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Reece Terry, publisher
Opinion
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, August 14, 2015
Corinth, Miss.
Biden candidacy will cause Clinton/Obama rift BY DICK AND EILEEN MCGANN Columnists
If Joe Biden decides to run, it will trigger a split between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Neither side will necessarily be looking to split from the other, but the inevitable dynamics of the race will tend in that direction. Here’s why. Both Clinton and Biden have a tricky path to navigate. Each has to avoid seeming to be the incumbent’s third term, thereby incurring all of his negatives, but each must also be true enough to the president’s agenda to keep his support and appeals to his followers. And when two are trying to walk the tightrope at the same time, sharp elbows are bound to come out. At first, the contest might assume a “he loves me more than he loves you” aspect, but vying for the inside track is sterile and makes for a stagnant and unexciting campaign. It is also a zero-sum game. Only one candidate will be able successfully to position him or herself as the anointed candidate of the Anointed One. Ultimately, Biden will win the contest. As vice president, he has helped, at every juncture, to formulate the administration’s policies. They are his as much as Obama’s. He has to run close to Obama. And why shouldn’t he? While Obama may have his problems with the general electorate with an upside down favorable/unfavorable rating, he is wildly popular among Democratic primary voters. Biden would do well to run in his shadow. When Clinton realizes she is being elbowed out of the shadow, she has to chart an independent course. She has to “build” on the accomplishments of the Obama/Biden administration, which inevitably leads to having to demonstrate that the programs don’t go far enough or haven’t worked as well as was hoped. The more Clinton implies criticism of this thin-skinned president, the more Biden will jump on her comments to widen the breech. He will find a responsive audience in the president’s inner circle. Neither Valerie Jarrett nor Michelle Obama are thought to like Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton very much. They will relay their sensitivity to Clinton’s criticism to the boss and widen the split. The wider it gets, the more it will grow. Clinton will have to articulate sharp differences with the administration other wise she is consigned to being its second best advert, a posture not likely to draw votes. The polarization over Obama and his policies is the most important outcome of a Biden entry into the race. And the most inevitable. (Dick Morris, former advisor to the Clinton administration, is a commentator and writer. He is also a columnist for the New York Post and The Hill. His wife, Eileen McGann is an attorney and consultant.)
Donald Trump the whiner Donald Trump is given to superlatives, so let’s do him the honor of pronouncing him the most fabulous whiner in all of American politics. By Trump’s own account, he’s the baddest, smartest thing going, except if you ask him a challenging question, in which case he kicks and screams and demands to know how anyone could treat him so unfairly. Trump followed up his shaky-at-best performance at the first Republican candidate debate, hosted by Fox News, with days complaining that he hadn’t been afforded the respect he deserves. According to Trump, he’ll bring Vladimir Putin to heel. He’ll make Mexico pay for a border fence. He’ll take the Middle East’s oil. Assuming, that is, no one says a discouraging word to him. Then he’ll lose it. The mogul did indeed get a series of tough questions from the Fox debate moderators (disclosure: I’m a Fox News contributor). But Trump, as Trump always reminds us, is leading in all the polls. It is not unusual – indeed, it is to be expected – that a front-runner gets
Prayer for today Eternal God, help me that I may not be deceived by my surroundings as I seek to have life abundantly. Instruct me that it is by the way of character that I must attain the laws of growth, and learn reverence for the spirit of divine life. Amen.
A verse to share “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” — Zephaniah 3:17
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more scrutiny than the also-rans. What were the affronts that Trump had to suffer? Rich He was asked Lowry right at the beginning National or Review whether not he would rule out running as an independent, a natural question of someone seeking the Republican nomination for president. Trump predictably got booed when he wouldn’t pledge to support the eventual nominee, although he allowed, in a characteristic Trump tautology, that he would support the nominee – if he’s the nominee. Thanks, Donald. Then Fox anchor Megyn Kelly asked him about how he would respond to inevitable attacks from Hillary Clinton in a general election over his crass insults of women through the years. This set Trump off, but does anyone think if, say, Jeb Bush had ever called woman a pig or a dog, he wouldn’t get asked about it, too? Trump handled the en-
suing flap with his typical aplomb and class, which is to say he flailed about wildly and hurled witless insults. He denied that he said the things Kelly alleged he had, even though he did. He called Kelly an overrated lightweight. Finally, he bizarrely said that “there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” When this was interpreted as a reference to her menstrual cycle, Trump objected that there was no way he possibly could say something so crude – all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. He also insisted that when he said “wherever,” he had been about to say Kelly’s nose or ears, but stopped himself to get on with more important points – which happened to be more insults of Kelly. For someone who prides himself on being the bold truth-teller, Trump has a penchant for trying to litigate his way out of his controversial statements. When he said a few weeks ago that John McCain wasn’t a war hero, he backtracked and tried to prove that he hadn’t said what he obviously had.
