HWX: March Madness

It'sa very special midweek episode of HWX, with Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas and Paul Happe of the Nihilist in Golf Pants reconvening to discuss the critical issues of our time. Topics addressed include:

* Barack Obama’s controversial NCAA women’s basketball tournament bracket picks

* A fond look back on Marco Rubio’s now suspended Presidential campaign (with help from Carly Simon)

* The Trump attack ads on Rubio and their potential effect on his future prospects in Florida (including a new attack ad debuting and targeting some of your favorite Ricochet personalities)

* The status of the Hillary campaign and some of her recent advertisements (including a first draft of a rejected ad never before heard in public)

* The #NeverTrump movement among conservatives – high principle or a temper tantrum?

* The enticing potential of an open GOP convention. If a majority of delegates can’t agree on any of the remaining candidates, who to choose? If we could dispense with the dirty business of democratic selection, and you could choose ANYONE in the country to be the Republican nominee, who would it be?

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There are many ways to hear the podcast, including over on the mother ship at Ricochet.  You can be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunes.  Or you can just use the player embedded in the upper right hand corner of this website.  If all of these fail, send me an email and I'll come to your house and read from a written transcript.  Hope you enjoy.

Lady Sings the Blues

Separated at Birth, former White House leading lady, Lady Bird Johnson

And former lead singer of Stryper, Michael Sweet.

And, of secondary noteworthiness, Ted Cruz.

Bonus for Cruz, he can leverage this resemblance and perform this as his new campaign theme song, which could be equally as effective in the primary and general elections.  

(Via some guy on Facebook).

Size Matters Redux

The latest installment of Prager University addresses a topical and timely political question by asking "How big is too big?" when it comes to size. Size of the government of course.

In this week’s video, author William Voegeli, Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, poses two questions that every American should think about this election year: 1) How much government is enough government? and 2) Should America’s government be as big (or bigger) than that of France, Germany, or Sweden? Mr. Voegeli shows just how big our government has gotten in the past 70 years, and why the cost and size of Washington, D.C. has us on a crash course for European-style unemployment. The amazing thing? Progressives still say -- and will always say -- the government doesn’t spend enough.

Separated at Birth?

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz:

Former Presidential wife, Lady Bird Johnson:

For the record, Cruz's spouse looks nothing like Lady Bird's spouse.   Advantage Cruz.

Sucker Punch

Today’s Trump news flash mob focused on allegations of a disturbing trend of violence at Trump rallies.  From CNN:

Observers have been worrying about heightened tensions at Donald Trump rallies for a while, and now they're turning violent. 

On Wednesday night, a Trump supporter sucker-punched an African-American protester as he was being escorted out of a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. 

Last month, a Secret Service agent choke-slammed a Time Magazine photographer after he left the media pen to photograph a group of protesters. 

And at Trump press conference on Tuesday night, a Breitbart News reporter was reportedly yanked by the arm by Trump's campaign manager (though the campaign disputes that account).

And the inevitable lesson of the day of why this man must be stopped:

Such violence, which is unprecedented in the history of modern presidential campaigns, is the inevitable result of the charged anti-protester and anti-media rhetoric coming out of the mouth of the candidate himself, reporters and observers say.

It’s unprecedented and it’s inevitable!  (Is that possible?  How would they know its inevitable then?)
But I’ll accept CNN’s analysis that it’s true.  Charged anti-protester anti-media rhetoric leads to violence.  Although such violence itself is not unprecedented.   In fact I clearly remember the last time an assault happened at a Presidential rally.  From the New York Post, in 2004:

Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean. 

The tussle left Franken’s trademark thick-rim glasses broken, but he said he was not injured. 

Franken – who seemed in a state of shock and out of breath after the incident – was helped back to his feet by several people who watched the tussle. Police arrived soon after. 

“I got down low and took his legs out,” said Franken afterwards.

Franken said he’s not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely. “I would have done it if he was a Dean supporter at a Kerry rally,” he said.
“I’m neutral in this race but I’m for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down.”

Franken emerged from the crowd and charged one male protester, grabbing him with a bear hug from behind and slamming him onto the floor. 

“I was a wrestler so I used a wrestling move,” Franken said.

I remember that incident clearly, but was never clear on the cause.  Now we know it was the dangerous anti-media and anti-protester rhetoric by that carnival barker Howard Dean!  The Democrat establishment and media’s subsequent  #NeverDean movement and their pledges to vote for George W Bush to stop him make all the more sense now.

