A few years back -- right around the time I started blogging, in fact -- I was also considering doing a writing project that never actually took shape. I wanted to write a book about how Populism was about due for a resurgence in American politics. This was after watching Ralph Nader and Howard Dean, but before John Edwards and (obviously) Bernie Sanders. The disconnect between how the politicians (of both parties) set their priorities and agenda and what the American people actually wanted from their government was growing into a chasm, which is why I began entertaining thoughts of writing about the historical parallels and the possibility of a Populist wave building in the near future.

That was almost 10 years ago, and here we are. Donald Trump is the frontrunner of the Republican Party, and Bernie Sanders is second on the Democratic side. Both could quite plausibly be labelled Populists.

But the reason I gave up on my project was that there is a historically dark side to Populism that I really didn't want to grapple with. Populism has always had a strong strain of nativism running through it. Anti-immigrant ideas are nothing new in American politics, they go back a long way. And Populism is part of that history. Populists didn't invent anti-immigrant concepts, I should mention (being anti-immigrant goes back a lot further in our history, in fact), but they certainly did embrace them. This is one reason why people on the Left chose to re-label themselves "progressives" (when "liberal" went out of style) rather than "populists."

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On Monday, I took a look at the Republican nomination race, so I thought it'd be fair to check in today with the Democratic contest. One obvious reason why I (and others in the political commentary world) have been paying so much more attention to Republicans is the continuing volatility of the GOP campaign, which still has (as of this writing) 14 official candidates running. By comparison, the Democratic race is a lot more calm after half the field has already dropped out, which has left only three candidates still in the contest: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley.

Even a horserace between three horses can be exciting and close, we should mention, if they're evenly matched. The sheer number of candidates isn't always the best indicator of the fierceness of the struggle to be the frontrunner. However, in this case neither of those things is really true. The Democratic primary race has stabilized and there simply hasn't been much movement at all in the past few months. The safe bet is on Hillary to win comfortably. Bernie has an outside shot but still a rather long one, and O'Malley has no chance whatsoever.

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What is going to happen to the Republican Party in next year's general election campaign? We could be on the verge of a major shift in the American political system, which is always interesting to speculate about (whether it winds up happening or not). Donald Trump, love him or hate him, has certainly followed through on making this one of the most interesting presidential nomination races of all time. As the saying goes, we're all cursed to be living in interesting times -- at least for the next year or so.

As I see it now, there are four realistic scenarios which could play out. Trump fueled speculation about one of them recently, pointing to a poll which showed that 68 percent of his supporters would back him if he ran an independent campaign. This is already sending chills down the backs of the Republican establishment, as they contemplate President Hillary Clinton being sworn into office.

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It's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential horserace, and there have been a number of dramatic developments in the meantime. So it's time once again to cast an eye over the Republican field.

Before I begin, a few technical notes are in order. First, data comes from the Real Clear Politics Republican poll-tracking page. The last column I wrote used the data from November 8th, on the RCP graph (every time I say "since last time" below, this is what I'll be referring to). And my own categories, as before, are divided into four levels: those with no chance of winning the nomination, those with a slim or longshot chance, those with a decent shot at winning, and those with a great chance of becoming the nominee. These are fairly arbitrary divisions, but they're what the race has so far seemed to require.

In the past month, there has been notable movement from a number of candidates, two of whom actually dropped into a lower category. Three candidates headed upwards in the polls, and all the rest stayed the same. Without further ado, let's take a look at the categories, from worst chance to best chance.

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I have two important program notes to post today, before I get busy writing today's column (yes, there will be a real column today).

The first is that it's been so long that I basically forgot how the notifications for donations come in to my email from PayPal. What this means is that there were a lot of donations last week that didn't get included in the thermometer bar for the Holiday Pledge Drive graphic. I will get all of the data together later (after today's column posts), so by this evening the graphic will reflect reality once again. The thermometer has to be adjusted by hand in Photoshop (it's not automatic or anything), so I'll get to that later today. My apologies for this oversight and delay, and thank-you notes for donations should get to everyone tonight as well.

