Ads they see in Primary States

Oregon is "flyover country" when it comes to political ads.   No need to bother here.

When I watch TV is see ads for Ed's Tire Factory and Food For Less, two Medford merchants.   But when I arrive in Charleston, SC next week I will see very different TV, just as I saw very different TV in New Hampshire.

I saw for myself in New Hampshire big media buys for Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.   Hillary presented herself as a fighter for the Forgotten Middle Class.  Jeb positioned himself as really competent and responsible.

In the primary states viewers see hard-hitting ads by the Super Pacs, with the most interesting being among the second tier (i.e. non-Trump) candidates jockeying to be the last  candidate standing as alternative to Trump.   The strategy makes perfect sense.   The only problem is  that there will be one winner and many losers.

So, Rubio, Bush, Christie, Kasich, and Cruz are all attacking each other through their Super Pacs, hoping to be that survivor.     

This is just a sample of what TV commercials are like in the early primary states.  But they outline what Republicans think are the big vulnerabilities:   Rubio's vulnerability is whether he is fully present and had considered compromise on immigration.  Cruz's is that he is not fully on board in domestic surveillance to stop terror, for privacy reasons.  Christie's is that he had compromised with Obama and other Democrats on Medicaid expansion, common core, plus he got cooties from hugging Obama.  Bush has been damaged by Trump for being "weak"  already but Rubio piles on by showing him to be a hypocrite.

Rubio

Rubio attacks Cruz.  Rubio positions himself as a better hawk, willing to use more intrusive surveillance of phone calls on questionable Americans--which Cruz considers too intrusive, an actual policy difference.   

Rubio Responds to Cruz

Rubio attacks Bush.  Rubio attacks Bush for being desperate and hypocritical in criticizing Rubio now, with recent quotations of Bush praising Rubio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf_xHVKvIEw


Rubio attacks Christie.   The general theme is that Christie is a moderate who has compromised with Democrats on Common Core, Obamacare, and once said something nice about Obama.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429213/marco-rubio-attacks-chris-christie-video

Bush

Bush attacks Rubio

Bush attacks Rubio.   The theme is missing hearings and votes i the Senate when security business was being discussed.   
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeb-bush-marco-rubio-super-pac-ad-2015-12

Bush attacks everyone, starting with Trump

Bush attacks Trump, Cruz, and Rubio (Trump for being impulsive, Cruz for weakening domestic surveillance, and Rubio for missing votes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmz5uoui9E

Cruz attack on Rubio

Cruz

Cruz attacks Rubio.  A Cruz PAC positions Cruz as strong on defense while Rubio is busy filling out a Fantasy Football entry.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU9pAxbHHGY

Cruz attacks Republican Establishment and Rubio on immigration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW38URo-A2Q  
                         also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-SC1uUiT9s

Christie

Christie hits back

Christie the "Only" Candidate who has prosecuted terrorists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0n--vIVBwQ

Christie attacks Hillary telling Republicans to stop attacking him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hliKwBIy94w

Guns: Tyrant or Weakling

There are two simultaneous criticisms of Barrack Obama by GOP candidates.   He is a tyrant!   He is a "feckless weakling".   Both.   Simultaneously.

Is that possible?    Apparently yes.

Obama called for stronger background checks prior to people purchasing guns.   He teared up in grief and frustration at the deaths of schoolchildren and his inability to change American gun culture.   It was proof positive of his weakness, right??

Yes and no.

 He is a dictator and tyrant, so says Ted Cruz in this image on the Cruz website.  "Gun control is government control.  Fight back."

Marco Rubio agrees:   "Barrack Obama is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment--an important protection our Constitution recognizes and defends for us, and he's looking for any way possible to undermine it.  He's been doing this forever."

Chris Christie:  "This president wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator."

And Donald Trump on Obama's executive actions "The Republicans did not stop him.  He's getting away with murder.  He got everything he wanted.  We got nothing."

But, simultaneously Obama is hopelessly weak, the same people say.

Trump:  "We have incompetent people--probably stupid--but incompetent people making deals."   America is weak:  "We don't have victories any more.  We don't win any more.   Bring back Patton!"

Chris Christie said that that "yes, we'd shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if they were stupid enough to think that this president [pointing to himself] was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now."

The very frequent Fox News commentator, Charles Krauthammer,  yesterday summarized the conservative media-candidate position regarding Obama's initiative on gun background checks, critical of his interest in guns in the face of "a meltdown in the Middle East, terrorism all over the world, shutdown of capitals in Europe, attacks here in the United States.   We have a president who's not asleep at the wheel, he's not at the wheel at all."

