Ryan's choice good for him -- and Democrats -- April 12, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Normally, when a big-name public official announces he – it’s usually he -- is quitting his job to spend more time with his family, it’s a dodge.

Heads nod, knowing he’s in trouble and has no cushy job waiting on the outside. Few feel his pain.

For members of Congress, the family excuse often means the politician faces a tough re-election or must relinquish his committee chairman gavel because of House term limit rules. Or both.

Some go out complaining about the capital’s toxic atmosphere, the dysfunctional Congress and the never-ending quest for campaign cash.

A few members this year are also leaving Congress under the cloud of sexual harassment accusations.

In contrast, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s surprise announcement Wednesday he won’t seek another term in Congress was Dad of the Year material. He spoke about going home to Janesville, Wisconsin, to his wife Janna and children Liza, Sam and Charlie.

“This is my 20^th year in Congress. My kids weren’t even born when I was first elected. Our oldest was 13 when I became speaker. Now all three of our kids are teenagers. And one thing I’ve learned about teenagers is their idea of an ideal weekend is not necessarily to spend all of the time with their parents,” Ryan told reporters.

And here’s the kicker: “What I realize is, if I’m here for one more term, my kids will only have ever known me as a weekend dad. I just can’t let that happen.”

You don’t have to be in Congress to know what Ryan is talking about. Many moms and dads in demanding careers have similar nagging guilt.

Perhaps more than most 48-year-olds, Ryan feels his own mortality. Both his father and grandfather died of heart attacks before they were 60. At just 16 and a high school sophomore, Ryan found his father, an attorney, dead in his bed at 55.

Ryan has always seemed apart from most ambitious politicians. After being GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, he was widely expected to run for president in 2016, but didn’t. He was drafted as Speaker, an increasingly thankless job, in 2015, after John Boehner resigned from Congress.

As Speaker, Ryan travels the country extensively, fundraising and campaigning for GOP candidates. He often sees his kids only on Sunday, he told Fox News.

But if Ryan’s choice is good for him, it’s also good for Democrats.

By retiring, he signals the House may be lost and Democrat Nancy Pelosi will return as Speaker next year. Naturally, Ryan insists the GOP is in great shape and he’ll still campaign for Republicans. But a lame duck can’t talk convincingly about the future.

The customary route would have been to run and then retire after the election. The former altar boy considered doing that.

“But just as my conscience is what got me to take this job in the first place, my conscience could not handle going out that way,” he said.

As it is, Ryan is the most prominent in an army of incumbent Republicans beating a retreat from Washington. More than 40 House Republicans are either retiring or running for another office.

In Virginia, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte announced his retirement two days after a Democratic tide in last November’s state election swept many Republican incumbents from the legislature. Goodlatte is prohibited under House rules from staying on as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. 

Ryan wasn’t even the only Republican to announce his retirement Wednesday.

Rep. Dennis Ross, Republican of Florida, was announcing his when he looked at Fox News and saw Ryan was leaving, he told his local paper.

The filing deadline hasn’t passed in 19 states, so more retirements are possible.

As if the November election weren’t campaign enough, a battle now kicks off for Speaker, with Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana leading contenders.

Democrats, who need a net gain of two dozen seats for control of the House, were delighted by the unexpected turn of events.

“With his retirement announcement Speaker Paul Ryan becomes the first casualty of the 2018 midterm election,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, tweeted.

The Republicans’ nightmare in April seems like a dream come true for Democrats, but they shouldn’t celebrate just yet. 

It’s a long, long way to November – and victory has previously eluded their grasp.  

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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George Washington's rules inspire search for civility -- Feb. 15, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the entertaining novel, “Rules of Civility,” about 20-somethings in glamorous, 1930s New York, the enigmatic Tinker Grey keeps with him a much-underlined copy of George Washington’s rules of proper behavior.

Tinker aspires to the refined life the rules represent, though narrator Katey scoffs that the rules are “A do-it-yourself charm school. A sort of How to Win Friends and Influence People 150 years ahead of its time.”

You’ll have to read Amor Towles’s novel to see how it turns out – and you should. A welcome escape from today’s news, it was published in 2011, became a New York Times bestseller and Wall Street Journal best book of the year, and has been published in more than 15 languages.

