Two must-read stories -- Nicholas Confessore's Beneath Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesday Wins, Signs of Turnout Trouble and "‘Never Trump’ Movement Dealt Setback After Super Tuesday" by Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman -- clearly show what is in store for us on our way to the November general election.
Confessore calls attention to the 900-lb. gorilla in the room: Clinton is not drawing voters to the polls in robust "Obama coalition" style. Yes, she is winning among African Americans, but black turnout is way down from 2012 and 2008. Hillary's people say the reduced numbers are due to a lack of excitement because her nomination is assured. Really? What about Bernie Sanders raising tens of millions of dollars month in and month out?
Anyhow, the Democrats can't win a general election at the current level of participation. And what is particularly troublesome for the DNC brain trust is that Trump is drawing voters to the polls like P.T. Barnum to a three-ring circus.
So what is to be done? The GOP has the answer. It is "Never Trump." The current plan, articulated by Martin and Haberman in their story, is to prevent Trump from winning in Ohio and Florida on March 15. The thinking is that without wins in Florida and Ohio, Trump will be unable to sew up the 1,237 delegates prior to the national convention in Cleveland. Republican elites will then broker the convention, raising up a candidate of their choice. If Rubio loses Florida, it won't be him. I'm thinking Paul Ryan will be the one, reprising the role he performed when Boehner resigned as House Speaker.
It is a long shot, but it has already begun in earnest with anti-Trump groups pledged to spend over $7 million on attack ads in Florida.
I am skeptical. Look at the record of Crossroads GPS over the years. But the word is that anti-Trump PAC ads cost The Donald a win in Iowa and helped Cruz triumph in Oklahoma and reduced Trump's margin of victory in Arkansas.
My takeaway from these two stories is that the Republican establishment appears at this point to be truly committed to Trump destruction. If this commitment remains even after the billionaire wins Ohio and Florida, then we will be looking at a general election where the Democrats and Republicans unite in a campaign to drive Trump's turnout lower the cadaverous Hillary. It is a picture of an upside down world, but that's the world we live in.
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ohio. Show all posts
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
"Ohio" + Plastic Paper Clips from the 1980s
I thought I had finally finished my box transport and shelving project today only to find out at 3 PM that I've got a big day ahead of me tomorrow. There turns out to be a closet, a large closet, in the business manager's office filled with boxes of documents that need to be labeled, added to the database, transported to the new building and then shelved. I'd say I'm looking at 30 more boxes.
Today I savored pulling what I thought were the last files out of their banker boxes and placing them on the metal shelving. Modest Mouse's "Ohio" played on the iPod (my touch screen has gone dark, but it still works):
I forgot how good their first album is. I see that Christgau gave This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About (1996) an A-minus.
One of the joys of my job is finding treasures secreted away for decades in banker boxes. I found a pristine envelope filled with colored plastic paperclips that used to be popular in the 1980's. It provided a window on what the future looked like in the past:
Along with the obsolete colored plastic paperclips was an excellent little brochure on fleas put out in 1985 by Washington State Department of Social & Health Services:
Why did the business representative have a flea pamphlet in his papers? Maybe there was a grievance filed by a union member being forced to work in a flea-invested environment.
Today I savored pulling what I thought were the last files out of their banker boxes and placing them on the metal shelving. Modest Mouse's "Ohio" played on the iPod (my touch screen has gone dark, but it still works):
I forgot how good their first album is. I see that Christgau gave This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About (1996) an A-minus.
One of the joys of my job is finding treasures secreted away for decades in banker boxes. I found a pristine envelope filled with colored plastic paperclips that used to be popular in the 1980's. It provided a window on what the future looked like in the past:
Along with the obsolete colored plastic paperclips was an excellent little brochure on fleas put out in 1985 by Washington State Department of Social & Health Services:
Why did the business representative have a flea pamphlet in his papers? Maybe there was a grievance filed by a union member being forced to work in a flea-invested environment.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Tea Party Success = Anti-Union Legislation
Right-to-work legislation advances in Michigan, according to a story today by Steven Yaccino and Monica Davey. The gist of it is that the Republican majority in the State House will shrink by 10 in January, which is probably below the margin needed to pass whatever ends up getting reconciled with the Senate. So a push is on to get something done before the new legislature is seated.
It is unbelievable to think that Michigan -- home of the UAW and Jimmy Hoffa; the birthplace, one could argue, of postwar American prosperity -- could become a right-to-work state. But it's part of recent trend in the Rust Belt. Indiana passed a right-to-work law this year. Last year Wisconsin took away collective bargaining rights from its public sector workers. (Workers in Ohio beat back a similar attempt by putting it to a statewide vote.) The surge in anti-union legislation is a result of Tea Party success in the 2010 election. Fearful of being forced to purchase insurance for health care, reeling from the recession, embittered by seeing a black man living with his black wife in the White House, crackers got themselves to the polls in numbers great enough to shift legislative control to Republican majorities in 22 separate state chambers.
I work for a union local. For a living I go through boxes of old documents and sort what should be digitized and then shredded from what should be saved permanently and re-boxed from what should be discarded entirely. Each day I see proof of a different era, a time when organized labor was part of the Establishment. There was collaboration between unions on a common agenda. Now, from my vantage point on the lowest rung of the totem pole, it seems to be every man for himself, sink or swim, treading water from day to day.
It is unbelievable to think that Michigan -- home of the UAW and Jimmy Hoffa; the birthplace, one could argue, of postwar American prosperity -- could become a right-to-work state. But it's part of recent trend in the Rust Belt. Indiana passed a right-to-work law this year. Last year Wisconsin took away collective bargaining rights from its public sector workers. (Workers in Ohio beat back a similar attempt by putting it to a statewide vote.) The surge in anti-union legislation is a result of Tea Party success in the 2010 election. Fearful of being forced to purchase insurance for health care, reeling from the recession, embittered by seeing a black man living with his black wife in the White House, crackers got themselves to the polls in numbers great enough to shift legislative control to Republican majorities in 22 separate state chambers.
I work for a union local. For a living I go through boxes of old documents and sort what should be digitized and then shredded from what should be saved permanently and re-boxed from what should be discarded entirely. Each day I see proof of a different era, a time when organized labor was part of the Establishment. There was collaboration between unions on a common agenda. Now, from my vantage point on the lowest rung of the totem pole, it seems to be every man for himself, sink or swim, treading water from day to day.
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