The 'blue wall' can be penetrated

The 'blue wall' can be penetrated

By LeROY GOLDMAN

Hendersonville Times-News

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Published: Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 4:30 a.m.

The outcomes of American presidential elections are frequently predictable. Like a pendulum, they swing from one party to the other, especially after a president has been twice elected.

The Democrats recaptured the White House in 1960, following Eisenhower; in 1976, following Nixon-Ford; in 1992, following Reagan-Bush; and in 2008, following George W. Bush. The Republicans won in 1952, following Roosevelt-Truman; in 1968, following Kennedy-Johnson; in 1980, following Carter; and in 2000, following Clinton.

Thus, it would seem that 2016 is advantage Republicans. There are abundant data that point to such an outcome.

President Barack Obama is perceived by a very large swath of the electorate as one of the most polarizing presidents in the nation’s history. His approval number, while somewhat improved, hovers at an anemic 50 percent. A very large majority of the American people believe the country is on the wrong track.

All of the foregoing raises an intriguing question: Why is Hillary Clinton seeking the presidency when it would seem she is a likely loser? After all, regardless of what you think of her, she’s no dummy.

In fact, she believes she will win. And there is a very good chance that she’s right. The reason she may be right has everything to do with the advantage the Democrats have in the way the Electoral College operates. It’s what the Democrats call their “blue wall.”

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In all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, the candidate that carries a state wins all of that state’s electoral votes. This gives the Democrats a substantial advantage in amassing the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House. They basically have a lock on 19 states and the District of Columbia with 247 electoral votes, leaving them only 23 votes shy of victory.

The GOP has a lock on only 191 electoral votes. There are 100 electoral votes in the eight swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

The swing states of Virginia (13 votes), New Hampshire (four votes) and Nevada (six votes) have been trending increasingly Democratic. Their 23 votes plus the guaranteed 247 are all the Democrats need for victory. Put another way, the Republicans can hold their red states and win all the remaining swing states, and they will still lose the election.

And now you see the seemingly impregnable strength of the Democrats’ blue wall. It’s Hillary’s ace in the hole. It explains why she is running and expects to win.

But the blue wall can be breached. Here’s how:

Let’s go back to the two states, Maine and Nebraska, that don’t award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. Instead, they award electoral votes on the basis of which candidate carries each congressional district. Thus, the winner-take-all rule in those two states does not apply unless one of the candidates carries all of the congressional districts in that state. Maine passed its law in 1972, and Nebraska followed suit in 1996. It’s perfectly legal.

However, Maine and Nebraska’s laws are a distinction without a difference because the Democratic presidential nominee always carries both of Maine’s districts, and the Republican nominee carries all three of Nebraska’s congressional districts.

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But what if a few other states, the right few, chose to pass legislation that would apportion its electoral votes by congressional district just like Maine and Nebraska?

If the blue wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin were to pass such legislation, it would change everything. It would blow a hole in the blue wall. In both states, Republicans control the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature, so they have the power to get such a bill passed.

In those two states, the Republicans control 14 of 22 congressional districts. It’s reasonable to assume that the GOP presidential nominee would carry those 14 districts. That would reduce the Democrats’ lock on electoral votes from 247 to 233, and it would increase the GOP’s total from 191 to 205.

The GOP also controls the levers of power in Nevada. Changing the law there would likely split its electoral vote 3-3, raising the aggregate totals to 236 for the Democrats and 208 for the Republicans.

Now the remaining blue states plus the swing states of Virginia and New Hampshire, which have been trending Democratic, are no longer sufficient for a Democratic victory! Changing the law in the three aforementioned states would help level the Electoral College playing field for 2016.

Oh, you say, the Democrats would respond by doing the same thing in other states, thus nullifying the GOP gains that can be made in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Not true. Try to find a state that presents that analogous advantage to the Democrats. There is none!

