[ Posted Monday, May 9th, 2016 – 17:21 UTC ]
Last week, the Washington Post ran an article titled "Five Not-Totally-Crazy Electoral Maps That Show Donald Trump Winning." The article was a cautionary note to Democrats who are blithely assuming Hillary Clinton will easily beat Donald Trump this November. In it, the authors provide five maps that show Trump beating Clinton, by winning anywhere from 270 Electoral College votes (the minimum necessary to win) up to 283 Electoral College votes. I'd like to answer them back with five maps of my own, which show scenarios that are a lot more likely to become reality. I do understand why the Post authors wrote their article -- Democrats getting complacent about their chances of victory is indeed a danger this election cycle, and who knows how many crossover votes are going to happen (in either direction)? But at the same time, it is easy to see the monstrous advantage any Democratic candidate for president now enjoys, and it's a lot easier to see a very wide and gentle path to victory for Hillary Clinton.
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[ Posted Friday, May 6th, 2016 – 17:40 UTC ]
It's been a pretty momentous week in the history of American politics, folks. The Republican Party is going to nominate Donald Trump to run for the highest office in the land. Politics and entertainment are now one. The trend that Ronald Reagan began -- furthered in no small part by Sarah Palin -- is now complete. In other words: welcome to the next episode of Who Wants To Be President?
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[ Posted Thursday, May 5th, 2016 – 17:26 UTC ]
As I predicted last month, President Barack Obama consolidated his recent gains in public opinion polling in April, and only showed very slight improvement in his job approval and job disapproval numbers. While this doesn't sound very exciting, it does show that Obama's recent gains were not temporary, but instead show some real staying power. Let's take a look at the new chart.
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[ Posted Wednesday, May 4th, 2016 – 16:44 UTC ]
It is now official. Seventeen candidates ran for the Republican presidential nomination, and the sixteenth of these just suspended his campaign. This leaves Donald Trump as the last man standing. A whole lot of people who never thought we'd arrive at this point are now going to have to get used to the phrase: "Donald Trump, Republican nominee."
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[ Posted Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016 – 15:22 UTC ]
Indiana likes to call itself the "crossroads of America," which is understandable when you look at a map of the Interstate Highway System and how many major routes intersect in Indianapolis. But tonight, instead, it may very well be the end of the road for the entire primary season. Or, at least, the heavily-contested part of that season. Because tonight we may truly pivot to the general election and stop paying much attention to three of the five remaining candidates.
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[ Posted Friday, April 29th, 2016 – 16:58 UTC ]
Boy, it isn't every day you get to write a headline like that! But those are the kinds of feelings Ted Cruz seems to bring out in everyone -- left, right, and center.
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[ Posted Thursday, April 28th, 2016 – 16:58 UTC ]
Having devoted yesterday's column to a look backwards at presidential races, today I'm going for a personal best in the "ridiculously early speculation" category, and examine what might happen to the Republicans and the Democrats in the next presidential race. Hey, it's been that kind of week, what can I say?
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 27th, 2016 – 18:15 UTC ]
To tell you the truth, I never thought I'd have to write this article. I fully expected someone else to dig this stuff out, if the calls for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the race (or "say nice things about Hillary Clinton") began. Now that they have, I still haven't seen any detailed reminders of how the 2008 Democratic primary race ended yet. So I went ahead and dug them out on my own.
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[ Posted Monday, April 25th, 2016 – 17:59 UTC ]
It's time once again to play another installment of our ongoing game of "pick the primary winners." Now, whenever multiple states hold their primaries on the same day, it has become de rigueur for the pundits to slap some cutesy name on it. This started with the granddaddy of all cute primary names, "Super Tuesday" (which was also, confusingly, known as "SEC Tuesday" this year). However, because a lot of states seem to shift around their primary dates each election cycle, new names are constantly being thought up for the new primary groupings. For tomorrow night's primary, the punditocracy seems to have settled on "Acela Tuesday," but for some reason this irks my sensibilities. Maybe it's because I never thought "Acela" was all that cool a name to begin with. It sounds like something a drug company dreamed up to hawk their newest laxative, or something.
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[ Posted Friday, April 22nd, 2016 – 16:58 UTC ]
You have to have at least a little bit of pity these days for the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus. He seems like one of those guys in a horror flick who keeps trying to convince everyone that the monster isn't real, and that everything can be explained by rational means... right up until the monster unexpectedly (for maximum shock value) rips his head clean off, in graphic 3D. The guy who has persevered in keeping his little group of teenyboppers together and somewhat sane ("If we can just get out to the barn and fire up that Model T/snowmobile/hot air balloon/mine cart/tractor... we can make it out of here to safety!"), who eventually sacrifices himself (in some horrific way) so that the rest of the group of worthless highschoolers can have a chance at survival. You know the guy, right?
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