Transgenders, Bathrooms and the Obama Administation

You may have heard that the Obama Administration, using a letter sent to every public school in the country has insisted, under the fig leaf of "Title IX guidance" that schools must allow children who identify as transgender access to the bathrooms, changing areas and activities which correspond to their self-reported identity. If the schools refuse to obey this diktat well then the Administration would sure hate to see those schools lose any of their federal funding. Capisce? Some school districts, for ideological reasons of their own, had started to move in this direction even before the letter was sent. In Chester, Vermont a girl who insists that she is a boy has started to use the boys' bathroom, backed up by the new school policy and now by the new Administration order.
CHESTER, Vt. — The way A J Jackson tells it, he kept his head ducked down and pretended to fiddle with his cellphone as he walked into the boys’ bathroom and headed for a stall at Green Mountain Union High School here.
But the way some of his classmates see it, A J was still Autumn Jackson, a girl in boys’ clothing, who had violated an intimate sanctum, while two boys were standing at a urinal, their private parts exposed.
“It’s like me going into a girls’ bathroom wearing a wig,” Tanner Bischofberger, 15, a classmate of A J Jackson’s, who was not one of those in the bathroom, said this week. “It’s just weird.”
A complaint about Mr. Jackson’s using the boys’ bathroom set off a protest by students advocating the right of their transgender classmate to use the bathroom of his choice. Mr. Jackson has gradually been making the transition from a vivacious girl with a big smile and long wavy locks to a husky boy with chopped hair dyed several shades of green, snakebite piercings in his lips and gauges embedded in his earlobes. His chest is visibly bound, and because he has not yet started taking male hormones — he plans to do that, and also to have “top surgery,” he says — his face is smooth and still has feminine contours. He once thought he was lesbian, and is still attracted to girls.There were practical issues. When he had his period, he wondered if he should revert to the girls’ bathroom, because there was no place to throw away his used tampons. LINK
This is beyond silly.

• A square does not have five sides.
• A woman does not have a penis or produce sperm.
• A man does not have a vagina or experience menstruation.

"Rights" do not revoke reality. If you wish to pretend that you are a woman when you are really a man or pretend that you are a man when you are really a woman, knock yourself out. I couldn't care less. Live and let live I say. I have my own problems. But when you try to dragoon me into going along with your nonsense I will suggest that you commit an anatomically impossible though hypothetically pleasurable act. Tolerance is one thing. Active endorsement/encouragement is something else. If someone informs me that he's a dog I don't put a leash on him and order him to roll over for a belly rub. I tell him to get help.

Some people have compared transgender rights and the US Civil Rights movement, which among other things, ended racially segregated bathrooms. I think this is a bad comparison. Just because two actions are identical doesn't mean they are morally the same. You must know the reasons for the action. A police officer who shoots someone because he doesn't like that person's attitude is different than a police officer who shoots someone who is holding a knife to a hostage's throat. Exact same action. Entirely different moral calculus. Bathrooms were segregated by race because white racists wanted to enforce white supremacy. US racism defined Blacks as an untouchable class. Racially segregated bathrooms were just one example of a panoply of customs and laws across the US which defined black people as inferior. Black people and like minded allies fought against this not by claiming that black people were really white but by saying that the state and private entities were constitutionally or morally forbidden from segregating by race. We separate bathrooms and locker rooms by biological sex not to enforce male or female supremacy but rather to uphold the privacy and dignity of both sexes. Most people have a preference for single sex privacy when changing clothes or eliminating. There are also some minor safety concerns. But the primary reason is privacy. Does a desire for privacy automatically translate into unlawful discrimination? I don't think that it does. If you are a (wo)man it's not discrimination for you to be expected to use the (wo)men's room. This is an important point. Everyone knows what the other sex looks like. Everyone has seen the other sex nude or partially unclothed. And even so, absent an emergency, it is still generally considered a violation of dignity and privacy for someone of the opposite sex who is not your intimate partner to look upon you when you are partially clothed or nude without your consent. Sex is a more rooted biological category than race is. Race can differ considerably across time, culture and countries. But sex, with incredibly rare exceptions, doesn't vary that much within or among cultures. In the overwhelming majority of cases you are either male or female. And most disparate cultures (exceptions noted) will agree. Noting a difference based on biological sex is not a horrible societal imposition based on hatred. It's a key part of human reproduction. It is perhaps theoretically possible or desirable to be indifferent about race. Not so about sex.

It's true that some good people do not care one iota about what I consider to be essential standards of privacy and decorum. That is their right. I don't tell them how to live their lives. But in a time where college students compete to have fainting parties over invited speakers they dislike and people parse each other's communication for microaggressions it seems disingenuous to ignore that some people will be uncomfortable in sharing intimate facilities with people, who, despite their delusions, are of the opposite sex. When I go to the bathroom I don't wish to run the risk of exposing myself to a woman. And there are many women who would like to change or do other things without a man looking at them. If there is a right to privacy, as the Supreme Court has found, surely it must include the ability to eliminate or change clothes without being viewed by a member of the opposite sex? This controversy is so silly. If you have one of these use this changing area/bathroom. If you have one of those use that changing area/bathroom. Subjective feelings shouldn't enter the equation.

There is a procedural issue here as well. There isn't any federal civil rights law which adds transgender status or sexual identity to protected classes. People have tried and fortunately failed to create such a law. There hasn't been any Supreme Court decision which finds that either federal law or the Constitution requires that people who identify as transgender must be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice. The Title IX law which the Administration cites for its decree is about sexual equality between men and women's sports teams and educational opportunities. Congress could have placed gender identity in the text of the law but did not. Gender identity and sex are not synonymous. The law does not list gender identity. Until it does I think the Administration is overstepping. This is an example of the tension in our political system between the rights of states, individuals and the federal government. It's designed that way. Unfortunately in the modern era there has been a bipartisan tendency for more and more power to be concentrated in the executive branch, more specifically in agencies and regulatory bodies. This is a metastasizing threat both to separation of powers and to representative government. If the President and his executive branch are just going to tell us what laws mean and enforce laws that were never even passed then why do we need Congress or the Courts? The fact that the Administration refuses to consider the obvious solution of a single occupancy gender neutral bathroom for those who identify as transgender shows me that the concern here is not so much about the rights of the transgender population as it is trying to stifle dissent. Lynch, Gupta and President Obama appear to be operating under the assumption that they get to micromanage policy in public schools across the nation. Absent a change in the law they do not. I hope that school administrators remember that and treat this guidance letter with the rich contempt that it deserves. I don't see the point of the Adminstration's actions. The Administration wants a fight. Well they are certainly going to get one.

