Montana

Paul Ryan Self Destructs Any Chance To Run For President!

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who this blogger spent a lot of time working to undermine his Vice Presidential candidacy in 2012, and got blasted for it by right wing websites and bloggers, has again shown further evidence of what a terrible choice Mitt Romney made in his Presidential race, in selecting Ryan to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency!

Ryan, who knows nothing about budgets, except that the poor, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, and the young should see cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social programs; and there should be no extension of unemployment compensation for desperately unemployed people; and there should be no rise in the minimum wage, now has gone off the “deep end” with his assertion that those who live in the “inner cities” have no sense of the importance of work, and have not worked for generations!

This is a direct and racist assault on African Americans in particular, but also on Hispanics and Latinos, who are a majority of the poor in the urban areas of our nation.

But Ryan acts as if it is only minorities who are poor, and are unemployed, and in some cases, have not worked in a long time. From this statement, one would think that whites are not poor, that they all work, that they all have a heritage of understanding the point of work, and nothing could be further from the truth!

It is a fact, and always has been, that the vast majority of the poor do not live in cities, and are not minorities, although one would think so from a stereotype!

The fact is that there are millions of whites who live in the rural and suburban areas of the nation, and many are them do not work, have no hope of work, and live in depressed conditions often worse than urban slums. Many of these people are living in “Red” states, where Republicans vote to hurt their own constituents, while making it seem as if only minorities do not work, or have no work ethic. They live in Appalachia, the Great Plains, the Rockies, in comparatively sparsely populated areas, as compared to the urban areas on the East and West Coasts.

More whites receive food stamps, and the level of poverty percentage wise is higher in such places as Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska.

It is the lack of education; the tendency to have large families which are also dysfunctional; the reality of drugs and alcohol; the refusal of these state governments to give a damn about their white poor, along with minority poor; and the tendency to turn poor whites against poor minorities so that the GOP can keep power in the House and in the state legislatures, which is destroying generation after generation of deprived people of all races!

Only when there is a REAL war on poverty, instead of exploiting the issue based upon race, as Paul Ryan has now done, will we ever be able to guarantee a good future for millions of whites, as well as African Americans and Latinos!

And Paul Ryan, your potential Presidential candidacy is dead in the water, and while you might run, you have forfeited any realistic chance to be President of the United States, but that was clear, anyway, in 2012!

The Potential For A Massive Hillary Clinton Landslide Of Historic Proportions In 2016!

The Republican Party is managing, by its rhetoric, including most recently, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, to insult women about their libidos, and that only helps the Democratic Party and its likely Presidential nominee in 2016, Hillary Clinton.

Between the issue of women, and also alienation of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, gays and lesbians, labor, environmentalists, the struggling middle class, the poor, those who believe in science’s validity over religious dogma, and those who have an open mind on social issues, the GOP is continuing to promote its own suicide, and the potential is there for a massive Hillary Clinton landslide of historic proportions, particularly for a Democrat!

The assumption is that Hillary Clinton can count on the 26 states and the District of Columbia which voted for Barack Obama in 2012.

Additionally, the potential for Indiana and North Carolina, which voted for Obama in 2008 but then turned “Red””, to go back to the Democrats, is seen as highly likely.

Then, the states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas in the South, along with Arizona and Montana in the West, and Missouri in the Midwest, (usually a bellwether state but not so in 2008 and 2012) to go Democratic in 2016, particularly with the growing Hispanic and Latino population, is seen as possible, or if not in 2020 for sure.

That would make 34 states, and then there is the issue of five other states which went for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but then turned “Red”, so the question is could the wife of Bill Clinton, because of the Clinton brand 20-25 years ago, by 2016, be able to convince those five states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana) to switch over to the Democrats, with those states also having growing numbers of Hispanics and Latinos? After all, Arkansas is the Clintons’ “home” state, and Tennessee was Vice President Al Gore”s “home” state, while the other three states, all extremely poor and deprived, were Democratic in the 1990s!

