Tag Archives: Joe Biden

national news

Please, please … no repeat of 2016!

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All these public opinion polls showing Joe Biden trouncing Donald Trump in the November election for president of the United States are beginning to tempt me beyond my strength.

I have to keep reminding myself: The polling said Hillary Clinton would cruise to victory over Trump in 2016; she didn’t cruise to the victory circle, but ended up making the concession phone call to the celebrity TV host/real estate developer/beauty pageant operator/rich kid who got the stake from Daddy. He was the guy who won!

I look back on that fiasco and I keep having to remind myself about this, too: If Joe Biden repeats the mistakes that Clinton made in ’16, then Trump is going to thumb his nose at the country once more … and we get this Bozo for another four years!

It is my fondest political hope at this moment that Biden’s team is smarter than Hillary’s team. That it knows to put the candidate front and center in “battleground states” that Clinton ignored as the candidates headed down the home stretch four years ago. I recall watching the returns in 2016 when Trump was declared the winner in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Bill Clinton’s election guru, James Carville, telling the nation that he didn’t like what he was seeing. Neither did many others, James.

The RealClearPolitics average of the reputable polls puts Biden up by 10 points. He’s been inching up and away from Trump ever since the president blew the pandemic response to smithereens and then threatened peaceful protesters with “thousands and thousands of heavily armed troops” as they marched against police brutality. I need to mention here that the RCP poll average called Hillary Clinton’s margin over Trump accurately in 2016; it just didn’t figure the Electoral College trickery – albeit all legal and constitutional – that Trump pulled off to win the election.

Oh, how I hope we don’t see a repeat of that fiasco, disaster, fluke .. and profound mistake that the nation made when it cast its electoral votes for someone who is unfit for the only public service office he ever sought.

national news

Trump campaign strategy has taken form

Donald Trump’s campaign theme has taken form. It is clear now what Trump intends to do while seeking re-election as president of the United States.

He is going to denigrate, degrade, disparage his Democratic Party foe, Joseph Biden. Donald Trump will not offer a clear vision for the future. He won’t tell us what he intends to do during a second term. Trump likely won’t even boast about what he allegedly accomplished during the term he is serving.

I have seen the TV ads that Donald Trump has approved. They speak to Biden’s mental acuity. They say the former vice president “is slipping.”

Well, I am not going to defend Joe Biden’s mental snap, other than to say that I believe he has plenty left in the tank to compete head to head against the Liar in Chief.

I have no intention of offering this critique of Trump to prompt him to develop a winning strategy. I do not believe he is capable of crafting a theme on which to run for re-election. He instead is wired to pummel straw men. He continually lambasted Hillary Clinton in 2016 over the email matter, suggesting nefarious motives for her use of a personal server while she was secretary of state.

Trump likely will copy that page from his winning playbook strategy in 2020. Joe Biden’s team must be aware of it — and I have no doubt it is — must be prepared to answer every single innuendo that Trump intends to hurl against the proverbial wall.

Donald Trump’s political career by all rights should come to a screeching halt once they count all the voters’ ballots cast on or before Nov. 3.

How might Biden respond? I hope he intends to tell us how he would react to crises and pledge to improve on the feckless, reckless and pointless response to the COVID-19 crisis we’ve seen from the Trump administration. I also hope he intends to speak passionately to the issue of civil rights, which is a topic that is foreign to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is likely to bring the nastiness to a full boil quickly and will sustain it during the length of what looks to me to be the most vile presidential campaign in memory.

national news

Smooth transition? Will it occur?

I am resisting the temptation to get too far ahead of myself as I ponder the upcoming presidential election.

It is hard, given my intense desire to see Joe Biden beat Donald Trump like a drum and boot the POTUS’s sorry behind out of the White House.

Still, I am prone these day to wonder what the next presidential transition will look like. Will it be the “smooth, peaceful transition” that presidents and former presidents talk about when they sing the praises of our form of government?

The good news is that Donald Trump won’t be president forever, despite the reported claims that he wishes it could happen. The best news is that he’ll exit the Oval Office for the final time on Jan. 20, 2021.

I have watched a number of videos in the YouTube archive of such events. I have seen the manner in which President Clinton handed over the reins of power to George W. Bush; how President Bush did the same to Barack Obama; and how President Obama did as well to Donald Trump.

