09 June 2016
California Dreamin’
by J.R.Thomas
None of the candidates left in the Presidential primaries really come across as California types. No beach boys here, or beach girls either, no hippie types, no cool dudes, a certain lack of film star charisma. Two New Yorkers, one Chicagoan; but then, Richard Nixon was a pretty unlikely Californian…. This week all eyes were focussed on the golden west as Hillary and Bernie fought the last fight; and The Donald fought a strange fight all of his own.
You might think that Donald, having confounded his every doubter, vanquished all his opponents, and faced down the Grand Old Men of the Grand Old Party, would now be rapidly assuming the mantle and the mien of a Presidential candidate. To be fair, you might not actually think that; Mr Trump is not a man likely to stop the fight just because everybody else has surrendered. But what you might not expect even the Donald to do, is to get out of the ring and pick fights with outsiders.
Of course Trump is a businessman, and in this case, a businessman with a long-running legal battle to fight. The case, which we won’t get into, concerns Trump University, one of the many ventures which Trump has licensed the Trump name to and has a stake in. Trump University is being sued by dissatisfied students over alleged misleading and fraudulent statements in advertising. The case is being tried in the Southern California District Court, the presiding judge being District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Mr Curiel was born in Indiana, a US citizen by birth, but is of Mexican heritage (and as has been pointed out, of a mother who came to the USA before Mr Trump’s Scottish mother arrived on the American shore). Mr Trump has asked him to stand down from the case, on the grounds that he is Mexican, and that as Mr Trump when elected (you may substitute “if” for “when”) will build a wall to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out of the USA and stop favourable treatment of businesses importing from Mexico to the USA, the judge has a conflict of interest, to the detriment of the Trump side.
Mr Trump went further, saying Judge Curiel has made “rulings that people can’t even believe”, that the judge is biased and is conducting the case the way he is because of that bias against Mr Trump and the proposed policies which will be enacted by a Trump administration. He should thus be recused from the case. Not surprisingly there has been a fire-storm of protest from the media calling Trump racist, and what might be called an agony-storm from the Republican Party leadership, who can see the Hispanic vote, courted so carefully for so long by GOP politicians Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and even Jeb Bush (remember any of them?) vanishing rapidly in the direction of the Democrats. Not just for this election, but for many Presidential elections to come. And not just for the Presidential elections, but also for the House and Senate elections where key states such as Florida will be determined by the Hispanic vote. The relatively moderate Mrs Clinton in the White House with Congress still controlled by the Republicans is fairly fine for the GOP grandees; it is not nearly so fine with the Democrats in charge of all three elements of government.
The Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, at the moment probably the most powerful man in the Republican Party, after presumably lying for days in a darkened room and holding his nose, five days ago endorsed the Trump candidacy. Presumably he is now back in the darkened room for more reflection and deep breathing exercises. One of his more famous GOP Speaker predecessors, Newt Gingrich, did not need to reflect or to inhale. He said Trump’s remarks were “inexcusable” and a “mistake”. And he is a Trump supporter.
But Gingrich did point out something, a conflict which Trump needs to resolve quickly, in his mind at least. He may be a Presidential candidate but he is also running a large business, with many enterprises within it. In the USA it is not at all unknown in commercial cases to criticise the judge and try and get them off your case if it is not going in your direction. This might be odd in the UK; but not across the water (It should be said that it rarely works but American judges are used to this line of attack). You really can’t though attack a judge on racial grounds; most certainly when the supplicant is a candidate for President. Mr Trump does need to get his priorities sorted. Will it hurt him at the polls? With some voters undoubtedly, but as we have seen there is a Trump constituency of voters who seem to think that this is the talk to talk, and care not about usual or polite behaviour, so possibly none of this matters much to Donald. Though it might yet – there is again talk, especially among traditional Reaganite Republicans, of promoting a strong independent Republican to run against him, if only to defend the reputation of the party.
Mrs Clinton has been definitely trying to look Presidential, rising above her Blackberry problems and keeping ahead of Mr Saunders who has been treading uncomfortably close behind her. She passed a key point by winning in Puerto Rico on Sunday by a margin of pretty much two to one, and also by securing more Super-delegates. One final swing round California would do it and it duly did – she won there by more than expected (56% to 43% for Bernie, 86% of the results in at the time this was written), and also won New Jersey decisively and New Mexico. But she dead-heated in South Dakota, and in both Montana and North Dakota there were strong wins for Bernie. Still, the nomination is now Hillary’s and only charges from the FBI will stop her being the Presidential contender in November.
The results continue to intrigue – it looked only two weeks ago as if Bernie would win California and what may be happening is that Democratic voters are now coalescing around the person they judge to be the most likely winner against Mr Trump. That does not explain the results in Montana and North Dakota, but Hillary ran very limited local campaigns there. With 475 delegates in California and 126 in New Jersey, it was never going to be worth spending much time on Montana for 21 delegates. Let alone North Dakota for 18.
So that should be it for November. Clinton versus Trump. But those of a betting frame of mind might want to pay a visit to their local bookmaker. It might just be worth a modest punt as to whether either of these candidates will be running. Long odds certainly, but many impossible things have happened in this contest so far.
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