Posts Tagged ‘Ted Cruz’

LinkSwarm for May 31, 2019

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Important traffic notice for Austin residents: Half of I-35 is going to be closed between 290 and Rundberg starting at 9 PM tonight and lasting through 5 AM Monday, June 3, while they take down the St. John’s bridge and route southbound traffic down two northbound lanes, squeezing traffic in both directions. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s going to screw up traffic everywhere between Georgetown and Slaughter Lane. Avoid if at all possible…

  • Robert Mueller closes up shop.
  • Alan Dershowitz thinks that Mueller acted shamefully in going beyond his prosecutor’s mandate:

    Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.

    Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.

    That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.

  • Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the issue:

  • President Donald Trump has given Attorney General William Barr authority to declassify to declassify Scandularity documents (like FISA warrents aimed at the Trump campaign), and Democrats are freaking out.
  • Study shows that America is less racist under Donald Trump’s presidency.
  • Mexico’s senate should pass the USMCA free trade treaty soon. Now it just needs to get past Canada and Nancy Pelosi.
  • Trump also threatens to slap a 5% tariff on Mexican goods until they do more to control the border.
  • Continuing plunge of CNN, MSNBC ratings reveals that fake news is a bad business strategy.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • More on the same subject from Vodkapundit.
  • Related: “It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders.”

    Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.

    Update: For revealing those links, Twitter has banned author Eoin Lenihan.

  • Democrats yet again sue Little Sisters of the Poor for contraception coverage.” Every knee must bend…
  • “Scientists discover China has been secretly emitting banned ozone-depleting gas.” I’m shocked, shocked that China is evading agreed-upon environmental regulations…
  • “Why Are Top Obama Officials Working Cushy Jobs for Chinese Company We Now Consider a Threat?” (I think we all know the an$wer to that que$tion.) “Samir Jain — a former senior director for cybersecurity policy under Obama’s National Security Council and now a partner with the international law firm Jones Day — was recently hired by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a lobbyist. Jain works alongside James Cole, who was Obama’s deputy attorney general from 2011 to 2015. Huawei hired Cole for legal representation in 2017, the Examiner reported.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Gulf Cartel Kidnapping Crew Caught Operating in Texas.” It operated in various locales in Hidalgo County.
  • This is interesting: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are talking about teaming up to impose a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming paid lobbyists. It’s a good idea that I expect to go nowhere, as it takes potential graft money out of too many congressional pockets. But this is not the only idea the hard left and the hard right could propose to fight the swampy center.
  • Mizrahi Jews are not “Palestinian Jews“:

    When my grandparents arrived in Israel, together with 850,000 other Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa, they understood three things.

    First, they understood that they were being forced to leave their Arab homelands. My Iraqi grandparents, for example, had very clear memories of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom that left more than 180 Jews dead at the hands of their neighbors. They finally fled their native country in 1951, pushed out by an Iraqi government determined to rid itself of all of its Jews.

    When they arrived in Israel, my grandparents did not see themselves as Palestinian Jews—they had never before lived in Mandatory Palestine. They saw themselves as Jews of Iraqi descent returning to the ancient homeland they and their ancestors had dreamed of and prayed of for thousands of years, the land from which they were once expelled and to which they were overjoyed to return. And they also understood themselves to be distinct from their Ashkenazi brothers and sisters: They were all Jews, but my grandparents were proud of their Mizrahi heritage just as the 200,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent are proud of theirs.

  • Five dead as explosions rock Kirkuk, Iraq.
  • Instagram removes pro-life cartoon as “hate speech.”
  • Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw puts up a Twitter thread for his fallen comrades in arms for Memorial Day.
  • What it’s like to fight with Americans. “They are coming for you and very little will save you.”

  • And now a rather pungently expressed conflicting view:

    They’re hordes of freaks and geeks, socially promoted like the retards in Common Core to grease the retirement skids of a pack of careerist Courtney Massengales not fit nor capable to pour piss out of their own boots even with the instructions stamped on the heel.

    Else we wouldn’t have Rangerettes who can’t climb a short wall, Navy officers who can’t conn a ship without hitting everything afloat, as they dredge up parts from museum pieces to keep their current aircraft flying, Air Force generals pimping for a white elephant plane that cannot fly, missile officers cheating on their proficiency tests, Marine recruits in combat arms who can’t throw a grenade without killing themselves, or “combat leaders” who couldn’t pass a ruck march, West Point “leaders” who condone open communism from faculty and students, and promote a pack of Affirmative Action cadets who couldn’t pass a PRT or meet basic weight and appearance standards, while flashing Black Power signs in uniform. We wouldn’t be doing gender reassignment surgeries instead of physical therapy for combat wounded, we wouldn’t be spending more money on gender sensitivity counseling than on marksmanship training, and we wouldn’t be wavering the insane and drug-addicted into the military in record numbers, just to appease a pack of blue- and pink-haired SJWs.

    The US military is broken.

    Hugely so. Nearly hopelessly so.

    Nostalgia for a time long past when it was otherwise won’t paper over the reality that right now we’re as weak as kittens, with a military that’s going to have its own ass handed to it on a platter, and body bags filled by the gross, because it’s so hamstrung with PC that it cannot accomplish the most fundamental missions assigned to it, eight days out of seven.

    Overstated? Probably. Almost certainly. And don’t underestimate “freaks and geeks.” Or both viewpoints are true: Our armed forces aren’t what they’re shaped up to be, but are still miles beyond other country’s armed forces. Or it could be a case of inter-service differences: The army, honed by two decades at the point of the knife in the global war on terror, is the best in the world but the Navy and Air Force have problems. Or anywhere in-between those extremes. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)

  • African Swine Fever and stagflation in China.
  • Ackerman McQueen moves to terminate their contract with the NRA. (Previously. I still have an incomplete follow-up to that piece I need to finish.)
  • CrossFit leaves Facebook over suspensions of popular groups promoting a Keto lifestyle. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Spreadsheeting your marriage. It actually makes a surprising amount of sense… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Former Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran has died at the age of 81. Cochran was Mississippi’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction, was a stalwart advocate of the Reagan revolution, and then slowly drifted into a more moderate direction as he stayed in the senate 45 years.
  • Leon Redbone, RIP.
  • John Cleese tells critics to piss off:

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Texas repeals ban on tomahawks and brass knuckles.
  • Texas Scorecard approves of the work of Austin police chief Slab Bulkhead* Brian Manley.
  • Last Mohawk code-talker dies.
  • Jeopardy host Alex Trebek almost in remission from his cancer.
  • Important safety tip: Trying to imitate The Dukes of Hazzard in real life will not bring the desired results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Austin-area SH 45 SW Toll road to open June 1st.
  • What Rice University looked like a hundred years ago, when it was surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.
  • Follow-up: You know that story about a researcher cracking the Voynich Manuscript? Yeah, maybe not. (Hat tip: Reader Dave Rainwater.)
  • “Sociologists Believe Shrieking Left-Winger Who Is Throwing Things May Be Expressing Disagreement.”
  • “Punk Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel Somehow Always Ends in 9-to-5 Office Job.”
  • *Running joke. Source here.

    Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 29, 2019

    Monday, April 29th, 2019

    Biden is finally In, so barring stragglers and outsiders, the field is largely set.

    Also see yesterday’s update on the Twitter Primary.

    Polls

  • WaPo/ABC (open question poll of Democrats and Democrat-leaning adults): Biden 13, Sanders 9, Buttigieg 5, Harris 4, Warren 4, O’Rourke 3, Booker 1, Hillary Clinton 1(!), Klobucher 1, Donald Trump 1(!!!!!), Michelle Obama 1, Other 4.
  • Weirdly, ABC has different numbers for what appears to be the same poll: Biden 17, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 5, Harris 4, Warren 4, O’Rourke 4. And I’m too busy to dig into the methodology to figure out the discrepancy.
  • Monmouth from April 23rd: Biden 27, Sanders 20, Buttigieg 8, Harris 8, Warren 6, O’Rourke 4. “California Sen. Kamala Harris has 8% support, off just slightly from 10% in March and 11% in January.” But she can’t be thrilled at that trendline…
  • UNH New Hampshire poll. Sanders 30, Biden 18, Buttigieg 15, Warren 5, Harris 4, Booker 3, O’Rourke 3, Klobucher 2, Yang 2, Ryan 2. That’s as high as I’ve seen Buttigieg.
  • Emerson Texas poll: Biden 23, O’Rourke 22, Sanders 17, Buttigieg 8, Warren 7, Castro 4, Yang 3, Harris 3, Klobucher 3. That’s an abysmal showing for Castro in his home state, and Harris should be doing better just off urban voters from Houston and the Metroplex. Indeed, Harris is down in every poll here.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls.
  • Election betting markets. Yang is polling better at 4.9% for the Dem nomination than Warren at 4.7%. One wonders which Bulwerk-backer has Marco Rubio 2020 at 0.5%…
  • Pundits, etc.

