Yesterday, Senator Marco Rubio became the fourth candidate to officially announce his intentions for the 2016 presidential run. He now joins Ted Cruz and Rand Paul in his own party, and Hillary Clinton across the aisle, as official candidates. I have to say, one thing about Rubio's candidacy is impressive, even if you don't agree with anything the man stands for. Rubio is going "all in," in poker terms. If he doesn't win his party's nomination and go on to win the White House, then he will almost certainly be out of a job when the dust settles. That shows a degree of commitment that few other politicians ever make these days, casting aside a cushy Senate seat for the chance at becoming president. As in poker, he's shoved all his chips to the middle of the table for one bet that could leave him at the top or flat broke. And, I have to say, that in and of itself is an admirable thing.

Marco Rubio will be an interesting candidate for other reasons, as well. At the moment, it is impossible to tell whether his strongest assets might turn out to be his biggest weaknesses as well, which always makes for an interesting campaign. Rubio's announcement, planned for weeks, kind of got its parade rained on by Hillary Clinton announcing a day earlier. Rubio deftly played off Hillary's announcement in his own, though, portraying himself as a young fresh voice in contrast to old and stale -- both directly linking Hillary Clinton to this description as well as implying that the same applied to Jeb Bush. Rubio is "tomorrow," fighting against the entrenched forces of "yesterday," which is always an impressive political trick to pull off for any politician. Voters, especially in presidential contests, are indeed thinking about the future more than interested in refighting past battles. Rubio, so far, is the youngest person in the race, and he's playing it up as a positive thing.

Continue Reading »

And so it begins. Hillary Clinton is now officially in the race for the White House. Her announcement, like pretty much everything else about her upcoming campaign, will be microscopically analyzed within an inch of its life. Was she too generic? Was she appealing enough? Where were the specifics? What about Bill? And what was up with that laughably 1970s campaign logo? Most of these deep-dive analyses won't make a tiny bit of difference, in the long run (well, OK, that logo is pretty bad, hopefully that's the first thing Team Hillary decides to change...). But it'll certainly give all the pundits something to do in the meantime.

As campaign rollouts go, Hillary is obviously going for the lowest key she can manage. She hasn't even scheduled any big rallies or events for the first few months, and her announcement video didn't even show her face until the minute-and-a-half mark. She has, obviously, learned her lesson about the whole "inevitability" thing from the last time around. She is going to start campaigning by going on a "listening tour," starting in Iowa. This worked wonders for her as a senator, and it could be valuable if she meets some interesting people and does actually listen to their concerns along the way. The most interesting thing about her launch is that she's actually driving from New York to Iowa. Well, not personally driving (she's still got a Secret Service escort, like all former First Ladies), but still -- traveling the country's Interstates is a lot better way to reconnect to the common man and woman than chartering an airplane. Sure, it's a stunt, but it could turn out to be more than that, depending on the people she meets in the rest stops of the Midwest.

Continue Reading »

So, apparently, Jeb Bush used to think he was Hispanic. At least, that's the box he checked when he registered to vote, a few years back. While immediately created much online amusement (my favorite: "It's pronounced 'Heb' Bush"), it does raise an interesting but tangential question -- and not just for Bush -- in the upcoming presidential primary process: Do Republican ballots in all states require full legal names for candidates?

This question is bigger than it first may seem. Because at least three candidates on the Republican side will be running their campaigns using nothing more than nicknames. And only one of them is even a common nickname for any of their given names. To put this another way, will Republican primary voters be offered the choice between John Ellis Bush, Rafael Edward Cruz, and Piyush Jindal? Those are the legal names of "Jeb," "Ted," and "Bobby," respectively. As noted, "Ted" is the only one of these that is easily-understood (replacing "Edward"). So how will these names actually appear to the voters? Has any one of the three actually changed their full legal name?

Continue Reading »

On this day, 150 years ago, the Civil War began its end. The fighting didn't stop immediately, but today was the significant turning point in the conflict. Exactly one and a half centuries ago, Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant in a tiny Virginia hamlet called Appomattox Court House. This was the beginning of the end for the Confederate forces, and for the Confederacy itself.

I am no student of Civil War history, I should mention, so I have no brilliant or original insights to offer today. The Civil War looms large in American history, and draws not only scholars interested in research but also military enthusiasts and re-enactors. There's a very good reason why Americans can become so obsessed about the Civil War, and the reason is that it is the only war really ever fought solely on American soil. Not many commemorate the War of 1812, and the Revolution was fought for our independence from Britain (so it doesn't really count as a war on "American" soil). This leaves the Civil War as the only conflict which left a large legacy of battlefields and other sacred sites scattered around the country. To remember other major wars we participated in, American veterans must travel to the foreign lands where they were fought -- but the Civil War left its mark here at home, from Gettysburg to the battlefields of the South and the West, to (finally) Appomattox Court House.

Continue Reading »

It's becoming accepted conventional wisdom in Washington that Hillary Clinton is quite likely going to skate to the Democratic nomination for president. This disappoints many, since pundits love conflict in politics above all else. No conflict means having to write a whole lot of stories about a primary race that is over before it begins, which no political writer wants to do. But is there an even bigger buzzkill out there for political writers? Is the 2016 presidential election almost as easy to predict as the Democratic nominating contest?

