Posted on 08/28/2015 8:29:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
"One can't believe impossible things," Alice objected.
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," the Red Queen replied. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
You may be reading this sometime after breakfast, and six is a pretty large number of impossible things. But looking at developments in the 2016 campaign, I can see two impossible things -- impossible in the sense that almost every pundit (including me) ruled them out -- that might happen in the weeks and months ahead.
The first impossible thing is that Hillary Clinton might stop being the undisputed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.
There have been two good reasons for believing this to be impossible. One is that even in the swirl of the email controversy, a very large majority of self-identified Democrats continue to have positive feelings about Clinton. That includes the 25 percent or so nationally and the 40 or so percent in New Hampshire who say they'd vote for Bernie Sanders right now.
That shows that one Democratic constituency -- the Birkenstock Belt -- is willing to consider an alternative. What would happen if another -- black Democrats -- should prove willing to do so as well?
The answer: disaster for the Clinton campaign. As fivethirtyeight.com analysts have pointed out, even if Clinton loses Iowa and New Hampshire, the next big set of contests come in Southern states, where blacks make up nearly half or more of Democratic primary voters. And black voters tend to coalesce, in primaries as well in November, for one candidate.
That's a rational response for people who are self-conscious members of a persecuted and discriminated-against minority. In the past, black Democrats have been nearly unanimous for one candidate even over another who has strong claims on their support -- e.g., Robert Kennedy over Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton 40 years later.
Right now, Clinton has the kind of black support Humphrey would have had if Kennedy had not run. But what if Joe Biden entered the race with the explicit or strongly implied support of President Obama?
Maybe that could happen. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he "wouldn't rule out the possibility of an endorsement" in the primary and added that "no one in American politics today" knows more about running for president than Biden and that Obama considered his Biden VP pick as "the smartest decision that he has ever made in politics." Hmm.
The second impossible thing that could happen is a vast expansion of the Republican primary electorate -- and general election turnout. Sparked, at least initially, but not necessarily permanently, by Donald Trump.
The New York Times reported last week that other Republican candidates' strategists discount Trump's current poll leads on the grounds that the polls "rely on feedback from many Republicans who are unlikely to vote" because they aren't registered Republicans or haven't voted in past primaries.
It's true that past Republican turnout has been low. In 2008, 37 million Americans voted in Democratic primaries and caucuses and only 21 million voted in Republican contests. Hillary Clinton, while losing the nomination, got almost as many votes as the three leading Republicans put together.
Similarly, many analysts blame Mitt Romney's 2012 loss on conservatives staying home. Barack Obama got 3.5 million fewer votes in 2012 than in 2008. Usually incumbents who drop that far lose. But Romney got only 1 million more votes than John McCain in 2008.
Even in a period of close partisan divisions, when one party's turnout increases it can win decisively. Democratic total votes increased 10.5 million when Obama won in 2008. Republican total votes increased 11.5 million when George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004.
One metric we have so far suggests a huge increase in Republican votes: 24 million people watched the Republican debate in Cleveland August 6. That's almost triple the previous Republican high and double the Democrats' record -- which came in 2008, when the party's primary and general electorate expanded.
Donald Trump accounts for much of Republicans' big audience, but perhaps not all: some 6 million watched the second-tier candidates' pre-prime-time debate. The big question now is whether another candidate can entice Trump's predominantly older, non-college-graduate enthusiasts. Hmm.
Will these two impossible things happen? After all, the Red Queen only said that you could believe impossible things. But they did happen to Alice.
What if the democrats go into the 2016 without a viable candidate? What if Hillary is indicted, Sanders isn’t nominated, Biden bows out. What then? Maybe Jeb Bush becomes the democrat candidate?
I tend to agree with your take on what might be developing. The democrats count on Biden to get the office of POTUSA but with the intentions that Warren as VP takes over because of Joe’s poor health. Such manipulations were practiced in my youthful days over 70 years ago.
>>I think this is where Trump is getting a lot of his support and if true it spells doom for the others in the primary and for any Democrat in the general, because polls wont accurately reflect how strong Trump is, if he is attracting voting who don’t usually vote and/or are not even registered to vote.
