Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise are likely contenders for House speaker
Some say it’s a fight between West and South. Or who might win an endorsement from President Donald Trump. Or a test of who can woo conservatives. But one thing is clear: If the showdown between California Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise for House speaker is a popularity contest, it will be tight. “Steve is the more low-key guy, Kevin is more the big handshake, but they’re equally popular,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “It’s not like right versus left or a good guy versus a bad guy.” House Speaker Paul Ryan told colleagues Wednesday he wouldn’t seek re-election in November, implicitly starting the race to replace him. Disconcertingly for the GOP, Trump’s unpopularity and early Democratic momentum leave it unclear whether Ryan’s replacement will be speaker or minority leader. For now, McCarthy and Scalise are seen as the chief contenders. McCarthy, 53, an affable Californian, is his party’s No. 2 House leader and was one of the earliest and steadiest backers of Trump’s presidential campaign. If Trump weighs into the contest, his clout could rally lawmakers behind his favored candidate, though it could alienate others who want a leader who has their back, not necessarily the president’s. It’s uncertain whether Trump will intervene or who he’d support. McCarthy was elected in 2006 and rocketed into a leadership job in 2009, thanks to his campaigning for fellow Republicans. He replaced Eric Cantor as majority leader in 2014 after the Virginian unexpectedly lost a primary for his House seat and quit. In 2015, McCarthy sought to succeed Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who’d alienated conservatives who considered him insufficiently doctrinaire. McCarthy abruptly left that contest days later after failing to line up enough votes, and Ryan accepted the post. Scalise, 52, the House GOP vote counter and No. 3 leader, was first elected a decade ago and had little national name recognition until tragedy thrust him into headlines. He was shot at a congressional baseball practice last year and is still recovering from his injuries, an ordeal that’s earned the conservative former state legislator broad respect. “The strength he’s shown with his injury, I think, has heightened where he is” among colleagues, said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn. Lawmakers and GOP donors want a leader who can raise money, and there McCarthy has an advantage. He raised $8.75 million in the first quarter of this year and has done fundraisers for 40 GOP candidates, said a person familiar with his political operation. Scalise has raised $3 million, a record for House whips, and hosted almost 50 events, his aides said. Neither man is known for rhetorical flourishes, with McCarthy in particular prone to sentences that defy the rules of grammar. And both have resume problems that fellow Republicans insisted they’d overcome. In 2014, Scalise was discovered to have addressed a white-supremacist group in 2002 founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Scalise apologized and said he’d been unaware of the group’s racial views. McCarthy suggested in 2015 that a House committee probing the deadly 2012 raid on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, had damaged Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers, undermining GOP arguments that the investigation wasn’t politically motivated. That raised questions about his ability as a communicator, a key for party leaders. But he was one of Trump’s earliest and most loyal congressional supporters in the 2016 presidential race. Some Republicans prefer Scalise’s deep red state background to McCarthy’s bright blue California, since the GOP’s chief strongholds are in rural and red state districts. “You have a lot of the Southern states who are looking to shift leadership back to that part of the country,” said Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla. Scalise is viewed as more conservative than McCarthy, important in a House GOP conference that’s drifted to the right. That could be intensified after November, when Republicans are expected to lose seats and many of those departing will be moderates. Conservative groups have awarded Scalise modestly stronger voting ratings than McCarthy. But McCarthy has worked to improve his relationship with conservatives, including trying to craft legislation cutting spending from the government budget enacted recently. Either man could cut a deal with the House Freedom Caucus. Those roughly 30 conservative members could theoretically deliver their votes to a contender in exchange for a promise to back a caucus member for a leadership post. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the Freedom Caucus, said a candidate’s willingness to listen to all lawmakers is “probably the top priority” for backing someone. Neither Scalise nor McCarthy would acknowledge a race for Ryan’s job or definitively deny it. Scalise said it’s not “time to talk about what titles people want,” while McCarthy said, “There is no leadership election. Paul is speaker.” Those close to Scalise say he is unlikely to directly challenge McCarthy. But he doesn’t need to. By offering himself as an alternative choice, ready in case McCarthy fails to muster support, he is essentially making an indirect bid for the top post. Congressional leadership races often move quickly, with candidates rushing to win supporters and outmaneuver rivals. Several lawmakers said privately such moves are underway. But others said the race could stretch until after the election clarifies the number, ideology and mood of House Republicans. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Martin Dyckman: A European perspective on Donald Trump
“Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad Company.”– George Washington‘s 56th rule of civility and decent behavior. A recent cruise in the Baltic Sea took us to eight northern European nations where we were impressed yet again with how much alike all the world’s people are. But there is a dark side to that. In 1932, amidst a grave worldwide depression, Americans elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a decent man who told us we had nothing to fear but fear itself. At almost the same moment, the people of Germany — perhaps the most advanced nation in Europe — got Adolf Hitler. When we toured Berlin and beheld a friendly and prosperous city with an enviable quality of life, the hideous events of the Nazi era seemed almost improbable. A visit to the impressive Jewish Museum Berlin is the antidote to selective memory. To see the exhibits of Jewish life in Germany in the millennium before the Shoah, one first must pass the exhibits dedicated to the Holocaust. Nothing is held back Yes, the people who did that were decent and highly civilized by all the standards of their times. I have never thought that what happened there could not happen here in similar circumstances. And now it is happening here. A man who emulates Adolf Hitler in significant ways is poised to be the nominee of a once great, now degraded political party, and could become president of a nation whose proudest boast is to be the leader of the free world. If you doubt the parallels, read the British historian Alan Bullock‘s magisterial biography, “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny.” Like Hitler, Donald Trump inflames the latent, and not so latent, prejudices of a substantial element of the populace. The targets are different, but not the hate-filled rhetoric. Like Hitler, Trump is capitalizing on the public’s justifiable dissatisfaction with the apparent political paralysis in Washington. Hitler’s promise to end a similar situation and make government function again was his primary issue in the pivotal 1932 campaign that he won with only a plurality. Like Hitler, Trump spews hate at people — not just journalists but critics in his own adopted party — who oppose or criticize him. Like Hitler, he would tame and muzzle the judiciary. Could any threat be clearer? Like Hitler, Trump has no coherent policy positions — other than bigotry — and is conspicuously disinterested in the details of how government works. He would have his vice president do all the real work. Nothing in the Constitution contemplates that. No president has been so blissfully ignorant and lazy. Many industrialists and politicians in Germany rationalized that Hitler, their inferior in every respect but cunning, could be put to their use. They learned better, to their sorrow. Rick Scott, Paul Ryan and the other opportunists scurrying aboard Trump’s ship figure they can use him too. Ryan, for one, claims to believe that Trump would promote the congressional Republicans’ entire far right agenda. Can’t they see that Trump will do only that which promotes himself? They don’t love their country half as much as they hate Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular. They would sooner see America ruined than muddle along, if not prosper, under Clinton. Why do I say that? It’s because Trump’s presence would defile an office in which almost every occupant has tried to project the senses of dignity and responsibility that are so grossly lacking in that vulgar, thuggish, bombastic, bullying, fundamentally amoral man. Trump as a successor to George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Teddy Roosevelt? FDR? George H.W. Bush? It makes one want to vomit. Vladimir Putin likes Trump. The bloodstained boy dictator of North Korea likes him. David Duke, the professed Nazi and Ku Kluxer, likes him. What company you keep, Speaker Ryan. Welcome to the sewer, Governor Scott. Where is your integrity, Mel Sembler? Have you forgotten the Holocaust? The foreign dictators relish the prospect of someone so unfit, unprepared, unworthy and amoral defiling the White House. They figure that America would become a laughing stock, an irrelevancy, a faded former power in the hands of such an unfit, unprepared, unworthy person. You have to wonder, though, whether they weigh the risk of such a thin-skinned, irascible bully’s finger on the nuclear button. Trump’s apologists argue that he can’t be compared to Hitler because he has never had a perceptible, consistent ideology and lacks the organized cadres — the Hitler Youth, the brownshirts — who put the muscle and murder into Hitler’s campaigns. But he does have an ideology. It’s his Id, his ego, the persistent, insatiable promotion of himself, his greed. No one could be more dangerous. And he has the brownshirts too, lacking only similar organization. The people harassing Muslims and other foreigners, roughing up protesters at Trump rallies, bedeviling journalists with unspeakably anti-Semitic emails and telephone calls, are their equivalent. And, as in Germany, their vocal and physical violence is provoking the opposition into replying in kind. Two wrongs make no ri0ght. Clinton is far from a perfect candidate but, as intellectually honest conservatives have observed, the country would survive her. That it would survive Trump is far too great a risk for any honest patriot to want to take. ___ Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of what is now the Tampa Bay Times. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Ben Pollara: A Democrat’s unsolicited advice for the GOP that created Donald Trump
What is more appealing for Democrats like me? Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, or a fractured convention that produces a nominee who received no Republican primary votes, like Paul Ryan? Honestly, both sound pretty good and likely to culminate in a Hillary Clinton presidency. But it’s not up to Democrats like me, and the questions Republicans should be asking themselves have more serious consequences for both their party and our system of governance. Beyond my partisanship, I hold a core belief in the essential function of the two-party system and the imperfect, yet better than the alternatives, manner in which it maintains the values of our republican democracy. Assuming Trump enters Cleveland with a plurality but not majority of delegates, to deny him the nomination would shatter the Republican Party for a decade to come, and with it the two-party system that balances the most extreme tendencies of American political ideology. The media reacted with shock at Trump’s assertion that a brokered convention that denied him the nomination would lead to rioting. Trump has said many outrageous things, many of them without basis in fact. This