Can Donald Trump Win? Well Yes He Can

There has been a lot of discussion online and elsewhere about whether or not Donald Trump can win the general election in the fall and why he was able to become the presumptive Republican nominee. At this time I still think that the advantage that Democrats have in the electoral college will be a bit too much for Mr. Trump to overcome. But things are changing. There were some recent polls that showed Trump tightening the race or actually beating Clinton in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Imagine that.  
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the likely general election presidential nominees, are running neck-and-neck in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, results driven by wide gender and racial gaps among voters, a new general election poll shows.
Clinton edges Trump in Florida and Pennsylvania, while Trump leads in Ohio, according to the Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday.
In both Florida and Pennsylvania the poll shows Clinton narrowly over Trump, 43% to 42%. In Ohio, Trump leads Clinton 43% to 39%.
"At this juncture, Trump is doing better in Pennsylvania than the GOP nominees in 2008 and 2012. And the two candidates are about where their party predecessors were at this point in Ohio and Florida," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, in a memo accompanying the poll results. And despite comments about Mexican illegal immigrants that have inspired a fierce reaction from across the political spectrum Trump is currently polling slightly better among Hispanics than Romney did.  Now it's still very early. Some of these polls are outliers. It's not time to panic if you are a Clinton supporter and/or a Democrat. After all there are a few Republicans who would rather vote for Clinton than Trump. 

That's not saying much but it does show that Clinton is a weak candidate who has so far not provided an explanation of why she's running or what vision she has for the country. There is a reason why, despite Clinton's presumptive nominee status, that she has still been unable to put down a feisty socialist from Vermont who is getting nastier as time passes.
Clinton is not an inspirational candidate. She's the candidate of "Eat your spinach because it's good for you dammit!" or "I'm running because it's my turn." She doesn't seem to offer much more than that. And whatever advantage she has among women may be offset by the advantage that Trump holds among men. If Trump can continue to nibble away at the advantage that Clinton has over women while maintaining or extending his lead among men, then we could be looking at President Trump in January of 2017. On the other hand Clinton is only trailing Trump in Georgia by four points. The Republican solid South may be starting to crack thanks to migration of non-Southerners to the region, a presumptive Republican nominee with extremely high negatives and a growing Hispanic electorate which tends to vote Democratic. No one knows what will happen. I do know though that people who are broadly speaking on the left need to stop assuming that Trump will lead the Republican ticket to electoral disaster of Biblical proportions. That still may be the most likely outcome. But if Trump can translate those record breaking primary voters and rallies to general election voters he can win. All Trump needs to do is to hold on to the South (absent North Carolina and Florida) and "steal" two or three states which normally vote Democratic in national elections. 

The most likely areas for Trump to do this are in the "Rust Belt" Midwest and western Pennsylvania. Trump is targeting Michigan. Look for future Trump emphasis on down market white voters in places like Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Florida and elsewhere. Again, right now, I still don't think this will be enough to put him over the top. But it's the only thing that could. You could argue that we've seen some of the Trump voters come out before to support Sarah Palin when she was on the ticket. And their support wasn't enough then. But President and VP are different. Either way this is going to be an exciting campaign. Historically it would be something else if the Democrats held on to the White House for three successive elections. That hasn't happened since the Republicans did it starting in 1980. The Democratic electoral debacles of the eighties led to a rebranding and reworking of the Democratic party. If the Republicans lose again then they will need to undergo a similar process. The Republican leadership may no longer be able to hold together a fractious group of nationalists, free market purists, evangelicals, big business supporters, and people who don't like them. On the other hand should the Democrats lose then perhaps they will have to rethink the emphasis on some "social justice" issues. We shall see. 

2016 Presidential Race

Lately few of the five remaining major party candidates have been having a good time of it in the polls or on the campaign trails. Most of the candidates made some unforced errors or were baited into making mistakes by the media or their rivals. The candidates seem to be reaching a point where their irritation with each other and the entire campaign process becomes more evident each week. Each candidate is digging deep to find weaknesses in his or her rivals. This interminable process is made even more unpleasant by the 24 hour cable news and social media presence. For every statement you make there is someone eagerly waiting to call you and your supporters everything but a child of God. When Republican consultants are asking other Republican partisans if their preferred candidate pays them more for certain unusual sexual favors or Democratic consultants and media talking heads are trying to paint the other Democratic candidate as the Second Coming of George Wallace you know that people are getting nasty and desperate. So it goes. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them run for President of the United States.

Donald Trump
Politics is not war. But politics and war have some things in common. In both war and politics you can attack in different ways. There's the air game where someone comes over the horizon at 800 mph, drops ordnance on the target and is gone before anyone can react. There's lots of explosions and people running around bemoaning all the destruction. The nice thing about the air game is that you're in and out quickly. Few people can meet you on equal terms. You can shift targets at a moment's notice. The air game looks great on video. 
In the ground game you have to, as Sonny Corleone might have said, get up close to someone and bada-bing shoot them right in the head. The danger with this is that even a less technologically advanced enemy can still hurt you once you're both rolling around in the muck.The ground game is slower. You spend more time doing things that don't get publicity or ratings. It's pretty ugly on video.

Donald Trump is a devotee of the air game in politics. It's worked well for him. He's a bombastic man who apparently becomes easily bored. Trump likes to drop the hammer on his opponents and/or the media and move on to the next target. So far he hasn't shown the patience for or ability to execute the long slow grind. This means building an organization that will ensure that his supporters (and children) are registered and ready, willing and able to vote, caucus or become delegates as the rules require. Someone has to know all the various state rules and loopholes about obtaining delegates. A winning campaign must put resources into making sure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed right down to the precinct level. This can be boring work. It's not as exciting as stream of consciousness pep rallies, nasty tweets about how ugly your opponent's wife is or calling into MSNBC or FOX and boasting about the size of your Wee Willie. If you're ignorant of the rules and ignore your ground game you'll find yourself losing Colorado and Wisconsin to Ted Cruz. That's annoying. This is why Trump hired strategist Paul Manafort to ensure that Trump gets every delegate to which he's entitled and to bring some structure to his campaign. The race will be closer than it should but most of the remaining Republican contests are on Trump friendly turf. I think Trump will be the nominee. And I think he will clinch the nomination before the convention. But if he doesn't my won't that be entertaining!


