GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, May 4, 2016

In the news.

Welcome in the news for American and Texas government. Eric McDaniel. And I’m Jim Henson. Well,

it’s great to see you all again for this last segment for the for the semester. One of things

want to start off with, as we start off with all semester long, the primaries. And so we’re starting

to see things shape up. The primary season has lasted longer than normal, but we’re starting to see things

shape up. The group, the Democratic side, you see Bernie Sanders after having several losses

last week. It’s a big win in Indiana by capturing fifty two point five percent of the vote.

Yeah, it’s kind of a little probably too little too late, given that Hillary Clinton. They close

to split the delegates. They split the delegates. 43 for Sanders. Thirty seven for

Hillary Clinton. So it’s probably a little too little too late for for Bernie, nonetheless.

I’m sure the Clinton team would really have just prefer that they’d been able to just win

this clean, come in in first place in this and get the kind of scenario that we’re seeing over

on the other side. Yes. So now if you go to the other side, well, we see the big winner is Donald

J. The J stands for Fantastic Trump, who captured fifty

three point three percent of the vote in Indiana, followed by Ted Cruz with thirty six point six

percent. And I’m never giving you up, John Casey with seven point six percent

of the vote. One thing I can say about John Casey is he ain’t a quitter. And the big

news there is, you know, that basically Trump got all of the delegates

and that was really the sign for Trump. I think that it was over. So if we

go and we look at the delegate count in both of these races, Donald Trump,

a very good lead right now. All the talk that we’ve been discussing, the brokered convention,

we’ve gone back and forth about that, looking less and less likely. Now, Trump breaks a thousand

last night. He’s just a little over needs just a little over two hundred to go.

And there’s still, you know, several you know, a few hundred delegates left. So Trump is

in very good shape. Cruz saw the writing on the wall. And I think, you know, we can talk about the

Cruz dropping out and what that means on the day on the Democratic side looks closer than it is.

And if you look at the pledged delegate count, Clinton holds a

sizable but not insurmountable lead. But then when you plug in the super delegates, which we’ve talked about

over and over again, you hear those Democratic Party officials to get to to pledge

to whoever they want. You know, Hillary Clinton has something like five times

as many or nine, 10 times more than 10 times as many super delegates as clear

as Bernie has. And so it’s that’s just going to be almost impossible

to overcome. And so after a semester of talking about this and looking at the back

and forth, even though Bernie Sanders is still in it, Casey is still in it. The general election is taking

shape. And it’s going to be Donald J. Trump versus Hillary Clinton. Yeah, I mean, one point

one thing is important to note is that Sanders has he’s kind of said, look, there’s a good chance I’m not going to win.

But one of things he’s pushing for is really for why there he

is. Clinton, the Sanders supporters were attacking the superdelegates, saying you’re going to steal this election from us

or steal this primary from us. Now they’re realizing the only way they can really win

is by giving superdelegates. So it’s gone from kicking and punching and pulling your hair to, hey,

let’s go for a nice romantic dinner. And so it’s one these weird things where Bernie

supporters have gone from, as we pointed out a couple weeks ago with the whenever the delegate hitless.

But it was basically a dug at call list where they’re calling up the delegates, yelling at the delegates for not supporting Bernie.

Now they’re saying, oh, baby, I’m sorry. Let’s go out for a nice dinner.

You know, K.A. and, you know, look at the moon light together. Let me show you how much I love you.

So, you know, put awesome Teddy Pendergrass in the back. You know, come and go with me. Come on over to my place

again. If you don’t know that song, your parents do. That’s why you’re here. All right. But

again, you’re seen as kind of bipolar thing is realizing the delegates got the hardest.

Now we need the delegates. So it’s kind of going back and forth is one of the things that’s really

important to pay attention to as we’re seeing really the Sanders campaign trying to save this

release, try to get a contested convention at the minimum. And the big news coming out of last night, of course, as it is, is, is

the results came in and it became clear that Trump was going to route Cruz in Indiana and

Cruz was going to get zero delegates out of it. Ted Cruz announced that he was dropping out. And I think it’s an interesting

contrast between Cruz and Sanders. Both of them have been billed as kind

of the ideological wings of their party. They’re there fighting the good fight. But Cruz’s decision

to get out is a pretty pragmatic decision. I mean, he could have taken the choice to look, I’m fighting

for the quote unquote, soul of the Republican Party. I hate that phrase because parties don’t really epistles.

