Category: Presidential Campaign

What Is Wrong with Academe with One Obtuse and Self Serving Presidential Campaign

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Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig is planning to run the stupidest Presidential campaign of the season, and considering that what we have running right now, that says a lot:

Today I announced the formation of a committee to explore my entering the Democratic Primary for President. By Labor Day, I will decide whether a run makes sense.

I want to run. But I want to run to be a different kind of president. “Different” not in the traditional political puffery sense of that term. “Different,” quite literally. I want to run to build a mandate for the fundamental change that our democracy desperately needs. Once that is passed, I would resign, and the elected Vice President would become President.

Mr. Lessig, right now, you are making Jeb Bush look like a freaking genius.

I Worked Up Some Presidential Nicknames

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Just the Democrats, because there are too many ‘Phants to name, and new Republican candidates keep popping up like some twisted game of Whack-a-Mole.

It’s one of those things that happens when we are all on a drive of any length.

Here goes:

  • Miss Congeniality (Hillary Clinton: Likable enough, but she is not going to win.)
  • Who? (Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island)
  • The Republican running as a Democrat (James Webb, who opposes the Iran nuclear deal, supports the Confederate flag, etc.)
  • Too dull for a nickname (Martin O’Malley)
  • The Berninator (Bernie Sanders)

If you have any suggestions, feel free to contribute them in the comments.

An Interesting Point About Donald Trump………

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Ian Welsh notes that “The Donald” has many policies that place him at the left of the Republican field:

Let’s state the obvious about Trump.

No, not that he’s a joke, or a sign of fascism, or any of that.

Rather that a lot of what he says makes sense. His policies aren’t as crazy as people make out, and people who support him aren’t as stupid as the media pretends.

  • He doesn’t want to cut Social Security. Jeb Bush does. Obama has talked this up.
  • He wants full universal healthcare. Yeah, he badmouths Obamacare, but he’s badmouthing it from a position of, “Give them the real thing.”
  • His idea of returning manufacturing to the US and doing bilateral trade deals is not insane, or crazy, except to neo-liberal apologists and people too stupid to realize they’ve imbibed the economic philosophy of neo-liberalism, whose results have been the stagnation and then absolute decline of ordinary American wages. This is how capitalism worked for about half of capitalism’s history. Disagree if you like, but it’s not crazy.
  • His idea of simplifying the tax code enough so that ordinary people don’t need professionals to fill out their tax forms is a good one. Jimmy Carter, by the way, wanted to do the same thing.

I’m not a fan of Trump, there are plenty of reasons why he’s problematic, but he’s actually an economic populist on many issues. People shouldn’t overlook that this comes married to some nasty nativism, but I’m tired of people who are lumping all parts of the Trump campaign together.

It’s an interesting point, and it actually places Trump in what has been a common meme in American politics, the racist populists, also known as the “Dixicrat.”

There has been a long tradition of politics who promise benefits for their communities while promising to keep them from perceived outsiders.  (No Irish need apply is an example)

So, Donald Trump reduces to Strom Thurmund with a flamboyant hair.

Props to Bernie

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On Face the Nation, Bernie Sanders said that much of the criticism of Hillary Clinton is motivated by sexism:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said on Sunday that some of the criticism directed at his Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton is motivated by sexism.

“I can’t think of many personalities who have been attacked for more reasons than Hillary Clinton,” Sanders told John Dickerson on “Face the Nation.”

“And by the way, let me be frank – and I’m running against her – some of it is sexist. I don’t know that a man would be treated the same way that Hillary is,” Sanders added.

Sanders remarks came in response to a question about whether Clinton’s use of a private server while secretary of state has hurt her trustworthiness in the eyes of some Americans. Sanders refused to comment on the scandal or Clinton’s honesty, and went on to emphasize that his concerns with her as the Democratic nominee are about her policies, not personality.

That’s actually pretty classy, particularly in the context of the 2016 campaign.

