I’M NOT OBSESSED WITH YOU, YOU’RE OBSESSED WITH ME:
This morning, Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on
Morning Joe claimed “Megyn Kelly is totally obsessed with Mr. Trump.” http://vlt.tc/295p
Following on Trump’s ridiculous assertion the other day that “no one
had heard of Megyn Kelly” prior to their debate clash and his follow-on
negging, it is impossible to draw any other conclusion than that Trump
is absolutely and thoroughly obsessed with the Fox News host, on an El
Chapo level rarely seen in American presidential politics.
It’s easy to see why, for a man who claims to be a Don Juan of sexual
prowess and romantic capability – an issue that Senator Ben Sasse has
recently raised questions about. http://vlt.tc/295r
Just look back at this interview where he dings candidates for dodging
a Newsmax debate he was hosting, where his interest in Kelly and his
compliments directed toward her are readily apparent. http://vlt.tc/295s
Why does Kelly reject his obvious affection? Does she not appreciate
the many times he has sent her newspaper clippings about himself with
the word billionaire circled multiple times? (This is something he
actually does when pitching woo.) The entire thing doesn’t make sense.
Trump is the model of masculinity and virility and success for the
modern age. What’s not to like?
The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that Kelly is obsessed, in a
negative way, with Donald J. Trump. Therefore, he has made the decision
to withdraw from this debate. His full statement is here. http://vlt.tc/295u Fox News is holding its ground, understanding that who runs the world but girls, and keeping Kelly as debate moderator. http://vlt.tc/295i
There is some irony in this: no news channel has featured more
pro-Trump views than Fox News, where Eric Bolling and others every day
bend over backwards to defend him. And yet it is Fox that has attracted
Trump’s ire, and their unwillingness to undermine their star talent at
his request frustrates him to no end. http://vlt.tc/295v So he chooses not to run. http://vlt.tc/2968
This strikes me as a rare tactical mistake for Trump. I assumed he would
draw this out in a “will he, won’t he” manner until the point where the
debate arrived, where he could swoop in and say “I can take your
questions, but if they’re unfair, I’ll leave” or something like that.
Instead, this means the final debate before Iowa – the one Iowans
historically view at much higher levels than any other – will not
feature Donald Trump, and could provide an opportunity for one of his
opponents to overperform. It also makes him look weak and petty instead
of strong and invulnerable.
Meanwhile, somewhere in snowy New York, Donald J. Trump stands outside
Megyn Kelly's house in the snow, boombox raised over his head, playing
Lana Del Rey's National Anthem, his cheek stained with a single tear. http://vlt.tc/295q
By Dick Morris
Former political adviser to President Bill Clinton.
If you happen to see the Bill Clinton 5-minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary's background, beware. As I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone, I offer a few corrections.
Bill says: "In law school, Hillary worked on legal services for the poor."
The facts are: Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent. She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.
Bill says: "Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children's rights project for poor kids."
The facts are: Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.
Bill says: "Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."
The facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam; yes, flunked. It is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas- none - and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.
Bill says: "President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman."
The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.
Bill says: "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."
The facts are: Yes, she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart board of directors for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.
Bill says: “Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994, but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."
The facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott. I know; I helped negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.
Bill says: "Hillary was the face of America all over the world."
The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
Bill says: “Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for children's and women's issues."
The facts are: Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation. One set up a national park in Puerto Rico . A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer's or other conditions. And two were routine bills to aid 911 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire NY delegation. Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize the Woodstock fiasco of 40 years ago.
Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton: She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our country (that's you and me!) when it comes to the war on terror.
1. She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA .
3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA .
5. She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the military & CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though such tactics might save American lives.
One cannot think of a single bill Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our country in the War on Terror. But, one can think of a lot of comments she has made that weaken our country and make it a more dangerous situation for all of us. Bottom line: She goes hand in hand with the ACLU on far too many issues where common sense is abandoned.
