Iran: American sailors are crybabies

The New Neo Posted on by

Iran doesn’t miss an opportunity to rub it in:

A senior Iranian military commander in charge of the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that the 10 U.S. sailors who were recently captured and subsequently released by the Islamic Republic “started crying after [their] arrest,” according to Persian language comments made during military celebrations this weekend.

Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the IRGC, which is responsible for boarding the U.S. ships and arresting the sailors, claimed in recent remarks, the “American sailors started crying after arrest, but the kindness of our Guard made them feel calm.”

Hossein went on to brag that the incident provides definitive evidence of the Iranian military’s supremacy in the region.

“Since the end of the Second World War, no country has been able to arrest American military personnel,” the commander said, according to an independent translation of his Persian-language remarks made Friday during a “martyrs’ commemoration ceremony” in Isfahan.

Since the capture and release of the U.S. sailors this week, critics of the Obama administration’s handling of the situation have expressed embarrassment at State Department’s move to profusely thank Iran, despite its release of photos depicting the sailors on their knees with their hands held over their heads.

Every one of the Republican candidates should lay this at the feet of Obama/Clinton’s policies. Want more of the same? Elect Hillary.

Note

The New Neo Posted on by

I mentioned yesterday that today I was going to write a response to Ira’s hypothetical. I got sidetracked, though, into other topics, but I plan to take it up on Monday—or to take up the essence of the question Ira is asking.

Just thought I’d mention it, for those who were waiting for it and wondering where my response had gone.

Mark Levin: back and forth, and back and forth, on Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

This critique of Trump from a conservative—and anti-immigration—point of view was published in Conservative Review, a venue edited by lawyer and conservative talk show host Mark Levin. Levin is an influential conservative thinker, who four years ago disapproved of Trump, but who has been highly supportive of him in the 2016 campaign.

Till now.

I wrote this post back in August describing the changes in Levin’s position from the 2012 campaign to this 2016 campaign.. At the time I wrote that post, Levin (who I don’t believe comes out with formal endorsements, at least not during an early stage in the primaries) was very pro-Trump. In addition, it was Levin himself who (among others) had been instrumental in helping to create an atmosphere among his many listeners that prepared the ground for Trump by having been extremely critical of Republican “establishment” regulars for years.

That’s not to say the Republicans didn’t do their level best to prove him right in many, many instances where they profoundly disappointed their base.

Then, when Trump became a candidate for 2016, Levin praised him, seeming to ignore the Trump flaws and inconsistencies for which Levin had excoriated Trump back in 2011-2012. Although Trump’s history hadn’t been erased, Levin’s objections to that history seemed to have been obliterated.

But recently, since Trump has been stirring up the Cruz-birther brouhaha, Levin’s been showing signs of buyer’s remorse. Now, through the publication of articles such as Daniel Horowitz’s in Conservative Review, and through some of Levin’s own statements, Levin is pointing out Trump’s inconsistencies and missteps and flaws once again.

But you know what? It may be too little, too late. I predict that many Trump supporters are going to choose their hero Trump over Levin. I’ve noticed it before; if someone turns on Trump, they turn on him/her as a sellout.

Today Levin has issued a warning to Trump. He calls it “friendly advice.” But it doesn’t sound so friendly to me. In it, he refers to the sort of things that Trump has been doing lately, and addresses Trump directly:

Either cut the crap – your accusations this morning that Cruz is Canadian, a criminal, owned by big banks, etc. (see link below) – or you will lose lots and lots of conservatives. Save the liberal New York City bully tactics for the New York City liberals. Put down your computer keyboard for a few hours, think before you tweet, and collect yourself. You’re not politically invincible, regardless of the polls and media. I am already hearing more and more people getting fed up with the low road you’re taking against Cruz, which has obviously intensified this morning. You don’t need to attack his honor or attempt to smear his reputation. You can leave that to Mitch McConnell and the New York Times. Engage on real and substantive issues that matter to the country. Like I said, my friendly advice.

