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National politics

Pre-Super Tuesday Revisions

Who knew that after posting on Friday I would need to update all three of my recent posts before we arrived at Super Tuesday.

On my candidate ranking my top two candidates have dropped out. Additionally, while I had Michael Bloomberg ahead of Joe Biden I am considering that I might prefer Biden over Bloomberg because while I might come a little closer to Bloomberg’s political leanings, I worry about him having unexpected liabilities since he hasn’t been through the degree of vetting that the other candidates have already.

On my thoughts on who can win: the paths to victory for Buttigieg and Klobuchar are obviously closed. Warren doesn’t have a path after the results of South Carolina. Biden got exactly the kind of South Carolina win that he needed and the only way his path narrows is if he gets trounced tomorrow.

And thanks to the last 24 hours, our youngest presidential candidate is now 70 years old. I’m not thrilled about that.

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National politics thoughts

An Age Problem

I’ve mentioned that I have a problem with the ages of most of the presidential candidates. Today a thought struck me that I think would put that problem in perspective. I realized that Elizabeth Warren – the third youngest legitimate candidate still in the race is only three years younger than Bill Clinton – who was our president 28 years ago. If I were to rank the candidates in age order relative to Bill Clinton it would look roughly like this:

  • Bernie Sanders (5 years older than Clinton)
  • Michael Bloomberg
  • Joe Biden
  • Donald Trump (3 years older than Clinton)
  • Bill Clinton (for reference)
  • Elizabeth Warren (3 years younger than Clinton)
  • Amy Klobuchar (14 years younger than Clinton)
  • Pete Buttigieg (35 years younger than Clinton)

Why is it that we are stuck choosing mainly between candidates who are older than a president we had almost 3 decades ago?

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National politics

Who can win?

For the second time today I need to get something published before an approaching deadline. This time it is my take on the chances that the various Democratic candidates have of getting the nomination. I want to make sure that I publish this before we get more data from voters voting.

If I had written this earlier there would have been a couple more candidates considered – even with my restriction that I am only covering candidates who have any potential path to the nomination. Many but not all of those who have already dropped out never had any path. Even today there is Tom Steyer who has not dropped out but who, despite his wealth, has no path to the nomination.

For the sake of fairness I will cover the candidates in alphabetical order by last name. I will offer my take on what they would need to win the nomination and my opinion on what they should do based on what happens on Super Tuesday.

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National politics

2020 Candidates Ranked

I’ve been meaning to share my take on the 2020 candidates for some time now. It would be a waste not to do so before Super Tuesday so I’ve put it off as long as possible already.

At this point in the cycle there are only 6 Democrats and one Republican with even a remote possibility of getting their party’s nomination – those 7 are the only candidates being ranked here. My rankings are not a reflection of who has the best chances of winning the presidency (or even their party nomination) but rather, who I think would prove most beneficial to our nation long term if they were elected.

By way of context, I have been a lifelong Republican but I have always considered that party affiliation is much less important than genuine ability or basic decency so I was dismayed in 2016 when Donald Trump got the nomination for the GOP. Long before either field had narrowed I argued that he was the worst candidate running out of either party. I have to admit that since that time he has grown on me and I have concluded that he wasn’t the worst candidate running that cycle. With that background, on to my candidate ranking.

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National politics

Rescuing political conservatives

November 9th needs to see a conference of political conservatives convene to decide how to raise a rational, coherent political movement out of the ashes of the GOP. This needs to happen regardless of the outcome of the election. The convention needs be attended only by political conservatives who retained their integrity throughout this disaster of a Donald Trump campaign. (Even if he were to win the campaign is a disaster and he has done catastrophic damage to the idea of rational conservatism.) This could certainly include Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint, Erick Erikson, George Will, Jenn Rubin, Amanda Carpenter, John Kasich, Mike Lee, and Evan McMullin to name a few. I’m not sure where to draw the line – should we include good people who felt that they had to endorse trump but were clearly never comfortable with him (like Paul Ryan or Scott Walker)? I don’t think it could initially include those who could have stood against Trump but caved to him anyway like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. What I do know is that it could never include anyone who tried to justify or defend Trump – like Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, and Reince Priebus. Those in that last group would have to demonstrate a massive change of heart and true humility – acknowledging how completely backwards their support of Trump was – before they could be accepted by any group serious about good, conservative, constitutional government.

One of the first things that this convention would have to figure out would be whether the best course of action is reviving the GOP brand under new leadership – like restructuring to emerge from the obvious moral bankruptcy of the current party, or whether it would be to form a new political movement that either forms a new party or takes over the machinations of one of the smaller parties that has as yet failed to get national traction (the Constitution party for example), or if the best course is to form an intellectual movement – a think tank of sorts – to discuss issues, principles, problems (even candidates), but not have a focus on “winning” battles or campaigns.

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National politics State

Choosing a Third Party Candidate

With news that Donald Trump has fallen into a tie with Hillary Clinton in Utah, and considering how historically unpopular both major party candidates are, it is suddenly a very real possibility that a third candidate could win our state. There have been discussions about which third party candidate(s) deserve any support at the ballot box. Let me explore the only two who have any traction here and how I make my choice. Those two candidates are Gary Johnson with the Libertarian Party and Evan McMullin who is running as an independent.

First off, neither of them has any chance of capturing 270 electoral votes (although both are on enough ballots to make getting 270 technically possible) so they both have the same path to the presidency (have no candidate reach that number). Therefore, functionally there isn’t an inherent advantage for one of the two over the other.

When choosing which candidate to give your protest vote to I would argue that you should pick the candidate who most represents what kind of person should lead or nation. On that score, I look at Gary Johnson and he has shown over the last few months that, while he isn’t completely morally bankrupt like Trump, he is like Trump in that he is clearly unprepared to be taken seriously as a president and comport himself in a presidential way.

