Russians may be coming again ... but we've larger voting problems

Before we go to war with North Korea, before the unhinged Right starts killing CNN reporters, before acetamenophin destroys what's left of our empathy ...

When last we tuned in to RT while clicking on Sputnik News, we learned that our antagonists Boris and Natasha Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear (see here and here for the Wiki background) had been hard at work scaring the pants off moose and squirrel everybody from Jameses Comey and Clapper to your friendly neighborhood Dem precinct captain about what, precisely, they had been up to in the summer of 2016.  That is to say, beyond humiliating Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile, John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and the rest of the DNC hacks that got hacked.

We learned that they hacked into 39 states' voter databases -- or tried to, and succeeded in getting into perhaps just one, Illinois.  Alex Ward at Vox has it, with a link over to the original at Bloomberg, and previously and briefly referenced by yours truly in the second half of this aggrepost.

While this is indeed alarming, I still find voter suppression via photo ID and partisan gerrymandering to be greater threats to our republic.  Paper ballots with verifiable paper trails -- something like the Scantron-style electronic voting machines Denton County has just adopted -- would resolve the  Russian problem, but nothing short of a blue tsunami will fix the other two, and unless they can find something to run on besides "Trump is evil/Russia/Impeach",  2018 isn't going to be the cycle the Donkeys are looking for.

(*Ed note: let me pause here and acknowledge my friend Brad Friedman's lasting concerns about anything machine count-related.  Experts appear to disagree on the hackability, or at least the ease thereof, of scanned ballot counters.)

For the benefit of my conspiratorially-minded Democratic friends, let me point out -- as I have repeatedly in the past -- that the key to cracking the Russian code lies not in tracing election hacking attempts but in Trump's still-concealed tax returns.  Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Felix Sater, and the rest of that ilk are the threads special counsel Mueller should be -- and hopefully is -- pulling on.  And if Trump, or Jeff Sessions, or Devin Nunes, or any Republican in the administration or the Congress is found to be obstructing that investigation, then the walls will come tumbling down.

Focusing on the wrong Russiagate is starting to show up in polling as a loser for Democrats.  It's a winner for the corporate media and ratings, however, especially MSNBC.  Before Mika B's facelift became an atrocious but ultimately distracting Tweet -- even Tucker Carlson thinks so, by Jeebus -- Trump usually didn't give half of one solid shit about the other liberal media news channel; he's mobilized his base to destroy CNN, and now even Julian Assange is piling on.

I would like to also point out that the Democratic Party has bigger fish to fry than continuing to demonize Jill Stein, but I'm convinced that unhealthy obsession has become part of their DNA.

So with all that, plus 1) Kris Kobach, 2) a Texas Legislature poised to over-reach once more with a photo ID law that will require a couple of years for the courts to once again nullify, and 3) gerrymandered congressional and statehouse districts thanks to Tom DeLay almost fifteen years ago, as Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker reminded us in his comprehensive and compelling piece "America's Future is Texas"... why are you more worried about what Russian hackers may or may not be doing in the next election cycle?  Your vote barely counts for anything as it is.

On a more positive note, here's an easily attainable goal for those of us in Harris County: #FireStanStanart and replace him with Diane Trautman, and then push the mostly Republican county commissioners to approve and purchase paper ballots for 2020.  Because if Democrats can actually win some elections -- particularly this one -- in 2018, those GOPers will be forced to do so, due to the caterwauling from their base about Ill Eagles voting.

See how easy this is?  Just requires a little focus on the proper thing.

#GNCinHOU - Assange, Stein, Baraka, West, and YOU

Today's speeches and the roll call of states will culminate a furious week of Green Party events, media coverage, and high profile exposure (at last) of America's only political option for peace.  One highlight breaking late is the "chairman" of Wikileaks, making some remarks from long distance just before lunchtime.  Perhaps you saw him last night on Bill Maher.

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, the organization that recently posted thousands of the Democratic Party's internal emails online, will speak via live stream at the Green Party national convention, party officials announced Friday.

Assange is scheduled to speak at 11:45 a.m. Saturday over a live stream from the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

He will speak on the third day of the progressive party's national convention at the University of Houston, before the party nominates its 2016 presidential nominee, widely expected to be Jill Stein.

Assange is expected to be interviewed by 2004 Green Party presidential nominee David Cobb, party officials said in a statement Friday.

Wikileaks recently made headlines by releasing thousands of Democratic Party emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, suggesting that some DNC party officials quietly had backed Clinton. The revelations angered Sanders supporters, rocked the Democratic gathering and prompted the ouster of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The keynote speakers today will be Dr. Cornel West and YahNé Ndgo, late of the Bernie Sanders campaign and now -- like so many others -- advocates for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.

West was appointed to the Democratic Party's platform drafting committee by Sanders. The activist raised concerns over the party's stance on Palestinian rights, and later endorsed the Green Party, saying "there’s no way, based on moral grounds, those based on my own moral conscience, that I could support [the Democratic Party] platform."

He added about Sanders' ultimate support for Clinton's nomination at the Democratic National Convention: "And once my dear brother moved into his endorsement, his strong endorsement of the neoliberal disaster that Sister Hillary represents, there was no way that I could stay with Bernie Sanders any longer, had to break with the two-party system."

That should get a few pairs of Jockeys in a wad.

Not attending the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. #GNCinHOU pic.twitter.com/Myfy0byIN9

— Green Party US (@GreenPartyUS) August 5, 2016

Here's a schedule of speakers and events.  Note that political conventions don't always run on time, but Assange will likely be prompt (satellite time is neither inexpensive nor flexible).  Dr. West is slated for 2 pm.  Videos from yesterday's pressers are already posted; Texas Green candidates down the ballot are represented in the third one there.

"Come for the revolution, stay for the party". Tonight, after the formalities conclude.

Music, food, a cash bar and lots more.

Throw some caysh into Jill's money boom.  She's already purchased some national teevee advertising, jumping ahead of Trump there and in this poll of voters under thirty.

If you can't be in Houston today for a little history, find a livestream.

Big political events this week

-- Obama's final State of the Union address is tonight.  He intends to burnish his legacy, as lame ducks do.  How's he done in the past seven years with respect to promises kept?

-- Fresh polling has both the Democrats and the Republicans nervous as turkeys at Thanksgiving.  Both parties' establishment caucuses are busy strategizing Plan Bs.  Here's the 'shock me' nut graf for the Blue Team:

Because of the weakness Hillary is showing in the polls, Wall Street is thinking of backing another Democrat to stop Bernie, who obviously would be their worst nightmare.  Names mentioned this morning: Biden, Kerry and Bloomberg.

