GOP will keep Senate ... barely

GOP will keep Senate ... barely

By:

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News Online

November 6, 2016

Second of a three-part series. Coming Monday: Predicting the presidential race.

The Republicans currently control the Senate, 54-46. Thirty-four Senate seats are up this year. The Democrats are defending 10 and the Republicans are defending 24.

Thus the battle begins with the an advantage to the Democrats because they have fewer seats at risk. This is so because the last time these seats were up was 2010, and that was a Republican year as voters delivered a strong rebuke to President Barack Obama based upon their opposition to Obamacare.

In 2010, the Republicans picked up Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Arkansas. The four in the Rust Belt are now in varying stages of jeopardy. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the Senate races that appear the easiest to call.

There are 24 such seats, 15 controlled by the GOP and nine controlled by the Democrats. In these states, I predict none will shift from one party to the other. Remember, incumbents seeking re-election typically have an enormous advantage over their opponents. In the main, that advantage is due to higher name recognition and because they have a far larger war chest from which to fund their campaigns.

The GOP will retain seats in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. The Democrats will retain sets in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Senate control, therefore, will be determined in the remaining 10 battleground states. Each of these contests is close enough so that their fate may well be significantly influenced by the top line vote for the presidency. And in the closing days of the campaign, the presidential race has tightened rapidly and significantly.

Battleground states

• Florida: Incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is opposed by Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy. Rubio has had a single-digit lead in the polls throughout the campaign. Keep your eye on the vote in Hillsborough County (Greater Tampa). The winner there will carry the Sunshine State. Rubio survives.

• Illinois: Incumbent Republican Sen. Mark Kirk is opposed by Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth. Kirk sleeps with the fishes in what has become the Royal Blue Land of Lincoln. A Democratic gain.

• Wisconsin: Incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a conservative firebrand, is opposed by former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. Johnson loses. Democratic gain.

• New Hampshire: Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte is opposed by Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte has led by a whisker throughout much of the campaign. She’s tried to walk the tightrope of Trump I love you, I love you not. But she loses her balance. Hassan wins. Democratic gain.

• Indiana: Republican Congressman Todd Young opposes former Democratic Sen. and Gov. Evan Bayh for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Dan Coats. Indiana is a traditionally Republican state, and Young has managed to successfully brand Bayh as a card-carrying member of the Washington establishment. Bayh bites the dust. Young wins.

• Pennsylvania: Republican Sen. Pat Toomey opposes Democrat Katie McGinty. McGinty benefits from the hammering Trump will take in the four suburban Philadelphia counties: Chester, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery. Moderate Republican women in those suburbs reject Trump and Toomey with him. Democratic gain.

• Arizona: Republican Sen. John McCain is opposed by Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. McCain has run scared and run hard. It pays off next Tuesday. He wins.

• Missouri: Republican Sen. Roy Blunt is opposed by Missouri’s Secretary of State Jason Kander. Missouri is a normally Republican state and Blunt has maintained a small but consistent lead of a couple of points. Kander is a Washington outsider who has run a brilliant campaign. Blunt survives, but just barely.

• Nevada: Republican Congressman Joe Heck is opposed by Democratic former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. This is the battle to replace retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Reid is all in for Cortez Masto. Reid’s ace in the hole are the votes of Hispanics in the 60,000-member culinary workers union, most of whom who work on the Vegas Strip. But this time Reid’s magic fails him and the Democrats. Heck wins. Republican gain.

• North Carolina: Republican Sen. Richard Burr is opposed by former N.C. Rep. Deborah Ross. Burr has cleverly exposed Ross as too far left for the Tar Heel State. He also benefits from a downturn in African-American turnout. Burr wins.

PREDICTION: Republicans 51, Democrats 49.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident and welcomes comments.  Please contact me at:

EmailMe

House Predictions

Times-News columnist LeRoy Goldman shares election predictions in the first of a three-part series.

By LEROY GOLDMANTimes-News Columnist

* First of a three-part series. Coming Sunday: predictions of the U.S. Senate races.

The conventional thinking for months has been that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, but that their majority will be reduced.

Had FBI Director James Comey not dropped his bombshell last Friday concerning new and possibly pertinent information concerning the FBI investigation of possible misuse of classified material by Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of state, I was prepared to argue that the conventional thinking might well have been off the mark. I was prepared to argue that there was a real chance the Republicans might see their majority in the House gutted or even obliterated by a wave election.

But what Comey did takes that option off the table. He informed Congress in a letter that the FBI had discovered new information possibly pertinent to its investigation of Clinton's home-brewed email system. That new information is in a computer owned by Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton's closest political advisers who worked for her at the State Department.

