The Fight For The White House: Close to the Edge

*****

Writing about Trump just after the first Republican debate, back in August 2015, I summarised Trump's stance as follows:

"In short (the message appeared to be) I buy people to do what I want. I sack people because it makes me richer. I abuse others and am proud of it. I have no principles at all, except the principle of me."

And I added:

"There are those out there who support Trump because, as they put it, he "says it like it is". That's fine, and  these people will probably flock towards the Trumpster in even greater numbers after the debate. Those, however, who were actually listening to what he says, instead of how he says things, might find (now or in the near future) that they do not like him at all. I know that if I were a god-fearing, conservative, principled American, I would absolutely loathe everything Trump stands for."

A month later, in September, I revisited Trump's appeal:

"I'm beginning to think that the current views the GOP has - on conservatism, on religion and on just about every other "holy" aspect of Republicanism - aren't quite right. I'm beginning to think that the GOP may, in fact, be barking up the wrong tree. And I feel that Trump is making this apparent (...)

What voters are looking for, is someone who will Get Things Done. It doesn't matter if those things are all honest-to-God truly conservative; it doesn't matter if they are all religiously conformist; it doesn't even matter if taxes will never be raised again or if the size of the federal government is drastically reduced. All these things are secondary (or tertiary) at best (...)

If the GOP doesn't recognise this, and if their politicians do not recognise this, they are in very real trouble indeed. They're going to get trumped big time."

The world - certainly the USA - changed after this. On November 13, 2015, one of the most horrible terrorists attacks of recent years took place in Paris, France. And on December 2nd, in San Bernardino, California, 14 people were shot by a US citizen (of Pakistani descent) and his Pakistani wife.

A few days later, Trump called for a ban on all Muslims entering the USA, at least "until we figure out what the hell is going on". At more or less the same time, he stated that "the other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families". In February 2016, he followed this up with an endorsement of the use of torture. Waterboarding was fine, he said, but "we should go much stronger".

Meanwhile, his views on race came under question. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups clearly support Trump, and whilst Trump repeatedly "disavowed" them, these disavowals were remarkably perfunctory. For the present at least, Trump has flatly refused to address the question why they support him.

Two days ago, Trump called off a rally he was to hold at the University of Illinois in Chicago, after protesters turned up in their thousands to disrupt the event. When the cancellation became known, scuffles broke out between the protesters and Trump supporters, setting off a scene reminiscent of, say, the Ferguson riots. The next day, in Kansas City, police used pepper spray to disperse protesters who had just been removed from another Trump event. Nevertheless, Trump refused to back down from comments he made earlier regarding such protesters, comments which inevitably must - to some - be seen as an encouragement to act aggressively towards them.   

And now, the question no longer seems to be whether the current political climate could lead to further escalations; it is, rather, what scale those escalations will assume. The question is not whether more people will be pushed around and shoved and hit, but rather how many will be seriously injured or even killed.

*****    

Trump has always been astonishingly brash, almost compulsively untruthful and eminently chaotic. He was also, however, relatively innocuous. The threat he posed was real, but it was, essentially, a threat to the GOP establishment, and that was as far as it got. In the light of  recent events, however, it is clear that this is no longer true. Trump has now emerged as a dangerous, extreme and unpredictable populist; his words attack the democratic core of the United States and pose severe risks to America's place in the world. Not just his supporters, but those who oppose him are reacting, and their actions are becoming increasingly volatile.

In a statement after cancelling the rally in Illinois, Trump told his supporters: "please go in peace".

If only.

The Fight For The White House: What Now?

*****

Rubio: The Little Warrior

So - what now?

Cruz narrowly won Iowa. Trump easily secured New Hampshire.

And behind them, the rest of the Republican field kept struggling, without any real breakthroughs (or definitive break-downs, I would suspect*).

Yes, Rubio briefly surged in Iowa, but was then brought back to earth in New Hampshire. Yes, Kasich asserted himself  in New Hampshire, but only to the extent that he managed to lift himself a few points clear of the other establishment candidates.

After two states,  there will also no doubt be a couple of candidates who will step down  (Christie and Fiorina spring to mind), but even so, six or so contenders will be left in the race.

So going into South Carolina, then Nevada, and then, of course, Super Tuesday (March 1st), it seems to fair to assume the middle will still be muddled for a while yet.

As a result, now might be the time to make a few comments about the nomination process that's unfolding. Who knows, it might even allow one to make a guess as to what's coming.

******

First, let me backtrack a little.

By early February 2012, it seemed clear that Mitt Romney would win the Republican nomination. He had just won Florida and, in doing so, had given himself a practically unassailable lead in the delegate count. He still had Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich to contend with, but for all practical purposes, the race was done and dusted.

Nevertheless, it took till April for Santorum to fold up shop, and Newt Gingrich didn't call it quits till May. That's a period of some three months where Republicans were still battling Republicans for no good reason whatsoever.

Given this, it's no surprise that the GOP decided to amend the process for the 2016 cycle by incorporating a few changes. It shortened the nomination calendar, and agreed to a smaller number of debates. It also allowed, in the first weeks of the nomination process, only proportional results, and then compensated this by setting the bar high from March 15th onwards (on which day Florida votes): from that moment on, it would be winner take all.

