Last night 14 of the 16 GOP candidates took turns making their vision of governance quite clear. They put their best foot forward, but can they appeal to the voter that what they are saying is reliable?
So for those of you who watched, I’m starting an open thread to display themes or actual quotes, and trying to see if what they said holds water.
I will start off with the easiest. Both Carly Fiorino and Lindsey Graham called Hillary Clinton a lier and a common criminal. Their fury had no bounds with Fiorino, no bastion of veracity, calling Sec Clinton a liar, and Graham had his own version of “Clinton Speak” that nothing the Clintons say is truthful. The former touted her CEO experience that ultimately caused her to be fired, treating employees as enemies, and Lindsey Graham has told a few whoppers about how the “surge” in Iraq had won the peace.
So BMGers I’m going to lay back, and see what take aways you saw from the event, and what counters there are to put the kibosh on these less than truthful lot.
I am asking to sharpen our focus when the more broadly broadcasted debate takes place on Thursday. They can not be allowed to let trickle down economics, using American soldiers as cannon fodder, and making those people’s lives who are down on their luck even harder without providing any policies in its place.
…but there were definitely statements made, including question premises, which deserve fact-checking. Graham brought up “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” when discussing the Clintons.
Well she did pull a Brian Williams in Bosnia.
Benghazi, Emails, no Bosnia
Fiorina was interviewed on NPR and they played a recording of Hillary on the economy saying “We need to change capital gains taxes to encourage long term investment and discourage short term speculation and we need to offer tax incentives to companies that offer profit sharing to their employees”….Fiorina came back with “So Hillary wants the government to tell business how to run and literally control all the operations of all businesses! I could not believe that this woman was a CEO of a major corporation.
“[She’s] a focused, determined, intelligent, empathetic, powerful leader… Women in positions of authority, particularly bold women who are trying to change things, are caricatured differently, commented upon differently and held to different standards. I watched all of this happen to Hillary Clinton.” – Carly Fiorina on HRC, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/carly-fiorina-praising-hillary-pushing-mccain-91469
Gang of Psychos OR Greed. Oppression. Poverty.
Take your pick. They all fit.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I have to say these 14 did an excellent job of camouflaging what they were really saying:
1. Neoconism is alive and well. This group except Rand Paul is ready to send other people’s children into war.
2. The government must be shrunk and the budget balanced. But where? Out of the pockets of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Disabled. Throw in college students, public schools, and people’s wages. The military budget, however, must be increased and the highest incomes can continue to pay less of a percentage of their income than their employees a la Warren Buffet’s comment on the subject.
3. Financial tycoons are the backbone of our country, and their incomes must be preserved at all costs even if the government has to bail them out, and their speculative behavior should be given free rein even if it has been a disaster for the country. Glass-Stegal is not on their agenda, but repeal of Dodd-Frank is.
4. Coverage of health care costs is not something everyone should have. And further they should pay up the nose for it because insurers, not medical professionals are the guardians of our health.
5. Seal off every nook and cranny of our southern border no matter how much it costs and how impractical it is. Until that happens, our real issue of 11 million undocumented immigrants goes to the back burner.
6. Cutting taxes on high income folks will solve every economic problem known to man. It does not matter that trickle down economics has not worked in the past. As for downsizing governments across the nation have shrunk to their smallest size in decades and other austere measures have led to poor economies and revenue deficits.
7. Throw in defunding Planned Parenthood, so more unplanned pregnancies will occur.
8. And the telling observation of all by John Kasich. The public thinks Republicans “don’t get it”. The most reliable statement of the evening.
A guy the media and Democrats like more than the voters he will need in the primary. Even I find the guy occasionally reasonable, but it’s doubtful he will do well. I think he knows he would carry Ohio and is running for Vice President. Rubio-Kasich would be somewhat formidable to be honest, based on electoral and demographic math. Unlikely though. Trump really scrambled the field in ways people can’t see yet. Rand is set to do worse than his dad at this point, the base wants war with Iran, as dispiriting as that is to see.
He diluted the input of the teacher’s union. He tried to past ultrasound survey before an abortion. Neither of these will endear him to women. His job creation came from neighboring Michigan when the auto industry was bailed out. Ohio comes in 30th in terms of lowest poverty rate. Ohio is also 23rd in terms of education quality. He still cut funding in spite of this statistic.
Women are far from a monolith on the issue of choice.
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… a sage than Barney Frank, when asked whom of the current crop of GOP hopefuls he liked, made note of Kasich’s compassion and reasonableness. I’m paraphrasing ( you should listen to the entire talk to get the exact quote) Frank when he said about Kasich (with whom he served in the HoR) that “he’s certainly the least mean and in fact has a good deal of compassion. More conservative than I like, but reasonable.” I don’t mean to suggest Frank is going to go stump for him (he’s still very bullish on Clinton) just that his analysis is spot on. And Kasich is an able politician. I don’t think the analogy to Huntsman holds up: Huntsman was an ‘above-the-fray’ diplomat who tried to parlay some insider knowledge into national politics without success.
I didn’t watch this particular forum, but what I’ve seen from most of the candidates so far is the same old ginning up of fear (invade iran! Fight Isis!) and now, with the latest Planned Parenthood rent-a-kerfuffle the anti-abortionists are pushing, the re-emergence of abortion. Again. The thing is, none of them are very good at it. There is absolutely nothing new to say and some of them can’t even say that much with conviction. I think this is an opportunity for Kasich.