Actually, no, 2004 was a simpler time when assaults at a Presidential rally were no big deal.

And whatever happened to that Franken fellow?   I hear he got sent to an asylum a few years later, and we all hope he’s getting the help he needs.

Loss Leaders

Following up on Laettner’s Lament, update on the Minnesota Republican party endorsers.  First Norm Coleman, steadfast supporter of Lindsey Graham Jeb Bush Marco Rubio.  I hope he took some pride in Rubio’s victory in the recent Minnesota caucus, because if current polls are to be believed, he may have to apply his ballot box Midas touch to a fourth candidate in short order.

If Donald Trump continues to be the front runner, Coleman may to tap a fifth candidate before all is send and done.   Because we may not know who Norm Coleman will ultimately support in this primary contest, we definitely know who he will not support.   He’s a #NeverTrumpeter.  From his editorial in the Star Tribune:

I won't vote for Donald Trump.  I won't vote for Donald Trump because of who he isn't.  He isn't a Republican. He isn't a conservative. He isn't a truth teller.  He's not a uniter. Donald Trump isn't the leader America needs after eight years of a president who deliberately divided us and fanned the flames of racial and socioeconomic strife — and, by doing so, diminished America's standing in the world. 

I also won't vote for Donald Trump because of who he is.  A bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully.

The obvious first reaction to this is to check the lyrics to “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra, to do a plagiarism check with Coleman’s snappy last line.   It’s a close call, but I’m absolving him (for now).  Although Coleman’s variation would make for a good Trump campaign song:

I've been a bigot, a bully, a misogynist, a fraud, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race

The second reaction is to note that Coleman thinks people care about who he plans to vote for and why.  You don’t write something that pretentious without the pretense of thinking it means something important.  Arguably, there was a time when Norm Coleman could be considered to be an opinion leader for Minnesotans.  He did received the approval of a bare majority of Minnesotans who happened to vote in an election … 14 years ago.  But that was book-ended by losses to Jesse Ventura (where Norm Coleman was preferred by 34% of voting Minnesotans) and to Al Franken (when he received 42% of the vote).  Not exactly Ronald Reagan landslide leadership levels there.
Coleman is 1 - 2 in statewide elections, receiving a high of 50% of the vote in 2002.  Is that the best Minnesota Republicans can do for an influential opinion leader within the party?

According to my analysis – no.  In fact, Coleman is currently the 10th most influential endorser available to the Republican Party.

The table below shows all Republican candidates for statewide offices since 1970:  Governor, US Senator, Auditor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General.  (Not included in this analysis are Lt. Governor – which is subsidiary to the gubernatorial candidate since merging as an electoral pair in 1974 or State Treasurer, a constitutional office abolished by amendment in 2003.)

Candidates are ranked, in order, by:  Winning percentage, number of wins, highest % of general election vote, and winning streak.   Unranked individuals (shaded cells) are known to be deceased.

(Click table to enlarge)

Earlier I noted about the presence of so many election losers present in the MN establishment Republican attempt to squash Trump:

The traditional “The Party Decides” model assumes prominent endorsements play an outsized role in picking eventual winners.   But decades of loss chokes off the supply of prominent, influential endorsers …. for Minnesota Republicans, that model is broken. 

The table above provides the evidence.  Of these 42 statewide candidates, nearly two-thirds (64%) were one and done, losing in their one and only appearance on the statewide ballot.  Only 6 (14%) have won more statewide elections than they lost.  And only 4 (10%) have winning records and ever earned at least 50% of the popular vote.   A visualization of this data:

(Click chart to enlarge)

The lonely triangles at the bottom of the chart are the cannon fodder served up to the likes of DFL'ers Joan Growe (6-1), Skip Humphrey (4-2), Mark Dayton (4-1), Lori Swanson (3-0), Rebecca Otto (3-0), Warren Spannaus (3-0), et al over the past half century. 

  

Bobbing their heads above the waterline at the top are the four broadly popular winners the MN GOP have offer since 1970:  Arne Carlson, Dave Durenberger, Judi Dutcher, and Al Quie.

Yes, it’s been a while (the 1990s) since any of these candidates were scoring their victories.  But these people are all still out there, and Minnesotans have long memories.  Why not wake up the echoes and bring these champions back to herald a new era of success for the MN Republican party?

