Oscar billboard in West L.A. for Imitation Game: “HONOR THE MAN, HONOR THE FILM”… Cheesy, no? We’re supposed to honor Alan Turing by giving your B+ film an award? … Lucky it’s not up against a film about Martin Luther King.** …
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Don’t Tell Tom Tancredo: If there are two pro-amnesty nominees — especially if they are Jeb and Hillary — isn’t that a recipe for a third-party candidacy (which would probably threaten the GOP more than the Democrats)? Have the Republican donors backing Bush taken that into account? … I think you’d have to go back to 1968 and the Vietnam War to find an issue where the gap between a significant chunk of voter sentiment, on the one hand, and both party establishments was as wide. As alert reader J. notes, the share of Americans who want more immigration has been holding steady — at 7%. Yet that 7% has captured the leadership of, not one party but both parties?… In another poll, when asked which party they trust on immigration, 27% of voters say “neither,” about as many as answer “Republicans.” There’s your base! … Certainly the distance between Jeb/Hillary and the sort of voters (6 in 10) who say they’re dissatisfied with immigration levels (“few issues … saw such a drop”) is more salient than any gap between Jeb and Hillary, at least on domestic policy.
P.S.: Sure, to be even semi-successful a third party challenge on would have to embed the immigration issue in a larger framework — presumably a populist framework. But how hard is that? …
P.P.S.: The question of the hour regarding Scott Walker isn’t whether he’s so stupid he couldn’t learn French or finish college. The question is whether he’s so stupid he’ll agree with Jeb Bush on immigration and blow off the 41% of GOP primary voters who say Bush’s pro-amnesty stand is “a deal-killer “(according to the Bloomberg-St. Anselm New Hampshire poll). Will the (pro-amnesty) Kochs give him permission? …
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I didn’t realize that some Wisconsin unions actually donated to Walker’s 2014 campaign — despite, or maybe because of, his campaign to curtail the collective bargaining power of government employees. City Journal‘s Steven Malanga sees an emerging split between private unions and government unions. That would be a big deal, no? … It seems private sector union members may tire of paying for plush public sector health and pension benefits too. …
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“MAINSTREAM PRESS ANOINT JEB ‘FRONTRUNNER’ DESPITE LACKLUSTER POLL NUMBERS”: There’s another giant gap between the press’s apparent CW about the Bush juggernaut — concretized here in a one-stop shop — and how he actually seems to be doing. That’s the MSM for you. But do Jeb’s donors realize how lackluster his poll numbers are? Early polls supposedly reward name recognition — yet despite an overwhelming name recognition edge Jeb’s getting 12.7 percent in Iowa and 16 percent in New Hampshire. That’s out of 100. *** Jeb’s favorability rating in a recent New Hampshire poll is 35/50 favorable/unfavorable among all voters. Only Trump does worse. Hillary is 54/42. How are you going to lose-the-primary-to-win-the-general with those kind of general election numbers in a swing state? … Yes, Jeb will almost certainly go up a bit when voters discover he’s way more articulate and (seemingly) thoughtful than his older brother. Still … Update: MSM CW may finally be changing. Mike Murphy is very persuasive but he can’t fool all the people all the time. …
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** — Stolen from an emailer … I mean, crowd-sourced.
*** —RCP averages.