Primaries and Caucuses

Subterms

    More stories

    • 63 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      The Best Sentences of 2023

      by

      Over recent days, I took on a daunting task — but a delightful one. I reviewed all the passages of prose featured in the For the Love of Sentences section of my Times Opinion newsletter in 2023 and tried to determine the best of the best. And there’s no doing that, at least not objectively, not when the harvest is so bountiful.What follows is a sample of the sentences that, upon fresh examination, made me smile the widest or nod the hardest or wish the most ardently and enviously that I’d written them. I hope they give you as much pleasure as they gave me when I reread them.I also hope that those of you who routinely contribute to For the Love of Sentences, bringing gems like the ones below to my attention, know how grateful to you I am. This is a crowdsourced enterprise. You are the wise and deeply appreciated crowd.Finally, I hope 2024 brings all of us many great things, including many great sentences.Let’s start with The Times. Dwight Garner noted how a certain conservative cable network presses on with its distortions, despite being called out on them and successfully sued: “Fox News, at this point, resembles a car whose windshield is thickly encrusted with traffic citations. Yet this car (surely a Hummer) manages to barrel out anew each day, plowing over six more mailboxes, five more crossing guards, four elderly scientists, three communal enterprises, two trans kids and a solar panel.”Erin Thompson reflected on the fate of statues memorializing the Confederacy: “We never reached any consensus about what should become of these artifacts. Some were reinstalled with additional historical context or placed in private hands, but many simply disappeared into storage. I like to think of them as America’s strategic racism reserve.”Pamela Paul examined an embattled (and later dethroned) House speaker who tried to divert attention to President Biden’s imagined wrongdoing: “As Kevin McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry, you could almost see his wispy soul sucked out Dementor-style, joining whatever ghostly remains of Paul Ryan’s abandoned integrity still wander the halls of Congress.”Damon Winter/The New York TimesTom Friedman cut to the chase: “What Putin is doing in Ukraine is not just reckless, not just a war of choice, not just an invasion in a class of its own for overreach, mendacity, immorality and incompetence, all wrapped in a farrago of lies. What he is doing is evil.”Maureen Dowd eulogized her friend Jimmy Buffett: “When he was a young scalawag, he found the Life Aquatic and conjured his art from it, making Key West the capital of Margaritaville. He didn’t waste away there; he spun a billion-dollar empire out of a shaker of salt.” She also assessed Donald Trump’s relationship to his stolen-election claims and concluded that “the putz knew his push for a putsch was dishonest.” And she sat down with Nancy Pelosi right after Pelosi gave up the House speaker’s gavel: “I was expecting King Lear, howling at the storm, but I found Gene Kelly, singing in the rain.”Bret Stephens contrasted the two Republicans who represent Texas in the Senate, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz: “Whatever else you might say about Cornyn, he is to the junior senator from Texas what pumpkin pie is to a jack-o’-lantern.”Jamelle Bouie diagnosed the problem with the Florida governor’s presidential campaign: “Ron DeSantis cannot escape the fact that it makes no real sense to try to run as a more competent Donald Trump, for the simple reason that the entire question of competence is orthogonal to Trump’s appeal.”Alexis Soloski described her encounter with the actor Taylor Kitsch: “There’s a lonesomeness at the core of him that makes women want to save him and men want to buy him a beer. I am a mother of young children and the temptation to offer him a snack was sometimes overwhelming.”Jane Margolies described a growing trend of corporate office buildings trimmed with greenery that requires less maintenance: “As manicured lawns give way to meadows and borders of annuals are replaced by wild and woolly native plants, a looser, some might say messier, aesthetic is taking hold. Call it the horticultural equivalent of bedhead.”Nathan Englander contrasted Tom Cruise in his 50s with a typical movie star of that age 50 years ago: “Try Walter Matthau in ‘The Taking of Pelham 123.’ I’m not saying he wasn’t a dreamboat. I’m saying he reflects a life well lived in the company of gravity and pastrami.”And David Mack explained the endurance of sweatpants beyond their pandemic-lockdown, Zoom-meeting ubiquity: “We are now demanding from our pants attributes we are also seeking in others and in ourselves. We want them to be forgiving and reassuring. We want them to nurture us. We want them to say: ‘I was there, too. I experienced it. I came out on the other side more carefree and less rigid. And I learned about the importance of ventilation in the process.’”The ethical shortcomings of Supreme Court justices generated some deliciously pointed commentary. In Slate, for example, Dahlia Lithwick parsed the generosity of billionaires that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have so richly enjoyed. “A #protip that will no doubt make those justices who have been lured away to elaborate bear hunts and deer hunts and rabbit hunts and salmon hunts by wealthy oligarchs feel a bit sad: If your close personal friends who only just met you after you came onto the courts are memorializing your time together for posterity, there’s a decent chance you are, in fact, the thing being hunted,” she wrote.Greg Kahn for The New York TimesIn The Washington Post, Alexandra Petri mined that material by mimicking the famous opening line of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American billionaire, in possession of sufficient fortune, must be in want of a Supreme Court justice.”Also in The Post, the book critic Ron Charles warned of censorship from points across the political spectrum: “Speech codes and book bans may start in opposing camps, but both warm their hands over freedom’s ashes.” He also noted the publication of “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” by Senator Josh Hawley: “The book’s final cover contains just text, including the title so oversized that the word ‘Manhood’ can’t even fit on one line — like a dude whose shoulders are so broad that he has to turn sideways to flee through the doors of the Capitol.”Rick Reilly put Mike McDaniel, the sunny head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and Bill Belichick, the gloomy head coach of the New England Patriots, side by side: “One is as open as a new Safeway, and the other is as closed up as an old submarine. One will tell you anything you want; the other will hand out information on a need-to-go-screw-yourself basis. One looks like a nerd who got lost on a stadium tour and wound up as head coach. The other looks like an Easter Island statue nursing a grudge.”Matt Bai challenged the argument that candidates for vice president