Thanks To Trump's General Psychosis, Democrats Managed To Get Around A Great Deal Of Pernicious GOP Gerrymandering

Actual photo of the man who sank gerrymandering to new depths

When Republicans in Texas gained control of the state legislature, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay went home to work with them on creating new Republican seats where Democratic seats existed before— and in the middle of the decade, no less, not satisfied to wait for the 2010 census. The most blatant power grab in contemporary history ensued. In 2005, the NY Times editors noted that “DeLay’s 2003 redrawing of Texas' Congressional district lines threw aside the longstanding tradition that new lines are drawn only every 10 years, after the census. The purpose of this heavy-handed line-drawing was purely to increase the number of Republican districts. It worked. The number of Republicans in the delegation went to 21 from 16, helping to entrench Mr. DeLay as majority leader.” One of those seats, TX-32, long the home of GOP powerhouse Pete Sessions, just fell to a Democrat, Colin Allred. It wasn’t even that close.

• Colin Allred (D)- 142,885 (52.2%
• Pete Sessions (R)- 125,600 (45.9%)

Years after DeLay carved Sessions a nice safe red district in north Dallas, the GOP intervened again when it looked like there were too many Latinos registering to vote, excising some Latino towns and neighborhoods out of the district and putting in some wealthy white areas, extending Sessions’ dominance for another couple of cycles. This year, the gerrymandering trick had come to the end of the road; there were no more wealthy white areas left for the GOP to draw on without endangering Republicans in nearby districts. And that was the end of Pete Sessions, former head of the NRCC, which didn’t even bother spending any money to try to save their doomer ex-leader.

Tuesday morning, Scott Bland and Elena Schneider, writing for Politico added this to the definition of The Trump Effect: Republicans used redistricting to build a wall around the House. Trump just tore it down.. In short, years and years of studiously crafted Republican gerrymandering from sea to shining sea “did not envision the upending of the Republican coalition” by a narcissistic sociopath. What the Democrats have called “an insurmountable roadblock to the House majority,” was destroyed by their own guy in the White House. “Trump,” they wrote, “altered the two parties’ coalitions in ways that specifically undermined conventional wisdom about the House map, bringing more rural voters into the GOP tent while driving away college-educated voters. The trade worked in some states. But it was a Republican disaster in the House, where well-off suburbs, once the backbone of many GOP districts, rebelled against Trump in 2016 and then threw out House members in 2018.

Two Illinois races in particular illustrate how political evolution outpaced the boundaries drawn after the 2010 census. GOP Reps. Peter Roskam and Randy Hultgren, who lost last week, had not been Democratic targets in any of the first three elections under the current map, and Mitt Romney carried their districts outside Chicago handily in the 2012 presidential election. Democrats designed the districts thinking they would elect Republicans in perpetuity, instead drawing maps aimed at flipping other districts in the state in 2012.

But Roskam’s district flipped to Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, while Trump won Hultgren’s district with just 48 percent of the vote that year. More than half of Roskam’s adult constituents and 40 percent of Hultgren’s are college-educated, according to census data. And in the midterm elections, 26 of the 36 GOP districts that Democrats have flipped so far had larger college-educated populations than the national average.

“In Illinois, we had two suburban districts that everyone assumed would be Republican holds" but flipped, said Ian Russell, a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee political director who coordinated with Illinois Democrats on redistricting seven years ago. He added that another district in a more rural area downstate, which was drawn for a former Democratic congressman, is still represented by a Republican.

“Trump accelerated all of" those trends, Russell said.

Democrats won 15 of the 25 GOP-held districts with the highest share of college-educated residents— and that doesn’t count CA-45, in Orange County, CA, where Katie Porter is on the verge of ousting Republican Mimi Walters. These are the 15 red districts that Dems just won— along with the percentage of residents with 4-year degrees.