  • Kevin Williamson says that in the bold new Social Justice Warrior Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and joe Biden are the same candidate:

    Old white guy? Joe Biden has hair plugs that are older than the median Democratic primary voter. Sanders and Biden are a year apart — and both of them are older than Trump. Creaky? Creepy stuff in his history? Dusty northeastern union-hall politics? Check all those boxes. Worst: Sanders and Biden, though they are miles apart in rhetoric, are in many ways a couple of outmoded Teddy Kennedy liberals in a party that wants nothing to do with dinosaurs of that particular species.

    Snip.

    The old-white-guy thing isn’t working out too well for Sanders. In Houston earlier this week for a cracked festival of progressive inanity called “She the People,” Sanders got read the old-white-guy riot act: Pressed about racial issues, Comrade Muppet started to launch into yet another retelling of the fact that he marched with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 — but the crowd shut him down, hooting and laughing at him. “We know!” someone shouted. They’d heard it all before. Sanders, visibly flummoxed, went on to talk up the fact that he’d supported Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, and the room responded with, approximately, “Jesse Who?”

    The Reverend Jackson’s is a name to conjure with no more.

  • The Democratic Party Civil War, Round Two:

    Former Vice President Joe Biden’s entry into the 2020 presidential primary sets the stage for another knock-down, drag-out fight between the establishment wing of the party and the ascendant left, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

    Snip.

    The 2016 primary contest left liberals fuming at what they viewed as establishment interference in the race, underscored by the hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails that showed favoritism toward Clinton.

    And some mainstream Democrats are unnerved by what they view as a group of left-wing interlopers, online brawlers and sore losers trying to take over the party.

    The same fight played out in 2017, when party officials elected Tom Perez to be the next DNC chairman. Perez, who was backed by Biden, narrowly defeated Sanders’s preferred candidate, former Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.). That race similarly cut along establishment and grass-roots lines.

    Snip.

    But many centrist Democrats are just as worried about how the left will approach the primary contest.

    They’re frustrated by Sanders’s steadfast refusal to officially join the Democratic Party and worried by what they view as his team of political assassins. And they wonder whether Sanders’s supporters will accept the outcome of the primary and turn out to vote for the nominee in the general election if Sanders falls short again.

    “There is a ‘Bernie-or-bust’ coalition, and they have no allegiance to the party,” said the Democratic strategist. “They don’t care about campaign infrastructure or winning up and down the ballot. They’re just concerned about bullshit litmus tests and defending their guy no matter what and pretending that everyone else is a member of the big bad establishment.”

  • 538 on what the candidates are saying and doing.
  • Here’s a handy visual identifier for the clown car:

  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Some sort of announcement looms early this week. Gets a New York Times softball interview.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Actor Alec Baldwin: Probably not. Still no news since his three week old tweet.
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. He’s been very quiet since his cancer surgery. Hard to blame him…
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. See last week’s post for his announcement video. Naturally, there’s tons of Biden news to wade through:
    • He raised $6.3 million within 24 hours of announcing, the most of any of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls, but not a “blow you away” number. “Biden’s campaign announced Friday that 96,926 donors contributed, with an average online donation of $41. His campaign also noted that 97% of his online donations were under $200.”
    • “Joe Biden Launches Presidential Bid With Fundraiser Filled With Corporate Lobbyists and GOP Donors.”

      Biden has long since been close to lobbyists. Biden’s presidential campaign is currently being coordinated by his former chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, who was himself a lobbyist. In the past, Ricchetti’s role with Biden’s vice presidential office sidestepped the Obama administration’s ban on employing lobbyists: Ricchetti received a special waiver to take his role with Biden.

      Thursday’s fundraiser will be rife with lobbyists — but not those registered in the federal system.

      The Biden for President host committee includes Kenneth Jarin, a lobbyist with Ballard Spahr who is registered to work on behalf of toll road operator Conduent and several health care interests. Jarin is a major donor to both parties and has given to political action committees controlled by former Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

      Another host of the Biden fundraiser is Alan Kessler, another lobbyist who works with the firm Duane Morris. Kessler is registered to lobby in Pennsylvania for American Airlines and the global information tech firm Unisys Corporation, among other clients.

      Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, another host of the event, is a senior adviser to the local lobbying operation at Dentons, a law firm with a vast government affairs operation. Nutter is also on the board of Conduent.

    • Whistling past the graveyard: “Democrats dismiss Biden as front-runner in name only.”

      In another election, at another time, the late entrance of a well-funded candidate leading in the polls might send convulsions through the primary field.

      But Joe Biden’s arrival into the 2020 race has not had that effect. No Democratic rival appears doomed. No one’s fundraising seems in danger of drying up. Instead, in joining the race, the former vice president has laid bare how unsettled the entire 20-candidate contest remains — and how many in the party don’t believe the 76-year-old Biden is prepared for the rigors of a modern campaign, or the demands of a party transformed.

      What, you mean the other candidates didn’t immediately start rending their garments and proclaiming “Woe is me! All is lost!”? Do tell…

    • Carpe Donktum nails Biden on the “very fine people” lie:

    • Heh:

    • About one of Biden’s advisors:

    • The cases for and against Joe Biden. On the for side:

      I’ve written previously on how the Democratic Party is more moderate and older than you probably think it is. About 50% of Democratic voters call themselves moderate or conservative, which is about the same percentage that are at least 50 years old. Most Democratic candidates running this year don’t seem to recognize that fact.

      We’ve seen a Democratic field in which the candidates seem to be falling over each other to move further left, where the youngest Democrats are.

      Biden, meanwhile, is sitting all alone in his base. In a Monmouth University poll released earlier this week, he had a 19-point advantage over his nearest competitor with Democrats who called themselves moderate or conservative. He was up by 18 points among those who were at least 50 years old. A Quinnipiac University poll released last month (that had Biden in a similar overall position) gave him even bigger advantages with more moderate and older voters.

      Now, Biden does trail with the youngest and very liberal Democrats. But they make up a minority of the party, and Biden’s competitors are splitting that vote.

    • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo enddorses Biden, and is going to use his fundraising network to help him. That will be useful.
    • R. S. McCain thinks that Biden’s 29% is his peak. I’m not so sure. I think there are a substantial portion of people who vote in Democratic primaries that haven’t swallowed the SJW line, and will show up at the polls for Biden.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Probably Not. The word always was that Bloomberg would only get in if Biden didn’t. Now that Biden is in the race, does this mean an end to the “Bloomberg might still run” pieces?
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Get’s a New York profile. Actually talks about meeting with Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Jared Kushner, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, as both Mayor of Newark and a Senator. “I value comity, I value finding common ground.” He posted 10 years of tax returns. “When I said we should crash the Booker campaign event, I didn’t mean literally!”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Maybe. The Montana legislative session has already ended, and he had a closed event in Butte. But: “You know, the Legislature just left town, they left 300 bills on my desk, so I have quite a bit of work to do to sort the rest of that out, and haven’t made any decisions what I’d do after I get to serve governor.” Slight downgrade.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He praised a Republican, but it’s OK, he’s safely dead. “According to reports by Politico, Buttigieg displays photos of himself alongside [late Indiana Republican Senator Richard] Lugar and other officials in his South Bend office.” Get’s a semi-fawning profile from Ross Douthat:

    But another part of Buttigieg’s appeal rests on the fact that during and after the McKinsey stint, he did two very un-meritocratty things: First, he joined the Navy Reserve and was briefly deployed to Afghanistan, and then he moved back to the small, de-industrialized Midwestern city of his youth, not to join his parents in its academic enclave, but to run for mayor of South Bend and attempt to save a piece of the heartland from stagnation and decline.

