Tag Archives: 2016 election

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders go after Donald Trump at town hall in Columbus, Ohio

Ohio Democratic Presidential Town Hall

COLUMBUS, OHIO – Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders participated in a town hall event in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday night. The event was televised on CNN. The town hall followed a joint appearance at a dinner hosted by the Ohio Democrats. Each candidate also campaigned individually in Ohio, which holds its primary election on Tuesday.

Clinton said she’s received private messages from foreign leaders asking to endorse her candidacy in hopes of defeating Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who Clinton said is encouraging violence and chaos to win over voters.

Clinton refused to name the dignitaries, though she says she told them that the election must be decided by Americans. But, she says, her experience as secretary of state will offer a powerful contrast with Trump, should they face off in the general election.

“At our best, Americans have rejected demagogues and fear-mongers,” she said.

“…I believe that I will have an opportunity to really focus in on how dangerous a Donald Trump presidency would be for our standing, for our safety and for the peace of the world,” she added

She also said she supports a “very limited use” of the death penalty in cases where there are “horrific mass killings.” Clinton said the states have “proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all the rights that defendant should have.” She added that she would “breathe a sigh of relief if either the Supreme Court or the states themselves began to eliminate the death penalty.” But Clinton added that she thinks the death penalty should still be kept “in reserve” for limited cases in the federal judicial system, citing the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks as examples.

“But what happened to you was a travesty,” Clinton said. “I know that all of us are so regretful that you or any person has to go through what you did.”

 

Sanders called on Donald Trump to “tell his supporters that violence in the political process in America is not acceptable.”

The Vermont senator was asked about the Republican front-runner’s statements that the Sanders campaign sent protesters to disrupted Trump’s rally in Chicago. Sanders called Trump a “pathological liar” and said his campaign has never encouraged “anybody to disrupt anything.” He added he hopes “Mr. Trump tones it down big-time and tells his supporters violence is not acceptable in the political process.”

Originally Written and Published by Associated Press

 

Sanders wins: Ohio judge rules 17-year-olds can vote on election day

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Sen. Bernie Sanders notched a potentially significant win on Friday evening when an Ohio judge issued an order, allowing 17-year-old voters to participate in the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday. Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Frye ruled that 17-year-old voters who turn 18 by the day of the November election can vote in the primary, though not on ballot issues or for any contests that would actually elect someone to office.

The ruling trumps a recent move by Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, to block 17-year-old voters in the state from participating on election day, on the grounds that the teens would be voting for delegates, not nominating candidates directly. In December, Husted revised the state’s election manual, which previously allowed the practice. Frye’s ruling came in response to a suit by nine 17-year-old registered Ohio voters, who disputed Husted’s interpretation of the law.

The ruling is a victory for Sanders’ campaign, which separately filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against Husted’s order. The Sanders campaign accused Husted in the suit — which was put on hold Friday by a federal judge — of trying to stop younger voters from exercising their democratic rights.

“It is an outrage that the secretary of state in Ohio is going out of his way to keep young people — significantly African-American young people, Latino young people — from participating,” Bernie Sanders said.

Sanders campaign attorney Brad Deutsch said the ruling was a major victory.

“This is a huge victory for 17-year-olds across Ohio. Their votes for presidential nominees will now count when they vote on either Tuesday or over the weekend in early voting,” Deutch said in a statement.

Husted blasted the ruling and said he would appeal.

“This last-minute legislating from the bench on election law has to stop,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “Our system cannot give one county court the power to change 30 years of election law for the entire state of Ohio, 23 days into early voting and only four days before an election.”

Younger voters have rallied to Sanders’ idealistic message, helping deliver victories over his rival Hillary Clinton in a number of close primaries.

Original Article Published by  via POLITICO

 

R.I.P., GOP: Party of old, disillusioned white people is dying a slow death

Changing Demographics will be the death knell for the Republican Party — even though it may take White House in ’16

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Credit: Samuel-Warde

No matter who wins the nomination battle, the Republican Party has a much bigger problem: demographics. A new report released by the Center for American Progress analyzed the demographic advantages for Democrats in 2016 and beyond and the results are overwhelmingly positive.

And this should surprise no one.

Observers on both sides have long questioned the Republican Party’s viability in an increasingly progressive and less white America. With every national election, it becomes more obvious that the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” which exploited racial and cultural resentment for votes, has finally backfired.