I still don't think Hillary is going to be denied the nomination even if she loses both Iowa and New Hampshire, which are neck-and-neck today.  But she's definitely a frog in a pot on the stove with the burner set to 'high'.  I believe she'll  jump out of hot water when she goes after Bernie on his gun stance in this coming Sunday's debate (as I wrote at the end of this post).  But H.A. Goodman is coming to his rescue, digging out some old quotes where she describes herself as a "pro-gun churchgoer".  So it's possible that chameleon Clinton is going to have change her colors once more.

Update: ICYMI there was an Iowa forum yesterday, sponsored by Fusion for black and brown Democrats, with all three candidates participating.  Did you catch it?  Did you even know about it?  If you didn't, thank Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

-- South Carolina will be pivotal for the Repugs as well, because Ted Cruz is going to come from behind in Iowa and Donald Trump will rebound in New Hampshire.  Trump still shows a small lead in the Hawkeye State, but they caucus there and his fans are too busy to show up for him.  Cruz, on the other hand, holds the evangelicals in his hands FTW.

I am enjoying the way they snipe at each other, however.  Trump played the birther card on Cruz; it went national again with screeching on both sides of the "is he eligible" question.  Trump is now playing Springsteen's "Born in the USA" at his rallies, while Cruz responds with a Tweet of the YouTube of Fonzie jumping the shark.

Happy days are here again.

-- The next GOP debate is Thursday night and Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina both got demoted to the JV team.  And Rand won't play at the kid's table.

"An artificial designation as being in the second tier is something we can't accept," (Paul) told CNN on Monday. "I won't participate in anything that's not the first tier."

Rand's the first man out after Iowa.  As New York Mag reminds, the year of the libertarian Republican has been eclipsed by the year of the fascist one.

Update: Moron Majority has debate questions for the remaining participants.  A few...

Donald Trump – “Not much is known about your wife, Melania. How do you think your supporters, especially evangelicals, would react knowing that  if you were elected, she would be the first First Lady to have posed nude?”

Ted Cruz – “Why does everyone hate you? Even your old college roommate, Craig Mazin, said,“I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.”

Jeb Bush – “Do you regret not having listened to the words of your mother when her advice to you about running for president was: don’t?”

And Republican Talking Head John Feehery could vote for Trump because "nothing suggests he is a racist", but NOT for Cruz because he's "the new Nixon".  If that doesn't tell you how discombobulated the GOP is right now...

Tonight's #DemDebate

Lot of chances to watch the fur fly.  Let's read Vox's executive advance summary:

The next Democratic debate is on Sunday, January 17, at (8 pm Central). The debate will take place in Charleston, South Carolina, and air on NBC. A free online live stream will be available to all on NBC's YouTube channel. 

Like the last debate, this one will feature all three of the remaining Democratic candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. It will be the fourth of just six debates that Democrats are planning. And, like the last two debates, it will take place on the weekend (a three-day weekend, in this case) — when fewer people are expected to watch.

No DWS response to her many critics about this, and it's too late for her to provide one that addresses it.  I have seen no defense of this ridiculous and somewhat dictatorial action by the DNC chair from Clinton supporters.  If someone else has, please point me to it.

For much of 2015, it appeared Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic nomination without too much trouble. 

Not any more: Bernie Sanders has been surging in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote. He's been leading in the Granite State for most of the past few months, but his Iowa momentum is more recent — and the unique dynamics of the caucuses could give him an advantage over Clinton.

Reverb Press reveals Bernie's hurdle in Iowa: university is under way, and college students, one of the most critical vertebra in his campaign's backbone, may not be able to fully participate.

So Clinton is now faced with the possibility that she could lose both of the first two states to vote — something that would be hugely embarrassing for the supposedly inevitable Democratic nominee. It's unclear whether Sanders' success in Iowa and New Hampshire will translate to other states, but it's obvious Clinton has gotten nervous: this week her campaign started lashing out at Sanders's support for a single-payer health care system — using attacks that many commentators dubbed misleading. Expect a great deal of discussion on the candidates' health care positions at the debate. 

Another topic that will surely be discussed is electability. With the Republican nomination contest lurching so far to the right, many Democrats are anxious to nominate a candidate that will ensure their party keeps the White House this November. And some believe that Sanders — a "democratic socialist" who holds far-left views on several issues — wouldn't be able to win.

Clinton's campaign has been running ads suggesting she's the only candidate who can stop the GOP, while Sanders has responded by saying early polls show him doing better than she would. So it's likely that electability will be hotly debated on Sunday.

Robert Reich has Bernie's rebuttals to these. And here's the twelve most effective TV ads so far in the campaign, as judged by Business Insider (take note of who dominates).

Finally, there's the core issue motivating Sanders's campaign and indeed his entire political career — his desire to check the power of the super-wealthy and corporations. Sanders has been laser-focused on this for decades, while Clinton has been much more of an ordinary mainstream Democrat — willing to push for policies that improve people's lives, but also eager to win the business community to her side. 

In a recent ad, Sanders said there are "two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street," and that "one says it's okay to take millions from big banks and then tell him what to do." So expect a serious debate around whether Clinton is too close to the wealthy. 

As for the other candidate in the race — Martin O'Malley, who's way far back in last place — this may be the last time we see him in a debate. If polls of Iowa are anywhere close to accurate, he'll perform so poorly there that it's difficult to imagine him continuing his campaign. Vox's Matthew Yglesias has argued that O'Malley should be taken more seriously — so this may be the last chance for that to happen.

There will also be some sparring over gun safety and Sanders has already revised his position on gun manufacturer immunity in response to his critics on that.  Take an afternoon nap in order to stay up late and watch the whole thing, despite what Wasserman Schultz would prefer.

Here's more debate prep if you like.

-- GOP chair Reince Priebus would rather his party's nominee square off with Hillary than with Bernie.  His reasoning is faulty -- he predictably believes the Republican could win against either one -- but his conclusion is sound.

-- Clinton's questionable assault on Sanders' still-to-be-announced national health care revisions (even Ted thought it unseemly) gets called 'rotten'.  Actually it was Clinton herself labeled a 'rotten candidate'.  It's the WaPo's RWNJ Jennifer Rubin, but still ...

