Originally published at The Five Pilgrims blog.

The popular vote is still being tallied. Clinton leads by a million votes — just under one percentage point — and seems likely to retain that lead when the final tallies come in. That fact does nothing to help her, however, because Trump has already locked up (not accounting for possible defections, which will be rare) at least 290 electoral votes, and will likely win 306 when Michigan’s final results come in at the end of November. Does this, as some of his supporters claim, constitute an electoral college “landslide”?

It depends how you define a “landslide win,” but I suggest that an examination of historical data strongly suggests otherwise. Of course, it doesn’t take much digging to recognize that Trump’s Electoral College victory was far more convincing than George W. Bush’s 2000 271-267 margin or his 2004 286-251 win. On the other hand, Trump’s win falls well short of Obama’s 2008 365-173 win, which more than doubles Trump’s margin of victory, as well as Obama’s 2012 332-206 win. Of those, the last four presidential elections, the winning candidate took an average of just over 311 electoral votes, or 57.9% of the Electoral College, thus of the last five presidential elections Trump’s win in the Electoral College is the median, and slightly below the mean.

You could keep walking that four election window back in time, to Clinton in 1996 (379-159, 70.4%) and 1992 (370-168, 68.8%), George H.W. Bush in 1988 (426-111, 79.2%), or Reagan in 1984 (525-13, 97.6%) and 1980 (489-49, 90.9%). By this time, the winner’s average share of the electoral vote has risen to 70% (with a standard deviation for the sample, which measures how close together the results are, of 16 percentage points). You might be tempted to argue that Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Reagan were all among the most decisive victories in US history, thus that average isn’t an accurate representation of what margin should be considered ordinary. Something interesting starts to happen when you back farther, though. If you go back to 1964, the first election in which the Electoral College had 538 members, neither the overall average nor the standard deviation change much, both rising by one point to 71% and 17%, respectively (the average and deviation for that period alone, from 1964 to 1980, are 75% and 22%). You can go even farther back, to the turn of the last century, and the overall average remains quietly at 73% while the deviation drifts down to 15% (75% and 13% for the period 1900-1964 alone). In fact, if you go all the way back to the founding, the average winner in US presidential elections takes 71% of the electoral college with a standard deviation of 16%.

Now, it’s debatable how much the election of 1796, for example, should inform our expectations for 2016, but it is certainly interesting to see how constant the average victory has been through time. The last five elections have actually been singularly close in the Electoral College compared to what had been the norm in US presidential elections. One way of seeing this is to plot the percentage of the electoral vote earned by the winner against the relative cumulative frequency (or percentile) — that is, the percentage of the results less than the one being considered (this is the same way test scores are often reported — someone in the 50th percentile, for example, has a score higher than 50% of those who took the test).


Here all 57 elections decided in the Electoral College are plotted, with the share of the electoral vote taken by the winner on the x-axis and the percentage of US presidential elections in which the winner took a lower share of the electoral vote on the y-axis. (The graph doesn’t start at zero on the y-axis because 1824, which was not decided by the Electoral College, is not plotted because 1824 was a mess and we Americans do our best to forget it.)

The median result, then, was Clinton’s 1992 370-168 victory. The overall average plots just above that, at 71%, and 67% of all US presidential elections lie between 55% (one standard deviation below the mean) and 87% (one standard deviation above the mean); elections between these two boundaries are most common, considered roughly average wins. Trump’s victory with 56.9% of the Electoral College is therefore on the lower end of an average electoral vote outcome, and sits at the 22nd percentile — that is, it is more decisive than 22% of presidential election and narrower than 77%.

You could argue that by opening the window so wide — we’ve considered more than two centuries of elections, and those reflect widely varying conditions — we’ve reached a flawed conclusion. That argument is not without merit, but consider the outcomes annotated on the graph: the ten most recent elections. For these, the average and standard deviation are, as noted above, again the same, again placing Trump’s win on the lower end of average. Further, although Trump’s percentage of the Electoral College creeps upwards, it’s only into the 30th percentile. Further still, as we’ve already shown, the window that presents Trump’s victory most favorably, 2000-2016, which includes two of the closest elections in US history, still leaves Trump’s 2016 percentage the median, and just below the average.

