GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, January 27, 2016

In the news.

Welcome to the News. I’m Eric McDaniel. I’m Jim Henson. So this week we want to spend

some time talking about the campaign and some more interesting develops have happen in the state of Texas. But

one of the first things coming up is because the Iowa caucuses is about a week away. We

have some major news in regards to the Democratic Party and their candidates, as

well as what’s going on with Republican Party. So the Democrats had a town hall meeting earlier this week

and we saw basically we see Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders kind of scoring off

against each other, tried to differentiate their different styles. We should mention that Martin O’Malley,

the mayor, former governor of Maryland or governor, former governor, Maryland mayor of Baltimore, was there.

But we do have a clip of that debate that we can sort of

hear what happened between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And what this is, is

a compendium of an exchange between things that both Clinton and

Sanders said on the subject of the Iraq war vote, which has been a major

point of differentiation between Clinton and Sanders. So let’s let’s see what they had to say

in this compendium that moves back and forth, because the town hall format had all each

of them interacting with the audience by themselves in, I think, half hour, 45 minute

segments. Most significant vote

and issue regarding foreign policy that we have seen in this country

in modern history was the vote on the war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton voted

for the war in Iraq. First of all, I have a much longer history than

one vote, which I’ve said was a mistake. Experience is important,

but judgment is also important. But I think the American public has seen me

exercising judgment in a lot of other ways. So what you see here is they’re both trying to differentiate

themselves in many ways. This is similar to what you saw in 2008 where Hillary

Clinton campaigned on the fact that, you know, she can get things done. She has experience. But the problem was

her her background experience being first lady. And so people were like, how much of this is you? How

much of this president was Obama talking more about? You know, I’m more ideologically aligned.

And so you see this coming back again where you have a clear water, Xingu say as much

more move. Bernie Sanders is much more ideological than Obama, while Obama is being painted as very liberal.

He was not as liberal. He’ll make him out to be. Bernie Sanders is as liberal as you know. They point

him out to be. But Hillary Quinn is like, look, you know, ideologic. I mean, I’m in line with you. But my

thing is we have to get things done. And I have made decisions. I have a record fall back on. And

yes, there are some parts of my record that aren’t shining me to say it. But Bernie Sanders also the same thing with

regards to guns. So Jim, was always your take on this? Well, I thought it was really interesting in the sense

that all of the candidates did pretty well, including poor Martin O’Malley.

Sanders in particular strikes me as such an unlikely but likeable

candidate. I mean, the first thing he said when he walked out there, the crowds applauded him and

he sits down and he says, well, you know, my my wife says I should button my jacket, but I’m too fat.

And he just left. I was pretty great moment. And I think overall, it was an interesting

contrast in tone. And Hillary Clinton was very quick to point this out between what’s going on

in the Democratic debate, where they’re competitive and there’s been some negative ads.

But at the same time, it’s remained reasonably policy focused reasonably

about contrasts between the candidates, which is very different from what we’ve seen in

the Republican campaign. Yes. Where we’re seeing kind of the fireworks being being set off again,

but we’re seeing endorsements beginning are beginning to roll out. So last week, the endorsement started

with with Donald Trump, where he received the endorsement of former Governor Sarah Palin,

former vise president candidate Sarah Palin and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But he

also receive some support from the from the evangelical community

where Jerry Falwell, Junior, the worst president of Liberty University, endorsed him. And I

supported note. Liberty University is where Ted Cruz launched his campaign and made people

argue that Ted Cruz was the was the frontrunner when it came to

the evangelical vote. And so to see this is very interesting considering, you know,

Trump’s gaffe last week when speaking at liberty, but still being able to get a prominent evangelical leader

to endorse him. He may maybe two Corinthians, but he’s number one at liberty

or they keep. Yes, OK. So and then over on the on the on the Cruz side,

Cruz also has rolled out some endorsements. Those a little bit of an endorsement deficit.

Sarah Palin is such a personality in the Republican Party. Of course, Palin endorses

Trump. And you immediately get a Saturday Night Live skit out of it. Tina Fey returns to Saturday Night Live

for young people. Probably don’t care about that. But you know, those of us safely ensconced

in middle age. You know, this means something. But more interesting. In Texas,

Ted Cruz rolled out an endorsement from former Governor Rick Perry,

which is an interesting dynamic. Rick Perry is a guy who was the longest serving

governor in Texas, of course, has not been very successful as a presidential candidate.

But Perry’s an interesting surrogate for Cruz, even though Cruz in many ways

is is a different generation of Texas Republican than Perry. So let’s listen to some of the things that Perry

had to say about Cruz as he explained the endorsement on the Fox Business Network

earlier this week. But but do you think he can win a general election? Oh, absolutely.

