RUTHFULLY YOURS

The future of the Democratic Party was two angry old leftists screaming at each other for two hours to decide who hates capitalism more.

With the MSNBC and the Democratic Party’s logos on a red background, the stage was set for a redder than red debate. Red was everywhere, reflected in the thick glasses of Bernie Sanders and in the garish red lipstick around Hillary Clinton’s orifice of lies, and in their clamorous rants about Wall Street and the evils of capitalism that could have come from a back alley Communist pamphleteer in the 50s.

Bernie Sanders promised to end “a rigged economy” with Socialism, which is the very definition of a rigged economy. Both candidates showed their Socialist bona fides by rattling off the names of the corporations they hated the most. Bernie Sanders cheered normalizing relations with Cuba, ridiculing the idea that being Communist is objectionable. But he did express some concerns about the nuclear weapons being held by his fellow Socialists in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea.

Thank God that’s over. You don’t have to be an Amtrak conductor to want to punch the next guy who says, “There are three tickets out of Iowa.” In the end, Ted Cruz won eight delegates and Donald Trump seven. Which doesn’t sound so bad for Trump. Except that Marco Rubio also won seven delegates. Had the caucus been held 24 hours later, Rubementum might have pushed Trump to third place.

There’s no point pretending it wasn’t a setback for the billionaire party-crasher. Who knows why it happened? Perhaps he should have taken his own advice and shot a guy on Fifth Avenue: That’s gotta be worth a couple of points in Polk County. For over six months, each supposedly fatal misstep – from McCain to Muslims – only made him stronger. Now the first actual votes of this interminable process have made him weaker. For a candidate running on the platform that he’s a winner and the other guys are losers, the aura of invincibility depended on the perception of invincibility. So it’s not helpful to let five thousand hayseeds shuck Trump Tower like a corncob. Doing without consultants, doing without ads, doing without Fox News, doing without National Review, doing without debates …great, great, love it. But doing without voters is a trickier proposition. This week the Trump campaign sent my 15-year-old kid, who lives in New Hampshire, a reminder to make sure he caucuses in Iowa.

Rubio did the usual caucus-night thing. He came third so he hailed himself as the most stunning victor since Wellington at Waterloo and then segued into the stump-speech bollocks about being the son of a bartender and promising a new American century. Ted Cruz followed with a victory speech that lasted most of the new American century. It was the kind of ruthless Canadian triumphalism older Americans haven’t seen since the War of 1812, which, like Cruz’s speech, went on into the following year. If he wins again next Tuesday, let’s hope he cuts to the chase and burns down the White House.

IN THE LAST Democratic debate before the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton came up with her fourth explanation for the gluttonous speaking fees and campaign contributions that the financial sector and investment firms — “Wall Street,” in liberal shorthand — have been showering on her for so long.

Explanation No. 1, you’ll recall, was the one about her family being “dead broke” when they left the White House and needing “the resources for mortgages for houses.” Explanation No. 2, uncorked during a debate last November, was that all that money came her way because “I represented New York on 9/11, when we were attacked.” Explanation No. 3 was the one she gave on Wednesday’s CNN broadcast, when Anderson Cooper asked if it was appropriate for her to accept nearly $700,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs: “I don’t know — that’s what they offered.”

Rachel Maddow put the question to Clinton once again during Thursday’s MSNBC debate. Lo and behold, she was ready with yet another rationale: “They wanted me to talk about the world, what my experience had been as secretary of state.” Wall Street firms were no different, she claimed, than all those other audiences that had hired her to speak — “heart doctors” and the “American Camping Association” and “auto dealers.” Why, they just wanted her thoughts and reminiscences on “world affairs,” Clinton said serenely. You know, like “how stressful it was advising the president about going after Bin Laden.”

Which is why, when a questioner asked if Clinton would release the transcripts of her Goldman Sachs speeches, her reply was a prompt “Of course!”

Oh, wait, sorry — I misread my notes: Her reply was actually “I’ll look into it.” That’s Clintonspeak for “Not a chance.”

They say that elephants have fantastic memories. That may be why some Republicans still remember the night that Chris Christie killed the Romney campaign. And they still hold it against him.

In late October 2012, the race between GOP nominee Mitt Romney and Obama was tightening. An October 27 Business Insider headline read: “Gallup: Romney holds five-point lead, Obama approval rating slides.” Romney seemed to be on a roll.

“Then Hurricane Sandy hits,” one top Romney adviser remembers. After the Jersey shore was devastated on Monday, October 29, “Christie starts his bromance with Obama,” this former aide says. At one point Pufferfish gets a ride with Obama on Marine One. That apparently made a major impression on him.” Pufferfish was the internal code name that Team Romney used while vetting Christie as a potential running mate.

Sandy knocked Romney off the air for the final week of the campaign. Rather than engage in divisive, partisan behavior, Obama rose above the fray, donned the First Windbreaker, and did his job.

It didn’t hurt the Democrat nominee that, at the same time, “Pufferfish was humping Obama’s leg,” as the Romney aide put it. “Pufferish was very upset that he did not make it as Romney’s V.P. pick.” This adviser thinks that Christie was driven, at least in part, by revenge.

Durham, N.H. – Well, that escalated quickly.

Hillary Clinton emerged Monday as the victor of the Iowa caucuses. But after winning by the smallest margin in history and trailing by 20 points in recent New Hampshire polls, she was anything but complacent during Thursday’s one-on-one New Hampshire debate. The former secretary of state erupted in righteous indignation after her rival, Bernie Sanders, brought up the money she’s raised from Wall Street, accusing him and his campaign of perpetrating a “very artful smear” by implicitly calling her a corporate shill.

But Thursday night also opened up a new, unexpected front for Clinton on the paid speeches she gave to Wall Street after she left office. After struggling on Wednesday to answer why she took $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs, she was asked on Thursday to release transcripts of all her paid speeches to large corporations. It’s a question that clearly caught her off guard, and one her campaign will now be forced to address.

Clinton opened the debate with a bang, pushing back furiously against Sanders’s jab at the $15 million her super PAC raised from the financial industry in the last quarter. “I really don’t think these kinds of attacks by insinuation are worthy of you,” she said, shooting daggers in Sanders’s direction. “And enough is enough. If you’ve got something to say, say it directly! But you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received!”

‘The Republican Obama.”That’s the new hot attack on Senator Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz leveled the epithet at Rubio just days before the Iowa caucuses, which is a little ironic since Cruz has been called the same thing in the past.

But the leader of the opposition to Rubio, at least when it comes to this line, is actually someone not in the race: Joe Scarborough, the normally affable host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Contrary to all evidence, Scarborough has denied he has an unhealthy obsession with his fellow Floridian. But given Scarborough’s near-relentless denigration of Rubio, objective viewers might wonder if Rubio had run over Scarborough’s dog or toilet-papered his house one Halloween night in junior high school.

On Thursday morning’s show, Scarborough launched into an extended tirade about the best ways for other Republicans to attack Rubio. Sounding a bit like an armchair general who can’t wait any longer to be asked his opinion, Scarborough declared, “He is the Republican Obama. And he really is.” Time magazine, Scarborough complained with more than a touch of resentment, “anointed him the Republican party’s savior before he threw his first pitch.”

“Seriously,” Scarborough added, “I have complained for years that Barack Obama was sold and marketed like a bag of potato chips, and when I have said it, every Republican has agreed with me, and I said it was a bad move for America when they had a chance to have a more experienced candidate. Even Hillary Clinton. So now Republicans are going . . . down that road to elect a guy that has been marketed like a bag of potato chips. Good luck.”

It’s almost as if Scarborough forgot that Obama was elected – twice.