What If The Republicans Win?

[vt]

Re: The Year of Living Dangerously . . .

With Hillary's fall the Democrat elite may be fading too.

Joe and Bernie? 72 and 74 years old! Where's the young candidates.

The voters hate both parties

[don]

Re: The Year of Living Dangerously . . .

Hillary’s Wall Street Plan: Worse Than Shuffling Deck Chairs on the Titanic


By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 12, 2015


To fully get your mind around Hillary Clinton’s new, toothless plan to “Prevent the Next Crash” on Wall Street, you need to know a few things right up front. Hillary hails from a grotesquely disfigured hybrid organization informally known as the “Wall Street Democrats.”

In that hybrid organization, money trumps morals, duty to country and the public interest. It is a shrine to crony capitalism, infused with lawyers who believe “it’s legal if you can get away with it.” Just as Wall Street’s watchdogs suffer from regulatory capture, the Wall Street Democrats are afflicted with “cognitive capture,” a polite way of saying public officials covet the wealth they hang around with on Wall Street and expect equal earning power when they pass through the gold-plated revolving door.

After former President Bill Clinton signed Citigroup’s dream deal in 1999 to repeal the depression era Glass-Steagall Act that separated insured banks from gambling casinos on Wall Street, then U.S. Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin (another Wall Street Democrat) who lobbied for the repeal, quickly beat a path to Citigroup’s door where he received compensation of more than $115 million over the next decade. After Bill Clinton left the White House, Citigroup paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and committed $5.5 million to the Clinton Global Initiative – a program that has become controversial over fears that corporations and foreign governments were attempting to curry favor with Hillary while she was Secretary of State by making donations to the related Clinton Foundation.

Quite recently it was accepted wisdom that all of those speaking fees for both Clintons, plus book royalties and government compensation has pushed the couple into the $100 million net worth area. But Dan Alexander of Forbes writes the following in the current issue:

“Since Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in 2001, they have earned more than $230 million. But in federal filings the Clintons claim they are worth somewhere between $11 million and $53 million. After layering years of disclosures on top of annual tax returns, Forbes estimates their combined net worth at $45 million. Where did all of the money go? No one seems to know, and the Clintons aren’t offering any answers.”

Alexander writes that about $50 million seems to be missing from their net worth figure and notes that “The Clintons did not respond to repeated requests for comment.”

What is not in question is that mega Wall Street banks likes JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley along with the largest Wall Street law firms are in the top 20 of Hillary’s current campaign donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Center notes that the “money came from the organizations’ PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals’ immediate families. At the federal level, the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so.” Just as we would have suspected, Paul Weiss, the law firm that was Citigroup’s go-to guys for serial fraud charges, made the cut.

All of these Wall Street related firms stampeding to throw money at Hillary Clinton raises a bit of déjà vu with Obama’s first campaign for the Oval Office. As we wrote in May 2008:

“So, how should we react when we learn that the top contributors to the Obama campaign are the very Wall Street firms whose shady mortgage lenders buried the elderly and the poor and minority under predatory loans? How should we react when we learn that on the big donor list is Citigroup, whose former employee at CitiFinancial testified to the Federal Trade Commission that it was standard practice to target people based on race and educational level, with the sales force winning bonuses called ‘Rocopoly Money’ (like a sick board game), after ‘blitz’ nights of soliciting loans by phone? How should we react when we learn that these very same firms, arm in arm with their corporate lawyers and registered lobbyists, have weakened our ability to fight back…”

Hillary’s transparently vapid proposals to tinker around the tattered edges of the Wall Street Democrats’ Dodd-Frank illusion of reforming Wall Street (after two of America’s largest banks became admitted felons just five months ago) rather than breaking up the banks and restoring the Glass-Steagall Act, should instantly disqualify her as a serious candidate for the Oval Office among Democrats who are not afflicted with cognitive capture or the cognitive dissonance of a bifurcated Democratic Party.

Tomorrow evening, Hillary will debate four other fellow Presidential candidates in the first Democratic debate, to be held in Las Vegas. For a preview of why Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall and strongly advocates its return, is attracting large crowds across America, take a look at the video below. Also on stage will be former Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley (another advocate for restoring Glass-Steagall), Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island Governor and Senator, and Jim Webb, author and former Senator from Virginia.

[don]

Cruz Control?

BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN on OCTOBER 12, 2015 in DAVID P. GOLDMAN, SPENGLER

Republican voters think the economy is the number one issue but can’t manage a public discussion on economic policy, as I observed Oct. 4 (“Who are you, and what have you done with the Republican Party?“). They flail at hot-button issues, defunding Planned Parenthood, for example, and look for scapegoats such as illegal Mexican immigrants (whose numbers are actually falling). It seems pointless to make predictions of any sort in the midst of the moral equivalent of a riot, but nonetheless will go out on a limb: the Republicans will nominate Sen. Ted Cruz as President and Sen. Marco Rubio as Vice-President, by process of elimination.

This conclusion seems inevitable by process of elimination. The voters are in a surly, rebellious mood and display their anger by telling pollsters they will vote for anti-Establishment candidates who never have held office (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Paul).

CBS Poll Released October 11

	Oct. 9	September
Donald Trump	27%	27%
Ben Carson	21%	23%
Ted Cruz	9%	5%
Marco Rubio	8%	6%
Jeb Bush	6%	6%
Carly Fiorina	6%	4%
Rand Paul	4%	3%
Chris Christie	3%	1%
Mike Huckabee	2%	6%

The four anti-Establishment candidates together command 58% of Republican preferences, according to the CBS poll. But it is unlikely that the party ultimately will nominate any of them. They simply are too volatile, too inexperienced and too labile to carry a presidential campaign. If that assumption is correct (and it is a big assumption), then that 58% will have to go somewhere else.


We can array the Republican candidates in a Venn diagram, with two regions denoting “experience” (holders of high political office) vs. the rebels. There is one name and one name only in the intersection of the two Venn diagrams, namely Cruz: he is perceived as anti-Establishment, but he has held high office at the state and national level.

Marco Rubio (l) and Ted Cruz

Cruz is the likeliest person to inherit the 58% anti-Establishment vote once the Trump-Carson-Fiorina euphoria fades. It’s noteworthy that Cruz polls strongest among elected officials in the Republican race, at 9% this morning vs. 5% in September. Most of his gain appears to have come at the expense of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, which suggests that conservative evangelicals are consolidating their efforts around Sen. Cruz. The Republicans need a candidate with anti-Establishment credentials. A Jeb Bush ticket would risk defections to third-party challengers.

Cruz, moreover, has the strongest organization on the ground among all the Republican candidates. CBS news reported last week that he raised $12.2 million in the third quarter, more than twice the $6 million raised by Sen. Marco Rubio. Ben Carson, to be sure, raised about $20 million, but Carson simply will not be the candidate. The average Cruz donation was just $66, and the Texas Senator has a strong grassroots organization, perhaps the strongest of any of the Republican candidates.

Jeb. Bush is weighed down by his family name, by his own diffident personality, and by his failure to persuade the big donors who supported his father and brother that he can win. He doesn’t suit the national mood. Sen. Rubio is a charming young man whose main disadvantage is to carry the baggage of the Bush administration’s failed foreign policy, tying his tongue in knots while apologizing for the Iraq War. The rest of the Republican field is hardly worth a comment. Rubio would make a terrific VP candidate. It’s a natural: with two Hispanics on the ticket, the Republicans have a better chance of capturing Latino votes.

Ted Cruz, in summary, is best positioned to capture the Republican protest vote, and best positioned on the ground in primary states. He is also without doubt the most intelligent, literate and cultured person running for president, a former national debating champion, and a star student of the conservative philospher Robert George at Princeton as well as the liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz at Harvard. If I read him correctly, he has paced himself, allowing Donald Trump to grab the headlines, tipping his hat to this wild man of the Republican primaries by way of acknowledging the sympathy he has won from voters. Meanwhile has has spent most of his time building an organization on the ground, in preparation for the moment when the anti-Establishment vote fades. He carries none of the toxic baggage of the Republican foreign-policy establishment; on the contrary, he drew their ire for ridiculing the idea that the US could turn Iraq into Switzerland.