So the maximum number of states could be 39, plus the District of Columbia, leaving only eleven states which were solidly Republican in the 1990s, and have remained “Red” ever since—Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska.

So were those eleven states to vote predictably, which is extremely likely, the GOP nominee for President would have ONLY 55 electoral votes, meaning Hillary Clinton would have won a grand total of 483 electoral votes! Imagine an election of 483-55 for the Democratic Party, which would certainly make for a Democratic dominance in the Senate and a majority in the House of Representatives, as well, as such an electoral vote landslide would insure a “coattail” effect!

“Wild Cards” To The Extreme: Jerry Brown And Howard Dean Presidential Candidacies?

We are entering 2014 in ten days, and yet, we are going back to the past, the extreme past, in fact, when we learn that California Governor Jerry Brown and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean are considering running for President in 2016.

Jerry Brown is not just a “wild card”, but also he is the “wildest card” of all, having run for President three times in the past 40 years, and being age 78 in 2016. Brown was Governor of California for two terms from 1975-1983, and after being Attorney General and Oakland Mayor, came back as Governor in 2011, making him the youngest and oldest Governor in California history.

Brown ran in 1976 against Jimmy Carter in the primaries and caucuses, and then challenged the reelection campaign of Carter, along with Ted Kennedy, in 1980. Then, he ran in the 1992 campaign against the ultimate winner, Bill Clinton, and bad blood was spilled between the two men. Now, if Brown ran, he would be challenging Hillary Clinton, stirring up again the bad blood that developed 22 years ago.

Brown has always been a gadfly, an annoyance, and both Southern Democratic Presidents elected in the past 40 years saw him as an annoying “mosquito”, as he was seen as weird and flaky by many, and is still seen as that in his old age by many observers.

Howard Dean was Governor of Vermont from 1991-2003, and was the frontrunner for awhile in the 2004 Presidential campaign, but collapsed quickly and made a fool of himself by his shrieks after the Iowa Caucuses, and John Kerry went on to become the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2004, losing to George W. Bush. Dean has been a commentator on public affairs, and a left wing critic of Barack Obama, but at age 68 in 2016, could be part of the race again, although the odds are heavy that he will not get very far in his challenge to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and any other Democrats who might decide to run, including former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who has the virtue of being a “new face” in the race, and a lot younger than either Brown or Dean.

Brown particularly, and even Dean, could be seen as being almost like Harold Stassen was in the Republican Party, politicians who have had their moment in the sun, but fail to realize that the time has passed on them, and that we are not about to nominate a 78 year old “has been”, or even a 68 year old “wannabe”!

The Democratic Presidential Race Has Begun With Former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer Comments!

Former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer has fired the first shots of the Democratic Presidential race, making us realize that the concept that, somehow, Hillary Clinton would win the nomination without challenge, and by default, is a dream that is not going to happen.

Schweitzer, who served two successful terms as Governor of the fourth largest state in land area, but eighth smallest in population, gained a reputation as a western populist, and has been critical of “corporatists”, which in his mind include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are too cozy with Wall Street, and have not promoted the idea of pursuing indictment of Wall Street leaders for the Great Recession of 2008.

This is one issue on which many liberals and progressives have had trouble with President Obama, who relied on Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner and other icons of Wall Street, in making his economic policies.

So the left of the Democratic Party, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, and Schweitzer, among others, have been critical, and while Warren has said she is not running for President, and Sanders says only that he is considering it, Schweitzer has been out front in criticism on economic matters.

Additionally, Schweitzer has thrown a shot across the bow at Hillary Clinton and other US Senators who supported the Iraq War intervention, which he made clear he thought was a major mistake.

So without formally announcing, Schweitzer has hinted strongly that he will enter the race, if nothing else than for the reason that, even assuming Hillary has the edge and might be the nominee of the Democratic Party, that competition is good, and that it would make Clinton a better candidate, than one who is treated with kid gloves and is not ready to fight for the nomination and the Presidency in full combat gear.

