How Democrats Can Win In 2018: Ignore The Party's Serial Losers-- In Other Words, The Establishment

Early yesterday morning we put up a post about how American voters see Trump's character. The premise is that the overwhelming majority of voters don't want children looking at Trump as a role model and don't see him as providing the country with moral leadership. Only 29% of the country-- virtually no one but partisan Republicans-- think Trump as a role model is just fine. Most Americans say they are "embarrassed" that he's the leader of the country, while 27% are proud to have him as the leader of our country. Only 35% believe he's honest. Only 40% think he cares about average Americans. And only 34% say he shares their values. Only 30% of respondents think he's level-headed. He's the most negatively-rated Oval Office occupier in the history of polling. How many Americans saw all this before election day?

Later in the day one of his GOP primary opponents--Jeb Bush, the establishment candidate who "everyone" thought would run away with the nomination battle-- warned that Trump's character could drag down the whole party in the midterms. He's right. Bush agrees with some of Trump's right-wing domestic agenda but the former Florida governor warned "that Republicans are in for a beating in the fall elections if congressional races focus on the rhetoric and character of President Trump." And that's exactly what many Democrats intend to make the midterms about. Alan Grayson goes even further. Although his campaign is primarily revolving around the traditional Democratic issues he's always campaigned on-- the importance of electing candidates who are unbought and unbossed, and also the overall importance of demonstrating how to use politics to improve people’s lives-- he told me that the issue of Trump’s impeachment is providing a very handy means of separating real Democrats from empty suits and posers. "The evidence," he said, "of Trump’s commission of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' already is overwhelming. He is an illegitimate President elected by means of overt collusion with a foreign power. And President Dotard is obviously unfit for office. This isn’t very complicated. As Freud once said, 'sometimes a cigar just a cigar.'" Now, back to the Jebster:

Bush lambasted Trump's erratic leadership style, obsession with Twitter and "racist" comments that could cost Republicans control of Congress in November if they can't distance themselves from the former reality TV star.

"If the election is nationalized and it's not about the economy, then we'll lose," Bush told USA Today as Trump prepares to deliver the State of the Union address rounding up his first year in office. "If it's about the economy and it's driven by state or district interest, incumbents can do well."

...Bush worried that Trump will not allow Republicans to steer clear of him because of "his incredible view that the world revolves around him."

Bush railed against reports that the president referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "shithole" countries. He criticized Trump's moves to isolate the U.S. from other global powers. And he decried the revolving door of staffers who have sullied the reputation of the White House on their way out the door.

"The character of the guy and the (turnover) and fighting, and just the constant chaos around his presidency that is self-inflicted has made it hard for him," Bush said. "I want the president to succeed. I don't think he will succeed if he continues on this path."

Derek Cressman is running for a state Senate seat in California. He penned a powerful OpEd for the Sacramento Bee on Thursday about how Democrats can win in 2018 and 2020, a point of view that the establishment-- whether Jeb Bush or Nancy Pelosi-- will never understand. "If the past year has taught us anything," he wrote, "it’s that too many voters have lost faith in key civic institutions such as the news media and political parties. If we are going to rebuild public trust, legislators need to become more partisan. That certainly flies right in the face of establishment preaching-- and Cressman knows it.

You might be surprised to hear someone like me, who has spent most of his career with nonpartisan good government groups, advocating for more partisanship. But that’s precisely what America needs right now.

Done correctly, political parties can serve as vehicles for volunteers and small donors to band together around a set of ideas-- a platform. Party endorsements inexpensively inform voters of candidates’ positions on the issues, but only if endorsements go to the candidate who most closely sticks to the platform. 
Unfortunately, too many voters now justifiably perceive parties as washing machines that launder special interest money to re-elect an old boys’ club of incumbents who promote their own careers. Huge campaign contributions from outside sources have undermined political parties since the 1970s by allowing candidates who disagree with their parties to use pricey marketing campaigns to communicate directly with voters. The Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has only made things worse.


Ironically, by playing the big money game to keep pace with super PACs, the Democratic Party has driven small donors into outside groups such as MoveOn.org while tarnishing the party’s own brand image with voters and activists. According to a recent survey, only 72 percent of California Democrats have a favorable view of their own party. Worse yet, 59 percent of Democrats say a third party is needed.

The movement of voters who have lost faith in the Democratic Party contributed to the 2016 election results and shows that “compromise” by corporate Democrats is anything but pragmatic.

Sam Jammal, the progressive running for the suddenly open Orange County congressional seat that Ed Royce is abandoning (CA-39), told me this morning that "We win if we actually focus on what people are concerned about-- housing affordability, out of pocket health care costs, student debt and whether they can get a raise. We lose when we obsess over Trump and don't stand for anything. This isn't science-- Democrats need to be for something. But most importantly, we win when we are on the ground and in the community. We need to elect people who reflect their districts and will fight for their districts."

Progressive David Gill has a unique perspective, since he was the near winner in the 2012 cycle, "The situation here in IL-13 is ridiculous. My progressive message of single-payer healthcare came within 0.3% of victory in the 2012 general election (my message actually WON by 7 points, but a liberal independent took 7.3% and split the vote just enough to allow the Republican to become an 'accidental Congressman'). Since then, the DCCC has insisted on running conservative candidates with bland messages, and they've been slaughtered by 18-20 points. It's amazing that my lifelong party can't get behind me, and instead persists with a message that loses by 50-60 TIMES my margin of defeat. It appears as though they don't want a single-payer pushing practicing doctor anywhere near the halls of Congress. I watch people suffer and die in the E.R. on a regular basis because of the we way finance healthcare here in America, and it frustrates me to the point that I'm running for Congress again. I have to defeat my own party in the primary again this March (as I did back in 2012), and then I have no doubt that my message of single-payer, a $15/hour minimum wage, and tuition-free access to public universities and trade schools will succeed in November."

Republican Incumbents Are Grasping A Broken Reed

In an interview with USA Today yesterday, Jeb Bush warned that Trump is going to tank Republican chances in the midterms if he-- and the Democrats-- make the elections about him. "Every business that announces a job increase," said Bush, who agrees with many of Trump's backward economic policies, "you can make a pretty compelling case that it's tax reform and regulatory reform that was a catalyst to make that happen... "If the election is nationalized and it's not about the economy, then we'll lose. If it's about the economy and it's driven by state or district interest, incumbents can do well." Bush is absolutely giddy over the tax cuts for businesses and billionaires and he could kiss Trump for dismantling regulations that protect ordinary American families from economic predators. His favorite Trump cabinet member, he admits, is Betsy DeVos, the one most hated by the most American voters.