don’t affect the outcomes of presidential races: “I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.”David Von Drehle observed: “Golf was for decades — for centuries — the province of people who cared about money but never spoke of it openly. Scots. Episcopalians. Members of the Walker and Bush families. People who built huge homes then failed to heat them properly. People who drove around with big dogs in their old Mercedes station wagons. People who greeted the offer of a scotch and soda by saying, ‘Well, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!’”And Robin Givhan examined former President Jimmy Carter’s approach to his remaining days: “Hospice care is not a matter of giving up. It’s a decision to shift our efforts from shoring up a body on the verge of the end to providing solace to a soul that’s on the cusp of forever.”In his newsletter on Substack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar appraised the Lone Star State’s flirtation with secession: “This movement is called Texit and it’s not just the folly of one Republican on the grassy knoll of idiocy.”In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Emma Pettit experienced cognitive dissonance as she examined the academic bona fides of a “Real Housewives of Potomac” cast member: “It’s unusual for any professor to star on any reality show, let alone for a Johns Hopkins professor to star on a Bravo series. The university’s image is closely aligned with world-class research, public health and Covid-19 tracking. The Real Housewives’ image is closely aligned with promotional alcohol, plastic surgery and sequins.”In The Los Angeles Times, Jessica Roy explained the stubborn refusal of plastic bags to stay put: “Because they’re so light, they defy proper waste management, floating off trash cans and sanitation trucks like they’re being raptured by a garbage god.”In The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., Josh Shaffer pondered the peculiarity of the bagpipe, “shaped like an octopus in plaid pants, sounding to some like a goose with its foot caught in an escalator and played during history’s most lopsided battles — by the losing side.”Space Frontiers/Getty ImagesIn Salon, Melanie McFarland reflected on the futility of Chris Licht’s attempts, during his short-lived stint at the helm of CNN, to get Republican politicians and viewers to return to the network: “You might as well summon Voyager 1 back from deep space by pointing your TV remote at the sky and pressing any downward-pointing arrow.”In Politico, Rich Lowry contextualized Trump’s appearance at his Waco, Texas, rally with the J6 Prison Choir: “It’d be a little like Richard Nixon running for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, and campaigning with a barbershop quartet made up of the Watergate burglars.”In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols observed that many Republican voters “want Trump, unless he can’t win; in that case, they’d like a Trump who can win, a candidate who reeks of Trump’s cheap political cologne but who will wisely wear somewhat less of it while campaigning in the crowded spaces of a general election.”Also in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson needled erroneous recession soothsayers: “Economic models of the future are perhaps best understood as astrology faintly decorated with calculus equations.”And David Frum noted one of the many peculiarities of the televised face-off between DeSantis and Gavin Newsom: “In the debate’s opening segments, the moderator, Sean Hannity, stressed again and again that his questions would be fact-based — like a proud host informing his guests that tonight he will serve the expensive wine.”In The New Yorker, Jonathan Franzen mulled an emotion: “Joy can be as strong as Everclear or as mild as Coors Light, but it’s never not joy: a blossoming in the heart, a yes to the world, a yes to being alive in it,” he wrote.Also in The New Yorker, David Remnick analyzed the raw, warring interpretations of the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7: “There were, of course, facts — many of them unknown — but the narratives came first, all infused with histories and counterhistories, grievances and 50 varieties of fury, all rushing in at the speed of social media. People were going to believe what they needed to believe.”Zach Helfand explained the fascination with monster trucks in terms of our worship of size, noting that “people have always liked really big stuff, particularly of the unnecessary variety. Stonehenge, pyramids, colossi, Costco.”And Anthony Lane found the pink palette of “Barbie” a bit much: “Watching the first half-hour of this movie is like being waterboarded with Pepto-Bismol.” He also provided a zoological breakdown of another hit movie, “Cocaine Bear”: “The animal kingdom is represented by a butterfly, a deer and a black bear. Only one of these is on cocaine, although with butterflies you can never really tell.”In The Guardian, Sam Jones paid tribute to a remarkably durable pooch named Bobi: “The late canine, who has died at the spectacular age of 31 years and 165 days, has not so much broken the record for the world’s longest-lived dog as shaken it violently from side to side, torn it to pieces, buried it and then cocked a triumphant, if elderly, leg over it.”In The Wall Street Journal, Jason Gay rendered a damning (and furry!) judgment of the organization that oversees college sports: “Handing the N.C.A.A. an investigation is like throwing a Frisbee to an elderly dog. Maybe you get something back. Maybe the dog lies down and chews a big stick.” He separately took issue with a prize his daughter won at a state fair: “I don’t know how many of you own a six-and-a-half-foot, bright blue stuffed lemur, but it is not exactly the type of item that blends into a home. You do not put it in the living room and say: perfect. It instantly becomes the most useless item in the house, and I own an exercise bike.”Also in The Journal, Peggy Noonan described McCarthy’s toppling as House speaker by Matt Gaetz and his fellow right-wing rebels: “It’s as if Julius Caesar were stabbed to death in the Forum by the Marx Brothers.” In another column, she skewered DeSantis, who gives off the vibe “that he might unplug your life support to recharge his cellphone.”On her website The Marginalian, the Bulgarian essayist Maria Popova wrote: “We were never promised any of it — this world of cottonwoods and clouds — when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into what we are — creatures who can see a universe of beauty in the feather of a bird and can turn a blind eye to each other’s suffering, creatures capable of the Benedictus and the bomb.”Finally, in The Mort Report, Mort Rosenblum despaired: “Too many voters today are easily conned, deeply biased, impervious to fact and bereft of survival instincts. Contrary to myth, frogs leap out of heating pots. Stampeding cattle stop at a cliff edge. Lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide. We’ll find out about Americans in 2024.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley, in Retreat, Says ‘Of Course the Civil War Was About Slavery’