    These unusual steps away from elite self-segregation inform the way he sometimes seems to want to run for president: As a bridge-builder between the heartland and the coasts, as the Ivy League guy who takes Trump voters seriously as something more than just “deplorables,” as the first gay president who, like Nixon going to China, might be able to call a truce in the post-Obergefell culture wars and convince cultural liberals that they don’t need to bring every evangelical florist or Catholic adoption agency to heel.

    But this bridge-building possibility coexists with another theory of Buttigieg, in which his unusual trajectory back homeward, far from a rejection of the meritocratic mentality, is actually just a clever meritocrat’s “hack” of the system of ascent — an advertisement for his own seriousness that, having served its purpose, can now be abandoned while he tries to vault insanely high, to return not only to Washington but to the Oval Office (or at least the Naval Observatory or a cabinet office).

    This is the reading offered by Buttigieg’s pungent left-wing critics: I especially recommend a long takedown of the young mayor’s memoir by Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs, and a shorter critique by a scion of the Studebaker family (Studebakers being the cars whose manufacture once built South Bend’s blue-collar prosperity).

    These anti-Buttigiegians look at his mayoral record and see a politician who never really escaped the mentality of Harvard and McKinsey, whose big idea for the city involved bulldozing poor people’s houses and encouraging internet companies to move in — a “creative class” theory of urban renewal that didn’t supply the jobs that working-class South Benders need.

    Here’s that Current Affirs takedown of Buttigieg’s memoir Douthat mentions. Current Affaris is both progressive and uber-smarmy, so read it only if you want a hard-lefty hit-piece. But I’ve got to admit that the author’s deep reading of Buttigieg’s own extremely lengthy index entry for himself in his own memoir (“CrossFit phase of, 133”) has some definite zing to it.

  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He goes spelunking to discover homeless people under Las Vegas. (What CHUDs in Vegas stays under Vegas…) He visits New Hampshire.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. Why Bill De Blasio wouldn’t make a good president.” But it’s only 800 words rather than 800,000…
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Presidential hopeful John Delaney wants you to unfollow Trump on Twitter.” See, I would think if you have some 19,800 Twitter followers, you wouldn’t want to draw attention to that fact by telling people to stop following the guy who has just under 60 million…
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Tulsi Gabbard Is Running a Presidential Campaign on Freelancers. The Hawaii Democrat lists only one person as being on payroll in the first quarter of 2019.” Naturally unions have their knickers in a knot over that. Interesting how quickly she deleted this tweet, about how Democrats attack her more than Republicans:

    (Hat tip: Lee Stranahan.)

  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. Cruel, but accurate: “No One Likes You, Kirsten Gillibrand.”

    It’s clear that Gillibrand has made women and “women’s issues” a focus of her campaign, and it is clearly reflected in her fundraising. More than half of all the individual donations to her campaign during the first fundraising cycle of 2020 were from women. That’s more than any other 2020 contender can say. She is prioritizing issues like national paid family leave, access to abortion and birth control, improving public education, and stopping sexual harassment and abuse. But is that a winning strategy?

    Maybe her hot pink campaign logo and website splashed with the word “BRAVE” all over are a little too on the nose. Maybe constantly describing herself as a “young mom” is a label that just isn’t doesn’t seem to fit. Maybe women voters don’t liked to be courted simply because of their sex. Or maybe, she’s just too much like Hillary Clinton.

    Ouch!

  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. But there is this: “Andrew Gillum Agrees To Pay $5,000 Fine In Ethics Case Settlement.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. How Biden could derail Harris in South Carolina. Harris calls for a ban on right to work laws, which suggest she really wants union campaign contributions.
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets a New York Times profile. “In its 191-year history, the Democratic Party has never nominated a presidential candidate from west of the Central time zone.” I doubt that’s the tidbit I would have led with. Also “He got all these lefty programs through but supports fracking.” He had a brain freeze and forgot what GDP stands for.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He blathers about climate change and takes potshots at Bernie Sanders to a lefty outlet. “If you’re looking for a woman, or even an economically progressive candidate, Inslee is not your guy.”
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. “Klobuchar hails Anita Hill as an inspiration,” because of course she does. Genuflecting to St. Anita is a required ritual on the left again, mainly as a way for “woke” candidates to bash Biden for the Clarence Thomas confirmation. But one wonders how much a confirmation hearing that occurred more than a quarter-century ago will mean to an electorate that doesn’t remember Jesse Jackson…
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Out.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Last week’s Clown Car Update noted reports that Messam had missed payroll for campaign staffers. This week: “The two-term mayor’s campaign staffers have scattered from the nest after Messam missed payroll, first reported by The Miami New Times. Reports from the road say rallies have been sparsely attended. Now, Messam is mum, referring people to his legal counsel.” Also this: “There was speculation that Messam has his eyes set on the seat of Congressman Alcee Hastings, 82, who is reportedly going through treatment for pancreatic cancer.”
  • Update: Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Rolling Stone profile:

    Democratic congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA), an Iraq war veteran who announced his candidacy for president early this week, wants you to know that presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who are trying to push America towards more progressive policies are bad for our country, and he’s running to save us.

    “We can’t go too far left or we will lose middle America.”

    It seems like Moulton is competing with Biden, Buttigieg and Delaney for the “non-crazy” Democratic Party vote. Whether this is a viable strategy remains to be seen. I have my doubts. But I was mildly surprised to see that Moulton has 138,000 Twitter followers, which is more than any of the other representatives running save Gabbard. Of course, that says less about how well Moulton is running than how badly Swalwell, Delaney and Ryan are…

  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders both heckled at She the People conference. He wants to spend $5 trillion on climate change, because who can most quickly bankrupt America for an unproven theory is now a race among Democratic candidates. The cops at the scene of O’Rourke’s 1998 DWI said that yes, he did try to flee the scene. (Hat tip: Twitchy.)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Got a KVUE interview: “I want to change the conversation. I’ve listened to some of these political shows and we’re not even talking about the real issues in the campaign. I think first and foremost, we need an industrial policy that actually lifts middle-class wages.”
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Inside Bernie’s army: “On Saturday, the campaign launched a nationwide organizing program with nearly 5,000 house parties in every state throughout the country, demonstrating a show of force for his volunteer network and an opportunity to mobilize supporters in a primary contest that could remain close through the early voting states and beyond.” He’s also building out Our Revolution as a “shadow campaign” in the Midwest. “Bernie Sanders Can Win, But He Isn’t Polling Like A Favorite,” which compares Sanders’ numbers to candidates with similar numbers in previous cycles from Jeb! in 2016 all the way back to Hubert Humphrey in 1972. “Three of these candidates [Romney 2012, Obama 2008, McCain 2008] won their nominations; the other 12 lost.”
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out. But he did attract a sarcastic Trump tweet:

  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s touring Iowa. “Trey Gowdy: Eric Swalwell as president ‘ought to scare the ever-living hell out of you.'” Well, it might if his campaign weren’t dead in the water…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. “A Guide to Elizabeth Warren’s (Many) 2020 Policy Proposals.” How Warren is threatening Bernie’s left flank. Op-Ed: “Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are bad for the Democrats.” “Both represent the purist liberal wing of their party, a faction that has failed to elect a single president since the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. And with only one out of four Americans calling themselves liberals in the last election, the notion that a doctrinaire left-winger can win in 2020 is an exercise in self-delusion.” Warren was evidently well-received at an SEIU shindig that Sanders skipped.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a lengthy video interview from a Las Vegas TV station. Also gets endorsed by some actor I’ve never heard of who was in Glee.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Report on a Yang rally in Los Angeles, complete with comparison to cult bad film The Room. “He is the hyper-enthusiastic high school teacher and his supporters are the jocks, goths, and potheads who never knew school could be so fun.” He also campaigned in Iowa.
  • How Qatar Buys Influence (and a bit about Saudi Arabia)

    Wednesday, March 27th, 2019

    I saw this video about Qatar buying influence at a number of American media outlets and think tanks. It’s 23 minutes long, but worth you’re time if you’re interested in the subject.