Hillary Clinton

Her aura of inevitability has been a bit damaged of late with a string of Sanders victories. However because of the rules of the contests and the choices of the voters, it's almost but not quite impossible for Sanders to catch up to Clinton in pledged delegates. For example over the weekend Sanders beat Clinton decisively in Wyoming. But Clinton walked away with just as many pledged delegates from that state as Sanders did. In order to lose to Sanders in pledged delegates Clinton would need to lose almost all of the remaining contests by insane margins (70-30, 90-10,80-20) which probably won't happen. Additionally Clinton still has a commanding lead among Democratic superdelegates. At this time, Clinton is leading decisively in New York. If she wins convincingly there the air could start to leak out of the Sanders balloon. That poll could be meaningless of course. But ultimately Clinton's campaign is the Borg model of Democratic politics. Resistance is futile. Your opinions are irrelevant. You will be assimilated. Absent her or her husband going off script and making some racial faux pas it would be the political upset of the century should she lose the nomination to Sanders when all is said and done. Sanders is certainly putting Mrs. Clinton through her paces. Her flashes of irritation and the constant charges of sexism emanating from her followers and media surrogates show that Clinton never expected to be in this sort of tussle with an old socialist from Vermont by way of Brooklyn. I still think at this time that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination. The important question is after Clinton wins the nomination will she and her supporters reach out to Sanders voters? Or will Sanders voters decide that they'd rather vote for someone outside of the Democratic party altogether? The snide back and forth between Clinton and Sanders over qualifications and the pompous expectation that Sanders voters MUST vote for Clinton in the fall show that Clinton may lead a still fractured party in November. Because her current range of possible general election opponents is so dismal, Clinton may not need every last single Sanders voter. As she is fond of pointing out, she HAS won the majority of Democratic voters. Sanders has not. There are some people who feel that Clinton is just a slightly left wing version of a establishment party that doesn't disagree all that much on things like foreign policy, privacy, law enforcement, monetary policy, capitalism, etc. Those people may say to hell with it and vote for another candidate.


John Kasich

There is no mathematical way that John Kasich can win the Republican nomination before the convention. He's too far behind. His only hope appears to be to stay in the race and win just enough to deny Trump or Cruz the nomination. Then, in a contested convention, Kasich will pour everything he's got into an argument to convince delegates that Cruz and Trump have too many negatives to win in the general election. So they should then go with a winner like Kasich. Kasich just all but called Trump Sauron and has made similar statements about Cruz in the past. There are some polls and other indicators that show Kasich doing better against Sanders or Clinton in the fall. But the ironic thing is that Kasich only appears moderate and mild tempered in comparison to Trump or Cruz. He's got his own history of personal harshness and hard right viewpoints. Of course Kasich could be angling for a VP spot. It wouldn't be the first time that a tough rival got the booby prize of American politics. The problem with Kasich's plan is that the nomination rules do not currently allow for him to be nominated. A nominee must have won the majority of delegates in at least eight states to be nominated. Kasisch hasn't done that and isn't likely to do it in the states remaining. So implicitly he's arguing to be selected as much as elected. But given the high negatives that Cruz and Trump bring, a little bit of convention chicanery might save the Republican party from itself in the fall. But be that as it may it doesn't mean that Kasich should benefit from it. The American electorate isn't clamoring for Kasich. And they've told him that already.



Ted Cruz

The Canadian Conservative Crusader has looked like he has the wind beneath his wings. He came across as human and even sympathetic in the dust up over Trump insulting Heidi Cruz's looks. And unlike Trump, who seems like the know it all blowhard who thinks he can guess his way through the multiple choice final exam, Senator Cruz comes across as the smarmy dedicated student who constantly asks for extra work, reminds an absentminded professor of the promised pop quiz and refuses to share his notes with fellow students who couldn't hear what the professor said. Nobody in the Republican establishment much likes Cruz but many of them appear to be signalling that they like Trump even less. It still remains a source of amusement to me that many of the diehard birthers who couldn't accept that President Obama was born in the US, could be voting for a man who was born in Canada. But that's life. Most people who know Cruz will tell you that he's a smart man. They may think he's a jerk but few people question his intelligence or political skills. Cruz could also be angling for a VP spot or other cabinet position though again it's hard to see how you work for someone who implied ugly things about your wife. Cruz won't catch Trump in the race but he definitely could prevent Trump from reaching the 1237 delegates needed to win the nomination. And if he does that, well then he can contest the convention by arguing that Trump's negatives with everyone, including Republican women, make it impossible to select Trump as the nominee. Left unsaid that while Trump is apparently not that invested in the pro-life, anti-gay marriage stance of many conservatives, Cruz definitely is. This could, properly framed in a general election, be devastating to a Cruz helmed ticket. Cruz is the hard right winger whom many conservatives say they've been waiting for. Perhaps it will take a beatdown of Mondalesque proportions for Republicans to realize that the hard right can't win a national election just by being well, hard right. We'll see.



Bernie Sanders

Sanders has been kicking around longer than anyone thought he could, maybe even Sanders himself. It's only recently that Team Clinton has started to take him seriously, perhaps because it's been a while since Sanders has lost to Clinton. Sanders made a critical mistake in not going after the black vote earlier. In the South the Democratic voter base is disproportionately black. Sanders was and still is easily caricatured as a clueless out of touch white liberal who is tone deaf to specifically black voter concerns. There might be something to that insofar as talking solely about class when people have interests that are touched by class, race and gender doesn't tell people what they want to hear. And you don't get people to vote for you by not telling them what they want to hear, at least some of the time. There are some Clinton supporters for whom blunt identity politics is the reason for voting for Clinton. As one Clinton supporter was quoted saying in the NYT, "It's time for someone with a womb" to be in the White House. Every politician panders of course but if some voters in the Democratic base won't support Sanders because of his race or gender then there's not much Sanders can do about that. People have criticized Sanders, in both reasoned and ridiculous ways, for his "pie-in-the-sky" plans and lack of details about working with Congress and the Courts. That's fair enough I guess. But let's remember that the current President told everyone after winning the nomination that his election would be remembered years later as a time when everyone looked back and realized that that was when the oceans stopped rising and the planet began to heal. Politicians make lofty promises. It's what they do. Anyway I don't think things look so good for Sanders going forward. His misguided but noble attempt to avoid getting negative with Clinton and his late outreach to black voters left him in a hole that's probably too hard to climb out from in the current atmosphere. New York could be his last stand. The poison arrows are flying fast and furious against Sanders. He's definitely shaking the pillars of heaven. People are worried that he could win or do serious damage to Clinton.