Think about it --- Dick Morris has said all of this openly, thus if he were not truthful he'd be liable for defamation of character! And you better believe Hillary would sue him.
Is America ready for a woman president? Perhaps we are, but definitely NOT THIS one.
Michael Bay’s Benghazi movie is his least-propagandistic yet. http://vlt.tc/28mk
“Let’s start by stating the obvious: The world needed a Michael Bay
Benghazi movie like it needed a hole in its ice cap. That being said,
it’s a strange thing that it took the ultimate political football to
inspire an inveterate pornographer like Bay to make his least
propagandistic movie. Who knew it would take a polarized event for him
to discover nuance? Well, nuance for Michael Bay, anyway. There are
still countless shots of Old Glory fwapping sexily in the breeze (then a
later one of it floating bullet-riddled, in the pool of a burned out
diplomatic outpost – SYMBOLISM). Characters still growl things like
“You’re in my world now,” “Sh*t just got real,” and “Yay, McDonald’s!”
(Not making these up, I swear.) Buffed-up dudes still commit courageous
acts, selflessly, shirtlessly, while fingering wedding rings and
caressing pictures of their beautiful wives, who bravely await their
husbands’ return while not interfering with the story.
“Yet for all the signature Bayisms, about the worst thing you can say
about 13 Hours is that it’s really long (about two and a half hours). I
expected corny ridiculousness, and instead I got an extended firefight
that went heavy on the beard porn but relatively light on the
xenophobia. It’s a movie that, all things being equal, is probably less
corny and ridiculous than Lone Survivor or American Sniper. It’s
impossible to discount expectations, and with mainstream presidential
candidates currently going full Bill the Butcher with their
anti-immigrant fear mongering, the last thing the world needs is a movie
about courageous American heroes bravely mowing down hordes of
faceless, bloodthirsty furreigners. In that context, the news that
Michael Bay was directing the story of an angry mob murdering an
ambassador put palm to forehead faster than you can say “libtard.” (I’m
very excited about some of the inevitable comments on this post, lemme
tell ya.)
“It works, though, because while it’s easy to argue politics, it’s hard
to argue that the individuals depicted here don’t deserve to be
memorialized. And truthfully, I hadn’t considered that until Michael Bay
convinced me that they do. F*ckin’ A, well done, Michael Bay, imagine
that.”
The law is straightforward. Under the Constitution, in order to be
president, you must be a natural born citizen. U.S. law has been clear
from the very first days of this country that the child of a U.S.
citizen born abroad is a natural born citizen.
“Despite
the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question
that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a ‘natural
born Citizen’ within the meaning of the Constitution.”
–Harvard Law Review
This is an issue that has come up many
times in American history. Senator John McCain was born in Panama, but
he is a U.S. citizen because both of his parents were U.S. citizens. He
was a citizen by birth. Likewise, George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father,
who ran for president in 1968, was born in Mexico. He was also a U.S.
citizen by birth because his parents were citizens. And the third
example, interestingly enough, is Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was born in
Arizona before Arizona was a state, it was just a territory. And so he
was a U.S. citizen by birth by virtue of the fact that his parents were
citizens.
As to Senator Cruz, his mother, Eleanor Darragh was born in
Wilmington, Delaware. She is a citizen by birth, so Ted became an
American citizen by virtue of being born to her.
A bipartisan group of former U.S. solicitors general, Neal Katayal and Paul Clement explained the legal case in the Harvard Law Review last year:
There are plenty of
serious issues to debate in the upcoming presidential election cycle.
The less time spent dealing with specious objections to candidate
eligibility, the better. Fortunately, the Constitution is refreshingly
clear on these eligibility issues. To serve, an individual must be at
least thirty-five years old and a “natural born Citizen.” Thirty-four
and a half is not enough and, for better or worse, a naturalized citizen
cannot serve. But as Congress has recognized since the Founding, a
person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen
from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase “natural born
Citizen” in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth.