    A few takeaways:

  • Qatar has poured a lot of money into the Brookings Institute, so much that their scholars are forbidden to criticize it. And no one knows just how much they’re pouring into Brookings’ Doha branch.
  • I knew that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had sidelined many hardline Wahhabist clerics in 2017, but I didn’t know that (as this video asserts) he at least some threatened with a sentence of beheading. But that does appear to be the case.
  • Nick Muzin, Ted Cruz’s deputy chief of staff for strategy in his 2016 Presidential campaign, opened lobbying agency Stonington Strategies and became a registered agent for Qatar, specifically for pitching them to the American Jewish community. According to Tablet, Muzin’s firm was pulling down $300,000 a month from Qatar, though he says he cut ties with them last year (which is not in the video).
  • Qatar has evidently launched hacking attacks against many of its critics.
  • I think their overall take, that Qatar continues to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups, and that Mohammed bin Salman is largely cleaning up Saudi Arabia’s act when it comes to sponsoring terrorism, is general correct. This does not make the Saudis our friends, but it does make them somewhat less repugnant allies.

    Speaking of the Saudis, this piece in Foreign Policy states that “Mohammed bin Salman Is Here to Stay“:

    for all the talk of the crown prince’s brashness (former State Department officials Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky described the crown prince as a “ruthless, reckless, and impulsive leader”), some of the changes he has brought to his country have benefitted the United States. Not least among them are his efforts to drastically curtail Wahhabi clerical influence at home by detaining dozens of radical clerics and drastically limiting the power of the religious police and to empower Saudi women by better integrating them into the workforce.

    And despite what many in the West see as Saudi Arabia’s missteps during his tenure—including its involvement in the war in Yemen, blockading Qatar, detaining Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the imprisonment and alleged torture of women’s rights activists, the detention of Saudi political and moneyed elites, and the diplomatic spat with Canada—Saudi Arabia has also used its considerable diplomatic and financial leverage to support key U.S. policies throughout the Middle East. These include efforts at Arab-Israeli peace and stabilization and reconstruction initiatives in Iraq and northeastern Syria.

    The United States should remember that Mohammed bin Salman’s successes as well as some of his mistakes are products of the same qualities: his youth and drive. He is 33, which is an asset insofar as it aligns him with the needs, wants, and hopes of a country in which 70 percent of the population is under 35. Youth entails boldness and an increased appetite for risk—essential qualities in a leader who is trying to bring about the type of total social and economic transformation the kingdom requires.

    I think that this analysis is largely correct as well, but a large measure of caution is always in order where the Saudis are concerned.

    Cornyn Seeks Fourth Term

    Monday, December 10th, 2018

    In case you missed this news Friday, Texas Senator John Cornyn is seeking a fourth term, and fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz has endorsed him:

    Signaling that the 2020 election season has begun, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has endorsed his colleague John Cornyn for re-election.

    In a video posted this morning by Cornyn’s campaign, the two men sit together with Cruz asking voters to join him “in supporting John Cornyn’s campaign for re-election to keep Texas strong and prosperous.”

    He and Cornyn take turns extolling their achievements, working with President Trump, on behalf of Texas.

    “Ted and I fight shoulder to shoulder to make the country look more like Texas,” said Cornyn, who will be seeking a fourth six-year term in 2020.

    “John and I have made a very strong team here in Washington, and I hope that we can keep working together so that together we can uphold the principles that have long embodied the Texas can-do spirit,” added Cruz.

    Their relationship hasn’t always been so smooth. In 2016, Cornyn famously refused to make a similar early endorsement of Cruz for 2018. Of course, Cruz didn’t endorse Cornyn’s 2014 re-election bid until after that year’s primary.

    There was talk that Cornyn, being 66, might retire, but that’s evidently not the case.

    In 2014, I thought Cornyn might be vulnerable to a primary challenge from the right (which sort of happened, but Rep. Steve Stockman’s lackluster campaign didn’t even throw a scare into Cornyn). I don’t think that this year, for a variety of reasons, mainly that Donald Trump’s victory ended up largely incorporating the Tea Party back into the folds of the Republican Party proper, Cornyn has hewed more closely to the conservative line in recent years, and this year’s Democratic successes has deadened the Republican appetite for inter-party challenges of popular (and mostly conservative) incumbents.

    It’s not that Cornyn is perfect, it’s that his deviations from Republican orthodoxy are few enough that he doesn’t stand out from other Republican senators the way Jeff Flake and Lisa Murkowski do. (And Cornyn had a significant role in guiding Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination to a successful conclusion.) Also, don’t forget that Cornyn pulled in more votes than any other statewide candidate in 2014, obliterating his Democratic opponent even worse than Greg Abbott trounced Wendy Davis. If 2020 is anything like 2018, Republicans will want a familiar, popular incumbent on the ticket.

    I don’t see Cornyn losing in 2020, even if Democratic Party flavor-of-the-month Beto O’Rourke forgoes an expected Presidential run to challenge him.

    Texas Election Results Analysis: The Warning Shot

    Thursday, November 15th, 2018

    This is going to be a “glass half empty” kind of post, so let’s start out enumerating all the positives for Texas Republicans from the 2018 midterms:

  • Ted Cruz, arguably the face of conservatism in Texas, won his race despite a zillion fawning national profiles of an opponent that not only outspent him 2-1, but actually raised more money for a Senate race than any candidate in the history of the United States. All that, and Cruz still won.
  • Every statewide Republican, both executive and judicial, won their races.
  • Despite long being a target in a swing seat, Congressmen Will Hurd won reelection.
  • Republicans still hold majorities in the their U.S. congressional delegation, the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
  • By objective standards, this was a good election for Republicans. But by subjective standards, this was a serious warning shot across the bow of the party. After years of false starts and dead ends, Democrats finally succeeded in turning Texas slightly purple.

    Next let’s list the objectively bad news:

  • Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than three points, the worst showing of any topline Republican candidate since Republican Clayton Williams lost the Governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1990, and the worst senate result for a Texas Republican since Democratic incumbent Lloyd Bentsen beat Republican challenger Beau Boulter in 1988.
  • O’Rourke’s 4,024,777 votes was not only more than Hillary Clinton received in Texas in 2016, but was more than any Democrat has ever received in any statewide Texas race, ever. That’s also more than any Texas statewide candidate has received in a midterm election ever until this year. It’s also almost 2.5 times what 2014 Democratic senatorial candidate David Alameel picked up in 2014.
  • The O’Rourke campaign managed to crack long-held Republican strongholds in Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Williamson, and Hays counties, which had real down-ballot effects, and continue their recent success in Ft. Bend (Sugar Land) and Jefferson (Beaumont) counties.
  • Two Republican congressmen, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, lost to Democratic challengers. Part of that can be put down to sleepwalking incumbents toward the end of a redistricting cycle, but part is due to Betomania having raised the floor for Democrats across the state.
  • Two Republican incumbent state senators, Konni Burton of District 10 and Don Huffines of District 16, lost to Democratic challengers. Both were solid conservatives, and losing them is going to hurt.
  • Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas house, including two in Williamson County: John Bucy III beating Tony Dale (my representative) in a rematch of 2016’s race in House District 136, and James Talarico beating Cynthia Flores for Texas House District 52, the one being vacated by the retiring Larry Gonzalez.
  • Democratic State representative Ron Reynolds was reelected despite being in prison, because Republicans didn’t bother to run someone against him. This suggests the state Republican Party has really fallen down on the job when it comes to recruiting candidates.
  • In fact, by my count, that was 1 of 32 state house districts where Democrats faced no Republican challenger.
  • Down-ballot Republican judges were slaughtered in places like Harris and Dallas counties.
  • All of this happened with both the national and Texas economies humming along at the highest levels in recent memory.
  • There are multiple reasons for this, some that other commentators covered, and others they haven’t.

  • For years Republicans have feasted on the incompetence of the Texas Democratic Party and their failure to entice a topline candidate to enter any race since Bob Bullock retired. Instead they’ve run a long string of Victor Moraleses and Tony Sanchezes and seemed content to lose, shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well, it’s Texas!” Even candidates that should have been competative on paper, like Ron Kirk, weren’t. (And even those Democrats who haven’t forgotten about Bob Kreuger, who Ann Richards tapped to replace Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen when the latter resigned to become Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, getting creamed 2-1 by Kay Baily Hutchison in the 1993 special election, would sure like to.) Fortunately for Texas Republicans, none of the non-Beto names bandied about (like the Castro brother) seem capable of putting them over the top (but see the “celebrity” caveat below).
  • Likewise, Republicans have benefited greatly from a fundraising advantage that comes from their lock on incumbency. Democrats couldn’t raise money because they weren’t competitive, and weren’t competitive in part because they couldn’t raise money. All that money the likes of Battleground Texas threw in may finally be having an effect.
  • More on how Democrats have built out their organization:

    Under the hood, the damage was significant. There are no urban counties left in the state that support Republicans, thanks to O’Rourke winning there. The down-ballot situation in neighboring Dallas County was an electoral massacre, as was the situation in Harris County.