All those outgoing presidents spoke well of their successors. They wished them good luck and Godspeed. They all embodied the uniqueness of our form of government, how presidents of opposing political parties can set aside their differences and work toward something that resembles a smooth transition.

How in the world is the current president going to react when his challenger defeats him? Yes, I shudder to think of this, but how might he react to the ascent of the next president in 2025?

I believe it is fair to speculate that if Biden beats Trump this November that the incumbent ain’t going to go quietly, with dignity, with grace and with good wishes for his successor. Has there been any example of that kind of comportment from this president? I haven’t seen it. Have you? 

Either scenario — whether the transition occurs next January or four years from now — is enough to send chills up my spine.

I’ve spent a good deal of blog space trashing former national security adviser John Bolton for refusing to tell us what he saw “In the Room Where It Happened” when it really mattered. However, he was asked how Donald Trump should be remembered.

Bolton said he hopes he will be remembered as a “one-term president” who didn’t damage the office beyond repair. I want to add that I also hope that Donald Trump would accept voters’ decision quietly … and just disappear.

national news

Joe Biden: most memorable comeback in history?

If the 2020 presidential election plays out as I hope it will — and I will not take my preferred outcome for granted — then we are going to witness a truly historic political event.

We are going to witness what I believe could be the most astonishing political comeback in U.S. history.

Joe Biden will be nominated soon by the Democratic Party to take on Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent president of the United States. The winds are blowing briskly at Biden’s back … at the moment. I pray they will carry him to victory, enabling him to repair the damage Trump has brought to our republic.

How in the world did Biden get to this place?

He was elected to the Senate in 1972; then his wife and daughter died in a horrific auto accident. Young Joe Biden thought about quitting, as he had two young sons — both of whom were injured badly in that wreck, but who suddenly were without their mother. His Senate colleagues talked him into staying.

He sought the 1988 nomination. He was proud of bellowing about his working-class background. Oops! Wait! It turned out he was lifting comments, almost verbatim, from a British politician, Neil Kinnock, who came from similar hardscrabble beginnings. Biden was caught copying those remarks. He dropped out, embarrassed and possibly ashamed of himself.

Two decades later, he ran again for president. He got thumped in the early primaries by a young Illinois senator, a fellow named Barack Hussein Obama. Biden called it quits in the 2008 campaign. Obama then won the nomination, but before that he tapped Biden on the shoulder and asked him to join him on what the two of them would call “an incredible journey.” The Obama-Biden ticket won that race and served two successful terms at the top of the political chain of command.

Now comes 2020. Biden decides to run again for president. He gets shellacked in the early primaries. Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t go well … at all! He would bide his time. Biden waited for a key endorsement from a South Carolina political godfather, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Clyburn gave Biden a ringing endorsement. Biden won the South Carolina primary. He then won practically every other primary after that.

The man whose campaign was thought to be on life support then turned into a raging juggernaut.

He now stands on the precipice of becoming elected to the nation’s highest office. His entry into the Senate was nearly doomed by tragedy; his first run for president got derailed by the candidate’s own rhetorical carelessness; his second presidential run was steamrolled by a charismatic young pol; and his third presidential campaign needed a key endorsement by a leading African-American politician to get new life.

Do you get my point? Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been left for political dead more times than he cares to recall. I suggest that even if he loses to Trump, his comeback still will look impressive.

A victory, though, would put this working-class hero in a league all to himself.

national news

‘130 million to zero’? If only …

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A Facebook friend — a gentleman I don’t know well, but likely will get to know better — put out a message that I found refreshing.

He wonders why the next presidential election won’t produce a vote result of “130 million to zero.” That would be with Joe Biden getting every ballot cast this coming November, with Donald Trump getting none of them. My friend estimates a nationwide turnout of 130 million votes being cast.

Man, that is a serious pipe dream, but as I survey the wreckage that Donald Trump has brought to the presidency, it does astound me that there could be any Trumpkin who voted for the carnival barker/con man in 2016 would stay with him this time around.

Of course they will. No one believes Joe Biden can pitch a shutout, although many of us — even those of us who live in Trump Country — certainly wish he could.

