Wednesday Open Thread [10.21.15]

NEW HAMPSHIRE—WBUR: Clinton 38, Sanders 34, Biden 9, Webb 2, O’Malley 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—Bloomberg/St. Anselm: Sanders 41, Clinton 36, Biden 10, Webb 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—PPP: Clinton 41, Sanders 33, Biden 11, Webb 2, O’Malley 4, Chafee 2
NEW HAMPSHIRE–Boston Globe/Suffolk University: Clinton 37, Sanders 35, Biden 11.
MASSACHUSETTS—Emerson College: Clinton 59, Sanders 25, Biden, Webb 5, O’Malley 3, Chafee 3

NATIONAL—ABC/Wash Post: Trump 32, Carson 22, Rubio 10, Bush 7, Cruz 6, Fiorina 5, Huckabee 3, Christie 3, Paul 2, Kasich 2, Graham 1, Pataki 1
NATIONAL—Monmouth: Trump 28, Carson 18, Cruz 10, Rubio 6, Fiorina 6, Bush 5, Huckabee 4, Paul 4, Christie 3, Kasich 1, Graham 1, Jindal 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—Bloomberg: Trump 24, Carson 17, Bush 10, Rubio 8, Fiorina 7, Kasich 7, Cruz 4, Paul 4, Christie 5, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1, Graham 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—Boston Herald: Trump 28, Carson 16, Fiorina 10, Bush 9, Rubio 6, Kasich 6, Cruz 5, Paul 5, Christie 3, Huckabee 2, Jindal 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—PPP: Trump 28, Rubio 12, Carson 11, Kasich 10, Bush 9, Cruz 8, Fiorina 7, Paul 4, Christie 3, Santorum 2, Huckabee 1, Graham 1, Jindal 1, Pataki 1
FLORIDA—UNF: Trump 22, Carson 19, Rubio 15, Bush 9, Fiorina 7, Cruz 7, Kasich 4, Christie 1, Huckabee 1
MASSACHUSETTS—Emerson College: Trump 48, Carson 14, Rubio 12, Bush 7, Fiorina 7, Cruz 5, Kasich 3, Christie 2, Graham 1

We have read and watched plenty of interviews of President Obama by someone. But we rarely, if ever, have seen President Obama interview someone. In your must read of the day, President Obama interviews author Marilynne Robinson for New York Review of Books. The President chose the subject, the author, and he drafted and asked the questions.

“We had this idea that why don’t I just have a conversation with somebody I really like and see how it turns out,” Obama says. And Obama really likes Robinson, the author of the gorgeous book Gilead. “I love your books,” he tells her. “Some listeners may not have read your work before, which is good, because hopefully they’ll go out and buy your books after this conversation.”

Obama’s obvious adoration for Robinson’s work is an interesting counterpoint to the religious rumors that have clouded Obama’s presidency. Robinson is one of America’s most celebrated Christian authors. Her books — there have been only three, and each has been a masterpiece — are meditations on faith. Her masterwork, Gilead, takes place from the point of view of a Christian pastor, and is, in Slate’s lovely description, “a spiritual meditation on the mystery of God’s grace.”

One question the President asks reveals a lot:

The President: How do you reconcile the idea of faith being really important to you and you caring a lot about taking faith seriously with the fact that, at least in our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously sometimes are also those who are suspicious of those not like them?

I wonder who he could be talking about. LOL.

Rick Klein says Biden’s pre-campaign hasn’t shown must discipline: “Assuming Joe Biden does run for president – because, why not? – the non-running phase offers some lessons about what a campaign might look like. Consider what we’ve seen so far… Busted deadlines, both self-imposed (end of summer) and imposed by common sense (first debate) have defined the last few months. So have calculated leaks (meetings, phone calls, operational discussions) that have come from outside and not inside the inner circle, making motives and veracity difficult to discern.”

“Realistically, his campaign would start from a standing stop, with those around him knowing what they need to do in the early states, but not starting to actually do it. It may be that Biden missed whatever moment he might have had, a grieving dad who couldn’t make it happen when he would have needed to. Or, he could get in and still surprise the political world. But don’t expect an operation with any more discipline or predictability than surrounds the man himself.”

George W. Bush and I finally agree on something.

Attacking Trump for not being a real conservative won’t work.

Josh Kraushaar: “There’s good reason why Trump has run on a non-traditional Republican platform, one that is skeptical of military intervention, hostile to illegal immigration, and opposed to free trade deals. Last week, he even attacked former President George W. Bush for not anticipating the 9/11 attacks. Trump has been advocating hiking taxes on wealthy corporations and individuals. His past support of abortion rights, and admission that he hasn’t sought forgiveness from God, don’t endear him to evangelicals. But those positions match the ideological profile of his supporters. Trump is no dummy; he’s running a campaign geared towards voters that many Republican candidates, with their emphases on tax cuts, free trade, and immigration reform, have perennially ignored.”

Byron York: “The short version of the problem could be this: An attack ad says Trump is not a conservative. Trump supporters — and other possible GOP voters, as well — say, that’s OK, we’re not conservatives, either… It could mean that the strategy currently on the drawing board won’t work, and might instead backfire on the conservatives who want to push Trump out of the race.”

