Debate does little to stop Bernie’s media-fueled momentum

Photo (cc) 2015 by Tiffany Von Arnim.
Photo (cc) 2015 by Tiffany Von Arnim.

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

There are few story lines the media love more than “Clinton is in trouble.” Just saying it out loud brings back warm, gauzy memories of Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, and Whitewater, of Benghazi and private email servers.

So I suspect there was almost nothing that could have happened at Sunday night’s Democratic debate to change the narrative that Bernie Sanders is surging and Hillary Clinton is hanging on for dear life.

None responded to the moment more predictably than Glenn Thrush of Politico, who opens by writing that Clinton’s attacks on Sanders “reinforced his characterization of her as an establishment politician so desperate she’d say anything to win,” and that the Vermont senator represents “an existential threat” to her candidacy.

The Washington Post’s lead story on the debate, by Anne Gearan and Philip Rucker, offers a calmer version of the same idea, with phrases such as “she sought to puncture Sanders’s insurgent appeal and regain her footing after a difficult stretch” and a reference to “the newly potent threat Sanders poses to Clinton in her second White House run.” For good measure, the Post’s Chris Cillizza pronounces Bernie a winner and Hillary a loser.

In fact, those of us who watched—and it’s not likely there were many of us given that it took place in the middle of a holiday weekend—saw nothing all that dramatic.

Sanders, as usual, shouted and did a decent job of getting his points across. Clinton, as usual, was in command of the issues, though there’s no doubt she went after Sanders far more than in the previous three debates. Martin O’Malley, as usual, was there.

My own sense was that this was Clinton’s weakest performance, but still generally fine. I thought her worst moment was her closing remarks about sending a campaign aide to Flint, Michigan, to look into the drinking-water crisis. Why didn’t she go there herself? But I’ve seen plenty of commentary to the contrary. For instance, Paul Volpe and Quynhanh Do of The New York Times call it “her best moment of the night.”

But because the prospective voters who did not watch are going to depend on the media to tell them what happened, the takeaway is going to be that Clinton failed to stop Sanders’s momentum. That’s not wrong, just simplistic.

On the issues, I thought Clinton bested Sanders on guns, health care, and foreign policy, whereas Sanders was better on Wall Street and campaign-finance reform.

Clinton’s argument against Sanders’s newly released health-care proposal, which calls for a single-payer system that would eliminate private insurance (see Jonathan Cohn at The Huffington Post for details), isn’t really fair.

No, Sanders would not scrap the Affordable Care Act. But even liberal Democrats inclined to support single-payer are sure to recall what a horrendous slog it was to get the ACA passed. My guess is they’re disinclined to go back for another round.

“If Democrats couldn’t pass single-payer with a Senate supermajority, how would Sanders do it with a Republican House and, at best, a narrow Senate edge?” asks David A. Graham at The Atlantic. “She [Clinton] knows the limitations of health-care politics better than almost anyone.”

Though it might not have been immediately evident, Sanders may have seriously wounded himself with his answers on foreign policy. Despite offering some unconvincing caveats, he sounded like he’s all but ready to emulate Ronald Reagan and send a cake to the Iranian mullahs. Twice Sanders said the United States should work with Iran, to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from power and to defeat ISIS. Let’s roll the tape:

But I think in terms of our priorities in the region, our first priority must be the destruction of ISIS. Our second priority must be getting rid of Assad, through some political settlement, working with Iran, working with Russia.

But the immediate task is to bring all interests together who want to destroy ISIS, including Russia, including Iran, including our Muslim allies to make that the major priority.

I have to agree with Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen, who says of Sanders that “it’s blindingly apparent that not only does he not understand foreign policy and national security, he simply doesn’t care to know more.”

NBC News moderators Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell did a good job of keeping things on track and covering a wide range of issues. But when Mitchell pressed Sanders on whether he would support tax increases, I would have liked to see a disclosure that she’s married to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

And, finally, some counterintuitive polling wisdom from Five Thirty Eight’s Nate Silver. His analysis of multiple polls shows that Clinton has an 81 percent chance of winning the Iowa caucuses on February 1 and a 57 percent chance of winning the New Hampshire primary (where, as this Real Clear Politics compilation shows, Sanders is widely believed to be ahead) on February 9.