The gun control issue plays badly for Obama.   People who support gun control observe Obama in his weakness, his inability to get meaningful legislative change.   A few loopholes might get adjusted but nothing will change.  America is and will be full of guns.  Democrats and gun control advocates are disappointed.  Weak Obama.

Meanwhile gun supporters see presidential strength so they make their point by photoshopping a tyrant villain.

It is the worst of both worlds: both sides angry.   

Hillary Clinton is not taking advice from me, but I will offer it to her here.  She should drop gun control as an issue.   She should give up, and tell gun control supporters and friends the simple truth:  there is nothing whatever we can do about this.  Acknowledge a reality.  It is OK to acknowledge reality.   People like it when you tell them the obvious truth.  Guns are everywhere and lots of people like them, especially in rural areas.   And there are lots of rural areas.  Nothing is going to eliminate guns, not now.

Legal in Oregon.  Drug opponents decided to quit fighting a losing battle

She should say that guns are like alcohol.  Or pot.  No prohibition will work.   Americans who want alcohol or pot can find it.  American who want guns will get them.  There are everywhere, and cheap.   All we can do is attempt to prosecute people who use guns in a crime, similar to the way we punish people who drive drunk.  It is control after the fact, meaning, yes, senseless deaths.  We live with the consequences.   It is the price of liberty.   People use pot, people drink alcohol, people have guns.  Prohibition doesn't work.

Is this defeatist?  Some will say so.  Just as some people who want to ban drugs say that stopping the war on pot is "defeatist."   The other way to look at it is that the politician is accepting reality.  There is no shame in that.   Shame--and political hazard--is attempting to sell something people know is impossible.   Guns are here, like alcohol and pot.

So move on.   Quit frustrating your supporters and angering your opponents.   Move on.

Personal note:   I don't like guns and don't own one, I don't drink alcohol, I don't use pot.  What I like isn't the point.   I live in America and I see what my countrymen do and like.   

Oregon Milita: Fools, not Heroes

What a difference two years make.

In 2014 Clive Bundy and a group of armed militia supporters created a standoff with federal and local law enforcement people, defending Bundy's non-payment of grazing fees on federal land.   Fox News featured the story for several days, sympathetically portraying militia men aiming scoped rifles trained on law enforcement.  The stories sided with the militia, as did Senator Ted Cruz.  

They were patriots, protesting tax and tyranny.

Today, Fox News is covering the story with interviews with the Harney County sheriff.  Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are campaigning in Iowa, both saying the same thing: there are grievances regarding the BLM, sure, but armed rebellion against the United States is too extreme a solution.

What happened to change things?   

***Once burned, twice wary.    Last time conservative TV-talk radio-politicians supported armed white men protesting the federal government the issue fit their paradigm of protest, an expression of Tea Party anger at federal tyranny.   They found heroes.   But they couldn't trust their heroes to stay disciplined and on message.  Clive Bundy was quoted saying Negros were better off enslaved--an indefensible comment in this century, and they immediately dropped the story and support.   This new standoff had the same hazard.  God knows what they might say or a Google search might turn up.

***Domestic terrorism.   The number one issue in the Republican campaign is stopping radical Islamic terror, and candidates have been adamant in calling for president Obama quickly to name armed attacks on the people or government of the United States as "terror".  The events in Harney County create a dilemma.   It clearly is different from Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook, the San Bernardino shooters, because the motivation is so different, and yet the result has uncomfortable parallels: armed people openly saying they will kill for a principle demanding the overthrow of an illegitimate government.   The parallels are too close for comfort.

***These guys are laughable.    At this moment the standoff seems silly, not scary.  First of all, they didn't hurt anyone, which is good.  They seized an empty, remote building, which seems less like an assault on a vital element of government and more like a boy's treehouse fort.   Second, it is almost as if they imprisoned themselves, walled up in a remote federal building where they cannot hurt anyone--sort of a minimum security Alcatraz.  If prison is where they belong, well, they are already there.   And third, they came unprepared.   So the social media world is full of repeats of their request for snack food.   Things could get ugly quickly, but for now it seems more like boy scouts in a botched outing rather than armed rebellion against the United States.

