Time to work down the ballot

Trump with his latest move has made his final mistake. He has alienated people of every minority over the last year, Hispanics, Muslims, African Americans, and with his latest train of disgusting degrading remarks he is now losing the support of the Republican Party, with some calling for him to withdraw from the race.

What is striking about this is how none of these types of comments are new for Trump to say on cable news. What is different this time is how he is not targeting a racial group but all women in the world. The modern Republican Party endorsed Trump through all of his racist comments and openness to his bigotry over the last year. They have shown they do not care about Black Lives, Muslims, Hispanics, Native Americans, or anyone who is not white to be honest. Their unwillingness to stand for all Americans and support of a blatantly racist candidate makes them the most despicable party in this country over the last 150 years.

Trump is going to lose. He is a racist rapist who doesn't deserve any time on the news. Only the Democratic Party has shown that it is willing to at the bare minimum to oppose people like Donald Trump and vote for things like the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Granted, the Democratic Party has a lot of room to improve and need to be better about passing legislation with their important pieces intact, in cases including the Affordable Care Act, and voting against legislation which is opposed to American principles, including the PATRIOT ACT. But these are small issues compared to the amount that Donald Trump has already destroyed our civil discourse and wants to move our country backwards. The Republican Party supports him so I must assume this means they support his policies as well.

We need to vote down the ballot and kick out as many Republicans as possible. We need to elect strong progressives in local, state, and Federal offices this year if we are to move our country forward. The President gets all of the headlines, but Congress as a body is just as powerful as she is. Most Presidents in history are former Senators or Governors (Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, and Roosevelt all were either a Senator or Governor before becoming President) meaning the 46th President is already in office somewhere. Senators and Governors usually are State Legislators when they are elected to Federal Office for the first time, and those individuals grow their campaigns originally through being leaders in their local communities years before they run for office.

The President who will be elected in 2028 is currently in their 30s right now somewhere in the country. This individual is possibly running for a state legislature seat right now in some state in this country. This individual is starting their political career which will catapult them to the Presidency this year only if people get out to vote. Elections down the ballot matter because a future President is running for a legislative seat this year and the only way they are going to lead the United States as President is if they get elected in a month. Do you want that individual to be a progressive fighting for the Bill of Rights and opportunity, or yet another corporate tool who believes that unlimited money in elections is a good thing and that internet surveillance works? (hint: Generals in the military say it doesn't) The only way we are going to be able to secure our future is if we vote for our local races this year all the way down to that boring county commissioner position, which is actually a very important role for determining land use and many other services we rely on everyday. Great leaders in American history start at the bottom, as community organizers gathering petition signatures as they move up the food chain. We get the leaders we deserve by who we elect into those positions.

Please fill out your ballot. Your county needs you.

Clinton 100 days

Hillary Clinton's 100 day jobs plan is mediocre at best. It focuses on building infrastructure, increasing science investments, green collar jobs, reducing regulation, and increasing US manufacturing.

As an economist I obviously agree with the first two planks. Investment is an essential part of GDP, and you cannot have economic growth without it. Both infrastructure and science are necessary for the future of America. Being able to do more with fewer people with an aging population is where our economy is moving in order to maintain our quality of life and increase access to a good lifestyle.

As an environmentalist I agree completely with green collar jobs, which is where we need to go.

She isn't specific about what regulations she wants to reduce, so this plank could be either good or bad. I personally hope she will cut the barriers to starting a business and increase the penalties for fraud which is where I believe we need to go. New college grads in finance should not be paying the regulatory cost of the Great Recession while Jamie Dimon gets yet another million dollar bonus. I have written about financial regulation before, particularly when it comes to advising. Having more places to do business will keep up competition and force them to be honest.

The final plank, increasing US manufacturing I disagree with. Manufacturing jobs pay far less than high skilled science and technology jobs, because they produce less product. We need to move towards increasing access to college and make it so more people get the math skills they need to succeed in college and get good jobs. We need to encourage the employment of new college grads because it is criminal that so much talent is going to waste. We should have programs for job placement for young people so that we can start our careers as soon as we leave college and give tax breaks towards hiring young professionals in real jobs, and outlaw unpaid work. This would do far more in terms of improving the American economy and spurring GDP growth than encouraging the creation of low pay jobs. The average machinist salary  (the jobs Clinton's plan would create) have an average wage of around $40,000 per year, which is not enough to support a family. Economists, scientists, and programmers make an average of $80,000 per year with a wider standard deviation, and many make 6 figure salaries.