      by

      A day after giving a stumbling answer about the conflict’s origin that did not mention slavery, Ms. Haley told an interviewer: “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential hopeful, on Thursday walked back her stumbling answer about the cause of the Civil War, telling a New Hampshire interviewer, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”Her retreat came about 12 hours after a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, a state that is central to her presidential hopes, where she was asked what caused the Civil War. She stumbled through an answer about government overreach and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do,” after jokingly telling the questioner he had posed a tough one. He then noted she never uttered the word “slavery.”“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Ms. Haley replied. “Next question.”Speaking on a New Hampshire radio show on Thursday morning, Ms. Haley, who famously removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia, said: “Yes I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”But she also insinuated that the question had come not from a Republican voter but from a political detractor, accusing President Biden and Democrats of “sending plants” to her town-hall events.“Why are they hitting me? See this for what it is,” she said, adding, “They want to run against Trump.”In recent polls, Ms. Haley has surged into second place in New Hampshire, edging closer to striking distance of former President Donald J. Trump. To win the Granite State contest on Jan. 23, the first primary election of 2024, she will most likely need independent voters — and possibly Democrats who registered as independents. That is how Senator John McCain of Arizona upset George W. Bush in the state’s 2000 primary.But the Civil War gaffe may have put a crimp in that strategy.“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” she said Wednesday night, “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”The answer echoed a century’s argument from segregationists that the Civil War was fundamentally about states’ rights and economics, not about ending slavery.Late Wednesday night, even Mr. Biden rebuked the answer: “It was about slavery,” he wrote on social media.She tried to walk back her comments on Thursday, asking: “What’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”The episode also undermined her appeal to moderates and independents seeking to thwart Mr. Trump’s return to the White House by portraying Ms. Haley as an agent of compromise.Her record as governor of South Carolina included blocking a bill to stop transgender youths from using bathrooms that corresponded to their gender identity. Her push to lower the Confederate battle flag came after the mass shooting of Black worshipers at a Charleston church by a white supremacist. And she has recently called for a middle ground on abortion.“Haley’s refusal to talk honestly about slavery or race in America is a sad betrayal of her own story,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Primaries, Polls and Party Shares: It’s Time for the Mailbag.