There’s a case against Cruz, to be sure. Ronald Reagan is his political model, and he has watched so many Reagan speeches that he can do a persuasive Reagan impression. But in many ways he is still the tall, geeky bookworm who aced every exam and became every teacher’s pet and went through hell in junior high school. Ronald Reagan had a spontaneous wit and presence of mind. In February 2008, in a dispute with the moderator of a candidates’ debate, he stood up like a Hollywood sheriff at a Republican debate and declared, “I am paying for this microphone!” The voters saw the real Reagan all the time, and loved him. Cruz is studied, not spontaneous, and humor is not his strong suit. In some ways he evokes Richard Nixon more than Reagan.

Those are disadvantages, to be sure, but I do not think they will outweigh Sen. Cruz’ advantages. He is in the right part of the Republican Party at the right time. His debating skills and mastery of public policy will show well in a prolonged campaign, especially against a slapdash thinker like Vice President Biden. There simply isn’t anyone else whom the Republicans can run with the same skill set, organizational capacity and ability to unite the party.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Cruz Control?

Cruz is the likeliest person to inherit the 58% anti-Establishment vote once the Trump-Carson-Fiorina euphoria fades.

But are we sure it will fade?

[DSpencer]

Re: Cruz Control?

This conclusion seems inevitable by process of elimination. The voters are in a surly, rebellious mood and display their anger by telling pollsters they will vote for anti-Establishment candidates who never have held office (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Paul).

Weird. I guess that Rand Paul is considered to "never have held office" despite being a US Senator.

CBS Poll Released October 11

	Oct. 9	September
Donald Trump	27%	27%
Ben Carson	21%	23%
Ted Cruz	9%	5%
Marco Rubio	8%	6%
Jeb Bush	6%	6%
Carly Fiorina	6%	4%
Rand Paul	4%	3%
Chris Christie	3%	1%
Mike Huckabee	2%	6%

We can array the Republican candidates in a Venn diagram, with two regions denoting “experience” (holders of high political office) vs. the rebels. There is one name and one name only in the intersection of the two Venn diagrams, namely Cruz: he is perceived as anti-Establishment, but he has held high office at the state and national level.

Again, if you pretend that Paul doesn't hold the same level of office as Cruz then you can conclude that Cruz is the only person that fits into this dual category. The diagram even includes people with less support than Paul in the polls mentioned and others who aren't even included at all. Is the author really so ignorant that he doesn't realize this mistake? Or is it an intentional move because it otherwise destroys the narrative he is trying to weave?

Note: I am no way suggesting that Paul will win the nomination or that Cruz won't. I'm just pointing out this entire article is "garbage in, garbage out".

[astonas]

Re: Cruz Control?

But are we sure it will fade?

The sentiment? no. The money it provides? Very probably.

The challenge for any populist uprising is mostly surviving the onslaught of advertising spending that will be vilifying it. It's possible to do; but not easy.

Some point to Trump's deep pockets as the only way to do that. But I suspect that while some of the populist anger is properly classified as "anti-establishment", a big enough portion is simply "anti-wealthy" to ultimately make Trump a hard sell, even for the Republican ticket. Not everyone gets to read iTulip's more nuanced discussions, and a real-estate developer running for office as a housing bubble's effects play out is a bit like a private-equity guy running for office with a financial crisis going on. Even if the fit is imperfect, it's easy to see how the image of Trump as a hated landlord or profiteer could be spread to great effect among those not currently supporting him.

Furthermore, even if Trump tries to brute-force the primary by self-financing it, he would start with the charge of buying his place on the ticket in the general. We can look to several prominent governor's races that show that usually doesn't play out very well in the end.

We often get cynical about voting on this site, but it is refreshing to note that voters often do chaffe when the fact that they are rubber-stamping the money becomes too obvious. After all, the people who bother to show up at the polls are usually exactly those who think that voting does, and thus should, matter. Whether you call this idealism or naiveté, it does seem to make a candidate's own money worth about half that of anyone else, and in a few prominent elections, even less than a third.



Since I've brought up Trump, I should probably mention that my interpretation includes some atypical assumptions, so let me be explicit about those, in the interests of full disclosure.

For Trump, I see the whole discussion of winning the election as being entirely tangential.

I've always believed that Trump was running not to win, but to further his business interests. His brand is his name, and the bang for the buck he gets by spending on campaign rallies is tremendous. As "front-runner" his name gets repeated more often, and his picture shown on more minutes of airtime, than he could ever buy, even for 20 times as much money spent directly on advertising. As long as the press will pay attention to him, it is a smart business move to keep it going. When his "race" is over, the brand value of his properties will have gone up more than enough to cover his costs.

