated as your campaign message would seem to imply, then releasing the records wouldn’t be that big a deal.

This, sir, simply goes with the territory. Candidates who ask voters to entrust them with governing the world’s richest and most powerful nation should expect demands to see if they, too, are living up to the high-minded rhetoric they espouse on the campaign trail.

 

national news, political news

Now … about the Democratic wackiness

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Almost all the political chatter of the past, oh, six months has been about how Donald J. Trump turned his Republican Party primary presidential candidacy from a joke to a matter of serious discussion.

Who among you really thought this guy ever — in a zillion years — would achieve GOP frontrunner status when he declared his candidacy this past summer? I didn’t either.

He has. Trump is beginning to wobble, though, because his glaring lack of study of the issues is finally catching up to him. He’s likely to get hammered in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Then it’s on to New York, where he figures to do better, if not real well.

OK, enough of that.

Those Democrats have produced their share of campaign wackiness, too.

Let me ask you this one: Who out there really and truly thought at the beginning of her campaign that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be challenged as strongly as she’s been challenged by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, the “democratic socialist”? I’m with you. I thought she was a shoo-in.

She’s been hammered by the right — as expected — over Benghazi, those “damn emails,” as Sanders has described them, and over an alleged lack of “authenticity.

But she’s also been pounded by the lefties. Those kids who’ve climbed aboard Bernie’s bandwagon because of his pledge to provide college education for everyone has helped lift this guy’s candidacy to heights never imagined when he started out.

Bernie well might win in Wisconsin this week. Then he goes to New York, which Clinton represented in the U.S. Senate after she served two terms as first lady.

Clinton’s task in Wisconsin is to keep the result fairly close; a blowout win by Sanders might light a serious wildfire in his campaign that could cause some serious trouble for Clinton in New York.

Clinton now has to win big in her “home state.” I put that in quotes because, as you know, she really didn’t spend much time there before being elected to the Senate in 2000. It’s that authenticity thing, aka “carpetbagging,” that keeps nipping at her.

Clinton remains miles ahead of Sanders in the delegate count. If she wins yu-u-u-u-u-ge in New York, then she is on track to sew the primary campaign up by the time it rolls around to California.

If she stumbles there after getting beat in Wisconsin, well, then we’ve got a different game.

Yesterday’s sure thing, thus, becomes a candidate in for the fight of her life.

Go figure.

I’m telling you that when historians over the next generation or two try to examine the impact of strange and weird presidential campaigns in this great country, they’re going to hold Campaign 2016 up as their starting point.

I’m not sure how it can get any stranger than what we’ve witnessed on both sides of the divide.

It probably will.

national news, political news

Is this when Trump’s campaign unravels? Hold that thought

trump

The Sunday television talk shows are full of discussion this morning about Donald J. Trump’s horrible week.

He provides three to five positions on abortion in the span of 48 hours.

Trump refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against the Islamic State — even in Europe!

His campaign manager is arrested and charged with battery against a reporter.

He’s been pilloried, punched and pounded over all of this — and more!

Is this the end of the Donald Trump Phenomenon? Do not take this to the bank.

My own thoughts on this man’s presidential candidacy have been blown aside by almost every unpredictable circumstance imaginable.

I thought he was toast when he:

Denigrated U.S. Sen. John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War.

Got into that hideous feud with TV journalist Megyn Kelly over her questioning his views on women during the first GOP presidential debate.

Made fun of a journalist’s physical disability.

Declared his intention to ban Muslims from entering the country because of their faith.

Announced his plan to build a giant wall along our entire southern border.

Insulted a former fellow Republican presidential candidate over her physical appearance.

Engaged in that childish series of debate put-downs with Sen. Marco Rubio.

What have I missed?

He keeps returning stronger than before. He energizes those who like how he “tells it like it is.”

I’ve seen the polling about how women view him unfavorably. I’ve read all the data about how this guy loses to Hillary Clinton big in a general election matchup.

None of it seems to matter to the Trumpsters who are as angry as he says he is.

Is this the most bizarre election cycle any of us ever have seen? For my money, uhh, yes … it is!

For that reason, I am not going to declare Donald Trump’s candidacy “dead at the scene.”

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

POTUS shows command of the obvious

barack

Barack Obama demonstrated today a compelling command of the obvious when he said the Republicans’ leading candidate for president “doesn’t know much about foreign policy.”

The president was responding to comments from Donald J. Trump about allowing South Korea and Japan develop nuclear weapons programs.

