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by Michael Froomkin
Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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Category Archives: 2016 Election
Stocks Love Democrats
Posted in 2016 Election, Econ & Money
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The Case for Despair
Juan Cole lays it out. I’d say the case against HRC is first, foreign policy, second reliance on corporatist economic advisers. (And I’m tired of hearing about her damn emails.)
The second problem may be ameliorated by a need to avoid angering the Warren wing of the party. The first problem–hawkishness, adherence to the Villager consensus on use of force–isn’t going away, and probably can’t go away for a first female President lest she seem ‘weak’ to the foolish but dangerous. It was on full display on the agonizing and unwatchable NBC ‘Candidates Forum’ last night. Thank goodness for the fast forward button on my DVR.
Yes, Trump was very very very much worse. So?
Update: Bonus gloom–The Intercept, Hillary Clinton’s National Security Advisers Are a “Who’s Who” of the Warfare State.
Posted in 2016 Election, Politics: International
7 Comments
Trump As a Lover
“I Love War” Video by Priorities USA Action
Bonus video, Danger:
Posted in Trumpalooza
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Sign of the Times
Spotted this truck outside the local grocery store.
Note that the feds are doing next to nothing around here because Republicans in Congress blocked the money — they demanded defunding a women’s health program (Planned Parenthood) in exchange for saving babies.
Yes, this election is literally a motherhood issue.
Posted in 2016 Election, Zika
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Early Returns from South Florida (Multiple 11pm Updates)
Most, but not all, of the returns are in for the Florida primaries and non-partisan elections, and there are some surprises:
(UPDATE) Incumbent Debbie Wasserman-Schultz beat Tim Canova by 14%: she got 28,250 votes and Tim Canova got a very respectable 21,476 votes.
Daisey Baz (D-114) romped in her primary for state rep, but Ross Hancock (D-115) cratered, which is a shame. Scott Fuhrman easily won the right to run into the Ileana Ros-Lehtinen buzzsaw.
(UPDATE) Marco Rubio won big in the Republican primary, and will face Republican Democrat Patrick Murphy. Pretty final tally is Murphy 59%, Grayson 18%, Keith 15%, Roque De La Fuente 5%, Reginald Luster 3%. It will be hard to vote for Murphy. Rubio makes it conceivable, though.
(UPDATE) One of the most exciting local races is the non-partisan Mayor’s race, where at 11pm with 760 of 783 precincts reporting, Mayor Gimenez has only 47.64% of the vote – not enough to avoid a runoff against Raquel Regalado (32.01%). That’s a surprisingly poor showing for him given his enormous financial edge.
And in FL-26, with all but 8 of the 197 precincts in, Joe Garcia is just edging Annette Taddeo by under 4% of the vote. It’s only an 800 vote gap which is a weak showing for Joe who nonetheless seems likely to be the one to go on to face the vulnerable one-term Republican incumbent. I hated this race as I like both candidates as people; on the issues Taddeo seemed a little better. On electability, I just don’t know; Joe has slightly longer roots in the district, which could be a help.
Judges
The judicial races are often odd and this year is no exception. Judge Bloch is losing – has almost certainly lost – to Marcia Del Rey in Circuit Court Group 9. He had a bad campaign, and filed (and is now appealing!) what seemed to me an ill-advised lawsuit, but she shows no sign of being qualified. This is the worst outcome of this set of judicial races by far.
The four-person race in Group 34 is clearly headed for a runoff, and Mark Blumstein (28.73% with 723/783 precincts counted) looks sure to be one of the candidates. The other three candidates are all very close to each other. At this moment, Luis Perez-Midina is ahead by 2,000 or so votes over Renee Gordon in the race for second place, which would mean the runoff would be between the people who I thought were the two less-attractive candidates in a strong field. The votes here were all split nearly evenly: 28.73%, 24.57%, 23.58%, 23.11%. I wouldn’t be shocked if someone asked for recount before it’s all over.
