The first-in-the-nation 2024 Iowa caucus is a little more than seven months away. New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina vote next before Super Tuesday on March 5.
Currently, there are just three Democratic candidates, an octogenarian who has held political office since his 30th birthday (President Biden) and two septuagenarians who have never held office: author Marianne Williamson and scion Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Can Kennedy or Williamson push Biden off the top spot? Biden has a comfortable lead but given his age, his health, and current scandals, can he retain it?
Governor Ron DeSantis entered the Republican race in May; Chris Christie and Mike Pence entered shortly after. They join President Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, and Nikki Haley. Eight candidates is significantly fewer than the 17 who ran in 2016. Eight is enough. Still, I ask why are there so many non-viable Republicans? Only President Trump and Governor DeSantis have a chance. The others are running as if it were still 2016. The country has changed dramatically since then, but they haven’t adapted.
Trump, for all his faults, love him or hate him, set a new standard by effectively countering the one-channel media and daring to say or do just about anything, often things other politicians claimed they wanted to do but never would do. DeSantis has also broken the mold while governing Florida. The party faithful is tried of the countless others in the “play it safe; we know better than the party faithful” club. Vivek Ramaswamy may be a different candidate also, a Republican businessman and non-politician, but name recognition is super-duper important and he doesn’t have it; he won’t pull enough votes from the two heavyweights. The rest of the field is dull and boring; I think would struggle to beat disgraced (from a Republican perspective) Representative Liz Cheney.
Can Biden Hold On?
Biden’s job approval is 42.0% as of June 9, 2023 (RCP average of polls: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html).
Biden’s and Trump’s numbers to this point are remarkably similar. Trump’s average June 9, 2019, at the start of the 2020 race was: 44.3%., two points better than Biden. Trump’s low point was 37.3% in July of his first year, nearly the same as Biden’s 37.2% in July of year two. After year one, Trump’s approval swung between 40% and 47% up until the election. Biden started with a far better rating, but has been in the same range the last year-and-a-half. He hasn’t risen above 45% since October 2021.
Obama’s numbers were consistently better than either Trump’s or Biden’s. November 2012, President Obama had a 50% approval rating, enough to easily defeat Mitt Romney. Since then presidential races have tightened. A few more votes in the other direction in three critical states would have changed the last two elections. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan by a combined 80,000 votes over Clinton. In 2020, Biden won Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia with a combined margin of 40,000 votes over Trump. The country is closely divided and Trump and Biden with their high negatives cannot run away with the race (given a fair election).
Biden is the likely Democrat nominee, but what are Democrats to do if his health fails, something we should be concerned about given his age? He took a nasty spill at the Air Force Academy last week.
After this fall, Biden’s press secretary said he didn’t bother to see a doctor. He is so fit, he just shook it off easily. Why do they feel the need to tell us obvious lies? Why do they not care we see through them? Biden’s cognitive health is a problem too despite far too many claiming he is as spry as ever:
white-house-press-secretary-dismisses-concerns-about-biden
In an interview on CNN, the spokeswoman seemed shocked when host Don Lemon asked whether the 79-year-old commander-in-chief could handle another grueling presidential campaign.
“That is not a question that we should be even asking,” Jean-Pierre said. “Oh, my gosh, he’s the president of the United States, you know, he … I can’t even keep up with him.”
Will-you-still-love-me-when-i’m-86
Further, what if the economy falters? Inflation was 7% and 6.5% the last two years, and 5% so far this year. The Fed’s target is 2%. We’ve missed the mark significantly. Inflation and recession are two different things, but inflation can lead to spending cutbacks from businesses and eventually an economic slowdown. This would spell big trouble for Biden’s re-election chances.
Clearly, Biden is a risky candidate, so why are Democrats sticking with him? Perhaps because VP Harris is even less popular. Perhaps because they see a weak bench. Perhaps too they have other strategies for pushing him over the finish line?
Biden is desperate to re-establish the Obama coalition from 2012. However, Biden is not as charismatic nor as popular as Obama was (or still is). He is pulling out the race card and the transphobia card to scare voters, the same tactic he used when claiming Mitt Romney wants to “put y’all back in chains”. Will voters recognize this is the same old divisive playbook?
The best play for Democrats is to talk up Trump during the primaries and attack him through the legal system. Biden and his Justice Department are doing everything they can to indict Trump on minor charges: holding secret documents after leaving office (under a civil not a criminal statute), payments to cover up extra-marital affairs (despite an expired statute date), a phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State that can be interpreted many ways. Throw in a civil case alleging rape, but with no circumstantial evidence and a accuser who told Anderson Cooper “rape is sexy” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cooper-cuts-interview-short-after-e-jean-carroll-calls-rape-sexy.
