Day of Decision in the Old Dominion

Dear friends-

As many of you know, yours truly has been struggling with the question as for which candidate I will cast my vote in tomorrow’s Virginia primary election, just as I indicated in my most recent essay ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=574 ). You have been very kind in your suggestions on the things I should consider in making this decision- one in which I have felt conflicted, confused and consternated, all at the same time.

As I said, taken separately, there is no reason why any of the five remaining candidates would not become a good president, for each of them is blessed with particular gifts that lend themselves to such an endeavor. Dr. Ben Carson has an innate goodness and gentility of bearing that sets him apart from most politicians. Governor John Kasich is, by all accounts, a successful governor who has shown a can-do approach to the challenges he has faced, both as a legislator and a chief executive of a large and populous state. Senator Marco Rubio has an undoubtable charisma and proficiency in communication that hasn’t been seen in the ranks of Republicans, since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Senator Ted Cruz has a level of intelligence, a constitutional conviction and an overall understanding of the “big picture,” rarely seen in the opportunistic and pragmatic world of professional politics. Businessman Donald Trump has the singleness of purpose and clarity of mission that is the sine qua non of a great leader.

Yet having said this, and shared with you my innermost trepidations, I have also come to see that when the heat has been turned on, to a greater degree than I would have otherwise ever imagined, one thing has become all-too-clear on this eve before Super Tuesday…and that is the sheer desperation- desperation shown by the major media, by the remaining candidates, and by the party of which they are part…to unite to block, and thereby de-legitimize, one of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination, and it is this over-the-top desperation that has led me to the conclusion that such desperation can only mean that Donald J. Trump, flawed as he doubtlessly is, will be receiving at least one vote in the precinct where I will cast by ballot tomorrow morning- a decision with which I have been struggling with these last weeks, since the race really became a three-way race between Trump, Cruz and Rubio. While I would not presume, ever, to tell you who it is for whom you should vote, I would also be less than transparent if I kept this decision under wraps, prior to the Virginia primary, tomorrow.

Having indicated that I will be casting my ballot for Trump, I also hereby pledge to support my party’s nominee, regardless of who that is in the end, because any one of the remaining candidates will doubtlessly do a better job as president, than either of the Democrats running, and that can be taken to the bank of your choice. I am

Very respectfully and appreciatively yours,

-Drew Nickell, 29 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

The Tempest in Texas- Confessions from a Conflicted and Committed Conservative

It was a debate like none other, in the history of presidential debates. The three Republican front-runners descended into a verbal shout-fest and insult-a-thon that, at times, seemed capable of making the three stooges look civilized, by comparison. Unlike the previous nine Republican debates, the tenth debate, hosted by CNN at the University of Houston, Thursday night, was truly one for the ages. Whereas previous debates have had their fair share of pettiness and petulance, this one descended to a new low for the three front-runners, as all three of these men tried to outdo one another in trading insults and displaying boorish behavior which, in all likelihood, was the overall intent of CNN going into the debate.

Retrospectively, it appears that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were acting out a performance based on their respective desperation, because they have come to realize that their perilous paths to the nomination have grown steeper and narrower with every passing day. While it was generally agreed that Marco Rubio got the best of Ted Cruz, and to a greater extent, Donald Trump, any bounce that he might have otherwise attained was completely obliterated the following afternoon, when New Jersey Governor and former candidate Chris Christie came out and formally endorsed Donald Trump.

Perhaps this endorsement now fully explains why Christie went into full attack mode on Rubio, in the New Hampshire debate just days before he, himself, pulled out of the race. Donald Trump, author of “The Art of the Deal,” who prides himself on being a master of negotiation, may well have arranged the New Hampshire takedown of Rubio by Christie, before that debate even took place. If true, then it is also true that Trump is a master of strategy and a manipulator of media, who has systematically taken down every single one of the former contestants who brought his candidacy into question. Trump appears to be on the verge of doing the same to both Rubio and Cruz, as the country enters into the Super Tuesday contests that will indicate, once and for all, who will likely become the nominees in each of the two major political parties.

Taken separately, there is no reason why any of the five remaining candidates would not become a good president, for each of them is blessed with particular gifts that lend themselves to such an endeavor. Dr. Ben Carson has an innate goodness and gentility of bearing that sets him apart from most politicians. Governor John Kasich is, by all accounts, a successful governor who has shown a can-do approach to the challenges he has faced, both as a legislator and a chief executive of a large and populous state. Senator Marco Rubio has an undoubtable charisma and proficiency in communication that hasn’t been seen in the ranks of Republicans, since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Senator Ted Cruz has a level of intelligence, a constitutional conviction and an overall understanding of the “big picture,” rarely seen in the opportunistic and pragmatic world of professional politics. Businessman Donald Trump has the singleness of purpose and clarity of mission that is the sine qua non of a great leader.