(UPDATE 11pm) No major changes here. Blumstein 28.69%, Perez-Medina 24.53%, Renee Gordon 23.69% The gap between the last two is almost 2000 votes, and only 23 precincts left.
In Group 52, Rosy Aponte, the worst candidate, lost but took a quarter of the vote, forcing the two good candidates (Breece and Rodriquez-Fonts) into a runoff. Whoever wins in November, we already won this one.
Judge Luck won re-election in Group 66, as did Judge Sarduy in Group 74.
In the County Court races, Judge Newman seems likely to have won re-election in Group 7; he’s ahead by 8,000 votes – which is about 3% of the votes counted so far– with 60/783 precincts to go. Judge Graham romped in Group 35. Linda Luce won even bigger in Group 15.
(UPDATE 11pm) But Group 5 is the nail-biter: at 11pm Milena Abreu has 49.87% and Judge Seraphin only 50.13% and the gap between them is 525 votes, with 23 precincts to go.
(UPDATE) Forgot to say, Amendment 4 passed overwhelmingly, with 74.22% of the vote at this point. Of course now we have to fight the poison-pill of Amendment 1, which undermines solar power. And if they both pass they arguably contradict each other in part — will the second in time prevail?
(UPDATE) Looks like a runoff for School Board District 6, as Maria Teresa ‘Mari Tere’ Rojas wasn’t quite able to buy the election, only getting 48.07% of the vote so far. Although Modesto ‘Mo’ Abety is clearly second, he was very far behind with only 24.91% of the vote (87/90 precincts). But it’s a different electorate in November.
Meanwhile in the County Commissioner race for District 7, no surprise that Xavier Suarez took 72% of the vote.
(UPDATE 11pm) Only 23 precincts to go, and Judge Seraphin is ahead by 525 votes, a slight gain. But still close.
Bloch remains 9,000 votes behind Del Rey. Let’s hope the rumors are true and she is angling to be the next Judge Judy on TV.
Posted in 2016 Election, Miami
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Terrific Article on the State of US Class Politics
I Spent 5 Years With Some of Trump’s Biggest Fans. Here’s What They Won’t Tell You. Don’t be put off by the tabloid tone to the headline that Mother Jones slapped on this article, there’s a lot of smarts here.
This is a key insight:
What the people I interviewed were drawn to was …. [a] deep story … —an account of life as it feels to them. Some such account underlies all beliefs, right or left, I think. The deep story of the right goes like this:
You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs.
I checked this distillation with those I interviewed to see if this version of the deep story rang true. Some altered it a bit (“the line-waiters form a new line”) or emphasized a particular point (those in back are paying for the line-cutters). But all of them agreed it was their story. One man said, “I live your analogy.” Another said, “You read my mind.”
A related insight is this:
How wary should a little-bit-higher-up-the-ladder white person now feel about applying for the same benefits that the little-bit-lower-down-the-ladder people had? Shaming the “takers” below had been a precious mark of higher status. What if, as a vulnerable blue-collar white worker, one were now to become a “taker” oneself?
Trump, the King of Shame, has covertly come to the rescue. He has shamed virtually every line-cutting group in the Deep Story—women, people of color, the disabled, immigrants, refugees. But he’s hardly uttered a single bad word about unemployment insurance, food stamps, or Medicaid, or what the tea party calls “big government handouts,” for anyone—including blue-collar white men.
In this feint, Trump solves a white male problem of pride. Benefits? If you need them, okay. He masculinizes it. You can be “high energy” macho—and yet may need to apply for a government benefit. ….
But in another stroke, Trump adds a key proviso: restrict government help to real Americans. White men are counted in, but undocumented Mexicans and Muslims and Syrian refugees are out. Thus, Trump offers the blue-collar white men relief from a taker’s shame: If you make America great again, how can you not be proud?
It fits.
Posted in 2016 Election, 98%
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