***Obama learned from Clinton.   This is not Ruby Ridge or Waco.  The federal government is standing back, and not engaging.  The federal government--so far--is avoiding using force, and likely will if they can.  And it is treating this as a local, not federal, law enforcement issue, with the Harney County sheriff taking the lead.  White militia 2nd Amendment patriots protest federal authority and they elevate the elected county sheriff to be the highest lawful authority. What a mess for them: they are stuck fighting the guy whose legitimacy they actually support. 

***Love the cops.   In 2014 conservative media positioned the Clive Bundy standoff as courageous endangered militia men fighting tyranny.   But the incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore, plus the shooting of the policemen in Brooklyn ostensibly in retaliation for the killing of Michael Brown, put the conservative media-politician cadre on high alert to support police against protesters.  Their position is solidified: policemen are good and citizens (i.e. urban blacks) have no right to hurt law enforcement using an excuse of injustice.    This frame traps them.   White militiamen are the conservative media-politician's "team", but their actions seem too parallel for comfort to black violence against police protesting injustice, which violence they condemn vigorously.   When forced to choose between 2nd Amendment supporting militia fighters versus cops, they choose cops.

Two days ago I wondered if any Republican candidate would support the militiamen.  Today I am confident they will not.   They aren't heroes, after all.   They are jokes--silly men playing with their guns.

Trump Performance

In Biloxi, Mississippi

I watched on Youtube a Trump rally in Biloxi, Mississippi.  The rally was on Saturday, January 2 and it filled up a large arena, plus another overflow room.

I am trying to be objective here and to look at this as political craft rather than as a partisan: Trump is really really good at this.

First of all, the hour talk was interesting and amusing.   Trump has a stand-up act that can be viewed as an alternative to any internationally famous performer doing a solo show on a bare stage--something equivalent to Oprah or Jerry Seinfeld talking or Beyonce singing acoustic.  

He points out noteworthy people in the crowd, a few really tough looking men.  He teases the camera person in charge of the camera used in the Youtube video, insisting that he pan the crowd, laughing when the camera stays completely on him.   If he worked for me, Trump said,  "I'd fire his ass."   The crowd laughed and cheered.

Trump was obviously having a wonderful time, delighting in being the center of attention.  The overall impression was one of good humor and confidence at a time of trouble.   Donald Trump describes America as beset with problems: immigration, war, economic.  But he is confident that there are solutions and that he brings them.

Democrats who like FDR should take note.  This is 1932.  A worried country and a new leader from New York exuding confidence.  Happy days are here again.

Trump's schtick includes some self-aware self-teasing about his idiosyncrasies: he introduced his son, who had lots of hair comb-able front to back the way I used to be able to, he said; he genially noted that he talked about polls because they were extraordinarily wonderful but wouldn't talk about them if they were lousy, like Bush's.   Even his hyperbolic self regard projects a self-aware self mockery, like a long running joke, e.g. Jack Benny being cheap or Steve Colbert playing the right wing blowhard.   Like Jack Benny and Steve Colbert, he stays in character.   He's a negotiator, and in negotiations you don't give up your edge.  His edge is that he is unwavering: he can get things done and make America great.

He is uncomplicated.  He speaks of ends, not means.  Solutions found, not process.  Nothing about checks or balances or impediments.  There are no other sources of power blocking him.  

Nor does he mentions specifics of any kind.  The nation has had a hundred year debate on how to arrange our health care industry and the financing of it.   Obamacare is the result of a tiny, brief national consensus on one approach to widen access.    Trump's 60 minute speech he describes his solution: "We're going to repeal it and replace it,  get something so good  So great."

That's it.

The audience seemed content with that.

Trump speaks extemporaneously, with half sentences and interrupted thoughts.   And humor.   Read it for yourself.     I transcribed the last 90 seconds of his speech below, including the part that includes his approach to health care.   His conversational manner is more apparent when read, not heard,  and its contrast with Rubio's practiced eloquence of polished sentences is most apparent.

"We're going to get rid of--look, this is the easy part--look, this is the easiest, right?   You know what I'm going to say.    We're going to get rid of Obamacare.  (CHEERS)   We're going to repeal it and replace it.    You know your rates, I don't know if you know, your rates have gone up 25, 35, 45 percent, it's going to die in the year 2017.   It's dying.  It's totally dying.   Which I predicted.  It should have been killed except that Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court allowed it to go on.   But we're going to get rid of Obamacare.  We're going to get something so good.  So great.   

"We're going to straighten out our borders.  We're going to straighten out our military.  We're going to take care of our vets.   We are going to make our country better than ever before, bringing back our jobs, we're going to make something really special.