Think about it. Why else would a candidate make such outrageous statements about hispanics, when that could well be a key voting block in the general election? It doesn't make any sense for a person trying to win. But it makes perfect sense for someone trying to maximize his free airtime. Trump understands how America's celebrity culture works, and is playing it for profit.

So when the attacks start in earnest, and costs really start to rise, Trump's decision will be a business decision. It might be worth spending, say, $100M on brand-building. But if the Koch brothers throw in big behind Cruz, will Trump be willing to spend $1-3B (if he even has it, his brags are notoriously hard to verify)? The value-add for his brand may no longer be profitable at that point. If not, Trump will announce the pretext for pulling out that he doubtless has already prepared, and begin the process of cashing in on his broadened brand appeal.

The only question is when will he decide he's accomplished his mission: conducting one of the highest-ROI advertising campaigns in the history of American business.


With this framework for interpreting Trump's actions, I think the argument that Cruz and Rubio could come to the fore makes a lot of sense. The candidate needs to appear populist enough to rally the idealistic base, but still remain fully bought by moneyed interests. Both of those candidates fit the bill nicely. The fact that they allow Republicans to pretend that anti-hispanic sentiment (personified by Trump) has been defeated in their party is icing on the cake.

[astonas]

Re: Cruz Control?

Weird. I guess that Rand Paul is considered to "never have held office" despite being a US Senator.



Again, if you pretend that Paul doesn't hold the same level of office as Cruz then you can conclude that Cruz is the only person that fits into this dual category. The diagram even includes people with less support than Paul in the polls mentioned and others who aren't even included at all. Is the author really so ignorant that he doesn't realize this mistake? Or is it an intentional move because it otherwise destroys the narrative he is trying to weave?

Note: I am no way suggesting that Paul will win the nomination or that Cruz won't. I'm just pointing out this entire article is "garbage in, garbage out".

Yeah, the piece is clearly written to fit the Cruz narrative. But Paul may not be buyable enough for big donors, so the conclusion might not be wrong. "Experience" in the article seems to be not about actual experience, but the degree to which donors know they can buy the candidate. In most cases, public office holders are openly for sale. Paul is still trying for grassroots support, so he's not "experienced" at being bought.

[don]

Re: Cruz Control?

Goldman's pieces are notorious for being intentionally inflammatory - he elicits the most responses from readers, nearly all critical, on Asia Times. In that sense he ignites debate.

[DSpencer]

Re: Cruz Control?

Goldman's pieces are notorious for being intentionally inflammatory - he elicits the most responses from readers, nearly all critical, on Asia Times. In that sense he ignites debate.

Sounds like those readers are feeding the troll. What a world where writing factually inaccurate articles to be inflammatory gets you more exposure than doing responsible journalism.

[lektrode]

Re: Cruz Control?

yeah maybe, but to be REALLY inflammatory, theres nothing quite like 0C's take on this stuff:

Missed The Democrat Debate? The Taiwanese Animators Summarize It In One Cartoon

For those who prudently had much better things to do last night than to watch the first Democrat presidential debate, and who inexplicably are still curious about what they missed - you are in luck: the Taiwanese animators have taken the time to summarize everything that the average American consumer, shown in this picture from the clip...


... was meant to take home from this latest pandering to the lowest common denominator.

For a more serious take on last night's spectacle, Mike Krieger has shared, courtesy of ReasonTV, "The 3 Best and Worst Moments of the Democratic Debate (From a Libertarian Standpoint)"







He also adds the following:

One of the most offensive lies told by Clinton seen in the video clip above relates to Edward Snowden. As Dan Froomkin at the Intercept notes:

Clinton’s comments on Snowden were flawed in more than one way. She also insisted, incorrectly, that he could have accomplished his goals by going through normal channels.

“He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that,” she said.
But Snowden, as a contractor, was not covered by whistleblower protections. He did try going through established channels, but he said his concerns fell on deaf ears.
And the response to his leaks has made abundantly clear that no one in
his chain of command was the least bit interested in going public with
the information.
She is a master deceiver.

+1

[vt]

Re: Cruz Control?

Jim Webb is one of only two in either party that makes sense as the next President.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cruz Control?