As The Nation’s William Greider wrote in October: “The GOP finds itself trapped in a marriage that has not only gone bad but is coming apart in full public view. After five decades of shrewd strategy, the Republican coalition Richard Nixon put together in 1968 – welcoming the segregationist white South into the Party of Lincoln – is no devouring itself in ugly, spiteful recriminations.”

Greider was responding to the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, who left on account of the nihilistic Tea Party caucus. The Tea Party extremists in Congress, like the social conservatives who supported them, are part of a reactionary movement of cultural discontents whose only purpose is to negate and obstruct, and they’ve proven that in office.

This movement, which has consumed the Republican Party, consists primarily of old and disillusioned white people who are rejecting a world that, in many respects, has passed them by. The nativism, the xenophobia, the social hysteria, the religious demagoguery – this is what defines the GOP now, and it stems from the party’s cynical plot to capitalize on cultural angst nearly fifty years ago.

Although it worked in the short and medium-term, the “Southern Strategy” is now the most likely cause of death for the Republican Party. Republicans still hold 31 of 50 state governorships and they control most state legislatures, but that’s not the problem. Today and moving forward, the GOP will find it harder and harder to compete for national elections.

By appealing to the fears of culturally isolated white people, the Republican Party has created an intractable demand-side problem: Gradually, their platform has become dominated by social and religious issues which alienate nearly everyone outside of their base. Given the shifting demographics in this country, this portends doom for the GOP.

From the Center for American Progress report:

“Recent social trends present significant headwinds for Republicans, particularly as they relate to demographic shifts in the country. For years, Republicans could rely on white voters—and, in particular, working-class whites—to constitute a decisive proportion of the electorate and deliver victory. This is no longer the case. As documented in the 2014 “States of Change” report—published jointly by the Center for American Progress, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Brookings Institution—the percentage of white voters in the actual electorate dropped 15 percentage points, from 89 percent in 1976 to 74 percent in 2012. The percentage of white working-class voters dropped even more, decreasing by 26 points over the same period. Future projections in the “States of Change” report suggest that the percentage of eligible white voters in the American electorate will drop to 46 percent by 2060…The decline in the white percentage of the electorate has coincided with stronger Democratic identification and voting patterns among nonwhite voters, as well as increasingly more liberal social views among higher-educated white professionals.”

The writing is on the wall, in other words. In its current form, the GOP can’t survive, not if these projections are even remotely accurate. It will become a regional party, propped up by parochialism and gerrymandered districts. None of this means the Republicans can’t win in 2016. What it does mean, however, is that they’ll have to overcome a significant demographics disadvantage, a disadvantage that will only grow over time.

For the Democrats, the landscape is far more encouraging. Virtually all of the numbers favor a Democratic candidate in 2016:

“If the Democrats receive their 2012 levels of support among these three groups in 2016—an 11-point deficit among white college graduates; a 22-point deficit among white working-class voters; and a 64-point advantage among minority voters—the party will easily win the popular vote by a 6-point margin. If support for the Democrats among minorities declines to our more conservative estimate of 78 percent, they would still win the popular vote by 4 points. If, on top of that diminished minority support, white working-class support replicates the stunning 30-point deficit congressional Democrats suffered in 2014, while support among white college-graduates remains steady, the Democratic candidate would still win the popular vote—albeit by a slender margin. If, however, white college-graduate support also replicates its relatively weak 2014 performance for the Democrats—a 16-point deficit—Republicans would win the popular vote by a single point.”

The popular vote won’t decide the election, but it’s an indication of where the country is politically. The Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential campaigns – that trend will continue and, eventually, it will translate into more and more electoral votes.

In 2016, all the Democrats need to do is hold on to the Obama coalition, and even that’s not entirely necessary. As the CAP report notes, the “sobering reality for Republicans is that the Democratic candidate will be able to absorb mild levels of defections or lower levels of turnout from its core voters in the general election and still capture an Electoral College majority.” Because of its over-reliance on white male voters, however, the GOP can’t win a national election unless turnout is historically low for the Democrats. And they still have to appeal to a cross-section non-ideological working-class voters. But the anger and the bitterness pulsating through their base at the moment will surely turn moderates and independents off, and the GOP can’t afford that.

Whatever happens next year, it’s clear that the GOP is slowly pandering its way into oblivion. The country has changed demographically, culturally, and politically – and the Democrats have changed with it. The Republican Party has not. And if Donald Trump’s present success is any indication, it’s headed in the wrong direction.

