Saturday Open Thread [1.30.2016]

IOWA—PPP: Clinton 48, Sanders 40, O’Malley 7
NATIONAL—Reuters/Ipsos: Clinton 37, Trump 31, Bloomberg 9 | Clinton 37, Cruz 25, Bloomberg 10

A new Gravis Marketing survey in Iowa finds Donald Trump leading the GOP pack with 31%, followed by Ted Cruz at 27%, Marco Rubio at 13%, Ben Carson at 7% and Jeb Bush at 6%.

Jonathan Chait on the creation of the Trump Party, and the death of the Republican Party:

Trump is offering something genuinely transformational. His candidacy would reshape the Republican Party as more of a European-style white-identity party, rather than a party rooted in opposition to big government. Far-right parties in Europe organize their politics around opposition to immigration and defense of cultural traditionalism. Unlike the Republican Party, they do not take notably right-wing positions on taxes and spending. Indeed, they fuse together social traditionalism with populist economics in a political style some call herrenvolk democracy — a welfare state whose benefits should be restricted to people like us.

What makes the distinction difficult to identify is that Republicans have been using versions of this nationalist appeal for decades. Richard Nixon’s “silent majority,” Ronald Reagan’s disdain for “welfare queens,” both presidents Bush depicting their opponents as elitist fops — these are all iterations of white identity politics. The second President Bush took the racial edge off his appeal without losing the cultural thrust.

That is why, for all the conservative fury directed at Trump, the specifics of the case against him is oddly thin. [….] So if movement conservatives have so little objection to Trump’s racial appeals, what explains the intensity of their rage? The disagreement lies in his commitment. For Republicans, white identity politics is a political style. A Republican presidential candidate might run on Willie Horton and opposing same-sex marriage, but after being elected, he was expected to turn to reducing the top tax rate and deregulating business. Cultural appeal was the means, and economics the ends. What conservatives fear is that Trump might upend that delicate, unstated system by turning the means into the ends.

An interesting thing is happening: President Obama’s poll numbers are rising. The Washington Post reported this week:

President Obama’s job-approval rating has rebounded into positive territory, boosted by improving assessments of his handling of the nation’s economy since 2012 and thawing ratings on handling the terrorist threat, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty percent of Americans approve of Obama’s overall job performance in the new poll, similar to 51 percent in October. While barely positive, Obama’s marks are up slightly from 45 and 46 percent in the past two months…. Fully 50 percent approve of his handling of the economy, while 46 percent disapprove, the best margin in Post-ABC polls since 2009.

In late January of 2008, President Bush’s approving rating was in the high 20’s to low thirties. In fact, President Obama’s approval rating is practically identical to that of Ronald Reagan at this stage of his Presidency. Reagan was at 47% approval in late January, compared to Obama’s 48%, according to Gallup. Nate Silver added yesterday that the latest RealClearPolitics average shows the president’s support reaching its highest point since June 2013. It could be a temporary blip, of course, but Nate added, “Maybe Obama looks a little better in comparison to the unpopular set of candidates they’ve been seeing and hearing so much from lately.”

Wall Street Journal: “In other words, if Mr. Trump wins, it will be because he pulled off a difficult feat: Changing the composition of a conservative electorate to draw in more centrist voters.”

“Iowa has been friendly territory for candidates such as Mr. Cruz, who campaign on a strict adherence to conservative policy. In 2012, almost half of Republican caucus-goers—some 47%—described themselves as “very conservative.” A mere 17% rated themselves ideologically moderate or liberal, with the rest calling themselves ‘somewhat conservative.’”

“But there are signs that the ideological mix of the voting pool could be far different on Monday, likely because of the presence of Mr. Trump. If the signals bear out, Mr. Trump will benefit.”

Larry Sabato and his team at the Crystal Ball tell Taegan Goddard that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the best bets to win the Iowa caucuses.