The next program note was actually contained in last Friday's column, but it kind of got buried, so I thought I'd repeat it here. I was interviewed Friday morning on a San Francisco Bay Area radio station (Talk910), so if you'd like to hear my take on the Republican race, check it out. My interview starts at around 77 minutes in. The host and the weather/sports guy had just done a bit on Barry Bonds, in case you're wondering why I mentioned him right off (pun intended) the bat. Hey, I'll talk politics all day long; but I refuse to get into REALLY contentious issues (in the Bay Area, at least) like Barry's legacy. Heh.

In any case, as I mentioned, stay tuned for today's column, which should appear in a few hours. And then later this evening, check the thermometer bar to see where we are in the fundraising drive.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

We took last week off for the holidays, so we've got a lot of ground to cover today. Sadly, this included two terrorist attacks in America, one in Colorado and one in Southern California. The truly sad part is that these mass shootings are becoming so common nowadays that within a few months most people will have forgotten them, as we all focus on fresher, more recent tragedies. Welcome to a very grim "new normal," in other words. Sorry to start off on such a heavy note, but such news is impossible to ignore.

Moving along to more lighthearted fare, the Republican presidential race is still as amusing as ever, with no sign yet that Donald Trump is heading for any sort of inevitable collapse in the polls. In fact, he's actually gaining ground. CNN released a poll this week showing Trump at a whopping 36 percent, a full 20 points higher than his nearest competitor. Most of this rise is coming at the expense of Ben Carson, who seems to be fading fast. Carson is now essentially tied with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, in the mid-teens. Even more stunning, Jeb! Bush has dropped to a measly three percent, after his super PAC poured almost $30 million down the advertising rathole. With Carson flailing, this means that in all likelihood the Republican nominee will be either Rubio, Cruz, or Trump. And the most likely scenario is that Donald Trump becomes the Republican standard-bearer. We're officially through the looking glass, folks.

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New Low For The Year

President Barack Obama's job approval rating took a dip downwards in November, to hit a new low point for the entire calendar year. Most of this was due to the panicky reaction the political world had to the Paris terrorist attack. President Obama's reaction to the attacks was fairly muted, spread out over an overseas trip which was followed up by a terse statement (rather than, say, a prime-time Oval Office speech) to America on his strategy for fighting terrorism and the Islamic State.

What this all added up to was a pretty bad month for Obama in the polls. First, let's take a look at the new chart.

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

November, 2015

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Two interesting campaign articles today both point out a frightening new reality for the Republican Party. Previously considered unthinkable, unconceivable, and downright unimaginable, some Republicans are now struggling to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump might actually become their party's standard-bearing presidential nominee. The first of these articles, from the New York Times, documents how "irritation is giving way to panic" over Trump-as-GOP-nominee, because many in the party feel that this could "imperil the careers of other Republicans." It continues:

Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors now say they fear that Mr. Trump's nomination would lead to an electoral wipeout, a sweeping defeat that could undo some of the gains Republicans have made in recent congressional, state and local elections. But in a party that lacks a true leader or anything in the way of consensus -- and with the combative Mr. Trump certain to scorch anyone who takes him on -- a fierce dispute has arisen about what can be done to stop his candidacy and whether anyone should even try.

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Has it really been a year already? My, how time flies! Of course, this time of year, everyone's running around like crazy trying to get everything done. Which brings us to our first shameless segue to our traditional year-end parade of adorable Christmas kittens, craftily designed (as always) to soften hearts and open wallets for our pledge drive. You have been warned, so there.

Dashing through the snow

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Once again, a gunman has killed people for political reasons. Once again, he is described in the mainstream media using words and phrases such as: deranged, mentally disturbed, homicidal, gunman, shooter, criminal, murderer, and lone wolf. He may have been all of that, but one key descriptive word is conspicuously missing from most of the commentary: terrorist. Killing people who don't believe what you believe in order to further your political aims is, indeed, one of the definitions of terrorism. If the suspect involved had recently arrived here from Syria (or anywhere else in the Middle East, really), would the news networks be so cautious about calling him a "terrorist"? I seriously doubt it. In fact, if that were the case, he'd likely be quickly labelled an "Islamic terrorist."

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