Month: June 2015

GOP Senators Running on ‘Irony’ Platform

Buck Banks

The game is the Republican presidential primary, and no fewer than four senators are playing. They have discovered that tying the Senate in knots is a cheap and easy way of gaining attention. But a casualty of their game is governing: turning Congress, already barely functioning, into a legislative mess. It is no small irony that Republicans are running for president by proving that their party can’t govern.

— Washington Post

Iowa Voters OK with Ex-Presidents as Political Advisers

Buck Banks

57%

Of likely Republican caucus-goers said that it would be “mostly good” for Jeb Bush’s presidency if he were to tap his older brother, George, as a close adviser, according to a new Bloomberg/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll. Thirty-three percent said such an arrangement would be “mostly bad” for Jeb Bush’s presidency. As for Hillary Clinton, a whopping 83% of likely Democratic caucus-goers approved of the idea of her using her husband, Bill, as a close adviser, while just 9% said doing so was a “mostly bad” suggestion for her presidency.

Is a Third Party Emerging?

Buck Banks

Listen to the early sounds of the 2016 presidential campaign, in which candidates of the left and the right sound almost identical populist, anti-Wall Street, antiestablishment themes, and the idea doesn’t seem so crazy. When you have Republican presidential contenders opposing free-trade agreements, and at least one backing an increase in the minimum wage; when Democratic firebrand Bernie Sanders (technically an independent to begin with) is speaking to overflow crowds; and when left and right come together to halt a prominent national-security program backed by the foreign-policy establishment—well, something is going on.

— Gerald Seib, in the Wall Street Journal (login required).