"And I want you to remember this night.   I want you to remember this night.   When it comes to your time you've got to get out and vote.  When it comes to your time, you know you're not too late down in the circle, you know I say it to the people in Iowa, I say it to New Hampshire, I say it to South Carolina, I say it to Nevada: you gotta get out and vote.  We can't take a chance.  I say this all the time.  If you're having problems, if you aren't feeling well, if you're having all sorts of difficulty, if your wife says she's leaving you she doesn't love you anymore, I don't care.  Get out and vote!  Right?   You got to get out and vote.  (CHEERS)"

The three audiences I have seen live, and this one, seemed delighted they endured the crowds and traffic and standing for hours to see this for themselves.   Trump has a very appealing show, and it might make him president.

Militia seizes Federal Building: Campaign Opportunity

Republican Opportunity:  Get on board with a great new issue.  Militia seizes federal facility!

Militia seizes federal agency

There is an opportunity for one or more of the Republican candidates to jump into a issue that might help them win the Nevada primary, the seizure of a federal facility in Oregon.

It could go wrong.   It could look like a fight with law enforcement (bad--very bad.)   Or it could look like a defense of real people and common sense against federal government bureaucracy and tyranny (good--very good.)

A group of ranchers and rural militia supporters have seized a seasonally vacant federal building in a remote and sparsely populated part of Oregon--the part of Oregon that is full of sagebrush, thin grass, and no people.   (For readers from out of the area, do not picture vineyards and rainy forests because that is the western third of the state, where 85% of the people live.   This is east of there.  Picture empty vistas in Western movies, the flat dusty scenes, sagebrush and scrawny cattle.)

The video below articulates the position of the militia and rancher groups.    The two spokespersons make reference to "the people" multiple times.   "The people" here are the foundational center of our democracy, the people referenced in the first words of the Constitution, "We the people of the United States of America."  The government did not form itself, nor was it handed to us out of dim pre-history or some sacred text that predates us.  "We the people" in the Constitution pre-date and precede the government we formed and we are the ultimate sovereign.   So said the founders of our government.

The spokesmen of this federal seizure make a profoundly revolutionary statement, the one made by Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence;  "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" and that when any form of government loses that consent "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

The video doesn't look like Mt. Rushmore or what people see and feel at the Jefferson Memorial.  It doesn't look majestic.  It shows scruffy looking people shot by a shaky camera in poor light.   This obscures the fact that they are making a profoundly political statement: that the United States Government no longer reflects the will of the people--or at least the people he knows in rural Harney County--as it relates to the administration of local land, and they are asserting the revolutionary principles asserted by the signers of the Declaration.

The seizure is led by Ammon Bundy, the son of Clive Bundy, who had led a protest against the Bureau of Land Management two years ago.   At the time Fox News had portrayed Clive Bundy as a hero, even as their cameras showed armed men with rifles and sniper scopes aiming at uniformed law enforcement officers.  They dropped the story when Clive Bundy  was found to have said anti-black racist statements.  It was the open racism, not armed insurrection, that caused politicians and Fox to drop support.  Clive went from hero to pariah in one day.  

(You can lead an armed insurrection against the government, but you cannot say that "the Negro" was better off as slaves.)

But these militia people are the next generation, much more media savvy.   They have already positioned themselves as defenders, not aggressors.  They are armed but say they are peaceful.  The battle lines are clear.  They assert that represent the legitimate voice of "the people", while the lawful agents of the lawfully elected representatives of the people of the United States (i.e. our government, with its checks and balances, and its lawfully created and lawfully accountable executive departments--the BLM and EPA--are illegitimate.

This is less dramatic than firing guns on federal Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbor, but it is a small version of the same thing--using arms against the United States.  They had arms but didn't need to fire a shot.  They now have military advantage of defending a position plus the moral advantage of requiring the lawful authority to use force first, which on TV will look like aggression.

Very clever, very media savvy.

What are the merits of the case???   I know a little something about this, having worked for a Congressman and having been a County Commissioner.   The federal government controls a great deal of land in Oregon, and being publicly owned by all the citizens of the US, not by some local landowner, it is managed toward that consensus of law and regulation that reflects the desires of all the American people.  This means folks who live thousands of miles away in Florida and Chicago and who don't give a second thought to Oregon's forest or ranch land, other than to than to sort of like "open space", at least when it is far away, have as much power to make the rules as do the people who actually know something and care a lot.  People who live close to this land and would like to use it to serve their own productive interests, manage the forests in western Oregon and run cattle on it to eat the grass in eastern Oregon, frequently think the federal rules are way too restrictive or that they flout common sense.  This is a classic problem worldwide of control by an absentee owner, and the conflict between the interests of that landowner (here the US government, representing all Americans) and the interests of the local tenant farmer or sharecropper or hunter-poacher seeing a resource (i.e. game) on the landlord's property.

