Llewellyn King: The body language of this presidential campaign

WEST WARWICK, R.I.

Whenever I go out to dinner lately, along with the first sip of wine, I’m served a pre-appetizer: a short, dispiriting conversation about the politics of the moment, complete with a special kind of head-shaking and eye-rolling that has been perfected for this election season.

First the diner’s head is lowered slightly and shaken slowly from side to side. Then the eyes are raised, as though in supplication by a puppy that has done something wrong but doesn’t know what: What did we do to deserve this?

Donald Trump elicits the most severe reaction. People quickly agree that he is not only unsuitable for high office but quite possibly bonkers, stark-raving mad, round the twist — whatever you call the unbalanced in colloquial speech.

Next comes the Ted Cruz shudder. After the shaking of the head over Trump comes a nervous, whole-body response to the mention of Cruz. It begins in the shoulders and migrates down to the pelvis while the head is stationary, having been stilled after shaking at the thought of Trump. Nobody suggests that Cruz is bonkers but quite the opposite, the extreme opposite. In whispers, the Cruz shudderers say “he is clever” and, ominously, “he has an agenda.” Cruz, it is intimated, is in touch with forces beyond he grave, and on the wrong side of that.

John Kasich doesn’t make the grade for dinner gyrations. With a little shake of the head and shrug of the shoulder, he is dismissed.

On to the Big Sigh.

The Big Sigh is reserved for discussion of Hillary Clinton. It is preceded by the “don’t make me laugh” expulsion of breath over Bernie Sanders. Devout liberals keep Sanders alive in conversation for a few moments, saying that they like his views on healthcare or taxing the rich. But he is gone with the first full exhalation.

The real sighing is for Hillary, the choice of last resort. People declare that they will vote for her then elaborate her failings. One is told, “she is overly ambitious,” “she is a terrible manager,” “she has baggage,” “she looks worn out,” and “she has to explain Libya.”

Clearly, she has locked up the hold-your-nose vote.

Look, I haven’t just been supping on sushi in Georgetown, although I’m guilty there, or on Dover sole at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, guilty again, but also on mac and cheese at the humble, working-class Harris Grille in Coventry, R.I., and barbecue at Calhoun’s in Knoxville, Tenn.

What amazes is where are the millions who turn out to support Trump so vigorously? Why don’t I run into them, hunt high and low though I may? Are they all sitting at home waiting for a pollster to call so they can give their man further ammo?

Where are the Cruzers? Are they out there testing the fallibility of Obamacare, or demonstrating against world conquest by Planned Parenthood? The rot starts with women’s health and ends with socialized medicine, don’t you understand?

At least one can find the Bernie Sanders legions. They are the young people with the special cellphone posture; who have turned themselves into question marks as they crouch over their devices, looking into the future on their tiny screens.

When they unwind in middle age to look around them, freed of the millennial stoop, will they morph into Republicans? Will there be any Republicans after Trump and Cruz have worked their magic?

What, I wonder, will we be doing at dinner parties after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland? Will we be doing the Trump headshake and confused eye or the Cruz full-body shudder?

After the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the Big Sigh is predictable at dinner tables across the nation.

In November, after electing President Unsuitable, we will all be holding our heads in a kind mute astonishment. 

Llewellyn King (lking@kingpublishing.com) is a longtime publisher, columnist and international business consultant. He is host and executive producer of White House Chronicle, on PBS. Mr. King is based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.\Ll

This first ran on InsideSources.

Don Pesci: Confused public in Conn. and across America prey for political Babbitry

 VERNON, Conn.

Connecticut’s presidential primary is coming up April 26, and the jockeying has begun. Governor of Ohio John Kasich, who has managed to corral a slender 145 delegates in a primary that a little over a year ago boasted 17 Republican presidential candidates, recently made his appearance in Connecticut and was warmly received by some legislators and editorial writers.

Mr. Kasich seems to be, at least here in the Northeast, the preferred candidate of what Trumpeters disdainfully call “the establishment,” meaning safe Republican politicians and, one supposes, Connecticut’s left-of-center media. In preparation for the arrival of Donald Trump, the Nutmeg Media – which has never understood or approved of the conservative movement – pulled out its critical party hats.

There may not be many surprises in the Connecticut primary mash-up. The delegate vote in Connecticut likely will be split between the three Republican contenders. As of April 10, the national breakdown is as follows: Cruz 545, Kasich 145 and Trump 742.  Possibly Mr. Trump will leave Connecticut with a majority of delegates in his pocket.

The Boston Globe recently printed a “satirical” front page containing pre-fab stories covering a future Trump presidency. Screaming headlines on the mock front page included: “Deportations to Begin: President Trump Calls for Tripling of ICE forces, Riots Continue” – “Markets Sink as Trade War Looms” – “US Soldiers Refuse Orders to Kill ISIS Families” – “New Libel Laws Target ‘Absolute Scum’ in Press” – and so on. You get the idea.

Americans, Mr. Trump may hope, view satire as satire, and The Globe -- which, along with other left-of-center papers, has presided approvingly over the Democratic hegemon in the Northeast -- is The Globe.

The matchless scorn of the Trumpeters is directed at thoughtless professional dunderheads, the left-of-center media, moderate Republicans who twiddled their thumbs as the prosperous Hartford of Mark Twain became the murder capital of New England, and other impedimenta to the coming Age of Trump. Their scorn is well deserved. Barry Goldwater said during his own presidential campaign “If you lop off New England and California, you’ve got a pretty good country.” For the past half century, New England and California have been proving him right. All this and more has come to a boil under Mr. Trump’s flag.

