I'm Becoming Optimistic About the Election

This spring Biden led in surveys. Even so, I presumed Trump would play his political cards well despite his malevolence and policy incompetence, and estimated the incumbent's electoral college chances at 65%. Now, stricken by Covid-19 himself as it rages through his unprotected government, and pulling the plug on economic relief negotiations as his own Fed Chair pleads for a bill and the economy falters, I feel he is sealing his political demise. In contrast to what I expected, Trump's politics have been as abysmal as his policies, and I feel things are starting to look very, very good to defeat him.

Financial services company Goldman Sachs today forecast that the Democrats will take both the White House and the Senate, and said a Democratic sweep would mean a faster recovery and thus would be good for the economy. Moody’s Analytics, a subsidiary of another financial services company, recently found that Biden’s plans would add 7.4 million more jobs to the economy than Trump’s would.

Real Clear Politics state by state poll averages have Biden's current electoral vote at 374 and Trump's at 164. Nate Silver's 538 site has Biden's projected Election Day chance of coming out ahead in the popular vote at 93%, and of electoral college victory at 83%. I was listening to NPR yesterday. They had the editor of The Economist on. She said their forecast, based on both polls and broader "fundamentals," many of them economic, of course, has Biden's popular vote win probability at 99% and his electoral college win probability at 90%. A New York Times Sienna College Poll out yesterday showed Trump losing senior citizens, a group he won by 9 points in 2016. The handwriting is on the wall.

Trump Insanity Intensifies

Reprinted from Heather Cox Richardson, Professor of History at Boston College, with permission.

It appears that the closing argument from the Trump campaign for his reelection was supposed to be that the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, was overreacting to coronavirus, making fun, for example, of his insistence on wearing a mask and staying distant from others. 

Trump was supposed to project strength in the face of the pandemic, suggesting that it has been way overblown by Democrats who oppose his administration and who are thus responsible for the faltering economy.

Then, of course, coronavirus began to spread like wildfire through Trump’s own inner circle after last Sunday’s Rose Garden celebration of Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court seat formerly held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As Trump and increasing numbers of people in his inner circle began to test positive for the infection, the campaign first floundered, and now appears to be trying to brazen out the idea that the disease is not a big deal, and that Trump has conquered it.

This is insane. Covid-19 has currently infected more than 7 million Americans, and killed more than 210,000 of us, close to the number of Union soldiers—224,097-- who died in our bloody four-year Civil War.

Apparently, it is frustrating Trump that he cannot campaign. Last night, he traveled in a motorcade around Walter Reed Hospital, waving to supporters. The trip horrified medical personnel, who noted that the presidential vehicle is sealed against chemical attack, meaning that the secret service professionals traveling with the president were exposed to a deadly disease for no apparent reason. One of the agents assigned to the First Family told CNN “That never should have happened… The frustration with how we’re treated when it comes to decisions on this illness goes back before this though. We’re not disposable.” 

Dr. James P. Phillips, from the Walter Reed Hospital, took to Twitter: “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential “drive-by” just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”

Even staffers were complaining about the disorganization in the West Wing after Trump’s drive. But things did not get more anchored this morning. 

Early on, the president began to tweet at a great pace, in all caps, campaign slogans followed by the word “VOTE!” His promises were random and unanchored in reality, with words like “BIGGEST TAX CUT EVER, AND ANOTHER ONE COMING. VOTE!” According to Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair, the Trump family is divided over Trump’s performance. According to two Republicans close to the family, Don Jr. was worried by the drive around the hospital. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” said one of the sources. But Ivanka, Eric, and Jared Kushner “keep telling Trump how great he’s doing.” All of them, though, worried about the morning’s tweet storm. 

The infection continues to spread through the White House. This morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that she, too, has tested positive for coronavirus, a day after she briefed reporters without a mask. Two sources told CNN that two of McEnany’s deputies, Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, have also tested positive, along with two members of the White House staff. McEnany said at first the White House was planning to put out the number of staffers infected, but then said it could not, out of “privacy concerns.” But of course there’s no privacy at stake in the raw numbers. 

Today we learned that another person who attended the Rose Garden event, Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest Christian Fellowship megachurches in California and Hawaii, has tested positive for coronavirus. In addition, thirteen workers who helped to cater a private Trump fundraiser last Thursday in Minnesota are all quarantining.

Although doctors expressed surprise and concern at the idea Trump might leave Walter Reed Hospital today, the president tweeted: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” 

Doctors noted that he is in a dangerous period for the progression of Covid-19, and that anyone who had required the sorts of treatments Trump has had is too sick to leave the hospital. “I will bet dollars to doughnuts it’s the president and his political aides who are talking about discharge, not his doctors,” William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University’s medical school, told the Washington Post. 

