The election we deserved

Excepting some sort of Brooks Brothers riot in Cleveland, get ready to party with Trump all summer.

John Kasich is dropping out of the Republican presidential race, two sources familiar with the plan confirmed to CNN.

Kasich's decision came after he improbably became the last challenger to Donald Trump, who emerged as the presumptive GOP nominee Tuesday night when Ted Cruz dropped out.

And let's have one more look at Cruz dropping out, shall we?

WATCH: Cruz accidentally hits wife in the head after dropping out https://t.co/qzhzoP9Ynr https://t.co/GcURRp5MkJ

— The Hill (@thehill) May 4, 2016

What a fun year, right?   Or maybe it's been horrifying. Nobody even knows anymore.  We're punch drunk from absurdity and only just beginning to dread the long hard slog to come.

The poll suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s support is driven heavily by aversion to a Trump candidacy: 51 percent of her supporters say their backing comes more from opposition to Mr. Trump than from a preference for the Democratic candidate. But the same is true for those who said they supported Mr. Trump: 57 percent said their backing was driven by an opposition to Mrs. Clinton.

The remainder of the race for the highest office in the land will be a dismal war of attrition because clearly the nation hates itself. And, really, who can blame us?   We're in an awful state. The world is falling apart around us largely because of shit we did. The oceans are threatening to swallow our population centers. Police harass and kill us. We're all about to be replaced by robots. We're so afraid of government surveillance that we've even stopped asking questions. It's really no wonder the election will culminate in a months long act of national self flagellation.  In what way could we possibly deserve better?

Already we've begun casting about for consolation. But it is fleeting. Does the fact that a Trump Presidency is still pretty unlikely make you feel better?  I think we've already established that's a solid meh.  Is it comforting to revel in just how wrong so many pundits have been? Sort of. But then, we've all been thrown for a loop this year. I took "Trump will not be the nominee" at least into November. I'm still kind of amazed the Masters Of The Universe among the GOP donor and power brokering class weren't able to contrive some excuse to take it away from him. There's still an outside chance some back room convention conspiracy produces a mystery replacement. They'll call him "Trevor Nump" but really it will just be Jeb! in a mustache. Better to just give up.

Anyway, it probably isn't as bad as it looks for the Republicans. Despite the rush of discouraging polls  and dismal pronouncements this week, the party is far from "doomed."  If anything, the now likely event of a Trump loss to Hillary perpetuates the status quo. During a certain to be unpopular Hillary Administration, the Republicans will continue on as the angry opposition party much like they have been under Obama. They'll argue that Clinton has no real mandate because Trump was a freak candidate. They'll even hint that his campaign was deliberate sabotage.

They'll still control Congress. There's some argument they might lose the Senate this year but I'm not yet convinced of that. In any case they'll certainly hold the House. They'll also continue to hold most of the state legislatures and governorships. Republican congressional candidates this year don't have to worry too much about Trump embarrassing them. All they have to do is run against Hillary.  "We know Hitlery will be President," they'll say to local voters. "Send me to Washington to defend against her Socialist plot to unisex up your bathrooms," or whatever. It will be easy. Hillary Clinton is not well liked by almost anyone.

The Republicans will be fine. Don't shed any tears for them. Ted Cruz, we're not so sure about.  But then Trump just put Ben Carson in charge of helping him pick a V-P candidate so lots of things are possible. Okay, well, maybe not that. I know things are bad but do we really deserve that?

Taking his 2% or whatever and going rogue

Jim Webb is going to go and run on the Jim Webb For Lieberman For Connecticut Ticket or whatever.  

Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb will announce Tuesday he's dropping out of the Democratic 2016 race, according to reports.

Webb is scheduled to hold a news conference at the National Press Club in D.C. at 1 p.m. ET.

Webb was reportedly considering a third party bid, according to an email his campaign distributed Monday.

The email announced the news conference and the subject line was "Jim Webb to consider independent run."

Here's what should happen.  Webb and Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie and.. I guess they'll probably take Kasich and Graham can all run together in a new "Grown Ups" party presented by No Labels or Third Way or somebody. It will attract all of the PAC money and all the candidates will poll a combined 15%.  David Brooks can write about how they're going to save America.  It will nominate Hillary somehow.

Jeb will not be the nominee

This is a pretty good look at Trumpmania right here.

A new PPP polls shows Trump, not surprisingly, at the head of the GOP pack. But when PPP created head to head match ups with the other contenders, Carson, Fiorina, Rubio and Walker all beat Trump and in most cases handily. Except Jeb. Trump beat Jeb.

Trump will not be the nominee. He's a placeholder for whichever candidate finally locks down the non-Trump Anybody But Jeb vote.  Because that's really what this is all about. And it could be pretty much any of those other jokers.. although it won't be Carson and it probably won't be Carly. 

What else they got?

If there was a winner of the kids table debate on Wednesday night it looks like it was Bobby Jindal. He has a 56/19 favorability rating, which makes him the 5th most popular of the GOP contenders in the state. And his 4% standing at least puts him in the top 10 in Iowa and ahead of main stagers Kasich and Christie. We'll see whether this boost for him is a broader thing or just Iowa.

How is Bobby doing?

Well let's see, he picked up an important endorsement from one Republican.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign has won a key endorsement from a high-ranking Iowa Republican.