I think so. When you look at Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, whoever the Democrats are

going to put forward. There is clearly a time for the American people

to take a look at this and say, listen, this is the vision, this is what we want. A an American is safe. We

want an America that’s back economically. Principle. We want a country that does

allow these states to be competitors. And Ted Cruz, that great believer

and quite knowledgeable man of the Constitution, believes in the 10th Amendment.

Now, Perry’s a great surrogate for the Tenth Amendment. And that’s been one of the four talking about

the 10th Amendment. It’s been a big theme for Cruz. Perry actually wrote a book about it in advance

of his last campaign called Fed Up. And the title of the book

really does underline how Perry in some ways did seem like somebody who was

riding this wave of discontent. We’re hearing so much about now, Perry, of course,

never, ever quite figured out. But I wanted to impress you because my Rick Perry book is signed

and you can’t really see it says to Jim. Freedom, exclamation point, Rick Perry.

Now, the true story is I didn’t get that sign myself, somebody. It was a gift, but still

it’s a military freedom. The man does believe in freedom. And I mean, the Tenth Amendment is really big

in the state of Texas. One of the things people have argued is when it comes to the state of Texas, that

they really focus hard on being the trumpeter for other states.

Some would say the Tea Party states because of its size and economic strength for really pushing back

on the 10th Amendment. You see a lot of this in terms of more most recently with the

battle regarding housing discrimination in the Supreme Court dealt with over the summer. Also, the fights

with the EPA and in Texas against Texas is unique in the sense that no matter who’s

in power, the Texas Texas gonna fight the federal government because, you know, it wasn’t independent

nation. There’s a lot in Texas about the idea of kind of individual liberties and states

rights. Texas is kind of one one to say to the forefront of this because of its prominence

in terms of its population as well as its economic prowess. It’s

really taken the lead on those issues. And if you think about what we said last week, we talked

about this Texas plan that Governor Abbott has been has been pushing is a lot of continuity

between that Perry’s endorsement, Cruz’s constitutional thought

and his emphasis on states rights. And there’s a sense

of trying to grab that terrain in Iowa as the caucuses are coming up in those

caucuses. We’ve been talking about him for a long time for those that that follow politics. And those are coming

up Monday. So maybe should explain the caucuses a little bit. Yes, caucuses a little bit a

little bit more in-depth than you see in regular primaries. So

caucuses actually, you don’t actually go in the voting booth and vote leap,

but you actually do as you sit there, you talk. And so as we see in a slide, it’s put forward. So

the Democratic caucuses, you have the voters divided, the groups, smaller groups.

So they don’t need it need a minimum size. They combine with groups that favor one of the more popular candidates.

And then for me from there, the delegates for each caucus are then divided proportionally. And so

it’s it’s kind of a way of working. It’s working itself up. It’s much more the

supporters having a conversation amongst each other and say, okay, who here’s what we’re gonna support in forming these groups.

And so it’s much more it requires much more work. Now, think about this

because requires much more work. You have a lower turnout in caucuses and that that can become a bit of a drawback.

Now, the Democratic, the Democratic, a little bit more complicated. The Republicans also have again, also

have the same caucus, which you have surrogates not being highly involved in this process.

But it was important to point out when we talked about the caucuses that it’s different than what you see going on in the primary.

Now, Texas is interesting, the sense that it has a primary and caucus with the idea

being that the all people can participate in the caucus are those who voted in the primary. So

the club gets referred to the Texas two step, which became very big and very important in 2008.

You know, they’re talking about phasing it out. And because it was so complicated in

folks went into that into that caucus of the into the the two step process.

Hillary Clinton had won the primary vote, but Barack Obama wound up winning

the the actual more delegates because they were more organized for this caucus phase,

which requires more organization, because you have people speaking for the candidates, in

a sense, showing up for the caucuses and trying to persuade others. So that’s why as you as you

see the coverage of Iowa, everybody’s talking about organization and ground game in Iowa. That’s

why caucuses really require this. Another aspect of Iowa really quickly that people talk

about is Iowa’s overall impact on the on

the primary process and whether it should be as big. And one of the arguments is that Iowa

doesn’t much look like the rest of the United States. So if we look at

the characteristics of Iowa, particularly demographics compared to the United States, much smaller

black and Hispanic population. And that’s really the thing that people emphasize

right now. Iowa actually has a somewhat lower unemployment rate than the country over. Rawle.