Michigan Primary Results

Last night Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders managed to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the March 8 Michigan Democratic Primary by 49.83% to 48.3%. This slim margin of victory for Sanders was astounding given that polls shortly before the vote showed that Clinton was ahead by double digits. Michigan has a primary which is closed (technically defined as closed because you have to declare party affiliation before you can get a ballot) but there is not a requirement that you are a registered member of one party or another. So there might be some sour grapes among partisans of one party or another who are convinced that their preferred candidate only lost because of those rascally rapscallions of the other party who lied about their party affiliation just to cast a vote in a different primary. But at this point there is no evidence of that. Michigan is different from the southern states which Clinton was winning handily (like Mississippi which Clinton won 83-17) in that (1) there are still white Democrats in Michigan, (2) there is still an active (but dying) union movement, and (3) Michigan lacks a huge Hispanic or Asian population. Sanders' attempt to make his case to Black voters paid off in Michigan. He got roughly 30~35% of the Black vote, which coupled with a more competitive percentage of the white vote allowed him to win. In Michigan in particular there's a strong undercurrent of discontent over NAFTA, "free trade" and globalization which was likely more fertile ground for Sanders' message. Michigan is ground zero for the loss of high wage middle class manufacturing jobs. In any event Sanders still has an uphill battle for the nomination but last night showed that it's not time for his political funeral just yet. Clinton will need to alter her message a bit so that it can resonate with a few more male voters in the Midwest, especially white ones. I think it's interesting that Clinton has mostly run up the score in states that will almost certainly be in the Republican column on election day. Michigan is whiter than the nation as a whole but it's also a state which usually leans Democratic. That Sanders won here after being down by such a huge margin has to give pause to some people in the Clinton camp. The big question will be if Michigan is just a bump in the road to the inevitable Clinton nomination or is it a harbinger for a comeback which hasn't been seen in modern times.

Donald Trump won the Republican Primary in Michigan with 37% of the vote. I also think he won in part because of his nationalist stance on trade issues. I think he will be the Republican nominee. Cruz came in second at 25% while Ohio Governor Kasich finished third at 24%. Marco Rubio finished fourth with just 9% of the vote and lacks any reason to keep going other than spite. Rubio did win in Puerto Rico but of course Puerto Rico provides no electoral votes. Perhaps Rubio will soldier on until the primary in his home state of Florida but he's currently behind there. 

The Unstoppable Donald Trump?

Donald J. Trump has won three out of the first four Republican primaries or caucuses. He's gleefully ignored or changed the rules on what is proper political speech and prudent behavior in a Republican political race. Trump has insulted and feuded with Fox News personalities, made fun of war hero Senator John McCain, mused about being able to commit felonies and still win, said good things about Planned Parenthood and the necessity of some sort of national health system, called his opponents liars and derogatory names for women's genitalia, retweeted white supremacist talking points, talked about punching protesters in the face, joked about shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pig's blood, called Bush a liar and blamed him for 9-11, joked that if his daughter wasn't his daughter he might, well you know, and on and on and on. That's not even the half of it. Statements that would have quickly sunk another campaign either have had no impact on Trump's supporters or have actually increased their admiration and fervor. Unless there is some sort of unforeseen meltdown (someone gets footage of Trump doing a Ray Rice on his wife Melania) it's a pretty good bet that Trump will be the 2016 Republican nominee for President. Trump's recent win in Nevada where he both inspired record turnout and received 46% of the vote makes it unlikely that anyone on the Republican side will beat him. Trump even got 45% of the Hispanic vote. This was a little surprising considering that the received wisdom has been that to criticize illegal immigration is to throw away the Hispanic vote. Apparently that's not true with Nevada Hispanic Republicans. Of late Ben Carson has consistently been making lame jokes about being surprised and grateful that the debate moderators ask him questions. He's the only one still laughing about his dumpster fire of a campaign. Rubio hasn't won a contest anywhere but constantly talks as if he's the front runner. Confidence is good I guess but there's a thin line between that and delusion. Rubio is in the process of crossing it. Trump is currently polling ahead of Rubio in Rubio's home state of Florida for goodness sake! Cruz likes to talk about how he's the only man who has beaten Trump. And that's true. But he's only done it once. Can Cruz beat Trump again? Can he do it consistently? I don't think so. Kasich has so far been an after thought.

Some are convinced that if Trump is the nominee that the Republicans will lose in a historic landslide to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. So some Republican "establishment" types or hardcore conservatives who don't believe in Trump's dedication to anything other than himself are now calling for everyone except either Rubio or Cruz to drop out of the race so that Rubio or Cruz can get all of those non-Trump votes. The problem with this is that Donald Trump is someone's second choice too. There's no guarantee that a narrow field gives the anti-Trump candidate 51% of the vote. Once Carson and Kasich depart, Trump's numbers could go up. There was some data from the 2012 election which showed that white turnout, especially among non-college educated Midwest middle class and lower-class whites was down. This just happens to be a group with whom Trump is currently resonating very strongly. Although I still think it very unlikely it's possible that in the fall election this group comes out in such numbers that one or two formerly safely blue Midwest states turn red. And if that happens, well then hello President Trump. Turnout and motivation will mean everything this fall. Should Trump lose decisively to Clinton (after all Florida, North Carolina and Virginia are swing states now) the Republican wailing and gnashing of teeth will be horrible to behold. Losing to a black guy was bad enough but to lose to a woman will make heads explode. But if Trump wins, look for Democrats to rediscover their dedication to strict separation of powers, a slow moving Senate and a reigned in executive branch. We live in interesting times. If nothing else we should learn from Trump's rise that there aren't quite as many Republicans as we thought who are ardent free trader interventionists dedicated to low capital gains taxes, low tariffs and porous borders. Class and nationalism (and its uglier kissing cousin racism) still have roles to play. The idea of making America great again is enticing some people. And it's not just because they're racist, though many are. There are people who feel forgotten and overlooked. And some of the medical data is confirming that. I think that Trump is lying to those folks but he's the only one even talking to them. And that apparently counts. In tonight's debate look for Cruz and/or Rubio to come after Trump with everything they've got. Time is running out.

