Democracy (The Road to 270, Take 10)

 I.  The Horse Race.

We have seen another week of very little movement in the polls. Joe Biden led the RCP average by 6.8 points one week ago and he leads it by 6.6 points tonight. Biden leads the 538.com average by 6.9 points, virtually changed from 7.0 points last week.  The only slight movement in these averages was caused by an outlier Rasmussen poll that showed Trump up by one. Everybody else has Biden up somewhere between six and nine points.

At the state level, there has been some modest tightening in Pennsylvania but nothing that will cause me to change any predictions.  

Okay, now to the real news of the week-the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

II.  Democracy.

Ruth Bader-Ginsburg died on Friday evening, aged 87.  The death of a SCOTUS justice is always major news, but the proximity to the election and the expected nomination of someone at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum made this one a huge story.  Polling indicates that the American people think the nomination should be filled by the winner of the looming presidential election. Facts on the ground indicate that this will not deter the Republican party from cramming through someone in the six short weeks they have to play with.

The most tiresome subject in politics is hypocrisy but a few words must be spared here for the colossal flip-flip that Republicans have made from 2016 in the aftermath of Antonin Scalia's passing. That event caused them to collectively pull a precedent out of their own ass and say that a vacancy that opens in a presidential election year can not be filled until after the election.

That precedent went right back up their ass this week in record time. The Republicans are goin to put a 6th Federalist on the bench because "fuck you, pay me" is the most subtle, nuanced idea they are capable of believing in.

I'm a moderate guy. I'm an institutionalist. I was stupid enough to think that some Republicans in 2016 would insist on giving Obama's nominee a hearing. But even II am not surprised that that they are pulling this move. They exist to exert power and they think this helps rally their base. You have to remember that a group of (mostly) men who are willing to surrender their self-respect to licking Donald Trump's shoes are not goin to be concerned with fair-play or niceties.

Despite the seemingly inevitable outcome of this process, let's take a minute to measure how bad this is for the country.  Republicans have been justifying their flip-flop, to the extent they bother explaining themselves to anyone, by saying that the American people have chosen them to make these decisions.  Let's take a look at the numbers behind this claim.

This coming election is the last one before I turn 50. In my whole voting life, Republicans have won the popular vote exactly once.  The longest serving justice at the moment is Clarence Thomas.  He was nominated by George H.W. Bush in 1991.  If you add up all of the presidential elections since Bush's victory in 1988, Democrats have received 443.5 million votes. Republicans have received 416.5 million.  That's a 27 million vote deficit.  

As for the senate, it is true that the Republicans held on to the majority in the 2018 election by winning races against incumbents in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and South Dakota. But that doesn't tell the whole story of the 100 senators in that once august chamber.  If you add up the votes from the last 3 cycles of elections, that is from the last time that every seat was up in a regularly scheduled election, you get an aggregate result of 124.5 million votes for the 47 Democrats against only 99.7 million votes for the 53 Republicans. 

The senate is an inherently non-democratic institution. Creating it was part of the grand bargain between large and small states. This favors Republicans in ways that are not subtle. They currently control 53 percent of the seats after getting only 44 percent of the votes in the elections for those seats.

At least we can say the House of Representatives represents the will of the people, as it was designed to do.  In the most recent regular House Election, Democrats got 60.6 million votes and the Republicans only got 50.9 million.  The Democrats do have a majority in the house, although the 53.4 percent of seats they hold slightly undercounts the 54.3% of the two-party vote they got last time.  And, of course, the House plays no role in confirming Supreme Court Justices.

This is not sustainable.  The Democratic party have gotten over 54% of the votes during the most recent round of elections for President, Senate and the House.  Those numbers are likely to be worse after November third, where I expect the Democrats to take back the White House and they are slightly favored to win control of the senate. But soon the Supreme Court will have six dogged conservatives and only three Democrats, none of whom are as consistently liberal as the late lamented RBG.

There are two specks of hope on the horizon. RBG's passing led to an avalanche of donations to Democratic candidates over the weekend.  No Democratic candidate for senate with a serious chance of winning will have trouble getting the word out in the closing weeks. And Joe Biden has an apparently commanding cash lead over the idiotic incumbent he must defeat.

