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Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 191

Blue Wave Update

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Trial Balloon · Ep. 191: Blue Wave Update

John McCain Praises Bernie Sanders

· 21 Comments

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said some very nice things to the Washington Examiner about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Said McCain: “I obviously am in strong disagreement with him on his basic philosophy of the role of government, but as far as an honest individual, to work with, to reach agreement, I respect Bernie Sanders.”

He added: “I will also say to anyone who will ask, Bernie Sanders is an honest man. He’s an honest man and his word is good. Once we reached an agreement, that agreement stuck. And now he’s brushing his hair, which is really a remarkable thing.”

Did Ron Paul Sink His Son’s Campaign?

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McKay Coppins: “The two camps have spent much of the past three years bitterly feuding behind the scenes (and trying to knife each other in interviews for my book). But those closest to the family say Rand genuinely admires his father, and is anxious to make him proud by building on his legacy. And Ron? One senior staffer in Rand’s Senate office told me that after years of closely observing the dynamic between the two men, he was left stupefied by Ron’s antagonism toward his son’s career.”

Said the staffer: “He should be proud of Rand, but he’s not. It’s a really weird relationship.”

White House Says Trump Disqualified to be President

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White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Donald Trump is “disqualified” to be president based on comments about banning Muslims from entering the United States, Politico reports.

Said Ernest: “I think the question for other candidates for president is simply this, do they have the courage of their convictions to simply stand up to Mr. Trump’s supporters and say that they’re going to side with the constitution over Mr. Trump even if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee?”

He added: “If they don’t have that much courage, if they are so cowed by Mr. Trump and his supporters that they are not willing to stand by the values enshrined in the constitution, than they have no business serving the president of United States themselves.”

Trump Still Holds Solid National Lead

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A new Suffolk/USA Today poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 27%, followed by Ted Cruz at 17%, Marco Rubio at 16%, Ben Carson at 10% and Jeb Bush at 4%.

Interesting: “When Trump voters were asked if they would still vote for him as an independent candidate and not as a Republican, 68% said they would vote for him, while 18% would not, and 11% were undecided.”

A new IBD/TIPP poll finds Trump at 27%, Carson at 15%, Rubio at 14%, Cruz at 13% and Bush at 3%.

Ask Robert Shrum

· 3 Comments

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Robert Shrum is a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on eight different presidential campaigns, including general election campaigns for Al Gore and John Kerry.

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Trump Suggests ‘Closing Up’ the Internet

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Donald Trump said the United States should consider “closing up” the Internet to curb radical extremism, The Verge reports.

Said Trump: “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet. We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”

The Weakness of Strongmen Like Trump

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John Avlon: “The thing about the strongman candidacies is that they are secretly weak. They feed off feelings of fear and inadequacy. That’s why they target minority rights first.”

“And that is what’s happening here. We’ve seen brushfires of fear sweep through this election season, with mayors calling for internment camps, governors refusing refugees, and presidential candidates trying to win over the angriest inmates of the hyperpartisan asylum. This competition to connect with the reptile mind is beneath the country Lincoln once called ‘the last best hope of earth.'”

“This is a time for choosing between our best traditions and our worst fears.”

Two Sides of the Republican Party

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Molly Ball: “There’s the intellectual conservative movement, a decades-long project of institutional actors like the Heritage Foundation and the American Conservative Union, which seeks to push the party toward strict adherence with a set of ideas about limited government, strong national defense, and the traditional family. And then there is the populist, nativist strain, which isn’t really about ideas so much as a raw appeal to emotion. Trump’s dominance of the primary field is forcing the party to confront a frightening prospect: that the populist bloc may be the bigger of the two.”

Bush Spent Nearly As Much as the Entire Field

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Jeb Bush’s campaign and allies “have spent nearly a whopping $33 million in TV and radio advertisements so far this election cycle — almost more than the rest of the current Republican field combined,” NBC News reports.

“By comparison, all other current Republican campaigns and the outside groups supporting them have spent a combined $36 million-plus in TV and radio ads.”

Edwards Moves Towards Bipartisan Cabinet

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Louisiana Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards (D) is expected to name Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (R) as his top state government administrator and chief budget officer, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

“The move could be interpreted as Edwards’ first substantial commitment to a bipartisan cabinet. Edwards, a Democrat, has picked Dardenne, a Republican who ran against him in the gubernatorial primary, for arguably the most important and high-profile job in the state government next to his own. As Louisiana’s commissioner of administration, Dardenne will be in charge of running day-to-day operations of government and putting together solutions to the state budget problems for Edwards.”

How Polls Enable Donald Trump

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Nate Silver says “the media’s obsession over the daily fluctuations in the polls — even when the polls don’t predict very much about voter behavior and don’t necessarily reflect people who are actually likely to vote — may help enable Trump. Republicans are afraid to criticize Trump in part because it rarely produces instant gratification in a ‘win-the-morning’ political culture that keeps score based on polls. Without seeing any repercussions, Trump goes farther out on a limb, shifting the window of acceptable discourse along with him and making it harder to rebuke him the next time around.”

It’s Donald Trump’s Party

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Jonathan Chait: “Parliamentary systems channel far-right nationalistic movements of the sort Trump is leading into splinter parties. The American winner-take-all system creates two blocs that absorb far-right movements into the mainstream. Rubio, like all the Republican contenders, has promised to endorse Trump if he wins the nomination, a constraint that limits their ability to denounce him. You can’t call a man a fascist while promising to support him if he collects the requisite delegates. Unless Republican elites are willing to actually cleave the GOP in two — and they have displayed no such inclination — they are going to live with the reality that they are part of an entity that is substantially, if not entirely, a party of Trump.”

First Read: “If Republicans — including the RNC — condemn Trump too hard, does that drive him and his supporters away from the GOP?”

Trump Comments Unlikely to Derail Bid

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GOP strategists tell Bloomberg that Donald Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. “won’t destroy his candidacy—but would severely threaten the party’s chance at the White House in 2016 if he’s the nominee.”

“His plan ignited a firestorm among rival Republicans, Democrats, and party chairpeople in the three states that will hold the first nomination votes next year. But GOP voters’ antipathy toward Islam and frustration with President Barack Obama, plus competitors’ inability to outmuscle Trump so far, suggest this won’t be the uproar that finally ends his bid and clears the way for stronger nominee to face Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic standard-bearer.”

Wonk Wire: Trump’s comments appeal to majority of Republican voters

Clinton Backers See 3 Possible Opponents

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Politico reports that Hillary Clinton’s super PAC is preparing for three possible general election opponents — Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz.

“Though they say they’ll be ready for any outcome of the GOP primaries, they are looking most closely at three scenarios that could unfold in the new year — that Trump is, indeed, as strong as his poll numbers would indicate; that Rubio manages to break through as the reasonable establishment choice; and, lately and with greater focus, that Cruz consolidates the conservative Christian vote, and combines it with the angry-outsider voters who eventually dismiss Trump, to become his party’s nominee.”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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