If Clinton takes both Iowa and New Hampshire, the race for the Democratic nomination will be over.

Sanders called a liar over a difference of opinion

Glenn Kessler. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Glenn Kessler. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post‘s fact-checker, gives Bernie Sanders a rating of “Three Pinocchios” for claiming that partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall law helped cause the 2008 financial collapse. It’s complicated, as you’ll see. But my conclusion is that Kessler wrote a pretty good analysis and then undermined it by calling Sanders a liar when we’re really only talking about a difference of opinion.

Several years ago I wrote a commentary for The Huffington Post on the limits of fact-checking. As I said at the time:

The problem is that there are only a finite number of statements that can be subjected to thumbs-up/thumbs-down fact-checking…. The fact-checkers are shifting from judging facts to indulging in opinion, but they’re not necessarily doing it because they want to. They’re doing it because politicians don’t flat-out lie as frequently as we might suppose.

Sanders believes the erosion of Glass-Steagall protections helped create an environment that made the 2008 financial collapse more likely. Kessler disagrees, and he’s found several experts to support his viewpoint. That doesn’t make Sanders a liar. I suspect Kessler knows better, but he’s got Pinocchios to bestow, and today Bernie’s number came up.

Your Saturday media round-up

No, not the debut of a new feature. But there’s a lot going on today. So let’s get to it.

• Jason Rezaian is coming home. Rezaian, who’s a Washington Post reporter, is being released by Iran along with three other prisoners as part of a swap. Meanwhile, Iran is moving closer to compliance with the nuclear deal, and, as we know, it returned without incident a group of American sailors who had drifted into its territorial waters even as the Republican presidential candidates were calling for war or something.

What President Obama’s critics refuse to acknowledge is that Iran is complicated, factionalized, and slowly lurching toward better (not good) behavior. Obama has invested a considerable amount of his moral authority into trying to nudge along a less dangerous Iran, and his efforts are paying off.

And kudos to Post executive editor Marty Baron, who has kept the spotlight on Rezaian’s unjust imprisonment for the past year and a half.

• The routes are at the root. Boston Globe reporter Mark Arsenault today has the most thorough examination yet of what went wrong with the Globe‘s home-delivery system when it switched vendors at the end of December. Arsenault takes a tough look at the decisions made by the paper’s business executives, who clearly did not do enough vetting of the plans put together by the new vendor, ACI Media Group. And he opens with Globe publisher John Henry amid thousands of undelivered papers at the Newton distribution center, sending a message that, yes, the owner is engaged.

As has been reported previously, but not in as much detail as Arsenault offers, ACI’s routes just didn’t make sense. And what looked like a mere glitch at the end of day one turned into a catastrophe as drivers walked off the job once they realized there was no way they could make their appointed rounds.

It’s the Globe itself that has to take primary responsibility, of course. But based on Arsenault’s report, ACI officials—who did not speak to him—clearly sold the Globe a bill of goods. If ACI has a different perspective on what happened, we’d like to hear it soon.

• Digital First workers revolt. Employees at Digital First Media are fighting for their first raise in seven to 10 years, according to an announcement by workers represented by the Newspaper Guild. These folks have been abused for years by bad ownership as hedge funds have sought to cash in.

The effort covers some 1,000 Guild members. It’s unclear whether employees at non-Guild papers—including the Lowell Sun and the New Haven Register—would be helped.

Globe union files grievance over non-union status of Stat

The Boston Newspaper Guild, the union that represents Boston Globe employees in the newsroom, advertising, and other areas, has filed a grievance with management over the status of Stat as a non-union shop.

Stat, a standalone website covering health and life sciences, was launched last fall by Boston Globe Media Partners. The Boston Business Journal recently reported on some of the union rumblings emanating from 135 Morrissey Boulevard.

I obtained a copy of the union’s message to members a little while ago:

Dear members,

We are writing to let you know that the Boston Newspaper Guild has filed a grievance challenging STAT’s status as a new initiative.

We are concerned about the loss of Guild work and we are trying to bring these jobs into the Guild.

We will keep you informed when there are updates to share.

