RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/2020-presidential-campaign-begins/And Donald Trump holds the high ground

The 2020 campaign begins in earnest next week in Florida, when Donald Trump officially launches his reelection bid. On June 26, 20 Democratic candidates and five moderators hold the first of two nights of debates. Where do things stand?

According to the polls, President Trump starts at a disadvantage. He has 44 percent approval in the RealClearPolitics average, with a net disapproval of nine points. The most recent Quinnipiac poll has the major Democrats defeating Trump. The margins range from Joe Biden’s 13-point victory to Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker’s five points. Another recent Quinnipiac poll has Biden leading Trump by four points in Texas. Private surveys of the Lone Star State also show a tight race. Trump polls very badly among suburban women, and the growth in suburban Texas has been extraordinary. Which spells trouble.

If the election were held today, a generic Democrat would defeat Donald Trump. What makes the predictions game difficult is that Election Day isn’t for 16 months, and generic Democrats do not exist. Political conditions are bound to change, for better or worse, and voters once again will make a binary choice between the incumbent and a specific progressive alternative. That alternative might not be as flawed as Hillary Clinton. But he or she will have flaws.

Do the Democrats have more than a fighting chance? Absolutely. They’ve won the popular vote in all but one presidential election since 1992. And yet they would be foolish beyond belief to assume Trump is destined for a single term. President Trump can’t beat a generic Democrat. Lucky for him he won’t be facing one.

Trump holds the high ground of incumbency. Only once in the last century, in 1980, has the public ousted a party from the White House after just four years. Moreover, Trump is extremely unlikely to face a primary challenger, and at the moment, the chances of an independent third-party candidacy are slim. At the outset of the contest, the economy is humming, the country is not in a major war, and there is no disruptive social unrest. This is a winning record.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/448447-landslide-polls-spark-angst-these-geniuses-saw-clinton-as-unstoppable#.XQOjNcQ6krs.twitter

Democrats and Republicans alike are skeptical of early polls predicting a landslide victory for Democrat Joe Biden over President Trump on Election Day 2020.

To Trump and Republicans, the polls are fake news and no more reliable than surveys predicting Hillary Clinton would be elected president in 2016.

Some Democrats are equally skeptical, warning their party not to buy into the early data.

“These same geniuses all predicted that Hillary Clinton was unstoppable and inevitable,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic pollster.

While Trump argues the polls undersell his support, some Democrats say surveys showing Biden well ahead of the Democratic field are not to be trusted.

Both sides think a close race in 2020 is likely and that surveys showing Biden and other Democrats with huge leads aren’t likely to reflect Election Day’s reality.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/14/dnc-announces-first-debate-lineups-1365570

By ZACH MONTELLARO and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO

The Democratic National Committee announced the lineups for the first party-sanctioned presidential debates, after a random drawing Friday in New York.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/14/no-outrage-over-democrat-ties-to-foreign-election-interference/

In the latest media-manufactured crisis du jour, the president now stands falsely accused of inviting foreign interference into our elections.

During an Oval Office interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Thursday, President Trump said there “isn’t anything wrong” with listening to information offered up by a foreigner about a candidate’s political opponent.

“It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it,” he told Stephanapolous when asked whether it’s appropriate to accept opposition research from someone in another country. “If I thought there was something wrong, maybe I’d take it to the FBI, if I thought there was something wrong.”

The rather innocuous comments unleashed the predictable and tiresome widespread outrage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scolded the president for “not knowing between right and wrong” and demanded that “everyone in the country should be appalled.”

Trump’s remarks provided the newest grist for impeachment threats. Perpetual bore Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) apparently misunderstood Trump’s response, but nonetheless seized the opportunity again to boast of his moral superiority. “I ran for president twice. I ran for governor once. I ran for Senate twice,” Romney told CNN, once again reminding Americans that he has been in politics for way too long. “I’ve never had any attempt made by a foreign government. Had that occurred, I would’ve contacted the FBI immediately.”