In short, the conclusion that Trump’s victory was on the low-end of average is independent of the size of window used. Does that mean you can’t call it a landslide? Well, that’s where we get to what a “landslide” is — the term is not precise, so there’s some latitude in assigning definitions. If you’re willing to concede that more than three-quarters of presidential elections have been landslides in the Electoral College, than yes, you can still call Trump’s win a landslide. Be aware, however, that you’ve rendered the term meaningless with that definition.

(As an aside, if we’re going to be strictly precise in our definitions, then a landslide should be an abnormally large share, most simply defined as more than one standard deviation from the mean. That would place the “landslide line” at 87%, falling neatly into the gap between Eisenhower in 1956, who took 86% of the electoral vote, and Roosevelt in 1932, who took 89% of the electoral vote. That may exclude some results that would generally be considered landslides, however, so your mileage may vary).

The key takeaway here is twofold, and neither one is really whether or not you should call Trump’s win a landslide (you could call it landslide, or you could call it a spandopeashire, and as long as you invented a definition that fit, you’d be correct). First, much of the political media is prone to hyperbole, and nothing can replace carefully thinking through claims when they are presented to you. Truth matters, and it should matter to us. Second, and more immediately applicable, when drawing conclusions about the state of the electorate from the election results, we should bear in mind what kind of result we’re looking at. That will become more clear once the final popular vote tallies come in (and once that happens, we’ll be here to examine it), but in the results where we already have clarity, we can conclude that the 2016 election is not a particularly decisive outcome.

What does that mean? Well, mostly it concerns what we cannot reasonably conclude from the election, but we’ll have to get to that next week.

Originally posted at The Five Pilgrims.

Early this morning, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a father of nine, passed away in Marfa, Texas. Scalia was one of two originalists—that is, those who believe that laws mean what they were intended to mean—on the court (the other, of course, being Clarence Thomas). His approachable writing style made esoteric questions of law interesting even to laymen, and his ability as a jurist will leave a lasting mark on the court. Other justices, although not themselves originalists, were gradually pushed toward more rigorous scholarship by Scalia’s fiery voice in the opposition.

Scalia was, however, very definitely in the minority throughout his time on the court. Even when he agreed with his colleagues’ decision, he often wrote concurring opinions to explain his own reasoning, which differed markedly from his colleagues’. Outnumbered, he described his successes as “d–n few” and lamented that “day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.”

Scalia was one of only a handful of jurists who held to his view of originalism. They are outnumbered by far by those who believe that the laws in general, and the Constitution in particular, do not necessarily mean what they were intended to mean, and that the Supreme Court is the only body with the ultimate authority to determine what they really did mean. Scalia’s death leaves only one originalist on the Supreme Court. If the trend he observed in Supreme Court decisions is to be reversed, his successor must be one of this minority dedicated to a rational interpretation of the Constitution.

President Obama will not appoint a successor who is even remotely sympathetic to Scalia’s principles. Indeed, if Obama’s previous nominations are any indication, should he be successful in appointing Scalia’s successor, it would be one of the biggest ideological shifts in the history of the court, from a staunch originalist to an advocate of a living constitution, a constitution that changes to mean whatever the justice wants it to at the moment. It is imperative, then, that the Senate refuse to confirm any nominee who does not adhere to an originalist view of the Constitution. Anything else would create a shift away from the rule of law, in which the text of laws is meaningful, to a government by the whim of five justices.

Such a refusal would likely mean that the seat remains vacant at least until Obama leaves office nearly a year from now. This would be far from unprecedented—the last time a vacancy opened during an election year, the nominee was filibustered and withdrawn, and the longest-lasting Supreme Court vacancy lasted more than a year when Congress refused to confirm the lame-duck President Tyler’s nominations—and it is absolutely necessary. The two originalists on the court usually allied with Justices Alito and Roberts, who, although not strictly originalists, had some regard for the meaning of the text, to oppose four advocates of a living constitution, with the philosophically confused Justice Kennedy providing the deciding ninth vote. Shifting one of the most strident and brilliant textualist voices to that of a full-throated liberal would nearly guarantee defeat for advocates of the original intent or original meaning in every case brought before the Supreme Court. Republican Senators who haven’t stood on their hind legs and fought in their entire careers need to now, or risk potentially irreparable damage in the period before the next president will hopefully appoint a more rational justice (which relies, of course, on the assumption that the Republicans don’t nominate Trump, who has said that his pro-abortion sister would be “one of the best” Supreme Court justices, and that the Republican nominee wins).