I’m no expert on Republicans but I can’t imagine that their appetite for rage and spite is in-exhaustible, especially in the face of repeated failures without consequence. So much effort and venom, for example, has been expended over the past 20 years regarding LGBT rights and recognition that has, just in the last year, completely melted away without consequence or even impact. Their defeat is, in effect, so complete I bet it doesn’t even sting. Same thing goes for the confederate flag: gone and not lamented. Well over a hundred years of angst and effort and venom and bile. And then… poof … gone. I don’t even think many people have given it any more thought since it was taken down. I know I haven’t. The GOP is a little bit in the position of todays prophets who predicted the world would end yesterday.
I think, of the candidates so far, Kasich is, as Frank says, the “least mean” and certainly the one most likely to focus on domestic economic issues. Christie has shown that he can be the least partisan but I think he is, at heart a real bully, and, though likely to appeal to the base, not likely to do, ultimately, much better than Rmoney, the last bully they nominated. So I’m not counting Kasich out yet…
I love the money quote in this comment:
The GOP is a little bit in the position of todays prophets who predicted the world would end yesterday.
Bingo. Give that man a cigar.
If a crazy wins Iowa he hopes to win NH, especially as Jeb! keeps gaffing his way down the polls. I think he and Rubio are both playing the long game and worth watching as the rest try to out-right wing one another. I think they are the two I’d be most concerned about-especially against Clinton.
Walker’s dismal record and approval rating in Wisconsin is finally catching up to the race, but we underestimate him at our own peril. I was sure he would lose the recall and his re-election and I won’t make that mistake a third time.
… is a function both of the number of credible candidates in the race (and I don’t include Trump in that class) and how quickly that pool shrinks as time goes along. in 2012 Rmoney emerged from the back of a pack of 7 or 8 by letting each of the other crazies free up their stupid. A year prior to the 2012 GOP convention, if I recall correctly, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum were trading places in the top three in the polls.
I think the caucus system in Iowa is crazy so it’s axiomatic that a crazy will win Iowa.
I don’t know that Walker can translate what he did in Wisconsin (which were, let’s be honest, houdini-eque wrt his abilities to both enter into and emerge from trouble) to the national stage. He’s going to get into trouble that he won’t be able to get out of…
We shall see…
I think he will be around for a long while, absent some horrible mistake, because of and not in spite of his approval in Wisconsin.
He more or loss staged a hostile takeover of a blue state and then proceeded to beat the ever-loving snot out of the Democratic Party establishment, and then did it again. In doing so, he became a huge hero on the right, and had to rely on a national base for fundraising.
I think he has a lot of support among the least responsible sort of actual tea party activists, because he embraced the no compromise, ever, no matter what ethos, and won.
That can elect him and send Tammy Baldwin to the Senate, but that’s the way it is. For a purple state there are few centrists in either party, just liberals in the cities and conservatives in the farms. And a real reason for that is the abandonment of economic populism as a progressive electoral strategy, there are limits to waging an endless wedge issue election on social issues and Wisconsin shows it.
…and Bob, I would caution against cheerleading for him. The Dems wanted Reagan in 1980 too on the grounds that he was too extreme to win the general. Trump is a clown and a troll, the shiny object in the silly season that is the summer before election. He really has no business taking a slot on Fox’s stage that would be better filled by one of the current/former Senators or Governors who did not make the cut.
No way you exclude him from the debate, based on a rule set out eons ago by the news cycle standard back in 2012.
The Reagan comparison should also imply he is not a troll or shiny object, but a leading candidate for their nomination and the general election. I can’t picture the latter, but the former is more of a possibility than it was for Cain or Bachman or the other also rans.
…But at this time in the 2012 news cycle it was 2011 and the GOP frontrunners were Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. At this time in the 2008 news cycle it was 2007 and the GOP front runners were Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.
Around this time in the 2004 race it was 2003 and, on the Democratic side, the eventual nominee, John Kerry was regularly being out-polled by Al Sharpton…
I think, with very few exceptions that I can think of (H Clinton probably going on to be one such exception), any “frontrunners” this far out have been also-rans by the time of the convention…
I think he has a constituency within the GOP of angry, populist, voters who distrust the GOP establishment and won’t vote for it’s potential nominees. Any office holder is distrusted, and Trump literally has billions he can ply into this campaign if he wants to. Not saying I like the guy or that he will win the nomination, I am also saying those that expect him to go gently into that good night will be disappointed to find him and his supporters raging against the dying of the light, right through the convention.
one can only hope
Rachel Maddow pointed out that on paper the GOP field is an embarrassment of riches (not to be confused with Trump who is simply rich), but Trump is sucking the O2 and the media are fawning over him because he makes good copy. He’s a shameless self-promoter and not much else and Fox IMO should not have let polls alone determine the field if they needed to limit it at all. He has reduced other candidates with actual relevant records to wielding chain saws, cooking bacon with semi-automatics, and finding creative ways to destroy their cell phones. This is not a reality show and should not be treated as such.
And I appreciate Maddow saying that. They have two Latinos, an Asian American, an African American, and a female candidate and a majority of them are under 60. Many from competitive swing states. We can’t say the same thing. They are all spouting roughly the same tired ideology I might add, but what do we do once the Clintons finally exit public life? Especially since they control so many more statehouses which remain the farm leagues of political talent.