• GA-06- 59.1%- Lucy McBath replaced Karen Handel
• VA-10- 54.4%- Jennifer Wexton replaced Barbara Comstock
• NJ-11- 52.3%- Mikie Sherrill beat Jay Webber
• NJ-07- 51.4%- Tom Malinowski replaced Leonard Lance
• IL-06- 50.9%- Sean Casten replaced Pete Roskam
• TX-07- 49%- Lizzie Fletcher replaced John Culberson
• MN-03- 47.8%- Dean Phillips replaced Erik Paulsen
• MI-11- 45.8%- Haley Stevens replaced Lena Epstein
• KS-03- 45.6%- Sharice Davids replaced Ken Yoder
• CA-48- 44.2%- Harley Rouda replaced Dana Rohrabacher
• CA-49- 43%- Mike Levin beat Diane Harkey
• TX-32- 43%- Colin Allred replaced Pete Sessions
• PA-06- 42.5%- Chrissy Houlahan beat Greg McCauley
• PA-07- 42.2%- Susan Wild beat Marty Nothstein
• CO-06- 41.5%- Jason Crow replaced Mike Coffman

The education shift was still clear even in districts Republicans managed to hold. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) won by just 4 points in a slice of the St. Louis suburbs where 48 percent of adults have bachelor's degrees. Wagner won by 21 points in 2016.

In California, New Jersey and elsewhere, the shifts among college-educated voters drove Republican House members out of districts that had not been battleground seats before Trump took over the political scene.

Despite Democrats’ massive House gains— the party’s biggest since 1974, after Richard Nixon’s resignation— redistricting clearly held them back in some places. Democrats netted at least 21 districts drawn by independent commissions or courts— getting a major boost from courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia that altered GOP-drawn maps in the past two years— along with 10 districts drawn by Republicans and the two in Illinois that were drawn by Democrats.

In two swing states, Ohio and North Carolina, Democratic challengers forced close races in five districts that had not previously had competitive campaigns. But they all lost to GOP incumbents, preserving Republicans’ 10-3 edge in North Carolina’s congressional delegation and their 12-4 advantage in Ohio. Each of those districts combined Democratic-leaning big-city suburbs with stretches of heavily Republican rural territory that served as a decisive counterweight.

Progressives Must Prepare for TPP-Passage; Pres. Kaine’s VP Selection; & Parties’ Realignment

-emorej a Hong Kong

Progressives need to prepare, psychologically and organizationally, for the likelihood that election day will not be the last, or even the biggest, road-fork of the next six months. Others, when progressive responses can be influential, will include the following:

• Post-Mortem debates on reforming the Presidential nomination process;
• TPP being "considered" and passed by lame-duck bribed and bullied Congress;
• Impeachment of President Hillary (TPP + ongoing leaks + recession = zero honeymoon);
• President Kaine nominating a new Vice-President (from options discussed below);
• Realignment of the present two-party dominated national electoral landscape.

After President Hillary:

• Fails to credibly distance herself from Obama passing the TPP through post-election lame-duck session of Congress; and
• Is blamed for the pain of the (hopefully gradual) recessionary end of current economic recovery;

… The Republican majority in House of Representatives will impeach Hillary because this can:

• Win support from many Trump voters and non-voters; and
• Demonstrate alignment against "illegal" or "should be illegal" cover-ups and, more broadly, against business-as-usual;

… Senate vote on impeachment will probably pass (unless Hillary resigns "for health reasons") because:

• Senators of both parties will need to distance themselves from all the above; and
• Democratic Senators will need to overcome voters’ increased awareness of alternative policies and voting strategies in light of the establishment sell-outs, media cover-ups, election rigging;

... President Kaine, in selecting a new Vice-Presidential nominee, will need to choose between alternatives like the following:

• Double-down on identity-focused Democratic Party electoral coalition-building 
by nominating a "moderate" Black (Booker) or (more likely) Latino (Castro, etc.); or
• Keep Bernie-supporters in the Democratic Party 
by nominating somebody they respect (many Senators, and perhaps Wall Street, would be happy to end Senate committee appearances by Bernie or E. Warren, and resulting videoed interrogations of bankers and other malefactors); or
• Deepen recent realignment, under a single all-in centrist ruling party, 
by nominating an establishment Republican (OH-Sen Rob Portman would probably be his first choice, followed by OH-Gov John Kasich, from a policy perspective, while Latina Female NM-Gov Susana Martinez would be an identity two-fer).

Kaine’s decision will be influenced by the narrowness of Trump’s defeat, for example:

• A big Trump loss would:
(a) Give confidence to Portman & Kasich that they can regain control of the Republican Party, and 
(b) Give confidence to Kaine that he can be re-elected in 2020 by relying on an identity-focused coalition.
• A narrow Trump loss would: 
(a) Convince Trump voters that the election was stolen from him, 
(b) Convince Bernie-supporters and Bernie-sympathizers that the Democratic establishment is not only ever-more corrupt but also ever-less electable, and
(c) Convince Portman & Kasich that they need a home such as an even-more-centrist Democratic Party.