We'll have more about that little Jeb interview later today but Rebecca Greenfield a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter looked a little more closely into the tax windfall that Trump, Bush, Ryan and so many Republican office-holders are counting on to save them from oblivion. Is that a good bet? The tax scam was a scam, so probably not. Greenfield wrote that it "has inspired what seems like a flurry of action from companies looking to gain billions of dollars in potential savings. Every day, a new organization announces bonuses and wage increases. (FedEx Corp. on Friday added its name to that list.) Others, however, are using their funds to lay off thousands of workers. Despite the headlines, it turns out most companies aren’t doing much at all with their tax savings, according to a new survey from Willis Towers Watson. At least not yet." 


The HR consulting firm asked 333 employers with at least 1,000 employees what they have done or plan to do as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Only 4 percent of companies said they had “increased wages for all employees”; an additional 3 percent said they planned to do so in the next year. While an further 13 percent said they’re “considering taking action this year or next,” a full 80 percent of companies aren’t considering giving raises at all.

...At this rate, it’s too early to tell what the trickle-down impact of the bill will be, if any. The bonus and wage increases provided to employees have, so far, been a fraction of the savings companies are seeing from the tax bill. It will take years to determine the full impacts of the bill, economists say.

Still, employees are seeing some changes. Almost 20 percent of companies surveyed said they had already added Roth 401(k) retirement plans for employees, making it the most popular benefit change as a result of the tax bill. Unlike a traditional 401(k), a Roth taxes money up front when it goes into the account, rather than down the line when it comes out. “Many employers are saying ‘Tax rates are lower, I’d rather pay taxes on the lower amount than pay gains in the future,’ because maybe they will go up in the future,’” Bremen said.

Not all workplace upgrades come in the form of money. Around 40 percent of companies said they have already taken at least one “action” as a result of the tax bill, from increasing hiring to spending money on automation.

This cycle, Iowa's best candidate in many years is running for Congress, Austin Frerick. He just told us that "The American Dream and our ability to provide for our families is in crisis in this 2nd Gilded Age because of these greedy robber barons. Robber barons who think nothing of poisoning our waterways to make a quick buck, who think they can be Secretary of Education, who would push doctors to prescribe opioids and then ignore devastated communities without another thought. Don’t let a robber baron or a robber baron’s crony like Jeb Bush tell you everything will be fine if we send away all the immigrants or build a wall. Don’t let a robber baron or Jeb Bush tell you that doubling the estate tax limit will help the economy. That’s a tax cut in a billionaire’s bottom line, not a new business on Main Street."

Jeb: "I Congratulate My Competitors That Are Remaining On The Island"

Jeb leaving the race isn't the same as deadbeats like Santorum, Fiorina and Pataki abandoning the Deep Bench. He actually did have some supporters-- not many actual voters, but plenty of big money people. PLENTY. In all, his campaign and SuperPAC raised over $150 million dollars, mostly from wealthy people, very little from the kinds of small donors who have fueled Bernie's campaign or even Dr. Ben's campaign. Jeb raised as much as Cruz and Rubio combined. Maybe that's why candidates who were pounding on Bush just a few days ago, particularly Rubio and Cruz and even Herr Trumpf, were so nice to him on Sunday. It would be hard to imagine many Jeb donors going over the Herr's camp... although he may smell like a winner to a few ambitious souls Many, however, according to the media, have started signing on with Rubio. Reportedly 20 already called Florida lobbyist Brian Ballard, a Rubio supporter who switched over from Bush last year.

And Jeb had a lot of endorsers, who are now free to be as meaningless for other candidates as they were for him, including family members, Dan Quayle, Henry Paulson (the TARP guy), a gaggle of past and present senators from Bob Dole, Norm Coleman, and Alan Simpson (the guy who wants to cut Social Security benefits) to Thad Cochran, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and... well Dean Heller (NV) immediately endorsed Rubio for tomorrow's caucus in his state. And then there are a few dozen past and present congressmembers, almost exclusively meaningless, even to Republicans, from Eric Cantor, Tom Feeney, and Dave Weldon to Patrick McHenry and a gaggle of Floridians who will all quickly sign up with Rubio.

As for the voters themselves... well there were some in South Carolina, 57,863 (7.8%) to be exact. Even if every single one of them had voted for Rubio-- a real stretch-- Herr Trumpf still would have come in first. And there were 31,312 (11.0%) in New Hampshire; again not enough to have propelled second place finisher John Kasich into first place instead of Herr. His 5,238 votes in Iowa would have made Rubio #2 instead of Trumpf but wouldn't have any any impact on Cruz's win. Yesterday's NY Times looked at the 57,863 South Carolina Bush voters and speculated on where they would go. They felt it worth mentioning that ideologically they fall between supporters of Kasich and Rubio. They tended to be more suburban and urban rather than rural. Other factoids:

• Most of the voters supporting Mr. Bush in South Carolina identified as “somewhat conservative” and were more moderate than the supporters of any other candidate except Mr. Kasich.
• Mr. Bush had the highest share of supporters who said terrorism was the most important issue to them. Like Mr. Rubio’s and Mr. Kasich’s supporters, only a small share listed immigration as the most important issue.
• Mr. Bush’s supporters were older than any other candidate’s supporters. Mr. Trump’s voters were the second oldest.
• Voters for Mr. Bush had a similar education profile to voters for Mr. Rubio and Mr. Carson.

If you wonder why Jeb allowed himself to be abused by a TV clown and carnival barker for so long in his hopeless campaign, look no further than the strategists, consultants and operatives who became rich feeding off the tens of millions of dollars Jeb brought in. He may have gotten the worst advice imaginable but those who gave it became richer and richer as the miserable campaign dragged on and on. Self-serving political hitmen and entrepreneurs did well, regardless of Jeb's agony and daily humiliations. Mike Muphy, who ran the Right to Rise SuperPAC (into the ground) is reported to have walked away with $14 million of the donors' money. (He denies it but won't say how much he pocketed.) That's what happens when you contribute to establishment hacks like Jeb, Rubio, or Hillary. This morning, CNN reported on how Murphy defends himself (and his colossal record of failure).

Murphy said in an email Monday, "Out of more than 11,000 donors only a handful have complained."

"This is just axe grinding, mostly from rival consultant types," Murphy said.

Murphy's failed effort to help Bush follows his strategic oversight of another expensive losing campaign: the $177 million effort of 2010 California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Despite her campaign's lavish spending, Whitman lost to Democrat Jerry Brown, who spent a mere $36 million by comparison.

For months now, there have been rumblings of dissatisfaction among Bush donors about the strategic decisions made by Murphy at Right to Rise.

Some were puzzled by the super PAC's decision to emphasize Bush's government experience in a year when voters clearly were looking for outsider cred and a candidate who could channel anger at the establishment.

Right to Rise also angered some of its own donors by targeting Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who could well become the Republican Party's nominee.

