Posted on 04/17/2015 12:50:16 PM PDT by Kaslin
This was a big week for the political press. That means it was also a good week for highlighting how the world of the political elite is so out of touch with the world of everyday Americans.
The excitement for the pundits was launched by the announcement that former Secretary of State, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton is doing what was expected and running for president. This enabled breathless commentary about whether driving cross-country in a van and eating a burrito will present Secretary Clinton in a more positive light.
Everyday Americans, on the other hand, recognized that nothing had really changed.
It is time for the pundits to get a grip and realize that the election for president is not about the candidates lusting for the job. It's not about campaign strategies, speeches, gotcha journalism and gaffes. It is about the fundamentals and the state of the nation.
Here are five keys to understanding Election 2016.
1) It's all about personal finances -- Some believe it's about the economy, which is a close substitute. But what really matters is how people feel about their own personal finances. If people are feeling much better about their own finances in a year, that would be good news for the Democratic nominee. If things stay the same or get worse, it's bad news for the president's party.
2) President Obama's Job Approval -- The president gets better ratings today than he did during the mid-term elections, but is still in dangerously low territory. If his approval ratings don't improve, the GOP will be favored to win the White House. If it goes back down, there may be no hope for the Democratic nominee.
3) The Big Blue Wall is a Myth -- Democrats argue that all they have to do is win states that consistently voted for their party since 1992 and they just about have the Electoral College locked up. The problem with this theory is that it's the result of the Republicans winning a majority of the popular vote only once in the past six elections. If a Republican does better in the popular vote, he or she will win some of those states Democrats think they have locked up.
4) Demographics are a side story -- Lots of armchair analysts advance their cause with demographic claims. In the wake of Clinton's announcement, for example, many have noted that she might do better than President Obama among women. But if that's true, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that she might do worse among men. Or that black turnout may be down or Latinos less hostile to the GOP. The larger trends based upon personal finances and perceptions of President Obama are far more important.
5) Tech Entrepreneurs Are the Real Source of Hope and Change -- While partisans believe that the world will end if their team doesn't win, the truth is that politics is not the way that change takes place in America. The culture comes first, and politics lags behind. The advances coming from Silicon Valley have a far bigger impact on the nation than anything the next president will do.
It's a lot less fun to recognize that the fundamentals matter more than the campaign trivia lionized by political reporters. But it's also reassuring to note that the ultimate decision is based more on reality than candidates.
6) The Republicans in Congress have squandered the mandate given to them in 2014. The cynical among us might even go so far to say GOP Congressional “leaders” have spit in the collective eye of the coalition that elected them. This will not bode well for Republican Presidential, or Congressional, prospects in 2016, reagardless of who ultimately wins the nomination.
I get the impression that Mr. Rasmussen is just another face among many low-information voters, voters who were never taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers.
I wish that election 2016 was all about repealing the ill-conceived 17th Amendment.
Go away, Rasmussen. Your abysmal polling in 2012 did everyone a disservice. You’re a hack. Just go away.
I’m don’t think I agree with #5.
did Hillary stop in the Illini state on the way to the Hawkeye state ?
Vandalia is my favorite spot.
I regret I never got to visit the IA cities on the river. But I recall Cairo, ILL.
Hillary theme song, Chicago native:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ0JgqoF2W4
There were no sightings here in Indiana either and I’m sure the road trip had to include it.
>>>>>>At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld…At the junction of the two rivers lies a breeding place of fever, ague, and death—vaunted in England as a mine of golden hope and speculated in on the faith of monstrous representations, to many people’s ruin. A dismal swamp on which half-built houses rot away, teeming with rank, unwholesome vegetation in whose baleful shade the wretched wanderers who area tempted thither droop and die and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, …a slimy monster, hideous to behold, a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulcher, a grave uncheered by any promise; a placer without a single quality in earth or air or water to commend it; such is the dismal Cairo. <<<<<<<<<<
wow. I tend to give people the benefit of doubt on their towns, but Dickens is a talented writer.
Maybe I like dismal places.
It’s a very sad place, and largely devoid of people. Where there were once rows of 19th century architecture, both business and residences, are now open fields. The “downtown” itself has almost been completely demolished. I’ve been there twice in the ‘90s and many of the buildings I photographed are grassy fields now. It’s a damn shame, since it ought to be a premier rivertown destination at the junction of our two great rivers, the Mississippi & Ohio. So much is gone there that there’s almost nothing “historic” left.
It still remains a county seat (since there’s no town of any size left in Alexander County), but they demolished their stunning old courthouse for an ugly new one some decades ago. They do have a pretty federal building and a mansion several blocks away to tour, but the time for preservation should’ve been 4-5 decades ago when other rivertowns like Cape Girardeau and Galena did so. Anything else would have to be reconstructed.
See The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit for a fictionalized version. It’s harrowing.
7) The repeal of Husseincare part 3.
I forgot to mention ... I was there in Cairo on the invite of Paul Simon. Not the singer. It was the last time I saw Paul. Poor guy.
In my previous lifetime. Before I became a partisan.
When was this ? Presumably he was still in the Senate at the time.
he was da congressman from IL 22, Southern ILL.
That would put it in the 98th Congress 83-84, that’s the Congress when I was born.
Bow-tied freak. Did you get a load of his daughter? Zero question of paternity there.
Are there any pics online of the old courthouse?
He was Congressman prior to his service in the Senate (and after he served as Lt Governor (1969-73) under Republican Gov. Ogilvie — it was Simon and not Dan Walker who was expected to face Ogilvie in 1972. Simon was the Combine choice, Walker was not, and Walker scored an upset over Simon in the Dem primary and over Ogilvie in the general after the latter implemented the IL Income Tax, ending his Presidential aspirations).
So I presume somewhere between 1975-85 you were in Cairo ? A good bulk of it was still standing 40 years ago, although the old courthouse and the hotel where U.S. Grant stayed during the Civil War was gone by then.
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