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winnow vb -- 1 : to remove (as chaff from grain) by a current of air; also : to free (as grain) from waste in this manner 2 : to get rid of (something unwanted).
There were two stories from last night's election results that were immediately spun as "wins" for Democrats and progressives: a ballot measure in Ohio concerning state legislative redistricting, and three Democrats winning state supreme court seats in Pennsylvania. But only the Pennsylvania one is really a partisan victory -- the Ohio measure is instead a victory for representative democracy itself (even if Democrats will be the ones to benefit from the change).
The Republican presidential candidates don't seem to realize it, but they're in the process of seriously undermining their own "tough guy" brand. Republicans have always seen themselves as "the Daddy party" (as opposed to Democrats' "Mommy party," of course), which has always meant no-nonsense toughness in the face of any opposition to their agenda. But how can American voters square this with the collective hissy fit the GOP candidates are now throwing over debate moderators? To put it the most obvious way, why should any voter believe that any of these folks will be able to get tough with (for example) Vladimir Putin, when they can't even handle snarky questions from journalists? Republicans seem to have now embraced what was (ironically) a major political problem for Jeb Bush's father -- the wimp factor.
I haven't done one of these types of column in a while, but figured it was a good time to do so, since I punted on writing yesterday to get interviewed on HuffPost Live and since tomorrow is our annual Hallowe'en column, with a scary nightmare story for both left and right. Because of all this, there's been a lot of political news made this week and I have nowhere else to talk about it all than here.
Hillary Clinton just had the best week of her campaign yet. Not only did she shine at the Benghazi hearing yesterday, three of her Democratic opponents dropped out of the presidential nomination race. Joe Biden was never actually in the race, but his announcement that he wouldn't run was more significant than Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee ending their campaigns. This leaves Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, and Lawrence Lessig. Of those four, only Sanders and Clinton have any chance at winning the nomination, and Hillary's doing better in the polls than Sanders. So, all in all, a very good week for Hillary Clinton.
In two of the three presidential debates which have so far taken place, marijuana legal reform has been brought up in a serious way. Right there, that's a mark of respect for marijuana reform that has simply never previously existed at this level in our nation's political debate. The concept that the federal "War On Weed" needs to end is now about as mainstream as it gets, and after the people have led so admirably on the issue in the past decade, the politicians are finally deciding it is safe to follow this trend.
Kevin McCarthy is not worthy. Of using the English language correctly, among other things. Amusingly, though, this will likely not stop him from becoming the next speaker of the House. And if his past is any prologue, hearing the speaker speak should provide all sorts of amusement for the rest of us. It may not be the return of the garbled George W. Bush era of mangled English, but it could be close.
Ben Carson would not support a Muslim candidate for president. This statement was made a week ago, and the media is still pressing him on the issue. But what's kind of puzzling to me is why they don't ask a few very obvious questions that would expose the rank hypocrisy involved in Carson's thinking. Instead, they just ask him the same question (in slightly different formats) over and over again, ignoring the fundamental contradictions in what Carson is espousing.
Every so often, when preparing to write these weekly wrap-up columns, I wake up Friday morning and a political bombshell has happened which pretty much wipes out all the political news from the entire rest of the week. Obviously, today was one of those days, as we all learned this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will be a private citizen again by Hallowe'en. He'll step down not only from his speakership, but also from his House seat itself, more than a year before the end of his current term. So it looks like the Republicans are going to need a new cat-herder to (attempt to) lead them in the House.
So we're down to the paltry number of "only" 15 Republican candidates for president, as Scott Walker has now joined Rick Perry on the sidelines of the race. I must admit, I'm doing a pretty horrible job of picking who will exit the race in what order, as when I wrote about the subject last month, neither man was on my list of the first five candidates I thought would drop out earliest. Both Perry and Walker had substantial support from the billionaire class, which meant both had plenty of funds pouring in to super PACs to support their candidacy. The problem for both men, in the end, turned out not to be lack of funds to air television ads, but rather lack of funds to keep the lights on and pay their official campaign staff. Before their respective exits, Perry put almost all his campaign staff on a volunteer basis (because he couldn't afford the payroll) and Walker announced he was pulling back everywhere but Iowa, and shrinking his campaign staff accordingly. So even with millions sitting in super PAC coffers, what killed their campaigns in the end was lack of financial support for the campaign itself.