was not one of them. Just as Vietnam and Civil Rights nearly tore apart the Democratic Party in 1968, denying Trump the nomination through Byzantine delegate rules would succeed in doing the same to the Grand Old Party. The party of Lincoln must come to terms with the reality that it now holds that moniker by historical fact only. The Republican Party has, by virtue of a political strategy to build a winning national coalition post-New Deal, become the party of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and yes, Donald Trump. To survive, Republicans must face down that which they have wrought through two generations of “dog whistle” racism and us-vs-them fearmongering that, until recently, served the cynical corporatists and political elites in the party quite well. The Southern Strategy and the rise of fundamentalist religious extremism paved the way for the K Street Project and 20 of 28 years of Republican White House occupancy; the Tea Party and Birtherism gave rise to the Koch-era and hegemony of the legislative branch in D.C. and most state capitols. But the craven decisions that led to these triumphs are causing the Republican Party to collapse under the weight of its own base. What fueled government shutdowns over previously benign issues like raising the debt ceiling and funding Planned Parenthood (and the ultimate ouster of John Boehner as Speaker of the House) is precisely what is fueling Donald Trump’s success. It is willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty of the first degree for Republicans to bemoan the “Make American Great Again” movement and its accompanying rhetoric of angry xenophobia without owning responsibility for creating the environment that spawned it. You reap what you sow. Give Trump the nomination he has earned; you fostered the environment that incubated him. Let Trump fail spectacularly in November. Then look in the mirror and begin to rebuild the Republican Party in the image of Abraham Lincoln, rather than David Duke and his ilk. The alternative is a splintering of the very foundation of our political system and a generation of Democratic hegemony, which may have pundits in the not distant future bemoaning that “Barack Obama wouldn’t have been able to win a single state’s primary in today’s Democratic Party. He was basically a Republican.” Republicans should ask themselves, what is scarier? Four more years of a Democrat in the White House, or a future where that statement is true? • • • Ben Pollara is a political consultant and a founding partner of LSN Partners, a Miami Beach-based government and public affairs firm. He runs United for Care, the Florida medical marijuana campaign and is a self-described “hyper-partisan” Democrat.
Seeds of GOP splinter in opposition to all things Barack Obama
Republicans can blame their united stand against President Barack Obama for their party’s splintering. Conservatives’ gut-level resistance to all things Obama — the man, his authority, his policies — gave birth to the tea party movement that powered the GOP to political success in multiple states and historic congressional majorities. Yet contained in the movement and its triumphs were the seeds of destruction, evident now in the party’s fracture over presidential front-runner Donald Trump. Obama’s policies, from the ambitious 2010 law overhauling the health care system to moving unilaterally on immigration, roiled conservatives who decried his activist agenda and argued about constitutional overreach. “Quasi-socialist,” says Tea Party Express. Republicans rode that anger to majority control of the House in 2010 and an eye-popping net gain of 63 seats as voters elected tea partyers and political outsiders. Four years later, the GOP claimed the Senate, too. For all the numbers, though, Republicans were unable to roll back Obama administration policies or defeat the Democratic president in 2012, further infuriating the GOP base. Now the party of Abraham Lincoln is engaged in a civil war, pitting establishment Republicans frightened about a election rout in November against the unpredictable Trump, who has capitalized on voter animosity toward Washington and politicians. “There would be no Donald Trump without Barack Obama,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. No fan of Trump, Graham argued that resentment of Obama plus his own party’s attitude toward immigrants are responsible for the deep divide and the billionaire businessman’s surge. Mainstream Republicans are hard-pressed to figure out a way forward with Trump, who has pledged to build a wall on the Mexican border, bar Muslims from entering the United States and equivocated over former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke‘s support. The candidate has assembled a growing coalition of blue-collar workers, high-school educated and those craving a no-nonsense candidate. “I think they are at a loss to try to reconcile this nihilist wing of the Republican Party with conservative principles,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. The health care fight proves illustrative. The disaffected Americans embracing Trump echo the angry voices that filled town halls in the summer of 2009 as fearful voters taunted lawmakers over efforts to overhaul health care. Obama and Democrats were undaunted, pushing ahead on a remake of the system despite unified Republican opposition. In January 2010, thanks to tea party backing and conservative outrage, Republican Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts, claiming the seat that liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy had held for 47 years. That sent people a message that “if you could win in blue Massachusetts, we could win in my state,” said Sal Russo, co-founder and chief strategist of Tea Party Express. “That changed the movement from a protest movement to a political movement.” Three months later, in March 2010, Democrats rammed Obama’s health reform through Congress as mobs of protesters chanted outside the Capitol. Not a single Republican backed it. “Completely partisan,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. That November, the tea party propelled Republicans shouting repeal health care to victory, among them Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky. They defeated establishment