The 'blue wall' can be penetrated

The 'blue wall' can be penetrated

By LeROY GOLDMAN

Hendersonville Times-News

Be Our Guest columnist

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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Kennedy’s bipartisan legacy

Kennedy’s bipartisan legacy

BY LEROY GOLDMAN 

SPECIAL TO THE OBSERVER

04/11/2015 2:00 PM 

The Charlotte Observer

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article18215345.html#storylink=cpy

Watching the dedication ceremonies of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate on C-SPAN recently got me to thinking about the opportunity and obligation the Institute has to address the near complete collapse of effective governance in Washington. Neither party has clean hands. And worse, neither will fix this mess.

As the former staff director of Sen. Kennedy’s Health Subcommittee in the 1970s, I know that he would expect the Institute that bears his name to tackle this problem because doing so is a direct extension of the Institute’s stated mission: “encouraging participatory democracy, invigorating civil discourse, and inspiring the next generation of citizens and leaders to engage in the civic life of their communities.”

Few people know the story I’m about to tell you. But it epitomizes the extraordinary talent, tenacity and creativity he brought to the legislative process. It also illuminates the path forward for the Institute.

When Sen. Kennedy became Chairman of the Health Subcommittee in 1971 his first task was to pass the War on Cancer bill, S.34, that included the recommendations of a special panel of 26 scientific experts and distinguished laymen, including Dr. Sidney Farber, then the scientific director of the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation in Boston.

The ranking minority member of our subcommittee was conservative Republican Peter Dominick of Colorado. Kennedy and Dominick didn’t know one another well, and they didn’t trust each other.

But the real problem had nothing to do with the need to expand cancer research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in order to take better advantage of the opportunities to combat the more than 100 diseases that are cancer. The problem was presidential politics.

President Nixon was terrified that Kennedy was going to use the War on Cancer as his stalking horse to challenge him in 1972. To thwart that irrational fear Nixon sent an alternative cancer bill to Congress that Dominick introduced, S.1828. It was substantively flimsy, lacking the scientific content of Kennedy’s bill. Thus, the stage was set for a bitter battle between Nixon and Kennedy over who would get the credit for the cancer initiative. It was a precursor of the deadlock in Washington today.

However, in the closed subcommittee mark-up session on both bills that summer, Sen. Kennedy did something astonishing. He turned to Dominick and said, “Peter, why don’t you report S.1828.” By offering to let Dominick report the bill from the committee and manage it on the Senate floor, he was proposing to turn the leadership of the cancer initiative over to Dominick and the Nixon administration. Something like this never happens!

Then Kennedy said he would offer an amendment to strike all of the language in S.1828 and substitute the language from his bill. Dominick, caught completely by surprise, said, “That’s fine, Ted.” Dominick’s staffer bolted from his chair and came over to me and whispered, “Lee, I don’t know how to write a committee report.” And I said, “We’ll do it together,” and that’s exactly what we did.

Thus, Nixon’s bill number with Kennedy’s language was on its way to passage. In a stroke of brilliance, Ted Kennedy had turned what would have become an unnecessary, paralyzing political war into what became bipartisan public policy. The ripple effect of what Kennedy did was dramatic. The enactment of the cancer bill in December of 1971 not only triggered a massive expansion of basic and clinical cancer research, it also greatly expanded research at NIH for all other diseases.

From that point forward Dominick and Kennedy knew they could trust each other. They worked cooperatively together on many more health bills. For Kennedy the die was cast. Not only had he learned the irreplaceable value of compromise and surprise, he used those skills over and over again as the decades rolled by to become the Senate’s Legislative Lion.

Now Ted Kennedy is gone, and so is the spirit of trust and accommodation that is essential to a functioning democracy. In its place, fear and hatred control Congress and its relations with the White House. If allowed to continue, it poses an existential threat to our freedom and to democracy itself.