This is election interference on behalf of Biden. One channel media refuses to label it as such, but it is the only game Democrats have. What else can they do with this bad hand? Charges are rolling in this year and trials begin next year. The public has been fed a steady diatribe regarding Trump and unfriendly venues such as NYC in which just 12% voted for Trump make the odds of at least one conviction good. For Biden’s sake, trials will coincide with the general election race. The process is punishment enough, enough to dissuade independent voters and enough to keep Democrats from swaying. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow speaks the quiet part out loud:
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow suggested Thursday there could be a plea deal where former President Trump gets less punishment for agreeing to bow out of the 2024 race after he announced he was being indicted by the Department of Justice.
Yes, of course, but give him a chance to win the nomination first. Then pull the sucker punch. The strategy is an obvious one. It is a corrupt, yet likely effective strategy. Even if Trump manages to avoid prosecution, Independents will not be swayed to vote for the man under numerous criminal investigations. Trump needs a few converts, but too many will never vote for him no matter what.
This is the Democrat’s only chance to win with Biden. Trump is the only candidate he can beat, so they will do whatever they can to get that matchup, and then then they will do whatever they can to make it a bare knuckled, anything goes, fist fight.
Other Democrats
RFK Jr. says the CIA killed his uncle and his father in the 1960s. Anything is possible, but Kennedy says it is obvious. I think it is not so obvious. He has also been an anti-vaxxer from way back. Vaccines cause autism, per Kennedy. This too is possible, but I am dubious (although I don’t know enough to speak to the claim). Kennedy has been outspoken for years on the environment. He says: “The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.” I am all for preserving the environment, but environmentalists have gotten it wrong repeatedly climate-change-failures
However, Kennedy is an atypical Democrat. It is what makes him an interesting candidate. He made common cause with many conservatives with his opposition to the COVID vaccines. He is showing he is not on board with all Democrat orthodoxy: he is not for gun control and will shut down the Southern border. Wow! Kennedy recently visited Texas and candidly spoke of problems, rare for a Democrat.
“It is not anti-immigrant bigotry to demand an immigration system that keeps out criminals. In fact, letting them in stokes bigotry. As President, I will enforce a secure border, and I will expand the kind of LEGAL immigration that made our country great.”
“I will make the border impervious,” Kennedy said. “We cannot release people, illegal aliens across the border.”
Kennedy is polling at 20% nationally, not nearly enough to win. The party won’t let a renegade like him win in any case, just like they wouldn’t let Bernie Sanders win. Still, the number shows dissatisfaction among the party rank-and-file. Kennedy is a proxy for that dissatisfaction.
Mary Ann Williamson is an author who ran in 2020 also. She is a friend of Oprah and was an interesting character during the last race as she talked about “harnessing love”, but she also lacks name recognition. In addition, for all her quirkiness, she stands with her party on all important issues, another dull and boring candidate after all.
Republicans
Again, I doubt any Republican candidate other than Trump and DeSantis will gain traction, but still we should note a few bold actions among the second tier. It is rare for candidates to go against hostile media. It rarely works out well. This week Senator Tim Scott went on The View and acquitted himself well.
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/a-major-takeaway-from-tim-scotts-appearance-on-the-view.html
He stated, “That is a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people today, that the only way to succeed is by being the exception.”
He continued, “Every kid today can look — just change the stations and see how much progress has been made in this country. ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ESPN, CNN, and FOX News, all have African-American and Hispanic hosts. So what I’m suggesting is that yesterday’s exception is today’s rule.”
These ladies are especially hostile to those like Scott who they see as having abandoned the only party they suppose represents minorities and women. They should learn a lesson on race in America from Senator Scott, but I doubt they will.
Former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Niki Haley wants to talk about entitlement failures. It is an obvious problem, but most politicians avoid the issue.
“Those are the ones we tell the rules have changed — anyone new coming in this system,” said Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “That’s how you do entitlement reform. You let them know, it’s not going to be there for you anyway, because Social Security goes bankrupt in 10 years, Medicare goes bankrupt in five. We have to do something.”
President Trump has repeatedly avoided the entitlement issue. The last president to address it was George W. Bush. Former Speaker Paul Ryan also made it an issue. Both went nowhere with the issue and were hurt politically. Still, we shouldn’t wait until we are out of options; the solutions are more painful the longer we wait. Good for Niki Haley for at least raising the issue.