And, besides, all 110 of Washington’s rules appear in the novel’s appendix, with the quirky spelling, punctuation and capitalization preserved. Anyone can benefit from an acquaintance with “Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation.”

Washington didn’t dream up the rules or even compile them. The Jesuits composed the rules about 1595 and they were translated into English about 1640. Washington wrote them out as a penmanship lesson before he was 16.

Biographers say Washington was self-conscious about his lack of a gentleman’s education and took the rules so seriously they helped form his character.

Many concern table manners, such as “Take no Salt or cut Bread with your Knife Greasy” (Rule 92) and some personal dress: “Wear not your Cloths, foul, unript or Dusty but See they are Brush’d once every day at least and take heed that you approach not to any Uncleaness” (51).

Others speak to personal conduct: “Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad Company” (56).

And some offer sage advice on public discourse. “Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for ‘tis a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern” (58).

And, “Think before you Speak pronounce not imperfectly nor bring out your Words too hastily but orderly & distinctly” (73).

As we celebrate Washington’s 286^th birthday on Presidents Day on Monday, more Americans lament the loss of civility.

“There is more civility in a death penalty case than there is in some congressional hearings,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, told Politico.

Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and a former federal prosecutor, announced Jan. 31 he’s leaving Congress and politics after this term to return to the justice system.  

After a congressman was shot and gravely wounded last summer in Alexandria during practice for a congressional baseball game, members of Congress from both parties pledged to be more civil.

A bipartisan group of House members proposed a National Civility Day to remind people that “civility involves being nice or polite to others and treating others with respect.” The bill has gone nowhere.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, weighing in on our toxic politics, suggested a solution in a video: “We control our own actions. Let’s be more civil. Let’s improve our tone.”

Many people blame President Donald Trump and his barnyard vocabulary for the coarsening of the culture, and his insults and name-calling certainly hurt the cause of civility. Trump, as usual, blames the news media.

“I think the press makes me more uncivil than I am,” he told reporters last fall.

If Trump had read Washington’s rules, he’d know: “Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile” (49), “Be not hasty to beleive flying Reports to the Disparagement of any” (50) and “Be not apt to relate News if you know not the truth thereof.” (79)

Anyone can read Washington’s rules on www.mountvernon.org. “Every action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present” (Rule 1) and “Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience” (110) are worthy goals.

And if, while on Mount Vernon’s website, you happen onto an annoying Page Not Found 404 error, you’ll find “Rules of Civility #404: `When confronted by a missing web page do not gnash thy teeth, but rather press forward with a fine countenance towards the next available page.’”

Sound advice. Washington would approve.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Don't let town halls be another casualty of shootings -- June 15, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Washington was badly shaken Wednesday by what appeared to be the politically motivated shootings of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, a top congressional leader, and three others at a baseball field in Alexandria.

The shooter, whose name I will not use because such sickos crave fame, died after a gunfight with police. We may never know his motivation, but he had posted anti-Republican screeds on social media.

In the aftermath of the attack, many politicians curbed their instinct for the jugular and urged an end to harsh partisan rhetoric. 

“We may have our differences, but we do well to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because they love our country," President Donald Trump said.

“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said an emotional House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said she prays for all members of Congress, regardless of party. 

“There’s too much, I believe, raw discourse that’s pulling people apart,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said.

It would be nice to think we’re seeing the Thaw of 2017, a melting of the polar ice caps on which Democrats and Republicans sit in frosty isolation, but don’t count on it.

Even though some lawmakers may genuinely want to put aside fierce partisanship, neither party seems willing to risk constituent outrage – and primary challenges -- if it compromises on health care and the budget, to say nothing of stricter gun laws.    

Unfortunately, the most likely result of the gunman’s rampage may be an even more locked-down and remote Congress.

House members already are invoking security as a reason to avoid town hall meetings and other uncomfortable encounters with constituents.

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Virginia, said members may have to “recalibrate” and rethink events like town halls.

“It’s a wake-up call,” Brat told Roll Call, a newspaper on Capitol Hill. “We should not be doing this.”

Brat was heckled and booed at a town hall in his district in February when he defended Trump’s policies.  