-- Howard Dean's blinding hypocrisy on single-payer further trashes her reputation with progressives in the Democratic Party on the topic of healthcare.  Clinton's various surrogates, from Chelsea to Dean to Joel Benenson are serving her poorly, and that includes the odious David Brock, who was Tweeted to "chill out" by none other than Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.  So one thing we should expect not to be debated this evening is the candidates' medical records.

-- Eight reasons for worry in the Clinton camp, all of them barely within or completely outside her ability to control or even influence.

-- In what could have been its own post, my personal outrage of the week against Clinton is this 2007 video of her blaming the victims for the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.  To be clear: there's plenty enough responsibility lacking in those folks who were just not credit-worthy enough to buy a home, and who simply never held the old-school value of high personal reputation (that's why they had bad credit to begin with).  Caveat emptor and all that.  But let's not dodge placing the fault for global financial apocalypse where it properly lies: with the unscrupulous mortgage lenders, the incompetent or malfeasant securitization of subprime loans rated AAA by the industry's so-called watchdogs, and the government handouts extended to the likes of Jamie Dimon (who then declined to stimulate the country's moribund economy by lending the money out) when their stinking chickens eventually came home to roost.

If you still don't get it, go watch The Big Short again, or read this.

People are starting to get it

Thanks to Gadfly, via Twitter... this.

If Hillary Clinton ends up winning the Democratic nomination for president, some Bernie Sanders supporters will vote for her anyway. I can respect that decision. While the differences between Democrats and Republicans are often overstated -- to give just two examples (there are many), the same people advise Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz on foreign policy and Hillary Clinton is at least as cozy with Wall Street as most Republicans -- there are some real and important reasons to worry about a Republican White House. The Supreme Court and heads of agencies are, in my view, the biggest concerns in this vein. I'd have low hopes for Hillary Clinton's appointees but no doubts that they'd be better on balance than those offered by a Trump, Cruz, or Rubio.

Yet I will not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. While I understand the lesser-of-two-evils mentality, I disagree with it; most of Clinton's policy positions are unacceptable to me. If Sanders loses the primary, I will probably vote for Jill Stein.

I don't know if Ben Spielberg of 34justice reads the same things I read or came to the conclusions I did months ago by reading Brains, but it's not all that big a stretch if you value actual progressivism and do some thinking.

Wouldn't that be a strategic blunder, some friends and family ask me? Democrats who aren't quite as polite ask if I'm an idiot. Don't I realize that this type of thinking led to George W. Bush becoming president in 2000 and that I may similarly "blow this election" by deciding to vote my conscience?

The premise of these questions, however, is completely wrong, and not just because, as Jim Hightower documented at the time, voting records show that "Gore was the problem, not Nader," in the 2000 election. In fact, refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election is both a principled and strategic decision that I encourage more people to embrace.

There are two possibilities when it comes to my vote: it will either impact the outcome of the election or it won't. If my vote won't impact the outcome of the election, I might as well vote for the candidate with the best policy positions, regardless of his or her supposed electability.

If my vote will impact the outcome of the election, I may have to decide which matters more: (a) the differences between a bad Democrat and worse Republican over the next four years or (b) the degree to which I'd undermine our chances to enact fundamental change to a broken political system in the long-run by pursuing a lesser-of-two-evils voting strategy.

I'm going to do the linear, bipolar Democrats a favor here by making their argument -- the one they need to make to non-voters, not to people like me and Spielberg.

"Not a dime's worth of difference."  "Don't vote; it only encourages the bastards."  (I have a Facebook friend -- a former Democratic precinct chair, then a former Green, now a voting atheist who uses that second phrase s good bit.  THE most argumentative person, in the harshest of various ways, I have ever encountered.  And that's quite definitive, but it's also a digression.)

Back on point.

... (T)he type of political "pragmatism" that would lead someone to choose (a) undermines power-balancing policy goals. Because politicians and Democratic party officials know that many voters think this way, they have little incentive to listen to our concerns. Instead, they can pay lip service to progressive values while crafting a policy agenda and decision-making process more responsive to wealthy donors than to their constituents.

That dynamic is on full display already in the 2016 Democratic primary election. Clinton is campaigning against priorities, like single-payer health care, that Democrats are supposed to embrace. While early union endorsements for Clinton initially improved her rhetoric on education issues to some degree, she is already backtracking to assure corporate donors that her positions are unchanged. The unions who endorsed Clinton early have no negotiating power relative to rich donors who make their support contingent on Clinton pursuing their interests; given that fact and her record, she seems unlikely to keep her promises if elected.

The Democratic National Committee's actions are also illustrative. The party establishment lined up behind Clinton before the race even started, and the DNC's debate schedule is, despite their protestations to the contrary, quite obviously constructed to insulate Clinton from challenge. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's recent decision to suspend Sanders' campaign's access to its voter data (in response to a data breach by a since-fired Sanders staffer; the access was restored after the Sanders campaign sued the DNC) has caused even party loyalists to believe that the DNC "is putting [its] finger on [the] scale" and pro-Clinton journalists to acknowledge that the DNC's behavior "makes Clinton's lead look illegitimate, or at least, invites too many 'what ifs.'"

What is developing for 2016 -- and I thought it was obvious before I wrote yesterday's post -- is that the 'status quo' candidate(s) are going to be, indeed already are, at a strategic disadvantage.

Both Clinton and party leaders are making a mockery of many of the principles the party is supposed to stand for. And pledging to support Clinton in the end -- no matter what she and the DNC do -- enables this kind of behavior. It's hard for me to see how we will ever fix our political process and reclaim our democracy by refusing to draw some lines in the sand.

I could accuse those who disagree with that assessment of propping up a sham political system. I could say that, by downplaying the unfounded smears the Clinton campaign has spread against Sanders and insisting that we must support Clinton in the general if she wins the nomination, they are destroying the Democrats' credibility and thus helping to ensure ever more privilege-defending and corrupt elected officials and government policy. But it would be a lot fairer of me to acknowledge that a lot of the Republicans are really scary, that my strategy isn't guaranteed to work the way I think it will, and that people evaluate the risks differently than I do.

That last sentence is the kindest acknowledgment that can be extended to the Clinton folks.  Spielberg is about to make up for it, though.  Bold emphasis is mine.

Similarly, those who disagree can continue to accuse people like me of "helping the GOP" in the 2016 election by pointing out that the Democrats have extreme flaws and don't always deserve our support. But it would be a lot fairer of them to acknowledge that millions upon millions of people have suffered at the hands of lesser-of-two-evils candidates over the years, that an open commitment to support a lesser-of-two-evils candidate robs voters of bargaining power, and that the Democratic Party has brought voter discontent upon itself.

