White House Race- January 27, 2024

It has felt like an especially long week. Many things happened in politics, but it seems like the last few days have just sort of filled into form. Usually, there is another contest rapidly approaching after the New Hampshire Primary, but besides for the uncontested and predetermined Republican Caucus in Nevada, the next formal event is not until the South Carolina Primary on February 24. The focus on the Palmetto State will ramp up more as we get closer to that day.

The Republican contest is now down to two contenders, with a clear establishment favorite, and an insurgent challenger, who will be facing tremendous pressure to quit the race in the name of party unity. The only thing that challenger's campaign seems to have going for it is the possibility of raising profound doubts about the viability and indeed the physical and mental health of the frontrunner. Most likely, it will be a losing cause, but it is sure to get under the skin of Donald Trump, and will be a tactic joined and expanded upon by the Democrats.

Last Sunday afternoon, right before playoff football was set to kick off, a video message from Ron DeSantis hit the inboxes, in which he suspended his once highly touted Republican Presidential campaign. Rumors began the night earlier when his campaign cancelled television appearances for Sunday. Besides for using a phony Winston Churchill quote about failure, the DeSantis exit was notable for its endorsement, as unenthusiastic as it seemed, of Donald Trump. Clearly, the man whom DeSantis once modeled his political entire career after is no longer as much of an idol. The Florida Governor did take the step of attacking Nikki Haley though as part of the Trump endorsement. It was the equivalent of waiving a white flag and hoping that MAGA world would pull their fire. Indeed, Donald Trump immediately started referring to DeSantis by his actual name, for the first time in many months and said he was "retiring" the nickname of DeSanctimonoius. Some of Trump's biggest fans were less charitable though. There were calls for DeSantis to somehow pay Donald Trump all the money that had been raised in the campaign against him, as if he were owed to him. Trump allies in Florida also talked about paying Trump millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to go towards his legal funds.DeSantis said he would issue a veto of any bill, and the effort was withdrawn, at least there was that.

As Nikki Haley put it, the race was now down to "one lady and one fella", but it was clear that the DeSantis development would help Trump in New Hampshire, building upon the momentum he had gained after Iowa. Some speculated Trump would defeat Haley by upwards of 20 points in New Hampshire. The final margin was about 11 points, enough to disappoint the opponents of both Republicans. I cannot sugarcoat the face that if Haley could not even get within single digits of Trump in New Hampshire, then it is hard to see how she can defeat him in any contest. Simply put, people who identify with the Republican Party want Trump and appear impervious if not oblivious to any negative narrative around him. One can also look at the voter data so far in Iowa and New Hampshire and see how immensely unpopular Trump is among Independents. One candidate has a hold of Republican Primary voters, but it is hardly a united party, and hardly a sign of strength moving into a general election. There are many Haley voters who will not vote for Trump in November. A significant chunk of them might vote for Joe Biden against Trump, either for the first or second time.

Soon after the race in New Hampshire was called for the former President, the candidate with the NH initials took the stage and gave an upbeat speech. She congratulated Trump but made it clear she was ready to go to the next contest in her home state of South Carolina and beyond. Frankly, when she took the stage that early in the night, I thought she might be dropping out right then and there. Her comments indicated that she was going to ramp up her personal criticism of Trump and his faculties.Still though, she goes to lengths to say that she voted for him twice and approves of much of his policies.

To say the least, this speech pissed off Trump. I have seen candidates give bitter sore loser Election Night speeches after they lose, but I have never seen a candidate give a bitterly sore speech like this after they won. He appeared so angry that Haley had not dropped out and was acting happy after the result. He even took a moment to put down the "fancy dress" she was wearing. That has to be somehow of a new low in American politics, but with Donald Trump we can never be surprised. He knows no limit to low. In this "victory speech" Trump claimed he would not get mad but would "get even."

There was also one highly replayed moment in the speech when he turned to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who was standing behind him,and pointed out that since Haley had appointed him to the Senate but he was not supporting Trump, that he "really must hate her." Scott stepped up to the podium(with Trump immediately saying "uh-oh") and said "I just love you!"

I would be remiss to not take a moment to do a quick dive into Tim Scott and what the man must be going through these days. Since 2015, he has kept Trump at arm's length and of course, launched a Presidential bid against him in this cycle. Now, the Senator wants to be Vice President, or whatever else good might come from being selected for a spot on the ticket in 2024, and he has determined he has no choice but to embarrass or even emasculate himself. On Sunday afternoon, Scott appeared on television shows to speak about his Trump endorsement and when posed with the anticipated questions, could literally be seen squirming in his chair. He got the rehearsed talking points out but in my view, (and in the observations of many others) could not erase the inner turmoil from behind his eyes. It felt to me like the more he spoke about backing Trump, the more he felt his soul escaping his body. If he is that bad of an actor, I cannot see how that will help his VP chances. Mike Pence was better at it for years. There is also a story out now about how his political team is shopping opposition research on Elise Stefanik, one of his rivals for the running-mate slot and how Trumpworld is upset over that.

One wants to feel sorry for Tim Scott, but it is just hard. Also on Sunday, he announced his engagement to the girlfriend that some felt a few months ago was fake. I cannot speak to any of that but clearly getting engaged is probably a politically smart thing to do at this time. Cynics and conspiracy theories abound in today's politics. All I know is that Tim Scott, who was thought of as a thoughtful and principled conservative with an inspiring life story, is now forced to stand on a stage behind Donald Trump and right next to the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy and Marjorie Taylor Greene. I imagine he hates every second of it. Still it is now apparently Scott's job to be the Flava Flav of the Trump campaign. "If you are excited about four more years, let me hear screeeeeeaaaam!", he bellows as if he feels he had had to morph into the "cool black deejay" at some rich kid's Bar Mitzvah party.