In the end, it’s just all-too-bad that all five of these men cannot be president, all-too-bad that each of their peculiar strengths cannot be extracted to create a master candidate like a Ronald Reagan, who both can win the election handily and use such a mandate to redirect the direction of a country headed in the wrong direction, as it has been in these last eight years. Such is the confession of a committed, albeit conflicted conservative who finds himself caught up in the consternation of deciding who to support, as his Virginia primary looms large on Tuesday, the first of March, 2016.

Perhaps someone reading this, who knows fully-well the peril this country faces with the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton, might be able to help this poor soul, as he struggles with such a dilemma in deciding for whom to cast his vote.

-Drew Nickell, 27 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Nothing New in Nevada: Trump Wins Big, Yet Again

Almost doubling the number of votes cast for his nearest rival, Donald Trump won yet again, sweeping the Silver State’s caucus for his third consecutive win. So convincing was his margin of victory, so solid was his dominance across all of the major constituencies, including Hispanics, that the way forward for the rest of the Republican field largely remains in doubt.

There is much talk from the talking heads that Trump has “hit his ceiling of percentile support- that he will go no higher because of his ‘unfavorables.’” These same talking heads said the very same thing when his polled support was at 15%, then 23%, then 27%, then 31%, and now they are saying is again with Trump winning the caucus vote at 46%.

There is also much talk from the talking heads that “if, only if, all of the remaining candidates would just coalesce around a single candidate, ‘the Donald’ could be stopped, dead in his tracks.” Well, maybe. But such a scenario would almost require that every single one of the voters, who cast votes for all three of the other four candidates, would throw their support behind either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. Such an assumption is nearly impossible because some of those votes would doubtlessly go to Trump, others would not be cast at all, and the remaining votes would not be enough to derail Trump’s train, in any event. Add to this the fact that neither Rubio nor Cruz has shown any indication of backing down, and have been going at each other like two feral tom-cats fighting over a molly-cat. As of this writing, neither John Kasich nor Ben Carson have indicated their willingness to drop out, either, despite the fact that they have absolutely no chance of winning anything other than the adoration of those who don’t like the top three.

If Donald Trump were to go on and defeat Ted Cruz in Texas on March 1^st,  and defeat both Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio on March 15^th, there is no way that anyone else could even dream of catching him, and this is the nightmare scenario that the mainstream Republican power brokers dread, most of all.

Why?

A Trump nomination would settle, once and for all, who controls the Republican Party- the Washington elites, or the Republican voters, themselves. Since all of the Republican insiders can only agree on one thing- that they don’t like Trump- such a victory would render these insiders as, essentially, irrelevant, and so would go their influence on Republican politics. The same holds true for the mainstream media who has been predicting the “downfall of the Donald” since he launched his candidacy in mid-June, 2015.

So it is indeed ironic, that it is entirely possible that the Republican nomination might be all sewn up, even before the Democratic nomination is settled.

Why?

Well, for one thing, most of Hillary’s delegates are “super-delegates,” essentially party insiders who are free to vote however they choose, irrespective of primary and caucus results, which is why Hillary left New Hampshire with more delegates than Bernie Sanders, despite the fact that Sanders won the state’s popular vote by a two-to-one margin. Yet, these “super-delegates” are free to change their votes, right up until the final votes are cast at the Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia, later this summer. Essentially, Hillary’s command of the delegate count is fragile to the extent that further revelations regarding e-mail servers, the Clinton foundation, etc., can eat away at her electability, an electability already beset with questions regarding her honesty and trustworthiness. While the Democrat power brokers are pretty much in the tank for Hillary, they also are smart enough to know that Bernie Sanders’ nomination would all but assure a Republican victory in November, simply because there are just not enough college kids around who want free stuff, to counter the remaining voters who would never abide the election of a socialist, not even a “Democratic socialist” as Bernie has often described himself. So, if it seems that the “criminal” cannot defeat the “commie,” a brokered convention would result in a Biden-Warren ticket, in a last-ditch effort to save Obama’s “legacy,” such as it is.

Regardless, the election of 2016 is shaping up to be an election which will doubtlessly turn conventional (pun intended) wisdom on its ear, for the simple reason that the candidate who has spent the least amount of money (his own, by the way) is likely going to parlay what is now, a three-way race for his party’s nomination, into a freeway sprint to Cleveland, “come hell or high water,” as he likes to say.

And that is the reality facing the Republican Party on the week before Super Tuesday, 2016.

-Drew Nickell, 24 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Republican Reality Check- the Trump Train and an Exhausted Establishment

What a difference a year makes.

This time, last year, all of the betting money was on Jeb Bush to win the nomination and be the one to face Hillary Clinton, in what was supposed to be Bush vs Clinton, part deux, the sequel to 1992 (I am so glad I didn’t take part in that wager).

While the former Florida governor returns to the Sunshine State, licking his wounds from the brutal beatings brought on by his one-time protégé, Marco Rubio, and his tormenteureuse terrible, Donald Trump, a new reality is slowly sinking in for the Republican Party. The GOP once thought it knew everything needed to be known about conservatism and what it means to be a Republican. As it turns out, the Republican Party did not know “spit.”

