Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, speaks at the Faith & Freedom summit on Friday June 10, 2016. (Photo: Facebook/Faith and Freedom Coalition)
Speaking at the Faith and Freedom summit Friday, Donald Trump ripped Hillary Clinton, calling her “as crooked as they come” and “unfit to be president.” He also slammed her for refusing to use the term “radical Islam” and handled multiple Code Pink hecklers before they were removed.
“Keeping people of faith safe from threats like radical Islam whether protecting them here, all of it needs to be confronted together, the threat of radical Islam. We have to do it,” Mr. Trump said to applause in Washington, D.C. “Now Hillary Clinton, or as I call her crooked Hillary Clinton, she’s crooked as they come. Refuses to say the words ‘radical islam.’ This alone makes her unfit to be president.”
As PPD just reported, recently obtained emails reveal Mrs. Clinton apparently appointed an unqualified major Clinton Foundation donor to the board of a sensitive national security advisory panel. It is the latest revelation that reenforces the appearance and belief that the Clintons use public service for personal financial and professional gain.
Trump was then interrupted and heckled several times by members of the radical group Code Pink protestors.
“A little freedom of speech please. Very rude, but what are you going to do? Thank you, darling, I appreciate it,” he said before they were escorted out. “Very, very sad. What’s happening in our country right now is very sad. It’s such a shame. And by the way these are professional agitators, folks. They come in. They’re sent here by the other party.”
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Foundation with money imposed over the photo. (Original Photo: AP)
Newly released emails reveal Rajiv Fernando, a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, was appointed to serve on a sensitive national security advisory board, despite having no qualifications.
The State Department’s International Security Advisory Board advises the country’s most prominent figures on American nuclear strategy and all of the members hold top secret security clearances. However, Mr. Fernando, a wealthy Chicago commodities broker/trader, has no known connections to the national security community and zero experience in the area.
“The true answer is simply that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him,” wrote Wade Boese, who was Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, in an email to Mannina, the press aide. “Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence.”
In August 2011, a State Department official who worked with the advisory board couldn’t come up with a justification for Mr. Fernando serving on the panel. Just four minutes later, Mr. Boese wrote to his supervisor Richard Hartman to alert him that Ellen Tauscher, then-Undersecretary for State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, would be meeting with Ms. Mills to come up with a response to ABC News.
“Sorry this has become a headache,” he wrote.
Ms. Mills, a former deputy White House counsel, was serving as Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, and is a longtime legal and political advisor to the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Mr. Hartman, the very next morning, wrote in an email he would “come up and brief you… about where Raj Fernando stands and the ABC News investigative journalist inquiries. You do need to hear about it.” He also reveals in an email to another official that it was “Cheryl Mills, who added Mr. Fernando’s name to the list of ISAB nominees.”
Meanwhile, speaking Tuesday night at Briarcliff Manor in Westchester, New York, Donald Trump ripped Mrs. Clinton for public corruption. The presumptive Republican nominee also announced he would give a major speech next week highlighting the Clinton’s track record of quid pro quo.
“We can’t solve our problems by counting on the politicians who created our problems,” Mr. Trump said. “The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves.”
Mr. Fernando, to this day, still raises money for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and has donated more than $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton campaign refused to respond to a request for comment.
[brid video=”41181″ player=”2077″ title=”Quid Pro Quo Clinton Foundation Donor Appointed to Sensitive Intelligence Board”]
Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan attend a bust unveiling ceremony for former Vice President Dick Cheney in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall, Dec. 3, 2015. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP)
But it’s somewhat understandable behavior because government in many cases makes dependency more attractive than self-sufficiency.
Here’s a chart showing the implicit marginal tax rates that apply if a poor household tries to climb out of poverty. The bottom line is that handouts are so generous that it’s very difficult for a poor person to be better off by working instead of mooching.
Some folks say the solution to this problem is to reduce the “phase-out” of benefits, but that’s a recipe for making the welfare state vastly more expensive and giving handouts to people who are not poor. That’s the approach in some European nations and it hasn’t worked.
