Gawker: “After nearly three hours of monotone droning by a bunch of sweaty old people who will almost certainly never be president, tonight’s Republican debate finally delivered with a bizarre question about potential Secret Service names that produced incredibly absurd answers from every single candidate.”
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Clinton Stuck In a Poll-Deflating Feedback Loop
Nate Silver: “Candidates can just as easily get caught — or entrap themselves — in self-reinforcing cycles of negative media attention and declining poll numbers. Hillary Clinton looks like she’s stuck in one of these ruts right now.”
“The Washington Post’s David Weigel recently observed that voters were hearing about only three types of Clinton stories, all of which have negative implications for her. First are stories about the scandal surrounding the private email server she used as secretary of state. Next are stories about her declining poll numbers. And third are stories about how Vice President Joe Biden might enter the Democratic presidential race.”
“Since Friday, July 24, there have been 13 mornings when Clinton’s email server was a major story, seven mornings when her bad polling numbers were a major story, and seven mornings when speculation about Biden running was a major story. There have also been two other mornings when there were some miscellaneous negative headlines for Clinton, like this one about Bill Clinton’s paid speeches. That’s a total of 29 days of negative coverage in just over seven weeks. Clinton’s campaign has had a lot of bad mornings.”
Trump Quote of the Day
“Well I thought I was treated fairly. I thought I was on too much. I felt badly for everybody else. Every question had to do with me. Even the first characters, I mean, everything was about Trump. And then they go into this debate and there was split screens all over the place. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a little bit unfair to a lot of other people, frankly. But from my standpoint, I was treated fairly.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview on MSNBC about last night’s debate.
Another Poll Shows Sanders Ahead in New Hampshire
A new WBUR poll in New Hampshire finds Bernie Sanders edging Hillary Clinton by a narrow margin, 35% to 31%. Joe Biden would earn 14 percent support, were he to jump in the race.
“Sanders’ lead is within the poll’s margin of error, but it is the fifth consecutive poll of New Hampshire showing Sanders with at least a nominal lead.”
Obamacare Barely Mentioned During GOP Debate
“What a difference four years — and millions of people with health insurance — can make in the Republican presidential campaign,” the Huffington Post reports.
“On Wednesday night, for this year’s debate at the Reagan Library, the health care law got almost no attention at all.”
Wonk Wire: Census report shows uninsured rate drops sharply
Is the Summer of Trump Finally Over?
“Something unusual happened here Wednesday when the Republican presidential candidates met for their second debate: For the first time since he joined the race, Donald Trump wasn’t the commanding presence on the stage,” the Washington Post reports.
“Not that Trump wasn’t the Trump whom Americans have seen nonstop on cable television… But at other times, particularly when the discussion shifted from what Trump has said about the others to issues of domestic and foreign policy, the candidate who has dominated the summer and leads the polls was far less a force.”
Gerald Seib: “While many of the questions posed by the CNN moderators began with a recitation of comments Mr. Trump has made, which left him still at the center of the conversation, his competitors managed to launch a conversation that, for the first time in weeks, got beyond the Trump orbit.”
McCarthy and Ryan Stand Behind Boehner
“The only two viable potential replacements for John Boehner as speaker of the House say they back the Ohio Republican and will oppose any effort to remove him from power. But other high-ranking Republicans are testing the waters should the embattled speaker be forced out.”
“In a pair of statements to Politico, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) forcefully backed Boehner and called for an end to the intraparty warfare crippling the House Republican Conference as it faces a possible government shutdown on Oct. 1.”
Fiscal Cliff Looms for Congress
“Republicans have maneuvered all year to avoid a fiscal cliff in 2015. Now it looks like they’re going to get a Denali-sized one,” Politico reports.
“With the nation’s borrowing authority set to lapse as early as November, and money to keep the federal government and road construction projects funded increasingly likely to run dry around the same time, the end of 2015 increasingly has the makings of a very unhappy holiday season for Washington. Indeed, the ongoing inertia of Congress could produce a year-end scramble on those big-ticket items, as well as the looming expiration of billions in tax breaks.”
Reaction to the Second GOP Debate
It’s unreal that we choose our presidential candidates this way. The party primary process has devolved to the point where we would probably be much better off with candidates chosen in smoke-filled backrooms.
Carly Fiorina was an obvious winner because she was clear, forceful and stood out among the 11 candidates on stage. Ben Carson was a winner, because he rose above the food fight. Donald Trump dominated the air time once again but likely won over few new supporters. It speaks volumes that all three have never been elected to anything.
John Kasich and Marco Rubio continue to be very strong candidates if the GOP Establishment can somehow seize back control of the party. They’re both talented politicians and would formidable challengers to any Democrat.
Meanwhile, Jeb Bush’s donors must be actively seeking a new candidate after his very weak performance. With the exception of defending his wife and admitting he smoked pot, he’s just not very good on the debate stage.
Ted Cruz remains the frontrunner of the far right, thus making Mike Huckabee’s candidacy a sideshow. Rand Paul is completely irrelevant to this party.
