GOP PRIMARY: RALLY ‘ROUND THE MILQUETOAST?

12/26/15

Concerned Republicans of a more mainstream bent are apoplectic at the idea of Donald Trump’s getting their Party’s nomination and thus forcing the Party to do a 52 years later redux of 1964.  The professional Republicans are urging marginal candidates to withdraw so that the mainstreamers can unite behind one candidate to topple Trump.   Before people continue their backroom plotting to “save the Party,” they ought to get a clearer understanding of the numbers involved, a tighter handle on what keeps campaigns alive, a more acute sense of the mind of a politician, and, most of all, a calendar.   This being the time of the year that it is, hopes are strong that at least the last will have been achieved.   The first three, though, remain problematical.

Those thinking that a moderate champion could emerge from the disparate GOP field surely can see that if one adds the poll numbers of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz, i.e., the “unconventional” candidates, one can surely see that they add to more than 50% of the polled electorate.   So a “mainstream” alternative would still not marshal the numbers needed to defenestrate Mr. Trump if those pining for somebody different do the logical thing and support Mr. Trump in a head-to-head contest with the usual milquetoast type of candidate the GOP leadership mistakenly seems to think should inflame the positive passions of the electorate.   Maybe those who support the self-winnowing of the field think Mr. Carson will stay in the race and split what those middling types consider the whacko vote.  Or maybe those singing odes to the banality that is professional Republicanism are getting to the point at which they are willing to consider Mr. Cruz one of them, at least on a relative basis.  

Even if the moderates think the numbers will change and their moderation will prevail, they ought to consider what motivates a politician to drop out of a presidential race:   money.    One can bet that those who have already left the race…Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, and perhaps some other notable that I have missed…left because their money dried up.   And one can also bet, perhaps only a bit less surely, that the “smart” money’s having rallied early behind the increasingly pathetic Jeb Bush is what kept Mitt Romney from throwing his hat back into the now familiar ring.   As long as the money is available, these guys are going to stay on the campaign trail.   Why go back to a real job when one can make a living addressing adoring crowds in events staged in figurative, and perhaps literal, echo chambers?   Why struggle away actually doing something that might benefit society, and one’s own net worth, when one can spend one’s days basking in the sycophancy of those who want to stay on the payroll and the “crowds” they fabricate?    Yes, the campaign trail is grueling, but it sure beats working for a living.   As long as the money is available to bask in unceasing adulation, with an occasional somewhat dull barb tossed in to keep one’s name in the paper, why do anything else?

Surely, the concerned GOPers tell themselves, the walking dead among the GOP candidates will leave the field for “the good of the party.”   Right.  These people, whose most salient characteristic is an outsized ego, will take one for the team.  Uh-huh.   And Jesse Ventura is going to come out of retirement and join with yours truly to take the WWE tag team title.  No.  As long as the money is there, these professional narcissists are going to make their livings basking in the faux adulation of the hastily assembled.

Most of all, though, those who are wringing their hands in certainty that a Trump nomination is inevitable ought to consult the calendar.   It is still 2015 for at least a few days.   We are still six weeks away from the first real contest of the campaign, the Iowa caucuses, which Mr. Trump will probably lose.  (See TRUMP, THE “REVERSE BRADLEY EFFECT,” AND THE MAN’S UPCOMING LOSS IN IOWA, 12/23/15).   If history is any guide, that a particular candidate is leading at this stage of the race means nothing; ask Presidents Rockefeller, Connelly, Muskie, Perry, and Hillary Clinton.   It’s way too early to be making predictions, for anything transcending entertainment value, about the ultimate outcome of the nomination fight.   The only exception, as my regular readers already know, is the now months old prediction of yours truly that you should take to the bank:   Carly Fiorina is going to be on the GOP ticket.  See THEONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE, 9/18/15.  I have already bet a beef sandwich on this proposition and, for yours truly, those are pretty high stakes.

Those GOPers lamenting the fate of their Party with Mr. Trump as its standard-bearer might also calm down for other reasons, but that is grist for a later mill.

WHY TRUMP IS SO POPULAR WITH THE MIDDLE CLASS

12/26/15

12/26/15

I sent the following letter to the Chicago Tribune on 12/20 and the paper published it this (Saturday, 12/26) morning in the “Voice of the People” section more or less intact.   I appreciate that because it’s been awhile since the Trib has published anything I’ve sent, though I have to admit I haven’t sent much for a while.  I have reproduced the letter below for my readers’ convenience.

I sent a very similar letter to the Wall Street Journal a few days earlier.    The Journal has yet to run the letter but, if it does, I’ll also post it on this blog after publication.

Thanks; I hope you had a great Christmas and that the arrival of our Savior will continue in your hearts.

12/20/15

Donald Trump has been characterized as demagogue on the Perspective pages of the Tribune and as a bigot, or worse, in other organs of the media.  The sachems of the press and of the political world clearly see Mr. Trump in this light and are scratching their heads at the very notion of Mr. Trump’s popularity.  Why do so many middle class voters support Mr. Trump?   Are Trump supporters, as much of the press is doubtlessly concluding, a pack of benighted morons who don’t know what’s good for them? 

As usual, the media and political sages have it wrong.  People support Mr. Trump because they are fed up.  They are sick and tired of terrorism, street violence, and a society seemingly coming apart at the seams.  They are appalled by a feckless foreign policy that has gotten us nowhere but deeper in debt and further into the cauldron of Middle Eastern intrigue at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of the lives of their sons and daughters.  They have had it with paying ever higher taxes so that the government can seemingly remain at the beck and call of every stratum of society but theirs.   Most of all, they are fed up with the fealty to political correctness and the blind allegiance to Republican and Democratic doctrine that creates and exacerbates the problems that are permeating our once great nation.  Finally, middle class voters know that any “solution” that comes from the Democratic or Republican establishments will involve spending lots of their money to sink us more deeply into the morass that the career politician mindset has largely created.

People aren’t, as media mavens and political pros suppose, stupid; they realize that Donald Trump is far from the perfect vessel for addressing the problems that politics as usual have created for them.   But they know that a vote for the same old Washington nabobs is pointless…or worse.

Mark M. Quinn

Naperville

CHRISTMAS WISH FOR 2015: THANKS GOD IT’S STILL CHRISTMAS

12/24/15

Christmas is upon us, the celebration of the birth of our Savior.  It is a period of rejoicing and a period of joy filled prayer, prayer both of thanks and of asking that we be ready to receive Him into our hearts and souls.   Not only do we celebrate Jesus’s arrival in Bethlehem two millennia ago, but we also celebrate His desire to implant Himself in our heart and souls every day and pray that we are be receptive to that desire.

