Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

Former Gov./Rep. Sanford proves that standards have lowered

Do you want proof that Donald Trump’s presidency has lowered the bar for the behavior of our elected officials?

Try this one on for size: Former South Carolina Gov. and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford is considering challenging the president in the 2020 Republican Party primary.

You remember Sanford. This is the guy who when he was governor of South Carolina decided to travel to Argentina to cavort with a paramour, all the while instructing his gubernatorial staff to tell the media that he was “hiking along the Appalachian Trail.” Yes, the governor ordered his staff to lie about where he was and what he was doing.

The word got out. The media found Sanford in South America where he was taking a tumble with his girlfriend. Sanford’s wife, Jennifer, divorced him. He resigned the governorship, then ran for Congress, only to lose his re-election bid in 2018.

Now he is considering whether to challenge Trump’s re-election next year. Give me a break.

I only can presume that Sanford has calculated that if Donald Trump can be nominated and then elected president — given his own sordid history of lewd and lascivious behavior — then all bets are off.

Weird.

national news

Sen. Cruz: 2020 election a ‘toss-up’

So now it’s U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz weighing in on Donald J. Trump’s re-election chances. Has the Cruz Missile discovered something the rest of us don’t know? No. But he’s blathering anyway.

Cruz appeared on PBS’s “Firing Line” and told the host, Margaret Hoover, that the president “absolutely” could lose his re-election bid. Well, duh! Do ya think?

Cruz also said he doesn’t believe Democrats will nominate a centrist, such as, say, former Vice President Joe Biden. They will nominate a lefty in the mold of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris or Sen. Bernie Sanders. He said the far left of the party is calling the shots and will turn away from a candidate deemed to be too, oh, “moderate.”

He also believes the left is so enraged at Trump’s presidency that they’ll turn out in staggering numbers.

None of this is really a big-time flash. Cruz well might be correct that Trump’s chances are a big dicey at the moment. However, we’re talking about the here and now. The future could reveal something quite different.

It pains me terribly to acknowledge this, but Donald Trump was considered a joke when he announced his candidacy prior to the 2016 Republican primary season. Then he knocked off all those challengers one by one; Sen. Cruz was one of them.

Then he got nominated and ran against Hillary Rodham Clinton, a candidate perceived to be infinitely more qualified. Then all hell broke loose. Hillary lost to The Donald.

Ted Cruz’s prognostication today, therefore, means next to nothing.

Still, it is a bit scintillating to ponder that a former Trump antagonist who’s turned into one of the president’s most ardent allies would consider the POTUS to be in some jeopardy.

If only …

national news

Trump’s attack on ‘Squad’ should surprise no one

It is as clear as it can get, given Donald Trump’s history with political opponents.

We shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the president of the United States would allow a political rally crowd to shout “Send her back, send her back!” when referring to four congresswomen who oppose his views on immigration and a host of other policies.

After all, this is the same individual who let earlier campaign crowds bellow “Lock her up!” when referencing Hillary Clinton’s email problems during the 2016 presidential campaign.

So we fast forward to the present day and crowds are now yelling “Send her back!” Trump’s response? He allows the crowd to shout its displeasure.

This is frightening. The four House members are women of color. The president has targeted them in what I believe are racist Twitter messages, saying they were free to leave the country he said they “hate … with a passion.”

Go back to where they came from? Three of them were born in the United States. The fourth is from Somalia. Yet she emigrated here when she was 12 years of age. Ilhan Omar became a U.S. citizen and then was elected to the House in 2018.

Donald Trump is acting far more like a cult leader than the leader of a nation full of religious, ethnic, racial diversity. For the president to stand silently at a North Carolina campaign rally while a crowd shouts “Send her back!” is despicable on its face.

However, it shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention to this guy’s modus operandi. 

Yes, this individual’s MO is to sow seeds of fear and division and then feed on the harvest he reaps. “Send her back!” has just replaced “Lock her up!” as the mantra of the moment. Due process? Who needs it?