Interesting. Dr. Frankenstein has helped to create a Trump-monster that he may not be able to control. Perhaps Levin is only now learning—or re-learning—what Trump is all about.

Prisoner swap with Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

The good news: four Americans imprisoned in Iran appear to be on their way to returning home. A fifth apparently is being released as well, in a separate deal of some sort.

The bad news: seven Iranians held in the US for violating sanctions are being sent back to Iran.

This is rich:

Another official said that the exchange was a “one-time arrangement because it was an opportunity to bring Americans home,” and should not be considered something that would “encourage this behavior in the future” by Iran.

That is, to be blunt about it, garbage.

Here’s more:

The officials did not tie the release directly to the nuclear talks and said they had not wanted the detained Americans to be “used as leverage” in the negotiations. But, they said, completion of the nuclear deal last July greatly accelerated talks about the prisoners.

There are also reports of a clause that says that “the United States will no longer pursue the extradition of 14 Iranians alleged to have been involved in trafficking arms to Iran.” I’m not sure what that’s referring to, but here’s a rumor about it, although I have no idea whether or not the following is true:

Iran’s official news agency, Fars, is reporting that, in exchange for the release of the 4 US civilians Iran held hostage, the Obama administration agreed to pressure Interpol to stop all investigations of the Iranians who bombed the Jewish social center in Argentina.

Here is the Fars report: “Under the same swap deal, the US has also demanded the Interpol to stop prosecution of 14 other Iranian nationals.”

Those are the 14 Iranians who bombed the Jewish social center in Argentina. Of course, Iran may be lying about the Obama Administration’s concession. But if the Administration actually did make the concession, it is the most craven, disgusting act I can imagine. The Administration needs to clear this up, and fast.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s information on the seven prisoners the US freed, and what violations they had committed. Six of the released men have dual citizenship, and all will be allowed to stay in the US. If you look at what they’ve done, one can only hope these guys will be monitored in the future. I have my doubts.]

Natural-born citizen: why doesn’t Cruz ask for a resolution from Congress, or for a declaratory judgment from the courts?

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s really been fascinating to see the way Trump and the MSM has handled the Cruz-birther issue, as well as how the blogosphere has reacted. I see the questions everywhere—which is exactly what Trump and his forces want. The way it’s been going lately is to put out this oh-so-helpful sort of suggestion: Ted Cruz could settle this. All he has to do is ask Congress to pass a resolution saying he’s a natural-born citizen, as they did for colleague John McCain. And/or: Cruz should go to the courts and seek a declaratory judgment.

Voila! Problems solved! So, why not do those things?

The answer to the first question is fairly straightforward. When the Senate issued that statement that McCain was a natural-born citizen and therefore eligible to run, McCain was already the Republican nominee. Cruz is not.

But even more importantly, the Senate did it for their colleague McCain because he was their guy. He’d been a senator forever and had played the Senate game very nicely. But Mitch McConnell has already stated he will not do that for Cruz. McConnell didn’t mention it, but Cruz called McConnell a liar on the Senate floor a while back—remember? Think McConnell’s going to do him any favors? McConnell does not want him to be the nominee. He wants this issue to hurt Cruz.

Cruz had a choice—sell out to McConnell and what the blogosphere is fond of calling “the establishment” once he got to Congress, or keep his promises. He chose to do the latter in a very uncompromising way, and ruffled many feathers. You may or may not think that was wise, but that’s what happened.

So, on to the next question. Why doesn’t Cruz just get a declaratory judgment from the courts, like the ever-so-helpful Trump and a million gazillion Trumpbots jumping on the bandwagon say he should?

Because it’s almost certain that he can’t get a court to rule on the issue. Understanding why requires understanding some legal concepts that aren’t that easy to assimilate, but I’ll let J. Christian Adams, whose bio is here and who was in the Justice Department under Bush, explain it, because he can do it better than I:

First, court cases require a real case or controversy. Without it, courts do not have jurisdiction to hear a case. The term “case or controversy” mean more than “Donald Trump thinks there is a case or controversy.” It means a genuine clash of interests is occurring.

