Senator Sanders Earn My Vote and Debate Me

Dear Senator Sanders,

I’m a progressive millennial from New York and you’ve lost my vote. I used to be fan, even a supporter, but now I find myself in opposition to your candidacy. However, I want to offer you the opportunity to win back my vote.

Although many of my friends have implored me to go to one of your rallies, I’m not interested in hearing you rehash the same old tire rhetoric you’ve been promoting throughout your campaign. Nor am I interested in re-reading your policy proposals.

If you want to win back my vote come and debate me.

Forget about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. It would be just the two of us and the issues. If you want to win back my vote, earn it by convincing me to vote for you. Find me in Queens at any time between now and April 19^th.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Justin Wax Jacobs

Bernie Sanders is Now Donald Trump's Best Friend

By Justin Wax Jacobs

Bernie Sanders just became Donald Trump’s best friend. Strange as it may be that a humble rural Vermont socialist would have anything in common with an over the top New York City real estate tycoon/demagogue billionaire, but the two candidates’ path to the Presidency are now intertwined. And that path runs straight through Hillary Clinton.

With the results from “separation Tuesday” in, the political landscape has become much clearer. Clinton has a sizeable lead against Sanders amongst delegates with 1,139 pledged and 467 superdelegates promised. According to FiveThirtyEight, Clinton has over performed on her electoral targets racking up 108% of the delegates she’s needed to win the Democratic nomination thus far. Comparatively, Sanders has underperformed winning only 83% of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. As Nate Silver points out Sanders needs to not only win in states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California but he needs to win by sufficient margins to have any chance at the nomination.

Mathematically Sanders hasn’t been eliminated from the competition but Tuesday’s results have made his path to the nomination improbable if not precarious. While his continued presence in the race will do little to help the viability of his own candidacy it does clearly benefit the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

Although Sanders claims that he has never engaged in a direct personal attack on Secretary Clinton, the continuing barrage of indirect attacks implying deficiencies of character and her untrustworthiness have eroded support and enthusiasm of Clinton’s candidacy on the far left and within the Democratic base.

Evidence of this attrition can be seen in the growing “Bernieor Bust” movement whose subscribers have pledged their support to Bernie Sanders, and only Bernie Sanders, vowing not to vote for anyone but him. The members of this movement tend to be younger voters who serve as a key demographic for any Democratic White House hopeful.  They would also represent an important and significant plurality of any anti-Trump coalition that may emerge in the fall. Their opposition to Clinton may undermine her electability creating an electoral opening for the probable Republican nominee.   

But Sanders’ inadvertent support for Trump doesn’t end with questions of character and trust. Instead it continues into the realm of substantive policy and issues ubiquitous among the two campaigns.

As I mentioned earlier it may be hard to imagine that two men from polar opposite points along the political spectrum would have anything in common. This understanding is based on a conceptualization of the American political spectrum as a straight line infinitely continuing in opposite directions that never meet. However, the American political arena is more akin to a circle which meets at two distinct points, one in moderation and the other in radicalization. The further to the radical right or left one moves the closer that person gets to their political counterparts on the other side. A point illustrated earlier this month when Conservative stalwart and billionaire Charles Koch penned an op-ed supporting many of Bernie Sanders’ political positions.  

Trump and Sanders share many common positions including their mutual disdain for the current political establishment in their respective parties (or adoptive parties), their disapproval of the current state of campaign finance, and their fierce opposition to free trade deals. It’s their shared position on the latter issue where Trump stands to benefit the most.

Throughout the campaign both candidates have continuously bemoaned the loss of American jobs to competing markets overseas. And both candidates have pointed the blame squarely at the various Free Trade Agreements the United States has entered into.

In Michigan, Sanders channeled the residual resentment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which many blame for the decrepit condition of that state’s economy, to propel him to an upset victory over Clinton. His campaign’s ability to tie Clinton’s past support of NAFTA and tacit support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (a new free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the United States) proved effective in detracting voters from casting a ballot for the former Secretary of State. 