As I have pointed out every year in my “Christmas posts,” this holiday has been overly commercialized and its true meaning has largely been lost.   This, of course, is nothing new; the commercialization of Christmas has been lamented for decades, even centuries.   The seeming desire of secular society to obliterate the holiday is a more recent, but very real, lament.   Yours truly, perhaps surprisingly, has never been keen on the “Keep Christ in Christmas” effort; indeed, I have long been in favor of keeping Christ out of “Christmas,” given the way our society chooses to celebrate the holiday.   See for example…

KEEP CHRIST OUT OF “CHRISTMAS”—2014 EDITION

http://insightfulpontificator.blogspot.com/2014/12/keep-christ-out-of-christmas2014-edition.html

for a sort of (sort of?) downer take on the holiday.  Thank God my mood at this time of year has vastly improved in 2015.

More lighthearted, but still not caught up in the spirit as dictated by Madison Avenue, et. al. takes on the season include

KEEP CHRIST OUT OF “CHRISTMAS,” 2009 EDITION

http://insightfulpontificator.blogspot.com/2009/11/keep-christ-out-of-christmas-2009.html

and

LOOK SLOVENLY, FEEL SLOVENLY, BE SLOVENLY

http://insightfulpontificator.blogspot.com/2009/12/look-slovenly-feel-slovenly-be-slovenly.html

The last of the above, also from 2009, is one of my all time favorite Christmas related posts.

This year, however, I will not launch into a rant, or even a tirade, on what our materialistic, self-absorbed, and seemingly bent on self-destructive society has done to Christ’s birthday.   Instead, I’ll do my part to welcome Him into my heart, realize that there are many things I can’t control, and wish all of you a blessed Christmas.   Perhaps as a result of my slight change of attitude, it has so far been an especially enjoyable Christmas season at home, watching (admittedly, for the most part, secular) Christmas movies, enjoying the family, and generally thanking God that His Son’s birthday is still in the hearts and minds of many.

As I head off to Christmas Eve Mass, I wish all of you a blessed Christmas.   You are all in my prayers now and always.

TRUMP, THE “REVERSE BRADLEY EFFECT,” AND THE MAN’S UPCOMING LOSS IN IOWA

12/23/15

As I have been telling people with whom I engage in political discussions for (at least) weeks, Donald Trump will lose in Iowa.   While Iowa is not an inordinately conservative state, its GOP electorate is dominated by socially conservative evangelical Christians.   For obvious reasons (e.g., the serial marriages, the only vague familiarity with religion of any kind, the references to “eating the wafer,” and the lack of concern for most of the issues these voters hold dear), these people are not big Trump fans.   For the last several months, their support has been split between Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, with a few votes going to the walking dead Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.   With Dr. Carson’s candidacy weakening, that evangelical support in Iowa has been going to Mr. Cruz and, if Dr. Carson’s support continues to swoon, more of his supporters will go to Mr. Cruz.   So it looks like Mr. Cruz will triumph in Iowa.

The only qualification I would provide for the above prediction involves what I call Mr. Trump’s “reverse Bradley effect.”   Many of you remember Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles who happened to be black.   Mr. Bradley wanted to be governor of California and won the Democratic nomination for that post in 1982.   The polls going into election day showed Mr. Bradley winning the general election against George Deukmejian.   After the polls closed, news organizations, working from their polls, projected Mr. Bradley to be the winner.  But Mr. Bradley wound up losing the general to Mr. Deukmejian.   It was later determined that Mr. Bradley, or at least the polls that showed him winning, suffered from the tendency of a substantial number of white voters who had no intention of voting for the black candidate to tell pollsters that they intended to vote for that candidate so that they didn’t appear to be racist.   That tendency of white voters to appear to do the politically correct thing and thus “misreport” their intentions to the pollsters will thus forever be called the “Bradley effect.”

Yours truly, by the way, considers honesty in all things to be perhaps the paramount virtue.   One should never lie; I never do.   This may be due to virtue or may be due to laziness and/or a faulty memory.   You see, when one is honest, one has to remember far fewer things.   Despite this fealty to honesty, however, I encourage my readers to ALWAYS lie to pollsters because of the deep seated antipathy I have toward polls and the havoc they have wreaked on the drama of election night.   If I am ever polled, I don’t know how I will handle the moral dilemma that will confront me.  But I digress.

Back to the point...There is little doubt in my mind that Mr. Trump suffers from a “reverse Bradley effect;” i.e., lots of people who support Mr. Trump will not admit to a pollster, or to anyone who could constitute a member of polite company, that they will vote for the man.   The reason for people’s hesitancy to report their support for Mr. Trump is obvious:  the media have made the guy out to be a demagogue, a bigot, a lowlife, a dictator, a racist, a misogynist, and any number of ghastly characterizations.  A vote for Mr. Trump is perhaps the most politically incorrect act a person can commit. The reason for people’s support, even if verbally unexpressed, of Mr. Trump will be covered in a future post or posts.

Mr. Trump’s reverse Bradley effect may carry the day for him in Iowa, but I suspect it will not.   Mr. Cruz will, in all likelihood, “win” the caucuses …to the extent such a thing is possible given the nature of the Iowa caucuses, which few people understand.

The question then becomes what the even temporary loss of the veneer of invincibility will do to Mr. Trump’s campaign.   Will he be finished or will this defeat in the first real contest, like so many other things, roll off his back as he goes on to rout the opposition in New Hampshire, where Mr. Cruz has little support, emerge triumphant in South Carolina, and face a thus weakened Ted Cruz in his southern backyard?   But enough predictions for the day, especially from yours truly who, believe it or not, does not like to make political predictions.

DONALD TRUMP AND THE MOB: THE HORROR!

12/18/15

I sent the below letter to the Wall Street Journal in response to an editorial piece castigating Donald Trump for working with Mob associated concrete contractors in 1980s New York.   They published an abbreviated, and edited, form of this letter this morning, i.e., Friday, 12/18/15.   I’ve posted the note in its brief entirety here for your reading pleasure:

12/12/15

Okay, we get it; you Wall Street Journal editorial writers don’t like Donald Trump.   But while there are certainly legitimate reasons to be opposed to, or at least concerned about, the guy, you choose to attack Mr. Trump for dealing with Mob connected concrete contractors. (“Trump and the Goodfellas,” 12/12-12/13/15) Can you imagine that?   A construction magnate in 1980s New York using Mob related concrete contractors?  Criticizing big time New York real estate developers for dealing with the Mob in the 1980s is like accusing an Olympic swimmer for coming into contact with chlorinated water.