I Cannot Believe that I am Saying This………

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It turns out now that the best evidence now is that at least one of the protesteris a bit of a nut, who was in the not too distant past a Teabagger supporter of Sarah Palin.

IMNSHO, you cannot manufacture this kind of lunacy, so I’m going with a small group of nuts:

An interesting development has occurred within the Black Lives Matter movement and it has caused many outside and from within the movement to question the wisdom in the most recent interruption of Bernie Sanders campaign. While no one can deny its effectiveness, especially considering Senator Sanders newest addition to his team is a Black Lives Matter activist, this interruption happened after Bernie had already begun shifting his campaign towards publicizing his stance on racial issues.

When individuals place themselves in the public eye they become scrutinized at every level. While looking into these activists for the Black Lives Matter movement, it became readily apparent that either they were not officially a part of the BLM movement, or they were not organized until just around the time of the incident.

………

Then more startling information came out concerning Marissa Johnson, the main agitator who berated Bernie for being a racist. According to her own Facebook profile she was a huge Tea Party supporter and had supported Sarah Palin in her 2008 Vice Presidential candidacy.

………

While none of that necessarily qualifies her as being a troll, or as some on the internet have accused an operative who is just trying to delegitimize the Sanders campaign. It is very possible that Johnson was a staunch Tea Party supporter in 2008 and has now changed her political persuasion to more closely mirror that of Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley. Eight years are a long time for an individual to reflect upon politics and their effects in the real world.

Although it is quite disquieting when you dig deeper into the facts. The Facebook page and social media presence of Johnson’s faction BLM Seattle did not exist until the day of the rally. Two hours after the interruption her Facebook page had been live for less than 24 hours and had garnered less than 50 followers. Again, this may all relate back to poor planning and nothing nefarious, but it is certainly not indicative of someone attempting to achieve legitimacy within the political spectrum. Johnson is also a member of a group called Outside Agitators 206, a movement within the larger Black Lives Matter movement, based out of Seattle. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to hold the same goals as the larger movement and actually made a public statement declaring their intent was to “declare war on the Democratic Party“. ………

I would note that there has been no formal comment by BLM on this protest, and I would argue that there can’t be one, because, much like the Occupy movement, there is no head, there is no tail, and there is no way to determine if someone is official, a nut, or an agent provocateur.

On the other hand, I think that the preponderance of the evidence here is that this specific protest is the product of the bat-sh%$ insane wing of BLM, so I apologize to the Clinton campaign.

BTW, read what the Bear who Swims has said about Occupy and its ilk about the tendency of groups like Occupy, and BLM to function as “Useful Idiots”.

Here is a particularly good bit:

Say what you like about the reactionaries, they have spent the last 30 years do these things. They have

  • Used mass media to explain their theories, and why they are better.
  • Popularized goals and objects and made them part of the political discussion through poltical organizing and outreach.
  • Created a cadre of individuals who are willing to take on public office at all levels of govenment to implement their policies.
  • Created a core group of constituencies who are loyal to their cause — even against their own interested.

Let us put that another way, they have play practical electoral politics effectively.  In the course of this they have created a separate reactionary nationalism, which while at odds with the views of many, has no counter balance.

Go read what the Bear, AKA my brother, AKA the hairiest Saroff, AKA Stephen wrote.

He has been involved in politics for a long time, and has little patience for folks who think that it is noble to rearrange deck chairs on a certain White Star Line ocean liner as an alternative to identifying and avoiding icebergs.

Has Black Lives Matter Been Hijacked by the Hillary Clinton Campaign?

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So, for the second time in as many months, Black Lives Matter has disrupted a Bernie Sanders speech:

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally in Dallas in July. (Mike Stone/Reuters)

Bernie Sanders came to Seattle on Saturday with plans to give two speeches.

The first didn’t happen. An appearance by the senator from Vermont at an event celebrating the anniversary of Social Security and Medicare was scuttled after protesters from a local Black Lives Matter chapter took over the stage.