Lame-duck mobilization of anti-TPP sentiment will make a difference:

• If TPP passage in done in the face of Progressive-organized big anti-TPP demonstrations and strikes, which then get even bigger, then Kaine would probably regard a VP-nomination like Bernie or E.Warren as a small price to pay in order to restore calm.
• The rage of White tribalists supporting Trump will find outlets. The less of it that can be channeled into anti-TPP activism, the more of it will flow into racist sentiment and activities.

Endorsement Motivations

Every wonder how endorsers decide who to endorse? Let's look at a race in Florida, the one for the U.S. Senate seat. The most valuable endorsement you can get in a Democratic primary is Obama's. So how did he pick between Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson? Murphy consistently voted with the Republicans on almost everything Obama claimed was important to him-- even direct attacks. I mean there were a whole contingent of corrupt conservative Democrats like Murphy who voted with the GOP on Keystone Pipeline XL every time it came up. But almost none of them went along with the GOP when they proposed a bill to remove Obama from the decision-making process. But Murphy did. Grayson opposed Keystone XL, of course, and proposed a resolution challenging the constitutionality of the GOP bill Murphy backed. Of the 7 right-wing Democrats to vote for the Republican witch hunt against Hillary-- their so-called Benghazi Committee-- only 3 are still in Congress... and one of them is Murphy. So why did Obama endorse him and lie in ads to Democratic voters by claiming the reactionary Murphy is "a progressive" and a defender of Social Security (even though Murphy offered to support legislation to lower benefits as part of a compromise with his pals the Republicans?



It's not much of a mystery. Aside from being hounded by Chuck Schumer and his Wall Street allies to get Murphy into the Senate to "balance out" Elizabeth Warren, we were told by a high up staffer who works for Joe Biden that Obama did it to get contributions to his uber-expensive presidential library, ostensibly from Murphy's rich, crooked father, from the super-wealthy Saudi family that sponsors Murphy (the notorious Al-Rashids) and from Schumer's Wall Street patrons. Our Obama would do something like that? Something that disgusting? Yeah... he's from the Chicago Democratic Machine; it's what they do.

Yesterday there were a conflicting endorsement stories in central Florida. The Brady anti-gun campaign looked at FL-09 and feared that NRA poster child Darren Soto could get the Democratic nomination. But instead of endorsing Dena Grayson, an avid supporter of gun safety regulations, who is best positioned to beat Soto, they clumsily backed Susannah Randolph, a candidate who might take away enough support from Grayson to allow Soto to slip in. But the Randolph campaign's celebrations over the endorsement today might be dampened by the fact that DFA (Democracy for America) seems to have unendorsed her. They pulled their phone-banking out of the district and removed her from the list of candidates on their website. Why? [When I asked a DFA executive, she responded by e-mail, "Hi Howie- thanks for flagging - she's back on the website now." And, sure enough, she was back on the website, or at least on one list of candidates, albeit not the list on their site's front page. Odd.] A couple of weeks ago I saw a tweet from Lucy Flores, which alerted me to a problem for Susannah's campaign. It led to this statement which has been circulating in the progressive blogosphere ever since:

I know Susannah for years and she's a decent person and a committed activist. Blue America announced early on we wouldn't endorse in this race because both Susannah and Dena are both great candidates, while Soto is a typical nightmarish conservaDem (endorsed by the New Dems, Congress' Republican wing of the Democratic Party). But polling-- and now this whole flap over sexual harassment-- has made us worry that a vote for Susannah just weakens Dena's chance to defeat Soto. So we endorsed Dena. (Please consider contributing to her campaign here.)

In another Orlando area district, the DCCC got clueless anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, to unload half a million dollars in ads for weak puppet candidate, Val Demings, even though the more independent-minded and progressive candidate in the race, Bob Poe, has been running all his TV spots about banning automatic weapons and taking an even stronger and more relatable anti-violence stand than Bloomberg's own anti-gun organization!