DeSantis versus Trump
President Trump pleaded for Governor DeSantis to stay out of the presidential race. He didn’t have a good argument. He needed something like: “We need you in Florida and you can run for president in four years. We will work together to clean up problems. ” He could have also made the legitimate claim he was responsible for launching DeSantis to national prominence and the governorship of Florida. Instead, he searched desperately for a moniker to tie to DeSantis and talked down the man he had praised so often before.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/23/donald-trump-praises-fl-gov-ron-desantis-in-supercut-of-comments/
Trump refers to his lead in the polls a bit too much. Yes, he leads comfortably now, but it is still early. He doesn’t quote the polls that matter. The first few states have an outsized influence. The first Iowa poll since DeSantis announced his candidacy came out this week. Trump still leads but the race could be tightening.
The Iowa caucus is seven months away. There is plenty of time.
Trump’s abrasive personality and outrageous statements frustrate so many Republicans, but they like the job he did while also overcoming withering and countless unfair attacks invented by his political opponents. Trump did what others would never do. He went after Roe v. Wade and he won (with an assist from Justice Ginsberg who refused to leave office). He moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem; it wasn’t rhetoric as it was with all his predecessors. He showed the underbelly of the media and how to defeat them. He got things done. He defeated ISIS and negotiated four peace deals in the Middle East. He cut taxes and regulations. The economy boomed under his watch; unemployment for all sectors, including the Democrat base, was at historic lows.
Governor DeSantis wisely does not attack any of President Trump’s accomplishments. Instead, in one of his first ads, he attacks the president’s COVID record. Why didn’t Trump fire Dr. Fauci? Why did he outsource his administration to Fauci and let him derail the last year of the Trump administration? This ad clearly shows Trumps unwillingness to fire Fauci; he appears fearful of doing so. It is effective because Fauci is very unpopular among Republicans. President Trump still claims he saved hundreds of millions of lives during the pandemic. He has to change his message or DeSantis will expose him even more.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ron-desantis-campaign-ad/2023/06/05/id/1122476/
Republicans like DeSantis because of his accomplishments too. DeSantis is appealing, in part, because he is far more disciplined and far less abrasive than Trump. DeSantis does things and then talks about them afterward, unlike your typical politician who talks a good game but doesn’t follow-up. https://www.flgov.com/2023/05/05/governor-ron-desantis-celebrates-historic-success-during-the-2023-legislative-session/
Trump’s accomplishments, are a on bigger scale than DeSantis’s, but Trump is attacking DeSantis from the Left. For example, Trump labeled Florida’s a six-week abortion ban extreme. DeSantis will let Trump move to his Left. It is bad strategy for Trump. Trump engineered the biggest win ever in the pro-life movement, so why attack Florida’s abortion restrictions as going too far? Why doesn’t he say: “I made that possible”? What is this strategy?
DeSantis fights back without even mentioning Trump. Last month, Trump canceled a stop in Iowa due to weather that never materialized. The same day, DeSantis scheduled a last minute stop close to the spot Trump was originally schedule to speak, a subtle but effective jab. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/tornado-threat-cancels-trumps-iowa-rally-ron-desantis-campaigns-state-rcna84305
Indicting President Trump makes him more popular among Republicans (per polling results), although not among Independents and Democrats. Trump was indicted on a flimsy charge in New York (unjustly for a payoff to Ms. Daniels under an expired statute). Governor DeSantis said he would resist Trump’s extradition to New York, but Trump went voluntarily. The next hearing is more than six months away, just as the campaign heats up. Why didn’t he refuse to turn himself in? The strategy may help him with Republicans, but it weakens his chances in the general. The Democrats will not give him a fair shot, so don’t play into their strategy.
Trump is likely to be convicted for something, something minor or embarrassing, perhaps. It will hurt his campaign no matter what it is. It will not persuade more voters to give him another look. Biden has his own problems, including the exact same one regarding secret documents, but they will be downplayed. I-take-national-secrets-seriously-the-garage-ws-locked-damnithttps://seek-the-truth.com/2023/01/21/i-take-national-secrets-seriously-the-garage-was-locked-damnit/
Biden Accomplishments?
I want to give equal time, so I asked my liberal friend to list Biden’s accomplishments. It’s longer than I imagined, but still not impressive I intersperse some commentary below.
- Commitment to combat climate change.
- Support for transgender service memebers and other support for the LGBTQ+ community
- Negotiated with the Republicans to avert debt ceiling breach.