A briefing by Trump’s doctors obscured more than it revealed. The White House physician, Sean Conley, has refused to tell reporters when Trump last tested negative for coronavirus, a piece of information that would tell us when he knew he was infected. He also refused to explain why the president is being treated with a steroid usually reserved for seriously ill patients, or to discuss the state of Trump’s lungs. He did say that the president is “not out of 

the woods yet.”

Nonetheless, Trump left Walter Reed Hospital tonight, after lights had been installed to enable him to make a triumphant exit. Still infectious, he went back to the White House and climbed a flight of stairs to a balcony, where he dramatically removed his face mask and saluted well-wishers from a balcony. Although the moment was clearly designed to make Trump look strong, it was obvious he was struggling to breathe. 

Vox’s Aaron Rupar noted that “Trump has no choice but to continue to downplay coronavirus (despite 210,000 dead and record new case numbers) because if he changed course, it would be an admission that he was wrong about the defining issue of his presidency -- at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.” 

This evening, Trump released a video telling people not to let the coronavirus “dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it…. Don’t let it take over your lives.” CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta dubbed him “Coronavirus in Chief.” 

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a town hall tonight in Miami, Florida, where he gave detailed answers to questions about police reform (more money, ban chokeholds and no knock warrants); socialism (“I’ve taken on the Castros of the world. I didn’t cozy up to them”); a mask mandate (the president can only mandate masks on federal property, but he would call on governors and mayors to do the same); and reopening schools (PPE, small classes, ventilation). Watchers noted that it was a treat both to see a normal conversation and to hear detailed, informed answers. 

To stay in touch with voters, Biden today began “Notes from Joe,” a daily newsletter.

Bloomberg is reporting that the contrast between the recent craziness of the White House and Biden’s calm detail has led the stock market to stabilize. Strategists are coming to think there will not be a contested election after all. Biden’s lead over Trump increased again after Trump’s debate performance, which apparently was designed to try to bully Biden by hitting triggers until he began to stutter, thus enabling the Trump campaign to portray him as mentally incapacitated. That strategy failed as Biden parried the triggers, and Americans were repelled by Trump’s behavior. Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA, told Bloomberg, “Polls are shifting from a close election and prolonged uncertainty to more a dominant Biden and clean succession…. That is reducing uncertainty and increasing risk appetite.”

What to Do in Iraq This Time

Iraq is back in the news.  Al Qaeda-inspired militants have descended on the country from the north, overrunning large swaths of territory as Iraqi government troops abandoned their positions and fled.  Why is this happening?  What does it mean?  What should the United States do?

Why this is happening 
This is happening because Iraq is an artificial amalgamation of (mainly) three different groups, created in 1919 by the Versailles Peace Conference that settled affairs after World War I.  The groups don't get along and each wants to run its own affairs independently.  An ethnic group called the Kurds predominates in the northeast.  Sunni Muslims predominate in the north and west.  Shia Muslims predominate in the east and south.  When the area was under the Ottoman Turkish Empire until the end of World War I, Ottoman imperial power kept them all more or less in check.  After that the British Empire moved in and took control, suppressing several rebellions.  After independence Iraq's situation remained turbulent, with coup, counter-coup and revolt remaining the order of the day until Saddam Hussein gained power in 1979.  His totalitarian dictatorship achieved quiet through brutal repression.  Even so, Saddam, a Sunni, had to put down Kurdish and Shi'ite rebellions.

The U.S. led invasion of 2003 removed Saddam's dictatorship.  With his repressive power gone, soon Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish militias were engaged in vicious fighting for advantage against each other, and against American, British or other international contingents whenever they were seen as trying to enforce order along lines that any group felt tended to favor its rivals.   Finally, elections installed a government under a Shi'ite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.  There are more Shi'ites in Iraq than the other two groups, explaining why Maliki was elected.  His government was decidedly sectarian, favoring Shi'ites and freezing Sunnis and Kurds out of meaningful power sharing.  The Kurds basically set up their own autonomous region in the northeast and bided their time.  The Sunnis, who are more closely intermingled geographically with the Shia, complained, seethed, and waited for their chance.  It came when the al-Qaeda inspired ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) forces, who are fanatical Sunnis, invaded last week from Syria, where they have been battling Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime.   

What it means
Since the end of the Cold War the world has seen the emergence of many smaller states out of what once were larger, multinational states.  The former "republics" of the Soviet Union and the small Slavic nations that were once parts of Yugoslavia are some prominent examples.  What is happening in Iraq means the same thing.  Cohesive peoples who are minorities and being ruled in a discriminatory fashion by other groups want their independence.  Middle Eastern Sunnis and Kurds who find themselves in a nation created by European diplomats a hundred years ago want to have their own countries and rule themselves.