Also in February, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, cited the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, in explaining why he won’t hold in-person town halls.

“Threats are nothing new to me, and I have gotten my share as a felony judge,” Gohmert wrote in a letter to constituents.

“However, the House Sergeant at Arms advised us after former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot at a public appearance, that civilian attendees at Congressional public events stand the most chance of being harmed or killed – just as happened there,” he wrote.

Giffords was setting up a “Congress on your Corner” event in Tucson in January 2011 when a lone gunman shot her in the head, killed six people and injured 13 others.

Increased congressional security surely is needed in some settings. Of the 22 members of Congress at the ballfield, Scalise alone had a security detail, assigned because he is the third-ranking Republican in the House.

While Capitol Police protect all members of Congress when they’re in the Capitol complex, they provide 24-hour security only to the House and Senate leadership.

“By him (Scalise) being there, he probably saved everybody else’s life, because if you don’t have a leadership person there, there would have been no security there,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, told MSNBC. 

In this era of fiscal belt-tightening, having taxpayers pay for stepped-up security for hundreds of House members and senators outside the Capitol is problematic. 

Lawmakers are exploring other options, such as allowing members to use campaign funds for security outside Washington and of moving district offices to more secure locations.

As we move forward, we would be wise to listen to Giffords, who knows better than anyone the risks of openness. Responding to Gohmert, she wrote in a statement:

“I was shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning, my offices were open to the public. Ron Barber -- at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times, then elected to Congress in my stead — held town halls. It’s what the people deserve in a representative.

“To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage,” she wrote. “Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”

(C)2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Merry tax cut? Not so fast -- April 27, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but don’t spend your shiny new Trump tax cut just yet.

To update an old saying: There’s many a slip ‘twixt the lip and the cut.

President Donald “Santa” Trump promises “the biggest individual and business tax cut in American history.” So far he doesn’t have a plan or even a bill in Congress.  

The one-page outline the White House handed out Wednesday read more like a campaign flyer than a legislative blueprint. It’s hard to argue with any of these goals: 

“Grow the economy and create millions of jobs. Simplify our burdensome tax code. Provide tax relief to American families – especially middle income families. Lower the business tax rate from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest.”

Briefing reporters, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn were short on details but long on -- irony alert -- hope and change.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something really big,” Cohn told reporters.

“Under the Trump plan, we will have a massive tax cut for businesses and massive tax reform and simplification,” Mnuchin said.

The lack of details gives Trump room to negotiate with reluctant members of Congress. Democrats predictably blasted Trump’s proposal for mostly helping himself and other wealthy taxpayers,

although he won’t release his tax returns so we’ll never know how much. He’ll need support of Republicans in Congress who traditionally have been wary of inflating the federal debt.

One provision left off the outline was a “border adjustment” tax on imports pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to help pay for tax cuts. Putting the best face on the situation, Ryan said the White House was “basically along the same lines that we want to go,” and Congress and the White House were “moving and getting on the same page.”

Trump’s big idea is to cut the corporate rate more than 50 percent to 15 percent, reduce the number of individual tax rates from seven to three, raise the personal deduction and eliminate most other deductions -- and pay for it all through accelerated economic growth of 3 percent.

As Popeye’s friend Wimpy would say: “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

We’ve seen this movie before. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan endorsed supply side economics and big tax cuts in 1980, promising economic growth would pay for them. His rival George H.W. Bush mocked Reagan’s plan as “voodoo economics.”

President Reagan got his tax cuts and the economy did boom for a while, although economists still argue whether Reagan’s tax policies were responsible. Eventually Reagan raised taxes several times.

After President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003, the economy never achieved liftoff, bumping along at an average growth of 2.1 percent annually for eight years. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were partly to blame for the sluggish economic growth.

Estimates of the cost of Trump’s tax cuts range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion over five years and up to $7 trillion over a decade. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget made the first estimate, The New York Times the second.

While tax reform is a worthy goal, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group dedicated to fiscal responsibility, “it is inconceivable that a tax cut of this magnitude could pay for itself through economic growth.”

The White House predicts “trillions” of dollars in new revenue through growth. It’s worth remembering that Trump is unencumbered by fear of more debt.

