Wednesday Open Thread [5.13.15]

At Vox, Jonathan Allen explores reasons why Hillary Clinton’s move to the left could help her win the general election:

“Here’s the gamble Clinton’s taking: targeted policy shifts will activate key Democratic voting constituencies early in the campaign without alienating swing voters. If it works, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, and straight white men (the group that seems to like her the least among Democrats) will see her as a true champion and remain energized through the general election. Her campaign views the risk of pushing away independents as minimal compared with the advantage of rallying Democrats…”Over time, the landscape has shifted on so many of these issues that now Democrats don’t have to hide from them,” one campaign official said. “The data is pretty clear: the independent voters are on our side on issues like gay marriage. So leaning into them comes with a benefit, not a cost.”

It has always been a myth that there is this large pool of centrist moderate independents out there, and you need to move to the right or center to win them and the election. There are independents, but they are not all centrists. They reflect the ideological divide in the country. There are liberals and progressives who just do not want to be Democrats. There are conservatives who just don’t want to be Republicans.

Andrew Rosenthal:

When a candidate or officeholder says something completely ridiculous, a supporter inevitably claims he or she misheard the question. And so it goes, today, with Ana Navarro, who used to work for Jeb Bush, who used to be governor of Florida, saying he misheard a question about the invasion of Iraq.
The question, from Megyn Kelly of Fox News, was not terribly complicated: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”

Mr. Bush’s answer was that he would have done that. He went on to repeat a variety of half-truths and flat-out false statements about the history of the Iraq war resolution. Ms. Kelly helpfully tried to clarify Mr. Bush’s comments later, but in a way that made little sense.

I am skeptical that he actually misheard it. But whatever. Either way, he will not be President.

Even Ted Cruz… Ted-I was born in Canada and I inherited my father’s insanity-Cruz says he would not have invaded Iraq. So Jeb Bush aligned himself with Dick Darth Cheney.

GOP Presidential hopefuls were asked who they thought where the greatest living President was. They all answered Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan died in June of 2004, eleven years ago. He is no longer living. Or so we thought. We have been joking about it for years, but maybe they really did reanimate the dead corpse of Ronald Reagan.

The reality is they all have to say Reagan because the living Presidents currently stand at Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They can’t say Carter, Clinton and Obama. And if they say either Bush, it will look like a plug of Jebbie Bush, or self serving if you are Jebbie Bush.