I keep seeing the polls that tell us Biden is leading Trump. Fox News has just published a survey that gives Biden a 12-percentage point lead over Trump. That lead likely won’t hold up, because the “smart money” suggests a close contest is on the horizon.

What does boggle my noodle, though, is how Trump continues to maintain the level of support he does. It stands at about 42 percent, give or take a point or two. How in the name of political incompetence can this guy continue to hold onto that support?

I wonder about all this recognizing fully — and acknowledge with all the candor I can muster — that I was terribly wrong about the outcome of the 2016 election. I was among those who believed Hillary Clinton would win. I wrote on this blog that I thought she’d win big.

What I must point out, though, is that public opinion polling that put Clinton up by 3 percent over Trump turned out to be correct. Trump, though, pulled what they call an “inside straight” by pilfering enough Electoral College votes to win the election. Therein lies the greatest threat to Joe Biden’s bid to oust the incompetent nincompoop who continues to demonstrate every single day that he presents an existential threat to the nation he governs.

130 million to zero? I wish.

national news

Wanting to banish 2020 … be gone!

I am not one to wish away entire years.

Usually I take them as they come, slogging through the events as they transpire. I then wait for the ball to drop in Times Square and welcome the new year.

This year is vastly different. 2020 has been a serious downer, as in uber serious, man.

Right around the first month of the year we began getting word that some folks in China had been stricken by something called a “coronavirus.” Then … just like that it became a pandemic.

Donald John Trump, the “very stable genius” who runs the executive branch of our government, blew it off. It’ll disappear like a miracle, he said. Fifteen cases and — poof! — it’ll be gone. Well, it hasn’t just vanished. It has killed more than 115,000 Americans. Many more will die. The economy shut down, sending us into a recession. Trump resisted the seriousness of it. Then it dawned on him: Hey, we’d better do something; I mean, I’ve got a re-election campaign to run and those jobless numbers won’t look good as I campaign for another term.

And then came George Floyd’s death. The Minneapolis cops killed him after arresting him for trying to pass a counterfeit bill — allegedly. His death has ignited a firestorm of protest and recrimination. It’s still blazing out of control.

I want the year to end. First things first, though. We have this election coming up. I want Trump to be defeated by Joe Biden. I want POTUS gone from the White House. My preference would be that he escorted by the cops, maybe even the Marines who guard the White House.

I do have a serious concern about that election. It is that the coronavirus pandemic is going to frighten folks, keep them from voting. That plays in Trump’s wheelhouse. He proclaims a phony belief in “rampant voter fraud” if we vote by mail, which is his way of covering his a** against a big turnout that would boot his sorry backside out of office.

States should enact policies that enable voters to cast their ballots in a safe and secure manner. Texas isn’t likely to be one of them, as we are governed by Trumpkin Republicans who are faithful more to the man than to the Constitution they all swore to protect.

We’ll get through it. I just want the election to turn out the way I prefer. The rest of the year? I want it gone.

State news

Is there a landslide in the making?

I am not predicting anything, but I do want to share an idle thought that crossed my mind on this sweltering North Texas day.

I have seen a number of reputable public opinion polls that say the same thing: Joe Biden is well within striking distance of Donald Trump among Texans in the 2020 presidential election. A couple of these surveys have the former VP at a percentage point or perhaps two behind Trump. That is a statistical dead heat, a tie, it’s anyone’s race to win.

So … here’s the deal. If Joe Biden picks off Texas, which hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1976 when Jimmy Carter defeated President  Gerald Ford, then we’re looking at a serious landslide victory for Joseph Biden Jr.

Biden’s strategy? Campaign hard in Texas and he must remind Texans that Donald Trump is a pathological liar who doesn’t give a rat’s a** about them.

Just thinking — and hoping — out loud. Be cool, man.

national news

Biden wonders: Will Trump go quietly?

Joseph R. Biden Jr. has offered an opinion on a subject that has been in the back of minds of many millions of Americans.

Indeed some of us, such as this blogger, have questioned openly whether Donald J. “Psychopath in Chief” Trump would leave office quietly and with dignity were he to lose the November election.

At issue is how Donald Trump would accept the election results if he loses the presidency to Biden. I have wondered aloud about whether Trump would accept the results or whether he would challenge them as “rigged” or “phony.”