      by

      Readers have questions, including on switching over to another side’s primary, and a quick comment on Swift.A sign that voting is near.Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette, via Associated PressI hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. We haven’t received many questions about the Republican primary recently, even though the Iowa Caucus is less than three weeks away. But we have gotten a few, and many on other topics, so let’s dive into the mailbox one last time in 2023.Switching parties for a primary?What if some of us former Republicans, now independents or Democrats thanks to Trump, registered as Republicans in order to vote for Nikki Haley in the primary? As a New Jersey voter, it wouldn’t really matter here, because the primaries are usually decided before they get to us. I would much rather see her on the ballot than Trump. Would a push like that do anything? — Nancy DriesMs. Haley trails by 50 points in the national polls, so realistically it’s going to take a lot more than moderate Democrats switching for the race to become competitive.But that doesn’t mean that Democrats and independents won’t play a role. Unlike New Jersey, many states have open primaries where Democrats will be able to vote in the Republican primary without changing their registration at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ms. Haley fares especially well in states like those, including South Carolina. She’ll also probably fare well in states where independent voters can participate, like New Hampshire.What about a one-on-one race?When I look at a recent poll of Iowa voters, I see that Trump is at 44 percent with DeSantis and Haley tied at 17 percent. Trump is clearly leading, but there are a lot of voters who are aligning themselves with DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy and Christie. And a small number of voters who are undecided.If the Republican field were to narrow down to one candidate who runs against Trump, where do the supporters of those other candidates go? — Steven BrownWhen we surveyed Iowa back in July, we found Donald J. Trump leading Ron DeSantis by 16 points, 55 percent to 39 percent, in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. Mr. DeSantis won just 51 percent of the voters who didn’t back him or Mr. Trump, and I’d guess the tally is worse for him today, given the trend in the polls since then. I’d also guess it’s worse for Ms. Haley, who would need to win over relatively conservative DeSantis voters.Wrong tack for “wrong track”I’m frustrated with “right track-wrong track” polling — well, maybe more specifically, media coverage of it. It always seems to be presented as poor numbers reflecting badly on the president. But if I’m asked that question, I will say “wrong track” but because of the G.O.P. threat to democracy. Any way to fix that? — Jack CowanTo be honest, Jack, I’ve never been a big fan of the question and we don’t always ask it. That said, I do think it has its place: It’s useful to have a longstanding rough proxy for the national mood, even if it doesn’t yield any insight into the “why.” For that, we have other questions.What are they conserving?The term “conservatives” used to have a specific political meaning. But today what are they conserving? I believe the media needs to adopt more accurate terms to call them, such as right wing populists, or right wing ideologues, or right wing radicals. What they are practicing is no longer true conservatism. Am I wrong? Thank you. — Don NationsI don’t think I agree that “conservative” has always had a consistent, specific and clear political meaning. “Liberal” and “progressive” haven’t had consistent, specific and clear political meanings either.And at least to my mind, today’s conservatives are still true to the most basic definition: a political ideology aimed at conserving a traditional way of life — customs, culture, ideas, institutions, hierarchies, values, beliefs and more.Clearly, some conservatives today see tension between preserving certain traditional institutions — like a democratic republic, which risks empowering those opposed to conservatives — and other conservative aims. But this is not exactly unprecedented in the conservative tradition: Beyond “radical” or “populist” that you offered, terms like reactionary or counterrevolutionary have also been used to describe conservatives who aren’t so conservative in defense of some long-established values.But are they enthusiastic about Trump?Do the polls reflect an increasing popularity for Trump among the young, Black or Hispanic voter sets?I hear a great deal about disaffection toward Biden. But does that mean they are happy or enthusiastic about Trump? — Bryan WatsonIt does not mean they’re happy or enthusiastic about Mr. Trump. In fact, most of the voters who backed President Biden in 2020, but have backed Mr. Trump in recent New York Times/Siena College polling, do not have a favorable view of Mr. Trump at all. They’re also far less likely to say they’ll actually vote, or to have a record of doing so in the past.Who else is out there?Are there any polls that show a Democrat who could beat Trump? Gavin Newsom? — Michele SayreWell, “could” is a pretty loose term! President Biden could beat Mr. Trump, you know. There’s even a perfectly reasonable case he’s still the favorite, despite trailing in polling today.But the polls don’t show any other Democrats beating Mr. Trump, at least outside of their home states. In fairness to them, they’re not especially well known — and, relatively speaking, neither is Mr. Newsom.Hello? Cellphones?If this poll is using the tired old method of calling landline phone numbers, forget it.Especially for young, Black and Hispanic voters, if the pollsters are not using cellphone contacts, they aren’t reaching those voters. None of them has a landline anymore!And, in fact, in my age group (over 65), half or more of the ones I know no longer have a landline. — Robin C. KennedyThe Times/Siena poll is not using the tired old method of calling landline phone numbers. At this point, more than 90 percent of our respondents are reached on their cellphones, and more than 99 percent of our young respondents are reached by cellphone.Taylor Swift effect?I know very little about this person except she’s exceedingly popular with young people and encourages them to vote, apparently Democratic. Could this affect the elections in ’24? If so, is there such a precedent? — Jerry FrankelMy first instinct was to say, “No, of course not,” but …I did not expect her Eras Tour to be the tour of the century, so I’m not sure I’m the best judge of the power of her appeal — which has clearly proven to be extraordinary. I’m not sure her 40-16 favorability rating in a recent NBC/WSJ poll quite does justice her appeal, either.So I asked someone in my household who is far more knowledgeable on the matter whether Ms. Swift could be important in the election and she said: “I think she could. I think she has a ton of power.”Now, even if she does make a difference, it would only be at the margin (right?). But if she did make a marginal difference, it wouldn’t be entirely without precedent. If you have a long memory, you might remember that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement really might have decided the 2008 Democratic primary in Barack Obama’s favor, though I don’t think a T-Swift endorsement of Mr. Biden would be nearly as symbolic or surprising, given her previous support for Democratic candidates.What are the shares by party?What’s the latest data on the breakdown of Republicans, independents and Democrats? Thanks. — Liz GeorgesIn our last poll, Democrats, Republicans and independents each represented 30 percent of the electorate. I can’t remember getting a clean, 30-30-30 break before (7 percent weren’t sure and 3 percent identified with another party). I thought there was something kind of elegant about it. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Haley, Asked About the Cause of the Civil War, Avoids Mentioning Slavery

      by

      A pointed question, at a town hall in New Hampshire, raises a complicated topic for Nikki Haley, who as governor of South Carolina wrestled with issues stemming from the Confederacy.Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina who for years has wrestled with how to approach issues of race, slavery and the Confederacy, found herself again confronted with those subjects at a town hall event on Wednesday in New Hampshire, hundreds of miles north of the Mason-Dixon line.Her answer to a simple yet loaded question by an audience member in the city of Berlin — “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” — showed just how much she continues to struggle with such topics.“I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” she said eventually, arguing that government should not tell people how to live their lives or “what you can and can’t do.”“I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” she said. “It was never meant to be all things to all people.”Notably missing from her answer was slavery, which most mainstream historians agree was at the root of the United States’ bloodiest conflict — specifically the economics and political control behind slavery. Democrats were quick to jump on her answer, with President Biden’s re-election campaign team and others spreading video of the exchange on social media.After a quick back and forth with the questioner, she said, “What do you want me to say about slavery? Next question.”“I am disgusted, but I’m not surprised — this is what Black South Carolinians have come to expect from Nikki Haley, and now the rest of the country is getting to see her for who she is,” Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.How much it matters, if at all, in the Republican primary race is yet to be seen. Former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the race, has been ramping up the temperature on his own divisive rhetoric, not lowering it. Ms. Haley is looking to tap into some of his supporters. But as she looks to New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 23, she is counting on moderate Republicans and independents — who may vote in the contest — to give her a strong showing.Her latest remarks were in keeping with the way she and most of her Republican rivals have toed the line on race and racism on the 2024 presidential trail, downplaying the nation’s sordid racial history and portraying structural racism and prejudice as challenges of the past. The remarks also are in line with her campaign message, which has included pledges to reduce the size of the federal government and leave it up to the states to decide how to handle major issues like abortion.A Haley spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on Wednesday night.Ms. Haley, who governed a state at the heart of the Confederacy, has a particularly complicated record on issues of race.She drew national acclaim when she signed legislation to take down the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina State House, after a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015, including a state senator. On the trail, she recalls the experience to significant effect, casting herself as a new generational leader in the Republican Party capable of bridging differences.But as she ran for election in 2010 and then re-election in 2014, she rejected talk of removing the flag. In a 2010 interview with Confederate heritage group leaders, a major political force in her state, she argued that the Confederate flag was “not something racist” but about tradition and heritage. She said that she could leverage her identity as a minority woman to fend off calls to boycott the flag. “You know for those groups that come in and say they have issues with the Confederate flag, I will work to talk to them about it,” she said.After the 2015 attack shook South Carolina, Ms. Haley seized on efforts from state lawmakers to remove the flag.In response to the audience member on Wednesday, Ms. Haley argued that the United States needed to have capitalism and economic freedom and to ensure “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.”The audience member said it was “astonishing” that Ms. Haley had answered his question without saying the word slavery. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Michigan Supreme Court Decides Trump Can Stay on Ballot