Oh yeah, that’s right, they all became Democrats.   

One of the four officially became a Democrat.  The most recent Republican 50%+ statewide winner, Judi Dutcher, switched parties in 2000 and ran for Lieutenant Governor on the DFL ticket in 2006 (when she and Mike Hatch narrowly lost to Tim Pawlenty and Carol Molnau, 47%-46%). 

By this analysis, Arne Carlson is by far the most popular/influential available Republican, going 5-0 in statewide elections and topping out with 63% of the popular vote in his last election (1994 gubernatorial race).   If any state Republican had the potential to lead opinion, it would be him.  And I’m sure state Republicans would have reached out for him, except for the complicating matters of Carlson endorsing Barack Obama for President in 2008, endorsing an Independent candidate for MN governor and endorsing a Democrat for Congress in CD-1 (instead of GOP endorsed candidates Tom Emmer and Randy Demmer) in 2010, and in 2012 endorsing a Democrat for Congress in CD-6 (over Michele Bachmann).  Although Carlson assures us he still considers himself a Republican.

Dave Durenberger is the only other Republican winning statewide races 3 or more times since 1970, and also topping 60% of the popular vote (in his 1978 US Senate race).  He’s also had a Carlson like post-election career, tacitly endorsing Obama, refusing to endorse Tom Emmer for Governor, and regularly engaging in rhetoric like:

The Republican Party has made a virtue of extremism. It has done so with plenty of help from the old Confederacy, the religious right, the counter-culture hierarchy of the Catholic Church and Brooks' "Bobos in Paradise", who move to the exurbs seeking a world that looks just like them. The list's a long one.

And, curiously, still considers himself a Republican.  A Minnesota Republican.

Finally, Al Quie, a one-and-done statewide candidate, but going out a winner, with 52% support in the 1978 race for MN Governor. Certainly silent Al has been able to hold the Republican banner high without any controversies to strain the perceived loyalty to his party?  Actually, no. Quie got caught up in the great exodus from Tom Emmer as well in 2010, endorsing independent Tom Horner.  

In fact, Quie joined Durenberger and Carlson on MN GOP double secret probation after the Emmer-Horner imbroglio, getting banned from all party activities for 2 years.  Quoth Quie:

“The Republican party is trying to become ... you would call it introverted totalitarianism,” said former congressman and Gov. Al Quie, a onetime vice presidential prospect who plans to stick with the party despite the penalty. “It’s just plain dumb on their part. ... In the long run, if the party persists with this, [it's] going to just become smaller and smaller and eventually something else would come in its place.”

So you can see why the MN Republican party cannot produce influential endorsers or opinion leaders.  Their popular winners from the previous political generation are party pariahs. And their current popular winners?  Referring to that chart above, that big, white expanse in the upper right quadrant are where the popular winners would have been since about 1998, and there’s nobody there.

At the time of the Carlson, Durenberger, Quie purge, then MN GOP Chairman Tony Sutton stated:

“I think a lot of these people are not relevant politically,” Sutton said. “They represent a bygone era, sort of the era of the 'country club Republican' -– when we weren’t opposed to Big Government; we just said we could manage it better. This is [now] sort of the Reagan Era of the Republican Party.” 

“It’s funny, we’ve had more success since we moved away from a lot of these folks,” he added. “You can argue we’ve become more successful as we’ve become truer to our principles.”

You could argue that, if your definition of success, and political relevance, was something other than convincing 50% or more of Minnesotans to vote for you. 

HWX: The New Centurians

It’s an extra special edition of HWX, with Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas and Paul Happe of the Nihilist in Golf Pants reconvening to celebrate episode 100 of this award winning podcast. Also making a grand return to the folder, the original H himself, John Hinderaker.

Topics addressed include:

* Super Tuesday and analysis of Minnesota’s characteristically unique voting patterns

* Marco Rubio’s Baghdad Bob-like post election analysis of his performance and prospects

* Ted Cruz’s viability and a review of his more creative anti-Trump ads

* Hillary Clinton latest ad campaign “Making America Work for You” with an exclusive sneak preview of latest ad on this theme (with help from Austin Powers)

* An update of Hillary’s latest poll numbers, with a focus on young women, and an update on Madelyn Albright’s “special place in hell” for women who don’t support her.

* A final, fond farewell to the Jeb Bush campaign, Nobody Did it Better than Jeb (according to Carly Simon).