There were two ideas behind this. The first one was to allow Republicans to choose their nominee earlier rather than later. The secondary was to favour the establishment candidate of the day, that candidate in all likelihood being Jeb Bush.

****

Back to the present.

The nomination process, as it currently stands, may well determine an early nominee. But if that were to be the case, it now seems clear that the nominee will not be Jeb Bush, or any other establishment candidate. Instead, it will be Donald Trump, or conceivably Ted Cruz. In this sense, the RNC may simply have failed.

An alternative - and perhaps more likely - scenario is that the nomination battle will continue on well past the March 15 deadline. If that happens, however, it will not be a couple of upstarts trying to take down the establishment leader. It will, on the contrary, be a desperate establishment trying to subjugate Trump and Cruz.

The first option means a quick and convincing defeat for the establishment GOP. The second option may lead to a similar outcome, even if it isn't quick at all. However, it might - just might - lead to the coronation of a candidate who actually is acceptable to the GOP establishment. 

The question then rises: who would that be? There are realistically only three options left: Bush, Kasich and Rubio. And of these three, at present only Rubio seems more or less viable. And that is, believe it or not, in spite of his now obvious penchant for shutting down his brain just when it's supposed to be firing on all cylinders.

Why do I think Bush and Kasich have no real shot at the presidency? Well, when it comes to Bush, I have had to alter my mindset. When the race started, it seemed to me that it would, after a while, settle down in much the manner that the RNC had in mind. I, too, imagined a few initial upsets, but then envisioned Bush to emerge from the ashes and stride off to be anointed.

I no longer believe that's going to happen. I now believe that voters simply will not settle for Bush. Their anger at the GOP establishment (well, their anger at just about everything, really), is too deep, and in the end, Bush is just another Bush. And let's face the facts: Bush might still be alive, but he spent millions in New Hampshire, and still ended up behind Ted Cruz, who effectively skipped campaigning in the state altogether.

As for Kasich, well, I rather suspect that he's in many ways the best of the bushel. But he is very establishment, he's really quite boring, and to be honest, in the eyes of many Republican voters today, he's just too darn nice. Besides this, it is very difficult to see how Kasich stays afloat in the next few contests. South Carolina, for example, is hardly likely to embrace him with open arms.

And so, crazy as that seems, all that leaves is Rubio. Rubio, the little warrior armed with a bottle of water and a brain that goes fuzzily pop when things get tough.

You know, I don't think the RNC saw this coming.

*****

* A brief comment on Rubio's melt-down during the most recent Republican debate. It was without doubt quite spectacular, turning him, for a moment, into something eerily akin to a Stepford wife starting to malfunction. But it was just a moment; damaging as it was, it is not enough to scupper his entire campaign. Of course, if it were to happen again, that would be a different matter.

The Fight for the White House: Beating around the Bush

So, the third debate in the Republican race.

What did we learn?

Well, firstly we learned that the moderators were pretty lousy. They tried to control the candidates by asking  an implausible number of quite ridiculous questions and then seemed stumped when those candidates refused to listen to them. If anything, the debate proved how wrong it is to try to turn such an event into prime time television entertainment. Was it all down to media bias? No, not at all. It was, instead, down to the fact that the media wants high ratings and really can't care less for actual policies.

Still, they were all there, onstage, the most important Republican candidates, so they could at least try to make the most of things. Did they?

Well, here are some of things that stood out.

Firstly - and most importantly - there was the Bush v Rubio clash. A clash that Rubio won handsomely. When attacked by a clearly awkward Bush on his voting record in the Senate, Rubio pointed out the obvious: "Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you". And then Rubio simply turned to the camera to talk about "the future of America", leaving Bush gasping like a fish out of water. 

The most interesting moment of the debate, however, was offered by Ted Cruz. When asked about the national debt, he decided to totally sidestep the question and instead did a Gringrich, using all of his time to attack the media. "How about talking about the substantive issues?" Cruz asked rhetorically, thereby ignoring the obvious fact that he had been invited to do just that. And then, without so much a pause, he went on to complain that he didn't actually get to answer the original question.

It was, frankly, a rather extraordinary display, but one that sat well with the audience, who cheered him on loudly. It seems to have turned him into a "winner" of the debate in the eyes of quite a few pundits, but to be frank, I very much doubt that it will get him anywhere. The whole thing was unoriginal and clearly quite contrived. It was also, at heart, little more than whining.

As for the rest, well, Carson managed to stay awake. He may even have understood a few of the questions posed to him, although it's difficult to say. Trump started fairly Trumpish by attacking Kaisich, but then settled into what I surmise must be his "presidential mode". Since he doesn't actually have a presidential mode, that meant that he was quiet for a surprisingly long time. 

So, who won? In my book, probably Rubio, but not by all that much. Who lost? Easier to answer: the now-not-so-joyful turtle, Jeb¡.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. Where will we be when the next debate comes along (November 10th)? For Bush, the real question is whether he will be able to shore up (or at the very least hold onto) his establishment backing, or whether the donors will quietly start to sneak off to the likes of Rubio, Christie or even Kasich. 

Even now, I feel that Bush is a strong contender, but I must admit there is a real possibility of him not even making it to Iowa or New Hampshire.