      by

      After Colorado’s top court ruled that the former president was disqualified for engaging in insurrection, justices in Michigan considered a similar challenge.The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for Donald J. Trump to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a victory for the former president in a battleground state. The state’s top court upheld an appeals court decision that found that the former president could appear on the ballot despite questions about his eligibility to hold elected office because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The Michigan decision followed a bombshell ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which on Dec. 19 determined in a 4-3 opinion that Mr. Trump should be removed from the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Mr. Trump applauded the Michigan ruling in a statement posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020,” the statement said. Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, a group seeking to have Mr. Trump disqualified from running in the 2024 election, said the Michigan Supreme Court ruled narrowly, sidestepping the core questions at the heart of the case. The decision, he said, leaves the door open to challenge whether Mr. Trump can appear on the general election ballot in Michigan. “The Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage,” Mr. Fein said in a statement. Michigan’s primary will be held Feb. 27.The question of Mr. Trump’s eligibility is widely expected to be answered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Some form of challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility has been lodged in more than 30 states, but many of those have already been dismissed.The challengers’ arguments are based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone from holding federal office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.A lower-court judge previously decided the ballot eligibility case in Mr. Trump’s favor. Judge James Robert Redford of the Court of Claims in Michigan ruled in November that disqualifying a candidate through the 14th Amendment was a political issue, not one for the courts. A lower court in Colorado had also ruled in Mr. Trump’s favor before the Supreme Court there took up the case.Judge Redford also ruled that Michigan’s top elections official does not have the authority alone to exclude Mr. Trump from the ballot. Free Speech for People, a liberal-leaning group that filed the lawsuit, appealed the ruling, asking the state Supreme Court to hear the case on an accelerated timetable.Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state and a Democrat, echoed the request for a quick decision, citing approaching deadlines for printing paper primary ballots. She wrote that a ruling was needed by Dec. 29 “in order to ensure an orderly election process.”Jan. 13 is the deadline for primary ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters; absentee voter ballots must be printed by Jan. 18. The state’s presidential primary is set for Feb. 27.Mitch Smith More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley’s Bold Strategy to Beat Trump: Play It Safe