Although the message wasn't as successful in Ohio, where Clinton beat Sanders by 13 percentage points, it is clear that the Sanders campaign intends to take that message to Wisconsin which holds its primary election in early April. 

Bernie Sanders' target audience in the Midwest, unemployed and underemployed white voters, is the same target population for Trump nationally. Sanders' primary message in the Midwest, an anti free trade agenda, plays straight into Trumps protectionist trade rhetoric. If Sanders fails to make it to the general election the residual affect of his primary campaign may be to irreversibly deter voters from supporting Clinton in a politically important geographic region. 

Along with the Northeast and Pacific Coast, the Midwest has long been a region which Democrats could rely on in Presidential contests.  Over the last 28 years Wisconsin and Minnesota have voted for the Democratic candidate in every Presidential election, Michigan and Illinois haven’t swung for a Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988, while Ohio is four for seven voting both times for Bill Clinton and Barak Obama in 92’, 96’, 08’, and 12’. Indiana, which is more conservative than its Great Lake brethren, is the lone outsider voting for a Democrat only once in that same time span.      

Constituting much of the rust belt, states like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota all sport strong manufacturing sectors with a large blue collar workforce that is often unionized. Fertile ground for Democratic Party support.

With fewer union jobs and an already declining economy hard hit by the 2008 recession, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have experienced a rightward political shift in recent years. In all three states the Republicans constitute a majority in both houses of the state legislatures and occupy the state’s Governor’s mansion. Each state’s congressional delegation is dominated by Republicans (Wisconsin: 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats; Michigan: 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats; Ohio: 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats) while the Senate contingencies are split evenly with the exception of Michigan which has two Democrats serving in the upper chamber of the federal legislature.  

A Republican presidential candidate, like Trump, could exploit this political shift by focusing on the antagonism many voters will have towards candidates with any ties to free trade agreements. An antagonism based on a resentment whose groundwork has already been laid and established by the Sanders campaign. Were a Republican like Trump able to take advantage of that strategic opening it would have severe consequences for the outcome of the election. 

Together, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin represent 44 electoral votes which can sway the 2016 election one way or the other. Had Mitt Romney won these three states plus perennial swing state Florida he would have been President of the United States. 

It is not a stretch to say, but rather a fact, that Sanders' sustained attacks on Clinton over her support for free trade policies is doing nothing more than poisoning the well for Hillary's general election run. His advertisements and stump speeches reminding voters of the harm NAFTA brought to the manufacturing sector will continue to reverberate amongst the electorate long after the primaries end. 

As my pro-Bernie friends would undoubtedly point out, Clinton would be susceptible to the same attacks during the general election regardless of Sanders' current political messaging.

But that argument ignores the simple fact that Trump's messaging has a limited scope within the electorate which can be supplemented and expanded with Sanders' aid. Trump's attacks to date have mostly focused on the personal and rarely on the substantive. Instead of making poignant policy remarks, Trump relies on general and vague statements. On the other hand, Sanders articulates a practical message which can resonate and reach voters who would normally be outside of the scope of Trump's influence.

Without a clear path forward it may be time for Bernie Sanders to rethink his campaign and call it quits lest he hands the election to Donald J. Trump on a silver platter.  

Why Iowa Makes Sense

By Justin Wax Jacobs

It’s Caucus day in Iowa. The first votes of the 2016 Presidential election have been cast and the first delegates will be assigned. It is the official start of an election process which, by some estimates, began the morning after Election Day 2012.

Do to their status as early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire have an oversized impact on the primary process. Presidential candidates from both parties are usually chosen from a field narrowed by the voters and caucus goers in these states.

