March 10, 2017--Skip the Betty Ford Idea

A good friend, Lynne Roth, sent me these musings which are riffs from a series of my recent blogs. I love her sensibility and thought you might like to listen in--
Honestly, I have been sparing you by not sharing my views. I have even refrained from checking your blog first thing every day.  It is difficult.

As for rehab--skip the Betty Ford idea you and your partner in love have your own retreat in Delray Beach, the rehab capital of the country. Another perk is you do not require searching for a halfway house. 

Last night on The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell read a letter allegedly written by Trump's grandfather, begging not to be deported from a European country

Yesterday Dr. Carson spoke to the captive audience he now lords over. He struck a nerve when I heard him refer to slaves, upon the backs of whom this nation's lopsided economy was built, as immigrants!  As if they had a choice. Then he back-peddled more than once and said we needed to look up the definition of "immigrants." I was not the only person who took offense.

A visual of three cabinet members holding the new Executive Order on immigration was broadcast. The body language spoke volumes.

Like you, I have rationed my intake of the news but have failed. Playing bridge with a group of people, refraining from discussions of politics helps but is not long lasting.

Frustrated, I am still awaiting for citizens to use the correct term  Affordable Care Act and drop the "Obama."  The new version will soon be labeled as unaffordable and cause a few Republicans to find new jobs.

Anyone in government or the legal business knows if someone is worried about wiretapping or surveillance you have the premises swept. Parinoid attorneys I worked for had it performed frequently on a daily basis.

Your reference to geese is on point. Many folks know geese are as fierce and intimidating as ferocious dogs.  I speak from experience having been chased as a child while visiting a farm.  My father warned me, but it was too late. I was five years old and the same size as the snowy white monster waddling across the lawn. The simmering sounds of a few quacks errupted into terrifying screams from my throat as I turned and ran for safety. My short legs were reliable and I clamored up a fence, ripping my dress as the goose chomped and tore a hole in the edge of the skirt.

My second encounter was in the Dominican Republic. I drove into the parking lot of a road side stand to refill some propane tanks. A young man bounded out to my car and carried off the two tanks. He invited me to shop for fresh vegetables and eggs. We practiced our language skills as I casually gathered some eggs.  The eggs varied in color and size.  Simultaneously, as I asked about and picked up a goose egg, a gaggle of geese appeared.  I needed no warning! I left my eggs and vegetables  and jumped in the car. The gentleman placed the full tanks in the car trunk and came to collect payment.  He grinned and said, "You're a smart lady, not everyone knows geese are the best watch dogs. Many men have tried to steal from me but my geese are good workers."

When I learned the long tradition of daily briefing journalists was winnowing into a gaggle I hoped the geese would be as aggressive as those I have encountered. This tradition of maintaining democracy should not be forfeited for good ratings.

Our nation is paying a terrible price to educate an uncouth illiterate thug on the law, diplomacy, and the art of faking forgiveness. 

While Nixon drank and spoke to his demons, Nancy consulted the stars and Hillary channeled Eleanor Roosevelt, Roy Cohn is whispering in Donald's ear (as he did in Joe McCarthy's) reassuring him a job well done while his dogs lay bleeding in the west wing, exhausted from the mandatory battles, hoping one of the messages leaked to various agencies will reach the ears of some brave citizens able to end this nightmare.

The rockets are being fired at our bases in Japan. 

When the daily Trump news is interrupted by breaking news and now a word from our President,  who will appear and tell us we are at war?  But don't worry, "trust me."

Where are our leaders?

Roy Cohn & Donald Trump

August 3, 2016--If Trump Withdraws?

President Obama yesterday all but called for Donald Trump to withdraw from the race. Politically, this wasn't wise, or maybe it was slyer than what one might at first think.

If this was unwise it was because it is none of someone from another party's business to be meddling in his opponents' political affairs. Thus, Obama's implying that Trump withdraw will likely have a reverse effect--the president, universally despised by most Republicans, could inadvertently contribute to an outcome opposite to what he ostensibly desires because whatever he proposes would be automatically rejected. So his hints that Trump consider dropping out will assure his staying in the race.

This is a vivid example of the political physics of equal-and-oppositeness.

But then there could be the sly part--as Trump's campaign implodes it is making it more and more likely that an almost-equally-disliked Hillary Clinton will win in a landslide. So Obama's jujitsu could be a brilliant play. A strategy to assure that Trump stays in the race and is trounced.

On the other hand, though it may be wishful thinking, I am seeing it more and more possible that Trump will withdraw, concocting some lame explanation--I made my point, now it's time for someone else to take over. My family needs me. My business needs me. My golf courses need me. NBC needs me--they want to revive The Apprentice. My . . .

In all of history, this has never happened so what would be the outcome?

If he were president the 25th Amendment would take effect and his vice president, help us, Mike Pence would automatically become POTUS. Just as Gerald Ford did when Richard Nixon resigned.

But Trump is not the president, just the GOP's nominee. With emphasis on his being the Republican Party's nominee. Not America's nominee, but the party's. This is all extra-constitutional.

That means that the party would select his replacement. Not the delegates. There would not be a second rump convention. The new nominee would be elected by the Republican National Committee's National Committee. Basically a group of establishment party officials.