“I’m the king of debt. I love debt,” he said during the campaign.

No doubt Republicans and Democrats alike would love to redo the huge, complicated tax code with its Swiss cheese loopholes, and many people would love to file their taxes on a “large postcard,” as Mnuchin put it.

But getting there won’t be easy.

Trump’s goal of eliminating deductions except for mortgage interest and charitable donations faces stiff opposition from Democratic members of Congress from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

Plus, it’s too early to know how Trump’s tax plan will affect most Americans.  

“We will be back to you with very firm details,” Cohn told reporters. He didn’t say when.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Capital in confusion over Obamacare RX -- Feb. 16, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald Trump turned to House Speaker Paul Ryan the other day and said: “He’s working on Obamacare. It’s going to be very soon -- right?”

“Yes,” Ryan replied, as cameras rolled in the Oval Office.

More than a nudge from the president, Ryan could use some Lyndon Johnson-style arm twisting to make good on the Republicans’ long-term promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.   

Trump has left details of reforming health insurance to Ryan and other Republicans in Congress, but they are floundering in a sea of options.  

Trump still sounds like he’s an outsider on the campaign trail. When Humana became the latest major insurer to say it will stop selling coverage on Obamacare exchanges in 2018, Trump tweeted: “Obamacare continues to fail. Will repeal, replace and save health care for ALL Americans.”

Yet he has presented no plan of his own and the goal of replacement seems to be slipping farther into the future.

As a House member, Tom Price, the new Health and Human Services secretary, offered a plan, one of many. None of the other plans has galvanized widespread support even within the GOP, let alone with Democrats. It’s unclear what Senate Republicans will accept.  

Ryan went door-to-door, trying to build a consensus around his “Better Way” plan, but Republicans even disagree on timing -- repeal and replace at the same time or repeal first and take time on a replacement.

Trump has said repeal and replace will be “essentially simultaneous.”

But Ryan told reporters this week that reform “affects every person and every family in America,” and a deliberate, “step-by-step approach” is needed for stability.

House Republicans received plan options at a party caucus before they headed home for the week-long Presidents Day break.

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus, a group of about 35 to 40 of the most conservative Republicans, wants to repeal the law now and is backing a plan by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Paul’s plan would undo most of the Obamacare rules, rely on expanded health savings accounts, allow people to buy insurance across state lines and join associations to increase purchasing power.  

Paul would also jettison the Medicaid expansion that was a state option under the Affordable Care Act. That’s a sticking point. It’s always easier to give people a benefit than take one away.

Before he left office, President Barack Obama urged Democrats not to “rescue” Republicans in their efforts to replace Obamacare. House Republicans voted scores of times to repeal Obamacare since the law was enacted in 2010 without a single Republican vote.

Despite the years of controversy over Obama’s signature law, it appears many Americans remain surprisingly uninformed. More than one in three either thought the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are different programs or didn’t know whether they are the same or different, a poll by Morning Consult reported last month.

The Trump administration is taking actions that actually could make the law more palatable to critics. 

The Internal Revenue Service is relaxing a key enforcement mechanism scheduled to take effect this year. The IRS was to withhold tax refunds from people who failed to comply with the mandate to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Instead, IRS will process returns and refunds as usual.

In addition, HHS just proposed new rules aimed at stabilizing the exchanges to encourage insurers to keep offering coverage and customers more plan choices.     

Obama promised Americans if they liked their doctors or their health insurance plans, they could keep them. The claim turned out to be false and was a source of anger that motivated many voters.

Trump promised to get rid of Obamacare and put something better in its place while retaining the law’s popular provisions. 

People hate paying higher insurance premiums – which they blame on Obamacare even though premiums were rising before the law. But they like keeping children under 26 on their insurance plans and not being denied, or priced out of, coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions.

It’s a curious turn that, for the time being anyway, Republican dithering on Capitol Hill means Trump is keeping Obamacare alive.  

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Out with Obamacare, in with . . . Trumpcare -- Dec. 8, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

You’d think they’d be ready by now.

For nearly seven years, congressional Republicans have promised to “repeal and replace” Obamacare with something better and more affordable.

