RUTHFULLY YOURS

Inquiring minds want to know: have we reached Peak Trump? Most of the polls told us that Trump would cruise to victory in Iowa. Instead, Cruz did the cruising, not only precipitating the largest turnout in history (186,000 votes; the previous record was 122,000), but also achieving that record after frankly opposing ethanol subsidies, a fuel that (so the pundits told us) was absolutely indispensable to victory in the Hawkeye State.

Except that it wasn’t. Once upon a time, Trump had been opposed to ethanol subsidies, until political expediency convinced him to join the “I love ethanol” bandwagon. But then, Trump’s record has shown that he will say anything at any time to anyone if he thinks it will benefit him.

For his part, Rubio declared himself in favor of ethanol subsidies “for seven years” (that should hold ’em). The pandering of the Republican cohort over the issue of ethanol subsidies was nauseating (the Dems didn’t quite rise to that level of pandering), but Cruz was the only one who stuck to his free-market guns. The ethanol subsidy is a classic government boondoggle: bad for everyone and everything (even the environment, which it was supposed to help). It even hurts the farmers getting the government checks, because it lures them into a cycle of dependency and so robs them of their independence.

So what’s next? All the polls I’ve seen put Trump way ahead in New Hampshire, where the world will descend on February 9 to gape and ogle before decamping for points south until the cycle starts again in four years. But now that the game is really afoot, has Donald Trump peaked?

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) got the endorsement of another one of his colleagues as Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) threw his support behind Rubio’s presidential bid.

That brings Rubio’s upper chamber endorsements up to six, including Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who endorsed after Rubio came in third in the Iowa caucuses this week.

Toomey announced his support on CNN this afternoon, saying that last week he called Rubio and said, “Marco, I want to help you any way I can.”

“I want to help you become the next president of the United States. I’m endorsing his candidacy and I’m very optimistic about his prospects,” Toomey said.

Asked why Rubio was a better pick than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the Pennsylvania senator replied, “You know, we face a huge national security crisis, obviously emanating from the Middle East. There is tension all around the world. I think Marco has demonstrated a clear understanding.”

“He’s done the hard work. He’s very knowledgeable, thoughtful. He’s a smart guy. He’s demonstrated the leadership. You know, domestically I think we’ve sometimes have a crisis of confidence,” Toomey continued. “And Marco has an extraordinary ability, I think, to communicate and to inspire people. I think he’s going to be a really strong leader.”

Toomey dismissed Jeb Bush’s charge that Cruz and Rubio haven’t had to make any tough decisions.

One of the things that has troubled me the most about Donald Trump is his lack of emotional maturity. Unlike with a reality TV show host, it is vital that the president of the United States be grown up and mature. But Trump, time and time again, acts like a child, name-calling, holding grudges, and crying when things don’t go his way.

Case in point: the Iowa caucuses. On election night Trump grudgingly congratulated Ted Cruz. But now he’s saying that Cruz “stole” the Iowa caucuses by repeating a news report that Ben Carson was about to leave the presidential race (which, by the way, may well be true – how many candidates do you know right now who have flown all the way home to “pick up some more clothes”?). Here’s what Trump tweeted:

Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated.

And finally, Cruz strongly told thousands of caucusgoers (voters) that Trump was strongly in favor of ObamaCare and “choice” – a total lie!

Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.

Former president Jimmy Carter, who is still alive, says of the Republican candidates that he prefers Donald Trump to Ted Cruz because Donald Trump has no fixed beliefs and his views are malleable:

“I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you,” the former Democratic president said during an appearance at Britain’s House of Lords on Wednesday afternoon. He was asked who he would pick for the GOP nomination.

“The reason is, Trump has proven already he’s completely malleable,” Carter explained. “I don’t think he has any fixed [positions] he’d go the White House and fight for. On the other hand, Ted Cruz is not malleable. He has far-right wing policies he’d pursue if he became president.”

It’s not hard to figure out why Carter would think that, given that Trump has had close relationships with Democrats for most of his adult life. In Trump’s own words:

I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obviously, I haven’t been dealing with him, so he’ll actually use my name as the ultimate – you know, as the ultimate of the billionaires in terms of, you know, people you don’t want. I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid and frankly, if I weren’t running for office I would be able to deal with her or Reid or anybody. But I think I’d be able to get along very well with Nancy Pelosi and just about everybody.

Sen. Ted Cruz’ victory in the Iowa Caucus last night leaves Sen. Marco Rubio as the “Establishment” alternative to the “populist” rebels, namely Cruz and Donald Trump — or so the punditeska of the American media tells us. Rubio’s stronger-than-expected third place finish gives the “Establishment” a viable horse in the race after the implosion of Bush 3.0. The content of the Republican primaries is obscure even to American analysts, and from an Asian vantage point must appear as opaque as the tribal dances of New Guinea neolithics. Nonetheless, Iowa is a great moment for a radically changing world.

“No one likes Ted Cruz,” one hears from Establishment players. One of Mitt Romney’s largest “bundlers” (fund-raisers) told me, “There are 99 other senators and hundreds of Congressmen, and not one of them likes Cruz. How can he get elected?”

Cruz’s colleagues hate him with good reason. During the Reagan and Bush pere-et-fils administrations, the Republican Establishment became a formidable force, with major media (Fox News and the Wall Street Journal), think tanks (with the American Enterprise Institute in the lead), political journals, and — perhaps most important — an intellectual caste prepared to train and vet promising young people for future high positions. Although American universities fell under the sway of the Left, conservative holdouts in university departments could direct their students into the right internships, starter jobs, and senior positions with appropriate doctorates, scholarly articles, middlebrow books and newspaper op-eds.

