Bernie Goes Bust

While his colleagues in the Senate were dominating the news cycle with a poignant and powerful filibuster in support of strong gun control measures, Bernie Sanders was holed up in Vermont, polishing remarks he delivered to supporters on Thursday night. The speech itself was familiar. A greatest hits of Bernie’s preferred policy positions and a call to arms for his people to get involved in the political process at every level of government. But for a guy who boasted of his online fundraising prowess and unexpected success during the primaries, his 23-minute speech landed with a thud. Although more than one million people registered for the online stream, at its peak, a mere 218,000 people viewed it and cable news quickly cut away as it became clear he was giving a glorified stump speech lacking a concession to Hillary Clinton.

The past few weeks have been unkind to the 74-year old democratic socialist. After camping out in California for weeks on end in the hope of winning that state’s primary, he got stomped, book ending a day that began with a 30-point blowout in New Jersey and the media’s designation of Clinton as the party’s presumptive nominee. Since then, Sanders has been further marginalized. A meeting with President Obama was quickly overshadowed by the President, Vice President, and Senator Warren’s endorsement of Clinton. As the nation reeled over the mass murder in Orlando, Sanders chose that time to issue his set of demands to the Democrats, including the removal of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Instead of supporting his “fellow” Democrats during the aforementioned filibuster, Sanders skipped it. And through it all, he has refused to concede even as the few supporters he had in Congress abandoned ship.

All of these events would have been enough to shrink whatever leverage Sanders had before his crushing loss in California, but Donald Trump’s implosion has worsened his situation. As Trump has become unmoored – lashing out at a federal judge, claiming the President was somehow complicit in the Orlando attack, accusing soldiers of theft in Iraq – and polling shows a consolidation of Democratic support for Clinton and a steady erosion of Republican support for Trump, it is becoming clear that Sanders’s blessing is not nearly as important as it looked to be just a few weeks ago. Clinton now has a posse that includes a fired up (and very popular) Barack Obama, working class hero Joe Biden, progressive champion Elizabeth Warren, her husband (and still-popular ex-President) Bill Clinton, and whoever she selects as her running mate to eviscerate Trump and rally Democrats, Independents and sane Republicans. Bernie’s support would be helpful, but no longer appears necessary.

Sanders played a weak hand hoping to maximize his return, but he pushed too hard. Instead of quitting while he was ahead, he went all in and lost. Voting ended in California 10 days ago (no mention of Bernie’s 60 point loss in Washington, D.C. earlier this week is needed) and Sanders has shown no sign of getting with the program. He could have giving a gracious concession speech, pledged his full support to Clinton and called on his voters to do the same, all of which would have enhanced his standing in the party. But he did nothing of the sort.

This is telling. For whatever lip service Sanders pays to being a Democrat, his actions tell a much different story. He has now spoken publicly, and with meaningful media attention, three times without so much as gracious and heartfelt congratulations to Clinton or an acknowledgment that the campaign is over. On the most important topic of the day, when his voice could have added weight to Senator Chris Murphy’s filibuster, Sanders was AWOL. What we have seen instead is a refusal to admit defeat, a self-righteousness bordering on narcissism, and a delusional belief that a guy who registered as a Democrat for political expediency now thinks he can tell his newfound party what to do.

When Sanders does not get all he wants, or is denied things he thinks he is owed, do not be surprised when he takes his toys and goes home, which is fine by me. His allegiance to the party was only as strong as his potential to win the nomination. With that gone, and with his endorsers abandoning him, I fully expect Sanders to revert back to being an independent – which is what he has been in his heart the whole time.