Here’s another chart that basically makes the same point about the upside-down incentive structure created by redistribution programs. It shows that a poor household can enjoy a much higher standard of living with low earnings than with high earnings.
And this video is an excellent introduction to that topic.
But let’s focus on the GOP anti-poverty plan. They put together a powerful indictment of what we have now, but what are they proposing as a solution?
Here’s where we get good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a focus on work, as explained in a column for Forbes by Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute.
…the report declares that “Our welfare system should encourage work-capable welfare recipients to work or prepare for work in exchange for benefits, and states should be held accountable for helping welfare recipients find jobs and stay employed.” The blueprint points toward greater use of work requirements and time limits for food stamp recipients and beneficiaries of federal housing benefits who are able to work. …This emphasis on work generalizes the experience from the landmark 1996 welfare reform legislation, which increased work among single-parent families, reduced welfare receipt and (most importantly) lowered poverty.
So far so good, and Scott also notes that the key to work is reducing the appeal of being on the dole.
Most of the success of welfare reform in encouraging work can be attributed to the ways that it has made receipt of benefits less attractive relative to work. People largely left welfare or chose not to enroll independently of state work promotion efforts.
But here’s the problem. There’s no big attempt to reduce benefits in the GOP proposal.
Indeed, it doesn’t even turn programs over to the states, which presumably would lead to better policy since sub-national governments wouldn’t want to be overly generous lest they attract welfare migration.
But the dog that didn’t bark in the new agenda is the consolidation and block granting proposed in Speaker Ryan’s Budget Committee discussion draft from 2014. Rather, the blueprint appears to envision increased use of state waivers in the various programs… It is worth recalling that in the 2014 discussion draft, the “opportunity grants” that would have combined a dozen federal programs and funded them at a fixed level were proposed as a pilot program in a few states.
The antipoverty blueprint mentions the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)…only in passing. On the one hand, the report points out that an expanded EITC would be one way to reduce some of the high marginal tax rates that recipients of federal aid face when they contemplate working. On the other, the program’s high rate of improper payments is also emphasized, rightfully, as a problem that must be addressed.
Scott also points out that the Republican plan also foresees a much more aggressive attempt to measure what works and doesn’t work. Which is good, though hardly necessary since we already know that a one-size-fits-all approach from Washington is a recipe for ever-higher costs and ever-increasing dependency.
From the left, Jordan Weissman of Slate is predictably unimpressed.
As part of his effort to convince Americans that the Republican Party is [not] a band of nihilistic anti-government lunatics—House Speaker Paul Ryan unveiled…an anti-poverty plan. Which is a laugh riot. …Most of the agenda is a rehash of, or at least a variation on, material Ryan has trotted out before. Inspired by the welfare reforms of the 1990s, the speaker still wants to push more safety net beneficiaries to go to work, devolve more program control down to state and local officials, and yet somehow increase accountability and carefully monitor results… There’s also some talk about increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers—which is one of those nice, liberal-conservative consensus positions that never seems to go anywhere.
From the right, Kevin Williamson sympathizes with the GOP/Ryan approach, but also makes a more important point in his National Review column.
Paul Ryan has just introduced a welfare-reform proposal… We already knew what was going to be in it — work requirements and time limits for able-bodied adults — because there are only so many meaningful avenues of reform. We also know what the Left’s response is going to be: that this is cruel, callous, punitive, etc. But there are really only two choices: Get people moving toward economic self-sufficiency or sustain them forever in the soul-killing state of dependency. There isn’t a third option. Not really. This is only partly about money. We are a very, very rich society, and we can afford to provide decently for people who cannot care for themselves, including children and those who are physically or mentally disabled. But that isn’t our problem: Our problem isn’t people who are physically disabled but people who are morally disabled, people who wouldn’t take a bus 15 minutes to work at a gas station, much less walk 15 miles to do so.
My view, for what it’s worth, is that the only good welfare reform is one that shifts all programs to the states as part of a block grant. But since funding redistribution is not a function of the federal government, that block grant should then disappear over time.
