Pre-season is almost over in the 2016 Presidential campaign with the Iowa caucuses debuting the voting season in just two weeks, on Monday, February 1st.
Last night, the Democrats had their final debate before the voting beings while the Republicans had their first debate of the month last Thursday, with another one coming in 10 days on Thursday, January 28th.
Since the candidates who foam at the mouth seem to be making the biggest inroads in this political season, I will try to throw a little of my own anger in this commentary. It’s more fun to be angry than depressed! And yes, the thought of a four-way choice between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz is a little bit depressing for a moderate Republican, one with (dare I say it) “New York Values.”
I’ll start by commenting on the Democrats three-way event last night.
First of all, although I’m as likely to vote for the two liberal front-runners as I am to stick hot needles through my eyelids, I’ll say that I’m glad I actually got to see this debate. It was only the fourth time the Dems have put their candidates on stage and the first time since October that it wasn’t buried in the TV graveyard of Saturday night.
So, as a political junkie, I’m angry that GNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz chose to anoint her favorite candidate Hillary Clinton as the de facto nominee by trying to limit to hide her party’s debates. In this campaign, Mrs. Clinton has far and away the institutional advantage of her celebrity, by her position as potentially the first female President and of course by virtue of her marriage to a popular former president. There are two ways for an upstart to break through against such a formidable front-runner: with a spectacular ground game in the early voting states and also with a different and original message that presents a stark contrast with the front-runner. Getting that message to the people is enhanced by nationally televised debates. It helped Obama in 2008 and could have helped Sanders in 2016.
Remarkably, the self-avowed socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has elevated himself to a top-tier candidate anyway and now a legitimate threat to Clinton. He’s in a virtual statistical tie in the polling in first in the national caucus state of Iowa and has a substantial lead in the first in the national primary state of New Hampshire. The best way for him to capitalize on that momentum is through the free publicity of a national debate. The Democratic machine, run by Wasserman Schultz, only granted him one chance in the entire month of January; fortunately for Bernie and his supporters, he mostly knocked it out of the park.
When Wasserman Schultz goes on TV and tries to claim that she set up the debate schedule to maximize the exposure to her party’s candidates, I believe that about as much as I believe that she’s secretly going to donate thousands of dollars to the campaign of Ted Cruz. How stupid does she think we are? In the lead-up to the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Hillary, Obama and a few others had debated a whopping sixteen times. OK, maybe sixteen was a bit excessive in 2007-08, but four this time? Just four? This was clearly an effort to protect the prohibitive front-runner from having to go on national television to grant equal footing to her less famous opponents.
Look at the warm regard that Sanders has for Wasserman Schultz in their “handshake” after the debate. The brief clip is linked here. Can you blame him when the party chair is doing her best to rig the game for his celebrity opponent?
These national debates are uncharted territory for Sanders while Clinton is a grizzled veteran of the 2008 wars. I’ve seen a lot of commentary that the DNC was doing Sanders a favor by limiting the debates since Clinton excels in the format. Maybe so, she is good at it, well informed and on message. But Bernie showed us Sunday night that he’s getting better. After making a massive blunder in the first debate by saying he was sick and tired of hearing about Hillary’s “damn emails,” Sanders did go on the attack in his fourth opportunity.
Sanders went after Clinton for raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from investment banks like Goldman Sachs. But, more importantly, he fought back against the preposterous accusations from the Clinton campaign that he wants to destroy ObamaCare and deny people health care. These are two of the key linchpins of his campaign, that Wall Street is corrupt and that Obamacare needs to be replaced by “Medicare for all.” Hillary’s counter-punch was non-existent on her connections to Wall Street and her counter-punch on health care was weak, that Sanders’ vision was too difficult to accomplish. Her point was that, even with overwhelming congressional majorities, ObamaCare barely passed in 2010 and that re-litigating it would be too difficult. As an astute observer of politics, she has a point there but it sounded passive next to Bernie’s fire. Hillary has chosen to run for a third Obama term and clearly believes that the African-American vote is her firewall against Bernie’s popularity with younger voters.
Although the debate was probably a draw on policy points, I believe that Bernie Sanders will gain momentum from this effort. Clinton, as expected, clearly out-pointed him on foreign policy (her strength, his weakness) but he’s got the anger that attracts unsatisfied voters and, although she did her best to sound angry too, she sounded merely cross. The only opportunity that Sanders clearly missed in his attacks on Clinton was to remind the voters that he voted against the war in Iraq while she voted in favor.