III.  The Forecasts.

The professionals barely budged this week-again. Biden gained 1% chance of winning in both the 538 and Economist forecasts.  He slid a point in the Neutral Vote and JHK forecasts. 

Trump did have some good news in the state level betting markets this week.  Predictit.com went a little nuts after the RBG news and flipped both NC and FL from Biden to Trump. We haven't really seen any polls to justify that movement, but the speculation seems to be that a Supreme Court Confirmation battle will rally the base to Trump.  It's not a crazy idea, but I will wait to see polling evidence that the counter-effect among Dem voters isn't greater.

I will trim 1% of my confidence in Biden winning. I now give him an 84% chance of winning.  The weeks in polls was fine but his lead is better described as stable than growing. With the lead he has, that's probably enough. But we're not in the zone where we should be overly confident.

IV. Taxonomy, Again.

Every time the numbers move slightly, I start to think of the electoral map in different ways. This is how I can best describe my current expectations.

I am confident that Biden will win. But the size of the outcome depends on the following:

A. It will seem close if he doesn't win Florida.  He probably only gets to 290 maximum without Florida.

B. It will seem comfortable if he wins NC and GA. Getting over 350 will look like a nice win, especially if he can win a state like Georgia, which Obama never carried and which ought to be trending blue over time.

C. It will seem like a blowout if he adds Iowa and Ohio.  This is where he recreates the 2008 coalition, with GA subbing in for Indiana.

D. The cherry on top would be Texas.  This probably only happens if Trump craters in some way, but the psychological value of flipping Texas will be enormous.

The Liz Mair Debate Questions Challenge (An Extremely Unlikely GOP Candidate Answers Extremely Unlikely Debate Questions)

That's how you debate.

Last night's Republican debate on CNBC was a complete mess.  The narrative coming from the candidates is that the questions were "unfair". That's a nonsensical accusation but the moderation was in deed terrible and there was an almost constant din of three people speaking at once in between the questions. The panelists were unable to regain control and it was terrible television. Tonight several of the campaigns announced that they will be meeting on Sunday to discuss a new format for the future debates. If I had a vote, it would be for more debates with fewer candidates. Imagine 3 debates with 4 candidates each, chosen at random.  That will never happen because the networks want Trump in every debate. 

A much better but equally improbably proposal was made by Liz Mair on Twitter last night. Ms. Mair is a former adviser to several major Republican candidates, including Carly Fiorina and Rich Perry. She has been a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher and is one of the most intelligent right-wing voices on Twitter. (That praise is more faint than I intended. She is worth following: @lizmair.)

Her proposal was not for a new format but for better questions.  She posted 18 questions that she would want the candidates to answer.  I would LOVE to hear Presidential candidates answer these questions. I never will, but I decided to do the next best thing: answer them myself.  Spoiler alert: I will not be the 2016 Republican nominee for President of the United States.  Here goes nothing.

Q1: Get your tax person up on stage with you. Here's a whiteboard. Do the math on your tax and spending plan. Show me deficit reduction.

Well there goes the nomination for me.  In this fantasy scenario where I am running for President I would have fleshed out a much more specific proposal but here's the broad strokes:

1. Tax hikes for income rates over $125,000 , with income taxes above $200,000 going back to pre-Bush rates.  
2.  Eliminate the preferential treatment of capital gains. (Tax investment income at the same rate as earned income.)
3. Raise the cap on pay roll taxes, over 10 years to $200K.
4. Increase the federal gas tax by 5 cents a gallon.
5. Increase the Estate Tax to pre-Bush levels.

I don't know how much more revenue that would generate, but it would be significant.  In a rational party, this would be well received. 

Q2: If you failed that question, here's a pie chart showing how much we spend on everything. What are you prepared to cut, right now?

I would make very steep cuts to defense spending. I would roll back our submarine fleet and I would kill some of the unwieldy impractical weapons programs like the F-35. But while we are being honest, I would turn that money around to spend on useful infrastructure programs like roads and bridges.


Q3: Here's a map. Find these places on it right now: Tblisi, Kiev, Islamabad, Kabul, New Dehli, Beijing.

This obviously is a visual question, but I'll do my best to explain how I would do. I know Tiblisi is the capital of Georgia, and Georgia is directly south of European Russia. I have no idea where within Georgia Tiblisi, so I would put a dot right in the middle of that country. (Since she didn't specify, I will assume this map has lines for national borders.)

