Tag Archives: 2024 election

2016 election, national news

More unsolicited advice for the VP

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Let there be not a hint of doubt that Vice President Kamala Harris is getting loads of unsolicited advice from experts, faux experts and just plain folks who want her to be elected president this fall.

You may count me as one of those folks.

If there is a lesson to be learned about why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016, one need look no further than to the grievous strategic and tactical errors Clinton made down the stretch.

National polling had Clinton leading Trump by 2 to 3 percentage points; that polling, by the way, turned out to be accurate, as that was the margin of the popular vote victory Hillary scored against Trump.

But ….

She erred in refusing to visit three key battleground states down the stretch: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all of which went for Trump on Election Day and sealed his Electoral College victory. Clinton took voters in those states for granted, thinking they were in the bag for her. So, why bother?

Clinton learned the bitterest lesson imaginable. She most certainly should have bothered.

What might be the advice that Vice President Harris receives as the 2024 campaign ramps up? Do not, under any circumstance, take the voters of any state for granted. Harris will have plenty of polling experts in her corner. She’d better heed their advice.

And if that advice tells her to visit certain states that might appear to be too close for comfort, she’d damn well better heed it.

national news

Blog to chart new course

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Now that we have dramatically reset the 2024 presidential campaign — with Vice President Harris taking over from President Biden as the Democrats’ new standard bearer — I want to announce a new strategy for High Plains Blogger as we move toward Election Day.

This blog intends to concentrate more on the new energy that Harris brings to the campaign and less on the blathering and yammering of the GOP nominee, Donald J. Trump.

That doesn’t mean your blogger is going to ignore the idiocy that flies out of Trump’s potty mouth. It means only that I will save my comments for those mutterings the media deem newsworthy.

To be honest, I am more engaged now in this campaign than I was prior to the president’s exit from it. I didn’t want to engage in the silly crap about whether he has dementia … which he doesn’t! But, yes, he has slowed a step or two since 2020. He is 81 years of age. Now that he’s stood down, that leaves Trump as holder of the title of “Oldest Man Ever Nominated for U.S. President.” We’ll need to listen carefully to how the GOP nominee handles himself when the heat gets turned up.

Harris’s ascent to Democratic nominee in waiting was only logical. Biden chose her to be VP because he wanted someone who is able to step in as POTUS. We’re far from that event occurring. However, it makes complete sense that she step in to succeed the president as the party’s nominee, given that he has taken himself out of the game.

I intend to focus this blog on Vice President Harris’s progress as this campaign gets fired up.

national news

Harris moves quickly into top spot

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Well … that didn’t take long, given the notion that some had posited that next month’s Democratic National Convention would devolve into a chaotic floor fight to determine the next presidential nominee.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who inherited the role of 2024 Democratic frontrunner when President Biden dropped out of the race, has enough pledged delegates for her to secure the nomination before they bang the gavel in Chicago.

The hunt is on for a vice-presidential running mate. Harris has named former Attorney General Eric Holder as head of a task force to vet potential nominees, looking for any possible skeletons in their closets that could damage the ticket.

VP Harris is moving with cool dispatch as she secures the nomination. She has earned Joe Biden’s ringing endorsement, declared that she and her husband Doug Emhoff “love Joe and Jill Biden” and is preparing a breakneck schedule of campaign events in “battleground states,” sone of which were thought to be in Donald Trump’s hip pocket.

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling newly invigorated by what I believe is occurring in the race for the White House.

national news, political news

Stop the ‘quit now’ diatribes

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MAGA cultists who are foaming at the mouth over President Biden’s decision to cease his re-election campaign need to take a breather and cast an eye toward realism … if that is possible.

They are proclaiming that since Biden said he is “unfit to run for re-election, he is unfit to hold the office,” and therefore he must resign immediately. Give me a fu**ing break! We all know what happened Sunday. I applaud Joe Biden for reaching a conclusion he believes is best for the country. He won’t seek a second term and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic Party presidential nominee. He said he will continue to serve as president and will work when he can to elect Harris if she’s nominated in Chicago later this summer. The MAGA cult members, led by their supreme leader Donald Trump, have lapped the field already in declaring that Biden must go. Trump issued a typically tasteless, crass, boorish response to Biden’s announcement; his followers have climbed aboard the Trump clown car. If a medical doctor examines the president and concludes he must resign, then I’ll listen. Short of that … the MAGA goons should just shut the hell up!
national news

Now what for Election 2024?

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I am pretty sure I will remember where I was when I heard the stunning news of the day, that President Biden had ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.

It’s a mind-blower to be sure. We now are trudging down a never-before-traveled trail. A sitting president who had his party nomination locked up has tossed it into the crapper because (a) he apparently no longer believes he can win and (b) too many questions remain over whether he has the snap to serve another four years in power.

This was Joe Biden’s call to make. I have said I would support whatever decision he made. Part of me wanted him to stay in the race, but it became untenable as scores of Democratic politicians and big hitters bailed on him.

What about Vice President Harris? She is a known quantity. Now she gets to pick a VP running mate, presuming she wins the Democratic Party nomination later this summer. It would seem to be a no-brainer, given that the delegates chosen to support President Biden were on board with VP Harris as well.

My head is still spinning at this moment. There will be plenty to say about the campaign that is going take shape …. all over again!

***

Oh, just so you know, I was watching a theater production of “Mama Mia!” in Fort Worth when I heard the news … in case you’re interested.