What the United States should do
The U.S. should let nature take its course.  Having three states in what is now Iraq corresponds to the human reality on the ground there.  The history of the region shows that keeping all three groups together under one political order can be maintained only at great cost by coercive power, either by an outside empire willing to make a permanent commitment of time, money and blood, or by an internal dictatorship willing to operate with extreme ruthlessness.  Though enthusiastic in support of the invasion in 2003, by late 2004 the American people barely re-elected the president who started the war, and by 2006 had thrown that president's party out of the majority in both houses of congress.  Though militarists such as Sen. John McCain advocate going back in, they have quickly forgotten how desperate and costly the fighting was that temporarily kept the factions from each others' throats, how futile the idea is in light of Iraqi history, and how rapidly the American people's appetite for the entire exercise soured the last time it was tried.  In 2006 a Delaware senator, Joe Biden, co-wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying that a three-state Iraq, or a weak state with three regions enjoying substantial internal autonomy, was the realistic solution to Iraq's repeated convulsions.  He was right.

Click here for a Washington Post piece showing an ethnic map of Iraq and a link to Biden's NYT article.

Joe Biden Comes Through in Debate

Joe Biden definitely got the job done in a spirited performance against Paul Ryan in their debate last night, winning the debate50% to 31% among undecided voters, according to CBS News.  In doing so, Biden did much to blunt GOP momentum and set things up for the crucial Obama-Romney rematch coming next Tuesday.  The Vice President was extremely good on foreign policy topics and highly effective on domestic policy.  For his part, Congressman Ryan was able to get his message out and avoid any big mistakes, though the Republican representative was short on specifics and outdebated on several issues.  You can watch the debate here. 

Biden was at his best on foreign policy.  He deftly handled Ryan's criticisms on Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and defense spending, turning the issues back against Ryan's contentions.  Ryan's best criticism was on Libya, the first item brought up by on-the-ball moderator Martha Raddatz.  Biden's answer that intelligence was slow to come in may be true but lacked strength.  After that Biden asserted mastery over his younger rival.  Ryan was for American troops spearheading major new operations in eastern Afghanistan.  Biden countered that after ten years it's time for the Afghans to take the lead.  Ryan seemed to want to leave U.S. troops there indefinitely, based on conditions.  Biden assured a war-weary American public that we will leave the country on schedule at the end of 2014.  Ryan finally threw in the towel and agreed his ticket would pull out by then, too.  Ryan attacked again on Iran, accusing the Administration of weakness.  Biden said the "toughest sanctions in the history of sanctions" were wrecking the Iranian economy and that in the final analysis, in a clear threat of force if necessary, we would not allow Iran to build a nuclear bomb.  He asked Ryan if he wanted war and what he would do differently.  Ryan had no answer.  Ryan again attacked on Syria, saying the Administration was wasting time going through the U.N., should be arming the opposition to dictator Bashir Assad, and hinted about military action.  Biden countered that we are not only using the U.N., that weapons are reaching the opposition and that we are working closely with Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  The implication that America is making sure weapons are getting in through these other nations rather took the wind out of Ryan's sails.  Asked again whether he wanted another American land war in the Middle East, Ryan beat a hasty retreat.

In domestic affairs, Biden brought up Mitt Romney's 47 percent comment and sharply defended against the spurious Romney critique that Obamacare takes money from Medicare and against Romney-Ryan plans to voucherize Medicare.  He tellingly looked right into the camera and asked the American people whether they trusted the party--the Democrats--that created and has fought for Medicare and Social Security since their inception to protect them, or would they rather turn that job over to the other party--the GOP--who has never liked these programs and has always tried to cut them.  "Use your common sense," he advised the American people.  Biden's defense of choice was also effective and should resonate with a lot of women.  After Ryan delivered his ticket's position of a ban on abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother, Biden said he accepted his Catholic Church's teachings on the subject but felt he would not impose that view on others.  He also held Ryan's feet to the fire on the Romney-Ryan tax plan, pointing out that the numbers don't add up unless they take away the home mortgage, health, and charitable deductions, or higher taxes on the middle class, and demanded specifics.  When Ryan provided none, the moderator finally pointed that out and cut him off, moving on to another topic.

The bottom line of this debate is that Biden delivered the strong game the Democrats needed to stop the impetus Republicans gained after last week's presidential debate, which many perceived as a lackluster showing by President Obama.  It should encourage the Democratic base and reset the small undecided middle for presidential round two next Tuesday.  Tune in then for what I expect to be the crucial showdown of the campaign.