Yours in solidarity,
BNG Executive Committee

Why I think Jeb Bush will win the Republican nomination

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Jeb Bush at the 2015 CPAC conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo (cc) by Gage Skidmore.

I’ve already said this to a few people, and I want to put it out there so I’ll have a record of it in case it actually happens.

I predict that Jeb Bush will be the Republican nominee. Don’t ask me how, because I have no idea. At this point he seems utterly irrelevant, although the Armies of Lindsey Graham pledged this morning to line up behind him. Could a George Pataki endorsement be next?

Basically it’s just guesswork and the process of elimination. As James Pindell of The Boston Globe reminds us today, 65 percent of Republican-leaning poll respondents can’t stand frontrunner Donald Trump. It’s difficult to imagine Ted Cruz winning this, even though Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post considers him the most likely nominee. Richard Nixon supports John Kasich, who has some good qualities, but it’s hard to see that happening.

Chris Christie yells at everyone like the angry bully that he is; where’s the appeal? Rumor has it that Ben Carson is still running, though I have no independent verification of that. And Marco Rubio has dropped the baton that the Republican establishment has handed him maybe four or five times now. Even in a business not noted for its authenticity, Rubio comes across as a transparent phony.

By that logic, it’s Jeb, whose maturity and reasonable demeanor wear well over time, and who is certainly far enough to the right (despite his RINO image) that he should be able to pull together most of the Republican coalition.

The debate polling scandal

I’m not going to watch tonight’s Republican presidential debate. I think it’s the first one I’ll have missed. But I do want to offer a quick comment on the use of polls to determine who gets to participate, who gets to stand where, and even—informally—how much time gets allotted to each candidate.

It is, frankly, a scandal. To use national polls to determine who gets heard months before ordinary voters are paying all that much attention is an affront to democracy. OK, now we’re into the final weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire. But this has been going on since last summer.

Moving to the kids’ table tonight are Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina. Paul has been the only candidate to deviate from the belligerent stance on foreign policy favored by the rest of the field. His grasp of the issues had Marco Rubio sputtering like the well-prepped empty shell he is at the last debate. Personally I don’t think Fiorina adds anything, but no one has voted yet.

Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum—every one a current or former senator or governor—never made it onto the main stage.

At one time I believe there were 18 Republican candidates. If I were running one of the cable stations, I’d have gone with three debates on three consecutive nights, each one featuring six different candidates chosen at random. And why not? The cable nets literally have nothing better to do.

The devolution of presidential politics into infotainment is complete.

Obama, Republicans agree: The State of the Union is Trump

The divider-in-chief. Photo (cc) 2015 by Michael Vadon.
The divider-in-chief. Photo (cc) 2015 by Michael Vadon.

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

President Obama told a few jokes during his final State of the Union address. The best one, though, was so couched in the language of humility and high-mindedness that it flew right over everyone’s heads.

Claiming that one of his “few regrets” was that “the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” Obama said: “There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.”

Obama surely knows as well as anyone that Abraham Lincoln’s election led directly to the Civil War. As for Franklin Roosevelt, here’s what he had to say about the one percent of his era: “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

In fact, we live in divisive times—a moment when we can’t agree on issues ranging from gun control to climate change; when Republican representatives and senators Tuesday night couldn’t bring themselves to offer even tepid applause for Obama’s call for universal pre-kindergarten and “more great teachers for our kids.”

The unnamed guest at the State of the Union—and in South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s Republican response—was Donald Trump, who has emerged as the exemplar of that divisiveness, and a dangerous one at that. Defying all predictions (including mine) that he would fade by the time the presidential campaign got serious, Trump continues to loom large, offering little other than an authoritarian appeal to rage and racism.

Obama addressed Trump with this: “When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country.”

Haley, calling herself “the proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” also addressed Trump directly, though, like Obama, she did not name him: “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.”

It was a poignant moment for perhaps our two most successful nonwhite political leaders—both Christians, one suspected by his enemies of being a secret Muslim, the other raised a Sikh. But it remains to be seen whether it will do any good. As you may have heard, right-wing controversialist Ann Coulter responded on Twitter that “Trump should deport Nikki Haley.”

