June 13, 2019--Trump Slump

We've been in Maine more than five weeks and I have spent about five minutes watching Morning Joe. 

Not each day, but five minutes totally. And for at least half that time I wasn't paying attention.

This is me who back in the city was about addicted to Joe Scarborough's early morning show and Nicole Wallace's on MSNBC later in the day.

My rationalization for tuning out is that the 2020 election is more than 17 months away and I do not want to peak too soon in my effort to help dispose of Trump.

But though I may be pooping out, or, as I prefer to think about it, pausing, Trump at 73 is tirelessly racing around the country appearing at pep rallies and spending hours each day tweeting up storms of noxious abuse that he hurls against his opponents. Mainly recently, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. 

Forgotten for the moment is that the week before there were others who bedeviled Trump and as a result were mocked by him--remember Robert Mueller and Bette Midler among others? Yes, "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy" Bette Milder, who he called from the beaches of Normandy, on D Day, a "washed-up psycho."

And that's sort of the point--he sends out such a continuous stream of political gas that he creates a new norm, and unless one is careful it is easy to get sucked into it or want to retreat to the sidelines.

So I am finding, not just anecdotally, that many people are seeking distractions. Even Trump people. His rallies are less well attended and somewhat less rapturous. But just as I expect Democrats to return to the fold, or minimally resume following the campaign, I expect most of Trump's people will as well. So I don't see much of an edge there.

Conventional wisdom (which with Trump has not always been that wise) suggests that in national elections people do not start paying attention until the Labor Day before Election Day. And in the current case, if this holds true, we're talking about two Labor Days from now. The one this year and another in September 2020.

Yes, the Democratic nomination process kicks into high gear in 13 days when there is the first debate, spread over two days, among the 20 or 75 candidates seeking the nomination. (Another debate will follow in July so by August I'm afraid that hardly anyone will be paying attention to the Democrats.)

Party activists, though, will track what is happening as the debates are viewed as elimination rounds where those who languish in one-percent land at the end of June will begin to drop out. New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, for example.

And, yes, on the other side of the equation the debate is an opportunity for someone or two to emerge from the pack. Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg, for example, who recently have been doing well in the polls. In Iowa at least. 

Many Dems seem to be looking for an alternative to oldsters Sanders and Biden, both of whom are looking as if they are readier to move into a care facility than the White House. Though 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the ultimate care facility. The president even has his own in-house physician and emergency room.

In spite of what I've just said, I suspect for some time I won't be tuning in to "Morning Joe." Except, perhaps, for a couple of days later in the month just before and after the first debate. 

Though it appears that Joe himself these days hardly ever turns up for his own show.

March 3, 2016--Super Tuesday: Who Really Won? Who Really Lost?

The New York Times banner headline on Wednesday morning was, "TRUMP AND CLINTON FEAST AS 12 STATES VOTE."

Putting aside the funky "feast," did the NYT get it right?

One could make a case that they missed the real stories. For both parties.

That case would claim that the apparent biggest winner--Hillary Clinton--with by far the most delegate votes (she has 1,001 while Sanders has only 371) was really a loser.

She has thus far benefitted greatly, disproportionately, by being propelled into the lead by rolling up a powerful stream of victories in mainly southern states with large concentrations of Democratic African-American voters while she is doing less well in other, more demographically balanced states. States such as Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont, all of which Sanders won on Super Tuesday.

Further, over the next few weeks there will be mainly winner-take-all primaries in states such as Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Illinois, Michigan, and of course Ohio where Sanders may be set up to do quite well.

And a large portion of Clinton's delegates (more than half her total) are so-called "super delegates," chosen by local party elites. These delegates could turn out to be evanescent if Sanders gets on a roll.

Remote as this may be, this is still possible and a good reason for the Clintons not to do too much premature celebrating since, according to this analysis, Sanders sort of won and Clinton sort of lost.

On the GOP side, if I were Trump I would be a little nervous. Many pundits said he was sure to carry all 11 Super Tuesday states, with the exception of Ted Cruz's Texas. Cruz did in fact win there with a margin of 17 percentage points, more than double what was predicted.

And then he went on to defeat Trump in Oklahoma (Tuesday's most unpredictable state with Cruz and Sanders winning) and the Alaska caucus.

Also, the otherwise hapless Marco Rubio managed to win the Minnesota caucus while Trump wound up a weak third.

Add to that that Trump, on average, is getting only 35-40 percent of the popular votes and if you add up all the GOP delegates thus far awarded, he has only 45 percent of them.

Not exactly a New York Times feast.

If Kasich wins Ohio and Rubio manages somehow to win Florida, Trump could be in trouble. Minimally a brokered convention would be a distinct possibility where the remaining party bosses and big-money people would rig things for Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney.

So for me the Republican winners might be Kasich, who did pretty well in Vermont and Massachusetts and should do much better during the next two weeks, and without doubt Cruz, who is the current stand-out number two.

Then again, Ben Carson may turn out to be the biggest winner. If he "suspends" his candidacy, as expected, he'll no longer have to appear on stage side-by-side with these people.

November 13, 2013--Hillary in 2013

If anyone has been wondering if Hillary will run for president in 2016, yesterday there was clear evidence that she is already running in 2013.

From her principal surrogate--husband Bill.

Just the other morning, as Barack Obama's approval rating plummeted well below 50 percent and his disapproval poll numbers soared about 50 percent, Rona and I wondered how Hillary will run against her ultimate Republican opponent and the president she served as Secretary of State.

With Obama on the political ropes--largely because of the disastrous rollout of Obamacare--how will she distance herself from him? It will not work for her to campaign offering four-more years of what we now have.

Bill gave us our first public glimpse of her presidential campaign strategy.

Recall that when she was on ropes of her own after the early primaries in 2008--the upstart Obama was doing so well that it looked as if she was no longer the inevitable nominee--Bill was unleashed in South Carolina to get her back on track.

There he unabashedly played the race card, reminding South Carolinians, after Obama's victory, about how Jessie Jackson had won the Democratic primary there in 1984 and 88 and look what happened to him. The conflating of the decidedly black Jackson with the post-racial half-white Obama was considered by many well below the belt, even for the Clintons who take no prisoners.

Yesterday Bill was back in campaign mode suggesting very publicly that Obama should seek to change the Affordable Care Act to allow people "to keep their current health insurance, just as he promised" when Obamacare was controversially working its way through Congress.

Don't be surprised if Bill Clinton soon tries to put the blame on Barack Obama for the murder of our ambassador in Benghazi, Libya.