Jim Webb is one of only two in either party that makes sense as the next President.

There is no middle anymore. Webb's a Southern Reagan Democrat. Chafee's a Northeast Liberal Republican. There's a reason they're both suffering in the 1% range in a field of only 5 candidates. 1990 is 25 years ago. Back then there was room for Chafee and Webb. Clinton's probably the closest thing to an electable centrist up there. But she's a chameleon. No telling who she is, where she's from, or what she believes. Wherever she goes, she'll sound like her audience. But in 2016 it will be more about the base than ever.

Look, Obama beat Romney by only winning 690 out of 3,144 counties in the US. Dukakis won 819 and lost badly. It shows you how much demographics have shifted and how important big cities are to the Democrat's modern coalition. It's all about cranking that voter turnout in a few key cities.

This is the map we're looking at. There are not many places up for grabs.




And here's the map in terms of population.




The Democratic strategy is simple: Crank turnout in Reno/Vegas, Hollywood/Miami, Boulder/Denver, Des Moines/Davenport, Cleveland/Akron/Youngstown, Arlington/Alexandria, and Nashua/Manchester. Then you win. Voter turnout is always higher on presidential years anyways. And Democrats have a natural advantage over Republicans in terms of sheer number of registered voters. It's just that they're less likely to actually go and vote. So you need to excite them into it more than you'd need to excite Republicans. And you can't crank voter turnout for some wishy-washy centrist policies.

So this leaves a tough needle to thread. Democrats have to veer to the right if they want big money donors, and most of them do. For Democrats, this is a liability, because it depresses excitement and voter turnout. Republicans have to veer to the right if they want big money donors, and most of them do. For Republicans this is a liability, because the further they go to the right, the more motivated to actually show up and vote against them Democrats get, even if they have a milquetoast candidate. Trump and Sanders are of course the exceptions to the money game this time around.

I actually think, as funny as it sounds, that in some ways the Republican coalition now is more diverse. Not in terms of age or race or creed. But I think it's probably more diverse in terms of the electorate's desired policy positions and geographic dispersion. Plus Registered Republicans are more likely to vote regardless. So it's harder for a Republican to take a firm policy stance that really excites the base and drives turnout, since you don't get as much mileage out of GotV efforts. Registered Democrats are concentrated in a few counties and a few cities and generally want the same things. And they're less likely to vote unless motivated. So that group really seems like they'll swing it.

I'm pretty convinced that a Republican's best chance to win is by putting up someone friendly who doesn't scare/anger Democrats. And the Democrats' best chance to win is to drop in the candidate that will excite that base hardest, like Obama did in 2008. The combo of Palin scaring/angering them and Obama exiting them sealed it.

Christie actually could have been dangerous in a general for that reason, until his fall from grace. Don't know if he can recover. Rubio might be the least threatening of those left standing. Cruz does a good job pulling off his Reagan schtick, but he'll terrify the Dem base into voting against him. Carson's looney tunes conspiracy theories and tithing nonsense will scare away mainline Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Muslims and Asians and Atheists and Agnostics in the cities. Ditto with Huck and Santorum - Opus Dei politics doesn't play well. Trump could actually be dangerous if he didn't keep stepping to the right, but I wouldn't put it past him to scrap his positions and moderate in the general. Either way, he lost the Hispanic vote forever and they will come out to vote against him. Nobody wants a third Bush Presidency after the last one. Nobody wants another rich investment banker, Kasich will just be Romney version 2.0, easy to vilify for the Dem base. Fiorina can't smile and came out swinging too hard on foreign policy and social issues for the Dem base not to be motivated to vote against her: "Heartless warmongering CEO who outsourced jobs trashed a company and wants to bring Evangelical Law to America" will be the tagline that sticks. Rand Paul has too much baggage and is already hedging his bets with a Senate seat anyways.

Basically, it means maybe the only ones with any chance whatsoever to not motivate a strong Democratic turnout against them in a general are Christie, Trump, Rubio, and Cruz, all of whom have serious weaknesses except maybe Rubio, whose weaknesses are more minor.

