Tag Archives: 2020 election

national news

2018’s drama was almost too much to bear . . . but wait!

Watching the convulsive presidency of Donald John Trump from out here in the midst of Trump Country was an exhaustive event for almost all of 2018.

There were moments, sometimes lengthy stretches of time, when I wondered consciously: How in the world does this guy, Trump, endure all this? How is he able to get through the day?

It dawned on me at some point during the year that Trump loves this turmoil. It’s how he is wired. He thrives on chaos, controversy, confusion.

I, though, am not wired that way. Even from some distance from Ground Zero of all this madness I got worn out watching it all implode and explode around the president.

Every week seemed to bring another revelation that might sink this guy’s presidency. Key campaign aides pleaded guilty to felonies; Trump fired Cabinet officials and White House aides left and right; Robert Mueller’s investigation cinched the rope tighter around the West Wing.

That was all in the year that’s headed for history. The new year — if we can stand it — promises to be even more tumultuous than 2018 turned out to be.

I hope to be able to withstand it all. Yes, I say that even though I am a mere observer from out here in the cheap seats, the peanut gallery.

I no longer have any curiosity about whether the president can hold up under the pressure. I believe this individual is built for it. His genetic disposition is to embrace it.

Yet, with Democrats now set to take control of one-half of the legislative branch of government, there’s a decent chance we’ll get to see Donald Trump stretched to the limits of his ability to withstand the pressure that is going to build around him.

I’m just going to enjoy the view from out here in Trump Country.

national news

Get ready for the thundering herd . . . of candidates

Lawrence O’Donnell, a noted MSNBC commentator, believes the upcoming campaign for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination is going to be a very crowded affair.

He believes the number of candidates will “start with the number two,” meaning that he expects more than 20 politicians to seek the nomination in hopes of running against Donald J. Trump.

On almost any level, this is an astounding story if it develops as O’Donnell believes it will. We might have an incumbent seeking re-election. Incumbency is supposed to build in a lot of advantages: platform, visibility, name ID, the perks of power.

Incumbent presidents often seek re-election miles ahead of any challenger.

Not this time. Not this president.

In 2016, we had 17 Republicans declare for their party’s nomination at the start of the primary season. Trump knocked them one by one over the course of the GOP primary campaign. He won the nomination on the first ballot and then, well, the rest is history. Meanwhile, Democrats fielded four candidates at the start of their season. Hillary Rodham Clinton emerged as the nominee. Again, you know it turned out for her.

That number seemed high at the time, although we had no incumbent running in 2016. President Obama had to bow out, according to the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The expected massive field of Democrats well might not even be the biggest story of the 2020 campaign. I am wondering — although not predicting — whether the president is going to receive a primary challenge from, oh, as many as two or three Republicans. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee might be in the mix. Same for Ohio Gov. John Kasich — my favorite Republican from the 2016 campaign. Then there might be Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.

History shows that incumbents who receive primary challenges often do not fare well when the smoke clears and they have to run against the other party’s nominee in the fall. Just consider what happened to President Gerald Ford, President Jimmy Carter and President George H.W. Bush when they ran and lost in 1976, 1980 and 1992 respectively.

So, the new year begins with two Democrats already getting set to launch their campaigns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro are planning to form exploratory committees as precursors to their candidacies. There will be many more to come.

Oh, and then we have the Robert Mueller investigation and whether his final report might inflict more political damage to an already wounded incumbent.

I am so looking forward to this new year.

national news

Sen. Warren joins the fight to unseat Trump

I’m still waiting for the “perfect” or “nearly perfect” candidate to emerge from the Democratic Party crowd to challenge Donald J. Trump for president of the United States.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren doesn’t fit the bill.

Warren announced her plan to form an exploratory committee as a precursor to her announcement of running for POTUS.

Is she a fresh face? Is she someone everyone can trust? Is she authentic? Is she going to bring an outlook that few observers have ever seen or heard?

Warren hardly brings a fresh look to the 2020 campaign. We’ve been seeing and hearing her ever since she joined the U.S. Senate.

Her trustworthiness already has become fodder for those who detest her. I’m not one of those, but I do recognize a wounded politician when I see one.