Even Ellen Weintraub, the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, weighed in from her long-expired perch (her term officially ended in 2007) at that agency:

While Weintraub’s lecture earned atta boys from the usual suspects, it again brought attention to the legitimate scandal that the media, Democrats, and NeverTrump Republicans continue to ignore and excuse: The use of foreign sources to fabricate and promote the Russian collusion fable during the 2016 presidential campaign.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/448589-arent-delirious-democrats-now-accusing-team-obama-of-treason

American voters are a lot harder to fool than the political elite think.

If you read the newspapers, tuned into the cable TV pundits or received an email from one of the Democrats running for president, you’d swear Donald Trump was back to his treasonous ways. 

All that was missing was an annoying OMG text exclamation punctuating the unfounded claims that Trump might violate the law in 2020 by accepting intelligence on a political rival from a foreign country. The inference, of course, is that it would come from a hostile power such as  Russia or North Korea or Iran.

Actually, what Trump told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was that he’d consider taking intelligence dirt about a rival from a friendly ally. (Norway was the actual example he used.)

Sound familiar? That is EXACTLY what the Obama administration did in 2016. It’s something no one in the media or the political space grasped during the tsunami of breathless reaction that followed the interview.

In July 2016, the Obama administration accepted unsolicited information from Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat who just happened to have helped arrange a $25 million government donation to the Clinton Foundation years before. Downer said that he had witnessed a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, bragging about some dirt that the Russians supposedly had on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Though Downer’s claim was reported two-plus months after the alleged event, and was only hearsay gathered at a London tavern, the Obama administration gave it to the FBI which, in turn, thought it was weighty enough to justify opening a counterintelligence case against the lawfully elected Republican nominee for president.

In other words, the Democratic administration accepted dirt from a foreign friendly and used it to justify investigating its GOP rival.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/defining-socialism-down-11560553255

Part of Bernie Sanders’ apparent political appeal is his authenticity. He may be a socialist, but at least he’s honest about it. Then again, his speech on Thursday defining his idea of democratic socialism may begin to erode that reputation.

The Vermont Senator presents himself as the ideological descendant of FDR, whom many seniors still revere and millennials incorrectly believe rescued America from the Great Depression. Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee and energy-industry takeover? Mr. Sanders says they are merely an extension of New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party,” the Democratic Socialist declared. “While he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as ‘socialism.’”

We can understand why Mr. Sanders wants to define socialism in this way, since the polls show the word is politically toxic for most Americans. But he’s underselling his own contributions. FDR’s social programs were based on the principle of work in return for benefits. Workers chipped in part of their payroll to finance their own retirement many years hence. The benefits are unsustainable now, but at least they require someone to work.

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/the-selective-prosecution-of-kellyanne-conway/

As if the woman didn’t have enough to deal with the-most-jealous-husband-on-the-planet, Kellyanne Conway is now being prosecuted, or is it persecuted, by a hitherto little-discussed operation called the  U.S. Office of Special Counsel or OSC (not to be confused with Mueller, et al.).

These unknown bureaucrats and/or legal eagles want Kellyanne fired for…. wait for it… making political comments while in the White House, specifically: “Given that Ms. Conway is a repeat offender and has shown disregard for the law, OSC recommends that she be removed from federal service,”.

What utter garbage!  What member of any administration since any of us have been alive could not be accused of making political comments while in the White House, overtly or covertly? At least when they’re doing it overtly we can see what they’re up to. Kudos to Kellyanne for that.

So why Conway and why now? Well, first we might want to know the names of those behind this smear. Who is their Andrew Weissmann? Second, we might want to examine the timing as the Inspector General’s report is about to come out, Barr has appointed John Durham to investigate the investigators, and all Hades is about to break loose.

If I were the White House (obviously, I’m not) I would make fun of this… maybe run some old videos of Democrat non-partisans in the WH like, say, George Stephanopoulos. They never played politics while part of the administration — unless they were awake.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/13/trump-is-favored-to-be-re-elected-media-claims-notwithstanding/

Nothing has turned out the way the Resistance had hoped. Far from their fever dreams of global chaos and economic catastrophe, the Trump agenda is turning out to be surprisingly successful.

