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national politics & policies political challengers

Twelve-Point Play

Joe Biden, old, elderly, election

How popular is President Joe Biden? 

Better to ask how unpopular; a substitute Democrat to be named later is more popular. 

Twelve points more popular.

“An unnamed ‘Democratic candidate’ shifts the race by 12 points on the margins,” Aaron Blake reports in The Washington Post, “turning a four-point Democratic deficit against Trump into an eight-point lead, 48 percent to 40 percent.”

Democrats are mulling all this over because their unpopular president, according to a recent New York Times-Siena College poll, trails former President Donald Trump “in five of the six most competitive battleground states”: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. 

“I am concerned,” offered U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), “by the inexplicable credibility that Donald Trump seems to have despite all of the indictments, the lies, the incredible wrongdoing.”

Or is it, instead, the lack of credibility enjoyed by establishment politicians and media?

“What many missed about the poll is that a generic Democrat isn’t the only one significantly overperforming the actual candidate likely to lead the ticket,” Blake further explains.

“The poll also tested a race without Trump,” discovering that the “GOP’s lead goes from an average of four points with Trump to an average of 16 points without him, 52–36.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley polls best against Biden. 

Democrats, however, lack an “available alternative.” Vice-President Kamala Harris polls only a single point better than Biden, which is damning news for Biden. Would another Californian, Gov. Gavin Newsom, fare better? 

Or is the only good Democrat a mythical Democrat?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption political challengers

Straw Candidacy

Sara Gideon, candidate, Portland,

“No Corporate PACs,” says a Facebook ad by the Sara Gideon for U.S. Senate campaign, “Just You.”

“Gideon is running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2020,” the Portland Press Herald reports, noting that “fighting corporate money in politics” has been a prime “focus of her campaign.”

Yet, as Democratic Speaker of the Maine House, the challenger ran something called the Gideon Leadership PAC that raked in a majority of its funds from corporations such as Aetna, American Express, AT&T, Comcast, Eli Lilly, Time Warner, Verizon, Visa, and Walmart. The Maine Examiner informs that “records from the Maine Ethics Commission show she has built her career, and funded efforts to boost her statewide support, with contributions from large corporations.”

Last month, Gideon was slapped with a Federal Election Commission complaint for violating campaign finance law forbidding one person or entity from making contributions that are reimbursed by another. Gideon made numerous personal contributions to Democrats running for federal office only to turn around and have her leadership PAC reimburse her for the expense.

Her PAC being the true donor, Speaker Gideon is what’s known as a straw donor.

But it gets worse, explains Erin Chlopak, a former FEC official and currently with the Campaign Legal Center. “Corporations cannot make contributions to a federal campaign, and you can’t circumvent that ban by using a straw donor to funnel money originally from a company to a federal candidate.”

A spokesperson for Gideon’s campaign blamed “incorrect advice.” 

At her level of corporate involvement, I’d say the “incorrect advice” was to emphasize the anti-corporate money pledge.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Sara Gideon, candidate, Portland,

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And Then There Were 20-Something

MIke Gravel, president, candidate, war, draft,

The media won’t have my favorite Democratic presidential candidate to kick around anymore. 

“Mike Gravel drops out of 2020 race,” Vox headlined Catherine Kim’s report. “He never wanted to be president anyway.” A subhead continued: “The former Alaska senator simply ran to get other candidates to talk about American imperialism.”

It was largely a Twitter campaign, which, as The New York Times featured months ago, was run by two teenagers, David Oks and Henry Williams. “It wasn’t exactly a bid for the presidency,” the paper cautioned, “but neither was it really a prank.”

The goal? Launch Gravel — and, moreover, his issues — onto the debate stage. Though the campaign garnered enough individual donors to qualify, his lackluster polling results kept the former U.S. Senator out of prime time.

During the Vietnam War, Sen. Gravel worked to end the military draft and had the courage to read the Pentagon Papers into the Senate record in order to inform the public about the war. After leaving the Senate, Gravel continued his battle against U.S. military intervention, as well as advocating for initiative and referendum.

Back in 2008, in another quixotic presidential bid, he succeeded getting into the debates, lobbing in a few much-needed zingers. He was 77-years-old then; today he is 89.

Oks’ and Williams’ “real goal was to inject Gravel’s far-left views,”  informed FiveThirtyEight.com, “into the primary.”

Though I disagree with Mike Gravel on a number of his “far-left” issues — and for endorsing Bernie Sanders for president — he has my utmost respect. 

And if “ending ‘imperialist’ wars, legalizing drugs and enacting dramatic political reforms” be “far left,” make the most of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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MIke Gravel, president, candidate, war, draft,

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national politics & policies too much government

The New New Dealer

Pete Buttigieg, president, election, labor, gig economy, candidate,

Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie finds “a lot” to like about Pete Buttigieg. He sees a candidate “who at his best represents a new generation in American politics and a principled unwillingness to go along with the most free-spending plans of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.” 

