Tuesday Open Thread [7.7.15]

Gerald Seib: “Mr. Trump is important for two reasons: first for the damage he can do to the Republican Party, and second for the useful lesson he can teach that same party. The potential damage comes largely in the harm he can do—indeed, already may have done—to Republicans’ crucial mission of building better bridges to Hispanics. The lesson comes by way of illustrating the depths of populist anger running through sectors of the GOP right now.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) talked to The Nation: “Now, I’ve known Hillary Clinton for many years. Let me confess: I like Hillary. I disagree with Hillary Clinton on many issues. My job is to differentiate myself from her on the issues—not by personal attacks. I’ve never run a negative ad in my life. Why not? First of all, in Vermont, they don’t work—and, frankly, I think increasingly around this country they don’t work. I really do believe that people want a candidate to come up with solutions to America’s problems rather than just attacking his or her opponent.”

He added: “If you look at politics as a baseball game or a football game, then I’m supposed to be telling the people that my opponents are the worst people in the world and I’m great. That’s crap; I don’t believe that for a second…. I don’t need to spend my life attacking Hillary Clinton or anybody else. I want to talk about my ideas on the issues.”

You say the media is biased? Damned straight it is. It is admittedly biased against the Clintons. Jonathan Allen in Vox spells out the different rules for covering the Clintons.

The Clinton rules are driven by reporters’ and editors’ desire to score the ultimate prize in contemporary journalism: the scoop that brings down Hillary Clinton and her family’s political empire. At least in that way, Republicans and the media have a common interest.

I understand these dynamics well, having co-written a book that demonstrated how Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary’s time at State to build the family political operation and set up for their fourth presidential campaign. That is to say, I’ve done a lot of research about the Clintons’ relationship with the media, and experienced it firsthand. As an author, I felt that I owed it to myself and the reader to report, investigate, and write with the same mix of curiosity, skepticism, rigor, and compassion that I would use with any other subject. I wanted to sell books, of course. But the easier way to do that — proven over time — is to write as though the Clintons are the purest form of evil. The same holds for daily reporting. Want to drive traffic to a website? Write something nasty about a Clinton, particularly Hillary.

As a reporter, I get sucked into playing by the Clinton rules. This is what I’ve seen in my colleagues, and in myself.

You wonder why the Clintons are stand-offish with the media, this is why, and I would be too.

Steven Benen says Donald Trump is driving the debate so far in the GOP primary, and that’s not a good thing for the GOP:

Jeb Bush is talking about Trump. Chris Christie is talking about Trump. Rick Perry is talking about Trump. Mitt Romney is talking about Trump, and he isn’t even a candidate.
Not to put too fine a point on the story, but when one person is effectively controlling the political news cycle and dictating one party’s conversation, it looks quite a bit like this.

And while it’s likely this won’t continue for the rest of 2015, we shouldn’t necessarily expect the chatter to disappear soon, either. Trump will continue to make outrageous comments, which will generate another round of stories, which will lead to more questions for his Republican rivals.

Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post writes in support of Bernie Sanders and his impact on the Democratic primary:

Is Bernie Sanders the political reincarnation of Eugene McCarthy? I doubt it, but let’s hope he makes the Democratic presidential race interesting.

I don’t know if front-runner Hillary Clinton shares my wish, but she ought to. I’m not of the school that believes competition for competition’s sake is always a good thing. But Sanders has an appeal for younger, more liberal, more idealistic Democrats that Clinton presently lacks. If she competes for these voters — and learns to connect with them — she will have a much better chance of winning the White House.

According to Brian Beutler, President Obama’s actions have boxed the Republicans into a backwards and reactionary campaign and corner, and set a favorable playing field for the Democratic nominee.

But across the board, Republican candidates are committed to adjusting the status quo backward. They oppose the Iran negotiations, the normalization of relations with Cuba, and the very notion of an international agreement to curb global warming; they oppose administrative policies, like deferred action and overtime pay rules, that improve the lives of minorities and workers; and they oppose social legislation like the Affordable Care Act. Of the leading GOP presidential candidates, Walker holds the most extreme view that the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage should be reversed and returned to the states. But all of these candidates oppose same-sex marriage, and when conflicts arise between supporters and opponents of marriage equality, they will side with the opponents.

Taken as a whole, these issue positions will make it difficult for Republicans to cast themselves as forward-looking candidates. But the substantive developments themselves share a thematic quality that will do more than complicate the GOP’s branding strategy. They are all designed to force Republican candidates to make unreasonable promises that will be hard to defend in a general election, and harder to execute should a Republican become president. Obama is using his first-mover advantage not just to shore up his own legacy, but to set the terms of the coming presidential campaign favorably for the Democratic nominee.