Hours later, Sanders, who has been drawing bigger crowds than any other presidential contender, drew his largest yet: about 15,000 at the college basketball arena where the Washington Huskies play.

Aides said Sanders, who has emerged as the leading alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, spoke to a full house of 12,000 inside the arena and to what police estimated to be an overflow of 3,000 people outside of it.

………

Sanders was the final speaker on a long program held at a city park. Shortly after he took stage, a small group of protesters from a Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter took the microphone and demanded that the crowd hold Sanders “accountable” for not doing enough, in their view, to address police brutality and other issues on the group’s agenda.

The question that I am asking is why we aren’t seeing this at any of Hillary Clinton’s events?

I am not alone in this. Over at B.A.R., Bruce Dixon is wondering the same thing, though he extends his net to Obama and the “Black political class”, and he makes this trenchant observation:

There are ominous signs. Last month folks whom Alicia Garza described as “part of our team” disrupted two minor white male candidates at NetRootsNation, the annual networking event for paid and wannabe paid Democratic party activists, embarrassing them with demands over structural racism and “say her name”. If they were positioning themselves for careers inside the far-flung Democratic party apparatus, it was a smart move, because Hillary wasn’t there. Hence they got noticed in that crowd of Democrat operatives without antagonizing the people with the real money and connections.

When Hard Knock Radio’s Davey D interviewed Garza on July 21, just before the Cleveland #BlackLivesMatter conference, Garza dropped several more indications that seem to point toward an eventual affiliation with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

The fact that Black Lives Matter appears to be studiously avoiding a confrontation with Hillary Clinton is telling.

I do not have quite the cynicism of Mr. Dixon, but I do find the pattern here to be extremely suspect.

It Now Appears that We Have Seen the Political Troll of the 2016 Election

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It has now been revealed that before he decided to really run for President, he and Bill Clinton discussed this, and Clinton gave him some advice.

Somehow I think that the current situation, where the the bigotry, xenophobia, and ……… well ……… batsh%$ insanity of the Republican base has been revealed as “The Donald’s” poll numbers continue to skyrocket:

You do not have to love Bill Clinton, or even like him just barely, to agree that this right here is amazesauce awesomeballs THE BEST:

Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House, according to associates of both men.
Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.

Do we think that The Big Dog himself sincerely believes America would benefit from Donald Trump hogging all the Republican primary limelight to proclaim which someones are doing the raping, and how he will make Mexico pay for his fence, by kicking its ass, right in the butt? Or do we imagine the former president making that jerking motion with his hand while he tries not to crack up on the phone as he fondles Trump’s YOOOGE ego right into the race, to the detriment of the GOP, say hello to Madam President? (It’s the second one, we think, what do YOU think?)

 ………

 Guys. GUYS. Do you know what this means? It means we might all owe Bubba, for gently and oh so subtly nudging The Donald in the general direction of the White House, wink wink, and thereby humiliating the entire Republican Party so much, for being Republicans, that even they hate themselves right now.

I am not a fan of Bill Clinton’s Eisenhower Republican policies, but I do have to admit that he is a master of politics and of people.

I believe that Clinton knew that Trump would be the turd in the Republican punch bowl, and he encouraged Trump to run, even while convincing Trump that it was his idea.

Whether intentional or not, this is an Epic troll.

Well played, William Jefferson Clinton, President of Trolls.

Bummer of a Birth Mark, Rand

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The Department of Justice has just unsealed a criminal indictment naming three close Rand Paul aides conspiracy for fraud and bribery relating to the 2012 Republican primary:

Two top allies of presidential candidate and US Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) were charged with violating campaign finance laws during the 2012 presidential campaign, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Jesse Benton, who worked on the presidential bid of Paul’s father, Ron, was named as one of three political operatives in the alleged scheme to conceal payments to an Iowa state senator.

According to a National Journal report last April, Benton was tapped to run a Paul-sanctioned super PAC, America’s Liberty PAC, supporting the senator’s 2016 presidential bid.