JAB BUYS KEURIG GREEN MOUNTAIN (GMCR): P.T. BARNUM AND H.L. MENCKEN SHARE A CUP OF JOE …AND A SMILE

12/7/15

The big news in the financial world today was the $92.00 cash offer for Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR) by Germany’s JAB Holdings.   That $92 was a (Get this!) 78% premium to GMCR’s close on Friday.   GMCR traded up $37.19, or 72%, to $88.89 today.   All in all, a great day for people long GMCR, a group that did not include your truly.

I have only a few, and probably not all that consequential, thoughts on the deal, but more salient thoughts on GMCR and its signature product, the Keurig single cup coffee maker. 

On the deal…

·         Until today, the shorts were having a field day with GMCR; at Friday’s close of $51.70, GMCR was down 63% from its 52 week closing high of $139.69, reached just about a year ago.  Maybe the Reimann family, which essentially is JAB Holdings, knows something the existing shorts don’t.  Or maybe the Reimanns just think the stock had fallen too far, partially courtesy of the shorts.   We don’t know what their thought process was.

·         That $92 per share price for GMCR is, according to reports, 15 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA.  Fifteen times.  Wow.   Back in the ‘80s when I was a kid working on the buy side of junk bond market and knew everything, we would look at deals with big multiples of EBITDA, but even in those gun slinging days, a 15 EBITDA multiple was considered, er, risky.   And I remember fondly the familiar response of my boss, or, more properly, my boss’s boss, a great man named Bill Buecking, when yours truly would present such deals.   He would read the material, listen to my presentation, lean back, shake his head, and say “We’ve come a long way with these deals…a LONG way.”   Fortunately, Bill’s wisdom often overrode my rookie omniscience and saved us from a lot of bowser deals.

So, no, I don’t know a lot about the specifics of the GMCR deal.  But my experience with such deals, my respect for some of the people who remained short GMCR, and the years that have passed since I was a 20 something at Kemper who knew everything, give me pause.   But I’d sure like to have been long GMCR before the open this morning.

More salient is the suspicions I have had about these single serving coffee makers since their inception.   After doing some quick calculations and discovering that making a single serve Keurig cost about as much per cup as making seven cups of coffee in a Mister Coffee, I wondered who in the world buys these things.   

Keurig marketed this latest bow to the “Gotta have it because my neighbors have it” approach to spending that permeates our society by saying that a Keurig cup is a downright bargain compared to a cup of coffee at Starbuck’s (Note to Keurig:   so is just about any other consumable in the world on a per ounce basis.) or even at Dunkin’ Donuts.   Well, yeah, but you actually have to brew your own coffee with a Keurig.   The far more apt comparison is to a brew your own cup out of a Mister Coffee or even a Melitta coffee maker, if you must.  In that comparison, the Keurig cup gets beat more mercilessly than a hapless opponent of the late Dick the Bruiser.  But don’t tell that to a yuppie in a hurry to spend money he doesn’t have to buy something he doesn’t need in order to impress people he doesn’t like.   But I digress.

So I was heartened this morning as I was listening to Bloomberg Radio on the way to Mass and heard an analyst (Sorry; I didn’t catch his name or employer.) say the following about buyers of Keurigs:

“These are people who turn a four cent cup into a 30 cent cup and pay $100 for the privilege.   So I don’t think price sensitivity is an issue here.”

This insightful young (I presume; I am rapidly approaching, if I haven’t passed, the age at which everyone is young.) man, obviously, was responding to a question regarding price sensitivity and Keurig products and was therefore commenting only on those aspects of the Keurig customer.   Yours truly, however, would apply the same logic, as I have in the past, to other characteristics of the typical Keurig customer.   I was immediately reminded of the insight of P.T. Barnum, who reminded us that there is a sucker born every minute.   But the reiteration this morning by the aforementioned highly compensated analyst of my years ago thoughts on the price “logic” behind a Keurig purchase brought to mind one of the most famous, but most misquoted, musings of one of my heroes, H.L. Mencken, to wit:

“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

I would perhaps limit this observation to the apparent upper strata of society rather than to “the great masses of the plain people,” but the underlying idea is self-evident.

Those who do throw their coffee money away so frivolously will doubtless retort

“Oh, but I like coffee from my Keurig and, after all, I can afford it. ”

…as if that answer should somehow give us comfort about the future of both our republic and our economy given that both are in the hands of many of those who employ such “logic.”   I, and I am sure you, know people who can afford to throw $20 bills off the top of the John Hancock Building and would doubtless have a few laughs doing so.   That makes it a good idea?

So I don’t know if JAB’s purchase of GMCR will work out for JAB.   But for it to work, the American people will have to continue to spend money on highly cost ineffective geegaws, which is a great bet.  Further, however, the growing competition for CMGR’s not all that unique line of products will have to somehow stumble and fail to catch the limited attention span of the type of people who pay seven or eight times a product’s value in order to be trendy and “with it,” a more questionable bet.   Finally, JAB will have to find financing for a 15 times EBITDA deal in an environment featuring rising short term interest rates and a weakening junk bond market.   I suspect I know what Bill Buecking would have said 30 years ago and what yours truly, after having acquired a small measure of Mr. Buecking’s wisdom, would say today.   But since I don’t ply the junk waters any more, I’ll just make myself a 4 cent cup of coffee and leave this deal for the smart kids to ponder.

CHICAGO’S GOLDEN BOY MAYOR FINDS HIMSELF IN DEEP TROUBLE

12/3/15

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in big trouble.   The City of Chicago is in financial hot and rising water that was only partially, and temporarily, alleviated with the property tax increase and other “revenue raising measures” the Mayor rammed through the City Council.   The Mayor’s hand-picked schools chief is plea bargaining with the feds over a massive corruption scandal taking place right under the noses of Mr. Emanuel’s school board.  Crime is a big problem in the city and it’s not, as the Mayor seems to suggest, just a problem of optics and perceptions.  And now much of Chicago’s black community, much of its white community, and all of its black political leadership is in an uproar over the shooting of Laquan McDonald and the long delayed release of the tape of Mr. McDonald’s killing.   (See POLITICSAND THE LAQUAN McDONALD SHOOTING:   THETIMELINE DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE, 11/26/15)   Some are seriously calling for the Mayor’s resignation, a resignation for which they will be waiting a long, long time, to be sure.  

The question one has to ask, and that one suspects Mr. Emanuel is asking himself, is why in the world he ever wanted to become mayor of Chicago in the first place.   Mr. Emanuel says that this is the only elected post he wants to hold.   Only the most naïve people believe this; the rest of us know that the job of mayor of our fair city is, like everything else in Mr. Emanuel’s professional life, only a stepping stone to the next thing.   And most of us know what that “next thing” is.   So why did Mr. Emanuel think that being mayor of Chicago would set him up nicely for the Oval Office?   Or, for those ingenuous enough to believe that Mr. Emanuel has no intention of running for president and just wants to be a good mayor, why did Mr. Emanuel think he could actually run the dystopia that my beloved home town is fast becoming?

