Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Investors Love Divided Government -
Fox Business News Republican Debate Edition

Maria Bartiromo to moderate FBN GOP debate
This debate is all about the moderators and financial news network talent.

The most popular search engine posts on this blog can be found within the "Investors Love Divided Government" label/tags. In fact, among the top posts in the 10 year history of the Dividist Papers are "Markets, Economy, Gridlock"  featuring Maria Bartiromo, "Investors Love Divided Government - 2010 Edition" featuring Amanda Drury. and "Investors Still Love Divided Government"  featuring Trish Regan and Michelle Caruso-Cabrerra.  The Dividist will let The Reader figure out for themselves the common thread. Hey, who are we to argue with success?

Friday, November 06, 2015

The time has come - the blogger said -
To talk of many things:
Of polls and pols and primaries
And candidates who cling.
And when the voters will get smart
And whether pigs have wings.

Through the Looking Glass with Hillary and Donald
The Donald and The Hillary - with apologies to Lewis Carroll
We've postponed this too long and can can no longer avoid the inevitable. The next presidential election is only one year away. The Dividist needs to stop procrastinating and post something about the frightening possibility that one among this herd of candidates will be elected President. Still, there are advantages to neglecting the blog and ignoring all the political permutations to date.

If the Dividist had gotten around to posting a prediction in the spring when the the campaigns were kicking off, he would have confidently stated that a Bush vs. Clinton dynastic rematch was a lock. He might have even suggested the matchup was a win-win for America. Yeah... that's not happening.
The Jeb was moping sulkily,
when Marco started to run.
He had no business to be there
After the debate was done -
"It's very rude of him," he said
"To spoil all my fun!"
By summer the Dividist would have dismissed Donald Trump as a "flash-in-the-pan" and without question would have confidently declared as obvious fact that the Trump bubble was bursting. Clearly Trump's inane McCain, Mexican, Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina comments would not be tolerated by the Republican rank and file. Surprise!
"I'll win for you," The Donald said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With snark and boasts he sorted out
Polls of the largest size,
And holding his bulging wallet,
Kept voters hypnotized.
In the early fall, it was obvious to the Dividist that Hillary Clinton's campaign was mortally wounded by her e-mail scandal, unfavorable ratings,  and other assorted Clintonesque baggage. A Joe Biden cavalry charge to rescue the Democratic Party was clearly in the works.  Silly me. Turns out that she is actually "inevitable." Again.
"Oh voters," said the Hillary,
"Shall the White House be our home again?"
But answer came there none -
And that was scarcely odd, because
She'd lied to every one.

Monday, November 02, 2015

Dear San Francisco,

It's not our fault we have an incompetent buffoon for Sheriff. 62% of us voted against Mirkarimi. Blame Ranked Choice Voting. In the name of all that is good and holy, let's fix this.

- Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Just Vote No on Mirkarimi
Apparently there are people who are still intending to support our incompetent, unqualified, national embarrassment of a Sheriff (I mean, people beside his wife Eliana). No... really... I have it on good authority that there are people who are going to vote for him. I know. Weird. 
As a public service, I have curated a representative sample of articles and commentary culled during Mirkarimi's tenure as San Francisco Sheriff:

Sunday, November 01, 2015

A Tale of Four Speakers

With the election of Paul Ryan to Speaker of the House, we've had four speakers since we launched this blog in 2006. In fact, for the last 10 years, we've had twice as many Speakers as Presidents. Incumbent Representatives have a notoriously high reelection rate. That makes the House of Representatives the most stable partisan cornerstone among our three elected branches of government and historically the most difficult to flip. As a consequence, from a dividist perspective, the party in majority control of the People's House pose the greatest risk to maintaining a divided government.  The often polarizing figure of the Speaker of the House is the key to the majority party maintaining or losing partisan control. In anticipation of Ryan's regime, it is instructive to look back at how the Dividist Papers assessed the three prior speakers.