Repeal is easy. Since President Barack Obama got the Affordable Care Act through Congress in 2010 without a single Republican vote, the House has voted more than 60 times to repeal all or part of it.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump called the law “a total disaster” and vowed to repeal and replace it on Day One.  

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday repeal will be the first item of business in the New Year when the Senate returns Jan. 3.

Replace is hard. Republicans have yet to agree on a path forward for what inevitably will be known as Trumpcare. 

Even Trump now wants to keep two popular provisions of the health law. After he met with Obama in the Oval Office, the president-elect said he favors allowing children under 26 to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans and requiring coverage of people with existing medical conditions.

Trump’s a big-picture guy, so replacement details will fall to Congress, where, until the election, many were more interested in politics than policy. I know you’re surprised.

Only on Dec. 2 did House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy send a letter to governors and state insurance commissioners asking for their ideas about health care reform.That way, if Trumpcare goes bad, state officials can share the blame.

McCarthy said the two-step repeal and replace process could take much of next year and beyond. House Speaker Paul Ryan also lowered expectations of speedy action.

“Clearly there will be a transition and a bridge so that no one is left out in the cold, so that no one is worse off,” Ryan said Monday in an interview with Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Ryan would not hazard a guess about how long the transition might take.

“It will clearly take time. It took them about six years to stand up Obamacare. It’s not going to be replaced come next football season,” he said.

One possibility is for Republicans to resurrect the repeal bill Obama vetoed last January. It called for a two-year delay in the effective date of replacement. Some Republicans say six months is enough.

Republican leaders invited Democrats to work with them, even though Republicans refused to cooperate with Obama. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer derided Republicans as “the dog who caught the bus,” saying, “They don’t know what to do.”

Repeal without replacement will cause “huge calamity from one end of America to the other,” Schumer said. “Bring it on.”

In a letter to Trump, the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals urged him and Congress not repeal Obamacare without a replacement. If that happens, Congress should restore funding to hospitals that was cut by Obamacare, the groups said, so hospitals can defray some of their costs.

The nonpartisan but left-leaning Urban Institute warned in an analysis this week that repeal without a clear replacement could throw into chaos the private health insurance market. Millions of Americans buy insurance directly rather than through an employer.

The number of uninsured could rise to 59 million by 2019, the study said. That’s far more than the 41 million who lacked insurance in 2014 when major provisions of Obamacare went into effect. About 28.5 million remained uninsured last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Trump’s pick to lead Health and Human Services, House Budget Chairman Tom Price, wants to replace Obamacare with modest tax credits pegged to age, not income, to help people buy insurance on the private market.

Price’s proposed Empower Patients First Act also calls for grants to help states create “high-risk” insurance pools and expands health savings accounts.  

Republicans have not rushed to embrace the plan. Critics say it’s woefully underfunded and millions of Americans would lose coverage.

Taking time is not necessarily bad. Rushing could be worse.

But if members of Congress are going to blow up Obama’s signature legislation, they should be held to their promises and do no harm to the more than 20 million people who have insurance because of Obamacare.

To do anything less is to risk disappointing and disillusioning more Americans at a time when trust in government and politicians is badly frayed.  

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Finger wag or wagging tongue? Olympics win -- Aug. 11, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Before the Obamas decamped to Martha’s Vineyard last weekend on vacation, President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio address:

“Every four years, our nation’s attention turns to a competition that’s as heated as it is historic. People pack arenas and wave flags. Journalists judge every move and overanalyze every misstep. Sometimes we’re let down, but more often we’re lifted up. And just when we think we’ve seen it all, we see something happen in a race that we’ve never seen before.

“I’m talking, of course,” Obama said, “about the Summer Olympics.”

Good one. And he was right. The Olympics, unlike that other quadrennial contest, haven’t let us down.

The Rio games are historic, dramatic and fun. We see some of the best American athletes who have ever competed. Their drive, joy and patriotism are infectious.

And don’t forget attitude. Who knew wagging an index finger could say so much?

Swimmer Lilly King, 19, a first-time Olympian, wagged her finger twice to mock Russian competitor Yulia Efimova for doping, after Efimova, 24, who was allowed to compete in Rio at the 11^th hour, wagged her finger No. 1 after winning a preliminary heat.