How about newspapers... how do they do their endorsements? Tangent: there was one in the Salt Lake Tribune last week by David Irvine explaining why he, a lifelong Republican, is voting for Hillary. Irvine was a member of the state House of Representatives and used to be the chairman of the Davis County Republican Party, in the very red suburbs between Salt Lake City and Ogden. It's notTrump country. Cruz won the primary with 68.4% and Kasich came in second with 20.3%. Trump brought up the rear with 11.3% (with just over half the votes Bernie Sanders got in Davis Co.) Irvine wasn't really so much as endorsing Hillary as he was denouncing Trumpanzee-- and the Republican leaders, like Paul Ryan, who back him. "It is unfortunate that so many of those who claim to be leaders of the congressional and presidential wings of the Republican Party have long since made their Faustian bargains and are actively endorsing a totally self-centered know-nothing who behaves like the caricature of a banana-republic dictator," he wrote... "There's a point where this failure to withdraw an endorsement becomes a self-indicting embrace of a demagogue's values. Trump is riding astride the Four Horsemen of Calumny he has resurrected from an earlier and equally dismal Republican playbook: Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear... It's entirely possible that this election could turn on Utah's electoral votes. Recognizing that reality, every Clinton vote is crucially important. A nonvote or a Johnson vote is a vote for Trump."

But endorsements or not, and with a new poll showing that half of the voters won't consider casting a voter from the Trumpanzee, thinks are looking more dire by the day for the GOP. Politico, though, thinks they've found a silver-lining in the Republican cloud. Although Latinos rushing the register to vote in time for the November election have swelled Democratic Party ranks in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, the opposite is happening in states where large numbers of voters have keep their Democratic Party registrations but have long ago stopped voting for Democrats. Red counties in Florida, North Carolina and backward areas of Pennsylvania (primarily in the southwestern part of the state) are seeing lot of voters re-registering as Republicans, in line with how they've actually been voting. Writing for Politico Monday, Ben Schreckinger reported that "registration numbers in Eastern and Midwestern battleground states offer a rare piece of welcome news to Republicans bracing for the possibility of a November massacre." Clearly this is part of a partisan realignment that is coming into focus this year as Trump courts white, alienated blue color workers abandoned by Wall Street Democrats and Hillary courts traditional suburban professional that have been the mainstay of the GOP. And these numbers are very real.

In Pennsylvania-- where Democrats’ registration advantage has fallen by a fifth since the 2012 election to 915,000 voters-- more than 85,000 former Democrats have become Republicans this year, almost three times the number of voters who made the opposite switch.

The party-switching has been especially lopsided in Pennsylvania counties in the southwest region, coal country, and the northeast, which includes Scranton. Megan Sweeney, the communications director for the state Republican Party, and Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist based in Harrisburg, said the party-switching was a mix of push and pull factors. “Certainly part of it is Trump-motivated,” Gerow said. My view is that a lot more of it is motivated by the disgust that many Democrats have for the administration.”

In North Carolina, Democrats’ voter registration advantage shrunk by 44,000 between last June and this May, more than twice the rate it fell at it during that period last cycle. As of August 13, the Democratic advantage had dwindled to 641,000.

The picture in North Carolina is complicated by the rise of unaffiliated voters. Even more striking than Democrats’ shrinking registration advantage over Republicans is the influx of new residents into the state who do not register with either party but tend to be less tied than longtime residents to the white Southern culture that has taken a shine to Trump. The number of independents has surged almost 40 percent since 2008, from roughly 1.4 million to more than 1.9 million. During that period, the Republican rolls have remained essentially static and Democrats have lost about 200,000 voters.

...More concerning for Democrats should be Florida, where the party’s registration advantage has shrunk to 259,000 voters-- less than half what it was during the 2012 election.

Florida, like North Carolina, has seen a surge in independent voter registrations in recent years, but in a crucial swing state with a large and growing minority population, the shrinking advantage is nonetheless disappointing.

So far this year, Florida Republicans have added close to 70,000 more voters to their rolls than Democrats have. “That [change], especially when you’re talking about a state that Obama carried by less than 100,000 votes last time, could be significant,” said Cauvillon, the Louisiana pollster.

The strength of Trump’s ground operation in the primaries varied wildly from state to state, but in Florida, under the direction of former Rick Scott aide Karen Giorno, his campaign has taken credit for registering 35,000 new Republicans and bringing 5,000 independents and Democrats into the party.

Unions Are Contributing To Anti-Worker Republicans And Rich Republicans Are Contributing To Hillary

Every election cycle I've been writing about how certain unions-- usually the building trades-- contribute a great deal to Republican candidates running against Democrats. I won't have to this cycle; ThinkProgress already did a good job at it. Despite the fact that 'Right-to-work' laws "have been proven to not only reduce the number of people who are part of a union, but also the average wages and benefits for workers in those states... more states are considering their own right-to-work laws and scores of members of Congress want to see similar legislation enacted on a national level... Congressional Republicans have proposed a National Right-to-Work Act (NRWA), which would make it the policy in all 50 states. So far in this Congress, 29 U.S. Senators and 127 U.S. Representatives have signed on." And Señor Trumpanzee is, predictably, on board. So unions are fighting the politicians pushing 'right-to-work' laws right? Well, some are, but some are actually spending large sums of money supporting those politicians.

