Sunday, February 21, 2016

Scratching my head on a Sunday morning

So, after going to the caucuses yesterday and listening to the candidates give their spin on Meet the Press, the political world looks a little surreal, as if it didn't already. From the pool establishment Democrats endorsing Hillary, and indeed from several Hillary supporters yesterday, I have heard something along these lines, "We love Bernie and agree with his ideas" "Bernie is an honest guy who has been fighting for the same stuff his entire life". Yet, they support Hillary, and they support her because they believe she can get elected, which is essentially saying, "It's okay to give up your values if it wins you an election." I'm not here to trash Hillary, but there is no doubt, she has had to "evolve" on damn near every issue to claim she is where Bernie has been for 50 odd years. She is not a strong candidate to me, but something she does have is an ability to fight tooth and nail with Republicans. Not that she has the best message, but is deemed a better fighter.

On the other side, after watching Trump talk today, I feel like I see him already tacking toward the middle. The people who support him right now, seemingly, will not be swayed by anything from giving that support up. Nicole Wallace yesterday made what I think is a dead on analogy, she described people as seeing Trump as chemotherapy for the Republican party. He may kill a bunch of healthy cells with spouting outlandish crap, but he will also kill what they believe is a cancer within the party. Today, he said several things that again, not a single other Republican will acknowledge. Regarding Planned Parenthood, he acknowledged that they have done an enormous amount of good for women. He threw in an anti-abortion plug, but he is not embracing the unquestionable dogma that PP does nothing but perform abortions. Second, they played a clip from a Howard Stern interview after the W invasion of Iraq and Trump said, hesitantly, "Well I guess they did the right thing, but they should have done the right thing the first time around." After that clip he stated pretty convincingly, "You know, in hindsight, what Senior did was probably the exact right thing. He went there with a mission, accomplished it, and got out. In hindsight, that was probably the better approach" On healthcare, he said that people who could not afford insurance needed to be covered, which is still better than what we had before, possibly. He hit on something I agree with completely, "Obama got boxed in by the insurance companies". Insurance companies, IMO, kept their little protected market places, and without full ability to buy insurance from a company based in any state, there is no competition.

My head tells me that Hillary is going to win because she is going to carry the majority of voters over 50 and her Wall Street blood money is going to keep ads running for her. Trump and Hillary, to me, are two very flawed candidates, but as Trump keeps tacking back toward the middle, which will be natural because he is not a true conservative, he could snag the independents who are clearly not giving their vote to Hillary right now. I'm not sure Democrats should be so confident right now they thump Trump, especially when he moves toward the center for the general.

2 comments:

  1. As I understand it, The Republicans have two choices. They can dump Trump and lose election or support him and abandon their far right wing. If I am right then I feel they must support Trump for the nomination. The danger is, they may lose the Senate. There is no win-win option.




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I see it, losing the Senate may not be the worst thing in the world for them. Mitch McConnell became such a tightly clenched sphincter, it wasn't like much got by anyway. The rules of the Senate, which are not demanded by the constitution, is that anything of substance must have enough votes to shut of filibusters. When both parties have just under or just over fifty, I'm not sure it matters all that much anymore because they can both snap each other on the ass with a wet towel.

      This is going to sound bizarre, but I'm starting to feel like Trump and Sanders are basically two sides of the same coin on a currency that is not legal tender in either party right now. Bernie's message is essentially income inequality, he blames the oligarchy for some of that, but he also dumps on the trade deals the same as Trump. Sanders isn't giving details about foreign policy, and neither is Trump because that is not the primary focus of either. Neither have a problem with gay people, and Trump historically has not had a major problem with abortion. And they are both the only two candidates who are not beholden to super pac money. At one time, I thought there was no way Trump could win. I'm now seeing a pathway that looks a lot easier for Trump than it did two months ago.

      Delete