Im-Politic: The Presidential Polls Keep Getting Weirder

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2016 election, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, polls, Republicans, Ted Cruz

It’s getting to be a pattern during this presidential campaign. I promise myself that I’ll lay off writing about the polls, in part because it’s still so early in the process, but largely because they’re sending such confused messages. And then right afterwards, a new poll comes out that’s so (apparently) confused that it just begs to be written about. Here’s what I mean.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal and NBC News made headlines with their latest joint survey of the Democratic and Republican presidential races. When it came to the GOP, the media coverage understandably emphasized the main horse race finding that Ben Carson had forged ahead of Donald Trump to become the front-runner for the nomination among respondents who stated they would vote in a Republican presidential primary. Trump had held the lead since July. (Actually, two other surveys this week – here and here – showed Trump still out in front, but for some reason, they attracted little attention.)

The Journal-NBC poll’s “internals” were highly encouraging for Carson as well. For example, the prominent neuro-surgeon also cemented his position as the leading second presidential choice of Republican voters, and in fact widened his lead in this respect over Trump. In addition, Carson was way ahead of the field in terms of his acceptability. Only 18 percent of the declared Republican voters stated that they “could not see” supporting Carson. That level not only tied for his best showing since the pollsters began asking the question about him in March. It was far ahead of the next best “unacceptability” rating – Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s 32 percent – which was, strangely, up from March’s 26 percent.

Trump’s unacceptability was, with former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s, tied for third, with 37 percent – just behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz’ 34 percent. But Trump’s unacceptability ratings were more than twice as good as March’s 74 percent, while Fiorina’s were somewhat worse and Cruz’ were only slightly better. The least acceptable Republican candidate, incidentally, was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Reflecting his exceptionally poor overall polling, fully 68 percent of Republican voters said they couldn’t conceive of backing him. And as for former front-runner (or presumed front-runner) Jeb Bush? The former Florida Governor’s 52 percent unacceptable rating represented its first rise over the 50 percent level since March.

Other results were stranger still. When asked to name which candidate they considered likeliest to win the GOP nomination regardless of their own personal preferences, Trump came in at Number One, at 36 percent. Carson was considered second likeliest, at 25 percent, followed by Bush at 11 percent (even though he was first choice of only eight percent). Only two other hopefuls, Rubio at nine percent and Cruz at six percent, topped the one percent figure.

Trump did nearly as well when those Republican voters were asked which candidate stood the best chance of defeating a Democratic rival (who was not named) in the general election. Thirty-two percent liked his odds of victory, versus 25 percent for Carson and 12 for Rubio. All of the other candidates were in the single digits.

We can also learn a lot about the electorate by looking at the characteristics they say see most prominently in the various candidates – though the Journal-NBC survey only examines Trump, Bush, and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

For Trump, he scores best among voters overall for “being effective and getting things done.” Nearly half (48 percent) of all voters surveyed agreed that this phrase applied to the real estate magnate, and fully 72 percent of Republicans viewed him as “can do.” Oddly, although Bush is running based largely on his record as a big-state governor, the voters don’t seem unduly impressed. Only 25 percent of all voters and only 38 percent of GOP respondents gave him high marks for effectiveness. Bush fared better on the experience front – 43 percent of all voters said he had the background and knowledge for the job, and 57 percent of Republicans agreed.

Trump’s biggest seeming weakness, according to the survey? Only 14 percent of all voters believed he has “the right temperament” to be president, and only 24 percent of Republican voters agreed. Bush scored worst in the survey for sharing his positions with the nation. Only 21 percent of all voters and 34 percent of Republican voters credited him with performing well in this respect.

And what about Clinton? The former Secretary of State, New York Senator, and First Lady rated highest for experience, with 42 percent of all voters and 74 percent of Democrats declaring themselves impressed with her on this ground. Among all voters, then, she scored a bit higher than Bush and nearly twice as high as Trump per this metric. Not surprisingly, given the persistent questions surrounding her handling of classified materials and the activities of the Clinton Foundation, Clinton scored worst on “being honest and straightforward.”