Kiev is the capital of Ukraine, and it's in the eastern part of the country, more southern than northern. (I think.) Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and it's up north, closer to India than Afghanistan. Kabul is the capital of Aghanistan and it's in the northeast portion of the country. New Dehli is the capital of India, and it's pretty close to the border with Pakistan. Beijing is the Capital of China and it's well the Northeastern part of the country but I'd be fudging the exact location.

Q4: Now, who runs each of the countries in which those cities sit? Ever met any of them? Ever talked to any of them?

Ukraine: I know they had a very attractive female President for a while, but she's out of office now. I don't know....Plitcheko? Total guess. I know he doesn't like Russia.
Georgia: No idea
Pakistan:  His name is Hussain. That's all I know about him.
India's Prime Minister is named Modi  He held a big rally in Madison Square Garden last year. I think he was accused of ethnic cleansing when he was a governor. That's about all my Moodi knowledge.
China: Xi Jinping.  The worlds worst Communist. He was at the White House a few weeks ago.

Q5: Who's the British PM? Who's the Canadian PM? Who's the German Chancellor? Who's the Russian President? Met any of these people?

David Cameron, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin.  No, I have not met any of them but I obviously know a lot more about NATO countries than the rest of the world.

Q6: Are you for free trade?
Generally, yes. That might be I would lose the Democratic primary too.

Q7: Do you think immigration is a net positive or a net negative for our country? Will you make it easier to come here legally?

Net positive and yes, absolutely. Sad to think that none of the candidates on that stage could have given this simple answer.

Q8: What will you do about the 12m people currently here? If you say "deport," show me your math to prove it's doable & inexpensive.

If I was running for Dictator, I'd wave a magic wand and make them all legal. Because I have to provide political cover to congress, I will agree to some stupid points system that punishes people for having committed crimes and to generate some revenue I would agree to a substantial fee for the process. Oh and I would call the form a Ted Cruz form, because he's an evil dickhead.


Q9: Show me your actual health care plan. No, an actual plan. No, writing "repeal Obamacare" on the whiteboard doesn't count.

Well, I suppose we have to give Obamacare 10 years or so to work but I'd love to lay the ground work for states to be able to experiment with single payer systems. That will have to be surreptitious.

Q10: Name 15 specific regulations that you know hamper small business right now, and explain how, in detail.
I can't name 3. But this would be a great excuse to rail against the drug war. Hopefully by this point Chris Christie will have given his eloquent defense of Fantasy Football and I can point out the hypocrisy of him wanting to throw people in jail for smoking weed.

Q11: How will you fix education in this country. In detail. No, "repeal Common Core" does not count as "in detail." You can phone a friend.

I would reduce standardized testing and rebuild our arts and music programs. I would double the time devoted to physical education and I would make federal funds available to high schools that create programs oriented toward skilled professions. In short: more band, more gym, more shop.

Q12: Do you really think we can defeat ISIS. If so, how? Be specific. How much are you willing to spend to do it? How do we measure success?

No. the cost of winning a military struggle against them would not justify the costs. And if we entered that fight in full-force it would legitimize the Jihadists' narrative that the United Stats is at war with Islam. The long term solution to groups like ISIS is for a non-fundamentalist version of Islam to become mainstream and acceptable in the Arab world. I don't know how to bring that about but it's not worth a trillion dollars and several thousand American lives to find out.

Q13: Have you ever met Bibi Netanyahu? How about King Abdullah of Jordan? Any other Middle Eastern leaders?

I have not had the pleasure. This is the one question that I would probably re-work because it would be too sickening to watch all 10 of those jerks compete over how wonderful they think Netanyahu is.

Q14: Name 5 nominations you'd like to make to the Supreme Court.
I can't give names because the only people I know who would possibly be qualified are a few law professors that would be too embarrassed to read their name on my shitty blog so I will give 5 categories of people I would like on the bench:

1. Someone with an advanced degree in a hard science.
2. A lifelong criminal defense attorney. (So the 4th amendment has a chance.)
3. Someone that went to a non-elite Law School. We've had way too many Harvard, Yale and Stanford grads on the bench. How about a UCLA or a Minnesota?
4. Someone from Staten Island so all 5 Boros can be represented on the court.
5. A WASP. It's crazy that our entire Supreme Court is made up of (6) Catholics and (3) Jews.