Re-Defining Ted Cruz

Jeb's campaign has long since crashed and burned but there was a time when he seemed as inevitable as Hillary (was). All the pundits expected a Clinton-Bush redux. Back at the end of 2014, a poll from CNN showed Jeb with a gigantic lead-- 23%, with Christie, Carson, Huckabee, Paul, Rubio, Ryan and Cruz trailing-- with the kind of numbers Jeb has today. Even as late as the very end of last June, CNN's polling was still showing Jeb significantly ahead of the pack:

• Jeb- 19%
• Herr Trumpf- 12%
• Huckabee- 8%
• Dr. Ben- 7%
• Randy Paul- 7%
• Rubio- 6%
• Walker- 6%
• Perry- 4%
• Christie- 3%
• Cruz- 3%

You can see why Herr Trumpf took immediate aim at Jeb. He used standard marketing and propaganda techniques to define Jeb as "low energy," effeminate, weak, laughable, pathetic-- never anything about policy, always personal-- and since July, Herr has never fallen out of first place. The most recent national GOP polling, released this morning by Quinnipiac, shows Herr way ahead... and Jeb a virtual dead duck.

• Herr Trumpf- 39%
• Rubio- 19%
• Cruz- 18%
• Kasich- 6%
• Dr. Ben- 4%
• Jeb- 4%

Trumpf still takes enough shots at Jeb's twitching corpse to keep in at the bottom of the list but his new target is Cruz and he's been testing various lines of attack, although he appears to think that branding him a liar, in fact the worst liar the world has ever seen, is his ticket to ride. And sweaty little Rubio, who's still too frightened to take Trumpf on-- but is working himself up to it-- is piling on, following Trumpf's lead in the Cruz branding process. I-- and God knows how many other random email accounts the campaign bought-- got this from Alex Conant, Rubio's communications director, yesterday:

Howie,

What I’m about to tell you is completely TRUE. It may seem to be far fetched, but it’s totally true. So please read this email and afterwards show your support for Marco-- he needs it.

Everyone talks about how when campaigns reach South Carolina, it gets ugly, and Howie, it’s gotten ugly.

We’ve always known that Ted Cruz and his super PACs would do anything and say anything for a vote. And now their slimy smear tactics are catching up with him.

This weekend, TV stations in South Carolina pulled down ads from a Ted Cruz Super PAC after legal review because their accusations about Marco were so false.

First it was lying about Marco on fundamental issues like life and marriage; now Cruz and his supporters attempts to slander and distort Marco’s record have reached a new low.

Howie, you and I know who Marco is and what he stands for. But now your support to Marco has NEVER been as important as it is right now. Marco is committed to running a positive campaign and he needs our help to keep that going.

Will you follow this link to make an urgently needed campaign contribution of $25 or more?

Even though Cruz's allies are being forced to take down these ads (the TV stations are refusing to air them), make no mistake: They are going to fight back even harder. They reportedly have a goal of spending a combined $3.7 MILLION on advertising in South Carolina this week-- that’s over half a million dollars a day! In order to fight back and not be outspent by these liars we need your help.

There has never been a more critical time to donate to Marco Rubio.

Really, Howie, everything you and I have worked for comes down to this week. Marco needs our immediate support to have a strong showing in South Carolina and fight back against the lies being thrown his way.

Your donation is critical to Marco’s success in South Carolina. Once your instant online contribution goes through it will hit our system and allow us to afford our final get-out-the-vote efforts before the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

So, Howie, every second that goes by without your donation, the Cruz campaign wins.

We need your help. Can we count on you?

The final countdown to South Carolina is here. Are you ready?

P.S. Over the weekend Donald Trump said, “I have never ever seen someone who lies as much as Ted Cruz,” and I have to say, Howie, Mr. Trump may be right on that. Ted Cruz and his campaign are hoping that they will win by distorting their opponents’ records and avoiding anyone looking at Ted’s. We are going to fight around the clock to expose Ted’s fraudulent efforts and promote Marco’s positive and forward-thinking conservative campaign. This isn’t going to be easy.

The Cruz campaign has access to millions-- and fighting back is going to require all hands on deck. Will you join us and fight with us?

Watch Ted Cruz in South Carolina yesterday defending himself from accusations of serial and deliberate truthlessness-- and not just from Herr Trumpf... but going off on a long tirade against poor sweaty little Rubio. His slippery techniques and well-honed debate style may be paying off. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released a couple of hours ago, which looks like an outlier, has him beating out Herr Trumpf among Republicanos nationwide. The numbers are Cruz 28% (up 8 points from January), Herr Trumpf 26% (down 7 points), Rubio 17% (up 4 points), Kasich 11% (up 8 points), Dr. Ben 10% (down 2 points) and the poor, pathetic Jebster 4% (down 1 point). These big upticks from Cruz, Kasich and Rubio aren't just because voters are abandoning Herr; they also reflect the 12 points that were split between the candidates who packed it in after Iowa and New Hampshire, Huckabee, Paul, Fiorina and Christie. (Santorum doesn't count because he had less than 1% national support in January before he finally gave up and promised the American people he wouldn't run for office again.



Wow! Five money links and 4 uses of the word "Howie." Rubio wants very much to be the last man standing against Trumpf. The Kochs have promised they'd loosen the purse strings for him when that happens. But what the Republican Party establishment really wants, is for Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, the poor Jebster and anyone else-- even favorite son canddiates-- to command enough delegates to keep Herr Trumpf away from 51% and a first ballot victory. They wouldn't mind if sweaty little Rubio is their nominee-- he's very obedient-- but they don't care if he's the nominee or not, as long as Herr Trumpf isn't.

Does The Ineffectiveness of Jeb's Campaign Itself Disqualify Him In The Eyes Of Most Voters?