“You wave your finger No. 1 and you’re caught drug cheating? I’m just not a fan,” King said in an interview with NBC.

After she beat the Russian by two-hundredths of a second to win the gold for the 100-meter breaststroke, King said, “It’s incredible, just winning a gold medal and knowing I did it clean.” Take that, Russia.

Then, superstar swimmer Michael Phelps, competing in his fifth Olympics, wagged his finger No. 1 after he won his 20^th gold medal and beat his arch rival.

Earlier, Phelps blew up the Internet with his caught-on-camera “death stare” at Chad le Clos of South Africa. Le Clos was dancing and shadow boxing right in front of Phelps in the warm-up room before the 200-meter butterfly competition.

Phelps reclaimed the gold le Clos had won in the 2012 Olympics in London, and le Clos came in fourth in Rio.

Those displays of one-upmanship pale compared to the trash-talking on the campaign trail. This may be the first time a major party presidential nominee has been so willing to set tongues wagging. 

We don’t need Gallup to tell us we’d rather see athletes wagging their index fingers than hear the ugly rants of Donald J. Trump or, for that matter, more damaging revelations from Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Trump’s latest flap involving an off-the-cuff remark may have been “a joke gone bad,” as House Speaker Paul Ryan, who’s always sweeping up after the elephant, said. Or it could have been a call to arms to “Second Amendment people” if Hillary Clinton is elected, as Democrats and some Republicans charged.

At the rally in Wilmington, N.C., Trump was talking about what would happen if Clinton were elected: “She wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. And, by the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

When his remarks caused a firestorm, Trump blamed the biased media and insisted he meant Second Amendment supporters should galvanize to defeat Clinton at the polls. Clinton, who does not want to abolish the Second Amendment, accused him of “casual inciting of violence.”

The Chinese water torture of released Clinton emails continues to raise questions about how her work at the State Department intersected with the Clinton Foundation and what roles Bill Clinton would play in the White House and the foundation.

No wonder people have Trump -- and Clinton – fatigue.

So we turn gratefully to the Olympics, continuing through Aug. 21, to cheer Team USA and lift our own spirits. The Olympics are everything the 2016 presidential campaign is not: Team USA’s inspiring performances contrast sharply with Trump’s intemperate remarks and Clinton’s excruciatingly calibrated responses.

Trump is as undisciplined in his speech as the Olympic heroes are disciplined in sport, and Clinton as stiff as the athletes are limber.

The presidential campaign gives us headaches. The Olympics warm our hearts.  

©2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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'Lock her up!' unites GOP -- July 21, 2016 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Alice Roosevelt Longworth would have loved this week’s Republican National Convention.

Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter had a throw pillow in her sitting room embroidered with the line: “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”

Republicans in Cleveland richly rewarded viewers who wanted to hear nothing good about Hillary Clinton. She wasn’t just the wrong choice for president; she’s a criminal, they charged.

“Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” delegates at Quicken Loans Arena shouted, leaping to their feet and shaking their fists. And when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, indicted Clinton’s performance and character in his speech Tuesday night, the crowd bellowed “Guilty!” after each new charge.

Republicans will see how it feels starting Monday, when the Democratic National Convention opens in Philadelphia and attempts to turn Republican Donald J. Trump’s into Public Enemy No. 1.

Character assassination has a long, colorful history in presidential politics. A newspaper editor who supported Thomas Jefferson in the bitter election of 1800 wrote of John Adams that he had “a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force nor firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” 

But the sustained attacks on Clinton were a new level of mudslinging.

 

“She lied about her emails, she lied about her server, she lied about Benghazi, she lied about sniper fire – why she even lied about why her parents named her Hillary,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared.

The name claim stems from 1995 when the then-first lady said her mother always told her she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer Mount Everest. But Clinton was born in 1947; Sir Edmund made the climb in 1953. Her presidential campaign conceded in 2006 it was just a “sweet family story.”

 

The GOP convention also showed rare disunity among the party faithful. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a former presidential contender, refused to attend, as did other Republican leaders. Some conservative delegates erupted in anger after party leaders stifled a rules change that would have permitted delegates to vote for candidates other than Trump.