But he might have said, I’m going to fight the good fight. I’m going to stay because it’s important.

Define the party as a truly conservative party. Instead, he’s, you know, he said discretion is the

better part of honor. And he’s getting out. And Sanders has not quite done that, despite

intense pressure to do so. Yeah, I mean, Bernie is going to America’s the

you know, the burn’s going gonna stay there for a while. So. Yeah.

And obesity’s you would have the Ted Cruz comes back to Texas too. I mean, Ted Cruz. I mean, I think one thing

that you do get from there, I don’t think is anybody that doesn’t expect Ted Cruz to come back in 2020

no matter who wins the general election. And so he’ll come back to Texas.

He’ll retake his his Senate seat. He’s still got two years left in that term, more or less.

He’s going to get not exactly a hero’s reception when he goes back to the Senate, where he’s

been very unpopular already and spent his presidential campaign thumping on his talking trash

about his thumping his former colleagues. But he’s going to go back nonetheless. And I think he’ll he’s

likely to run for reelection because he’s going to need a platform for both fundraising and

for running for office. Is he? I mean, I think the 20 20 campaign starts tomorrow, basically.

So for him. Yeah. I mean, so what I think we need to point out about Ted Cruz

is that he’s had a horrible, god awful no good week. So as soon

as we finished taping on Wednesday, we found out that he had announced Carly Fiorina

as his running mate, which is a little bit odd considering he wasn’t the nominee yet. But he picked

he picked a running mate. Carly Fiorina. Well, we knew things are gonna start

out poorly because I think in the first speech she gave that that she gives part of

the Cruz campaign. She falls off the stage and Ted Cruz doesn’t notice it.

That becomes problematic. Then as it goes in Indiana, things just go from bad

to worse to God awful to. Oh, Lord, please pray for him. So

he goes to Indiana. The Hoosier State, which is known for basketball and it stands

on a basketball court and refers to a basketball hoop as a basketball ring.

Strike one. Then things got even worse. Like the way you

mixed in the baseball metaphor, the basketball story. Yes, right.

Yeah. And then he missed the extra point. The extra point

and was sensible. Penny. Penalty box. Then after that, he was at a rally

and a 10 year old walked up and started heckling him, yelled out, you suck.

And a 10 year old was escorted out by himself. So from what we could tell, the 10 year old walked into the rally

by himself, heckled Ted Cruz by himself and left by

himself. It’s a great it’s a great illustration of how Cruz was like sort of a reduced

version of all the action on the Trump side. You know, it’s a bad scene, but over at the Trump Valley, at the Trump

rallies, you’re getting fistfights and people going after it. At the Ted Cruz rally. It’s a 10 year

old hit next squirted out by security. Yes, it’s it’s it’s pretty rough.

He gets in to a largely shouting match in a debate with a Trump supporter

who’s like, get out of here. Indiana doesn’t want you. We just referred to a man in sunglasses.

But I think the the example of you are the guy at high school nobody likes

is when somebody said, Senator Cruz, Senator Cruz, I want to shake your hand. Ted Cruz reaches out his hand.

The guy walks out his hand. And just as they’re about to shake to slow, Joe ever told him

he looks like a fish monster. That was just how the people of Indiana treated

him. Let’s get to how Donald Trump treated him. Yeah. Donald

Trump. Well, let’s just roll some let’s roll some sound here. And, you know, his father

was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being

shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What what what is this? Right prior to his being shot and

nobody even brings it up. I mean, they don’t even talk about that. That was reported and nobody talks

about it. But I think it’s horrible. I think it’s absolutely horrible that a man could go and do

that. What he’s saying. So, you know, your week is going bad when people were telling you your daddy helped kill JFK.