Union officials say the hundreds of thousands of dollars in political action committee donations to these lawmakers since the start of 2015 come despite, rather than because of, their support for national anti-union legislation--  but at least one labor expert warns that the unions might someday regret that spending. After Republican majorities in historically pro-labor states like Wisconsin and Michigan snuck through anti-labor legislation, it is entirely plausible that a GOP Congress and Trump White House could do the same on a national level.

...Unions have been clear about the existential threat to their future posed by a national right-to-work law. Bill Samuel, director of government affairs for the AFL-CIO, the umbrella federation for 56 unions representing more than 12 million workers, emphasized that federal NRWA is designed to undercut unions across the country. “It’s meant to weaken the ability of unions to organize and bargain,” he said. “And that’s the point: it’s freedom for corporations to exercise total control and avoid having to deal with the collective voice of their workers.”

...But in the face of this attack on the rights of unions, at least 31 union political action committees have contributed a total of more than $534,000 to 82 members--  all Republicans--  who signed on as supporters of the NRWA in the 113th Congress. According to campaign finance data through June 2016, posted by the Center for Responsive Politics, most of the legislation’s sponsors and co-sponsors have received some labor union financial support.

...While national right-to-work legislation indeed seems unlikely to move this year, things could drastically change if Republicans win the White House in November. And some labor experts warn that unions are underestimating the disastrous threat that having a pro-NRWA majority in Congress could pose should Trump win. It’s happened before.

...“I like right-to-work. My position on right-to-work is 100 percent,” Trump said in a February radio interview. “I love the right to work… I like it better because it’s lower,” he added. His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, co-sponsored the NRWA during his time in Congress and has fiercely defended his state’s right-to-work law as Indiana’s governor, though under the law the state’s economy has fared worse than the nation’s as a whole.

In addition to nominating an anti-labor candidate, the 2016 Republican National Committee’s platform, adopted at their Cleveland convention in July, affirms the party’s support for making right-to-work the reality across the country: “We support the right of states to enact Right-to-Work laws and call for a national law to protect the economic liberty of the modern workforce,” it states.

Jefferson Cowie, a history professor at Vanderbilt University, said that these unions backing pro-NRWA incumbents “are probably less concerned than they should be about right-to-work.” Their support, he added, “could certainly come back to haunt them, but that’s why God invented [the Senate’s filibuster rule].”

But that’s only true as long as the filibuster remains in place.

Should Trump win, the AFL-CIO’s Samuel predicted, “the Congressional elections would not turn out well either for us. I don’t know if the Republicans would have 60 [Senate votes], but if they change the rules or not is hard to predict.” Much like Democrats changed the Senate rules in 2013 to allow most confirmations to require a simple majority, a simple majority of Senate Republicans could eliminate the filibuster entirely. And some prominent Republicans have advocated doing just that.

While Cowie was unsure whether Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) would actually support such an effort, he said, “I would put nothing past that guy. Nothing.” And that could mean, with little fanfare, that what happened in Wisconsin and Michigan could happen to America.

Labor scholar and author Michael D. Yates predicted that should Republicans win full control in November, labor would have to “try to work with Trump and the Republicans, offering some labor cover to these scoundrels,” in hopes that they’d stop the bill. But, he added, the willingness of some unions to support anti-labor candidates is quite risky. “For the working class as a whole, such thinking and acting are disastrous,” he said.

But fear not... while unions are helping finance a Republican jihad against working families, anti-union Republicans are helping fill Hillary Clinton's campaign coffers. Politico's Alex Isenstadt reported yesterday how Harry Sloan, a former MGM CEO who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the RNC, NRCC, NRSC, Republican state parties and candidates like Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Sam Brownback, says Trump is unfit and, as a conservative, Clinton is his choice. On June 30 Sloan wrote 6 checks: $19,600 to the NRCC and two to Paul Ryan for $2,700 each, two to Hillary Clinton for $2,700 each and a $33,400 check to a Clinton joint fundraising account. Sloan has previously been on the national finance committees for John McCain and Mitt Romney and was a Kasich backer this cycle.

[I]n a statement, Sloan said he could not support Trump, who he contended, “does not embody the values that have made me a lifelong Republican. He is unprepared and temperamentally unfit to be our President. Most of my Republican friends feel the same way. As a businessman, a father, and a conservative it is clear to me that Hillary Clinton is the right choice in this election."

