Libertarian Party of Alabama sues state for discrimination against third parties
The Libertarian Party of Alabama has sued the state, claiming they discriminate against third parties trying to get ballot access. According to the Alabama Political Reporter, the federal lawsuit was filed Thursday against Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill. For both the Republican and Democrat parties, obtaining a list of registered voters is free. For other parties, the cost is one cent per name which, Alabama Political Reporter calculates, comes out to about $34,000 plus an additional $850 fee if a credit card is used. The lawsuit reads, “Having a copy of Alabama’s statewide voter registration list provides a distinct advantage to any political party trying to obtain access to the ballot in Alabama and trying to transmit its political message to Alabama voters in order to obtain their support for ballot access, increase their ability to associate with others who share their political philosophy and goals and, ultimately to obtain additional votes.” It continues, saying that Alabama law “unconstitutionally discriminates between major political parties and minor political parties, in an effort to, and with the direct effect of … creating obstacles which make it more difficult for a minor political party like the LPA to establish itself and grow, garner support, gain access to the ballot in Alabama, and obtain votes in order to grow and have its members and followers hold public elective office.” In addition to needing more than 50,000 signatures to get on the ballot, the lawsuit says that this is “just one more obstacle Alabama places in the way of minor parties to try to prevent them from growing and to gaining access to the ballot.” Ballot access barriers have been ruled unconstitutional in both Michigan and Georgia, according to Alabama Political Reporter, decisions which give Alabama libertarians hope for success in federal court. Currently, Libertarian candidates have to run on write-in campaigns. Ron Bishop ran against Roy Moore and Doug Jones in 2017. “The two choices that we have now, they don’t conform to what I think America needs to be,” Bishop told AL.com, “I’m hoping we that we can give voters out there a third option.” In Alabama, nearly two-thirds of voters cast straight party tickets. In the 2018 election, about 1.1 of the 1.7 million ballots cast were straight-ticket votes, in which voters checked one box to vote for every candidate one party ran. In some cases, a third-party candidate can split the vote from a major party’s base, clearing the way for their opponent to win. The Libertarian Party is the third largest party in the United States according to the Libertarian Party of Alabama. They believe “the answer to America’s political problems is the same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade as prescribed by America’s founders. We are the only political organization which respects you as a unique and competent individual.”
Donald Trump goes after Clinton – Bill Clinton – in rancorous race
Donald Trump abruptly resurrected Bill Clinton‘s impeachment on Thursday, adding the former president’s infidelities to the already-rancorous 2016 campaign. Trump warned voters in battleground New Hampshire that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband’s sex scandal back to the White House. It was Trump’s latest effort to bounce back from Monday night’s debate performance, which has been widely panned as lackluster. In contrast, Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energized her candidacy. Clinton is stressing that her plans will solve the kind of kitchen-sink problems facing American families — the high cost of childcare, mounting student debt burdens and unpaid family leave. Trump, though promising lower taxes and “jobs, jobs, jobs” for American workers, has intensified the dire warnings and personal attacks that have defined his outsider presidential bid. He took it a step further on Thursday. “The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal,” Trump charged. “An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach.” That was a reference to Bill Clinton. After an investigation by an independent counsel, the House approved formal impeachment charges in late 1998 in connection with President Clinton’s testimony about his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and other matters. He was acquitted of the impeachment charges by the Senate. Trump’s team said he had been prepared to bring up the Lewinsky scandal during Monday night’s debate but decided otherwise because the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, was in the room. Trump did not bring up Lewinsky by name on Thursday. Shortly before Trump’s remarks, Clinton offered a more optimistic message to supporters in Iowa’s capital city. “I want this election to be about something, not just against