John Cassidy's Blog, page 40

Obama and the G.O.P.’s Red Sea

Coming after the drubbing Democrats received in last year’s midterms, Tuesday was another bad Election Day for the Party. In Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, Matt Bevin, a Tea Party Republican who made rolling back the state’s participation in the Affordable Care Act a central part of his platform, defied the opinion polls to win handily, bringing the number of G.O.P. governors across the country to thirty-two. In Virginia, a well-funded Democratic bid to take control of the State Senate failed. In Mississippi, voters rejected an effort to change the state’s constitution to guarantee more funding for public schools. And in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, a ballot measure that would have banned discrimination on the basis of age, race, disability, sexual orientation, gender, and a number of other categories was defeated by a wide margin.

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Related:
Snubbing Margaret Thatcher’s Clothes
Rand Paul No Longer Most Embarrassing Thing About Kentucky
Why Paul Ryan Should Beware of Visions

America’s Vital Interests in Syria

In an essay that appeared in The National Interest at the start of last year, John Mearsheimer, who is perhaps the leading academic proponent of a “realist” approach to international affairs, argued that the United States should restrict its military interventions to areas of “vital strategic interest.” He named three of them: Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Comment from the November 9, 2015, Issue
The Death of Two Syrian Journalists
Iran’s Generals Are Dying in Syria

Why the G.O.P. Candidates Don’t Do Substance

“Maybe I missed it,” Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a tweet on Friday morning, “but we just had an entire #GOPDebate on economics and #TPP was never mentioned.” Haass was referring, of course, to the recently agreed upon Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement encompassing twelve Pacific Rim countries. He also could have cited numerous other economic phenomena that received cursory attention, at most, during Wednesday night’s Republican debate, which CNBC aired from Boulder, Colorado: the lingering effects of the Great Recession, the unemployment rate, the economic slowdown in China, the size of the budget deficit, the United States’ poor performance in math and science, the state of America’s physical infrastructure.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Will Conservatives Finally Embrace Clean Energy?
In (Partial) Defense of CNBC
Argentina’s Kirchner Era Ends

Marco Rubio’s Big Night at the Republican Debate

Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, is an unusual politician. When he speaks, he often sounds as though he has just graduated from college with double honors in clichés and platitudes. “I share a sense of optimism for America’s future,” he said in his first answer during Wednesday night’s G.O.P. debate, in Boulder, Colorado. He continued, “Our greatest days lie ahead.” Later, in his closing statement, Rubio said, “We can’t just save the American dream—we can expand it.” I waited for him to talk about “a shining city upon a hill,” but he didn’t get around to it. At the next debate, he probably will.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Daily Cartoon: Thursday, October 29th
In (Partial) Defense of CNBC
Cruz, Carson Differ Sharply Over Timetable for End of World

Ben Carson’s Moment

Tuesday’s headline in the world of U.S. politics is that Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon, has moved ahead of Donald Trump in a CBS News/New York Times poll of likely Republican-primary voters. The survey shows Carson with twenty-six per cent of the vote, and Trump with twenty-two per cent. The rest of the candidates are lagging far behind, in the single figures.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Trump for Speaker!
Jeb and Hillary: A Tale of Two Establishment Favorites
2015’s Most Terrifying Last-Minute D.I.Y. Halloween Costumes

Jeb and Hillary: A Tale of Two Establishment Favorites

The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. On Friday, as Hillary Clinton was basking in the reaction to her marathon appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, her communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, told reporters that the hour between nine and ten o’clock on Thursday night, after the hearing finally finished, was the campaign’s best fund-raising hour yet. And also on Friday, A.F.S.C.M.E., the largest public-sector union in the country, announced that it was endorsing Clinton for the Presidency—an important win in her tussle with Senator Bernie Sanders for the backing of organized labor.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Ben Carson’s Moment
Trump for Speaker!
Daily Cartoon: Monday, October 26th

Jeb and Hillary: A Tale of Two Front-Runners

The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. On Friday, as Hillary Clinton was basking in the reaction to her marathon appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, her communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, told reporters that the hour between nine and ten o’clock on Thursday night, after the hearing finally finished, was the campaign’s best fund-raising hour yet. And also on Friday, A.F.S.C.M.E., the largest public-sector union in the country, announced that it was endorsing Clinton for the Presidency—an important win in her tussle with Senator Bernie Sanders for the backing of organized labor.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Daily Cartoon: Friday, October 23rd
Clinton Thanks Benghazi Committee for Invaluable Service to Her Campaign
Where the Benghazi Committee Went Wrong

Where the Benghazi Committee Went Wrong

There was a moment early on during Thursday’s long-awaited Benghazi hearing when Hillary Clinton looked a bit uncomfortable. It came when the Republican congressman Peter Roskam, of Illinois, was asking the former Secretary of State about the debates that took place inside the Obama Administration in early 2011 about intervening in Libya, where Muammar Qaddafi was struggling to fight off an uprising.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
Daily Cartoon: Friday, October 23rd
Clinton Thanks Benghazi Committee for Invaluable Service to Her Campaign
Clinton Compiles Mental List of People to Destroy

Canada and the Anti-Austerity Movement

The election result in Canada was fascinating in many ways. As my Canadian colleague Jeremy Keehn wrote on Tuesday, and as Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of the triumphant Liberal Party, also noted, in the Financial Times, it represented a welcome repudiation of the politics of reaction and division exercised by Stephen Harper, the former Conservative Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau, Harper’s successor, won “not just because Canadians wanted a change of regime but also because Canadians wanted a change of politics,” Ignatieff wrote.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
What Justin Trudeau’s Victory Means for Canada
Justin Trudeau’s Surprising Ascent
Freedom and the Veil

The Task Joe Biden Would Have Faced

On Wednesday, Vice-President Biden announced that he would not enter the race for President. This post, which was published on Tuesday, explains why the odds were against him.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The Center Is Dead in American Politics
With Webb Out of Race, Chafee Surges to Two Per Cent
Benghazi Hearings Cancelled After Clinton Drops Out of Race