Omarosa and Bra Sizes; Killer Mike and Uteri

In the early days of Donald Trump's reality show The Apprentice, one of the more unpleasant contestants was one Omarosa Manigault. She was combative, sarcastic, dishonest and above all, snide. Of course, being a jerk can make for good television. Omarosa took pains to point out that she was there to win the contest (she didn't win), and that behavior which might otherwise be considered within the normal modes of competition was considered underhanded and nasty when practiced by a woman, especially a black woman. Maybe so. Omarosa has said that the television shows edited depictions to show storylines which producers felt were more entertaining. Probably so. If you're watching reality tv and thinking it is real, you might need help tying your shoes every morning. On the other hand sometimes when there is smoke there is fire. Fast forward 12 years and after a number of other reality shows, Omarosa has resurfaced as a Trump media surrogate. Recently she was on Fox Business Channel defending her preferred candidate against questions about his seriousness from Fox contributor Tamara Holder. But perhaps unintentionally reflecting both the insult happy nature of Donald Trump and the foolishness of all thing Fox related while revealing her own bile, Omarosa decided to engage in some ad hominem (ad feminem?) attacks on Holder. These attacks were centered around Holder's chest size. Okay then. I guess Omarosa felt threatened in some regard? Or maybe she was just saying what she thought Trump might say in a similar position. Or perhaps she really is just an unpleasant individual. I am not seeing what someone's physical attributes have to do with pronouncing their name correctly but such logic is not necessarily shared by everyone on this planet. I was always taught that in a professional environment that you do not comment on anyone's body parts. I'm trying (and failing) to imagine saying something similar to anyone at work. That wouldn't and couldn't happen. But if it did take place I suspect I would need to look for other employment. And I wouldn't even have to wait two weeks to start searching.

But Omarosa wasn't the only campaign surrogate to raise some eyebrows by impassioned defense of her preferred choice for President.

As we discussed earlier Hillary Clinton has suggested, via surrogates and less frequently via her own statements, that people, especially women, should vote for her in part because she is a woman. It is true that in that aspect Mrs. Clinton would be different from all previous Presidents. It's not clear though that just being a woman necessarily means that you would bring about the sort of change that most US voters, even most US women, would find of value. The backlash and resentment against a woman President might be greater than the realistic change in economic, political and social standards that she could create. And of course women differ on all sorts of things just as any other arbitrary group of people would. In the media there have been plenty of recent news and opinion pieces quoting women of various ages and races explaining that for a variety of reasons that Clinton doesn't have or deserve a lock on the women's vote, or their vote. Shared chromosomes don't imply lockstep voting. Bernie Sanders' surrogate, the rapper/activist Killer Mike, who does not share chromosomes with Clinton or any other woman, recently took to a stage at Morehouse to explain that your gender should not determine your vote or your morality. However he was accused by some Clinton surrogates of being sexist. Now Killer Mike was quoting the noted anti-racism activist and feminist Jane Elliot. Perhaps the words sting less coming from a woman than from a man. But no matter what gender speaks those words, I don't see them as being sexist. To be sexist would mean stating that being a woman is all by itself a disqualification for being President of the United States. And that's not what Killer Mike said. While it's inaccurate and unfair to suggest that Clinton or her supporters have said that Clinton's only qualification is being a woman, certainly Clinton is appealing to what she hopes is a desire among women voters to put "one of their own" in the big chair. That's understandable I guess. But there are other candidates who evidently want the job just as badly as Clinton does. It is unrealistic and unfair to expect them to stand down or not try to challenge Clinton's qualifications, intentions or abilities. Compared to the Republican battles so far the Democratic scrum for the nomination has been relatively collegial. I'm not saying whether that's good or bad. There are benefits and costs to each approach. Certainly the more the candidates poke, push, and prod each other the more prepared they will be for what is sure to be a very nasty general election. On the other hand there are some things which once said can't be unsaid. And these statements often are noticed by the opposition party and used in a general election fight. As the race between Sanders and Clinton tightens up look for much less politesse.

Random thoughts on 2016 election and New Hampshire Primary

This post was actually supposed to be written on Monday but my supervisor at my Day Job is becoming more unpleasantly demanding and nastily watchful in his later years. I will have to ensure that my pay keeps up with his demands. Lately it doesn't seem like that's the case. No sir, not at all. Anyway this is going to be a short post so I can swiftly return to the virtual salt mines that provide a way for me to earn my daily bread. Since the last time I was able to write on the race to become the next POTUS, also rans and longshots like Mike Huckabee, Martin O'Malley, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul all dropped out of the race. None of that was surprising as either the political time had passed them by (Paul) or there was never any evidence that there was strong voter desire for their services in the first place. Santorum and Huckabee had little to say on issues beyond abortion, grits and gay rights. Paul's movements away from his father's hardcore libertarianism didn't win any voters. And O'Malley had little to say besides "I'm not Hillary Clinton". Yawn. But there were two interesting events in both the Republican and Democratic contests which made news and are worthy of discussion while New Hampshire primary voters make their choices. The first was the remarkable display of emptiness by Florida first term Senator Marco Rubio at the Republican debate Saturday night. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attacked Rubio's relative lack of experience, leadership and tendency to repeat memorized lines regardless of context. Rattled, Rubio tried and failed to think on his feet and swat away Christie's attacks. In fact he retreated to the same talking points 3 times(!!!) even as Christie seized the opportunity to tell everyone to watch Rubio mess up in real time. Both in terms of content and appearance it was a serious body blow to Rubio's debate standing. I don't ever think he quite recovered. It was a man putting a boy in his place. I was reminded of Rocky Balboa in the first fight against Clubber Lang. Rubio wasn't strong enough to keep Big Chris off of him. And he got hurt.

Christie was relaxed, confident and in command of what he was saying. His body language demonstrated aggressiveness and control. His tone was direct and dismissive. Rubio was nervous, sweaty, high pitched and floundering. His body language gave me the impression of someone who is applying for a job without the necessary skill set and who just got called out on it by the interviewing manager. It was an entertaining political display. Rubio has to hope that it doesn't become a defining one. We'll see tonight. The reason that Rubio keeps trying to turn every question back to President Obama's alleged malfeasance is that it's impossible to criticize President Obama for lack of experience when you (Rubio) have the same lack of experience.