Biden, in an interview with late-night comic Trevor Noah, has given additional voice to the notion that Trump might not go quietly.

I am in no position to predict that Trump would resist the results. However, I am willing to declare that nothing would surprise me when it involves Donald Trump. I didn’t hear Biden actually predict a Trump resistance to leaving office; instead I thought I heard Biden suggest that he wouldn’t be surprised, either, if Trump tries some funny business in seeking to cling to power.

Donald Trump has a history of making absurd, unfounded and ignorant claims of voter fraud and corruption. He said in 2016 that millions of voters cast ballots illegally for Hillary Clinton; Trump never produced a shred of truth to it. He has hollered about the threat of voter fraud if Americans are allowed to cast their ballots by mail this year, again with no evidence to back up his specious and dubious assertions.

Now he is facing the distinct possibility — and it’s by no means certain — that he will lose his re-election effort. The man who could defeat him, Joe Biden, is suggesting that Trump’s thirst for power and dominance might not allow him to follow a tradition that began with the election of John Adams in 1796, when the nation’s second president took over from the first president, George Washington.

President Adams established the norm of “peaceful transition of power” that has worked well ever since. Then again, Donald Trump took office in 2017 pledging to be an “unconventional” president. How far he takes his unconventional tenure might become evident if he ends up losing the next presidential election.

national news

Apologize for poll? Seriously, Mr. POTUS

Knock it off, Mr. President.

Your demand that CNN retract and apologize for a public opinion poll that puts you 14 points behind Joe Biden is ridiculous on its face.

It’s also a bald-faced, hardly veiled ploy to fire up your shrinking base of supporters who just cannot accept your failure to lead in the wake of the COVID pandemic and your ghastly response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

CNN says it stands by its polling. Your damn right it does. It certainly should stand by it. Your childish claim that CNN’s polling is faulty deserves to be laughed out of any room where it is brought up.

Let’s get real, Donald. You very well might lose your re-election bid. Sure, I get that you pulled your chestnuts out of the fire at the last minute in 2016 and surprised everyone on Earth by defeating Hillary Clinton. I suspect you surprised even yourself, as it has been reported over the years that you were so sure you’d lose that you hadn’t done any pre-transition planning prior to declaring victory on Election Night 2016.

Well, that was then.

I doubt the former VP is going to get sucked into the trap that swallowed up Hillary four years ago.

As for the polling, you’d better just live with it, accept the grim numbers and seek to turn them more in your favor.

Oh, and just for the record … I hope you fail in that effort. I will do my part to ensure you get drummed out of the office you had no business winning in the first place.

national news

We vote in secret for a good reason

I guess it’s almost becoming a sort of parlor game.

We are watching and waiting for key Republicans to throw Donald Trump under the bus while declaring their intention to vote for Joe Biden this fall in the presidential election.

It’s futile, folks.

One of those Republicans, former President Bush, has said a recent New York Times story proclaiming he wouldn’t support his fellow Republican, Trump, is “totally made up.” He won’t engage in the political debate, but a spokesman for Bush said the former president hasn’t told anyone how he intends to vote this fall.

That is as it should be.

Colin Powell said he is voting for Biden. Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee for president, is likely to cast Trump aside. It’s being reported that Cindy McCain, wife of the late Sen. John McCain, is going to support her good friend Joe Biden in the fall.

So what? Does any of this matter? I say “no!” … with emphasis.

My hope is that when conscientious Republicans — be they officeholders or just plain folks — cast their ballots that they vote their conscience. Were I one of them I would be hard-pressed to vote for someone — even if we share the same party affiliation — who has denigrated the highest office in the land the way this clown has done.

And so, whether these public pronouncements — or denials of reported pronouncements — mean anything remains to be scene.

It does produce some tittering among the gossipers out there.

The founders got it so very right when they said we could vote in the privacy of a polling booth. No one has to know anything about the choices we make on Election Day. It’s a good way to protect citizens against political pressure or coercion.

We’ll keep playing the parlor game, though, for the next several months as the election draws near. It’s good to keep this in mind: Politicians have every right to change their mind once they walk into the polling booth.

Let’s not, then, place too much stock on what they say this far out.