Right now, however, the odds that Schweitzer, or anyone else, other than maybe Vice President Joe Biden, can stop Hillary Clinton from being the nominee of the Democratic Party, is highly speculative, but it makes the upcoming primaries and caucuses two years from now a lot more interesting and exciting than it might have been.

So, former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, welcome to the fray!

The Senate In Crisis A Century After The 17th Amendment

The US Senate was a very undemocratic institution a century ago, controlled by special interests, including the oil, steel, banking and other trusts and monopolies, and its membership selected by the vote of corrupt state legislatures across the nation.

The Senate was exposed for its faults and corruption by David Graham Phillips in his article in 1906 in Cosmopolitan Magazine, which has been reprinted in 2012, an article of 108 pages, a small book, exposing the corruption of Senate Majority Leader Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. This was followed up by other articles in muckraking periodicals, exposing the corruption of other US Senators.

These articles motivated a reform movement, leading to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, establishing popular vote elections for the US Senate. It did not mean that every Senator elected was brilliant, or a positive force, but at least the people had the final say on who would represent them, as in the US House of Representatives!

Now, a century later, the US Senate is in paralysis, greatly due to the abuse of the filibuster system, which now requires 60 Senators to end a filibuster, while it used to be even worse, 67 before reforms in 1975. The filibuster was originally utilized to stop civil rights advancements, but now it is used to prevent any action on many nominations and many bills, effectively hamstringing any progress or change on anything controversial.

But also, it is clear that special interest groups, similar to those a century ago, but more such groups and more widespread, have made the US Senate captive again.

And with growing differences in population in coastline states, as compared to states in the interior, we are finding the concept of each state having two US Senators, whether they represent millions of citizens, or just hundreds of thousands of citizens, becoming one where states with few people, are able to stop what the majority of the American people want!

Four Democratic Senators, scared to death of the National Rifle Association, end up refusing to support the end of the filibuster on extended background checks on gun sales, and yet these Senators represent small populated states (North Dakota, Alaska, Montana, Arkansas) which represent only about 5.4 million people, out of a national total of 309 million people, meaning they represent 1.6 percent of the people, in a nation in which up to 90 percent, including gun owners, want extended background checks on gun sales.

We allow the 49th 48th, 45th, and 33rd states in population to hamstring the rest of the nation, absolutely insane when one thinks about it, and this is not just true on one issue, but many!

This problem of small populated states,the abuse of the filibuster, and special interest groups (including major corporations) is a situation which threatens resolution of ANY major issue facing the nation in the 21st century, unless, somehow, some kind of reform of an outdated system of the 18th century is brought about, which is extremely unlikely!

Final Projection On Presidential Race: Obama-Biden 332 Electoral Votes, Romney-Ryan 206 Electoral Votes

This author has spent a lot of time and effort in studying, analyzing, evaluating the Presidential Election contest of 2012, and is now ready to project the final result.

Barack Obama has been long predicted to win at least 237 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 191 electoral votes, with nine states in play as “swing” or “battleground” states, all of which Obama won in 2008.

The prediction that the author wishes to make is that Obama will win ALL of the nine competitive states, except North Carolina, giving him 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206 electoral votes!

So Obama will win New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado, with a total of 95 electoral votes, added to the 237, making the final total of 332 electoral votes.

Romney, by winning the 15 electoral votes of North Carolina, will go from 191 to 206 in the final total of electoral votes.

It also means that Obama will have won every state he won in 2008, except Indiana and North Carolina, and a total of 26 states and the District of Columbia. Romney will win 24 states.

Also, expect that the popular vote will be close in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, Georgia, and Montana, with Romney winning, but with hints that Democrats will have a grand opportunity to win those states in 2016 and beyond, with the growing Hispanic-Latino vote. The first hint will be the likely victories for the Senate of Democrats Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, and Richard Carmona in Arizona.

Additionally, Obama should win about 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent of the vote for Romney, with Gary Johnson and other third party candidates winning slightly more than one percent of the total vote.

This means Obama will have won by a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes, but with the factor of reapportionment of seats due to the Census of 2010 changing downward many of the Frost Belt states which support Barack Obama, plus the loss of North Carolina and Indiana from 2008.