The Mankiw-Romer-Wile model of economic growth is functional and makes it clear that if you want to grow your economy you don't just need technology to grow an economy, you also need an educated population. I can give a ten year old a complex data analysis program, but they won't know how to use it. I can have someone who can solve the mysteries of quantum physics but without a place to run experiments they won't be able to get hard data. We need to have both, and running backwards to a secondary economy is going to reduce our GDP and quality of living.

The fact that education is missing from her economic plan shows she is listening to bad advisors and doesn't understand much about economics. I still wish Elizabeth Warren was in her place.

The General Election has begun

So, the Sanders revolution has ended. Clinton has won the nomination, and I am now seeing countless Sanders supporters I know claiming they will "never vote for Clinton" "Vote for Stein" and other rubbish.

For me, I originally wanted a Warren/Feingold dream team ticket. I wrote about this dream way back in 2013. I still wish Warren had run and know that if she had that she would have won the Presidency in a landslide by gathering all of Sanders supporters and a large number of Clinton supporters. However, this did not happen obviously so we have to stick to what is available at the moment.

When it comes to criminal records, Clinton has never been indicted once in her life. Even the Senate committee on Benghazi which is composed of Republicans whose entire purpose is to discredit Clinton and send her to jail to give Republicans the nomination to Donald Trump is unable to get any dirt on Clinton to the point where she can be indicted. When it comes to criminality, no one has ever been able to prove that she has ever committed a crime.

When it comes to policy, Clinton comes out to be about the same as Obama. The political compass for 2008 puts her as slightly more capitalist than Obama and the same level for social issues. In 2016 she has moved more right in both directions than she was in 2008, and Sanders is about the same point when it comes to social policy as she was in 2008. Clinton will probably drift slightly further to the right in the general election because of the median voter theorem, but as president I do not expect any significant social policy changes under her. Economically, she is going to probably whittle away our financial regulation but besides that I do not expect any other major reforms. Trump, on the other hand has talked about significantly eliminating a lot of civil rights laws and incredible discrimination against Muslims and Hispanics. This is what the election comes down to. Economically we are screwed either way, but with Trump there is little doubt we are going to quickly move towards a fascist state, and given the Democrats willingness to vote for the PATRIOT ACT without thinking in 2001 I don't think there will be anyone to stop Trump from truly destroying the United States. This will not happen under a Clinton presidency. She is definitely a hack for corrupt bankers, but she is no fascist. For this reason I prefer Clinton over Trump and will not waste my vote voting for Jill Stein until the minor parties start to run candidates and get elected in local offices.

Clinton is far to the right of President Lyndon Johnson, but she is no Hitler. Trump on the other hand talking about banning Muslims from the US, and policies against Hispanics is racist to the core. I do see Trump as a Fascist in his economic views, social views, and foreign policy and so out of respect to the millions who have died and lived under Fascist governments (including some of my favorite relatives) I will call him what he is. My family lived under Nazi Germany and I have studied the Third Reich as a way to understand my history and understand how to avoid Fascism at all costs. (if you want to understand the Third Reich, read Hannah Arendt) There is no overarching moral issue where I see a divergence between Trump and Hitler (find "Jew", replace "Muslim") so out of respect for those we have lost I call Trump a Fascist. I will write a longer comparative post later.

Also, the majority of African Americans voted for Clinton even after all of the welfare reforms done under the first Clinton Presidency. They know what is best for them ultimately and if they feel that they will be better off under a Clinton Presidency it doesn't matter how long you or I have been involved in organizations fighting racism, it is inappropriate to deny the voices of millions of people.

Please do not waste your vote and vote for Clinton this November. If you want to get real change going, you need to get involved in your local politics, demand ranked voting, and help our country get a better election system.

Warren wants to be VP

Elizabeth Warren recently said she would be willing to be Hillary Clinton's Vice President.