The Journal-NBC survey is also chock full of data on subjects not directly related to the presidential race.

To me, these two findings stood out. First, even though the nation’s chattering classes believe that the unruliness of Republicans in the House of Representatives has been nearly disastrous for the party’s brand, the overall public is evenly split on which party they want to see controlling the Congress after the upcoming elections.

Second, although the national political conventional wisdom has long held that Americans hate Congress overall but like their own representatives, fully 57 percent of all voters told the pollsters that it’s time to give a new person a chance in their House district. Only 35 percent believed that their representative deserved reelection. Moreover, this has been a majority or strong plurality position going back to 1992. That sure puts the great recent success rate of Congressional incumbents in a striking new light.

One methodological note: The margin of error for both the Democratic and Republican primary voters in this Journal-NBC survey is plus-or-minus 4.90 percent – which seems awfully high. What else can you say at this point but “Hang on”?

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Im-Politic: How Carly Fiorina Helped Feed the China Beast

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Asia, Carly Fiorina, China, Hewlett-Packard, Im-Politic, South China Sea, technology, technology transfer

Although I doubt that Carly Fiorina has as much of a chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination as even Donald Trump, her remarks today on America’s China policy deserve attention. For she unwittingly highlighted – in unwittingly personal terms – one of the biggest blind spots in America’s approach to the PRC: its long-time “see no evil” record on utterly reckless and apparently voluntary corporate transfers of defense-related technologies to China.

As I’ve repeatedly written, the United States will never satisfactorily deal with Beijing’s growing military might, its determination to become East Asia’s kingpin, or its cyber-hacking, as long as it continues permitting U.S.-owned companies to set up research labs in China, share much of their best knowhow with Chinese partners (all of which are controlled one way or another by the Chinese government), and train legions of Chinese scientists and technicians. And it’s a lesson that Fiorina evidently needs to learn, too.

In an interview with “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd today, Fiorina made what’s by now an increasingly standard Republican and conservative call for a tougher policy towards these Chinese provocations. Specifically, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO stated “We ought to make it very painful for the Chinese to be aggressive in cyber-warfare.” She added that she would “begin to provide our allies in the South China Sea with some of the technology they’ve asked for. Be very aggressive about insuring that China does not control the South China trade route.”

But what Fiorina didn’t mention, and what Todd apparently didn’t know about, was HP’s own record of feeding this beast while she ran that tech giant. According to Hewlett-Packard itself, under Fiorina’s leadership (mid-1999 to early 2005) alone:

“In 2002, HP instituted the Software Solutions Center in Shanghai, which is dedicated to developing enterprise-class solutions for customers in China and throughout Asia Pacific.

“In 2004, also in Shanghai, HP established the Industry Innovation Center with Intel to showcase technology and business solutions for the finance, manufacturing, public sector and telecommunications industries.

“HP Labs China was established in 2005 to collaborate with public and private sectors to research and develop future information management systems.”

And a year later, the company “developed the HP IT R&D Center in Shanghai,” which presumably was planned during Fiorina’s tenure.

HP is hardly the only American company that has bolstered China’s innovation capabilities, or even the worst offender. But it clearly has been part of the problem. Here’s hoping that reporters – and voters – start asking Fiorina whether she’s going to pursue a genuinely comprehensive, strategic China policy, or whether she’s just another pseudo-hawk.

Im-Politic: What the Debate & its Fallout are Showing About Trump

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2016 elections, Carly Fiorina, chattering class, Chris Christie, conservatives, debate, Donald Trump. Jeb Bush, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, independents, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Megyn Kelly, Mitt Romney, Obama, Rand Paul, Republicans, Rick Perry, Roger Stone, Ted Cruz

Three days after the event, I’m still struggling to get my analytical arms around that first Republican “front-runners’” presidential debate. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it took many more days and even weeks to gauge the effects. In part of course the problem is the so-called Summer of Trump, and the inherent difficulty in analyzing phenomena. But there’s also the matter of assessing the mood of those large numbers of Republicans, Republican leaners, independents, and others who clearly at various times have been drawn to Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump’s refusal to rule out a third party run in the fall elections is another huge complicating factor, as it’s bound to give pause to anyone determined to prevent a Democrat from winning the White House in 2016.