Still, overall, a very impressive performance can be expected!

Comments on this projection of the results are welcome!

Gary Johnson And Virgil Goode Could Siphon Support For Mitt Romney In Several “Swing” States

Gary Johnson is the former Republican New Mexico Governor, and Libertarian Party candidate for President. He is also on the ballot in 47 states.

Virgil Goode is a former Republican Congressman from a district in Virginia, and Constitution Party candidate for President. He is also on the ballot in two dozen states.

Johnson is believed to have support in New Mexico, Montana, Nevada and Colorado, while Goode is thought to have support in Virginia.

Notice that these are all considered “swing” states, although New Mexico has been seen as less so than it once was, and is generally not included in recent months as being in that category. And Montana is one of those few states thought to be Republican, but with some possibility of switching to the Democrats.

But also notice that all of these states are now considered to be in favor of Barack Obama, except Montana.

So the question arises, will these former Republicans hurt Romney enough that he loses these “swing” states and even Montana, or will Obama win even with some support for Johnson and Goode in these states?

In other words, can Johnson and Goode end up for Romney as Ralph Nader was for Al Gore in 2000, the difference in votes that caused Gore’s defeat for President?

It will be interesting to see if either or both third party candidates have a significant impact on the results of the election!

“Swing” States Down To Eight, Narrowing Romney Chances Of Winning Presidency!

The Mitt Romney Presidential campaign has decided to buy advertising time on television in only eight states, narrowing the chance that the former Massachusetts Governor can win the Presidency.

Eliminated as places of opportunity are Michigan, the birthplace and childhood of Romney, and the state that his father was Governor in the 1960s; Wisconsin, the birthplace and home of his running mate, Paul Ryan; and Pennsylvania, despite the well known white male battleground of western Pennsylvania, often thought to be an Achilles Heel for Barack Obama!

So what are the states still in play?

New Hampshire–4 electoral votes
Virginia–13 electoral votes
North Carolina–15 electoral votes
Florida–29 electoral votes
Ohio–18 electoral votes
Iowa–6 electoral votes
Colorado–9 electoral votes
Nevada–6 electoral votes

The total electoral votes in play are 100, while Obama leads with 247 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia, and Romney has 191 electoral votes from 23 states. Remember that the winner of the election must have 270 electoral votes.

So, with the updated realities that even Romney’s advertising campaign reflects, Obama wins If

he wins Florida (29 electoral votes)
he wins Ohio and Virginia (31 electoral votes)
he wins Ohio and North Carolina (33 electoral votes)
he wins Ohio and Iowa or Nevada (24 electoral votes)
he wins Ohio and Colorado (27 electoral votes)
he wins New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada (25 electoral votes)
he wins North Carolina and Colorado (24 electoral votes)
he wins North Carolina and Iowa and Nevada (27 electoral votes)
he wins Virginia and Iowa and Nevada (25 electoral votes)
he wins Virginia and Colorado and New Hampshire (26 electoral votes)
he wins Virginia, Colorado, and either Iowa or Nevada (28 electoral votes)

So these are ELEVEN scenarios where Barack Obama has the advantage–needing only between one and four states of the eight “swing” states to win the Presidency in the Electoral College!

The unemployment rate is lower than the national average in New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio and Iowa, while higher in North Carolina, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

So if one were to assume that the four states that have the lower unemployment rate than the national average go to Obama, he wins 41 electoral votes, for a grand total of 288 electoral votes.

Of course, there are five states, that are considered “red” or Republican states, that actually are in play, although expected to go to Romney. These are Indiana (11 electoral votes), which went to Obama in 2008; Missouri (10 electoral votes), which was won by John McCain in 2008 by only about 4,000 votes; Montana (3 electoral votes), which is becoming more Democratic; Arizona (11 electoral votes), which is moving toward Democratic over time with the growing Hispanic vote, and the controversial immigration law under Governor Jan Brewer; and Georgia (16 electoral votes), which is gaining a large Hispanic population, which means it will likely trend Democratic over the next few election cycles. Were all of these to go Democratic in a close vote situation, Obama could, theoretically, win 51 more electoral votes!