Comey's letter, an October Surprise if there ever was one, will significantly affect the campaign's closing days, expose the internal intrigue within the FBI and between it and its Department of Justice superiors, and possibly have deleterious legal consequences for Clinton and/or her closest aides.

But Comey's letter was brief and opaque, and for good reason. He and the FBI don't yet know what's in the hundreds of thousands of new emails it has discovered.

But here's a capsule summary of what we do know: Last July, Comey held a news conference and then testified before Congress that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against Clinton concerning her handling of classified information on her private email system. He did, however, state that she was “extremely careless.” For that, Democrats praised Comey and Republicans condemned him. Regardless of that divergence of reaction, the matter seemed to be closed.

But the FBI was also conducting a completely independent investigation aimed at determining whether Anthony Weiner had been sexting with an underage girl. In that respect, the FBI took possession of Weiner's computer. On it were discovered hundreds of thousands of emails from Abedin that may be pertinent to the FBI's investigation of Clinton.

Comey's letter to Congress alerted it and the public of the FBI’s new discovery. The Clinton campaign and Democrats have now turned their heavy artillery on Comey, alleging he's trying to improperly influence the presidential election.

That allegation is nonsense. But understanding why Comey did what he did is crucial. Comey's letter to Congress was the best of only bad options for him. This is so because there are in the FBI those who believe Comey should have recommended criminal charges against Hillary Clinton last July. Their growing angst now borders on rebellion.

Had Comey not gone public, he risked the information being leaked to the media by the dissidents in the FBI. Then it would have appeared he was concealing the information and covering for Clinton. To his credit, he did not allow that to happen.

What no one yet knows is the content of the emails on Weiner's computer.

But this much is clear. The focus of the election has now shifted from Donald Trump to Clinton, and that's bad for her. That means voters are being reminded of something most already believe: Clinton is untrustworthy.

That won't cause most Democrats to not vote for her. But it will energize Republicans and will likely increase their turnout. And that will likely narrow the gap between Trump and Clinton nationally and in the battleground states.

And lastly, it will benefit down-ballot Republican candidates for the House and the Senate.

That's what saves the day for the GOP House majority. The GOP currently controls the House 247-188. For the Democrats to reclaim the House majority, they have to gain a net of 30 seats. It's not happening. Prediction: Republicans: 231 (-16 seats), Democrats: 204 (+16).

Watch this subset of vulnerable Republican-held seats. The Democrats would have to win virtually all of them, and others like them, to threaten the Republican majority:

1. Florida-26, Miami-Dade, Carlos Curbelo.

2. Iowa-3, Southwest, Des Moines, David Young.

3. New Hampshire-1, Southeast, Manchester, Frank Guinta.

4. Illinois-10, Chicago, Northern suburbs, Robert Dold.

5. New York-24, Upstate N.Y., Syracuse, John Katko.

6. Florida-7, North of Orlando, John Mica.

7. Virginia-10, Northern Virginia, Washington suburbs, Barbara Comstock.

8. Michigan-7, Southern Michigan, Ann Arbor suburbs, Tim Walberg.

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

  EmailMe

The Donald's bid is now history

The Donald's bid is now history

By

LeRoy Goldman

Hendersonville Times-News
October 16, 2016

Most Americans share a common set of beliefs about the 2016 presidential election. They don’t want to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton because, for very different reasons, they don’t believe either of them is qualified to be president.

Trump has had plenty of time to demonstrate that he has the temperament, demeanor and policy chops to be an effective president. He failed. In fact, it’s worse than that. It’s not simply that he tried and failed. It’s that he hasn’t even tried. And it makes no difference whether the explanation for his lack of effort is because he’s too lazy or too self-absorbed.

Clinton has had plenty of time on the campaign trail and for decades prior to that to demonstrate that she can be trusted. There can be no doubt that she has spectacularly failed the trust test. Her trail of untrustworthiness is so long and so blatant that it is breathtaking.

For more than a quarter-century, Clinton has been twisting the truth for a single purpose — her own political and pecuniary advantage. There’s been Whitewater, the sacking of the White House Travel Office staff, outsized profits from commodity trading, false claims of being under sniper fire in Bosnia, the deception surrounding the attack in Benghazi, and most recently there’s the matter of “pay for play” regarding the Clinton Foundation and her use of a home-brewed email system when she served as secretary of state.