On the convention’s first day, the chairman of the Virginia delegation and former state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Ted Cruz supporter, threw his credentials on the floor and marched out.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who boarded the Trump train late, sounded plaintive as he tried to unify Republicans. Only with Trump and his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence “do we have a chance for a better way,” he said. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

“Let the other party go on and on with its constant dividing up of people, always playing one group against the other, as if group identity were everything,” said Ryan, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2012. “In America, aren’t we all supposed to be and see beyond class, see beyond ethnicity and all those other lines drawn to set us apart and lock us into groups?”

Cruz infuriated some delegates when he used his time at the podium Wednesday night not to endorse Trump but to give what sounded like his first presidential campaign speech of 2020. Delegates booed Cruz and shouted, “Trump! Trump! Trump!” as the presidential nominee walked in.

The most peculiar knock on Clinton came from former GOP presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson, who said one of Clinton’s heroes in college and the subject of her senior thesis was radical organizer Saul Alinsky. In the forward to one of his later books, Alinsky acknowledged Lucifer as the first radical organizer.

“So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer?” Carson said. “Think about that.”

Clinton, perhaps previewing her attacks next week, insisted that Trump has nothing to offer the American people so he had to attack her. Trump’s “business model is basically fraud and abuse,” she said. “He talks about America First but his own products are made in a lot of countries that aren’t named America.”

At their convention, Republicans found one thing on which to agree: Hillary Clinton is their enemy. Democrats also agree on something: Trump is theirs.

Even before he endorsed Clinton, rival Bernie Sanders said he would work to defeat Trump. And when he finally did endorse her, Sanders said he wanted to make one thing clear: “I intend to do everything I can to make certain she is the next president.”

© 2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Yes, 2016 is closer than you think -- June 20, 2013 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In his first summer as a lame duck president, Barack Obama has something in common with George W. Bush.

Obama’s job approval rating is only slightly higher than Bush’s 46 percent at this point in his presidency, June 2005. Obama’s popularity has been shaken by reports of the National Security Agency’s phone call tracking, which began in Bush’s term, and of IRS’s targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny, a scandal the Obama administration owns.   

Iowa’s presidential caucuses are still 30 months away, but potential candidates and party operatives are already moving to the next presidential contest. Eight years ago, Democrats were aching to regain the White House; now it’s the Republicans’ turn.

Among possible GOP candidates, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Mitt Romney’s running mate last year, rates highest among Republican voters, while Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., and Sen. Mark Rubio, R-Fla., get higher marks from the general public, Gallup reports. Christie has had weight-loss surgery – for his physical, not his political, health, he insists.  

Democrats are talking enthusiastically about Hillary Clinton as the first woman president, just as they did eight years ago. Therein lies a cautionary tale.

Back in Summer 2005, Clinton was seen as formidable, if not yet inevitable. When Hillary Clinton appeared with Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa at a meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, she stole the show. The DLC was a centrist group that had boosted Bill Clinton’s prospects for the White House, and Hillary Clinton was trying to squeeze her liberal foot into a moderate shoe.

Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, had spoken eloquently at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but Clinton and her fans thought him too inexperienced to win just four years later. Voters had other opinions.   

The country is even more polarized these days. Tea partiers push Republicans to the right, and Democrats drift left. The DLC closed its doors in 2011.

This time around, Vice President Joe Biden has Senate as well as one-heartbeat-away experience to be president. Clinton and her fans should recognize his potential vote-getting power.  

At the same time, the historical significance of the first woman president is huge. Clinton has distinguished herself as a loyal member of the Obama team and as the nation’s top diplomat. Republicans treat her like a frontrunner by attempting to tarnish her sterling reputation with questions about her role in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which cost four American lives.

Clinton is 65 but she’s hardly ready to retire. Her next memoir is due out next June, and like her husband, she’s on the talk circuit.

When she spoke to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Mich., last Monday night, about 50 supporters outside waved “I’m Ready for Hillary” signs and chanted “Hill-a-ry, 20-16. Hill-a-ry, 20-16.” 

The Grand Rapids Press also reported that Clinton offered five rules for life in her speech, including:  “You can’t win if you don’t show up.” She was referring to the need to demonstrate to countries large and small that the United States values their friendship. But of course her remark added to the buzz about whether she will show up in 2016. Clinton hasn’t announced her plans, but almost everyone assumes she’s in.