I personally generally side with the landowner, which makes sense because I own some rural land, and generally side against rural people with guns seizing property.  But I understand that neighbors need to get along and cooperate, and the federal government is required to act according to laws not according to the "common sense" that would take place among rural neighbors.  So the militia people have grievances, seeing things from their interests and point of view, while the BLM managers of the federal land are required to be lawful, not cooperative.   Which is why problems erupt, and persist.

So Amman Bundy took action.

Which candidate will jump in on this???   It is risky and maybe no one will.   No Republican wants to be on the side that might have someone kill a cop, at least not a local cop.  Yet the enemy is "the federal government" and especially "federal bureaucrats"--the BLM and EPA, two agencies that candidates feel comfortable condemning along with the IRS.  

The militia people are voicing ideas parallel to the Tea Party ideas, that the government is out of touch with "the people".   Remember, there will be a key early primary in Nevada.   Rural Nevada people are overwhelmingly Republican, I am sure, and they widely share the view that the federal government owns way too much land and the federal government manages it for interests other than local ranchers.   

There will be a constituency in full support of this militia group.    Nevada voters will be watching to see who comes to their public defense.    At this very moment as I write no one has come forth in support.   Will someone???

Here is a 7 minute video, so you can hear them for yourselves.   You may not like what you hear, but Thomas Jefferson sounded like this, predicted this, and supported this.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/03/militia_occupies_malheur_national_wildlife_refuge_in_oregon.html

Guest Blog: New Year Tale

Thad Guyer, guest blogger.   Not a candidate for anything

Are political discussions making you happy?   Are they making your family life better??  


Guest Comment by Thad Guyer, with A New Year Tale of America

John and Mary Jones raised their three children in Des Moines, Iowa, Contempt, Inspiration and Apathy. Contempt was a popular boy, a natural leader who appealed to the rebellious nature in his schoolmates. He was revered for “telling it like it is”. Inspiration was a gentle girl who could be counted on to see the best in people, dreaming of bringing all beneath her big tent of ideas and higher values. She was revered for respecting everyone with tolerance and inclusion. The youngest, Apathy, was just their “normal kid”, never a joiner or much of a doer, but at least he never had enemies. John and Mary were the least proud of Apathy, if the truth be known, and hoped he’d “just be happy” in life. 

In their retirement, John and Mary are reflecting on how they thought things would have turned out for their kids. Contempt had become, as John always predicted, a leader of sorts. He had good success in a chain of machine shops, but his fortunes were quickly diming as customers placed their orders abroad. He had become angry, and his friends were all disgruntled just like him. His greatest comfort was attending Trump rallies and re-watching them on Youtube. Inspiration was, as Mary knew would happen, doing a fabulous job of balancing her career and family. But like Contempt, she had become disillusioned because “the establishment” was conspiring to marginalize her hero, the Senator who truly let her ideals soar while “feeling the Bern”. Though never saying it, Inspiration disliked Hillary almost as much as Contempt hated Obama. She was also hurt that many of her friends considered her a political “kook”. 

Had it not been for Apathy, the Jones Christmas reunion in Des Moines would have been a disaster. He neither knew nor cared about Trump or Bernie, they were just two more talking heads interrupting the little good tv that still existed. Apathy, without ideology, grabbed the remote from Contempt and Inspiration as they battled over which of their heroes should have the screen, thus allowing the extended family to fall back into stuffed sofas and chairs for the heart-warming Christmas specials. Apathy brought relief to the tension between Contempt and Inspiration, for after all, they were brother and sister and had beautiful childhoods in common.

John and Mary, looking on from the kitchen as the cookie dough baked, shared their thoughts on how it was Apathy who had turned out to be their happiest child. Had it not been for him, the family would have been torn apart, alienation might have been the new normal. Mary looked at her husband and asked, “honey, where has all the apathy gone, that magic glue which held our country together for so long?” John nodded his head hopefully and answered “I don’t’ know, but let us pray for its speedy return.” 