It is perhaps this which best describes him, a clip of Bush talking about something he'll never ever forget, and then forgetting what it actually was:

(Thanks to Alexandra Petri for pointing that one out to me!)

         

The Fight for the White House: The Beast's Tale

*****

The Beast

Ages ago, when the world was still very young, the First Debate came and shook the world. I am old now and my time has almost come, but I seem to recall that moment nevertheless. I remember how shocked I was at the coming of The Beast, that thick-headed and bullying Animal of Many Insults, that roared its way into the very pits of  palaver with its huge mouth gaping hotly and hungrily.

Ah yes, I remember it clearly. But where is the Avatar of Awesomeness now, I ask myself? Where now is the Golem of Greatness?

It has been so long, so long. I grow weary when I even think about it, the passing of all this time. And truly, The Beast itself is no longer; the fire has died in its eyes. It is alive, surely, but it has become a mere shade. Its shape is but the hint of fog in the distance, and its whisper not enough to startle a mouse.

________

Hmm, no. Trump has not faded away quite yet. But I do believe that Thursday's second Republican debate showed why he will. And I also believe that it showed why the GOP should nevertheless be quite cautious about getting its hopes up too high.

A while back, I wrote that Trump's appeal to Republican voters did not seem to be that he trumpeted all conservative things in an all-conservative way. Instead, I said, he appealed to them because he was loud,  forceful and promised to actually act on his stated beliefs. Those beliefs might not be the gospel truth according to some Republicans, but that wasn't the issue: the issue was getting things done. And there was Trump, proclaiming as strongly as he could that he was the man to do it. He was, he himself stated, the non-politician to sweep all those weakling politicians out of the temple.

Except, of course, that his promises became hollower the more he repeated them.

You cannot, for example, promise to deport 11 million aliens just like that. To do so would require (a) lots and lotsa government money, and (b) lots and lotsa government officials and (c) lots and lotsa of buses, too. Oh, and you'd also have to tag the cretins in advance, so that you can catch them if they have the temerity to make a run for it before getting thrown out of the country (you never know with cretins, right?).

In short, it would require the very sort of federal government (an almost all-encompassing police state) that absolutely no Republican voter would ever think of condoning. It's not just undoable; its very contemplation is absurd.

So, where does that leave Trump's message? Well, where it ought to be. At first glance it's delicious. It's nice and shiny and it's got da muscle. But when you hear it for the second time, and then the third, you begin to realise you're watching ice cream in the desert sun.

_________

So, no Trump? He seemed up for a while; now he seems down. 

Good news for the GOP, surely?

Nope, not really.

Just before the second debate, CNN released a poll showing that about 32% of likely Republican voters supported Trump. 19% supported Ben Carson. A rather measly 3% were prepared to support Carly Fiorina.

Just after the debate, CNN released another poll. Trump's support had dropped to 24%. Carson had gone down to 14%. But Fiorina had escalated; she was up to 15%.

Now, what does this show? In terms of individual politicians, not much. You might think that the poll clearly confirms my own opinions, as stated above, but it doesn't really. If anything, the poll confirms that some cracks are appearing in the Trump monolith, but not more than that.

What it does show, though, is this.

Before the second debate, a total of 54% of likely voters supported a non-politician. After the second debate, that figure had not really changed at all: it was 53%. 

It has been remarked upon by some how wildly the polls have swung recently. I would say the exact opposite: look at what has remained the same, and there you should find a fairly accurate measure of the voters' mood.

The voters aren't all too committed to either Trump, Carson or Fiorina. They might like some of them or even all of them, but in the end, they will happily hop from one to the other. Their goal is not to support the individual; their goal is to oppose the establishment. And they're doing it in spades.

Good news form the GOP? No, not really.

________

And now the night is falling. It has been so long, so long. Tell me, where is the boy to bring me my tea? Where is he?

Ah, there you are, Trumpsy. Yes, put it done there. A sugar, please, that's a good boy.

Tell me, Trumpsy, have you heard the tale of The Beast? Let me tell you the story, for it's a good tale. 

The Fight for the White House: Religious Liberty Revisited

*****

The Trumpster? Who cares? Here's The Kimster!

A little while ago, I wrote about the Odgaards.

Now, we suddenly have Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky who has been jailed because she refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples (indeed, to all couples, because these couples would include gay ones).

And it seems that, in doing so, Davis has rather confounded a lot of people on the issue of what is euphemistically known as "religious liberty".

This is from an article posted on The Washington Post's website:

"Kentucky county clerk Kim ­Davis’s assertion that she answers to a higher authority won her no reprieve from a federal judge this week. But the question of whether people must obey the law when they say it violates their religious beliefs is being debated in state legislatures and the nation’s courts and has become a galvanizing issue in the Republican presidential nomination campaign."

Well yes, perhaps in a case such as the Odgaards'. But surely not here, right?

After all, the first time you read about this case, you might well think that it's not about what Davis can or cannot believe. You may well think that it's just about her duty, as a county clerk, to issue marriage licenses in accordance with the law of the state of Kentucky.

