State of the Race August 22, 2015--Trumpamania Runnin' Wild!

Here we are in the latter part of August.  The dog days of summer are upon us but the sun is moving southward.  The days are growing shorter, the temperatures are getting cooler, and soon the winter of our discontent will be fully upon us.

At this point in the presidential nomination cycle all we have is speculation.  Not a single vote has been cast for a single candidate.  Yet, the press needs something to cover in order to drive viewers to their channels or readers to their newspapers.  So why not manufacture a little sensationalism now and then? Why not talk about Donald Trump all day and all night?  Why not lead Americans to think our borders are porous and hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal Mexican rapists are flooding across them every day?  Why not speculate about how many laws Hillary Clinton may or may not have broken by using a private e-mail server when she was Secretary of State?  After all, doing so leads more and more Americans to become disgusted with their government and lose confidence in its ability to address our problems.  No, let's not talk about the good things government does or the real problems that need to be solved.  That, dear friends, wouldn't secure viewers and readers.  So let's focus on Trumpamania instead.

Will 'The Donald' be the eventual nominee of the Republican Party?  I don't have the answer to that question but I suspect not.  Donald Trump is a showman with an exuberant personality.  Lots of people like that.  He has a following from years of firing contestants on a reality show that he was paid millions of dollars to appear on.  That gives him something that the majority of the other candidates in the Republican field do not have...name recognition.  Presidential primary preference polls in August almost always reflect name recognition rather than voter preferences based on policy proposals.  Four years ago the leading candidate in Iowa and in several national polls was...Michelle Bachmann.  Remember how well her candidacy went?  She dropped out after the first votes were cast.  In 2007, Mitt Romney was leading in Iowa in August but Mike Huckabee won the caucus the following January.  His campaign sputtered and died shortly thereafter.  The last time Iowa actually mattered was 1999 when George W. Bush was leading and won the caucus.  Of course, Bush was running a campaign with only one serious opponent, John McCain, whose campaign came to a screeching halt after the Bush campaign sponsored robocalls in South Carolina claiming McCain had fathered a black child.  The point is, the polls right now are almost irrelevant.  They tell us nothing about who might be the eventual Republican nominee, though they probably tell us more about who will not.  The question is not whether Trump will be the nominee but who stands to gain as the field begins to shrink?

The latest CNN poll has Donald Trump at 24%, which means 76% of potential GOP voters selected somebody else as their first choice.  There are two other candidates competing for the 'mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore' segment of the vote, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz.  Together they are polling at 14%.  Neither will be the Republican nominee.  Earlier this week Carson suggested to CNN that it would be okay to use drones on the border to blow people away.  Cruz cannot win because even Republicans don't like him.  So, the question is whether the 14% these two are getting right now will go to Trump when they drop out of the race?  I don't see that as very likely, which means Trump's support may well have peaked at 24%.

The rest of the field appeals to two or three segments of the GOP electorate.  There is a very small libertarian contingent who support the now faltering campaign of Rand Paul, who polls at 6% in the latest poll.  If Paul ends his bid early, Cruz or Carson might pick up a few of these voters but they are unlikely to embrace Trumpism.  Cruz or Carson might also benefit from the failure of Mike Huckabee's campaign, which is mired at 4% right now.  Huck's support is mostly drawn from white evangelicals who want a candidate that embodies their faith based principles.  That candidate will not be the thrice divorced, four times bankrupt Donald Trump.

More business oriented Republicans also have a few choices in the GOP field.  The top three candidates appealing to this segment are Fiorina (5%), Christie (3%), and perhaps Walker (8%).  Of these three, Walker probably stands to gain the most when the other two close up shop and hope for cabinet posts.  Fiorina is most realistically running for Secretary of Labor while Christie could aim for Attorney General depending upon who the eventual nominee ends up being.