      by

      Ms. Haley still trails far behind the former president in polls. Yet she is not deviating from the cautious approach that has led her this far.At a packed community center in southwestern Iowa, Nikki Haley broke from her usual remarks this month to offer a warning to her top Republican presidential rivals, Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis, deploying a favorite line: “If they punch me, I punch back — and I punch back harder.”But in that Dec. 18 appearance and over the next few days, Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, did not exactly pummel her opponents as promised. Her jabs were instead surgical, dry and policy-driven.“He went into D.C. saying that he was going to stop the spending and instead, he voted to raise the debt limit,” Ms. Haley said of Mr. DeSantis, a former congressman, in Treynor, near the Nebraska border. At that same stop, she also defended herself against his attack ads and criticized Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, over offshore drilling and fracking, and questioned his choice of a political surrogate in Iowa.She was even more careful about going after Mr. Trump, continuing to draw only indirect contrasts and noting pointedly that his allied super PAC had begun running anti-Haley ads.“He said two days ago I wasn’t surging,” she said, but now had “attack ads going up against me.”With under three weeks left until the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Haley is treading cautiously as she enters the crucial final stretch of her campaign to shake the Republican Party loose from the clutches of Mr. Trump. Even as the former president maintains a vast lead in polls, Ms. Haley has insistently played it safe, betting that an approach that has left her as the only non-Trump candidate with any sort of momentum can eventually prevail as primary season unfolds.On the trail, she rarely takes questions from reporters. She hardly deviates from her stump speech or generates headlines. And she keeps walking a fine line on her greatest obstacle to the Republican nomination — Mr. Trump.“Anti-Trumpers don’t think I hate him enough,” she told reporters this month in New Hampshire, where she picked up the endorsement of Chris Sununu, the state’s popular Republican governor. “Pro-Trumpers don’t think I love him enough.”Ms. Haley’s consistent strategy has enabled her team to build a reputation as lean and stable where other campaigns have faltered: As Mr. DeSantis’s support has dipped and turmoil has overtaken his allied super PAC, even some of his advisers are privately signaling they believe hope is lost.“I keep coming back to the word ‘disciplined,’” said Jim Merrill, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire who served on Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 bids. “She has run an extraordinarily disciplined campaign.”This month, Ms. Haley secured the endorsement of Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, right. Sophie Park/Getty ImagesYet Mr. Trump remains the heavy favorite for the nomination despite facing dozens of criminal charges, as well as legal challenges that aim to kick him off the ballot in several states.Ms. Haley’s apparent reluctance to attack her rival even in the face of what would seem to be political setbacks for him has raised questions from voters and other Republican competitors — most notably, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — about whether she can win while passing up crucial opportunities to derail her most significant opponent.“A lot of the people in this field are running against Trump without doing very much to take him on,” said Adolphus Belk, a political analyst and professor of political science at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., Ms. Haley’s home state. “If you are running to be president of the United States, it seems like it would be an imperative to take on the person who has the biggest lead.”A recent poll from The New York Times and Siena College found Mr. Trump leading his Republican rivals by more than 50 percentage points nationally, a staggering margin.The poll offered a sliver of hope for Ms. Haley: Nearly a quarter of Mr. Trump’s supporters said he should not be the Republican nominee if he were found guilty of a crime. But 62 percent of Republicans said that if the former president won the primary, he should remain the nominee — even if subsequently convicted.The challenge for Ms. Haley is peeling away more of his support from the Republican Party’s white, working-class base. The Times/Siena poll found that she garnered 28 percent support from white voters with a bachelor’s degree or higher, but just 3 percent from those without a degree.As she barnstorms through Iowa and New Hampshire, Ms. Haley has remained committed to a calibrated approach that aims to speak to all factions of the Republican Party.Her stump speech highlights her background as the daughter of immigrants and her upbringing in a small and rural South Carolina town, but in generic terms. She nods to her status as the only woman in the Republican primary field and the potentially historic nature of her bid, but only in subtle ways.Even as she has risen in the polls and consolidated significant anti-Trump support among donors and prominent Republicans, she has continued to cast herself as an underestimated underdog, with a message tightly focused on debt and spending, national security and the crisis at the border.And she has not strayed from her broad calls for a “consensus” on abortion, even though some conservatives say she is not going far enough in backing new restrictions. At the same time, Democrats are looking to hit her from the other direction: The Democratic National Committee last week put up billboards in Davenport, Iowa, where she was campaigning, accusing her of wanting “extreme abortion bans.”Still, Ms. Haley has evolved on some fronts. In recent weeks, she has more aggressively made the case that she is the most electable Republican candidate — an argument that polls show has some merit — and ramped up her critiques of what she describes as a dysfunctional Washington.This month, after Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill to fund support for Ukraine, demanding strict new border restrictions in return, she accused both President Biden and some Republicans of creating a false choice among those priorities, as well as aid to Israel, which the legislation also included.“And now what are you hearing coming out of D.C. — do we support Ukraine or do we support Israel?” she said at an event in Burlington, Iowa. “Do we support Israel or do we secure the border? Don’t let them lie to you like that.”Ms. Haley has kept her message tightly focused on debt and spending, national security and the crisis at the border.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesShe has ramped up her criticism of Mr. Trump on his tone, leadership style and what she describes as his lack of follow-through on policy, hitting him for increasing the national debt, proposing to raise the federal gasoline tax and “praising dictators.”But when confronted with tougher questions from voters over Mr. Trump’s potential danger to the nation’s democracy or why she indicated at the first debate that she would support him as the nominee even if he were convicted of criminal charges, she tends to fall back on a familiar response. She says she thinks that “he was the right president for the right time” but that “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.”“The thing is, normal people aren’t obsessed with Trump like you guys are,” she told Jonathan Karl of ABC News this month, taking a swipe at the news media when asked for her thoughts on how Mr. Trump is campaigning on the idea of “retribution” against his political enemies.Such attempts to avoid alienating Trump supporters have helped generate interest, if not always commitment.Before her event in Treynor, Iowa, Keith Denton, 77, a retired farmer and longtime Republican, said he stood with Mr. Trump “100 percent,” and had come to watch Ms. Haley only because his wife was debating whether to support her. But after Ms. Haley wrapped up, he tracked down a reporter to acknowledge that he was now seriously considering her.“I have to eat my words,” he said, adding that Ms. Haley had said “some things that changed my mind.” For one, he said, “I thought she was more of a warmonger, but now I can see she is against war.”But at an Osceola distilling company the next day, Jim Kimball, 84, a retired doctor, veteran and anti-Trump Republican, elicited nervous laughter from the audience when he asked Ms. Haley a couple of bold questions regarding the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021: “Did Mr. Trump trample or defend the Constitution? And is he running for president or emperor?”As usual, Ms. Haley weighed her words. She said that the courts would “decide whether President Trump did something wrong” and that he had a right to defend himself against the legal charges he faces, but she expressed disappointment that when he had the chance to stop the Capitol attack, he did not.“My goal is not to worry about him being president forever — that is why I’m going to win,” she finished to loud applause.But afterward, Mr. Kimball said that he wished she would have said that Mr. Trump is unfit to be president and that he was still deliberating whether to caucus for her or for Mr. Christie.“I wish she had the courage of Liz Cheney,” he said, referring to the congresswoman pushed out of Republican leadership in Congress and then her Wyoming seat by pro-Trump forces in the party. “But she doesn’t want to end up like Liz Cheney, so you get the answer you get.”Ruth Igielnik More