somebody,” she said in Des Moines. Asked Thursday about the possibility that Trump would raise her husband’s infidelities, Clinton said, “He can run his campaign however he chooses. That’s up to him. I’m going to keep talking about the stakes in this election.” Her aides argue that a summer barrage of attack ads against Trump, along with the candidate’s own controversial statements, have driven his negative ratings to historic levels, leaving them little ability to do more. That leaves her the choice of trying to win over undecided voters and Republicans concerned about Trump by emphasizing a positive vision for America. Indeed, at her Des Moines rally, Clinton offered a hopeful message to contrast with the doom-and-gloom themes that have been staples of Trump’s campaign. As she often does, she recounted her own background of working on children’s issues and her father’s struggles as a small businessman. “I know so much of this campaign has been about, you know, whatever my opponent said and who he attacked and who he denigrates — and the list is long,” Clinton said. “But it’s not about that, it’s about you. It’s about your families and your future, and each of us should be telling you what we intend to do in the job.” With Election Day less than six weeks away, early voting already is underway in Iowa and some other places. Trump and Clinton remain locked in a tight contest. Trump has included hopeful lines in his own remarks. But the New York businessman has not deviated far from his aggressive approach defined by insults that helped him win a crowded Republican primary election. In recent days, Trump and his supporters have raised anew a number of deeply personal attacks against Clinton, questioning her role in her husband’s infidelities and casting her as a corrupt tool of political donors and special interests. Trump has also assailed a 1996 Miss Universe pageant winner for her weight gain — an incident Clinton used in the this week’s debate to portray Trump as sexist. “The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the bright and very clean future,” Trump declared in New Hampshire. Trump and Clinton meet again on the debate stage in 10 days, this time in St. Louis. In a nod to the concerns expressed by some Trump allies that he was insufficiently prepared for the first faceoff, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee released a survey intended to engage supporters online. It asks whether he should use the second debate to criticize Clinton for her policies on terrorism, economics and trade. Absent is any inquiry about whether Trump should bring up her husband’s infidelities. In another reminder of how far this year’s campaign has veered into baffling territory, third-party candidate Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, was being ridiculed after he was unable, in a television appearance, to name a single world leader he admired. The awkward moment drew immediate comparisons — including by Johnson himself — to his “Aleppo moment” earlier this month when he didn’t recognize the besieged city in Syria. Perhaps no state knows Clinton better than Iowa, where she campaigned on Thursday, but she has consistently struggled to connect. Her campaign is banking on the state’s in-person early voting, which started on Thursday, reflecting the premium that Democrats are placing this year on trying to get their voters to turn out long before Nov. 8. Democrats are concerned that a lack of enthusiasm will keep their voters from showing up in the same numbers that led to Barack Obama‘s victories in the past two elections. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin fails to make Alabama ballot
Evan McMullin will not be on the ballot in Alabama. POLITICO reports the newly announced conservative independent presidential candidate failed to submit required signatures for a spot on Alabama’s general election ballot The deadline for independent candidate filing, writes Caroline Kelly, was 5 p.m. Thursday, as verified by the Alabama secretary of state’s office. “We haven’t gotten any, none at all,” said Deputy Chief of Staff John Bennett of McMullin signatures. Bennett confirmed the office did receive signatures for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Rocky de la Fuente, running on the Reform Party ticket. Signatures of registered Alabama voters still need verification before the final results are announced, Bennett told POLITICO. Although McMullin will be on both the Colorado and Utah ballots, the former CIA employee failed to make nearly one-third of the 24 states with remaining deadlines. Thursday was also the deadline for Tennessee, which required 250 signatures, but Secretary of State Director of Communications Adam Ghassemi could not confirm to POLITICO that McMullin, who had announced his candidacy last week, had submitted any signatures. Filing deadlines are Friday for Iowa and Louisiana.