And yes, it is true that Davis is and remains perfectly free to have objections against same-sex marriages, and that issuing licenses to gay couples in no way infringes that liberty. She could hand out licenses to gay couples all day long, and still go home happily believing in all the horrors that God has in store for gays tying the knot. Not a single license she issues need have any influence whatsoever on that belief.

It is also true that Davis, believing (as it seems she does) that gays must not to be allowed to marry, finds herself in a position (that of county clerk) where she can actually act on this belief. She is, in other words, in a position where she can superimpose her will on those who think differently. Such action has nothing whatsoever to do with "liberty"; such action constitutes the exact opposite.   

So, in this line of reasoning, you might easily reach the conclusion that this is a fairly simple matter.

However, there are at least two aspects involved which could change your mind. Let me briefly address both of them.  

The first is this: Davis has been incarcerated. And that, frankly, might be considered odd.

Davis happens to be the county clerk, and as such she has a duty when it comes to issuing licenses. It is questionable whether the authority to issue such licenses can be taken from her and, against her will, bestowed on others (specifically her deputies). However, the judge ruling on the case clearly thought so: in fact, he ordered that her deputies can and must now issue licenses without her consent. And that's exactly what happened: after the judge gave his ruling, Davis's deputies began issuing licenses to gay couples.

The problem with this, though, is that it renders Davis's own non-compliance almost moot. After all, if the judge's view is correct, same-sex couples wanting to get married in the county can get (and some have by now indeed gotten) their licenses, and it doesn't really matter what Davis herself thinks on the issue.

But the question then rises: why jail her? If such a step cannot be seen as a reasonable and necessary measure to protect the rights of gays, what other reasons might there be? 

Well, the first answer to this is very simple: Davis was jailed because she refuses to abide by court orders to comply with the law. She is therefore in contempt of court. As such, she could be fined, but the judge (rightly, I would assume) thought that doing so would not be a sufficient inducement. The alternative is imprisonment.

From a purely legal perspective, the judge's decision makes total sense; from any other perspective, however, not so much. If fines should be eschewed because they wouldn't work, the same can be said of incarceration. It was clear from the outset that this would not force Davis to start issuing licenses to gay couples, and so it has turned out.

The second way to answer the question would be to point out that she refuses to do (part of) her job. That's true, but since when does such a situation justify jailing the person involved? It may well justify other steps - it might ultimately justify dismissing an employee, for example, or (as in Davis's case) a process of impeachment (*) - but incarceration? Surely not. 

The third way to answer the question, however, is even worse. That would be to argue that Davis should be jailed because her religious beliefs conflict with the law of Kentucky (and, indeed, with federal law). That, however, implies that her imprisonment is a direct consequence of her belief that gays should not be allowed to marry and, as such, could be considered an acceptable infringement of her "religious liberty".

So jailing Davis is, to my mind, problematic. It effectively makes her a martyr, and that is unfortunate, given the (unappealing) particulars of her stance. 

So much for the first aspect. The second one is this.

During the legal proceedings so far, she has argued that one of her main objections is the fact that her name is on the licenses that are issued. As such, she argues that she is being forced to in some way "condone" gay marriages. To my mind, this argument should fail simply by virtue of the fact that the mention of her name does not imply any personal endorsement or condonement (it is there because Kentucky law requires the license to be issued by a county clerk and Davis happens to be that clerk). However, I could well be wrong, and in that case, the argument becomes quite clever and potentially hugely complicating. Dealing with it would mean that you would have to investigate what changing the documents would actually imply. How hard would it be, for example, to change them so that they only mention "the clerk', and not the clerk's name? Is such a document still legal? If it isn't, what steps could be taken to legalise it? Before you know it, you are up to your chin in a skew of legal tangles, each and every one of which takes you further away from what you thought the case is actually about.   

These two aspects make this case much more complex than it at first seems. Ultimately, I think the writers of the article quoted above are quite right. Issues such as these are galvanising. Moreover, they are often also just damned difficult.

Meanwhile, various candidates for the Republican nomination have come out to support Davis. These include people such as Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and (rather surprisingly) Rand Paul. None of them seem to appreciate the complexities of the case; all of them appear, instead, to want to capitalise on what is a fairly difficult situation. Gosh - who would have thought?   

*****

ADDENDUM: The above article was written on Sunday, September 6th. Today, August 8th, Davis was released from prison. The judge stated that he was satisfied that the County Clerk's Office was complying with the law and issuing licenses to everyone who requested them (including the original gay couple who has been turned away by Davis). If, the judge stated, Davis were to interfere in any way with the issuing of such licenses, he would take further steps.  

If nothing else, the judge's action today has shown that putting Davis in jail in the first place was not such a good idea.

_______

(*) Why impeachment? Because Davis is not an ordinary employee of the state of Kentucky. Instead, she's an elected offical. As such, she can't be fired; she can, however, be impeached. 

The Fight for the White House: Trump's Up

*****

We are legion!

A few days ago, I wrote and briefly posted a short article on Jeb Bush. It wasn't quite right. I then replaced it with a somewhat longer article dealing with Trump (or, rather, on how he might lose the Republican primary race). And that wasn't quite right either.

Hmm. Why am I struggling?

I've given it a bit of thought, and I think the simple reason is that, like many others, I wasn't really sure why Trump is doing so well, or why Bush is doing so badly.