As of now, two states have voted on the Republican side. Yes, Trump won both, with room to spare, but in both states, close to half of the Republican voters chose somebody else. Trump leads Haley in delegates, but not by a ton, at least not now. Forty eight states have yet to have their say, and there is and will be a tremendous push to force Haley out of the race because Trump demands full fealty and seems especially angered by a woman standing in his way,and one that he had nominated to a big job a few years ago. I hope Governor turned Ambassador Haley stands firm. This cannot be easy for the candidate who last Saturday celebrated her 52nd birthday while anticipating a big loss in New Hampshire. Her elderly father has been in and out of the hospital recently and her husband has been deployed overseas for months now. I imagine this all has to be a lot to handle her for her two young adult children also. The attacks on her from MAGA nationally and in her homestate of South Carolina are only going to get more vicious. If she were to drop out now, she has already reached the point where she will not be forgiven and welcomed back into the good graces of that wing of the party. She has been trying to have it both ways on Trump for years now and has to live with the consequences. She should pick the lane she knows to be morally correct and stick to it with both feet planted.

 

On Tuesday night, the embattled RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel all but declared the nomination contest over after two states and seemed to call for Haley to withdraw. Later in the week, there were reports that the RNC was working on a draft resolution which would, many months before the convention and the roll call of the states with the duly chosen delegates, basically declare Trump the nominee. Keep in mind, this is on behalf of a candidate who claims that the other side is trying to keep him off ballots and that every utterance against him is "election interference." There must have been a lot of internal backlash within the RNC because Trump put out a statement distancing himself from the effort, which thankfully all but kills such a move.

Still, Trump has made it clear that he wants no part of anybody within the Republican Party who will work for or donate to Nikki Haley at this point. Presumably, he would also write off all of her voters. He said they would all be permanently exiled from MAGA. By all accounts, it appears to not have worked. Haley is said to have immediately raised a good deal of money, and being able to be financially viable week to week is going to be a key component to whatever last ditch tactics she has left. I will probably send a few dollars to the Haley campaign pretty soon, not because I think she necessarily deserves it, but because I want to see her keep going and I am down for anything that will piss off Trump and the Vichy Republicans who enable him.

Haley is talking now about how Trump was "unhinged" on Primary Night and that he keeps throwing "temper tantrums." That s a start but she needs to go after him even harder. Keep pointing out that he is afraid to get on a debate stage. Keep pointing out that "many people" are saying he is in cognitive decline. Challenge him to take a public mental acuity test alongside her to see who scores higher. If nothing else, those sort of things will drive him into even further fits of rage. Many within the Republican Party have been trying to find a way or simply wait out an effort to get rid of Trump for almost nine years now. Clearly, nothing else has worked.

The big picture shows how dangerous Trump is for the country and how bad he is for the Republican Party. No wonder Joe Biden and the Democrats want to run so badly against him. It is the only ace they have. The situation at the southern border continues to be a crisis, and seeing how much it is hurting the incumbent President politically, Joe Biden seems willing to cut a deal with Congressional Republicans. Neither side will get everything they want, but it would be a very bitter pill to swallow for Biden and the left-wing base of his party to concede anything. Senate Republicans have been working hard on this measure, but Donald Trump, who basically controls the slim Republican majority House, wants to scuttle any bill. He does not want to do anything to fix the immigration problem. He wants to run on it as a problem and blame Biden for it. As Senator Mitt Romney said this week, that is truly "appalling." There would deservedly be a ton of backlash against Republicans on what could be their strongest issue against Biden, even if a compromise bill is passed. Instead, Trump and the party he seems to control wants the problem to get even worse all of this year, so that on the chance he gets elected, something could be done next year, even though he was not able to get anything really done during the four years he had the job, and if he gets it again, it is hard to see him getting 60 votes for anything in the Senate.

Trump backers like the he is a "disrupter" but they should recognize he puts himself above all else at all times, including them and their livelihood and their safety. All because he was raised to believe that being praised was the only thing that mattered in life and more immediately because he needs to be President to keep himself out of prison.

I do not know if Donald Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room in some unidentified year many years ago. I do know that a guy who bragged about sexually assaulting women or if you take his word for it, made up the brag to make himself look cooler, does not really deserve the benefit of the doubt. Of course, the standards would be higher in an actual criminal case, but a civil jury found liable for that alleged assault months ago and ordered him to pay about $5 million. Right afterwards, he continued to attack Carroll publicly, so it all went back to another court, and now he has to pay her a staggering additional amount of over $83 million. She may never see any of that money, but Carroll is a woman who took on Trump and defeated him. As to what happened between them, at least G-d knows the truth.

Trump thinks that anytime he is in a courtroom regardless of what happens is good for him politically. That might even be true in regards to the Republican Party but I doubt America as a whole sees it that way. Haley was willing yesterday to bring up the 83 million as a reason why Trump would not be a strong candidate for the Republican Party in a general election. She is correct. More importantly though, Trump is a worse man than he is a politician and E. Jean Carroll is one of many reasons why.

I hope the last remaining obstacle to Trump once again becoming the Republican nominee understands the moment. I hope the Republican woman who has now beaten him by one vote in Johnson Country, Iowa and by six votes in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire continues the theme and forces Republican voters to hear over and over again just what a schmuck Donald J. Trump is.