And at the end of the career cycle, there were lobbying firms to provide pension plans. Newt Gringrich’s $1.6 million lobbying fee for the Federal National Mortgage Association, a prime culprit in the 2008 subprime crash, was egregrious but not atypical. The donor list that Irving Kristol assembled back when he ran the Reagan administration’s kindergarten at the American Enterprise Institute still provides fellowships at foundations, research grants, and subsidies for loss-making publications.

The problem is that the Republican Establishment failed catastrophically in the mid-2000s. It sold out to the subprime bubblers (although the Wall Street Journal editorial page warned early and often of the risks of federal guarantees for dodgy mortgage loans). It was asleep at the switch when the banks persuaded then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to allow 70-t0-1 leverage on bogus AAA securities backed by subprime. And it closed ranks between the stupidest idea in the history of American foreign policy, namely the export of democracy at great cost in blood and treasure.

Clandestinely stirring up potentially violent protests in an attempt to try and force Israel to go against its best interests? Advice like this was par for the course with Clinton’s advisers.It’s already been established that one of Hillary Clinton’s most trusted advisers, Sid Blumenthal, sent her anti-Israel articles, ideas and advice during her time as secretary of state. But the stream of anti-Israel advice received by Clinton was much more comprehensive.

In the entire forced dump of Clinton’s emails, you will be hard pressed to find a single one sympathetic toward the Jewish state from any of the people she relied on. The negative, poisonous approach to Israel throughout this email expose shows the atmosphere that she had established around herself. These emails seem to demonstrate that a huge segment of her close advisers and confidantes were attacking Israel, condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and strategizing how to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria at all costs.

This was occurring against the backdrop of Israel’s recent Gaza withdrawal, which led to the takeover of Gaza by Hamas. There is almost zero mention of the huge risks to Israel’s security in withdrawing as Clinton and the Obama administration did everything they could to pressure Israel to capitulate to their demands.

Donald Trump bragged about how he was going to bring a record number of voters to the polls. And he did. The only problem is, most of the newcomers came out to vote against him.

In the last presidential primary, there were 120,000 Republican attendees; in this one, there were 180,000, a 50% increase. Whom did all these new people vote for? About a third voted for Donald Trump, but two thirds came out to vote against him, for other candidates. There’s no denying that Trump drove the increase in numbers, but most of the increase was antagonistic, not out of support.

Trump has a record-setting 60% unfavorable rating among all Americans, the highest unfavorable rating of any politician. Many of the people he motivated to go to the polls were not just Republicans, but independents and Democrats who wanted to see him defeated. No other candidate, not even Hillary Clinton, has higher unfavorables than Donald Trump.

This has grave implications if Trump, with plurality of Republican voters, becomes the nominee. He will be so polarizing that he will draw more new people to come out against him than for him, as he did in Iowa. Part of it is his positions on the issues, but a lot of it is his immature and acerbic personality. Calling women bimbos is not presidential. Nor is calling voters stupid or losers, or talking about how he is so great that he could shoot people and not lose support.

Those “yuuuge” crowds that Trump draws at rallies? Most don’t end up voting for him. But his style is clearly energizing people to come out and vote against him.

One of the extraordinary developments in the current presidential campaign is that the front runners on both the Democrat and the Republican side are emphasizing their opposition to the “special interests”. Given that the world is rapidly becoming a more dangerous place, and that our unemployment rate (when we include those who have dropped out of the official statistics) is so high, one would expect this issue to be on the back burner.

A central belief of Bernie Sanders, who is running a surprisingly effective campaign, is that our economy is rigged by the wealthy, in such a way that the average person gets short-changed. As Bernie’s website puts it: “We are talking about a rapid movement in this country toward a political system in which a handful of very wealthy people and special interests will determine who gets elected or who does not get elected.”

On the Republican side, Donald Trump claims his political rivals are indebted to special interest groups, whereas he, a billionaire, doesn’t need to take money from anyone.

Hillary Clinton will not be outdone: “We have to end the flood of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political system, and drowning out the voices of too many everyday Americans.”

The problem with these candidates who promise to fight the special interests is that they are creating more special interests, which will be even more uncontrolled.

Hillary Clinton’s third-place finish in the 2008 Iowa caucuses upended her candidacy. By contrast, she scored a narrow victory Monday night. Beyond her having a much-improved campaign organization, what changed over those eight years, and what does it teach us about the current state of the Democratic Party?

Let’s begin with what didn’t change. Mrs. Clinton did better among women than men in both contests. She did 24 points better among Democrats than independents in 2008 against Barack Obama, and 30 points better among Democrats this year. She lost to Mr. Obama by 16 points among caucusgoers who regarded themselves as “very liberal”—and to Bernie Sanders by 19 points. She trailed Mr. Obama by 12 points among first-time caucus attendees, a group she lost to Sen. Sanders by 18 points.

And in both races she did much better among middle-aged and elderly voters. In 2008 she lost voters 17-29 years of age by 46 points, and those in the 30-44 bracket by 19 points. She ran even with Mr. Obama among voters 45 to 64 years old and trounced him by 27 points among voters 65 years and older. This time around she trailed Mr. Sanders among young adults by 70 points and by 21 points among voters 30-44. She did better among voters 45-64 than she did eight years ago, racking up a 23-point edge. And she garnered 69% of the elderly vote compared with just 26% for Mr. Sanders.