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Hillary's Veepstakes

Now that Hillary has wrapped up the Democratic nomination for President, all eyes are turning toward who she will pick to run with her. The candidate herself has been circumspect about the kind of person she is looking for with one important caveat - that the person she picks will be qualified to be President if anything happens to her. While this may sound like typical political pablum, this might be called the “Palin Bar” because the erstwhile Alaska Governor failed to clear that basic threshold. So, with that said, let’s look at the contenders: 

The Progressive Wet Dream

The name on everyone’s lips right now is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She is a firebrand who has shown a real zeal for attacking Donald Trump, a hero to the progressive left who was calling out the big banks for years, came up with what would become the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and would join what would be the first-ever all-female Presidential ticket. These are not small things and, in its way, would emphasize a strength Clinton already has while checking the progressive box the media thinks Hillary needs to mollify the Sanders wing of the party. With that said, I do not think she will get the nod because most Democrats will “come home” to Clinton without her needing to spend political capital on her VP selection and the wonky succession rules if Clinton/Warren did win is a gamble Democrats may not want to take (though I do love the idea of John Kerry going back to the Senate in the special election that would be called within 160 days of Warren’s notice of resignation). 

Vice President White Guy

There is a strain of thought that Hillary should just grab a moderate white guy to stick on the ticket and help cut her deficit with male voters. Both Virginia Senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, hurdle the Palin Bar as former Governors of the Commonwealth and Senators of some standing (Warner is also an independently wealthy former businessman and Kaine was the chair of the Democratic National Committee). They also hail from a swing state that if Hillary can lock down, would make Trump’s already improbable path to victory that much narrower. Either of these guys is a safe option though unlikely to set progressive hearts on fire. 

The Next Generation

If Hillary is looking for sizzle, New Jersey’s junior Senator Cory Booker or former Mayor of San Antonio and current Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro are both tempting options. Either would appeal to a constituency that Hillary will need in November (Booker is African-American, Castro is Hispanic-American), both are incredibly telegenic and charismatic and both are in their 40s, which would give a nice generational boost to the ticket. But here is the thing, Castro will be 42 in November and Booker will be 47 and each has only been on the national stage for less than four years. While I have no doubt both are smarter than Sarah Palin (both went to Stanford, Booker has a law degree from Yale and was a Rhodes Scholar; Castro has a law degree from Harvard) neither has spent enough time under the hot lights. 

Bernie Lite

Anyone who thinks Hillary will pick Bernie Sanders as her running mate has spent too much time sampling legalized weed in Colorado. Instead, attention has focused on Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Brown would be a sop to progressives and comes from another swing state that while not essential to Hillary’s electoral college map, would, like Virginia, limit Trump’s paths to victory if she did win it. Brown is also experienced, having served in Congress since 1993 and in the Senate since 2007. One downside? Vice President Brown’s successor would be chosen by Republican Governor John Kasich, who is under no obligation to fill the seat with another Democrat. This may be subtraction by addition when every vote in the Senate will be needed in 2017. 

The Sisterhood

There are two female Senators, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill and Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, who have also garnered attention.  Klobuchar in particular has strong progressive credentials but also had a stellar record as the District Attorney of the largest county in Minnesota. McCaskill has won statewide races in a place where Democrats do not do well and each is excellent on the mic. On the other hand, if Clinton wants to put a well-qualified woman on the ticket, why not pick Warren?

The Finalists

For my money, Clinton’s choice will come down to California Congressman Xavier Beccera and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Beccera is Chair of the House Democratic Caucus (4th in the leadership structure) and has served in Congress for more than 20 years. He would be very helpful in moving legislation and would be the first Hispanic-American Vice President. He is also a progressive, which would help corral Sanders’s voters. Patrick has deep ties to the Clintons from his time as head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in the 1990s and he was a two-term Governor. He also has experience in the corporate world (which might work against him in today’s Democratic Party) and delivered one of the stand-out speeches at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. The national stage would not be too big for either of these men, they both add balance and value, pass the Palin Bar and would energize key Democratic constituencies. While I think a compelling case can be made for either man, Patrick’s history with the Clintons, his great oratorical chops, and governing experience give him the advantage. 

My prediction: Clinton/Patrick 2016. 

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Media Fail: California Edition

In a primary season littered with bad journalism, the California primary may take the cake. To recap: Bernie Sanders basically moved to the Golden State, campaigned there non-stop, received his typical fawning coverage based on campaign rallies he held almost exclusively on college campuses, benefitted from hours of TV time where pundits suggested he could win the state, and STILL lost to Hillary Clinton by 13 points. The morning after the election, you would barely know that the media had spent the preceding three weeks hyping his prospects or that he lost in a landslide.