The answer lies in Mr. Emanuel’s perception of himself.   He is the archetypical young, well educated, upper middle to upper class child of privilege that is absolutely certain that he knows the score, that he has the plan, and that, if the benighted citizens would only come to realize and appreciate his manifest wisdom, he could lead us to nirvana.

You know the type.    They were raised in wealthy suburbs by either doting parents or parents who demanded “excellence,” narrowly but somehow fuzzily defined, of their children.   They were sent to fancy schools whose faculties featured denizens of the ‘60s radical movement who somehow never found their way back to reality.    At these schools, these golden children were treated to continued reassurances that they were indeed wonderful in every way interspersed with the errant nonsense that passes for modern non-technical higher education.   When they emerged from these cocoons of craziness, these wonder children moved from their suburban hometowns, for which they showed nothing but contempt, into “the city,” generally gentrified neighborhoods in which everyone thought, and sometimes looked, just like themselves.   This echo chamber served to constantly reinforce their life-long held conviction that they were obligated to bring enlightenment to those who needed only to understand the goodness and omniscience such a background conferred on these denizens of yuppiedom.    These wunderkinds could do anything…if only the dullards they deigned to govern would appreciate the favor they were being granted by the presence of this newly emerging ruling class.   So is it any wonder that Rahm Emanuel thought that he, and maybe he alone, could pull the city of Chicago back from the precipice of doom toward which it was speeding?

Mr. Emanuel is the archetype of this entitled and oh so competent, clever, smart, and compassionate class of philosopher kings.   Further, he is probably among the most talented and ruthless of this bunch.   Yet he is only one of this crowd.  The really scary thing is that nearly all of the nation’s political class (of both parties, by the way; this is not a Democratic peculiarity) and much of the country’s business leadership is composed of people who share Mr. Emanuel’s background and perception of self.    Their passionate and undying certitude regarding their own perfection, and their unquenchable mission to share their omniscience with all of us, whether we want this favor or not, is dangerous and is wreaking the predictable havoc on a society that at least used to draw its strength from the wisdom of the common man, a wisdom held in complete disdain by Mr. Emanuel and his ilk.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S REACTION TO THE SAN BERNADINO SHOOTING: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS RUN AMOK

12/3/15

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik burst into a San Bernardino holiday party in tactical gear and open up on the participants, who were Mr. Farook’s fellow County employees, with assault rifles, killing 14 people and injuring at least another 14.    It is later discovered that the house Mr. Farook and his wife occupied was packed with pipe bombs, and pipe bomb material, in various stages of assembly.   We also learned that Mr. Farook had traveled extensively in the Middle East and that he had extensive contacts with people in the United States whom the FBI considers to be involved in terrorism.  

President Obama, with all this knowledge at his disposal, says

“It is possible that this (the San Bernardino shootings) was terrorist related but we don’t know.  It’s also possible that this was workplace related.”

Possible that this was terrorist related?   What could more closely fit the profile of a terrorist act?  

This could be workplace related?   So Mr. Farook was slighted at work somehow and decided to acquire assault weapons and pipe bombs in response and consulted with suspected terrorist elements in doing so?   Surely Mr. Obama isn’t trying to argue that perhaps Mr. Farook is the victim here, that he was responding to the way he was treated at work….is he?

We have further learned that a neighbor saw many people “of Middle Eastern origin” going into and out of the Farook house carrying packages, but the neighbor didn’t report anything to the police because she didn’t want to racially profile or to be deemed racist.  So now 14 people died, perhaps because someone was paying obeisance to the political correctness that has run amok in our society.   Now the President of the United States is apparently worshipping at that altar of political correctness, failing to call a terrorist act a terrorist act because, after all, we wouldn’t want to prejudge a situation and risk offending…whom?  Terrorists?   Or does Mr. Obama really believe that every Muslim and/or Middle Easterner would be offended if he called what Mr. Farook did what it was…a terrorist act?   Just how sensitive does Mr. Obama think people are?   More properly, just how sensitive is the President?

Perhaps Mr. Obama will give the silent neighbor a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her noble work against racism and stereotyping.

POLITICS AND THE LAQUAN McDONALD SHOOTING: THE TIMELINE DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE

11/26/15

There are few things that virtually all parties involved, and not so involved, agree on concerning the Laquan McDonald case.  One is that it took an awfully long time for the tapes of young Mr. McDonald’s shooting to be made public.  Another is that it took a similarly long time for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who can perhaps worst be described as an apolitical prosecutor, to bring criminal charges against Officer Jason Van Dyke, the shooter in the case.   

This being Chicago, where all things are political, the operative narrative is that the release of the tapes was delayed until after Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reelection on April 7 and that prosecution was concurrently delayed because a criminal case would engender demands that the tape be released.   Further, the argument goes, Mr. McDonald’s family was paid a $5mm settlement, even before a civil case was filed, to keep them quiet and to therefore tamp down, or at least delay, demands for a criminal case and accompanying release of the tapes.

That story fits nicely with the Chicago political narrative, but there are problems with the timeline.   More than seven months have passed since Mayor Emanuel’s reelection.   The award to Mr. McDonald’s family was made one week AFTER the Mayor’s reelection.

Hmm…

If the sole motivation for keeping the tapes away from the public eye was to assure the Mayor’s reelection, why did seven months pass between the Mayor’s reelection and the release of the tapes?   If the aim of the secrecy surrounding the tapes was to keep the Mayor in office, why the need to pay the McDonald family hush money after the Mayor was reelected?   If the characteristically compliant with the pols Anita Alvarez delayed prosecution to do the Mayor’s bidding, why did she wait until more than seven months after his reelection to file criminal charges against Jason Van Dyke?  

Could it be that Ms. Alvarez’s explanation for the long delay in bringing criminal charges, i.e., that this is a complicated process that involves not only the State’s Attorney’s office but also the U.S. Attorney’s office and the police civilian review board, is true?   Could the City’s, and the Mayor’s, resistance to releasing the tape of the McDonald shooting have arisen from a genuine concern about possibly violent reaction by opportunist groups, who never miss an opportunity to exploit a tragedy to further their demands for “more resources” and/or just to cause trouble?