If ever there was a time for Republicans in the Senate to stand their ground, this is it. Republicans have already vowed to block Obama’s nominees, but conservatives need to be willing to support those holding the line and hold those who flinch from the confrontation accountable. For twelve months—the second-longest Supreme Court vacancy in history—the Senate will be a battlefield, but if our country is to remain one that Justice Scalia would recognize, we must win.

     Early voting for the March 1st Texas primaries started today. As I have in previous years, I looked at each race in some detail to decide on a candidate, and since I went to that much work, I figured I might as well share it. The local races will be specific to the particular area of north Texas where I'm registered, but the statewide races should be interesting to anyone living in Texas.
     If you don't know where your early voting locations are, try the Texas Secretary of State's website or your county's website, and remember that during early voting you can vote at any location in your county, but on March 1st, you'll need to find the voting location for you specific precinct.

Statewide Races

President: Ted Cruz
Railroad Commissioner: Wayne Christian
Texas Supreme Court Place 3: Michael Massengale
Texas Supreme Court Place 5: Rick Green
Texas Supreme Court Place 9: Eva Guzman
Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2: Ray Wheless
Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5: Brent Webster
Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 6: Michael E. Keasler


Local Races

US Representative, District 12: abstain
State Representative, District 97: abstain
Justice, 2nd Court of Appeals, Place 3: Dabney Bassel
District Judge, 96th Judicial District: Traci Hutton
District Judge, 348th Judicial District: Brooke Allen
District Judge, 360th Judicial District: Patricia Baca Bennett
Tarrant County Constable, Precinct 6: Glen Bucy
Tarrant County Sheriff: Bill Waybourn
Tarrant County GOP Chair: Tim O'Hare



     For a more detailed explanation of each choice, see below. Each candidate is mentioned (the chosen candidate's name is printed in bold), and at least a brief explanation of why one candidate and not the other is provided. In some cases, there's no obvious difference, and it comes down to endorsements from trustworthy people; in others, there's a clearcut right or wrong choice. 

Statewide Races

President
     The American conservative movement hasn’t had a presidential candidate as good as Ted Cruz. Not just since Reagan: ever. He is unquestionably brilliant; as Texas’s youngest-ever Solicitor General, he was undefeated before the Supreme Court, successfully arguing cases that ranged from defending Texas sovereignty to the individual right to keep and bear arms. As a senator, he was the most successful Republican in bringing bills out of committee and the most successful freshman in passing bills, although his greatest accomplishment remains the crucial role he played in stopping Marco Rubio’s amnesty bill. Simply being gifted wouldn’t be enough, though: Cruz is also unflinchingly honest and solidly conservative across the board, receiving high marks from every conservative interest group, including Conservative Review, American Conservative Union, Freedom Works, and the Heritage Foundation. Even when the odds were overwhelmingly against him, he’s been willing to stand and fight. He told us he’d fight for conservatism when he went to Washington, and once he got there, he did precisely what he said, and did it well, and that’s more than any other candidate can say. He went to Washington and stood up for us; now it’s time to stand up for him.

Railroad Commissioner
The Railroad Commission, composed of three members, has primary regulatory jurisdiction over oil and natural gas extraction and transport, natural gas utilities, and coal and uranium surface mining operations.

     The race for Railroad Commissioner is a bit harder to pick. On the one hand, Lance Christian is the only geologist in the running, and if elected would be the only geologist on the Railroad Commission. It hardly seems excessive to ask that those tasked with regulating oil and gas have some idea of the science behind it. Besides, he had his name attached to a journal article with the title “A streetcar named desired future conditions,” which is precisely the right blend of hilarious and nerdy.
     However, although Lance Christian appears to be well-suited to serve as Railroad Commissioner, statewide elected positions in Texas are all stepping stones to higher office. Lance Christian’s positions on larger issues are unknown, but there is someone in the race whose positions are well-known: Wayne Christian. Wayne Christian served in the Texas House of Representatives, and was consistently one of the most conservative members. He was the chairman of the House committee for regulated industries, so he is not entirely without experience, and, because of his past consistency, has been endorsed by Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT), Texas Right to Life (TRL), and many conservative groups.
     Several other candidates are also running, but these have neither Lance Christian’s extensive knowledge of the issues nor Wayne Christian’s solid track record, and can safely be ruled out.

