Tag: 2016 Presidential race

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Hard Words, Soft Left

socialism, democrats, Hillary Clinton, Common Sense

“The word ‘socialist’ is a really hard word,” warned former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

“Now, I love Bernie Sanders, really,” Granholm added, acknowledging she’s okay with his socialist policies — just not the term.

Not in mixed company.

The former governor of the Wolverine State was responding to a question — “How about the charges ‘he’s a socialist’?” — from Martha Raddatz, who was hosting ABC’s This Week that week.

“The socialist label is something that he applies to himself, right,” Granholm noted. “So the question is how does that play across America?”

Armed with a Gallup poll, Granholm answered that socialism doesn’t play very well at all. Voters are “even” less apt to vote for a “socialist” than for an “atheist.” In case you wondered.

So, what is the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?

“You’re the chairman of the Democratic Party, tell me the difference between you and a socialist,” Chris Matthews had implored Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on MSNBC months ago.

“The relevant debate we’ll be having over the course of this campaign,” dodged the DNC chair, “is what’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.”

Chuck Todd, noting that Bernie Sanders “is an unabashed socialist” who is always praising European social democracies, echoed the question on Meet the Press: “what is the difference?”

“It’s always fun to be interviewed by Chris Matthews and I know that he enjoys that banter,” bobbed an answer-​less Wasserman Schultz. “The important distinction we’ll be discussing in this campaign [blah, blah, blah] …”

Earlier this month, Matthews likewise asked Hillary Clinton to state the difference. Mrs. Clinton said she wasn’t a socialist but, instead, “a progressive Democrat.”

“Debbie Wasserman Schultz wouldn’t answer the question either,” Matthews replied.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Anti-​Republican Party Establishment

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Yesterday, we decried the rigged superdelegate voting process used by establishment Democrats to Hillary Clinton’s benefit — and party members’ detriment. Today, we switch parties to find the GOP establishment in full panic mode, so terrified at the prospect of a Ted Cruz victory that they’re now rallying around Donald Trump.

Republican Party stalwart Bob Dole, the 92-​year-​old former Senate Majority Leader and a 35-​year Washington insider, called Sen. Cruz an “extremist.” A Cruz victory would lead to “cataclysmic” losses for the party, Dole contends, and by the way … “Nobody likes him.”

“Nobody in Washington,” Dole means.

As for Trump? Dole thinks Trump could “probably work with Congress, because he’s, you know, he’s got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.”

The right personality?

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a fixture in Congress for the last 41 years, introduced Trump recently by clumsily validating Trump’s campaign slogan: “we have an opportunity, once again, to make America great again.”

And again.

According to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “Trump does not have any particular enemies down here. I don’t think anyone gets up in the morning and is irritated with him. That’s not how it is with Cruz.”

Former GOP congressman turned lobbyist Vin Weber says that the establishment’s hated of Cruz “has forced some people to look past all of Trump’s issues and think about what he could offer.”

Offer?

The Republican establishment really, really, really despises Sen. Ted Cruz. But they can live with Donald Trump.

Hmmmm … advantage Cruz.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ballot access folly ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies

The Anti-​Democratic Party Establishment

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Democrats aren’t very good at democracy.

Consider the party’s presidential contest, as I did yesterday at Townhall.

As an appetizer, I noted the Democratic National Committee policy of hiding their debates from viewers by placing them on weekend evenings pitted against major sporting events.

For meat and potatoes, ponder my warning of the very ugly scenario of Sen. Bernie Sanders capturing as much as 58 percent of the primary and caucus vote and resulting delegates, but still losing to Hillary Clinton.

How could that possibly happen?

Because of folks designated as “superdelegates” — those awarded voting delegate status for holding a party office or being an elected or former elected official.

Democrats brag that they’ve reduced these insiders’ impact. Democratically-​unaccountable superdelegates once accounted for 30 percent of Democratic Party convention delegates; now it’s only 15 percent of the total. Still, Clinton leads Sanders 380 to eleven among superdelegates.

At that rate, she could lose the actual state elections and still win the party’s presidential nomination.

The Democrats’ dereliction of democratic duty doesn’t end there, either.

The process by which various powerful party “interests” endorsed either Sanders or Clinton is quite telling. Journalist Zaid Jilani reports in The Intercept that, “Every major union or progressive organization that let its members have a vote endorsed Bernie Sanders.”

“Meanwhile,” Jilani found, “all of Hillary Clinton’s major group endorsements come from organizations where the leaders decide. And several of those endorsements were accompanied by criticisms from members about the lack of a democratic process.”

