Paul Krugman at The New York Times explains Governor Scott Walker's courtship of economists who have been proven wrong time and time again:
Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, is said to be a rising contender for the Republican presidential nomination. So, on Wednesday, he did what, these days, any ambitious Republican must, and pledged allegiance to charlatans and cranks. [...]
[O]n Wednesday, Mr. Walker, in what was clearly a rite of passage into serious candidacy, spoke at a dinner at Manhattan’s “21” Club hosted by the three most prominent supply-siders: Art Laffer (he of the curve); Larry Kudlow of CNBC; and Stephen Moore, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation. Politico pointed out that Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, attended a similar event last month. Clearly, to be a Republican contender you have to court the powerful charlatan caucus.
So a doctrine that even Republican economists consider dangerous nonsense has become party orthodoxy. And what makes this political triumph especially remarkable is that it comes just as the doctrine’s high priests have been setting new standards for utter, epic predictive failure.
Turning to Governor Chris Christie,
Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore report on his "bubble":
He does not return phone calls. He does not ask for support. He arrives late for meetings. And he acts as if he has all the time in the world.
The complaints have piled up for weeks, dismaying many longtime supporters of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and sending others into the arms of his rivals for the presidential nomination, according to interviews with more than two dozen Republican donors and strategists.
As a half-dozen other candidates aggressively raise money and chase endorsements in Iowa and New Hampshire, friends and detractors alike say Mr. Christie’s view of his status and pre-eminence within the Republican field is increasingly at odds with the picture outside his inner circle.
Much more below the fold.
Over at The Week, Damon Linker explains the GOP's attempts to secure what he calls "the stupid vote":
[I]sn’t [a "willingness to pander shamelessly to racists in order to increase his own power and influence"] what’s most outrageous about the contemporary Republican Party — how ready and even eager it is to go slumming for support in the fever swamps of white cultural resentment?
Yes, even worse than its lamentable enthusiasm for prostrating itself before the super-rich. For one thing, while money can certainly influence the outcome of an election, it’s unclear how much or in what way. Just ask the notorious Koch brothers, who spent over $400 million during the last presidential election cycle with decidedly mixed results. Then there’s the fact that the Democrats have their own super-rich donors, showing that money doesn’t directly translate into a fixed ideological agenda. This is true even among the most reliably Republican donors, whose policy commitments can be as unpredictable as anyone’s.
Far greater civic damage is done by the GOP pandering to (and flattering the prejudices of) right-wing cultural populists.
Meanwhile,
Jake Miller at CBS examines how Common Core may become a primary issue for Republican presidential candidates:
Common Core federal education standards are riling the conservative base, and as the 2016 Republican presidential field takes shape, the standards -- seen by right wing activists as a federal overreach and a threat to parental rights -- are poised to play a big role in the GOP nominating process.
That's doubly true in Iowa, where the kinds of Republican voters most vehemently opposed to Common Core -- evangelical Christians, home-schooling advocates, states-rights conservatives -- exert considerable influence over the state's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus.
Slate's
Beth Ethier points out Governor Scott Walker's hypocrisy:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker touts the generous tax cuts he's pushed through since 2010 to bolster his image as one of the 2016 GOP presidential field’s most high-profile fiscal conservatives. (One economically conservative activist told Slate's Betsy Woodruff that Walker's 2014 gubernatorial election was more important to him than every other election in the country combined.) But those tax cuts have not created the hoped-for economic growth, and even after big reductions in public spending, Wisconsin is in the midst of a budget crisis: Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the Walker administration will skip a debt payment of $108 million that is due in May.
Spokesman Cullen Werwie told Bloomberg that the state will restructure its debt obligations to avoid default, but the delay will result in a substantial increase in the cost of the loan for Wisconsin taxpayers.
Eugene Robinson analyzes Jed Bush's major speech this week:
Jeb Bush’s highly anticipated speech on foreign policy reminded me of the joke in which two senior citizens complain about a restaurant. “Terrible food at that place,” says one. “Yes,” says the other, “and such small portions!”
Bush’s speech Wednesday in Chicago consisted of empty platitudes doled out in tight rations. Anyone who expected more from perhaps the leading establishment contender for the Republican presidential nomination had to be disappointed. [...]
After listening to the speech, it was hard to escape the feeling that Bush doesn’t really have a distinctive foreign policy vision — or that if he does have one, he’s not prepared to share it. He said his ideas might be summed up as “liberty diplomacy.” Is this the same as his brother’s “freedom agenda”? Is he signaling a preference for talk over action? Or did his advisers just think he needed a catchphrase?
Finally, on the topic of raising the minimum wage,
The Los Angeles Times is asking for congressional action:
when a company like Wal-Mart — which has 1.3 million workers across the United States and has made low pay part of its business model — says it's OK with higher wages, that should be a sign to Congress that it's politically safe to raise the federal minimum wage.