Trump and his cronies in Atlantic City government, for example, wanted to take Vera Coking’s home. She wanted to keep it. Thus, a real case or controversy existed, and courts had the power to hear the case.

A case or controversy requirement in federal court is a constitutional limit on the power of government. It restrains unelected judges from meddling in affairs they shouldn’t. It means government has less power because judges can’t simply declare things to be. It is a requirement born out of reverence for limiting government power.

Second, who would have standing to bring the Cruz declaratory judgment case?

Standing is another legal concept that limits the power of government. If a plaintiff in a federal court case has not suffered an injury of some sort, the court has no authority to hear the matter and meddle in the affairs of American citizens…Cruz has suffered no injury. He is on the ballot, not off. Cruz has only suffered injury from Trump’s bombast. That isn’t enough to give a court power.

Standing cannot be had because there might be a speculative injury in the future. Speculative injuries are not yet “ripe.” Ripeness is another way that the Constitution limits the power of the federal courts over our lives. Judges have no authority to “declare” anything when no injury has occurred.

Perhaps you’ve noticed a trend about Trump and limits on the power of government.

Finally, who would the defendant be in Trump’s outlandish “declaratory judgment” case?

Trump himself? The news media? Fox Business Network? The Atlantic City Casino Reinvestment Development Authority would serve as good as a defendant as any. The bottom line is that there is no defendant injuring Ted Cruz over Trump’s legally flawed birther attack.

The American system of justice is respected because the courts have restrained powers. Restraints on the power of judges to declare this or that fact are important because they prevent judges from issuing edicts when they have no constitutional authority to do so.

But if you’re Trump, it’s better to insinuate that Cruz could do this and that he should do this. Trump hopes that if he says this it will stick, because he is counting on the ignorance of the American people about legal matters. I doubt that Trump himself is ignorant of such things, as one of the most litigious people around.

Hey, but Trump’s the only one who’s tough on immigration, right? So nothing else he does or doesn’t do matters, right? Or is he?:

There are those who don’t want to discuss any of the numerous liberal positions Trump has taken or still holds on so many critical issues””income taxes, the internet sales tax, the role of the courts, abortion, guns, etc.””because they suggest that immigration is all that matters.

There is nobody more sympathetic to that argument than I am [“I” is Daniel Horowitz, author of the article being quoted here]. Immigration stands at the nexus of sovereignty, security, society, and numerous fiscal and economic issues. See my exhaustive article on how our backwards immigration policies will create a permanent Democrat majority, rendering every other policy issue moot. I’ve written several hundred articles on this issue and am in the process of writing a very detailed book on immigration, sovereignty, and the courts.

But as is the case with so many other issues where [Trump] was siding with the far-left until running for president, immigration is no different. His first intuition in September, when the refugee crisis flared up, was to say that we had a humanitarian obligation to bring in Syrian refugees. Then when he discovered that conservatives were so ardently opposed to it, he immediately did a 180 and categorically opposed it in his typical attention-grabbing fashion. At that point there was no turning around, and because the media was attacking his new position from the Left, everyone forgot (or never noticed) his first intuition.

While Sessions, Cruz, and others on the outside like myself were fighting the worst immigration bill of our generation in 2013, Trump was promoting the Dream Act. When it really mattered he wasn’t with us.

By the way, I started reading the comments to that J. Christian Adams article on whether Cruz or anyone could sue to determine Cruz’s eligibility, and many of the readers simply did not understand the article (or hadn’t read it). Here’s a typical response of this type: “Trump’s advice was right on. A declaratory judgement would give Cruz control of the law suit as well as the venue in which it is filed. Trump may not be a lawyer but he certainly has a grasp of the system.” Why, sure thing! And how is Cruz supposed to do that? The entire article is an explanation of why he wouldn’t be able to do it.

Oh, I suppose anything’s possible. Pigs can fly. Some court somewhere could decide to go against all legal precedent and reasoning and issue a declaratory judgment on this. That would signal the collapse of the legal system, but hey—plenty of things have been collapsing all around us, why not that? But no, it’s highly unlikely to happen.

