Clinton’s attacks on Sanders signal worries

The Democratic party establishment and the head of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman-Schultz have been totally in the tank for Hillary Clinton and have tried as much as possible to ensure her a smooth path to her nomination by having as few debates as possible and scheduling them at times with low viewership, such as weekend evenings and during the holiday season, so that her opponents do not get much visibility. In fact today’s debate is not only on a Sunday, it is scheduled at the same time as an NFL playoff game and the popular PBS soap opera Downton Abbey.
[Read more…]

Christie’s pants catch fire

As I said before, facts don’t seem to matter anymore in the Republican primary race and fact-checkers must feel that they are crying in the wind because the candidates now just flat out lie, not bothering to provide even a veneer of plausibility. But even within that fog of lies, Chris Christie stands out for his brazenness, giving even Carly Fiorina, whose supreme disregard for facts was a wonder to behold, a run for her money.
[Read more…]

The unlikelihood of a brokered Republican convention

Given the large number of candidates for the Republican nomination and the fact that even the top candidate Donald Trump is currently only scoring around 30%, there has been considerable speculation that the convention might arrive with no candidate getting a majority of the delegates necessary to win on the first ballot. The media in particular have been salivating at this prospect of a brokered convention full of wheeling and dealing and knock-down, drag-out, slugfests because usually these conventions are boring, tightly-staged, ceremonial affairs.
[Read more…]

Great moments in public relations

A city official in the town of Cranston, RI thought that she needed an elderly lady as a prop when she gave a press conference at a senior center. You would think that a senior center would have no shortage of such people. But for some reason, there was no one of that description either available or willing. Undeterred, she persuaded a male employee of the center, a bus driver, to don a wig, ear rings, pink lipstick and play the role.
[Read more…]

Republican debate: The clown cavalcade continues

Yesterday was the 174th Republican primary debate (or so it seemed though it was just the 6th) and going into the expectations were clear. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would slug it out for primacy among the anti-party establishment wing, with Trump issuing his patented passive-aggressive attacks along the lines of “Ted Cruz is a very nice guy and I like him a lot but he really needs to clear up doubts about his citizenship by going to the courts and getting a ruling.” How Cruz would respond was the main interest.
[Read more…]