At least six Democratic candidates would defeat President Trump if the election were held today and he’s struggling even in Texas, a pollster claims. Sen. Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former vice president Joe Biden would trounce Trump by anywhere from five to 13 percentage points nationwide, the poll says.

Another poll said Biden and Sanders had 12-point leads over Trump in Michigan.

Media outlets such as Axios claim that Trump has a “re-election crisis“:

Everywhere he looks, President Trump can see flashing warnings that his re-election is in serious peril, a week ahead of his official campaign launch next Tuesday in Orlando. …

Trump is betting polls will swing when it’s a choice between him and someone he can lampoon as a dumb socialist.

But, but, but: Even the self-avowed socialists are beating him — Bernie Sanders is up 12 in Michigan.

Nearly a year and a half before the 2020 election, no one knows what will happen. Perhaps Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen and their fellow tut-tutting DC journalists are correct that Sanders really could defeat Trump in a historic nine-point landslide win.

In a more reasonable and less histrionic world than the one DC journalists inhabit, however, the truth is that Trump is a favorite to be re-elected. The polls are what the polls are, as they were in 2015 and 2016, when they showed Trump having little to no chance of winning the presidency. (Spoiler alert: he won.)

One major difference from that era is a poll of Wall Street insiders showing that more than 70 percent expect Trump to win re-election. A Goldman Sachs analysis also sees Trump’s re-election as more likely than not. These projections absolutely could be wrong, but firms such as Goldman Sachs are deeply concerned about making money for the corporation and its clients by making accurate predictions about likely future events.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/12/abortion-debate-house-floor-democrat-dismisses-republicans-sex-starved-males/

Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) turned an abortion debate in the House of Representatives bizarrely personal on Wednesday, seeking to undercut her Republican colleagues by calling them “sex-starved males.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is tiring to hear from so many sex-starved males on this floor talk about a woman’s right to choose,” lamented Torres, drawing audible protests from other members.

Republican Rep. Rob Woodall of Georgia immediately pressed her on the inflammatory language. “I would just like to ask my friend if she’d like to change her last statement,” he said.

“Mr. Speaker, if it pleases my colleague on the other side, I will withdraw my statement about sex-starved males on the floor,” Torres replied. Roll Call noted the congresswoman’s remark “clearly broke House Rules” against “personally impugn[ing] their colleagues on the floor.”

The conflict arose amid debate over a spending package. Republicans, according to Roll Call, “oppose language in the bill authored by House Democrats that would block the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that protects health care providers that refuse to participate in services, such as abortion, that go against their beliefs.”

First elected in 2015, Torres represents California’s 35th District.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/12/bidens_balancing_act_

In poker, it’s known as a “tell.” It’s an inadvertent signal — perhaps rapid blinking or a raised eyebrow — that tells other players you have a good hand or bad one. Last week, when Joe Biden rolled out his new policy positions, he virtually shouted one out in the high-stakes game of presidential campaigning.

Biden’s first tell came on the issue of abortion; a second, lesser one came on environmental policy. Predictably, he moved to the left on both. That tells us something about Biden, the primary process, and the 21st century Democratic Party.

First, it says that Biden expects hard slogging to win the nomination. Publicly, the former vice president is positioning himself as the inevitable nominee, the obvious successor to Barack Obama. The key words are “obvious” and “inevitable.” The national polls, like those in Iowa, where he campaigned Tuesday, paint a different picture. They show Biden ahead, but hardly inevitable. About one-quarter of Iowa Democrats currently favor Biden, compared to roughly 15% each for three more progressive candidates: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. That’s a strong lead, but the Iowa battle is just getting started, and it’s still wide open. The same is true in New Hampshire, the site of the first real primary.

To win in either place, Biden must stay abreast of the party’s leftward lurch. That’s what his “tell” is all about. But it’s a slow, awkward dance, weighed down by his years of moderate (and quite sensible) policy positions — all on video, all recorded in his Senate votes. His new policies won’t win over the party’s most ardent feminist and environmentalist factions, but he does hope to blunt their opposition and prevent them from coalescing around an alternative candidate.