February 27, 2016

If it is Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton in the General Election, Latinos will play a decisive role

If it is Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton in the General Election, Latinos will play a decisive role and Trump will lose

http://steveleser.blogspot.com/2016/02/if-it-is-donald-trump-vs-hillary.html

Before I get into the crux of this article, I want to provide some background that I think will make a lot of things clear about why Trump has done some of the things he has done. After his comments back in the 2004-2005 time-frame that the Iraq war was a disaster, I thought he might run for President as a Democrat. Back then, Trump was a moderate who, in my opinion, could have chosen to run for either party.

The first mistake Trump made in trying to run for President was to decide to run as a Republican. I can imagine some of the reasons why and discussions had by his team as that decision was made, but that's mostly supposition on my part and immaterial. The result of deciding to run as a Republican meant that he had to try to appeal to Republican grassroots.

That would have posed a serious problem for any political team trying to solve the obstacles in his way to getting the nomination. As Trump's GOP primary opponents have said, he had expressed support for many Liberal positions in the past. If he reversed positions on those things he would immediately be seen as non-genuine and a hypocrite. Those perceptions are the exact opposite of those that team Trump was trying to create. His teams goals were to develop positions that Trump could adopt that would both signal to Conservative grass roots that he was one of them and deserved their support and would also not conflict with anything he had said previously.

It was clear to me with the birther position Trump took back during the run-up to the 2012 primary that this was a first attempt to reintroduce himself to Conservative grassroots as someone they should consider supporting. See my article on that here: TRUMP'S BIRTHER STRATEGY MAKES SENSE IF YOU UNDERSTAND ITS PURPOSE

The second position that Trump's team had him adopt was that of being radically against undocumented immigrants having a path to citizenship, and the creation of the wall on the border with Mexico.

Both the birther and anti-immigration positions fulfilled the requirements of endearing him to the Republican base and not putting him in danger of appearing to be a flip-flopper or someone willing to say anything to be elected. In fact regarding the latter, it did the exact opposite. It helped foster the impression that Trump says what he means and doesn't care about being politically correct. This impression has stuck with Trump throughout the Republican primary process and has him on the verge of becoming the presumptive Republican nominee.

The problem with some of the things that Trump said regarding immigration was that they were extremely offensive to Latinos. Trump claims that the media unfairly characterized his statements but I am not sure you can say that. Huffington Post did a good job back in August of capturing, to that point, the Nine Most Outrageous things Donald Trump has said about Latinos and that includes such gems as:



and lest you think Trump's negative statements and opinion was just about Mexicans and not other Latinos:



As a Latino myself, those things Trump said are upsetting to me, but I also don't happen to think that Trump really believes those things anymore than he believed that Obama was born in Kenya. I think this was all part of the salesmanship job Trump has been doing to win over the Conservative base. I also don't think he really understood how offensive those things were that he was saying. That doesn't excuse it. Whether someone really is a really a racist and believes racist things or is just saying race-baiting things for political objectives doesn't change how it makes me feel about that person. I am very unhappy with Donald Trump for having made those statements and I am not alone. Latinos are seething over these statements both here in the US and abroad. This is very important and I am going to come back to that.

Right now if you look to the general election polls describing the results of a potential Trump vs Hillary race, most have it close and some even have Trump winning. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html I wouldn't pay too much attention to general election polls at this time. As Nate Silver said, A year out ignore general election polls . Polls at this point had Clinton losing badly in 1992 and had Carter beating Reagan in 1980. General election polls don't start meaning something until the summer and even then don't start to completely shake out until early to mid September.

What does give you a hint right now about how the election might turn out is to look at individual demographic groups and use the political parties and past campaigns demographic targets to tell you where someone might have an edge and where someone might have problems.

Past Republican Presidential campaigns have said that their target is to get at or close to 40% of the Latino vote to win the general election. After Mitt Romney's loss in 2012, some of which was believed to be because of his poor showing with Latinos (Romney lost the Latino vote to President Obama by 71%-27%), Republican politicians and pundits for several months afterwards were saying how they needed a new approach toward Latinos and immigration and were willing to change on both counts. One of my favorite statements along these lines was Sean Hannity's:

This was said by Sean one or two days after Mitt Romney's election loss in 2012.

Many Republican strategists came to the same conclusion as Hannity and realized that continuing to anger the Latino community created an impossible situation for them when it came to winning national elections. That is one of the reasons for why the Republican establishment has been and is still searching for a way to stop Trump from winning the nomination. That 40% number is in their head and they are concerned about it and it turns out they have good reason.