The thread that ties all of this behavior together is best captured in Clinton’s own words in one of her speeches to Wall Street banks that have recently come to light thanks to WikiLeaks. Clinton stated, “But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

Translated into plain language, Clinton is saying, look, I can’t afford to trust the American people with the truth so I’ll feed them something other than the truth in order to make things work for me. Or more simply, I get to lie when it serves my purpose. Clinton is a serial liar, and that makes her dangerous, too dangerous to be president. No wonder only about 11 percent of the American people believe Clinton is honest and trustworthy.

However, thanks to Trump, she’s on her way to the White House. He has become her ticket to ride. By successfully demonizing Trump, she has managed to minimize the vulnerability she faces on the trust issue. And Trump has accommodated her at every turn. The irony of that reality is stunning and surreal.

But the recent release of the 2005 tapes containing Trump’s vulgar comments about women as sex objects may turn out to be the straw that breaks the backs of both camels, Trump and Clinton. Wouldn’t that be lovely!

The only way Trump can achieve something of value out of his star-crossed quest is to step aside. I know he has said there is “zero chance” he will drop out of the race. I know he’s tweeted, “I will never drop out of the race, will never let my supporters down!” But I will not be surprised to see him drop out.

He faces a stark, binary choice. He can stay the course and suffer a historic and humiliating defeat, or he can get out of the way and bask in the afterglow of having demolished a Republican Party incapable of governing the nation while at the same time having sown the seeds of its rebirth.

Stop for a moment and contemplate how different were the insurgent efforts led by Trump and Bernie Sanders during the primaries this year. Both challenged ruling oligarchs and bureaucrats in their respective parties. Both called for nothing short of a revolution. At the outset of their crusades, neither was taken seriously by their parties, the media, the lobbyists or the general public.

Everybody underestimated what fueled their respective candidacies: voter fury aimed at Washington.

But by the end of the primaries last spring, Trump had won while Sanders had failed. Sanders ended up with his tail between his legs, urging his supporters to rally behind Clinton. Many of them feel betrayed. Many will not vote for Clinton. In fact, the day of reckoning for the Democratic Party has only been delayed.

But Trump and his supporters won the day. The GOP now must reform itself or die. If Trump gets out of the line of fire, he preserves the focus on the forthcoming reformation. If he stays the course, the focus will become his humiliation at the polls on Nov. 8.

LeRoy Goldman welcomes comments,  is a Flat Rock resident, and can be reached  at:

EmailMe

Nuclear double-down on horizon?

By

LeRoy Goldman

BlueRidgeNow 
Times-News Online
 September 18, 2016

Let's assume that the current polling is an accurate harbinger of what's to come on November 8^th. If so, it suggests that Hillary Clinton will be elected President, and the Democrats will regain control of the United States Senate. If she wins, the Democrats will only need to gain four seats to reclaim control of the Senate. However, it's also a certainty that the Democrats will fall far short of the 60 vote super majority required to shut down Republican led filibusters to Supreme Court nominations submitted by President Clinton. The intriguing question is what will the Democrats do to attempt to solve that problem. It's a consequential question that could profoundly alter the Supreme Court.

Looking back enables us to look forward with clarity. When Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's leading conservative jurist, died earlier this year President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a moderate, to replace him. The Republicans, who currently control the Senate, immediately announced that would not vote on Garland's nomination until a new president took office. Thus, Garland's nomination has been in limbo and before the Senate longer than any other nomination to the High Court. With only eight justices the Court has begun to deadlock, 4-4, on cases presenting significant constitutional questions. The impasse over the Garland nomination is politically supercharged and intensely bitter. It shines a bright light on the polarity and paralysis between Democrats and Republicans, as well as the President and the Senate.

Looking back a litter farther, to 2013, enables us to see how this impasse might be ended by the Democrats in a spectacularly controversial way—by using the Nuclear Option, again!

Everybody knows the Senate no longer works. It has become a pathetic shadow of its former self. The Senate Manual on Rules and Procedures defies understanding. Its length alone, over 700 pages, is a labyrinth of complexity. But to the Senate's great credit it found a way long ago to function well in spite of such mind boggling rules. Amazingly, it circumvented its own rules by operating with the repeated use of Unanimous Consent Agreements (UCA). A UCA means exactly what its name implies, the unanimous consent of all Senators. Once a UCA had been agreed to with respect to legislation or a judicial nomination the matter could then be acted upon, amended, approved, or defeated.