Last but not least, we need to understand that economic growth is easily the most powerful and effective anti-poverty program. That’s why the poverty rate fell from 90 percent to 15 percent in America before we had a welfare state.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., left, and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, right. (Photo: AP/Associated Press)
WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton Friday morning just hours before they will sit down in Washington for a meeting. The two women, the former a favorite darling of the far left and the latter a Wall Street crony, have had a somewhat tenuous relationship.
However, the announcement and the meeting raise speculation that Mrs. Clinton is seriously considering putting Sen. Warren on her vice presidential short list. It’s also a gesture to supporters of rival Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, many of whom are likely to vote for Donald Trump over Mrs. Clinton without serious outreach. Many also wanted Sen. Warren to run for president and she could do much to bring them back into the fold.
Warren and Clinton have spoken from time to time throughout the campaign, and Warren also is close with Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Clinton’s campaign.
After refusing to endorse for months, Warren endorsed Clinton on Thursday evening, telling the Globe “I’m ready.”
After months of criticism for taking money and supporting the interests of Wall Street over the American worker, Sen. Warren now said that she sees Mrs. Clinton as a “fighter.”
The Survey of Consumers, a closely-watched gauge of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan, fell to 94.3 in June, down slightly from a reading of 94.7 in May. The median forecast anticipated a reading of 94.0 for the month.
“Consumers were a bit less optimistic in early June due to increased concerns about future economic prospects,” said Surveys of Consumers chief economist, Richard Curtin. The recent data magnified the growing gap between the most favorable assessments of Current Economic Conditions since July 2005, and renewed downward drift of the Expectations Index, which fell by a rather modest 8.6% from the January 2015 peak.”
Preliminary Consumer Sentiment Results for June 2016
Jun
May
Jun
M-M
Y-Y
2016
2016
2015
Change
Change
Index of Consumer Sentiment
94.3
94.7
96.1
-0.4%
-1.9%
Current Economic Conditions
111.7
109.9
108.9
+1.6%
+2.6%
Index of Consumer Expectations
83.2
84.9
87.8
-2.0%
-5.2%
Next data release: June 24, 2016 for Final June data at 10am ET
More from Curtain:
The strength recorded in early June was in personal finances, and the weaknesses were in expectations for continued growth in the national economy. Consumers rated their current financial situation at the best levels since the 2007 cyclical peak largely due to wage gains. Prospects for gains in inflation-adjusted incomes in the year ahead were also the most favorable since the 2007 peak, enabled by record low inflation expectations. On the negative side of the ledger, consumers do not think the economy is as strong as it was last year nor do they anticipate the economy will enjoy the same financial health in the year ahead as they anticipated a year ago. A sustained reduction in the pace of job creation could prompt consumers to hold down spending to increase their precautionary savings. Overall, the data still indicate that real consumer expenditures can be expected to rise by 2.5% in 2016 and 2.7% in 2017.
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 03: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump speaks to supporters and the media at Trump Tower in Manhattan following his victory in the Indiana primary on May 03, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.”
Donald Trump has internalized the maxim Benjamin Jowett gave to his students at Balliol who would soon be running the empire.
And in rejecting demands that he apologize for his remarks about the La Raza judge presiding over the class-action suit against Trump University, the Donald is instinctively correct.
Assume, as we must, that Trump believes what he said.
Why, then, should he apologize for speaking the truth, as he sees it?
To do so would be to submit to extortion, to recant, to confess to a sin he does not believe he committed. It would be to capitulate to pressure, to tell a lie to stop the beating, to grovel before the Inquisition of Political Correctness.
Trump is cheered today because he defies the commands of political correctness, and, to the astonishment of enemies and admirers alike, he gets away with it.
To the establishment, Trump is thus a far greater menace than Bernie Sanders, who simply wants to push his soak-the-rich party a little further in the direction of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
But Trump, with his defiant refusal to apologize for remarks about “rapists” among illegal immigrants from Mexico, and banning Muslims, is doing something far more significant.