    • 75 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Vivek Ramaswamy Stops TV Ad Spending

      by

      The campaign’s abrupt shift, focusing on other voter outreach efforts, reflects a significant change in strategy less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses.Vivek Ramaswamy, the wealthy entrepreneur seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has stopped spending money on cable television ads, a campaign representative said on Tuesday.With just weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses kick off the voting for the nomination, Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign is maintaining its total advertising outlays, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the campaign, said. However, it is shifting away from traditional television toward other methods of voter outreach for a “higher return on investment,” she added. NBC News first reported the campaign’s halt in TV ad spending.“We’re just following the data,” Ms. McLaughlin said in a statement, adding that “we are focused on bringing out the voters we’ve identified — best way to reach them is using addressable advertising, mail, text, live calls and doors to communicate with our voters.”She pointed out the huge sums that have already been sunk into the presidential campaign, saying that “$190 million in traditional advertising has been spent in this race nationally. Polls have barely changed.”It is nevertheless an abrupt shift in strategy for Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign, which has spent millions on advertising. The Ramaswamy campaign reserved about $1 million in television ads in Iowa last month — nearly double what his campaign and an allied super PAC spent in the prior month.But Mr. Ramaswamy has struggled to make headway in Iowa, despite the intense spending and a packed schedule of campaign appearances. He estimated to reporters last month that he had spent around $20 million on his run to that point.He maintains a distant fourth place in state polls, with less than 10 percent support. His approval ratings among Republicans nationally have also steadily declined since September, and his disapproval ratings among all Americans hit a new peak in national polls.He has recently pushed right-wing conspiracy theories in campaign appearances. He has called the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol an “inside job,” claimed that the 2020 election was stolen by “big tech” and suggested that the “great replacement theory” was Democratic policy.Ms. McLaughlin noted that the Ramaswamy campaign would continue to field some ads through digital television providers — for example, YouTube TV. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Haley quiere que la respalden por su experiencia, no por su género