If “never complain, never explain” is a good rule of life, Trump is 0 for 2. His typical response to any controversy is to boast of his own exceptional greatness – the Fox debate would have been nothing without him, the other candidates told him afterward that he had won, etc. – and to call anyone who has crossed him a loser. If Trump is aware of the fact that there is such a thing as a witty put-down, he is certainly not capable of summoning one. If he didn’t want to be wrong-footed on the biggest stage of the campaign so far, he could have thought about what questions he might have been asked and about possible answers. This is what candidates have done before debates since time immemorial. Trump was satisfied with Plan B: to wing it and, when it didn’t go to his liking, whine like a spoiled child who didn’t get a pony for his birthday. (Daily Corinthian columnist Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.)
Kelly’s very smart question to Trump Unfortunately, the circus that Donald Trump has created around Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly and her allegedly “unfair” question to him in the Republican debate has drowned out the central importance of that “unfair” question. Voter frustration on the right reflects two things. One, we want to hear tough and straight talk from candidates. But two, we want a candidate who will be elected and set change in motion. All the tough talk in the world means nothing if the candidate doesn’t get elected. Kelly’s question to Trump was about this. It wasn’t about whether Trump is courteous, or a jerk, or politically correct. She opened the debate segment with, “our first round of questions is on the subject of electability in the general election.” Ben Carson was asked about his absence of political experience. Marco Rubio about his absence of experience as an executive. Bush about dealing with the mentality that “the last thing this country needs is another Bush.” Then Kelly turned to Trump.
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“You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs, dogs, and disgusting animals’ ... Star how will you Parker answer the charge from Columnist Hillary Clinton ... likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?” Need I remind anyone that sitting in the White House today is the most left-wing politician to ever occupy the Oval Office? He was elected not once, but twice. So we can’t really say the first time around he fooled America voters. Despite everything conservatives find so revolting about Barack Obama, his approval rating, now 47 percent, remains relatively strong compared to previous presidents at the same stage of their presidencies. At this time in his presidency, George W. Bush stood at 34 percent. During this seven-year nightmare for every American that longs for a nation that is free, moral, a light unto nations, Obama has been successful in about everything he has put his
hand to, taking us in the opposite direction. We have government health care, government propped-up big banks, national debt as big as GDP, deficits as far as the eye can see, some 15 million illegals, and same-sex marriage. Planned Parenthood continues to siphon off $500 million a year in taxpayer funds, despite the latest round of videos showing the commerce they do in the flesh of murdered fetuses. Our only real ally in the Middle East, Israel, gets dissed and it seems likely that the U.S. will conclude a nuclear agreement with a nation – the world’s number one supporter of terrorism – that hates Israel and us. Around half of American households now get some form of government assistance. By some estimates, combined unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare are as large as $100 trillion – yet polls do not show that Americans want major reform of these bankrupt entitlement monstrosities. Projections indicate that the percentage of the American electorate in 2016 that is white will be down to 70 percent, a historic low. And of the total American
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electorate, 53 percent are women. How much clearer can it be that it will be impossible to elect a conservative Republican in 2016 if that candidate does not have the skill and persona to attract some voters who don’t traditionally vote Republican? The last time a Republican presidential candidate won the women’s vote was 25 years ago when George H.W. Bush squeaked by Michael Dukakis with 51 percent. The women’s vote will be a particular challenge in an election in which Democrats run the first woman candidate for president. So Megyn Kelly’s question to Trump was smart, on target and very fair. The real question is how could Trump – whose big selling point is being a smart businessman – call this “unfair”? It certainly won’t be fair to American voters if he gets nominated and is defeated and then calls the tens of millions who didn’t vote for him a bunch of losers. (Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org.)
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