Bottom line: if Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump, it won't be anybody's fault but HERS.  I had to defriend someone on Facebook just yesterday who couldn't understand this, kept typing "Trump/GOP thanks you for your support," etc. and so on.  There's no time to waste with horses' asses, led to water, who refuse to drink.  Too many people outside the current electorate that need persuading to forfeit effort teaching swine to yodel.

Here is another olive branch.

Hopefully Sanders will win the Democratic primary and this discussion will become a moot point. In the meantime, it's good for those of us who believe in social justice to push each other on our tactics. We would just do well to remember that reasonable people with the same goals can disagree about which electoral strategy is most likely to help us achieve them.

Clinton people can do their thing, Sanders' people can do theirs, at least until he is disqualified.  It  makes more sense than to continue antagonizing each other on social media, no?  I don't think not voting sends the right message -- somewhere around 75% of Americans already do that, and I don't get that the powers that be are listening.  I also don't think writing in Sanders' name in November is a good way to go, but at least it's a protest vote and not a protest non-vote.

An alternative to vote in favor of, and not against some objectionable candidate or party -- outside the 'left-right, left-right' -- that matches up best with one's progressive populist principles.  I also think that the movement -- a political revolution, thanks Bernie -- makes the strongest statement when it advocates for a living wage.

Bernie Sanders has many of the right economic ideas, but he's also still too beholden to the military industrial complex as well as an abbreviated version of the Second Amendment (truncating the "well-regulated militia" part, like the NRA and all of its adherents do).  And I simply don't think that his social justice message is going to reach enough minorities to help him get to the lead, and even if he got a sudden groundswell of support that pushed him to the front after winning Iowa and New Hampshire, that the DNC establishment would allow him to claim the nomination.

So the question remains: cast no vote, cast a symbolic protest vote, or cast a vote that really sends the loudest message to the DNC.  The choice has always been, and will continue to be, yours.

All the best of the holiday season to all my readers.  A few Toons posts lie ahead but nothing serious -- unless circumstances warrant -- until after Christmas.

Revolution News Update, Vol. 4 Surrender Bernie edition

(Yesterday), Chris Cuomo had the temerity to use conditional language in speaking of Hillary Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for President.

It didn’t go over well.

The relevant portion of the transcript is below:

CUOMO (CNN): So you get into the general election, if you’re the nominee for your party, and —

CLINTON: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won’t be.

CUOMO: There’s a Senator from Vermont who has a different take on that —

CLINTON: Well —

CUOMO: He says he’s going to fight to the end —

CLINTON: Yeah, it’s strange.

It’s hard to take Clinton’s first comment as anything but a statement that nothing California could possibly do in its primary could change the outcome of the Democratic race — even though it’s now widely accepted that Clinton can’t win the primary with pledged delegates alone. This means that the Democratic nomination will be decided by super-delegates, who don’t vote for more than two months — at the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Philadelphia on July 25th. As the DNC has repeatedly advised the media, those super-delegates can and often do change their minds — and are free to do so up until they actually vote this summer.

CNN analyst Carl Bernstein noted several times Wednesday night that between mid-May and late July countless things could happen that would cause super-delegates to move toward Sanders en masse.

Seth Abramson is a dreamer, a bit ungrounded, but it's the Queen's reality I'm having more trouble with.  Just a bit too dictatorial for my taste.  "California, your votes won't be counted because they don't matter"?  Once upon a time -- not too long ago, in this galaxy -- Democrats called tactics like that voter suppression and disenfranchisement.

I had a brief conversation with one of David Brock's employees on Twitter this past week, mentioned something about 'tyranny of the majority", she didn't know what that meant and refused to try to figure it out.  You can't make the horse's asses drink the water.

My two observations about Hillbot behavior this cycle are 1) they just don't care that she's a war-mongering, lying, corporate shill, and 2) they see people like me saying things like that about Hillary as a personal attack upon themselves.  This is chosen ignorance.  The blind who will not see.

It's hard to hold them fully accountable for their obtuseness and misdirected anger when it is coming directly from the top.  I'm trying real hard, Ringo, to give 'em a pass, but on some level the only thing left to do is disengage.  That's what I have done and am doing with the worst and dumbest among their lot.

-- Maha:

I told someone this morning that it’s starting to feel like 1971 again; Sanders supporters are the antiwar movement, and the Democratic Party and its loyalists are the Nixon Administration. What should have been a temporary disagreement is turning into a generation-changing moment that will hurt the Democratic Party for years to come.

It feels more like 1980 to me, with Sanders as Ted Kennedy and Clinton as Jimmy Carter.  That ugly split in the Democratic Party gave us Ronald Reagan, and the Dems, in their shock, awe, and fear turned toward more autocratic, top-down authority in their candidate selection process, aka superdelegates, the unelected Democratic nobility.

What parties do tend to do is to react to the last election. 1972 was a real trauma for the Democrats—the beginning of the end of the New Deal coalition. Then Jimmy Carter loses in 1980—two Republican landslides in 10 years. In each case, the Democrats were very unhappy with their nominees and their president, for different reasons. They thought George McGovern was too far to the left, that his coalition alienated the regular party and so on. 1972 was also what created the Reagan Democrats who by 1980 were voting Republican.

[...]

How did the bitter fight between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1980 figure in the Hunt Commission’s deliberations?

It was a particularly ugly fight that left very deep wounds in the party. As those floor debates were going on and Kennedy was making his statement speech, there were no party leaders on the floor. There was nobody there to put things back together.

The McGovern-Fraser reforms were aimed at opening up the party to other factions, particularly the anti-war faction in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But that didn’t mean that they wanted to cut out the entire party apparatus, which is what happened. A lot of what the Hunt Commission talked about was restoring the balance at the nominating convention.

The Hunt Commission brought the theory of superdelegates into practice; that, as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has enunciated, "Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists."

Those dirty hippies.  Freaking peasants, what do they know?

-- The Bradblog interviews Jill Stein on their most recent podcast, which means you can listen to it at your leisure.  Here's bit from it.

"The guys running the show in the Democratic Party are basically the funders --- and that's predatory banks, fossil fuel giants, war profiteers, and insurance companies," Stein tells me. "With the Democratic Party you see basically a 'fake left-go right' situation, where they allow principled, inspired campaigns to stand up and be seen, but they sabotage them when push comes to shove. That, unfortunately, is what we see going on right now with the Sanders campaign, which is making a valiant effort here to do the right thing and change the party."