GOP candidates more likely to compromise in Washington. Dozens of other tea party candidates captured House seats; many were making their first foray in politics. Losers in 2010 were some of the moderate and conservative Democrats who had backed the health care law. Along with Obama’s re-election in 2012 came another group of congressional tea partyers, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The movement’s strength ran headlong into Washington reality: Obama was president and Democrats still controlled the Senate. Efforts by Cruz and House conservatives to torpedo the health care law led to a partial, 16-day government shutdown in 2013. Republicans triumphed a year later, capturing control of the Senate and knocking out some of the more moderate Democrats such as Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and Arkansas’ Mark Pryor. In the House last year, they toppled House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a victim of his pragmatism. Expectations among uncompromising conservatives were sky-high. So was the disappointment. Obama’s health care plan remained the law of the land. “It definitely led to a wave in 2010 that gave us the majority, and then, what have we done since then,” said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. “That’s our responsibility to show what we have done since then, in spite of this president.” Trump has tapped into voter frustration even though he’s not considered tea party. At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, made clear that their man was Cruz. Still, Republicans recognize the power of his candidacy and the ramifications. “The American people are fed up,” said Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., one of a handful of Trump backers in Congress, “and if elected officials don’t realize it, we’ll be out of jobs.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Viewer’s Guide: GOP debate about Donald Trump vs. everyone else
And then there were four. Ben Carson‘s departure from the GOP presidential race means the quartet of remaining Republicans on the debate stage Thursday night get more time for attacks as Donald Trump treads a path to the GOP nomination and his three rivals try to trip him up. Cheered on by many Republican leaders, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich are racing the primary clock to March 15, likely their last chance to stop Trump in a series of winner-take-all contests. Some things to watch Thursday night as the candidates meet at 9 p.m. EST for the Fox News Channel debate in Detroit: HE WHO WAS NOT NAMED Love him or loathe him, Trump has taught the poohbahs of the Republican Party what a power grab really is — and he’s done it by winning over large swaths of the GOP’s own core supporters far from Washington. His wobbling over whether to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke finally gave the Republican leaders of Congress a way to go after the billionaire publicly — without uttering Trump’s name. Trump responded by saying House Speaker Paul Ryan would have to get along with a President Trump or pay some sort of “big price.” On the eve of the debate, Ryan’s office confirmed that Trump’s campaign had contacted the speaker’s staff in a first sign of outreach. Notably, Trump has started talking about unifying the GOP. Look for Trump to be asked about the existential rift in the party and how he expects to govern. ___ RUBIO, RUDE? TRUMP, TOO? The Florida senator who once insisted on staying above the scuffling has leapt right into it, emulating Trump’s schoolyard-taunting style. At campaign events in the past week, Rubio made sometimes crude jokes about everything from Trump’s tan to the size of his hands — he even suggested that the billionaire wet his pants at the last debate. Look for whether a newly confident Rubio, emboldened by his first primary win in Minnesota Tuesday, keeps it up or takes a more statesmanlike approach. And what to expect from Trump? “I can’t act overly presidential because I’m going to have people attacking from every side. A very good man, Ben Carson’s not there anymore, so now we’re going to have more time for the fighting,” he said. “When people are hitting you from different angles, from all different angles, unfortunately you have to hit back. I would have a very, very presidential demeanor when I win, but until such time, you have to hit back,” he told NBC on Thursday. ___ CRUZ’S STAND Thanks to Rubio’s win Tuesday, Cruz can no longer say he’s the only Republican who has shown he can beat Trump. But he won three states on Super Tuesday — Alaska, Oklahoma and his home state of Texas. And the delegate math shows that Cruz is emerging as the candidate who might stop Trump. Look for some confidence from Cruz, because on Super Tuesday alone he came close to Trump. For the night, Trump won at least 237 delegates and Cruz won at least 209. Rubio was a distant third with at least 94. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, who a week earlier joked at a dinner about killing Cruz, acknowledged on CBS that the Texas senator might be the party’s best hope to beat Trump. ___ KASICH, STILL The debate setting is likely most helpful to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is looking for a strong showing in Michigan in the state’s March 8 contest, to survive. __ FOX AND TRUMP, FRENEMIES Trump has uttered barely a peep about the fact that Fox News Channel is hosting the debate, and that his sometime-nemesis Megyn Kelly, is one of the moderators. This is a marked change from the upheaval that led to Trump boycotting Fox’s debate just before the leadoff Iowa caucuses. Trump had demanded that Kelly be removed; Fox refused and Trump headed a few miles away to host his own event. He later said that could have been one of the reasons he lost Iowa to Cruz. Trump has not tweeted about Kelly in weeks. In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Kelly said she thinks Trump has more confidence now. “He knows he can handle me. He can handle any interviewer,” she said. ___ TRUMP UNIVERSITY How good is a degree from Trump University? “Worthless” — as are his promises — according to former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney will brand the billionaire businessman as “a phony, a fraud” in a Salt Lake City speech on Thursday, as party of a push by GOP establishment figures to paint the billionaire as unfit to represent the party. Trump should have a few things to say about it. He already started slugging on Thursday morning, saying that Romney “begged” him for his endorsement four years ago, and called him a “failed candidate.” ___ REMEMBER BEN CARSON? Kelly said he wouldn’t have gotten much attention even if he had stuck around for the debate. Fox will concentrate its questions on Trump, Cruz and Marco Rubio — making for potentially awkward moments for Kasich. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
