US Opinion and Commentary

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Donald Trump: Pro & Con

Posted November 4th, 2016 at 3:38 pm (UTC-4)
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Donald Trump and his supporters say he is the only candidate able to change a broken political system in Washington and make it work for the American people.

He promises to cut taxes across the board; renegotiate trade deals to make them more favorable for the United States; create 25-million new jobs over the next 10 years; and grow the U.S. economy by an average of 3.5 percent per year.

Trump vows to abolish Obamacare and replace it with health savings accounts; increase the size of the U.S. military; end the strategy of nation-building and regime change and militarily crush the Islamic State.

And then there’s the “impenetrable” wall along the U.S. southern border Trump says he will build, and make Mexico pay for it to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Critics say Trump is a narcissistic, misogynist demagogue whose admiration of Vladimir Putin is disquieting, if not disqualifying.

With fewer than 100 hours to go before polls open on Tuesday, can Donald Trump pull off one of the most improbable victories in American political history?

RNC Notebook: The GOP Unifies…But Around Who?

Posted July 21st, 2016 at 1:54 pm (UTC-4)
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Are Republicans more unified around Donald Trump or against Hillary Clinton?

Why a Pro-Life Third Party Would Utterly Transform American Politics

Posted June 22nd, 2016 at 3:58 pm (UTC-4)
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Do you know of a group that is a lot more pro-life than the mainstream and doesn’t vote with the officially pro-life party? That’s right: African-Americans. Uniting white pro-lifers and black pro-lifers (and Latino pro-lifers as well) would profoundly reshuffle American politics in ways that frankly cannot be anticipated…

A Third Choice?

Posted May 24th, 2016 at 6:05 pm (UTC-4)
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In a presidential race where the likely nominees of both major political parties have major disapproval ratings, is there room for a third choice?
New polling says maybe.
An NBC-Wall Street Journal survey this week shows 47 percent of registered voters would consider a third party candidate if the Republican and Democratic choices were Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
This weekend, the Libertarian Party will hold its convention to nominate a candidate. Front-runner Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, is polling at 10 percent in some recent surveys that include his name with Trump and Clinton.
While Americans have not elected a third party president, there have been some strong attempts: George Wallace won almost 14 percent in 1968. Ross Perot got 19 percent in 1992 and eight percent in 1996. Ralph Nader in 2000 got more than two percent of the vote, but that was enough to keep Al Gore from winning Florida, giving George W. Bush the presidency.
With the election still about six months away, talk of a viable third party candidate is still remarkably strong. But is there action behind the talk?

Hillary Clinton: Eyeing Trump While Sanders Tries to Close

Posted May 16th, 2016 at 4:23 pm (UTC-4)
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Voters in Kentucky and Oregon get their chance Tuesday to choose a candidate to run for president of the United States. Donald Trump is the last Republican standing in what once was a 17-candidate field. And the Democrats still have Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders going at one another.
The delegate math is tilted heavily against Sanders. Democrats allocate pledged delegates proportionally to the popular primary vote. That means Sanders has to overwhelmingly win most, if not all the remaining 11 contests to overcome Clinton’s current 283 pledged delegate lead.
Then, there are the “superdelegates” — 712 elected officials and Democratic party leaders who are not bound to any candidate. Right now, Clinton has support from an overwhelming number of those superdelegates.
The Clinton conundrum: positioning herself to take on Trump without burning bridges to Sanders supporters.

Trump and the Republicans

Posted May 9th, 2016 at 4:02 pm (UTC-4)
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Mainstream Republicans have had 11 months to defeat Donald Trump. 16 candidates, 12 debates and 47 primaries or caucuses later, Trump is on the precipice of winning the party’s nomination. And the Republican Party is facing an identity crisis.
Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham are among Trump’s former presidential rivals who say they will not vote for him. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal are among the former candidates who are backing Trump because they say the option of voting for Hillary Clinton is worse. We have yet to hear directly from the last of the vanquished, John Kasich and Ted Cruz.
Both living Republican former presidents of the United States, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, reportedly will not endorse Trump. Nor will the most recent Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.
The top elected Republican, House Speaker Paul Ryan says he could not support Trump…yet. The two will meet this Thursday, and the outcome may determine whether the ideological fault line that is Donald Trump will continue to split the Republican party. Or, can enough common ground be found to bring together the leaders of the Grand Old Party and the man who would be its new standard bearer?

Campaign ‘Cuisine’ Isn’t Always Presidential

Posted April 26th, 2016 at 2:31 pm (UTC-4)
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Political pundits have already decided the outcome of today’s five-state presidential primary contests. It goes something like this: Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton will widen their leads, leaving their competitors (Bernie Sanders, John Kasich and Ted Cruz) that much further from securing their party’s nomination. Election season in America is a taxing months-long, 24/7 exercise, requiring a lot of stamina, and fuel to keep on keeping on. Sampling corn dogs, milkshakes, burgers, five-alarm chili and apple pie in state after state is a campaign must for every candidate. Why? Because breaking bread with the locals, whether in a small Idaho town or the big city of New York, is a sure way to connect with the voters. Today, we offer you a glimpse of American campaign “cuisine.” We check in on the latest thinking about the candidates, and Trump’s alleged pivot away from his raw and rowdy campaign style.

