Tag Archives: 2020 election

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.

Tempting to put faith in polls, however …

It is so tempting for those of us who want Donald Trump to get his head handed to him at the ballot box this November to place faith in all those polls showing him trailing Joe Biden by double digits.

Then again, these polls only serve to remind us of a painful truth about Trump, which is that he might be the luckiest — even with his utter incompetence and unfitness — politician in U.S. history.

I am forced to remind myself that Hillary Rodham Clinton also held big leads against Trump in the early summer of 2016. She enjoyed the backing of every major newspaper in the country. Pundits across the board predicted not just a Clinton win, but a possible landslide win at that!

Then it happened. Trump committed an act of proverbial political thievery by capturing three swing states that had voted twice for Barack Obama: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He won all three by a combined vote of 77,000 ballots and with them earned enough Electoral College votes to be elected president of the United States.

So, as tempting as it is to believe that Trump is in trouble politically in 2020 as he seeks re-election, I must reel in my enthusiasm.

I want Joe Biden to win this election. He wasn’t my first choice among Democrats. My initial hope was that the party would find a “sleeper,” a new voice among the huge field to back for the nomination. It didn’t pan out.

The former VP is now the presumptive nominee. He is beginning to clear his throat and is speaking with clarity and conviction about why we need to evict Trump and his cabal from the People’s House.

Circumstances have handed Biden some tailor-made issues on which to run: the pandemic, and George Floyd’s tragic death have produced hideous responses from Donald Trump. The economy has flat-lined as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Trump has failed miserably to rise to the level of leader. He is unable or unwilling to assume the role of Consoler in Chief. He has become instead the Numbskull in Chief with his idiotic posturing on the pandemic and then on how he favors unleashing “thousands of heavily armed” active-duty military personnel to put down peaceful protests against police brutality.

None of that guarantees a Joe Biden victory. Indeed, the former vice president has to pay attention to the political landscape and avoid giving away an election as Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

The polling data looks promising. However, it is far too early in this game to get excited about what it is telling us.

Powell joins growing GOP parade lining up behind Biden

“I’m very close to Joe Biden in a social matter and on a political matter. I have worked with him for 35, 40 years … And he is now the candidate, and I will be voting for him.”

There you go. Another longtime Republican — a man of considerable standing in military and diplomatic circles — has declared that Donald John Trump will not get his vote for re-election this year.

Retired Army Gen. Colin Powell is going to back the Democratic nominee for president, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

I need to stipulate that Powell — who served as national security adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and secretary of state for two Republican presidents — is not a Republican In Name Only, a RINO. He’s the real deal.

Gen. Powell also is a man of high principle and honor who says that Trump is unfit to serve as commander in chief of the U.S. military. Trump has veered too far from constitutional principles, according to Powell.

I am not going to venture too far afield with this blog post and suggest that the GOP dam is breaking, that the Republican wall that has surrounded Donald Trump is caving under the stress brought by Trump’s flouting of every possible presidential or constitutional norm.

However, Gen. Colin Powell’s declaration that he’s voting once again for a Democratic opponent of Donald Trump is a big deal.

Get ready for the worst ever

I am steeling myself for what I expect to be the most disgusting, disgraceful, disheartening campaign in history for the U.S. presidency.

Joe Biden is waiting in the wings to take on Donald Trump.

If only I could harbor a glimmer of hope that somehow these two men will be able to discuss issues, debate them intelligently and leave it to voters such as you and me to decide who between them is the better fit for the presidency.

If only …

That won’t happen. Donald Trump will not allow it. He wants to drag this campaign into the sewer, which is where he tossed his moral compass long, long ago.

The coronavirus pandemic is worthy of campaign discussion. Namely the president’s shameful initial response to it and, indeed, his ongoing fecklessness in dealing with it. Joe Biden can make the case that he would have handled it differently. He’ll try to make the argument. Trump will deflect it and turn it all toward something else … likely a tirade about “Sleepy Joe.”

Well, I cannot begin to list the myriad ways that the Boor in Chief will turn this campaign into a mud fest. He showed us his chops in 2016 when he hammered Hillary Clinton into submission. Yes, he lost the “popular vote,” but won the presidency because he won enough Electoral College votes. That was the preliminary to the main event that is about to unfold.

I am not looking forward to this bloodbath.

You will hear it again on this blog, but I’ll say it once more right now: Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency.

Campaigning via Twitter? Sweet!

We are witnessing the birth of a new style of presidential campaigning. OK, it’s not entirely a brand new thing, but it’s taking on a life of its own.