John Tate, who is listed as the group’s founder and president, was also named in the charges. The other operative named was Dimitrios Kesari, a former deputy campaign manager on Ron Paul’s campaign.

The indictment was based on six counts, including conspiracy, filing false records, false statements, and obstruction of justice.

Though the indictment did not name which 2012 presidential candidate Benton, Tate, and Kesari worked on, there is little doubt that it is referring to former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Rand Paul’s father.

Note that one of these people, Jesse Benton, is married to Rand Paul’s niece, so it is all in the family.

At the rate that this is going, the Republicans are going to nominate Donald Trump.

Put a Fork in Jabba the Governor, He’s Done………

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At the Monmouth Park racetrack in New Jersey, Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh won the Haskell Invitational.

The trophy was presented in the winner’s circle, and as soon as Chris Christie, and as soon as he appeared, a deafening chorus of boos erupted from the crowd of more than sixty thousand.

They continued for as long as he was before the crowd, and returned whenever someone mentioned his name:

It was one long happy celebration at Monmouth Park for the great American Pharoah’s latest victory. At least, that is, until Gov. Chris Christie stepped into the Winner’s Circle to present the trophy.

 And then, the record crowd of 60,983 booed.

 Long.

 Loud.

 Sustained.

Maybe he should have hung around Bill Murray.

The cheering resumed as trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat addressed the crowd and talking about their famous horse. Then Christie’s name was mentioned again, and the booing started anew.

So not even the popular Triple Crown winner, which went off as such a heavy favorite that a $2 bet won 20 cents, could improve the popularity of the Republican presidential candidate in his home state.

Christie still believes that he can become President.

He should be figuring out how to stay out of jail, because someone is going to roll over him to the US Attorney, and he is going to be under significant legal jeopardy.

It’s over dude.

You won’t be President, and you won’t win another election ……… Ever,

F%$# Me, I Agree with Donald Trump

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On Monday, Trump fired off a tweet telling Rattner: “I think you should have gone to prison for what you did, I guess Obama saved you.”

He ended the tweet telling Rattner to watch: “I will win!”

It was unclear what activity Trump was referring to that should have landed Rattner in jail. Trump did not respond to CNNMoney’s request for comment.

In 2010, Rattner did pay $10 million in fines when he settled with the New York state attorney general for his alleged involvement in a pension fund scheme. While Rattner was never charged criminally, some others who were involved in the same scheme, such as former New York comptroller Alan Hevesi, did not.

Yes, he should have gone to jail.

Much like a stopped calendar, Donald Trump is right once a year.

So Not a Surprise

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The Pension Trustees of New Jersey decided that the huge private equity fees being paid to Christie supporters needed to be investigated.

Now we discover that the Christie administration is slow walking the investigation:

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was preparing to launch his presidential campaign this spring, he faced a big potential headache: New Jersey pension officials had voted to investigate secret taxpayer fees that the Republican governor’s administration paid to Wall Street firms. But Christie’s administration may have found a stopgap solution: stall.

Four months after state pension trustees’ vote, the retirement system’s chairman told International Business Times that Christie’s aides have so far prevented the probe from getting off the ground.

“They are throwing up obstacles, as many as they can find,” said Tom Bruno, who leads the N.J. Public Employees’ Retirement System’s board of trustees. Bruno says Christie’s Treasury Department has prevented the probe from going forward until Christie’s appointees on the State Investment Council give their blessing.

The investigation was supposed to evaluate the higher fees that have accompanied the administration’s shift of billions of dollars of pension money into hedge funds, private equity and other so-called “alternative” investments. Despite federal and New Jersey “pay to play” rules, some of those fees have been paid to firms whose executives donated to GOP groups affiliated with Christie. But with New Jersey having no independently elected auditor, treasurer or attorney general, pensioners must ultimately rely on the Christie administration to approve an investigation of its own decisions affecting thousands of retirees.