Daniel Drezner: “The Trump campaign has spent more on hats and T-shirts than on field staff members in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The absence of any grass-roots organization seems particularly problematic if Trump’s voters are not your typical GOP voters. It’s those kind of voters who need an organization pushing and prodding them to the caucuses/voting booths. If Trump collapses, it won’t be like Cain, but more like Howard Dean — someone who seems formidable right up to the moment that people voted.”

So Paul Ryan has announced he will lower himself to be the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and second in line to the Presidency, so long as the Tea Party does everything he wants and never criticizes him. So what happens when the Tea Party Caucus rejects Ryan or does something to displease His Majesty and Ryan walks away?

First Read: “What Ryan essentially told his GOP colleagues: If you do it my way, I’ll be speaker. If not, you better start looking for someone else — and fast. But the House Freedom Caucus members didn’t seem to be buying Ryan’s demands… The danger for the GOP conference, as well as the House Freedom Caucus, is that there doesn’t appear to be an alternative. Then again, lacking an alternative never stopped the GOP opposition to the health-care law or Iran deal. ”

“Yet maybe the biggest danger of Ryan walking away is that it could start an all-out civil war inside the House GOP, with moderate/establishment members bolting (and maybe even deciding not to run re-election) because the House is so ungovernable. If you thought Kevin McCarthy pulling out of the speaker’s race was chaotic, just wait to see what happens if Paul Ryan walks away from the speakership.”

No, there is an alterative: Speaker Peter King or Speaker Pelosi. A bipartisan coalition government that just pays the bills.

Charlie Cook:

One Free­dom Caucus de­mand is to co­di­fy the so-called Hastert Rule, re­quir­ing that a ma­jor­ity of the cham­ber’s Re­pub­lic­ans sup­port a meas­ure be­fore the full House can con­sider it. This would change the House to one in which a plur­al­ity, not a ma­jor­ity, rules. Noth­ing could pass the House without ap­prov­al from 124 Re­pub­lic­ans, the barest ma­jor­ity of the cham­ber’s 247 Re­pub­lic­ans, ef­fect­ively mov­ing the ideo­lo­gic­al cen­ter of grav­ity to the right. This would fur­ther mar­gin­al­ize the House, already the most ideo­lo­gic­al part of the elec­ted gov­ern­ment.

Here’s the di­lemma for House Re­pub­lic­ans. The Re­fuseniks have made it clear that they won’t ac­cept an es­tab­lish­ment choice, with the pos­sible—though not cer­tain—ex­cep­tion of Ry­an. Un­stated, but equally true, is that a much lar­ger num­ber of main­stream Re­pub­lic­ans won’t ac­cept any­one from the Free­dom Caucus or sym­path­et­ic to it. Not want­ing the tail to wag the dog, they’re un­will­ing to give in to what they see as a few dozen mem­bers tak­ing the speak­er­ship host­age. The GOP’s ma­jor­ity is pretty firmly en­trenched, but a sure­fire way to be­come a minor­ity again is for the House to ad­opt the Free­dom Caucus’s agenda. Keep in mind that the elect­or­ate next year, when the pres­id­ency is on the bal­lot, is very dif­fer­ent from the older, whiter, more-con­ser­vat­ive, and more-Re­pub­lic­an voters who gave the GOP an im­press­ive ma­jor­ity in 2014.

Markos on the Clinton bounce she received from the debate and why Sanders supporters are partly to blame for it:

I too thought she “won” the debate. […] She didn’t out-debate Sanders. He was great. And she was great. In a neutral world, I’d say they both acquitted themselves well, and the polling above bears that out—Clinton improved and Sanders either improved or stayed even. Neither candidate flopped.

But Sanders’ supporters spent the last six months telling everyone that the DNC was protecting Clinton with its ridiculous debate schedule, which was true. But many of his supporters went further—that Clinton was afraid to debate, that Sanders would crush her head-to-head. They also spent months painting a caricature of Clinton that simply wasn’t based on reality—that she was dull, that she was a neoliberal, etc, etc.

So you’d be excused if you tuned in to the debate expecting her to sound like Mitt Romney (and about as engaging as him, as well). You’d be excused if you ended up surprised that Clinton could take command of the stage, confident rather than afraid.

So Clinton didn’t win because she was better than Sanders, she won because she far exceeded the expectations that Sanders’ supporters themselves created. In politics, you don’t make news when you meet expectations (Bernie was as awesome as everyone expected him to be), you make news when you either blow expectations away, or you blow up. And she certainly didn’t blow up.

So a lesson to underdogs: you’re supposed to lower expectation for YOUR guy, not the front-runner. And for crissakes, don’t underestimate Clinton! She’s actually a damn impressive political figure, and talking her down got you nothing in the end.

One final note, take a look at the Democratic poll trendlines above once more, and notice Sanders’ flatline. That’s what maxing out the white, educated, liberal Democratic electorate looks like. He’s gotta bust out of that if he’s going to be competitive past the two early states.