The very idea terrifies conservatives, because the pronounced slant is so heavily tilted in the Democratic direction. George Will has been talking about it lately, in fact, warning Republican primary voters to choose someone who can successfully attack "the big blue wall" that faces them (Will even likes to get hyperspecific about the ideal Republican candidate: the one who can convince suburban Philadelphia voters to vote against Hillary, thus shifting Pennsylvania, thus dismantling the big blue wall). If Will is right, the crucial 2016 questions to ask are obvious. Will the big blue wall hold firm in 2016? Will Republicans hammer some cracks in it? And, most importantly, just what is this big blue wall in the first place?

Continue Reading »

Senator Rand Paul announced today (to absolutely nobody's surprise) that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016. He joins only one other official candidate, Senator Ted Cruz, who made his own announcement a few weeks ago. On the Democratic side, nobody has officially thrown their hat in the ring. Such announcements are happening much later this presidential cycle, due to quirky financial advantages of our crazy campaign finance legal system (if it can even be called that, anymore, after the Supreme Court's evisceration). But I'm getting distracted, and veering off the topic at hand, which is paying proper attention to those candidates who actually are declared candidates. Since nobody else has officially stepped up to the podium yet, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul deserve at least a moment in the spotlight.

Continue Reading »

Not since the line "Let them eat cake!" was supposedly uttered have delicious baked goods been so central to a political upheaval. Yes, we have entered what might be called the political era of "Cake Wars," it seems. Now, I don't mean to trivialize an important civil rights issue by relegating it to the dessert cart (as it were). But with all the political frenzy about both religious freedom and discrimination, the pundits always seem to come back to the same classic case: a baker contemplating whether to bake a cake for a gay wedding. It reduces the moral and legal arguments to a case that is both easy to understand and downright ordinary. What strikes me, though, while listening to the argument rage, is that most people on both sides of this argument haven't really come to grips with the larger implications of what they're advocating. To stretch the metaphor one last time, things could get a lot messier, as when a mischievous spouse mashes a slice of cake into their newly-wedded loved one's face at the reception (an admittedly bizarre ritual some couples feel honor-bound to perform, for the entertainment of their guests). That's right, folks -- the Cake Wars haven't actually gotten sticky enough, yet.

Because this Sunday was Easter, the political chat shows invited a number of Catholic bishops on, as they normally do. This time, however, the interviews couldn't remain focused on the Christian holiday but instead all were forced to venture into the political question of religious freedom versus civil rights -- a question that Indiana and Arkansas had just finished struggling over. The bishops all stood strongly for their right to their beliefs, of course, and many of them tried to thread the needle of: "We don't want to support discrimination, but we actually do think bakers should be able to discriminate when it comes to wedding cakes," to one degree or another. What it really all boiled down to was supporting the right of a business to discriminate against gay weddings, while simultaneously being horrified of the word "discrimination." They wanted the right to discriminate, but didn't want it to be called that, in essence.

That's all fine and good for them -- there's no law that says religious leaders aren't allowed to attempt their own political spin, after all. Because they found themselves not just giving their usual annual platitudes about the importance of Easter but instead having to comment on a current political issue, it's easy to give the bishops the same leeway every other political commentator gets.

Continue Reading »

President Barack Obama is finally earning his Nobel Peace Prize, it seems. A few months back, he announced a major shift in U.S. policy towards Cuba, ending a half-century of frostiness, and this week the outlines of a deal to avoid a war with Iran were unveiled, thawing a relationship that froze over back in 1979. Both of these foreign policy accomplishments go a long way towards deserving the Nobel Peace Prize Obama was prematurely awarded in 2009. At the time, many (this column included) joked that the Nobel committee was really awarding the prize to Obama for the sole achievement of "not being George W. Bush." But it seems now that by the time he ends his term in office, Barack Obama will indeed have earned the world's foremost peacemaker's prize. Since this is Good Friday, perhaps a Bible quotation is in order: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."

Continue Reading »

Obama slips a bit

Barack Obama's job approval poll numbers slipped a bit in March, ending a streak of good news in polling for the president which reaches back to last September. But while the numbers turned slightly negative, the overall outlook for Obama was looking up by the end of the month. This means Obama has a better than even chance of gaining ground again in April. But before we get to predicting the future, let's first take a look at the chart of the recent past.

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

March, 2015

Continue Reading »

Both the Republicans and the Democrats began April by issuing major announcements about the structure of each party's upcoming debate calendar. Since the 2016 presidential race has already started, it would be foolish to ignore the impact today's news will bring to the contest. The two parties have chosen radically different formats for their debates, but then this makes a certain degree of sense given their radically different candidate fields. The Republicans aim to make their debates more exciting, while the Democrats seem more interested in downplaying their debates altogether.

The Republicans were first in unveiling their new scheme, which took the political world by surprise. Reince Priebus, chair of the National Republican Committee, held a hastily-convened press conference to announce the news. "Republican presidential candidates will participate in our new 'bracket' system of debates this fall," Priebus said, "since we've got such a huge field to choose from. We felt that breaking down the debates into smaller contests, all of which will feed into a big final, was the way to go this year." When pressed by reporters, Priebus did eventually admit, "OK, so we got the idea watching March Madness, you're right. But hey, it works for college basketball, so why can't it do wonders for us?"

Continue Reading »