Yours truly is among the most reluctant to believe any politician, and especially to believe any politician around this town.   I am even more hesitant to exonerate a pol of any accused misdeeds; rather, I am usually one of the first to suggest such misbehavior by members of the political class.   But this neat narrative surrounding purely political motivation behind the release of the McDonald tapes doesn’t fit the timeline.   Either the politicians’ stories hold up here…or there is more going on.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

NOTE TO THE ECONOMIC WISE MEN: HAIR OF THE DOG IS NOT A VIABLE FINANCIAL STRATEGY

11/23/15

This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that, with housing prices continuing to recover and with their recovery’s broadening from a relative handful of metropolitan areas, home equity nationally has doubled from its 2011 bottom.   At $12.1 trillion, such equity is nearing pre-recession levels.

What would normally be considered good news has much of Wall Street and the economic community bemused.   Observers are sullen and down-in-the-mouth over reports that homeowners borrowed “only” $43.5 billion against their homes via home equity loans, “scarcely a quarter of the amount seen when equity was last as high in 2007.”   Moody’s Analytics estimates, much to the consternation of the nation’s economic wunderkinds, that every $1 increase in home equity in the fourth quarter of 2014 would translate into only 1.5 to 2.0 cents of increased consumer spending over the next 1 to 1 ½ years, about a third of the increase in spending per dollar of increased equity seen before the crash.   (Incidentally, don’t you love the precision such experts assign to their predictions, as if the future could somehow be foreseen with digital accuracy?    Yes, I digress, but at least I do so parenthetically.)

Those of us whose thinking is seemingly hopelessly dated would see indications of fiscal probity on the part of consumers as a good sign, maybe not for the short run but certainly for our hopes of putting together a sustainable recovery and a durable economy.   Wasn’t it the “Spend, spend, spend because we deserve it and, after all, tomorrow we may die” approach to personal finance that got us into the soup from which we are supposedly emerging?   Yet the financial experts are telling us the opposite; they seem to think that the path to economic nirvana lies in excreting money as if it were the detritus of a five-hour beer binge.

Perhaps the clearly misguided views of us old school financial l scolds are a severe misreading of the data anyway.   While home equity borrowing may be under control, other types of borrowing, chiefly auto debt and student loans (“But it’s for education!” we will hear.   Money is fungible, though, as people would know if they were truly being educated, as opposed to being reassured that their every half-baked thought is sacrosanct as long as it complies with the rigid tenets of political correctness.  Again I digress.), continue to grow at an alarming pace, largely, or completely, offsetting the progress made on keeping home equity debt under control.  One supposes, though, that, in the view of the experts who so disdain fiscal propriety, such expansion of student and car loans is good news.

The problem that has set monetary policy, and much of the economy, on its head had its origins in too much borrowing to finance too much witless spending.  This nation’s economic brain trust continues to insist that the best way to solve this problem is to borrow more and to spend more.  Yet the populace continues to wonder why things don’t seem to be getting much better.  My readers, however, suffer from no such befuddlement.

CHICAGO’S PROPOSED PRIVATIZATION ORDINANCE: YOU CAN SMELL THE MEAT A COOKIN’

11/18/15

The Chicago City Council is considering an ordinance that would establish certain ground rules and procedures for privatization of city assets and services.   Proposed in response to the 2008 parking meter privatization deal that was a financial disaster for the city, and which would have cost Mayor Richard M. Daley his job had he not quit before he was fired, the ordinance essentially establishes vetting procedures and review processes for privatizations valued at greater than $400mm and with terms of at least 20 years.   What will the outcome of these hearings be?   While one can’t be certain of the specifics, one can make at least one prediction about the ordinance:   given the historic lap dog nature of the Chicago City Council, the ordinance will be whatever Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants it to be.   So debating the finer aspects of this particular proposed ordinance is largely pointless in the sometimes benevolent dictatorship that Chicago has been for the last 80 or so years.   But the incipient debate on the ordinance provides an opportunity to examine the concept of municipal privatization.

The idea of privatization appeals to those, like yours truly, who believe in the efficacy and the efficiency of markets.   Generally, the private sector provides goods and services more efficiently and effectively than does the public sector, so it seems to make sense that privatization would serve the taxpayers and citizens well.   Upon examination, though, this glib supposition breaks down.  

While it’s true that the private sector is generally better at doing what it is charged with doing than is the public sector, the reason for such greater effectiveness is not inherent in the management or the employees of private sector businesses.   Public sector employees are, by and large, hardworking, dedicated, skilled people who take pride in their work, just like private sector employees. What makes the private sector so effective is that the private sector businesses are exposed to the rigors of competition, and competition makes us all better at whatever it is we are doing or trying to do.   The fear of losing business, and possibly one’s livelihood, to a competitor keeps us on our toes.   Businesses face this possibility every day.   Public agencies do not.

The problem with privatizing city services is that what the government does when it privatizes services, be they highways, parking garages, parking meters, garbage pickup, or whatever, is to reward monopolies to private sector businesses.   In providing these services, the winners in the privatization process face no competition; where, for example, the city was formerly the sole provider of garbage pickup services, in a post-privatization scenario, some private sector firm is the sole provider of garbage pickup services.    Where is the competition?   Sure, the contract might have to be rebid periodically, but not very often; in the case of the Chicago parking meters, in 99 years, for example.  While that is an extreme example, even when the contract is rebid more often, replacing vendors is cumbersome and, therefore, inertia, one of the strongest forces in the universe, is likely to prevail.   Barring some monumental flub-up on the part of the provider of privatized services, a privatization contract is likely to be renewed.

Even if one doesn’t buy the argument that the private sector without the pressure of competition is no more effective than the public sector, that a private sector monopoly is no better than a public sector monopoly, it is clear to see that even a theoretically good idea has been perverted by putrid politics, certainly in and around Chicago.   Smart politicians realize that, in our media driven political process, the financial support of grateful recipients of privatization contracts is far more valuable than the shoe leather of precinct captains.  Thus, one’s political lifespan is more effectively enhanced by rewarding multi-million dollar contracts than by keeping loyal soldiers on the public payroll.   This realization is probably why Rahm Emanuel and his mewing city council was so willing to reach a final settlement in the Shakman case.    Who cares about patronage when the real juice for reelection and entrenchment  no longer comes from the precinct level political armies, but, rather, from the cash provided by the recipients of huge contracts privatizing public services?   Is it any wonder that the public looks askance at these privatization deals when the political rewards for awarding the contracts to the “right” people are so abundant and obvious?  

Given the money that is at stake, and the power that money can buy, in the privatization process, does anyone expect that the Mayor and the City Council will enact an ordinance that will keep the process on the up and up?   Even if someone is so naïve as to think that the answer to that question is yes, one has to question the whole premise of privatization.   Is it truly a way to provide services more efficiently and thus spare overburdened taxpayers…or a way to more effectively keep politicians in their lifetime sinecures?