And let’s not forget the upteen other Republican candidates – including former Hewlett Packard boss Carly Fiorina and her supposedly breakout performance at a prior event for those GOP hopefuls considered the also-rans at this stage of the campaign, at least according to the polls. There were some of the questions from the Fox News moderators, which I found downright weird – and I’m not even talking solely or even mainly about Megyn Kelly asking Trump about his derogatory comments toward women, an exchange which of course then exploded into an even bigger uproar. Finally, since it’s still just so darned early in the cycle, making any predictions can be hazardous for any observer’s health.

Since Trump has dominated the Republican campaign so far, let’s start (and, for today, end) there. The place to begin is right at the beginning, with Fox News’ Bret Baier asking the front-runners (and Trump of course in particular) to promise to back the party’s nominee whoever it might be. Trump has explained his refusal in tactical terms – focusing on the importance of leverage – and has indicated that he could change his mind. But after eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, and the still strong possibility that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic race to succeed him, there can’t be any doubt that this wasn’t the answer many Republican primary voters – the chunk of the electorate Trump needs to win first – wanted to hear. Certainly the reaction of the boisterous crowd in Cleveland last Thursday night was decidedly mixed.

Concerns about Trump’s 2016 plans, moreover, are sure to reinforce Republican primary voters’ worries about his allegiance to conservative positions on issues like health care, taxation, and abortion. The GOP base isn’t thrilled with his campaign contributions to Democrats, either. Trump has responses: He’s “evolved” on the above, and other, subjects. He mastered the existing campaign finance system. Will these answers be convincing? Forecasting is further complicated by Mitt Romney’s experience in 2012. On the one hand, he won the Republican nomination despite charges that he was insufficiently conservative and a repeated “flip-flopper.” On the other hand, much of the Republican base now argues that, for these reasons, his nomination stuck the party with a loser.

Curiously, though, the rest of the Republican field is divided enough over some specific issues to render suspicious some of the silent pledges of party loyalty made last week. For example, would New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (who was consigned to the also-ran event) endorse Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as long as the latter opposes using more electronic snooping by intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism? And given his strong stated belief that such measures grossly violate Constitutional protections against privacy, would Paul endorse those two if they stuck to their guns?

In addition, would any of the sitting Senators seeking the Republican nomination support their Texas counterpart Ted Cruz if he doesn’t apologize for calling their Senate leader Mitch McConnell a liar? Finally, would Jeb Bush or Graham or Rick Perry – all if whom have blasted Trump, the latter two in especially angry terms – really support Trump if he prevails? As the GOP field undergoes its inevitable winnowing, some of these questions are sure to come up.

Like everyone else, I’m still waiting to see the first major polls’ verdict, but I suspect that his attacks on Megyn Kelly will ultimately damage his campaign. The main reasons, though, have nothing to do with Kelly. Yes, she’s popular with conservatives. But my sense right now is that current Trump supporters and others receptive to his pitch and personality not only have no special feelings about Kelly, but probably started lumping her in with the rest of a media/chattering class that they despise because she asked precisely what they view as the kind of “gotcha” question now dominating journalism.

The worst damage could well come from two other sources. First, his exchange with Kelly and his follow-ups so far have added up to a major lost opportunity. Trump’s first instinct – to brush off the charges of women-hating with a joke about Rosie O’Donnell – was the right one. When Kelly persisted and pointed to insults directed at other women, he should have reminded her that he savages lots of men, too, and that he’s sure he’s stepped over the line in the past – especially in his role as an entertainer – just like all human beings have.

More important, he should have gone on the offensive by taking her to task for focusing on relative trivia rather than leading off with a question about a major issue voters care about – like jobs or national security. And even though Trump has now had several days to fine tune his “Megyn Kelly” message, he still hasn’t gone after her where her performance was most vulnerable. It’s still early in the 2016 campaign, but it’s far from too early for Trump to recognize that the longer he bogs himself down in personal – and trivial – feuds, and fails to deliver truly telling blows, the likelier he’ll start coming off as a simple, and increasingly uninteresting, crank.