Jeb's SuperPAC, Right to Rise, made the 30 second ad above. I don't know what it cost them to make it or to run it but I do know one thing: it was a complete waste of money no matter what it cost and didn't persuade a single voter... unless it persuaded them to not vote for Jeb. He-- and his donors-- are being taken for a ride by consultants who are getting rich while Jeb's campaign flounders. And it isn't just poor Jeb... even if he is getting the worst of it. Total political ad spending for the presidential campaigns are through the roof. A week from today Iowans will caucus. The most recent CBS/YouGov poll of Iowa Republicans shows that Herr Trumpf is probably going to win and that Jeb will be an asterisk:

• Herr Trumpf- 39%
• Cruz- 34%
• Rubio- 13%
• Dr. Ben- 5%
• Rand Paul- 3%
• Christie- 2%
• Jeb- 1%
• Fiorina- 1%
• Kasich- 1%
• Santorum- 1%
• Huckabee- 0%

The polling numbers do not reflect what the campaigns and their SuperPACs have spent on advertising in Iowa, from from it in fact:

• Jeb- $14 million
• Rubio- $11.7 million
• Cruz- $6.3 million
• Herr Trumpf- $3.5 million
• Jindal- $3.3 million
• Huckabee- $2.3 million
• Rand Paul- $1.3 million
• Walker- $1 million
• Perry- $798k
• Christie- $587k
• Fiorina- $570k
• Graham- $119k
• Santorum- $32k

So Jeb spent $14 million for the same 1% share of the vote that Kasich is getting after spending nothing at all? On top of which 67% of Iowa Republicans say they "could never consider" voting for Jeb. The Blue America PAC noticed several years ago that the kind of clusterfuck broadcast advertising was a colossal waste of money. So we stopped doing it. Jeb's advisors and Rubio's consultants (as well as Hillary's and Cruz's) are making a helluva lot of bank by persuading the campaigns that this kind of spending is worthwhile. It would be as easy to make the case that for every dollar Jeb has put into TV and radio, he's lost a voter. The barrage of ads in Iowa and New Hampshire are driving people crazy and all the negativity-- most of the advertising is viciously negative-- is further wrecking the GOP brand and depressing the base.

Joseph Tanfani, in Monday's L.A. Times reports that "there is little relationship between money spent on ads and poll numbers for candidates, at least on the Republican side. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, the top two spenders, have spent about 10 times as much on ads as have the two polling leaders in Iowa, Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas-- who until recently bought far fewer ads than their rivals." He attributes that to several factors: a celebrity front-runner getting tons of free media and driving the daily media message for the entire field (Trump has been mentioned about 195,000 times on news shows since he entered the race, more than twice as much as his closest rival), an overly crowded field with two many choices and not enough substantive differences, questionable campaign strategies and the kind of voter burnout that prompted University of New Hampshire professor Andrew Smith to remark that "If you turn on your TV over the last few weeks, it's one ad after another after another. It just becomes wallpaper."

"It's a complete waste of money, and I think people are starting to figure that out," Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist, said of the expensive strategy of outside groups blanketing the airways with advertising at premium rates. Bennett, former campaign manager for Ben Carson, now is advising Trump.

Even at its best, television is a blunt tool for reaching the relatively small numbers of people who vote in small-state primaries. "The money spent per actual voter is huge," said Joe Fuld, a Democratic campaign consultant. "It's like trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer."

Some suggest that the problem isn't the medium but the message; the ads aren't working as well because they simply aren't very good. No one has come out with a standout ad that generates its own buzz. And this year, ads that tout a candidate's credentials or attack opponents with grainy footage aren't getting through.

Some of the explanation also lies with which candidates were doing the advertising. Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush, raised more than $100 million before the campaign got underway and paid for a bombardment of ads in an attempt to jump-start his sputtering candidacy. After at least $60 million in spending, Bush remains stuck at about 6% in polls.

"Guys like Jeb Bush are spending more than anybody and he has absolutely nothing to show for it," said Justin Holmes, a politics professor at the University of Northern Iowa.

"If they don't like what you're selling, it won't matter how much you try to sell it."

Trump, Bush's antagonist, meanwhile, didn't advertise at all until recently. But he stormed to the top of the field and has stayed there while dominating news coverage and speaking directly to millions of followers on Facebook and with a Twitter feed full of insults, incendiary statements and promises to restore America's swagger.

...For candidates without Trump's news saturation, an increasingly fractured media landscape also is making it tougher for them to get their messages across.

"You have more media outlets today than you've ever had, and the audience is more and more splintered," said Dominic Caristi, a professor of telecommunications at Ball State University. "It's made anything less effective, whether we're talking about an ad for Jeb Bush or an ad for Crest toothpaste."

A recent Gallup survey found that fewer people than ever said that "watching television" was their favorite way to spend an evening. They might still be looking at some kind of screen, but the days of gathering around the set to watch a network show is on the wane, said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief.

"Now it's dispersed," Newport said. "With so many different kinds of screens and different ways of watching, it's more complex to try to reach them."

Millions of dollars' worth of ad spending blended into the background cacophony, with more than a dozen voices in the Republican field struggling to differentiate themselves and to be heard at a time when many voters simply weren't paying attention.

The consultants are not creative and are largely incapable of thinking outside of the box and are too tied to the rake-offs that enrich them from paid advertising. (And it isn't just the GOP. The corruption is endemic in operations like the DCCC and EMILY's List as well.) Most of this year's GOP campaigns-- as well as Hillary's-- still regard broadcast as the most effective way to reach the most voters. The number of ads purchased is up by 45% since the 2012 presidential cycle.

The ads that are doing better, in a time of deep dissatisfaction with anything that smells of old-school politicking, offer a promise of authenticity and an aspirational, idealistic message, according to Ace Metrix, a company that measures ad effectiveness. Mark Bryant, a vice president at Ace, said the firm had shown each ad released this year to focus groups of 500 voters from different parties and demographic groups.

...[T]he ads getting the best overall response so far are from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic nomination. He has the four highest-scoring spots and seven of the top 10. "Fairness, equality, an economy that works well for all-- these are themes that are resonating with Democrats and independents," Bryant said. "They love his stuff."

Hillary's campaign, whose ads are as stiff and unengaging as Jeb's, is so freaked out over Bernie's ads that they've been running around whispering to media allies that Bernie's ads are racist-- like this one, which has her team running around like chickens without heads:

Republican Attack Ads Are Making Everyone Hate Republicans

Friday, Hillary was busy driving up her own already unfavorable ratings by joining the most vicious surrogates and staffers on her team disseminating twisted lies about Bernie. Democrats hate negative campaigning against other Democrats. Even Republicans are growing restless-- at least in Iowa and New Hampshire-- with the tens of millions of dollars in negative ads they can't escape from. TV, radio, internet... the Republican candidates are tearing each other apart. The party's brand is being adversely effected each time one of the candidates starts pounding on another one.

The latest poll of Republicano likely Iowa caucus goers was bad news for Cruz and bad news for anyone hoping to prevent a first ballot nomination for Herr Trumpf. A deadlocked convention can only happen if Trump wins fewer than half the delegates. With Trumpf neutering Cruz in Iowa, the Texas neo-fascist will be pretty much roadkill. And there really is no one else. That was the sorriest, shallowest deep bench I ever saw! The CNN poll released Thursday has Herr Trumpf with 37% (up 4 points), Cruz with 26% (up 6 points), Rubio with 14% (up 3 points), Dr. Ben with 6% (down 10 points) and everyone else within the margin of error, Fiorina, Kasich and Christie having sunk back down to 1% each. In New Hampshire, the latest poll is also from CNN and it shows Republicans there favoring Herr Trumpf with 34% (up 2 points), Cruz with 14% (up 8 points), Jeb with 10% (up 2 points), Rubio with 10% (down 4 points) and Christie, Kasich and Paul each with 6%. Everyone's fighting for their lives and the desperate campaigns are going for broke. It's kind of sad watching Rubio attack Christie and Jeb attack Rubio and Huckabee attack Kasich.