Well, remember, he’s also being accused of being the Zodiac killer. Right. That’s

the other meme from the week. So his wife had to actually actively to finish saying, no, he’s not the Zodiac

killer. The Zodiac killer is a serial killer and in northern California.

But this is like 40 years ago or something like that. So. In the 70s. So, again,

Ted Cruz was not old enough to do that. But, hey, let’s blame Ted for everything.

So The National Enquirer is running a story with a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald and a man standing

next to leave. Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets. And they argue that

the man is Rafael Cruz. Ted Cruz’s father is a very active surrogate in the campaign.

Yes. And so his father’s been very active. His prospects are very political. He’s a minister.

And so he’s he’s very famous for his sermons, things of that nature.

But this has been. And so the problem is you can’t prove that wasn’t Cruz’s father

that was in there. But people like just because he was with it, I mean, it’s this idea

that he was with heart cause Lee Harvey Oswald, a few companies, he shot Kennedy.

He was part of it. That was his bad. Now, again, you

could tell it was given to Ted Cruz because then you could Ted Cruz’s response. So let’s roll that.

And he combines being a pathological liar. And I say pathological. I actually

think, Donald, if you, Huck, hook him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing

in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory. And he passed

the lie detector test each time. Whatever lie he’s telling it that minute, he believes it.

But the man is utterly a more let let let me finish this,

please. The man is utterly amoral and morality does not exist for him.

The presumptive candidate described by the by the runner up as a pathological liar

and a moral and a moral. And those are some of the nicer things he said. Really? He called him a serial

philanderer. You know, several other things. So this was really what the denouement of the

of the GOP race races looked like. That’s going to emerge with Donald Trump as

the Republican nominee unless something cataclysmic happens. But he’s on the glide path. Everyone’s

in the state of acceptance. But it was, you know, driven in part by the fact that

as Cruz emerged as an alternative, there were two things that I think were the predicate

for Cruz’s candidacy in his mind and his analysis of the world and in the Republican Party

that just didn’t really come true. One, that there was this huge groundswell of ideological

conservatives out there that would come out of the woodworks to support his candidacy. And

second, that the Republican Party really is and should be a narrower

ideologically conservative party. Donald Trump has sort of given lie to both

of those. And it’ll be interesting now to see where Cruz goes next, not only

in Texas, but whether he tries to broaden his appeal. What happens. And of course, there is the fact that,

you know, many people were pointing out today, I think with some with varying degrees of gusto,

that Cruz’s unlike ability was one of his key problems. I mean, one might say

maybe there is a conservative groundswell out there. It’s just Ted Cruz can’t really get it. I think

there’s something to that. But the numbers suggest that there isn’t this broad base of conservatism,

at least in the way that Ted Cruz constructs it. Yeah, that there’s something else out there that

that Trump is mobilized that’s more broad and adjacent to that kind of conservatism, but not the same thing

as native. We talked about nativism and cetera. Yeah, but again, going back to Ticker’s

likeability in you see this with the way people were just making fun of him and

in Indiana is it doesn’t help when the former speaker of the House refers to as the devil

in the flesh. That also happened to him last week. And I think he was also Firdaus

on all around SLB. So my guess is it’s just thinking better form.

And so part of it is a combination of his personality, but also maybe part of a big issue is ideology that,

you know, you have an ideology that we’re not that keen on. Plus, we don’t like you.

It’s been it’s been kind of a refrain you would like. I can I can buy into some of that.

But, you know, if you weren’t so annoying and so big of him as the hipster of

the of the GOP. So most people are like, oh, yeah, you know, hipsters now

have a few good things, but my lord, they’re annoying and, you know, get a mustache that looks

like Matlack rally fingers like your escape from a Keystone Kops movie, you know? So I think that’s

kind of what’s going on there. You’re going to have to Google Rollie Fingers. Yeah. I’m sorry about that.