Criticism of Mr. Trump in Connecticut will ramp-up as the state primary approaches.  Conservatives view Mr. Trump as a flawed leader of a continuing conservative revolution because a) he’s not a conservative, and b) he’s not a Republican, both attributes that have satisfied the political predilections of people who think parties are dispensable. Mr. Trump has big mouth, a thin skin, a glass jaw, and he’s far too big for his political britches.

One of his most ardent followers here in Connecticut has said in so many words: “Screw the Republican Party. We don’t need it. We have Trump,” which is on a par with saying “We don’t need water taps; we have water” or “We should go to war with the army we’ve got, minus weapons.”

There are only two ways to build a party: You can form it around a set of ideas or you can personalize it, build it around a magnetic personality. After one of the bloodiest centuries in the modern period, one would think the world would have grown weary of strongman government.  Who needs a strongman president? We already have one in the current Napoleon. Our constitutional and formative ideas have already been set by all the non-loudmouth intellectual giants who have preceded Mr. Trump.

We need a restoration, not a revolution. And if that restoration must be brought about by fierce rebel patriots, we want to be sure they are on the side of the angels. Mr. Trump, many believe, does not and will not pass this test.

Following the Democratic national convention, Hillary Clinton almost certainly will emerge as the designated Party driver. Republicans will choose between Cruz and Mr. Trump at their national convention. One of them will prevail. In the northeast, Mr. Kasich will receive a sufficient number of delegates to keep his pretensions alive until the convention, at which point he will become a power broker of sorts. 

Neither this writer nor anyone else knows who the Republican Convention nominee will be.

Republicans have two relatively seasoned candidates, Cruz and Kasich, and a greenhorn in Mr. Trump.  Most polls show Mr. Trump losing to Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump hasn’t any political experience, and he has successfully, so far, been beating experienced Republicans with their experience. Facing Mrs. Clinton, a formidable candidate with several Damoclean swords dangling over her head, Mr. Trump may regret his lack of experience. It does, on occasion, come in handy.

On the whole, this has been the queerest election in a lifetime of queer elections. Republicans seem to be on the point of nominating a man, Mr. Trump, who is neither a reliable conservative nor a reliable Republican. On the Democratic side, an aging socialist, Bernie Sanders, is racking up more votes than Mrs. Clinton among young people who have not yet been pushed out of the socialist college cocoon into the wicked world.

Moderates everywhere have disappeared. The general populace is confused and, as such, has become prey to dangerous political Babbitry. The Supreme Court has been revaluating the values of the U.S. Constitution for several decades. The Congress has been ceding its constitutional power to a run-away subversive president. The Middle East lies prostrate under the drawn sword of Islam. Newspapers have been replaced by twittering banshees. And – worst of all – God, who once showered blessing upon America from sea to shining sea, appears to be hibernating, not that anyone can blame Him.

Not good.

Don Pesci is a political writer.

Emily Schwartz Greco: Trump slurbs up the ethanol scam

As the “lamestream” media, late-night talk show hosts, and Sarah Palin impersonator-in-chief Tina Fey lapped up the former Alaska governor’s first remarks to Donald Trump’s “right-wingin’ bitter-clingin’” supporters, one of her most hilarious lines didn’t get the attention it deserved.

Some Republicans are “even whispering they’re ready to throw in for Hillary over Trump because they can’t afford to see the status quo go,” John McCain’s 2008 running mate said. “Otherwise, they won’t be able to be slurping off the gravy train that’s been feeding them all these years. They don’t want that to end.”

Seriously?

Iowa, home to the first official contests for the major parties’ nominations, is the nation’s . Saluting its corn-flavored gravy train is a rite of passage for presidential candidates courting Iowa voters like the ones at the Ames rally Palin was addressing.

And Trump, like every presidential candidate other than the libertarian-tinged Republicans Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, supports the government-pampered ethanol industry.

On the same day that Palin made her boisterous return to the political spotlight — and just one week before his state’s caucuses — Gov. Terry Branstad proclaimed his opposition to Cruz. “I think it would be very damaging to our state” for Iowa’s other leading GOP contender besides Trump to become president, Branstad told reporters at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit.

Trump also addressed the event, hosted by Iowa’s main ethanol trade group in Altoona.

“We are with you, folks, and we’ve been with you since day one,” The Donald said, after assuring the assembled leaders of Big Corn that he would leave the Renewable Fuel Standard intact.

The RFS is a government program that requires gasoline sold in the United States to beblended with ethanol. This mandate theoretically boosts U.S. energy independence, buffers gas prices from spikes, and helps our nation fight climate change.

But growing government-subsidized corn to power transportation makes no environmental sense. It increases the acreage dedicated to a single crop, destroying farmland for a harvest that feeds no one. It does nothing to improve the American diet at a time when millions of us are obese and badly nourished.

Then there’s the crop’s horrible water footprint: It takes 75 gallons of water and 50 acres of land to grow enough corn for a single gallon of ethanol. It takes another three gallons of water to convert that corn into fuel in a factory. And the agribusiness model for corn grown for fuel consumes vast quantities of fertilizers and pesticides, which poison local waterways.

Meeting the challenge of the climate crisis means that Americans must drive less and get more miles per gallon when we hit the road. Burning gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol, as the mandate currently requires, shaves 3 percent off a vehicle’s fuel efficiency, according to the government’s own data. That wastes oil — as does growing the corn and hauling it to processing plants.

And at current prices for oil and corn, ethanol has become so expensive to produce that the numbers no longer add up, according to professor Scott Irwin and professor emeritus Darrel Good of the University of Illinois Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics.

In other words, if the government stopped forcing industry to purchase the fuel, ethanol demand would evaporate. But since Iowa happens to be one of only seven swing statesthat will probably decide the 2016 presidential election, this gravy train will surely keep chugging along for years to come.

So slurp, baby, slurp.

Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords.com, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies, where this piece originated.