Although awful, the media fail is of a piece with how they have covered the Clinton/Sanders primary race. Clinton fought Sanders with one hand tied behind her back while he swung away with both fists. Other than her (accurate) attacks on Sanders’s position on gun manufacturer liability, the Clinton team spent little time on negative campaigning against him; her Super PAC literally spent no money going after Sanders. Meanwhile, he dug in with gusto against her until the final day of the campaign.

The conventional wisdom was that Clinton supporters were not as enthusiastic as Sanders supporters. Not only was that demonstrably false, but in the place enthusiasm actually matters – the polling booth – her final margin of victory will end up being close to 4 million votes, a massive victory. That Hillary won 8 of the last 11 primaries and caucuses and 14 of the last 20 would suggest she has plenty of momentum and enthusiasm, but most of the coverage leading into California speculated about how damaging a loss there would be. When the media could not find any equivalency in delegates or votes, they tried to lean on “states won” – as if the Utah caucus was the same as prevailing in Pennsylvania, Florida or Texas – but even there, the Sanders team came up woefully short.

The kid gloves Sanders was treated with by Clinton were largely shared by a media horde that consistently drooled over his rallies but did little probing of his actual policies. What little negative press he received was of his own making – an awful editorial board meeting with the New York Daily News and his claim that Clinton was unqualified to be President – stemmed from his own lack of preparedness and tin ear. Meanwhile, in the run up to both the New York and California primaries, his campaign received oceans of positive coverage based on the size of his crowds, but when he lost each, there was little after action reporting on why that excitement did not translate into wins.

Bernie’s appeal was always based more on myth than fact. Of the 10 most populous states in the nation, Sanders only won one, and by less than two percent (Michigan). Clinton beat Sanders by more than 100,000 votes 15 times, while Sanders only bested Clinton by that margin once. Clinton’s domination was so complete there were some counties where she outpolled Sanders by a greater margin than entire states he won. In New Jersey, her margin of victory in Essex County (47,622 votes) was greater than Sanders’s victory margins in all but four states (one of which was Vermont).

But for all of this, Bernie Sanders is still getting the softball treatment. The editorial board of the New York Times thinks Hillary has to convince Bernie’s supporters she did not cheat to win and everyone in the press corps is in agreement that he deserves a wide berth to nurse his wounds even as he stubbornly claims he will soldier on, notwithstanding the clear defeat he suffered. It is fitting that the media is giving him one last parting gift – on a night when he could have shown statesmanship by conceding to Clinton, urging his supporters to vote for her, or even simply acknowledging the historic nature of her being the first woman to clinch a major party’s nomination for President, he was defiant and refused to shush his supporters who booed her name, not that you will hear much about this in the press, they are too busy hand wringing over the additional concessions that must be made to soothe his wounded ego. 

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Trump Has A SINO Problem

I will never be mistaken for President of the Chuck Todd Fan Club, but I will give the host of Meet The Press his due. Politics has a lexicon all its own and Todd recently created a worthy new entrant to that nomenclature: “SINO” – a “Supporter In Name Only” of Donald Trump. The SINO phenomenon has been seen with regularity among Washington’s political class: tepid endorsements, the he-who-must-not-be-named treatment by people like Mitch McConnell, and twisted-into-a-pretzel justifications being used by those who once deemed him a “cancer” or a “con man” for their change of heart.

But the problem with SINOs is that they are sort of like the sell swords on Game of Thrones – they have no loyalty to you and as soon as the worm turns, they run away. As Trump’s attacks on people based on their religion, ethnicity, and gender have intensified, he is in danger of becoming a man without a country. The SINOs who grudgingly siddled up to him are now distancing themselves.  

Consider the reaction to Trump’s inflammatory comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Not only is no one in Trump’s own party rising to his defense, they are stepping over each other to criticize the real estate mogul’s comments. When Hillary Clinton dropped a foreign policy speech that peeled the paint off Trump’s spray tanned façade, no one in the Republican Party rushed to his defense – there was no rapid response, no surrogates parachuting onto cable television to defend him, no point-by-point rebuttal, just Trump and a few lame tweets.  