Q15: Describe to me the precise process you will use to stop abortions happening after 20 weeks & how you'll deal w legal challenges...

Obviously this is a quesiton that only works at a Republican debate. The scientific consensus is that fetuses are incapable of experiencing pain until the 26th week. A policy of ending abortions six weeks before that line is crossed is not something I could ever support.  What I would like to do as President is force the proponents of such laws to explain what the specific punishments should be for a woman who has an abortion during week 21 and for the doctor who performs the procedure. 


Q16: What caused the 2008 financial crisis? What do you think the next crisis might be? How about the next bubble? How will you stop it?

The three principal causes were the Bush Tax Cuts, the 2005 reforms of the bankruptcy code and the extremely suspect lending practices of the home mortgage loan. I think the next crisis might related to student loan debt. I would try to work reductions in the interest rate on student loans into the budget over time, but they would be gradual. I would also love to gradually eliminate the mortgage interest deduction over a course of several decades. It would be unfair to hit homeowners with that hit immediately but if you reduce it by 5% a year for 20 years, the real estate market will absorb that shock.

Q17: What is your biggest weakness
I get bored with ambitious projects before they are completed.

Q18: Who's your political hero? Note: You cannot say Ronald Reagan. I repeat: You cannot say Ronald Reagan.
The 40th president of the United States. (Ha! I played by your rule, Ms. Mair.) Okay, in all seriousness it's FDR.
Q19: What will you use the bully pulpit for as President? Recognizing that you won't be able to/want to legislate/regulate everything.

Secularism and the need for evidence-based reasoning, especially in the sciences. I would also beat the drum for baseball as our national past time and refuse to meet with any soccer team, no matter how many trophies they win. In my administration, the Vice-President will handle the soccer photo ops, no exceptions.

Q20: Explain to me what net neutrality means, in theory and in practice? Can't do it? Phone a friend. Now, same deal re: patent reform.

Net neutrality is the very important concept that Internet Service Providers can not favor certain contents over other content. I am less familiar with patent reform but I believe it relates to eliminating predatory practices like patent trolling. 

An Endorsement, a Concession and a Far-fetched Prediction

It has been nearly eight months since I wrote about the 2016 election cycle.  In a sane world, it would be another eight months before I felt compelled to break that streak.  But we are now living in a world of more or less permanent campaigns and now that the front-runner has officially declared, I think it's worth going on the record with how I see the next 16 months playing out.  I will start with the race, such as there is one, for the Democratic Nomination.

1.  This Blog Endorses Lincoln Chafee.  He will not win. 

The foolish decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is the most important moment of this nation's history that I have personal memory of.  For the first time since the Polk administration, this country began a war not just of choice, but of naked aggression. And the consequences were disastrous. The United States lost 5,000 lives, several trillion dollars and untold prestige around the world.  The results for Iraq were much much worse, in human casualties and in future uncertainty.

Next year, I will probably vote for a woman who voted for that war in the presidential election.  But I have no intention of doing so in the primaries.  Luckily, there is one candidate with stellar anti-Iraq war credentials.  His name is Lincoln Chafee.  In 2002 he was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the authorization of force in Iraq.  He has since left the party. He was elected as an independent governor of Rhode Island and eventually registered as a Democrat.  I will be voting for him in the Illinois primary next year.  Dozens of others will join me.  But he has no chance of being nominated.  None.

Here's a look at the rest of the field:

1. The Nominee in Waiting: Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Hillary has been the presumptive 2016 nominee from the day she agreed to be Barack Obama's Secretary of State.  Although her tenure was short on specific achievements, she didn't do anything to compromise her standing with the party or the voting public.  So even eight months ago I wrote that she had a 70% chance of being the nominee. Since that writing, Elizabeth Warren has made clear that she will not run.  Senator Warren was always the most credible challenger to Hillary and it's now obvious that she won't take up that challenge. Vice-President Biden has also shown no interest in running. I didn't think he was likely to beat her in a competitive primary season, but he could have at least sucked up some of her donor and volunteer base. He also had the right to run as Obama's preferred choice, a role that would have helped him a lot in the primary.  I expect that Biden will try to keep a toe in the water just in case Mrs. Clinton screws up.  But he's not making the steps necessary to run. That may have been related to his son's health challenges but I don't think Beau Biden's passing will change his plans for 2016.  It's hard to put a precise number on Hillary's chances of being nominated but it is comfortably over 95%.