Second, Trump’s trashing of Kelly suggests that, as many so-called political insiders believe, he’s got a big staffing problem. More specifically, he doesn’t seem to be working with anyone willing or able to tell him when he’s messed up. If Trump keeps surrounding himself only with Yes-Men, bet on him to suffer the same fate of other non-traditional office seekers. Like Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, he’ll fail to make the transition – not from phenom to “conventional politician,” but from phenom to “candidate with staying power.”

In this vein, the departure (or firing?) of longtime Republican operative (and Trump adviser) Roger Stone from Trump’s team could be a big turning point. And even though I think Americans so far owe Trump a debt of gratitude for highlighting policy catastrophes in areas like trade and immigration, a Trump collapse for this management-related reason would be good for the country – because that modus operandi is a formula for disaster for any leader.

A final (for now) Trump observation: The longer the debate lasted, the less his presence seemed to dominate. In part that was a function of the crowded stage, and the need to give other candidates their rightful shares of the floor. In part that was a function of too many superficial questions that prevented Trump from drawing sharp policy distinctions with his fellow contenders.

But in part it stemmed from the same kind of weakness he showed in dealing with Megyn Kelly. Just as Trump failed to use that opportunity to make a larger point that would have resonated both with his followers and beyond their ranks, he failed to seize on any chance to use this immense platform to speak directly to Republican voters, and to all the other viewers, and connect with them anew in ways that his more conventional counterparts clearly haven’t.

It’s true that Trump faced format and other obstacles in meeting this challenge. But it’s also true that the real superstars of American politics use the slightest pretext to create these openings. That’s easier to do for politicians who understand that their highest priority isn’t subjugating their rivals – or beating down reporters – but reaching the electorate. In other words, most of the biggest political winners need enough ego to treat their rivals, in effect, as nuisances, but not so much as to obscure the centrality of the audience. And at this point, it’s difficult to imagine Donald Trump realizing that, in this most crucial of ways, his campaign isn’t all about him.

Im-Politic: Where We Stand So Far with Trade and the 2016 White House Race

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2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Carly Fiorina, Democrats, fast track, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, manufacturing, Martin O'Malley, Mike Huckabee, Populism, Rand Paul, Republicans, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Tea Party, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership

“Something” is definitely going on with the politics of international trade in the United States these days – I just wish I knew exactly what it is. But in the last few weeks, as the national and Congressional debates over President Obama’s trade agenda have heated up, any number of apparently conflicting and potentially important developments in this area have broken into the news.

The chief inconsistency seems to involve presidential candidates in both parties on the one hand, and some new poll results on the other.

If you were just following the 2016 presidential campaign so far, you’d think that support for new trade deals like the president’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become absolutely toxic. Among Democrats, declared candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is dead-set against them, as is former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, whose announcement is imminent. Front-runner Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has a mixed trade policy record, but even though she pushed the Pacific Rim trade agreement as Mr. Obama’s Secretary of State, she’s evidently so wary of alienating voters that she refuses to take a stand either way now.

Opposition to new trade agreements is just as pronounced – and in many ways much more startling – among many Republican contenders and hopefuls. The GOP’s Congressional leadership has become a bulwark of the president’s hopes for fast-tracking such deals through Congress and thus greatly enhancing their chances of approval. But lots of the current Republican field is marching to a much different tune.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was a trade policy skeptic when he last ran in 2008, and still is.  Rick Perry has no such history. In fact, he was last seen as governor of Texas welcoming with open arms investments in his state by Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications manufacturer that’s viewed as a likely threat to U.S. national security by the executive branch and the Congress. But despite supporting TPP, he’s expressed major reservations about its transparency and about entrusting it to Mr. Obama.   

And then there are the cases of Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The former, when she ran Hewlett Packard, defended her record of sending jobs and production to China with the (widely blasted) statement that “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” More revealing, she accused trade policy critics of naively seeking to “build walls around America” and “running away from the reality of the global economy.” Now she says she’s “very uncomfortable” with TPP.