It’s obvious the federal government won’t put this right. It needs help, and the Kennedy Institute has the opportunity and the obligation to provide some of that help – not because I say so, but because Ted Kennedy would expect nothing less. Such an endeavor for the Institute will not be easy or safe. The path forward is perilous, but it must begin – now.

When it’s begun I can hear Ted saying what we heard him say so often over the years: “Good, Good.”

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Good ‘Reidance’ to Nevada’s Senate-wrecker

LeRoy Goldman OPINION3:05 p.m. EDT April 3, 2015

Citizen-Times

Good ‘Reidance’ to Nevada’s Senate-wrecker

Harry Reid recently announced, “We’ve got to be more concerned about the country, the Senate, the state of Nevada than about ourselves, and as a result of that I’m not going to run for re-election.” Leave it to Reid to indict himself as he throws in the towel. His rationale for bowing out suggests that it was acceptable for him to not be concerned about thecountry, the Senate and Nevada for the past 28 years.

Reid’s legacy will demonstrate that neither the well-being of the country nor the integrity of the Senate were his priorities. I say this and what follows not in anger, but in sadness. I had the privilege of working in the Senate as the staff director of its Health Subcommittee during most of the 1970s. Then, unlike now, the Senate worked. Was it perfect? Of course not. But it worked. One of the main reasons it worked was because of then-Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. His style sought accommodation. He instinctively understood that major legislation had to be bipartisan to garner the public support necessary for its survival. His effectiveness was more a function of his humility than his tenacity.

Major legislation was considered, amended and approved. And that legislation emanated from the Senate’s legislative committees, not from closed sessions in Reid’s office. Filibusters then were rare, not commonplace, as they were under Reid. Back then the Republican minority was respected, had the opportunity to offer amendments to virtually all bills, and only rarely engaged in obstruction. Conferences between the Senate and the House to hammer out the final provisions of legislation on its way to the president were routine, not rare, as they have been under Reid. The Republican minority in those days took comfort in the certain knowledge that the day would come when they would hold the majority. And when Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) became majority leader in 1981, he continued the Mansfield tradition of comity, respect and a bipartisan approach to the legislative process. He likened leading the Senate to herding 99 cats, a formidable undertaking that Harry Reid couldn’t possibly comprehend.

During his eight years as majority leader, Harry Reid has willfully and skillfully unleashed more destructive force on the Senate than all of his predecessors. That force has eviscerated the Senate.

What makes the Senate unique is the right of all senators to freely engage in debate and to offer amendments to pending legislation. Reid twisted the Senate’s rules to destroy that right.

He did so by repeatedly using his prerogative as leader to employ what is called the right of first recognition. Being recognized first enabled Reid to then offer trivial amendments to the bill under consideration. It’s called “filling the amendment tree.” Once Reid filled the tree other senators were precluded from offering their amendments. Then Reid would submit a cloture petition to terminate debate on all amendments. That move locked in all of Reid’s trivial amendments and blocked other senators from offering further amendments. Reid used this destructive parliamentary tactic far more than any other majority leader in the history of the Senate.

This abuse of the Senate’s rules and procedures is what explains why the Republicans then mounted filibusters against pending legislation. Having been precluded from offering amendments to a bill left the minority with only two choices. They either had to accept Reid’s version of the bill, or kill it with a filibuster. It’s called gridlock.

But Reid didn’t stop there. He also employed what is known in the Senate as the nuclear option which enabled the Democrats to approve all presidential nominations to the federal judiciary, excepting the Supreme Court, with a simple majority vote. In so doing Reid has set a precedent that he and the Democrats may well come to regret. When the GOP next controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue they may expand the nuclear option to cover Supreme Court nominations and all legislation. At that point the genie is out of the bottle.

Reid’s abuse of power could and should have been stopped by the old bulls in his party who knew better, senators like Levin, Leahy, Feinstein and Schumer. They could easily have reined in Reid. But they did nothing. Shame on all of them.