The Ready for Hillary super PAC is hard at work building a grassroots draft movement. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., became the first member of Congress to jump on the Hillary bandwagon. McCaskill supported Obama early on for 2008. No fan of Bill Clinton, she said in 2006 she wouldn’t want him near her daughter. That was then.

Hillary Clinton could follow her husband’s lead and make money. Bill Clinton brought home $17 million in speaking fees from mid-January 2012 to mid-January 2013. He made 73 speeches at an average rate of $195,000 per speech, a CNN analysis of financial reports found. The former president has made a whopping $106 million in speaking fees since he left the White House.

Hillary Clinton has a new Twitter account. Her profile: “wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD…” Humor is good.

Practically overnight, she attracted more than half a million followers, with more every minute.  

But Iowa is a long way off. Sometimes you don’t see trouble coming.     

© 2013 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Economy: Impossible? -- Can any president fix it? -- Sept. 6, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

On the Food Network’s hit show “Restaurant: Impossible,” Chef Robert Irvine sweeps in and transforms a failing restaurant in just two days with $10,000.

He installs new décor, menu and image, diners flock to the place, the grateful owner beams in amazement, credits roll. Viewers eat all this up; the show is in its fourth season.

We Americans love turnarounds – especially when the miracles come quickly and under budget.

Alas, there’s no TV show called “Economy: Impossible.” Nobody has invented the formula to turn around the economy quickly. Unemployment is stuck above 8 percent, consumer confidence is down, and the presidential race is neck and neck.

The key question in 2012: Will voters fire President Barack Obama and hire former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to engineer the country’s economic makeover?

And that leads to another question: Does who’s in the White House affect the economy? You’d certainly think so, to hear the politicians.

Romney insists that he has the business savvy to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, although he hasn’t spelled out details. Obama blames Republicans in Congress for thwarting his plans to rebuild the economy.

Presidents are praised when the economy is going well and blamed when it’s not. Many economists think the world picture is more complicated and that the president actually has little control over economic success or failure.

Here’s Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s former top economic adviser and a University of Chicago Booth Business School professor: “I think the world vests too much power – certainly in the president, probably in Washington in general – for its influence on the economy, because most all of the economy has nothing to do with the government.”

Romney does have business experience, but most presidents don’t. Bill Clinton had none but George W. Bush did – and yet the economy thrived under Clinton and fell under Bush into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Still, since James Carville tacked up the sign that read “the economy, stupid” in Clinton’s presidential campaign headquarters in 1992, candidates have tried to persuade voters they can work economic miracles.

At the GOP national convention in Tampa, Republicans urged disappointed Obama voters to jump ship. Romney conceded Obama’s popularity four years ago but said, “You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”

His running mate, Paul Ryan, evoked the image of young, jobless Obama voters living in their parents’ basements, staring at fading Obama posters.

In Charlotte, the Democrats tried to put to rest the nagging question of whether we’re better off than we were four years ago. Clinton emphatically said the country is better off with Obama, although nobody is satisfied with the current economy.

Obama “has laid the foundation for a new, modern, successful economy of shared prosperity. And if you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it. You will feel it,” Clinton promised, adding, “whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election.”

Affable Clinton rebutted Republican charges one by one, including the frequent knock that Obama doesn’t believe in free enterprise and despises individual success.

“This Republican narrative – this alternative universe – says that every one of us in this room who amounts to anything, we’re all completely self-made,” Clinton said.

He quoted one of the all-time great lines in American politics, from Bob Strauss, Democratic Party chairman in the 1970s, “Every politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself.”

Clinton insisted that Obama has the values, ideas and direction we need to build a stronger, 21st century economy – “a nation of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity, a shared sense of community.”

But he also served up a cautionary note. In 1994, although he and his advisers felt their policies were bringing the economy around, voters couldn’t feel it, Clinton said. The result was the Republican takeover of the House for the first time in decades.

As we move through the fall, both campaigns will target the very few voters who are still undecided. Much will depend on whether these voters feel that the economy is moving in the right direction.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.