Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

How might Joe Biden channel The Gipper? Here’s how

Joe Biden is the political star of the moment.

Democrats are waiting with bated breath for the former vice president to declare his expected candidacy for the presidency of the United States. He’s dropping hints all over the place that he’s decided to make one final run for the top job.

Oh, and then we have former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke who’s playing a similar cat-and-mouse game with Democrats and the media. He, too, is sounding and looking like a candidate in the making.

Here’s my thought about all of that.

Biden is in his late 70s; Beto is in his mid-40s. I harken back to 1976 when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan challenged President Ford for the Republican presidential nomination.

Gov. Reagan shook things up a good bit by naming Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Richard Schweiker as his running mate prior to the GOP nominating convention in Kansas City, Mo.

Is there an avenue for Biden to select O’Rourke as his VP running mate and the two of them could run as a ticket for the Democratic Party’s nomination next year?

Oh, probably not. If they both run for POTUS, they’re going to run against each other. Then one of them will drop out. Maybe they both will, which of course makes this whole notion a moot point.

But suppose Biden’s support among rank-and-file Democratic voters holds up and he secures the nomination next year in Milwaukee. I could see him declare that he would serve just one term and then he could select someone such as Beto as his running mate.

Biden would be the candidate who could clear out the Trump wreckage. Beto would be the candidate of the future who could carry Biden’s message past the president’s single term.

This is not a prediction. It’s merely a scenario that has played out before. Granted, Ronald Reagan didn’t get the GOP nomination in 1976. He laid the groundwork, though, for his 1980 campaign and subsequent landslide victory over President Carter.

I believe that if Biden runs, this will be it. If so, then he could have a ready-made successor waiting in the wings.

national news

Former VP Biden looks like he’s in . . . sigh

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Joe Biden is sounding increasingly like someone who’s decided to make yet another run for the presidency of the United States.

Oh . . . my. This situation fills me with great emotional conflict.

I admire the former vice president greatly. He has served in public life with distinction. He has occupied a large spot on the national stage, starting with his election to the U.S. Senate in 1972.

Have there been missteps, hiccups, embarrassing moments along the way? Yes. He was caught plagiarizing remarks from a British politician; he has been prone to assorted verbal gaffes throughout his public life.

He ran for president in 1988 and again in 2008. The plagiarism rap torpedoed his earlier run. He lost to Sen. Barack Obama two decades later and then ran with the future president to two historic election victories.

Biden also has endured tragedy. His wife and daughter were killed in that horrific traffic accident prior to his taking office in the Senate. His elder son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. The VP wore his emotions on his sleeve. He endured and has carved out a largely successful public service career.

He’s now 77 years of age. I want a fresher face to run for president and to challenge Donald Trump in 2020.

That all said, if it comes down to a Trump-Biden contest next year, there’s no doubt who would get my support.

I just want someone else to go for the gusto.

political news, State news

Cornyn might face a lengthy list of challengers

John Cornyn is now Texas’s latest marked man, politically speaking.

The San Antonio Republican U.S. senator is running for re-election in 2020 and he is facing a lengthy list of Democratic primary candidates who will fight among themselves for the right to run against him directly in the fall.

I have to say that the list of possible foes is looking pretty impressive.

Two names jump out at me: U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who also hails from San Antonio and former state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth. Given the premium voters place on name identification, I would have to rate those two as potential front runners in the Democratic Party primary. Joseph Kopser and MJ Hegar also are in the mix.

Castro is the identical twin brother of Julian, who’s running for president of the United States in 2020. The two are so identical, in fact, that Joaquin is growing a beard (more or less) to distinguish himself from Julian.

Joaquin Castro, I suppose you could say, comes from the more progressive wing of the party. I hesitate to label him a “democratic socialist” in the mold of Bernie Sanders, but he’s out there near the left-end fringe of the party. He hasn’t announced his candidacy for the Senate, just yet. My guess is that he’ll go all in soon.

Then there’s Sen. Davis. She made hay in 2013 with her filibuster in the Legislature against a restrictive anti-abortion bill. She gave Democrats hope that she could break the GOP stranglehold on statewide office — but then she lost to Greg Abbott in 2014 by more than 20 percentage points.

I keep thinking, too, that Beto O’Rourke of El Paso — who is widely considered to be getting set to announce a presidential campaign in 2020 — might enter the Senate donnybrook. I am not going to predict it. I’m just waiting for Beto to announce what he says he’s decided already.

Do I want Sen. Cornyn to lose? Yeah, but not with the passion I wanted O’Rourke to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. I know John Cornyn. I actually like him personally. He and I have joked about our respective heads of gray hair and has assured me that he was that gray at a much younger age than I was; I believe him, too.