Texas Supreme Court Place 3
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears all civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     Michael Massengale is the only conservative choice for Texas Supreme Court Place 3. He is experienced, having served on the First Court of Appeals since 2009, before that working in private practice, and has the endorsement of Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (TFR), TRL, YCT, and the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), among others.
     His opponent, Debra Lehrman (incumbent) has consistently been the lone dissenting voice on the conservative Texas Supreme Court, and has been endorsed by Texas Alliance for Life (TAL), a group that has become a tool to provide cover for liberal Republicans in Texas and has worked tirelessly to keep Joe Straus in power.

Texas Supreme Court Place 5
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears all civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     Rick Green, a former state representative and after that the founder of Patriot Academy, was reliably conservative as a legislator, and has been endorsed by TRL, THSC, YCT, and a sampling of most conservative leaders in Texas. Rick Green lacks experience as a jurist, but seems likely to have a good grasp of the law given his experience as a legislator and teacher.
     His opponent, Paul Green, is far more experienced, having served on the Texas Supreme Court for eleven years, but has kept a low profile. He has been endorsed by Rick Perry, TLR, and TAL. Although he’s done nothing particularly objectionable as a judge (or praiseworthy, for that matter), he lacks Rick Green’s more radical conservatism, and the endorsement from TAL implies that he is at least malleable enough to be used by the more liberal elements of the Texas Republican establishment.

Texas Supreme Court Place 9
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears all civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     Eva Guzman has assembled endorsements from a shocking variety of Texas Republican leaders, ranging from the decidedly liberal (for a Texas Republican) John Cornyn to the establishmentarian Greg Abbot and conservatives Dan Patrick and David Barton. She is one of the more adept legal scholars on the court; in Gunn v. Minton, the US Supreme Court unanimously reversed a Texas Supreme Court decision using the reasoning from her dissent.
     Her opponent, Joe Pool, on the other hand, has been unable to win anyone’s trust, and has been dogged by allegations that he is a tool of trial lawyers seeking to gain influence on the court.

Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 2
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears all civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     This race is an excellent example of why judicial races are important: there is no incumbent, as the previous holder of the position left, switched parties, and ran for Texas Supreme Court as a Democrat. Ray Wheless, an Air Force veteran and fifteen-year trial court judge, is a conservative who has been endorsed by THSC, TRL, and TFR. He is by far the most predictably conservative candidate in the face.
     Mary Lou Keel is also an experienced trial court and appellate court judge. She is more experienced but less reliable than Wheless. Chris Oldner is the only clearly bad choice in the race. The subject of a number of ethics complaints, he is also behind the indictment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, and has, in violation of basic standards of judicial ethics, used his position to attack Paxton's defense team in the media.

Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     In this race Brent Webster is the clear choice. Despite being young, he has experience as a prosecutor, which will be useful on the Court of Criminal Appeals. He has been endorsed by TFR, TRL, THSC, and a number of other conservatives. Perhaps the highest recommendation, though, came from the Dallas News when it endorsed one of his opponents: they claimed that he views everything through the lens of his Christian faith. It hardly seems a negative for a judge to view the world through the lens of the only true source of justice.
     Several other candidates are running. Sid Harle is experienced as a judge, but lacks Webster's appeal as a candidate, and has been endorsed by the anti-conservative TAL. Steve Smith and Scott Walker are also running, but appear to have little to recommend them besides sharing names with famous people.

Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 6
Texas divides its courts of last resort into the Texas Supreme Court, which hears all civil and juvenile cases, and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is Texas' highest court for criminal cases.

     The incumbent, Michael E. Keasler, is an extremely experienced judge, and has served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for seventeen years with distinction.
     His opponent is barely running a campaign at all, hasn't even bothered to keep his campaign website's domain, and appears resigned to losing.