………

Pension trustees demanded the audit in April following a series of reports from International Business Times spotlighting a massive increase in pension fees paid to private financial firms — some of whose executives have made campaign contributions to Republican groups affiliated with Christie. In March, IBTimes reported that the Christie administration had failed to disclose potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in fees the state had been paying since Christie took office in January 2010.

………

Last year, after the initial disclosures, Christie’s then-State Investment Council Chairman Robert Grady resigned amid questions about political favoritism in awarding pension contracts. This year, Christie’s state treasurer, Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, resigned in June, a month after a testy legislative hearing in which state lawmakers raised questions about the undisclosed fees paid by the pension system under Christie.

The pension trustees’ push for a full audit of the pension system follows moves by the Christie administration that appeared to obscure or conceal details of the system’s finances and oversight decisions.

After financial experts raised questions about the accuracy of the pension performance data in 2014, Christie’s administration rejected repeated open records requests for documents that would show how it calculated the figures. When in the same year it was revealed that Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker donated $10,000 to the New Jersey Republican Party months before his financial firm received a New Jersey pension deal, Christie’s aides blocked the release of the findings of the government’s pay-to-play investigation until after Baker’s closely fought election.

Meanwhile, in the pension system’s most recent annual report, Christie’s aides changed the way they tabulated pension management fees to make it seem as if the fees had decreased — when, in fact, they had jumped to $600 million.

………

The state’s investment strategy has not, however, generated higher returns for taxpayers and retirees. Last year, a study by Wilshire Associates found that the New Jersey pension fund’s investment return has trailed the median for pension funds throughout the country.

………

On Wednesday, however, the State Investment Council said the pension’s returns have been lower than expected so far this year.  

I so hope that he ends up in jail, but given his background as a former US Attorney, I fear that he has surrounded himself with plausible deniability.

Fox News Tries to De-Trumpify the Debate

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It looks like Fox and the RNC are looking to find a way to keep Donald Trump out of the debates:

The large field of Republican presidential hopefuls jockeying to make the cut for the first 2016 debate will have to file a public disclosure of their personal finances on time to participate.

That means every candidate who declared before July 6 — a group of 14 contenders including former Florida governor Jeb Bush and real estate magnate Donald Trump — will have to reveal information about their assets and debts to get into the Aug. 6 event in Cleveland.

Trump told The Washington Post in an interview Thursday that he will file his financial disclosure ahead of schedule, perhaps next week. Bush has not yet said whether he will do so.

Fox News, which is hosting the debate with Facebook and the Ohio Republican Party, clarified Thursday that the criteria for candidates to participate include filing the required personal financial disclosure within 30 days of declaring their bids.

“FOX News has never wavered from the initial debate criteria we set forth,” Michael Clemente, the network’s executive vice president of news, said in a statement, which was first reported by the New York Times.

………

Under a 1978 federal ethics law, all presidential candidates have to file details about their financial interests with the FEC within 30 days of declaring. The agency allows two 45-day extensions.

………

Aides to Trump — who claims to be worth $8.7 billion — have maintained that he will file his disclosure within the 30 days allotted, giving him until July 22. Bush has until July 15 to meet the deadline for his paperwork, but his campaign has asked for a 45-day extension. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a question about when he plans to file. 

I don’t know how/if Trump is going to finesse this.

If he were to reveal his full personal finances, which would necessarily involve making it public, it would almost show that his wealth of “$8.7 billion” is a complete mirage, which would likely put a serious crimp in both his reputation, and his ability to conduct further business.

I do not think that this is going to work:  If Trump’s finances are as byzantine as I think, and as a real estate mogul, they likely are, he will file a report that is both technically legal completely uninformative.

And the Presidential Clown Car Gets a 2nd* Democrat

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And now Jim Webb throws his hat into the ring:

Jim Webb, a former Virginia senator and Reagan-era secretary of the Navy, announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, bringing his antiwar credentials to the field in what many consider a long-shot campaign for the presidency.

Mr. Webb’s announcement caught some political observers by surprise. He was the first from either party to form a presidential exploratory committee but has been barely visible since.