Okay. And I guess before we leave, I mean, I feel like we’re just kind of given Ted Cruz a kick in

like everyone else. But before we leave, it’s as if Ted Cruz’s

week wasn’t bad enough as he was going up to do, you know, doing his concession speech

as he went to hug his father. He clocked his wife. So

that’s the still the divorce. There’s a vine out there of the whole sequence. Was a two

piece if you look at the bride. Yeah, it looks like he actually hits her like three times.

So you like E you reach out, reached out to hug his father and the prosecution out of hugging his father. He

hits his wife in the face as he’s hugging his father. He elbows her. It goes back.

Oh, I’m sorry. It hits her again, then hugs her. Look, this man has had a bad

week. And I mean, I’m not I’m not going to sit here and guard Ted Cruz. You know, like this man just had a

bad week and everything kind of fell apart. Very fell apart one week,

very quickly. But I do think, you know, it’s not over yet. He’s I think

he still has some level of popularity in Texas. I think he can win when his reelection for the Senate.

And if he does run for president again, I think he will try to retool things. Let’s also remember Hillary Clinton had

a whole bunch of missteps eight years ago. And, you know, she’s been able to retool,

being able to reshape her image and in that light. I mean, there’s a certain irony to the fact that, you know, Cruz

is fighting. This has been a year in which everybody has been fighting against business as usual. And Donald Trump has

confounded all of our expectations. But one thing we may well be seeing here

is at least the possibility, the reassertion of a traditional pattern in which

the person who comes in second actually waits in the wings and is viewed by the Republican establishment

as having taken their turn in the next cycle. Now, this is again where

Cruz’s it’s so much his public likeability is his ability to.

Mend fences with insiders, I think will be a big a big piece of that. Yeah, I think

that could be a lot of pool parties. You know, a little call me maybe

so you know. Put up put on that charm. I’m saying I think he’s he’s gonna come smooth again.

Put on that Teddy Pendergrass, little DeBarge, you know, get it, get

it. Move and just, you know, just walk with GenCoin like John. I don’t think he’s been rough between us. And

I want to hear that relationship. John, what can we do? I think we gonna see the

Mack come out of Ted Cruz and Ted Cruz will again four years from now, you

know, who come out smooth as can be and be ready to go. That made me feel real weird right there.

I got to stay in touch with the. So go in for in touch, I think,

on this front. So going from the national to the local, though, will pop back up. The

big one of the big stories, at least in the U.T. area in Austin. But it has implications for the state.

Is the election going on right now? And voting day will the election day will actually be Saturday. Early voting has been

going on for a couple weeks now on ride-sharing in Austin. And so Proposition

One would. It was written essentially by the ridesharing companies by

Lyft and Uber to essentially prevent the city from being able to enforce

fingerprint checks on the rideshare companies for their drivers who are

employees, even though they don’t call them that. A no vote against Proposition 2 would

revert back to the existing ordinance in the city, which would require fingerprint

checks and would also provide provide for more limitations on drop off

and pick off and pick up in traffic, etc. really would align the ridesharing companies a little

bit more with the requirements on taxi cabs and limousine services, et cetera. This has

been a big issue here in Austin, but it’s also got continuity with national

and even international politics. So the big story on this in the state is

that when we looked at the most recent campaign finance disclosures last week, the

proponents for Uber and Lyft and it’s mainly been Uber, have spent eight point

one million dollars on a municipal election, which is an incredible

amount of money for a city election and a ballot measure. And so the question is, are

they going to buy it or not? And how could they have spent that much money? And I think

the smart analysis to that is that, you know, Uber and Lyft have a lot riding on

this. Their economic model, you know, looks at these city regulations basically as as a

cost. And they’re trying to spend on the front end to reduce those costs and sudden

signals to other cities that are considering these kind of regulations. And so

what really appears to be a very localized fight over a city ordinance actually has

national and international implications for both how this business model works and

the role of these corporations in spending directly in politics. Yeah, what’s important to note about Prop

going. So you’re saying, yes, the city ordinance, you vote no on Prop 1.

And this is a bit of a bit of confusion where if you vote yes on Prop 1, you’re saying get rid

of the ordinance. It’s because Prop 1 is all about replace it with the new. Yeah, this is all about

removing an ordinance, replacing with a new one. So if you like what the city council passed, you vote no.