Steven Kurlander: Debating debatable debates
In 21st century American politics, it’s a given that if you are running for office, you should expect to debate your opponent(s) during the campaign — no matter whether you are running for school board or president. Debating your opponent is part of proving your mettle for the job you are running for. Normally, it’s not a good move for a candidate not to show up to debate your opponent. Bob Greene wrote in 2012 “Today debates between the candidates — even when one of them is the incumbent — are all but mandatory. A candidate would be seen as chicken for not agreeing to debate. “ It appears that Donald Trump may think otherwise. He set off a controversial debate about the presidential debates themselves when first tweeted he was debating skipping the three upcoming presidential debates, which are set up by the “nonpartisan, nonprofit” Commission on Presidential Debates. CNN’s Rachel Sklar wrote: “Donald Trump is complaining. Of course, that’s nothing new — the notoriously thin-skinned Republican nominee is an inveterate pouter, openly sulking about perceived injustices like lawsuits presided over by “Mexican” judges, accurate press coverage and Megyn Kelly being mean to him. At 70, he may be the grumpiest old man on Twitter.” A visit to any American retirement community would confirm that grumpy, thin-skinned old men don’t like to debate anything, let alone the political issues of the day. But in this day and age of social media, a 24-hour news cycle, and an American electorate already inundated with instantaneous presidential election news, Trump may be right to question the antiquated formats of these debates and particularly the moderators who nowadays show no semblance of neutrality at these events. In 2016, if you ask Americans whether they rather tune into a presidential debate between Hillary and Donald or an NFL game being broadcast at the same time, it’s easy to predict that they’d rather eat their Doritos and wings watching football. Political debates used to carry the aura of significance in terms of having great impact on elections and how voters decide who to vote for. Students of history were taught of the impact on American history of the infamous seven Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858 Illinois Senate campaign and the Nixon-Kennedy debates of the 1960s. But since the Nixon-Kennedy debates, presidential debates have devolved in terms of their quality of political discourse, their fairness in how they are conducted and their true impact on voters. The true question is not whether Trump should debate or not, but whether the upcoming presidential debates carry any significance at all. At this point, most Americans are voting against, not for, either Clinton or Trump. They both carry big negatives among American voters. The debates, no matter what is said, won’t matter in this regard. Americans also have been already subjected to 13 GOP presidential primary debates and 10 Democratic presidential primary debates, and most of those debates, particularly the Republican ones, already proved trivial in dialogue and insignificant in terms of affecting how voters cast their ballots in the primaries. Given all this, aside from being called a chicken by the mainstream press that despises him anyway, Trump has nothing to lose by refusing to debate Hillary Clinton. There’s only one way the upcoming three presidential debates can change voters’ minds, and that’s if third party candidates can participate in them. The Commission on Presidential Debates right now doesn’t allow third party candidates to participate in the debates unless they reach a 15 percent polling threshold in five polls among voters. If Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party or Jill Stein of the Green Party were allowed to take the stage with Clinton and Trump, then there’s no debating that these debates would suddenly become very significant in the 2016 race. Allowing Johnson and Stein on the debate platform on three occasions would guarantee that Americans would hear some serious political discussion (that they crave at this point) — and that a third-party candidate could have a serious impact on the race, or even win the White House. This is not debatable: If Johnson and/or Stein take the stage, a serious Donald Trump would definitely show up and the presidential debates for the first time in decades would be a truly historical event. ___ Steven Kurlander blogs at Kurly’s Kommentary. He is a communications strategist and an attorney in Monticello, New York, writes for Florida Politics and is a former columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He can be emailed at kurly@stevenkurlander.com.