    “This election was clearly about work and not the wave,” [Democratic donor Amber] Mostyn said. “We have been doing intense work in Harris County for five cycles and you can see the results. Texas is headed in the right direction and Beto outperformed and proved that we are on the right trajectory to flip the state.”

  • “Last night we saw the culmination of several years of concentrated effort by the left — and the impact of over $100 million spent — in their dream to turn Texas blue again. Thankfully, they failed to win a single statewide elected office,” Texas Republican Party chair James Dickey said in a statement. “While we recognize our victories, we know we have much work to do — particularly in the urban and suburban areas of the state.”
  • The idea that Trump has weakened Republican support in the suburbs seems to have some currency, based on the Sessions and Culberson losses.
  • That effect is especially magnified in Williamson and Hayes counties, given that they host bedroom communities for the ever-more-liberal Austin.
  • Rick Perry vs. The World ended a year-long hibernation to pin the closeness of the race on Cruz’s presidential race. He overstates the case, but he has a point. Other observations:

    3. What if Beto had spent his money more wisely? All that money on yard signs and on poorly targeted online ads (Beto spent lots of money on impressions that I saw and it wasn’t all remnant ads) wasn’t cheap. If I recall correctly, Cruz actually spent more on TV in the final weeks, despite Beto raising multiples of Cruz’s money. Odd.

    4. Getting crazy amounts of money from people who dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be the hard part. Getting crazy good coverage from the media who all dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be hard part.

    Getting those things and then not believing your own hype…well if you are effing Beto O’Rourke, then that is the hard part.

    5. Beto is probably the reason that some Dems won their elections. But let’s not forget that this is late in the redistricting cycle where districts are not demographically what they were when they were drawn nearly a decade ago.

  • For all the fawning profiles of O’Rourke, he was nothing special. He was younger than average, theoretically handsomer than average (not a high bar in American politics), and willing to do the hard work of statewide campaigning. He was not a bonafide superstar, the sort of personality like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump that can come in from the outside and completely reorder the political system. If one of those ran as a Democrat statewide in Texas, with the backing and resources O’Rourke had, they probably win.
  • A lack of Green Party candidates, due to them failing to meet the 5% vote threshold in 2016, may have also had a small positive effect on Democrat vote totals in the .5% to 1% range.
  • None of the controversies surrounding three statewide Republican candidates (Ken Paxton’s lingering securities indictment, Sid Miller’s BBQ controversy, or George P. Bush’s Alamo controversy) seemed to hurt them much. Paxton’s may have weighed him down the most, since he only won by 3.6%, while George P. Bush won with the second highest margin of victory behind Abbott. Hopefully this doesn’t set up a nightmare O’Rourke vs. Bush Senate race in 2020.
  • Texas Republicans just went through a near-death experience, but managed to survive. Is this level of voting the new norm for Democrats, or an aberration born of Beto-mania? My guess is probably somewhere in-between. It remains to be seen how it all shakes out during the sound and fury of a Presidential year. And the biggest factor is out of the Texas Republican Party’s control: a cyclical recession is inevitable at some point, the only question is when and how deep.

    More 2018 Post Election Analysis

    Thursday, November 8th, 2018

    Busy as hell today. Here’s some more election analysis of note:

  • Jim Geraghty:

    Dear God, did the Senate Democrats’ strategy on Brett Kavanaugh backfire on them on an epic scale. I do think that before the Kavanaugh fight, the Democrats were on the path to that “Blue Tsunami.” And then they decided that rerunning the Neil Gorsuch fight wasn’t going to be enough; they had to fully embrace a bunch of accusations that had no supporting witnesses.

    Claire McCaskill, gone. Finally. I laid out her devilish luck in yesterday’s Jolt; for at least twelve years, Missouri Republicans yearned for a chance to take her on in a relatively normal political environment with a candidate who wasn’t a walking Superfund site of toxicity. Lo and behold, with no political wind at her back, no good GOP rivals being knocked out by the political equivalent of anvils falling from buildings or alien abductions, Josh Hawley won . . . by about 144,000 votes. The old “Vote liberal for four or five years, veer back to the center in election years” strategy of red-state Democrats finally stopped working.

    Taylor Swift could not deliver Tennessee for Phil Bredesen. In retrospect, the hype around the former governor looks like wishful thinking on the part of Democrats. He last won a statewide race in 2006, and as soon as Marsha Blackburn nationalized this race, it was over. Blackburn won by about 245,000 votes last night. You figure that Democrats will have a hard time recruiting a top-tier candidate anytime soon.

    Rick Scott won in Florida! Never underestimate this man again. If aliens invade Florida in 2022, Scott will lead the forces of humanity to a narrow upset victory, because that’s what he does every four years — win something that nobody thinks he has a chance to win, by about one percent. Florida Democrats will console themselves that it was so close, but with the high turnout, four-tenths of a percentage point comes out to . . . about 34,000 votes. After the 2000 presidential election, that’s a Florida landslide.

    As of this writing, Mike Braun is on pace to win Indiana’s Senate by 10 points, or about 189,000 votes. A lot of people are pointing to this result as a polling failure, but remember that because of Indiana’s strict anti-robocall laws, pollsters survey this state less frequently because they have to use live interviewers. The lesson here is, trust your instincts! A GOP candidate in a longtime Republican-leaning state, the home state of the current vice president, up against a Democrat who won with 50 percent in a presidential year and who votes against Kavanaugh a month before Election Day . . . has a really good chance to win and win comfortably.

    Face it, we’re not even that upset that Joe Manchin won in West Virginia. His victory offers the lesson that any red-state Democrat could have improved their chances for reelection by voting for Brett Kavanaugh.

    We should give Beto O’Rourke a bit of credit; coming within three points is better than any Democrat running statewide in Texas since . . . Ann Richards, I think? But that’s . . . not a victory, which is a fair expectation when you raise $70 million and spend $60 million. And because of the scale of the turnout, those three points amount to 213,750 votes. Turnout was more than 8.3 million votes, and I recall seeing O’Rourke fans insisting that if turnout surpassed 8 million votes, then their man was certain to win. Guys, there are a lot of Republicans in Texas.

    Bad: Nancy Pelosi as Speaker again. Good: Getting to run against Nancy Pelosi again, since she’s now the highest ranking elected Democrat in the country.

  • Kevin D. Williamson:

    I am happy to see the admirable Senator Ted Cruz reelected in Texas, where you can almost buy a Senate race but not quite. I like Senator Cruz a great deal (and I like him even more when he’s not campaigning) but I’d have enjoyed watching a reasonably well-qualified ham sandwich defeat Robert Francis O’Rourke, one of the most insipid and puffed-up figures on the American political scene.

    Snip.

    The Democrats have gone well and truly ’round the bend. I spent a fair part of last night with Democrats in Portland, Ore. — admittedly, a pretty special bunch of Democrats, Portland being Portland and all. The professional political operators are what they always are — by turns cynical and sanctimonious — but the rank and file seem to actually believe the horsepucky they’ve been fed, i.e., that these United States are about two tweets away from cattle cars and concentration camps. The level of paranoia among the people I spoke to was remarkable.

    Fourth, and related: The Democrats don’t seem to understand what it is they are really fighting, which, in no small part, is not the Republicans but the constitutional architecture of the United States. The United States is, as the name suggests, a union of states, which have interests, powers, and characters of their own. They are not administrative subdivisions of the federal government. All that talk about winning x percent of the “national House vote” or the “national Senate vote” — neither of which, you know, exists — is a backhanded way of getting at the fact that they do not like how our governments are organized, and that they would prefer a more unitary national government under which the states are so subordinated as to be effectively inconsequential. They complain that, under President Trump, “the Constitution is hanging by a thread” — but they don’t really much care for the actual order established by that Constitution, and certainly not for the limitations it puts on government power through the Bill of Rights and other impediments to étatism.