HWX is brought to you by the fine folks from Harry’s Shave. For an amazing shave at a low price, delivered FREE to your door, check out Harrys.com. Enter HWX as the coupon code for your first order and get extra special savings

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There are many ways to hear the podcast, including over on the mother ship at Ricochet.  You can be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunes.  Or you can just use the player embedded in the upper right hand corner of this website.  If all of these fail, send me an email and I'll come to your house and read from a written transcript.  Hope you enjoy.

Size Matters

Now that it seems increasingly likely that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president (Bart-like shiver of fear) the pertinent question is whether he can actually beat Hillary Clinton come November (assuming she’s not wearing an XL ankle bracelet under house arrest in one of her million dollar homes).

The way I see it there are four groups that hold the keys to Trump’s fate in the general election.

1. Republican voters who like Trump and will vote for him

2. Republican voters who don’t like Trump but will vote for him to stop Hillary

3. Republican votes who don’t like Trump and won’t vote for him (a.k.a. SECRET- Squishy Elite Cuckservative RINO Establishment Traitors)

4. Independents and Democrats who like Trump more than Hillary and will vote for him

Trying to determine the true size of any of these groups is difficult.

The first group probably represents 35-40% of people calling themselves Republicans at the moment. They are the least likely to move into another camp.

The second and third groups comprise the remaining 60-65% of the GOP and it’s anyone’s guess how they are split right now. Whatever the split is today it will almost certainly change based on events and time. Trump could drive more people into the “Never Trump” group or he could coax some back from it into holding their noses and choosing the lesser of two evils. As the calendar moves closer to November and the prospect of President Hillary becomes more and more real I suspect that “Never” may morph into “Okay, But Just This One Time” for some of the third group.

The real wild card is the fourth group. No one really has a good handle on how many independents and Democrats Trump has attracted so far or could attract in November against Hillary. This is the group that’s either going to win or lose the election for Trump.

If he can get enough independents to support him and enough Democrats to cross over-in the right mix of states for electoral college purposes-he could win as long as the size of this group is larger than the group of Republicans who won’t vote for him. If #4 > #3 (again assuming the right electoral college mix) it’s entirely possible that he could become the next president of these here United States.

It still doesn’t seem probable, but eight months ago neither did Trump being the GOP front runner after Super Tuesday.

Minnesota Losers United

Speaking of Minnesota losers endorsing Marco Rubio, the Star Tribune jumps on the Marco Rubio bandwagon:

We believe Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is best equipped to carry forward the philosophy of free people and free markets — of limited government, free trade and strong national defense — that has long animated the GOP and enriched American political life. 

That inspiring prose could be helpful to Rubio, unless you take time to consider the source and weigh the odds that the editorial board of the Star Tribune truly cares anything about advancing the philosophy of free markets, limited government, etc.  Either they are blowing smoke, or you take them at their word and sympathize with the quadrennial shock and frustration suffered when the Star Tribune editorial board realized the effects of their past endorsements of the small government all-star team of Barack Obama (twice), John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton (twice), Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, etc., etc.   Let’s please remember this concern for small government and free markets when it comes time for them to endorse Republican Candidate X vs. Democrat/Socialist Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.   (Especially if it’s you Marco, watch your back!)

The institutional voice of the Star Tribune has long been known for insult editorials and drama queen rhetoric and they continue that tradition with this Rubio endorsement:

The insurgent candidacy of Donald Trump has unleashed a heedless xenophobic spirit that threatens to splinter the GOP and wound the country if a unifying alternative isn’t found.

Those words sound eerily familiar.  Where have we heard rhetoric like this before?

Hillary Clinton for one: "One of the most distressing aspects of this campaign has been the language of Republican candidates, particularly their front-runner, that insults, demeans, denigrates different people," Clinton said.  "It's not only shameful and offensive, which it is. I think it's dangerous. And it's dangerous in several ways," she said.

And Bernie Sanders:  … "there are demagogues out there, people like Donald Trump, who are once again attempting to divide us up in xenophobic and racist ways,” Sanders said during a roundtable discussion at The Nation’s Mosque in northwest Washington.

And Martin O’Malley:  “There's a lot of hatred being spewed” in the Republican race, he added, “and I think sometimes as Democrats we are too cautious in the face of that xenophobia.”