{Peter Sage Note:  Thad Guyer is an attorney living and practicing whistle blower law wherever he chooses to put his laptop computer.   He is currently mostly in Saigon.}

Cruz Victories

"Victories."   It is the name of his TV ad, now showing in Iowa.   We can learn something about what voters want this year if we look closely at it.   It's 30 seconds, and you can see it for yourself on Youtube.        

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOit03vT1n8

It is an appeal to a moral sentiment that traditional conservative people of all political parties value: respect for the religious traditions of the American tribe.

Cruz associates himself with court cases, Cruz as a defender of traditional Christian faith--fighting to place a Christian cross on public land, fighting to put Old Testament scripture in front of a public building, fighting to assert that school children can or must say "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance.  (Yes, and fighting for guns, which he inserts between the Ten Commandments and the Pledge as sacred.)

President Obama attends prayer breakfasts, he concludes speeches with "God bless the United States of America", he lights Christmas trees on the White House lawn.  Obama is openly Christian and observes the default American religion.   But Obama communicates respect for all religions, rather than being a special advocate for Christianity.   

The charge leveled multiple times per hour on Fox News, and is a regular part of Republican candidate set speeches, is that Obama doesn't particularize the religion of Islam as the idealogical source of terror bombings, only that it is a perversion of Islam.  And they are correct.   Obama wants a war against terror and jihad; Republican candidates and audiences are voicing they want more, clarity that we are fighting against a foreign religion and ideology.   They want acknowledgement that is a fight to defend our traditions.

Voters generally--and especially Republican voters--do not see Obama as a defender of Christianity or American "exceptionalism."    Voters are right.  Obama does not give full throated declaration that America and Christianity are one-and-only special, only that, like citizens in other countries, we consider ourselves special.   This was a moral affront to many voters because Obama spoke of us as special-like-others believe themselves to be instead of special-for-real and above all others.   Rudy Guiliani put it this way:  

"To say, as the president has, that American exceptionalism is no more exceptional than the exceptionalism of any other country in the world, does not suggest a becoming and endearing modesty, but rather a stark lack of moral clarity."

Obama leaves a political void, an opportunity Cruz is filling.   Republican candidates are asserting that clarity about American superiority will not complicate our efforts to find allies and to defeat terror in the Middle East; rather recognizing our above-all-other specialness is essential to our winning that fight.  We are right, we are superior, we are special, and we need to sell it because in fact we have the right thing to sell:  American values.  This sentiment gets big applause and cheers.   This is what the crowds want to hear.   So it makes perfect sense that Cruz is serving it in his TV ad.

But he isn't alone.     Rubio already has an ad up.  The Rubio TV ad, which we looked at last week, says we are "in a civilizational struggle between the values of freedom and liberty and radical Islamic terror."   Rubio, too, is a warrior for American values.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXmMl0_RnXg

Why didn't Obama just trumpet "We are special, really special, and God like us best, the one and only!" position.  Wouldn't it just be serving up patriotic sweet talk??  Wouldn't it be harmless to do so?   No, not harmless.

Obama, like George W. Bush and any professional and competent State Department from any administration, recognizes the hazard of making this a war against a religion rather than a policy.  Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush recognize it as well, but there is a lesson in the fact that their campaigns have fizzled because it is not what Republican voters want to hear.  

Plus,  Obama-Hillary Clinton Democrats are motivated by calls to fairness and equality, not by assertions of the specialness of the majority.    Democrats like the "liberty and justice for all" part of the Pledge of Allegiance.   "Justice for all" means that ALL faiths are respected, not just Christian faith.   It would mean that Hindus and Jews and Muslims have an equal right to put up religious symbols on land that all the taxpayers pay for.   Democrats value equality, not privilege.

Indeed, reducing the specialness and entitled power of the traditional majority (white, male, Christian, heterosexual, married, prosperous, employed) is central to the Democratic brand.  Obama and Clinton want to come across as reasonable and fair.  Fair and respectful to all.   A great many voters consider that to be "weak" or even anti-American.   They don't want an umpire, they want a leader for a side.  Our side.

So the Cruz ad, with pretty photos of crosses and and a girl with her hand over her heart, is overtly and powerfully political.  It isn't just a greeting card sentiment, the equivalent of a photo of a kitten.   It is asserting that Cruz understands that the American leader doesn't need to communicate fairness or equality or justice for all.  An American leader is an advocate for our side, the traditional side, the historic majority.   And it demonstrates that Cruz has fought so that holders of traditional majority power preserve their space of privilege, not just in homes and churches, but on public land and in public schools.