This nation would have been better served had Reid never gotten beyond his first job on Capitol Hill in the ’60s. He was a Capitol Hill cop in an unprofessional, patronage-dominated workforce.

Good REIDance, Harry.

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

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Will the GOP fumble 2016?

 Will the GOP fumble 2016?

By LeRoy Goldman 

The Charlotte Observer

Special to the Observer

If you don’t count George W. Bush’s presidency, and I don’t, by 2016 it will have been 28 years since the American electorate was willing to trust the Republicans with the presidency. That’s a very long drought, and the GOP has been incapable of figuring out how to end it.

“W’s” presidency doesn’t count because of how he was elected, and, much more importantly, because of how he governed after taking office. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 by more than a half million votes. The electoral vote came down to Florida, and Bush prevailed when the Supreme Court in 7-2 and 5-4 decisions gave him Florida. Regardless of whom you think won that election, President Bush doomed the GOP when he preemptively attacked Iraq. Not only did he attack the wrong country, he and his Republican allies on the Hill put the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan on the national credit card. The national debt skyrocketed, Wall Street got away with murder, and by 2008 the economy was in free fall. The Republicans had become their own worst enemy.

In 2008 any Democrat would have trounced any Republican. By 2012 even a weakened and ineffective President Obama had little trouble dispatching Mitt Romney who raced far to the right in the GOP primaries to appease the party’s extremists and thereafter was never able to establish his footing in the general election.

Left to their own suicidal devices the Republicans are now gearing up to lose in 2016, an election that history tells us should be theirs for the taking. Looking back over more than a half century makes plain that after two terms the American people usually turn the White House over to the opposition party. Given the fact that President Obama has been one of the most polarizing presidents ever, that most Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track, and that Hillary Clinton is loaded with partisan baggage, there should be little doubt about a forthcoming Republican victory next year.

But Hillary Clinton is a savvy and cunning politician. She smells victory. There’s a good chance she’s right because the Democrats have a decided edge in the Electoral College and because of the GOP’s suicidal instincts.

In the Electoral College the Democrats have a virtual lock on 19 states and the District of Columbia, giving them 247 of the 270 necessary votes for victory. Only eight states with 100 electoral votes are legitimate swing states. Of these Florida is the biggest prize with 29 electoral votes. That means, if the Democrats hold their Blue Fortress and win Florida, they win.

There are more than 20 Republicans who are considering running in 2016. Most of them will willingly race to the right in the primaries to court the party’s narrow and frenetic base. None of them, if nominated, can win. What the GOP needs to get a grip on is that in order to really repeal and replace Obamacare, in order to be in a position to nominate multiple justices to the Supreme Court in the coming years, and in order to restore the nation’s standing in the world, there is no substitute for winning the White House.

The only Republican in the current Republican Clown Car who can do that is Jeb Bush. Right Wing darlings like Rand Paul, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz are just what the doctor ordered for Hillary Clinton. Moreover, Jeb Bush can carry Florida. And that makes the race for the White House competitive!

The final piece of a Republican winning strategy is to deny the Democrats a key state in their Blue Fortress. That state is Michigan with its 16 electoral votes. Jeb Bush can deliver a message on jobs, energy independence and rebuilding America’s infrastructure that will resonate in states like Michigan and Ohio.

If Bush selects former Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers to be his running mate, the door to victory swings open. In Congress until last year, Rogers was the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, a position that requires an ability to work across the aisle.

His expertise in intelligence, terrorism and defense is the perfect complement for Jeb Bush and his resume. Rogers is currently CNN’s National Security Commentator. He’s articulate, ambitious and young enough to seek the presidency in 2024.

Soon we’ll know if the adage, Stupid Is As Stupid Does, remains alive and well in the GOP.

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Small number to decide Hillary's fate

 ME AND MY SERVE-HER

Small number to decide Hillary's fate 

By LeROY GOLDMAN
Guest columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com Times-News Online

Published: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Monday, March 16, 2015 at 3:16 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is going to run for president. When she announces, millions will be ecstatic, and millions will fulminate at the mouth. She will win the Democratic nomination. But will she win the general election? I doubt it.