- Brought the troops out of Afghanistan ending a two-decade deployment.
- supported a Bipartisan infrastructure bill.
I am not sure of the actual climate change accomplishment.
I know many kept out of the military because of medical conditions. Enlisting people with a mental illness is a good thing now? Transgenders have the highest suicide rate of any contemporary demographic, of any demographic past or present. These are the bad-assess we need to kill the enemy? Quit implementing your failed social justice policies in the military and let them do their jobs.
Biden refused to negotiate on the debt limit for three months. He held out for a “clean” debt bill which he never got. What’s the accomplishment?
Afghanistan withdrawal was one of the worst foreign policy mistakes ever. We had about 2,500 troops at the time. We could have remained in Bagram like we have remained in Gitmo the last 60 years. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a massive failure.
The infrastructure bill was more money we did not have and is one of the drivers of the current high inflation. The great Milton Friedman said there is ONE source of inflation: government spending.
- recovered ransom money paid to a Russian hacking collective for holding hostage oil pipelines through ransomware.
- he sidelined the court packing of the Supreme Court the Democrats were pressuring him to do.
- Highest number of federal judge appointments since Reagan
Biden remained non-committal on court packing for a very long time, but at least the idea did die. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/democrats-introduce-bill-expand-supreme-court-9-13-justices-n1264132
It was good that we recovered the ransom money. It happened under Biden’s watch, so let’s give him some credit. Wow, potentially a legitimate accomplishment on the list!
Trump and Carter appointed the most judges per year than Biden: Trump 61 per year (total 245) and Carter 65 per year (total 262). Biden has appointed 130 in 28+ months. That’s 56 per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Joe_Biden. Does it say something he was beaten by Trump (so far) in this contest?
Perhaps a better measure is the quality of judges appointed, something Senator Cruz has complained of repeatedly. One Biden appointee didn’t know the articles of the Constitution https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/biden-judicial-nominee-doesnt-know-what-constitution-does. A Supreme Court nominee bragged about being the first black women appointee, but refused to define the word “woman” judge-kentanji-jackson-whats-a-woman .
- airstrikes against Iranian proxy forces
- the first president to resist Turkish pressure and officially acknowledge its 1915 genocide against Armenians. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/24/politics/armenian-genocide-biden-erdogan-turkey/index.html
- Historic trilateral security agreement with UK and Australia. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/15/joint-leaders-statement-on-aukus/
Which historic air strike, I wonder? President Biden did officially condemn the Turkish genocide, but has retreated on condemnation of China’s actions in Tiananmen Square (https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/05/biden-administration-accused-giving-major-coup-china-meeting-anniversary-tiananmen-square-massacre/; https://www.mediaite.com/politics/blinkens-tiananmen-square-anniversary-statement-omits-references-to-massacre-ongoing-chinese-atrocities-as-biden-reportedly-seeks-detente/ ). Yes, we have a new agreement with the UK and Australia for Pacific defense, but what happens when China attacks Taiwan? Should we rely on Australia and the UK two nations of less than 70 million or should we do more ourselves?
I have a few final questions for my friend:
- Have you read the Durham report? Just read the executive summary. Read the full John Durham special counsel investigation report here – CBS News.
- Are you interested in the document the FBI finally handed over to Chairman Comer, only after FBI Director Wray was to be held in contempt? It talks of a bribery scheme first presented to the FBI three years ago. Why the delay in coming to a conclusion? https://www.newsweek.com/document-center-comers-fbi-request-explained-1803720
- Did you listen to Buck Sexton’s interview of Peter Schweitzer regarding the payments from China, Romania, and Ukraine to the Bidens: $10 million already confirmed and $31 million alleged. Money was sent to the whole family, including grandkids. What’s the explanation for that? how-china-buys-off-our-elites.
- Did you ever listen to Tony Bobulinski’s public statement in October 2020 regarding Hunter Biden and Joe Biden corruption? It is only seven minutes long. It’s worth your time to know more. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4917807/user-clip-tony-bobulinski-statement-hunter-biden. Just who was Tony Bobulinski and why is he a credible source: https://seek-the-truth.com/2022/03/19/because-more-than-50-intelligence-officials-said-so-really/
- What do you think of the IRS whistleblower who told us Hunter Biden’s tax investigation was continually interfered with? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-whistleblower-tax-probe-hunter-biden/
Do you care about any of these? Do you really want to hear both sides of the issue? Liberal media immediately dismisses all these, but should you too?
Dave https://seek-the-truth.com/about/
https://seek-the-truth.com/
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