And that brings us to Adam Pearce's big NY Times article, Donors for Bush, Kasich and Christie Are turning To Clinton More Than to Trump. Short version: GOP establishment contributors are more likely to give to Hillary than to Mr. Trumpanzee. But the donors who have to the Tea Party candidates like Cruz, Dr. Ben, Scott Walker and Rubio are writing checks to Trumpanzee. So far Clinton has received $2.2 million from donors to candidates who dropped out of the Republican presidential primary, about $600,000 more than Señor Trumpanzee has received from such donors. In fact, donors to Trumpanzee’s primary opponents "are backing him at a historically low rate."

I will love to see if Bernie's huge small contributor base is giving to Hillary or not. What do you think? And who will she be listening to when she's in the White House... and thinking about her 2020 reelection bid? My suggestion: don't waste your money on the presidential election; contribute to proven progressives running for Congress. There aren't that many of them.

More On The Drift Towards Partisan Realignment

At one point Trump was sending out feelings to see if Mark Cuban, an actual self-made billionaire, would run with him. Cuban laughed at the prospect and this weekend endorsed Hillary in Pittsburgh, his hometown, mentioning along the way that Trump has gone batshit crazy. Cuban is friendly with Trump-- they have many similarities-- and says he "told him directly, at some point you have to learn, at some point you have to read and that that job is all about uncertainty and if you don't do the work, that is not good for this country. And he just doesn't do the work." At the event he ripped on Trump: "You know what we call a person like that-- the screamers, the yellers, the people that try to intimidate you? You know what we call a person like that in Pittsburgh? A jagoff. Is there any bigger jagoff in the world than Donald Trump?" He baited the Trumpanzee by saying his own TV show, Shark Tank "kicked The Apprentice's ass," something that is sure to get Trump tweeting any second now.

"In Hillary Clinton's America, the American Dream is alive and well," said Cuban, who isn't much of a political donor but has given 6 times more to Republicans than to Democrats. "There is no place that knows that better than Pittsburgh because we are an American Dream city." At one point he had claimed that Trump's campaign was "probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long long time." He describes himself as a libertarian who wants a social safety net, although he's flirted with joining the GOP. Well; no more flirting... he's found an ex-Republican who calls herself a Democrat but who has a similar middle-of-the-road policy perspective that he has.

Turns out, the Houston Chronicle wasn't the only newspaper to rush to endorse Hillary after watching the two conventions. Up in New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor's editors not only endorsed Clinton, they made a compelling case for why Republicans should vote for her. They began with a progressive vision, even citing how Bernie has at least appeared to have influenced her.

Clinton wants to rebuild America’s infrastructure, and in the process “pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.”

She wants to work with Bernie Sanders “to make college tuition free for the middle class and debt-free for all.”

She wants to make it easier for those who dream of opening a small business to get credit, and to invest in job training so anyone who wants a good job can get one.

And on and on. Her speech was full of dreams and aspirations for the next phase of American life. But unlike her opponent, Clinton is grounded in reality.

If every voter had the chance to sit down one-on-one with Clinton and Trump to ask them how they would accomplish all they promise, they would hear Clinton speak with intelligence and authority. If Trump has that ability, he has kept it hidden. Not once during his campaign has he spoken about any issue with anything resembling deep understanding. Instead, he promises to surround himself with smart people. What he doesn’t get is that a president must possess the wisdom to know what advice is in the nation’s best interest and what advice could cost American lives and livelihoods.

Unlike most voters, we had an opportunity to sit down with Clinton to talk about policy, and her depth of knowledge on every single issue we covered was astounding.

We also sat down with Jeb Bush, and he’s the same way. He is much more comfortable rolling up his sleeves and diving into health care or tax policy than trying to convert complicated ideas into campaign-friendly soundbites and catch phrases. And Lindsey Graham, too. Our discussion with him focused almost exclusively on ISIS and the upheaval in the Middle East. When Trump says he knows more about ISIS than the generals, it’s laughable; if Graham said it, which he never would, it would be a difficult claim to disprove. And then there’s John Kasich. Ask him about Ohio’s economy, and his eyes light up. He doesn’t have much of an appetite for Republican red meat-- he prefers to discuss job creation and balanced budgets.

All three can run policy circles around Trump, but they weren’t very good at insults, tweets and slogans short enough to fit on the front of a baseball hat, so they never made it to the convention stage. For whatever reason, Republican voters wanted a simple candidate this time around and that’s what they have.