That leaves us with the remaining three contenders, who are more or less establishment Republicans that are likely to appeal to the less extreme conservative segment of the electorate.  Jeb Bush is the elephant in the party but he has a ton of baggage to overcome if he hopes to be the nominee.  The single biggest obstacle is his last name.  The last two presidents from the GOP were his brother George W. and his father.  Republicans, and Americans as a whole, may just have had enough Bushes for awhile, especially given how disastrous the ending of George W. Bush's presidency ended up.  Americans aren't likely to forget that the economy ended up in the worst recession since the 1930's under GW Bush, which is not to assign blame, though many Americans will associate that with GOP policies just as the Great Depression led to 20 years of dominance by FDR and Truman's Democrats.  The latest poll has Jeb at 13% in second place, right where he has been since Trump entered the race.  The other problem for Jeb is that he is competing in a similar space for support with Rubio (8%) and Kasich (5%), both of whom bring to the table all that Bush does but without his last name.  Another establishment candidate picking up a couple points is Rick Perry (2%).  So here's how it looks if we consider the support levels by category rather than by candidate.

Establishment      28%
Trumpamania      24%
Evangelical         18%
Business              16%
Other                   14%

The race will begin to consolidate in the fall as candidates fail to raise financial support and make traction with potential voters.  The question will be who stands to benefit?  Apart from Trump, who doesn't need financial support, money will be a serious barrier preventing many of these candidates from making it to Iowa next February.  We'll know a lot more by mid-October when the third quarter fundraising numbers are released.  From what we know right now, Jeb is flush with cash between his campaign and the Super PACs supporting his candidacy.  Perry is in deep trouble and all but out of the race.  Walker is relying on Super PACs and 501(c)4 money (from the Koch organization) so he'll likely remain viable through Iowa.  Cruz is banking on a strong showing in the SEC primary (8 southern states on March 1, 2016).

Overall, I think the Trump candidacy is more of a flirtation by disgruntled GOP voters than an Ashley Madison arranged affair.  Little by little they will begin to see that the emperor has no clothes and they'll move on.  Many will do what Republicans always do, which is fall in line behind the party's choice.  Right now, I'd put my money on Bush, Rubio, or Kasich as the eventual nominee.  I think Bush or Rubio will be somewhere on the GOP ticket, whether as the nominee or the VP candidate.

I'll update the rankings and information as we progress through the fall and get closer to the actual voting.  For now, enjoy Trumpamania runnin' wild all over you!

Deja Vu? 2004 or 2012?

As this long summer campaign continues it becomes more and more apparent that 2012 has a lot in common with 2004, at least from an electoral perspective.  Like 2004, 2012 is a presidential election year featuring an incumbent wrapping up his first term with middling approval ratings.  At a similar point in July 2004, an NBC/Wall St. Journal Poll found President George W. Bush with a 48% approval rating.  Eight years later the most recent NBC/Wall St. Journal Poll gives President Obama a 49% approval rating.

In 2004, the nation was experiencing tepid economic growth rates in what was called a 'jobless recovery' from the recession of 2003.  Today, economic growth is exceptionally slow following the depression of 2007-09.  The unemployment rate when George W. Bush became president was 4.2% and rising.  It rose 50% to peak at 6.3% in the summer of 2003 before declining to 5.6% by July 2004.  Unemployment when Barack Obama became president stood at 8.3% and rose another 20% to peak at 10% in October 2009 before slowly declining to its current 8.2% level.

The 2004 Presidential Election featured a likable president, with less than stellar approval ratings, facing off against privileged Vietnam War vet and multi-millionaire, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.  America was in the midst of two wars, one becoming very unpopular and a drag on the incumbent.  Senator Kerry's strength was his military experience so the incumbent strategy was to cast doubt upon the senator's fitness to be Commander in Chief.  The effort led to the Swift Boat attacks against Senator Kerry shortly before election day as well as attempts to cast doubt on President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard.  The continued fear of terrorist attacks made Americans hesitant to change administrations in the midst of two wars.