“I understand the odds, particularly in today’s political climate, where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money,” Mr. Webb, 69, wrote in an announcement that was posted on his website.

………

Just over a week ago, Mr. Webb staked out ground expressing some support of the Confederate flag after nine people were killed at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C. A white man has been charged in the attack.

“This is an emotional time and we all need to think through these issues with a care that recognizes the need for change but also respects the complicated history of the Civil War,” Mr. Webb said in a statement at the time, standing in contrast to both Republicans and Democrats who said the flag was an outdated symbol that needed to be retired.

Seriously?

I’m not quite sure who among the Democrats thinks that the party needs a former Reagan administration official to right of Hillary Clinton, but they need to get their head out of their ass.

*Lincoln Chaffee is the first “Democrat” in the Presidential clown car. I can discern no sane reason as to why the former Republican Senator from Rhode Island entered the race.

The Clown Car Gets Bigger, a Lot Bigger

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Jabba the Governor, AKA Chris Christie, has announced his candidacy for the Presidency:

Gov. Chris Christie declared an uphill candidacy for president on Tuesday with New Jersey-style swagger, unconcealed disgust for Washington and a high regard for his own candor, vowing that “there is one thing you will know for sure: I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”

 Relying on his biggest, and perhaps his last, remaining advantage in a field of better-financed and better-liked rivals — his personality — Mr. Christie portrayed himself as the only candidate in the Republican field who is forthright and forceful enough to run the country.

 “We need strength and decision-making and authority back in the Oval Office,” he said.

 Pacing the stage without a prepared text and raising his voice to a shout at times, he vowed to campaign and govern as a colorful teller of difficult truths, even if “it makes you cringe every once in a while.”

The unfortunate part about his role as self-proclaimed truth teller, is that no one buys it any more:

After 14 years of watching Christie, a warning: He lies

 Tom Moran | Star-Ledger Editorial Board

 Most Americans don’t know Chris Christie like I do, so it’s only natural to wonder what testimony I might offer after covering his every move for the last 14 years.

 Is it his raw political talent? No, they can see that.

 Is it his measurable failure to fix the economy, solve the budget crisis or even repair the crumbling bridges? No, his opponents will cover that if he ever gets traction.

 My testimony amounts to a warning: Don’t believe a word the man says.

 If you have the stomach for it, this column offers some greatest hits in Christie’s catalog of lies.

 Don’t misunderstand me. They all lie, and I get that. But Christie does it with such audacity, and such frequency, that he stands out.

 He’s been lying on steroids lately, on core issues like Bridgegate, guns and that cozy personal friendship with his buddy, the King of Jordan. I’ll get to all that.

 But let’s start with my personal favorite. It dates back to the 2009 campaign, when the public workers unions asked him if he intended to cut their benefits.

 He told them their pensions were “sacred” to him.

 “The notion that I would eliminate, change, or alter your pension is not only a lie, but cannot be further from the truth,” he wrote them. “Your pension and benefits will be protected when I am elected governor.”

 He then proceeded to make cutting those benefits the centerpiece of his first year in office.

 This, we know now, was vintage Christie. Other lying politicians tend to waffle, to leave themselves some escape hatch. You can almost smell it.

 But Christie lies with conviction. His hands don’t shake, and his eyes don’t wander. I can hardly blame the union leaders who met with him for believing him.

 ………

 And that’s my warning to America. When Christie picks up the microphone, he speaks so clearly and forcefully that you assume genuine conviction is behind it.

 Be careful, though. It’s a kind of spell.

 He is a remarkable talent with a silver tongue. But if you look closely, you can see that it is forked like a serpent’s.

Admittedly, this is just The Largest Newspaper in the State of New Jersey saying this, and who reads the papers these days.

However, the New York Times, which is where the Sunday morning gasbags get their talking points, said the same thing, though they did not use the word “Lie” because they are such delicate flowers:

On his new website, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey portrays himself as a guy who gets attacked for “telling it like it is,” but that’s what his mom told him to do from her deathbed.

