As you can see in this story here, we are now getting the details of what we’ve suspected or known in outline since the news first broke last year: that Denny Hastert, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, second in the line to the presidency for eight years, was a serial pedophile who preyed on adolescent boys in his charge when he was a high school wrestling coach before entering electoral politics. What is worth remembering is that Hastert’s improbable rise to the pinnacle of political power in Washington was a direct consequence of Republican party efforts to exploit and eventually criminalize Bill Clinton’s extramarital sex life in order to overturn the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. The chain of events is clear and straightforward.
Nominating Paul Ryan won’t be a problem because under GOP convention rules Trump and Cruz aren’t allowed to get mad after the 1st ballot.
This remark about Cruz’s “gestapo tactics” is one of the reasons I said Paul Manafort’s appointment to take over Trump’s hunt for dark delegates was an unqualified plus for Democrats.
The betting markets seem to be coming around to the realization that it is highly unlikely that anyone but Donald Trump or Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee. Not that betting markets are anything but a brass tacks version of conventional wisdom. But the perception is correct. We seem to be in a period where Republican party stakeholders are taking an inordinate amount of glee in pointing out that as long as Donald Trump doesn’t clearly win more than 50% of the pledged delegates they can really do anything they want in Cleveland. This is true. But the logic is like getting out of putting up your relatives by burning your house down.
Years ago I used to do book reviews on TPM. I’ve wanted to bring that back for a long time, perhaps even expanding it into a more regular part of the site. As I’ve mentioned before, my personal reading centers almost entirely on history – never anything tied to politics and seldom even history that’s not more than a century or two old. I spend a lot of time hunting around for good thick books of what you might call high-end popular history. So it’s always immensely satisfying when I find something really good that I can sink my teeth into. Here’s one of my recent finds: Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration by Felipe Fernández-Armesto.
We’re starting to see Donald Trump move into full “I’m being cheated” and “the system is rigged” mode as Cruz makes more progress on the ‘dark delegate’ front and perhaps makes progress in the polls too. Trump is starting to sound both literally and figuratively like a loser. But remember, for this to play out how the big party stakeholders want it to they’ve got to steal it from Trump AND Ted Cruz. Yes, both. That seems awful, awful hard to me.
Former TPMer Greg Sargent has an interesting post today about how the Sanders campaign could end and end well – specifically, by using his clout at the convention to reform the primary process. It’s an intriguing suggestion and makes a lot of sense since the Democrats’ system could use reforming even if it’s not quite as messed up as the Republicans’ one. But the problem is that the things most in need of reforming are the only things keeping Sanders in the race. That may sound like a provocation. But it’s actually true!
Let me explain.
Hillary Clinton appears to have a consistent 10+ lead over Bernie Sanders in New York State. And as the write up in this new Quinnipiac poll (Clinton 53%, Sanders 40%) notes, African-Americans remain a critical constituency. Unsurprisingly, Sanders is winning with those who identify themselves as “very liberal” (though not by a huge margin) and young voters (the largest cleavage beside race). But African-Americans are supporting Clinton by a 65% to 28% margin, which is to say a massive margin.
Phyllis Schafly says she’s being deposed as the head of her pet organization, The Eagle Forum, over her Trump endorsement.
As I’ve mentioned or hinted a few times, I think the mix of the Garland stalemate and Donald Trump or Ted Cruz at the top of the critic will lead to big Republican losses in the Senate. Big is relative – but enough to push the chamber into the Democrats’ hands in 2017. We’re now seeing the first signs of vulnerable GOP senators saying they’re going to be too busy to make it to Cleveland for the convention in July.