Here’s more [emphasis mine]:

Although Mr. Schwartz [who has filed a suit in Texas courts] said that a judge has already been assigned to the case and that he is prepared to take it to the Supreme Court, legal scholars remain skeptical that it could get that far.

Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University who reviewed the filing, noted that the arguments were meandering and the language was full of typographical errors. But of greater concern, he said, is the probability that Mr. Schwartz does not have legal standing to bring such a case against Mr. Cruz.

Many agree that the definition of a “natural born citizen” ”” a constitutional requirement for seeking the presidency ”” remains muddled. The issue has not been decided by the courts because most lawyers think it would require a presidential candidate, or an opponent of one who can claim “injury,” for courts to consider the merits of the case. Mr. Schwartz argues in his complaint that because he is a voter, he has standing to bring the lawsuit.

According to Mr. Spiro, being a voter is too broad a classification to have standing and that the most realistic situation that would bring legal clarity would be for Mr. Cruz to file a lawsuit in the event that a state elections commissioner decided to take him off the ballot because of his Canadian roots. The suggestion that Mr. Trump has made, urging Mr. Cruz to seek a “declaratory judgment,” is also unrealistic, Mr. Spiro said, because courts do not offer such guidance unless there is an active case.

“There’s zero chance of a court getting to the merits on this claim,” Mr. Spiro said. “If Trump wants to put his money where his mouth is, he should be the one filing for a declaratory judgment against state election commissioners who put Cruz’s name on the ballot.”

Okay, show of hands—does anyone think Trump would do that? I, for one, do not. If you want to start a movement to ask Trump to do it, fine. I happen to think he never will, because he knows he would lose, and he’d rather spread rumors than resolve this.

Now, in all the words I’ve written about Trump, you’ve never seen me say he’s stupid, and that’s because I don’t think he is. In other words, he has probably talked to lawyers and knows all of this. Now, you may admire Trump for making a big deal about it, because it’s strategically smart, but that’s only if you like the idea of lying and preying on the stupidity of the public in order to try to sink your opponent.

[ADDENDUM: I want to call your attention to an exchange in the comments section. “G Joubert” correctly points out that politics ain’t beanbag (although the phrase’s origin was not Mencken, but this guy). G Joubet then writes:

Cruz is Trump’s #1 competition for the nomination, and Cruz WAS born outside of the US. What, Trump is supposed to just ignore that Cruz inconvenience just because Cruz’s supporters want him to? Hey, Trump doesn’t back down from anybody or on any issue, and he isn’t afraid to say what everybody else is afraid to say. That’s what makes him endearing.

My response if that, if Trump doesn’t want to ignore Cruz’s birth circumstances, what Trump ought to do is to tell the truth, which is that Cruz is a natural-born citizen, and that the threats of Democrats to sue are bogus because no one has standing to sue. That’s the high road—which Trump will not take, of course.

If Trump wants to take the lower (not the low) road, he can do exactly what the article I quoted towards the end of my post said he should: Trump should himself ask the courts for a declaratory judgment, with Trump as the plaintiff who could be harmed.

He will not do that, as I said. At least, that’s my prediction.

Instead, Trump takes the lowest road of all. Typical, and not “endearing” at all—at least, not to me.

If you find it endearing, then vote for him, by all means. In the end, Americans will get the president they deserve. I hope neither Trump nor Hillary is that president.]

Right on schedule: a “Birther” suit, duly reported

The New Neo Posted on by

Today, right on schedule, it’s being reported that a Texas attorney has filed a suit alleging that the question involved in the Cruz birther controversy—the definition of “natural born citizen” as it relates to eligibility to run for president—“must be presented to the Supreme Court for fair adjudication instead of left up to popular consensus.”