This should surprise no one. Politicians are, if nothing else, pragmatists. As Trump’s star fades, Republicans will continue distancing themselves from him. After all, why should they lose their cushy jobs and stellar perks for a guy who will not be remembered one second after the polls close on November 8^th? More importantly, why should they risk the future of their party by being associated with a man who is single-handedly alienating every voting group critical to its future; they are doing a good enough job of that without Trump’s help.

But political survival is one thing, upholding the tenets you claim to revere is another. If SINOs truly valued country over party, they would do more than issue hyperbolic press releases denouncing their own standard bearer – they would come out and renounce their support of him and confess a dirty little secret many of them have long known: far from being a Rush Limbaugh-tarred-Femi-Nazi, Hillary Clinton is a roll-up-her-sleeves policy wonk who likes to get things done. In the Senate, she helped pass bi-partisan legislation and as Secretary of State, she took an active interest in the smallest of issues, like a gefilte fish company in a Republican Congressman’s district that was having trouble getting its shipment to Israel.

Of course, the problem in admitting this fact is the electoral support that has sustained many members of Congress and the ocean of money that has flowed into political consultants’ coffers for the past 25 years would dry up immediately and the bald-faced lies that sustain the vast right-wing conspiracy against Hillary would be exposed. Instead, SINOs will retreat from the dumpster fire in order to protect themselves and prepare for battle with another President Clinton.

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Chiraq

The New York Times did a nice piece of long-form (and interactive) journalism this weekend. Published on the front page of its Sunday paper and the home page of its website. the Times  reported on the 64 people shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, six of whom died. While random shootings occurred, the Times points out that much of the gun violence in Chicago happens in small pockets of the city and among individuals well known to the police. So why is it that Chicago has seen the number of homicides and non-fatal shootings spike? A few pieces of information leapt out at me:

• Of the 64 people shot, the police had previously identified 50 as having a high likelihood of shooting someone or being shot;
• Gun possession only carries a one-year prison term in Illinois; and 
• The clearance rate for murders is about 25 percent.

In short, you have a police force that knows most of the people at the greatest risk of shooting someone or being shot but the penalty for carrying a gun is a slap on the wrist and your chances of being arrested if you do kill someone is only one in four. There is a chicken-or-the-egg quality to some of this - is the low clearance rate due to police indifference or the failure of the community to give up its own? When the community knows murderers are rarely caught, does it encourage street justice and a lack of cooperation with police for fear of retaliation from those turned in by their neighbors? Does the perceived security of carrying a gun outweigh the risk of a year’s time in prison? Are the men and women most at-risk of being involved in gun violence being offered alternatives or do they choose “the lifestyle” freely, knowing the risks. 

Although not mentioned in the article, I suspect some of the other socio-economic metrics in these communities are also woeful - be it the unemployment rate, truancy, or the percent of high school students who graduate (or go to college). In economically depressed areas, if you have little hope or opportunity, are poorly educated, or do not expect to live past 40, how exactly do you make this stop? 

You can read the article here

Everything You Wanted To Know About Hillary’s Email That The Media Refuses To Tell You

Official Washington loves few things more than a heavily annotated investigative report and it is even better when there is a political slant to it. The recently released report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of State meets both criteria. At 83 pages, it appears to have heft (even though the report itself is only 42 pages, the rest is an appendix of old memos and guidance documents) and its tsk-tsking of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server fits with the media’s narrative that she is untrustworthy. 

The breathless reporting portrayed Clinton as a rogue actor, flagrantly violating the law while dissembling in her after-the-fact excuses. But if you read the report and ignore the political spin, you find a much more nuanced story. For example, a former Secretary of State connected a private laptop to a private Internet connection to conduct government business and never attempted to store or retrieve the emails sent that way, but that person was Colin Powell, not Hillary Clinton. The archiving rule at the center of one of the two complaints against Clinton could have been levied at dozens of other people who failed to print out every email they sent or received and store the paper copies (the so-called “print and file” system.)  

