Trump is better for down-ballot races than Trump and Cruz

Who knows if I am right, but I think this is good news for the Democrats' prospects in the November election. Hillary Clinton (who I am confident will be the Democrat's nominee) should easily beat Trump or Cruz in the general election. The electoral map simply favors any Democrat in a presidential race. Both Trump and Cruz happen to have even higher negative approval ratings than Clinton, so it should come out in favor of the democratic victory no matter which one runs.

But there is a difference. If Cruz is the nominee, I think there is a not-insignificant chance that Trump would run as an independent or third party candidate. While that would make it even more unlikely for the Republicans to take the presidency (and Trump and Cruz would likely split the red vote), it might hurt the democrats overall compared with the scenario where Trump is the nominee.

If Trump is the nominee, his outrageous and unpopular behavior is going to dog all the Republicans running this year. When Trump inevitably makes some over-the-top sexist remark about Hillary Clinton, all the other Republican candidates are going to be asked whether they support those remarks, which will force them to either criticize their party's nominee in a hard fought presidential race, or endorse something that will hurt them personally. Trump also will be a great motivator for Democrats to turn out in the general election. That increased motivation and turnout is not just likely to help Democrats win the White House, it probably will put them in control of the Senate and to make some gains in the House (although I doubt if it will be enough to put the House back into Democrat's control, though that would be a possibility) It might also pay dividends in various State races, tipping things back a bit from the Republicans' utter domination of State governments.

If Cruz is the nominee and Trump runs as a third party candidate or independent, it will be a lot easier for Republicans to disavow whatever dumb shit that Trump says. While Cruz and Trump will lose the presidency, having two conservative candidates in the general election is going to boost Republican turnout. I think that will blunt democratic gains in the down ballot races.

The People's election campaign

I did a news search for articles about the Presidential race and the top result was an article from People Magazine.

On a related topic, both the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns have released tax plan they promise to enact if elected. Without googling, does anyone reading this have any idea what those plans say?

Even as someone who has closely followed the campaign, reading multiple articles about the candidates every single day, I can't give an affirmative answer to that question.

Rightwingers don't know what hypocrisy means, part million

It is not hypocrisy for a politician to file his taxes under the existing rules while arguing that those rules are unfair and proposing that they be changed.

Seriously, Jim Geraghty's hypocrisy argument is even stupider than that, because Bernie Sanders has not advocated abolishing deductions for home-mortgages*, local taxes, charities, or job expenses. But even if that is what Sanders had proposed, it would not be hypocritical for him to use the current rules now even if he wants the rules to change later.

(via Memeorandum)

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* Sanders has proposed capping the deductions so they only apply up to a dollar figure threshhold for mortgage debt. The details of where that cap would kick in has varied a bit in different things I have read.

The Saudis don't win a U.S. alliance by default

The weird thing this post from Kevin Drum is that he seems to think that Saudi Arabia or Iran are the only options if the U.S. is in the market for an ally in the Muslim world.

First, the "Muslim world" is quite big. There are more Muslims in South Asia and Southeast Asia than in the Middle East. But, second, even if we pretend that the "Muslim world" only means non-Israeli countries in the Middle East (which is what Drum seems to be doing), there are still a lot of countries that could be U.S. allies that are not KSA or Iran. Take Turkey, for example, which already is an ally of the United States, as it is a member of NATO. There are plenty of problems with the current government of Turkey. But, for all its current authoritarianism, those problems don't come close to the problems that I associate with a theocratic absolute monarchy which criminalizes the ordinary behavior of women and religious minorities. As terrible as the government of Turkey is right now, it is way way better than the Saudi government by every measure I can think of, There's Egypt (another currently terrible government that is still way better than the Saudi monarchy), and Jordan. Seriously, the entire region is filled with countries other than the Saudis and Iranians that the U.S. could, and in fact does, work with.

Czech please?

This makes no sense to me. As I have remarked before, it is strange that, almost 25 years after Czechoslovakia ceased to exist people still refer to it as if it is still a country. But I don't think changing the name of the Czech Republic to "Czechia" will stop people from calling it "Czechoslovakia." Changing the name again would just add a third name to the mix, which will certainly not clear up the English-speaking public's confusion about what the country is called.

Plus "Czechia" is just a worse sounding name. Everyone who hears that word is going to confuse it with Chechnya. They would be better off calling it Czechistan. Also I don't think there's anything wrong with the "Czech Republic."

His name is on every piece of trash in town

Ready for the presidency

Trump's stunning incompetence and lack of understanding of the basic rules of the nomination process is just more evidence of his outsider status. Nothing shakes up a complacent Washington establishment like spectacular dysfunction borne of an ego so inflated it won't take the time to find out how things actually work.

The convention boondoggle gets worse

Twelve years ago I wrote:

i'm beginning to wonder whether in future years conventions will have a hard time finding host cities. before the DNC, boston projected that the convention would bring in $154 million. immediately after it ended, the city announced that the returns were a far more modest $14.8 million. on npr the other day they noted that the boston nummbers are still being revised downward and probably will result in a net loss for the host city. 

new york is only going to be worse. aside from the fact that everything is more expensive when you do it in new york, the extra security that comes with the heightened terrorism alerts, practically guarantees that this thing will be in the red when it's all over. plus, many people i know in new york (like people in boston last month) are not going to work this week, and many are leaving the city. the loss of productivity alone would be hard for even a high-profit convention to make up. it's not surprising that the new york city comptroller is projecting big losses. 

so what happens if four years from now the two political parties can't find a city that is willing to host their event? will political conventions break their big-city traditions and become more of a rural retreat? or will there always be a city ready to suck up the losses for the national exposure? when i lived in st. louis that city seemed to have a permanent chip on its shoulder about whether it is an important place or not. i would not be surprised if they bankrupted the city just to get a little national limelight. of course, if there is a terrorist attack in nyc this week, even st. louis might have second thoughts 

The extra costs of crowd control is probably making it even worse for host cities. If corporate sponsors stay away, local governments will get saddled with some of the extra costs. Plus if there is violence at the RNC in Cleveland this year, then the city of Cleveland won't get any positive national exposure.

Putin's aircraft carrier moment

Ever since Putin declared an end to combat operations in Syria I have wondered if that means that Russia is really getting out of Syria or if, like the U.S. often does, the announced pullout doesn't mean a complete withdrawal.