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.   The Chairman’s Challenge contains several episodes concerning the benefits of privatization to the entrenched power structure of a fictional (of course!) big city.

IT’S “DRACONIAN” TO KEEP TERRORISTS OUT OF THE COUNTRY?

11/17/15

The Wall Street Journal reported this (i.e., Tuesday, 11/17/15, page A9) morning that, in the wake of Friday’s terrorist attacks on Paris, French President Francois Hollande is preparing France for, as the Journal called them, “potentially draconian” policies, including “expelling foreigners considered a threat and stripping French nationality from dual nationals involved in terrorist activities.”

Expelling people who pose serious terrorist threats and taking citizenship away from people who are actually involved in terrorism are now considered “potentially draconian”?   O tempora, o mores!

Mr. Hollande is considering invoking France’s state of emergency statute in (maybe) calling for such “potentially draconian” measures.   Recall that the French state of emergency powers have their origin in the civil unrest that accompanied the 1955 Algerian war and allowed the French government to go so far as to ban travel in and to certain areas, to close shops and restaurants, to control the press, and even to order people to remain in their homes.   Talk about “potentially draconian”!    Thank God such measures have not been implemented.  But now even the Wall Street Journal, no panty waste on reacting swiftly and decisively to terrorism, calls such relatively mild measures as expelling and denying citizenship to foreigners who seriously intend harm and violence to one’s nation “potentially draconian.”  One would think that keeping out the bad guys would just be common sense.   But, in our lily-livered world, in which causing offense to even the most easily offended is to be as studiously avoided as contact with communicable fatal diseases, common sense routinely gets sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.   Thus, virtually any measure taken to protect society from those who mean to destroy it is considered “draconian.”  

Those of us who continue to harbor at least some libertarian tendencies are, of course, concerned about the potential implications of leaving to the mechanisms of state the determination of who is “considered a threat” and/or is “involved in terrorist activities.”   But there are times when ideology must yield to common sense and to the protection of the ultimate civil right, the freedom from imminent or actual bodily harm and from societal destruction.

DINING OUT SHOULD MEAN NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE HUNGRY: AN INADVERTENT REVIEW OF KEN’S ON WESTERN AVENUE

11/9/15

You should never leave a restaurant hungry.   No matter how good the food tastes or how good it looks (For some reason that defies explanation, the latter seems to be the criterion by which the culinarily sophisticated among us judge their cuisine.), if you don’t get enough of it, you shouldn’t return to that restaurant.   This would seem to be common sense, but, in this era in which the price of the fare favored by the foodies seems to display a distinctively negative correlation with its price, this lesson, seemingly as old as time, appears to have been lost on the more distinguished and trend-setting among us.   Of course, common sense seems to be sorely lacking among these types, who, in the spirit of setting trends, seem to define themselves by following trends, the goofier and more nonsensical the better, but I digress.

I bring this up because my son and I had dinner yesterday at a place that is far from the type of spot favored by trendy young professionals who will pay kings’ ransoms for enough food to fill one’s tooth as long as the cuisine is fashionable.  We ate at a neighborhood place known as Ken’s, on 105^th and Western in West Beverly.   It was my dad’s favorite restaurant and the last time I was there, I was with my dad.   Since Dad left his mortal coil more than eight years ago, it’s been awhile since I’ve been to Ken’s.   Mark and I were touring the neighborhood as part of a project he was doing for his Urban History class and I figured that eating at Ken’s would give him a feel for the neighborhood.  Though sitting at the bar at Ken’s would have been better for such purposes, that option was not available to us because I don’t drink and my son is only 17, so we sat in the dining room.

For those of you who have never been to Ken’s, I would describe it as a slightly more upscale version of Schaller’s on 37^th and Halsted.  If you’ve never been to Schaller’s, think a neighborhood bar/restaurant featuring chops, steaks, burgers, and the like.   Nothing fancy, complicated, or frou-frou, and certainly no place at which a so-called foodie would eat unless s/he were somehow trying to prove some sort of bizarre culinary street cred.   And, at least in the case of Schaller’s, nothing expensive, either.

The food at Ken’s was fine; in fact, it was very good.  Young Mark had a butt steak, a favorite at places like Ken’s and Schaller’s, and I had lake perch, which is probably my favorite food in the entire world, provided a certain fast food delicacy is left out of consideration.   Ken’s also even brings out an old fashioned relish tray; when was the last time you were at a restaurant outside Wisconsin (or that isn’t one of the two Petey’s Bungalows) that included a relish tray with your meal?   Ken’s also included some terrific pizza bread as an appetizer.   The soup, which came with the meal, was similarly terrific.  The service was pretty good…not great, but more than acceptable.   Everyone else in the place seemed to know our waitress (In these kinds of places, they still have waitresses, not “wait staffs” or “servers,” though Ken’s did provide the name of an “executive chef” on the menu, which made me nervous, thinking that I had inadvertently strayed to the north side.) and appeared to be a regular, always a good sign for both the place and the waitress.

As good as the perch was, I was still hungry after eating it, even after consuming the soup, the items on the relish tray, the pizza bread, etc.   In fact, I had to have some left-over meat loaf shortly after returning home.   While this may have something to do with the size of my appetite, there is something very wrong with being hungry after leaving a restaurant, regardless of how good the food was.  This was especially disheartening because, at least by Quinn standards, Ken’s wasn’t cheap; each of our entrées was about $20.   Schaller’s butt steak, for example, is about half the price…but includes no relish tray. The dazzling urbanites who will pay half a month’s rent for whatever was featured in the last issue of Chicago Magazine may think $20 is a reasonable price for an appetizer consisting of two strands of angel hair pasta and a leaf of something they had not heard of two weeks ago, but, in yours truly’s view of the world, $20 for an entrée borders on the outrageous, unless said price is for an all one can eat buffet…or at least for an entrée of a portion size that will leave one satisfied and perhaps asking for a doggie bag.

One would not think that one would actually have to write something like “You should never leave a restaurant hungry;” one would think that admonition to be a given.  But in today’s inane world, in which presentation, price, and pretentiousness seem to be the elements of an effective marketing plan directed toward today’s “trend setters” and “opinion leaders”  (God help this society, but, again, I digress.), such sense is not at all common.   That was meant to be the larger point of this post, but it seems to have morphed into a review of Ken’s, which is not at all the kind of place the trendy among us would favor and which is, all in all, quite good…unless, of course, you like to leave a restaurant full, satisfied, or at least with enough food in one’s system to not have to raid the fridge upon arriving home.