All of its mainstream, moderate, go-along-with, get-along-with candidates have either dropped out of the race altogether, or are fighting over the paltry crumbs left on the table by their conservative counterparts. While partisan purists will continue to quibble over whether or not Donald Trump is truly conservative, the fact is undeniable that Mr. Trump has captured much of the conservative base by voicing that on which true conservatives all agree- the border between Mexico and the United States must be sealed, immigration laws must be enforced, and there must be a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, until such time as these refugees can be thoroughly and properly vetted. All of the Republican moderates opposing these stances have failed, utterly failed, to gain the requisite support needed to win the Republican nomination. Therein lies the lesson first taught by one Dave Brat, a Tea Party outsider who trounced Eric Cantor in June of 2014, to win the Republican nomination for Cantor’s seat in the House of Representatives. That lesson is simple: “Stop listening to your base and you do so at your own peril.”

The reason that the quest for the Republican nomination has come down to a three-man race between Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, is that these three candidates are listening to the conservative base of the Republican Party…something that Gerald Ford failed to do in 1976, something that George H.W. Bush failed to do in 1992, something that Bob Dole failed to do in 1996, something that John McCain failed to do in 2008, and something that Mitt Romney failed to do in 2012. Because Messrs. Trump, Rubio and Cruz are listening to the conservative base, each of them has an equally good chance of defeating Hillary Clinton in November- provided their Republican Party begins to listen as well, and rallies around to support whoever ultimately wins the nomination. As things stand right now, given his solid victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and his likely victory in Nevada on Tuesday, that candidate is most likely going to be Donald Trump, whose train is steaming towards the nomination at breakneck speed.

While John Kasich and Ben Carson remain in the race, neither of them has any chance to be on the Republican ticket, other than as a running mate to Trump, Rubio or Cruz.

What the mainstream, moderate go-along-with, get along-with Republican establishment, so exhausted in their attempt to define a race now spun out of their own control, needs to do is to decide on whether to unite in opposition to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or set afire what is left to the Republican Party by staying home and pouting once again, that they didn’t get their way.

In unity, there is victory, and in division, there is only defeat.

That is the reality check facing Republicans in 2016.

-Drew Nickell, 21 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Democrats and their Dilemma- the “Inevitable” Hillary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders

For Democrats, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was supposed to be their nominee in 2008, but then along came a charismatic candidate who excited a base that was just barely out of reach for the former first lady, and that is how they ended up with President Barack Obama. After all, why else did the former first lady of Arkansas, and a native of Illinois, move to New York and become, in effect, a “carpetbagger” candidate for the United States Senate? It was so she would have a platform to run for the nation’s highest office. When she came up short in this quest for her husband’s old job, and in exchange for her own and Bill Clinton’s eventual support, Obama gave Mrs. Clinton his most powerful cabinet post, Secretary of State.

Yet Hillary Clinton, whose ambition and desire for power knows no limits, was not satisfied to be anyone’s secretary- not even Secretary of State- and that may prove to be the ultimate explanation as to why she insisted on having her own server for e-mails, outside the reach of her two bosses- those being the president and, ultimately, the American people.

Hillary Clinton is nothing if not an irrepressible and inexhaustible example of idiosyncrasy and hypocritical irony. The patron political saint of feminism who has always believed and avowed the feminist ideal that “women can make it on their own,” she ultimately achieved her own power from nothing else but the fact that she was married to William Jefferson Clinton. Her ascendancy to being the first female partner with the Rose Law firm followed her husband’s election to the governorship of Arkansas, the year after he took office. Her election as Senator from New York, having had no association with the Empire State prior to this election, was clearly made possible by the fact of her husband’s presidency and nothing else. Her status and influence in the Democrat Party all derived from her husband’s political success, and nothing more.

This great defender of all things related to women’s advocacy and women’s rights has repeatedly flown in the face of those particular women who had complained of her husband’s uninvited sexual advances and assaults. From Juanita Broaddrick, who alleged that then- Arkansas Attorney General William Jefferson Clinton raped her while he was running for governor, to Paula Jones who sued the president for defamation of character, relating to his sexual harassment of her while he was governor (leading to his impeachment for perjury while president), to Kathleen Willey, who claimed that President Clinton sexually assaulted her in the Oval Office on the very day of her own husband’s tragic suicide, to Monica Lewinsky who was forced to produce a blue dress with the president’s DNA to prove that she had actually performed fellatio on the president in that same office, Hillary Clinton has had a history of sicking her attack dogs on these women, and many more. If there is anything that feminism- true feminism- opposes, it is enabling lecherous husbands from marital infidelity, but at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton has been just that- Bill Clinton’s enabler.