In the last few days, though, I do feel that some things have become a little clearer.

So let me try again.

________

The first Republican debate was held in the beginning of August. Just about everybody expected it to be, in some shape or form, a Trump show. And of course,  that's just what it was.

However, I, for one, hadn't expected Trump to do so badly. I thought then (and still do) that he preformed horrendously. I don't believe he gave a single answer (or made a single comment) which was in any way factually correct or, if it was, which was in any way appealing. 

And yet, from that moment on, the Trump machine has kept rolling. His popularity has kept growing. To the surprise of many, his favourability rating have increased tremendously. He has, quite simply, gone from strength to strength.

Before the August debate, very few pundits were talking Trump seriously at all. By now, everybody is. Most will still tell you that Trump has little or no chance of actually winning the nomination, but that's a different story. Trump is in this race, he's ahead, and he's not going anywhere soon. He's not some amusing distraction; he's real.

But why? He's not a true conservative at all. He's not Cruz, fighting for "religious liberty". He's not Santorum, with his extraordinarily odd views on abortion and women's rights. He's not Huckabee; he's not Perry. He's not Walker or Bush. In fact, in many ways, he shouldn't really be in this race at all. If you look at what the GOP has, in the years since Reagan, become, you realise that Trump just doesn't fit at all.

Yes, he is a loud-mouthed populist, but that just doesn't seem to explain all that much. As I said earlier, voters might at first find that refreshing, but after a little while, they'll realise it isn't enough. Once they start listening to what he says, and not how he says it, they'll scratch their heads and walk away.

Except that they're not doing that. Why?

Well, I'm beginning to think that the current views the GOP has - on conservatism, on religion and on just about every other "holy" aspect of Republicanism - aren't quite right. I'm beginning to think that the GOP may, in fact, be barking up the wrong tree. And I feel that Trump is making this apparent.

And it's not just Trump, either. You might wish to add Ben Carson to the mix, or Carly Fiorina.

Take, for example, a recent Iowa poll. Trump came in at 23%. But so did Carson. And Fiorina came third with a very respectably 10%. What does that mean? Well, it simply means that no less than 56% of those polled did not  support a Republican politician; instead, they supported a non-politician. And just to be clear, the people polled were "likely Republican caucus voters". The people polled were, essentially, the Republican electorate in that state.  

And the majority of them did not back their own politicians.

In another poll, again conducted in Iowa recently, 75% of likely Republican voters also said that they didn't like  the way Republicans were handling Congress. Republicans politicians hold majorities in both the House and the Senate, but three out of four likely Republican voters just don't like what they're doing.

Now of course these are just polls; they're more or less spur-of-the-moment things. In six months time, in a year's time, all the polls will have changed.

Nevertheless, what these two polls show is that the GOP is doing a terrible job. There's no other way to put it.  And what they also show is that voters - Republican voters - aren't all too happy to hop onto any of the readily available "conservative" bandwagons available. They're not rushing to any of the "real" conservative candidates out there, no matter how vehemently those candidates all profess to pray at the conservative altar. Instead, these voters are reaching out to outsiders, to people like the brash Trump, or, alternatively, the seemingly mild-mannered Carson.

And the reason for this is, it seems to me,  ultimately simple. The current conservative message of the GOP might well be of some importance, but it's not what voters are looking for. What voters are looking for, is someone who will Get Things Done. It doesn't matter if those things are all honest-to-God truly conservative; it doesn't matter if they are all religiously conformist; it doesn't even matter if taxes will never be raised again or if the size of the federal government is drastically reduced. All these things are secondary (or tertiary) at best. 

What matters first and foremost is that Things Get Done. What matters is Thomas Jefferson, and Reagan, and Eisenhower. And not so much Walker, or Perry, or Cruz. 

Republican voters are looking for a real and strong answer to the Democratic challenge. What they're not looking for is some sort of distorted and distasteful version of their own message, thrown in their face in the name of endless Grover Norquist tax pledges, or an ultimately suffocating concept of "religious liberty". 

To advance a conservative message, you don't have to be a radical conservative. In fact, radical conservatism is not advancing anything; it is, instead, self-destructive.

If the GOP doesn't recognise this, and if their politicians do not recognise this, they are in very real trouble indeed. They're going to get trumped big time.

Having said this, I do realise that what I'm saying goes against the grain of just about every other pundit's comments out there. 

Hmm. Perhaps that's why I was struggling.

   

The Fight For the White House: The Gortz Haus Controversy

*****

Have a look at this:

The couple Ted Cruz is talking to in this video are Betty and Richard Odgaard. The Odgaards are (or perhaps I should say: were) proprietors of Görtz Haus.

Görtz Haus was a bistro, art gallery and event venue in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. When it came to events, it mainly "hosted weddings", an activity it was well suited to, given that the building had been (and still retained a lot of the characteristics of) a church.   

In 2013, the Odgaards were approached by Lee Stafford and Jared Ellers, who wanted to hire the venue. The Odgaards, however, turned them down on the grounds that Stafford and Ellers were a same-sex couple and that, given their Mennonite faith, they had objections to gay marriages.