For the president to say, as he did today, that he disagrees with the chant that his followers yelled is to lie to our faces once again.

national news

POTUS lays out his re-election strategy in stark terms

Voters should have no doubt — none whatsoever — about the strategy Donald J. Trump will employ as he seeks re-election as president of the United States.

It will be to talk only to his base and to say to rest of the country — the roughly 60 percent of us who detest this individual — you all may go straight to hell!

Trump fired off those hideous tweets about the four congresswoman, all of whom are women of color. He told them if they don’t like it in this country they are welcome to return to where they came from. Oh, wait! Three of them were born in the United States; the fourth emigrated here when she was 12 from Somalia. They’re all U.S. citizens.

Their sin! They disagree with Trump’s policies, which makes ’em America haters, in POTUS’s view. Indeed, on Tuesday he acknowledged that, too, saying that because they disagree with him that they hate the United States.

Hmm. Ponder that for a moment. Did that mean when Trump campaigning for president and he was calling out President Obama’s policies and the individuals who crafted them as “stupid” that he, too, “hated America”?

Trump laid down all his cards, though, when asked whether he should be alarmed that white supremacists are in league with his statements about the four House members. He said he doesn’t care about that because “a lot of Americans agree with me.”

There … you … go!

He will seek to energize his base of supporters, seek to demonize his foes. Trump will continue his Divide and Conquer Strategy in 2020, just as he was able to do successfully in 2016.

He justifies the racist Twitter tirade because many Americans agree with him. With that statement, he all but acknowledges that he has decided against expanding his base, that he will not reach out to other Americans, that he will do nothing unify a divided nation.

He will enrage Democrats, pander to Republicans. Oh, and look for him to seek to eke out the same kind of victory he got in ’16: forgoing the actual vote in favor of an Electoral College squeaker.

This guy needs to be kicked out of office. Impeachment might not work. The only plausible strategy likely will have to involve ballots.

national news

Steyer bowed out of 2020 race, now he’s in

Blogger’s Note: This item is being reposted after its original version was knocked out by a technological glitch. 

You must be kidding me. This isn’t funny. Not in the least.

Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire who has made it is his life’s mission to impeach Donald J. Trump now wants to run for president of the United States.

And this announcement comes after Steyer said earlier this year that he had no interest in running for president, that he would be fixated only on removing the current president, Trump, from office.

This can’t be happening. Can it? I’m afraid it is.

Of all the candidacies for POTUS that have declared for the upcoming election cycle, this one makes the least sense of all of them. That is to say it makes no sense at all. None, man! Zero!

Steyer has no policy chops I can identify. He’s simply flush with lots of money that he intends to spend on trying to get Trump tossed out of office on his ear. On that point, I am actually on his side.

That is as far as it goes.

The most astonishing counter-intuitive aspect of this guy’s candidacy is the juxtaposition of his effort to impeach Trump and his effort to succeed him as president of the United States if lightning were to strike and the Senate would convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Someone needs to explain how that plays out.

national news

Another billionaire running for POTUS? Really?

You must be kidding me. This isn’t funny. Not in the least.

Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire who has made it is his life’s mission to impeach Donald J. Trump now wants to run for president of the United States.

And this announcement comes after Steyer said earlier this year that he had no interest in running for president, that he would be fixated only on removing the current president, Trump, from office.

This can’t be happening. Can it? I’m afraid it is.

Of all the candidacies for POTUS that have been declared for the upcoming election cycle, this one makes the least sense of all of them. That is to say it makes no sense at all. None, man! Zero!

Steyer has no policy chops I can identify. He’s simply flush with lots of money that he intends to spend on trying to get Trump tossed out of office on his ear. On that point, I am actually on his side.

That is as far as it goes.

The most astonishing counter-intuitive aspect of this guy’s candidacy is the juxtaposition of his effort to impeach Trump and his effort to succeed him as president of the United States if lightning were to strike and the Senate would convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Someone needs to explain how that plays out.

national news

Favoring a more centrist alternative to Trump

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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.

national news

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.

political news

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.

national news

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.