Now that Hillary Clinton, her immediate staff at the State Department, and the Clinton Foundation, itself, are all under criminal investigation by the FBI, the once-thought-to-be inevitable Democrat is facing a challenge from a seventy-four year-old avowed socialist and former communist Bernie Sanders, who once opined that it was every woman’s secret fantasy to be gang-raped by three men at the same time, in a 1972 essay published in the now-defunct Vermont Freeman, entitled Men and Women. Wrote Sanders:

 “A man goes home and masturbates (to) his typical fantasy- a woman on  her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused, (while) a woman enjoys intercourse  with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men  simultaneously.”

What’s a loyal Democrat partisan to do, faced with such choices?

Such a dilemma is precisely  why it is fortunate to be safely settled on the other side of the Democrat Party in 2016.

-Drew Nickell, 19 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

The Lines of Battle Drawn- the Death of Antonin Scalia

It did not take President Barack Obama a half dozen sentences to both note the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and to announce that he intends to replace the late justice, before his term is out. As though the president was chomping at the bit to do so, Obama seized upon the opportunity to leave one last mark- a lasting one, at that- on a Supreme Court that has, at times, thwarted his affinity to rule by fiat, through constitutionally- questionable executive orders on a host of issues, ranging from immigration to the right of citizens to bear arms, as guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Justice Scalia, a strict constitutionalist and perhaps the most conservative jurist on the Supreme Court, was widely admired on all sides of the judiciary for his academically-sound and scholarly approach to the opinions he authored, both in majority, as well as in dissenting, opinions. The son of Sicilian immigrants, with his brilliant mind and his honest, non-political approach towards the execution of his duties on the high court, will be sorely missed by all but one- that one being the incumbent President of the United States, who has heretofore shown much contempt for that bothersome document, the Constitution of the United States, to which Justice Scalia held in such high regard.

Conversely, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have both indicated their intent to delay hearings on Scalia’s replacement until after the 2016 presidential election. Standing on a tradition that has been in place for the past eight decades, where Supreme Court nominations have been set aside during presidential election years, it is altogether fitting that the Republican leadership in the Senate take such a stance. Certainly there is no doubt that, if the situation was reversed, the Democrats in the Senate would do precisely the same thing, just as they did in 2007-8, when the Democrat-led Senate delayed judicial appointments proffered by President George W. Bush, at the time.

The question is whether or not the Senate leadership will hold firm in their resistance to a political onslaught that is sure to follow, with Democrats, their candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and the mainstream media at the ready, to charge the Republicans with obstructionism, or worse.

All Obama has to do is put forward a nomination of an African-American to the high court, and charges of “racism” will surely follow any Republican resistance to the nominee, regardless of the candidate’s qualifications, or lack thereof. The same holds true for any woman, of any color, where any resistance will fire up Hillary Clinton’s mantra about the supposed “Republican ‘war on women’,” or some such rot. Given that temptation, Obama will likely proffer an African-American woman, such as Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and dare the Republicans to stand in his way, especially since her own confirmation as Attorney General was approved on a 56 to 43 vote, last year.

There is much at stake for the Republican leadership, should they cave into pressure from Democrats and the major media to proceed with hearings and eventual consent of Obama’s nominee, for they already have had the reputation of acceding to the demands of this “imperial president,” on issues ranging from the budget to the dubious Iran “deal,” thanks to the asinine finaglings of Bob Corker (R-TN), who made it easier for the Iran deal to sail through the Senate.

Even more so, the overall direction of the Supreme Court, given the absence of Scalia, already teeters on upcoming rulings regarding Obama’s use of executive orders to bypass Congress, and hazardously remains in flux. Add another activist liberal to the Supreme Court, and we can kiss the concept of legislative power and the rule of law, “goodbye,” for a generation to come.

All of this lends credence to just how important this election of 2016 has become, and for reasons that continue to pop up at such an alarming rate, to boot.

-Drew Nickell, 15 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Debate Dysfunction – a Bipartisan Malady

In this so-called “Information Age” in which we live, and given all of the various sources from which one can attain related information, one might be tempted to come to the erroneous conclusion that people today are better informed about politics, in general, and presidential candidacies, specifically, than ever before. With the sheer number of intramural debates being televised in this election year, one might also be tempted to come to an equally erroneous conclusion, that people today are better able to select the best candidates to support in their respective parties’ nominations. As much as we would love to believe both of these to be true, sadly, we strongly suspect quite the opposite.

A major part of the problem…are the debates, themselves.

One look into both the most recent Democrat and Republican debates reveals much as to why there is so much dysfunction in the selection of a presidential nominee. The fix would be quite easy but, as usual, the powers-to-be will sadly never go for it, much to the disservice of the American citizenry.

On the Democrats’ side, Thursday night’s debate in Milwaukee offered more acrimony between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders than we have seen to date. Yet, this encounter revealed little if anything to sway their Democrat constituents one way or another. Why? Because the PBS debate moderators Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff offered softball questions to front-runner Hillary Clinton and utterly failed to ask the former first lady the most important question concerning her own campaign, which is “How does she expect to gain the trust of the American people when she, her underlings in the Department of State, and the Clinton foundation are all under criminal investigation by the FBI ?”