Her authenticity also is under review, given that ridiculous controversy over whether she has Native American blood coursing through her veins. Trump uses that as a punchline at his rallies. Her decision to roll out her DNA test was a public relations SNAFU.

Her outlook mirrors the Washington climate to which she’s been exposed. She and fellow Sen. Bernie Sanders sing off the same hymnal page: They keep harping about income inequality. I want to hear her foreign policy message.

A Politico story says Warren must battle the ghost of Hillary and persuade those who disliked the 2016 Democratic nominee to fall in love with her.

This must be said as well: Would I vote for her if she wins the Democratic Party nomination and runs against Trump in the fall of 2020? More than likely, yes. Democrats can consider someone much stronger than Elizabeth Warren to challenge Trump . . . assuming The Donald is the GOP nominee, which isn’t a sure thing.

My version of political (near) perfection has yet to present himself or herself to me and the rest of Americans.

national news

What a shocker! Kelly says Trump ‘not up to job’?

Imagine my total non-surprise!

Departing White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly told aides many times that Donald Trump “isn’t up to the job” of president of the United States.

Wow! Who would’ve thought that? Shocking, I tell ya! Simply shocking!

The New York Times is reporting that Kelly, who’s leaving the Trump administration later this week, called the chief of staff post the “worst job in the world.” That’s really saying something, given that the retired Marine Corps four-star general saw more than his share of combat defending this country.

I wanted Kelly to succeed when he took over from Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff; he had served previously as homeland security secretary. Trump canned Priebus and called Kelly over from DHS to rein in a White House staff that had spiraled out of control.

Kelly enjoyed some initial success. He got rid of Steve Bannon, the former Brietbart News exec who served as a senior policy guru. He canned Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci as White House communications director.

But then . . .

Trump just couldn’t be corralled. Kelly couldn’t manage the president. He couldn’t persuade him to follow the normal rules of procedure.

There is far more than a hint of believability in what the New York Times is reporting. Perhaps that explains why Kelly, who reportedly pledged to stay until after the 2020 election, is departing early.

I only can add: The truth hurts, Mr. President.

national news

Facing an ‘IQ’ quandary

I am troubled by a twin prospect related to the investigation of alleged “collusion” between the Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russian operatives who attacked our electoral process in 2016.

One is this: What will the president’s reaction be if special counsel Robert Mueller determines that the Trump campaign did something improper, if not illegal in winning the election?

The other is this: How might POTUS react if Mueller determines there’s no “there” there, that Trump is innocent of wrongdoing, that his campaign did not a single thing wrong?

My fear is this: The latter finding is going to detonate what I will call the president’s Insufferability Quotient, or IQ for short. If Mueller determines that his lengthy and expensive probe into the “Russia Thing” has taken him down a series of blind alleys, it is going to ignite the Mother of All Twitter Tirades from Donald “Stable Genius” Trump.

He is likely to explode with “I told you there was no collusion!” tweets and various and sundry pronouncements. He’ll keep going and going and going . . . seemingly forever!

Both options are capable of producing this kind of reaction from Trump. The first one, which might include some indictments of individuals exceedingly close to the president, well could send POTUS into a frenzy the likes of which we’ve never seen . . . not even from this guy. It might provoke Trump into doing some truly foolish and foolhardy things, such as firing off blanket pardons to protect individuals from prosecution from the Justice Department.

That’s when we get a serious, true-blue, rock-solid constitutional crisis of the first magnitude. Strangely, that I can handle emotionally.

What might prove a bit more problematic would be if Mueller comes up empty and hands the president enough ammo to fire off until the next presidential election in 2020 and far beyond.

The man’s IQ will be off the charts.

Therefore, and it pains me to say this, I am hoping that Mueller produces some tangible evidence of wrongdoing — if only to protect myself and many millions of other Americans from the incessant barrage of in-your-face reaction from Trump.

He’s already shown himself to be insufferable in the extreme. I don’t believe I can bear the sight and sound of Trump’s Insufferability Quotient skyrocketing into outer space.

national news, State news

Democratic excitement causes flashbacks

I must be hallucinating, or having some sort of flashback . . . which I assure you isn’t drug-induced.

Texas Democrats, not Republicans, are all agog over the looming struggle for attention between two rising stars. One of them came so very close to being elected to the U.S. Senate; the other is a former big-city mayor and a former housing secretary for the most recent Democratic president.