We just can’t understand how a Republican who supported Bush, or Kasich, or Graham can vote for Trump when they have a kindred spirit in Clinton. We don’t understand how a Republican who supported George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or Dwight Eisenhower-- or George W. Bush, for that matter-- can vote for Trump.

Beyond party affiliation, Trump has little in common with any past president. All the nation’s great political leaders have been policy people-- just like Clinton. And despite what Trump would have you believe, that’s worked out pretty well for America.

Not a real Democrat

Moderate Republicans like Mark Cuban and Hillary Clinton aren't necessarily real Democrats, even if they become partisan brawlers. Most ex-Republicans who go blue, turn out to be mainstays of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who destroy the party's foundations from within-- like Florida numbskull Patrick Murphy has proven in Congress. A rare exception is Elizabeth Warren, who started out as a Republican but was too intellectually honest and rigorous to go the New Dem or Blue Dog route. But... a very rare exception. Most of the Republicans who have made the jump are pure garbage when it comes to policy and-- once they get recruited to run and elected to Congress courtesy of conservative Democrats like Steve Israel, Debbie Wassermann Schultz, Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer-- just vote with their old teammates most of the time anyway, the way Brad Ashford (NE), Patrick Murphy (FL) and Filemon Vela (TX) do. Currently, the DCCC is trying to pass off "ex"-Republicans Monica Vernon (IA), Charlie Crist (FL), Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Mike Derrick (NY), and Randy Perkins (FL) as Democratic candidates for House seats. Tap the thermometer and you'll find real Democrats who won't have to be cajoled into supporting progressive legislative initiatives in Congress:

Is A Progressive/Conservative Political Realignment Inevitable?

In the House there are currently almost no Republicans voting more progressively than even the most right-wing Democrats and there aren't many Democrats voting as far to the right as even the most moderate Republican. According the ProgressivePunch's crucial vote scores for the current session, the most anti-progressive Democrat, Florida Blue Dog Gwen Graham, votes against progressive legislation more frequently than 8 Republicans-- Dana Rphrabacher (R-CA), Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), Mark Sanford (R-SC), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Justin Amash (R-MI), Chris Gibson (R-NY) and Walter Jones (R-NC)-- and it isn't that these Republicans are "left-wing," it's because their libertarian and anti-Establishment principles sometimes align them with progressives. (The only Republican on the list who could actually be termed "moderate" is Chris Gibson, who is retiring from Congress at the end of next year.) The other Democrats besides the very reactionary Graham, who vote further right than at least one Republican are Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), and Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL). Unlike the Republicans, all of these Democrats could be described as being ideologically aligned with the other party and any of them could jump the fence at any time and fit right in with the GOP on most issues-- certainly the economic issues. 13 other Democrats have basically Republican voting records as well and could switch right over to the GOP without having it change much: Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Tim Walz (MN), Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL), Raul Ruiz (CA), John Delaney (New Dem-MD) and Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX). Several of these right-wing Democrats are "former" Republicans who, for one reason or another, often pure opportunism, never idealism, have left the GOP and joined the Democrats (like Patrick Murphy, Filemon Vela, Pete Aguilar and Brad Ashford).

The Democratic Party Establishment recruits these right wing Democrats are promotes them over progressives at every opportunity. Schumer is pushing Ann Kirkpatrick and Patrick Murphy to run for the Senate and is trying to recruit a former congressman, Heath Shuler, another right-wing Blue Dog, to run for the North Carolina Senate seat. There were talks about recruiting both Rupersberger and Delaney to run for the open Maryland Senate seat as well.

On a national level, the Republican Party targets the right-wing Democrats who voted with them and often defeats them. Nearly the entire Blue Dog caucus has been wiped out by Republicans. But will that always be the case? And in places where the GOP has no chance at all-- often in minority districts-- Republican voters tend to side with conservaDems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party against progressives.

Yesterday, L.A. Times reporter Melanie Mason examined this phenomena in the politics playing out in California, where a raft of progressive legislation was defeated recently as corrupt conservative Democrats aligned with Republicans in the state legislature. She focused on a Central Valley state Senate race between Republican Kristin Olsen, leader of the Assembly Republicans, and fake Democrat Cathleen Galgiani.

