POST GRADUATES
Post-graduates went by a slightly wider margin for Clinton than Obama:
2012: 18% of electorate, 55-42 Obama
2016: 18% of electorate, 58-37 Clinton
This furthers the distinct education gap in this election, especially among whites.
5. Whites without college degrees have fled to the GOP.
They were a group Democrats used to compete with. In 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton won them by a point. But they have
The task ahead for today’s conservatives
The Republican Party resembles the man who told his psychiatrist, “I have an identity problem, and so do I.” The party’s leader is at best indifferent to, and often is hostile to, much of the party’s recent catechism: limited government, the rule of law, a restrained executive, fiscal probity, entitlement reforms, free trade, the general efficiency and equity of markets allocating wealth and opportunity, and — this matters especially — the importance of decorousness in political discourse.
.. Today, many Americans seem to relish being furious. An indignation industry has battened on the Republican Party, feeding this addiction. This industry is inimical to conservatism’s health.
A veteran baseball coach once said baseball is not a game you can play with your teeth clenched. The sport of the long season requires emotional equipoise, a continuous combination of concentration and relaxation.
.. persuasion is necessary to temper the public’s instinctive aversion to the patience that politics requires — the public’s proclivity for disparaging institutional impediments to immediate gratification. Only conservatives will undertake such persuasion.
.. Protectionism is comprehensive government intervention in economic life. It supplants commercial calculations with political considerations. Using tariffs, which are taxes imposed at the border, government imposes its judgment of what Americans should be permitted to purchase, in what quantities and at what prices. If conservatism can embrace such statism, can it distinguish itself from progressivism — the doctrine that government experts are wiser than markets in determining individuals’ choices and directing the efficient use of labor and capital?.. He could make these suppositions more plausible by nominating Kelly Ayotte to be attorney general... the Justice Department has been politically tainted by, among other things, its lassitude regarding the IRS’s abuses against conservative advocacy groups. It needs a steely but amiable leader, not someone with a recent record of hysterical partisanship (e.g., Rudy Giuliani).
A Narrower Majority for Republicans Could Widen the House Divide
Some members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus met privately on Wednesday to discuss agitating for more clout, which could take the form of a challenge to Mr. Ryan, or a call for rules changes that the speaker is likely to oppose.
.. Nonpartisan analysts are forecasting that Democrats will pick up five to 20 seats next week, well shy of the 30 needed to retake control.
.. They also have been weighing rules changes they would like to see — within the party and for the House as a whole — largely intended to empower members with responsibilities typically reserved for leadership, including the selection of committee chairpersons.
.. Members of the caucus are also concerned about a push from more moderate Republicans to toss out the so-called motion to vacate the chair, a procedural move through which a single member can force a vote to remove the speaker. One member of the Freedom Caucus, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, tried to use it to oust John A. Boehner from his speakership last year, prompting many — including Mr. Ryan — to criticize it.
.. Their latest discussions — and the fact that a narrower Republican majority would mean Mr. Ryan could afford to lose fewer votes to retain his speakership — have raised the prospect that the group could resort to political hostage-taking to fulfill their demands.
Why This Election Terrifies Me
Last weekend a man who was getting a head start on Halloween attended a University of Wisconsin football game in a costume that depicted Barack Obama with a noose around his neck.
.. He has modeled contempt for civilized norms and even the rule of law, endorsing violence against protesters, expressing admiration for a Russian autocrat, pledging a clampdown on the press, suggesting that Second Amendment enthusiasts might want to take a shot at Clinton, and promising to throw her in jail.
.. But I can’t identify a single issue like that, domestic or foreign, in 2016, because no campaign in my adult lifetime has turned so little on policy and so much on character.
.. it feels as if we’re coming out of this election with four parties:
- the Paul Ryan Republicans,
- the Freedom Caucus,
- the establishment Democrats and
- the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders brigade,
which is raring to use the muscle that Sanders flexed during the primaries for legislation more progressive than anything that the House would ever approve.
.. Trump prophesies a “constitutional crisis.” Republicans raise the specters of “impeachment” and “indictment.” And Rudy Giuliani demands an assurance from Obama that he won’t pardon Clinton, who is favored to win even though only 47 percent of the people who are planning to vote for her can muster any considerable enthusiasm about it.