ELECTION 2016 - THE BIDEN ALTERNATIVE, IOWA DEMOCRATIC PARTY DINNER, JOHN KASICH'S SECRET?

1.) The fact that they are resurrecting talk of Joe Biden running indicates the Democrat Party leadership knows Hillary Clinton is a candidate with a lot of negatives and despite a feeling of inevitability, there are a lot of doubts about her in a long campaign. I remember reading about the same kind of doubts in 1999/2000 with Al Gore when his primary opponent Bill Bradley was endorsed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bob Kerrey, Robert Reich and other prominent Democrats. .

2.) Watched the five Democratic candidates give speeches at the Iowa Democratic dinner. With the exception of Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb, none of them mentioned foreign policy (Chafee is kind of like Dennis Kucinich - Right on everything but too "out there" to get a foothold and while Webb is right about Iraq and Libya he is wrong about Iran)). However, the influence of Bernie Sanders is they all now talk about income equality. I actually think Martin O'Malley does a better job of addressing the inequality issue than Sanders. He is a much more organized and lucid speaker. Clinton looks really uncomfortable talking about this issue - Not coming from the heart . The one thing that struck me was that Chafee, O'Malley, Sanders, and Webb are all on record opposing the Iraq War before it happened. Hillary Clinton supported it. There are are many reasons why Hillary should never be president but that by itself should preclude her ever running for president (or any office for that matter). In the greater sense, I think there is a real opener for an anti-empire anti-war candidate in either of the two parties 2016.

3.) Re: John Kasich's presidential run which is supposed to be announced next week. This is a bit gossipy I know but interesting in the context of where the Republican party is in 2015. In 1996 while Kasich was Budget Committee Chairman in the House of Representatives, Bob Dole by his own admission came very very close to picking him as his VP nominee as did Bush in 2000. Bush also considered him for both Budget Director and Treasury Secretary but passed. Kasich considered running for the presidency in 2000 as well but after attending a few events ultimately didn't do it. Why? There used to be a persistent rumor, big enough that CNN's Inside Politics did a segment which I remember watching that Kasich is either gay or bisexual. He lived with his male chief of staff through his time in the House until his very sudden marriage in 1997 (after Dole didn't select him). Also a lot of sightings of him and personal anecdotes - nothing substantial but perhaps enough to spook potential bosses. It could be that Kasich, now the governor of Ohio, feels comfortable enough to ignore those stories in a more open America, maybe they weren't true to begin with but you got to consider presidential vetters go deep into a person's past. Interesting to see homophobes like Huckabee and Santorum address this if it becomes a story and/or if a Kasich campaign catches fire. A much worse story is that Kasich worked for Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crash.