Thus, an individual born to a U.S. citizen parent — whether in
California or Canada or the Canal Zone — is a U.S. citizen from birth
and is fully eligible to serve as President if the people so choose.”
Bottom line, the facts on natural born citizenship are indisputable and clear.
A very strange trend has emerged over the past few weeks regarding
Donald Trump: A number of respected mainstream commentators who have
begun to suggest the idea that he might be a better top of the ticket
candidate than Ted Cruz. It’s impressive how quickly so many people have
started to sound this note – in part because they’ve done so without
the auditory signals of resignation it suggests.
Supporting Donald Trump as a nominee over Ted Cruz sounds revolutionary,
but is actually an act which maintains the status quo in the party if
you believe that he is headed for electoral defeat, as many of these
analysts do. Trumpism as a flash in the pan expression of American
populism which dies out in a contest against Hillary Clinton is itself a
game that ends with the status quo in Washington. And even Trump as
President, as unlikely as that sounds, has the prospect of a thoroughly
pragmatic chief executive, willing to cut a deal with anyone on anything
at any time.
Ted Cruz on the other hand represents an ideological shift – from the
perspective of the elite – against the established order of things. The
idea that someone so hated by the elected officials and party bigwigs
could take over the Republican Party in a hostile manner is more
objectionable than the sideshow of Donald Trump to some in the hierarchy
of Washington.
This poses an odd hypothetical, though: say for the sake of argument
that Cruz prevails narrowly in Iowa, Trump wins New Hampshire, and they
go 1-2 again in South Carolina. This sets up a scenario where
influencers in the party will have a decision to make: will they hold on
to the hope that someone else will emerge down the stretch to challenge
Trump, or make peace with the idea that Ted Cruz is their only path to
blocking The Donald in the SEC primary and beyond?
Cruz has the more presidential resume. He looks like someone the
establishment could deal with on paper. It is only the personal animus
toward him that would lead people to choose the SMOD of Trump over him.
And yet that animus is real, and palatable. Ted Cruz has not been
endorsed by a single sitting governor or senator of his party. The party
leadership speaks of him as they would of a malevolent scorpion. Can
they swallow their pride and acknowledge, in the current scenario, that
he is their only hope to prevent a Trump nomination?
Perhaps they do not understand this as the current state of things.
Perhaps they hold out hope that Marco Rubio or Chris Christie or Jeb
Bush will get another shot at things. Perhaps they are not wrong. But as
things stand, there are two potential nominees of the Republican Party
in 2016, and one of them is essentially a conservative Democrat economic
nationalist with an authoritarian streak who is one of the most
controversial people in America today. Let’s not kid ourselves about who
would be a better reflection of the Republican Party in a general
election and beyond.
In the past two presidential-primary seasons, candidates
crisscrossing Iowa before the caucuses would pay obeisance to corn
ethanol and its compulsory use in gasoline. Yet in the current campaign,
Sen. Ted Cruz
reliably sits atop the Iowa polls even though he scoffs at the
Renewable Fuel Standard passed by Congress in 2005 and expanded in 2007.
Maybe even Iowans are having second thoughts about a law that
has been a boon to corn growers but hardly anyone else. Before long, it
may be politically safe to take a wise step and eliminate the Renewable
Fuel Standard (RFS). This would immediately and dramatically increase
the demand for oil, help stabilize energy markets, boost the economy—and
likely reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
The RFS requires
gasoline to contain a specified level of ethanol—renewable biofuels
mostly from corn, but increasingly from other plant and animal
substances. The law also requires the Environmental Protection Agency to
periodically increase the amount of ethanol that must be used. But
raising the amount of ethanol in gasoline past 10% could harm millions
of car engines.
The EPA recently decided to increase the total
amount of ethanol used from 11.62 billion gallons in 2014 to 18.11
billion gallons for 2016—a decision that made few people happy.
Ethanol
producers are angry that the EPA succumbed to economic reality by not
raising the requirement as high as they expected. But many
environmentalists aren’t happy either, having come to realize that
ethanol is an environmental problem, not a solution.
