August 3, 2016
BETTER DUMP HIM QUICK:
How Hillary can win Republicans (James Pethokoukis, August 3, 2016, The Week)
[H]ow, exactly, can Team Clinton turn #NeverTrumpNeverHillary into #HillaryCurious, and then finally, into #SurpriseImWithHer.Step one is already complete: the upbeat Democratic National Convention. After a gloomy GOP gathering that painted the greatest nation on Earth as a failed state -- basically The Walking Dead, but all the zombies are undocumented immigrants or Syrian refugees -- the Democrats decided to go full Morning in America. And they tried to do it in a way that's appealing to Reagan Republicans. As National Review editor Rich Lowry tweeted during the DNC: "American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on hill, founding documents, etc -- they're trying to take all our stuff." [...]Take corporate tax reform, for instance. It's a standard part of modern GOP economic orthodoxy. But many Democrats also favor it, including President Obama. And while there are big differences among various GOP plans and the Obama plan, they're directionally similar: lower tax rates and close tax loopholes.Imagine Clinton offering a plan that deeply slashed corporate tax rates, while paying for it by eliminating tax breaks and raising capital gains taxes on wealthier Americans. Or maybe help pay for it through a "too big to fail" tax on megabanks. Either way, such a proposal would appeal to pro-growth Republicans while shoring up support among progressives who think Clinton is too close to Big Money.
How Clinton Could Knock Trump Out (Thomas L. Friedman AUG. 3, 2016, NY Times)
[T]hat leads to my second reason for pushing Clinton to inject some capitalism into her economic plan: The coalition she could lead. If there is one thing that is not going to revive growth right now, it is an anti-trade, regulatory heavy, socialist-lite agenda the Democratic Party has drifted to under the sway of Bernie Sanders. Socialism is the greatest system ever invented for making people equally poor. Capitalism makes people unequally rich, but I would much rather grow our pie bigger and faster and better adjust the slices than redivide a shrinking one.There are a lot of center-right, business Republicans today feeling orphaned by Trump. They can't vote for him -- but a lot of them still claim they can't bring themselves to vote for Hillary, either. Clinton should be reaching out to them with a real pro-growth, start-up, deregulation, entrepreneurship agenda and give them a positive reason to vote for her.It makes sense politically: Take Trump on at his self-proclaimed strength. And it makes sense economically: If Clinton wins, she will need to get stuff done, not just give stuff away.I get that she had to lean toward Sanders and his voters to win the nomination; their concerns with fairness and inequality are honorable. But those concerns can be addressed only with economic growth; the rising anti-immigration sentiments in the country can be defused only with economic growth; the general anxiety feeding Trumpism can be eased only with economic growth.
Why Obama thinks he can peel Republicans off Trump (Paul Waldman, August 3, 2016, The Week)
In his speech at the Democratic convention, he said, "what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn't particularly Republican -- and it sure wasn't conservative. What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world." And in a press conference on Tuesday he went further, imploring Republican politicians to reject Trump in the wake of his fight with the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who died in Iraq. "The question I think that they have to ask themselves is: If you are repeatedly having to say, in very strong terms, that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?" he said. "What does this say about your party, that this is your standard-bearer?" In other words: Reject Trump, my Republican friends, for it's the only way to save the GOP.He might be trolling -- saying this precisely because he knows it will make it more difficult for Republican politicians to reject Trump (few things are more dangerous for a Republican than taking Barack Obama's advice). But the real audience he had in mind was probably moderate voters, both independent and Republican, who might be convinced to vote for Hillary Clinton. He's saying to them: I know you're already conflicted about Trump, so it's OK to vote for Clinton and still consider yourself a Republican in good standing.And Trump is sure working hard to make the argument for him. As if all his attacks on various minority groups up until now weren't enough, now he has actually gotten into a seemingly endless argument with a family whose son was killed in Iraq, leading him to be roundly condemned by one member of his party after another (even if almost all of them are still endorsing him). That too sends a signal to moderate Republicans. If members of their own party are lambasting Trump, then it must be reasonable for them to cross party lines, just this once.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 3, 2016 5:31 PM