Tag Archives: new hampshire

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How Hillary Clinton can get her groove back: paid parental leave

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One way for Hillary Clinton to align her message and draw support from both the hard left and the center-right is to embrace paid parental leave. (Facebook)
One way for Hillary Clinton to align her message and draw support from both the hard left and the center-right is to embrace paid parental leave at the center of her campaign. (Facebook)

It’s not been a great night for former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who is losing the New Hampshire primary to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders by a margin of more than 20%. USflag

Though there’s reason to believe that Clinton will bounce back in the Nevada caucuses on February 20 and the South Carolina primary on February 27, there’s one low-hanging piece of fruit that she could pluck that might instantly boost her campaign’s chances. It’s a policy that could attract Sanders supporters, emphasize the historic nature of her candidacy to become the first female president of the United States and put the eventual Republican presidential nominee on the defensive, all at once.

It’s paid parental leave — and the United States is one of the few countries in the developed world that doesn’t guarantee it. The OECD average is 17 weeks of maternity leave, the United Kingdom offers 39 weeks, Mexico offers six weeks, and many European countries offer far more to both mothers and fathers (though not always paid at 100% of one’s income):

maternity leave
(OECD)

In fact, extending Australia’s paid parental leave was at the heart of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s successful 2013 bid to return his conservative Liberal Party to government. Indeed, it was his subsequent u-turn on parental leave that cost Abbott his popularity and, ultimately, his premiership.  Continue reading How Hillary Clinton can get her groove back: paid parental leave →

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Just how massive was Sanders’s NH primary victory?

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NH Democrats

This big.new hampshire flagUSflag

It’s hard to compare one primary contest to another.

Each race has its own dynamics, and the 2008 contest among then-senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards was as different from this year’s race as the 2000 election between vice president Al Gore and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley.

But if there’s one thing that we can compare, it’s the margin of victory between the first-placed candidate and the second-placed candidate. Exit polls showed that 12% more of the electorate considered themselves ‘liberal’ than the 2008 Democratic electorate, for example, an effect of growing political polarization that surely boosted Vermont senator Bernie Sanders into landslide territory.

But it was a landslide by this measure. The only primary victory that comes close to Sanders territory was then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis’s win in 1988 en route to the nomination (but not, alas, the presidency).  Continue reading Just how massive was Sanders’s NH primary victory? →

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Why Bill Clinton’s attack on Sanders won’t work

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Former president Bill Clinton's comments against insurgent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders could backfire. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Former president Bill Clinton’s comments against insurgent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders could backfire. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

If you had a sense of deja vu to former president Bill Clinton’s weekend harangue against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, it’s understandable. USflagUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

The attack was reminiscent of Clinton’s bristling criticisms of then-senator Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest, when Obama upset Clinton’s wife Hillary Clinton, who is running again for the nomination against Sanders, a septuagenarian democratic socialist. Sanders essentially tied Clinton in last week’s Iowa caucuses and is projected to win tomorrow’s New Hampshire primary.

But Clinton’s remarks are also eerily reminiscent of the attacks that former British prime minister Tony Blair mounted against the insurgent candidate of the hard left, Jeremy Corbyn, when it looked like Corbyn, another elderly socialist, might win the Labour Party’s leadership last summer.  Continue reading Why Bill Clinton’s attack on Sanders won’t work →

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How I expect the 2016 Republican nomination race to play out

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Donald Trump has dominated the imagination of the Republican contest in 2015, but can he turn enthusiasm into real votes in 2016? Maybe.
Donald Trump has dominated the imagination of the Republican contest in 2015, but can he turn enthusiasm into real votes in 2016? Maybe. (Facebook)

It’s not often that I write about American politics because there are already so many pundits doing it, and the comparative advantage of a website like Suffragio lies in deeper analysis of global electoral politics and foreign policy informed by that analysis. USflag

But we’re now just over three weeks away from the most competitive Republican presidential nomination contest in memory, and we’re six months into the era of Trumpismo. For what it’s worth, no one knows exactly how the spring nominating process will end because there are so many variables — and you shouldn’t trust anyone who says otherwise.

Still, we’re not on Mars and, while there are certainly new factors in 2016 that matter more than ever, there is deep precedential value from prior contests.

So here’s one perspective on how the race might ultimately turn out, based on observing primary contests for over 20 years. At the most basic level, the race for the Republican nomination is a race to win a majority of the 2,470 delegates that will meet between July 18 and 21 in Cleveland, Ohio.  Continue reading How I expect the 2016 Republican nomination race to play out →