The second event that was interesting to me is that Hillary Clinton, faced with a photo finish win in Iowa which may be revisited and an expected loss in New Hampshire, has started to take the possibility of losing to Senator Bernie Sanders seriously. She and her supporters have said some very nasty things about Sanders and his supporters, accusing them of sexism (President Clinton), claiming that Sanders' female supporters are thinking with their reproductive parts (Gloria Steinem) or just stating that female supporters of Sanders will burn in hell for not supporting a woman candidate (Madeleine Albright). Clinton is also banking on a firewall of black voter support once the race for the nomination turns south though as this piece from 3chicspolitico makes clear, there are at least some black people who are not huge Clinton fans. Hillary Clinton, to me, doesn't have a lot of passion or excitement to her campaign. She's a real life Tracy Flick. She may well be the "most qualified" depending on whom you ask but elections are not just a sober assessment of arbitrary and oft ill-defined qualifications. After all none of the people running have done this job before. You have to make people excited to vote for you. You have to provide a vision of how you will govern. Sanders is doing this better than Clinton is now. Clinton has missed the anger in the Democratic base towards the perceived unfairness of the economic structure. I still think at this time that she'll win the nomination but Sanders is going to make things much closer than anyone realized.  If Clinton only wants to be not quite as right-wing as a Republican, that leaves a lot of room to her left. And if Clinton and her deputies don't drop the entitled attitude that she deserves votes by dint of her gender, well, say hello to nominee Sanders.  

Okay. I'm sure my boss has probably noticed my absence from the salt-pit by now so I must depart. I will be very interested to see the primary results this evening. Trump and Sanders should win. But I want to see where Christie and Rubio finish. I also want to see if Carson, who missed his cue to go on stage Saturday night, will recognize that the time has come to take his campaign out to the back yard and bury it.

Michael Bloomberg and the 2016 election

I do not like Michael Bloomberg. I think his enthusiastic embrace of "stop-n-frisk" tactics in NYC was not only something that violated the Fourth Amendment but was also emblematic of his larger approach to life. Bloomberg seems to prefer that people live according to his rules and sees few if any issues to using government force to make sure that they do. He is quite dismissive and oft contemptuous of opposing views. While this is admirable when it comes to such public goods as clean drinking water and auto safety it's perhaps not so great when it comes to private decisions on how much sugar or fat a person should be ingesting. Perhaps irritated by the rise of Trump and shocked by the fact that at the time of this post Sanders is giving Clinton more of a fight than he was supposed to, Bloomberg has floated a trial balloon about running for President this year as an independent candidate. As Bloomberg is anywhere from four to ten times as wealthy as Trump, Bloomberg would not at all be pressed by the costs necessary to build a national campaign at this late date. I don't doubt, Republican or Democratic protests and shenanigans aside, that if Bloomberg really wanted to get on the ballot in all 50 states he would have the money and moxie to make that happen. The question though is that in a time when the Republican and Democratic parties have accepted and enforced ideological purity it's not clear from which party and in which state Bloomberg would take more votes.

Bloomberg is certainly acceptable to much of the Democratic base on the sexual politics (gay rights, feminism, abortion rights) which take up so much energy in today's political arena. Bloomberg is no socialist. He's a believer in what is called free trade. He likes immigration and wants more of it. He's to the right of people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on economic issues. As much as any one person can be, Bloomberg is the Wall Street Establishment. On economic and gun control issues, Bloomberg could well appeal to that well educated moderate Republican voter who in an earlier era was known as a Rockefeller Republican. The problem though is that that sort of voter is not that common outside of some pockets of the Northeast. Certainly not many conservatives in the South, West or Midwest will vote for someone who's best known for visceral hostility to gun rights. Bloomberg simply can't win 270 electoral votes. And I can't see too many Black voters picking Bloomberg over either Clinton or Sanders. If Bloomberg does run I don't see him winning a single state. The only impact he might have is to make a few Northeast states competitive for Republicans. And I would bet that he knows that. But if Clinton should lose in the upcoming Iowa and New Hampshire contests, Bloomberg might see himself as the last chance to prevent a choice between Sanders and Trump. And who knows, there just might be enough establishment Republicans out there who think that they can deal with Bloomberg instead of Trump. But it's really really difficult to imagine that there are millions of thirsty desperate voters out there, yearning for the chance to vote for Bloomberg. I don't see it. The 2016 election is going to be about a repudiation or continuation of President Obama's legacy. It's not going to be about bloodless management, which is what Bloomberg offers. Well he offers that along with stop-n-frisk for everyone. You need to offer a message. Trump's message is America's losing. Vote for me and make America great again. Sanders' message is the rich have screwed you over. Clinton's message is it's time for a woman to lead. Bloomberg's message would be what exactly? What is the passion to make someone vote for Bloomberg? Ultimately, I think any Bloomberg Presidential campaign would be rooted in pure vanity.

Paris, Terrorism and Politics

On Friday the 13th the group ISIS attacked a concert hall and stadium in Paris because well that's what they do. Over one hundred people died. Many more were wounded. The proximate cause was retaliation for France's support of the bombing campaign against ISIS targets in Syria. The deeper cause could be revenge for a long history of Western intervention in the region. And the deepest cause of all could be, well that the sorts of people who attack civilian targets are cowards and a$$holes. Today France struck back on the ground.The button men are all over the street looking for anyone and everyone who had something to do with the attacks. With few exceptions, these attacks will just make most people even stronger in their previously held convictions. People across the political spectrum immediately used 11-13 to demonize their political opponents or argue that events proved their pet political theory correct. If you are on the right these attacks may have strengthened your conviction that immigration or refugee movement (particularly of racially, culturally or religiously disparate people) needs to be slowed, halted or reversed. Unlike the United States, which theoretically has no formal or informal link between race, religion, ethnicity and citizenship, many other nations in the Old World, especially in Europe, are more or less ethnic homelands of very long standing. When you say that someone is French or German or Japanese that usually brings up a different image in your mind than to say someone is American. This has changed in Europe, particularly Western Europe after WW2, but there are plenty of shall we say self-proclaimed "indigenous Europeans" who strongly dislike these changes. That at least some of the people who carried out the attacks were apparently European nationals of non-European origin will give fuel to various political parties across Europe who want to stop any further demographic transformation. Many people who will vote for a LePen or a Orban are stone cold racists. Nevertheless just as the US didn't accept massive immigration from Germany during WW2, there just might be something to be said for not accepting immigration from countries you're currently bombing. Because some of those folks will surely hold grudges. The fact that some of these grudges are beyond ridiculous (the people who carried out the Madrid bombings were still po'd about the Reconquista) doesn't matter.