Poll: Most young whites think Hillary Clinton knowingly broke law
Young Americans are divided over Hillary Clinton‘s handling of her email account while she was secretary of state, with most young whites saying she intentionally broke the law and young people of color more likely to give Clinton the benefit of the doubt. The new GenForward poll of young Americans ages 18-30 also finds both Clinton and Donald Trump viewed negatively by a majority of those polled. GenForward is a survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll is designed to pay special attention to the voices of young adults of color, highlighting how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of a new generation. Things to know about how young people view the presidential contest: — CLINTON’S EMAILS Among all young adults in the GenForward poll, 43 percent say Clinton intentionally broke the law in her use of a private email address on a personal server while she was secretary of state, and another 20 percent think she did so unintentionally. As for the rest, 27 percent think she showed poor judgment but did not break the law, and 8 percent say she did nothing wrong at all. More than half of young whites – 54 percent – think Clinton intentionally committed a crime, and another 17 percent think she did so unintentionally. Young African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics view Clinton’s actions in a more sympathetic light, though few clear her of all wrongdoing. Just 32 percent of Hispanics, 29 percent of Asian-Americans and 21 percent of African-Americans think Clinton intentionally broke the law, with most of the remainder saying she either did so unintentionally or showed poor judgment that did not amount to lawbreaking. — NOT LIKING THEIR OPTIONS Neither Trump nor Clinton is well-liked by young adults overall, with just 38 percent saying they have a favorable view of Clinton and even fewer – 21 percent – saying they have a favorable view of Trump. While majorities of young African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics do have a positive view of Clinton, 7 in 10 young whites have a negative opinion. Trump is viewed negatively by more than 8 in 10 young blacks, Hispanics and Asian-Americans and by about two-thirds of young whites. Large majorities of young adults across racial and ethnic groups consider Trump to be unqualified to be president. On the other hand, most young African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans think Clinton is qualified to be president, but most young whites say she’s not. More than 7 in 10 young Americans don’t see Trump or Clinton alike as honest and trustworthy. For Clinton, that perception is greater among young whites, while young people of color are more likely to doubt Trump’s honesty than Clinton’s. — SANDERS SUPPORTERS The GenForward poll, which was conducted before the political conventions, showed an uphill battle for Clinton in consolidating support among young people. Young people across racial and ethnic groups were more likely to support Sanders than Clinton in their primary contest, the poll shows. And among those who supported Sanders during the primary season, less than half were prepared to say they’ll support Clinton over Trump in the fall. Still, few said they’d support Trump. The rest said they were undecided, will vote for a third-party candidate, or will not vote. — WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE? Young people are largely in agreement that the two major American political parties are lacking when it comes to representing the public. Just 28 percent of young adults, including 31 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics and 26 percent of whites and Asian-Americans, say the two parties do a good job of representing the American people. Although they’re not happy with their options, young people across racial and ethnic groups are mostly unfamiliar with their alternatives. Seven in 10 say they don’t know enough about LibertarianGary Johnson to have an opinion about him, and nearly 8 in 10 say the same about Jill Stein of the Green Party. An AP-GfK poll also conducted in July found similar levels of unfamiliarity among adults of all ages. — The poll of 1,940 adults age 18-30 was conducted July 9-20 using a sample drawn from the probability-based GenForward panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. young adult population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The survey was paid for by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago using grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Poll: Hillary Clinton struggles to make inroads with young Americans