He is hurling his “Non serviam!” in the face of the establishment. He is declaring: “I reject your moral authority. You have no right to sit in judgment of me. I will defy any moral sanction you impose, and get away with it. And my people will stand by me.”
Trump’s rebellion is not only against the Republican elite but against the establishment’s claim to define what is right and wrong, true and false, acceptable and unacceptable, in this republic.
Contrast Trump with Paul Ryan, who has buckled pathetically.
The speaker says Trump’s remark about Judge Gonzalo Curiel being hostile to him, probably because the judge is Mexican-American, is the “textbook definition of a racist comment.”
But Ryan’s remark raises fewer questions about Trump’s beliefs than it does about the depth of Ryan’s mind.
We have seen a former president of Mexico curse Trump. We have heard Mexican-American journalists and politicians savage him. We have watched Hispanic rioters burn the American flag and flaunt the Mexican flag outside Trump rallies.
We are told Trump “provoked” these folks, to such a degree they are not entirely to blame for their actions.
Yet the simple suggestion that a Mexican-American judge might also be affected is “the textbook definition of a racist comment”?
The most depressing aspect of this episode is to witness the Republican Party in full panic, trashing Trump to mollify the media who detest them.
To see how far the party has come, consider:
After he had locked up his nomination, Barry Goldwater rose on the floor of the Senate in June of 1964 and voted “No” on the Civil Rights Act. The senator believed that the federal government was usurping the power of the states. He could not countenance this, no matter how noble the cause.
Say what you will about him, Barry Goldwater would never be found among this cut-and-run crowd that is deserting Trump to appease an angry elite.
These Republicans seem to believe that, if or when Trump goes down, this whole unfortunate affair will be over, and they can go back to business as usual.
Sorry, but there is no going back.
The nationalist resistance to the invasion across our Southern border and the will to preserve the unique character of America are surging, and they have their counterparts all across Europe. People sense that the fate and future of the West are in the balance.
While Trump defies political correctness here, in Europe one can scarcely keep track of the anti-EU and anti-immigrant nationalist and separatist parties sprouting up from the Atlantic to the Urals.
Call it identity politics, call it tribalism, call it ethnonationalism; it and Islamism are the two most powerful forces on earth.
A decade ago, if one spoke other than derisively of parties like the National Front in France, the blacklisters would come around. Now, the establishments in the West are on the defensive — when they are not openly on the run.
The day of the Bilderberger is over.
Back to Jowett. When the British were serenely confident in the superiority of their tribe, faith, culture and civilization, they went out and conquered and ruled and remade the world, and for the better.
When they embraced the guilt-besotted liberalism that James Burnham called the “ideology of Western suicide,” it all came down.
The empire collapsed, the establishment burbled its endless apologies for how wicked it had been, and the great colonial powers of Europe threw open their borders to the peoples they had colonized, who are now coming to occupy and remake the mother countries.
But suddenly, to the shock of an establishment reconciled to its fate, populist resistance, call it Trumpism, seems everywhere to be rising.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gestures as she greets supporters at a presidential primary election night rally, Tuesday, June 7, 2016, in New York (AP Photo)
Could it be possible that an increasing number of voters are tiring of liberals stuffing identity politics down our throats? True or not, we must keep hope alive.
The liberal media, from The New York Times to the liberal blogs — apart from Bernie Sanders enthusiasts — are ecstatic that Hillary Clinton has finally shattered that penultimate glass ceiling and has only one more level to go before she captures the ultimate prize.
At the same time, there’s some evidence that Clinton’s anointment is a bittersweet pill. I mean, is this really the woman feminists want to represent them in this vaunted achievement? Do even Clinton’s most ardent supporters regard her as an iconic figure anymore?
Besides the left’s misguided focus on Clinton’s gender, precisely what about Clinton is exciting to anyone other than political scientists fascinated by the establishment’s prowess in engineering the requisite level of image fraud to place Clinton in this position?