But Bernie Will Have  a Surge.

Bernie Sanders has been actively campaigning for weeks and a few polls have shown him putting up respectable numbers in New Hampshire.  He has also raised enough money to put up a respectable boutique campaign in the early primary states.  And there are plenty of young people who will trot out to Iowa to knock on doors for him.

But he can't win.  At some point he will probably have to choose between a serious effort in Iowa or New Hampshire.  Hillary will run big in both states.  Bernie will make the debates interesting and the media will desperately want him to make this race competitive.  If he loses New Hampshire by less than 10%, they will act like this race is a contested one. It is not.

Someone Else Will Have a Boomlet.

The rest of the field is remarkably weak.  That's not surprising given that most of the serious contenders to be President one day are sitting this one out rather than spend a year sleeping in motels only to get crushed by Hillary. Here's the rest of the field:

1. Martin O'Malley.  A mediocre governor of a medium-sized state.  He also picked the wrong year to run for President on the strength of having been a mayor of Baltimore.  His biggest claim to fame is being the basis for Mayor Carcetti on the Wire, a distinction that he loathes.  He did a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" and about half of the questions were about the Wire.  More damning than his fictional portrayal on that show is his horrific record as a stone cold war on drugs enthusiast.  He can't outrun that in a democratic primary.  He might have been a VP contender but I expect him to go all-in on the primaries and he might burn some bridges along the way.

2. Lincoln Chafee.  My aforementioned candidate of choice.  He is bright, moderate and competent. He is as exciting as a grilled cheese sandwich. He has no ties within the national party.  He won't break double-digits in Iowa and might not get there in New Hampshire either.  But like I said, a good man.

3.  Jim Webb.  Oh, this guy had promise.  He holds the Navy cross and he was Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy.  Pretty hard to swift-boat that, if he ever got the nomination. While in the senat he also took some principled stands on issues like prison reform. But he's a bit too "principled" when it comes to things like being unable to say the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism. I also doubt he will be able to connect with the left-wing of his party and I doubt he'll make a serious run anywhere.  But I do think he would elevate the debates and be an interesting candidate to follow.  But he can't win.

Predictions.
Hillary could run the table and win all 50 primaries, as Al Gore did over Bill Bradley in 2000.  And as Hillary did in the imaginary world of Bill Kristol's prognostications in 2008.  Bernie will carry Vermont and he might be able to pick off another state somewhere.  Jim Webb might carry Virginia or some oddball state like Oklahoma or some other state that does not matter in the general election.  And O'Malley could theoretically win Maryland, but I doubt it.  If I was making book, I would put the over/under for states won by Hillary at 48.5.

I haven't exactly made a lot of news in the blog post so I'll take one long term flier on Hillary's running mate.  I expect her running mate will come from Virginia, but it won't be Jim Webb. Mark Warner will be on the short list, but I think a better and more likely choice is Senator Tim Kaine.  He's a former governor, he's very smart and perhaps most importantly, he is fluent in Spanish. (He lived in Hondurdas for on year and has given the Democratic Spanish-language response to the State of the Union.)

So here comes the Far-Fetched prediction.
I think the GOP nominee will be very wise to pick Governor Susanna Martinez of New Mexico as his running mate.  The Republicans will need to do something to close the gap among Latin voters and women.  If the nominee is anyone other than Marco Rubio (it won't be Ted Cruz), then Susanna Martinez will make the most sense.

So here's the long shot prediction.  Next year, there will be a vice-presidential debate held in Spanish. And the next election will be decided by Latino voters. By the time the general election is underway, both parties will be vying for every last vote in Florida.  And New Mexico might become a swing state if the Republicans put Gov. Martinez on the ticket.  Yes, this will make head explode among the Fox News crowd, as so many things do lately.  But this is the way of the future and once the election is on the line, it will make sense for both parties.  The Republicans will probably need a long shot to come in and the Democrats would be crazy to decline the offer and risk alienating the fastest growing segment of their base.

Of course this won't happen if Donald Trump is the nominee.  But more about that in my next post.