Seems the insiders have decided Mrs. Clinton will be on the Democratic Party presidential menu, whether Democrats like it or not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility tax policy too much government

Berating Bernie?

Bernie Sanders, Glass Steagall, ratings, agency, Common Sense, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill

Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls. He may even beat Hillary Clinton in the first caucus and primary contests for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A cause for celebration! Witnessing a huge hunk of Americans accept Mrs. Clinton, the consummate and corrupt insider, is too disheartening.

Bernie Sanders, for all his faults, is at least not an insider like Hillary.

And even when he’s obviously wrong, he’s a breath of fresh atmosphere. Take his recent call for turning the credit ratings institutions into non-​profits, or into government-​run bureaus. It’s good to hear someone on the left blame something other than the partial repeal of Glass-​Steagall as the cause of the Crash of 2008, and (thus?) of the current “Great Recession.” Glass-​Steagall was utterly irrelevant to the institutions that were hit hardest in 2008’s collapse; it has, nevertheless, served as leftists’ idée fixe for years now. Embarrassing.

The ratings agencies, on the other hand, did play a part in the crash.

Still, remember: their prominence and importance (and very existence) in financial sectors rests entirely upon one provision of FDR’s New Deal.

More importantly, Bernie’s favored solution — government bureaus — is no solution at all. Europe’s ratings system failed in 2008, too, as Mark A. Calabria has noted, and “it was the international financial regulators, not the rating agencies, who decided that Greek debt was ‘risk-​free.’”

Earth to Bernie: government regulatory failure is normal.

Calabria agrees that we need to have a political conversation about the ratings agencies, but insists it be “based on facts,” not ideology.

I’m all for the facts, but ideologies are inevitable. And ideologies promoting Big Government inevitably fail.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Bernie’s Bogus “Medicare for All”

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Bernie Sanders promises universal health care, but, up until the other day, just waved his hands in the air, without specifics. Now he has a plan.

Sort of.

Ezra Klein, writing at Vox, says Sanders’s “Medicare for All” is not a plan at all. It’s a “gesture towards a future plan.”

But that doesn’t mean that the thing isn’t “well sold.”

After praising the Obamacare/​Affordable Health Care Act for giving “health insurance” to more than 17 million people, the preamble of Sanders’s proposal made its most predictable statement: “Twenty-​nine million Americans today still do not have health insurance and millions more are underinsured and cannot afford the high copayments and deductibles charged by private health insurance companies that put profits before people.”

Forget that deductibles are integral to the very idea of insurance. Forget that profits are absolutely necessary for the success of an industry. Forget that profits come from serving people.

Remember, instead, the leftist clichés.

Sanders’s plan, such as it is, is a lie — or, in Klein’s phrasing, “has nothing to do with Medicare.” Sanders aims to get rid of deductibles and copays, on which Medicare depends. It’s what makes Medicare distinct from, say, socialized medicine.

Insurance covers individually unforeseeable but actuarially manageable risks. Socialized medicine gets rid of the idea of “payment for service” on every level — and thus the very idea of insurance — and turns the whole thing over into a tax-​and-​spend program, i.e., what Sanders really wants.

That won’t be cheap, as Megan McArdle demonstrated some time back during the Vermont “single payer” kerfuffle.

The only option for increasing value while lowering prices? Go the opposite direction from socialism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bankrupt Leadership

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Sen. Rand Paul wasn’t the only thing absent from the GOP presidential stage last Thursday.

Also missing? Any meaningful talk about reducing federal spending and avoiding a sovereign debt crisis. The debt looms over all our heads. But you wouldn’t know it to listen to the GOP hopefuls. (And the same nearly goes without saying for the Democratic Party’s debt-​denying presidential aspirants.)

Way back when the Bush Administration had lost America’s confidence, deficits and debts were a common concern. Much of the disgust that birthed the Tea Party movement was disgust at Republican over-​spending, as well as at the bailouts that spurred the initial protests. And then came Obama, Obamacare, and a 70 percent increase in federal debt.

Why the silence now?

Nick Gillespie, of Reason, figures that Republicans don’t really care about deficits and debts.

Andrew Flowers, of FiveThirtyEightPolitics, wonders whether the GOP has abandoned the issue because Republicans don’t want to face the fact that Obama has, indeed, reduced deficits — though definitely not the debt, which has nearly doubled.

Alternative theory? Republicans have given up hope, because the last two Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have successfully threatened government shutdown over even the itty bittiest spending cut, safe in the knowledge that the mainstream media’s full spin-​cycle will be blaming conservatives.

This has made it easier for Big Government Republicans to embrace greater military funding and other spending programs, as Gillespie notes.

But real leadership recognizes the present danger of debt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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