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JULY 22,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET:

HILLARY'S CHOICE – She's picked Virginia Senator Tim Kaine for vice president.  Kaine previously served as governor of Virginia.  From Powerline:  "The mainstream media likes to portray Kaine as a 'centrist' and a 'bridge builder.' The reality is quite different.  In the Senate, Kaine almost always votes the liberal line. The American Conservative Union consistently gives him a zero rating. Same with the Eagle Forum. With Americans for Prosperity and Heritage Action, he’s in single digits.  Kaine is a practicing Catholic, but a reliable pro-abortion vote. He gets a zero from the Family Research Council and 100 percent from NARAL and Planned Parenthood.  Though at times he talked a good game on the problems with the Iran nuclear deal, in the end he voted for it, to no one’s surprise.  This is the New York Times’s idea of a moderate."   Compared to the new Democratic Party, he's Calvin Coolidge.  In the adult world he is just as Powerline describes him.

TRUMP DOES IT AGAIN – Fresh from a triumphant last night of his convention, Donald Trump couldn't resist the temptation to step all over his victory.  This morning he held a bizarre news conference in which he viciously attacked Ted Cruz, announcing that he didn't want Cruz's endorsement anyway.  I have no idea why Trump does that, detracting from his own victory and making himself look like a nut case.  I mean, he's not running against Cruz, he's running against Hillary.  Focus, focus, focus.  Trump can easily defeat himself, and often seems to be working at it, as if it's a sacred goal.  We assign his children to keep him on message and out of trouble.  Or...maybe he really is a nut case.  We'll soon find out.

BOUNCE – FROM THE HILL:   Donald Trump is within 3 percentage points of Hillary Clinton nationally, according to a new poll released Friday, showing a bounce from the Republican National Convention.  Clinton has 41 percent support among likely voters, and Trump has 38 percent, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found.  The former secretary of State was leading by 12 points in last week’s Reuters poll, released days before the GOP convention began in Cleveland on Monday.  Friday’s poll surveyed 1,036 likely voters July 18–22, and the convention ran July 18–21. It has a credibility interval of about 4 points.  The new poll mirrors other recent surveys. According to RealClearPolitics, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leads by an average of 2.7 points in the latest polls.  We'll see if the Dems get a bounce out of their convention.  I'm not sure they will.  Hillary is an old face who has little upside potential.  Kaine is dull.  And there'll be enough flashes of the party's hard left to turn many people off.  But the media will help whenever possible.

July 22, 2016       Permalink

FOX AILING – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:   Roger Ailes, who built Fox News into a journalistic powerhouse, is out.  From AP:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Fox News Channel is minus founding leader Roger Ailes but not its direction, Rupert Murdoch vowed.

"I am personally committed to ensuring that Fox News remains a distinctive, powerful voice. Our nation needs a robust Fox News to resonate from every corner of the country," Murdoch said in a statement Thursday after Ailes, 76, resigned under pressure as chief executive while fighting a workplace misconduct suit.

The vacuum left by his departure after two decades will be filled for now by Murdoch, 85, the executive chairman of network parent 21st Century Fox. He will run Fox News and its sister Fox Business Network, which Ailes had also led, until a successor is found.

Former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit alleges she was forced out by Ailes after she spurned his sexual advances. Ailes has denied the claims and did not comment on his resignation.

But Carlson's attorneys did.

"We hope that all businesses now understand that women will no longer tolerate sexual harassment and reputable companies will no longer shield those who abuse women," lawyers Nancy Erika Smith and Martin Hyman said in a statement.

Within two weeks of the court filing, Carlson's lawyers also said more than 20 women had contacted the firm with stories of alleged harassment by Ailes either against themselves or someone they knew.

Murdoch and 21st Century Fox did not address the widening scandal in the statement but lauded Ailes for his contributions. Details were not given on the settlement agreement for a contract that was supposed to run through 2018, but Ailes is expected to get a payment of at least $40 million.

Ailes will have no formal role in the company, but is expected to serve as an informal adviser to Murdoch, said a person familiar with the agreement who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is a personnel matter. The deal is also said to have a standard no-compete clause.

COMMENT:  The most significant thing here is that Rupert Murdoch is personally taking over leadership of Fox News.  That tells me he is committed to the vision that he and Roger Ailes had, a network that is an alternative to the mainstream media.  That is the key to Fox's success.

There'll be a great deal of attention to whether Fox's top personalities stay with Fox.  Most are very devoted to Ailes, but Murdoch's presence may convince them to stay.

This story will develop over a period of months.

July 22, 2016       Permalink

THE SPEECH – AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  It's too early for major polling on Donald Trump's acceptance speech, although early reports show a generally favorable reaction from the public and a decidedly unfavorable reaction (shock, shock) from the mainstream media.  One traditional Democrat, although a moderate, has an interesting warning for his fellow Dems.  From Doug Schoen at Fox: 

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats should be worried.