Leading the most-improved category was Scott Walker. It came just in time, as it might have been his last chance to reverse what has been an epic slide in the polls over the last few months. Chris Christie also had a much-improved night but it’s hard to see how he breaks through.
A big loser tonight was CNN. The debate was much too long and didn’t come close to the hype. It will be interesting to see how many viewers tuned out during the hour.
Pope Backs Iran Deal
“The Vatican endorsed the Iran nuclear accord Monday as a positive step towards its broader goal of a world free of nuclear weapons,” the Huffington Post reports.
The Troll Party
Rick Wilson: “Today the Republican Party has two choices before it: It can either reform itself, or fracture and surrender to the Troll Party.”
“Let me explain what I mean. The Troll Party’s central characteristic is an ever tightening spiral of self-reinforcing and self-referential purity tests that makes communicating with anyone beyond the febrile and furious a nearly impossible task. The people pushing for this transformation aren’t a majority yet, but when a virus infects the body politic, its minuscule size belies its massive impact.”
“That’s what is happening inside the GOP, and why the disease vector, in the form of Donald Trump, puts the entire conservative movement at risk of being hijacked and destroyed by a bellowing billionaire with poor impulse control and a profoundly superficial understanding of the world. The Troll Party puts nationalist, anti-establishment bluster before the tenets of our constitutional republic.”
Will Congress Behave During Pope Visit?
“The possibility of Congress truly, massively embarrassing itself (is that possible?) and the entire country during Pope Francis’s historic address next week is starting to give some members the willies,” the Washington Post reports.
“Even the tradition of bipartisan, goofy, wild cheering, clapping or of standing O’s — or sitting boos — could be seen by many as way out of line. So last week, four House members — Democrats Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Juan Vargas (D-CA), and Republicans Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Tim Murphy (R-PA) sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, asking them to put out some sort of guidance ‘to the House and Senate on the appropriate decorum, protocol and behavior…'”
Trump Faces Growing Gender Gap
Morning Consult: “Trump’s support is increasingly based on a growing gender gap, one that has become more pronounced throughout the summer. Today, 42% of men who identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents say they back Trump, versus 25% of women voters. In late August, the gender gap between men and women backing Trump stood at 9 percentage points.”
“Women have always been more skeptical of the mogul and reality television star than men. Trump’s favorable rating among Republican men stands at 67%; among Republican women, it is just 51%.”
Both Biden and Clinton Claim Obama’s Legacy
“While speculation swirls about the possibility of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton squaring off in the Democratic primary, the vice president and the former secretary of state aren’t sounding much like rivals,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In recent weeks, Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton both have been on the road touting a range of Obama administration proposals, offering similar pitches on everything from the Iran nuclear deal to college affordability to preventing sexual assault.”
“It’s little surprise that President Barack Obama‘s second-in-command and his former secretary of state would embrace this White House’s policies. But their simultaneous focus on the same issues offers an intriguing split-screen image of how each frames key arguments. And it raises the question: If Mr. Biden runs against Mrs. Clinton, who will lay claim to the Obama legacy?”
Tonight’s Debate May Be Walker’s Last Chance
“Scott Walker needs to reassure his supporters and his donors. And Wednesday’s debate might be his last chance,” Politico reports.
“After a sleepy performance in the first Republican presidential debate that fueled a steep slide in his standing with voters, the governor’s team has pushed him to prepare. Round Two will be different, according to sources inside Walker’s camp.”
Trump Had Few Ties to Reagan
“Like many hopefuls before him, presidential candidate Donald Trump has embraced Ronald Reagan, the icon of the modern Republican Party,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But a peek inside the archives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, host of Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, tells a different story. Aides in the Reagan White House, peppered with invitations to Trump events, mostly kept the real-estate mogul at arm’s length, except when they were trying to stop his donations to Democrats or soothe his ‘large ego,’ as one memo put it.”
GOP Candidates Face More Subdued Debate Setting
“When Donald Trump steps onto the debate stage Wednesday, he’ll face his rivals for the first time without one of his most valuable assets: a crowd,” Politico reports.
“Wednesday night’s debate will have a different feel in the more somber confines of the Reagan Presidential Library with a more subdued crowd of several hundred donors and party insiders.”
Working Capital Review: How to deal with an unresponsive audience
Boehner Braces for Battle with His Own Party
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “is bracing for what could be the toughest weeks of his speakership as several dozen conservatives in his party are threatening to topple him unless he is more ferocious with Democrats during the upcoming fiscal showdowns,” the Washington Post reports.
“That internal Republican feud has increased the chances that Washington, for the second time in two years, could stumble into a shutdown of the federal government.”
“The speaker’s lieutenants are openly girding for battle with the small but influential bloc of anti-Boehner conservatives, who have signaled that if Boehner cuts any deal that they don’t like with Hill Democrats and President Obama, they could seek to remove him from the speaker’s post. It is a threat that Boehner and his allies are taking seriously.”