When the RFS
was enacted, lawmakers believed that adding ethanol to the national
gasoline supply would reduce reliance on oil imports. Today, ethanol’s
downsides have become clear.
First, it increases the cost of
driving. Current ethanol blends provide fewer miles per gallon, so
drivers pay more to travel the same distance. According to the Institute
for Energy Research, American drivers have paid an additional $83
billion since 2007 because of the RFS.
Second, ethanol adds more
carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than it eliminates by replacing fossil
fuels. The Environmental Working Group says that “corn ethanol is an
environmental disaster.” The group explains: “The mandate to blend
ethanol into gasoline has driven farmers to plow up land to plant
corn—40 percent of the corn now grown in the U.S. is used to make
ethanol. When farmers plow up grasslands and wetlands to grow corn, they
release the carbon stored in the soil, contributing to climate-warming
carbon emissions.” And then there is the carbon emitted in harvesting,
transporting and processing the corn into ethanol.
The
Congressional Budget Office notes that “available evidence suggests that
replacing gasoline with corn ethanol has only limited potential for
reducing emissions (and some studies indicate that it could increase
emissions).”
Finally, the U.S. no longer needs renewable fuels to
reduce its dependence on energy from foreign sources. Thanks to
expansion in the oil and gas industry, the U.S. has outdistanced Russia
and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s top oil and natural-gas producer.
The U.S. could become energy independent in five years, according to
the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but only if crude oil prices
are high enough to keep American producers operating.
Replacing
the 18 billion gallons of ethanol under the EPA’s 2016 RFS with roughly
18 billion gallons of gasoline would reduce the oil glut and improve the
nation’s carbon footprint. Sounds like a candidate for bipartisan
agreement. Mr. Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas.
If Ted Cruz wins Iowa, especially if
he wins big, it will confirm that the subsidies and mandates for ethanol
are very important only to a sliver of the population. (AP Photo/Paul
Sancya)
The ethanol lobby is getting scared.
The ethanol mandate has no clearer enemy among top-tier presidential
candidates than Ted Cruz. And in Iowa, where ethanol has for decades
held a mystical sway over politicians of all stripes, the clear
front-runner in next month's caucuses is Ted Cruz.
If Cruz wins Iowa, especially if he wins big, it will confirm that
the subsidies and mandates for ethanol are very important only to a
sliver of the population (largely the lobbyists and executives of the
giant agribusinesses that receive the lion's share of the benefit).
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If Iowa voters don't really care about the ethanol mandate, then the
ethanol lobby is a paper tiger. If the ethanol lobby is a paper tiger,
then the federal ethanol mandate is not long for this world.
Ethanol is a fuel made from grain — most importantly corn. For
decades, federal and state governments have subsidized ethanol.
Currently, the most important subsidy is the Renewable Fuel Standard,
which requires refiners to pour some ethanol into their gasoline.
Ethanol is less efficient than gasoline, and environmental groups curse
its effects on greenhouse gases, water levels and soil quality. The
mandate obviously clashes with the free-market principles Republicans
profess as well.
Iowa, at 2.37 billion bushels in 2014, produces more corn than any
other state. Most Iowans, including Republican voters, support the RFS.
In a December poll, 61 percent of Iowa Republicans said they support the
mandate, while 34 percent oppose it. At first glance, that confirms
that the mandate is popular. But take a second look: a full one third of
Iowa Republicans oppose corporate welfare for Iowa.
Dig deeper and ethanol looks less like a third rail in Iowa. A May
2015 Selzer & Co. poll found Iowans split evenly (45 percent to 46
percent) on whether "Subsidies are a waste of government money —
including past subsidies for ethanol and wind energy."
This anti-subsidy mindset is a fruit of the Tea Party, which was born
in the wake of the Wall Street bailouts. Being a conservative today
increasingly means opposing big-government handouts to special
interests, even to "your own" people.