The real action is now between Cruz and Herr Trumpf. Yesterday Trumpf released his campaign's first attack ad (above), laying out $2 million in Iowa with pure Rubio messaging against Cruz on immigration policy. Rubio's points are cynical and misleading, which probably make them more attractive to Herr. But Iowa voters are now hearing the stuff about Cruz from so many sources that some of them are starting to believe it, which is probably why his polling numbers are headed south. Herr sent out an ironic tweet this morning: "I am in Iowa watching all of these phony T.V. ads by the other candidates. All bull, politicians are all talk and no action-it won't happen!"

Meanwhile Cruz went on the attack against Trumpf, accusing him of being a crony-capitalist-- too abstract for a Trumpf supporter to care about-- and invoking Rand Paul's arguments about eminent domain, which is another thing Trumpf fans don't understand or care about and is likely to have no discernible effect on Trumpf's standing in the polls. Unless Cruz can somehow figure out how to keep Trumpf supporters from caucusing, he's going to lose the state he thought would launch him on an unstoppable victory march to Cleveland. Every day that passes with Trumpf as the front-runner makes it more difficult for anyone-- Cruz, the establishment candidates, the Establishment itself-- to stop him from winning a nomination which could split the Republican Party into pieces and which would certainly be a boon to Democrats on every level.



Trumpf responsed, blandly and misleadingly, on Twitter... before dawn. This one may be effective with libertarians. But are there libertarian Trumpf fans? Instead of running yet another negative ad this week, Jeb had his mommy come in and try to rescue his catastrophic and failed campaign with an ad that will be remembered by exactly no one, or at least by fewer people who remember that she told the world he shouldn't run in the first place because the country's had enough Bushs.



And then there's this by the Republican Establishment, not representing any particular candidate but just slamming Herr Trumpf in a way that will have little to no effect on most of his supporters but will make him anathema to ideological Republicans-- and perhaps less unattractive to Democrats. The ad was made by the Our Principles SuperPAC, a group cobbled together by Romney operatives and headed by Romney's former deputy campaign manager Katie Packer. The group reports spending $254,651 against Trumpf, but this ad is new and not part of that report. Packer refuses to say who ponied up the money for the group and will neither confirm no deny that Romney is involved with the SuperPAC. So far they have spent on mailers and radio ads in Iowa. I'm not certain what they plan to do with a two minute and 24 second attack video. Show it at churches? It's had just over 14,000 views on YouTube.



You know, it's funny, but I think well-run twitter campaigns are having as much impact-- if not more-- than millions of dollars in TV and radio advertising by the presidential candidate. Lindsey Graham may be correct that Herr Trumpf would make the worst commander-in-chief in the nation's history, but he'd be the country's best presidential tweeter. Here are a few from today, twisting the knife into the back of "ally" Ted Cruz for the sake of his 5.8 million twitter followers. Twitter is the absolutely perfect medium for Herr Trumpf. Assertions are his style; no other presidential campaign comes even close to his natural ability to exploit Twitter, although at least Rand Paul is in the ballpark.

Unleash The Ads! And The Mud!

Greg Sargent's headline in today's Washington Post shocked me. It's completely accurate and totally precise but I had never seen the word "darkies" in a Post headline before. Herr Trumpf sure has done strange things to our country. Sargent says Trumpf's dark propaganda piece makes crystal clear how the fear-mongering demagogue wants to make America "great" again-- by making it white again-- and by keeping the darkies out. "Trumpism in all its xenophobic glory." It won't be on TV anywhere but in Iowa and New Hampshire (why not South Carolina? They'd love it there)-- except it 's already everywhere as "news." Watch it up top. So just when Reince Priebus is talking about how he believes Trumpf can win a general election, the Republican Party frontrunner is viscerally equating ISIS terrorists with Latino immigrants (invaders). Doesn't exactly play into the post-Romney RNC (now-shredded?) plans for 2016. Sargent is smart enough to know Trumpf isn't going to be able to beat Cruz for the nomination but is still asking the obvious question: "Wither the forces Trump has unleashed inside the GOP? Trump’s candidacy-- and to a somewhat lesser extent, that of Ted Cruz-- is framed around the idea that the way to win the White House is by unleashing the power of white backlash. This is plainly obvious in Trump’s case, but Cruz, too, has repeatedly suggested a GOP victory must be powered by evangelicals and “Reagan Democrats,” i.e., culturally conservative blue collar whites. Cruz has engaged in more sophisticated demagoguery about Muslims and has flatly ruled out any form of legalization for undocumented immigrants."

The ads released at the same time today by the other two campaigns flush with cash-- Cruz's and the Jebster's-- are tame yawn-fests compared to Trump's ominous red meat. Cruz is trying to make an appeal that goes slightly over the heads of the garden variety Trumpf fans:



And the Jebster ad is typical consultant-driven pablum, more about how media consultants can soak sucker candidates than about moving numbers with a message likely to connect with TV viewers. Jeb will spend millions on his ad (at the bottom on the page) and still wind up at the bottom of the pack with also-rans like Fiorina and Huckabee. Speaking of the also-rans, apparently this is their last chance to get in all the mudslinging before they start dropping out in serious numbers

Supporters of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee are poised to unleash a wave of ferocious attacks this month, according to Republicans familiar with their planning, plunging the muddled contest into a multidimensional war in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses.

“You’re going to see even sharper elbows” starting this week, said Jon Seaton, a Republican strategist not affiliated with any of the campaigns. “And by the middle of January, everybody will have their pads on and helmets buckled.”

By month’s end, the candidates and their allied groups could spend as much as $100 million combined, much of it on negative advertising delivered via television, radio, mailers and digital spots. And after the effectiveness of positive television commercials came under question last year when tens of millions of dollars failed to lift Mr. Bush, January will offer insights into whether attack ads still have the power they did in past presidential elections.

Before he rides off into the sunset, Santorum is trying to make the bizarre claim that Cruz isn't a conservative, just some kind of opportunistic poseur. "The fact that he’s out there calling people 'neocons' tells you that he doesn’t see himself as a conservative." And he and Huckabee are both hitting Cruz hard in Iowa as being someone who fights and always loses. I suspect neither is trying to bolster Herr Trumpf, but that's exactly what those kind of anti-Cruz missiles will do. Meanwhile Cruz, Bush and Christie are going to unleash the dogs of war on Rubio and beat him to a bloody pulp so that it becomes apparent he's the wrong choice for the all-important not-Trumpf lane. Funny how scared they all seem of the silly bully Trumpf, shaking in their cowboy boots that he will make good on his idiotic threats to "hit back" if anyone dares goes after him. These clowns are just so pitiful. How can any of them lay claim to being able to protect America in any way if they can't even protect themselves and their sad little party from Trumpf and his ism?