I fully plan on voting for Clinton because I don't want to see a Donald Trump Presidency. Though Warren as VP makes absolutely no sense to me, John Nance Garner was Vice President under President Franklin Roosevelt, and I bet no one reading this post knows who John Nance Garner was. (unless they are over 90 years old) This is because the Vice Presidency is a very boring position. Most Americans don't know who even President Lincoln's Vice President was, and given how much we hear from George HW Bush's Vice President (whose name I forget, even though I was technically alive at the very end of his term) further demonstrates how absolutely useless this position is most of the time.



Granted, sometimes you have a President who is notable, like Dick Cheney who was frequently talked about, Former President-elect Al Gore who had the election stolen from him, or the war criminal George HW Bush who betrayed our country in his dealings with Iran as part of the Reagan administration, but if the Vice President under the half of FDR's term where he did the New Deal is not a common household name, than I see no reason for us to put someone as talented as Elizabeth Warren in a position which significantly reduces her power and authority. She is already one of the most recognized figures in the country, the most respected politician in the country, and is frequently featured on late night talk shows and on the news. There is absolutely no advantage to her being Vice President and I hope that she will rethink this decision before giving up her seat on the Finance Committee, which is a far more powerful position ultimately.

I love Warren, she is my favorite American politician of today, I wish she was in Clinton's place right now, and I want her to do everything she can to do the right thing in preventing fraud which she is so remarkably good at. This is the reason why I do not want her to be Vice President because we need her to be in the most powerful positions possible to fight for US.

2016 election, late February 2016

It is the end of February and the current status is that Hillary Clinton is picking up most members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is currently leading the Presidential election by far. She is likely to beat Donald Trump in the general election under almost any probable outcome.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

So the big question now is that who will be Clinton's running mate? My personal favorite would be Bernie Sanders actually. It would help win over a lot of current Bernie Sanders supporters, and if he accepted the nomination would all but guarantee a victory. The biggest advantage to this is that campaigning together Sanders could rile up his crowds, all but guaranteeing them supporting the ticket, and Clinton will fulfill the lifelong dream of many feminists of having a woman as president (as I have seen far too often on-line). Sanders will help Clinton from drifting too far right on many social issues as her Vice President, and Clinton will hopefully help make sure their economic policies have a chance that people will vote for them. This is the best possible ticket at this point in time, it will keep the Executive Office from drifting too far right (like happened with Clinton's husband) and make sure the policies have a chance of actually passing Congress with Sanders as VP. While I wish for a more inspiring team overall, as I wrote about several months ago, and it is by no means a dream ticket, I think this is the best possible ticket at this point in time. I see it as a choice between someone who is hyper idealistic who doesn't consult advisors and doesn't propose anything with a chance in hell of passing, and someone who is too quick to run to center trying to appeal to as many people as possible. As a team together hopefully they will balance each other out like the Earth and Moon.

I will not be voting in the primary this year, but I will be voting for the Democratic Nominee in the General Election no matter who wins.

2016 Presidential election Prediction

The presidential election is starting in one month on February 1st in Iowa for both major parties, and my predictions are as follows:

Hillary Clinton will sweep Iowa given her more moderate positions, and New Hampshire is a tossup between Sanders and Clinton. If Clinton succeeds in winning New Hampshire, then given her lead in the hidden primary for super delegates and amount of money raised already then she will sweep the nomination quickly. If Sanders wins in New Hampshire he will have an uphill battle to fight in most other states outside of New England, and Clinton will still probably get the nomination. Even if Sanders pulls off a miracle and gets more votes than Clinton by a small margin he still will lose the super delegate vote and she will get the nomination. It is unusually easy to predict this year's election.