And Joe Biden:  "There's one guy absolutely denigrating an entire group of people, appealing to the baser side of human nature, working on this notion of xenophobia in a way that hasn't occurred in a long time," Biden said at the backyard reception, held around the swimming pool at his Washington residence.

Uncanny resemblances.  And I’m sure the average Minnesota caucus goer has learned over the years to put as much faith in the advice of the Star Tribune on which Republican to vote for as they would advice from Hillary Clinton.

One more precious pearl from the Star Tribune endorsement of Marco Rubio, regarding what's wrong with Trump:

He … has accused a two-term Republican president of “lying” to lead the nation into war.

The “Bush Lied” accusation is a sign of a historical ignorance and/or political character assassination and the user of it should rightly be chastised.  After the Star Tribune editorial board gets done with Trump, maybe they’ll have time to confront other perpetrators of this slander, for example, members of the Star Tribune editorial board.  From their 2004 Presidential endorsement of that champion of limited government, John Kerry for President

The way Bush did it demonstrates another of the most important reasons to deny him a second term: his pattern of deception and secrecy. He sold the war on Iraq, a defanged nation, by repeatedly suggesting a connection between Saddam and 9/11. He argued that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction posed an urgent threat to U.S. security. The connections didn't exist, and neither did the weapons. 

Donald Trump is, to say the least, an imperfect messenger.  But the message, of having a controlled immigration system run by the consent of the people, and the government enforcing the rule of the people’s laws, existed before Trump.  He has been smart enough to latch onto it, and it has propelled his rise.  The fact that his articulation of the message is often so crude and counterproductive, and people still support him, is evidence of the absolute dearth of other credible messengers.   No other Republican candidate has fully embraced an approach contrary to the current policy on immigration, or can be trusted follow through on his words  - see the NYT story on Marco Rubio’s willingness to be a useful tool for the status quo.   Truth be told, you probably can’t trust Trump either on these issues, but in this election cycle, he appears to have the shortest nose at the Pinocchio audition.

Process of Elimination

Just in time for the unparalleled drama and excitement of the precinct caucuses comes the latest course offering from Prager University. Who Not to Vote For:

Adam Carolla isn't going to tell you who to vote for. But he is going to tell you who NOT to vote for. And in a time when candidates running for office promise the moon, one of America's funniest comedians shares a few tips about how to spot the candidate that you should run from.



Timely and sage advice indeed.

Laettner's Lament

The highlight of Christian Laettner’s career as a Minnesota Timberwolf occurred after one of the many, many loses he suffered as a member of that woeful team.  As remembered by Michael Rand in the Star Tribune in an interview of Laettner:

You were talking about how everyone else on the team is a loser but you're a winner. You're pointing at dressing stalls saying, "Loser, loser, loser" ... until you get to yours and you say, "Winner."

That incident from 20+ years ago has some resonance in contemporary politics.   Loser!  Loser! Loser! Laettner seems a natural for a position in the coming Trump Administration, perhaps Secretary of Loser Identification.

I just hope Laettner wasn’t skulking around the Minneapolis Hyatt earlier this week when Marco Rubio rolled in to town with his retinue of new supporters:

Capping a strong week in Minnesota with endorsements, a state office and new state staff, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Tuesday visited Minnesota to erect a bastion against other candidates’ dominance in the race. 

… Rubio gained endorsement support from former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and current U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen this week. 

“What we need if we want to win is a candidate who can not only speak to all of us in this room but just as effectively speak to the people who aren’t in this room. Who might never consider coming into this room because they hate politics and they distrust Republicans,” Hennepin County Commission Jeff Johnson, who is Rubio’s Minnesota campaign chairman, told the crowd Tuesday. “Marco Rubio is able to do that.”

I’m not saying Jeff Johnson is an expert on inspiring hate and distrust in Minnesota voters, but he did manage to lose not one, but two, statewide elections (for Attorney General and Governor).

Tim Pawlenty’s expertise in how to win Presidential campaigns was no doubt honed in 2012, when he was the first major declared candidate to drop out after he lost the Iowa …. Straw Poll.   Yes, a non-binding beauty contest preference poll that was so influential that it went out of business last year due to lack of candidate interest.

And then there’s Norm Coleman, who not only lost two statewide races himself, but he upped the ante on Jeff Johnson by losing them to the likes of Jesse Ventura and Al Franken.
 