Poor Jeb And Marco Are Being Taken To The Cleaners By Self-Serving Professional Campaign Operatives

On Friday, we noted that the more poor Jeb spends on his mundane TV ads, the lower his support is driven. He doesn't read DWT and it certainly not what the 15% rake-off crew is telling him.

Because the poor fella has the most conventional and stultified mind of anyone running this cycle, he's decided that what his failing campaign needs is to spend more of his idiot-donors' money on more ineffectual ads... and in New Hampshire, where the barrage he's already run has worked least. Boston's Republican newspaper reports that the Jebster SuperPAC plans to dump another $14 million into incredibly expensive ads-- "a clear sign that Bush operatives, despite criticism over already spending more than $35 million nationally on commercials for just 4 percent in the polls, are doubling down on a strategy of massive TV buys." Meanwhile, one of the billionaire-funded SuperPACs funded that supports Bush-lite is spending another $6.1 million, Christie's desperate campaign is spending $4.9 and even poor Kasich is in for $1.4, presumably to beat up on Herr Trumpf some more.

But the political bombardment-- especially in a cycle with so many candidates on the ballot-- may only make it harder for campaigns to stand out, said Tobe Berkovitz of Boston University, a former political media buyer.

“Unless you come out with a really good ad, most of this is like water off the back of a duck,” Berkovitz said. “You get to the point of sheer tonnage that it’s hard to break through the clutter.”

Bush, who’s struggled to shine with his debate skills, appears to be banking on TV to better convey his message.

Bush’s independent super PAC Right to Rise has already reserved two 30-second ads during the Super Bowl-- which will be played just two days before the New Hampshire primary-- on Boston CBS affiliate WBZ at a total cost of $600,000. Right to Rise has also blocked off ad space in Boston during the NHL Winter Classic, the Golden Globes and multiple NFL playoff games in January.

Bush will also have a huge presence on New Hampshire powerhouse affiliate WMUR.

Both the Bush campaign and his super PAC have reserved a combined 253 TV spots on WMUR at a cost of $459,830 the week before the New Hampshire primary, according to filings.

That includes 10 ads a day from 5 to 8 p.m. on weeknights on WMUR during, among others, local news, ABC World News Tonight, Chronicle NH and Inside Edition.

...Andy Smith of the University of New Hampshire suggested there’s a simple “untold” motivator for buying Super Bowl ads-- the commission (typically 15 percent) the media firms get from each sale.

“Fifteen percent of a couple-million-dollar ad during the Super Bowl is a whole lot better than 15 percent of an ad on Saturday morning on WMUR,” Smith said. “There’s money to be made by people running the campaigns, and you can’t forget about that.”

Reminder: Cruz, the surging second-plcae candidate has spent $1,253,726 in ads and scored 18% among Republican voters in the most recent national polling. Jeb is in 7th place with 3% after spending $38,109,644 (nearly $5 million of which went towards rake-offs from professional campaign hucksters who, apparently, aren't very good at their jobs) and Rubio, who has slipped to 10% has spent $17,799,911. Herr Trumpf has spent virtually nothing for his 39% first place position but the value of the free media that is being lavished on him is certainly worth more than Jeb's and Marco's ad budgets combined. Perhaps the two of them should start tossing around words like "putz," "fakakta," "drek," "shtoop" and start referring to Herr Trumpf as a "meshugana," a "beheima" and an "alter kocker." It would probably get them some attention.

The Chaos Candidate shows how future GOP primaries will be waged

Poor Jeb... $38 Million In Mediocre TV Ads And He Now Has Less Support Than Christie And Rand Paul!

Blue America stopped making TV ads a couple of cycles ago when we found that they're a tremendous waste of money and don't move the needle much-- if the deceitful networks even run them in their entirety (which they rarely do.) TV ads are a tremendous rip off but the political operative class makes all their money from them-- especially corrupt operations like EMILY's List and the DCCC, which force (literally force) their candidates to sit on the phone begging for money all day and then turn it over to DCCC and EMILY's List-related consultants and companies which take gigantic rake-offs for substandard and pointless ads. If a candidate says they'd rather spend money on something uselful-- like field-- the DCCC and EMILY's List threaten to withdraw their support.

I don't care that Republicans waste their money on this kind of nonsense but I bet they're learning what a waste it is faster than the Democrats are. So far $111 million has been spent on TV and radio ads by the presidential campaigns, some good, some bad, most unremarkable. (Many millions of dollars generated in commissions and other rake-offs for the people who trick these candidates into wasting this kind of cash.) This week NBC News reported how the more money Jeb Bush spent on ads ($38 million so far)-- more than all the other candidates combined-- the more his support tanked.

Keep in mind that the latest CNN poll-- released Wednesday-- looks like this (juxtaposed with how much has been spent on TV and radio ads):

• Herr Trumpf- 39%, up 3 points ($216,669)
• Cruz-18%, up 2 ($1,253,726)
• Dr. Ben- 10%, down 4 ($3,229,812)
• Rubio- 10%, down 2 ($17,799,911)
• Christie- 5%, up 1 ($8,124,131)
• Rand Paul- 4%, up 3 ($1,000,074)
• The Jebster- 3%, steady ($38,109,644)
• Huckabee- 2%, steady ($75,258)
• Kasich- 2%, steady ($9,075,362)
• Fiorina- 1%, down 2 ($1,021,237)

Meanwhile Hillary spent around $12.2 million and Bernie spent around $7.6 million. The 4 biggest GOP ad spending machines-- Jeb's, Rubio's, Kasich's and Christie's (4 tired establishment campaigns)-- have resulted in a combined 20% support, about a third of the support that just Herr Trumpf and Cruz, the 2 proto-fascist candidates who have spent very little on TV and radio, have accrued. Here's a typical ineffective, expensive TV ad run by the Jebster's SuperPAC:



I can tell you for sure, these kinds of stupid and mostly ineffective ads are not what Blue America's Independent Expenditure Committee has in mind for 2016. If you want to contribute to our independent efforts as part of your end-of-the-year giving, the I.E. Committee is here. Oh... and Happy Holidays from everyone at DWT We have some year coming up!