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None exists because of the enormous gains the Republicans made in gubernatorial and state legislative contests nationwide in the 2010 and 2014 elections. Thus, in every state where the Democrats could improve their electoral vote count by having legislation in place like that of Maine or Nebraska, their path forward is blocked by the fact that the GOP controls the governor’s mansion, the state legislature or both in all those states.

Elections have consequences. What remains to be seen is whether the Republicans are capable of acting in their own interest. Hillary’s betting they’re not.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:  EmailMe

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Clinton’s shattered glass

Clinton’s shattered glass 

  The Charlotte Observer

By:

LeRoy Goldman 5-07-2015

It’s in the nature of crises that they frequently travel upon cat’s paws. Their destructive force is magnified many times over by their unexpected arrival.

Thus, the world was in disbelief as the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. After 70 years of totalitarian rule, the Soviet Empire was imploding. Countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, such as Poland and Ukraine, gained independence. Economics had much to do with the astonishingly swift collapse of the Soviet Union. By the mid-’80s about 70 percent of Soviet industrial output was devoted to the military in an increasingly costly and unachievable effort to match defense spending in the United States. That effort cratered their economy.

Here’s the takeaway: If, just prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, a senior American official had predicted it, he would have been described as delusional.

In mid-September 2008 Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. With assets in excess of $600 billion it was the largest bankruptcy in American history. Lehman’s vulnerability grew out of its enormous portfolio of subprime, risky mortgages.

Although Washington and Wall Street did not comprehend what was happening, the dam had burst. America and the world were plunged into an ever-deepening financial crisis that obliterated more than $14 trillion of assets held by Americans.

The contagion of the burst housing bubble quickly spread to multiple Wall Street banks. The president and Congress bailed them out. They, unlike most Americans and most small businesses, were deemed to be too big to fail.

When the dust settled it was clear that the worst financial disruption since the Great Depression had been caused by greed, lack of transparency, failures by federal regulators and credit rating agencies, excessive borrowing, and conflicts of interest.

Here’s the takeaway: If, in the summer of 2008, someone had warned that the good times were about to stop rolling, his warning would have been dismissed as delusional.

Is Hillary implosion next?

Having missed the fall of the Soviet Union and the world financial crisis makes me wonder if we’re now missing the implosion of Hillary Clinton.

While we don’t know precisely when she decided to seek the presidency, we do know that the die was cast by the time Bill Clinton ran in 1992. He told voters they could, “Buy One, Get One Free” by electing him and his wife. And we know he (they) meant it. Shortly after taking office, he appointed Hillary to head the administration’s effort to enact comprehensive health-care reform. Her effort produced a bill so dense no one could understand it. In 1994 Democratic Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, knowing Hillarycare couldn’t pass, refused to bring it up for a vote.

We also know that Clinton’s election to the Senate in 2000 was a thinly veiled, high-profile way of preparing for her 2008 quest for the presidency. We know that she and her campaign snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008. And we know her willingness to serve as Secretary of State in the Obama administration was intended to burnish her foreign policy credentials for the 2016 election.

Now it appears she has the Democratic nomination locked up. She and Bill have sucked all of the oxygen and most of the money out of the Democratic Party.

But danger lurks. Hillary can’t conceal her fatal flaws: arrogance, a sense of entitlement, secrecy, and, most importantly, the mounting belief she’s not trustworthy.

The Clinton Foundation has become an albatross. She can’t escape the perception that enormous contributions to the foundation were an attempt by foreign powers to curry favor with her as Secretary of State. Her unilateral scrubbing of her “serve-her” puts Rose Mary Woods’ “accidental” erasure of the Nixon tapes to shame.

Her husband’s pivotal role in collecting millions while orchestrating Russian acquisition of a major chunk of America’s uranium supply while she was Secretary of State doesn’t pass the smell test.

And now all of this and more is under investigation by the Washington Post, the New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Reuters. They may not discover the “smoking quid pro quo.” But that’s not necessary.

The Clintons have overplayed their hand. When the gas comes out of Hillary’s balloon, she will go from front-runner to grandmother in a heartbeat.

