Friday Open Thread [11.6.2015]

IOWA—CNN/ORC: Clinton 55, Sanders 37, O’Malley 3
NORTH CAROLINA—Elon University: Clinton 57, Sanders 24, O’Malley 3

IOWA—CNN/ORC: Trump 25, Carson 23, Rubio 13, Cruz 11, Bush 5, Fiorina 4, Jindal 4, Christie 3, Huckabee 2, Kasich 2, Paul 2, Graham 2
NORTH CAROLINA—Elon University: Carson 31, Trump 19, Rubio 10, Cruz 10, Bush 5, Fiorina 3, Huckabee 3, Christie 2, Paul 2, Kasich 1, Graham 1

Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee “have failed to qualify for the prime time Republican debate on November 10, making them the first top-tier candidates to be relegated to the undercard round,” CNN reports. Meanwhile, George Pataki and Sen. Lindsey Graham “failed to qualify for the undercard debate, meaning they will not appear at all when Republicans gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next week.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 271,000 jobs were created in October — significantly higher than expectations — while the unemployment rate fell to 5%, the Wall Street Journal reports. Thanks, Obama.

“He had principles, but he also had common sense. And when you look at both how he managed foreign policy and when you think about how he handled domestic policy in each case he was thoughtful, restrained, and made good decisions. And I think that ultimately he was one of the more underrated presidents that we’ve ever had certainly in modern times.”

— President Obama, quoted by the Huffington Post, on former President George H.W. Bush.

You know we are living in an Onion world when the latest Ben Carson headlines say that “the details of his autobiography are in fact fictitious” and that “Presidential Candidate insists that he did try to kill a child.” Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post finds that Carson’s claims about the Founding Fathers having no elected experience “absurd”.

Carson needs to hit the history books, or at least do a Google search. More than half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had elected office experience. Indeed, one reason why the American Revolution was successful is because it was led by men with many years in politics, political action and protest, often honed in the debates held in Colonial legislatures. In many ways, the background of the Founding Fathers undercuts the very argument Carson was trying to make.

Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen examines three other false Carson claims:

While Ben Carson undoubtedly holds a medical degree—and a highly distinguished neurosurgery career—his comments regarding other fields of medicine have often raised eyebrows. […] In 2002, Carson received a diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer, and underwent surgery to treat it soon afterward. He adopted an organic diet as a complementary treatment.

But during a 2004 speech for a group of investors at Mannatech, Carson did not actually credit the surgery for his recovery. Instead, prior to the surgery, he discovered glyconutrients, a type of sucrose purported to enhance communication between cells (and conveniently happened to be produced and sold by Mannatech) […] It’s nearly impossible to search for the term “glyconutrients” and not see the word “sham” in the same article. (In fact, here’s a paper from the Oxford Journal of Glycobiology entitled “A ‘Glyconutrient Sham.’”) To date, while glycobiology is a legitimate academic field on its own, few studies have shown glyconutrients to have any effect on human health, much less cancer: “It doesn’t really do anything except increase flatulence,” Dr. Hudson Freeze from the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute told ABC.

And now that is the image (and sound) that will stay with me. Ben Carson. The Flatulent Choice.

Jonathan Chait: “A new paper by political scientist Corwin Smidt… documents the decline of swing voters, or (as many political scientists call them) ‘floating voters,’ which means voters who pull the lever for a different party than the one they supported in the previous election. From the 1950s through the 1980s, 10 to 15 percent of voters floated between the two parties in presidential elections. Recently that rate has fallen to about 5 percent.”

“The sorting of American politics into semipermanent, warring camps unfolded over decades… But every effort to break the stalemate in the age of polarization has failed. Red-state Democrats and blue-state Republicans have tried to create separate, localized identities for their candidates that can allow them to compete in hostile terrain. It doesn’t work because elections at every level have increasingly grown nationalized. The divide between red and blue America is comprehensive.”

The true swing voter is like a white elephant: rare. I only have one in my life. What the media considers “swing voters” are really just annoying Independents that do in fact have ideological preferences one way or the other, but can only be motivated to vote on rare occasions. Obama brought a lot of these voters out in 2008. Bernie Sanders is attempting to do the same thing now. George W. Bush brought a lot of these voters out on the right in 2004, and the selection of Sarah Palin brought a lot of these voters out to vote for McCain.

Rick Klein: “Beneath the churn, polling is starting to suggest a modicum of stability inside the Republican race. Donald Trump may look weaker of late in a head-to-head with Ben Carson, but both men are polling consistently in the mid 20s – your first tier. The other two candidates who crack double digits – Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz – mark a second tier. The third tier could be the rest of those who make the main stage at debates – a shrinking group, potentially, based on how Fox Business News decides to handle things. Then there’s the rest of the field, mired in the low single digits and struggling to get out. Movement is possible, of course, in the coming months. But for all the odd developments in the race to date, it looks like things are stabilizing – to the frustration of anyone not in the top four right now.”

The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg writes that Chris Christie has more of a shot at the nomination than you think:

That’s not to say he’s got a good shot. But there’s a clear path for him. Christie is following the McCain strategy and is simply setting up shop in New Hampshire. His gifts as a candidate are almost perfectly suited for New Hampshire town halls. If he wins in New Hampshire, there’s plenty of precedent that he could go all the way after that.

On Morning Joe just now they ran this video from the Huffington Post showing Christie talking about drug addiction and treatment. Whatever you think of the issues involved, you can see how this would leave a lasting impression, particularly in a state struggling with a major heroin problem. It’s also a good example of why I think he’s got a shot.

I think he has more of a shot than Bush or Kasich do.

First Read says the GOP is still dealing with the Bush Legacy, as well they should: “If there’s a bigger story behind the last 24 hours of back-and-forth over George H.W. Bush’s comments about Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld not serving his son well, it’s maybe this — the Republican Party still hasn’t resolved George W. Bush’s legacy. And it’s not just a problem for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign; it’s a problem for the entire party.”

“You see this when it comes to the presidential field’s rhetoric on ISIS and Russia (is military force and swagger the best approach, or is it diplomacy and multilateralism?); you see it when it comes to debates about the size of government (is government spending a force for good or bad?); you see it when it comes to tax cuts (should they be skewed to the Top 1% or to the middle class?); and you see it when it comes to immigration (was Bush right or wrong to pursue comprehensive immigration reform?).

“Yes, the Republican Party is back in control of the House and Senate after the Bush 43 years. And, yes, the GOP continues to win political races (see this week’s contest in Kentucky). Yet perhaps the Republican Party’s biggest challenge in winning back the White House in 2016 is resolving — once and for all — what happened from 2001-2008.”