[...]

"This politics of fear that tells you you have to vote against what you're afraid of, instead of for what you believe in --- the politics of fear has a track record. It has delivered everything we were afraid of. All of the things you were told you had to bite your tongue and let the 'lesser evil' speak for you --- we've gotten all those things, by the droves. The expanding wars, the meltdown of the climate, the offshoring of our jobs, the attack on immigrants. We've gotten all of that." Stein says. "Not that there aren't some differences between the two parties, but they're not enough to save your life, to save your job, or to save your planet. This is a race to the bottom between the two sold-out corporate parties."

-- And just so we don't leave anybody out: Gary Johnson of the Libertarians has picked his running mate for 2016, and it's former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.  That's the #NeverTrump wing of the GOP's very best option.  Need to do what I can again to help those folks along, if only so that the Hillbots don't keep hatin' on the player, and not the plutocratic game.

Related to that, a report that the Koch Bros would funding the Johnson-Weld ticket to an eight-figure tune was gently denied by the campaign.

Five and a half months to go 'til November, the TDP state convention in a month -- I predict another Hillaryian shitshow like Nevada, what with the odious Gilberto Hinojosa already spreading his hate of Sandernistas in a now-deleted FB post -- and then the disrupting going on at both national conventions this summer.  Hurricanes or no, we're in for a really rough ride.

Scattershooting the state budget, the potty bill, and a few Democrats

-- The Texas House and Senate have submitted their preliminary budgets, and they're billions of dollars apart.  The Statesman says over $5 billion after the wash, the TexTrib and the Chron are going with $8 billion.  This is illustrative of the dilemma facing those of us who want to better understand these things; details are scant on some of the largest expenditures, but it's enough to conclude that state services are going to get a lot worse.  One bright spot I can find is that the House does not declare the economic stabilization account, aka rainy day funds, untouchable.

... Rep. Drew Darby, a San Angelo Republican and House budget expert, hinted that his colleagues would consider tapping the state's Rainy Day Fund, which holds more than $10 billion.

"It was designed to accommodate these times that we're in right now," Darby said of the fund at a panel discussion at a conference hosted by the Texas Association of Business. "It has been raided and reduced to near zero three times in the past."

This is more open-minded thinking than I can recall seeing, particularly from members of the Texas House, and suggests that their influence will be greater than the Senate's, which has gone too far right to be of much service to any proud Texan.

-- Related to that premise, Joe Straus is going to push on Greg Abbott to take his side -- and not Piss Lord Dan Patrick's -- on the bathroom bill.  Bold emphasis mine.

House Speaker Joe Straus, R- San Antonio, was wary of the Senate’s “bathroom bill” during a speech at the Texas Association of Business conference on Wednesday, sharing his personal opinion that Senate Bill 6 could result in economic troubles.

“There’s been a lot of work put into our state’s economic success,” Straus said. “Contrary to popular myth, it is not a miracle. We want to continue that success and we want Texas to keep attracting the best and the brightest. One way to maintain our economic edge is to send the right signals about who we are.”

The speaker also appeared to be interested in getting a real stance on the issue from Gov. Greg Abbott, saying “the governor’s opinion on this can make a big difference too.”

“If you are concerned, and I know many of you are, now is the time to speak up,” Straus said, addressing conference attendees.

I say we all try to knock the guy in the wheelchair off that fence he's straddling.

-- In under-reported Texas developments:

A state district judge in Austin has taken the next step in dissolving the American Phoenix Foundation, the group that 'terrorized' members of the Legislature last session by secretly, then not-so-secretly, filming them at the Texas Capitol and elsewhere in Austin.

Former state Sen. Dan Shelley has been appointed as receiver to take over and dissolve the foundation, which has been described by its founder Joe Basel as “defunct.”

(Many QR readers may remember that Sen. Shelley served in both chambers and was legislative liaison to the legislature for both governors George W. Bush and Rick Perry.)

"The appointment of a receiver is an extraordinary remedy applied only because Joe Basel abused a nonprofit as if it were his personal play thing," said Steve Bresnen, the veteran lobbyist who filed suit to bring the finances of the Phoenix Foundation into the light.

Scott Braddock, the author of this excerpt, is simply a terrible writer -- too many quote marks and far too much inappropriate capitalization -- so I took the liberty to edit him above in that regard.  But to his credit, he appears to be the only reporter who covered this story.  It was ten days ago that the court squashed American Phoenix to death, and my Google machine shows no other stories about it.

-- As I posted earlier last week, memes are fun, get a lot of action on social media, and are rarely fact-checked.  But the fact-checkers make their their own mistakes, too.  It's getting more difficult to discern fake news from non-fake news, and the best thing you can do is to set your BS detector to 'highest', and wait for the autopsy results.

I remain of the opinion that Cory Booker is a POS neoliberal.

In July 2013, @IvankaTrump held a $5,200 per plate fundraiser for @CoryBooker in her apartment. #TrumpHistoryLecturehttps://t.co/aGjnA2Oi8d pic.twitter.com/10iZRxTWG5

— Jeanette Sandernista (@JeanetteJing) January 17, 2017

-- Tom Perez also still sucks.

(Outgoing) Labor Secretary Tom Perez, one of the leading candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee, has stumbled in recent days when asked about his position on money in politics.

Asked at a DNC forum in Phoenix last Saturday whether he will “revive President Obama’s ban on corporate donations to the DNC” and a ban on appointing lobbyists as party leaders, Perez demurred.

“It’s actually not that simple a question,” Perez responded, adding that such a move might have “unintended consequences.” Perez argued that such a ban might impact “union members who are lobbyists,” though the question explicitly only addressed corporate lobbyists.

Speaking to the Huffington Post, Perez has refused to clarify his position on resurrecting President Obama’s ban on lobbyist donations to the DNC, which was overturned by former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., during Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

The only firm restriction on special-interest money Perez has announced is that he will not accept lobbyist donations for his own campaign committee formed to support his bid for DNC chair. But even this position has come under question.

The Intercept recently obtained a fundraiser invite for Team Tom, Perez’s DNC chair campaign committee, for an event on January 26 in Washington, D.C. The event invite clearly prohibits lobbyist money, but the host committee — the individuals sponsoring the event — included several federally registered lobbyists and individuals working in the lobbying industry ...

Read on if you like, but I'm done.

While Harvey was wall-bangin' ...

-- Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio and fired Seb Gorka. That's how you makes every white nationalist in the United States happy and sad at the same time.  Oh, he's also using Harvey as an opportunity to deport people.