A person can file a suit asking for just about anything (especially if that person is a lawyer), but that doesn’t mean the courts will hear the suit and rule on the merits. I am by no means the world’s expert on the subject of “standing,” but let me just say it’s a big issue. And Trump, in raising the birther issue re Cruz, has as far as I know ignored the issue and pretended (a) that people could be successful in such suits and that the standing issue wouldn’t matter, and (b) that Cruz could just “settle” this by asking for a declaratory judgment, when it’s most likely that he can’t and that he doesn’t have standing to do so, either.

Plus, the basic legal (as opposed to political) question itself is virtually a non-issue in terms of Cruz, because “natural born citizen” means natural-born “as opposed to naturalized citizen.

Andrew McCarthy will explain it to you:

As I explained in Faithless Execution (in connection with the term “high crimes and misdemeanors”), the meaning of many terms of art used in the Constitution was informed by British law, with which the framers were intimately familiar. “Natural born citizen” is no exception. In a 2015 Harvard Law Review article, “On the Meaning of ”˜Natural Born Citizen,” Neal Katyal and Paul Clement (former Solicitors-General in, respectively, the Obama and George W. Bush admininistrations), explain that British law explicitly used the term “natural born” to describe children born outside the British empire to parents who were subjects of the Crown. Such children were deemed British by birth, “Subjects ”¦ to all Intents, Constructions and Purposes whatsoever.”…

As Katyal and Clement observe, changes in the law after 1790 clarified that children born of a single American-citizen parent outside the United States are natural born American citizens “subject to certain residency requirements.” Those residency requirements have changed over time. Under the law in effect when Cruz was born in 1970 (i.e., statutes applying to people born between 1952 and 1986), the requirement was that, at the time of birth, the American citizen parent had to have resided in the U.S. for ten years, including five years after the age of fourteen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor, easily met that requirement: she was in her mid-thirties when Ted was born and had spent most of her life in the U.S., including graduating from Rice University with a math degree that led to employment in Houston as a computer programmer at Shell Oil.

As Katyal and Clement point out, there is nothing new in this principle that presidential eligibility is derived from parental citizenship.

As for the political issue expressed in the lawsuit (which is nothing if not policial), and the political issue in Trump’s having brought this topic up in the first place, I’ve written a bit about it before. I’ll just add the obvious, which is that this is a strategic move of Trump’s because Cruz threatens his lead, and he is acting in the guise of what’s known on blogs as a “concern troll” re Cruz. I also would add that it was not an unknown issue prior to Trump’s raising it. It had been discussed quite a bit for some years. Just as an example, in this very blog, it was raised in the comments section back in 2013, and it has been raised many times since. And here’s an article from 2012. There are plenty more.

When people run for president (or are elected president, or are even in the public eye), it’s not at all unusual for people to file lawsuits of various kinds against them. Why should Cruz be any different? The fact that this is the case is something Trump knows full well, and he also must know—as an Obama-birther—the disposition of the many many lawsuits against Obama on a similar issue. The facts re Obama’s birth were slightly different (although, if birthers were correct about those facts, they were even more challenging in terms of the “natural born citizen” definition than Cruz’s, not less), but the issue of standing was quite similar for the Obama suits and resolved in favor of “no standing,” with court dismissal after court dismissal.

Just as one might imagine (and I believe this would have happened without Trump’s bringing it up), good old Alan Grayson says he will sue if Cruz is the nominee. Like most articles on the subject, the one I just linked neglects to even mention the issue of standing, which is a huge and extremely relevant issue.

This controversy rests on the legal ignorance of the American public, and Trump is relying on that ignorance, too. But I suppose no one ever went broke relying on ignorance.

In an article from a couple of days ago, liberal law professor Cass Sunstein writes about the idea of Cruz seeking a declaratory judgment to resolve the question. Although I often disagree with Sunstein about legal theory and certainly about politics, here he’s just stating a legal fact rather than a matter of opinion, a fact supported by the evidence of legal precedent and legal procedure:

For technical reasons, no federal court is likely to rule against Cruz. First, it is settled that voters as such lack standing to sue, and there is a good chance that no one can establish the required “injury” to complain in court about Cruz’s foreign birth. Second, the issue might be taken to present a “political question,” in the technical sense that it will be treated as one to be resolved through the democratic process, not the judicial system. (Donald Trump suggests that Cruz should seek a declaratory judgment, but you can’t just go to court because you are interested in its opinion.)