Iowa Speaker Pro Tem Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, said in a statement Monday that he has decided to back Jindal because of his “strong Christian principles” and conservative positions on issues like guns and abortion.

“After much thought, prayer, research and discussions with my wife I have decided to make an endorsement in the presidential race,” Windschitl said in a statement.

Oh but wait, another prominent Republican says she favors Bush. 

As for Jindal, “he would be a terrible president,” she said. “He’s virtually paid no attention to our state in the last four years and simply promotes himself.”

But (Mary)Landrieu did have some kind words – for other GOP candidates.

She said she was impressed with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

On Rubio: “I think he embodies that kind of spirit of hopefulness that American really longs for in their leadership.”

On Kasich: “I like John Kasich … He’s not a Republican that pretends there are no poor people in America.”

But she had the kindest words for Bush.

“I always have been impressed with Jeb Bush. He’s been really a phenomenal leader on education reform,” she said. “I think he would be very good as a leader because the country really needs that kind of thought.”

Win some, lose some, I guess.  

Note: Mary Landrieu is a professional lobbyist for the Walton Family Foundation. Education privatization reform is their specialty. It's also Jeb Bush's pet issue.

“It’s not that we dislike Hillary"

Someone is always qualifying a statement with that, it seems.

“It’s not that we dislike Hillary, it’s that we want to win the White House,” said Richard A. Harpootlian, a lawyer and Democratic donor in Columbia, S.C., who met with Mr. Ricchetti before Beau Biden died. “We have a better chance of doing that with somebody who is not going to have all the distractions of a Clinton campaign.”

A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment.

In a July 30 Quinnipiac poll, 57 percent of voters said Mrs. Clinton was not honest and trustworthy, and 52 percent said she did not care about their needs or problems. The same poll showed Mr. Biden with his highest favorability rating, 49 percent, in seven years, with 58 percent saying he was honest and trustworthy and 57 percent saying he cared about them. But Mrs. Clinton’s numbers are still strong, especially among likely Democratic primary voters.

“The No. 1 thing voters want is a candidate who is honest and trustworthy, and the veep is leading in those polls,” said William Pierce, executive director of Draft Biden, a “super PAC” that is trying to build enthusiasm for a possible candidacy.

Geez there's even a "Draft Biden" Super PAC. Frankly, I don't see how Biden's entry does anything but help Hillary in that it more or less guarantees that Bernie Sanders will never grow his support beyond the enthusiastic crowds that have been coming to see him speak. And Bernie guarantees that Biden will have to split his share of the Anybody But Hillary vote with him.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, there's enough room for 16 or 17 candidates because they all share the same pool of billionaires anyway.  

A New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service records shows that the fund-raising arms race has made most of the presidential hopefuls deeply dependent on a small pool of the richest Americans. The concentration of donors is greatest on the Republican side, according to the Times analysis, where consultants and lawyers have pushed more aggressively to exploit the looser fund-raising rules that have fueled the rise of super PACs. Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs.

Meanwhile here's a must-read piece of commentary by Rick Perlstein on the unique campaign dynamics emerging for 2016.  

The bottom line is that the penumbras and emanations of Citizens United are changing the campaign game in ways that throw all previous understandings of how Republicans nominate presidents into a cocked hat. To see how it’s working on the ground, come with me to Southern California, where last year David and Charles Koch convened one of their dog-and-pony shows, where the aspirants lined up to stand on their hind legs to beg before their would-be masters.Politico spoke to two people who were there, and offered the following account of the performance of Ohio’s Governor John Kasich.

“Randy Kendrick, a major contributor and the wife of Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, rose to say she disagreed with Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid coverage, and questioned why he’d said it was ‘what God wanted.’” Kasich’s “fiery” response: “I don’t know about you, lady. But when I get to the pearly gates, I’m going to have to answer what I’ve done for the poor.”

Other years, before other audiences, such public piety might have sounded banal. This year, it’s enough to kill a candidacy:

“About 20 audience members walked out of the room, and two governors also on the panel, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, told Kasich they disagreed with him. The Ohio governor has not been invited back to a Koch seminar.”

Which is, of course, astonishing. But even more astonishing was the lesson the Politico drew from it—one, naturally, about personalities: “Kasich’s temper has made it harder to endear himself to the GOP’s wealth benefactors.” His temper. Not their temper. Not, say, “Kasich’s refusal to kowtow before the petulant whims of a couple of dozen greedy nonentities who despise the Gospel of Jesus Christ has foreclosed his access to the backroom cabals without which a Republican presidential candidacy is inconceivable.”

So while Hillary Clinton, potentially Joe Biden and a cast of thousands of Republican donors struggle to figure out how they're going to master the new politics of oligarchy, only one candidate is running specifically on the promise to break it.

2016 Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders announced on Face the Nation a self-described litmus test for any Supreme Court nominee he would consider if elected president, which, hey, could happen: they must pledge to overturn Citizens United.

“As a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, clearly the billionaires, Koch Brothers and others, are owning the political process,” Sanders said. “They will determine who the candidates are.”

“If elected president, I will have a litmus test in terms of my nominee to be a Supreme Court justice,” he said. “That nominee will say that we are all going to overturn this disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, because that decision is undermining American democracy. I do not believe that billionaires should be able to buy politicians.”

Clearly, that guy does not actually want to win.