On the Republicans’ side, Saturday night’s debate in Greenville, South Carolina approached the food-fight instigated by the late John Belushi’s character “Blutarsky” in the iconic motion picture comedy Animal House (ironically, the character John Belushi portrayed ends up being a U.S. Senator in the closing scene of the movie). The three stooges in the debate, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump spent much of the evening hurling insults back and forth in a three-way pie-throwing contest, largely because the CBS News debate moderators, John Dickerson and Major Garrett, along with Kimberly Strassel, a Wall Street Journal columnist, failed miserably to maintain control in what initially began as a substantive debate on the issues. For their own part, the remaining three candidates, Ben Carson, John Kasich and Marco Rubio each were able to maintain their respective composures by wisely staying out of the free-for-all between Bush, Cruz and Trump. Yet their messages were largely overshadowed by the acrimony on display that night.

Adversely affecting both the Democrat and the Republican debates, and how they are moderated, is the presence of…the live audience, whose raucous behavior- cheering, booing and taking sides- only serves to inflame the acrimony, encourage the childishness and ultimately waste valuable time- things that are most unhelpful in the selection of the next president.

If the debates, going forward, were to return to the format of the 1960 Kennedy Nixon debates, which were televised in a studio set apart from a live audience, a more substantive and informative debate- one which would better serve the American people in their selection of the next president- might be possible.

Then again, when all of the networks ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business News, Fox News, MsNBC, NBC, etc., view these debates in the paltry prism of ratings and money, why should the public entrust these enterprises with something as prescient as the selection of the next president?

Why, indeed?

-Drew Nickell, 14 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

TRiUMPh in New Hampshire- The Death of Conventional Wisdom

Once upon a time, they (the pundits, the politicos, the experts) said it couldn’t be done. “There’s no way a brash and brazen ‘reality show’ celebrity, can win an election against ‘tried and true’ mainstream Republicans with long-standing pedigrees…no way,” they said. “There’s no way a ‘seventy-something year old socialist can threaten an inevitable political force, like Hillary Clinton…no way.”

Well, it happened.

By respective margins, of more than fifty thousand votes apiece, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders soundly defeated their opponents and won the New Hampshire presidential primary elections of 2016.

So convincing were their margins of victory that all of the pundits, all of the politicos and all of the so-called experts, who thought that they knew everything that was needed to be known about politics, received a message, loud and clear, that they don’t know “flip” about politics, at the end of the day.

Trump, who bested his nearest rival with a percentage that more than doubled John Kasich, who had devoted himself to a strategy that heavily invested both time and treasure into winning the New Hampshire primary, beat Kasich and the rest of the “mainstream” Republicans quite handily. Trump has also retaken the lead in the quest for the Republican nomination going into the Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday contests which will ultimately decide who will be the GOP nominee. Coming in third behind Trump and Kasich, Ted Cruz, who was not expected to do well in New Hampshire, and did not expend much comparative effort into winning the Granite State, still bested Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, and defied the conventional wisdom that said, “an evangelical cannot do well” in a comparatively secular state like New Hampshire. The remaining candidates, Chris Christie, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina did so poorly that the future of their own campaigns largely remains in doubt.

Over on the Democrats’ side, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) used a combination of his state’s proximity to New Hampshire, a groundswell of enthusiasm on the part of young voters, and a ponderous gap (93% to 5%) in comparatively perceived honesty and trustworthiness, to trounce the once-inevitable Hillary Clinton. He did so by more than a three-to-two margin of twenty-two percentage points. Clinton, who had hoped to attain a single-digit margin in defeat, had these same hopes crushed in the snowdrifts of a New Hampshire winter. Moreover Sanders, who lacks both the political machinery and control of the mainstream media that is Hillary Clinton’s, is now looking at a possibility, however remote, to continue his campaign into the Democrats’ national convention this summer, turning conventional wisdom on its ear. If Hillary cannot turn around, a three-pronged triad of perils associated with her handling of e-mails, the selling of favors vis-a-vis the Clinton foundation, and her own angry and caustic persona, her eventual nomination is anything “short” of the lock that it once was.

Essentially, the Republican tickets out of New Hampshire are four: Trump, Cruz, Rubio and, perhaps, Bush, because despite his impressive second-place showing, John Kasich can only last at the expense of Jeb Bush, who has much more money and resources than has the Ohio governor. Rubio, himself, must either win or place in South Carolina and Nevada, or he is through as a candidate for the top spot.

As both of these contests, Democrat and Republican, head towards much warmer climates, the vicious and frosty attacks that America saw in New Hampshire will only heat up, and become more incendiary, in the six weeks to follow.

Get out the sunblock.