Note in particular that last sentence. I contend that Donald Trump also knows that Cruz almost certainly can’t get a declaratory judgment, but for political reasons Trump is pretending otherwise. You may admire and support him for that: “What a fighter, what a strategist, what a tough guy!” I also admire toughness in politics, but I’m not big on lying and misleading the public. However, that’s not my main beef with Trump. I have other, more important criticisms of him, which I’ve described time and again (for example, here) and have no need to reiterate in this post.

[NOTE: Mark Levin, ordinarily a big Trump-booster, agrees that Trump should lay off and that the legal issues are clearly in Cruz’s favor.]

Post-debate morning after

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night reminded me how much I hate debates.

Hate, hate, hate.

It’s not really a subset of the fact that I hate political speeches. Speeches are different; they tend to be a big snooze unless the person is Churchill or Lincoln. Debates are much more fast-paced (although of course they have their dull stretches), and feature arguments. My problem with them is not that I dislike arguments, it’s that the arguments in political debates—especially ones that are not really debates, but more like competing sound bites—are shallow and often won by the better and more convincing liar.

I don’t like it. It makes me tense. Last night was no exception.

When did we start this stupid process of debate after debate after debate before the nominations and even before the primaries? I well remember the Kennedy-Nixon debates, which were a big deal at the time. But they really were more like actual debates, featuring two opponents who were their parties’ nominees. To the best of my recollection (and I assume they’re online and I could go back and watch, but probably won’t) they were sober and mostly-substantive affairs, and the candidates were dignified and serious. But today’s public would probably not be entertained enough by such a thing.

I’ve found that Ace and I are in agreement about a lot of things in last night’s debate, so since he’s already done the heavy lifting I’ll just quote him:

1. Ted Cruz won in three different ways:

First, he won on debate points. This matters the least, but it’s still important. Especially just to deny this win to Rubio.

Second, and this is big, he stood up to the Big Bad Bully Alpha Male Trump and won. Other people have stood up to Trump — and have come out looking foolish and diminished. Cruz prevailed.

Even when people say he lost on the “NY Values” exchange (an assessment I don’t share), he then lost while doing the actually important thing, appearing to be an in-command alpha sparring with another alpha.

Third, he appeared more human and likable…He also kept his good spirits in every single argument, which I don’t think anyone else did.

2. Trump kind of won just by not appearing to be a maniac.

…Trump’s goal is not to win in these things, nor to even appear informed. His goal is just to not be so outclassed, or so uninformed, as to disqualify himself. He often flirts with exactly this, but “mostly false” is, for Trump, a victory. “Mostly false” means “slightly true” and that’s good enough for him.

This was his best performance, meaning it was pretty weak, but again, he’s not playing to win, he’s playing just to not be disqualified in terms of complete incompetency and unsuitability.

He prevailed there… kinda narrowly, but he did.

3. Marco Rubio actually was angry — no joking, he actually was trying to appear angry to “channel” the base’s anger, I suppose…

I don’t think he did that well. He did okay. But it’s critical to keep in mind the sales pitch of Marco Rubio: That this is a once-in-a-generation natural political talent; that he is so informed and so persuasive when he speaks that he brings people to tears, like Obama; that no matter how much you oppose Rubio’s support for amnesty and college Kangaroo rape courts, you must vote for him anyway, because he’s such an amazing candidate as far as performance and charisma that he’s our only real shot at beating Hillary.

So here’s the problem: When Ted Cruz, and maybe even Chris Christie and even Donald Trump kind of beat you, you can’t offer yourself up as that once-in-a-generation talent, now can you?

His gun answer was good…

Overall — a fine performance, but a fine performance isn’t enough for him. He’s been sold as exceptional. “Fine” doesn’t cover the rent, Marco.

