Tag Archives: 2020 election

Favoring a more centrist alternative to Trump

I am going to declare my belief that the next president of the United States of America need not take the country into the ditch lined with “democratic socialistic” policies.

I want the next election to produce a president who takes a more centrist, mainstream, traditional view of government.

Donald Trump got elected president in 2016 because he managed to appeal to enough voters looking for a radical change in the way a president did business. They got what he promised: radical change. The consequence is that it has produced chaos, confusion, controversy throughout, from top to bottom.

Democrats have lined up a thundering herd of candidates who want to replace Trump in the White House. Some of the loudmouths of the bunch want things like “Medicare for all,” they want to redistribute the wealth, they rail against “income inequality.”

These are the so-called progressives in the Democratic Party.

Among those who are running to be nominated by their party is a group of what I would call “traditional liberal” politicians. They talk about using government to lend a hand when needed. They speak about border security in terms that I can embrace. They want to maintain a strong military establishment, which I also embrace. They seek to shore up our international alliances. They understand the reality that the world is shrinking and that the United States cannot stand alone against the rest of the planet.

I think of Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and perhaps even Kamala Harris as the candidates I find most appealing even at this early stage of the 2020 campaign. I’m still trying to wrap my head around Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg.

I won’t embrace one- or two-issue candidates, such as Jay Inslee, Bernie Sanders, or even Elizabeth Warren.

I want this nation to elect a president with some practical political experience. Does this sound like an endorsement of, say, former Vice President Biden? It might but don’t take it to the bank.

This “experiment” we launched with the election of Donald Trump has proven — to my way of thinking — to be a bust, a loser, a festering pile of bullsh**.

I have expressed my desire for a newcomer to burst onto the scene. I wanted someone to burst out front the way a formerly obscure ex-Georgia governor did in 1976. Jimmy Carter’s election as president produced decidedly mixed results and he got thumped in the 1980 election. That was then. The here and now seemed to call out for another newcomer to upset the race for the White House.

I don’t think that candidate will emerge. We are left with a smattering of centrists who will fight it out for the presidency. That’s all right. I will await someone from that group to emerge as the individual I want to show Donald Trump the door in January 2021.

Waiting for Democratic field to actually thin itself out

What’s going on here?

U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell bowed out today from the Democratic Party presidential primary campaign in 2020. He was one of about a dozen or so zero-percenters who have no chance of being nominated.

But then what do we hear? It is that Tom Steyer, a gazillionaire whose sole purpose in being in public life is to impeach Donald Trump, now wants to enter the Democratic primary field.

To which I say: Huh? What? Are you kidding me?

How does this work, Tom? How does a presidential candidate run for office seeking to impeach and remove the guy who’s in the office now? I believe we have a case of extreme counter-intuitiveness. 

Steyer would bring nothing, zero to this campaign other than a burning desire to see Trump impeached and then kicked out of office. Foreign policy chops? Economic policy expertise? Environmental policy? Human rights? Immigration policy? Geopolitical relationships? Crickets, man!

The Democratic Party field remains far too full of folks just like Swalwell, who at least had the good sense to realize that he didn’t get any traction after that first Democratic primary joint appearance. He tossed one line out there that seem to stick to the wall: He told frontrunner Joe Biden it was time to “pass the torch” to a generation of younger leaders.

That was it.

Now he’s on the sidelines, presumably heading back to his actual job of representing his California congressional district.

For my money, the Democratic field needs to see a lot more of these pretenders head for the showers.

As for Tom Steyer, well, he might be the most unqualified Democrat yet to join this contest, if he actually follows through.

Maybe he can explain to us just how he would campaign for Donald Trump’s impeachment/conviction while seeking the very office the president now occupies. I’m all ears, Tom.

2020 election really might be the ‘most important in our lifetime’

Every presidential election cycle we hear the same thing: This is going to be the “most important election in our lifetime.”

The candidates say it. Their handlers say it. Many in the media say it.

The election — no matter the context, the backdrop or the candidates — is the “most important” election we’ll see for as long as we live.

You know what? The 2020 election really and truly might be that election. It truly might tell us plenty about ourselves, how much we can tolerate in our political leaders and whether the 2016’s result was much of a fluke as many of us — such as me — believe it was.

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign essentially began the day after he was inaugurated. If not on the day itself!

He has been campaigning basically since the moment he stepped off the podium in front of the Capitol Building.

Why do I attach such significance to this election coming up? Because in my estimation Donald John Trump had no business winning the Republican Party nomination in 2016, let alone winning the election over a supremely more qualified opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes, Hillary Clinton had plenty of negatives. She might not have been the best-suited candidate to oppose Trump, but she at least knows how government works; Trump knows not a damn thing.