-Drew Nickell, 10 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Governors Grasping in the Granite State- the New Hampshire GOP Debate

In the final debate before the nation’s first primary election, three of the nation’s current and former governors- Jeb Bush of Florida, Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio, grasped onto their respectively tenuous footings in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. In a seemingly coordinated effort, each of these governors set his sights on taking down a distinct and different one, of the front-runners, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

First of all, it was Chris Christie pursuing an aggressive line of attack against Marco Rubio, essentially lambasting the Florida senator on his three vulnerabilities: lack of legislative accomplishments and attendance in the U. S Senate, lack of depth in his own political posturing beyond what Christie claimed were “twenty-five second soundbites,” and Rubio’s infamous abandonment of the “gang of eight” immigration reform bill, which Rubio had initiated with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Christie was extremely effective at shaking up the junior senator from the Sunshine State, and pushed Rubio into a four-time repetition of the same, and almost identically-worded statements, regarding whether or not Barack Obama knows exactly what he is doing, in his overall failings of domestic and foreign policy. Rubio’s repeated phrasing seemed to prove Christie’s charges of programmed soundbites, replacing substantive stances by Rubio.

Secondly, as has often been the case, it was Jeb Bush aiming his slings and arrows at Donald Trump, taking aim at “the Donald’s” stand on eminent domain- oddly enough because, by and large, the concept of eminent domain is primarily a local and state issue, where private property interests come into conflict with municipal and statewide interests, based upon a vague concept of “the public good.” Bush seemed to get the better of Trump, but only just slightly, as the line of attack about eminent domain was far from the top of the policy issues of 2016.

Lastly, and much more subtly, it was John Kasich who contrasted his approach to conservatism against the conservatism of Ted Cruz. Kasich, a champion of “compassionate conservatism” preaching the virtues of leaving no one behind, including those on the street, portrayed a type of conservatism that seemed in bold contrast to the “dyed-in-the-wool” conservatism that is the sine qua non of Ted Cruz’s candidacy.

For his own part, Senator Cruz initially fumbled on a question as to whether or not he would reinstitute advance interrogation techniques, such as water-boarding, giving first, a “have it both ways” jumbled response on the issue, and then framing the issue in a lawyerly (as opposed to a politically) manner. In doing so, he left the door wide open for Donald Trump to seize the moment and stress that, when dealing with an enemy who would employ medieval tactics including the beheading of innocents, in this day and age, he would advocate even more stringent means of interrogation.

Cruz also took the heat from Dr. Ben Carson, concerning the way Cruz’s operatives used a bogus report from CNN that suggested that Carson had ended his campaign during the initial hours of the Iowa caucus, in an effort to persuade Carson’s delegates to support Cruz. In doing so, Carson elicited yet another apology from Cruz, which seemed too little, too late.

Overall, the debate was clumsily managed at the outset, with the introduction of each of the contestants completely out of sync with their respective stage entrances, and even Martha Raddatz began the questioning, only to stop herself when she was informed by Christie that John Kasich hadn’t yet entered the stage.

While it is still uncertain, as to whether or not the debate had a substantial effect upon Tuesdays voting in New Hampshire, what remains certain is the fact that there are, in reality, only four Republican tickets out of New Hampshire and into the South Carolina, Nevada and Super Tuesday contests. While Trump and Cruz have their “reservations” confirmed, and Rubio’s all but certain, the fourth ticket may well depend on money rather than standing, in the final analysis, giving a slight edge to Jeb Bush. Essentially, if any of the governors fail to win, place or show in New Hampshire, they are all “done,” leaving the fourth ticket to Dr. Carson.

Fairly or unfairly, Carly Fiorina’s exclusion from the debate will have effectively ended her pursuit of the nomination- that is unless the former CEO of Hewlett Packard can somehow pull off a miracle in an increasingly malicious milieu, where such miracles may prove to be impossible, at long last.

-Drew Nickell, 7 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

…and that’s Politics for you, Caucus Consternation and All that’s to Follow

With the Iowa caucuses behind us (well, almost behind us), and the New Hampshire primary looming next week, the herd of candidates is starting to be culled, with more undoubtedly on the way, ensuing after this coming contest.

Following the Iowa caucus, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum suspended their campaigns, leaving GOP frontrunners (listed alphabetically) Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump leading the remaining pack, which includes (again, alphabetically) Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and the Republican version of Don Quixote, Jim Gilmore still attempting to win place or show in the Granite State.

Speaking of Don Quixote, on the Democrat side, hapless Martin O’Malley, the former Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland also ran up his own white flag of surrender, suspending his campaign while the Iowa caucus was still in progress, an unusual step considering the fact that O’Malley did so without releasing his would-be delegates to either of his own opponents, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. O’Malley was, from the start of his campaign, a mystery unto himself- never registering any notice, never engendering any interest, and his presence in the Democrat debates was, at best, an exercise in futility and inconsequence.