The world is being treated to a presidential campaign conducted via Twitter. The antagonists? Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

For those of us who came of political age in an earlier — and decidely more quaint — era, this is a strange evolution to watch. However, I am learning to get used to it.

Donald Trump has perfected the Twitter gambit. It has become something of an art form with this guy. He has an 80-million follower crowd, many of whom hang on his every word. I admit to following Trump on this medium, but it’s primarily a way to keep this guy in front of me at all times. Better to keep the bad guys visible than to have them lurking unseen or unheard in the shadows.

He blathers, bellows and bloviates via Twitter constantly. He most recently has taken to the medium to fire back at criticism of his golf outings in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. He accuses Biden of having a poor work ethic while serving as vice president in the Barack Obama administration.

Biden has fired back. He said, also via Twitter, that Trump should concentrate on the pandemic rather than firing off tweets aboard his golf cart.

So it will go until the end of this presidential campaign … and likely far into the future of presidential campaigns. It’s a new age.

Trump vs. Obama … ‘er Biden?

Donald Trump has been asking for it. He’s been needling, ridiculing and criticizing his immediate presidential predecessor since the moment he won the 2016 election.

Now he’s getting a portion of what he has dished out. He doesn’t like it. He called former President Barack Obama a “grossly incompetent president.” Indeed, Trump’s response to Obama’s chiding tells me plenty about the fundamental differences between these two individuals.

One of them is urbane, erudite, sophisticated. He speaks with high-minded nobility, such as what we heard Saturday night during his “virtual” commencement remarks to the nation’s high school class of 2020.

The other one is, well, crude, petulant, petty. He resorts to name-calling. He deals in innuendo, defamation of character. We have heard that, too, and we’re going to hear a lot more of it from this fellow.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump just might go at each other’s throats before this election season winds down.

But wait! Only one of these guys is running for public office in 2020. It’s Trump! He’s got an opponent out there and it’s not Barack Obama! It’s the guy who served nobly for two terms as vice president of the United States during the Obama administration.

Joe Biden has been holed up in his Wilmington, Del., basement during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the former president has endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy and has made it abundantly clear he intends to work hard to ensure his election this November.

Biden and Obama, though, have a difficult dance to perform. Biden will emerge in due course — and I hope it’s soon — as the Democratic Party’s titular leader. He slogged and slugged his way through a grueling primary process against a record number of primary opponents. Biden stands alone as Donald Trump’s most pressing immediate political threat.

However, Barack Obama’s standing as the nation’s most engaging political figure threatens to eclipse the former vice president. None of this, of course, doesn’t matter one damn bit to Donald Trump, who’ll continue his insufferable tirades against the former president.

Through it all, we just might be able to take a full measure of the smallness of the individual who wants a second term as president of the United States. If Barack Obama can reveal more of that to us through his measured, dignified commentary on the quality of our current leadership, then so much the better … for Joe Biden.

Here’s a thought: Call ’em, ask how mail-in voting works

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, mimicking his fellow Republican Donald J. Trump, thinks mail-in voting invites fraudulent balloting.

That is the crux of his resistance to implementing it in Texas … or so he says.

I have an idea for Paxton to ponder. We have five states that conduct their elections by mail — Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah and Hawaii. Granted, four of the five of them are governed by Democrats; Utah is the exception. Pick up the phone, Mr. Attorney General, and talk at length with any or all of the elections officials in those states and ask them: How do you protect your electoral system from voter fraud?

It might be that Paxton, the loyal Republican, doesn’t want to hear how this works in a state run by Democrats. Big deal. He can call Utah’s election bosses.

Whatever it takes.

The concern over mail-in voting centers more on partisan concerns, in my view, than actual fear of widespread voter fraud. All the states that run their elections by mail report that they have not experienced anything resembling the rampant fraud that Paxton and other Republicans say will occur.

We are in the midst of a national medical emergency. The coronavirus pandemic makes traditional Election Day balloting a potentially life-threatening endeavor. Would I prefer to vote on Nov. 3? Yes, I would. However, I harbor concerns about my health and that of my family, so I want to see a full-blown presidential election occur by mail if that’s the best way to ensure full participation in this most important rite of citizenship.

Donald Trump spilled the beans not long ago by declaring that all-mail voting would doom Republicans’ electoral chances. Which tells me he is far less concerned about vote fraud than he is at his re-election chances. That is just too … damn … bad!

Now we hear from his GOP allies, such as Ken Paxton, parroting the Trump lie about voter fraud concern. That is BS!

The election officials who conduct this kind of balloting in their states proclaim great success. They say their systems are secure.

Again … Mr. Attorney General, if you are truly concerned about voter fraud, listen to your colleagues who just might be able to educate you about how to get more voters involved in this process. They also would be able to tell you how they do so without the so-called “fraud” you insist will occur.