For all the sturm und drang, the OIG criticizes Secretary Clinton for two things - first, for failing to comply with the ridiculous “print and file” archiving requirement that OIG itself admits few people follow; and second, conducting government business on private email connected to a personal server. What the report reveals however, (and what was unreported in the press) is that Secretary Clinton was hardly alone in these supposed “violations.” The IG notes that nearly 90 senior aides to Secretaries Powell and Rice used personal email. (IG report at 20). Secretary Powell himself not only used a personal email account, he connected a private laptop to the Internet through a “private” connection in his office, sidestepping the State Department’s portal (which was itself a violation of State Department rules). (IG report at 3, 21, 31). And when contacted by the IG during the pendency of their investigation, Powell, along with aides to Rice, ignored the IG’s entreaties to determine whether the email they sent via personal email could be retrieved. (IG report at 21-23). 

The IG concluded that “Secretary Powell did not comply with Department policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.” (IG report at 22). The IG made the same finding with regard to Secretary Clinton with one important caveat: her submission of 55,000 pages of emails “mitigated her failure to properly preserve emails …” (IG report at 23, emphasis added). Powell not only failed to comply at the time, but snubbed a request from the Department that he contact his ISP to determine if his records were retrievable. (IG report at 22). Even so, the “file and print” requirement is only followed “sporadically.” The Department’s internal guidelines contain “no explicit penalties for lack of compliance” and the Department “has never proposed discipline against an employee [for failing to comply.]” (IG report at 14). 

Ironically, had Hillary done as those 90 staffers and Secretary Powell had done and simply used a personal email account instead of her own server, it is unlikely any of her records could be retrieved. Instead, the State Department (and ultimately the world) got to pour through 55,000 pages of email, the vast majority of which was the boring work of government with some cherry picked threads of gossip and other click bait ephemera the media loves to focus on. Conversely, email Powell and his and Rice’s aides sent while we were at war in two countries and attacked on September 11th, 2001 are lost to history. 

So, on the first point - failing to properly archive her records, no one has ever been punished for not following the rules and Hillary complied after the fact. But what about the dreaded private server? Well, the server is really a red herring. The issue here is corresponding over a system without proper security features - whether that is done using a gmail account or your own private server is incidental. But here’s the thing: not only was using personal email not prohibited when Clinton was Secretary, it still is not prohibited. While the federal record keeping law was amended in 2014, it did not prohibit the use of private email for official purposes, it simply required that a person who did so copy her official email account or forward a copy of the email to that account within 20 days. (IG report at 9). And the Department’s most recent guidance, issued in 2015, says that the use of personal email is “discouraged” except “in very limited circumstances.” The Department does not articulate what those circumstances might be. (IG report at 32). 

Oddly, the conclusory nature of the IG’s findings (and those most heavily reported by the media) contain no substantiation. For a report with an average of four footnotes per page, the determination that Secretary Clinton had “an obligation” to discuss her email use is simply stated as fact without citing to any internal guidance, regulation or law. It is curious that such a finding was made, particularly since the report itself acknowledges that personal email use was not then and is not now, prohibited. 

Surely, if Secretary Clinton ran afoul of Department guidelines, so too did the 90 staff members who worked for Secretaries Powell and Rice, along with what I have to assume are many other anonymous employees in a Department of thousands who probably use their personal email accounts from time to time. And the concern over the security of Clinton’s server is a fortiori for servers run by Google, Microsoft, and ISPs that are targets of daily hacking attempts. And it is not like government servers are bastions of security. The Office of Personnel Management was hacked last year, resulting in the theft of more than 10 million social security numbers of current and former federal employees dating back to 2000.

If you want to point a finger, look at the records management at the State Department - it is a total shit show. Some archived email cannot be retrieved because much of it is corrupted, password protected or contains no information (IG report at 15), the integrated archiving system did not come online until this year (IG report at 15), and the Department broke its own rules by failing to archive the email of 50 top political appointees (IG report at 16). Even if the Department wanted to determine the frequency or volume of personal email use by its employees, it “currently lacks the resources” to do so. (IG report at 19).