But those days are long gone. Now the Minority party, whether Democrat or Republican, employs the filibuster or the threat of a filibuster to hamstring almost everything coming before the Senate. In November of 2013 at the behest of then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) the Democrats struck. They approved by a vote of 52-48 what became known as the Limited Nuclear Option. Its adoption changed the Senate rules such that the Minority could no longer use the filibuster to block Senate action on Executive Branch nominations or judicial nominations with the exception of nominations to the Supreme Court.

Obama has now had confirmed roughly a third of all Federal judges. As Jeffrey Toobin wrote in the New Yorker in October of 2014, “when President Obama took office, the full D.C. Circuit (Court of Appeals) had six judges appointed by Republican Presidents, three named by Democrats and two vacancies. Now it has seven Democratic appointees and four Republicans.”

When the new Congress convenes next January the Senate Democrats, if they have the majority, will face a monumental decision that will be made by their new Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. He will decide whether or not to pull the nuclear trigger again and expand its use to include nominations to the Supreme Court. There is little doubt that the Clinton Administration will privately urge him to do just that.

Hillary Clinton will have everything to gain and nothing to lose, if Schumer acquiesces to the pressure and the temptation to further transmogrify longstanding Senate tradition and procedure by pulling the nuclear trigger again.

That is so because it is a virtual certainty that she will have multiple opportunities to nominate new Supreme Court justices. Only once since 1952 has the party that won the presidency not been able to keep it for at least eight years. The exception was the defeat of President Carter in 1980.

Thus, history teaches us that it is very likely that Clinton or another Democrat will be in office until at least 2024. And, in addition to the vacancy created by the death of Justice Scalia, by 2024 Justice Ginsburg will be 91, Justice Kennedy will be 88, Justice Breyer will be 86, Justice Thomas will be 76, and Justice Alito will be 74.

The central question is whether Chuck Schumer will be stooge to Clinton, as Harry Reid was stooge to Obama. This time the stakes are incalculably higher.

LeRoy Goldman welcomes comments and can be reached at:

EmailMe

What if Donald Trump decides to fire himself?

What if Donald Trump decides to fire himself?

By

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Asheville Citizen-Times 

 August 26, 2016

What if Donald Trump’s most startling surprise of his candidacy is yet to come, and soon? What if he simply throws in the towel? What if he turns his role on “The Apprentice” upside down and fires himself? Ridiculous, you say. Will never happen. Impossible. Perhaps, but let’s think about what might evoke such a thunderbolt from Trump, and what the implications of it would be for the presidential election.

I’ve been intrigued with presidential elections since 1948. All of the 17 presidential elections since then have had something in common that is absent in this year’s contest. All of them presented the American people with a choice between one or two qualified nominees. Sadly, that is not the case this year. You don’t have to take my word for that depressing reality. Polling data makes it abundantly clear that an overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Most Americans don’t think Trump is adequately prepared to discharge the duties of the presidency and are deeply troubled that he demonstrates little interest in modifying his penchant for shooting from the hip or the lip. At the same time most Americans don’t trust Hillary Clinton. They see her as secretive, manipulative, and obsessed with her ambition to become president of the United States. Her persona disturbingly conjures up memories of Richard Nixon who, like Hillary Clinton, had impressive political credentials, experience, and moxie, but who also had disqualifying and fatal character flaws that led America to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Now there’s no chance that Clinton will step aside, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s clear she’s on her way to an overwhelming victory on Nov. 8. But there’s a chance that same reality might lead Trump to declare political bankruptcy and bow out.

Let’s talk about bankruptcy, a redemptive tool that has benefited the nation in general and Donald Trump in particular. Bankruptcy laws in America date back to the 19th century. They allow businesses and individuals to put bad decisions behind them and make a fresh start.

Donald Trump knows this process and its benefits well. Over the past quarter century he has benefited from the bankruptcy process at least six times. Five of the six bankruptcies involved Trump properties in the hard-hit gaming industry, the other was the Plaza Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Bankruptcy is a way of cutting one’s losses, avoiding permanent stigma, and moving on.

Assume that over the Labor Day weekend Trump sits down with his trusted inner sanctum of advisers, meaning that he sits down with himself, and says, “How do I turn this campaign around and win in November”? And then assume his answer is that it can’t be done. It can’t be done because he’s got no chance of winning any of the normally Democratic states, no chance of winning any of the eight swing states like North Carolina, and is in real jeopardy of losing several traditionally Republican states such as Georgia, Arizona, and/or Utah. He’s on an irreversible trajectory to becoming the Alf Landon of the 21st century.

At that point there are only two options, suffer an historic and humiliating defeat or get out. Were he to get out, then what?