If that doesn’t provide enough evidence of the power Norm Coleman’s magnetism, let’s not forget prior to picking Rubio as his favorite candidate this year, Norm Coleman has already served as the co-Chairman of the super PAC dedicated to Lindsey Graham’s presidential campaign:

“I think Lindsey is just in a league by himself.”

And then jumped off that bandwagon to endorse Jeb Bush:

“The sense I get as I talk to folks on the ground is that Jeb is gaining momentum on the ground,” he said. “In a place like New Hampshire, which really prizes retail campaigning, that’s where you’re going to see a difference.”

Now he’s on to Marco Rubio.  And I think if you give Coleman two or three more chances at this, he’s going to be backing a winner!

I don’t mean to be too harsh on Johnson, Pawlenty, and Coleman (although that does sound like a dynamite name for a mortician’s practice).  These are the Republican leaders in Minnesota.  And, for the last couple of decades, being a Minnesota Republican leader means being a loser.   You lose elections, over and over and over.   The traditional “The Party Decides” model assumes prominent endorsements play an outsized role in picking eventual winners.   But decades of loss chokes off the supply of prominent, influential endorsers (see the list of commercial products endorsed by Minnesota Timberwolves over the past 20 years for reference).  For Minnesota Republicans, that model is broken.

But you have to give our losers credit for trying.  And who knows?  Some analyses show Minnesota as perhaps the only state Marco Rubio is leading going into the Super Tuesday voting.   Maybe it’s working.  Losers -- we like them here.  Not that we have much choice.

Let's Go Crazy!

Subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Donald.” Okay, that’s far from true. I still think Trump’s mixture of plastic populism, economic ignorance, and dangerous demagoguery is a toxic brew for the GOP and the country. If the next four years are going to be a continuation of the erosion of the United States as an economic and military superpower and a bastion of freedom in a chaotic world, far better for that to occur with a Democrat in the White House.

However, I have come to see one potential positive aspect of the prospect of President Trump. Assuming that he appoints a savvy and strategically savant Secretary of State, there would never be a better opportunity to employ the “Madman Theory” of foreign policy. What exactly is this “Madman Theory” you ask?

Madman Theory:

The madman theory was a primary characteristic of the foreign policy conducted by U.S. President Richard Nixon. His administration, the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from 1969 to 1974, attempted to make the leaders of other countries think Nixon was mad, and that his behavior was irrational and volatile. According to Nixon's theory, leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations would then avoid provoking the United States, fearing an unpredictable American response.

Nixon explained the strategy to his White House Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman:

“I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

In October 1969, the Nixon administration indicated to the Soviet Union that "the madman was loose" when the United States military was ordered to full global war readiness alert (unbeknownst to the majority of the American population), and bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons flew patterns near the Soviet border for three consecutive days.

The administration employed the "madman strategy" to force the North Vietnamese government to negotiate a peace to end the Vietnam War. Along the same lines, American diplomats (Henry Kissinger in particular) portrayed the 1970 incursion into Cambodia as a symptom of Nixon's supposed instability.

The actual effectiveness of the Madman Theory is open to debate. But it’s easy to imagine that it least could have played a role in bringing the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating tables in late 1972 after the US unleashed Operation Linebacker II, which was the heaviest bombing campaign of the war directed against Hanoi and Haiphong. If Nixon was willing to go farther with that bombing than any American leader before and if he was mad (or at least unstable) who knows how much further he would be willing to go? The North Vietnamese very well may have decided not to find out.

Now the beauty of putting this theory into practice with a Trump Administration is that there would no need to feign or exaggerate the madness of the Commander in Chief. As Max Boot put it when I raised this possibility on Twitter yesterday:

In this case it wouldn't be a charade https://t.co/sEkmRdsP7M

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) February 10, 2016

No, the madness would be all too real and quite obvious for all to see. And no one would want to call President Trump’s bluff knowing full well that he wouldn’t hesitate to carry it out.

Imagine the potential power this would provide to a wily Secretary of State trying to convince other countries to come around to a position more favorable for the United States.

“If I have to go back to President Trump and tell him we don’t have a deal, I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know how touchy he is. Would hate to think about what he might do if he got angry…”

And this wouldn’t have to be limited to countries we normally consider as antagonistic to American interests like North Korea, Iran, or Russia. The EU starts cracking down on American tech companies over privacy concerns?

”You got a real nice city here in Brussels. It’d be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

The possibilities for utilizing this in foreign policy are almost endless. Let’s get nuts.