What they would do is anyone's guess.

The Trump people would make a ruckus, but if Trump was really out of the way, it is unlikely that they would coalesce around any previous candidate. Ben Carson? Carly Fiorina? (I'm beginning with the non-politicains.) I doubt it.

What about runner up Ted Cruz? The party elders hate him even more than Trump and would never turn to him.

Jeb Bush? Mitt Romney? Marco Rubio? Of this sorry "establishment" lot, Rubio would have the best chance. But his fade out in the spring doesn't offer much encouragement that he's ready for primetime.

But my prediction, one I made here months ago, is that waiting "reluctantly" in the wings is the vestal Paul Ryan. The coy non-candidate hovering in pretend-denial but longing for the designation. Recall how he swore up and down that he didn't want to be Speaker of the House? And what is his current job? His current title?

From a GOP perspective I see him to be the ideal choice since he wouldn't disrupt current prerogatives and could actually be elected.

If Trump is only seven points behind Hillary, and among other unhinged things is expressing regret that he didn't win a Purple Heart (Rona says--"Doesn't he know he needed to be in the army to be in the line of fire?), if someone this unraveled is almost within the margin of error, anything can happen.

Lesson--be careful, very careful what you wish for.

February 23, 2016--Oy Vey Another Debate

I just realized that there's another Republican debate scheduled for Thursday evening. At the same time as American Idol.

This presents problems--

I am addicted to both. The GOP campaign and Idol. Thankfully there is On Demand so I'll watch the debate live and then stream Idol.

After getting trounced in South Carolina, Rubio and Cruz have declared that it is now a three-man race. Ignoring the continuing existence of John Kasich and, yes, still in it, Ben Carson.

Kasich still thinks he can win the nomination, especially after Super Tuesday (a week from today) when the campaigns turn more to the Midwest. Kasich Country he believes. Carson will continue until the last votes are counted since his campaign has never been about the presidency but about promoting his brand and selling books.

So what to look forward to on Thursday? I mean in the debate.

Pundets are saying it's really a two-man race. Not between Cruz and TRUMP or Rubio and TRUMP, but between Cruz and Rubio. For second place. Whoever loses is then supposed to follow Jeb and drop out, making it a two-man race, again forgetting Kasich and Carson both of whom will trundle on since it costs them nothing to do so. A few airline tickets and a freshly pressed suit to wear to the debate.

So the fireworks, one would think, would be between Rubio and Cruz.

I suspect in fact the fireworks will be between Cruz and TRUMP and Rubio and TRUMP. One will hope to emerge as the better potential giant killer and thereby become TRUMP's chief rival.

This prediction is for whatever it's worth.

But lest you are taken in by this, you should know I predicted Amelia Eisnehauer on American Idol would make it to the top 14.

She was sent home last week. I had assumed enough people would think she's the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower and that would get her some votes.

So much for what I know.

Amelia Eisenhauer

November 10, 2015--Angry Black Man

I have been struggling to understand Ben Carson's appeal to Republicans.

He is so boring, so unable to express himself, so passive and weak feeling, so unlike the kind of militant commanders-in-chief conservatives traditionally admire.

And so what is it that for the moment has him as the leader of the GOP pack?

Is it because of his calm exterior, his obvious God-given blessings, or the feeling that as a physician he will heal a deeply wounded America?

Or is his popularity a matter of a physician who has healed himself?

I suspect largely the latter.

I have been particularly perplexed by his defense of his claim that he had a violent past. As he put it in his autobiography, it was the result of a "pathological disease" A pathology he was able to cure, not so much because of his medical skills but because he turned to God. To Jesus.

This is a not an unfamiliar political redemption story that appeals to religious conservatives. Like George W. Bush who when he first ran for president subtly let it be known that he had a drinking problem as a young man but was able to overcome it when he was "born again." Or, to be bipartisan, Jimmy Carter's story about lust.

Redemption is essential to Carson's representation of his own personal narrative. He is after all not running a campaign rich in policy pronouncements and promises. His appeal is his life story itself and outsider status.

But his insistence that he was uncontrollably violent when a young man is unique in political history. Drinking is one thing, lust another, but violence?

If anything, if this were true, one would expect he would minimize, not inflate that aspect of his character. Admitting to having had a violence problem when, as president, he would have access to the nuclear codes with the red button always close at hand one would think would be more a political liability than an asset.

But then in his case there is also the powerful matter of race.

As a black man raised on the mean streets of Detroit, it would be understandable, sociologically and psychologically, that he would be a violent and angry man.  The very kind of African-American that looms in the fearful imaginations of many white people. Especially those conservatives who are dog whistle racists and thus for whom people of color haunt their feverous dreams.

For them, if a black man such as Carson can be "cured" of his blackness, if he can be so neutered and emerge so seemingly self-controlled there is less to be feared about the world and its threats.

For his cure to be fully believable and comforting it is essential that voters believe he began as that archetypical angry black man he repeatedly represents himself to have been. If he could heal himself of that perhaps he can be trusted to "treat" all the others with similar "pathologies" who make so many people feel threatened.