How to stop Donald Trump? GOP leaders search for a way
Gripped by chaos and dismay, Republican leaders searched on Wednesday for a last-chance option to derail Donald Trump‘s momentum fueled by seven commanding Super Tuesday victories. Overshadowed by Trump’s wins, Ted Cruz came in a close second in the night’s delegate haul, thanks to a win in his home state of Texas. The strong showing bolstered the senator’s case to be the party’s Trump alternative, even as rival Marco Rubio vowed to continue his fight. The unrelenting division represented the biggest crisis for the GOP in decades, with the party seemingly on track to nominate a presidential candidate it can’t contain. Some party leaders are considering the once-unthinkable option of aligning behind Cruz, whom many dislike, while others are talking of a brokered convention. Some influential outsiders even raise the option of forming a new party. Though convention fights are much more talked about than actually occur, an Associated Press delegate count indicates Trump will have to do better in upcoming contests to claim the nomination before the party’s national gathering in July. So far, he has won 46 percent of the delegates awarded, and he would have to increase that to 52 percent in the remaining primaries. The GOP mayhem contrasts sharply with the increasing cohesion on the Democratic side, where Hillary Clinton locked down solid victories in seven states and was on the path to regaining her status as the inevitable nominee. Clinton’s dominance with black voters carried her to wins across the South. Still, Bernie Sanders picked up wins in his home state of Vermont as well as Minnesota, Oklahoma and Colorado, and he said he would fight on. The Democratic drama paled in comparison to the existential questions Republicans wrestled with in the wake of the most significant election night of the primary. Trump won handily in states as politically opposite as Massachusetts and Alabama, a sign of his broad, outsider appeal and energizing impact on voter turnout. Along with Texas, Cruz took neighboring Oklahoma and also Alaska. Florida Rubio won only liberal Minnesota. Despite Trump’s commanding victories, many Republican leaders remained deeply skeptical he could beat Clinton in a head-to-head matchup in November — and some questioned whether they’d want him in the White House if he did. They turned to the sort of “break glass” options once thought impossible. “Ted Cruz is not my favorite by any means,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former candidate whose disdain for his Texas colleague is well known, told CBS News. “But we may be in a position where rallying around Ted Cruz is the only way to stop Donald Trump and I’m not so sure that would work.” Still, Graham also cast doubt on whether elder GOP statesmen could wrest hold of the situation. “At what point do you realize the Republican Party is unorganized — like the Democratic Party? There’s no secret group of people,” he scoffed. The comments came as #NeverTrump hashtag spread across Twitter and an anti-Trump Super Pac released a new online video and said it would increase its daily attacks ahead of primaries on March 8 and March 15. Our Principles PAC latest attack blasts Trump for not clearly repudiating David Duke, a onetime KKK member who endorsed Trump’s campaign. Other prominent Republicans called for more drastic measures. “It may be necessary for men and women of principle within the party to set the self-detonation sequence as they escape the ship to a new party,” wrote conservative blogger Erick Erickson. Erickson was among those calling on the party to coalesce around Cruz. In his victory speech, Trump sent a clear message to the GOP establishment, warning to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had declared earlier Tuesday that “this party does not prey on people’s prejudices,” that if the two don’t get along, Ryan is “going to have to pay a big price.” Delegate math would seem to underscore the problem for Republicans who reject Trump. For the night, Trump won at least 234 delegates and Cruz won at least 209. Rubio was a distant third with at least 90. There were still 40 delegates left to be allocated. Overall, Trump leads with 316 delegates and Cruz has 226. Rubio has 106, John Kasich has 25 and Ben Carson eight. The math was also tough for Sanders. Clinton was assured of winning at least 457 of the 865 delegates at stake Tuesday. Sanders gained at least 286. When including party leaders, Clinton has at least 1,005 delegates and Sanders has at least 373. It takes 2,383 to win the nomination. Top Sanders advisers argue that Super Tuesday was the best day on the primary calendar for Clinton. But the map will get more difficult for her moving forward, said Sanders senior adviser Tad Devine. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump looks to extend dominance as GOP starts to panic