Hillary Clinton is struggling to make inroads among young Americans who overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic presidential primary, a worrisome sign as she tries to reassemble the coalition that twice propelled Barack Obama into the White House. Opinions of Clinton among young Americans vary by race and ethnicity, according to a new GenForward poll of adults ages 18 to 30. The majority of the nation’s younger blacks and Asian-Americans have a favorable impression of Clinton, but the presumptive Democratic nominee struggles with whites and Hispanics. Just 26 percent of young whites and 49 percent of Hispanics have a positive opinion of the former secretary of state. Both groups overwhelmingly say she is not trustworthy. “I just don’t see her being honest and straightforward,” said Alexander Tomas, an 18-year-old Hispanic from Fort Worth, Texas. A recent high school graduate, Tomas supported Sanders in the state’s Democratic primary, but says he’s now undecided about his choice in November’s general election. GenForward is a survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The first-of-its-kind poll pays special attention to the voices of young adults of color, highlighting how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of the country’s most diverse generation. The survey polled all young adults, not necessarily registered or likely voters, but the findings suggest Clinton may struggle to turn out people 18 to 30 to support her candidacy. While Clinton emerged victorious in her unexpectedly tough primary with Sanders, the contest revealed a stunning weakness with such young voters. The GenForward poll found that among those who preferred Sanders in the primaries, only half are prepared to say they’ll back Clinton in her general election face-off with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. About a quarter say they won’t support Clinton, and nearly a quarter say they’re not sure. Clinton has made moves in recent days to attract some of Sanders’ loyal young supporters, including unveiling a college affordability plan that would make in-state tuition-free for families making $125,000 or less per year. Sanders proposed free tuition at public higher education institutions for all, a plan supported by three-quarters of young adults, according to the survey. Sanders will formally endorse Clinton on Tuesday during a rally in New Hampshire, a step her campaign sees as an important signal to the Vermont senator’s backers. Clinton spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said the candidate “believes we must do everything we can to make sure that millennial voters have their voice heard in our campaign.” She noted that the campaign recently hired three former Sanders aides to lead an effort to boost outreach to young people. Young people were an important part of the diverse coalition Obama put together during his two successful White House runs. Exit polls found that Obama carried 66 percent of voters 18-30 years old in the 2008 election and 60 percent during his re-election campaign. While Obama carried the majority of younger white voters in 2008, his support dipped to 44 percent in 2012. The president had the overwhelming backing of black and Hispanic voters under 30 in both campaigns, mirroring his overall support from both groups. But the GenForward poll shows weaknesses in Clinton’s support among young Hispanics, who prefer Sanders to Clinton by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. More than 4 in 10 had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, and they were also more likely to say Clinton is untrustworthy and slightly more likely to say she’s unqualified to be president than young African Americans. Clinton’s support is strongest among young blacks, half of whom consider her honest and trustworthy and two-thirds of whom say they have a favorable opinion of Clinton. Among young Asians, 55 percent view Clinton at least somewhat favorably. While Clinton campaign officials acknowledge their candidate’s disconnect with young people, they see the prospect of a Trump presidency as perhaps the best way to motivate those voters in November. Indeed, the GenForward poll found that Trump’s standing with young people is staggeringly negative. Just 19 percent of young voters have a favorable opinion of the businessman, including 6 percent of African-Americans, 10 percent of Hispanics and 12 percent of Asian-Americans. While Trump performs strongest with young whites, only 27 percent view him favorably. “I’m very afraid of the potential for his presidency,” said Emily Erickson, a 30-year-old from Minneapolis who is planning to vote for Clinton. Erickson, who is interested in social justice and women’s issues, said Trump is “not thoughtful or willing to be intelligent.” But Clinton’s campaign may not simply be able to count on young voters seeing her as the lesser of two evils in a race against Trump. Seven in 10 young voters — including majorities of blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics — say they are unsatisfied with the race between Clinton and Trump and want the option of a third party candidate. John Davilmar, a 20-year-old from West Palm Beach, Florida, is among those seeking an alternative. Davilmar backed Sanders and is increasingly considering casting his general election vote for Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party presidential nominee. He says he’s still open to voting for Clinton, but can’t shake the idea that she’s part of the professional political class he distrusts. “So far she’s like a lot of politicians,” Davilmar said. “But at least she’s better than what we would get from Trump.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Sweet Meteor of Death campaign rolling on empty promises