I is thus essential to this hopeful personal narrative that Carson was as violent as he has repeatedly represented himself to have been. That he stabbed his friends and once threatened to strike his mother in the head with a hammer must be believable if his campaign is to have this unique appeal and traction.

If he somehow grew up a sweet little boy who then managed to get to Yale and medical school--an urban Horatio Alger story--the meaning of his life story would be merely a remarkable exception, not literally miraculous.

And here is the political point and the key to his appeal--unless his representations are true, he could not represent himself as able to bring about similar cures for others equally afflicted. 

He represents the promise that blackness itself can be overcome. That it is curable. He is living proof of that.

Just as other Republican conservatives hold views about other pathological Americans who can be cured by prayer--homosexuals who, if they want to chose another "life style," can pray away the gay, Carson tells us that Blackness too can be prayed away.

From Ben Carson's House 

November 9, 2015--Cadet Carson

At the risk of piling on, I can't resist a word about Ben Carson's West Point fable.

It was revealed last week in Politico that GOP front-runner, Dr, Ben Carson, lied about his military experiences. Like all his leading Republican rivals but Lindsay Graham, he managed to avoid service. But in his 1990 autobiography, Gifted Hands, a new edition of which he and his wife have been hustling while campaigning, he claimed that he applied to and was admitted to the U.S. Military Academy.

He wrote, "I was offered a full scholarship to West Point."

Then, in his more recent book, You Have a Brain, he repeated the falsehood and on his Facebook page this past August, he posted that he was "thrilled to get an offer from West Point."

It turns out that this is totally false as appear to be his assertions about his "violent past." (See Tuesday's post about this.)

He never applied to West Point, was never admitted, and the whole thing is, to put it mildly, made up.

At least Hillary Clinton, when First Lady, in 1996 was in Bosnia when she lied about having to zig-zag on the tarmac to avoid machine gun bullets. Unlike Carson, she didn't fake the entire incident.

Confronted with the fact, Carson's campaign (not the candidate himself), refreshingly, fessed up. They didn't do any zigging and zagging.

But they left hanging the good doctor's assertion that after he turned down the commission to West Point it remained available to him. In other words, he was accepted, he turned them down, but still they held a place for him. To quote him, there was a "standing offer"of admission.

I have an idea that should appeal to the redemption-minded Carson--

Take up West Point on its offer since they may still be holding a place for him. The army could use a good surgeon. And he will need something to do after not winning the nomination much less the presidency.

November 5, 2015--Democrats' Agita

Democrats and progressives can't be feeling very good about the array of results from Tuesday's elections.

Nor can they be feeling secure about the latest national poll numbers.

Nothing major occurred on Tuesday--it's a very off-year political year--but the vote in Houston to reject an anti-bias referendum that would have protected the rights of gay and transgender people can't be comforting to liberals.

It is felt that the initiative failed because Houstonians didn't want their women to go to the same bathrooms as transgender men who are now females. All this in spite of the fact that the mayor is a lesbian. Or, on reflection, perhaps because she is.

Nor can the statewide vote in Ohio not to decriminalize the use of marijuana, even for medicinal purposes please progressives.

Then in Virginia, the governor failed in his attempt to get more Democrats elected to the state legislature so that he can overturn his felonious Republican predecessor's refusal to fund an expansion of Medicaid so that more poor people can sign up for Obamacare.

While in Kentucky, Matt Bevin, the Republican Tea-Party-suppored candidate, was easily elected after running on a platform that featured the promise to end the Bluegrass State's participation in Obamacare, especially using Medicaid funds to pay for it. Funds, incidentally, that are paid for fully with federal dollars.

Even in nearby Portland, Maine, the local initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour was voted down.

We are not living in generous times. Middle-class people feeling strapped in their own lives, with children saddled with student loan debt, and having to work three jobs just to stay even, are angry about anything that is targeted to help those in need or who feel discriminated against. And they are voting their anger.

Democrats are experiencing additional agita when they see what's happening on the larger, national stage. The just-released results of the latest presidential poll, the generally reliable Quinnipiac Poll, show Donald TRUMP holding a very narrow lead over Ben Carson, with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz still just in low double digits, and poor Jeb Bush languishing in Chris Christie territory with only 4 percent support. Let's hope Jeb really does have some "cool things" to do once he drops out (he doesn't), which should be before the end of the year.

But most disturbing for liberals, the Quinnipiac Poll has Hillary Clinton running only slightly ahead of Donald TRUMP (46 to 43 percent) but trounced by Ben Carson by 10 full points--50 to 40.

We clearly live in complicated times.

November 3, 2015--Ben Carson's End Times

It was fair to grill presidential candidate John F. Kennedy about his Catholicism. Especially, if he were to be elected president would he take his orders from the Vatican or the U.S Constitution.

At a meeting with Protestant miniseries he assured them that he wouldn't and that if there was ever an irreconcilable different between Church dogma and his oath to defend the Constitution, he would step down from the presidency.

What he didn't tell them was that he was not that observant. In fact, he went to church more for political reasons than because of faith. And he would never step down and turn the Oval Office over to the Kennedy-family-hated Lyndon Johnson.

