Some Random Thoughts About the Primaries and Nominations

[tantalyr]

Yes, I'm a long-time political junkie, so I offer some random observations about both parties' candidates and issues surrounding them. This one--Part I in a series I hope to conclude with various posts this week--offers some thoughts (and some legal observations) about Hillary Clinton.

First, as I have opined previously on this forum, Hillary substantially lacks both the political skills and charisma of her husband. Bill could go into a room with four folks and walk out with five shirts. Hillary would be lucky if she kept her own blouse. The fact that she barely squeaked out a tiny, tiny popular caucus vote victory in Iowa, and decisively lost the popular vote in the New Hampshire primary, to an avowed socialist pretty much confirms my view.

Second, Hillary has recently decided to wholly embrace Obama's policy and has repeatedly stated, directly and indirectly, that she is essentially running for a third term of his presidency. Plainly, this is her effort to glue the "Obama Coalition" behind her nomination efforts. While certainly this is not a foolish notion in abstract terms (since Obama won two elections with this coalition), nevertheless she has already lost one of the most important segments of that coalition--the millennial vote. For months, every poll (as well as the two states to hold primaries thus far) has demonstrated that under-30 voters are flocking in droves to Sanders. Importantly, polling consistently shows that this age demographic preference spreads across racial demographics--white, black and Hispanic. In other words, younger black and Hispanic potential voters are not nearly as likely to turn out to vote for Hillary today as they did for Obama, or her husband two decades ago.

Third, as a corollary to the immediately preceding observation, I would suggest that we all watch closely NOT whether Hillary wins the South Carolina primary (she probably will), but instead (a) the turnout of black Democratic primary voters, and (b) what percentage of those voters actually vote for her. I am fairly confident that (a) the black Democratic voter turnout in South Carolina's primary will not even begin to approach the turnout in 2008 (when Obama faced off against Hillary), and (b) Hillary will not win nearly the percentage of black voters in the primary that Obama did in 2008, or even Kerry in 2004. Hence, I do not think Hillary's touted minority voter firewall in southern states will come to pass.

Finally, let's consider the drip, drip, drip of the private email problem that Hillary has. Let's assume (along with more than a few political and legal pundits) that the rather famously independent Director Comey of the FBI formally recommends empanelling a grand jury to consider charges of violating federal secrecy laws arising from passing classified material through her private server, not to mention political corruption arising from, well let's just say "questionable" donations to the Clinton Foundation by persons and entities with pending business before the State Department during her tenure as Secretary of State. Such a recommendation would put not only Hillary, but Obama as well, in a rather nasty box.

If Obama intercedes with his Department of Justice and instructs them not to accept the FBI director's request, then undoubtedly shouts of "cover-up" will follow, and Obama will be compared over and again to Nixon, thus staining whatever legacy he might have. Moreover, as the central figure in the "cover-up," such an intercession will necessarily hurt, rather than help, Hillary's chances of ever winning the Democratic nomination (much less the general election).

Or Obama could issue a pardon to Hillary for whatever crimes the FBI might conclude she may have committed, thus obviating any further investigation or legal proceedings. But in my view, a pardon would be even more harmful to Hillary's chances of nomination/election because in my experience it has been the general view among folks that someone cannot and should not be pardoned for crimes he/she did not commit. Hence, a presidential pardon would likely be viewed among the general electorate as essentially an admission that Hillary committed one or more crimes.

So, were I a trusted adviser to Obama (which of course I am not), I would strongly advise him to eschew either course of action and simply let the chips fall where they may. Either intercession with the DoJ to stop a grand jury investigation or a presidential pardon will not in the least help either Obama or Hillary.

Now a couple of interesting--to me at least--legal/constitutional observations. I have reviewed the Democratic National Committee rules respecting nomination of the party's candidate for president. There is NOTHING in those rules which authorizes the Committee to require a candidate to drop out of the race for the nomination, or even the general election for the designated nominee except for the death of the nominee. So, if Hillary is indicted before or after the Democratic convention, there is nothing the DNC can legally do to force her to forego her candidacy. (Of course the DNC could ask her to forfeit her nomination, but I rather suspect I know what her answer would be . . . .)

Along the same lines, the Supreme Court long ago established that (a) a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted unless and until he/she has been impeached and removed from office, and (b) a president (and any other federal officer subject to impeachment under the Constitution) may only be impeached for "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors" committed while the president was in office. Here, the alleged crimes committed by Hillary occurred while she was Secretary of State, not while she occupied the office of the presidency. So, if (a) Hillary is indicted before the general election, but (b) wins the presidency anyway, then she can neither be prosecuted for those crimes nor impeached. In effect, she would have immunity from prosecution for 4 to 8 years.

The Chinese have an age-old curse: "May you live in interesting times." Methinks this year, at least, we are so cursed.