I want the 2020 race between Cornyn and whoever Democratic voters nominate to be as competitive as the 2018 contest turned out to be between O’Rourke and The Cruz Missile.

Texas needs two healthy major political parties and it appears — finally! — that Texas Democrats are awakening from their 30-year slumber/stupor to give Republicans a serious challenge to their superiority.

national news

Get ready for a social media brawl like no other

I don’t make political predictions any longer.

Instead, I tend to qualify my observations by suggesting that “I won’t be surprised if . . . “ something happens.

So, here goes. I will not be surprised in the least if the next presidential campaign features a social media brawl the likes of which we’ve never seen.

I get that social media are a relatively new phenomenon in today’s political world. However, it stands to reason to conclude that the president of the United States, Donald John Trump, will unleash a social media torrent against all the foes who will be running against him. The irony of such a thing happening is ironic in the extreme.

Here’s why: First lady Melania Trump has declared her mission is to eliminate cyberbullying. I like the cause. It’s noble. It’s worth fighting.

She needs to start with her husband. Donald Trump is the “Cyber Bully in Chief.” He’s proud of his Twitter prowess, despite his mangled syntax and his overuse of capital letters. He uses Twitter as a weapon. Yes, he has “weaponized” social media to the extent that he can use Twitter to hurl insults and innuendo, to threaten and coerce his foes.

I know the first lady’s major beneficiaries are intended to be children who are victimized by bullies. Still, her husband’s (mis)use of Twitter needs attention, too.

I expect the president to use Twitter to disparage his opponents at every level possible. He will use it with cruelty. Trump will be savage. He won’t back down. Trump never will apologize. Why should he? His base will cheer him on!

That’s all he cares to know. Will it please the base?

Get ready for the bloodiest political fight we’ve ever seen.

environmental news, International news, national news, political news

One-note samba won’t cut it on campaign trail

I’ll give Washington Gov. Jay Inslee plenty of credit for candor.

He announced his candidacy the other day for president of the United States declaring right up front, out loud and for all the world to see and hear that he’s running on one issue only: climate change and the peril it poses for the world’s most powerful nation.

Fine. What about the rest of the job, governor? What about, oh, let’s see: fighting terrorism, creating jobs, fiscal responsibility, dealing with cybersecurity, border security? There are a whole lot of other issues, too.

Inslee wants to make climate change the strongest plank in his platform on which to seek the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2020.

I don’t dispute the urgency he is placing on the matter. I do dispute whether it’s enough all by itself to commend him for nomination and election.

Just as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is running on economic inequality, which kind of mirrors Issue No. 1 for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Inslee is staking his candidacy on a single issue.

We have Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar in the hunt already. Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado is in. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is, too. I know I’m missing someone. There’s too many of ’em to keep up.

The Democratic Party field has reached a dozen candidates so far. There will be more. Many more, or so it appears. Texan Beto O’Rourke appears to be set to go. Former Vice President Joe Biden is letting it slip out that his family is all in on his running for president.

They all need to demonstrate a well-rounded, well-considered and well-tested competence on an array of domestic and foreign policy issues. Climate change is a big one. So is income inequality.

Spare me, though, the one-note samba. I tend to tire of hearing the same thing coming out of candidates’ mouths.

We’ve already elected an incompetent business mogul/boob to the nation’s highest office. We don’t need to train another president on the vast complexities of the nation’s highest office.

national news

Trump performance at CPAC is utterly jaw-dropping

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If you have the time — and arguably a stomach strong enough to withstand it — you need to take a couple of hours to watch the video attached to this blog post.

It is Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump’s full speech delivered this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

This record-setting tirade is a case study in presidential idiocy. It sets the stage for the kind of campaign we can expect from the 45th president of the United States if he decides to run for re-election in 2020.

I say “if” because I am not yet totally convinced he’s in. Trump probably is going to run. But . . . one never can presume anything as it relates to the president.

But this CPAC soliloquy is utterly jaw-dropping in the nonsense that poured out of POTUS’s mouth. The Washington Post counted more than 100 outright lies that came from Trump in his two-hour tirade.

The histrionics, the hyperbole, the hysteria is utterly, astonishingly, and unbelievably bizarre in the extreme.

I am forced to ask yet again: What in the name of all that is dignified did we get when this individual managed to win enough electoral votes to become the president of the United States of America?

I actually get it. This individual speaks for those who “think” as he does. He echoes their cynicism and calls it “populism.”

Unbelievable!

political news

What a ‘horse race’ this is going to become

Good grief, man! I thought the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary campaign would be one for the books.

I suppose it was, given who won that party’s presidential nomination and then was elected president of the United States.

But this one? Wow! The upcoming Democratic Party primary field figures to eclipse by a good bit the size of the GOP field four years ago.