On the Democratic side, you have Chafee and Webb who can't even get the base to give them 1%. Webb is a southern white boy who worked for Reagan and isn't sure about affirmative action. He's not going to excite the base. Chafee is a former Republican ragamuffin who talked mostly about cutting Social Security his last year in the Senate, which was not so long ago. He's not going to excite the base. O'Malley just isn't catching on. The Wire may have killed him with the more informed bleeding edge voters and intelligencia before he got going by portraying him as Tommy Carcetti. Biden's probably not jumping in. That leaves Clinton and Sanders. Sanders will excite the base and push them out. No doubt about it. He basically resurrected old school FDR/Truman/LBJ Liberalism. His ceiling will be money in a general though. Clinton had everything going for her coming in and her campaign has been doing its best to lose. Her biggest danger is pissing off the base in the process of winning and being too centrist in order to cater to her donor base. She also definitely has a 'men problem.' Her unfavorables are really high with men. That could be a real problem with turning out the base if she keeps pushing the identity politics angle. She'd have to get a running mate with real left-wing bonafides that the party believed. Same is probably true of any of the Republican more centrist contenders.

The good news for Republicans is that nobody comes out of this looking like a clear shoo-in. Sanders probably has the best hope of driving the turnout they need to win. But it would throw the whole damn party into disarray since he's an unendorsed independent with no donor ties and would be risky going up against Republican SuperPACs worth billions in the general with no SuperPAC of his own. The Democratic money machine probably could put one together, assuming it wanted to and wealthy liberal donors weren't just so turned off by him that they walk away towards a Republican anyways. Another reason why warm and cuddly and non-threatening could be good for Republicans this year-if Sanders squeaks it out, the big money liberal cash might be up for grabs by Conservatives, so long as it doesn't scare them with too much fire and brimstone.

Either way, there's some cool little web tools now to look at candidates. Tiny little quizzes to filter candidates' policy positions with your own. It's not perfectly accurate, but it can be fun. Telling thing about Webb when I take it is he ends up down near Christie, and Jindal in a pile of the Republicans. Sounds about right to me.

I kinder figure that Webb's angling for Secretary of Defense or something anyways...

[Woodsman]

Re: Cruz Control?

There is no middle anymore. Webb's a Southern Reagan Democrat. Chafee's a Northeast Liberal Republican. There's a reason they're both suffering in the 1% range in a field of only 5 candidates... Telling thing about Webb when I take it is he ends up down near Christie, and Jindal in a pile of the Republicans. Sounds about right to me.

I kinder figure that Webb's angling for Secretary of Defense or something anyways...

Pretty good analysis, DC. And after reading it in context of the thread I think I finally understand what some folks around here mean when they say "independent."

Of course Webb makes sense as president to a conservative Republican. Webb is a wet dream to principled conservatives wondering what became of their party and a bad dream to principled liberals wondering what became of theirs.

From the right, what's not to like about a pistol-packin' Scots-Irish decorated war hero Marine first of his class Annapolis grad, touched by Blessed Reagan but ballsy enough to quit the administration 'cause he thought it too weak on defense.

Webb could even give the GOP cover on inequality and the Iraqistan debacle and woo back the sorts of folks, as you say, we used to call Reagan Democrats.
In light of today's Bizarro lumpenslobetariat politics, it's definitely a winning formula for the 90s . And if it wasn't for macaca we'd probably be talking about someone else right now.

[vt]

Re: Cruz Control?

Webb's no conservative, and he has a deep understanding and caring for the downtrodden.

You have no understanding of Webb or his policies. You might want to do some research before you blindly attack

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/James_Webb.htm

The American people are fed up with both extremes., and with political hacks that try to paint anyone who they disagree with labels.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cruz Control?

Webb's no conservative, and he has a deep understanding and caring for the downtrodden.

You have no understanding of Webb or his policies. You might want to do some research before you blindly attack

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/James_Webb.htm

The American people are fed up with both extremes., and with political hacks that try to paint anyone who they disagree with labels.

It's not an attack, vt. It's the truth. Webb's too conservative to ever gain traction in a modern-day Democratic primary. He'll never get out of the single digits.

To be honest, I'd be kind of glad if he did. It would be interesting to see Clinton try to hang onto middle ground while being flanked on both her left by Sanders and her right by Webb. But I just don't think there's enough hawkish white conservative Democrats left in the party to propel him to 10 or 20% no matter how much money he raised.

The American people are not fed up with both extremes. The American people are both extremes. Like I said: There's no middle anymore. This isn't 1994. It's not even 2004...