This is another tempest in a teapot that ignored context such as the fact that close to 100 former senior officials were also known to have used private email and that many senior officials under prior Secretaries of State (and Secretary Powell himself) ignored requests to turn over their records. The archiving rule Clinton supposedly violated was also violated by Secretary Powell, is without sanction and has never been used to discipline anyone. Unlike Secretary Powell, Secretary Clinton complied with this rule after the fact. Hardly the crime of the century, but an easy way for a media hell bent on reinforcing its preferred narrative that Hillary thinks the rules do not apply to her.

If you want to read the report for yourself, it can be found here:

https://oig.state.gov/system/files/esp-16-03.pdf

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Temporarily Ban All Muslims? Not That Unpopular An Idea

Of the many despicable things Donald Trump has said since he announced his candidacy for the Presidency a little less than a year ago, his call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States may be the worst. It is taken as an article of faith that banning all Muslims from our country is some combination of odious and unconstitutional. But this quote from The Washington Post tells a different story.

As it turns out, “banning all Muslims” is a popular idea with Republicans and not nearly as radioactive with the general public as the talking heads on TV would suggest. This is not to say it is a good idea or an idea that reflects well on our nation (it is not, and it does not), it is just to say that when you live inside a bubble it is easy to think everyone thinks the way you do, when in fact, they do not.

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Tough Talk

News of the downing of EgyptAir Flight 804 had barely crossed the wire before Donald Trump hopped on Twitter to declare the incident an act of terrorism. The strong man routine fits his profile, after all, his “foreign policy” includes “knocking the hell” out of ISIS, which is an applause line, not a strategy. The media is quick to bolster his tough guy image but we have seen this movie before and the bark is always worse than the bite.

In Nixon’s time, it was called the “madman” strategy – Nixon wanted his adversaries in China and North Vietnam to think he was such a loose cannon, he might unleash nuclear weapons to settle the Vietnam War. The only people who suffered were the innocent Vietnamese people, who were subject to a bombing campaign unseen in the history of war, and the soldiers on both sides who died in the jungles of Southeast Asia. When the bombs failed to work, “peace with honor” and “Vietnamization” became a rebranding effort for admitting a victory could not be won. For all his bluster, the peace treaty Nixon agreed to in 1973 was no better a deal than had been offered five years previously.

Less than a decade later, another swaggering cowboy named Ronald Reagan rode into Washington, D.C. promising to stand tall against the Commies. After-the-fact mythologizing claims the Iranians so feared Reagan they released our hostages the day he was sworn in, but in reality, the deal had been cut weeks before, the hostages were held until Carter left office as a final humiliation to the one-term President not because the mullahs were afraid of Reagan. 

Indeed, just a few years later Reagan was selling arms to the Iranians to get hostages freed in Lebanon; this, after tucking tail and running from Beirut after our embassy was bombed in 1983. As detailed in Rachel Maddow’s book Drift, Reagan’s team could not even invade Grenada properly. The mission was bungled so badly, dozens of soldiers died. 

And if the old saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” applies, it is uncertain what happens when we are fooled a third time, but that is exactly what happened when George W. Bush came into office. An Ivy-League educated son of privilege, “W” packaged himself as a Texas cowboy who loved nothing more than spending his down time (which was considerable) clearing brush at his ranch. Of course, he and his aides ignored warnings about Al Qaeda and even after September 11^th, standing amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, his chesty proclamations would end up being largely hollow. Well before Iraq turned into a quagmire, he had failed to capture or kill the perpetrator of 9/11. Ultimately, he slinked out of office with record low approval ratings, the country trillions in debt and scarred by his actions.

Now, here comes Trump. A man who avoided serving in the Vietnam War and whose knowledge of the military could fit comfortably in a thimble. His rhetoric makes Bush’s “dead or alive” threats to Bin Laden and “axis of evil” non-sense look both sober and tame in comparison. Will Americans fall for the tough guy routine again?