    Noun. etatism (usually uncountable, plural etatisms) Total control of the state over individual citizens.”

  • Sean Trende:

    Overall, Republicans had a tough night Tuesday. When all is said and done, Democrats look to have gained around 35 seats in the House, seven governorships and over 330 state legislators. Yet as rough as it was, it could have been much worse for Republicans. In Barack Obama’s first mid-term in 2010, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and 700 state legislative seats — numbers that were not out of the question for Democrats for a large portion of this cycle. In the Senate, Republicans actually expanded their majority — as it appears they will pick up 3 seats — whereas Democrats lost 6 seats in the 2010 midterms.

    In many ways, it was a strange election. If you had told me in August that Democrats were going to win more than 30 House seats, I would have bet a large amount of money that the Senate would also be in play. I would have a difficult time accepting that Florida would elect Ron DeSantis governor and (as it now appears) Rick Scott as senator. The notion that Ohio’s Senate race would fall into the mid-single digits, that Mike DeWine would win the Ohio governor’s race handily, or that Michigan’s Senate race would be decided by fewer than seven points all would have seemed ludicrous. Martha McSally keeping Arizona close (and possibly winning) would not seem possible.

    Snip.

    1. The GOP got killed in the suburbs. We can place Republican losses into three broad buckets: “perennial swing seats” (Colorado’s 6th, Arizona’s 2nd), “sleeping/problematic candidates” (Oklahoma’s 5th, South Carolina’s 1st), and suburban districts. This last category is by far the broadest, and it accounts for around two-thirds of the Republicans’ losses. This is a significant long-term problem for the party if it continues.
    2. This probably doesn’t count as a wave. If you look at the Index I referenced on Monday, our preliminary results suggest that things have moved about 23 points toward Democrats. That’s a substantial shift, but it falls short of even “semi-wave elections” such as 2014 (a shift of 26 points toward Republicans) and 2006 (a movement of 30 points toward Democrats). Obviously, as results trickle in this might shift further, but probably not by much.
    2. Money. One of the ways to resolve the tension between what we saw in the House versus the Senate (and to a lesser extent, governorships) is that Democrats had a massive fundraising advantage in the lower chamber. This allowed them to catch a number of incumbent Republicans napping, and to spread the playing field out such that the GOP just had too many brush fires to put out. Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, for example, flipped in part because Michael Bloomberg’s team spent $400,000 on the air in the final week of the election. To the extent we wish to deduce anything about 2020 from these midterms, we should bear in mind that the next election will probably be fought on a more even financial playing field.

    Snip.

    This all takes place against the backdrop of a booming economy. Finally, it is important to note that Republicans should not have found themselves in this position amid a vibrant economy. It is quite unusual to have a result this bad in a time of peace and prosperity. Some of this is the suburban realignment, but some is driven by Donald Trump’s more extreme actions, which alienate suburban moderates.

    On the other hand, if Trump can smooth out the rougher edges that turn suburbanites off, he could prove to be a formidable candidate in 2020. Most of his states from 2016 continued to support Republicans this cycle. But, on the other hand, he hasn’t shown much interest in smoothing out those edges. And if the economy slides into recession, all bets are off.

  • Ed Rodgers:

    While Tuesday night was not a complete win for Republicans, there was no blue wave, either. By most measures, Republicans beat the odds of history and nearly everyone’s expectations, while Democrats were left disappointed as the fantasy of Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and others winning fizzled. Not one new progressive Democrat was successful bursting onto the scene. It will take a few days to process the meaning of this year’s election returns, but the instant analysis is clear: Democrats may have won the House, but Trump won the election.

  • Jazz Shaw on what won’t be happening:

    Let’s look at what won’t be happening, despite the fever dreams of the Democrats. First, there will be no big ticket legislative packages going through. No major immigration reform supporting the highest priorities of either party. No new tax cuts, but also no tax increases. No new gun control legislation. The fact is, these folks will be lucky if they can name a new Post Office.

    The President isn’t going to be impeached. The Democrats would need to round up every one of their members in the House to get the ball rolling and too many of them are on record saying that would be too extreme. And even if they managed it in the House there is zero chance of a conviction in the Senate. Donald Trump will finish his first term at a minimum.

    The wall isn’t going to be finished. That’s somehow become a badge of honor among Democrats, despite being one of the most doable solutions to immigration problems imaginable. If we’re going to get any money at all for additional wall construction, the new House majority will want a massive pound of flesh in return.

  • Kurt Schlicter: “Look For Democrats To Blow Their Meager Success By Being Jerks”:

    No, they want all #resistance, all of the time, and they are going to do everything they can to appease their looney base by launching investigations and screaming and yelling. That’s not going to help the newbies keep those new House seats in 2020. It’s going to be especially funny when all these rookies who promised the suckers back home they would never vote for that San Francisco liberal monster get strong-armed into casting their very first vote for Mistress Nancy.

    And if they decide to obstruct and agitate, then Trump can be in opposition to them and run against the do-nothing House in 2020. Nobody is better than Trump when he has an enemy. I’m kind of hoping the Democrats choose the path of jerkiness just for the nicknames he’ll bestow in his tweets.

    Oh, and please, impeach him over Russia Treason Traitor stuff. Please. Toss the Trump in that briar patch and he’ll be president forever.

  • George Neumayr thinks Trump helped in Florida:

    The national media portrayed Trump as a weight on Republicans. In fact, he was their source of energy. Had the Florida GOP been ambivalent about Trump and kept him out of the state, Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott would have lost. Journalists mocked DeSantis for “tying himself to Trump,” but they now fall silent as it becomes clear that that was perhaps his only winning strategy.

    The press propagandized relentlessly for Gillum, who was flush with money from George Soros and Tom Steyer, while kneecapping the scrappier DeSantis over minor lapses, and Gillum still couldn’t win. Notice also the media’s silence about Obama. Yet again the darling of journalists shows himself to be a crappy campaigner for others. In his narcissistic shade nothing grows.

    The media’s excited talk of a “blue wave” in Florida never struck me as very convincing as I walked around various cities in Florida. The media’s giddy keenness for Gillum was never reflected in any of the conversations I ever heard. In mid-October, I walked around the Volusia County mall in a MAGA hat as an experiment to test the media’s claims of a spreading anti-Trump backlash. Nobody seemed to care in the slightest. In fact, a self-described independent who said that he “had voted for Jimmy Carter” made a point of walking over to me as I sat in the mall’s food court to express his support for Trump’s policies. “I didn’t vote for him,” he said, “but he is delivering results.”

  • Dems are currently up 30 seats in the House, which puts them up to 225.

    Liveblogging the 2018 Election

    Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

    AZ, NV and MT Senate races all too close to call, but Republicans are leading in all three right now.

    I’m out of gas and heading to bed. Analysis tomorrow.



    Wisconsin Gov still too close to call.


    Takeaways seems to be:

  • Republicans tighten grip on senate
  • Democrats take the House.
  • Dumptrucks full of outside money and a good candidate can almost make Texas competitive.
  • Claire McCaskill concedes.


    Dems pick up Iowa 1.
    John Carter still up.


    Democrats pick up OK5.

    PBS praising Bloomberg for airdropping outside money into races.


    Scott Walker’s Gov race too close to call.

    Culberson looking like he’s going to lose.


    Never mind the election, Vincent Price is on the Carol Burnet Show on MeTV!


    Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick wins by six points, AG Ken Paxton by 4 points.


    McCaskill goes down, Heitkamp went down. “Just like the old Gypsy woman said!”



    Ted Cruz victory speech. He sounds really horse. Compliments O’Rourke on a hard-run race.

    “All the money in Hollywood couldn’t beat the good people of Texas!”


    Charlie Baker (R) reelected Governor of Massachusetts.




    Culberson behind in TX07.


    Nate Silver’s algorithm has evidently gone rogue. He’s now having to pull glowing memory sticks out of HAL.




    My state Rep. Tony Dale, currently behind John Bucy. Williamson County has gotten a lot more purple, alas.


    All republicans winning Texas statewide races, but more narrowly than expected. That Bobby Francis money is having a real effect.


    McMaster (R) wins SC Gov.