And if it was fair to wonder in public about Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs--he holds them strongly--particularly if as a Mormon he was or was not a Christian (many Christians claim Mormons are not of their faith), then isn't it fair to question Republican front-runner-at-the-moment Ben Carson about his beliefs?

Especially since as a Seventh Day Adventist he may hold some views that voters should know about before voting.

The Seventh Day sect is derived from the apocalyptic beliefs and preaching of William Miller, who as founder of the Adventists attracted a large following toward the middle of the 19th century when he prophesied that the end of the world would be coming in 1843, ushering in not just the end in a fiery conflagration but the Second Coming of Christ and ultimately the Last Judgement.

His followers, Millerites, in 1843 gave up all their worldly possessions and moved to high ground so they could have a front row seat for the apocalypse.

1843 came and went, even 1844 came and went and so, in turn, did the good reverend.

A few years later Miller's Adventist Church morphed into what we now know as Seventh Day Adventists. The "seventh day" refers to that aspect of Carson's church's doctrine that most of us know--the fact that they celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday.

But, informed voters may want to know that at the heart of the Seventh Day Adventist belief system is still the apocalyptical teaching, the eschatology, and prophecies of Reverend Miller. Adventists are still waiting for, looking forward to the end, the destruction of the world.

I would want to know what Doctor Carson thinks about this.

This is important to me as many Adventists think, believe the literal End is near, not centuries or millennia in the future.

If the End is that imminent what are the political policy implications?

Why bother fixing the infrastructure if it all will soon go up in smoke. Why set policy to improve schools as soon there will be no need for schools? Why provide health care coverage when we're all about to die in a global conflagration? Why worry about the proliferation of nuclear weapons when God has something much more explosive in mind?

A friend sent me a link to the October 28th Borowitz Report that appears regularly in the New Yorker.

This one is a satirical piece about a debate between Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, also a millennialist, about whose presidential policies would be more effective in bringing about the End Times.

According to Borowitz, the doctor promised he would end the world during his first term. Cruz one-upped him, pledging to do so on "day one." The same day he would rid us of Obamacare and tear up our nuclear agreement with Iran.

This is all very amusing, we can joke about not having to worry about the fact that half our highway bridges are about to collapse or the Social Security Trust running out of money. But it is also scary since they both really believe this stuff!

Too bad the CNBC moderators who so botched the last debate didn't ask Cruz and Carson to talk about  this rather than seek their views on on-line sports betting.

October 30, 2015--Woman Enough

I managed to keep myself awake for the entire Republican debate. I even ignored the struggling New York Mets.

Though the CNBC moderators were as inept as has been widely reported (Carl Quintanilla, for example, mocked Carly Fiorina's three-page tax reform proposal, saying skeptically that it must be in "very small type"), they did a better job than in the first two debates of giving air time to the marginal likes of John Kasich and Rand Paul.

The reporters, though, missed opportunities to follow up forcefully. When super-slick Marco Rubio deflected Jeb Bush's well-rehearsed attack--"If you don't show up for your three-day French work week in the Senate, you should resign"--with an equally well-rehearsed response--"John McCain, Barack Obama, and John Kerry did the same thing"--an easy followup would have been to ask him if "three wrongs make a right."

Talk about situational ethics of the sort conservatives selectively hate; but in this perverse political climate, Rubio was enthusiastically applauded by the media-hating audience.

The morning after the debate I checked the cable talk shows to see what people were saying.

The consensus was pretty much that Rubio or Ted Cruz won (largely by attacking the "mainstream" press--Fox of course excluded), that Bush made things even worse for himself, and that languishing Chris Christie (who was the establishment's favorite and seemed invincible four years ago) helped himself. Maybe by next week at this time he'll be the first choice of  six or seven percent of GOP voters.

Fiorina and TRUMP appeared to at least hold their own, though The Donald didn't dominate or hold center stage as he did previously. But John Kasich was probably destroyed by TRUMP's put down--blaming him (falsely) for the downfall of Lehman Brothers, where he was employed, and the subsequent economic meltdown. Kasich could only mumble incoherently in response.

He will soon go away, joining Lindsay Graham and Bobby Jindal at the children's debate table in George Pataki Land. Yes, Jindal, in a manner of speaking, is still in the race.

Most interesting, perhaps, is the continuing popularity of Ben Carson, who, in effect, by saying very little and saying whatever he said so softly that he needed closed captioning, Carson managed to make it appear that he wasn't there or, minimally, was looming as the new frontrunner above the grungy fray.

This was strategically brilliant since he has very little of substance to say about policy issues. When challenged that his 10 percent flat tax proposal would blow the deficit even higher, he said, "OK then, let's make it 15 percent."

So his appeal is in not in the policy arena but rather in the affective or emotional realm.

On MSNBC, the reporter covering the Carson campaign interviewed a few of his supporters to discern why he appeals to them.

One said it's because he's "calm." Another that it's because he has been so "blessed by God," and the third that "America is sick and we need a doctor to heal us."

I was struck by how these views are so feminized. Calmness, godliness, comfort, and healing.