Now if you are of the Left you may see attacks like this as reminders that France must try harder to live up to the slogan of "liberty, fraternity and equality". Why, for example, does France apparently have more of a problem assimilating non-white non-Christian immigrants than the US does? Why has France outlawed Muslim headwear or in some cases refused to provide non-pork meals at public schools? You may argue that France needs to do more to make its Muslim immigrants welcome so that they no longer identify with a crazy warped version of end times Islam. This is not about political correctness as much as it's about building a society that is both fair and cohesive. You might ask why has the atrocity in Paris attracted so much attention when ISIS and fellow travelers have committed similar crimes in Kenya, Nigeria, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Some French who found the ISIS attack on Russia humorous are presumably no longer laughing. The West has been bombing in the Middle East, South Asia and the Horn of Africa almost non stop over the past twenty-five years or so. Has that worked? And turning to the US in particular, although some governors have claimed that they will refuse to accept any Syrian refugees and some Presidential candidates have suggested only accepting Christian refugees, the truth is that the law doesn't allow for religious discrimination in the refugee process. And the Federal government, not the 50 states, gets to decide refugee status. Governors can talk smack but in the face of a sufficiently determined President, they would have to shut up, take it and smile. But this is just demagoguery. The US has accepted fewer than 2000 Syrian refugees. Hilarious is not the word to use but it is blackly humorous how people's willingness to restrict civil liberties depends on whether they think they will use the liberty in question. Some people on the right don't think very highly of the Fourth, Fifth or Sixth Amendments so in the wake of 11-13 there are calls from that segment of society to increase surveillance, shut down mosques, establish government backdoors to encrypted communication, consider collective punishment and generally chip away at the presumption of innocence (at least for those people). The people calling for these steps are often the same folks who stoutly resist private background checks for all gun sales and are unmoved by arguments that saving lives requires limits on gun ownership. And some other people (often but not always on the Left) who would like to strongly discourage or even eliminate private gun ownership because somewhere somebody might commit a crime appear to be blithely unconcerned about letting in people who might want to get some payback on the country that bombed theirs. 

So what's the answer? The problem is that there is none. 

Or rather there is no quick answer or one that can be sufficiently dumbed down for Ben Carson to get it. I don't think that you can ever blame any sovereign nation state for taking swift action when someone murders your citizens and basically says "Yeah we did it. So what are you going to do about it b****?" But look at the Afghanistan War. It started as a righteous crusade to get Bin Laden and put the fear of God into the people who took down the Twin Towers. It is currently in a pointless stalemate featuring moral atrocities such as the bombing of wedding parties and hospitals and US soldiers being ordered to ignore child sex abuse. ISIS would not exist if the US had not post 9-11 gotten the bright idea to invade Iraq and thus further destabilize the entire region. The Taliban would not exist if Russia had not invaded Afghanistan, causing the US and Pakistan to arm and train people who would later execute 9-11. So will more intervention solve the problem? I doubt it. The only sort of intervention that might work would be a multi-generational crusade/colonial project that would put Western troops on the ground from Aleppo to Mecca. And that's not going to happen. All that can be done now is to manage the conflict. That's unsatisfactory but that's reality. This is going to include a lot more death and mayhem before things get better. Something else we can do is to start to put the squeeze on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to get with the program. Some elements in those nations provide ISIS material and ideological support. Some leaders in the Middle East simply don't see ISIS as the worst group. They have other concerns. I do think that there will be some permanent changes in how European nations manage and accept refugees and immigrants. That train has left the station. Expect certain political parties in Europe to find more success with messages of unabashed nationalism, immigrant restriction, xenophobia and not so hidden bigotry.

Jim Webb Quits Presidential Race

Well that didn't take too long and really wasn't that surprising. Jim Webb announced today that he is dropping his race for President -- as a Democrat. He is not willing just yet to say no to the idea of running as an independent. As we discussed earlier, Jim Webb no longer fits with the soul of the national Democratic party and hasn't for quite some time. His relative lack of charisma and complete lack of funds didn't help matters either. It remains to be seen if there are a number of independent voters who are yearning to breathe freely and vote for Jim Webb for President. I would doubt it. I don't think that Webb did himself any favors in the Democratic debate by constantly complaining about his perceived lack of speaking time or attention. But some of that rancor no doubt arose from Webb's rounding error level of polling support. Watching the debate it seemed that Webb was just as frustrated by the fact that no one seemed to know who he was as by the moderator's alleged dismissals. Webb is famously proud of his supposed touchiness. And it was on display again today.
Webb isn't completely out of the 2016 mix just yet. He said he is still considering an independent bid for president."How I remain as a voice will depend on the kind of support I'm shown," said Webb. "Though I'm not going away, I'm thinking about all my options." That would be an uphill climb for the underfunded former one-term senator. Raising money to fuel a run is only half of the problem; getting on the ballot in all 50 states would be an expensive proposition. He should not be completely discounted, however — Webb's home state is Virginia. The swing state has been especially crucial in recent presidential elections, and if he peels off even a small percentage of the vote, that could be a problem for Democrats. As for whether Webb still considers himself a Democrat, Webb paused and told a reporter, "We'll think about that."

LINK

The more interesting question to me is not whether Webb runs or not. He is irrelevant. He was never going to be President. The more interesting question is can the Democratic party continue to win nationally while continuing to lose the votes of white men or more specifically of a certain class of white men. These are the people for whom Webb tried to position himself as speaking for, albeit with decidedly mixed results. As the two major parties ready themselves for a post-Obama election it will be fascinating to see if the winning Obama coalition will hold together without him on the ballot or if the class and racial polarization in this society makes each major political party almost completely identified with and subsumed by parochial interests. So Webb's departure may be seen as utterly meaningless or as the canary in the coal mine incident. Right now I'm leaning towards utterly meaningless.