[Kulamata]

First, to acknowledge the excellence of Tant's  post. Still, however well stated, I smell Foxwash.

I've never understood the venomous, relentless attacks on Hilary; indeed, unending ever since she killed Vince Foster.*

I have not read about the donations, so I'll skip commenting on them.

I thought the relentless drip of the dreaded email scandal got very quiet recently; at just about the same time that it was disclosed that Condoleeza Rice and General Powell had the same arrangement in their day. And that there were also at least a dozen emails that were retroactively classified that passed through their systems. I was quite surprised to read that the State Dep't. Does Not Do Emails, at all, so that if you want the convenience of email, you DIY. So HRC was offered by IT the same service it had provided for her predecessors. And didn't I read somewhere, something about retroactive changes affecting guilt? {I hope Tant fixes that, right word not coming right now.} AFAIK, all the vital national security-type sekrits that were classified were raised in security level retroactively, and were not classified when sent. It has been known for a good while that the classification system is full of highly classified public material. No one ever lost his job by over-classifying, so why take a chance?

IF the president were to intervene, would it really besmirch his legacy? We're not exactly talking Ford/Nixon here; would it erase Obamacare from all but the most obscure footnotes? Nah!

*Our fair and unbalanced operatives proved that Hilary and Chelsea covered up their murder of Vince Foster by firing at a watermelon to make it look like suicide. Further, they learned that the two women were accompanied by a dark and stealthy operative, who appears to have been named Felix Sachs (?), an agent so close to the Clintons that he resided in The White House, although his name never appeared on any White House payroll or org. chart!!!!!!

5 Points for remembering the watermelon test, 5 more for Disclosing Felix's Secret Identity.

[tantalyr]

Feb 20, 2016 3:41:00 GMT Kulamata said:

And didn't I read somewhere, something about retroactive changes affecting guilt? {I hope Tant fixes that, right word not coming right now.} AFAIK, all the vital national security-type sekrits that were classified were raised in security level retroactively, and were not classified when sent.

Kula, I believe the term you're searching for is "ex post facto," which does indeed loosely translate as "after the fact." The Constitution does indeed prohibit prosecution of "crimes" under ex post facto laws. For example, if you did X in 2010 when there was no law prohibiting or criminalizing doing X, but in 2013 Congress passed a law criminalizing X, constitutionally you may not be prosecuted for doing X in 2010 since at that time it wasn't a criminal offense to do X.

That doctrine does not apply to Hillary's email security problem, however. The law prohibiting the intentional or "grossly negligent" handling of classified information has been on the books for decades. And that law applies to any person in lawful possession of a document or other information who "has reason to believe that [the document or other information] could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation" and transmits the document to anyone not authorized to possess the document. See 18 U.S.C. Section 793(d) and (f) In other words, the document in question does not have to actually be marked "classified." Rather, the test is whether the person passing on the document or other information "has reason to believe" that the contents are or should be classified. So, the retroactive classification of a document is not dispositive of the question of whether the subject of the criminal investigation should have known that the information being transmitted "could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."

I'll finish with an observation about last night's Nevada caucuses. According to the entrance polls, Sanders took 53% of the Hispanic caucus vote. That does not bode well for Hillary in the southwest and western primaries with substantial Hispanic populations (e.g. Texas and California).

[tantalyr]

Next up, a few random observations about the Republican chaos . . . erm, race for that party's nomination.

First, the elephant in the room (pun most definitely intended)--Donald Trump. To put it mildly, he has utterly confounded most, if not all, political pundits (and political junkies like me) since the outset of his campaign. In any prior election cycle, his outrageous statements reflecting (at least in my view) deep-seated racism and misogyny, not to mention his blustering full-throated arrogance, would have gotten him booed off every debate stage in the country. And he would not have won a single delegate, much less the majority of the delegates in three of the first four primaries. Indeed, he appears poised (according to the RCP average of polls) to pick up the bulk of the delegates at stake next week on Super Tuesday (or the so-called "SEC Primaries" since most, but not all, are in southern states). Why? For heaven's sake, WHY?

The short answer, methinks, is that a very, very large segment of the American electorate is absolutely fed up with the same old politics that have gridlocked our government for going on two decades. That large group of voters is, in effect, anti-politician and Trump fills that bill and a half (so does Bernie Sanders to a large extent in the Democratic race, which may well account for the close fight he is giving Hillary).

In addition, in an era of fear--economically and foreign policy (read wars)--American voters have historically turned to candidates that project strength (e.g., Lincoln and FDR). And Trump certainly does that. The other remaining Republicans in the race (including Cruz) seem almost wimpish by comparison.