At a time when the two women running for the presidency--Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton--because they are striving to convince us that they are ballsy enough to be commander-in-chief and would not have a problem bombing the whatsis out of ISIS, Carson has chosen to put on display his softer, feminine side.

If Fiorina and Clinton  are "man enough," Carson is "woman enough."

It could work. At the moment it is.

October 29 2015--Marco, Jeb, and The Donald

We know poor Marco Rubio hates his Senate job and, though he can't stand being there, wants another Washington job. If he gets it, maybe he'll hate that one too. This is not a good way to talk about one's resumé and employment history.

So much for the rest of us though he claims wanting to be president is not about him but about us.

Poor Jeb Bush was expecting to be inaugurated even before being nominated or elected. The presidency is the family business, after all, and in these kinds of royal successions are more anointments than elections.

He's already talking about how he is likely to hate the job because of all the partisan bickering and gridlock in Washington.

So, he told us the other day, that if this is the way things are, he "has other cool things to do" and might just take a petulant hike.

Now we're hearing from poor Donald TRUMP, as the polls in Iowa show him slipping into second place behind Ben Carson (Ben Carson!), that he needs the voters' help.

Specifically, he pled with Iowans to "help [him] out." He whimpered, "Let me win." And promised that if they do he'll do so many "wonderful things" for them that will make them "very happy."

If they keep this up, the two whining Floridians will doom their chances. And good chances they have because if Carson and TRUMP fizzle (and they likely will) Rubio or Bush might become the front runner and nominee. And whomever that is would have a pretty good chance of being elected.

TRUMP in second place in Iowa has to do more than pop in for a few big rallies and entertaining speeches that are more standup comedy shtick than political barnburners. Folks in the Hawkeye State expect their candidates to show up in their living rooms and stay overnight in Motel 6.

This is not The Donald. He doesn't do living rooms and motels.

And he will quickly lose his appeal if he appears, as he just did, to be either wounded or reduced in stature.

Half of what he has going for him is his superhero image, descending from the sky like, forgive me, a god, and offering to take care of everyone and everything--the Chinese, Putin, immigrants, jobs, the failing infrastructure.

He has to be the opposite of needing to be taken care of. He's about enabling people to believe he will fix things, make everything work, and bring about universal happiness.

That has been his appeal. To be self-deprecating and vulnerable goes against this image and will make him appear to be more like Ben Carson than Superman.

September 18, 2015--TRUMP Is Cooked

The Donald's long free ride is almost over.

Reflecting on Wednesday's debate, most observers agree that Carly Fiorina "raised her profile," largely by the forceful and classy way she took on TRUMP. Especially calling him out about the way he speaks about women, very much including Fiorina where most of his smears have been about her appearance and, more significantly, her failed time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

When she took him on, from attendees she received the only sustained applause of the night.

His repost, with a shrug, a pathetic, "She's really got a beautiful face."

To have any chance at all of recapturing the presidency, the Republican candidate will have to connect with women. Fiorina, as TRUMP also an "outsider," may turn out to be that ideal candidate.

I suspect TRUMP's numbers will remain high but stalled while Fiorina's will rise considerable, propelling her into third place, with Ben Carson, who did not do himself all that much good on Wednesday, remaining for the moment in second place.

The danger for The Donald is that unless, shark like, he keeps moving forward, he will reveal how vulnerable his support is. It depends entirely on promoting the image that he is all about winning--for himself and for the American people. He promises to make everyone rich. Not just with a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. But rich.

If he begins to look like a loser, or not that special, the air will begin to come out of his balloon. You can't these days (thankfully) run down women the way he has without it eventually catching up with you.

That began to happen at the Reagan Library debate Wednesday evening.

Regarding Carly Fiorina--in spite of what she contends, she was a failed CEO at HP. All the growth she proudly points to as evidence that she was successful, claiming at the same time that she was pushed out because of internal board politics, though some of the latter is true, all the revenue growth she spotlights was because of the purchase of Compaq computers, her biggest strategic move, which quickly turned out to be a fiscal disaster for the company and a personal one for her.

She deserved to be fired and that will haunt her and make her as vulnerable as TRUMP as she rises in the polls and undergoes the resulting scrutiny.

Which in turn will bring us back to Jeb Bush. Languishing in the polls and thus far unable to speak coherently for more than two minutes, the other night, after two hours of hesitation and inarticulateness, perhaps after TRUMP was defanged by Fiorina, Jeb began to find his way. He emerged for the first time as the political pro he is supposed to be. If he can manage to keep that up he could be this cycle's comeback kid.

The problem--by the time he finally woke up viewers were already asleep or had tuned back to ESPN. No one any more was watching the debate and I suspect as a result it will take some time before GOP voters gives Jeb a second or third look.

Bottom line--they will and it will come down to Bush (who wants to put British Margaret Thatcher on our $10 bill), TRUMP (who would choose Rosa Parks), Carson (who would select his mother) and Fiorina, who had the best answer--make no changes, "Women are not a special interest group."

The rest can begin to pack up.

September 14, 2105--What's With Ben Carson?

Not only has Dr. Ben Carson surged into second place in polls of Republican voters, almost in a statistical dead heat with Donald TRUMP, but national polling shows him doing best among GOP candidates in the all important head-to-head with Hillary Clinton.