Yep, Trump said he would be open to that possibility as a deterrent to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

According to Politico: “The person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula or the world generally,” Obama told reporters as he finished the last of a series of high-level meetings on nuclear security in Washington.

“The person” to whom Obama was referring also said the United States shouldn’t even rule out using nuclear weapons to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East and, oh yes, in Europe.

Oh … my.

That’s the obvious criticism: that Trump doesn’t know diddly about U.S. foreign policy, its aims, how it protects U.S. interests and how it intends to maintain peace.

What is not so obvious is the question that the president didn’t ask. Perhaps he didn’t want to stick the proverbial hot branding iron in the eye of the Trumpsters who keep cheering their man on.

I’ll ask it here: How is it that the individuals who keep voting for this guy give him a pass on such obvious ignorance?

I am acquainted with some Trumpsters here in Amarillo. They keep answering with the same refrain: Trump “tells it like it is”; political correctness be damned!

As Ricky Ricardo might say: Ayy, caramba!

Trump’s ignorance keeps revealing itself in breathtaking fashion.

Just this week alone, he said women should be “punished” if they obtain an illegal abortion; he then reversed himself … twice! Then came the remarkable assertion about the use of nukes to fight radical Islamic terrorists. To be fair, he didn’t pledge to drop A-bombs on them, only that we shouldn’t take their use “off the table.”

Still, this individual does not grasp the meaning and the gravitas of what he says. As the president noted today in his remarks, the world pays careful attention to what major political leaders in this country say. Obama said: “I’ve said before that, you know, people pay attention to American elections. What we do is really important to the rest of the world, and even in those countries that are used to a carnival atmosphere in their own politics want sobriety and clarity when it comes to U.S. elections because they understand the president of the United States needs to know what’s going on around the world.”

Trump may say he’s not a politician, but that’s now patently untrue. He is a politician seeking the highest office in the land. He seeks to become chief executive, the head of state and the commander in chief of the United States of America.

Yet he keeps shooting off his mouth about matters of which he knows not a single thing.

How in the name of all that is holy does this clown keep getting away with it?

 

national news, political news

Memo to Trump: Abortion is not an ‘off the cuff’ issue

trump

Here comes the defense of Donald J. Trump’s hideous declaration on national TV this week that women should be “punished” if they obtain an illegal abortion.

He was speaking “off the cuff” during a town hall meeting that was televised by MSNBC. That’s what the Republican presidential campaign frontrunner’s spokeswoman told Fox News.

Many of us heard Trump make the statement under intense questioning from Chris Matthews. We also heard about his immediate reversal.

Trump needs to understand something if he has a prayer of avoiding a complete implosion of his presidential candidacy.

It is that there are a number of issues that require deep thought and nuance when the candidate is pressed to discuss them.

They include, oh: nuclear proliferation, climate change, immigration reform, health care reform and, yes, abortion.

I’m sure others are out there, too.

Trump’s flack, Katrina Pierson, told the Fox News Channel, “Well I say when you are a political candidate for eight months, you are speaking off the cuff. That’s one of his appeals, that he’s not a scripted politician.“

What is so wrong with thoughtfulness?

Scripted pols learn that their words matter. Unscripted pols need to get that, too. When the subject turns to abortion — an issue that gets zealots on both sides of the divide worked up into a frothing frenzy — then those words matter a great deal.

Trump hasn’t gotten it. He likely never will get it. He’ll keep on speaking “off the cuff” on issues that require some study, soul-searching and a comprehensive understanding.

Pierson is right about Trump’s “appeal” to those who keep laughing off this stuff.

It’s not funny.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Trump does the impossible

abortion-debate1

Of all the commentary being tossed around in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s absurd assertion that women should be “punished” for obtaining an illegal abortion, the most interesting came from a Republican strategist who doubles as a commentator for CNN.

Anna Navarro said this morning that Trump managed to do the “impossible,” which she said was that he managed to anger both the pro-choice and pro-life sides of the abortion divide at the same instant.

Trump told MSNBC interviewer Chris Matthews at a televised town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis., that women “probably” should face some punishment if they got an illegal abortion. Matthews questioned Trump on how the government could make abortion actually “illegal,” to which Trump didn’t have an answer.

The Republican primary campaign presidential frontrunner quickly backed off that statement, declaring that the doctor should be the one facing punishment, not the woman — who he described as a “victim” of the illegal act.

That didn’t go over well at all with the pro-choice crowd.

The pro-life crowd, meanwhile, was still steaming over the notion that a woman could be punished for obtaining an abortion.

And so the drama continues.

The fun factor of this campaign just keeps getting stronger.