With the Des Moines Register calling for a complete audit of the Democrat caucus, it seems that the shenanigans of that party’s caucus even managed to surpass the kerfuffle of the Republican kluster-phuck. At least six Democrat precincts settled their respective impasses with a coin toss, all of which fell to the favor of Hillary Clinton – practically impossible as odds of coin tosses go, there was even more ambiguity regarding how the delegates were allotted in the first place, because the rules in the Iowa Democrat Party eschew the counting of actual popular vote totals. Given the fact that Clinton claimed victory the evening before the tallies were released the following afternoon, it seemed that the Iowa Democrats fixed the outcome, and that Hillary Clinton knew the “fix was in.”

Meanwhile the GOP had their own issues, with the Ted Cruz campaign tweeting to all of their 1,500 precinct captains, a pejorative claim that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign in an effort to pilfer his own votes to Cruz. Attempting to blame the confusion on CNN, Ted Cruz apologized to Carson the next day, but this did nothing to calm the fears that Cruz “won” the caucus, based on a lie that Carson was out. While it is possible that the resulting votes propelled Cruz past Donald Trump (assuming that merely an average of four votes in each of the 1,500 precincts went to Cruz that might otherwise have gone to Carson), Dr. Carson would still have come in fourth place, behind Cruz, Trump and Rubio. Yet, it may well have denied “the Donald” a victory in the contest, but that is something that may never be known, definitively, in any event. While second-place finisher Trump, third-place finisher Rubio, and fourth-place finisher Carson can grumble all they want about the dirtiness of Cruz’s victory, inane calls for a caucus “redo” are not going to happen, primarily due to the costs associated with a repeated caucus and the fact that, in the end, it would only amount to the shift of one single delegate awarded, for each of Cruz (-1), Trump(+1), and Rubio (+1).

Should the remaining Republican contestants Bush, Carson, Christie, Fiorina, and Kasich, fail to win, place or show in the New Hampshire primary, their campaigns will essentially be finished, leaving the South Carolina, Nevada and “Super Tuesday” contests to be settled amongst the top three, Cruz, Trump and Rubio, as Gilmore doesn’t stand a chance of accomplishing anything, other than appearing to be the south end of a northbound elephant, should he decide to stay in the race.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is expected to win the New Hampshire primary with great ease but, for all intents and purposes, that will mark the high tide of his campaign- setting aside even worse revelations about Hillary’s illegal e-mail operations, because Comrade Sanders has no chance of winning primaries in the South.

However, if that unlikely win by Sanders should come to pass and/or it is followed by an unlikely, albeit deserved indictment of Hillary Clinton, there is a sitting Vice President (Biden) and a Massachusetts Senator (Elizabeth Warren) ready to snatch the nomination away from Sanders, and will surely set DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s curly hair afire.

-Drew Nickell, 4 February 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

(authors note: Three years ago, today, the Baltimore Ravens won their second Super Bowl. To mark the occasion, I will re-post what I wrote, back then…)

What it Means to Baltimore

Today, M & T Bank Stadium is silent and the good people of Baltimore have returned to work and school and the normal routines that associate to their individual lives. The traffic on Pratt Street has resumed its normal morning rush hour crawl and life goes on in Charm City. Yet, there is indeed something transcendent in the wake of a Super Bowl victory that will last beyond the shards of confetti drifting in the air, beyond the arrival of spring and, yes, beyond the season to come in the Ravens’ quest for repeated glory.

When the Ravens won their first Super Bowl championship a dozen years ago, the wounds suffered by the loving fans of the departed Colts began a process of healing, almost as if to say, the NFL is wrong- Baltimore deserves a team, after all. But the chip that seems to have been glued to the shoulders of Baltimore’s frenzied football fans remained, despite the fact that the Ravens have had more than their share of winning seasons and post-season playoff berths. Despite these successes, Baltimore still felt compelled to justify their existence in the National Football League- as if the relocation of Art Modell’s franchise, which only resulted in a three-year hiatus for Browns fans, somehow approached the absolute travesty of what Robert Irsay had done to Baltimore, pilfering a cherished tradition of name, identity, logo, tradition, history, etc. While any reasonable and impartial observer can plainly recognize the difference between the two, the talking class would still deny the late Modell’s entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame- that same establishment that has the very gall to identify Johnny Unitas, John Mackey, Art Donovan, Gino Marchetti, Jim Parker, Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore and Ted Hendricks as Indianapolis Colts. (Now that is a travesty). At least, soon-to-be-inducted Jonathan Ogden, the first player the Ravens drafted in 1996, won’t suffer that indignity, and neither will the fans who have supported the Ravens these last seventeen years.

Now that the Ravens have won their second Super Bowl since their own inception, the time for self-justification has, at long last, passed. The Ravens are World Champions for the second time and there can be no denying Baltimore its deserved status as home to the World Champions of professional football. The city has won NFL championships in 1958, 1959, 1968 and 1970 (Super Bowl V) as the Colts, a USFL championship as the Stars in 1985, a Canadian Football League Championship as the Stallions in 1995 and, yes, a second Super Bowl Victory as the Ravens in 2000. But this time, in culmination of the 2012 season, it’s different because the city’s third Super Bowl victory is immeasurably sweeter, than all of the previous championships combined. Why? Because Baltimore, at long last, needs no justification for its existence in the National Football League…after all these years, they have arrived.