Local Races

US Representative, District 12
     Most unopposed races aren't included on this list, but this and one other are, as an encouragement to abstain. The incumbent, Kay Granger, is, to my knowledge, the only openly pro-abortion member of the Texas delegation. That she is continually reelected despite her despicable political positions is a stain on District 12's voters. Abstain in this race for now, and we'll try again next time.

State Representative, District 97
     This race is also unopposed, but again, the incumbent, Craig Goldman, has turned betraying conservatives into an art form. When conservatives in the Texas House attempted to replace Joe Straus, the liberal and pro-abortion speaker of the state house, Goldman was in the frontlines fighting alongside the Democrats to stop conservative Republicans from removing Straus. He didn't just vote with the Democrats to organize the house, although he did that, he actively worked to crush any conservative insurgence before it could get started. He's unopposed so the best choice is abstaining, but start thinking about who you'd like to see in the seat for two years from now.

Justice, 2nd Court of Appeals, Place 3
The 2nd Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over criminal appeals in non-capital cases, civil appeals for which the award exceeds $250, and has original jurisdiction over writs of mandamus, injunction, prohibition, and habeas corpus, and serves Archer, Clay, Cooke, Denton, Hood, Jack, Montague, Parker, Tarrant, Wichita, Wise, and Young counties.

     No less than five candidates are running for this open seat, but Dabney Bassel appears to be the best qualified to serve. He has more civil appellate experience than any other candidate, and has been endorsed by conservative stalwart Matt Krause. He was also voted highest qualified by the Tarrant County Bar Association.
     William Anthony "Andy" Porter currently serves as a prosecutor for the Tarrant County District Attorney's office, and is the least experienced of the candidates running; however, he does have the endorsement of the NE Tarrant Tea Party, which is usually reliable. Elizabeth Kerr is a lawyer in private practice who has been practicing for more than three decades. Mary Colchin Johndroe practices in civil law, and is the second least experienced candidate. Bill Ray practices civil and civil appellate law. It's difficult to find anything either notably good or notably bad in their records; there is no obvious best or worst choice in this race.

District Judge, 96th Judicial District
     The incumbent, R.H. Wallace, gained some notoriety for a 2014 case involving a pregnant mother who suffered brain death, but was kept on life support to protect the 23-week-old unborn baby, according to Texas law. The mother's family argued that the baby was brain-damaged and would die soon anyway, and asked that Wallace strike down the Texas law as an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment. Wallace chose not to, instead ruling that since both the hospital and the family agreed that she was brain-dead, the mother was already legally dead, thus the law did not apply. He ordered the hospital to pronounce her dead and remove life support, killing the unborn child. He was correct that the mother was brain-dead, but his decision ended the life of the unborn baby. Every human life, brain-damaged or not, is precious, made in the sacred image of God, and because Judge Wallace does not recognize that fact, he can never be a good judge.
     Fortunately, he is not running unopposed. Traci Hutton is an accomplished attorney licensed to argue cases before the Supreme Court. She has been endorsed by THSC and TRL, and is the clear choice of any conservative voter.

District Judge, 348th Judicial District
     Brooke Allen is an attorney and Republican activist, and has been endorsed by TFR and THSC, among others.
     Mike Wallach and Lisa Lumley are both attorneys with extensive experience in private practice, but lack Allen's record of political involvement and endorsements by key organizations.

District Judge, 360th Judicial District
     Patricia Baca Bennett is a Board Certified attorney with a specialization in family law. A conservative, she has been endorsed by THSC and Julie White McCarty, president of the NE Tarrant County Tea Party.
     The incumbent, a Rick Perry-appointee, is considerably less impressive. There is anecdotal evidence (the testimony of a trusted friend) that he stated in court while deciding a custody case that all military personnel lack control. That is hardly a conclusive accusation without further evidence backing it up, but there's no reason to take a chance when there's a good candidate running.

Tarrant County Constable, Precinct 6
     Glen Bucy is an impressive candidate. A military veteran and current police officer, he has been absolutely courageous in his campaigns. He chose not to pursue an endorsement from Representative Kay Granger, despite her power in the area, because he could not reconcile asking for the support of a pro-abortion politician with his pro-life beliefs. He gives every reason to believe that when he says he'll stand up for the rights of his constituents, including their 2nd Amendment rights, he will.
     His opponent, the incumbent Jon Siegel, had no such qualms about pursuing the endorsement of a pro-abortion politician, and has her endorsement, as well as those of a number of establishment politicians. The choice is clear, and Jon Siegel isn't it.