For openers, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence does not automatically become the GOP’s standard bearer. In fact the process of selecting another nominee is governed by Rule 9 of the Republican National Committee. Rule 9 provides that either of two alternatives exist for filling such a vacancy. Either another Republican National Convention would have to occur or the Republican National Committee itself could select a new nominee.

It’s obvious that time would not permit the convening of another National Convention. Thus, the RNC would select a new nominee with RNC members from each state being entitled to cast the same number of votes that their state cast at the GOP Convention last July. The winner must receive a majority of the votes cast.

That process, if triggered, will be a brawl among Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and John Kasich. Any of them, excepting Cruz, would give the GOP a chance for victory in November, and, more importantly, would give the American people an opportunity to vote for someone qualified to be president.

But you’re sure this is impossible, right? Weren’t you just as sure six months ago that Donald Trump’s bid for the nomination was certain to fail?

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

EmailMe

Electing a president-by-default

By LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

Times-News Online

Published: Sunday, August 21, 2016

Can you hear the fat lady singing? I can. It’s all 

over for The Donald.

Of course, I may be dead wrong. And, if so, I’ll have a lot of deserved egg on my face. But for what it’s worth, here’s my thinking on why I believe the race for the White House is over before it has been seriously engaged, before any debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton, and before the expenditure of north of a billion dollars on television advertising and the get-out-the-vote ground games by the two campaigns.

Remember, most Americans don’t usually begin to pay serious attention to the presidential election until after Labor Day. By then, the 2016 Olympics will be history, family vacations are over, and the kids are back in school.

The faceoff between Trump and Clinton breaks the mold in so many unprecedented ways that it renders conventional analysis almost useless. Let’s count the ways, saving the coup de grace for Trump’s ill-fated candidacy for last.

For openers, Trump is no Republican. In a CNN interview in 2015, he said, “I probably identify more as a Democrat.” And Trump has put his money where his mouth has been. He has contributed between $100,000-$250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, and he contributed to Clinton’s political campaigns in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007. At that time, he described Clinton as a “terrific woman” and went on to say, “I think Hillary would do a good job.”

Nonetheless, over the course of the past year, Trump has hijacked the Republican Party and become its presidential nominee. Understanding how and why are vital. The GOP has come apart at the seams. Its elected leaders and apparatchiks in Washington are despised by millions of rank-and-file Republicans.

And for good reason. In their arrogance, they have deluded themselves with the notion that they can do as they please, while thumbing their noses at those who sent them to Washington. Trump presented the GOP rank and file with an opportunity to vent their anger at their leadership by voting for him. And that’s just what they did.

The best way to grasp the gravity of the crisis facing the GOP is to understand that if the Republican Party had nominated Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, John Kasich or Paul Ryan this year, they would have recaptured the White House this November. Any of those individuals would have painted an untrustworthy Clinton into a corner from which there would have been no escape.

Yet, had Trump not won the nomination, it is clear that the GOP would have nominated Ted Cruz. Against Clinton, he would have flamed out more spectacularly than will Trump. Let that bizarre reality sink it.

On the campaign trail, Trump has been nothing short of unhinged. Over the course of the past year, he has gone out of his way to deliberately and deeply offend women, Hispanics, Muslims and African-Americans. In addition to being morally reprehensible, such a strategy is politically suicidal.

The white vote in presidential elections has been declining since 1992. Then it was 87 percent. In 2012, it had plummeted to 72 percent, and this year it’s projected to be 70 percent. Moreover, the Hispanic population in America is growing rapidly because it is younger than the white population. The GOP can’t survive if it permanently alienates Hispanics, which is exactly what it is doing.

About two weeks ago, a group of 50 former national security officials who served Republican presidents co-signed an open letter saying Trump is unfit to have control of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. They stated that “we are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.” They also stated, “Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be president.” This from Republicans!

Since President Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952, six presidential elections have been blowouts: Adlai Stevenson was the sacrificial lamb in 1952 and 1956, Barry Goldwater in 1964, George McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale in 1984, and Michael Dukakis in 1988. Each only received between 37 percent and 45 percent of the popular vote. The Electoral College results were even worse for all of them. And, unlike Trump, all of them were considered qualified to be president.

In a normal presidential election, each side attempts to demonize the other in the minds of the voters. This one’s not normal. It’s nuts. Trump has systematically demonized himself in the eyes of the voters. He’s half narcissist and half masochist. He will be demolished on Nov. 8.

And that will leave us with a president-by-default who in very different ways is also unfit to lead the nation. Hopefully, the fat lady will return for an encore performance in four years.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. He can be reached at:

EmailMe