Dec. 10--Tribune opinion writers Eric Zorn and Kristen McQueary have reconvened the Common Sense Caucus for a series of written conversations about the race for the White House.
To Eric:
News of our city in turmoil made its way to the Democratic presidential race last week. Hillary Clinton called for a Department of Justice probe into the Chicago Police Department. Bernie Sanders countered with a demand for the resignations of anyone who participated in a cover-up of the police shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014.
I found it interesting that Clinton called for a deeper examination into abuse of power and a code of silence within the CPD. Remember how her own State Department, in conjunction with White House officials in 2012, closed ranks, spun lies and tried to downplay the Benghazi attack, in the midst of a heated presidential election? Similar accusations are swirling around Mayor Rahm Emanuel -- conflicting stories about what happened the night McDonald died and whether the investigation was slow-walked and buried to protect Emanuel's re-election bid.
Don't forget that abuse of power is the underlying thread that has coalesced outrage over McDonald's death. Excessive force by police, yes, but beyond that, questions of official misconduct, malfeasance and overreach of government officials in their official lines of duty, and corruption and lies to cover it up. That's why McDonald's case has become a flash point.
Some political observers -- OK, Eric, you and me -- have wondered whether damage from the McDonald case will hurt Democrats' chances at the polls next year for state, local and federal offices.
I doubt it. Yes, high-ranking Democrats in this city spent the last year sidestepping an issue deeply personal and relevant in the black community: distrust of the CPD. Will those politicians pay a price for not addressing in a more swift and meaningful way the protectionist culture that allows police misconduct to fester?
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who faces primary opponents in March, certainly is on the ropes. But it's unlikely other races will feel an impact. History has shown that black voters are deeply loyal to the Democratic Party, Clinton included, no matter candidates' lack of a track record on holding police departments accountable.
To Kristen:
I doubt that Benghazi will be a deciding factor for a significant number of voters next November, assuming Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
Those core Republican voters who remain outraged that the former secretary of state didn't appropriately micromanage security arrangements at diplomatic outposts and allowed confusion to linger about the motivations of those who attacked a U.S compound in Libya weren't going to vote for her anyway.
And core Democrats will continue to dismiss the outcry as just so much phony partisan pearl-clutching over the deaths of four Americans by those who remain blithe and incurious about the epic intelligence and strategic failure under Republicans that has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,500 U.S. military personnel in Iraq since 2003.
Swing voters are going to be far more interested in looking ahead -- asking themselves which candidate will be best on the economy, education, immigration, health care and national security.
That said, the broader question of trust will be an issue. If you like what a candidate says, can you believe that he or she will follow through on pledges and govern in a transparent, principled fashion?
And if you don't believe that, will you bother to vote?
So I'd expect that the effect of Clinton fatigue and the lackadaisical (at best) early response from prominent local Democrats to the shooting death of McDonald will be to sap voter enthusiasm and depress turnout.
But Republicans will undo that effect if they nominate a brazen demagogue for president, say one whose rash, outlandish ideas and irresponsible rhetoric inspires Democrats to rush defensively to the polls.
Iowans will caucus seven weeks from Monday. Polls there and nationwide show three leading candidates -- Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson -- who scare the living vote out of Democrats.
Should Republicans be worried?
To Eric:
Did I digress? Fair enough. Trump continues to increase his lead in the polls with every bombastic remark -- the latest, his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Who knows? By the time this column goes to print, he may have said something even more thoughtless.
I've said since August that Trump would eventually lose his gravitational pull, that GOP primary voters are discerning enough to recognize a loudmouth and would migrate toward a candidate who shares their policy views, minus the overwrought rhetoric.
It has not happened. Republican voters and party leaders should brace for a Trump-Clinton matchup. Trump's support among voters of both parties is genuine and abiding.
A recent CNN/WMUR poll showed Trump's support in New Hampshire at 32 percent, up from 26 percent in September. Sen. Marco Rubio is in second place at 14 percent, followed by Chris Christie at 9 percent. Trump's lead is steady and rising, something right-leaning, non-Trump supporters like me can no longer derogate.
Even if you subscribe to technical theories on polling -- that the polls are capturing small samples of knee-jerk reactions by voters who eventually will come around to a more thoughtful conservative -- Trump continues to draw crowds that other front-runners in past cycles could only wish for. Trump's motivation effect is more telling, in my opinion, than his poll numbers.
Aside from "Trumpmania" as the most accidental political story of this election cycle, the other would be the limp campaign of Jeb Bush. Who would have thought a guy with a record of conservative accomplishments governing a large state would so swiftly be kicked to the sidelines?
To Kristen:
Maybe it's time to acknowledge that Trump's tendency to give voice to the smallest, angriest impulses in his heart is a feature of his candidacy, not a bug.
He more than any other candidate is speaking to voters who are simultaneously furious about the economic stagnation in middle- and lower-income groups, enraged about governmental nonchalance about the presence of millions of unauthorized immigrants and afraid that Islamic State-inspired terrorists will take advantage of our commitment to pluralism and commit still more atrocities on our shores.
The more Trump draws reproachful wags of the finger from mainstream pundits and party establishment panjandrums, the less such voters seem inclined to fret about his flip-flops on social issues and his many unpresidential utterances. And don't think for a minute that all of them are hard-core Republicans.
Deep in the cross-tabs of that CNN/WMUR poll you'll find that 51 percent of self-identified independent voters said they have a favorable opinion of Trump, as did 34 percent of Democratic voters. A nationwide Economist/YouGov poll taken just before Thanksgiving found 35 percent of independents and 19 percent of Democrats indicating their very or somewhat favorable opinions of Trump.
Swing voters and these so-called "Trump Democrats" -- disgruntled working-class voters analogous to the "Reagan Democrats" who helped elect Republican Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980 -- might give his candidacy the cushion it needs to survive the epiphany of the discerning GOP electorate for which you (and the hapless Jeb Bush) have waited in vain.
I hope not. Trump's evolution from amusing to scary has me, for the first time, genuinely worried that our national mood is so sour and our politics so poisoned that he'll become the Republican nominee, at which point anything can happen. What soothes me is that every single prediction I've made about him so far has been in error.
In a little more than seven weeks we'll know whether I was wrong again.
Listen to Eric Zorn and Kristin McQueary every Friday on the WGN-plus podcast "The Mincing Rascals," available on iTunes.
Twitter @EricZorn
Twitter @StatehouseChick