He has been lying and misrepresenting almost every aspect of his presidency, starting with the way he has characterized his election. Trump got elected by one of the narrowest margins possible; he lost the actual vote by nearly 3 million ballots but squeaked by with enough Electoral College votes to win the White House. Yes, he won it legally, but it was far from the historic landslide he has portrayed it.

The 2020 election well could be a referendum on a return to what the late Sen. John McCain used to refer to as “regular order.” Trump has upset that order at almost every level imaginable. I am one American who prefers that our president knows government, understands the Constitution and is able to forge relationships — if not friendships — with politicians with whom he has disagreements.

I believe the country can withstand four more years of Trump, but the price would be enormous.

The 2020 election can stem that huge cost. Therefore, this upcoming election could actually be the most important in our lifetime.

POTUS doesn’t blow it … completely!

I had been concerned about whether Donald J. Trump would deliver a too-political speech while offering a “salute to America” at the Lincoln Memorial, that he would hijack a traditionally non-partisan celebration and turn it into a re-election campaign event.

To my admitted surprise, he didn’t fall into that trap. He gave what I guess you could call a workmanlike speech that sought to pay tribute to the revolutionaries who (a) created a new nation and (b) fought for it on battlefields along the Atlantic coastal region.

Yes, I know about the reference to our men taking control of the “airports” in, um 1775, which occurred 128 years before Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Bad speech-writing, bad editing there.

But the president managed to stick mostly to script.

I have promised to offer a good word when Donald Trump earns it. I am doing so here and now.

Harris scores big, but now faces some blowback

Kamala Harris pounded Joe Biden with some serious body blows at that debate this past week. The U.S. senator and former California attorney general caught the former senator and former vice president flat footed when she questioned him about his senatorial relationships with avowed segregationists.

Oh, my. Then came the initial response. Harris now is on the front rank of Democratic challengers to Donald Trump. Her fans think better of her, if that’s possible. Biden’s fans initially were somewhat dismayed.

Now, though, the senator is getting a bit of push back, some resistance from those who think she might have let her ambition get the better of her. She shouldn’t have gone low with that attack against the ex-VP, some are saying.

Let’s play this out for a moment.

Suppose Biden remains the favorite among Democrats. Suppose, too, he gets the party’s presidential nomination in the summer of 2020. Who would he choose as his running mate. One Biden anonymous supporter said, “That sh** ain’t happening.”

Really? Let’s see. George H.W. Bush called Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy “voodoo economics” when the two of them ran for the Republican nomination in 1980. Reagan then selected Bush to run with him; they served as a team for two terms and Bush got elected president in 1988.

Oh, then we had Biden running against Barack Obama in 2008. They fought hard for as long as Biden was in the hunt. Then the Delaware U.S. senator dropped out. Democrats nominated Sen. Obama — who then chose Biden to run with him. You know the rest of it.

Moral of the story? If Biden gets nominated, do not count out Sen. Kamala Harris as a potential running mate.

Time to start culling the big Democratic field

It likely won’t happen as soon as some of us would want, but it will happen in due course.

The 25 Democrats running for president of the United States need to begin thinning out. Some of the fringe folks need to call it a campaign, go home and resume doing whatever they were doing before they decided to seek their 15 minutes of notoriety.

Marianne Williamson, John Delaney, Andrew Yang … see ya around. It pains me to say it, but John Hickenlooper needs to go back to Colorado. That’s four of ’em.

More are likely to follow. I’m guessing Tulsi Gabbard is likely to pack it in as well. Eric Swalwell? Buh-bye.

None of these candidates is likely to get any traction based on their first debate performances.

The media and the political experts are focusing on the Main Eventers: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’Rourke, Michael Bennet … good heavens, I know I am missing someone; maybe several someones.

Twenty-five is too many candidates, although I will never suggest the also rans shouldn’t have tossed their fedoras into the middle of the ring. The two-part Democratic debate marathon earlier this week did demonstrate how hard it is for all the candidates to be heard, let alone those with next to zero visibility.

If they stay in for a while longer, that’s fine.

The time is fast approaching, though, for the fittest of the bunch to start making their presence felt. The aim of the Democratic Party must include an agenda that involves defeating Donald J. Trump.

Let’s get real. Not all the Democrats running for president are able to do perform that essential task.

Climate change gets the attention it deserves

If there was an issue that won the day during the two nights of Democratic presidential candidates’ joint appearance, it had to be climate change.

The Republican president these men and women want to replace has ignored the issue, other than to declare it is a “hoax.”