If you don’t like it, you vote yes. Now, what’s important to note is that, again,

with his eight point one million dollars being spent, there’s a lot of activity here, mainly because these

types of ordinance have been passed in San Antonio and in Houston. And Uber and Lyft have left left these cities

because of this. And they’ve left some cities out of state and left some in L.A. and others.

And so there’s kind of this risk why? Oh, we’re going to leave you. But there’s also this, the safety

concern. So if you think about the Uber driver who went on a shooting spree in Michigan, if you think of

the the fact that Uber has allowed their background

checks, have not been good with sexual predators, have been been able to become uber drivers, it become one

of the big issues. And you’re actually seeing, again, with these with these services specifically in regards

to protecting women where there’s women that you only have female drivers. And for female passengers,

that’s becoming a big thing now that there is this safety concern and there have been

some slips and within these background checks. Now, that’s not to say that the city’s background checks would be better,

as it’s said in the city. Well, we’ll try to be more stringent

what they’re doing. And so there’s still going to be some holes within this no matter what happens. And

so this is going to be really one of the other major issues in terms of how we’re seeing

basically changes and ridesharing services, things like that, but also the role of regulation.

And to what degree are you going to regulate a certain industry and to what degree can that. We fight

back against this regulation specifically by appealing to the public to fight back against regulation.

I mean, I think there are a lot of different ways that you can frame this if you know, and trying to be fair about it. I mean,

I think the the people that a lot of the people that are in favor of the ordinance

point to a couple of things. One, they point to the fact that, you know, cab service in Austin has never

been particularly popular or well-reviewed. And

the taxi companies are an established interest. They’re basically, if you will, the incumbents in this regulatory

structure and you can think of is of the ridesharing companies as new entrants to the market.

And, you know, and as such, you know, the argument is that, you know, the argument that the defenders of the ridesharing

companies will will make is that essentially the cab companies want to force the this same system

that they’re under on the ridesharing companies, just as a matter of of

of increasing their costs. And as a competitive measure favoring the cab companies.

But I think certainly the ridesharing companies have done some polling. Not much of it has been made. None of it that I know

of has been made public that probably discovered some of the things that we’ve seen

in some other polling that we’ve done on transportation, which is that safety and public safety are

major concerns when you start talking to people about transportation. So it’s really rubs some

people the wrong ways that the Prop 1 ads really sort of suggest that

a vote for Prop 1 is a vote for more public safety when in fact

the checks are less stringent. And this is rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The other piece to understand

here is that Uber and Lyft have said from beginning and again, Uber has been the main player in this. That

if the ordinance passes, they will leave the market. So if you’re at a university, if you’re one of the universities in Austin,

you’ve doubtlessly seen the paid Uber operatives handing out, handing

out things, handing out fliers and information, saying vote for Prop 1 to keep Uber in Austin.

And so there’s a certain amount amount of this that’s kind of a game of chicken. It also folds into some other

things that we’ve talked about throughout the semester and this newscast that

there’s a real struggle going on right now between local government and the ability of local governments

to execute rulemaking within their borders and other other

elements, both state government and private businesses trying to push back against the cities

and at the state level really limit the ability of cities to do things. We’re seeing that in

property taxes in the state legislature. We saw it in the last legislative session on fracking,

which I think we talked about in here, where the city of Denton passed a ban on fracking.

It was challenged in court by the oil companies and then overturned in the legislature in a way

that also prohibited other cities from trying to limit fracking in the oil business.

Oil activity inside city limits. So, you know, this has a lot to do with, you know,

whether you can take an Uber or not and you know, the fight between Uber and the cabs. But

it’s also part of a much bigger dynamic that I think we’re going to see a lot more of going forward

in politics and particularly in Texas. Yeah, I think that’s extremely important. You point out, Jim, many times we

talk about federalism, we talk about the fight between the state and the federal government. But we’re seeing right now with the fracking bill,

we’re seeing like not what the state LGBT said, the laws being passed

that you get these fights between city and state. You see this in Arkansas, Indiana, North Carolina.