It’s amazing to see a candidate doing so well on the Democratic side running significantly to the left of Obama but it’s clear that he has energized the liberal/quasi-socialist wing of the party that feels that Obama did not succeed in his goal to completely transform America. Bernie proudly calls himself a Democratic Socialist. I personally believe that we already have one in the White House but that’s a topic for another day.
Incidentally, there was a third candidate on stage, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. He got about as much time in the debate as I’m giving him in this blog, which is to say, virtually none. Sorry Governor O’Malley, the media has decided that this is a two-horse race and that’s what it’s going to be.
Now, onto the Republicans, also featuring a reduced debate schedule, which was probably meant to benefit Jeb Bush when it was created. The GOP had its sixth prime-time showcase last Thursday, this time with only seven candidates in the main event (Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Dr. Ben Carson, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Bush). While the Democratic “establishment” is probably a bit freaked out by the prospect of candidate Bernie and still nervous about a possible indictment against Hillary about her emails, the Republican “establishment” is certainly perturbed that the two front-runners are the bomb-throwing Trump and Cruz. The Billionaire Donald has dominated the polls since he entered the race last summer but the Texas Senator has recently pulled even in the polls in the critical first state of Iowa.
So the narrative entering the debate last Thursday was that this would be the first fistfight between the two front-runners, who had previously displayed a public “bro-mance,” refusing to attack each other. This was a deliberate strategy on the part of the shrewd Cruz, who saw that the only thing to be gained by attacking Trump was a vicious counter-punch to the gut. While he watched The Donald torpedo that candidates of Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Lindsey Graham and punch Bush into near polling oblivion, Cruz just smiled, praised Trump and waited.
Because he wasn’t taking fire from Trump, because he performed superbly in the early debates and because his uncompromising style has made him the darling of conservative talk radio, Cruz surged into the lead in Iowa, which finally got Trump’s attention. The Donald created a birther controversy surrounding the Canadian born Senator and Cruz punched back by claiming that Trump had “New York values” that the people of Iowa would not relate to. Both issues came to the floor of the debate stage last Thursday and dominated the “post-game” conversation.
Most people felt that Cruz successfully beat down Trump on the controversy of his birth but that Trump crushed him on the “New York values” charge. It was actually the billionaire’s best moment in all six debates, when he replaced his angry rhetoric with a somber reminder that New York values included the way the city came together as one after the 9-11 attacks.
So, call me “establishment,” call me a “RINO,” or blame it on my values of having been raised in New York City, but what drove me batty about the post-debate commentary (both on TV and in print) was the near unanimous conclusion that Trump and Cruz both won the debate. They both did well (was definitely Trump’s best performance) but at least three of the other five candidates (Rubio, Bush and Kasich) had excellent performances as well.
So I’m going to refer here to the “Forgotten Five”: Rubio, Christie, Kasich, Bush and Carson. Most of the points and counterpoints from the Forgotten Five were about policy matters. There may have been some spirited personal back-and-forth sniping involving the Forgotten Five with both Trump and Cruz but they were on matters of substance. All the media seemed to care about after the debate was Trump and Cruz scoring one knockout each regarding birth and New York values.
I’m annoyed that what was missed in the post-debate was how effectively Bush and Kasich explained the insanity of Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Each of them correctly pointed out the importance of our Middle Eastern allies in the fight against ISIS.
I’m irritated that the post-debate commentary didn’t highlight the stunning moment when the 44-year-old Senator from Florida waded into Trump’s wheelhouse, which is the economy and dealing with China. When the discussion went to imposing a tariff on goods from China (which sounds good on the surface), Rubio pointed out that in the real world “China doesn’t pay the tariff, the buyer pays the tariff.” In the one subject where Trump should have the upper hand on knowledge and substance, Rubio proved that he can go toe-to-toe with him.
What was missed in the post-debate analysis was Rubio astutely exposing Cruz for his chameleon-like policy flips in his attempts to perfectly calibrate his messaging as the winds of conservatism shift. This magnificent moment occurred after Cruz blasted Rubio for his role in the failed immigration reform bill that he crafted with Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.
If you missed it in the midst of the birther and New York values nonsense, this was the most brilliant policy attack in the debate:
RUBIO: Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards, now you say that you’re against it. You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers, now you say that you’re against it. You used to support legalizing people that were here illegally, now you say you’re against it. You used to say that you were in favor of birthright citizenship, now you say that you are against it.
And by the way, it’s not just on immigration, you used to support TPA, now you say you’re against it. I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance because they told you it would help you in Iowa, and last week, we all saw you flip your vote on ethanol in Iowa for the same reason.