Fast forward to 2012.  Both of the wars from 2004 are winding down and the economy is recovering slowly from the steep cliff it went over in 2008.  The Presidential Election features a blue blood challenger in former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with mediocre likability ratings and an incumbent president who is likable but struggling with his approval ratings.  Unlike in 2004, President Obama will not have the fear of terrorism to boost his campaign.  The focus is, and will remain, on the economy.  Thus, the president and his team will seek to cast doubt on Governor Romney's claims that he can fix the economy based on his business experience at Bain Capital.  The Romney team will argue that the president's policies have failed to turn things around.

The latest polls show the race in a virtual dead heat, not an enviable position for an incumbent to be in.  But it is a position remarkably similar to where President Bush found himself in 2004.  In 2004, the incumbent prevailed by 2.5 percentage points in the popular vote.  The race essentially came down to a single state, as it had four years earlier.  In 2000, as everybody knows, it was 'Florida, Florida, Florida' in the words of the late Tim Russert.  In 2004, it was Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.  President Bush carried the state by 118,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast.  A swing of just 60,000 votes would have given Ohio's 20 electoral votes, and the presidency, to Senator Kerry.  President Bush was helped by a late October video released by Osama bin Laden taking credit for the 9/11 attacks, stirring up a fresh reminder to stay the course in the war against terrorism.  Will there be an 'October Surprise' for President Obama as he urges Americans to stay the course and have faith that his policies will eventually lead to the economic recovery Americans want and need?  Only time will tell.

Romney: Wrong for Detroit, Wrong for America

It's time to admit what has been painfully clear to many Americans for a long time:  Willard 'Mitt' Romney is a terrible candidate to be President of the United States.  No, it isn't because he's not qualified.  I believe he has as much, if not more qualification to be president than any of the other GOP hopefuls and perhaps even our current president, though if three years of on the job experience doesn't qualify someone I don't know what does.  And it's not because Willard is unlikable, either.  I think he's probably a swell guy to hang out with at the country club, sipping vermouth and chatting about everything he's done to save businesses, the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, and Massachusetts.  No, those things are all good accomplishments and he should be applauded for whatever role he played in them.

The problem for Willard Romney is that he is a stranger to the truth.  He has apparently never made its acquaintance.  Even after it has been demonstrated time and time again that if Presidents Bush and Obama had followed Gov. Romney's advice the only automobiles manufactured in the U.S. today would be Japanese and German automobiles made in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.  Michigan would be a barren wasteland with plenty of trees at the right height but no automobile companies.  Beyond the job losses for the hated United Auto Workers would have been the suppliers to the industry, the truck drivers who deliver the vehicles, the restaurants that serve the workers, and so on and on.  It would have been the largest collapse in American history and Willard Romney advocated that the U.S. Government just stand by and watch it happen.

Over and over on the campaign trail he has talked about letting GM and Chrysler go through a 'managed bankruptcy' financed by private capital.  Nice in theory, but impossible in the economic conditions of 2008-09, as economist Steven Rattner discussed in the NY Times on Friday.  There simply was no private capital available.  The result would have been the liquidation of GM, Chrysler, and perhaps Ford (who didn't accept government loans but would have experienced supply disruptions that might have paralyzed the company).

It's one thing to be wrong about an issue at a time when foresight is limited.  If 2008 had been a normal recession perhaps Romney's approach would have been the right one to take.  But it wasn't and both President Bush and President Obama deserve credit for recognizing that fact when few others did.  It is entirely another thing to double down and insist that a prior position was correct when hindsight demonstrates it was clearly wrong.  A healthy and profitable U.S. auto industry (GM turned it's largest profit in history in 2011) shows that Romney was wrong then and continues to be wrong today.  President Bush recently affirmed that he made the right decision and he'd do it again.  Just one more reason Willard Romney is wrong for America.