Stafford and Ellers promptly filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Not to be outdone, the Odgaards in turn filed a petition with a district court in Iowa, requesting the court to declare that they had not violated the Iowan Civil Rights Act and had not discriminated against Stafford and Ellers on the basis of sexual orientation.

The court dismissed their petition, stating that the Commission would have to give its ruling before the court could be involved. The Odgaards appealed against this with the Iowa Supreme Court, but before that court could rule on the matter the case was settled out of court. The settlement effectively meant that the Odgaards paid out $ 5,000 to Stafford and Ellers; in turn, the complaint lodged with the Civil Rights Commission was withdrawn.

In 2007, the Iowa Civil Rights Act was passed, which meant that from that moment on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation was prohibited. In 2009, same-sex marriages became legal in Iowa.

Back to the video.

In it, Cruz refers to Görtz Haus as a "church". He also refers to the Odgaards actions as "refusing to allow to host a gay wedding" at this church.

The first claim is certainly false. Görtz Haus was not a church. It used to be, but when the Odgaards bought the property, it had lost its religious function. It was a privately owned but publicly accessible property that the Odgaards used for their own commercial endeavours; these endeavours were, however, to a certain extent shaped by their personal religious beliefs. 

The second claim is misleading at the least. After all, what does "hosting a wedding" actually mean? Well, in this case, we know what it didn't mean. We know, more specifically, that Stafford and Ellers did not wish to be married at Görtz Haus. They had, in fact, already wed elsewhere before they contacted the Odgaards. In other words, their desire was merely to host a party or ceremony to celebrate that fact.

This immediately makes the case very different to what Cruz is insinuating in the video. If, after all, Görtz had still been a church (a Mennonite church, say), it could of course have refused to conduct a gay wedding based on the principles of that church's faith. I do not believe that anyone would wish to dispute that.

If, alternatively, Görtz was simply a commercial enterprise open to the public (which indeed it  was), but had been requested to host the actual wedding (a wedding that would therefore be conducted on the premises), the question that arises is whether the Odgaards could be required to facilitate or accommodate that wedding in spite of the fact that it was contrary to their religious beliefs.

That question is, frankly, not an easy one to answer, since there are clearly two strong principles involved which clash. Furthermore it's basically an issue which would have to be decided on the basis of Iowan law, so that even if a clear answer could be given, its impact would be limited to that state.

Nonetheless, a few comments can be made. Firstly, the fact that same-sex marriages are legal in Iowa (and have been since 2009) obviously means that the Odgaards could not have refused to host a gay wedding simply on the grounds that such weddings were prohibited under the law.

More complicated are the provisions of the Civil Rights Act, as amended in 2007. The Act states that it is a discriminatory practice "for any proprietor (...) of any public accommodation (...) [t]o refuse or deny to any person because of (...) sexual orientation, the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges thereof". That seems reasonably clear, but it should be understood that, at the same time as this clause was added (2007) the Act also  stated that nothing in it could be construed as allowing same-sex marriage. (Remember: at that time same-sex marriages were not yet allowed; that only changed in 2009.)

So the argument could be made (and was in fact made by the Odgaards' lawyers) that the Act's intent must be that the refusal to participate in or accommodate a same-sex marriage cannot on its own constitute a sexual orientation discrimination.

Such an argument (and there are others) might be plausible. I am not at all certain the Odgaards would have prevailed, but it seems to me that they would, at the least, have had a reasonable case. And even if it's still rather iffy from a legal standpoint, it seems morally acceptable to me.

The thing is, though, we'll never know. As I said, the Odgaards weren't asked to actually facilitate in or accommodate a same-sex marriage; they were only asked to rent their property to a gay couple who had already gotten married and now wanted to hold a party (or ceremony) for friends and family. And in any case, the Odgaards withdrew their lawsuit and settled the matter before the courts could give a substantive ruling on the issues.  

So, what are we left with here? Well, fairly little, really. We are left with a fledgling lawsuit that never hatched and a very modest settlement that couldn't really have hurt anyone, including the Odgaards. We are hardly left with, as Cruz states portentously, "an incredible journey fighting to defend religious liberty".

*****

A few final words. In the video, the Odgaards are clearly depicted as victims. They stood up for their religious beliefs, and now, the video suggests, they have had to close down their business.

One wonders, however, whether the Odgaards are perhaps playing the victim card too vigorously.

Firstly, it seems they view themselves a little too optimistically. "I would never discriminate in any area", Betty Odgaard at one point told a local TV station, "that's not who I am". But clearly they had done just that against Stafford and Ellers. The question is not whether their actions were discriminatory, the question is whether such discriminatory action should in some instances be accepted on the grounds of religious conviction. Either the Odgaards do not quite understand this, or they are being purposefully abstruse.

Secondly, their decision to close down the "hosting of weddings" was a decision they made themselves, and it was one they made surprisingly readily. As I understand it, they had had just this one single complaint lodged against them in the period from 2009 through 2013, and no more. And that complaint never reached fruition, since neither the Civil Rights Commission nor the courts gave final substantive rulings. Nevertheless, they still decided to stop hosting all weddings and then decided to close Görtz Haus altogether. 