According to the latest CNN poll, TRUMP and Hillary are tied, Clinton bests Jeb Bush by 4 percentage points, but loses to Carson by 5 points.

It's still very early, but this makes one think.

An African-American, evangelical, conservative surgeon?

So he is not just an unexpected and unusual Republican favorite but his appeal goes beyond the evangelical base of the Grand Old Party and includes many Democrats and Independents.

Of course he has that anti-government thing going. Along with Carly Fiorina and Donald TRUMP, the three non-establishment candidates, they garner well over 50 percent of potential Republican primary voters.

We tend to think of African Americans as pretty automatically voting for Democrat candidates. The last three Democrat nominees for president received on average about 90 percent of black votes.

One question, then, about Dr. Carson--would he get more than 10 percent if he were the nominee? Obviously, yes, and that would give him quite a leg up in key swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania,  Florida, and Virginia. In the general election if he could carry those four states he'd be well on his way to winning the presidency.

But that's political inside baseball. It does not say much about Crason's clearly wide appeal.

Some remind us that there is a long tradition of Black conservatives who have thrived on the national political scene. Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts and Colin Powell come to mind. Many feel Powell would have been able to win the GOP nomination in 1996 and had he done so would have had a good chance of defeating Bill Clinton.

Carson's cultural conservatism appeals not only to large numbers of blacks (about one-third self-identify as social conservatives) but also to white and Latino religious conservatives. His views on abortion and same-sex marriage (he opposes both) are cases in point.

Like other African-American conservatives who preceded him, he comes off as comfortably non-militant. He doesn't threaten as many whites as did Jessie Jackson and even Barack Obama.

I think, though, that there are other reasons why he is doing so well. Primarily because he is a physician, not just because he is anti big government. Then, there is kind of surgeon he is (neuro) and the fame that accrued to him from his successful, highly publicized effort to separate conjoined twins.

Many feel we are in our national core virtually terminally ill and in need of treatment. Metaphorically, of course, but those who feel this way, considering the state of our national health, may be thinking why not call on a doctor to heal us?

And then there is the further metaphor of his work with Siamese twins. As with them, we were at one time a conjoined body politic, but in recent decades have lived separately and angrily in our partisan corners. Little gets done. We barely speak to each other.

Carson is someone who understands the difference between being united and being separate. And how to do both successfully.

By this logic, I doubt if he would have the same appeal if he were, say, an orthopedic surgeon.

One the other hand, remember George W. Bush who declared himself, "a uniter, not a divider"? Though we know how well that turned out, we did elect him with an assist from the Supreme Court.

August 20, 2015--Election Update

I can't believe myself--it's fully 15 months before the election and six months before the Iowa caucuses yet I am obsessed with presidential politics. Almost equally interested in what is happening in both parties.

Friends are as well. And it's all because of Donald TRUMP and Hillary Clinton--one on the ascendancy the other soon, in my view, who will be in free fall.

None of this interest has to do with policy matters, either domestic or international, but is because of their larger-than-life personalities and how what three months ago would have been unthinkable is now feeling unexpectedly likely.

For example, I just got a phone call from a family member, a very progressive and politically savvy woman who for eight years has been a passionate supporter of Hillary Clinton's, who left a message saying, "Are you ready for President TRUMP?"

She was not mocking my interest in him (my interest in his remarkable political standing not an interest in hoping he wins the nomination and the election) but is herself coming around to the view, not uncommon among liberals, that TRUMP is trumping the field in some profound way, as opposed to doing so because of his entertainment value--it is because, some say in explanation, August's dog days are hot and everyone is looking to do some escaping.

But he may turn out to be the Republican real-deal because at least half the GOP electorate want a non-politican to win (almost 50% of Republicans polled in the most recent Fox national survey, with their numbers rising, support one of the three non-politicans--Trump 25%, Carson 12%, Fiorina 5%).

Say goodbye to Bush and Walker and Christie and Perry and Santorum and Paul and Cruz and Huckabee and whoever else is running. Half of them will be gone or dead in the water before Iowa. Expect the GOP race to come down to TRUMP, Kasich, and Fiorina. If you want a preview of one of the finalists, keep an eye on whom the Koch Brothers begin to bet.

On the Democrat side, the e-mail controversy continues to fester. Actually get worse. You know the details. How now it appears that hundreds of Clinton's e-mails likely contained classified information (a potential crime) and soon investigators from the FBI no less will have their hands on the 30,000 (30,000!!) Hillary deleted because they were too personal--about her yoga classes, Chelsea's wedding, and the like. Would you be surprised if quite a few of them contained a smoking gun? We'll know by the end of September.

In spite of this, all the Internet and cable news political junkies are saying Clinton's lead is insurmountable and that there is no way that even crazy Democrats are going to have Bernie Sanders representing their party come November 2016. That would guarantee a Republican president. Though they did go for George McGovern and Mike Dukakis.

So that means Joe Biden will soon get into the race and, considering the mediocre competition, be nominated.