THE CNBC GOP DEBATE: RISING RUBIO, BANAL BUSH, BEMUSING BEN, SMILING STRANGELOVE

10/30/15

Everyone else is commenting on the CNBC Republican Presidential Debate.  Since I finally have some time, my comments on the last debate (See THE ONEINESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE, 9/18/15) were a big hit, and some fresh insights are needed, here are my (far more than) two cents…

• While it’s way too early to make meaningful wagers, Marco Rubio right now is the safest bet to win the GOP nomination.   Ben Carson and Donald Trump have to fade…right?   Maybe not.   But assuming they do, and even if they don’t, the Republican establishment has to look for a champion.   It certainly isn’t Jeb Bush; see below.  Chris Christie made a terrific showing Wednesday night, but he isn’t catching on and, if the papers are to be believed, he is running out of money.  Who is left but Marco Rubio?   And Mr. Rubio’s stellar showing, especially when jabbing at the favorite, and deservedly so, whipping boy of the GOP, the media, certainly helped illuminate what is increasingly obvious:  that Marco Rubio is the last best hope of the establishmentarians.  

Besides still having plenty of money and being articulate and attractive, Mr. Rubio is an establishmentarian who is still acceptable to those among the GOPers who still adhere to principle, sort of like Paul Ryan without the dyspeptic attributes (See IS JOE BIDEN A POLITICAL GENIUS OR WHAT?, 10/28/15.) in this regard.   Bear in mind that, in giving his victory speech after winning his Senate seat, Mr. Rubio attacked George W. Bush as well as the Democrats.   This is one way to win points with those of us who still believe in the things the GOP says it believes in.

Mr. Rubio’s biggest drawback is his Barack Obama problem.  The Republicans, for very good reasons, like to argue that Mr. Obama was a young man with little experience when he was elected to the most powerful post in the world.  Consequently, Mr. Obama is in way over his head and the consequences have not been salubrious.   The same arguments can be made regarding Mr. Rubio, but hypocrisy and glaring inconsistency are key components in the politician’s trade.

• If you didn’t know anything about Ben Carson’s background, would you think, judging from his performance in the debates and on the campaign trail in general, that he was a really smart guy?   I wouldn’t and, be honest, you wouldn’t either.   Clearly, Dr. Carson is brilliant; one doesn’t get to head neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, or anywhere for that matter, without being a hyper-brainiac, but you’d never know it from what we’ve seen of Mr. Carson.

• Carly Fiorina didn’t take Sharon Epperon’s bait when Ms. Epperson asked Mrs. Fiorina whether the government should initiate a program to encourage retirement savings among those without access to 401ks and the like at work.   Despite Mrs. Fiorina’s sharing the sentiment of all her colleagues (and of most Americans who think) that more savings is needed in this economy, she calmly answered “No” to Ms. Epperson’s turn at “Gotcha.”   She could have left it at that to more effect, but Mrs. Fiorina went on to explain that the solution to every problem is not another government program.   Great performance, at least on that question, that confirms my view that Mrs. Fiorina will be on the GOP ticket.  (See THE ONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE, 9/18/15)

• Jeb Bush ought to just go back to all those wonderful things he could be doing rather than run for president.   Almost echoing the same question yours truly asked about Ben Carson, do you see any of the intelligence, insight, or record of accomplishment people ascribe to Jeb Bush when you see that goofy, deer in the headlights response to every question thrown his way?   All I, and most others see, is a guy whose only possible qualification for anything is, as my dad used to say, that his father was born before he was.

• Overall, it was a good debate, and, as a guy who was pretty much a Republican until Jeb Bush’s brother came along, yours truly would be comfortable supporting just about any of the candidates on the stage.   Then again, the candidates didn’t discuss foreign policy this go-around; with a few exceptions, the GOPers’ foreign policy plans remind me of the book that was laid out in front of General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) in the War Room in the Stanley Kubrick 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”   The book was entitled “World Targets in Megadeaths.”   That was darkly funny; when the GOP candidates talk foreign policy, things get genuinely scary.  

IS JOE BIDEN A POLITICAL GENIUS OR WHAT?

10/28/15

Vice-President Joe Biden’s appearance on 60 Minutes with his wife last Sunday was terrific.   While explaining his decision to remove himself from the 2016 presidential race (Don’t try to argue he was never in the race, unless you are given to hiding behind technicalities.), Mr. Biden came across as human, kind, introspective, friendly, reasonable, bi-partisan, and devoted to his family and country…all the things we’re looking for in a politician.   However, lot of pols can come across as whatever the voting public deems desirable at any given time; doing so is part of the job description of a successful “public servant.”   So what made this appearance so emblematic of Mr. Biden’s skill at his craft?

Mr. Biden’s only hope of winning the Democratic nomination was for Hillary Clinton to somehow stumble, either over a scandal or over her own words, which she seems to have some difficulty selecting of late, but I digress.   At this point, the chances of such a stumble seem remote (See my 10/16/15 piece  WILL HILLARY BE WILD AND CRAZY…LIKE BILL?), but not completely out of the realm of possibilities.   And if she does, who has just set himself up perfectly for a draft?   Of course…Joe Biden.   While the appearance on 60 Minutes may not have had as its primary objective making Mr. Biden the obvious choice if Mrs. Clinton somehow blows it, setting such a table had to be a secondary objective.  In any case, surely the masterful interview had the result of making Joe Biden the obvious relief pitcher should Hillary start throwing the game away.

Yes, it’s a long shot that Hillary stumbles and Joe emerges.   But Mr. Biden’s candidacy was always a long shot, thoroughly dependent on Hillary dropping the ball.  That hasn’t changed.   What has changed is that now Mr. Biden will not have to go through the time, expense, and risk of running a campaign to merely place himself in the wings.   Especially after his and Mrs. Biden’s appearance on 60 Minutes, Joe Biden is firmly in the wings without having to spend brobdingnagain amounts of money and without running the risk of saying something, er, subject to misinterpretation, always a big risk in Mr. Biden's case.

Yet another political master stroke Sunday night was the grenade Mr. Biden lobbed at Paul Ryan.   Mr. Biden welcomed Mr. Ryan’s ascension to the Speakership, calling Mr. Ryan a “good guy” with whom the Democrats could work.   Does anyone who is not hopelessly naïve really believe Mr. Biden thinks Mr. Ryan is a “good guy” after the dismissive abuse Mr. Biden tossed Mr. Ryan’s way in their vice-presidential debate?   By calling Mr. Ryan a “good guy” with whom the Democrats could work, Mr. Biden destroyed whatever shred of support and respect Mr. Ryan had among that wing of the GOP that has not dispensed with principle and thereby made Mr. Ryan’s upcoming tenure as House Speaker even more challenging than it would already have been.

