Feature: Latest Reports from Real Clear Politics ‘Opinion Section’

Why Its Too Late to Scrap the Iran Deal
To most Republicans, the three scariest words in the English language, after “Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” are “Iran nuclear deal.” The GOP presidential candidates are so intent on putting distance between them and it that you’d think the document was printed on radioactive paper. “My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” Donald Trump says. Ted Cruz promises, “On my first day in office, I will rip this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal to shreds.” Even John Kasich vows to “suspend” the agreement and bring back the sanctions that were dropped. When the deal was reached,…

Life Upended
In the two years that I have written this column, I have always tried to make it about the news of the day. I find myself in the awkward position of being the news of the day. Last week, for the first time since I began this national column, I missed my deadline. No column was forthcoming. I had started the column, and I presumed I would finish it last Thursday morning after a doctor’s visit. Five days ago I was out of breath. It had been an increasing problem. I have become, in an effort to get back in shape, a member of the CrossFit cult. I noticed I was having a harder time catching my…

JAYBerns: Rebels Without a Clue
JAYBerns: jobless, angry, young Bernie Sanders supporters. Those aged 18 to 24 have seen their incomes decline under President Barack Obama. Worse, they were one of his most reliable voting blocs. Yet Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ likely 2016 presidential candidate, says, “I don’t think President Obama gets the credit he deserves for digging us out of the ditch Republicans put us in”? Obama, when asked to name the accomplishment for which he is most proud, brags, “I’m proud of saving the American economy.” The numbers are stark. The Obama recovery, which began after the recession ended in…

The Liberal Silent Majority
A few days before Bernie Sanders lost badly in the New York primary, 27,000 souls filled Washington Square Park, many wildly cheering him on. The political media consensus interpreted the scene as evidence of surging support for the senator from Vermont. It did not occur to them that: –The crowd almost certainly included many Hillary Clinton supporters just out to hear what Bernie had to say — not to mention some stray Republicans. –It included tourists who, on a pleasant spring evening, happened on an exciting event and hung around. –Some attendees were Bernie backers who had neglected…

Love Finds a Way in Oakland
In this age of hypersensitivity, the more trivial an issue is, the more controversy surrounds it. This month, Oakland’s City Council voted 5-3 to adopt “Love Life” as the city’s motto. Supporters of the new slogan meant well — and really who can object to an exhortation to love life? But in an age where everything is overcomplicated, the snappy marketing phrase is fraught with potholes and politics. And because it’s Oaktown — racial politics. “Love Life” is the brainchild of Donald Lacy, whose daughter LoEshe — the name means “Love Life” in Nigerian — was killed near McClymonds High…

Anti-Trump Forces Face Tough Road
Donald Trump’s victory in New York stonewalled Ted Cruz’s path to clinching the Republican nomination, making it increasingly difficult to block the GOP front-runner. The Never Trump forces are pledging to play in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other states in the Northeast next week, but the prospect for another momentum shift won’t likely come until next month, with races in Indiana and Nebraska, and eventually California in June. The immediate calendar leaves lots of room for Trump to gain steam. A key part of the problem, strategists say, is that the focus of the effort has…

The New Trump as New Coke
WASHINGTON — If authenticity is your calling card, how do you become authentically inauthentic? Welcome to the New Donald Trump, a marvel of the Twitter-Cable-Facebook Non-Industrial Complex and the age of minuscule attention spans. It took Richard Nixon prodigious feats of hard work between 1962 and 1968 to create the New Nixon who got himself into the White House. But in an era when “brand” is both a noun and a verb and when “curating” is the thing to do, why should it surprise us that the New Trump took less than two weeks to fabricate? After the wild, undisciplined and…

Can Bernie Sanders Still Win the Revolution if he Cant Win the Race?
In New York, the city where some people actually do sleep, the 2016 campaign was re-awakened to some old realities — that momentum in politics is highly overrated and that it’s demography (if not always democracy) that wins the day. In this most strange of political seasons, this means that Hillary Clinton is all but a mathematical lock to win the Democratic nomination while Donald Trump will almost inevitably draw close to the magical 1,237 delegate count by the time Republicans gather in Cleveland for their national convention. This also puts Bernie Sanders in a very difficult…