Why? Because Donald Trump delivered Thursday night and did what he needed to do. No, he didn’t deliver a speech with great oratorical flourish. No, he didn’t broaden the base of the party significantly though he did speak about minorities and the LGBTQ community in ways that he hadn’t done before.

What Trump did, and he did it very well, was to raise the stakes of the election and define it in his own terms. Law and order, crime in the streets, and terror. He managed to make the argument, compellingly, that these challenges were the central ones America faced and that given the failures of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his way of change was the only way to go.

It was a long speech, it ran well over an hour and it was repetitive in parts. But that doesn’t matter. Trump was ultimately speaking to a fairly discrete and arguably specific constituency of Americans. Concentrated, though not exclusively, in the swing states of the industrial Midwest.

Trump’s remarks were directed at the 70-odd percent of Americans who feel the country is on the wrong track and his remarks were designed to amplify those feelings and offer – in general terms – a different way forward.

I don’t believe that the pundits necessarily will give this speech high marks and in my own terms, Trump did not do anything that he has not done before on the campaign trail. But what he did do is present a vision of America, a path forward, and a vision of leadership that is very, very different than what the country has had for the last eight years.

COMMENT:  As I noted last night, I don't think it was a great speech, and the delivery was uncertain at best.  But I believe Schoen's analysis – he's a very good commentator – is fundamentally correct, and we may be seeing that in the initial public response to Trump.

The Dems meet next week, and I have a gut feeling, no evidence required, that they may mess it up because they won't be able to control their leftist instincts.  After they go home, we'll start the serious polling.

July 22, 2016       Permalink

RAISING KAINE? – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  It's only informed speculation, but signals point to Hillary Clinton choosing Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate.  It would be a sound, common-sense choice, but the unstable left is balking.  From The New York Times:

Democrats close to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign signaled strongly Thursday that she would choose Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, rounding out the ticket with a popular politician from a battleground state.

Both former President Bill Clinton and the White House have expressed their support for Mr. Kaine, but aides cautioned that Mrs. Clinton had not yet made a final decision and that other candidates were still under consideration.

Mrs. Clinton is widely expected to announce her choice in an email to supporters while on a campaign swing in Florida on Friday afternoon, an attempt to regain momentum the day after her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, accepted his party’s nomination in Cleveland. With Mr. Kaine emerging as a clear favorite, one group already expressed disappointment at the prospect of the former governor of Virginia joining the ticket: liberals.

Many of the groups that backed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in his Democratic contest against Mrs. Clinton had hoped she would extend an olive branch to the liberal wing of the party and choose a vice-presidential candidate whose stances on Wall Street and global trade deals closely aligned with those of Mr. Sanders.

COMMENT:  Of course, the choice could turn out to be someone else.  But Clinton knows that the base of the Democratic Party isn't enough to win an election, and reports say that she wants to firm up her national security credentials.  Kaine would be a sound choice. 

I also think the Clintons, who are hardly favorites at this site, would love to give the left a good stick in the eye.

The announcement may come as early as today.

July 22,  2016     Permalink

JULY 21,  2016

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION – FINAL NIGHT

Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination in a speech lasting more than an hour, applause included.

It was widely recognized before the speech that this was a critical moment.  Trump, who has very high negatives, had to sell himself to the American people as a president, not simply a candidate for the nomination.

Did he succeed?

Partly.  Only partly.  On paper the speech was pretty well written, covering all the basic points that Trump has been making.  But it was dark, lacking in any soaring quality, much less Reagan's "shining city on a hill" than "it's 11 p.m. and things are falling apart."  Yes, it was serviceable, and informative in parts.  And I disagree with critics who said that Trump was fear mongering.  It's not fear mongering when there are so many things out there that reasonable people should seriously fear.

But a speech is called a speech because it's designed to be spoken.  And that's where the serious problem came in.  Trump is a poor speechmaker.  No doubt about it.  He has an abrasive, almost intimidating manner.  He shouts.  He's angry.  He seemed as if he was constantly out of breath.  He speaks in a kind of monotone, wherein his description of crushing ISIS had the same tempo and character as his telling us that he loves his family.  He's hard to listen to for more than a short period.

So, overall I'd give the event a B-minus.  I do wish that Trump had gotten the proper kind of voice training.   It would have made all the difference. 

In truth, a few quick polls after the speech showed that it was generally well received, and will do Trump some good.  I'm surprised, but it's an unusual election year.

More on this tomorrow.  We'll probably have more polls.

July 21,  2016     Permalink

NICE GOING, PAL – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  The Iranian foreign minister is openly mocking a weak United States.  There isn't even a hint of subtlety about it.  From the AP:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday scorned US global influence as impotent, boasting that Iran got its way in a landmark nuclear deal and that the “US cannot do a damn thing” to intervene in its affairs.

“The US which, by relying on its hegemonic power, demanded that Iran shouldn’t have even one centrifuge and imposed different types of sanctions against the country, was faced with 20,000 centrifuges,” Zarif said, referring to uranium enriching machinery, which was a key negotiating point in talks leading to the deal signed last year with world powers.