Stand tall, Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro.

O’Rourke almost defeated Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the midterm election; he might run for president of the United States in 2020. Castro was mayor of San Antonio, the state’s second-largest city and served in the Cabinet of Barack H. Obama; he, too, might run for POTUS.

Of the two of them, Castro seems the surer bet to toss his Stetson into the ring, although O’Rourke keeps tantalizing many around the country with messages that suggest that he, too, is likely to join the Democratic free-for-all.

Texas once was a Democratic bastion, where only Democrats were seen and heard. Then it morphed into a Republican stronghold and the GOP snatched all the headlines, the air time and people’s political attention.

It’s now becoming more of an inter-party competition, instead of an intra-party donnybrook. I like the idea of the two parties fighting hard for the hearts and minds of Texans and other Americans.

As for O’Rourke and Castro, I am beginning to sense a rivalry in the making.

Politico reports that a Texas political strategist, Colin Strother, sees the two men’s disparate upbringing well could produce a unique situation in Texas. They won’t be fighting for the same constituency, Strother guesses. “I see them as two completely different types of candidates,” he said.

Castro sees himself as the underdog, given O’Rourke’s meteoric rise while losing his race to Cruz. He has a twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who’s been helping him raise money to try to bring down the O’Rourke colossus.

O’Rourke, you might recall, campaigned against Cruz without the help of high-powered, top-dollar political consultants and/or pollsters. He just visited every one of Texas’s 254 counties, talked to voters wherever he found them. What astounded me was the amount of time O’Rourke spent in GOP-stronghold counties in rural West Texas, from the Panhandle to the Permian Basin. Didn’t anyone tell him the Panhandle is where the John Birch Society used to give “mainstream politicians” fits?

I don’t know whether both — or either — of these young men are going to vie for the Big Prize in 2020. I’m just delighted to see the excitement they both are generating in a state that has grown quite unaccustomed to hearing noise from Democrats’ side of the fence.

national news, political news

Trump lays the POTUS bar on the ground

Let’s talk for a moment about the 2020 presidential election, OK?

I want Americans to elect someone next time with actual government experience. I want a candidate to emerge from the tall grass, to surprise us all with his or her wisdom, smarts and vision.

Yes, I realize I’m asking for a lot. A lot of the early favorites emerging on the Democratic Party front are fine folks. They’re mostly warhorses who we have seen already. We have seen a couple of fresh faces getting some of the chatter, too.

I guess I am asking for political perfection.

However, think for just a moment about this: The guy who got elected in 2016 managed to reset the standard for minimum qualifications. Donald Trump not only lowered the bar, he laid the damn thing on the ground. One cannot go any lower in terms of qualifications for the highest public office in the land — if not the world — than what Donald Trump presented.

He brought zero government experience. Zero public service experience. Zero campaign experience. It turns out he brought next to zero business acumen. He built his political profile on a cache of exaggeration and lies.

Yet he tapped into some wellspring of anger that had been simmering out there among enough voters in the correct states to win an Electoral College victory over a candidate who was eminently more qualified to hold the office of president of the United States.

Barack Obama, the first African-American to be elected president, was fond of telling us that his personal story proved that anyone could assume the nation’s highest political office. With all due respect to the 44th president, compared to what Donald Trump brought to the 2016 campaign, former President Obama’s resume looked as if it bursts with qualifications.

Trump’s ignorance of all aspects of government only confirms what many of us believed when he rode down that Trump Tower escalator to announce his presidential candidacy: He offers nothing of substance, only bluster, bravado and boastfulness.

By golly, folks bought it! Who woulda thunk it?

Whoever challenges the president in 2020 — whether it’s in the Republican primary or in the general election (presuming he even runs again, let alone gets nominanted!) — had better bring his or her A-game of rhetorical aggression.

You know Trump will spare none of it as he fights for re-election.

I’m still going to hold out for the nearly perfect candidate.

national news, political news

Beto v. Bernie: Let the battle begin

A fascinating struggle is emerging within the Democratic Party between an old warhorse and a rising young political stallion.

It’s the Beto-Bernie brouhaha. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — who’s actually an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats — is trying to fend off the surge of support being shown for Beto O’Rourke, the West Texas congressman who came within a whisker of knocking off Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterm election.