And so this is this is an extremely important aspect to talk about. This is something you’ll see going on as time

goes on. You know, we talked about where the bathroom bill ceilings, national issues. Now we want to take us back

to the national level and go to the press correspondents dinner. This is something that’s held every year

where the president and first lady and usually honest a number of high level political

officials having dinner with media members of the press corps. You see a lot of celebrities

there. So like Will Smith was there. It’s become a real celebrity fest. What

do you I mean, what do you think of that? I could really care less. It’s because it’s award show season

time, I guess. And so, yeah, this is a new awards show. And it really, really began to get more attention

by the keynote speakers, use the comedian and using takes on a style of a roast

He, let’s just say, made everybody in the world feel uncomfortable. Everybody outside

the room laughed. Right. He didn’t care. And his character as the conservative talk show

host. And he went up there and sort of gave the press a hard time, you know, congratulated the press

for doing such a bad job of covering Iraq. So you guys are real patriots for doing such a crappy job

of covering the war. And it burned everybody in the room if you just burn the place down. Yeah. And so

Larry Wilmore did a little bit of this this year. And people and Larry Wilmore bombed.

No, no, no. He by he may have done horrible in the world. From what I could tell, he did very well with the public,

which is how the Kolber thing played. Yeah. And so the idea is so many ways came

off as a roast. It was like, you know, and the press. The one thing I’ve noticed about the press is they

are they have no problem grilling other people. But I have a hard time being grilled because reporters

can be amazingly thin skinned. As you know, I’m friends with many. And,

you know, they can be. You know, they’re tough guys about a lot of things. But you start talking about, you know, them maybe being

too easy on people and they get their backs up. I mean, you know, the other thing so the set pieces on this

is that you have the president always gives a speech. And one of the things that we really discovered

in the last during the Obama presidency is that President Obama is a very

talented delivery deliver of comedy. He’s really his timing’s really good.

He he knows a good joke when he sees it, you know. So he doesn’t write him off himself. They have writers contribute

to the jokes. But he’s been very good. Oh, yeah. So let’s let’s show you

some of his best one liners, specifically in regards to the 2016 election. Although, well, in

England, I did have lunch with Her Majesty the queen. Took in a performance

of Shakespeare, hit the links with David Cameron. Just in

case anybody is still debating whether I’m black enough. I think that settles

the debate. I am hurt, though, Bernie, that you’ve been distancing yourself a little from me.

I mean, that’s just not something that you do to your comrade. Bernie’s slogan

has helped his campaign catch fire among young people. Feel the Bern.

Feel the Bern. That’s a good slogan. Hillary’s slogan

has not had the same effect. Let’s see this.

Meanwhile, some candidates aren’t polling high enough to qualify

for their own joke tonight.

Then there’s Ted Cruz. Ted had a tough week.

He went to Indiana. Who’s your country? Stood on

a basketball court and called the hoop a basketball

ring.

What else is in his lexicon? Baseball sticks,

football hats. Sure,

on the foreign one. And there’s one area where Donald’s experience could be invaluable.

And that’s closing Guantanamo because Trump knows a thing or two about

running waterfront properties into the ground.

All right, so there we see that’s President Obama getting his jokes, emperors last

press corps dinner. So we want to take a time to wrap up until you thank you for a great

semester. If you are interested in online courses, there are a number of all my courses that you can take this summer

as well as in the fall. So please, I’ll look at the schedule again. Jim has his Texas politics

course, which which is a great class. There also be introduction to foreign or foreign policy

and then also this course be offered over the summer as well. So again, if you’re interested in take these

classes a life, you enjoyed this experience. There’s something you can do over the summer. And if you know somebody who might be interested

in this, please have him sign up. We’d be happy to have you. So again, for the

end of the semester. Thank you all. Have a good week and have a good summer. Thanks a lot. And thanks to our crew.

So a great way to pick get this jacket.

The government 310. And the news podcast is hosted by doctors Jim Hansen and Eric McDaniel

and is produced by the Liberal Arts i.g.’s Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College