The Sweet Meteor of Death is not going to upstage this election season. That’s according to the NASA Near Earth Object Program that tracks roughly 15,000 asteroids, comets and gigantic pieces of space rock that pose any kind of threat to the Earth. That may be bad news for 13 percent of American registered voters, who told Public Policy Polling last month that given a choice of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or “A giant meteor hitting the Earth,” they’ll take the space rock. In what might be one of the most dark-humor social media movements this election season, the “Sweet Meteor of Death 2016,” as an alternative to Trump or Clinton has caught fire and keeps blazing. Sweet Meteor has several Facebook accounts, the biggest with 85,000 friends, while the Sweet Meteor O’ Death 2106 Twitter account (@smod2016) has 22,000 followers. That doesn’t include countless tweets assigning the #SMOD16 hashtag. There are coffee mugs and T-shirts for sale, and videos and memes galore. There are unconfirmed reports on blogs that Clinton even bought some Sweet Meteor tees. “The Meteor is particularly appealing to independent voters, functionally in a three-way tie at 27 percent, to 35 percent for Clinton and 31 percent for Trump,” PPP reported in its national poll taken June 27-28 of 853 registered voters. Various blogs and accounts indicate some promises of SMOD, including wiping out ISIS, being tough on Putin and Iran, ending world hunger, changing Washington politics. That makes it attractive to several constituencies. NASA is not commenting on Sweet Meteor’s candidacy. In fact, it’s safe to say the space agency is taking a “not with a 10-foot pole” position about talking about it. Fortunately, NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, looks skyward, through a massive, coordinated coalition of government, university, private and amateur satellites and all-sorts-of-technology telescopes, and sees nothing coming our way anytime soon, according to its website. Among the 15,000 objects zipping around the solar system in the program’s sights are 586 “Potentially Hazardous Asteroids,” or PHAs, which are at least 500 feet in diameter and have orbits that would bring them within about 4.6 million miles of Earth. None are due anytime soon. And none ever has been named SMOD16. As recently as March 22, the last PHA, a comet dubbed P/2016 BA14, about 3,000-feet in diameter, whizzed through the neighborhood, about 2.2 million miles from Earth. That may seem a long way away (about nine times as far away as the moon,) but the NEO Program reported it was the third-closest comet flyby in recorded history. There’s nothing else close to that size on the horizon, but there’s always something out there. Monday, according to the NEO Program, an asteroid about the size of a car is expected to pass inside the moon’s orbit, coming within 164,000 miles of our Big Green and Blue. On Wednesday an asteroid about the size of a jetliner will pass within 2.6 million miles of Earth. And Monday, an asteroid about the scale of a 25-story building will fly within about 4 million miles of Earth-sweet-home. That doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller objects crashing down all the time. The NEO Program reported in 2014 that, in the previous 20-year period, 586 very small asteroids plummeted through the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up in fireballs or explosions, the most notorious being the 2012 Chelyabinsk meteor, a 65-foot wide chunk of space rock that rattled the region of Russia. But that was hardly a Sweet Meteor of Death. In other words, Gary Johnson has a better chance of beating Trump and Clinton.
Presidential Primary Brief: 154 days until Election Day
154 days until Election Day Convention Dates: Republican July 18-21 2016, Democratic July 25-28 2016 Weekly Headlines: Obama dives into 2016 fight, lambasts GOP on economy Libertarians Pick Gary Johnson & William Weld as Presidential Election Ticket RNC taps groups reviled by Trump to write GOP platform Press Clips: Frank Luntz: The 2016 presidential election will be determined by the ‘none of the above’ voters (LA Times 6/1/16) If prior elections were decided by soccer moms, security moms, NASCAR dads, or even “the economy, stupid,” the 2016 presidential election will be determined by the NAs — the none of the above voters who have so far refused to support either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. For them, the election isn’t about mere dissatisfaction. It’s about rejection. Comprising about 11% of the electorate in the critical swing states, the NAs are unwilling or unable to distinguish between our two wildly different candidates — arguably the most different