Hillary Clinton is obsessed with shattering glass. But the shards will be in her bedroom where she looks in her mirror each morning and asks, “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

Go ahead, say it – delusional

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Wanted: a Republican dark horse

 Wanted: a Republican dark horse

By:  LeRoy Goldman

Ashville Citizen-Times

May 1, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s coronation as the 2016 presidential nominee of the Democratic Party has begun. Almost certainly it will reach its climax when the Democrats gather in Philadelphia 15 months from now. Whatever you think of Hillary, she’s no fool. And while there is no doubt that becoming president has been and will remain the controlling force of her every move, she also knows that 2016 should be a year that strongly favors the Republicans. Yet she believes she will win, and most election experts agree that outcome is possible or likely.

Understanding why that is the case is really important, especially for the Republicans. History teaches us that 2016 ought to be a Republican year. The electorate’s fatigue with Democratic presidents led to the election of Republicans in 1952 (Eisenhower), 1968 (Nixon), 1980 (Reagan), and 2000 (George W. Bush).

Of course, this sort of predictable fatigue has worked in reverse. It enabled the Democrats to win in 1960 (Kennedy-Johnson), 1976 (Carter), 1992 (Clinton), and 2008 (Obama).

So, 2016 should be a year for the triumphant return of the GOP. Only ideologues of the left are blind to Obama fatigue. He’s been one of the most polarizing presidents in the nation’s history. A very large majority of the American people believe the nation is on the wrong track. America’s standing in the world has been undercut by our adversaries, and questioned by our allies.

Hillary Clinton will be 69 next year. But her candidacy is driven by much more than the fact that her age makes 2016 her last hurrah. She’s banking on the suicidal instincts of right wing Republicans. Their blinding doctrinal purity is Hillary’s ace in the hole.

There are about 20 individuals seeking or considering seeking the Republican nomination. With the possible exception of Jeb Bush, the front runners, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul have something in common. None of them can win the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the presidency. But the ideologues of the right are blind to that reality. More importantly, their lack of clear vision imperils Jeb Bush’s candidacy.

Bush will not win the Iowa caucasus because they will be dominated by doctrinaire right wingers. If he does not win the New Hampshire primary, a real possibility, he’s likely toast, and then door opens for one of the right-wingers who can’t beat Hillary.

To win, the GOP needs a dark horse. And they have one: Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Kasich is 62, and was elected to the House of Representatives from Columbus in 1982, where he served until 2001. In Congress Kasich was a fiscal conservative who was able to work across the aisle with Democrats. In 1995 he became hairman of the House Budget Committee. At that time the federal budget deficit was $163 billion. Kasich was the architect of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which led to a budget surplus of $236 billion, the first such surplus since 1969.

In 2010, Kasich was elected governor of Ohio. He was re-elected in 2014 in a landslide, crushing his Democratic opponent by a million votes. He carried 86 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including those that encompass Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Akron, and Toledo. Kasich won 26 percent of Ohio’s black vote and was endorsed by the state’s oldest and largest black newspaper, the Cleveland Call and Post. He’s become a proven chief executive who has successfully solidified his conservative base while at the same time reaching out to independents and Democrats in a state that is a microcosm of America. That’s the disappearing quality that separates him from the ideologues of the right who can win in the red states, but can’t carry swing states, like Ohio.

John Kasich connects with average Americans. His optimism and energy are infectious. He doesn’t need to fake it.

Most Americans don’t have the time or the interest in pouring through the mountain of data that political junkies thrive on. However, there is an easy and remarkably reliable way to cut through all of these data.

It’s called the I-70 Rust Belt Rule. Interstate Highway 70 crosses Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. The Rust Belt Rule says the candidate who wins at least three of those five states will win the presidency. Pennsylvania and Illinois usually vote Democratic. Indiana and Missouri are usually Republican. The linchpin is Ohio. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio. Kasich will.

Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was member of the federal government’s senior executive service for many years.

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