A recent Washington Post-Univision poll of Latino voters shows that in a general election match-up, Latinos would vote 72% for Hillary and 16% for Trump. See http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/washington-post-univision-news-national-survey-of-hispanic-voters/1970/

Even more telling in that poll is that 81% of Latinos have a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable opinion of Trump and only 17% have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Trump. Conversely, 67% of Latinos have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton while only 31% have a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable opinion of her.


This demographic poll is more telling than a normal general election poll this far out because it not only gave the results of who folks would vote for it provided favorable-unfavorable ratings. Unfavorable ratings are very hard to change and Trumps unfavorable ratings among Latinos are in the stratosphere. As I said earlier, Latinos are angry at Trump and it's hard to imagine that he can change that significantly.

It's hard to imagine Trump winning or even being mildly competitive in a general election with Hillary Clinton with those kinds of numbers. It's also very difficult to see how he would change those numbers between now and November. It would take years to repair the kind of damage Trump has done to his relationship with Latinos.

In a general election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump will lose and Latinos will play a decisive role in that loss.

February 27, 2016

Former NJ GOP Gov Whitman: "If Trump is GOP nominee, I'm voting Clinton"

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/02/whitman_scorches_christie_over_trump_prefers_hilla.html

Gov. Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump is giving many people in New Jersey indigestion, but none more than former Gov. Christie Whitman, a Republican who has watched in horror as her party drifted rightward for the last decade.

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First, she says she's planning to vote for Hillary Clinton if Trump gets the nod. She's keeping her options open, in case we find out something new and horrible about Hillary. But that's her plan now:

"You'll see a lot of Republicans do that," Whitman told me. "We don't want to. But I know I won't vote for Trump."
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"I am ashamed that Christie would endorse anyone who has employed the kind of hate mongering and racism that Trump has," she said. "I would have thought being from a diverse state would have given him more awareness and compassion."

February 19, 2016

Latino Victory Fund endorses Hillary Clinton in Nevada

https://www.facebook.com/latinovictory/

"We are proudly endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. Hillary has been a champion for ‪#‎Latinos‬. She is the best person for the job, and we know she will deliver solutions for our community and for all Americans. The stakes are simply too high in the 2016 election for Latinos to sit on the sidelines." ‪#‎estamosconella‬

February 13, 2016

WAPO Editorial: "Bernie Sanders attack on Reality"

Sounds a lot like my last article...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-attack-on-reality/2016/02/12/e0656e04-d1b1-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Bernie Sanders Attack on Reality



“MADAM SECRETARY,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said to Hillary Clinton at Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, “that is a low blow.” But was it? Ms. Clinton had just finished pointing out that Mr. Sanders has at times strongly critiqued President Obama. While she made his criticisms out to be more personal in nature than they were, her core point was nevertheless true: Mr. Sanders is running a campaign based on a blistering — and simplistic — critique of the status quo under this Democratic president.

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Ms. Clinton, pointing out that Mr. Obama had to fight tooth-and-nail even for relatively centrist solutions such as the Affordable Care Act, draws the lesson that the next president must have a strong sense of practicality and realism; big rallies cannot wish away the complex politics of Congress. Mr. Sanders, by contrast, claims that Mr. Obama had insufficient revolutionary zeal. That’s why he proposed that the incumbent Democratic president be challenged by a primary opponent in 2012.

Of course, Mr. Sanders’s rejection of realism didn’t start when Mr. Obama stepped foot in the White House. At another point in Thursday’s debate, Ms. Clinton pointed out that the senator from Vermont voted against a 2007 immigration reform bill, a bipartisan deal brokered by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), that would have made the country’s immigration system a little more rational. Mr. Sanders replied that the guest-worker program it envisioned would have been “akin to slavery” and that groups such as the AFL-CIO and the League of United Latin American Citizens opposed it. Such kowtowing to interest groups and indulgence in hyperbole are not uncommon for senators, who are rarely held accountable for failing to get results. But they would make for a disastrous presidency.

Mr. Sanders regularly assures his audiences that he respects Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton. But he attacks the pragmatism they have built their legacies on, even though they had no other option. The system — and by this we mean the constitutional structure of checks and balances — requires policymakers to settle for incremental changes. Mr. Obama has scored several ambitious but incomplete reforms that have made people’s lives better while ideologues on both sides took potshots. A key question in the Democratic race is which candidate would duplicate the president’s work and which would settle for rock-throwing.

February 5, 2016

And POP goes the Hillary Email Balloon - Colin Powell & Condoleezza Rice had classified items

http://steveleser.blogspot.com/2016/02/and-pop-goes-hillary-email-balloon.html

And POP goes the Hillary Email Balloon - Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice had classified items in their personal emails too

My, my my. Once again I have been proven to be right, this time about the faux Hillary email scandal.