Finally, I’ve always liked Joe Biden even though I disagree with him on nearly every issue of political consequence.  He seems engaging, funny, gregarious, and even avuncular.  On the other hand, I’ve never liked Paul Ryan even though I agree with him on most issues of political consequence.  He seems stiff, hypocritical, humorless, narcissistic, and even more childish than your typical politician.   I wasn’t the only one who felt this way about Mr. Biden before last Sunday’s 60 Minutes appearance, and surely our ranks have expanded after that triumph of politicraft…yet more evidence of the political brilliance of Joe Biden.

THE PROPOSED SYRIAN PEACE CONFERENCE—NON-MEMBERS ONLY

10/24/15

Yesterday, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the European Union, Jordan, and maybe Iran indicated that they will enter into talks to determine the future of Syria.

Hmm…

Who’s missing in these proposed talks?   Well, maybe Iran, which would be a major omission, given that Iran and Russia are the major props behind the Assad regime in Syria.

But there is an even more glaring omission in the proposed “broad: talks to determine the future of Syria…

Syria itself!

So far, no one has proposed that representatives from the Assad regime, from the “moderate” opposition (if such people exist outside the febrile minds of John McCain, Barack Obama, and John Kerry), or from the radical but not quite as radical as ISIS opposition are to be included in the talks.   So this latest brilliant peace of statecraft proposes that other powers are going to determine the fate of Syria.   So what else is new?

Such blatant disregard for the most directly involved parties, i.e., the people whose fates are being determined in foreign drawing rooms, is what created this Middle Eastern mess in the first place.   Readers are referred to an outstanding book on the topic, Paris 1919, by the admittedly conflicted Margaret MacMillan.   The Middle East was carved up by the “victors” in World War I with little or no regard for the wishes, or even the perceived interests, of the indigenous peoples…and that has made all the difference.   We have been living with the consequences ever since and, the way it looks, will be for many years to come.

Apparently, the imperial impulse dies hard in the West…or at least among its diplomatic classes.

Perhaps the Russians have something to offer in the Middle East beyond the heretofore one of only two (The Kurds have engaged in the other.) effective efforts against ISIS.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday stated

“The fate of the Syrian president must be decided by the Syrian people.”

What a novel concept!

WILL HILLARY BE WILD AND CRAZY…LIKE BILL?

10/16/15

Hillary Clinton has been a shoo-in for the 2016 Democratic nomination ever since, oh, about December, 2008.   There have been a few doubts, and legitimate doubts, expressed about her ability to wrest the nomination from, well, no one.  But even those of us who have urged caution in making predictions about such an outcome in 2016 have never seriously thought that she wouldn’t get the Dem nomination.  

There still remains the chance that something comes out of the e-mail investigations, the Benghazi caper, or perhaps some other tantalizing set of embarrassing circumstances into which Hillary has thrust herself that could derail her express train to (at least) November.   However, while one can never be sure, one suspects that anything that will come out has probably already come out.   And even if that is too sanguine a view of Hillary’s situation, Kevin McCarthy’s incredibly obtuse statements about the Benghazi committee provide the Clinton machine plenty of ammo to employ against anything that should arise between now and the convention…or the election.

A Joe Biden candidacy?   After last Tuesday’s debate, Mr. Biden has no reason to run.   He was there to pick up the pieces when Hillary fell apart.   Given the poise and near utter domination she showed in the debate (admittedly against a pack of lilliputians), Hillary isn’t going to fall apart, barring, again, the Republican witch hunt’s striking gold.   How can I call the Republican efforts a witch hunt?   Ask Kevin McCarthy.  But I digress.

So let’s assume that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the next standard-bearer of the Democratic Party.  And, truth be told, she should be; much like Richard Nixon in 1968, she is the obvious choice of her party.  No one in her party (or in the other party, for that matter) has her experience, background, or proven track record in “public service.”   Just as was the case with Mr. Nixon, if the American people were interviewing someone for this job, they would hire Hillary Rodham Clinton for the big job on Pennsylvania Avenue.  That didn’t turn out so well, but see my 9/8/15 piece, SOMETHING(S) ABOUT HILLARY.

The problem is that once we concede that the race for the Democratic nomination is over, there is nothing to discuss except….

Will Hillary Rodham Clinton do something wild and crazy…just like her husband Bill?  Before you answer that question, get your mind out of the gutter!   I am talking not about Bill’s excellent adventures on the quasi-amorous front; I am talking about the selection of a running mate.

When Bill Clinton got the Democratic nomination in 1992, he shocked the political world by selecting Al Gore as his running mate.  That was wild and crazy.   Why?

The conventional wisdom then, before then, and even now was and is that the vice-presidential nominee should balance the ticket.   If the nominee is a relative conservative, he should select a relative liberal as his running mate, or vice-versa.  (e.g., Carter/Mondale, GW Bush/Quayle)  If the nominee is a young man, he should select an older man with more experience as his running mate and vice-versa.  (e.g., Kennedy/Johnson, Reagan/Bush)  If the nominee is Southerner, he should pick a northerner as his running mate, and vice-versa (e.g., Johnson/Humphrey, Kennedy/Johnson).  

Then along came Bill Clinton, a young relatively conservative southerner who picked Al Gore a young, relatively conservative (at least at the time) southerner as his running mate.   Most political pros thought the selection of Al Gore for the second spot on the ’92 Democratic ticket was crazy.  Where, after all, was the balance in the ticket?  Like most political things Bill Clinton did, and does, though, the Gore selection turned out to be brilliant.   Gore reinforced the image of youth and new Democratic thinking that Mr. Clinton wanted to implant in the American voters’ minds.  That Messrs. Clinton and Gore were cut from the same political cloth turned out to be a big positive for the Democrats, and for Mr. Clinton, in 1992.

So what could Hillary do to match her husband’s reasoned audacity?   How about picking a woman as her running mate?   That would surely come out of left field and would, if one thinks about it, enhance the chances that we would be treated, or subjected, to a second Clinton presidency.

Is this a prediction?   Yours truly is too old and wise to be making predictions about elections and the direction of the stock market.   But I haven’t heard anyone mention a Democratic ticket with two women on it, so I wanted to be the first, as far as I know, to suggest the possibility.   And, given that one of Mrs. Clinton’s most frequently offered rationales for her presidency is that “It’s our turn,” this would be terrific reinforcer of that message.

Don’t ask for names; I don’t have any yet beyond the obvious Elizabeth Warren.   But there are plenty of Democratic women out there with the qualifications to be vice-president, or president, for that matter, especially given how low the bar has been set in this realm; look at the current occupant of the White House and his predecessor.

Hillary should do something bold and courageous, wild and unpredictable, and select a woman as her running mate.   Who that is would be relatively inconsequential next to the statement such a selection would make.