Tarrant County Sheriff
     Bill Waybourn is an Air Force veteran and spent thirty-four years as a Dalworthington Gardens police officer, thirty-one of them as the police chief. He has been a conservative, and promises to remain true to his principles. He has also accumulated a number of celebrity endorsements, including Taya Kyle, Marcus Luttrell, and Chuck Norris, but in addition has the more substantive endorsements of the Tarrant County Law Enforcement Association, Rick Perry, conservative State Representatives Bill Zedler, Matt Krause, Rodney Anderson, and Jonathan Stickland, among others.
     The incumbent, Dee Anderson, hasn't done a bad job, but there's no compelling reason to choose him for a fifth and final term over Waybourn.


Tarrant County GOP Chair
     Tim O'Hare is former mayor of Farmer's Branch, endorsed by a who's-who of Tarrant County conservatives, including Julie White McCarty, Matt Krause, and Matt Rinaldi, and by several statewide conservative organizations, including THSC and Michael Quinn Sullivan, the president of TFR. He has a record of competently fighting for conservatism.
     His opponent, David Wylie, is a long-time Republican activist, but does not have the same record of success as O'Hare.



Originally posted at The Five Pilgrims.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Father Christmas gives gifts to the Pevensie children, he gives both Susan and Lucy weapons. He cautions them, however, only to use them for self-defense in great need; he did not intend for them to use them in battle. This was no comment on their bravery, however: as Father Christmas explained, “battles are ugly when women fight.”


Battles are ugly when anyone fights, and Lewis, a survivor of the First World War, knew that. He was, through Father Christmas, getting at something deeper: that battles were particularly ugly when women were drawn in. It’s a position drawn from the Christian idea that men and women are fundamentally different, and that when God created male and female He didn’t simply toss together a collection of disparate traits. Men and women were created with distinct roles. Men were to provide first, women to nurture first. The difference in roles was reflected in the traits given to each gender: men, generally speaking, are physically larger and stronger, while women are able to give birth, and even slight differences in brain form and function suited men and women for their different roles. For millenia this difference in roles was also understood to mean that men had a duty to be the first to face danger in defense of their family, to sacrifice themselves if necessary, to allow women to be the caregivers they were designed to be.


This is what Lewis is referring to, and he’s right that it is particularly abominable when, in addition to the inherent ugliness of war, those designed to to give life and nurture it must take life or lose their own.


It was surprising, then, to hear three Republican presidential candidates at the New Hampshire debate speak in favor of expanding registration for the draft to women. Both already favored allowing women in combat roles, but this was something else entirely: opening combat roles to women applied only to women who chose to join the military, whereas the position advocated by Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio would, if the draft were ever reinstated, fundamentally change the distinction between men and women in American society. There would be no place for women who chose to live their lives in accordance with the longstanding normative gender role, while men who rejected their duty as guardians could cower at home while their sisters or daughters were forced to fight. It is the natural conclusion of a view of humankind that denies any functional difference between men and women, but it is no less wrong.


A country that forces women into danger when there is a man left alive is not a country worth fighting for. Unlikely as it is that the draft would ever be reinstated, Bush and Rubio’s position should be rejected. It is not pro-woman for those men to ask that women, designed to nurture, be forced into battle ahead of them, it is cowardly, and any man who would ask that is no man at all.

Originally posted on The Five Pilgrims

O
ne day before the Iowa caucuses, Emerson College released the final Iowa poll. Its results were a little narrower than most of its immediate predecessors, but it showed the same thing they did: Donald Trump, the blustery real estate magnate who was firmly ensconced as the Republican frontrunner despite his many departures from small-government conservatism, with a lead over Ted Cruz. Real Clear Politics, likely the best-known aggregator of polling data, had Trump with a 4.7-point lead over Cruz, and the renowned political statistics blog FiveThirtyEight’s most likely predicted outcome was a narrow Trump victory. A weighted average of the polls showed the same thing, and better still, pulled Trump outside the reported margin of error for the weighted estimate.