Paul, of course, has been a darling of libertarians, but voted against fast tracking trade deals like the TPP through Congress. (Paul’s father, former Texas Congressman and presidential contender Ron, opposed many such agreements also, generally due to fears regarding American sovereignty and Constitution-related fast track concerns.)

The most interesting conversion, however, might be that of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. As I’ve written, when he last sought the GOP nomination four years ago, Santorum was the only Republican who spoke seriously about the importance of strengthening American manufacturing. But he also upbraided his rival Mitt Romney for risking a “trade war” with China by supporting currency-related sanctions and generally during his years in both the House and Senate was a reliable “Aye” vote for new trade deals.

But this time around, Santorum is showing signs of recognizing that credibly championing manufacturing isn’t possible without opposing the trade policies that have done so much to weaken its production and employment levels – along with its innovation capacity.

I can imagine that many readers will respond by noting that many Republicans are so hostile to President Obama that they would naturally oppose enhancing his authority in any way – and doubly so since there’s such widespread anger regarding his other alleged unconstitutional power grabs. But Fiorina for one has also hit America’s poor record of monitoring and enforcing trade deal provisions against cheating-minded governments and noted that one of the most notorious – China – could be added to the TPP without any Congressional input. In addition, as I’ve previously noted, opposition to current trade deals has dovetailed with other major elements of Tea Party platforms and the movement’s values since its birth.

Yet despite the trade skepticism throughout the field in Campaign 2016 so far, polls keep showing that Americans have become more receptive to new agreements. Typical is one just released by the Pew Foundation. It finds that 58 percent of U.S. adults “say free trade agreements with other countries have been a good thing for the U.S., while 33% say they have been a bad thing.” Moreover, according to Pew, this level of support is ten percentage points higher than in 2011.

In what will be heartening news to GOP presidential trade skeptics, only 53 percent of avowed Republicans view trade deals so favorably – a majority, but a much lower share than for either Democrats or independents. Of course, by the same token, the results raise questions about the Democratic hopefuls’ so-far unanimous opposition to new agreements absent major changes.

Since primary voters – which comes from each party’s hard-core base – are more partisan and ideologically fervent than the electorate as a whole, it’s likely that for that reason alone, attacking current trade policies will remain a big feature of Election 2016’s first half, and that few candidates will send much time defending them. That’s essentially what labor unions and environmental groups want to hear from Democrats, and what movement conservatives want to hear from Republicans.

But the Pew findings themselves are odd in several respects that makes their political interpretation less obvious for the general election. For instance, the poll reported both substantial and growing overall agreement that free trade agreements have benefited the nation, and less impressive (43 percent) but still growing overall agreement that such trade deals have helped their personal finances. Yet it also shows that by 34 percent to 31 percent, the public believes that these deals have slowed rather than sped up economic growth. By 46 percent to 17 percent, respondents said that they have fostered job loss instead of job creation. And by 46 percent to 11 percent, that they have reduced rather than increased wages. Also noteworthy (especially given the personal finance result above), nearly as many Americans (30 percent) blamed free trade agreements for raising consumer prices as credited them with lowering them (36 percent).

I can think of many possible explanations for these apparently paradoxical results. All polls suffer from the tendency of respondents to tell researchers what they think the latter want to hear as opposed to what they actually believe. Further, Main Street Americans can’t be expected to understand fully how trade policy effects the economy, in part because the Mainstream Media does such a lousy reporting job on this front. At the same time, a case can also be made that the Pew survey underscores consumption’s dominant role in both the U.S. economy overall and on Americans’ economic priority scales. Why else would they be so keen on the agreements, while believing that they depress growth, employment, and wages? Unless most Americans don’t believe that trade deals really affect them much personally at all? Or that they themselves are reaping the benefits while largely escaping the costs?

So it’s anything but clear how trade issues will affect the next presidential election on net. But if they stay in the spotlight, as seems distinctly possible given that the TPP itself is still being negotiated, that itself would be a big change.