Ace goes on to criticize Christie. I disagree with him—I like Christie better than he does—but I think that Christie probably is out of it as a candidate, so I’m sticking to the current Big Three above. I would add, though, that I don’t think Rubio’s anger put off a lot of people. I think he was probably going for gravitas to balance out the accusation that he’s too young and a lightweight, and I think he succeeded, and was particularly good on the gun issue.

That said, have I told you that I really really hate debates?

Fiorina’s lack of traction

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Saunders asks why Carly Fiorina has failed to catch on:

Carly seems to me to be the only candidate who has given any thought as to what the next President should DO, beyond repealing all of Onederboy’s executive actions and Obamacare.

I can’t figure out why she hasn’t gotten more traction (although she is repeating her catch phrases too often ”“ she needs a little variation in phraseology).

Early on, when I was first being exposed to Fiorina in this campaign, I was very impressed. This was echoed in the public response to her first debate. People had been unfamiliar with her at the outset, but once they saw her in the undercard, and then more people watched her in the second debate after she was promoted to first string, they liked her and her numbers soared. Then the numbers started to sink, and now they are low enough that I think she’s out of contention. What happened?

I think it was a combination of things. She is one of three people in the race who haven’t got experience in political office, and she was the least well-known of the three prior to running. Therefore, because people didn’t have a backlog of impressions about her, smear campaigns have had greater force because they fill in the blanks. When she began to rise, for instance, and people were just getting to know her, I noticed a veritable flood of commenters arriving on blog after blog after blog spouting the same talking points over and over. It was clearly some sort of organized effort, although by exactly whom I don’t know.

The two points they kept making were that (a) she was a disaster at Hewlett-Packard, and (b) she delivered a speech a couple of weeks after 9/11 where she talked about Islams’ Golden Age, ergo she is pro-Muslim and would be soft on terrorists.

I wrote about each issue several times. No need to go back to them at the moment, because right now I’m not arguing on the merits, but talking about the process of her falling support. Suffice to say that I think neither claim was correct, and there’s plenty of evidence for what I thought, but because people were unfamiliar with her previously (and because there were so many alternative candidates to support) it was easy for a lot of newly-acquired Carly supporters to say, “Oh, well, if she did that then I don’t like her anymore; I’ll just support x, y, or z instead.”

Carly didn’t have much money to put out a blitz campaign to fight it all. What’s more, she was vulnerable on her H-P record and had made enemies, as most CEOs in hard times do. Like Romney with Romneycare (another issue I discussed on this blog quite thoroughly at the time), although there were explanations that put her in a very good light, it was easy to criticize her and make the critiques stick, especially in the absence of deep and detailed knowledge of the problems each person had faced and the limitations that were inherent in the situations.

I also think that, even though Fiorina seemed to maintain her equanimity during the campaign, something got under her skin ever-so-slightly. She kept her clarity and her ability to get to the heart of the matter, rhetorically speaking, but she made a decision to be very very solemn during the debates. This decision was not a good one; it made her seem hard and humorless. I’ve seen her in person, and she is definitely neither—in fact, she’s feminine and warm and funny. But during the debates, those qualities were muted or absent in her. That did not help her at all, IMHO.

Lastly, as Richard Saunders has pointed out, there is a certain repetitive quality to some of her sound bites. This is true of all the candidates, but I think it’s a bit more true of her than of the others. I’m not sure why she does it, because she can certainly think on her feet and speak very well extemporaneously, but my guess is that she may still believe most people don’t know her and haven’t heard her say these things before and so they bear repeating.

I didn’t watch the undercard debate last night, but I hear that she shone. Will it propel her upward again? Perhaps. But as I said, I don’t think she will break through to become a contender.

Tonight’s debate

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ll be watching, at least that’s the plan. Every now and then I might even write something.

You can, too.

9:30 PM: Boy, did Cruz just give a good answer on the birther issue. And Trump’s response is incredibly petty, small, and narcissistic. I would imagine the Trump people will see it quite differently.