Donald Trump looks to extend his dominance as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio scramble for delegates in presidential primary contests across 11 states on a Super Tuesday, stained by panic from Republican leaders even before the results were known. Fearing a Trump sweep, Republican officials across the nation lashed out at the billionaire businessman’s temperament and command of the issues in the hours before voting began. Having won three consecutive primary elections, Trump was poised to tighten his grasp on the GOP nomination in primary elections from Georgia to Massachusetts and Texas to Arkansas. “These are challenging times for the Republican Party,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who wanted to stay neutral in the GOP primary but endorsed Rubio last week. “Those that care deeply, as myself, probably should have been engaged earlier in trying to show that Donald Trump is not the right one to lead the conservative movement and to lead our party.” The comments came during a wild prelude to Super Tuesday that featured a dispute over the Klu Klux Klan, a violent clash between a photographer and a secret service agent, and extraordinary criticism from several Republican governors and senators who refused to say whether they would support their party’s front-runner should Trump win the nomination. A confident Trump brushed off his critics on Tuesday morning, suggesting that he’s helping to grow the party and even attracting Democrats to the GOP. “We’re getting people into the party that they’ve never had before,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” ”I can tell you the one person Hillary Clinton doesn’t want to run against is me.” Trump was seeking to sweep a series of contests across the South, which would be a massive blow for Cruz, in particular. The Texas senator, a favorite of the region’s social conservatives and evangelical Christians, long expected the South to be his firewall, but now simply hopes to emerge with a victory in his home state. Rubio’s goal on Super Tuesday is even more modest. He’s seeking to stay competitive in the delegate count while eyeing a win in his home state of Florida on March 15. Republican officials have rallied behind Rubio over the last week, but he’s failed to win a single state so far and could very well continue the winless streak on Tuesday. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson remain in the race, but neither is expected to be a major factor on Super Tuesday. With some fearing Trump’s delegate lead could become insurmountable by the middle of the month, the best hope for Rubio, Cruz and Kasich could be a contested national convention in July. But even that could be optimistic should Trump continue to dominate. Republicans spent months largely letting Trump go unchallenged, wrongly assuming that his populist appeal with voters would fizzle. Now party leaders are divided between those who pledge to fall in line behind Trump if he wins their party’s nomination and others who insist they can never back him. An Associated Press survey of GOP senators and governors across the country showed just under half of respondents would not commit to backing Trump if he’s the nominee. Their reluctance foreshadowed a potentially extraordinary split in the party this fall. “Right now we are in a very dangerous place,” said former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman. “You’ve got a con man and a bully who is moving forward with great speed to grab the party’s mantle to be its standard bearer,” Coleman, who backs Rubio, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s almost incomprehensible.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Paul Ryan: GOP nominee must reject bigotry
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday anyone who wants to be the Republican presidential nominee must reject any racist group or individual. Ryan made the tacit swipe at GOP front runner Donald Trump as voters in 11 states holding Republican contests headed to the polls on Super Tuesday. Ryan told reporters Tuesday that the GOP is the party of President Abraham Lincoln and “this party does not prey on people’s prejudices.” Ryan was apparently referring to Trump’s appearance Sunday on CNN when he declined to disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and other white supremacists. “When I see something that runs counter to who we are as a party and a country I will speak up. So today I want to be very clear about something: If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry,” Ryan said. Trump subsequently disavowed Duke, blaming his interview performance Sunday on a bad earpiece. Ryan again said he plans to support whomever emerges as the GOP nominee but bemoaned the current discourse in the party and said it was time to get back to focusing on how Republicans would solve the nation’s problems. “We are the party of Lincoln,” Ryan added. “We believe all people are created equal in the eyes of God and our government. This is fundamental. And if someone wants to be our nominee they must understand this.” Ryan was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2012. He said he has tried to avoid commenting on the presidential race but felt a need to speak up. “I try to stay out of the day-to-day ups and downs of the primary,” Ryan said. “But I’ve said when I see something that runs counter to who we are as a party and a country I will speak up.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Report: Black students removed from Donald Trump rally in South Georgia
Another day for GOP Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump brings another race-related scandal. This latest race-related incident involves 30 black students being kicked out of a Trump rally at Valdosta State University in South Georgia, according to multiple reports. Even though there were 7,500 at the rally, there wasn’t room for 30 black students, according to USA Today: About 30 black students who were standing silently at the top of the bleachers at Donald Trump’s rally here Monday night were escorted out by Secret Service agents who said the presidential candidate had requested their removal before he began speaking. The sight of the students, who were visibly upset, being led outside by law enforcement officials created a stir at a university that was a whites-only campus until 1963. “We didn’t plan to do anything,” said a tearful Tahjila Davis, a 19-year-old mass media major, who was among the Valdosta State University students who was removed. “They said, ‘This is Trump’s property; it’s a private event.’ But I paid my tuition to be here.” “We are going to win at every single level. We are going to win with health, with education, at the borders, with our military. We’re going to win, win, win, win,” he told the crowd. Trump, who has been under fire in recent days for a seeming inability or unwillingness to forthrightly repudiate the endorsement of David Duke, will undoubtedly face further scrutiny for his team’s latest questionable move.