 

Written by  via SALON

How Hillary Clinton could win the White House by March

First, crush Marco Rubio, and then take the rest of the year off.

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(Source: Getty Images/ Chip Somodevilla)

Hillary Clinton’s only real competition among Republicans is Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are too extreme for most Americans, and truly leave her unparalleled in experience and political clout.

If Hillary Clinton and her allies are smart, they’ll spend their $50 million-plus campaign war-chest over the next few months making sure Marco Rubio doesn’t get the Republican nomination.

They’ll run ads in the primary states trashing the Florida senator among conservatives — cleverly hiding the source of the ads behind secretive super PACs with conservative-sounding names.

They’ll encourage Democratic activists to cross over to GOP primaries to support Rubio’s extremist opponents.

Hillary herself may even help out by making a couple of high-profile speeches in which she praises Rubio for his “moderation” and “bipartisanship” — especially, she might say, “on the subject of immigration.” Nothing could hurt the young senator more with the GOP base.

Obama could take him golfing.

Following this week’s Republican debate, it looks increasingly like the race is down to three candidates: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, real-estate huckster Donald Trump and Rubio.

If the GOP goes ahead and picks Cruz or Trump, Hillary could probably take the rest of 2016 off to work on her inauguration speech. Both men are extremists, and are traveling with more baggage than Kim Kardashian. The only people who think they are remotely electable in a general election are the increasingly narrow group of people who make up the Republican party base.

We’re talking about people who think “Benghazi” is one of the top three issues facing America.

Who think global warming is a sinister “one-world” plot to take away our pickup trucks and make us all slaves.

And who think 300 million guns are making us all “safe” while 5-year-old Syrian refugees are going to kill us.

The biggest single fact: While individuals rise and fall from poll to poll, overall the four extremist candidates of Trump, Cruz, Rand Paul and Ben Carson have been consistently sharing about 65% in GOP polls.

It’s hard to credit, but the party of Abraham Lincoln has apparently become the party of Jefferson Davis. “Angry white men of the South, arise!” (Yes, Carson, an evangelical Christian, is African-American — showing that even the most conservative coalitions can evolve.)

Meanwhile, the party is losing millennials, professionals, the college-educated, women and Hispanics by wide margins. Good luck with that.

Rubio, on the other hand, could pose a serious challenge to Hillary. He’s a young, telegenic Hispanic American. Her best chance to stop him is now, not next fall.

Yeah, I know, people will say I’m only writing this because I’m part of the fancy-pants, pointy-headed elitist East Coast liberal media and therefore cheering for Hillary.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a member of the media, I stand to gain the most if America elects an extremist wacko who generates lots of news, most of it bad. Trump would be the best. Under President Trump, no journalist would want for a job, and no website for eyeballs — at least until he was impeached, America declared bankruptcy or nuclear war killed us all. Failing Trump, any of the other GOP extremists would be just fine. Among the Democrats, Bernie Sanders would be pretty good for the news business too.

For journalists, Hillary Clinton would be a terrible president. It would be four or eight years of guaranteed boredom — unless she divorced Bill, say, or had a fling with a male intern in the Oval Office.

Yet, facts are facts. At this point, it seems almost certain it’s going to be Clinton and Rubio. And if Hillary Clinton has smarts, she’ll make sure it isn’t Rubio.

Eight years ago, Rush Limbaugh and right-wing Republicans inserted themselves into the Democratic primary process by launching “Operation Chaos.” Perhaps some Democrats may feel it’s time to return the favor.

If pro-Clinton allies are smart, they’ll create new secretive super PACs with names like “Patriots for American Values” and “Veterans for American Families” and “Patriotic American Veterans for American Family Values.”

And then they’ll swamp the airwaves in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere with ads trashing Marco Rubio among conservatives.

Say he’s soft on Hispanics, Muslims and other non-Aryans.

Say he’s for “amnesty.”

Say he’s a “career politician” who’s “never had a real job.”

And take a leaf out of the New York Times’ preposterous stories and say that he’s fiscally irresponsible because he had to pay late fees on his credit cards a couple of times. Oh, yeah, and he once leased a Lexus with his own money.

They’ll tie Rubio’s personal loans to the issue of the rocketing national debt. “If Marco Rubio can’t even handle his own finances, how can we trust him with America’s?” No, it makes no sense, but what’s that got to do with anything?

Stay tuned.

Published: Dec 18, 2015