Tuesday Open Thread [5.5.15]

John Dickerson:

In the first act of the Hillary Clinton v. Bernie Sanders competition, the candidates are following the latter route: It’s all snuggle. Sen. Sanders announced that he was running for president Thursday and trained his fire on Republicans. He needs attention and he could have gotten it by showing the clear differences between his views and Clinton’s—but he didn’t. He says he will fight for the middle class (which is also Clinton’s message), but he didn’t give voice to the liberals who believe that Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and big money will prevent her from ever genuinely fighting for the middle class. (He knows they believe this because voters tell him so on the stump.) She calls herself the “people’s champion.” Sanders could have pointed out that he has been the real tribune of working people, but he didn’t do that either. When pressed about donations to the Clinton foundation, Sanders said it concerned him before quickly changing the subject to the Koch brothers and how much worse their influence is in politics. That is what Clinton allies do.

Jonathan Chait:

Now that he is no longer the chairman of the Federal Reserve and is now a blogger, Ben Bernanke is free to point out certain obvious truths he couldn’t say previously, such as the fact that The Wall Street Journal editorial page is run by crazy people. Bernanke is not quite putting it in those terms, alas, but his blogging career is young. In response to a Journal editorial calling for higher interest rates to tame inflation, Bernanke notes that the Journal has been wrongly forecasting higher inflation for nine years now.

Ouch, Jonathan Cohn:

Anything can happen in politics. But the last time an obscure lefty from Vermont ran for president, he didn’t win a single primary or caucus outside of his home state and the District of Columbia. Sanders’ campaign is likely to produce a similar result. Like Howard Dean and some other upstarts from electoral history, however, Sanders could influence the race — by making arguments that Clinton will have to address and, in the process, pulling the debate and ultimately Clinton’s platform to the ideological left.

Ed Kilgore on why Hillary is pursuing a progressive campaign: It’s because she can’t reassemble the Clinton Coalition, so she is going to use the Obama Coalition instead:

So the thinking person’s empirically oriented conservative political analyst, Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics, has an interesting piece suggesting that the apparent decision of Hillary Clinton to run a progressive-leaning campaign is a sign not of any real confidence it’s the winning formula, but of the absence of any alternative.

Sean’s playing off a TNR column by Brian Beutler suggesting that HRC has reason to believe she can keep the “Obama coalition” together and that it will continue to be enough for victory in a presidential election. Trende points to some reasons he thinks that calculation may be wrong, but argues HRC’s probably making the best of a bad hand because the “Clinton coalition,” which included many blue-collar white voters, is gone forever.

I don’t want to put any words in Brian’s mouth, but I’d say Sean’s missing another possibility. Sure, the days are gone for good where any Democrat, even Bill Clinton’s wife, is going to try to appeal to white-working class voters on cultural grounds, as the 42d president famously did in 1992 and 1996. But appealing to some of them on a “populist” economic message, as HRC is showing every sign of doing, couldn’t do worse and might do better than the conventional Democratic pitch.

Charlie Cook: “People embark on a presidential odyssey for a wide variety of reasons. Some have very plausible chances of winning, but in the back of their minds, they might also see a running-mate slot or Cabinet position as a possible consolation prize. Others—à la Jimmy Carter—may not seem obviously viable but are hoping for lightning to strike. Some may have a specific issue or agenda that they want to spotlight or advance, while others are just looking to boost book sales or speaking gigs. For good measure, toss in a little ego gratification from the attention.”

“But the fact that we are looking at such an enormous number of GOP candidates in this year’s cycle tells us a few more important things. First, there is a strong sense that the hierarchical tradition of Republican presidential nominations may not apply in 2016. Jeb Bush is not intimidating anyone out of this race; the fact that this field is expanding rather than contracting underscores that point and reflects the reality that this is a wide-open contest, more so than any GOP nomination race in modern history… Second, it is a sign that with our political process awash in money, the financial barriers for entry aren’t really there anymore.”

First Read: “Bernie Sanders’ official entrance into the 2016 presidential race is most likely a good outcome for Hillary Clinton. Why? He will elevate many of the issues that Clinton and the entire Democratic Party want to discuss during the primary season (income inequality, curtailing the role of big money in presidential politics, climate change). And he’ll do so as someone who isn’t interested in scoring political points — especially in the form of negative attacks — against Hillary. Hillary’s Harlem (err Brooklyn) Globetrotters now has its Washington (err Vermont) Generals. The question we have is whether it’s enough competition to up Hillary’s game.”

Nate Cohn: “The presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described socialist who will most likely champion the liberal cause, won’t change that fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton is poised to win the Democratic nomination without a serious contest.”

“This is mainly because of Mr. Sanders’s own weaknesses as a candidate and Mrs. Clinton’s strengths. But there is another, strangely simple reason Mrs. Clinton will have an easy road to the nomination: The left wing of the Democratic Party just isn’t big enough to support a challenge to the left of a mainstream liberal Democrat like Mrs. Clinton.”

Mark Murray: “When asked in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which issue should be the top priority for the federal government to address, Republican primary voters’ leading response was national security and terrorism (27 percent said it was their first choice). That’s followed by the deficit and government spending (24 percent), job creation and economic growth (21 percent) and religious and moral values (12 percent).”

“By comparison, the top priority for Democrats in the poll was job creation and economic growth (37 percent) — followed by health care (17 percent), climate change (15 percent) and national security and terrorism (13 percent).”