Iowa and New Hampshire can make or break a Presidential campaign. In 2004 Senator John Kerry’s campaign for the Democratic nomination was buoyed by his success in the Hawkeye state, even though many viewed him as a long shot for the nomination prior to the caucuses. In 2008 Rudy Giuliani’s strategy to forgo Iowa and New Hampshire completely, instead choosing to focus his campaign efforts in Florida, derailed his bid for the Republican nomination.

But why should these two states be given the power to decide who gets nominated to represent their parties as candidates for President of the United States? Iowa, with a population of 3.5 million and six electoral votes, and New Hampshire, with a population of 1.3 million and four electoral votes, are relatively small states. Even Puerto Rico, an American territory which participates in Presidential primaries but not general elections, has a larger population of American citizens. These two sparsely populated states also have a demographic makeup which are not reflective of the country’s as a whole, with 88.7 percent of Iowans and 92.3 percent of New Hampshirites identifying as non-Hispanic White compared to 63.7 percent in the United States overall.

For those on the left an additional grievance may be tallied. The core support for the Democratic Party emanates from the country’s large urban areas. Cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia have long been known, as Senator Ted Cruz has recently implied, for their liberal constituencies. By contrast, Iowa and New Hampshire have few urban centers. Only three cities, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Manchester, from these two states have populations over 100,000. The largest of the three, Des Moines population 203,433, doesn’t even crack the top one hundred list of American cities by population. It is safe to say that the Democratic voters in these two states are not indicative of the broader urban liberal base throughout the nation.

While foreigners may have legitimate grievances against both Iowa and New Hampshire for their oversized role in the candidate selection process, many overlook the positives of having these two states leadoff the election calendar.

Iowa and New Hampshire’s place at the head of the voting schedule insures a larger array of potential Presidential candidates. Due to their size both states are populated by relatively cheap media markets. Compared to states like New York, California and Florida which have the expensive markets of New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami, Iowa and New Hampshire offer candidates a cheaper conduit to communicate with voters. Less expensive fees to air television commercials provide those potential candidates without a strong financial backing the opportunity to voice their message to the people. Whereas in states like New York and California those candidates would have been priced out of the election before it even began.

Had the 2016 election cycle begun in New York, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio would have had an unmistakable advantage against their opponents. Possessing large campaign war chests, these candidates would have been able to corner the media market and sideline their opponents early in the process. The high cost for media advertising might have dissuaded candidates with less financial backing from even entering the race. Doctor Ben Carson, and former Governors Martin O’Malley and John Kasich may never have thrown their hat into the ring.

In addition, Iowa and New Hampshire’s small population give grassroots campaigns the opportunity to be successful. A smaller population mutes many of the advantages a well-funded established candidate may have over a grassroots candidate.  Grassroots rely heavily on personal interaction with voters. A smaller general population means that candidates have to convince a smaller plurality of the population to vote for them. If a candidate were only physically able to reach 100,000 voters in a state with 19 million people that candidate would make only a small dent in the overall election results. However, in a state with a population of just over 3 million, those 100,000 interactions may propel the candidate to a strong finish.

Although Iowa and New Hampshire’s ethnic demographics may not be representative of the rest of the country, their political demographics are more reflective. Iowa and New Hampshire are not the only states with small populations and relatively cheap media markets, but their status as swing states ensures that their caucus and primaries will serve as an adequate litmus test for the politicos in both parties.

States with small populations tend to be more politically polarized than others. States like Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming are overwhelmingly conservative and are deeply loyal to Republican candidates. Were any of the three aforementioned states chosen to replace Iowa as the first state to vote for a Democratic nominee the results would most likely be ignored as irrelevant by the larger liberal base. By contrast Iowa and New Hampshire’s almost even split of registered Democrats and Republicans means that the electoral contests in both states will be seen by out of state voters as a legitimate indicator of their party’s preference for the nomination.

While citizens of the other forty-eight states may resent Iowa and New Hampshire’s electoral power as early voting states, it should be noted that these two states provide a more egalitarian environment with enough of a representative sample vote for both parties than any of their other peers could in the selection of Presidential candidates