Racial feud erupts as Republicans fight ‘unstoppable’ Donald Trump
The final-days sprint to Super Tuesday has erupted into a feud over a white supremacist as Donald Trump‘s Republican rivals scramble to stop the billionaire businessman from becoming an “unstoppable” force in the 2016 presidential contest. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continued to hammer the GOP front-runner’s character and lack of policy specifics in a series of attacks Sunday while courting voters across the South. But it was Trump’s refusal to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke that dominated the narrative less than two days before Republican voters across 11 states head to the polls. The new focus comes as Trump’s rivals acknowledge that time is running out to prevent the former reality television host from becoming the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee. He took a new step in that direction by earning the endorsement of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a would-be Cruz ally who backed Trump instead. “There is no doubt that if Donald steam rolls through Super Tuesday, wins everywhere with big margins, that he may well be unstoppable,” Cruz said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Trump was asked Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he rejected support from the former KKK Grand Dragon and other white supremacists after Duke told his radio followers this week that a vote against Trump was equivalent to “treason to your heritage.” “Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK?” Trump told host Jake Tapper. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.” Cruz soon responded on Twitter, telling Trump: “You’re better than this. We should all agree, racism is wrong, KKK is abhorrent.” Rubio went further in a message to thousands of supporters in Leesburg, Virginia: “We cannot be a party who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan,” Rubio said. “Not only is that wrong, it makes him unelectable. How are we going to grow the party if we nominate someone who doesn’t repudiate the Ku Klux Klan?” Trump was asked Friday by journalists how he felt about Duke’s support. He said he didn’t know anything about it and curtly said: “All right, I disavow, ok?” He hasn’t always claimed ignorance on Duke’s history. In 2000, he wrote a New York Times op-ed explaining why he abandoned the possibility of running for president on the Reform Party ticket. He wrote of an “underside” and “fringe element” of the party, concluding, “I leave the Reform Party to David Duke, Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani. That is not company I wish to keep.” Trump has won three of four early voting states, roiling a party divided over the prospect of the brash billionaire becoming its nominee. Late Sunday, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse became the first sitting Republican senator to say explicitly that he would not back Trump if he does win the nomination. “If Trump becomes the Republican nominee my expectation is that I’ll look for some 3rd candidate — a conservative option, a constitutionalist,” Sasse wrote on Twitter. The Duke debate seeped into the Democratic contest, as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also lashed out on Twitter: “America’s first black president cannot and will not be succeeded by a hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK.” Asked about the issue on Monday, Trump said he had disavowed Duke and asked, “How many times do I have to continue to disavow people.” In a phone-in interview with NBC’s “Today” show, the real estate mogul was asked about earlier remarks in interviews where he had seemed to stop short of disavowing Duke. He said the questioner in the earlier interview had asked about Duke and various “other groups,” saying he had difficulty with an earpiece he was wearing for the phone-in interview and didn’t want to disavow groups whose identity he didn’t know. Trump also said he had clearly made separation with Duke over the weekend in posts on Twitter and Facebook. Hillary Clinton re-tweeted Sanders’ message. She scored a lopsided victory in South Carolina the day before, fueled by a huge advantage among African-Americans, a key Democratic constituency that will also play a dominant role in several Super Tuesday states. Clinton turned her attention to the Republican field, all-but-ignoring rival Sanders from campaign events in Tennessee on Sunday. Starting her morning with stops at two Memphis churches, Clinton offered an implicit critique of Trump, issuing a call to unite the nation and asking worshippers to reject “the demagoguery, the prejudice, the paranoia.” While she never explicitly mentioned Trump’s name, the comments referenced his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” ”America has never stopped being great, our task is to make American whole,” said Clinton at Greater Imani Cathedral of Faith, prompting a chorus of “amens” from the crowd. The latest shake-up in the GOP race comes as attention shifts to the South, where the region will dominate on Super Tuesday — March 1 — and the weeks beyond. Trump holds commanding leads across the region, with the exception of Cruz’s home state of Texas, a dynamic that puts tremendous pressure on Rubio and Cruz as they try to outlast each other and derail Trump. Trump mocked the Republican establishment and his flailing rivals. “It’s amazing what’s going on,” he told NBC, calling his campaign a “movement.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
When candidates confront inaccurate, inflammatory comments
Donald Trump was hardly the first to face this situation and won’t be the last. Candidates are confronted with all sorts of comments on the campaign trail, including plenty that are inaccurate and some that are sure to offend. How should they respond? On Thursday, GOP presidential candidate Trump faced such a moment when a supporter at a town hall event complained about Muslims in the country and stated that President Barack Obama is Muslim. Actually he is Christian. Here’s a look at how Trump and other candidates before him have handled such situations. — – Donald Trump: “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims,” began the questioner – the first Trump had selected at a post-debate rally in the early voting state of New Hampshire. “We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American,” the man said. Trump, who once was a driver of the “birther” movement that falsely claimed Obama wasn’t born in the U.S, first laughed off the question, but let the man continue. “We have training camps growing where they want to kills us. That’s my question. When can we get rid of it?” the questioner said. Trump, who has shot to the front of the GOP pack with his own controversial statements, did not dispute the man. “You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there,” Trump responded. “We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.” Trump’s campaign manager later said that Trump had had trouble hearing in the busy room, though the man had been amplified by a microphone and could be heard by reporters seated in the back of the auditorium. — – John McCain: In 2008, Republican presidential nominee McCain took questions from several angry voters that became a signature moment of the campaign. One of the questioners said he was fearful of a possible Obama presidency. Another claimed the future president was Arab. “First of all, I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be. But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States,” said McCain. The response earned him boos from the crowd. He was equally quick to correct a woman who said of Obama: “He’s an Arab.” “No ma’am,” replied McCain. “He’s a decent, family