Nonetheless, this the differences in demographics, particularly racial and ethnic demographics,

have made people call Iowa into question. And I think there’s another dynamic now being

added to that because it looks like there’s a possibility that Bernie Sanders

and Ted Cruz or even, you know, Donald Trump in this context could win Iowa. So much

of the discussion that’s been going on in elite circles and the parties have been about whether

they should really take on Iowa and by extension also New Hampshire and and

kind of knock them out of that, that those early positions in the primary process. These arguments

are part of it. Now, we’re seeing it buttressed by the argument that if the process seems to cater

to candidates from the wings, that the far wings of the party. Maybe it should change. Yeah. And this has been

one of the major issues with primaries is the people most likely to vote in primaries are the extreme partisans.

And and the problem is you get the extreme partisans in Iowa and New

Hampshire, two states that don’t really look like the rest of the US. So

I think one study said that I think Ohio will most like the

rest of the US. And but the problem is that the Ohio primaries

much later on. And so the states that are much more reflective and probably have much more delegates, they get

pushed to the back. But the problem is the you when the first couple you get the ball rolling. Everybody sees you as a winner.

But the problem is you’re winning. You know, people who are kind of

minor states. Not that Iowa, New Hampshire, not important. They are extremely important state. And

get a lot of mail for that. Yes. But at the same time, these are states that don’t reflect

the larger population. And so they may be somewhat of anomalies as post as opposed

to the norm. They’re speaking to larger states. Texas was in the news this week

because of this, the Planned Parenthood case. Houston grand jury

had been examining the case of two active anti-abortion

activists that had gone and run these sort of stings

at different places in the country and Planned Parenthood facilities at different places in the country.

And the grand jury indictment had really many people thought been

the result or the grand jury investigation had been the result of pressure from the lieutenant governor,

whose purpose really was to get Planned Parenthood indicted for dealing illegally

in fetal tissue. And this has been a huge national political issue. Also made

The New York Times this week. This is the kind of thing The New York Times loves to have Texas in the news for.

But it’s a very unexpected outcome when the grand jury actually indicted the activists

rather than anybody at Planned Parenthood. Yeah, I mean, The New York Times only come to Texas for barbecue and been

talking about crazy stories when things go right in Texas were never in the news. This is important

because it really speaks to what we see coming out of the Fifth Amendment, which we’ll talk about some more. We

move on to sobriety, civil liberties. But the idea that, you know, when the grand jury met, it was to go over

all the facts and going over all the facts. They came to conclusion that Planned

Parenthood was had done nothing wrong. How ever the two individuals, the two activists

had committed fraud, which is a felony. So by using fake I.D., California fake California

I.D. But then also attempting to purchase

the leader of the two activists attempting to purchase human tissue. And in the

state of Texas, you don’t need to actually have set up a transaction. Just the attempt to

purchase it is a misdemeanor. So they have one felony. One misdemeanor.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. And again, as you as I think it’s important to point out, there’s still several other

cases dealing with Planned Parenthood right now pending in the state of Texas.

Yeah, well, what’s happened in some of the other parts of the country? The investigations

of Planned Parenthood in ten other states have been somewhat quietly shut down. Those were mainly

in states that have Republican governors in Texas. One of Governor Abbott’s first

responses was to say that we still have state investigations going on completely

aside from the grand jury. So I think we’re going to continue to see the politics

line up the way they do in Texas. It’s a very there’s a very strong partisan frame

here. Republicans were more likely to be have a negative view of Planned Parenthood

than Democrats. Democrats have a much higher view of Planned Parenthood than Republicans. When you

ask about approval. And we’ve done some polling on this at the U.T. Texas Tribune poll.

I think one thing that we are going to see, though, is that this is going to be seen as something

of a victory for Planned Parenthood. And while it probably won’t change Republican attitudes

very much, it will probably help shore up a little bit of the

deep. Recent Democratic approval we had seen for Planned Parenthood in the wake of all these accusations

that Planned Parenthood was allegedly dealing in fetal tissue, which

even if you’re pro-choice, has kind of a negative connotation. Yeah, this is really important. So

because you had the story a couple of years ago, the doctor and say in Pennsylvania, who was where an abortion clinic

was committing all kinds of atrocities. And for people who support you are pro-choice

as well as people who are pro-life. You know, you want to make sure that if this is being done, it’s being

done right. And even more so on the pro-choice side, because, you know, this is this something

that you’re sticking to and you want and you’re saying, no, this is a good thing, but you want to make sure it’s done right. And so

if you are going to support, you want to make sure that the people you are supporting are doing what what

you believe they’re doing. Yeah, a lot of does a lot of complexities in attitudes towards abortion.

Yeah. That’s when things will highlight is that as the class goes on. But for now, that’s all we

have. Enjoy your week and we’ll be here next week for the news.