Viva le Ravens!

Je t’aime, Baltimore!

-Drew Nickell, 6 February 2013

©2013 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Cruz-n’ on the Right, Cliff-hangin’ on the Left- the Iowa Caucuses of 2016

Back in the day when the Baltimore Colts prepared to take the field, the team’s three captains would each be given a chance to address the team, just before exiting the locker room. The defensive team’s captain and the special team’s captain would each implore their respective squad’s members to “give it their best,” etc., etc. Then, after the “we gonnas” were all said and done, the offensive team’s captain who, from 1957-1972, was all-time great Johnny Unitas, always, always said the same thing, each and every time, “Talk’s cheap…let’s go play.”

Insofar as Iowa goes, the time for cheap talk was finally over, and Senator Ted Cruz won the day, handily, defeating front-runner Donald Trump by a solid four-point margin in the nation’s first official nominating contest. Cruz won the contest in the Hawkeye State the old fashioned way, with a solid ground game and an in-person, tour-de-force statewide canvassing throughout Iowa’s ninety-nine counties. It just goes to show that hard work and diligence does, indeed, pay off- pre-election polling and punditry, be damned. Cruz managed to weave together a winning tapestry of evangelicals, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, and Republican stalwarts to fashion a hard-fought and hard-won victory- one sorely needed as he heads into first, the New Hampshire primary, where he is not expected to win, and then the South Carolina primary, where he could very well parlay the Iowa win into his first primary victory.

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio also turned in solid results, with Trump edging out Marco Rubio by a single percentage point. Admittedly, Trump lacked the ground game that was key to Cruz’s victory, and much of his own support came from first-time voters who flocked to “the Donald” out of their disgust with the “same old, same old” from Washington politicians. There was much posturing, particularly by Fox News, as to whether or not Trump’s skipping the Iowa debate had anything to do with his second-place finish. Yet that is, at best, nothing more than conjecture, because he just did not have an in-state organization and ground game that came anywhere near what Cruz had put into place. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio stunned the nation with a very solid third-place showing, beating the odds as well as the pre-election polls and nearly surpassing Trump, in the end. Rubio rode the wave of a last-minute surge and goes into New Hampshire as the odds-on rising star in that state’s primary who, for the time being, is Trump’s to lose given “the Donald’s” polling numbers in the Granite State. If Rubio manages a second-place finish in New Hampshire, he will have surpassed Chris Christie and the other “mainstream candidates” vying for solid “also-rans” in the nation’s first primary. Additionally, if Rubio does manage a second- or a third-place finish, it will prove to be the swan song for the remaining candidates Christie, along with Ben Carson, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore, who will join Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and Scott Walker in suspending their campaigns.

Speaking of Carson, there were some reports of some of Cruz’s surrogates, including his co-campaign manager, Rep. Steve King, sending out a false narrative that Dr. Carson had suspended his campaign, in a deceptive effort to woo Carson’s evangelical delegates to the Cruz camp. Carson, himself, managed to gain just under ten percent in the Iowa caucus, and thereby achieved a fourth place finish. Even if Dr. Carson’s allegations prove to be true, there wouldn’t have been enough “pilfered” votes to propel him into the top three finishers, nor would it have driven Cruz into a second-place finish.

Over on the Democrat side, three tenths of one percent– a difference of four delegates is the razor-thin margin that Hillary Clinton maintains over Bernie Sanders, as of this writing, in a race still too close to call. It is significant that in at least six of the precincts, a coin-toss was needed to produce an eventual outcome and delegate determination- and as fate would inexorably and inexplicably have it, Hillary “won” all six of the coin-tosses. Had they gone Sanders’ way, it would be Sanders who would have been leading Hillary by two delegates. Sanders, who is expected to win by a wide margin in in New Hampshire, is nevertheless able to claim a moral victory, considering he was down fifty points in Iowa’s polling, less than a year ago. Hapless Martin O’Malley, who barely registered in Iowa, had no choice but to suspend his campaign well before the night’s caucuses were over.

By this time, next month, the quest for the Republican nomination will be, essentially, a three-man race between Cruz, Rubio and Trump or, at most, a four-man race between these three, and one more. The only question will be as to who, if any, will be that fourth- Carson or Christie are the only possibilities, and these are remote, at best.

Now that the Democrats are officially down to two choices, as they have essentially always been, their nomination remains as murky as ever. If Hillary Clinton prevails in South Carolina and Nevada, and runs the table on “Super Tuesday,” she will essentially have gained the Democrat nomination. Should Bernie Sanders prevail, then look for Joe Biden and/or Elizabeth Warren to make a late bid for a nomination, even if it means doing so at a brokered convention, that is- unless the Democrats enter the fantasy land that would foresee a self-described and elderly socialist becoming the next president of the United States.

-Drew Nickell, 2 February 2016

©2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.