man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.” — – Mitt Romney: In 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney faced his own criticism on the campaign trail for failing to correct inaccurate statements, including those from none other than Donald Trump. Romney declined repeatedly to correct Trump, then a much-courted donor, for repeatedly questioning Obama’s birth certificate and place of birth. Ahead of one fundraising event in Las Vegas, Trump repeated his suspicions that Obama was born outside the country and therefore was unqualified for the office of the president. Pressed by reporters to disavow Trump’s comments, Romney took a pass. “I don’t agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in,” Romney said. “But I need to get 50.1 percent or more.” He also thanked Trump at the event “for twisting the arms that it takes to bring a fundraiser together,” adding: “I appreciate your help.” — – Bill Clinton: Candidate Clinton had perhaps the best-known reaction to an inflammatory statement – though not one made to him at a campaign event – when he inserted himself into a racial conversation by denouncing a rap star who’d said in a newspaper interview that, “if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” Clinton, who in 1992 was courting African-American voters, addressed the comments in detail during an appearance in front of Jesse Jackson‘s Rainbow Coalition. Clinton quoted extensively from the remarks the rapper had made to The Washington Post and then proceeded to denounce them. “I defend her right to express herself through music. But her comments before and after Los Angeles were filled with a kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight,” he said. “If you took the words white and black and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech,” he added, referring to the white supremacist. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Martin Dyckman: Winner-take-all winner could be Trump
Our next president may well owe the office to arrogant billionaires or be one himself. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that fewer than 400 families account for nearly half the $388-million already invested in that election still more than a year away. Did America shed blood to be rid of monarchy only to have it come to this? And yet the vast moral and political corruption unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s confusion of free spending with free speech is only one of four ways in which government of the people, for the people and by the people has gone off the track. Voting districts in nearly every state are drawn by the party in power to control the outcomes. The elections themselves are monopolized by two increasingly polarized political parties, excluding the increasing numbers of citizens who want nothing to do with either of them. The elections, whether primary or general, can be won with much less than majorities by unpopular candidates who would not be the second choices of most voters. Florida is powerless to control the money. That will take a constitutional amendment or the election of a president who would insist that his or her Supreme Court nominees agree that the Buckley and Citizens United cases were wrongly decided. Florida has made inroads on the gerrymandering through the adoption of the Fair Districts initiatives five years ago and the state Supreme Court’s willingness to enforce them. But that fortunate condition is imperiled by the next four court appointments, which will be controlled by Rick Scott‘s nominating commission. Time is running very short for people who believe in judicial independence to do something about that. The “All Voters Vote” initiative petitions now circulating would break the shared monopoly of the Republicans and Democrats by allowing everyone to vote in an open primary that could nominate two candidates of the same party — or of no party — for state offices and Congress. That’s good for the growing number of voters who claim no party — presently 27 percent — or who identify with the Greens and other minor parties. To that extent, it would be a significant improvement for everyone. Jim Smith, the former Florida secretary of state and a supporter of the initiative, acknowledges that it hasn’t done much to change the lineup of elected officials in Louisiana and California, the other two open-primary states. He is right, however, in saying that it has “changed the conversation — and it’s a conversation that a broader spectrum of voters want to hear candidates talk about.” Republican candidates in districts with sizable Democratic minorities would have to think twice about toeing the Tea Party line. Democratic candidates in safely blue districts would need to court Republican votes for the first time. But “Top Two” is still vulnerable to the winner-take-all weakness. In 1991, a 12-candidate field in Louisiana’s open primary left voters with a dismal runoff choice: former Gov. Edwin Edwards, whose corruption was flagrant, or David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and an avowed Nazi. There were bumper stickers saying, “Elect the crook — it’s important,” and so the voters did. Edwards went to federal prison in 2002. That same year, 16 candidates sought the French presidency. Nearly everyone assumed there would be a runoff between a conservative, Jacques Chirac, whose ethics were as suspect as Edwards’, and the prime minister, Socialist Lionel Jospin. Chirac ran first, as expected, with 19.8 percent of the vote. But Jospin was edged out of the running by Jean Marie le Pen of the far right National Front, an ultranationalist party. Although nearly two-thirds of the voters had preferred other candidates, their final options were, as in Louisiana, between two obviously unappealing politicians: a suspected crook and a presumed fascist. (Chirac won.) There’s a way to avoid such dismal outcomes. It’s called ranked-choice voting, a task that computer science makes simple. To see how simple — and have some fun — go to this website: www.fairvote.org. There are links on the page to exercises where you can cast rank-ordered votes for political parties and for the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Here’s how the presidential game played out for me and for other participants on Monday. In the Republican poll, Donald Trump led the first round, but with only 18 percent. Bobby Jindal ran last and was eliminated. The second-choice votes of his supporters were distributed. There were 15 more rounds, all conducted instantly by computer. Marco Rubio fell out in the 12th and Jeb Bush in the 13th. In the 16th and last round, Trump finally gave way to Rand Paul, who won the nomination with 51.28 percent support. Bernie Sanders led the Democrats with 46 percent. Hillary Clinton ran third, trailing Joe Biden, who isn’t an announced candidate. Martin O’Malley ran last, with 6 percent, and the second choices of his supporters were counted. Clinton was gone in the fourth round. In the sixth and final, Sanders’s support increased to 51.9 percent and he became the nominee. These results are hardly scientific and not necessarily predictive. The samples were small and self-selected. Anyone could vote in either race, and the biases were obviously liberal. But they’re interesting nonetheless. The two “nominees,” Paul and Sanders, project more authenticity than nearly all the others. As for Trump, he piled up more second-choice votes than everyone except Paul. If the Republican Party of Florida still insists on a March 15 winner-take-all primary, which will be well after many of the trailing and financially poorer candidates have dropped out, Trump could easily win it all. Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg Times. He lives in Western North Carolina.
