Tomorrow (Saturday, February 20) is the South Carolina Republican primary. (Democrats don’t vote in South Carolina until next Saturday, February 27). Current polls have Ted Cruz gaining on Donald Trump. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
A small LinkSwarm going into the weekend:
Let’s talk about the Green vs. Green Texas Supreme Court race.
Supreme Court Place 5 incumbent Paul Green is being challenged by conservative activist Rick Green in the Republican primary. And a few notable figures (such as Chuck Norris) have endorsed Rick Green.
Usually when a Republican incumbent is being challenged by a conservative activist, I’m backing the insurgent. This is not one of those cases.
Here’s a National Review piece covering why Rick Green is unsuited for the Texas Supreme Court:
Rick Green, age 44, has a law degree but does not primarily practice law. He is a speaker (with David Barton’s WallBuilders), radio talk-show host, family-based reality TV performer (Red, White, Blue & Green – imagine Sarah Palin meets Duck Dynasty), former state legislator (he served two terms in the Texas House of Representatives, 1999–2003), and founder of the Patriot Academy, a religious-oriented youth organization. Rick Green’s website offers services ranging from constitution training (Constitution Alive!) to firearms instruction. However beloved Rick Green may be in the world of conservative political activists (akin to Alan Keyes, Chuck Norris, or Ted Nugent), and no matter how admirable his work, he is simply not qualified to serve on the Texas Supreme Court.
Rick Green has no prior judicial experience, and scant relevant legal experience. He styles himself a “constitutionalist,” but the bulk of the Texas Supreme Court’s docket concerns mundane — albeit important — matters of state law. His judicial temperament is questionable. According to press reports (e.g., here and here), his brief tenure in Texas’s part-time legislature (which meets for 140 days every other year) was marred by ethical controversies involving his promotion of the dietary supplements Metabolife and FocusFactor. After he left the legislature, he reportedly decked the opponent who defeated him, Patrick Rose. Rick Green ran for an open seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 2010 and narrowly lost to Debra Lehrmann in the Republican primary runoff. Afterwards, in Trump-like fashion, he sued his critics, including former Chief Justice Tom Phillips, contending that their campaign against him was libelous.
Call me a philistine, but I’m not wild about a Supreme Court justice punching out political opponents and filing libel lawsuits against critics. Doesn’t exactly befit the dignity of the office.
(For those interested in the libel case, this brief goes over Rick Green’s alleged shady behavior, and evidently Rick Green dropped his lawsuit after it was filed.)
The entirety of Rick Green’s attack on Paul Green seems to be the latter’s ruling in State vs Naylor: “The main issue in the race is the State vs Naylor case of two women who married in Massachusetts and decided to not be married in Texas. Eight of the nine justices participated with three dissents. Paul Green joined in the majority opinion. The majority opinion dismissing the lawsuit was based on lack of jurisdiction, a procedural matter, that had nothing to do with the central question of the constitutionally of the Texas Marriage Laws. The decision shows that the court exercised judicial restraint and did not engage in judicial activism.”
Here’s a comparison chart between the two Greens.
And just in case you’re worried that incumbent Paul Green is too moderate, the fact that he garnered endorsements from Texans for Lawsuit Reform should ease your concern. And former Governor Rick Perry endorsed Paul Green as well: “Paul Green is the type of constitutionalist that I want to see on our courts. Paul has the intellectual capability and the scholarly capability to serve the people of Texas.”
All of which should help convince you to support Paul Green over Rick Green. Sorry, Chuck Norris…
Ted Cruz has inched ahead of Donald Trump in a new national poll released Wednesday, the first national poll of the 2016 cycle that shows the Texas senator on top of the Republican field.
Cruz has the backing of 28% of Republican voters nationwide, unseating Trump, who won the support of 26% in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
But Cruz’s 2-point edge is within the poll’s margin of error, and it’s not clear if the survey captures real movement in the race or is simply an outlier.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio comes in third with 17% support, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 11%, Ben Carson at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in last place with 4%.
All polls should be taken with several grains of salt, as the only real poll that matters is the one at the ballot box. Still, this is notable as the first national poll where Ted Cruz has lead Donald Trump.