Jeb Has No Shot Whatsoever But He's Embarrassed To Drop Out Before March And Just Keeps Wasting His Contributors' Cash

My friend John, at Crooks and Liars, keeps hassling me that the DWT posts are too long and that I should break them up into a few posts. It's not like I'm trying to appeal to Trumpf-level readers but I think I'll try that today with a post about-- what else?-- the Republican brawl for their party's worthless presidential nomination. I'll start with the simple part: how horrible is this stupid ad by Jeb's biggest single donor, Cuban-born Florida billionaire Mike Fernandez? Mike's frustrated that his longtime pal Jeb has been turned to sand by Herr Trumpf. He even said he'd vote for Hillary-- as many of the GOP 1%ers will no doubt do-- if Trumpf gets the nomination. We'll take that thread up again in the next half of what would have been one post if not for John though.

Ferandez, who already spent $3 million of his own money on Jeb's listless, failing campaign-- you know, it's not all Trumpf's fault-- decided calling Trumpf "an insecure narcissistic BULLYionaire with a hunger to be adored" (emphasis is entirely Mr. Fernandez's) in an unattractive full page ad couple in a couple of newspapers in Miami, Las Vegas and Des Moines is the way to obliterate Trumpf's 33 point lead-- Trumpf with 36% in the latest CNN poll, to Jeb's 3%. The cockamamie ad starts off comparing Trumpf to Lincoln-- would the Jebster fare well in a comparison test? Not from what I saw of him as a third rate governor of Florida. He then launches into a diatribe-- that most GOP primary voters might find obtuse-- comparing Trumpf to Hitler, Mussolini and Peron. And he reminds whoever he thinks his audience will be that "One hundred and sixty years ago, Mr. Lincoln wrote, 'When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, "All men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics,"'" a message that isn't just dangerous for Trumpf but for Cruz, Rubio and the other plausible GOP nominees as well.

The ad goes on and on and on and is unlikely to change a single vote, although it may remind some voters in Florida, Nevada and Iowa that the Republican Party has gone off the rails and it's time to vote for a Democrat. Meanwhile, many more casual observers of the process are wondering why Jeb doesn't just pack it in and allow a more popular establishment Republican to take on the fascist menace that has his party facing its very own eve of destruction. Let's face it, Jeb has proven he can't fix it. He's already spent an incredible $30 million on one worthless ad after another. In fact, the ads are less than worthless since each one does nothing but drive down his polling numbers. Real Clear Politics shows him tumbling from a nice respectable from 15% in Fox's first August poll to just 3% in the new CNN poll released Friday. His RealClearPolitics polling average now puts him in 5th place with 4.8%, way behind the 4 frontrunners in the first tier. He's not competing with Trumpf. He's competing with Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Mike Huckabee. Time it pack it in and just vote for Hillary or Bernie. But he is so loaded with establishment money that... well, why not spend it? Maybe Trumpf's plane will fall out of the sky and land on Rubio and Cruz and kill them both... you never know. Short of that, though... well, there's nothing for Jeb other than just going to the family fundraising list and begging for more.

Writing for Politico yesterday, Eli Stokols and Marc Caputo seem astounded that Jeb has persuaded otherwise rationale men and women-- mostly men-- that GOP primary voters will come to their senses sooner or later and see Trumpf for what he is. (Apparently Fernandez thinks he's going to help that along with his newspaper ads.) Their pitch never changes: "National polls aren’t predictive of primary success and the campaign’s organizational efforts will bear fruit. More privately, Bush’s team says there’s still time to engineer an unlikely comeback."

Inconvenient reminder: Latest poll in Iowa shows Bush in 6th place with 4%. Latest poll in New Hampshire shows Bush in 8th place with 5% (not just behind Trumpf, Cruz, Rubio and Dr. Ben, but also eating dust from Christie, Kasich and Fiorina. The Jebster--who has spent more money on New Hampshire media than any other campaign-- is still leading Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki and the candidates with zero percent, like Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum. Lastest poll in South Carolina has Jeb in fifth place with 5% but with Trumpf, Dr. Ben, Cruz and Rubio ahead of him with a combined 83%. So... yeah national polls might not be "predictive of primary success," but Bush is worse off in the early state polls than he is nationally!

They're still counting on New Hampshire (remember, 8th place). "It's a total jump ball... and we are right in the mix," said a campaign advisor whose fat weekly salary check would end if Jeb were to fold up his tent and go home. In the mix? He's at 5%. Trump's at 27%; Cruz is at 13%, Rubio at 11%, even Christie is at 10% there now. What mix? He's competitive with Fiorina at 6%, Rand Paul at 4%, maybe Kasich at 8%? These folks are delusional. No one likes Jeb; in fact, they positively hate him. But this campaign-- like every campaign-- claims it has "the best ground game." Notice this, from the Politico story is spoken in the past tense: "Jeb just isn’t very talented at this. And the problem is that Jeb has been coddled by a group of people who worship Jeb,” said one high-level Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They ran a campaign based on what they wanted the party to be, instead of what the party was."

Before they started running the millions of dollars in TV and radio ads that have sent his polling numbers down the toilet, one of his longtime DC bundlers said, back in October, "We’ll know by Thanksgiving whether we’ve got a candidate or a turkey." So they know but it's in the interests of all the staffers to pretend they don't. And then Mike Murphy, the crook that runs Right to Rise, the SuperPAC Jeb raised over $100 million for "before he was a candidate," is preparing a 15-minute Jeb bio. I guess it could work... on Comedy Central. But it gets better; this has got to be the most insane waste of money I've ever heard of in politics:

According to another source close to Right to Rise, Murphy has been floating another tactical shift to potential supporters, suggesting that he might spend the bulk of the $75 million to carpet bomb Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Chris Christie-- everyone but Trump. The thinking: Making the race into a binary choice between Bush and Trump might be the only way a majority of primary voters go with Bush.

Inside Bush’s Miami headquarters, which was hollowed out in the fall as the campaign downsized and shifted resources to New Hampshire, partly in response to fundraising struggles, hope is getting harder to come by.

Senior staffers like Diaz and Bradshaw continue to project confidence that things will turn around. The communications team continues to aggressively push its narrative, while the opposition research shop is churning out data points for reporters to weaponize against other GOP candidates.

But in more private conversations, many on Bush’s payroll are turning to resignation and even gallows humor. One lamented to friends about not getting to spend the entire winter in Miami; others have been wondering aloud if the campaign will even make it through January to the first in the nation Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.

“I think staff morale is exceedingly low,” said a Bush donor based in New York City. “I suspect they know they’re in a death spiral now. There’s no getting out of this.”

In spite of those worries starting to bubble to the surface, Bush appears resolved to fight on, still expressing steely confidence to close associates and anyone who questions his viability: “I’m going to win this damn thing,” he’ll often say.

They should get that into the Comedy Central bio Murphy is making. And now they say he can't pull out before March1 or it'll damage the family business. I mean who would ever take George P. Bush seriously if Jeb tries to leave with a shred of dignity?

