The Sanders surge is about Sanders, not Clinton. Click to enlarge.by Gaius PubliusWe know that Sanders is gaining in many polls, and that some are attributing his rise to a growing "anyone but Clinton" mood among Democrats. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com disagrees.Data first, via Silver:
As usual-- and as expected-- the DCCC is re-recruiting all kinds of loser candidates to run in 2016 with promises that it will be a good year for Democrats. First and foremost Denny Heck's right-of-center Recruitment Committee is looking for New Dems and Blue Dogs, the worst garbage the Democratic Party has to offer.
If you think of average Iowa voters as common-sense pragmatists who swing back and forth between the two parties-- Iowa went for Clinton in 1996, Gore in 2000, George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008 and 2012-- you're not thinking of the activists who turn out every 4 years for the Republican caucuses. These are not, for the most part, common-sense pragmatists or even mainstream conservatives. Ideologues, religious lunatics and extremists dominate the Republican caucuses.
Gretchen and ShawnLate in November, WMUR reported that New Yorker Shawn O'Connor, founder and CEO of Stratus Prep, a test preparation and admissions counseling firm, had moved to New Hampshire to run for Kelly Ayotte's Senate seat. He's licensed to practice law in New York and Massachusetts, but not in New Hampshire.
One of the most popular media personalities in New Hampshire alterted me to a hot local story about Ann Kuster recently, commenting that Kuster is "merely a disingenuous politician who thinks we won't look behind the curtain." One doesn't have look to far behind too many curtains to see what's amiss here. First, though, keep a few facts in mind.
Carol Shea-Porter, an educator and community activist, first ran for Congress in 2006. Rah Emanuel was the head of the DCCC and he wanted nothing to do with her, her grassroots supporters or her progressive ideas. He did everything he could to undercut her and ran a conventional establishment politician, state House Democratic leader Jim Craig. In a 4-way primary, Shea-Porter trounced him with a whopping 54% of the vote.
I got another email from "Nancy Pelosi" (read: the DCCC) this morning on behalf of New Hampshire conservative New Dem Ann Kuster. She's in the D+3 district that Obama won with 54% in 2012, not in the district next door that has a PVI of R+1 and which Obama only won with 50%. That's the district Carol Shea-Porter has.
Tea Party extremist Frank Guinta voted to cut the Center for Disease Control budget-- and now he's whining about inadequate response to ebolaOn February 19, 2011 the Republican Party decided to cut funding for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2011. Although Ron Paul didn't vote that day, only 3 Republicans recognized the folly of what the House Republicans were doing: John Campbell (R-CA), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Walter Jones (R-NC).