A related sidebar--of those Hillary supporters you know, are any enthusiastic about her candidacy, saying that she will make a good much less a great president? Or are they saying they're for her because she's a woman? That having a female president is long overdo? If anyone said a similar thing about, say, Andrew Cuomo--that's it's time we had an Italian-American president--that person would be shouted down. And rightly so. But such is the still sad state of things in regard to gender. I get it but hate it.

Thus, I am predicting a TRUMP-Biden race with the outcome a tossup.

August 5, 2015--GOP Debate

I've got a six-pack of cold beer ready for Thursday night's GOP debate. It should be a good one.

First, there's the matter of who will be invited to debate. By Fox News no less.

With at least 16 announced candidates, to make a good show of the 90 minutes, Fox decided to invite only 10--the top 10 based on the most recent polling data.

Thus, Donald TRUMP, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Ben Carson will participate but not Rick Perry (his smart glasses will soon be available on eBay), which is too bad since last time around he was dependably hilarious; or Rick Santorum, who last time around was the last man standing when Mitt Romney secured the nomination; or Carly Fiorina (the only woman running--oh, how I pine for Michele Bachmann); nor of course will we hear from George Pataki (who?) or Lindsey Graham (though thanks to TRUMP we have his cell phone number), the latter two polling at less than one percent. It's never a good thing when you're favorability rating begins with a 0, as in  0.15 percent. Their number.

Everyone's attention will be focused on the star of the show, Donald TRUMP--what he will blurt out and the zingers the others are desperately rehearsing to launch his way. The first debate and, who knows, maybe the entire lumbering nomination process, will be about TRUMP, unless he gets bored having to hang out with John Kasich and Ted Cruz. How tedious would that be.

Speaking of Senator Cruz, little is expected of him but he could turn out to be one of the unanticipated winners. Chris Christie as well and maybe Ben Carson. These three have at least some jizzum and come across as sort of spontaneous. Compared to the ever-boring Jeb Bush and the over-managed Scott Walker these three appear to be at least alive and breathing.

Then there is TRUMP. Yesterday I caught him on Morning Joe. They had him booked for a quick phone call interview that was set to last perhaps 10 minutes. He was so good that they skipped commercial breaks and kept him on air for what felt like half an hour.

And what a half hour it was. I didn't catch any gaffs (though his trashing of John McCain and his subsequent additional surge in the polls suggests he has a get-of-out jail gaff card--for example in South Carolina, McCain's pal Lindsey Graham's state, where TRUMP has at least a 20 point lead in the polls: 34% compared with 10-11% for Bush and Carson.

More than anything else, at least for the moment, in contrast with all the other GOP candidates, he sounds actually enthusiastic about the prospect of being President. Not winning the nomination and then the general election but being the President.

The others (Hillary included) feel interested only in the process of being elected. TRUMP already sees himself sitting in the Oval office telling people what to do, as he previewed on Morning Joe.

"I'll tell Carl Ichan, a friend of mine, 'Congratulations, Carl. I'm sending you to China. Handle China.' And I'll send someone like that to Japan to handle Japan. Can you believe Caroline Kennedy is our ambassador? She said she couldn't believe they gave her the job. Speaking of jobs, I'll create jobs. I've created tens of thousands of jobs including for Latinos and African Americans. Let me tell you something, I'll win the Hispanics and blacks. Mexicans love me. They buy my apartments."

As I said, Thursday evening will be fun.

March 30, 2015--GOP Clown Car: The Minstrel Show

Considering that he's been widely featured in the news after becoming the first Republican to officially enter the race for the 2016 presidential nomination, I should probably write something about him. But there's nothing that unusual about Senator Ted Cruz as a candidate--the GOP has a long tradition of welcoming demagogues into leadership positions.

Recall, his spooky lookalike, Senator Joseph McCarthy, who, back in the 1950s, was for some years the nation's most powerful Republican. He snooped around ferreting out alleged Communists who had supposedly infiltrated Democratic ranks, making things up when the evidence was thin, ranting that there were thousands of actual Communists in government whereas there were just a handful.

Like his political alter ego, Cruz played the Red card when by innuendo he accused Barak Obama of being influenced by the Harvard Law School faulty which, he slimed, was substantially made up of Communists while Obama was there as a student.

What is interesting about Cruz is the nature of his demagoguery and his craven pandering to a Republican base which he pretends to represent. It is ironic that he has grabbed this representational mantle for himself considering that he has at least as elite an eastern establishment Republican patina as the president-in-waiting, Jeb Bush. Cruz actually has more elitist credentials--he went to Princeton as an undergraduate and was a top student at Harvard Law School whereas poor Jeb attended only the more utilitarian University of Texas and has no advanced degrees.

It will be quite a Svengali act for Cruz to pull this one off--to fool enough Tea Party folks that he's a man of the people.

As evidence of his bona fides, last week on the CBS Morning News he spoke about his musical conversion (he's all about conversions). With faux sincerity, he told about how though earlier he was a fan of "classic rock," after 9/11 since the "rock community" "didn't stand up," whereas country musicians did, he became and is now a devotee of all things country. I guess he missed all the concerts and benefits organized for first responders by the "rock community." Too isolated in that Harvard cocoon I suppose.