The left’s preoccupation with race, gender, income level and other pet causes necessarily compromises the nation’s best interests. But that’s nothing new, from its environmental activism to opposing voter identification laws.
You would think the electorate would be waking up to the dangerous seduction of identity politics as the presidency of the first black president of the United States approaches its long-awaited end. Americans might want to ask themselves whether it was really worth it. Did this obsession with skin color justify electing an untested, stunningly divisive ideologue to the highest office in the land? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to elect someone not hellbent on fundamentally transforming America?
Some do seem to be coming out of their trance. Even The New York Times acknowledges the public’s mixed feelings about Clinton. “When Hillary Clinton swept onto the stage at her victory rally Tuesday night,” says the Times, “the thunderbolt of history struck many Americans, no matter their love or loathing for her.”
Notice the concession that many loathe her. And it’s not because she’s a woman. She has richly earned the distrust and disrespect of the people through her public scandals and her sordid record of enabling her husband’s misdeeds and terrorizing the women who sought to publicize them.
On the other hand, the Times describes Clinton’s nomination as a “thunderbolt.” But does anyone really feel thunderstruck by her managed ascension? It’s more like a thud than it is a thunderbolt. Rather than giddiness, the public’s reaction is probably closer to, “Can we just get this election over with already? If we’re going to have a female president, why must it be her?”
Indeed, the Times reports that many Clinton admirers are “perplexed that the prospect of the first female president had not caused anything like the national soul-searching, cultural heat or political exhilaration produced by Barack Obama eight years ago.”
One 71-year-old Chicago woman supporting Sanders captured this widespread sentiment. “I think it’s wonderful” that a woman has been nominated, she said. “I just wish it was a different woman.”
Well, maybe people are catching on to the empty promises of identity politics. Or perhaps they are suffering from Clinton fatigue or just don’t much like Hillary.
But when you stress identity politics, you may encounter other problems, as well, such as competition among identity groups. The Times reveals that one professional black woman opined that it is a far greater milestone for the nation to elect a black president than a female president. Some black women adopted a Twitter hashtag reflecting that sentiment: “GirlIGuessImWithHer.” A white male said he believes that African-Americans have suffered more persecution than women and so Obama’s achievement is far more historic than Clinton’s would be.
Then again, we have former Rep. Patricia Schroeder bitterly hanging on to her gender focus. She said, “To me, the White House is still the ultimate treehouse with a big sign on it that says, ‘No Girls Allowed.’ If we could pull down that sign, it would make such a difference.”
Really? How many truly believe that opposition to Clinton is significantly based on her gender rather than her character, her dearth of winsomeness and her boundless opportunism? The Times apparently does, as its story’s headline is “Historic Import of Hillary Clinton’s Victory Is One More Source of Division.” Nonsense. If Clinton’s gender is a source of division, it is only with other liberal identity groups, not the nation as a whole.
I pray that the majority eventually awakens to the pitfalls of liberals treating the ship of state as their latest social experiment laboratory; otherwise, we’ll elect another disastrous president — one who everyone knows is a self-promoting, scandal-ridden shrew whose self-revealed intention is to double down on Obama’s catastrophic policies.
The office of the presidency, especially in these perilous times and when the position has become so much more powerful because of lawless executive overreach, deserves more respect than to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. We should elect the person best qualified and likeliest to save America from the ravages of Obama’s presidency, irrespective of gender or skin color.
Besides, seeing as liberals now maintain that gender and race are matters of individual choice and personal identification instead of biology, isn’t it hypocritical of them to make such a fuss over the possible election of a person to the presidency just because she was born a female?
Presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (socialist) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the second Democratic debate, left, and President Barack Obama during a press conference at the G-20 Summit in Turkey. (Photos: Reuters)
President Barack Obama endorsed presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a video released on Thursday shortly after meeting with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The endorsement of a sitting president of his party’s nominee while she is the subject of two open criminal probes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation is raising eyebrows and causing some to question whether the fix is already in.
The FBI, to include an “A-Team” of at least 120 agents, is currently investigating whether Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state mishandled classified information and broke the Federal Records Acts by using an insecure home brew server to conduct official State business.
