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It appears that he is going to follow through with his boycott threat.  How will that impact the debate?

There is a school of thought that the other candidates will focus their fire on Cruz.  With the exception of Rubio, I don’t think that is true;  there will be plenty of Trump bashing, and most of the rest of the disputes will be contained within the establishment lane (i.e., Christie v. Rubio and Bush v. Rubio).  The return of Rand Paul also means that there will be lively exchanges pitting him against most of the rest of the field on foreign policy.

I would like to see Cruz and Rubio discuss the merits of their very different tax plans.  We’ll see if the moderators oblige me.

On its face, you can see a rationale for it.  Personally, I would agree that Bloomberg would be a better President than Trump or Sanders.  He wouldn’t have to spend any time raising money, which eliminates a lot of organizational problems.  Finally, he undoubtedly thinks he can win 25 percent or so of both the Democratic and GOP votes–perhaps that would be enough to win.

Or not.  When you break it down on a state-by-state basis, it doesn’t work.  As an avatar of “New York values,” he would have absolutely no chance of beating Trump in any of the red states;  I doubt he would even bother to campaign in, say, Alabama or Mississippi.  He would split the Democratic vote in the blue states and potentially throw them to Trump, as well.

The bottom line is that his candidacy would result in an overwhelming victory for Trump.  Let’s hope we never find out.

I posted a column several weeks back in which I outlined the reasons that Rubio isn’t dominating his lane.  Ross discusses the same question in today’s NYT, and reaches the same conclusions, with the exception of the most important one: Rubio’s lack of swagger.

The GOP electorate wants someone who projects simple-minded strength.  They want a middle-aged or elderly man who will tell them in a convincing way that the world is a black-and-white place, and that he is the guy who will blow their enemies to smithereens.  In short, they want Ronald Reagan.  Trump and Cruz, in their separate ways, understand that, which is why they are leading in the polls.

Rubio, at least at this stage in his career, can’t pull that off.  He looks like a college professor, and he makes complicated issues sound complicated, not simple.  He can’t win the nomination unless he can somehow remake himself to look and sound more Reaganesque.

I know Douthat doesn’t want to hear that his party is pining for a strong man, but the results speak for themselves.

A whole lot of them value their anger more than their religion.  Maybe they can’t tell the difference.

All You Need Is Trump

There’s nothing he can do that isn’t dumb.

No state’s so blue it can’t be won.

Pander to our fears.

Threaten everything that’s dear.

It’s easy.

 

There’s no position too extreme.

Don’t be a sucker for a dream.

Put up a wall.

Make the neighbors pay for it all.

It’s easy.

 

All you need is Trump.

All you need is Trump.

All you need is Trump, Trump

Trump is all you need.

 

Parody of “All You Need Is Love” by Lennon/McCartney.

There once was a Donald named Trump.

Fox News made him look like a grump.

He’ll vote with his feet

‘Cause he can’t stand the heat.

If he does, his poll numbers will slump.

 

I can’t believe he is stupid enough to go through with his boycott, because if he does:  (a) he gives his opponents a free shot at him on national TV; (b) he looks like a wimp and a loser; and (c) he offends the viewers of Fox News.  It’s a lose-lose-lose proposition.

Bruce Rattner has a good column in today’s NYT about the impact of globalization on American workers.  I was planning to address that topic at a later date, but it is (or should be) the focal point of the election, so this is as good a time as any to share my opinions.

Anyone with eyes and a brain can see that globalization has been the primary driver of inequality in this country over the last 20 years.  The most obvious manifestation of that has been the loss of manufacturing jobs, but the fear of offshoring has also led to stagnating wages in both the manufacturing and the services sectors of the economy.  You now see companies making healthy profits demanding wage give-backs from their workers; the notion that a 5 percent US unemployment rate will substantially drive up wages is not necessarily correct, because it ignores the pool of cheap workers in Vietnam, China, and India.  The Fed would be wise to consider that when it makes future decisions about interest rate increases.

So what is the most appropriate public policy response?  There are three options:

1.  The Trump option:  protectionism.  As I have noted previously, the debate on protectionism has shifted from the Democratic to the Republican Party as disillusioned white male workers have joined the GOP.  Protectionism is an extremely inefficient way of dealing with the costs of globalization, and it should be rejected.

2.  The Democratic option:  strengthen the welfare state.  Sanders, Clinton, and Obama may disagree on the precise manner in which this should be done, but not on the concept.  In this scenario, acceptance of free trade is a moral and political bargain with the American worker; his job may be endangered, but he gets cheaper products from Walmart, and he can rely on a robust safety net to protect him from health and financial emergencies.  The funds for the expansion of the welfare state should come from the principal beneficiaries of globalization: capitalists.

