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.

Continue Reading »

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.

The impact of this news is stunning, all along the political spectrum. The far-right folks are overjoyed, as they've never liked or trusted Boehner much at all. The not-quite-as-far-righties (we simply can't call them "moderates" anymore) are a bit anxious and confused. Democrats are experiencing a burst of smirking schadenfreude (which is entirely to be expected, really, but so far they've been doing it fairly quietly and in private). Late-night comedians are -- quite sadly -- filing away all the "Boehner/boner" jokes they've relied upon for the past few years (especially that one priceless clip where Boehner himself makes the joke to a reporter).

Continue Reading »

It's been a week since the second Republican presidential debates, and the polling data is finally in from multiple sources. So it's time once again to look at who is up and who is down in the horserace numbers (all polling data comes from the Real Clear Politics Republican nomination poll-tracking page).

First, a quick overview: the biggest winner of the second debate was easily Carly Fiorina, both in position and in raw poll numbers. The biggest loser depends on how you measure it -- by position, I'd have to say Ted Cruz was the biggest loser, but measured by actual poll numbers Donald Trump lost the most.

Fiorina was judged the winner of the first debate as well, but it never really translated into much of a bump in the polls for her. She did rise, but only slightly -- however, in the crowded bottom of the field, even this modest rise was significant. This time around, though, her bump was dramatic and noticeable no matter how you look at it. Fiorina jumped from seventh place before the debate all the way up to third place -- a monumental leap. Before the debate, her polling average was only 3.3 percent. It has now rocketed up to 11.8 percent -- a boost of 8.5 points, far and away the largest absolute gain of any candidate in the field.

Continue Reading »

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.

This was not foreseen by much of anyone, least of all me. In that previous article I wrote:

Both Rick Santorum and Rick Perry seem to be out of money already (Perry reportedly just put all his campaign staffers on volunteer basis, since he couldn't make the payroll). But while running out of money usually stops a candidacy in its tracks, this is not always true. Some candidacies are closer to crusades than anything else -- true-believers in one cause or another that won't quit no matter what happens (at least, until the primaries get underway). And in the new Citizens United world, super PACs mean even a technically-broke candidate can still be out there running television ads. So picking the early exits isn't as easy as it might seem.

Continue Reading »

[Program Note: Due to an unexpected emergency run to the airport today, I was unable to write a column. The column I was going to write would have been on the theme: "I'm not doing so great in the game of picking which Republican candidates will drop out early," but that'll have to wait for another time. Instead, I'm running a column which compliments yesterday's discussion well, since it deals with a time in American history when there was a gigantic fight over what amounted to a de facto religious test to hold public office. Specifically, the first Mormon senator. We'd all like to believe that religious tests have never been used, since the Constitution forbids them, but this rule was severely bent over 100 years ago, when Utah became a state. What follows is a chapter of our history which many have either never heard of, or completely forgotten. I thought it'd be pertinent to the discussion surrounding religion that has cropped up in the 2016 contest.]

Originally published December 10, 2007

It always amuses me when Americans are told that the political climate today is "poisonously partisan" or "divided" and that this is "the worst partisanship Washington has ever seen." While pundits in the mainstream media love to whip this non-story into a frenzy every election year, it only goes to prove their utter ignorance of American history.

Take just one example: the church and state debate. Much ink was spilled over Mitt Romney's speech last week about his Mormon faith. Very little attention was paid to America's dark history of anti-Mormonism. Americans, as a whole, are not taught these things in their basic history classes in school, because we naturally shy away from the uglier episodes in our country's past.

But the history remains, for anyone willing to take a look. Mormons have the unusual distinction of being the only religious group in United States history to be singled out in one state for extermination. Well, OK, it was in the midst of the "Mormon War" and the Mormons were not entirely blameless themselves in the run-up to the incident, but still... extermination?

Continue Reading »

For the past few days, the presidential election has focused on religion -- in specific, the Islamic religion. This started with Donald Trump failing to challenge a questioner's assertion that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and then shifted to asking Republican candidates whether they could hypothetically support a Muslim to become America's president. This time it was Ben Carson who stumbled, not Trump. Other Republican presidential candidates have -- to their credit -- condemned Carson's remarks, most notably Ted Cruz (on constitutional grounds: "the Constitution specifies there shall be no religious test for public office and I am a constitutionalist") and Lindsey Graham (on historical grounds: "America is an idea, not owned by a particular religion"). Bobby Jindal tried to win the gotcha battle in his own unique way:

If you can find me a Muslim candidate who is a Republican, who will fight hard to protect religious liberty, who will respect the Judeo-Christian heritage of America, who will be committed to destroying ISIS and radical Islam, who will condemn cultures that treat women as second-class citizens and who will place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, then yes, I will be happy to consider voting for him or her.

This ignores the fact that, as Ted Cruz pointed out, there is no requirement a president "place their hand on the Bible" while being sworn in (the words "so help me God" don't even appear in the official oath of office), and also brushes aside how today's Republican Party could be described by many as a "culture that treats women as second-class citizens," but Jindal's always been known to unintentionally utter some rather ironic statements.

But all of this media attention over a hypothetical Muslim presidential candidate (not one of the major party candidates is, in actual fact, a Muslim) completely ignores a truly pertinent question -- one that I am personally astonished that nobody's really even noticed yet. The question: Could America elect the first Jewish president in 2016?