of any presumptive nominees in modern history. These voters are loud, aggressive, and they give me a headache. San Jose, California, police under fire after Trump rally (WTOP 6/3/16) This Silicon Valley city and its police department are facing mounting complaints of a tepid and tardy law enforcement response to attacks of Donald Trump supporters after a political rally. Videos circulating online show physical clashes occurring in front of San Jose police officers dressed in riot gear and standing stoically in a line outside the convention center where Trump spoke. Critics also complained that assaults occurred on side streets near the venue that lacked police presence. Election 2016 Leadership Contrast: Résumé vs. Bumper Sticker, Pollster Says (WSJ 6/3/16) As the 2016 presidential primary season comes to a close for both parties, voters have gotten a pretty clear impression of what kind of leadership they would get from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and New York businessman Donald Trump. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll helps illustrate how dramatically different those impressions of the two presumptive nominees are. GOP pollster Micah Roberts concludes that Mrs. Clinton’s selling points read like a résumé; Mr. Trump’s like a bumper sticker. Boomers 35% Of Voters In 2016 Presidential Election (MediaPost 5/30/16) According to the American Consumers Newsletter by Cheryl Russell, New Strategist Press, the Baby-Boom generation will account for more than one-third of voters in the 2016 presidential election, outnumbering voters in the other generations. Millennials will account for 26% of the total. Gen Xers will rank third, casting 20% of votes, more than the Silent and World War II generations combined. The oldest members of the iGeneration (aged 18 to 21) will cast their first vote for president in 2016, and they will account for just 4% of the total. Demo Memo calculated these figures by applying single-year-of-age citizenship and voting rates from the 2012 presidential election to the Census Bureau’s 2016 population projections. How Donald Trump could win (CNN 6/1/16) Donald Trump’s transition from primary flame-thrower to general-election standard bearer has been marked by controversy. In just the past week, he’s caused an uproar by blasting the Republican governor of New Mexico — one of the party’s most prominent Latinas — while also calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” and abruptly parting ways with his recently hired political director. But there are also signs that he’s willing to moderate some of his primary positions and take more conventional steps to prepare for November, such as building out a national finance team, hiring a pollster, accepting checks from wealthy donors and hitting the fundraising circuit. Oil analyst: Here’s who Saudi Arabia wants as the next U.S. president (CNBC 6/1/16) The U.S. presidential race is capturing the interest of every nation as onlookers look to see who becomes the next “leader of the free world.” According to Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Group, countries in the oil-producing Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, are hoping for Hillary Clinton to become president. The presidential election is scheduled for early November and the two leading contenders are viewed as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Clinton, front- runner for the Democratic nomination. How new voter ID laws may affect the 2016 presidential contest (PBS 6/5/16) 17 states will have new voting regulations in place for the presidential election this November. 12 states will join the ranks of those requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, including North Carolina and Texas. For more insight on these new regulations, Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Reuters National Affairs Editor Jason Szep. California’s registered voters hit record high ahead of Tuesday presidential primary (LA Times 6/5/16) With one of the most closely watched presidential primary seasons in modern times0, California’s voter rolls grew by almost 650,000 in the final six weeks of registration. And three of every four new voters were Democrats. On Friday, Secretary of State Alex Padilla released the final report of voter registration prior to the June 7 statewide primary. The deadline to register for Tuesday’s election was May 23. Of the 646,220 people who registered in the final rush —between April 8 and May 23 — 76% became Democrats. ‘Missing’ White Voters Might Help Trump, But Less So Where He Needs It (FiveThirtyEight 6/2/16) A common refrain is that demographics will ultimately doom Donald Trump’s candidacy. His most reliable supporters have been whites without college degrees — a group that made up 65 percent of voters in 1980 but is on pace to make up just 33 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, nonwhite voters, with whom Trump is extremely unpopular, rose from 12 percent of the electorate in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012.