Legally, Cruz can’t get a declaratory judgment, as Trump suggests, as far as I know. Nor can the Democrats sue. That’s not the way the courts and the law work.

And Cruz just made a great joke—he might offer Trump the VP slot, and if Trump is right and Cruz is disqualified, then Trump will be president. Any time Cruz makes a successful joke, it helps him, because he is widely seen as humorless (he’s not).

9:42 PM: Carson speaks movingly of Republicans needing to stick together to support whoever is nominated, and cites the likelihood of appointing of Supreme Court justices next term as one major reason.

9:56 PM: Rubio: “Terrorists don’t get their guns from a gun show.”

10:00 PM: Cruz on the subject of evidence that Obama is against guns—Cruz just rattles off point after point after point. Makes me wonder what it would be like to have a president who’s really brilliant.

10:31 PM: For a while at least, on the subject of fighting terrorists and of immigration from Middle Eastern countries, all the candidates were on the attack against the one they should be attacking—Obama.

10:50 PM: I can’t imagine that Jeb Bush has helped himself at all this evening. But he’ll keep limping on, as long as his money holds out.

The value of a contested Democratic primary

The New Neo Posted on by

I think it’s great that Sanders is giving Clinton a run for her money. It couldn’t happen to a nicer or more deserving woman.

However, it’s one of those “be careful what you wish for” things. I think this country has gone far enough to the left that, if Sanders were to actually be nominated, he has a chance of winning the whole shebang. And although I would say that he’s a contrast to Clinton in terms of honesty, he’s still a leftist and would be a disaster in that sense.

But I do see great value in the fact that Clinton voters will have to fight Sanders voters, and that therefore Democrats will be motivated to vote in their own primary rather than cross over to mess up the Republican primary even more than it’s already messed up. When there’s an incumbent (for example, in 2012) that’s not true, and with the open or semi-open primary rules of so many states, you can get a lot of Democrats voting in the Republican primaries in order to help what they consider the weaker candidate to win. Originally, when the Clinton nomination seemed like a cakewalk, I was afraid there would be a great deal of that sort of thing, but now I think it will be minimal, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire where Sanders seems strong.

The Republican field: and then there were—how many?

The New Neo Posted on by

And then there were seven on tonight’s debate stage.

Seven is still way too many. What on earth is Kasich doing there, except as a foil to annoy us? If you look at national polls, the reason is not apparent; Fiorina still seems to be slightly besting him. Apparently, you can blame New Hampshire for his inclusion.

As far as I’m concerned, it could be just five people up there: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, and Christie. And a person could make a good argument to limit it to just the first three, although I think it’s premature for that. But I am eager to see the field get winnowed down, so we can finally see how it will shape up when the various wings of the party are not split.

There’s the angry disaffected “burn it down!” (with the “it” being the Republican Party) wing, most of which goes to Trump and some to Cruz. There is the more traditional conservative wing, owned pretty much by Cruz. There’s the somewhat-conservative and somewhat-moderate wing, split among Rubio, Bush, and Christie. The libertarian wing, which one would have imagined would have gone for Paul, seems not to be as interested in him as they were in his father, and I believe a great many of them have been siphoned off by Trump.

Which is the biggest wing, and what candidate can best consolidate that group under his wing? (I’m discounting Fiorina at this point, because I don’t think she can do it). It is my opinion, based on polls that ask which candidate is a person’s second choice and which candidate a person would never consider voting for, that Trump may be getting close to a ceiling on that. But I would never sell him short and say it’s not possible that he could be the nominee. It’s very possible that he could be, but I also see strong possibilities for Cruz or Rubio.

I think Carson will continue to fade, and I see a possible resurgence for Christie or Bush, but I don’t think either has a real chance of going the distance (except moneywise for Bush, which will keep him in the race no matter what his poll numbers are). Of the two, I’d absolutely be rooting for Christie over Bush. But in the end I think it will be Trump for the truculent, Cruz for the conservatives, and Rubio for the rest.