“The US that once said Arak’s heavy water reactor should be destroyed, has not only accepted the heavy water reactor but also purchases heavy water from Iran today and contributes a role in efforts to redesign it,” he added during a meeting with university and school students in Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

America, he asserted, is powerless to influence Iran.

“Despite spending billions (of dollars) in countries like Afghanistan, the Americans have not been able yet to understand this reality that the era of pressure and imposition of their will has ended; our people have imposed this reality on the Americans,” he said. “As the late Imam (Khomeini) said, the US cannot do a damn thing and we can thwart any plot against the country by relying on our people’s power.”

Zarif also claimed that divine intervention had preserved Iran’s stability in a volatile Middle East: “It is because we have understood the basics of power and the most powerful power in the world is God.”

Zarif’s bragging came after he earlier defended a provision of the nuclear deal that allows Tehran to begin ramping up its nuclear program after 10 years.

The foreign minister said the secret document, submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency and outlining plans to expand Iran’s uranium enrichment program, was a “matter of pride.”

COMMENT:  Zarif is a shrewd, tough operator.  He easily got the best of us by sensing that he was dealing with a weak American president and secretary of state.

An American child born today will, on his or her tenth birthday, face Iranian nuclear weapons mounted on missiles that can reach the United States.

Thank you, President Obama.

July 21, 2016       Permalink

MAJOR PROBLEM FOR TRUMP – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:   The Republican National Convention is being held in Cleveland, Ohio.  But we've all noticed the absence of the governor Ohio, John Kasich, who competed against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.  The governor of the state always greets the convention of his party.  I've not seen what is happening this week happen before.  Byron York notes that it can have sever consequences for Donald Trump in November.  From the Washington Examiner:   

CLEVELAND — Walk around the Republican convention and talk to Ohioans, to Republicans from around the country, and to party strategists about the feud between Donald Trump and John Kasich, and here's the short version of what you'll hear: Kasich is being a jerk, but Trump is crazy to fight with him.

The Trump-Kasich spat is more than a sideshow. It's at the very heart of the presidential campaign. Of the various ways, none of them easy, for Trump to win the White House, the most direct is: Win all the states Mitt Romney won in 2012, and then, on top of that, win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Any other path starts to get really complicated. So a Republican who loses Ohio loses the presidency.

This fall, and especially in October, the GOP presidential candidate will need a huge assist from the Republican power structure in Ohio. He simply has to have it. And at the moment it looks very much like that won't happen.

"The governor has said that the nominee has to have a positive, inclusive vision, and unless there is a Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion, he is not going to support [Trump]," Kasich spokesman Chris Schrimpf told me in a phone conversation Tuesday. "Whatever happens in Ohio for Donald Trump is a choice that Donald Trump will make, based on how he chooses to campaign."

The feud started as bad blood during the primary campaign. It continued after Kasich dropped out and refused to support Trump. And now, Kasich has made history by boycotting his own party's convention in his own state. Finally, on Monday, came the shots from Team Trump.

"He's embarrassing his party in Ohio," Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort said of Kasich during at a breakfast meeting, reported by the New York Times. "Negotiations broke down because John Weaver thinks that John Kasich will have a better chance to be president by not supporting Donald Trump."

COMMENT:  I suspect that's true, but read the rest of  York's well-reported story.  I'm sure Kasich has legitimate grievances against Trump – just about every opponent does – and some of Trump's foul behavior is now coming back to haunt him.  But I still think Kasich should have greeted the convention.  He is looking small.

July 21, 2016        Permalink

THE WARNING – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  An Al Qaeda group has issued a warning targeted at the Olympics, which start in less than three weeks in Rio.  From the Daily Mail:

Jihadi groups linked to terror network al Qaeda are urging their followers to carry out 'lone wolf attacks at the Olympics in Rio targeting American, British and French athletes.

The 2016 Games are set to begin in just over two weeks in Brazil where security is set to be tight throughout the event.

It comes after it was revealed last week that a Brazilian group has become the first organisation in South America to pledge allegiance to ISIS.

However, now it has emerged that al Qaeda fanatics are issuing a number of directives on social media urging attacks against athletes.

In material obtained by The Foreign Desk, the jihadis are told: 'One small knife attack against Americans/Israelis in these places will have bigger media effect than any other attacks anywhere else in sha Allah.

'Your chance to take part in the global Jihad is here! Your chance to be a martyr is here!'

They are also told that it is easy to obtain a visa to travel to Brazil and that guns are widely available in the slums of Rio.

Among the ideas for attacks, they include poisoning food, using small drones with explosives and kidnapping athletes.

They also suggest pouring oil on to roads in a bid to cause road accidents.

COMMENT:  We recall the 1972 Olympics in Munich, when Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. 

I would take these threats very seriously.

July 21,  2016     Permalink