Seventeen Republicans fought it out for the right to succeed Barack Obama as president in 2016. The upcoming election campaign already features 10 or 11 announced Democratic candidates and we’re nowhere near finished seeing the entire field filled out.

How do you suppose the media will cover this thundering herd of candidates looking to succeed Donald Trump?

They’re already in full horse-race mode. Former Vice President Joe Biden is thought to be the frontrunner — and he is one of those who has not yet announced whether he’s going to run for POTUS in 2020. It looks like he’s going to do it.

The horse race aspect of the media coverage is the kind of thing that drives me a nuts. I get batty listening to and reading reports of who’s up, who’s down, who’s an up-and-comer, who’s the has-been.

I hope to hear more issues discussion this year than we’ve experienced over the past several election cycles.

Donald Trump likes to boast about crowd size, TV ratings and the scope of his intelligence. What will Democrats offer in response? I hope whoever emerges from the huge initial field will talk about how they intend to repair the damage that Donald Trump has done to the presidency — not to mention to the country.

national news

Bernie to Hillary: Don’t call with advice

Bernie Sanders is still angry with Hillary Rodham Clinton, or so one might presume.

The two of them competed for the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Clinton, the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state, defeated the Vermont independent U.S. senator in the primary contest.

Then, with the wind supposedly at her back, she managed to lose that year’s presidential election to Donald J. Trump in one of the country’s most stunning political upsets.

Sanders and Clinton “have differences,” Sanders said this week. Has Hillary called him? No, he told the co-hosts of “The View.” He won’t ask her to, either, he said.

No need to call

Hey, I kind of get why Sanders is miffed. It’s not that I buy into the notion that Clinton pilfered the nomination from him. She won more votes in the Democratic primary than Sanders. Thus, she collected more convention delegates. End of story.

The real story ought to be that Clinton was supposed to be a shoo-in to win the presidency. Then she threw it away, losing to the carnival barker nominee the Republicans sent against her.

Does the defeated Democratic nominee have any credible advice she could give to any of the growing horde of candidates now seeking to defeat Donald Trump? Probably. Who, though, is going to listen to someone who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory?

national news, political news, State news

Waiting for Beto’s decision

I think it’s a good bet that Beto O’Rourke, who says he’s made his decision regarding the 2020 political season, is not going to run for a seat on the El Paso County Commissioners Court.

Nor is he running for the U.S. Senate against John Cornyn, the senior Texas Republican senator.

Oh, I get it! He’s going to announce he is running for president of the United States. Is that it? Sure it is! Or so many observers are saying.

I am trying to get excited about it. I am not there. At least not yet.

O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. He got Texas Democrats all fired up. He gave them hope that if a Democrat can come within a couple of percentage points of winning a statewide race, then perhaps there will be a chance for the party to break the GOP vise grip on the political structure.

But is the young man, a former El Paso congressman, ready for the Big Show? A big part of me wonders if he’s up for the biggest job on Earth.

Were he to be nominated and then run against Donald Trump for the presidency, O’Rourke would have my support. I just wonder if he’s able to defeat a gigantic field of Democrats lining up to take down the president of the United States.

He’s going to liven this contest up . . . even more than it is already.

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Will he or won’t he run for POTUS?

I am on pins and needles waiting for Beto O’Rourke to tell us whether he is running for president of the United States in 2020.

Well, actually, I’m not. I am amazed, though, at the excitement that a potential Beto candidacy is ginning up among Democratic partisans as the field for the presidential election keeps growing.

O’Rourke seems like a fine young family man. He represented El Paso, Texas, in Congress for three terms. Then he ran for the Senate in 2018 and came within a couple of percentage points of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz, the sometimes-fiery Republican incumbent.

That a Democrat could come as close as O’Rourke did in 2018 to upsetting a GOP incumbent still has politicos’ attention. Thus, they are waiting Beto’s decision.

He says he’ll let us know by the end of the month whether he intends to seek the presidency, which is just a few days down the road.

The political world awaits.

I remain decidedly mixed about Beto’s possible candidacy. I wanted him to win his race against Cruz. I think he would be a fine U.S. senator.

And, maybe, one day he will make an equally fine president of the United States. Still, there’s just something a bit too green about Beto.

Do his policies bother me? No. I consider myself a center-left kind of fellow. Thus, I don’t see Beto as a flame-throwing progressive bad-ass. He’s not a socialist — closeted or otherwise.

However, he seems to be trading on the excitement he built with his Senate run, believing possibly that he can parlay that into a national campaign.

I just don’t know

That all said, I’ll repeat what I’ve stated already: If he were to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and then face off in the fall of 2020 against Donald John Trump, he would have my support all the way to the finish line.

He just isn’t the perfect candidate to take on Donald Trump.

I’m still waiting for Mr. or Ms. Political Perfection — or a reasonable facsimile — to jump out of the tall grass.