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
Ted Cruz has picked up plenty of notable endorsements in his race for President, but today he picked up endorsements from two very notable men:
Senator Ted Cruz has been criticized in this column before, and will undoubtedly be criticized here again. But we can only make our choices among those actually available, and Senator Cruz is the one who comes to mind when depth and steadfastness come to mind.
As someone who once clerked for a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he will know how important choosing Justice Scalia’s replacement will be. And he has the intellect to understand much more.
“This election is a turning point for our country,” said Meyer. “In these dangerous times we need a strong, principled conservative in the White House. We need a Commander-in-Chief who works with our allies and makes it known that certain actions against the United States and its allies will not be tolerated. I am confident that Ted Cruz has the ability and resolve to be Commander-in-Chief. His record of standing up and fighting for what he believes in shows that he is not someone who buckles under pressure. Ted is ready to led this country – and I look forward to help uniting conservatives and veterans behind this campaign.”
I note in passing that Sowell is 85, and Meyer is 27…
The Ted Cruz team hits it out of the park with this one…
It seems that Bernie Sanders supporters are finally waking up to the fact that Democratic Party “Superdelegates” are designed to screw over mere voters unwilling to toe the party line. And this year, that means “Bernie Sanders supporters.”
Jim Geraghty explains how the screwing process works:
Every Democratic member of Congress, House and Senate, is a Superdelegate (240 total). Every Democratic governor is a Superdelegate (20 total). Certain “distinguished party leaders,” 20 in all, are given Superdelegate status. And finally, the Democratic National Committee names an additional 432 Superdelegates—an honor that typically goes to mayors, chairs and vice-chairs of the state party, and other dignitaries.
Here is where I would put a paragraph detailing the process by which the DNC goes about selecting Superdelegates…except I can’t find any online. As far as I can tell, DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is 100% in the tank for Hillary, gets to give her up to an additional 432 delegates. Or almost as many delegates as those chosen by all the actual Democratic Party voters in New York and Pennsylvania combined.
As of this writing, Hillary Clinton has 387 superdelegates. Bernie Sanders has 16.
“This is what makes Clinton so powerful in the Democratic race — even while she and Sanders battle it out among rank-and-file voters, she has a massive lead among superdelegates. Altogether, she already has 394 delegates and superdelegates to Sanders’ 44 — a nearly ninefold lead.”
Someone at Wikipedia has helpfully compiled a list of 2016 Democratic Superdelegates.
(Interestingly, among them is a Wendy Davis, but not the Texas Wendy Davis. This Wendy Davis is a city commissioner for Rome, Georgia, a small city of some 35,000+ people. And yes, she’s backing Clinton…)
Also note that list of 20 “Distinguished Party Leaders,” in addition to your Bill Clintons, Walter Mondales and former DNC heads, includes David Wilhelm, whose claim to being distinguished is…running Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign.
There’s a good chance that Sanders, the candidate whose popularity comes in large measure from complaining that the game is rigged against the little guy, is going to get screwed out of the nomination because the Democratic Party Presidential nomination process is rigged against the little guy…
That’s the actual, no kidding headline on this Washington Post piece by Chris Cillizza.
Well, the full headline is “Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem after New Hampshire,” which is true, but it works either way. Indeed, “Hillary Clinton has a major honesty problem” is a demonstrably true statement anytime after 1991 or so, but the fact that the Washington Post has put it so bluntly is the story here.
Yes, Hillary Clinton has “a major honesty problem” in much the same way the late Amy Winehouse had a “major drinking problem.”
Hillary Clinton has “a major honesty problem” the same way Adolf Hitler had a “killing people” problem.
Hillary Clinton—
You get the idea.
Let’s quote some specifics, shall we?
Hillary Clinton has an honesty problem.
That point is driven home hard in the exit poll following Clinton’s 22-point drubbing at the hands of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. More than one in three (34 percent) of all New Hampshire Democratic primary voters said that honesty was the most important trait in their decision on which candidate to support. Of that bloc, Sanders won 92 percent of their votes as compared to just 6 percent for Clinton.
Ninety-two to six. That is absolutely unbelievable — even given the size of Sanders’s overall victory in the state. And it should be deeply concerning to a Clinton campaign that has been resistant to acknowledging the idea that the ongoing controversy over Clinton’s private email server while at the State Department is a problem for her.