At Talking Points Memo, liberal journalist Josh Marshall called Obama’s speech “a rebuke to the Trumps and the Cruzes” and, for the rest of the country, “a wake up call, a friendly reality check.” He also described the Trump moment that Obama was addressing in apocalyptic terms—which increasingly strikes me as appropriate:

We’re in the midst of a presidential primary race which has antics and spectacle but, taken in full, is putting on display a dark side and dark moment in America. Not to put too fine a point on it but an avowed white nationalist group is running campaign advertisements for the Republican frontrunner. And it doesn’t seem to be taken as that big a deal. The frontrunner himself can’t even bother to disavow it.

Will any of this have an effect? As other observers have noted, Haley was chosen to give the response by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and she no doubt said exactly what they wanted her to say. If the Republicans somehow manage to choose a normal nominee, she would make a logical running mate.

But Trump’s core supporters—angry, less educated white men—are probably no happier about being lectured to by an Indian-American woman than they are by an African-American. “The target,” wrote Slate’s Jim Newell of Haley’s speech, “would appear to be Trump’s brand of nativism, which, as we know, is also a significant share of Republican voters’ brand of nativism.”

Or as the conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru put it at National Review:

Won’t Trump and his supporters be able to claim vindication from the fact that both President Obama and the Republican respondent to him, Nikki Haley, gave speeches that attacked him? Indeed, that obviously reflected an obsession with him? He wants to stand against the leaders of both parties, and today they both obliged.

Dana Milbank, a liberal columnist for The Washington Post, praised Obama’s speech, writing that “in the current environment, there is nothing more important than answering the dangerous demagoguery that has arisen.” You could say the same about Haley, whose remarks were less pointed, but who had a narrower path to walk given that she was calling out a fellow Republican.

We’ll find out during the next few weeks whether it did any good. To return to Lincoln and FDR, we presumably ought to be able to get through this moment without a civil war, and we’re finally recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of Roosevelt’s time.

What we really need—to invoke a considerably less distinguished president—is a return to normalcy. It will be up to the voters soon enough.

The Globe now says delivery woes will persist for six weeks

Today is the first day that The Boston Globe‘s previous home-delivery vendor, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment (PCF), is supposed to be fully back on the job. I figured things would be more or less back to normal this week.

Instead, the Globe‘s Dan Adams, in the midst of reporting on the weekend’s chaos and labor strife, drops this gem: “Although Globe executives expect rapid improvement beginning Monday, they cautioned it could take as long as six weeks for service to return to normal everywhere.”

Six weeks.

Is there any way that the Globe could return to the pre-December 28 status quo? Decide that the new vendor, ACI Media Group, didn’t live up to the contract and simply re-engage with PCF? I mean, you have to wonder if it’s ever going to work having one company deliver the Globe and another the Boston Herald, The New York Times, etc. Competition is great except when it isn’t.

Six weeks is obviously better than the four- to six-month prediction that prompted Globe executives to bring back PCF in the first place. But you have to figure there are going to be a whole lot of cancellations if the situation can’t be resolved sooner than that.

McGrory to staff: Please come to Newton (and Peabody)

The Boston Globe‘s previous home-delivery vendor, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, was not supposed to be back on the job until today or Monday. So there was not much reason to expect a dramatic improvement—and there wasn’t. I received a copy of this email from editor Brian McGrory to the staff earlier this evening. It was sent out a few minutes after 5 a.m.

Subject: Help needed ASAP

Just got a call that there are thousands of undelivered papers sitting in the Newton distribution center. We need help. Anyone who wants to show up between now and, say, 9 — the earlier the better for obvious reasons — will be very welcomed.

It’s 15 Riverdale Avenue in Newton.

Am told there’s help also needed in Peabody, but not as much. Probably about 8 routes.

That’s 200 Corporate Place, Peabody.

If you’re going, hit reply all. Partners can be found and paired up on site. Sorry and thanks.

Brian

I’m guessing that things will be a lot better around mid-week. That’s when PCF is supposed to be fully geared up, splitting the delivery territory with the new vendor, ACI Media Group.

Meanwhile, the Globe ran an excellent front-page story today on the hard lot of delivery drivers..