“Neither one is a sure thing, but the objective evidence mainly points to a win for them. Trump has been ahead by mid-to-high single digits. He’ll lose some points for a poor ground game compared to others. Hard to say what impact Trump’s refusal to go to the debate will have; maybe the net effect is minimal. A Cruz upset is still possible though certainly not probable. Like everyone else, we’re also watching to see how strongly Rubio performs. Is he a close third?”

“If the caucuses were early January as in 2008 and 2012, we’d probably give the edge to Sanders. College students were at home and well dispersed in January. Now they are too heavily concentrated to do for Sanders what they did for Obama–and trying to send a large number of them back home for Monday night, as the Sanders campaign is attempting, is a difficult task. Plus, with the stakes so high for Clinton as she tries to stymie Sanders early on, we think she’ll make good use of her bitter ’08 experience, and pour it on.”

Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, who is advising Sean Barney this year, and who managed Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, agrees.

“Iowa is made for Bernie Sanders but I think Clinton pulls it out.”

For Republicans, he says, “Everything I know about past caucuses points to Ted Cruz winning it, but two things would not surprise me: Marco Rubio and the rest of the field pulling Cruz down below Donald Trump and enough energized Trump supporters turning out to hand him a win anyway.”

In the end, Trippi thinks Cruz will probably prevail “but if Trump pulls out Iowa it means his people will turn out everywhere and Cruz and the rest of the field are in deeper trouble than they know.”

Nate Silver: “Unlike on the Republican side, this isn’t necessarily a choice between head and heart for Democratic voters. Democrats aren’t just backing Clinton because they think she’s more pragmatic or electable; most of them are closer to Clinton than Sanders on the issues. So even if Sanders gained a lot of momentum after the early states, he could have trouble closing the sale with voters who think he’s a little too far to the left.”

“The other factor is that Clinton has the Democratic machine more or less fully behind her.”

“I will be president of the United States.”

— Former Gov. Jim Gilmore, in an interview on MSNBC.

The New York Times says Rubio sees an opening if Trump wins Iowa: “The Florida senator and his advisers have concluded that a head-to-head battle with Mr. Trump over the next several weeks would be much more advantageous than one with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, whose success would greatly complicate Mr. Rubio’s hopes of consolidating his support inside the Republican Party.”

“A victory by Mr. Trump would send panicked Republicans toward Mr. Rubio, his campaign reasons, especially donors who have been reluctant to get behind Mr. Rubio because their allegiances are with other candidates.”

If Trump wins Iowa he is the nominee. There will be no opening. If Trump loses Iowa, and Rubio finishes a strong third, then he has his precious opening.

Kathie Obradovich: “News that the Donald plans to skip Thursday night’s Fox News debate in Iowa was the hubris a la mode to Trump’s not-at-all-humble pie. For a front-runner to skip a debate in Iowa four days before the caucuses takes an ego the size of the Trump Tower. His action may project that he thinks the caucuses are ready to be engraved with his name, but over-confidence can backfire in a close race.”

“There is substance behind Trump’s bravado, however. Five of the six most recent polls have Trump leading Cruz, with margins ranging from 2 to 11 percentage points.”

“The central question about Trump’s Iowa campaign is whether it can convert enough star-struck celebrity watchers into bona fide caucusgoers to win on Monday. Media reports about the strength of the Trump campaign’s ground game are inconclusive. Just because reporters find a lot of people at Trump rallies who don’t seem to know how to caucus doesn’t mean his campaign can’t turn out enough voters to win.”

Mat Bai says everything old is new again: “The truth is that when it comes to challenging orthodoxies, the insurgents on both sides are way more retro than they are radical. And that may be why, no matter what transpires in Iowa Monday, they’re destined to come up short.”

“Presidential elections, Clinton famously said, are always about the future and not about the past…the other possibility, and I’m not dismissing it, is that this is the year when Bill Clinton’s axiom on elections no longer holds true. Perhaps unrest in the country is so profound, the primary electorates so ideologically pure, that nostalgia turns out to be an actual strategy. Maybe we’ve reached a point — after a string of presidencies premised on visions of a future, economic and social, that never fully materialized — where we’d rather retrench than rethink. Maybe this is throwback year, and it’s easier to go backward than look ahead.”