In the 2012 cycle, Selzer & Co. also asked Iowa Republicans how
big a deal ethanol subsidies were, and only 14 percent said subsidy
opposition was a "deal killer," while 40 percent said it was "no real
problem." "Iowa Republicans' long reputation for being hostile to
political candidates who oppose ethanol subsidies isn't true today,"
wrote Des Moines Register political reporter Jen Jacobs at the time, "if
it ever was."
"It never comes up," Rand Paul told me in Waukee, Iowa, last month.
He could recall only two instances of anyone in Iowa asking him about
the issue, and both times they were paid activists, either for or
against the mandate. Ted Cruz's campaign staff told me something
similar.
"Voters here are just not that interested in ethanol anymore," Iowa
political scientist Steffen Schmidt told the Associated Press in
December. "You don't even hear the word come out the mouths of
candidates much."
Chris Christie has the endorsement of Iowa's preeminent Republican
businessman Bruce Rastetter — who has made millions off of ethanol
subsidies. Christie chides the Obama administration for not implementing
the mandate more aggressively. Donald Trump attacks Cruz for opposing
it. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have tried to fudge on the issue.
Cruz has clearly and repeatedly said he would wind down the mandate
in about three years — faster than any of his opponents. And now he
could win Iowa.
So the industry has gone into panic mode. Eric Branstad, a spin
instructor and the son of the Republican governor, is being paid by the
ethanol lobby group America's Renewable Future to stalk Cruz around
Iowa. The group leaves glossy fliers on the chairs of Cruz events,
warning that "Ted Cruz is Dangerous" because of his mandate opposition.
Here's the thing: the ethanol lobby has been attacking Cruz for
months — including harsh radio spots — and it hasn't stopped Cruz from
moving into first place.
Now, the ethanol industry has to attack harder, because they know
what a Cruz caucus victory would prove: that there is no significant
public support for their industry's biggest subsidy.
A Cruz win, especially amidst the ethanol lobby's full-court press,
would show that all the other politicians who pandered to the corn
cronies were fooled. Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie, and dozens
before them, all saw the subsidy enthusiasm of the special-interest
lobbyists who came bearing checks, and these candidates assumed there
was a grass-roots army behind them.
Maybe the pandering politicians and the ethanol lobbyists are right.
Maybe you can't win Iowa while opposing goodies for ethanol. But if Cruz
punctures that myth, subsidy lobbyists of all stripes will have reason
to worry. Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
The depression of voters seems like
nothing to celebrate, and a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump election is
not one that anybody would savor. (AP Photo)
Sometimes, it takes a fever to kill off an infection, and the American electorate is running pretty hot these days.
Voter dissatisfaction is not a new phenomenon. In election after
election, people bemoan that they merely have a choice between "the
lesser of two evils." Frustration with Washington has been the norm for
quite some time.
But in 2016, an election in which both parties have fielded their "A
Team" of presidential contenders has been an astonishing letdown.
For instance, the candidates leading the polls in either party —
Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, Donald Trump for the Republicans —
are not just viewed unfavorably by voters overall; they are the most
unfavorably viewed by Americans out of all of the candidates running.
To put this in context, during the entire slog of the 2012 election,
neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney sustained a brand as unfavorable as
Clinton or Trump. John McCain, John Kerry and George W. Bush all
enjoyed "favorables" of over 50 percent during their presidential
campaigns, even though two out of the three were ultimately never
elected president.
Today, only one out of four Americans think the country is on the
right track. Americans continue to express deep economic anxiety, and
the president's job approval remains low, with particular disapproval
for handling of foreign policy.
Given this complete rejection of the status quo, it is astonishing
that there's a chance that voters will be presented with this depressing
choice: Hillary Clinton, — symbolic of dynastic elite, entrenched
interests, corporate America and politics-as-usual — or someone radical
like Trump, whose vision of forward progress is distinctly backward
looking, as if to reclaim a bygone era by hitting rewind.