3.  The mainstream GOP option:  deny there is a problem and dismantle the welfare state.  Most of the GOP candidates want to reduce the amount of “free stuff” available to the victims of globalization; in other words, they reject the idea of the bargain described in #2 above, and maintain that the unemployed and underemployed should solve their own problems through rugged individualism. The macroeconomic result of this approach, particularly when accompanied by tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations, is that American companies pile up mountains of cash, but have nowhere to invest it due to inadequate demand from a weakened middle class.

No prizes for figuring out which of these options I support.

 

 

 

I have predicted that Cruz will win Iowa, based on his appeal to evangelicals and his ground game.  I’m sticking by my prediction; however, I have also provided a scenario in which Trump prevails, and the polls currently indicate that will happen.  If it does, what does that mean for the race as a whole, and for Cruz personally?

It is difficult to imagine a state in which the composition of the electorate is more favorable to Cruz than Iowa.  If Trump beats him there, and subsequently wins New Hampshire by a large margin (which is likely to happen regardless of the vote in Iowa), who is going to stop him, and where?

If you’re an optimist, you probably think that the establishment will agree on a single candidate immediately after New Hampshire.  I doubt it, for the following reasons:

1. It is unlikely that there will be a clear cut Romney Coalition frontrunner after New Hampshire, based on the latest polls;
2. At least three candidates have enough money to prolong the race indefinitely;
3. The chances that the Cruz and his counterestablishment will suddenly reach an agreement with the traditional establishment to support a single non-Trump candidate on short notice are very poor; and
4. Even if they did, there is no guarantee that the voters would follow them.  Do you think a disappointed Cruz voter would naturally gravitate to Rubio instead of Trump?  I don’t.

In short, I hate to be apocalyptic about it, but I think Trump sweeps to the nomination if he wins Iowa.

For Ted personally, if he loses, he’ll be so deep in the wilderness he’ll need a compass to get out.  He has staked his entire political future on becoming President.  He has alienated essentially everyone in Congress for the purpose of positioning himself in this election.  Look for him to serve out the remainder of his term and then look for a different job.

There once was a Texan named Cruz.

To the leadership he cried “J’Accuse!”

He’s grim and ambitious

They find him pernicious

They’ll make sure that he pays his dues.

It’s too bad for him that the story is ridiculous, because that precludes him from using the redemption narrative that is so popular with evangelicals.  Just ask George W. Bush.

It’s what he aspires to, but it’s difficult when you look like a former cast member of Our Gang.

There once was a young man named Marco

Whose chances looked just a bit dark-o.

He wore high heeled boots

To a chorus of hoots

Guess his campaign just needed a spark-o.

               New York Values

“New York values,” Cruz would say.

Half the population’s gay.

“Superheroes” in Times Square.

Sex and crime are everywhere.

Take the subway, you’ll get mugged

By a drug-addicted thug.

It’s so godless and depraved

It’s too far gone to be saved.

 

But the time machine returns us to 2016.

 

Take a second look today.

“Hamilton” is on Broadway.

Music, sports, and dance are great.

Climb atop the Empire State.

Concert halls and fine museums

Nowhere else to go and see ’em.

Indices of vice are down

It’s America’s playground.

 

So sue me if I take offense

New York values excellence.

 

However. . .

 

Big hoops fans are out of luck

The Nets and Knicks, alas, still suck.

 

P.S.  While all Republican candidates want to run against Jimmy Carter, Cruz is taking nostalgia to a new level:  he wants to run against Al Smith.

So here we are again:  Clinton is in Iowa and New Hampshire trying to fight off a surging outsider.  It’s 2008 again.  Or is it?

It isn’t, for the following reasons:

1. The debate in 2008 was about personalities and style; the issues this year are substantive.  It was very difficult to find any meaningful differences in the Obama and Clinton programs in 2008; the rationales for the Obama candidacy were his opposition to the war in Iraq, his unique abilities as a communicator, and the desire to move past the Clinton sturm und drang.  This time, there is an actual debate about single-payer, free public college, and Wall Street regulations.

2.  The country has moved past the ongoing Clinton controversies.  At least, that is my guess.  Those of us who supported Obama in 2008 because we thought the GOP hysteria about the Clintons was unique to them have to admit that Hillary was right about the right-wing conspiracy.

3.  The Iraq war vote doesn’t resonate the way it did in 2008.  Clinton is partially responsible for the Iran deal, and she doesn’t advocate sending large numbers of American troops to Syria, so pacifists within the party don’t have much to complain about.

4.  Obama had the African-American vote; Sanders doesn’t.   It won’t matter in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it jolly well will elsewhere.

There once was a woman named Hill.

She brushed off attacks on her Bill.

She took on the Bern

In the end, we’ll all learn

That his chances of winning were nil.