But today I am writing about another familiar Republican presidential archetype--the candidate who is the star of his own political minstrel show where, as a black men, he behaves in ways and says things openly about blacks that racist white Republicans talk about only in private. And by his very being gives credibility to what hard-working white folks in their hearts know to be true about lazy black folks.

He is neurosurgeon Ben Carson who, though barely paid attention to by the mainstream media, somehow still manages to come in sixth in lists of people most admired by Americans. Just below George W. Bush and slightly ahead of Stephen Hawking.

He is best know for leading a team of surgeons in 1987 in a 20-hour operation to separate Siamese twins joined at the head and then in 2013 for appearing at the National Prayer Breakfast and, with President Obama on the dais just ten feet away, delivered a speech in which he criticized Obama's health care and economic policies, dissing him to his face.

The next day he was embraced by Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal in an editorial titled, "Ben Carson for President." This based on a 15 minute speech at a congressional breakfast.

From that day forth he has been a Republican darling, and now, having given up his practice and making the rounds as a paid-for-play speaker articulating a vision for American that for all intents and purposes would eliminate our social safety nets and not give away our treasure to people (read of color) who are too lazy to support themselves and their families. He also delivers on rightwing hot social issues, as a "scientist," questioning evolution and comparing homosexuality to beastiality.

I call this a minstrel show because it is a performance pitched exclusively to the emotions of resentful and bigoted whites put on by the very kind of person (of color) who is the butt of the stereotyping.

Dr. Carson is at least the third in a string of such self-denogating African-American Republican presidential aspirants.

First, in 1995, there was Alan Keyes, a give-'em-hell talk show host who was best known for his violent opposition to abortion rights and his untutored ways. This alone would have been enough to excite the William Kristols of the world who at all times have an eye open for people they can benignly promote who speak to the subliminal fears and urges that can be used to manipulate the behavior of the Republican base. No matter Keyes was caught illegally paying himself out of campaign funds. Actually, perfect. This only confirmed that "they" cannot be trusted to responsibly handle money. There is that tendency, isn't there, they snicker, for "them," when money's around, to act "Nigger Rich."

Herman Kane was next and much, much more entertaining. Not only didn't he know what he was talking about when it came to economics (9-9-9) but when it came to foreign policy matters he appeared to be map-phobic. He not only couldn't see Russia from his house, he didn't even know how to locate it on the map. For country-club GOPers he was a living stereotype. "Them" himself.

And now comes along Ben Carson, another token gift to Republicans. He brings race front and center into the "debate." First, who better to excoriate Obamacare, seeing it as basically a program that the doers are taxed to provide for the takers, which he quickly translates into a form of economic redistribution from whites to blacks. To make this point explicitly, Carson frequently likens it and other Democrat-supported social programs to "slavery," with Obama, in this ironic case, the nation's chief plantation owner.

Among other things, a black man--Carson--holding a black man--Obama--who is also a Democrat as responsible for slavery, or its reintroduction, is a brilliant form of racist jujitsu that absolves Republicans of any responsibility for attempting to suppress minority voting rights or roll back Civil Rights legislation.

January 20, 2105--Mitt Redux

Just as I was slipping into despair that my favorite sitcom would not return for another season--the Republican Clown Car--what with no Herman (Pokemon) Cain and no Michele (pray-away-the-gay) Bachmann, how would I spend the next two years? Stuck with House of Cards, Shark Tank, Dancing With the Stars, and God help me, Girls? I might even have to develop a taste, I moaned, for the Home Shopping Network.

But I can calm down. Things are beginning to shape up.

No only are Bachmann and Cain making noises that they might in fact run for the 2016 nomination but there is also Rand Paul (who looks like a clown), Ted Cruz (who looks like Joseph McCarthy), Jeb Bush (who looks like George W. Bush), Scott Walker and Paul Ryan (both of whom look like Eddie Munster from the Munsters), Chris Christie (who, in spite of his lap-band surgery, still looks like he belongs more in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade than the White House), Donald (you're fired) Trump, and who can forget Rick (love-the-new-glasses) Perry, especially if he's on the same meds he was using in 2012 when he reminded us that the American revolution occurred during the 16th century.

Then, of course, thank you Mitt Romney who is back for a third run. Etch-A-Sketch Mitt who this time around promises to run a campaign devoted to "lifting people out of poverty." The same Mitt who three years ago called this same 47 percent of the population "takers."

I'm sure some of his Republican opponents will remind us that this is the same out-of-touch Romney who drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car, offered to bet Perry $10,000 about his position on health care reform, and in his new zillion-dollar California house has an elevator for one of his wife's Cadillacs.

He may have been a gaff-prone candidate (I confess to looking forward to the inevitable new ones) but every poll of likely GOP voters shows him doing much better than even Jeb Bush when it comes to a potential race against Hillary Clinton.

If Mitt and the rest of the cast of the nomination-seeking candidates don't do it for you, there is also now a new rising star--African-American neurosurgeon Ben Carson who already has a long list of fun quotes, including a recent one that claims that "Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery."

It continues to amaze me how Republicans manage to find black politicians who are as regressive on race as their GOP country-club colleagues. It's clearly a comfort to the Fat Cats and the source of mid-winter amusement to me.