Further, as PPD reported, the FBI has expanded that investigation into “public corruption” regarding the Clinton Foundation.
Meanwhile, Sen. Sanders after his meeting in the Oval Office with Mr. Obama made it clear that–even though he’s not dropping out–he intends to meet soon with Mrs. Clinton to discuss how they can “work together to defeat Donald Trump.”
Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, responded on Twitter.
Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama—but nobody else does!
The Vermont senator said he still plans to compete in next Tuesday’s Washington, D.C., primary, which is the final Democratic nomination contest of the cycle. That said, he was vaguely claimed he plans to take his message “to the Democratic National Convention” in July.
A ballot is posted to the wall as voters wait in line to cast their ballots for the New Hampshire primary at a polling place Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. (Photo: AP/David Goldman)
A Gallup poll showing three in four voters are giving “quite a lot” of thought to the upcoming election, a sign Election 2016 voter turnout could top 2008. Prior to the 2008 presidential election, which eventually saw voter turnout at the highest level in 40 years, a Gallup poll conducted at the end of May showed a level of interest similar to the levels measured this year.
Thought Given in May, Votes Cast in November
Quite a lot
Only a little
Turnout percentage, Election Day
%
%
%
2016
75
21
N/A
2008
73
20
58.2
2004
64
29
56.7
2000
42
43
51.2
Question on thought given to the election was not asked in May-June 2012
MAY GALLUP POLLS IN 2000, 2004, 2008 AND 2016; THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY PROJECT, VOTER TURNOUT IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Looking at the table above, we can see a clear correlation. In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, which were lower turnout elections, smaller percentages said in May that they had given quite a bit of thought to the election. Less than half of Americans in May 2000 said they were paying a lot of attention and the voter turnout rate was the third-lowest (only 1996 and 1988 were lower) since 1924.
In 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, only a little more than half of eligible voters (51.2%) cast a presidential ballot.
Gallup did not measure thought about the election in the May-June period of the 2012 election, which produced a 54.9% turnout rate. In a July poll that year, 64% said they were thinking about the election quite a lot — fewer than in July 2008, about the same as in July 2004 and more than in July 2000.
Republicans today are far more enthusiastic than in June 2008, when incumbent Republican President George W. Bush’s approval rating was below 30%. Then, only 35% of Republicans and leaners said they were more enthusiastic than usual, and 51% were less enthusiastic. Now, 51% of Republicans are more enthusiastic and 43% less enthusiastic.
For Democrats and leaners, the situation is reversed. In June 2008, with Barack Obama on the way to being their party’s nominee, 61% were more enthusiastic and 25% less enthusiastic. Now, 43% are more enthusiastic and 50% less.
Party Enthusiasm Has Flipped Since 2008
Compared to previous elections, are you more enthusiastic than usual about voting, or less enthusiastic?
All adults
Democrats and leaners
Republicans and leaners
%
%
%
May 18-22, 2016
More enthusiastic
46
43
51
Less enthusiastic
48
50
43
Jun 15-19, 2008
More enthusiastic
48
61
35
Less enthusiastic
37
25
51
GALLUP
There have been three other notable shifts in enthusiasm from 2008 to now, H/T Gallup:
In 2008, Gallup measured Americans’ enthusiasm to vote just after Hillary Clinton gave up her bid for the Democratic nomination; this year’s poll was conducted as she stood on the threshold of becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party. Nevertheless, among Democratic and Democratic-leaning women, 59% in 2008 were more enthusiastic than usual about voting and 31% were less enthusiastic. But this year, 40% are more enthusiastic and 53% are less enthusiastic.
Among ideological moderates from either party, 48% were more enthusiastic than usual in 2008 and 39% less enthusiastic. Now 38% are more enthusiastic and 56% less enthusiastic.
Conservatives’ enthusiasm has grown, while liberals’ has faded. Fifty-two percent of conservatives are more enthusiastic this year, compared with 40% in 2008; at the same time, 48% of liberals are more enthusiastic now, compared with 63% in 2008.