There was, perhaps, a little cause for alarm within Trump’s camp. Both of the most recent polls from Iowa showed Cruz narrowing the margin to within the poll’s error, but even so, neither predicted that Cruz would take the lead. Trump’s unconventional campaign focused on rallies and top-down momentum, rather than grassroots and legwork, appeared to have upset conventional wisdom and would notch up a victory before anyone else had a chance to go on the board. 

The polls were wrong. Cruz not only won, he won with a record number of votes and by more than 3% – a commanding margin in a race with ten other candidates. The margin between Cruz and Trump was actually wider than the margin between Trump and the third-place finisher, Marco Rubio. Every poll showed Trump with a lead, many with a lead greater than the margin of error, and every poll was wrong.

The total breakdown of polling isn’t necessarily a new thing – caucuses are hard to predict – but it is worse this year than in the past. In 2008 a weighted average would have predicted the actual winner, Mike Huckabee, and even in 2012, when Rick Santorum pulled off one of the more shocking come-from-behind victories in recent memory, polls showed the surge, and a plot of the pre-caucus trajectory would have predicted the eventual outcome. This year neither the actual numbers nor the trajectory would have predicted the winner. The polls were simply wrong.

There will undoubtedly be many post-mortems trying to explain why the pollsters failed today, but there’s a simple enough explanation: Trump’s support is the political equivalent of a rice cake – crunchy, usually very noisy, air. He presented a platform as schizophrenic as his campaign, a muddled, angry caricature of what a New York-liberal might imagine to be conservatism. Pushing an isolationist view on the borders and a nationalist, even bloodthirsty, foreign policy, at the same time that he advocated positively socialist positions on issues like healthcare and a fascist stance on religious expression, Trump simultaneously attempted to appeal to the Republican conservative base and emphatically rejected crucial elements of a conservative worldview. His campaign preparation showed the same inattention to detail, eschewing hard work in favor of exciting rallies and passing over a well-developed organization in favor of slip-shod tweet-storms. He targeted a particular subset of voters, those who had not thought out their positions clearly enough to recognize the caricature.

It turns out, people too lazy to think through a consistent, coherent philosophy of government aren’t likely to be diligent enough to spend three hours casting a vote. Trump’s no idiot, although he clearly thinks his supporters are, and he’ll adapt. Future states will be primaries, which appeal to Trump’s brand of voters more than more time-consuming caucuses, and Trump will undoubtedly work to solidify his organization in the future. Tonight, though, it doesn’t matter. Trump’s “yuge” lead in the polls was finally put to the test, and it collapsed under pressure. There’s a long road ahead – Iowa only controls a little more than 1% of the total delegates – but first blood and the confidence to forge ahead regardless of the polls goes to the underestimated senator from Texas.



Originally posted on The Five Pilgrims.

As Ben Carson’s campaign crumbles and Donald Trump’s oft-predicted collapse draws closer, the race for the Republican nomination has begun to boil down to two men: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Superficially, they share many traits: both of Cuban ancestry, both young, both first-term senators, yet their status as rivals has brought them into conflict on the few points where they differ — on immigration policy most stridently. Rubio argues for legalization and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, while Cruz favors enforcement of the law. Both sides came prepared for the skirmish, and why not? After all, they’ve done it before.

In 2013, three years into Rubio’s term in the Senate, he was already being eyed as a presidential candidate. His conservative positions gave him inroads with the Republican base, while his charm made him attractive to moderates. Perhaps searching for a way to differentiate himself in preparation for a run, Rubio accepted Chuck Schumer’s invitation to join the so-called “Gang of Eight” to advance “immigration reform” (S.744). It provided legal status and citizenship to illegal aliens who paid a fine and jumped through a metaphorical hoop or two. It also made a hodgepodge of modifications to the immigration system, engineered to ensure passage.

Rubio’s role was envisioned as that of a salesman. He had earned the respect of conservatives, so he was the natural choice to try to win them over. He did more than that, though, and Schumer would later say that Rubio was the architect of the path to citizenship. A gifted and experienced legislator, Rubio crafted the greatest challenge to conservative’s rule-of-law opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens. With John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Schumer and Dick Durbin combined with Rubio’s Tea Party support, the bill was a political juggernaut.