Can Any Of The Deep Bench Clowns Match Trumpf's Cunning And Ruthlessness? Cruz?

It was fascinating to watch Trumpf destroying Jeb Bush's campaign in real time-- the classic tricks of a devious, intuitive and manipulative New York marketing expert. But, in the context of a relatively genteel Republican primary, is was breathtaking. The Bush family-- which after all spread lies about McCain's adopted child to smear him as a race mixer in South Carolina-- had never seen anything like it, let alone been the victim of such a slimy and unstoppable mass assault. I actually entertained the idea that Trumpf was doing it for the Clintons! Yesterday at the Daily Beast Ruben Navarrette didn't even touch on how Trumpf wiped the Bush Machine off the face of the political earth in his piece on turning Jeb's top asset-- his ability to win with Hispanics-- into a disqualification, something, obviously no Democrat could-- or would-- ever get near.

[W]ith a series of deft maneuvers, and a little political jujutsu, Trump managed to turn Bush’s asset into a liability that essentially took him out of the race.

When Bush described as “an act of love” the concept of a Mexican immigrant traveling north to the United States—even without proper documents-- in order to reunite with family members or to support a family back home, or when Bush spoke to Hispanic crowds in Spanish and fielded questions from Spanish-language media in the same language, or when Bush told an audience in New Hampshire that he had a “grown up plan” to deal with immigration that combined border security with earned legal status for the undocumented, Trump pounced. And pounced. And pounced some more. In tweets, speeches, and jabs, Trump has learned to effectively use Bush’s own words against him.

On one occasion, the weapon wasn’t Bush’s choice of words but something much more personal: his choice of a life partner.

In July, Trump advanced the theory that Jeb’s moderate views on immigration stem from the fact that his wife, Colomba, was born in Mexico. It started with a tweet created by a third party, but retweeted by Trump’s account, which asserted: “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” The tweet was later deleted. Colomba Bush came to the United States legally, and eventually became a U.S. citizen.

...All these things-- that Bush speaks Spanish, supports legal status for the undocumented, married a woman from Mexico—feed the narrative that Trump has pushed to working class whites since he first began attacking the establishment’s candidate: “Bush isn’t for you. He’s for the Mexicans.” ...What Trump did to Bush was evil. Brilliant, but evil.

Correct, very evil... and Navarrette didn't even get to Trump's use of basic negative marketing techniques, like destroying a brand well beyond his racism and xenophobia. How many Americans now think Jeb is too dull, too stupid and too... low energy to be an effective or competent president? Too many. Jeb is not just languishing in 5th place in the GOP primary polls-- the Real Clear Politics national average has him in 5th place at 5.3%, stuck between a neo-fascist freshman senator from Texas at 12.0% and a disastrously failed ex-CEO and aggressively delusional story-teller at 3.7%. The most recent Quinnipiac poll of Iowa GOP caucus goes shows Jeb in 6th place at 4%, behind Trumpf, Cruz, Carson, Rubio and Rand Paul. His scores on shared values (1%), leadership (3%), honesty (4%) and electability (6%) are all in the toilet-- as are his ability to handle every single issue. And when asked "are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president," it wasn't Trumpf with the worst score (23%) but poor Bush (26%), particularly among those Republican caucus goers who describe themselves as Tea Partiers (39%), evangelicals (23%), very conservative (33%) and without college degrees (26%). Bush's favorable to unfavorable rating among GOP caucus goes in 39/53%, the worst of any candidate. Trumpf, for example, has a positive rating-- 59% favorable, 34% unfavorable.

And the Republican establishment candidates have been largely ineffectual in their attempts to counterpunch Trumpf. Kasich's brilliant emotional ad comparing Herr Trumpf to Herr Hitler doesn't seem to have impressed Republican primary voters in the slightest. Way too abstract for the average Trumpf supporter, who by all accounts, is a very low IQ individual without the mental capacity to comprehend complex ideas. Sunday on ABC's This Week, Kasich refused to say he'd support Trumpf if he were the GOP's nominee. "Well, he's not going to be the nominee, Martha, because, at the end, look, he may have 20% of the vote. But he's got 80% of Republicans who don't support him... Somebody who divides this country here in the 21st century, who's calling names of women and Muslims and Hispanics and mocking reporters, then says I didn't do it but he did do it, it's just not going to happen. And everybody needs to get over it and take a deep breath."

Kasich is deluding himself if he believes that. The most recent Fox poll of national GOP primary voters shows Trump way ahead with 28%, up 2 points, more than the 4 Establishment candidates-- Jeb (5%), Rubio (14%), Christie (3%) and Kasich (2%) combined. And a Washington Post/ABC News poll released the same day shows Trumpf with 32% and the 4 establishment candidates with a combined 22%. An even greater percentage-- 39%-- say they think Trumpf will emerge as the eventual GOP nominee.

Fiorina also took a couple of ineffectual swings at Trumpf Sunday, on Fox. She brought up his gross behavior of mocking a handicapped NY Times reporter, pointing out that the NY bully "only feels big when he’s trying to make everyone else look small... This is the pattern, isn’t it? The pattern is-- he says something insulting, offensive and outrageous; the media pays attention; then he claims we all misunderstood him. This is the pattern, perhaps, of an entertainer. It’s certainly not the pattern of a leader." Her assault on Trumpf is less than a pin-prick. I suppose the Republicasn establishment encouraging all the candidates to gang up on Trumpf thinks-- or hopes-- all these little jabs will add up to something. So far, all they add up to is Trumpf's polling numbers increasing every week. And here he is today saying he's open to over-turning Roe v Wade:



Even fellow and equally hated outsider Ted Cruz is starting to take shots at Trumpf-- kind of. Out on the hustings, Cruz doesn't ever attack Trumpf the way the other candidates do, but he's been trying to win over his voters this week in Iowa in a big way:

I think the reason people got excited about Donald Trump is they're fed up with Washington. And they're fed up with politicians in both parties who lie to us, who don't tell the truth and don't do what they said they would do,” Cruz said. “I am immensely grateful that Donald Trump is running and I think that it has actually been enormously beneficial to our campaign. Why? Because Trump has helped frame the central question of this primary as: Who will stand up to Washington? Now if that's the central question, it leads to a natural follow-up question. OK. Who has stood up to Washington? Who's stood up to not just Democrats but to leaders in our own party? And in that regard my record is markedly different from every other candidate on that debate stage... Our country's in crisis. It's now or never. We are at the edge of a precipice. And four or eight more years going down this road we risk losing the greatest country in the history of the world.

Especially if a power-mad sociopath like Trumpf or Cruz ever becomes president. Much better alternative, regardless of political party: right here.