Guy's got a gift for chaos.  Probably could call it god-given (if there was a god).

-- The city of Houston failed to certify the signatures on the petitions collected by the firefighters in time to put their pay raise proposition on the November ballot.

Despite weeks of outcry, the push by Houston firefighters to put equal pay with police officers on the November ballot will not be coming to fruition, as the deadline for City Hall to validate the petition has elapsed.

[...]

(Fireman's union president Marty) Lancton said he had offered the city financial assistance verifying the signatures if it needed to pay more employees for overtime (the mayor's office accused him of an ethical violation and asked the city attorney to open an investigation; the city attorney concluded no action was necessary). Former KTRK reporter Wayne Dolcefino's consulting firm also offered help, and Lancton said at least two council members offered district resources; but "the mayor smugly ignored the offers and the City Council took no action on the issue," Lancton wrote.

City Secretary Anna Russell, who has held her post for 45 years, said earlier this month that her office could not begin verifying signatures on the firefighters union petition because it hadn't finished verifying a petition submitted in April related to pension reform, filed by an outside political group, Texans for Local Control. Alan Bernstein, spokesman for the mayor, maintained that Mayor Turner had no influence in this process, saying she has always verified petitions in the order they're received.

How convenient for the mayor.  Let's point out that he also lost in court in his effort to legally prosecute the homeless, but at least he's making some progress on that bullet train to Dallas.  And he needs to cut HillCo loose and do his own lobbying, enlisting his governmental relations staffer Bill Kelly, who worked for Mayor Pro-Tem Ellen Cohen when she served in the Texas House.  Those three could squeeze a few phone calls onto their calendar, maybe a drive over to Austin during the session a couple of times, saving the city a little money.

Kuff is wrong again.  That's been happening a lot lately.

-- At least the mayor is smarter than Greg Abbott, so there's that.  The goobner calls for an evacuation of Houston, but Turner and County Judge Emmett say, "hold on there".

Abbott urged all Texans to heed any mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders issued by local city and county officials—but even urged people to "strongly consider" evacuating even if no evacuation order has been issued.

He made comparisons to Houston's catastrophic Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, saying that Harvey is bringing rivaling amounts of rain. The National Weather Service has forecast between 18 and 24 inches of rain for the Houston region. As such, he even urged Houstonians to consider evacuating farther north, a suggestion that contradicts advice from local officials and Mayor Sylvester Turner.

"I would urge people to strongly consider the evacuation process," he said, "because there is the possibility that people may have to go a long time without access to basic necessities, without access to water, food, power. If you have the ability to evacuate and go somewhere else for a little while, it would be good."

At a 4 p.m. press conference, Mayor Turner and County Judge Ed Emmett re-emphasized that there has not been nor will be any evacuation order for Houston, nor would they recommend voluntarily evacuating. Turner had recalled the disaster that a mandatory evacuation order during Hurricane Rita created in 2005, when people died of heat exhaustion on the highway and had to be rescued during the immense gridlock. At the presser, he and Emmett said that, given Houston is not in Harvey’s hurricane path and is dealing instead with a large rain event, this is not the type of storm that would prompt evacuations.

“In the City of Houston, this is a rain maker,” Turner said of the tropical storm that Harvey is bringing to Houston. “There’s no need for people to be thinking about leaving, getting on the road and putting themselves in danger. Quite frankly, you can be putting yourself in more danger by getting on the road.”

Turner said he and Abbott have not spoken on the phone, but Emmett said when he talked to Abbott this afternoon, Abbott assured him the message to people would be "listen to your local officials" about evacuations.

Abbott is a stone cold moron.  Someone should have told him that Houston's masses attempting to evacuate from Rita -- a week after Katrina -- resulted in virtually the same number of deaths as the storm itself did over the entire region.

In the Houston area, the muddled flight from the city killed almost as many people as Rita did. An estimated 2.5 million people hit the road ahead of the storm’s arrival, creating some of the most insane gridlock in U.S. history. More than 100 evacuees died in the exodus. Drivers waited in traffic for 20-plus hours, and heat stroke impaired or killed dozens. Fights broke out on the highway. A bus carrying nursing home evacuees caught fire, and 24 died.

The story later became about whether the haste was an over-reaction to Katrina. Houston Chronicle science writer Eric Berger argued (on Sept. 22, 2015; ten years after) that the pre-storm anxiety made sense. Rita looked terrifying and was headed straight toward Houston with 175 mph winds and worst-case scenario potential.

Nevertheless, Berger wrote, “state, county and city officials were unprepared.” The haphazard evacuation plan –  no contraflow lanes; inadequate policies to keep gas flowing – created bedlam. 

I blogged extensively about my own attempt to get out of town at the time, 11 years and 11 months ago.  Berger now blogs at Space City Weather, and is the only source I consult for hurricane-related news (though I look at the maps at Accuweather and Weather Underground, nobody has demonstrated more predictive reliability than Berger).  My teevee has been on the Travel Channel or the movie channels; no local weather hypesters nor panic-inducing hysteria for me.

-- The fraud lawsuit against the DNC was dismissed yesterday.

A year-long legal battle over the Democratic National Committee’s handling of the 2016 presidential primary came to an end Friday, with a federal judge in Florida dismissing a class-action suit brought by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances with the DNC or its candidate selection process, their redress is through the ballot box, the DNC’s internal workings, or their right of free speech — not through the judiciary,” Judge William Zloch, a Reagan appointee, wrote in his dismissal. “To the extent Plaintiffs have asserted specific causes of action grounded in specific factual allegations, it is this Court’s emphatic duty to measure Plaintiffs’ pleadings against existing legal standards. Having done so . . . the Court finds that the named Plaintiffs have not presented a case that is cognizable in federal court.”

Caitlyn Johnstone at Medium speaks for me.

The oldest political party in the world has died. It doesn’t know it yet, it isn’t acting like it yet, but it is dead. By successfully getting the DNC fraud lawsuit dismissed by Judge William J. Zloch today, the Democratic party has succeeded in killing any argument for its continued existence as a legitimate political party.

The premise of the DNC fraud lawsuit was simple: the Democratic National Committee promised voters an impartial party primary, and in 2016 it did not deliver them what it promised. By taking donations from people who believed its promise of impartiality, it committed fraud, in the same way a company selling a product labeled “sugar free” would be committing fraud if its product was loaded with maple syrup.

[...]

