2016 election
793 pieces tagged “2016 election”, newest first.
GOP Debate Number Five
Each of the Republican presidential candidates brings something good to the race for the GOP nomination and some things not so good. In the fifth and final GOP debate of the year, the candidates on the main stage, and even a few on the "undercard," presented ideas and positions that many Republican voters would consider far better than those we have now under the president we have now.
Lessons of the Fifth GOP Debate
All candidates bring their constituents to the election that matters most.
Between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Not Even a Contest
New polling shows Ted Cruz picking up major steam and looking very serious in challenging Donald Trump's leadership in the Republican presidential candidate field. A Bloomberg News/Des Moines Register poll shows Cruz now leading in Iowa. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Cruz jumping up 12 points from 10 percent in late October. Now, at 22 percent, Cruz is just 5 points behind Trump. True to form, Trump is beginning personal attacks against Cruz.
The Season of Trump
I have a history with Donald Trump. Having rescinded an invitation from him to a gathering in August after his comments on Megyn Kelly, I watched as Trump supporters descended on social media, my radio program, my phone number, and my mailbox to express their outrage. It was weeks before my children could check the mailbox again. I still get random and assorted hate mail over the incident.
Why Take the Trump Stunt Seriously?
So how exactly does this work, Donald Trump's plan to keep America safe from Islamic terrorism by barring entry to all Muslims? He explained it Tuesday on TV. The immigration official will ask the foreigner if he's a Muslim. "And if they said, 'yes,' they would not be allowed in the country?" Trump: "That's correct." Brilliant. And very economical. That is, if you think that bloodthirsty terrorists...
No Such Thing as a Trump Republican
"You can't be a Trump Republican and a Ronald Reagan Republican." That's the tweet I sent to Jeb Bush the other day, when virtually the entire planet was united in bashing Donald Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the USA. I also tweeted another obvious truth, "If the Republican Party doesn't dump Donald Trump, the American people will. Trump's outrageous "Muslims Keep Out" plan — apparently his policy answer to last week's terrorist attack in San Bernadino — is an embarrassment to our country and what it stands for.
Democrats' Best Weapon: Trump
The dictionary defines "bogeyman" as "an imaginary evil spirit, referred to typically to frighten children." Hello, Donald Trump. It's not clear whether he set out intentionally to elect Hillary Clinton, but there is little question that he could not be fulfilling the role of Republican bogeyman to greater effect. As Commentary's Jonathan Tobin noted, during a week in which the disastrous fecklessness of President Obama and his party in the face of terrorism ought to have been Topic A, we are all talking about Trump instead. Brilliant.
Trumping Immigration Again
A calculated play to gain attention and set the terms of the debate.
The State of Play in the Republican Race
There are just eight-and-a-half weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, with two of those weeks devoted to holidays during which polling is ordinarily not conducted, and the race for the Republican presidential nomination seems to be taking perceptible shape. And it continues to defy conventional wisdom. Since mid-July Donald Trump has been leading in the national polls, except for a moment early last month when he was effectively tied with Ben Carson. His numbers have moved up and down a bit but have stayed between 22 and 30 percent since early August.
Cruz vs. Rubio — A Better GOP Race
A funny thing is happening on the way to the GOP meltdown. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, the two most popular and broadly acceptable candidates in the field are perhaps the most talented and most reliably conservative. Oh, and by the way, they are Hispanics in their 40s. Donald Trump is still leading the polls and has demonstrated a staying power that has confounded his critics, but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are now beginning to stand out in the rest of the field, clustering with Ben Carson in effectively a three-way tie for second place nationally.
South Carolina's Predictive Power
Sen. Tim Scott, who evidently has not received the memo explaining that politics is a grim and bitter business, laughs easily and often, as when, during lunch in this city's humming downtown, he explains that South Carolina's Lowcountry is benefiting from what are called "halfbacks." These are migrants who moved from Northern states to Florida in search of warmth but, finding high prices and congestion, then moved halfway back, settling in South Carolina. Doing so, they have located in the state where, Scott believes and history suggests, the 2016 Republican presidential nomination will begin to come to closure.
Too Late for Carson to Catch Up on Homework
A little over a year ago, when Ben Carson was gearing up to run for president, I questioned in this space whether he was ready for what lay ahead. We now have our answer: No. Carson had a great number of things going for him: his amazing life story, charm, professional accomplishments, eloquence and courage. I had only one major concern: "While he speaks eloquently and passionately about the importance of doing homework in his own life and for children everywhere, it's not obvious he's taken those lessons to heart when it comes to politics."
Which Party Will Emerge From Its Gathering Storm?
Each of our two political parties, ancient by world standards, seems to be facing a gathering storm. Part of the gathering storm for Republicans is Donald Trump's candidacy and his persistent lead in most primary polls. He is given to outlandish proposals and lacks the temperamental ballast and government experience that general election voters usually seek in a president.
The Disappearing Governors
There is a painful irony in a recent decision of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on the side of Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, whom the U.S. Department of Justice tried to stop from making charter schools widely available to minority youngsters in his state. The Circuit Court's decision over-ruled a lower court decision on the side of the Justice Department, which was opposing the large-scale creation of charter schools in Louisiana, on grounds that this would interfere with long-standing federal government efforts to racially integrate public schools.
Chris Christie's Serious Political Talent
Paris was for all Americans, but especially for Republicans, a summons to seriousness that should have two immediate impacts on the Republican presidential contest. It should awaken the party's nominating electorate from its reveries about treating the presidency as an entry-level job. And it should cause Republicans to take another look at Chris Christie, beginning with his speech in Florida the day after the Paris attacks.
Clinton Takes All Cakes
So it has come to this. The party that once nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman to win the presidency — the party that once nominated men of the stature of Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey to contest the presidency — is now left with the Three Stooges vying for the highest office in the land. There they stood on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa last Saturday night. The Republican Party had put up eight plausible presidential candidates on a stage on Nov. 10. They even had a second tier debate a few hours earlier featuring candidates who did not make the cut but who could each trounce any of the Democrats' Three Stooges in the 2016 election. Ladies and gentleman, you heard it first here. The 2016 results are in.