      by

      La aspirante a la nominación republicana sería la primera mujer en llegar a la Casa Blanca. Hasta ahora ha evitado presentarse de una forma que espante a algunos votantes.Dentro de la bodega de una lujosa cadena de tiendas departamentales al este de Iowa, Michele Barton, vestida con una camiseta blanca engalanada con el rótulo de “Mujeres por Nikki” en letras de color rosa brillante, reflexionaba emocionada sobre la posibilidad de llevar a la primera mujer a la Casa Blanca.Sin embargo, Barton, de 52 años, una madre de cuatro hijos y republicana de toda la vida, se apresuró a insistir en que no apoyaba a Nikki Haley por ser mujer.“Creo que es la candidata correcta”, opinó el miércoles mientras esperaba que Haley apareciera en un evento del ayuntamiento en Davenport. “Solo resulta que es mujer”.Es un estribillo familiar que repiten algunas de las simpatizantes más entusiastas de Haley, quienes, como la candidata misma, le restan importancia a su género en la contienda presidencial de 2024, aunque celebran el carácter potencialmente histórico de su candidatura.Haley está haciendo este acto de equilibrismo en un momento notable de la política estadounidense. Su ascenso en las encuestas y las complicaciones del gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, implican que el candidato republicano con más esperanzas de impulsar al partido más allá del expresidente Donald Trump —quien tiene un largo historial de comentarios misóginos y acusaciones de conducta sexual inadecuada— bien podría ser una mujer.A lo largo de su campaña, Haley ha procurado ser muy cautelosa al hablar de su género. Enfatiza elementos originales de su vida y carrera que la hacen destacar en un terreno que por lo demás está dominado por candidatos masculinos, pero evita tocar políticas de identidad que puedan disgustar a la base de votantes conservadores que necesita para ganar la nominación, los cuales en su mayoría son blancos y canosos.“No quiero ser solo una mujer”, le comentó a Charlamagne Tha God en “The Daily Show” el mes pasado. “No quiero ser solo india. No quiero ser solo madre. No quiero ser solo republicana. No quiero ser solo todas esas cosas. Soy más que eso. Y creo que todas las personas son más que eso”.Su discurso político incluye referencias a sus experiencias como esposa de un militar y como madre. Sus réplicas concisas a los rivales invocan sus tacones de 10 centímetros. Su lista de canciones para cerrar los actos municipales incluye “Woman in the White House”, de Sheryl Crow.Un acto de campaña de Haley en Iowa el mes pasado. Cuando Haley menciona que fue la primera mujer y la primera persona de color en ocupar el cargo de gobernadora de Carolina del Sur, lo hace en gran parte para argumentar que Estados Unidos no está “podrido” ni es “racista”.Jordan Gale para The New York TimesNo obstante, Haley, hija de inmigrantes indios, casi nunca, o nunca, menciona de manera directa que aspira a romper el techo de cristal más alto en la política estadounidense. (En el video de su anuncio de campaña, señaló que no creía en esos límites).En la campaña electoral en los estados de Iowa y Nuevo Hampshire, donde se vota primero, casi no menciona su género, lo cual para sus aliados podría ser una ventaja potente para ganarse a los votantes con estudios universitarios y a las mujeres de los suburbios en unas elecciones generales, si venciera a Trump en las primarias.Chris Cournoyer, senadora por Iowa y presidenta de la campaña de Haley en ese estado, declaró que estos sectores demográficos también podrían ayudarla a ser más competitiva en el estado, donde ha quedado detrás de Trump en las encuestas por un amplio margen y, hasta hace poco, también iba a la zaga de DeSantis.“He oído decir a muchas mujeres independientes, a muchas mujeres demócratas, que van a cambiar de partido para votar por ella el 15 de enero”, comentó Cournoyer.Aunque suele mencionar su victoria histórica, pues se convirtió en la primera mujer y la primera persona de color en ocupar el cargo de gobernadora de Carolina del Sur, Haley lo hace sobre todo para argumentar que Estados Unidos no está “podrido” ni es “racista”.Su evento del miércoles en la bodega de Von Maur en Davenport se pudo haber promocionado como uno de Mujeres por Nikki, pero, aparte de tres camisetas de la coalición expuestas cerca de la entrada, en el lugar había pocas señales de los grupos de base conformados solo por mujeres que han ayudado a difundir su mensaje.Los estrategas republicanos y los especialistas en estudios de género afirman por igual que el enfoque relativamente moderado de Haley en materia de género tiene sentido: el camino de las mujeres hacia los altos cargos suele estar lleno de dobles raseros y prejuicios de género, independientemente del partido o la ideología del candidato. Pero puede ser especialmente difícil para las mujeres republicanas. Los votantes conservadores tienden a albergar opiniones tradicionales sobre la feminidad al tiempo que esperan que las candidatas parezcan “duras”.Un informe reciente del Centro de Mujeres Estadounidenses y Política de la Universidad de Rutgers reveló que los republicanos eran menos propensos que los demócratas a ver obstáculos claros a la representación política de las mujeres, a apoyar esfuerzos particulares para aumentar la diversidad en la política y a presionar a los líderes de los partidos para que adopten estrategias que amplíen la cantidad de mujeres en el poder.Kelly Dittmar, quien, como directora del centro trabajó en el informe y ha analizado las propuestas políticas de Haley, dijo que le parecía que había paralelos entre las campañas de Haley a la gobernación y a la presidencia. En ambas, los anuncios de Haley dicen que es “nueva” y “distinta”, lo que ofrece a los votantes pistas sobre su raza y su género pero, dijo Dittmar, les permite interpretar estas palabras a su antojo.“Es al mismo tiempo estratégico y coherente con la identidad conservadora de ella”, dijo Dittmar, y añadió que como candidata a la gobernación Haley rechazó los pedidos de sus votantes que querían que se comprometiera a nombrar el mismo número de hombres y mujeres en su gestión.Ninguna mujer ha conseguido la nominación presidencial del Partido Republicano a la presidencia, y ni siquiera a una primaria presidencial estatal del partido y Haley solo es la quinta republicana destacada en buscar la nominación de su partido. Carly Fiorina, la ex directora ejecutiva de Hewlett-Packard, fue la última que lo intentó, en 2016, y en su campaña el asunto del género era clave.Con su enfoque mesurado, Haley ha intentado apoyarse en su experiencia de política exterior y ejecutiva, desafiar las ideas erróneas sobre las mujeres y la posibilidad de ser elegidas, y posicionarse como una de las mensajeras más eficaces de su partido en materia de aborto, a pesar de haber aprobado algunas de las restricciones antiabortistas más duras del país como gobernadora de Carolina del Sur. Hace poco declaró que, como gobernadora, habría autorizado una prohibición del aborto a las seis semanas.El camino de las mujeres a los altos cargos públicos a menudo está lleno de dobles raseros y sesgos de género, sin importar el partido o la ideología. En especial, los votantes conservadores tienden a tener opiniones tradicionales sobre la feminidad. Sophie Park/Getty ImagesEse enfoque le ha granjeado el apoyo de algunas de sus seguidoras más leales que, a menudo, también hacen trabajo voluntario no remunerado: son mujeres dispuestas a conducir durante horas para ir a instalar sillas, recabar información de contacto de los asistentes y animar su esfuerzo. Los líderes de campaña dicen que ya hay capítulos de Mujeres por Nikki en los 50 estados del país. En eventos recientes en Iowa, al menos dos mujeres le pidieron que reafirmara su postura sobre el aborto, a pesar de que ya la habían escuchado, con el fin de que otras de las asistentes también la escucharan.“No creo que los muchachos sepan hablar de esto de forma adecuada”, dijo en ambas ocasiones.Y, a pesar de todo, el tema del género ha sido ineludible. En el cuarto debate presidencial republicano, el emprendedor Vivek Ramaswamy lanzó ataques de género, en los que la acusó de beneficiarse de la “política de la identidad”, mientras el exgobernador de Nueva Jersey Chris Christie fue en la otra dirección para defenderla, una maniobra que para algunos de los partidarios de Haley fue tan solo una actuación para quedar como su salvador. Y, luego está Trump, quien la llama “cerebro de pájaro” y sigue siendo popular entre las mujeres republicanas.Una encuesta de The New York Times y la universidad Siena College publicada este mes reveló que el 63 por ciento de las votantes en las primarias republicanas apoyaba a Trump. Haley obtuvo un 12 por ciento de apoyo de ese grupo. Otras encuestas la muestran con un mayor apoyo entre los hombres que entre las mujeres. Sin embargo, en enfrentamientos hipotéticos, Haley ha vencido al presidente Joe Biden por el margen más amplio de todos los aspirantes republicanos, pues casi dividió los votos de las mujeres con él.“Nikki tiene una elegibilidad poderosa contra Biden, pero necesita encontrar una elegibilidad poderosa contra Trump”, opinó Sarah Longwell, una estratega republicana que ha trabajado para derrotar a Trump. “En este momento, los votantes simplemente no creen que ella pueda hacerlo, así que debe cambiar esa percepción”.En un evento reciente celebrado en Agency, Iowa, tal vez Haley reflejó mejor su propuesta al responder a una pregunta de una posible votante. Tras escuchar a Haley en la bodega de una empresa de semillas de maíz, Sarah Keith, una ingeniera química de 28 años, quiso saber qué haría la candidata para atraer a más mujeres al partido, en particular quienes están descontentas con la agenda liberal.“Hablan de los problemas de las mujeres”, respondió Haley, para referirse a los demócratas y definiendo esas inquietudes como las mismas que le preocupan a la mayoría de los votantes, incluidas la economía y la seguridad nacional. “Creo que las mujeres están hartas. Creo que todo el mundo está harto del ruido y quiere ver resultados”.Jazmine Ulloa es reportera de política nacional para el Times y cubre la campaña presidencial de 2024. Reside en Washington. Más de Jazmine Ulloa More