It is part of the legend Mr. Christie has carefully cultivated for many years, with startling success. He is described as “brash” and “bold,” with a certain rough charisma that his political opponents just cannot handle. “I get accused a lot of times of being too blunt and too direct and saying what’s on my mind just a little bit too loudly,” he says in the first video for his presidential campaign, showing him with a selected group of adoring voters.

It’s fundamentally nonsense. There are lines between brash and belligerent, between open and obnoxious, and, most important, between “telling it like it is” and not telling the truth. Mr. Christie crosses those lines all the time, as Tom Moran, the editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger of Newark, documented in a blistering column about Mr. Christie’s “catalog of lies.”

………

Expect to see a lot of Mr. Christie at those phony “town hall” meetings, staged with selected supporters. You will hear a lot about his common touch, his “straight talk” and his love for Bruce Springsteen.

It’s a smoke screen. Look behind it at the governor whose own constituents say by an overwhelming majority that he has done a bad job, should not run for the White House and would make a bad president.

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen the New York Times editorial board gone after an American with such vehemence.

The media’s man crush on Chris Christie is over.

His brand of “straight talk” has gone from an asset to a joke line.

I am Amused

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In the latest Fox News Poll, Donald Trump is the 2nd most popular candidates in the Republican primaries:

There’s been a lineup change in the race for the GOP nomination, as businessman Donald Trump moves up after declaring his candidacy. He’s now second in the order after former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who also got an uptick in support after his formal announcement.

For Democrats, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still — by far — the team leader, according to a new Fox News national poll on the 2016 presidential election.

Bush tops the list of GOP contenders with 15 percent support among Republican primary voters. That’s up from 12 percent last month and his best showing yet. Support for Trump more than doubled since his announcement and that catapults him into the top tier at 11 percent. He’s followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 10 percent. No one else receives double-digit backing.

Bush officially kicked off his campaign June 15 and Trump launched June 16. It’s common for candidates to see a bump in their numbers in the days following their formal announcement and the media coverage that comes with that.

The bad news for Trump is that only 29 percent of GOP primary voters consider him a serious candidate. More than twice that many — 64 percent — think he’s a side show. Among all registered voters, nearly 8 in 10 say Trump is a side show (77 percent).

This appears to mean that the “2nd worst Donald on Earth,”*Fox News, much to the chagrin of the voters, is trying to limit its debates to the “top 10” candidates, which has the effect of eliminating those at positions 11 and below from having a meaningful chance in Iowa or New Hampshire, and hence the primaries.

And it appears that the biggest joke in Presidential politics will get one of those seats at the table.

It so sucks to be a Republican right now.

Heh.

*Larry Wilmore called Donald Rumsfeld, “The Only Donald Worse than Trump,” and I wholeheartedly agree.

My Bad! Bernie Sanders is not Going to be Ratf%$#ed in New York

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Last week, I noted that Bernie Sanders’ independent status would prevent him from being on the primary ballot in New York.

I was wrong. It turns out out that his independent status will not prevent his being on the ballot, though there is always the possibility that they will find a different way to ratf%$# his campaign:

Several New York politics blogs and publications have recently said that Bernie Sanders is in danger of being kept off the New York presidential primary ballot because he is not a Democrat and the Democratic Party has the power to keep non-members off its prseidential primary ballot. Here is the article in Power Line; here is the article in Gothamist. Here is the CapitalNew York story.

The articles are incorrect. The Wilson-Pakula law does not pertain to presidential primaries. The Wilson-Pakula law, sec. 6-120, does keep non-members off the primary ballots of parties (unless party committees approve letting them on), but it only relates to offices for which nominations are made. No state’s presidential primary nominates a major party’s presidential candidate. Only the party’s national conventions do that. The candidates in New York Democratic presidential primaries are individuals running for Delegate to the national convention.

My bad.  I was wrong.