According to CNN:


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Well, I'd say that as far as the nonsense about Hillary being prosecuted for this goes, as idiots like Republican Congressman Darrell Issa and others have been insinuating, the chances of that just went to zero percent. Which is as it should be.

What I tried to tell people is that this entire nonsense was predicated on Hillary being able to tell the future in two respects, knowing that someone was about to send her an email and knowing that at some point in the future, the contents of that email was going to be considered classified. Content that is later classified is pretty regularly sent to non-secure emails throughout all agencies and branches of the government. It's one of the challenges for those trying to protect sensitive information and its a tough challenge to resolve because you can't tell the future. It's as simple as that.

I also tried to tell people that this has nothing to do with Hillary using a personal email account. I am sure there will be folks who read that last sentence and don't quite understand what to make of it. I will explain. You see, just like Hillary's personal email account, the State.gov email account that she would have otherwise used is not rated secure to receive classified email/information. The same rule violation in terms of safeguarding classified information would apply if the emails had gone to her State.gov email. And as I indicated in the previous paragraph, she would similarly have no way to have prevented it or known beforehand that the contents would later be declared to be classified.

So the whole brouhahah that Republicans manufactured over her use of a personal email account makes no sense at all. I had a debate with a conservative former CIA agent on Sirius radio and when I said that part about the personal email vs State.gov he had to acknowledge I was correct.

For classified communications, you are supposed to use the systems called SIPRnet (For classified up to Secret) and JWICS for Top Secret. SIPRnet was in the news during the Chelsea Manning affair as Manning willy-nilly released classified information from SIPRnet to make some sort of point about something completely unrelated to 99.99999% those emails, but I digress.

Like the IRS scandal and various other "scandals" Republicans found something that had been going on for a long time, or a system that had flawed elements, and then they blamed the current Democratic President and Agency head for it and blew it up into a scandal.

What's clear from the latest revelations from former Secretaries of State Powell and Rice is that this particular attempt at a scandal to hurt Hillary Clinton is over.

February 2, 2016

Hawkeyes must Moonlight as Firefighters Because Tonight they Extinguished “The Bern”

http://steveleser.blogspot.com/2016/02/hawkeyes-must-moonlight-as-firefighters.html

Hawkeyes must Moonlight as Firefighters Because Tonight they Extinguished “The Bern”
In a state whose demographics favored Bernie Sanders in every way imaginable, certainly more than most other states, a state that was, along with New Hampshire, a must win state for Sanders, Hillary Clinton has pulled out the victory.

Sanders and his campaign will no doubt try to claim they exceeded expectations and were the underdog and all of that, but there is no reasonable argument they can make that they can pull out a win over Clinton or in the general election if they could not win in a state tailor made for him.

I listened to some pundits try and claim that because the result was close the race will go on. They're wrong. With Clinton beating Sanders in a state he should have won and needed to win, the race is over.

Sanders will probably win New Hampshire, and will likely win Vermont when that state comes around, but Hillary will run the table beyond that.

February 1, 2016

Final Nate Silver/538 analysis of Iowa caucuses points to a Clinton victory

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/iowa-democratic/

According to our latest polls-plus forecast, Hillary Clinton has a 79% chance of winning the Iowa caucuses.

February 1, 2016

No voter registration surge has happened in Iowa this season like it did in 2008

Forgive the NR Review link and cite but it is what it is:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430546/iowa-caucuses-donald-trump-vs-ted-cruz-turnout-key

Democratic caucus turnout jumped from roughly 124,000 in 2004 to nearly 240,000 in 2008, thanks to Barack Obama’s ability to new participants to the process. But in that case, the massive spike was predicted by an enormous increase in voter registration, from roughly 533,000 registered Democrats in 2004 to more than 606,000 four years later.


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However...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/upshot/surge-for-sanders-or-trump-in-iowa-voter-registration-doesnt-suggest-it.html?_r=0

Voter Registration Doesn’t Point to Huge Iowa Surge

Most striking is the relatively slow increase in the number of voters registered as Democrats, far slower than it was ahead of the 2008 caucus. The increase for Democrats this year looks much more like the increase for Republicans ahead of the 2012 contest.

The increase in registration among Republicans in recent months looks much healthier in comparison, and could be consistent with a higher turnout than in recent cycles.

Over all, new voter registration is not only falling short of the big registration surge of the 2008 cycle, but is also running just slightly ahead of the increase before the 2012 caucuses, which was competitive only on the Republican side.

A lower turnout could spell trouble for candidates like Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump.

The latest voter registration statistics for Iowa, through early January, show that the number of registered voters increased by only about 10,000 voters over the last few months.