For the past two decades, America has become increasingly polarized. That polarization has hamstrung the federal government. The event that lit the fuse was aversion to Hillarycare in 1993-94, the health care reform plan that she, as first lady, devised. Opposition to her health care plan was so intense that it enabled the Republicans to win the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years (the Gingrich Revolution).

Bill and Hillary Clinton responded by declaring war against their enemies, who the first lady called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” And the GOP became obsessed with its effort to drive Clinton from office.

George W. Bush accelerated the descent into the partisan abyss with his pre-emptive war in Iraq and profligate spending. The Bush administration sputtered out as the national economy imploded.

In 2007, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton launched her bid for the White House. She was the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party and the odds-on favorite to win the general election. But because of her vote for the Iraq War, her imperiousness and a horribly badly run campaign, Barack Obama won it all.

President Obama took office in 2009 having promised the nation he would end partisan gridlock, a promise he did not know how to keep, and didn’t. Opposition to his stimulus and health care reform proposals in 2009 enabled the GOP to take back the House in 2010. But more than that, Obama’s unforced errors gave the nascent tea party the issues it needed at exactly the right time.

The GOP steamroller went way beyond the 63 House seats it gained in 2010. Data from the Pew Research Center show the carnage inflicted on the Democrats in the 2010 and 2014 elections. In 2009, the GOP controlled both legislative chambers in only 14 states. Today it controls 30 states, having gained more than 900 state legislative seats. That has enabled the Republicans to gerrymander so many House districts that it will take a miracle for the Democrats to recapture the House before 2022 at the earliest. And that’s beyond the first term of the next president!

The ensuing polarization has brought the government to its knees. And while most Americans say they want an end to it, they themselves give it life. Conservatives have disappeared from the Democratic Party, and there are hardly any moderates left in the GOP. These two homogenous political mastodons hate each other. Their cause celebre is to destroy one another. Failing that, their real objective is to ensure their re-election by feeding their constituents the red meat they unthinkingly relish and devour.

Into this maw now comes Hillary Clinton. Her campaign will attempt to reach women just as Obama’s campaigns reached African-Americans. It will be about shattering glass, especially in the White House.

Most Americans believe their vote for president matters. Except for voters in only eight states, it doesn’t. North Carolina is one of the eight. The other seven are Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

When you couple polarization with the winner-take-all workings of the Electoral College, it’s clear right now that Clinton will win 19 states, the District of Columbia and 247 of the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. It’s just as clear that the Republican nominee will win 23 states and 191 electoral votes. The next president will be the candidate who can push his or her electoral vote total to at least 270 in the remaining eight swing states.

In 2012, those eight states cast only 27.5 million votes of the 122 million votes nationwide. And in those decisive states, it’s reasonable to assume that about 80 percent of the voters were partisan Democrats or Republicans. Thus, the winner was really determined by the roughly 5.5 million swing voters in those eight states. In 2012, most of them voted for President Obama.

But those 5.5 million swing voters are the voters who really are disgusted with the deleterious effects of gridlock and polarization. And in 2016 most of them will vote to end it.

In 2008, they were willing to take Obama at his word that he would end gridlock. They got burned, and now they’re the wiser for it. A similar campaign promise from Hillary with the baggage she carries will fall on deaf ears. And that’s why she likely will come up short.

There is, however, an important caveat to this scenario. There are more than 20 Republicans considering a run in 2016. Some of them are mainstream conservatives. Others are ideologues of the far right. If one of the far right doctrinal purists were to win the GOP nomination, Hillary’s lifelong quest will be realized.

It’s ironic, but Hillary Clinton’s best chance of becoming president rests in the hands of her enemies, not her own.

If she does prevail, here’s the complete text of her inaugural address in January 2017: “My Fellow Americans, I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”

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

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