    Dems have picked up most of the PA redistricted competitive seats, but Republicans just got one.


    ABC projects Ted Cruz to win Texas!


    Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaking. Victory speech.


    NBC thinks Dems take the House.


    McSally up over MethLab in AZ.


    My congressmen, John Carter (R) up, but only by 2 points.


    Incumbent Democrats Sherrod Brown (OH) and Bob Casey (PA) projected as winners.


    Bob Sleazoid (D) declared winner in NJ Sen.


    Cruz now up 10,000 votes.


    Cruz 6,000 votes behind O’Rourke, 73% in.


    Cruz/O’Rourke virtually tied with 72% of vote in, with Midland/Odessa still out.


    O’Rourke up with 70% of the vote in. It would obviously be a huge upset if it holds. But I’m not sure 70% of thevote is actully in.


    Lindsey Graham (R-Like A Boss) on NBC.



    CBS calling WV for Manchin.


    Bob Schiffer says “The Senate is moving not only in Republican’s direction, but Trump’s direction.”


    Marsha Blackburn (R) called the winner in Tennessee.


    Cruz up by only 3% over O’Rourke. Hmmm.
    Braun declared winner over Donnelly. The last Stupak Bloc Flipper goes DOWN.


    They thawed out Tom Brokow.



    Election watching Rich: “I haven’t been this excited since Hillary Clinton won the White House.”


    Manchin (D) holding on in WV.


    “For the first time in Georgia, we have a progressive Democrat running in Georgia.” And she’s getting WHOMPED.


    They called KY for Barr (R) over McGarth (D), the candidate the MSM kept lauding. Suggests Dems won’t take house.

    Dave Brat still up by 1 pioint, 86% in.


    Stacey Abrams still getting walloped in Georgia,


    Hugin up by 4 point over Sleazeball (NJ). 6% in.


    DeSantis (R) up narrowly in Florida.


    Hugin (R) winning narrowly over Sleazebag (D) in New Jersey, 1% in.
    Hawley walloping Planetoid Claire, but only 1% in there as well.

    PBS: “No blue wave.”


    Frum Brooks has arms crossed on PBS. Not looking happy.


    Wow:

    Stacey Abrams (D) losing big early, but only 2% in.

    Braun still up 16 points with 27% in.


    Nancy Pelosi on PBS. Looks like she’s had another round of Botox.


    Republican Greg Pence, older brother of VP Mike pence, has reportedly been elected to Indiana’s 6th congressional district. (via Twitter)


    Florida Sen: Scott (R) 50.5%, Nelson (D) 49.5%, 4% in, via RCP.


    Indiana: Braun 58% to Donnelly’s 38% with 10% in (via PBS)
    No, delusional PBS host, O’Rourke did NOT run a negative-free campaign.


    5:50 PM: First results from Indiana via Real Clear Politics: “Donnelly 34.7, Braun 61.3, Brenton 4.0” with 2% reporting (presumably some early voting results).


    Just a placeholder for now, but I expect to start liveblogging/livetweeting the 2018 election starting at 7 PM CST.

    Ted Cruz Wins Halloween

    Wednesday, October 31st, 2018

    Happy Halloween, everyone!

    LinkSwarm for October 20, 2018

    Friday, October 19th, 2018

    Welcome to Friday’s LinkSwarm! I hope all my readers are dry and warm and well-away from any flooded riverbanks.

    Lots of Bobby Francis O’Rourke news this week. Pretty soon we won’t have him to kick around any longer…

  • A critic rethinks Trump:

    Like most Democrats, I reacted to the stunning 2016 election of Donald Trump with a combination of confusion and dread. After all, Hillary Clinton was the favorite and, to Democrats like me, a Trump victory seemed to portend certain economic disaster, nuclear war, and pretty much the end of America as we knew it.

    But now nearly two years into his administration, Trump has presided over a “winning streak” that includes a booming economy and stock market, an unemployment level at a nearly 50-year low, two Supreme Court appointments, no new foreign wars or domestic terrorist attacks emanating from abroad, a significant degree of progress on trade relations with Canada and Mexico, a “needed reset” on the China relationship, and the prospect of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

    Perhaps it is time that even his opponents reconsider Trump. Does Trump have a strategy that we can describe? Is Trump a return of Richard Nixon, of Ronald Reagan, or of something else entirely? After several months of watching the news without gaining any answers, I finally canceled my cable subscription and sought out other sources. I found some insights in unexpected places.

    Trump’s presidency marks a return to realpolitik and great power politics.

    Snip.

    A third insight was from the unlikeliest place: the critically acclaimed animated show, “Rick and Morty.” During Trump’s campaign, his supporters frequently talked about how funny the candidate was. This humor was lost on most of my left-leaning peers. But “Rick and Morty” showed me what I have may been missing. Here is a popular TV show about a mad scientist Rick, an amoral, sociopathic man who considers himself the smartest man in the universe and tells dirty jokes in front of his grandson Morty. The slapstick, low-brow, and nihilistic insults and dirty humor of “Rick and Morty” — much like Trump — resemble some of the comedic greats from the decades prior to the 1990s: “The Honeymooners,” “Benny Hill,” “Abbott and Costello,” “The Three Stooges,” and “I Love Lucy.” These comedic devices can be traced back hundreds of years to Asian and European theater, which used slapstick, puns, insults, and innuendo.

    Compare that oeuvre to the 1990s-2000s, during which comedy was more satirical, knowing, self-referential, meta, and smug. This idea is far from perfect, but examples of satire that use slapstick as well include “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report,” “South Park,” “Team America: World Police”, and Sacha Baron Cohen’s parodies. American society today seems to be witnessing a return of what columnist Noah Smith calls “goofy” humor and a decline of “knowingly sarcastic” humor. Even The New Yorker complained that the 2018 Emmys were too smug and later described Trump’s rallies unfavorably as a “vaudeville routine.” Perhaps our shift toward a reversion in history also means we are seeing a cultural reversion as well. Smugness has become politically tone deaf.

    Snip.

    The Trump Doctrine takes previous policy assumptions and turns them on their head. Trump’s “America First” approach is a reversion to the idea of realpolitik and great power competition. It is better suited to a moment in which American power is much less dominant. The president takes each state-to-state relationship on its own terms. That’s why he’s often antagonistic with allies and friendly with threatening dictators. The consequences of insulting friendly countries, such as Canada, might be hurt feelings in exchange for better trade terms, while souring relations with an antagonistic one, such as North Korea, could result in serious security threats. He pursues the optimal outcome in a utilitarian sense rather than follow previous rules about diplomatic etiquette. Trump keeps his enemies even closer than his friends, while previous presidents did the opposite. Niccolo Machiavelli might have been familiar with these tactics.

    Trump’s diplomatic method can be reduced to the four “B’s”: bullying, bargaining, burden-sharing, and bragging. He starts an interaction by bullying the subject — usually on Twitter, seeks a chance to sit down with the target to bargain as hard as possible toward what Trump may see as a more reciprocal relationship of burden-sharing, and then finally brags about whatever the results are. Trump treats all relationships as transactional, deploying tit-for-tat tactics toward achieving his goal of “reciprocity.” His message is that he wants to make America great again but does not spend much time lecturing or moralizing to foreigners. Finally, his use of insults, jokes, and slapstick, physical humor creates an image of honesty and authenticity with his supporters. Overall, these techniques and worldviews are becoming increasingly common around the world, including with the leaders of countries as diverse as Turkey, the Philippines, Russia, Israel, Mexico — and potentially Brazil.

    Trump described his realpolitik-with-no-sacred-cows approach during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September: “America’s policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.”

    Overall, Trump’s approach represents a reversion to a style of statecraft that flips previous approaches. Technocracy, meritocracy, and bureaucratic approaches are giving way to establishing top-level personal rapport, trust, and loyalty. Free trade ideology is giving way to trade as a means to enrichment. Building institutions gives way to questioning the utility of each institution. Moral diplomacy gives way to talking to anyone who will bargain. Careful speeches give way to saying anything that gets results. Saving sacred cows gives way to killing them or threatening to do so. Open markets give way to using U.S. markets, military, and migration as bargaining chips. Every relationship is subject to maximum leverage of what is possible.

  • Why are Democrats so afraid of Kanye West?