What happens if Trump loses?

REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger

This notion, as preposterous as it sounds, is worth pondering nevertheless, given Donald Trump’s extreme penchant for unpredictability.

What happens if Donald Trump loses the presidential election and (a) rejects the results and (b) refuses to vacate the White House?

You are entitled to snicker and maybe even guffaw at the notion. However, some learned political pros are talking about it out loud. That tells me that even though they dismiss the reject and refuse-to-leave notion as implausible, they are still talking about it … which means it’s, well, possible.

I have posed this notion already not long after Trump took office. Some of my Trumpster friends and acquaintances scolded me for suggesting such a thing. However, with this guy nothing on this good Earth is beyond the realm of possibility.

He has ranted already about “rigged” elections. He accused “millions of illegal immigrants” of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but hasn’t yet produced a shred of evidence to back up the spurious claim. When every pundit on Earth was predicting Hillary would defeat Trump, the Huckster in Chief said he would lose only because the election would be rigged in Hillary’s favor.

Does anyone with a half a noodle in their noggin actually believe that Donald Trump would orchestrate a smooth and orderly transition to Joseph Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee?

The campaign already is shaping up to be the most hideous, the nastiest, the most innuendo-filled, defamatory campaign in anyone’s memory. It makes me shudder to ponder what could happen in case Donald Trump loses this election.

Trump will say anything, will resort to any tactic he can consider to win a second term. If he loses, well, we ought to prepare for the worst.

Good news: This will be Trump’s final campaign!

Millions of us have been lamenting the presidency of Donald J. Trump since the moment he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

It’s been a serious downer damn near every step along the way. Here, though, is some news that might bring the hint of a smile to your puss. This upcoming election will be Trump’s final campaign for the presidency.

Yep, win or lose, this is it! The U.S. Constitution — despite Trump’s public ruminations to the contrary — sets in stone that presidents can be elected to just two full terms in office. The Imbecile in Chief managed to get elected to that first term in 2016. He wants a second term … over my strongest objection imaginable.

Joe Biden must defeat him. How that will occur remains a work in progress.

Might a defeated Donald Trump seek another public office? Oh, sure. I suppose he can do that. The presidency, though, appears to be out of the question if Joe Biden is able to do what I hope he is able to do on Election Day 2020.

Having revealed a snippet of cheer for us to ponder as we gird for this campaign, I also feel the need to remind us of what is about to unfold. If you thought the 2016 campaign for president was as low as it could get, well I want to tell you that 2020 is likely to make the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton scrap resemble a Girl Scout cookie sale.

Donald Trump is as ruthless an individual as any of us have ever witnessed in public life. He has no conscience, which means he lies without understanding the consequence he might suffer. He doesn’t care. He is not equipped with an ounce of shame.

So when he accuses Biden of committing crimes while serving as vice president during the Barack Obama administration, he does so blindly and with no thought to the defamatory nature of what flies out of his mouth. He will do the same thing with President Obama, just as he did for years fomenting the “birther” lie that Obama was not qualified to run for president.

We need to get ready for what is to come. The good news is that this will be the final time we’ll have to listen to this idiot’s campaign pitch. The best news will occur if Joe Biden emerges victorious from the campaign carnage that will ensue.

Get the kid off the stage

Jared Kushner clearly married “up,” if you presume becoming a member of the Donald John Trump family constitutes a sort of promotion.

The young man’s father-in-law is now the president of the United States. Trump had the bad taste to place Kushner in the role of “senior adviser,” even though the kid has no experience advising anyone of anything, especially when it concerns high-level federal policy.

Kushner needs to fade away, far from the klieg lights. Off the stage. Gone, man!

He isn’t qualified to do anything of importance. For example …

He hinted just this week that there might be a reason — if the coronavirus pandemic isn’t arrested — to delay the date of the presidential election. To be fair, he backed away from what he implied. Still, Kushner seemed to suggest in the first instance that he was offering a belief on something about which he has zero authority, let alone any knowledge.

This boy wonder has been put in charge of cobbling together a comprehensive Middle East peace deal. He hasn’t made the grade. He also has been tasked with reforming government operations. No good there, either. Then he declared the other day that Daddy-in-Law Trump’s pandemic response has been a “great success story.” Seriously, Jared? Sheesh!

The Constitution declares that the presidential election must occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year it’s Nov. 3. The question will be the manner in which we cast our ballots. Moving the date is a non-starter.

Someone should inform Jared Kushner of that fact, which has been as lost on him as it has on his know-nothing father-in-law.