Tonight, Barack Obama gave his final State Of The Union speech, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave the Republican response. Both speeches were unusual -- not in a negative way, but in a more literal "not the usual thing" sense. Obama's speech was not a laundry list of legislative agenda items, but rather a definitional moment for Obama and for the Democratic Party platform. Haley's speech was not a vitriol-filled rejection of all things Democratic while glossing over her own party's faults. The speeches, or at least the general tone of them, were actually more similar than different (again, not on policy but rather on tone).

I'll get to some snap reactions to Obama's speech in a moment, but what struck me the most about both speeches was the biggest thing Haley and Obama agreed upon: Donald Trump is not where American politics should be headed. We saw a denunciation not of Trump by name (neither uttered it) but a sweeping condemnation of stoking the angers and fears of what might be called "Trumpism." Both Haley and Obama used the same basic theme, in fact, which might be summed up as: "Shouting at each other is bad for American politics."

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Hillary Clinton is not the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee. Clinton was not the inevitable nominee in 2008, and she is not inevitable in 2016 either. Of course, this really isn't new or surprising, because nothing in politics is ever inevitable, really. Elections are always about as "evitable" as one can imagine.

The reason I'm starting this article out with such a basic truth is that two new polls appeared this weekend that said pretty much what a bunch of other polls have been saying for a while now. The pundit world, as a result, finally woke up to the reality that Bernie Sanders is not some sort of gadfly candidate. Sanders, the polls show, has a solid chance at winning New Hampshire and at least a decent chance of winning Iowa. If Clinton were to lose both states then the Democratic race's dynamics would shift in a major way.

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That sub-headline may take the prize for the most bizarre we've ever offered up, although it'd have to beat the current champion -- which is, of course: "The Corpse-Like Stench Of Washington's Giant Misshapen Penis." That's pretty tough to beat, if truth be told.

In other words, welcome back to "Friday Talking Points," everyone! And a happy 2016 to one and all! Before we get to the Underpants Gnomes, we'd like to point out that this column has been on hiatus for the past three weeks, as we enjoyed our holidays and as we also got pre-empted by our annual "best and worst year-end roundup" column series (Part 1 and Part 2, in case you missed them). With three weeks of news to make up for, we're not even going to try highlighting all the political idiocy for the entire period, instead we'll just focus on the post-New-Year's-hangover period instead. That'll have to do.

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Year-End Slide Continues

After a fairly consistent (if not great) run in the polls for the first ten months of 2015, President Barack Obama finished the year on a decidedly downward slope. While the gains he made at the start of the year haven't completely eroded back to where he spent most of 2014, if Obama doesn't reverse the trend soon he could be looking at similar numbers within the next few months. This trend is clearly visible in the new chart for December.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

December, 2015

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Federal land is currently being occupied by protestors. Or, according to some, by domestic terrorists. But pigeonholing these guys with either label isn't quite as easy as it might first seem. There's some history here that needs pondering before anyone decides exactly what to call the group and, more importantly, what to do about them. Because it is a little more complicated than it first might seem, at least for those who care about the concepts of fairness and consistency.

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From the wires today comes a short story about Senator Marco Rubio being asked about his missed votes in the Senate. His answer? Congress can't change much anyway. "We're not going to fix America with senators and congressmen -- presidents set the public policy agenda." This begs another question: Why are taxpayers still paying Rubio to not do his job? If Rubio had the strength of his own convictions, he would quit his Senate seat and concentrate on his bid for the Oval Office. That way he could be replaced by someone who has more interest in actually performing the duties of the office.

This isn't all that outrageous a suggestion to make, because Rubio only has one year left in the Senate no matter what happens. Whether he is successful in his run for the Republican nomination or not, he's not going to be in the Senate one year from now. The AP article incorrectly states that Rubio "chose not to run for re-election as a senator from Florida as he pursues the presidency." The truth is, Florida law prohibits him from running for two offices at the same time. Rand Paul faced a similar dilemma in Kentucky, but Paul convinced his state's legislature to change the election law to permit him to simultaneously run for president and senator. Rubio did not, so he's not running for the Senate -- but he didn't choose this path, it was in fact dictated by state law.

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Once again, it's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential field as a whole, and in the intervening time two further candidates have dropped out, bringing the total to an almost-manageable 12 candidates (11 if you don't count Jim Gilmore... and at this point, many don't). Even an even dozen, though, is better than trying to keep track of 17 of these folks.

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So it's the end of the year, meaning it is time once again to check into the news from Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, in order to see the venerable Lake Superior State University's annual "banished words list." For those new to the concept, this is a list of words and phrases which have become so downright annoying that they deserve banishment from casual conversation (whoops, I've now used two of them in this opening paragraph).

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That's a fairly depressing headline to wind up 2015, I fully realize. However, I've been noticing that Democrats -- all the way up to and including Hillary Clinton herself -- seem to be awfully complacent about the possible outcomes of next year's presidential race. This could be dangerous, because nothing in politics is ever written in stone, and this election cycle has been more unpredictable than most already. While most people inside the Beltway are slowly wrapping their minds around the concept that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination, the conventional wisdom is that if the race boils down to Trump versus Clinton, the foregone conclusion will be Hillary handily defeating The Donald in the general election.

Me? I'm not so sure about that. Maybe it's because not much surprises me anymore in the political arena, or maybe it's because Washington conventional wisdom has been so spectacularly wrong about the GOP race so far. Which leads me to end 2015 on a very cautionary note -- because it is not impossible that Donald Trump becomes America's next president.

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America is at war, but it is sometimes hard to tell. Granted, we're in a very limited sort of engagement, but even so the media has largely fallen down on the job of keeping Americans up to date with the war's progress. It's a very slow war, and the media much prefers "shock and awe" style war, to be sure. Even so, the fall of Ramadi should be a lot bigger news than it currently seems to be.

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