(APPLAUSE)
That is not consistent conservatism, that is political calculation. When I am president, I will work consistently every single day to keep this country safe, not call Edward Snowden, as you did, a great public servant. Edward Snowden is a traitor. And if I am president and we get our hands on him, he is standing trial for treason.
(APPLAUSE)
And one more point, one more point. Every single time that there has been a Defense bill in the Senate, three people team up to vote against it. Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. In fact, the only budget you have ever voted for, Ted, in your entire time in the Senate is a budget from Rand Paul that brags about how it cuts defense.
For fairness, here is the transcript of Cruz’ response:
CRUZ: — at least half of the things Marco said are flat-out false. They’re absolutely false.
AUDIENCE: Boo.
CRUZ: So let’s start — let’s start with immigration. Let’s start with immigration and have a little bit of clarity. Marco stood with Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama on amnesty. I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King. Marco stood today, standing on this stage Marco supports legalization and citizenship for 12 million illegals. I opposed and oppose legalization and citizenship.
And by the way, the attack he keeps throwing out on the military budget, Marco knows full well I voted for his amendment to increase military spending to $697 billion. What he said, and he said it in the last debate, it’s simply not true. And as president, I will rebuild the military and keep this country safe.
This is Cruz’ chief line attack against Rubio, essentially calling him a collaborator with Democrats. Cruz is doing well with the GOP base because he has chosen confrontation over compromise. If he wins the White House, Cruz will NOT be able to impose his conservative viewpoint on the nation unless he has 60 Republican Senators with him. This will be virtually impossible since the GOP has to defend far more seats than the Dems and many of those seats are in Blue States.
Even if you consider it odious on policy, Senator Rubio’s prior work on a bi-partisan bill with Chuck Schumer will be enormously valuable if he becomes President Rubio because the New York Senator is poised to replace Harry Reid as the Democratic Minority (or possibly Majority) leader. One of Barack Obama’s biggest weaknesses as President has been his inability to build the kind of relationships with Republican lawmakers that is critical to running a divided government. Cruz likes to talk about how Ronald Reagan espoused conservative principles and stuck to them but the truth is that Reagan made numerous deals with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill. For whatever I may think about Donald Trump and his bombast, President Trump has a higher up-side than President Cruz and it’s simply because he is a deal-maker and that is something that we need after the current ideological president.
In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump made a patented ad hominem attack but also pointed out what will be Cruz’ weakest governing trait:
TRUMP: Look, the truth is, he’s a nasty guy. He was so nice to me. I mean, I knew it. I was watching. I kept saying, ‘Come on Ted. Let’s go, okay.’ But he’s a nasty guy. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He’s a very –- he’s got an edge that’s not good. You can’t make deals with people like that and it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy.”
— ABC “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2016
Trump didn’t need to call Cruz “nasty” but the truth hurts: he is disliked by many of his Senate colleagues and by a high percentage of Republican House members who feel that he meddles too much in their affairs. Cruz’ “nastiness” has earned him the praise of the conservative base that feels that the Republicans have capitulated too much with Obama. The capitulation charge isn’t without merit but cooperation is what the country needs.
Here is my bottom line: the reason I like Rubio, Christie, Kasich and Bush is that they all have track records of compromise. This is the reason why Limbaugh would call me a RINO or “establishment” and Cruz would accuse me of having “New York values” but compromise is essential in our democracy. One side cannot impose their will on the country without checks and balances. Obama has tried to do this but has only partially succeeded in imposing his vision. We need a president who can unite the country.
I still think John Kasich is our best candidate. He has experience on both the economy and foreign affairs and he’s a popular governor in the critical swing state of Ohio. Unfortunately, Kasich “collaborated” by taking ObamaCare money to expand Medicaid to help the poor in his state. Unforgivable!! He’s a RINO!! Cast him out of the party!! How dare he??!! Give me a fracking break. Or more importantly, give him a break.
I think Chris Christie and Jeb Bush are also better prepared to become Chief Executive than Cruz, Trump or Rubio. But, like Kasich, Christie probably has too much baggage to win the Republican nomination and Bush simply has the wrong last name.
So I’m going compromise here with my true conservative brothers and sisters and ask you to consider embracing Marco Rubio as the next President of the United States. He’s displayed keen political skills, immense knowledge of both foreign and domestic affairs, and will be vastly better poised to win independent swing voters and Hispanics than either Trump or Cruz ever could.
Thanks for reading!
Chris