When Evan McMullin announced his candidacy I wondered how prepared this unknown latecomer could possibly be. As I have reviewed his history and his positions I have been impressed with his solid background and his considered policy ideas.
I find it easy to choose Evan because he seems capable of handling the challenges of the office without looking like a juvenile pretender.

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culture National politics

A Time for Contrition

{Billy} Bush apologized for his language and behavior in the tape on Friday, saying he was “embarrassed and ashamed.” “It’s no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago — I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry,” he added. (via USA Today)

“Embarrassed and ashamed” – that’s exactly what Billy Bush should be and saying so suggests the possibility that he has matured in the 11 years since this recording took place. It’s exactly what Mr. Trump should both feel and say. At (then) 59 he should have matured past that point long before the video happened but I can allow someone to be a late bloomer morally. Unfortunately for the nation, Mr. Trump seems incapable of maturing or feeling remorse. The best he can manage is to be “not proud of it.” (via Washington Post) In offering a perfunctory apology he simply dismisses it as “locker room talk.”

Of course it’s locker room talk – in all too many locker rooms* (and apparently buses) – but that doesn’t mean it should be accepted even in those venues. If an adult finds that the hormonal teenagers in their locker room are engaging in any talk like that the response should be to teach those youth to elevate themselves and become better – not to tell them it’s okay to say such things as long as they keep it within the locker room.

While he assures us (in response to the repeated inquiries by Anderson Cooper) that he has never engaged in the kinds of actions that he talked about, he failed to offer even a hint of recognition that such talk is degrading to the person speaking and to any person being spoken of, and that acceptance of such talk – even under the guise that it is limited to locker room situations – is degrading to our society as a whole.

This man who claims that he has never asked God for forgiveness has just given the nation further evidence that he was telling the truth on that score. Anyone who has ever engaged in such talk, not matter how young or hormonal they were, should be embarrassed, ashamed, and contrite whenever the subject is brought up and should, in unequivocal terms denounce their past behavior. Doing any less than that is to become guilty again – no matter if more than a decade has passed. To knowingly elevate such a man to the nations highest office is hardly better than trying to repeal the Nineteenth Amendment and openly relegate women to a second class status.

* In fairness to all those who regularly frequent locker rooms – especially professional and collegiate athletes – “too many locker rooms” should not be taken to mean “most locker rooms” and there have been many athletes stepping forward to point out that none of the locker rooms in their experience have included such vile talk.

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National

Trump is a master manipulator

Donald Trump didn’t have time for political correctness. That being the case, neither do I. I’ll summarize my message by committing the PC crime of declaring that Donald Trump shares a key trait with Adolph Hitler. I’m not suggesting that Trump would incarcerate or attempt to exterminate Jews or any other sect of the population, nor am I suggesting that if we make the mistake of electing him he would invade or annex Canada. What I am saying is that, like Hitler, he is a master at manipulating people and working the media to simultaneously display and distort his public image.

In wanting to understand those who support Trump I decided to buy his book and pay more attention to what he was saying rather than what was being said about him. What I found was disturbing because it became clear to me how deft he was at manipulating his image and his message to sound appealing despite his obvious personal deficiencies (like the most basic level of human decency).

I no longer wonder how people can support Trump but I’ve also read Mein Kampf, and while Hitler’s worst traits are fairly obvious in that work when read in 2012, they would have been much less obvious to the people of 1932 Germany who were suffering economically and angry from the fallout of WWI, who nearly elected Hitler to lead their nation that year.

I am absolutely confident that if we choose Trump in 2016 those who supported him will find themselves consistently disappointed by what he does, both in those things where he deviates from his campaign rhetoric and in those things where he sticks to his campaign positions.

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National politics

Real solutions require internal change

Mother of Exiles
Photo by melanzane1013

When I read Ann Coulter’s endorsement of Trump I knew I couldn’t stay silent any more. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she might endorse Trump, after all, Ann has never been one to shy away from a confrontational approach on issues she cares about (although she spends more time being right on the issues she speaks about than Trump does) so his style shouldn’t be a huge negative in her eyes. The only reason I read her article was that the title was intriguing (“I was hoping for a taller honest man”) and I wanted to know her reasons for deciding to hold her nose and choose Trump. When her message was a complaint that people either dislike him or feel they have to hold their noses to vote for him combined with an emphasis on his approach to immigration I knew it was time to speak out about how the GOP at large is missing the mark on immigration – which is why the childish plan from Trump’s imagination (“Mr. Putin, we’re going to build a wall and make the Mexicans pay for it to boot.“) has so much appeal among party members.

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National politics

Carly Fiorina

21317198176_dd390467d6_k
Photo by Gage Skidmore

Even as I begin writing this I haven’t decided where I stand on Carly Fiorina. She sounds like a strong candidate when she speaks – I can understand Holly’s enthusiasm based on what Carly says – but I’m not yet convinced of how much substance is behind the rhetoric. I’ve had concerns about her performance at HP because that’s the only real sample we have of her capacity to lead. Carly declares on her campaign website that “her record as CEO speaks for itself” and some of her critics would undoubtedly agree (while arriving at the opposite conclusion that her supporters do). After consideration I have concluded that her record as CEO doesn’t speak for itself any more than the data in a scientific study speaks for itself. Data is data but without context (or with incomplete context) the same data can lead to vastly disparate conclusions.

If the question before me were “should Carly Fiorina be our next President?” the answer would have to be I really don’t know yet. Thankfully the question right now is simply, “does Carly Fiorina deserve serious attention as a candidate?” The answer to that one is yes she does. I endorse Carly Fiorina for president – she brings an important voice and perspective to the debate and may yet prove to be our best option.