Finally, as Calvin Coolidge aptly observed some 80 years ago: "The business of America is business." In an economy which, to most blue collar workers and more than a few other voters, which has only weakly, if at all, recovered from the Great Recession, Trump's lengthy experience as a (mostly) successful businessman is just what the country needs to right the capsizing American economic ship.

In short, Trump appears to be the presumptive Republican nominee because, to paraphrase the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards, we are sinners in the hands of an angry electorate.

As for my state's junior senator, Ted Cruz . . . . I'll give this to Trump--he correctly nailed Cruz as a "very nasty guy." The dirty tricks he has pulled from Iowa (the highly misleading mailer and Carson withdrawal rumors) to just recently (the blatantly false video of Rubio) is typical of Cruz, who has demonstrated over and again for the past four years that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants and advance his political career. And now that despicable trait is on display to the entire American electorate, not just we Texans who have known that for years. I can see no path for him to become the Republican nominee even in a brokered ("open") convention since even his own Republican colleagues in the Senate despise him (including Texas's senior senator, John Cornyn). In fact, come Super Tuesday I don't see him winning a single state except perhaps Texas, and even then by only a very narrow margin. The evangelical vote Cruz has counted on so heavily has split three ways, with the plurality in South Carolina going to Trump. And he lost the Hispanic vote to Trump in Nevada. So his presumptive base just isn't there. In short, in my view Cruz is toast.

And then there's Marco Rubio. A young, fresh face. Articulate. Fairly charismatic. A Republican establishment favorite. And there's his weakness. As I noted above, this is an anti-establishment election year. He hasn't won a primary yet. And according to a poll out just today, he's even behind Trump in his home state of Florida (one of 11 winner-take-all primary states) by 16 points. I cannot imagine how he can win the nomination consistently finishing second or third in every primary, particularly when one candidate--Trump--is finishing first in most of them. Even if Cruz, Kasich and Carson all drop out tomorrow, Rubio cannot count on all, or even the vast bulk, of their supporters flocking to him. To the contrary, I rather expect a goodly chunk of Cruz and Carson supporters would back Trump. I won't completely count out Rubio at this point, but I'd rather bet on a unknown thoroughbred in a race against American Pharoah than on Rubio winning the nomination.

And Kasich and Carson? I rather like both of them, but c'mon--they have no shot at all. Not this year.

So, as much as it gags me to say it, I just don't see that Trump can be stopped at this point. I truly, truly hope that in a month or so I will be able to follow up this post with a new one confessing just how wrong I was.

[Snowdonia]

FEEL THE BERN!

[Pharcellus]

I definitely feel the Bern.

#BernieOrBust

I refuse to vote for Clinton, and Trump.... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Republicans finally finding their own Zeitgeist, methinks.

Clinton is very likely going to win the general, but it will not be a landslide against the biggest clown candidate ever.

[Pharcellus]

Well, now it is official, the biggest buffoon in political history has been nominated as the Republican presidential candidate.

and dat running mate. XD

The Republicans, as a party, are done. They have now become the biggest joke in American history.

Now if the Democrat party would just follow suit and commit ritual seppuku, MAYBE we could get our country back from the retards and cockmongers.

[tantalyr]

It appears about certain that you will see your wish granted next week, Pharcellus. The Democratic Party is set to nominate Hillary for president. Given her extraordinarily high negatives--almost on par with Trump--together with the steady drip of her server scandal (in every poll the majority of the electorate believes she should be prosecuted), both parties are committing ritual suicide.

We are indeed, as the ancient Chinese curse goes, living in interesting times.

[Pharcellus]

No, Hillary's a safe nomination for the DNC, as far as what they consider their "base". She's establishment through and through. The problem is that the country is moving to the Left. For the youngest voters, they are LEAPING to the Left. Nominating Hillary was most certainly a mistake, but it was far from the clown show at the Repub convention and primaries. Democrat candidates actually debated issues of substance a majority of the time. Republicans blathered on about total and utter bullshit almost ALL the time.

I'm voting for or writing in Jill Stein, because if Trump wins, it won't be any different than if Hillary wins. Either we get real, progressive change, or I want to see it blow up in spectacular fashion. One way or another, change will eventually come. We've tried the ballot box, and we'll keep trying it, but more and more people are getting ready to start reaching for the ammo box, and I am finding it harder every day to blame them for feeling that way. A Trump Presidency would be disastrous, but if that is what it takes for people to start waking the fuck up, I'm good with it.

[tantalyr]

Why is it that I'm becoming convinced that as a child Donald Trump was once (maybe often) on the Art Linkletter classic "Kids Say the Darnedest Things"?

[Pharcellus]

He wasn't. They wouldn't have him because they wouldn't want to make fun of the retarded.. oh. I mean "mentally disabled".

[Pharcellus]

Making death threats against a candidate, to boot. Stay classy, #LoserDonald.