That said, it is entirely possible that enthusiasm–for both parties–will rise further post-Labor Day, when voters typically begin to pay even closer attention to the race. In the last three presidential election cycles, enthusiasm within the parties hit there highs in the month before the election.
The survey data strengthens the argument supporting new voter participation and high turnout, as well as mirrors turnout in the primary contests. That is particularly true as it relates to Republicans. The presumptive nominee Donald J. Trump received more primary votes than any other candidate in the history of the party. He surpassed G.W. Bush’s record after the West Virginia Republican primary.
President Barack Obama leans in to kiss Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren after she introduced Obama before he addresses supporters during a June campaign fundraiser at Symphony Hall in Boston. (Photo: Stephan Savoia/AP)
According to reports and multiple sources, both President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are expected to endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. According to sources, the endorsement from the senator could come as early as Monday and the president’s will come sometime shortly after his meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The possibility of the president endorsing his party’s nominee while she is the subject of two open criminal probes at the Federal Bureau of Investigation is raising eyebrows and causing some to question whether the fix is already in. The FBI is investigation whether Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, mishandled classified information and broke the Federal Records Acts by using an insecure home brew server to conduct official State business.
Further, as PPD reported, the FBI has expanded that investigation into “public corruption” regarding the Clinton Foundation.
While President Obama is attempting to protect his legacy, as well as make good on the deal struck with the Clintons back in 2012, the endorsement represents a significant shift for Sen. Warren, a favorite darling of the radical left who refused to back Mrs. Clinton up until now. Sen. Warren, at least in statement, is staunchly anti-Wall Street and free market capitalism, and the former favors Mrs. Clinton.
However, she has also refused to endorse Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, a colleague and fellow leftwing ideologue, helping to fuel speculation she is one of a few on the short list for Vice President. To be sure, many Democrats argue she is the best hope for Mrs. Clinton to bring back Sanders supporters, many of whom polls suggest will go to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who is far more aligned with them on trade and foreign military interventions.
Sen. Warren attempted to start an argument with Mr. Trump on Twitter last month, but he responded ten-fold by doing something other politicians are not willing to do–touch the third rails and talk about the taboos.
“Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap,” Warren said. “What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street?”
In the case of Sen. Warren, she lied and claimed she was of Native American heritage to curry favor for an Ivy League education and later a career in the Ivory Tower of academia. It’s not true, of course.
“Pocahontas is at it again,” Trump said in an email to The Associated Press in response to questions about Warren’s remarks. “She scammed the people of Massachusetts and got into institutions because she said she is Native American. She’s one of the least successful Senators in the U.S. Senate.”
When caught, she claimed it was a family story, which she believed because she has “high cheek bones” (no, we’re not kidding). Now, she said Mr. Trump is just bring up “Brown’s hate-filled attacks on my family,” a reference to Sen. Scott Brown, whom she defeated in 2012. The media refused to cover the story and most politicians are afraid to bring it up, for fear of being lambasted by a friendly media.
Not Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Sen. Sanders returned to Washington on Thursday for a meeting with President Obama–and later, outgoing Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.–where sources say he will agree to concede the nominatio for one of his key demands–remove Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Politics aside, Schultz has run the party into the ground since taken it over, which she did when Mrs. Clinton demanded it from Mr. Obama in exchange for party unity. As PPD previously reported, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told us they were asked to score a proposal by Schultz to redirect funds from research exploring cures for children’s diseases to pay for the party’s convention this summer.
Ironically, it was the desire for unity that landed the DNC chair her job and it is the desire for unity that very well may take it from her in the end.
When asked by reporters on Wednesday whether she believes Sanders will seek her removal during meetings with Mr. Obama and Sen. Reid, Wasserman Schultz said she’s not worried about her job.
“I’m going to be remaining as the chair of the Democratic National Committee as President Obama has asked me to do until January 21, 2017, and I appreciate the president’s support,” she said. “I’m very confident that we are going to be unified.”
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