It is, of course, possible that public opinion had turned against them to such an extent that they simply didn't have enough costumers left; if that, however, was the case, then it clearly shows that it was time they started doing something else anyway; their "incredible journey" is nothing more than evidence of a failing business model. 

If, alternatively, that were not the case, their course of action seems to be a rather odd rush to victimhood.

The Fight for the White House: The First Debates

*****

Hurrah! The first Republican debates!

And it a fun format, too!

First off, we had The Kiddie Table, where those candidates who didn't really manage to register in the polling at all could happily pretend that they were all grown up and important. And they really did their best, appearing dressed up in fine clothing and wearing their most serious faces and appearing to be as presidential as any toddler might possibly be.

The Trumpster

And to be fair, there were some rather good toddlers there, too. In fact, they almost all performed rather well. As kiddies go, they were well-mannered and pretty convincing. If you were looking for youthful abrasiveness and puerile fisticuffs, look elsewhere.

And The Kiddie Table also had a real winner. It wasn't Jindal, or Santorum, or even Perry. Instead, it was (surprise!) Carly Fiorina. She, more than any of the others, came across as calm, assured, and quite in command of the situation.

Of course, this was the Kiddie Table, and the questions asked of her and the others weren't too difficult.  She wasn't, for example, asked about her time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, which ended with her forced resignation at a time when HP's debts had dramatically increased and its stocks had lost about half their value (gulp).  She faced no such hurdles and, whilst I do believe that she deserves more attention than she has been getting, it is also true to point out that further time on stage may not prove to be quite as flattering.

One final remark when it comes to the kiddies, just for fun. At the end, when making his closing arguments, Santorum happily stated that "you don't have seven children unless you're optimistic about this country." What he didn't mention, however, was that he is opposed to birth control, going as far as to decry a 1965 Supreme Court ruling (Griswold v. Connecticut) that struck down a ban on the use of contraception by married couples. Now, if having seven kids was a matter of choice, rather than a consequence of  simply having sex, wouldn't that sort of derail his own principles a bit? Ah well, never mind... It was the Kiddie Table, after all.

Did I mention abrasiveness and fisticuffs? I did, didn't I? Well, we got those too. The thing is, though, that all that happened at the Grown-Up Table, where the we got to watch how a real kid operates. And not a cute kid, or a smart one. Oh no, we got the best possible viewing imaginable: the spoilt and silly kid, getting justifiably wackamoled and becoming increasingly contrary and, as a result, amusing.

The kid's name is, of course, Donald Trump, and what an extraordinary mixture of thick-headedness and bullying he decided to display! It really was something to behold.  It seemed he was trying to be tough-talking and anti-establishment; in doing so, he only managed to prove that he is the very epitome of everything most conservative voters hate. I gave money to politicians, he stated proudly, and they did what I asked. I used the law and had companies declared bankrupt, and I made loads of money, even as hundreds of employees lost their jobs. I flip-flopped all over the place - that's just how versatile I am!

In short (the message appeared to be) I buy people to do what I want. I sack people because it makes me richer. I abuse others and am proud of it. I have no principles at all, except the principle of me.

There are those out there who support Trump because, as they put it, he "says it like it is". That's fine, and  these people will probably flock towards the Trumpster in even greater numbers after the debate. Those, however, who were actually listening to what he says, instead of how he says things, might find (now or in the near future) that they do not like him at all. I know that if I were a god-fearing, conservative, principled American, I would absolutely loathe everything Trump stands for.

Of course, to make things all the more hilarious, he then went on to attack one of the moderators in a series of after-debate tweets where he petulantly complained the moderator just wasn't "nice".

It was all vintage stuff, really. And it really makes you wonder what Trump is actually up to. To paraphrase the Big Mac: he can't be serious...

As for the rest at the Grown-Up table? Well, there's not much to say, really. They hung in there, with varying degrees of success. No-one really shone (although some needed to); no-one bombed (except, to my mind at least, perhaps Carson). It remains quite surprising - even inexplicable - how tentative and uncertain Jeb Bush seems to be, but in the end, I'm not sure it really matters.

After all, when all the Trumpness has (alas!) blown away, Bush may yet emerge, Romney-esque, as the Anointed One, and there may be little that the likes of Walker or Rubio can do about it.

Could it turn out differently? Of course, but we'll have to see.

The next debate will be on September 16th.

The Republican Gang, Part Eleven

"A gaffe," the journalist Michael Kinsley said, "is when a politician tells the truth."

That's nice and pithy, but not quite the whole story. Kinsley himself elaborated: "A gaffe (...) is when a politician tells the truth - or more precisely, when he or she accidentally reveals something truthful about what is going on in his or her head. A gaffe is what happens when the spin breaks down."

And more often than not, a gaffe is when the politician tells you something that plays straight to the heart of a pre-existing perception that that politician has been trying to repudiate (or perhaps, as in the case of Sarah Palin, refudiate).

****

Romney has had his share of awkward comments along the way. Some of them have simply been the result of unfortunate phrasing, such as his statement that "corporations are people, too." Some have only become awkward because they were taken totally out of context, such as his assertion that he "likes to fire people". (What he really said was: "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say, 'I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.'" )

I suppose you could, at a stretch, classify such comments as gaffes. But they are hardly damning. Insofar that they tap into any pre-existing perception - well, that perception isn't one that he needs to toss aside. Corporations are people, in the sense that any money flowing into them ends up in the pockets of those working for the corporations. I really can't see anyone getting worked up about that. And yes, most of us would agree that it's a good thing to be able to get rid of those who provide bad services, and go and find someone else.