Of course, the email scandal is just one of the most recent examples of Clinton’s long, storied career of serial dishonesty, stretching back past phantom sniper fire, stolen china, bimbo eruptions and cattle futures to the the Watergate hearings.
Her life is a rich tapestry of unbridled deceit.
But evidently it took the rise of Bernie Sanders before many liberals were finally willing to say what Republicans following her career have said for close to a quarter century.
“Hillary Clinton has an honesty problem.”
Glad the MSM has finally gotten around to noticing it…
Coming out of Iowa, it looked we had a firm consensus on the shape of the Republican race: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as the top three contenders going forward, with everyone else as also-rans.
And then a week later New Hampshire comes along to declare “Psych!”
Desperate to find a candidate to coalesce around in hopes of stopping the populist insurrection of Donald Trump and the conservative uprising championed by Ted Cruz, the establishment instead got the opposite: a three-way split decision between John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio that ensures an extended, nasty and expensive fight simply to emerge as the third guy in the top tier.
Snip.
What New Hampshire did was ensure that the fight to be the establishment candidate wasn’t going to be a knockout but rather decided on a decision after 12 rounds of boxing. That’s a terrible thing for a party who faces not one but two existential threats in the form of Trump and Cruz.
If Ted Cruz is an actual “existential threat” to the Republican Party, for actually being for the things the Republican Establishment merely claimed they were for all these years, then the Republican Party deserves to die…
It’s going to take more than Miracle Max to revive his campaign… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Jeb “Low Energy” Bush spent $1,150 per vote in New Hampshire only to come in fourth place. At that rate, it will cost him $74,500,000,000.00 to get sixty five million votes in the general election. Jeb and his superpac have spent $70,400,000.00 this cycle and they’ve won 3 delegates. That’s $23,466,666.66 per delegate. At that rate, he would need to spend $26,845,866,666.66 to win the 1,144 delegates necessary for the nomination.
1. Hillary is in real trouble. Will she panic? The Clinton team, hunkered down in a grubby Manchester Radisson saturated in booze and overrun by ill-kempt Morning Joe groupies, knew it was going to be a terrible, not-good night by mid-afternoon: The exit polls showed big turnout among young voters and, ominously for her, liberals who think Barack Obama isn’t liberal enough. It was a complete and humbling defeat: Sanders beat Clinton among all demographic groups – including all women, a remarkable rebuke eight years after she “found her voice” by tearing up at New Hampshire diner.
Clinton prides herself on hanging tough through adversity, and she’s got her share now. How does she react? If history is any guide, she’ll freak out at first, then grudgingly make adjustments. But what adjustments can she make when many progressives think she’s so day-before-yesterday.
On Monday, my colleague Annie Karni and I reported that the Bill and Hillary Clinton were pressuring campaign manager Robby Mook to enact strategic, “messaging” and staffing shifts that would take place if Sanders trounced the former secretary. Duh, that’s done.
Forget staff. The problem is, as I’ve written over and over again, with the candidate herself: She’s a less limber, more tone-deaf politician than she was in 2008 (after years of being kept sharp by the New York tabloids) and she has blown past staff suggestions that she simplify her message to match Sanders’ pound-one-nail anti-Wall Street mantra.
Plus: “Marco Rubio isn’t the droid you’ve been looking for.”
My own analysis? Every week Kasich and Bush stay in is a bad week for Marco Rubio. It’s looking more and more like a Trump vs. Cruz race, and if Rubio can’t win at least one primary between now and March 1 (when the “SEC Primary” of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia occurs), he’s toast for this cycle…
New Hampshire primary returns are still coming in, but right now the results are:
Trump is way out front, with Kasich a firm second, and a dogfight for third that Cruz currently leads.
Just like exactly nobody predicted two weeks ago…or even yesterday.
Could what looked like a 3-way race end up being a 5-way race?
Could Bush think his improved showing is a sign his strategy is finally working?
Does Kasich cash the cache of his second-place finish with a fresh infusion of cash?
Tried to work him in, really I did…
Can Rubio bounce back from a disappointing showing?
Do Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson drop out?
For the answers to these questions, and many others, tune in to the next episode of Soap…