Palin Survives VP Debate

As in last week's presidential debate, both contestants in the Biden-Palin debate this evening gratified their own supporters. Sarah Palin did better than many expected and Joe Biden avoided any fumbles. The good news for the McCain campaign is that no serious damage was done to their cause, and Palin's standing will increase some. The good news for the Obama campaign is that most people thought Biden won the debate and is more ready to be vice president.

The bloc of about 9% of America's voters who are truly undecided is the big prize now. CBS News identified 500 of these voters and did a post-debate survey with them that yielded revealing results. To see the story go here. Biden clearly came out on top. 46% said Biden won the debate, 21% felt Palin did and 33% thought it was a tie.

Before the debate 79% felt Biden was knowledgeable on the issues and 43% thought Palin was. Afterward the figures were 98% for Biden and 66% for Palin. She gained 23% to his 19%, a small edge, but not enough to significantly deplete his advantage. 97% agreed Biden showed he was prepared for the Vice Presidency while 55% said the same of Palin. A similar number said Biden is ready to serve as President if necessary but only 44% felt Palin is.

Another question asked if the debate had changed the viewer's perception of the candidate. For Joe Biden, 53% said their view had become more favorable, 5% less favorable and 42% said their view was unchanged. Palin did a bit worse. Her corresponding numbers were 55%, 14% and 30%. Most who were uncommitted remained so, but 18% of respondents said the debate had made it more likely they would vote for Obama and 10% said they were now more likely to vote for McCain.

The bottom line seems to be that Palin avoided disaster but that Biden did nothing to jeopardize Obama's lead. Palin tried to make as much hay out of the "maverick" and "tax" appellations as possible while avoiding dealing directly with ten questions she did not want to discuss. Her delivery was effectively true to style, but often did not go beyond talking point detail. Biden dutifully commented on each question, usually in superior detail. Probably his strongest moment came when he ran through a list of issues and underscored that Palin had failed to draw a distinction between McCain's position and George W. Bush's on any of them.

This is like a football game entering the fourth quarter. Obama has a 9-point lead. Palin and Biden each took the helm offensively. Neither scored, but after an exchange of punts Biden gained 15 yards of field position. Obama still has that lead and now there are 11 minutes left with two debates to go.

It's Joe Biden

Barack Obama did what he usually does; he made the smart decision in tapping Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate. Biden will not only help Obama's chances for election, he will be a help in governing if the ticket wins. And Biden's addition makes that more likely.

An acknowledged expert on foreign affairs with long service on the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden knows the issues and most of the world's movers and shakers from first hand experience. His acumen there and on related defense matters enables him to go toe to toe with John McCain-particularly since McCain's principal claim seems to be that even the Bush administration hasn't been belligerent enough to suit him.

With the Bushites themselves acknowledging the failure of the neoconservative approach by talking to Iran and North Korea and negotiating withdrawal dates from Iraq, the sharp-tongued Biden will mince no words in revealing McCain's reliance on warmongering and saber-rattling to an electorate desperately weary of Iraq and concerned about the prospect of new military adventures in Iran. The policy of bluster, threaten or invade is not only expensive but stupid. If I know Biden he will be able to get that message across in a memorable way.

Biden is rarely at a loss for words and isn't afraid to throw a punch. He ought to fill the role of countering Republican charges and launching counterstrikes with effectiveness. Since that is the path the McCain campaign has chosen to travel, Obama had little choice but to choose a running mate who could fight on that terrain.

Biden, born in Scranton and residing in northern Delaware, is often referred to as "Pennsylvania's third senator." He ought to help Obama nail down the Keystone State and should help with New Jersey as well. He comes from genuine working class roots and retains good rapport with blue-collar voters, another group of concern to Obama. He went through the tragic death of his first wife and has ridden the train home from Washington every night. He reportedly knows all the conductors and engineers by name. He's fully supportive of Obama's pro-average-American positions on health care, eduction, energy and taxes. He may thus help garner some of the primary voters who went for Hillary Clinton.

Lastly, Biden is a 65-year-old white man. Being realistic about American politics, that is exactly the profile a youngish, half-black nominee ought to be running with. An older, experienced "regular Joe" ought to allay part of the unease some whites feel about the candidacy of an exciting fellow of "exotic" background. Biden's 30 years in the Senate and the relationships he has built up in Congress and the federal agencies could prove an invaluable asset to moving Obama's agenda forward.

Obama has made the smartest overall choice available to him, considering both the needs of the campaign and those of the Administration to follow, should he take the oath on January 20, 2009. The next week of joint appearances and at the Democratic convention will tell how well the choice plays throughout the nation. This needs to work, since then it will be the Republicans' turn at their convention the following week. We are about to enter the home stretch, and Obama has positioned himself as well as he can. Biden is an excellent pick.