The Republican field is more challenging to predict, Marco Rubio is currently leading the betting pool odds out of all Republicans, which tends to be the most accurate way to predict the winner of the primary. The biggest issue right now is the vast number of candidates and no ranked voting to tell what people's true preferences are after candidates drop out. I expect we will see most candidates drop out fairly quickly and then we will see Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Carson left in the race. Bush and Christie supporters are closely aligned and they will fall behind Marco Rubio since he has more experience and is slightly more moderate than Ted Cruz, giving the Republicans a bigger advantage in the general election. Rubio will play into Republican fears of drugs which is one of the few wedge issues between the two, and his support of Social Security is going to win him a lot of older conservative votes in a match between the two. He is also better than Bush for most Republicans because he opposes a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants which will appease older white conservatives again. Donald Trump vs. Marco Rubio is going to be the major factor in the later primaries, and as less ideological Republicans come into the play Donald Trump is not going to see much more support than he already has given how he is more extreme than the other Republican Candidates.

When it comes to the General Election it will be Marco Rubio vs. Hillary Clinton. The states which are most contested are still North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. The states which lean more towards Clinton are Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Nevada. (in order) The only other state which could start to swing is Texas given its growing Hispanic population, Texas could start to be a swing state if the Democrats turn out the vote in Hispanic communities, but this all depends on strategy. It will be a full swing state in 2020. I do not think running Marco Rubio is going to succeed in pulling in many Hispanic voters because of his policy positions.

For Vice Presidential candidates, Clinton has a lot of options, Sanders is a possibility depending on how he talks about her in the election, Russ Feingold would be a wonderful choice, Julian or Raul Castro are amazing people and would help turn out Hispanic voters (particularly in Texas), among other picks.

Among Republicans, Rubio could pick Cruz given their ideological similarities, Jeb Bush for his connections,

The Democrats start with 237 electoral college votes not including swing states, and Republicans start with 191 (not including the 9 states which are swing states). Nevada and Colorado are seeing a growing Hispanic population and they will vote Democratic bringing the Democrats up to 252 votes. Florida continues to see an increase in its Hispanic population and this makes it lean slightly more in favor of Democrats which will determine the election. Even if Florida goes to Marco Rubio, Virginia is almost certainly going to go for Democrats again given the growing size of the DC Metro area will continue to push Virginia further to the left. This will give Hillary Clinton the Presidency and she will be our 45th President. Using 538s tool, it seems almost impossible for Democrats to lose as well.

President Dayton

I have seen a lot about Governor Dayton of Minnesota recently, and seeing his record, he looks like a very viable candidate for President in the next election.

Right now, along with Governor Dayton, the potential candidates I find attractive or notable are:

• Hillary Clinton - She has a better record than her husband, but is not as good a choice as other people I have been following
• Bernie Sanders - not reliable and not honest as I have previously described.
• Elizabeth Warren - not running, she remains my first choice
• Martin O'Malley - Has a great record as governor of Maryland
• Jim Webb - He has a strong progressive record in Congress.
• Sheldon Whitehouse - Senator from Rhode Island, very progressive and honest, and would be a fantastic President
• Jay Inslee - My governor is doing a fantastic job here in Washington state and has experience in Congress where he was progressive. I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
• Brian Schweitzer - The last governor of Montana is a strong progressive and would be a fine president.
• Steve Bullock - The current governor is also extremely well qualified like his predecessor.

The Huffington Post wrote an article about Governor Dayton, and it is a very fair analysis.

The other thing Clinton needs to do

Hillary Clinton has this very annoying habit of writing her opponent's campaign ads. Last week she said she was not truly well-off. This is absolute baloney, since she and her husband are worth $80 million, and were worth over $1 million the day they left the White House. If she wants to have any political future she needs to stop doing this. Her 2008 campaign was filled with times where she would misspeak and say things that are blatantly not true, and she lost the primaries at the end of the primary season which gave Obama the presidency. A great deal of this was due to her being tactless in her speeches. Mitt Romney is similar to Hillary Clinton because he also made a lot of his money on investments (as does every millionaire in the world with the exception of tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un) which turned voters off in the general election. In a country with growing income inequality this will kill her campaign by the attack ads from her opponent and whoever the Republicans nominate will become president. A Republican in the White House will be a huge problem because of their tax policy, opposition to education, warmongering, like Clinton an opposition to AMTRAK, among other issues. If Clinton is going to keep doing this type of stunt she should stay out of the race and let Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders run because they don't make these types of large mistakes. She will be eaten alive, and this would be bad for all of us.

