Monday Smackdown: David Warsh Says: "Opinions of Shape of Earth Differ!"
Live from Evans Hall: Ah. I see that David Warsh has caught the "opinions of shape of earth differ!" disease in a big, big way. To say that JEB!'s current 6% and HRC's current 60% likely primary-voter share equally reflect the same thing--"Bush-Clinton fatigue"--and that Trump's current dominance in the Republican primary is "an expression of ephemeral contempt for dynastic politics" is simply being silly. And anyone who believes David Warsh is highly like to find him or herself... substantially misinformed.
Why do this, David? The brand of being professionally non-partisan is not worth much these days, is it?
: Delusions of Moderation: "If David Warsh writes a piece titled ‘Against Krugman’...
...I have to respond. David is defending his prediction... that Jeb Bush might well make it to the White House. Obviously that’s now a very long shot, which he attributes to ‘Bush-Clinton fatigue.’ But is that really the story?... All of the mainstream Republican candidates combined with less than 25 percent support; this isn’t about dynastic disdain.... Hillary... still has the support of a majority of primary voters. So the two parties are, as usual, not at all symmetric....
An establishment GOP candidate would have to do a lot more than consolidate the divided support for such candidates to win; he’d have to win over large numbers of voters currently supporting Trump or Cruz.... [And] what about substance? David insists that there are real moderates on the Republican side.... I assume that he includes Jeb... [but] Jeb is calling for bigger, more regressive tax cuts than anything his brother ever passed. He wants to privatize Medicare. He’s turning to the architects of the Iraq War (Paul Wolfowitz!) for foreign policy advice. This is moderation?... [For] someone like Kasich could still become the GOP nominee... would require a near-miracle... [and he] only seems remotely moderate because you’ve defined moderation way, way down.