Documents released by WikiLeaks such as the conversations in the more egregious DNC emails, the Podesta emails showing that the DNC and the Clinton camp were colluding as early as 2014 to schedule debates and primaries in a way that favored her, then-DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile acting as a mole against the Sanders campaign and passing Clinton questions in advance to prep her for debates with Sanders all demonstrate a clear and undeniable violation of the Impartiality Clause.

The DNC Charter was revised with this promise to the American people in order to prevent a DemExit after the 1968 fiasco in Chicago, and in 2016 they undeniably broke this promise.

[...]

If you are American, whether Democrat, Republican or otherwise, you should read through Judge Zloch’s Order of Dismissal in its entirety when you have time, because this is a historic moment in your nation’s history and this ruling affects you personally. Had the case been allowed to proceed, it could have seen the DNC suffer tremendous consequences for its blatant Charter violation with the promise of more penalties should they repeat the behavior again. Former DNC leaders could have been forced to testify under oath about their behavior, and people who donated to the Sanders campaign could have been refunded their money. The DNC would have been forced into a situation where it could no longer actively sabotage progressive candidates without expecting severe consequences for that behavior.

Instead, the DNC has elected a virulently pro-establishment replacement for Debbie Wasserman Schultz in its new Chairman Tom Perez, and has to this day admitted no wrongdoing nor given any indication that it will make the massive, sweeping changes that would need to be made to prevent Impartiality Clause violations from happening in the future. There is no reason to believe that 2016 was the only time the DNC weighted its scales for a preferred candidate just because 2016 was the year it got caught, and there is now no reason to believe it won’t do so again, since it has no incentive not to.

[...]

The DNC violated its Charter, and it will not be penalized for doing so. It will march right into 2018 and 2020 using its same dirty tactics and its same fake primaries to sabotage progressive candidates and make sure that America remains dominated by not one but two right-wing parties. It therefore deserves to die.

And die it will. People like myself and countless other voices in US political commentary will forevermore be able to legitimately say that the Democrats run a novelty joke party which does not feel any obligation to hold real party elections. The Dems now have as much party legitimacy as Vermin Supreme or the Rent Is Too Damn High party. Stop taking these people seriously. DemExit and do not look back, because it’s only going to get worse from here.

You are right back where you were in 1968, America. Don’t let them fool you again.

In Texas, the Green Party has been unable to capitalize (pun intended) on the ineptitude of the Texas Democratic Party because of their own incompetence and infighting.  That leaves a small band of Democratic Socialists, who seem to be gathering a bit of momentum of late.  Should be of some interest as to whether a group of progressives -- Greens, DSA, independents running on the Donkey line, like Tom Wakely -- can muster candidates to the 2018 ballot.  I'm not holding my breath.

As I peruse my early options for next year, I do find some Democrats I could vote for, though not in their primary: Beto O'Rourke, Wakely, Almost Anybody But Cargas in CD-7, Judge RK Sandill running for SCOTX.  With Deb Kerner out of the scrum to replace John Culberson, I need to vet the candidates bidding to replace my shitbag Congress critter.  Alex Treehousesyphilis seems progressive, at least as Democrats go, but he has raised a metric shit-ton of money and that does nothing to elevate him in my eyes.  Laura Moser would be a good choice if she weren't so attached to Hillary Clinton last year.  Jason Westin abruptly unfollowed me on Twitter, probably because he figured out I'm well to the left of where he is.  Joshua Butler has some promise as the African American millennial in the race.  So if any of these managed to escape to a runoff next spring, I could swallow hard and wheel in the red square beside their name if I had to.  But there's plenty of time for the field to winnow itself before next March (or April).

I was wrong about Trump.

So admits Matt Bai of Yahoo as well, but we'll get to his take in a moment.  Here's what I wrote way back on November 13, six weeks ago.

Despite what I have said repeatedly about polls, I'm anxious to see what they reveal about a week or two from (the time Trump asked 'how stupid were the people of Iowa').  This feels like a turning point for a couple of candidates.   The conservative Borg has been completely unpredictable to this point, but a settling-out of the real lunacy of Trump and Carson to the regular loons of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio is somewhat overdue.

Ben Carson has indeed faded, but Trump's position in the polling has strengthened in the days since.  Over the Thanksgiving holiday, in time spent with family and friends, I asked the considerable number of conservatives and Republicans among our brood what they thought about the Donald.  All but one cringed and shook their head.  The one supporter -- who received his most recent book as a Christmas present and was delighted -- posed for a photograph at our Turkey Day meal at a Beaumont hotel ballroom, and just before the snapshot, I yelled, "Smile and say BERNIE SANDERS!"  A few minutes later she leaned over and told me quietly, "I get his e-mail; I like him".  I replied, "there's hope for you yet!"

So from an anecdotal perspective, I truly don't know what to make of the Trump phenomenon.  Matt Bai agrees with my status today, however ...

For many months now, like the anxious producers of some hot reality show, the American media has been waiting for Donald Trump to get up onstage and say the one thing that will lead to his swift and inevitable unraveling. (Waiting is not quite the same as hoping, but I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Sometimes it seems that Trump himself is trying frantically to find that edge of acceptable rhetoric and hurl himself over it, maybe because this business of running for president is a lot more tedious and exhausting than, say, crowning Miss Universe.

This week, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Trump told an audience in Michigan that Hillary Clinton had been “schlonged” in 2008 (a variation on the Yiddish word for penis that he seems to have invented on the spot, but that is now assured to outlive the Yiddish language itself), and he made fun of Clinton’s bizarre habit — “too disgusting to talk about” — of having to occasionally relieve herself in a bathroom.

He also clarified his difference with Vladimir Putin when it comes to these “lying, disgusting” reporters who cover him. “I hate some of these people, but I would never kill them,” Trump volunteered. “I would never kill them. But I do hate them.”

Well, that does it. If granting journalists a right to live doesn’t puncture Trump’s standing among conservative voters these days, then trust me, pretty much nothing will.

(By the way, note that Trump didn’t actually go so far as to condemn such violence, or even discourage it. He just declined to kill anyone himself. The man is busy.)

It’s time for me to admit I was wrong about Trump’s staying power. And it’s time for the rest of my industry to take a long look in the mirror and consider what we’ve wrought.

And so goes a fairly lengthy condemnation of the media coverage of Trump, which a week ago stood at approximately a 23-1 ratio to its coverage of Bernie Sanders.  I don't wish to enumerate once more all of the faults with corporate media news and politics coverage, especially since Bai does such a good job of it himself in the next excerpts.  He is most assuredly on point with the self-examination.