So, IF Obama were to win all of the eight “swing states” now in play, based on Romney’s decision as to what states to spend money on advertising, he would go from what seems clearly 247 electoral votes to 347 electoral votes–meaning he would have won all of the states he won in 2008, except for Indiana!

This is 18 electoral votes fewer than in 2008, when Obama won 365 electoral votes–due to the theoretical loss of Indiana (11 electoral votes), plus the fact that the states he won lost a total of 7 electoral votes due to reapportionment of seats in Congress, based on the 2010 Census.

But IF Obama were to win the “red” states that could be in play, listed above, a total of five states with 51 electoral votes, his highest theoretical total of electoral votes would reach 398 electoral votes, meaning Romney would win only 140 electoral votes, with Obama winning 32 states and the District of Columbia, and Romney winning 18 states!

The ultimate point of this discussion is to make it clear that the odds of Obama being re-elected are very high, despite the supposedly tight popular vote on a national level, which really proves nothing, as the polls on popular vote in the eight “swing” states demonstrate that Obama is ahead in all of them, except in North Carolina and Colorado, so to bet against Obama would be a losing bet, best thought about before being placed, as the odds of losing large amounts of money is extremely a likely occurrence!

Despite Health Care Ruling, Supreme Court Is Still Out Of Control, And Presidential Election Will Decide If It Regains Confidence Of The American People!

The Supreme Court came through by the barest of margins on the issue of “ObamaCare” last week, but when one looks at the Court’s radical swing to the right in so many other ways, it is clear that the future reputation of the Court and the long term future of the nation requires the victory of Barack Obama for a second term as President.

By confirming their Citizens United decision again in a case involving Montana state law, and by actions against labor unions and their rights in another case, and in the solidity most of the time of the Republican appointees in rejecting past precedent and tradition, the Court has gained an image of being extremist and confrontational, and lost American public opinion and respect, which is dangerous for our democracy.

Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush effectively moved the Court away from the political center to the extreme right, and we are suffering the effects of this extremist rightward tilt.

We cannot afford to base the future on Anthony Kennedy SOMETIMES going with the liberal side of the Court, or Chief Justice John Roberts seemingly being concerned about the reputation of the Court. Neither is reliable to keep the Court in the political center, and protect the rights of the powerless.

The only answer is to insure that when the older members of the Supreme Court retire or die while in service on the Court, that we replace them with Justices who have a vision of the country more in line with the reality of the 21st century than the 19th century Gilded Age!

With Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to be over 80 before the next Presidential term ends, the likelihood is that whoever is President in the next four years will have a transformative effect on the Supreme Court and constitutional law.

The thought of Mitt Romney making those choices is truly terrifying, and will make the Court a right wing extremist influence into the 2040s, totally unacceptable!

Barack Obama will be able to make the Court shift more into the mainstream, preserving the brilliant times of the Warren Court in the 1950s and 1960s, when America advanced constitutionally in so many ways!

Justice Anthony Kennedy Still The Key Vote On Supreme Court: 2 Positives, 1 Negative!

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy is still the key vote on the Supreme Court, and today batted 2 for 3!

He was part of the majority on the Arizona immigration law, with three out of four of the provisions of that law overturned, but still allowing police officers to check the status of people they stop for any violations.

He was also on the majority side on a case that gave juvenile murderers the possibility of parole from a life sentence.

He was on the wrong side of a Montana case designed to reverse the Citizens United case, a tragic development!

But two out of three is quite good, and there is still hope that he may be in the majority, maybe along with Chief Justice John Roberts, on the Obama Health Care law, when the Supreme Court announces its decision on Thursday, June 28.

The fact that Chief Justice Roberts joined Kennedy in the majority in the immigration case, with Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself because she had been Solicitor General during the time of the passage of the Arizona law, was encouraging to make people believe he might join Kennedy in the majority on the health care legislation. We shall see in three days!

So far, quite good!