She also needs to address how she and her husband make millions of dollars on speaking arrangements. Fortunately for the Clinton campaign, she can talk about her voting record in the Senate which was quite progressive on economic issues, and explain that if someone is offered a million dollars they will take it. If she is tactful about how she says this she will be able to convince liberal voters who listen that she is far more progressive than her husband on these issues. Fortunately for Republicans based on history this is extremely unlikely to happen since she is not a great speaker and frequently says things that are wrong. She needs a coach for making speeches (or a better coach if she doesn't have one) who she can practice with so that she doesn't keep making these mistakes that kept the presidency from her in 2008.

If Clinton wants the vote of the left

I've been extremely skeptical of Hillary Clinton. I've been worried because her husband and her have a lot in common and this makes many people like myself wary of them. Bill Clinton had a weak presidency, and Clinton had an average Senate Career. I personally would like better for my president, and I am not alone. The day Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy will definitely be the day I sign up to work on her campaign, and I still support her more. Currently, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the nominee of the Democrats in 2016. She is going to need to do a major rebranding of her political career, and here are the issues and policy statements she needs to change and make clear in the next few years:

1. She needs to propose a major overhaul of the NSA. So far she has done nothing on this issue and it is the one she needs to come clean on soon. If she does she will have a chance in the election, if not it will be very close and she will probably lose a lot of voters. She needs to speak out against the PATRIOT ACT and propose a real constitutional solution. She did vote against wiretapping after the PATRIOT ACT came out in 2005.
2. She is an enemy of AMTRAK and needs to reverse this position.
3. Her education policy needs massive work and she needs a clear policy that the NEA will endorse. She is close, but this could use some massive work and clear policy objectives.

There are some issues she has corrected over time:

1. She has done a complete reversal of her gay rights policies. They are now in line with basic civil rights.
2. She has come clean on Iraq as of this month. It took her 12 years.

There are also issues she has been good on and will help her campaign considerably:

1. She has been progressive on taxes in the Senate
2. Her record on Social Security is stellar.
3. Abortion record is stellar.
4. Women's rights record is stellar.
5. Her environmental record is stellar.
6. She supports Ukraine and Georgia.
7. Her trade policy was more progressive than her husband as a Senator and in line with modern progressives.
8. Support for voting legislation is clean.
9. Supports background checks for guns.
10. She has supported public health care since she was in college.
11. She supports the minimum wage being enough to live on.
12. She supports GMOs.

Important voting records that are good are for progressive taxation, abortion, women's rights. Her civil rights score from the ACLU (excluding women's rights) is 60%, which is truly abysmal for a Democrat.

My main criticisms of Clinton thus far have been the 4 policies (which are extremely important). I have not criticized her for Benghazi because I realize that was a freak terrorist attack, and the resources were lacking from where they should have been due to a bill signed by George W. Bush. 

I've been extremely wary and have been hoping to have a different choice, but doing some deeper analysis at her policies leaves her with only 3 weak spots, which is pretty good for any candidate, and I think she can fix her positions on them during the campaign. Elizabeth Warren supports her, so that is another reason for me to trust her more. She does have some strengths over a few of her husband's weaknesses (she was more critical of free trade and supported fair trade over free trade as we see with CAFTA, as well as being significantly more liberal on her tax policy as Senator) which makes me have to change my mind on her. I underestimated her on economic policy, and since I was basing her views off of Bill's and now that I have (finally) done the necessary research I could campaign for her if she does a great job at designing her platform and hopefully could help design a platform that will reach out to young swing voters and target Republicans where it hurts.

So, I will support her candidacy over other candidates after doing more thorough research and separating her from Bill Clinton given that her Senate Career had some major improvements to her husband's career.

Hopefully she keeps moving forward as President on issues and will be more of a firebrand than Obama or her husband. Elizabeth Warren (who is the most admired politician in America) believes in her and she certainly has momentum. Hopefully when she becomes President she will be able to keep the momentum up and make some much needed change by working with Americans and politicians who work for us.

Information on Former Secretary Clinton:
http://www.ontheissues.org/hillary_clinton.htm

Good quizzes at the moment:
http://www.gotoquiz.com/results/2016_presidential_candidate_quiz
http://www.selectsmart.com/PRO/president16.php