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Twenty Days To California

Hillary Clinton must wonder what she needs to do to make Bernie Sanders go away. Sweeps in various “super” Tuesdays stretched her pledged delegate lead to a point that made it mathematically impossible for Sanders to catch her. Yet, there he is, leveraging the media’s need to fill TV hours and column inches  to soldier on. After all, there is no shortage of college campuses and idealistic young people to make it seem like he still has a chance. And so, even if she need not win any more primaries between now and June 14th, when the District of Columbia has the final say, a loss in California on June 7th to Sanders would not look good. To the Beltway media, the dreaded “optics” of such a defeat would simply feed into the narrative that she is a weak general election candidate whose political host body (the Democratic Party) is rejecting her. 

I am sure the Clinton team would prefer not to spend any additional money locking up a nomination it thinks it has already won; however, allow me to offer a modest proposal. Instead of treating the next three weeks as an unnecessary epilogue to a primary contest that the Clinton team thinks is already over, look at this time as an unexpected opportunity to launch her general election campaign early. 

A month ago, everyone assumed attention would be focused on the Republicans, who were careening toward a contested convention and the possibility of a third-party challenger. Instead, opposition to Donald Trump folded and the race ended early. Because of this, Trump is likely to go dark as he focuses on catching up in fundraising, campaign infrastructure, and convention planning. For all his bluster, his campaign schedule even during the heat of the race was light - rarely doing more than one or two events a day - and now that he’s locked up the nomination, the idea of spending money on unnecessary rallies when so much needs to be done is unlikely. 

So with the media’s attention focused on California (and to a lesser extent New Jersey), the Clinton team should embrace this chance to dominate media coverage. Take the next twenty days to test drive her general election campaign themes, define her (and Trump) with the knowledge that she will generate an inordinate amount of national (and local) coverage simply because space needs to be filled -  so fill that space, with her message, with images of rallies and events with the diverse coalition that propelled President Obama to victory and interviews that give her a platform to speak with passion and fluency about how she will lead this country.

The return on investment from cross-country wins in New Jersey and California will not only snuff out the final embers of the Sanders insurgency, but springboard her into the fall campaign. 

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Failing Upward

It does not suck to be Paul Ryan. He leads the largest Republican caucus in the House of Representatives since 1928 and come January, he will either be ramming through a legislative agenda at the behest of an inexperienced President Donald Trump or leading the opposition to anything President Hillary Clinton proposes while becoming the de facto leader in the clubhouse to run against her in 2020. It is a remarkable thing, made less so by the fawning and credulous coverage he receives by a DC media that frames him as both a serious policy wonk and someone unconcerned with political machinations. 

The former is perverse and the latter is baffling. A supposed budget hawk, Ryan has been in Congress for almost half his life and in that time voted for all the stuff that has increased our borrowing (wars, Medicare D expansion, tax cuts, etc.) and against all the stuff that reduces deficits and debt (tax hikes, Obamacare). A budget “framework” he introduced as chairman of that committee was so austere and crippling to the Social Security and Medicare safety net his own party refused to support it. As Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, Ryan was reduced to playing the overeager student in a starched white shirt and striped rep tie while his own policy positions were shunted off to the side for fear of ostracizing moderate voters who like knowing they will have medical coverage in their golden years along with a check from Uncle Sam. 

You would think such a record would relegate Ryan to the dustbin of political history; instead, he became the Speaker of the House largely by not campaigning for the job after a rump group within his own caucus brought down John Boehner. With the rise of Donald Trump, the media have rekindled their romance with the P90X devotee. Back are the stories of him as a chart-loving nerd who cares passionately about the future of our country. Nowhere are the stories of how what he proposes is deeply unpopular and that his own votes in Congress have helped lead to the very problem he says he wants to solve. His tepid response to Trump is seen as principled, not political, with no evidence other than his own self-serving claims to that effect. 

Of course, things have worked out well for Ryan thus far even though his ideas are widely unpopular and given a national platform four years ago he barely made a ripple. Today, he has become the de facto leader of the Republican Party and a media darling who portray him as the last honest man in Washington. At this rate, Ryan may fail his way all the way to the White House. 

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