    West is nothing if not independent. He doesn’t need the approval of the Democratic establishment or the usual suspects among the liberal Hollywood elite. He is untethered from the traditional liberal gatekeepers in the same way Trump was untethered from the Republican establishment as a presidential candidate. There is a reason that the Democrats and their allies in the media insult, marginalize, ridicule and try to “Uncle Tom” West. It is obvious they are afraid of him and the discussion he might start.

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Remember the Democrats IT scandal? It was still never adequately explained.
  • “Beto O’Rourke Raised Record Breaking $38 Million in 3Q.” And he’s still losing. Just imagine if Democrats had used that money to protect endangered incumbent senators instead…
  • Nice takedown of Beto O’Rourke’s media-boosted campaign:

    O’Rourke’s “extraordinary political success” is illusionary. His national popularity is contingent on aesthetics and mass of coverage. It is merely that Beto looks and acts like the type of guy producers at most cable news networks and talk shows think—or more precisely, wish—a senator would look and act like. Unlike, say, Cruz (nearly two years older than Beto), who is always blathering about the Constitution or whatnot.

    It’s not as if O’Rourke is a special talent by any measure. His speeches and talking points are just as vacuous and predictable as those of any other middling politician. His positions on guns and abortion—and a multitude of other issues—are in lockstep with his party, not the state. O’Rourke has never offered any substantively impressive policy ideas. He’s not led on any notable issues in the House. He’s remarkably unremarkable.

    (Hat tip: Nick Short on Twitter.)

  • “Despite everyman image, O’Rourke is even wealthier than Cruz“:

    The son of a onetime Republican county judge and a longtime furniture store owner, the Democratic congressman from El Paso married into the family of one of his hometown’s most prominent developers and has assembled real estate investments worth millions.

    Congress is rife with rich people, but O’Rourke had a 2015 net worth of about $9 million, ranking 51st out of 435 House members, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than double the $3.8 million worth of his Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, who ranked 41st of 100 senators.

  • Think Progress alum thinly disguised as a journalist does 50 Shades of Beto. Ick.
  • The hits keep coming:

  • Claire McCaskill gets money laundered through Planned Parenthood, in violation of several federal laws.

  • “County Dem Leader Forced To Resign For Posts Defending Cop And US Flag.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “US Justice Department designates Hezbollah ‘transnational crime organisation.'” (Hat tip: Nick Short on Twitter.)
  • Brexit talks extended. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The Jamal Khashoggi killing and media hypocrisy:

    The Russian government kills journalists, among others. I do not recall the Washington Post protesting on this basis the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Putin’s government or Obama’s promise to be more “flexible” with Russia after his reelection. Nor, as far as I remember, did the Post cite Russia’s murderous ways as a reason not to farm out to Putin enforcement of the “red line” against the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

    Cuba’s treatment of journalists and others has been atrocious. Yet, the mainstream media supported the Obama administration when it radically reset U.S. relations with Cuba without insisting on any change in the regime’s treatment of dissidents.

    What are the differences between Russia/Cuba and Saudi Arabia? I see two. First, Russia and Cuba are adversaries of America. Saudi Arabia is an ally.

    For the sane, this difference would, if anything, cut in favor of the Saudis. For the left, it cuts against them.

    Second, the Trump administration has very visibly allied itself with Saudi Arabia as a means of countering Iran and achieving other American objectives in the Middle East. Thus, the Khashoggi slaying provides the mainstream media with the opportunity to do what it does best — hammer President Trump.

    In my view, the Khashoggi slaying should not cause America substantially to alter its foreign policy. Our relatively close relationship with Saudi Arabia is predicated, as it should be, on mutual interests and mutual adversaries. Either the geo-political predicate justifies the relationship or it doesn’t.​

  • Support for gun control drops even further. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • President Trump ends small packet shipping from China resulting from a 144 year old treaty.
  • How liberals argue:

  • For some reason, liberal media mouthpieces decide to freak out about a 4Chan NPC meme from 2016.
  • What it was like to work on Google+.
  • Dead pimp expected to win election.
  • Even Elizabeth Warren’s “Indian” recipes are plagiarized.
  • Heh:

  • Heh II: Austin Commie Edition:

  • Florida man does it again. Not only is he a registered sex offender who hired a federal informant for a mad-bombing spree aimed at target stores, he did it all for…making money off shorting the stock?
  • Via Dwight comes this interesting look behind the making of the classic World War II bomber film Twelve O’Clock High.
  • Heh III: Heh Harder With a Vengence.

  • Beto Boomlet Busts

    Thursday, October 11th, 2018

    Remember all that breathless talk on how Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke was going to beat incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz as part of a giant “blue wave” against President Donald Trump?

    New polls say: Not so much.

    According to a New York Times poll, Cruz leads Democratic challenger O’ Rourke by nine points. The crosstabs further down the page show a 10 point Republican-over-Democrat edge among respondents, 38% to 28%, which much more closely mirrors previous exit polls than any of the other 2018 Texas Senate race polls I’ve covered. The piece also shows different results based on different turnout models; if the electorate looks like it did in 2014 (the last midterm election), Cruz lead is closer to 16 points. (Hat tip: Empower Texans, which notes that early October polls for Texas races like this have understated Republican support by 4-5 point.)

    A Quinnipac poll also has Cruz up by nine points. (That poll had Republican ID at 35%, Democrat at 23%.)

    Other links on the race:

  • The Cult of Beto:

    There is no way Robert Francis O’Rourke, alias “Beto,” a.k.a. the no-doubt gleaming future of the Democratic Party is as delusional about his prospects for success as his followers. That would be impossible.

    The Texas congressman is your average 46-year-old liberal failson politico, the grandson of a secretary of the Navy, the son of a judge, a hanger-on in his party who graduated from playing in an amazingly bad hardcore punk band to a seat on the El Paso City Council. After that, he challenged Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an eight-term Democratic incumbent and chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, with the help of outside cash and endorsements from both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The two issues of crucial importance to reviving the fortunes of the working class on which O’Rourke fought his campaign were support for same-sex marriage and drug legalization, both of which Reyes, a Catholic, opposed.

    Now O’Rourke is the Democratic nominee facing off against Sen. Ted Cruz. This is not some prize that party leadership granted to its favorite son. Defeating a sitting Republican senator in the Lone Star State is the kind of impossible job you give to someone you know slightly but don’t much care about, someone minimally competent but ultimately expendable, someone whose particular qualities don’t matter all that much because it’s a just a slot that needs to be filled and you’re just happy someone is bored or desperate enough to fill it — the kind of job you give, in other words, to Beto.

    Snip.

    No single article or tweet could do justice to the brain-destroying tedium of hyperbole, the willful exaggeration, the gushing faddishness, the hipster capitalist complacency, the novelty songwriting contest banality, the experimental filmmaker commercial-directing pseudo-profundity, the sheer late-night TV-level humorlessness of the Beto cult. In a recent column Dana Milbank promised to reveal the ingredients behind “the special sauce that flavors Betomania.” Here they are:

    • “O’Rourke’s cool factor: skateboarding at Whataburger, playing the air drums, doing his laundry on Facebook Live, and scoring appearances with Ellen DeGeneres and Stephen Colbert …”
    • Fifty thousand people attended a — free — Willie Nelson concert at which he appeared.
    • “His partisan jabs are delicate.”
    • He sometimes says “pendejo.”

    Snip.

    It’s worth recalling that excitable rank-and-file Democrats do this to themselves every few years, especially in Texas. Remember Wendy Davis and the famous shoes with which she was going to vault from the floor of the Texas Statehouse to the governor’s mansion, the White House, and, presumably, to infinity and beyond? The last I heard, after losing the governor’s race in a spectacular landslide she was doing wine-and-cheese one-offs with F-listers at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where she signed the electric pink Nikes for a lucky fan who had purchased them with his own money years earlier at her estate sale.

  • Jim Geraghty points out the obvious. “And no, Beto O’Rourke does not look like he’s going to win in Texas, which will raise tough questions about whether the $23 million donated to O’Rourke’s campaign could have been better spent elsewhere.”

  • A review of the First Cruz-O’Rourke debate.
  • Twitchy has a roundup, including this:

  • Evidently dozens of fawning profiles in national liberal publications doesn’t actually translate into winning over Texas voters. Who knew? Well, besides Wendy Davis…