Libertarian Gary Johnson to never-Trumpers: ‘I’m it’
He has virtually no money, no strategy to compete in battleground states and no plan to stop talking about his drug use. Yet with the Republican Party facing the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency, Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary Johnson could be a factor in 2016. The former two-term New Mexico governor, a Republican businessman perhaps best known for his yearslong push to legalize marijuana, has a sobering message for a “never-Trump” movement desperately seeking a viable alternative. “I will be the only third-party candidate on the ballot in all 50 states,” Johnson says. “I’m it.” He is not their top choice, and he must first clinch the Libertarian nomination at this weekend’s national convention, but the quirky White House hopeful may be the GOP’s best, last chance to stop a New York billionaire some fear is destroying the soul of their party. The Trump haters have struggled to convince other third-party prospects to join the presidential contest. They’ve courted the likes of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and retired Marine Corps General James Mattis to no avail. And with ballot access deadlines already starting to pass, some say Johnson is beginning to look like the most legitimate alternative, even if he earned just 1 percent of the national vote in the last presidential contest. He strengthened his position this week by adding running mate William Weld, a well-respected former Massachusetts governor who raised tens of thousands of dollars for Romney’s presidential runs. They represent one of the strongest Libertarian tickets in memory, although would-be supporters are not yet sold. “To be clear, the reports of the death of the non-Libertarian third-party effort are greatly exaggerated. I understand there are still plenty of irons in the fire,” said conservative columnist Quin Hillyer, who has vowed not to support Trump this fall. “Never Trump means never Trump,” Hillyer added. “At the very least it’ll be Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket.” Johnson’s long-shot campaign is based in Salt Lake City, home to his most trusted political adviser and in a state where Trump finished a distant third place in March’s Republican primary election. The local presence of Johnson’s headquarters was a surprise to many Utah state legislators who met with the Libertarian candidate inside the state house last week. A handful of lawmakers in both parties were receptive. “Utah understands how dangerous Trump is,” said Howard Stephenson, a Republican state senator who had warm words for Johnson. “We’re looking for someone to vote for.” Johnson’s political strategy is simple. With just $35,000 in his campaign coffers at the end of March, he doesn’t have the money for TV ads, poll-tested messaging, or a paid presence in battleground states where Trump and likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton are already beginning to invest resources. Johnson is instead relying on an intensifying schedule of media appearances to boost his name recognition in an effort to reach the necessary 15 percent threshold to qualify for the presidential debates this fall. “We cannot go into a battleground state and compete,” said Johnson’s senior strategist Ron Nielson, citing the high cost of running a campaign in states like Florida or Ohio. The Johnson campaign will instead focus its resources on cheaper states where libertarians have done well in the past, places like Alaska, maybe New Hampshire, he says. Yet Trump’s Republican critics don’t necessarily need to find a candidate who can win. Many are seeking a legitimate protest candidate where they could focus their anti-Trump energy. Should that candidate earn even a few percentage points in key states this fall, it could hurt Trump’s chances. “Gary will be an outlet for millions of Americans who just can’t fathom the idea of voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump,” said Ed Crane, who co-founded the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute and now runs a super PAC he says may support Johnson “down the road.” It’s no guarantee, however, that Johnson will earn the Libertarian presidential nomination. He must first beat back aggressive challenges at the party’s national convention in Orlando this weekend. Software entrepreneur John McAfee and Libertarian activist Austin Petersen are also seeking the nomination. Johnson represents a set of policies that do not line up perfectly with Republicans or Libertarians. He embraces fiscal conservatism, but not to the lengths that some hard-line anti-government libertarians would like. He considers himself a liberal on social issues, supporting same-sex marriage and abortion rights. And he supports a non-interventionalist foreign policy that focuses on America’s challenges at home. Many know him best for his repeated calls to legalize drugs. Johnson largely focuses his energy on marijuana, but also suggests that concern over narcotics such as heroin are exaggerated compared to the impact of alcohol or even smoking cigarettes. He is a regular marijuana user, noting that he most recently took an edible form of the drug three weeks ago. “I’m one of the 100 million Americans that do this. If that disqualifies me from being president, so be it,” he told The Associated Press, adding that he recently purchased the drug legally in Colorado but illegally transported it back to his home in New Mexico. “Sure, I’m in the tens of thousands of those that are guilty of that phenomenon,” he says. He promises not to consume marijuana if elected president, however. “I think the American people deserve to know that there will be a steady hand,” he said. “And I would hope that my history regarding this stuff would bear out the fact that I’m a pretty disciplined cat.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