But taking America back to a different time isn't possible, even if we wanted it to be.
Republicans may pine for the Reagan 1980s, while Democrats pine for
the New Deal 1930s. But the makeup of America and the evolution of our
economy means that neither is in the cards for us, nor should they be.
The pace of demographic and technological change reshaping America means
it is impossible to recreate the halcyon days of our own preferred
ideological movements.
First, as technology improves our lives in countless ways, the
ineptitude and inefficiency of Washington looks even worse in contrast.
When we now carry dozens of gigabytes in our pockets and can store a
terabyte of data for a couple of bucks, the fact that the government has
a cave in Pennsylvania where paper records on government retirees are
stored is maddening.
When citizens can get anything from a safe ride home to the latest
Hollywood blockbuster with the touch of a button, waiting weeks or
months for a government agency to act or respond to a request seems even
more ludicrous. We expect better services and better products and use
Yelp or TripAdvisor to tell the world about our experiences, but there's
no way to give "one star" to a disastrous government policy or program.
There's also demographic change remaking our society and shifting our
policy preferences in its wake. As Republican pollster Whit Ayres
writes in his book 2016 And Beyond, "The uncomfortable reality
is that the Republican Party has a worn out business model for a
21st-century presidential electorate." The growth of the Hispanic
population, the decline of marriage, the rise of the millennial
generation all have given rise to new challenges, new opportunities and
new preferences from voters who want an agenda that meets the needs of
their lives, and neither party at present seems primed to address these
needs.
America has changed rapidly, leaders have failed to keep up and voter anger is boiling ever hotter.
If voters simply shrug at mediocrity, nothing changes. Reforming big
things can't happen without a catalyst, as frustration grows into the
will to act. Systems, institutions and bureaucracies that for too long
have failed — failed to keep us safe, failed to adapt and become more
fiscally efficient, failed to educate poor children, failed to expand
opportunity — may find that an angry electorate is no longer willing to
tolerate failure.
A dramatically reshaped landscape, demographically and
technologically, paired with deep and expressed voter anger, may mean
politicians are forced before long to come to grips with tides bigger
than themselves. Enough, voters are saying.
The depression of voters seems like nothing to celebrate, and a
Clinton vs. Trump election is not one I'd savor. Disgust and disdain at
Washington may manifest itself in a whole host of ways, for good or for
ill. But like many illnesses, those unpleasant symptoms are often part
and parcel of the process of being cured.
What a depressing campaign this has been. But it also just may lead to the election we need. Kristen Soltis Anderson is a columnist for The Washington Examiner and author of The Selfie Vote.
ENLARGE
In the past two presidential-primary seasons, candidates
crisscrossing Iowa before the caucuses would pay obeisance to corn
ethanol and its compulsory use in gasoline. Yet in the current campaign,
Sen. Ted Cruz
reliably sits atop the Iowa polls even though he scoffs at the
Renewable Fuel Standard passed by Congress in 2005 and expanded in 2007.
If Iowa voters don't really care about the ethanol mandate, then the
ethanol lobby is a paper tiger. If the ethanol lobby is a paper tiger,
then the federal ethanol mandate is not long for this world.
In the 2012 cycle, Selzer & Co. also asked Iowa Republicans how
big a deal ethanol subsidies were, and only 14 percent said subsidy
opposition was a "deal killer," while 40 percent said it was "no real
problem." "Iowa Republicans' long reputation for being hostile to
political candidates who oppose ethanol subsidies isn't true today,"
wrote Des Moines Register political reporter Jen Jacobs at the time, "if
it ever was."
So the industry has gone into panic mode. Eric Branstad, a spin
instructor and the son of the Republican governor, is being paid by the
ethanol lobby group America's Renewable Future to stalk Cruz around
Iowa. The group leaves glossy fliers on the chairs of Cruz events,
warning that "Ted Cruz is Dangerous" because of his mandate opposition.