It is no such thing. The Democratic candidates have spoken at varying levels of enthusiasm about the need to deal with climate change and the existential threat it poses to our national security.

I am glad to hear these candidates raise the level of attention to this dire issue. I am delighted they have elevated the issue to the front rank. I want to them to keep the issue in front of us for as long as it takes.

Donald Trump’s non-response to the climate change crisis is to promote exploration of fossil fuels, the burning of which is one of the primary sources of carbon emissions that are warming Earth’s atmosphere and, thus, are changing the climate that surrounds the planet.

Climate change is the signature issue of one of the Democratic presidential candidates: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. He makes no apology for his intention to make the issue his front-and-center talking point as he campaigns for the White House. Nor should he.

Climate change won’t elect Jay Inslee in November 2020 to the presidency. However, the issue will continue to be discussed openly and fully by the Democratic contenders for their party’s nomination.

Whoever emerges as the nominee to face Donald Trump must keep the climate change volume turned up. I trust that nominee will continue to sound the alarm.

Beto breaks the ice … but why?

Beto O’Rourke managed to stand out from the crowd of 10 Democrats running for president of the United States.

The former congressman from El Paso, though, did so in one of the stranger manners I’ve seen.

O’Rourke took part in that NBC/MSNBC debate with half of a large slate of Democrats running for president. He took a question about whether he would support taxing rich Americans as much as 70 percent. He started to provide an answer in English — and then spoke Spanish for several moments.

I sat there in front of my TV here in Princeton, Texas, wondering: What in the world did he just say? 

To this very moment I don’t know whether O’Rourke favors increasing the tax rate or whether he opposes it. His answer in Spanish, I am going to presume, was meant to endear him to the Latino population throughout the nation that likely will play an important role in nominating the next Democratic candidate for president and then deciding on whether than nominee deserves to be elected in November 2020 to the presidency.

But what about the rest of us, Beto? What did you say?

As some commentators have noted already, Beto’s Spanish-language riff seemed a bit contrived and a tad too gimmicky.

I am inclined to give the young man another chance. It wasn’t a deal breaker for me. I just want to be kept in the loop on the messages that our presidential candidates are trying to deliver.

Beto had me … and then he lost me.

Waiting for the field to start thinning out

My political prediction skills are, shall we say, suspect at best.

Still, I am going to go with this pre-Democratic Party presidential joint appearance observation: I will not be surprised to start seeing the large field start to winnow itself down beginning this weekend, or maybe early next week.

Twenty of the 25 Democrats running for president are going to take the stage tonight and Thursday in Miami. We’re already talking about Biden, Beto, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Mayor Pete “and the others.”

I believe one or more of “the others” might pack it in soon if after the debates occur they don’t perceive any tangible, discernible, identifiable movement in their campaigns.

Some of the lesser-known candidates have worthwhile things to say. The problem for them, though, will be whether the huge TV land audience is going to hear their message. The debate format won’t allow each candidate sufficient time to articulate his or her message. I mean, they have to race across the stage to give everyone some time in the spotlight. Time is not the candidates’ friend.

Do I expect any of these preliminary frontrunners to stumble so badly that they flame out? No. We won’t have an “oops” moment. I don’t expect a frontrunning candidate to drool on himself or herself.

The political culling process, though, seems a good bet to show itself.

Possibly quite soon at that.

However, I merely ask you to please don’t hold me to this if it doesn’t materialize just yet.

No such thing as ‘free college’

As long as I’ve declared my opposition to Bernie Sanders’s candidacy for president of the United States, I want to discuss briefly what I believe is the goofiest notion of the Vermont U.S. senator’s campaign platform.

He is promising to provide a “free college education” for any publicly funded college student in the United States of America.

I have tried to figure that one out. I cannot get there.

As near as I can tell, there is no such thing as “free college.” Such a pledge reminds me of the motel marquee that offers guests who stay there “free cable TV” and “free hot breakfast.” I always chuckle and think, “Who are they kidding? They’re hiding the costs in the room rate.”

Free college is a non-starter. It cannot possibly be enacted, given the costs that public colleges and universities have to cover. Absent student tuition and the attendant fees that go with a college education, these institutions cannot possibly provide the kind of education they are able to offer.

As for the “free” aspect, how do we fund these institutions? With more tax revenue!

I offer this rebuke of Sen. Sanders’s pie-in-the-sky promise as one who attended college with help from Uncle Sam, courtesy of the GI Bill offered to military veterans. That “pre-paid” college assistance allowed me to avoid acquiring the crippling student loans that so many students have to bear when they finish their schooling and head out into the working world.

This notion of offering “free college,” though, in my view is a serious head-scratcher.