Handicapping Major Party Declared Presidential Candidates (Part Three)

Everyday there's someone else announcing his candidacy because he thinks he has what it takes to be President of the United States. I really do believe that one possible reason for this number of candidates is because some people think that if the black guy could do it how hard could it really be. I'm not 100% serious writing that. Not completely anyway. But for all the myriad disagreements I have and will continue to have with President Obama it is still in some aspects pretty amazing that the twice elected President of United States is a black man with a name that is utterly non-European. That's a big deal. And it is also a big deal that America might follow the election of the first black President with the election of the first female President. But on the Republican side because there is no incumbent to follow or obvious heir, much like GRRM's War of The Five Kings, people think why not me? That HAS to be the justification for long shot mopes like Bobby Jindal, George Pataki or Ben Carson, to name a few. It's like the lottery. Someone has to win. And you can't win if you don't play. And even if you lose you may not have to return all of the campaign contributions. You could parlay your new fame into a television or radio show. Perhaps you have a book you'd like to peddle.Or maybe you intend to be the loyal opposition/sparring mate for whoever eventually does win. Then you can get a cushy cabinet position in their administration. Then you just kick back and do favors for lobbyists for three or four years before cashing in your chips and becoming a lobbyist or tripling your salary at a think tank. On the other hand if you really are trying to win the race there are different paths to victory for candidates, especially Republican ones, in an America with a browning electorate. Some Republican nominees would attempt to run up the score with white voters, particularly among the hard right base. Other Republicans would seek to placate the base but reach out to white suburban college educated voters of whatever political background who may not have seething rage about illegal immigration or gay marriage but who are still worried about their children's economic prospects. And some Democrats might point to the party's dismal national standing among white men, especially Southern white men, and claim that they can reverse that to build a new broad based coalition. I don't know and neither does anyone else who will win their party nominations and ultimately the Presidency or which argument will resonate most strongly with the voters. I do know that this race is going to be wide open, perhaps a little more on the Republican than the Democratic side, though Sanders is currently showing a little more strength and staying power than Clinton would probably like to see.

Scott Walker

Why he can win
The governor of Wisconsin could be the Republican Prince Who Was Promised. With the possible exception of New York City is there a region or area that is more closely associated with unions than the upper Midwest? I'm not sure that there is. The Midwest is where the modern labor movement was born and where it thrived for years. And yet, times change. Governor Scott Walker emasculated and humiliated public sector unions on their home turf. He beat them. He survived recall and was elected again despite the best effort of unions and sympathetic supporters. He took their best shot and is still standing. Unions are on the run. Walker's not stopping to rest on his laurels. He's going after tenure as well. His status as a college dropout may well endear him to some people who feel that overeducated Ivy League pointy headed elites are ruining America. There's no word as to whether this "aw shucks we's jus regular folk" schtick interferes with Walker's fealty to the MIT educated Koch Brothers. I'm guessing not. But in any event Walker greatly appeals to the "let them eat cake" cheap labor camp of the Republican capitalist class as well as to the resentful Republican proletariat who are often overcome with schadenfreude anytime a government worker loses his or her job, must take a lower salary or loses union rights. There was some data in the 2012 election that suggested that voter turnout in the Midwest among white conservatives was lower than expected. If Walker could reverse that he might make a few Midwest states besides Indiana turn red. And then it's anyone's ball game isn't it?

Why he can't win
Although he has started to walk the walk, as witnessed by his recent signing of the 20 week abortion ban, it's not really clear that Walker has always talked the talk around social issues which are dear to the hearts of conservatives, particularly in and around the Bible belt. On the issue of illegal immigration in particular he is a late convert. Some social conservatives feel used by the Republican establishment that whispers sweet nothings to them to get the vote but is really only interested in delivering things like low taxes and low regulation for their business class. Can Walker change any perception that he only cares about gutting unions?


Jim Webb

Why he can win
Webb is a throwback to years when the white vote, particularly the white male vote, was more up for grabs in Presidential elections than it is now. The world has changed however. In Presidential elections, Republicans routinely get 60%+ of white voters nationwide and much more in the South. But as we have seen that proportion is no longer enough to win the Presidential election. This has caused some internecine strife among Republicans. Some just want to ignore this and keep the same messaging. Others want to change messaging, if not policy, and try to woo away some winnable elements of the Democratic coalition. Others want to go full white nationalist and try to increase their percentage of the white vote, which is still by far the largest group in America. This Republican problem, viewed with much glee by some Democrats, also leaves other more conservative Democrats in a bind. But Webb may see this as an opportunity. If he attracts conservative/independent whites who are more interested in class and pocketbook issues than they are in ensuring that whoever makes the latest racist gaffe is suitably humiliated and shunned, then he can stop the Democratic losses among whites in Presidential elections. There is a nascent class consciousness among many working class white Southerners which usually loses to race consciousness. Webb could bridge this. Perhaps he can even win more than one or two Southern states. He's a combat vet, something fewer and fewer Presidential candidates are. And he wasn't just twiddling his thumbs. Webb put in work. He's got a Navy Cross, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. He possesses foreign policy experience at higher levels as well, having served as Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary of Defense. 

Why he can't win
Yeah. I was just kidding. His run is just an exercise in self-indulgence. He's to the right of where the Democratic Party base is moving. Many of his most logical and likely supporters have probably identified as Republican or independent for years. It will be a heavy lift for both policy and identity politics reasons for Webb to make successful inroads with many Democratic primary voters. Although I understand his attempt to find nuance around Confederate Flag displays, again the people who would support him most passionately are already Republicans. 

John Kasich

Why he can win
He's the other Republican governor from the Midwest running for President. He's managed to combine pragmatic conservatism with what he sees as good policy decisions to attract widespread support in his state. He won't easily be characterized as a mouth breathing goober who gets all of his information from AM radio. Like Walker, Kasich, would if nominated, try to provide a path to victory for the GOP through the upper Midwest, which has not yet undergone the demographic transformations which have turned Florida, Virginia and North Carolina into battleground states and placed California firmly out of reach. If the GOP can win Ohio it makes the electoral math much easier. Kasich's seeming reasonableness could entice some independents to vote for him, particularly if the Democratic candidate is lackluster.

Why he can't win
I was always told that if you graduated from Ohio State University it is a miracle that you manage to tie your shoes every morning let alone run for President. Ok, that's probably not a fair, accurate or nice statement, though I still would check to see if Kasich is wearing loafers. Kasich's problem is not that he hails from that state down south but that conservative as he is, he's not going to be conservative enough for the Republican base. Kasich expanded Medicaid in Ohio under Obamacare and has also supported Common Core standards. If he ever starts to get any traction in this crowded Republican field you can be sure his rivals will tell everyone about his positions. And that is when Republican voters across the nation will see that Kasich has a bit of a quick temper.  Now if you aim your ire at the normal Republican targets, media, minorities, welfare recipients, etc. all will be well and good. But if you're questioning the morality of Republican opposition to Obamacare and calling opponents stupid, I'm not sure you get too far with that (unless you're Trump). Also the positions of moderate conservative and snarky sarcastic ill-tempered conservative are already held by Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. Kasich will have to take them (and obviously Trump) down, to get any sort of traction. Right now he's just a rounding error in the polls.