I agree. I don’t know if Trump will foul up his lead, but he’s bulletproof against the media, which is wild. The thing I’m drooling over is Hillary becoming the candidate and then getting nailed before the general election - think of the down-ticket destruction! The other thing that I hope Trump does is directly challenge the GOPe and put them on notice that he will change things about them if elected. Jeb’s weakness simply proves that the establishment is in a downward spiral.
Agreed - it looks like Cruz and he are fixing to work a bit more in concert - could be a sweet move.
Josh Earnest said he "wouldn't rule out the possibility of an endorsement" in the primary and added that "no one in American politics today" knows more about running for president than Biden and that Obama considered his Biden VP pick as "the smartest decision that he has ever made in politics." Hmm.
Personally, I do not agree. Biden would be a dreadful president indeed, but infinitely better than Obama. He is, unquestionably, a natural born citizen and an American. There is a connection there that is missing with Obama, and I suspect there is a point beyond which he will not go; not so with Obama.
That's not how He works.
He's going to blame the nation so sunk in fornication and other sins that we've killed 50 million of His precious children and then gone and elected the Muslim-in-Chief.
Even I know that "Obama" is the symptom, not the disease.
When God reaches the end of His patience, no one here will be safe.
I still hold out hope that 2 Chronicles 7:14 might yet still apply IF our Nation truly repented, but I fear you are right.
I think the analysis on Trump misses the point. This issue is not so much a left/right/ moderate thing. It’s a nonvoter/ voter thing. The highest participation rate in recent years was 2008 when roughly 65% of those eligible voted. More typical are participation rates just north of 50%. It doesn’t take a brilliant mathmetician to figure out that if a large number of those otherwise nonparticipants show and show to support or oppose on e candidate, there will be one helluva large effect.
You can’t explain something like that in right/left, red/blue terms because that has nothing to do with it. These are the folks who given their druthers would have nothing to do with any of that. They’re voting because the urgency of the situation or the unusual attractiveness of the candidate.
I’ve seen one election like this in my life:1980. I think it possible that 2016 is a repeat. The issue though is more a sort of quiet nationalism than some sort of reaction to the tired old left right fight.
The GOPe would never impeach 0bama because it would give Biden the advantage of incumbency in the 2016 election. That was the same reason that BJ Clinton was not impeached - it would have given Gore the advantage of incumbency.
Because of that, yes, anything could happen.
These are labels that pollsters, pundits and consultants put on demographic groups but that does not mean that these experts can not come pretty darn close to predicting precinct by precinct how these people will vote and, as you point out, whether they will vote at all.
I agree with you they will jump up and vote if they feel it is a matter of survival or if they are emotionally moved by a candidate. And, yes, I believe that the numbers could be moved dramatically if the stars align and Joe sixpack can somehow be energized. There is a proviso, however, there is a kind of law of equal and opposite reaction meaning that if the conservative base is energized that might also energize the leftist base. This pushback becomes more acute a problem when race is introduced. I try to point out that it's also a problem when gender is considered, for example, what excites me as a crusty, curmudgeonly, disputatious male conservative might turn off a female voter and I will never understand why.
Anyway, we are at the end game with the border a sieve, the economy a creature of the Fed, our debts mounting out of control, our enemies emboldened, our national consensus disintegrating, our Constitution abandoned, our political leaders sold out, it appears that our last chance is at hand. This is not the time to navel gaze but to "attack, repeat, attack!"
Thanks for posting what many of us were thinking!
“Yes, it was a smart decision to have an incompetent moron as VP because it was protection against impeachment!”
(Trump is the barbarian at the RINO gate, Cruz is his 'inside man' and I LIKE it !!)
Now he just has to come up with four more before breakfast...
Excellent thought:
I’ve seen one election like this in my life:1980. I think it possible that 2016 is a repeat.
John Bonehead would be next in line. Sniff...whine...tears...guzzle.
Yeah, since he is the Speaker of the House. It stinks either way
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