You may not be aware of it, but Bernie Sanders is Jewish. You are probably not aware of it mostly because the subject has yet to be raised in any meaningful way in the media surrounding the presidential campaign. We all know that Hillary Clinton (or Carly Fiorina, perhaps) could become the first woman president in American history. Those aware of modern history know that John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic president. So why has nobody noticed that Sanders could be the first Jewish president?

Continue Reading »

This was one of those weeks when one event overshadowed pretty much everything else that was going on in the political world. The event, of course, was the second round of Republican presidential debates, which lasted for a grueling five-plus hours.

I've already written two columns on the debates, one composed of my snap reactions just after the conclusion and the second one pointing out how far the discussion of marijuana legal reform has come, since an actual serious discussion of marijuana policy broke out late in the second debate between Rand Paul, Jeb! Bush, and Chris Christie. Or you can always find fact-checking articles pointing out some of the hogwash being touted as fact during the debates. If you really have a lot of time on your hands, you can even read the full transcript of what was said. But for the most part, we're going to focus here on stuff that happened outside the debate hall (known to Republicans as "The Shrine of Saint Ronald of Reagan's Magic Airplane").

Something sneaking up on everyone in the political world is the surprising amount of GOP candidates who are open to ending a massive tax break for hedge fund managers. President Obama has noticed, and is pointing it out. This won't happen overnight, but it cuts to the core of Republican orthodoxy ("no tax hikes ever on anyone for any reason"), so it certainly is an interesting political shift to watch.

Continue Reading »

It may not have been the first time that marijuana legal reform came up in a televised presidential debate, but last night's discussion between Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush was certainly the most in-depth and serious handling of the subject I've ever seen. This is something of a milestone, especially since it happened in a Republican debate (all of the quotes below come from a transcript of the debate provided by the Washington Post, I should mention).

Continue Reading »

After having just sat through over five hours (!) of Republicans debating each other, I have to say my brain is somewhat numb. So I'm not going to try to do any high-level analysis of the 25 pages of notes I took, but instead rely on just snap reactions to what I've just witnessed at the Shrine of Saint Ronald of Reagan's Magic Airplane. I write these snap reactions for a reason, and the reason is to see how differently I saw the debates from all the professional pundits out there. Come tomorrow, I'll read what everyone else has to say, and if the past is any measure, I'll be astonished at what settles in as conventional inside-the-Beltway wisdom. All quotes are transcribed by me hastily, and may not be exact, I should mention in passing, too.

I will also try to keep this column short, because after five hours of argle-bargle from politicians (and wannabe politicians), I think I need a beer or something. Which, of course, I'll wait to quaff until after I finish this. Hence, it'll be as short as I can possibly manage. I promise I'll provide more in-depth commentary tomorrow, after a good night's sleep, how's that? OK, that's enough of an intro, let's get on with it....

The Undercard

It was a very strange division this time around, because with 11 people in the main event, it meant only four candidates were on stage for the undercard debate (which is so much more polite than calling it the "kiddy table debate," don't you think?). Rick Perry's already gone from the race and Jim Gilmore wasn't even allowed in, which left just Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki to debate each other (and the illusory specter of Donald Trump, who is always present at undercard debates). As if to underscore this, the last thing the "warmup" show on CNN showed before they broke to the undercard debate was Trump himself, making big news by actually (gasp!) getting out of his car and entering the building.

Continue Reading »

We are over a year away from voting who will be America's next president. Summer's not even over, and the first primaries will be held in the bitter cold of next winter. Most people simply aren't paying much attention to politics yet, and won't for some time to come. I truly do understand all of that, but at the same time I've been writing more than my fair share of "horserace" stories already -- a trend which will only accelerate in the coming months (especially when I crank up the 2016 version of my "Electoral Math" column series, which tracks polling from all 50 states). So I wanted to take today to offer up a proactive defense of the concept of watching the polling around the "horserace" that is the presidential contest.

Horserace reporting is sneered upon by many. Critics have a valid set of complaints, actually. Horserace reporting is lazy for reporters -- you can do it from your desktop without attending campaign events or digging through piles of position papers. Horserace reporting is stupid because it focuses almost solely upon national poll results, which is not how we elect either our party nominees or our presidents. Early horserace reporting is especially stupid, because polls so far away from the actual election do no more than measure name recognition. Horserace reporting almost always misses the mark when trying to ascertain the reasons why certain candidates are doing well and others aren't, or when trying to gauge public perception of complicated issues. The poll data is not always accurate, and modern-day polling has several technical issues it didn't use to have.

That's a lot of complaints, and I actually agree with most of them -- to one degree or another. But there are mitigating circumstances for almost all of them. Horserace reporting is indeed lazy stuff -- you look at the polling data, you make a few notes so you get the numbers correct in your story, and then you sit and ponder the meaning of it all. It's a lot easier than following a candidate around or doing a deep dive into the issues. I would say that horserace reporting is indeed facile and superficial, and I would hate a diet of nothing but stories about the horserace. But when complimented by reporting on the issues and on the things candidates are saying, keeping an eye on the polls is still a valuable tool for political writers.

Continue Reading »