Let me be candid: I am not feeling the “Bern.” Sen. Sanders fought hard for the 2016 Democratic nomination, but fell short. He preached a one-page sermon: too few people have too much wealth and he wants to take some of that wealth away from the rich folks; he calls it “income inequality.”

O’Rourke’s message is good bit more comprehensive. He speaks to an array of progressive issues: immigration reform, education reform, environmental protection, and yes, income inequality.

I’m not convinced either man should run for president in 2020, but if given a choice, I’m going to roll with Beto.

Sanders is trying to undercut Beto’s surge.

As NBC News reports: The main line of attack against O’Rourke is that he isn’t progressive enough — that he’s been too close to Republicans in Congress, too close to corporate donors and not willing enough to use his star power to help fellow Democrats — and it is being pushed almost exclusively by Sanders supporters online and in print.

That is precisely another point that frustrates me about Sanders. He is unwilling to reach across the aisle. O’Rourke, who has served three terms in the House from El Paso, has shown an occasional willingness to work with Republicans rather than fight them every step of the way. We need more, not less, of that kind of governance in Washington.

Nevertheless, the intraparty struggle is likely to be just one of many to occur among Democrats as they struggle for position to battle the Republican Party’s nominee in 2020.

I was going to assert that Donald Trump would be that person. However, given all that has happened in the past two weeks or so . . . I am not quite as certain that the president be the one to take the GOP fight forward.

national news

How will POTUS sell his leadership in 2020?

Let’s presume for just a moment or two that Donald J. Trump is going to campaign actively for re-election in 2020.

Yes, I know that is increasingly problematic . . . but humor me.

How does the president seek to sell his “leadership” skills to the American voting public? I ask the question as the nation enters its third federal government shutdown in the less than two years that Trump has been president of the United States of America.

Yep. This great dealmaker, swamp drainer and the man who surrounded himself with the “best people” has presided over three government shutdowns.

What makes this so weird and so unbelievable is that the same political party has controlled both congressional chambers and the White House. Yet they cannot — either on Capitol Hill or the White House — manage to govern effectively enough to prevent the government from shutting down.

How does Trump seek to sell his leadership, therefore, to Americans who he suckered in 2016 into believing he could actually govern?

Good grief! This individual has burned through numerous key White House staffers, at least seven Cabinet officials and assorted other mid- and lower-level functionaries. He has pi**** off allies in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Asia. He criticized his predecessor for playing too much golf while in office and then laps the field in the number of golf outings he has taken while serving as president.

He kowtows to dictators. He denigrates previous presidents’ leadership skills while praising the leadership of the dictators he admires.

All this while presiding over three government shutdowns less than halfway through his first — and I hope only — term as president.

Is this carnival barker actually going to seek to persuade Americans that he has made America “great again” through this stumbling and bumbling?

I believe he will. I am going to hope for all it’s worth that this individual does not snooker us a second time. You know what they say about “fool me once . . . fool me twice.”

political news

Corker might vote for a Democrat? Big . . . deal!

Lame-duck U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., says he “might vote” for a Democrat for president in 2020.

To which I say: Big . . . bleeping . . . deal!

Does it really matter one bit what a U.S. senator might do when he gets a chance in a couple of years to vote — in private! — for the candidate of his choice?

No it doesn’t.

I grow weary of hearing from these politicians who believe that expressing their voting preferences in public somehow gives their ballot-casting some added significance, some gravitas.

Corker is a fine man. He announced about a year ago that he wouldn’t run for re-election to the Senate from Tennessee. That’s when he grew a pair of ’em and started speaking out against the president of his own party. If only he had been as stern prior to his becoming a lame duck. But . . . whatever.

Now he says he might vote for a Democrat.

The founders made sure we could vote in private for a reason. It was to protect citizens against recrimination, coercion and pressure. Sure, I occasionally reveal my own voting preferences on this blog. I also know that it doesn’t mean anything to damn near anyone because readers of this blog have their minds made up already; I just choose to use this forum to vent.

So, to Sen. Corker I only want to add, feel free to vote for whomever you choose, sir. You are entitled to write in The Man in the Moon if that’s your choice. You’re under no obligation to tell us about it.

Indeed, I care about that as much as I care about knowing you might cast your ballot for a Democrat next time around.