California's 5th senatorial district usually elects Democrats, but conservative ones. In 2012 Obama won the district with 54.2% and the even less progressive Feinstein won with 55.5%. Democratic registration trumps GOP registration 40.63- 36.29%. The racial make-up is 40.18 white, 37.77 Latino, 12.56% Asian and 6.55% black. The district includes all of San Joaquin County (Stockton, Tracy, Manteca, Lodi) and a huge chunk of Stanislaus County (Modesto). In 2012 Galliani beat Republican Bill Berryhill 50.5% to 49.5%, less than 3 thousand votes separating them out of over 281,000 votes cast. The last Republican elected there was party-switcher Milton Marks who was a lifelong Republican who "became a Democrat" in 1988, after serving as a Republican since the late 1950s.

Mason reports that the Republican Party isn't going to support Olsen in her race against Galgiani. [Note: keep in mind that when Mason writes "moderate Democrats," she's referring to conservative right-wing Dems who the media always terms "moderates" or "centrists."] "The party has made a commitment to various interests that they will not spend party resources in Senate District 5," Olsen said in an interview, and neither state GOP chairman Jim Brulte nor Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller of Bakersfield would discuss the decision with Mason, who termed their "unusual decision to lay off a competitive race, especially one that could involve a legislative leader... the latest manifestation of a new political order taking shape in the Capitol."

At a time when GOP power in Sacramento has been on the wane, many business interests-- which have traditionally skewed Republican and wield considerable clout in the party-- are throwing their weight behind centrist Democrats like Galgiani.

A year from election day, groups such as the California Assn. of Realtors and Chevron have told the candidates and other political players that they're for Galgiani, a show of support from entities that routinely spend big to back their choices.

Jon Fleischman, a conservative Republican activist and former party official, said he believed the party was holding off on the race to appease business interests. The decision, he said, underscored "the party's dependency on interest groups in Sacramento who do not share the same priorities of the party all of the time."

Business support has helped make moderates the ascendant wing of the Democratic Party, able to flex their muscle in such legislative battles as this year's heated debate on climate issues.

Galgiani "has consistently been ranked as one of the most business-friendly Democrats" in the Legislature, said Trent Hager, her campaign spokesman.

In the Senate, Galgiani was the only Democrat to vote no in June on an ambitious bill to fight climate change, though she switched sides once a controversial provision opposed by oil companies was dropped.

The alliance between business interests and moderate Democrats has been most apparent since the demise of the party primary in California in 2010. Except in presidential races, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election regardless of party.

Business groups have backed centrist Democrats in contests featuring other, more liberal members of the same party, who are often supported by labor unions.

But increasingly, business is also siding with moderate Democrats over customary Republican allies. Some corporate interests were furious last year when the Republican Party tried unsuccessfully to unseat Assemblyman Adam Gray, a moderate Democrat from Merced. A group financed by Chevron, the Dental Assn. and insurance agents sprang to Gray's defense with radio ads knocking his opponent.

Olsen, who will hold her leadership post until January, acknowledged that she and Galgiani are "political friends" on many issues. But she noted that even though Galgiani is a "mod," the senator still votes with her party on major legislation such as the budget.

Republicans in the Legislature serve as a check on the majority party, she said: "Our quality of life and our economy as a state and as a valley would be better off when there's more of a balance between the two parties," Olsen said... Olsen said she would make a decision by the end of the year. The lack of party money, she said, won't be a determining factor.

"Will it be disappointing not having the party with me? Of course," Olsen said. "But will that convince me or discourage me from running? No."

In 2012, when Galgiani beat Berryhill, the realtors spent more than $620,000 on her behalf and this year they are pressuring their allies in the state GOP withhold money from the race next year. How does this play out nationally? Wall Street banksters-- who have given "ex"-Republican Patrick Murphy immensely more money than almost any other Democrat in the House ($1,130,150 last cycle and so far $659,600 this cycle, beaten only by Boehner and McCarthy)-- have demanded that Chuck Schumer deliver the Democratic nomination for the open Florida Senate seat to Murphy. Schumer is on the case, smearing progressive icon Alan Grayson coast to coast and cajoling and threatening Democratic funders to abandon Grayson. Is it a sign of a realignment coming? Absolutely.

If you want to help prevent Schumer from packing the Senate with more corrupt Wall Street "Democrats" like himself and Murphy... we have a Blue America ActBlue page for that. Because, regardless of the careerism promoted by the Chuck Schumers and John Boehners, the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes and the Mitch McConnells and the other creatures of Washington, there really are differences between what a progressive is and what a conservative is-- and Elizabeth Warren hit the ball out of the park explaining it the other day: