“Isolating Themselves From Any Exposure To Policy Reality”: The GOP Only Hurts Itself By Walking Away From Tough Debates
Given the uproar within the conservative media world about the supposedly unfair CNBC debate, it’s understandable that the RNC would have to do something lest it lose what little credibility it still had with the GOP base. So Reince Priebus has pulled out of the debate partnership with NBC, even as the candidates themselves have started to form a weird pact to insulate themselves from future debates of that nature.
The problem for the Republican Party and its candidates is that while some of the questions may have been phrased a little rudely (“what is your greatest weakness?” and “comic book version of a presidential campaign” may have gone a little far in the tone department), the questions themselves were both substantive and accurate. This is has been pointed out again and again: Brian Beutler noted it at The New Republic, Ezra Klein explained it at Vox, and Charles Pierce had his own colorful version at Esquire.
The problem with the CNBC debate for Repbulicans wasn’t that a bunch of “flaming liberals” (in the words of the incomparably ghoulish Charles Krauthammer) asked them unfair questions. CNBC is, after all, the slavishly pro-Wall Street greedhead network that employs Rick “Tea Party” Santelli, Larry Kudlow and similar characters. It was that the moderators treated unserious falsehoods as, well, unserious falsehoods, from the candidates’ budget-busting regressive plans counting on phantom supply-side growth to their denials of unsavory records and associations.
So the RNC has decided to work the refs and refuse any similar debates, rather than suggest that their candidates might want to be less openly silly and unserious.
But this only hurts the Republican Party going forward. In a general election, the Democratic Party and its allies will not be shy about pointing out the weaknesses of the eventual nominee and their policy positions in the strongest possible terms.
One of the chief goals of a presidential primary is to test candidates’ weaknesses and potential general election attacks against them. On the Democratic side, that means that Clinton’s trustworthiness and Sanders’ use of the socialist label are both fair game. Democratic primary voters have a vested interest in seeing how their candidates handle those issues in a trial run before the big event.
Republicans seem to be more interested in isolating themselves from any exposure to policy reality, preferring to scream about the “liberal media” (at CNBC!) whenever anyone suggests that, for instance, handing out trillions in tax breaks to the rich just might increase budget deficits.
That will only come back to hurt them worse starting in June of next year when the real games begin.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, October 31, 2015
“Springtime For Grifters”: A Strategic Alliance Of Snake-Oil Vendors And Conservative True Believers
At one point during Wednesday’s Republican debate, Ben Carson was asked about his involvement with Mannatech, a nutritional supplements company that makes outlandish claims about its products and has been forced to pay $7 million to settle a deceptive-practices lawsuit. The audience booed, and Mr. Carson denied being involved with the company. Both reactions tell you a lot about the driving forces behind modern American politics.
As it happens, Mr. Carson lied. He has indeed been deeply involved with Mannatech, and has done a lot to help promote its merchandise. PolitiFact quickly rated his claim false, without qualification. But the Republican base doesn’t want to hear about it, and the candidate apparently believes, probably correctly, that he can simply brazen it out. These days, in his party, being an obvious grifter isn’t a liability, and may even be an asset.
And this doesn’t just go for outsider candidates like Mr. Carson and Donald Trump. Insider politicians like Marco Rubio are simply engaged in a different, classier kind of scam — and they are empowered in part by the way the grifters have defined respectability down.
About the grifters: Start with the lowest level, in which marketers use political affinity to sell get-rich-quick schemes, miracle cures, and suchlike. That’s the Carson phenomenon, and it’s just the latest example of a long tradition. As the historian Rick Perlstein documents, a “strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers” goes back half a century. Direct-mail marketing using addresses culled from political campaigns has given way to email, but the game remains the same.
At a somewhat higher level are marketing campaigns more or less tied to what purports to be policy analysis. Right-wing warnings of imminent hyperinflation, coupled with demands that we return to the gold standard, were fanned by media figures like Glenn Beck, who used his show to promote Goldline, a firm selling gold coins and bars at, um, inflated prices. Sure enough, Mr. Beck has been a vocal backer of Ted Cruz, who has made a return to gold one of his signature policy positions.
Oh, and former Congressman Ron Paul, who has spent decades warning of runaway inflation and is undaunted by its failure to materialize, is very much in the business of selling books and videos showing how you, too, can protect yourself from the coming financial disaster.
At a higher level still are operations that are in principle engaging in political activity, but mainly seem to be generating income for their organizers. Last week The Times published an investigative report on some political action committees raising money in the name of anti-establishment conservative causes. The report found that the bulk of the money these PACs raise ends up going to cover administrative costs and consultants’ fees, very little to their ostensible purpose. For example, only 14 percent of what the Tea Party Leadership Fund spends is “candidate focused.”
You might think that such revelations would be politically devastating. But the targets of such schemes know, just know, that the liberal mainstream media can’t be trusted, that when it reports negative stories about conservative heroes it’s just out to suppress people who are telling the real truth. It’s a closed information loop, and can’t be broken.
And a lot of people live inside that closed loop. Current estimates say that Mr. Carson, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz together have the support of around 60 percent of Republican voters.
Furthermore, the success of the grifters has a profound effect on the whole party. As I said, it defines respectability down.
Consider Mr. Rubio, who has emerged as the leading conventional candidate thanks to Jeb Bush’s utter haplessness. There was a time when Mr. Rubio’s insistence that $6 trillion in tax cuts would somehow pay for themselves would have marked him as deeply unserious, especially given the way his party has been harping on the evils of budget deficits. Even George W. Bush, during the 2000 campaign, at least pretended to be engaged in conventional budgeting, handing back part of a projected budget surplus.
But the Republican base doesn’t care what the mainstream media says. Indeed, after Wednesday’s debate the Internet was full of claims that John Harwood, one of the moderators, lied about Mr. Rubio’s tax plan. (He didn’t.) And in any case, Mr. Rubio sounds sensible compared to the likes of Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. So there’s no penalty for his fiscal fantasies.
The point is that we shouldn’t ask whether the G.O.P. will eventually nominate someone in the habit of saying things that are demonstrably untrue, and counting on political loyalists not to notice. The only question is what kind of scam it will be.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, October 30, 2015
“Satisfying The ‘Most Intense, Extreme Part’ Of The Republican Party”: Many GOP Voters On Board With Impeaching Hillary Clinton
It was just two weeks ago that Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) raised the prospect of impeaching Hillary Clinton, even though she hasn’t been elected. The far-right congressman is apparently so concerned about her email server management that he believes she would, literally on her inauguration day, be “subject to impeachment because she has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Soon after, the Alabama Republican talked to MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki about his intentions, and Brooks seemed quite sincere about impeaching Clinton, despite the fact that she hasn’t, in reality, even been accused of breaking any laws.
And while this is obviously just one unhappy congressman, Public Policy Polling asked North Carolina Republicans for their thoughts on the matter.
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, would you support or oppose impeaching her the day she takes office?
* Support impeaching Hillary Clinton the day she takes office: 66%
* Oppose impeaching Hillary Clinton the day she takes office: 24%
* Not sure: 10%
Obviously, the only fair conclusion is that one-third of the GOP voters in North Carolina are Republicans In Name Only.
For her part, Clinton has apparently heard about the impeachment idea. When she sat down with Rachel late last week, and the subject came up, the former Secretary of State said, “Isn’t that pathetic? It’s just laughable, it’s so totally ridiculous.”
Clinton added the rhetoric is likely intended to satisfy “the most intense, extreme part” of the Republican base.
If the PPP survey is correct, it may very well be working.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 30, 2015
“It Never Pays To Give Bullies What They Want”: Will The Press Recognize The Existential Threat And Fight Back, Or Buckle Under?
It should astonish even the jaded that Republicans are calling CNBC, that stodgy home of supply-side Wall Street cheerleading, an agent of the left.
Still apoplectic at being asked some basic questions at the debate, Republican candidates are doubling down on their freakout.
Ted Cruz is flat-out calling CNBC debate moderators “left-wing operatives” and demanding that right-wing radio hosts moderate their debates, instead.
Donald Trump, who openly lied during the debate about what is on his own website, called debate moderator John Harwood a “dope” and a “fool.”
All of this after Republican candidates spewed forth one of the most embarrassing explosion of lies ever witnessed during a television presidential debate.
The press is facing an existential threat. With Republicans increasingly unashamed to tell grandiose lies and respond to any press criticism with derogatory insults and whines about media bias as well as blackmail threats to cancel appearances if the questions are too tough, the press must decide how to respond on two fronts. First, it must decide how to present an objective face while acknowledging that both sides do not, in fact, behave equally badly. Second, it must determine whether it will continue to ask the tough questions that need answers regardless of the threats made by the GOP, or whether it will meekly submit to the demands for kid-glove treatment.
If the press chooses to assuage and give comfort to the GOP, it will lose what little credibility it has left. The Republican base will never accept mainstream journalists as fair arbiters–but the rest of us will lose what little respect we still have for them. If the press stands up to the bullies and calls out GOP tactics and untruths for what they are, they will gain in respect what they lose from conservative hatemongers in the perceived objectivity department.
The choice is clear: stand strong and call out the lies as they are, or fall further into the abyss as the Republican Party ramps up its threats and insults. It never pays to give a bully what they want, unless the bully has absolute power over you. The GOP does not hold that sort of power over the press. Indeed, the GOP has far more to fear from the press than the other way around.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, November 1.2015
“A Strategy With A Shelf Life”: Rubio Calls Clinton A ‘Liar’, But He Can’t Back Up The Attack
Stylistically, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) soared in this week’s debate for Republican presidential candidates. Substantively, however, it was a very different story.
Responding to questions about his messy personal finances, for example, Rubio simply denied reality. Pressed on the effects of his far-right tax plan, Rubio ran into similar problems.
But one of the more jarring moments of the debate came when the Florida senator went after Hillary Clinton, complaining about her recent appearance at his party’s Benghazi Committee hearing. From the transcript:
“She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video. And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“It was the week she got exposed as a liar. It was the week that she got exposed as a liar.”
This is generally the kind of rhetoric one might expect from Louie Gohmert, Steve King, or some other House GOP extremist, not a senator seeking the nation’s highest office.
But more important is the fact when a national candidate goes after a rival with the word “liar,” he’d better be able to back it up – and in this case, Rubio can’t. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler fact-checked the senator’s attack and found “he does not have enough evidence” to back up his attack.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent emphasized a key detail: “Early intelligence on what caused the attacks was conflicting and erroneous, with some intel concluding the attacks had occurred in the context of the protests, and other intel concluding they were terrorism. Clinton’s private statements about terrorism did not reflect certainty; they tracked with information that was coming in at the time; the administration’s public suggestions about the video also tracked with contradictory information. The Republican-led probes have also concluded this — including one signed by Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
But Rubio casually threw around the word “liar” anyway, probably because (a) he assumes far-right activists will enjoy the red meat; and (b) the senator figures he can get away with it.
The GOP candidate should realize, though, that throwing around false attacks, and counting on voters to ignore fact-checking pieces later, is a strategy with a shelf life. Mitt Romney tried the same thing, and it didn’t work out especially well for him.
For that matter, Rubio may think he can throw around falsehoods with impunity now, but I have a hunch Hillary Clinton might have some effective pushback should these two meet next fall.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 30, 2015
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