Jackson Jambalaya

 Trump took a few shots at Hillary in ways that well, might make Republican candidates and pretty boys cringe:




 Meanwhile, The Ace of Spades was shocked, genuinely shocked mind you, that pollster Frank Lutz was shockingly shocked at the level of support for Donald Trump in his presidential polling.

Frank Luntz on the Hatred of the Establishment Revealed by a Pro-Trump Focus Group: "This is real. I'm having trouble processing it. Like, my legs are shaking."

I'm shocked that he's shocked, and I do not mean that as a joke.

He is a professional. He is a focus-grouper and high consultant. I imagine he reads a lot of polls too, and probably runs some.

And yet he didn't know the anger brewing at the Establishment.
I am truly shocked.

No matter how low my estimations of our political class, they keep failing to meet my expectations.

I complained on Friday that the vaunted consultant class does not know the most elemental things about the "constituency" they're paid to advise clients about. I put "constituency" in quotes because it's quite plain they do not consider the actual grassroots voter as their constituency. In fact, they do not consider them at all.

I have previously said -- and I've said this a dozen times before, especially in the 2007 amnesty fight -- that the Establishment in DC, paid millions and feted as gurus of the political pulse of the nation -- knows far, far less than the base than the average low-level blogger who bothers to read his comments and talk with them.

By the way, of course: That's expressly the reason Andrew Breitbart read the comments, especially here. Well, one reason was that he simply enjoyed them. But the other reason, he told me, was to figure out where people, as a mass, were on issues, where their passion was, where they were going.

You would think that these well-paid consultants, claiming the ability to channel the sentiments of the party, would do this very most basic sort of research into the national mood...... (KF note: There is a great deal of truth to this observation.). 

The political class is useless and must be swept away, completely. Not only do they have an agenda contrary to most of the voters' interests, but even when it comes to the thing they're supposed to be good at, be experts at, they're totally incompetent and in fact absolutely pathetic.

I'll give Trump this much: He is right to call them "morons." They should be called what they are. They are failures, they are incompetent, and they're a disaster.

I'm sure they'll "hit all their numbers," though. Read the rest of a very entertaining post.

 However, Peggy Noonan threw in some more somewhat high-brow observations on Mr. Trump and the electorate in several columns at the Wall Street Journal:

 the traditional mediating or guiding institutions within the Republican universe—its establishment, respected voices in conservative media, sober-minded state party officials—have little to no impact on Mr. Trump’s rise. Some say voices of authority should stand up to oppose him, which will lower his standing. But Republican powers don’t have that kind of juice anymore. Mr. Trump’s supporters aren’t just bucking a party, they’re bucking everything around, within and connected to it.

Since Mr. Trump announced, I’ve worked or traveled in, among other places, Southern California, Connecticut, Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey and New York’s Long Island. In all places I just talked to people. My biggest sense is that political professionals are going to have to rethink “the base,” reimagine it when they see it in their minds.... Rest of column

 A source of Mr. Trump’s strength is that normal people understand how big donors have an impact on policy. Mr. Trump can stand where the people stand on such issues as immigration because the donor class doesn’t have hooks in him. “I’m turning down so much money,” he told reporters last week at the Iowa State Fair. If he accepted a big contribution, “I’d feel obligated, because I’m a loyal person.” On the other hand, “Jeb Bush is a puppet to his donors.” On Thursday this newspaper’s Heather Haddon reported that some major GOP donors are growing impatient with GOP candidates who’ve withdrawn their support for Common Core. But Common Core is not popular, and they are trying to survive. I remember when donors just wanted dinner, or an ambassadorship. Now they want policy. Someone, not just Mr. Trump, should bop them hard. Rest of column. 

 Others have written of Mr. Trump’s appeal, as have I. When citizens are consistently offended by Washington, by both parties’ leadership, they become contemptuous. They see Mr. Trump’s contempt and identify. What the American establishment has given us the past 20 years is sex scandals, money scandals, two unwon wars, an economic collapse, an inadequate recovery, and borders we no longer even pretend to control. They think: What will you give us next, the plague?...

 But the party elites don’t have the power they once had. They’ve been undone by a generation of bad leadership. They’re afraid: A monster just came out of a swamp and is lurching their way. Journalistic elites have damned Mr. Trump, to no effect except incendiary comment threads. Once they were the cops on the ideological beat; they ran that into the ground during the Bush years, using too many nightsticks....Rest of column.

 Trump and Sanders are probably different angles on the same problem: the bases of each party don't trust nor like the anointed ones served up as likely presidential nominees by the party establishments.  Everything Ms. Noonan wrote applies to the Bush dynasty and the smarter Democrats probably think the same about Hillary as well.  They may support Hillary but they are not blind nor are they stupid. They know Hillary will sell them out in a heartbeat and there will always be scandals if the Clintons are involved.   Obama's 2008 presidential run gave them a chance to break away from the Clinton morass.  The Clintons are the Tom and Daisy of American politics as Paul Greenberg once wrote.

As for Trump: Study Huey P. Long.  Huey came off as a loudmouth but he was a very successful loudmouth.  He was very smart and made up his own rules, critics be damned. He was also damn near unstoppable.  Huey saw then what both Sanders and Trump see today: the American people are fed up and have had it with the leadership of both parties.