Donald Trump

Things I don’t get

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The world is chock full of matters that pass my occasionally meager understanding. Donald Trump’s standing in the current public opinion polls is one of them.

With that I must make an admission: I do not understand the thinking of Americans who can justify their backing of a man with the kind of morality, the record of lying, the examples of fraudulent behavior that Trump continues to exhibit.

Family members who say they value my opinion on such matters keep asking me why Trump continues to hold this standing. I have no answer. I do not understand it. I cannot fathom anyone backing a candidate for president with so many personal and moral failures as this individual.

He speaks of his “populism.” He is no more of a populist than, say, King Louis XVI. He talks about caring for the little guy. When has anyone seen him showing up unannounced to work in a soup kitchen? He talked about losing all those friends in the 9/11 attacks. Yet … he never attended a single funeral or memorial service for anyone who died on that horrific day.

His many moral failures are too many to mention here. You know what they are.

And yet, here he is set to capture the Republican Party presidential nomination for the third consecutive election cycle. He won the first time, lost the second go-round and well might win the 2024 election.

Is this nation really so gullible, so prone to this man’s phony promises to elect him a second time to an office about which he knows absolutely nothing?

I cannot even begin to grasp what might lie ahead for this great land if our worst nightmare comes true.

national news

Time for ‘unity’ … do ya think?

Word out of Donald J. Trump’s campaign headquarters is that the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee is re-writing his acceptance speech.

Reports say he is going to seek to strike a theme of national “unity” in the wake of what we all saw unfold in Butler, Pa., over the weekend.

A gunman opened fire on Trump, grazing his right ear with a bullet. Another man died while protecting his family from the gunfire, two more bystanders were seriously injured … and the Secret Service killed the shooter where he stood with his rifle.

Trump issued a statement immediately after being transported for treatment of his injury. He spoke of the need to stand as one nation and to work to quell the violence that too often is a result of heated political rhetoric.

On Thursday night he will stand before the nation, accept his party’s nomination and reportedly will deliver his unification remarks.

For the ever-lovin’ life of me, I hope the man is sincere, that he means what he says that he will do his part to cool the atmospherics that surround this political season.

President Biden, his opponent in the election, has said the same thing, calling on the nation to step back and to reflect on a fundamental tenet of American politics. It is that we can differ strongly on issues but that we’re all still Americans, we all love the country and that we are not each other’s “enemy.”

Yes, I oppose Donald Trump’s election. I remain grateful and glad that he didn’t suffer a more serious injury from the moron who opened fire.

Now we will get to measure just how much — if at all — this incident might have changed him.

Uncategorized

Watergate rears its head

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The specter of Watergate is beginning to make its presence felt in President Biden’s fight to retain his status as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president.

His staff is meeting with prominent Democrats in the House and Senate, all of whom are expressing concern about Biden’s chances of winning re-election against Donald J. Trump, They want him to relinquish the nomination and hand it to a stronger candidate who can defeat Trump in the fall election.

The president, bedeviled by his shocking debate performance the other night, is standing firm. “I am not going anywhere!” he has bellowed.

OK, got it, Mr. President.

In the summer of 1974, the House was getting ready to impeach President Nixon over his role in covering up the Watergate scandal. A group of Republican senators — led by Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania — went to the White House to tell Nixon the following: The House is going to impeach you and the Senate is going to convict you. You should resign now.

Nixon took his friends’ advice and quit the presidency.

Do you see the symmetry between then and now?

It falls on the president to make his decision on what to do. It’s just feeling a bit to me as if a Watergate-era outcome might be in store.

national news

Changing my mind daily

A member of my family called today to ask me: What do you think President Biden should do, stay in or pull out of the race?

I had to level with her. My mind changes daily. Yesterday I thought maybe he should pull out. Today I am thinking he should stay.

That’s my answer. It depends on what day it is and whether I have changed my mind overnight. I am prone to do so at my age. Old men like me have that right, if you know what I mean.

I keep hearing that more congressional Democrats are abandoning the president. They want to defeat Donald Trump. They say the ex-POTUS is an existential threat to our national security.

So … who has defeated him already? Who has the experience to take the case directly to Trump’s soft underbelly?

It’s Biden.

So, today I am sticking with President Biden all the way. However, I am feeling malleable.

national news

Gotta hold on tightly

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I have discovered that emotional roller coasters can be as upsetting as the real thing, such as one I used to ride at Jantzen Beach in my hometown of Portland, Ore.

That frightening monster is gone and I don’t ride roller coasters much these days. I do embark on emotional thrill rides based on the politics I continue to follow.

President Biden is now taking me on an emotional roller coaster. I am forced to hold on tightly with both hands. He had that hideous debate outing a little more than a week ago. It launched a series of calls for him to get out of the 2024 presidential race. He has stood firm, saying he isn’t “going anywhere.”

My initial reaction? I’m with you, Mr. President. Stay in! Fight like hell! Then doubt began to creep in. Eleven days after that hideous performance, my hope is being revved up a bit by the message that Biden is delivering.

We need to concentrate on Donald Trump, he bellows. Trump is the true danger to our way of life, to our democratic principles, to our very liberties.

I know that a few days cannot possibly define the future, but it appears to be that President Biden is finding his voice. He is speaking with crystal clarity, with passion and with a commitment to staying in the fight until they count the ballots.

I keep getting caught up in these moments. I realize they aren’t as much fun as the old days when we screamed at the thrill of racing around the track at high speed. The stakes today, though, are pretty damn high … which means I am going to stay committed to these moments when they present themselves.