I have so far resisted the charms of the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

He seems dangerous to me, in part because he cuts quite a figure while appearing so calm and reasonable.

But Mr. Gillespie is not making a case for Buttigieg. The Reason editor has noticed a growing set of downsides to the pol, writing that as Buttigieg “starts to unveil more and more plans — to pack the Supreme Court, say, and to call for national service — he becomes less appealing,” which, if anything, understates the situation.

You see, Buttigieg “wants to destroy the gig economy in order to save it.”

Gillespie provides that “takeaway” from the campaign’s proposal, “A New Rising Tide: Empowering Workers in a Changing Economy.” Gillespie explains that the plan’s “focus is to force more regulations on employers and increase unionization among workers, neither of which is likely to make it easier for the economy to grow or the workplace to ‘more easily adapt’ to the needs of suppliers, workers, or consumers.”

There is a lot about the current labor markets (at record all-time highs, says the President) that definitely would not be helped by a plan to “organize” labor using the old idea of the strike-threat system.

Like a lot of Buttigieg’s positions, they seem warmed-over yesteryear progressivism.

FDR, but modernly packaged.

Making Big Government even bigger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pete Buttigieg, president, election, labor, gig economy, candidate,

Photo by Lorie Shaull

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initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers term limits

A Different Conversation

billionaire, Tom Steyer, candidate, president, election, campaign,

“Here’s the difference between me and the other candidates,” says billionaire investor-turned-presidential aspirant Tom Steyer. “I don’t think we can fix our democracy from the inside. I don’t believe Washington politicians and big corporations will let that happen.”

Of course, if this Democrat becomes president of these United States, that’s hardly the outside.

“For me,” Steyer continues, “this comes down to whether you trust the politicians or the people.”

Well, I certainly trust the people a whole lot more than I trust the politicians.* 

“If you say you trust the people, are you willing to stand up to the insiders and the big corporations and give the people the tools they need to fix our democracy?” Steyer asks. 

Which tools? “A national referendum, term limits, eliminating corporate money in politics, making it easy to vote.”

The toolkit’s a mixed bag.

Eliminating corporate money means repealing part of the First Amendment, and silencing non-profit corporations such as U.S. Term Limits, MoveOn.org, the NRA, Planned Parenthood, National Right to Life, etc., etc. 

Mr. Steyer also worries that, without reform, “We won’t be able to . . . pass any of the great plans proposed by the Democratic candidates running for president.”

We should be so lucky.

Still, here is another Democratic presidential candidate endorsing congressional term limits. And we do need a direct democratic check on Washington, the ability for citizens to initiate reforms such as term limits and take unpopular legislation to a referendum. 

I’m not sanguine that Steyer will get the policy details right, but as fellow Democratic candidate Sen. Kamala Harris is fond of saying, “Let’s have that conversation.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Constitutional protections for our basic rights, as in The Bill of Rights, mean we do not have to trust government, directly democratic or representative.

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billionaire, Tom Steyer, candidate, president, election, campaign,

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Democrats Can’t Afford Competition

Howard Schultz, candidate, president, coffee, challenge?

Howard Schultz’s recent announcement that he might run for president “sent a shiver through the Democratic Party,” writes David Siders at Politico, “terrifying party officials who fear a well-funded, third-party candidate could siphon votes from the Democratic nominee and hand a second term to Trump.”

Schultz is the former Starbucks Coffee CEO, whose success with customers in the marketplace is hard to quibble with. Nonetheless, his “welcoming” into the contest has been less than friendly.

President Trump taunted that he lacked the “guts” to run. Democrats — appalled that the billionaire, a lifelong Democrat, who has given nearly $200,000 to candidates sporting the D on their chests, would consider an independent run — called it “half-baked” and yet “an existential threat.” 

Note that Mr. Schultz has stated he will not run if he thinks he cannot win.

As I’ve long argued, there’s a better way to prevent spoilers: use ranked choice voting, like they do in Maine, so that voters can better express themselves, and not help elect the candidate they like least by voting for the candidate they like most. 

At this point, Howard Schultz’s impact is to expose the socialistic impulses of Democrats running for president. The liberal Schultz has already taken on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax idea and bashed Sen. Kamala Harris’s Medicare-for-all. He opposes free college as something “we can’t afford.” 

Among the battalion of Democrats already seeking or likely to seek the party’s presidential nomination, is there even one able to articulate that there might be something “we can’t afford”?

Democrats much prefer a comparison with Trump to a comparison with Schultz.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Howard Schultz, candidate, president, coffee, challenge?