Some comments have, however, been quite horrible.

For me, the one that sticks to mind is his "poor" statement. The comment, in full, is:

"I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling, and I'll continue to take that message across the nation."

What is so absolutely wrong with this statement is the idea that you don't have to worry about the "very poor", because there's a "safety net". You can lump them into the same category as the very rich - there's really no need to get your knickers in a twist about either of these groups of people, since they're doing just fine.

Anyone who really thinks - as Romney clearly does - that there's no need to worry about the very poor is off his rocker. You don't necessarily have to be all too sympathetic to the poor to understand this: we are talking about a group of people who, quite simply, burden society greatly. They do that simply by virtue of their poverty, by crime, by lack of education. The question of how to tackle this is an important one, and one that has worried politicians, economists and sociologists for many, many years. To say that you're not even aware that there is a problem in the first place is a very, very dubious comment indeed.

Again, though, I'm not quite sure how comfortably the comment fits into the "gaffe" mould. If Romney were asked the same question today, he'd probably reply in more or less the same manner. He'd probably reiterate the "safety net" idea, and the fact that, in his mind, enough has been done to help the poor. And whilst this might be true for me, I doubt most of you would be up in arms at such new comments, certainly not if they were phrased a little more delicately.

****

Yesterday, however, we were suddenly treated to the real thing. Suddenly, and quite out of nowhere, a real gaffe jumped straight out of our TV's and bit us on the nose.

It wasn't just surprising, it was ironic, too.

After all, yesterday was Romney's Big Day of Fun. He'd just won Illinois; he'd finally gotten his big win in the Midwest. A 12% victory over that yapping weasel scoundrel, Santy something. Take that, Michigan! Take that, Ohio! And then Jeb Bush - oh, endorsement of endorsements!

What a glorious day! To stand there in the spring sun, radiant and strong! To suckle the sweet, sweet milk of victory! To -

And, then, of course, someone squeaked "Etch a Sketch". And it all came tumbling down.

****

The guy who squeaked was Eric Fernstrom, a top Romney adviser. And he wasn't really squeaking. Instead, he was, quite calmly and reasonably, answering a journalist's question.

"Is there a concern that the pressure from Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to attach so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?" the journalist asked hopefully.

And Fehrstrom obligingly answered:

"Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."

A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. Fehrstrom might not actually be a politician (I guess it's up for debate), but he certainly spoke the truth. Perfectly, in fact. His remark summed up the Romney problem in a way that left everyone hugely impressed. This, for example, was posted on Redstate:

"We’ve been at a loss to encapsulate our opposition into a one-liner; a bumper sticker. After all, it takes copious pages of ink to explain the extent of Romney’s hypocrisy on the issue of healthcare alone. Yet, late in the 11th hour of the campaign, when it’s probably too late to make a difference, we have finally discovered our symbol that exemplifies Romney."

And Gingrich, too, praised Fehrstrom, remarking that "a more perfect illustration" for why people distrusted Romney could not be found.

A gaffe, more often than not, is when a politician tells you something that plays straight to the heart of a pre-existing perception - a perception that the politician has been trying to repudiate. Again, Fehrstrom was spot on: in one simple image, he succinctly and precisely painted the cage Romney has been trapped in all through this race.

****

And so, in just about any way that counts, we have the almost perfect gaffe. The most gaffysome of all gaffes. The grotesque grandfather of all gaffyness. The -

No, wait.

Perhaps not.

When you think about it, there is another aspect to the great gaffe. It's so obvious that it's never really mentioned, but it's there all the same. It's this: for a gaffe to truly work, the truth it reveals must have been hidden. It must be one of those awkward, unwanted truths, something you've long since swept under the carpet by the time the neighbours come calling. And when they do, you can give them soothing beverages and canapés, and they'll not notice the bulgy shape in the corner.

When you think about it, that's where the Fehrstrom gaffe falls flat. That's why, as gaffes go, it's basically dead as a doornail. The simple fact of the matter is that it didn't reveal anything we didn't already know about Romney. Nada, zilch, and all that.

Surely no-one can be truly surprised by Fehrstrom's comment? Surely everyone who has been following this contest - even if only half-heartedly - would immediately realise that Fehrstrom was not inadvertently digging up some well-buried secret, but simply reconfirming an evident truth?

What is ultimately surprising about the whole incident is not what Fehrstrom said, but how Republicans have reacted to it. They seem to have seriously been considering Romney as a conservative. A conservative Republican, the new improved kind of conservative Republican - the kind all good people dream about when they huddle up at night under their US flag duvets and think Pure Thoughts after - well, after having not been so very good.

For them, perhaps, there may be a real gaffe here. For ordinary people, though, not so much.

For ordinary people, the truth, as revealed by Fehrstrom, is not only self-evident, it is welcome, too. 

Yes, Romney will be able to hit a reset button.

In fact, they're counting on it.