Combining Democrats and Republicans who chose to vote with the Democrats, the bill had filibuster-proof support in the Senate, and amnesty supporters would only need to win over 17 of 233 House Republicans to ensure final passage. Presented as a compromise measure and a necessary reform, given weight by Rubio’s conservative credentials, the bill was unstoppable. The stage was set for Rubio, the face of the Gang of Eight, to overwhelm conservative respect for the rule of law, notch a major bipartisan legislative accomplishment, and pave a path to the presidency for himself.

The year before, in a hotly contested primary fight, the little-known Solicitor General of Texas had already pulled off the impossible and beaten the most powerful elected official in Texas, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, in the race for Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s Senate seat. Ted Cruz won on a promise of doing as he promised, and he’d promised to fight for enforcement of Texas and US law on immigration. With less than a year of legislative experience, facing an overwhelming coalition, he faced a daunting task if he intended to keep his promise.

Joined by longtime hardliner Jeff Sessions and fellow first-term senator Mike Lee, Cruz kept his promise and stood on the frontlines of the opposition to Rubio’s bill. All three held positions on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee tasked with hearing the bill, where they were badly outnumbered.

Faced with long odds, the conservatives on the committee took a long view. Cruz set out to destroy the bill, not in the Senate, where its passage was a foregone conclusion, but in the House, where the Republican establishment’s electoral disaster in 2012 had done less damage, and where Cruz’s connections could help catalyze opposition. If the credibility that Rubio’s conservative credentials lent the bill could be destroyed, House Republicans’ own constituents would force them into opposition. The lynchpin of the effort was Cruz’s amendment stripping the path to citizenship. Rubio and the rest of the Gang of Eight claimed that the crux of the bill was merely a reform to the immigration system. They used the clearly broken system as a club to bring Republican opponents into the fold. If that was the goal, argued Cruz, then wouldn’t it be wiser to remove the path to citizenship while keeping the rest of the bill? His amendment was the “compromise that could pass,” so why not support it?

The answer was obvious and fatal to the bill: removing the path to citizenship could only make the bill more likely to pass, so the only reason to oppose it was that the purpose of the bill was not immigration reform, but a path to citizenship. When Cruz proposed his amendment, it gave conservatives in the House and Senate the ammunition they needed to fight it. The Senate was already a foregone conclusion, but the battle with the junior senator from Texas left S.744 crippled. House Republicans had to stand for reelection in little more than a year, and few Representatives found it appealing to have to explain a vote for a bill whose entire purpose was not just amnesty, but a path to citizenship. A companion bill was never considered by the House, and Rubio’s four-lane highway to the presidency died just past the Senate chambers.

It is, perhaps, fitting that it was a Texan who forced amnesty’s moneyed and powerful supporters into a Pyrrhic victory over the hopelessly outnumbered opposition in the Senate. After all, after a victory in Texas many years before, one of Santa Anna’s officers was said to remark that “another such victory will ruin us.” Ted Cruz and his cadre of Senate conservatives couldn’t stop Rubio’s bill, but in losing they defeated it.

More striking, though, is the symmetry on the two sides of the bill. Rubio, although allied with more senior colleagues, molded the bill and was to be the ramrod that forced it past any Republicans still loyal to the party platform. Cruz, also a first-term senator of Cuban ancestry elected with Tea Party support and also allied with more senior colleagues, provided irreplaceable contributions to the masterful strategy that ensured the bill’s failure. Without Rubio, the bill wouldn’t have been the juggernaut that it was, and without Cruz, according to Senator Sessions, Rubio’s bill would have been signed into law.

Two years later, Cruz and Rubio are once again matching wits. This time Cruz is far from the unknown senator he was in 2013, and has a campaign behind him every bit the equal of Rubio’s. Whether Rubio can better his performance and finally defeat his doppelganger or whether the Texan will once again lead a conservative coalition to victory remains to be seen, but voters should remember the two senators’ previous battle. Marco Rubio stood up as amnesty’s champion, leading the apparently unstoppable push for a path to citizenship, and Ted Cruz stopped him.

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