Trump & Hillary Solidify Frontrunner Status

Posted April 19th, 2016 at 12:30 pm (UTC-4)
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As predicted, New York voters granted Trump, its “native son,” and Hillary, the state’s adoptee, electoral victories by wide margin. The takeaway? Trump confirmed that he is indeed a “winner.” And Hillary, who has the loyalty of New York Democrats, sent a strong message to her iconoclastic contender, Senator Bernie Sanders. The presidential ticket seems set for both parties, even if Trump is likely to arrive at the GOP convention without the necessary majority of delegates. The #StopTrump movement isn’t going away, but “The Donald’s” renewed momentum may mean establishment Republicans will not be able to #StopTrump no matter what.

The #NeverTrump Movement

Posted April 11th, 2016 at 12:14 pm (UTC-4)
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After Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump lost the Wisconsin primary to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, it seemed as though some of the air had come out of Trump’s balloon.

Sure, there have been weeks and weeks of criticism from mainstream GOP players, innumerable editorials calling for conservatives to do something, ANYTHING, to end Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential ticket. Journalists have been shamed for not taking his rise seriously— and for creating him by being his echo chamber. Calls have grown for reporters to conduct deeper truth-squadding.

But there appeared to be a new urgency in the form of Twitter feeds (#StopTrump, #NeverTrump) and, on Sunday, a faked cover by The Boston Globe, which imagined the world with Trump as president. Experts are furiously doing math, counting delegates and calculating the various possibilities the final 16 primaries may offer. And campaign operatives are going back to states where caucuses and primaries have already been held, trying to find delegates to sway or steal.

Next week’s New York primary — with 95 delegates at stake — will give us a clearer picture. In the meantime, the knives are out.

The End of GOP Optimism

Posted March 18th, 2016 at 1:31 pm (UTC-4)
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Trump’s iteration of the Republican party won’t have a bleeding heart; it will be out for blood. Far from eschewing negative campaigning, personal abuse will be its calling card. It will care less about policy than attitude and shibboleths. Electorally, it will repel minorities and hope to run up the score with whites.

Donald Trump’s Dangerous KKK Game

Posted March 3rd, 2016 at 3:43 pm (UTC-4)
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The truth is Trump himself is probably not a hardcore racist. Instead, he is something worse than a racist. He is a racial opportunist… he has figured out a way to use racists to advance his quest for power. And in doing so, he is playing with the worst kind of fire.

Hillary Eyes November, With the ‘Bern’ Firmly in Her Rearview Mirror

Posted March 3rd, 2016 at 3:23 pm (UTC-4)
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First Lady. Senator from New York. Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton has been part of the American political landscape for 25 years. Even longer, if one includes her stint as First Lady in Arkansas before she and her husband, then President-elect Bill Clinton, arrived in Washington in 1992. After a seven-state win on Super Tuesday, she is well on her way to securing her place as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Senator Bernie Sanders didn’t make it easy. “The Bern” was real, and his supporters remain fiercely loyal. They forced her to highlight her progressive stance on domestic issues. Many have said Clinton has been her own worst enemy over the years, creating doubt or suspicion unnecessarily, and collecting a lot of baggage along the way. But the breadth of her career in politics cannot be denied – from bake sales and community fundraisers across America to being on the Watergate impeachment inquiry staff, tackling healthcare in the 1990s and the controversies leftover from her time as Secretary of State — Benghazi and a private email server. History books already will have a chapter written about Hillary Clinton, even if she doesn’t make it back to the White House.

Not-so-Super Tuesday

Posted March 1st, 2016 at 1:59 pm (UTC-4)
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The Party of Lincoln has reaped what it sowed: All these years of anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-establishment and often hateful, venomous rhetoric and dog whistling attacks on President Barack Obama have produced that strategy’s uber-candidate, someone who embraces all of it without the niceties — or even intellectual consistencies.

Trump ‘Foreign Policy’ Unnerves American Allies

Posted February 29th, 2016 at 1:23 pm (UTC-4)
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By Barbara Slavin The battle for the Republican presidential nomination this year has made many Americans squirm as they watch grown men fling potty-mouthed playground insults at each other in lieu of serious discourse.  Overseas, however, concerns are mounting at the prospect of a possible presidency by New York real estate magnate Donald Trump, whose […]

Jeb, Trump and the New Republican Playbook

Posted February 22nd, 2016 at 1:51 pm (UTC-4)
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On Saturday night in South Carolina, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump appeared to cement his status as the party’s frontrunner – and, perhaps more importantly, his dream of becoming its nominee.  And then, a notable domino came crashing down. After Trump landed a decisive win in the state’s primary, Jeb Bush, the GOP’s presumed establishment candidate, dropped out after finishing in fourth place.  In an instant the Bush political dynasty was history, and a long chapter in American politics closed.  How?  How could a campaign bankrolled by $150 million with such name recognition fail?  How could a billionaire businessman who has never held elected office, whose campaign depends on Twitter, personal insults, public anger and charisma have unseated such a powerful family?  Pundits and experts alike point to many factors and missteps by Jeb – among them, underestimating Trump’s appeal. Ultimately, what the outcome seems to say is that the rules of the game to the White House have changed.

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