Because it’s clear now that Trump’s enduring popularity — his relentless assault on the weathered pillars of our public civility — is in no small part a reflection of an acid disdain for us.

Trump has always understood this. Look at the graphic terms in which he once attacked Fox’s Megyn Kelly. Or the way he viciously mocked Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who excels despite a physical disability. Or how he publicly berated Katy Tur, an NBC reporter, for sport.

Playing off the media isn’t novel, of course. When George H.W. Bush ran for reelection back in 1992, somebody — maybe it was his campaign, since in those days there weren’t any super-PACS — made a bumper sticker that read “Annoy the media. Re-elect Bush.”

For many years after Bush lost, you could still see those bumper stickers on any highway in America. It had little to do with the candidate.

They lasted on bumpers of pickup trucks in Midland, Texas (where I was) well into the mid-90's, as Bill Clinton's election began the Republican descent into fury and rage.  Nineteen-ninety four also marked the last year a Democrat was elected to a statewide office in Texas.

But that was a statement on liberalism and elitism, a kind of cultural homogeneity inside the nation’s largest media institutions. It was almost respectful. Bush would never have used the word “hate,” and neither would the people with the bumper stickers.

This is something more visceral, an emotion that’s been building in all segments of the electorate, to some extent, for decades.

This is a simmering reaction to smugness and shallowness in the media, a parade of glib punditry unmoored to any sense of history or personal experience. It’s about our love of gaffes and scandals, real or imagined, and our rigid enforcement of the politically correct.

It’s about the reflexive partisan fury we’ve been inciting in this country ever since the earliest days of cable TV, and more recently on the blogs and op-ed pages of newspapers that once set the standard for thoughtful deliberation but now need the clicks to survive.

This is dead on, and a little nauseating personally. 

And yet somehow, when the perfect and professional reality-show star comes along, utterly lost on policy but brilliant at harnessing resentment in long, incredibly watchable tirades, observers like me think his success must be short-lived. Why?

(And before you tell me Trump is more qualified to be president than a first-term senator from Illinois was, consider his final answer, after much evasion, when asked about the country’s “nuclear triad” in the last debate: “I just think nuclear — the power and the devastation are very important to me.”)

Trump is entirely different from a Barry Goldwater or a Pat Buchanan. He isn’t a conservative populist penned in by the outer boundaries of what’s politically constructive, bred ultimately to admire the same institutions he assails. I don’t think Trump has any fierce political conviction that couldn’t be abandoned overnight, just as fiercely.

Trump is an emotional extremist. He’s a pure performer, trained to manipulate the audience and mindful of no consequence beyond the ratings it produces.

Just don't believe the Facebook meme.

(I)t’s clear there’s a powerful symbiosis between Trump and the media. We need him for the narrative power, for the clicks and debate ratings and sheer fascination factor. He needs us for the free publicity and the easy, evocative foil.

Trump’s most useful opponent, the one who causes his most fervent following to stick, isn’t Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or even Hillary Clinton. It’s us.

So when I say there’s a difference between waiting and hoping, this is what I mean. This is the essential paradox that the American media has created for itself, and you can feel it becoming less and less tenable right now.

On one hand, we’re bewildered by the reality that a man can so debase our politics and continue to rise in polls, as if all the rules we’ve inherited and enforced are no longer remotely relevant. But at the same time, we need our standout contestant to hang around for sweeps week. He’s the star of the show.

We want to see Trump get “schlonged” for the same reasons we can’t bear to lose him, and he understands that dynamic better than anyone alive.

Do I think Trump is going to be the Republican nominee? No, I don’t. At the end of the day, I still tend to think he won’t win a single state. But I’ve been wrong about him so far, and I’ve very little confidence that I won’t keep being wrong for a while.

I think Bai is wrong: Trump shows no sign of losing momentum that I can discern.  The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson, via Prairie Weather, thinks the same as Bai, mostly because Trump's support includes a number of people without a clue as to how retail politics actually works.  If those two get it right, I'll refer back to this post in some future one with a plate of crow in front of me.

What I get from the WaPo article is that they're mad, but they're still not mad enough to get even.

(Randy and Bonnie Reynolds,) the West Des Moines couple who have two grown children, had never been to a political event before. Bonnie works in a mailroom; Randy is a press operator. They don’t live paycheck to paycheck, but it would take just one small catastrophe to push them there.

“In the end, everything that he’s saying might not happen if he is elected — but I’m willing to give it a shot,” said Randy Reynolds, 49, who used to vote for Democrats but switched to Republicans a decade ago. “I will give him 100 percent. . . . It would be amazing if the majority of things that he said would actually happen. That would be amazing.”

So, obviously, the couple plan to caucus for Trump on Feb. 1?

“We’re going to see,” Reynolds said. “With kids and grandkids and all this, it’s kind of hectic. . . . We’ll look into it. If our time is available, then yeah, maybe we’ll do it. Maybe. We’ll have to see.”

And ...

Linda Stuver, 61, said Trump is her top pick, although she also likes Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. During the last election cycle, she went to a rally for Mitt Romney, her first political event. The Trump rally was her second.

“This is only my second time I’ve ever been to one of these — that’s how annoyed I am with what’s happening to our country,” said Stuver, who lives in Des Moines and says she raised four children by cleaning houses and working other low-level jobs. “I can’t even have Obama be on TV anymore — I have to shut it off, that’s how irritated I am. Us old folks have seen a lot, and what’s happening in our country is not right.”

Is she annoyed and irritated enough to caucus?

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I never have.”

Caucuses have always rewarded the most committed activists, which is why Hillary Clinton and the Texas Democratic Party lackeys minimized the influence of precinct conventions in the Lone Star State after Obama won them, and a very slim majority of Texas delegates, in 2008.  Can't blame that one on Debbie Wasserman Schultz (her fingerprints aren't all over it, that is).

It could be that Trump's support is a mile wide and an inch deep, and if so, and Ted Cruz pulls the upset in Iowa because his crew outworked the Trumpers, then the establishment's last gasp might wind up being Marco Rubio or Chris Christie or even John Kasich in New Hampshire.

After that is South Carolina, and Cruz -- or Trump -- might be on too hard a roll to slow.

Refer back to here and consider how convoluted the circumstances might get if Trump or Cruz is the nominee, and the establishment withholds support and tries to broker a compromise candidate next summer.  And then Laugh Out Loud.

Update: Here's an interesting take from Eclectablog, who sees Cruz winning the nomination even as Trump maintains his lead in the polls.