White House Race- March 30-31, 2024

I have covered every Presidential cycle since 2008, always posting on Saturday, the year before, and the year of the election. Last Saturday, I had to miss a post though and provided a brief entry on Sunday. Now, I think I may just leave the option open to do it on a Saturday or a Sunday. After all, Saturday is supposed to be the day of rest for my people.

Anyways, I am not going to write much this weekend. The latter portion of March has had me dealing with some stuff. Dwelling on the sad state of national politics is not really the best thing for me right now. Plus, there just is not all that much consequential happening in this Presidential race. I still hope to keep this blog going after nearly 18 years. I just have to get some things dealt with this upcoming week, and if all is well, I will be in a better mood about everything next weekend. Then, I can go back to writing about a Presidential election, where the good news is that at least one of the parties will lose, also cover another season of American Idol, and hopefully do write-ups as usual of all this year's Gubernatorial and Senate elections.

A quicker than normal recap is to follow. Very shortly after I finished writing on March 16, we learned that Aaron Rodgers would not be RFK Jr's running-mate. Instead, it was clear, and indeed came to pass that he named Nicole Shanahan, a tech attorney millionaire, who has helped finance his political efforts. Despite the double Irish names of Kennedy and Shanahan, the would be Vice President is a 38 year old with a mother who was born in China. Like Bobby Kennedy Jr,, she is also twice divorced, most recently last year from the co-founder of Google. She has a lot of money though and thus might be able to help the ticket gain ballot access. She also appears to share Kennedy's wacky left-wing views on a variety of things.

Some thought that Kennedy might take votes away from Trump on the wacky right, but it has been said that this selection actually upset many disaffected conservatives who were open to Kennedy. The kickoff event they held in Oakland seemed to have people in the crowd who were firmly in the wacky left. Even both Donald Trump took over the Republican Party, there was a burgeoning movement of Ron Paul supporters and the like who found it easy to latch on to Trump. Democrats have their own issues with crazy folks on their side, and a lot of them seem to be willing to support Kennedy, or Cornel West, or maybe Jill Stein. Thus, these parties are all likely to take votes from Biden, and not Trump. The Centrist No Labels organization has suffered some major blows as of late (which will be expanded on later on) and seems unlikely to run any candidate. Most recently, Chris Christie was said to have been giving a run a very hard look before determining he would not want to do anything that might help elect Trump. So, the inner thinking of so many of these folks seems to be that as bad as it would be for the country in the short-term, Biden needs to win, because Trump winning would be far worse in the long-term. I get it and I would hope everyone in anything closely resembling a swing state will vote accordingly. I do not live in a swing-state and thus can hold on to my conscience as best possible.

That leads me to the Illinois Primary which was held on March 19. Despite being a lifelong Republican and former party activist and precinct captain, I took a Democrat ballot, as I did in 2020 when I wrote in Mitt Romney for President. My motivation four years ago and this year was to vote in the Democrat Primary for Cook County States' Attorney. We have a horrible incumbent in that office but my vote against her four years ago was for naught. This year, she declined to seek another term, which was good news, but the County party backed another candidate who would have basically followed the same path. Another, at least slightly tougher on crime Democrat ran against him, and I voted for her. This time, the person I voted for won! So, it was indeed smart to declare myself a Democrat, at least for a day. This candidate had a modest lead on Election Night, but the final was not confirmed until just a couple of days ago. Mail in ballots, mostly from Chicago, kept chipping away at her lead, and I started to get a bit pessimistic, but was not enough and she prevailed in a 50-50 race. So, the good news is change will be coming away from a Soros like prosecutor mindset, at least hopefully. In November, I will probably cast a "protest vote" for the even tougher on crime Republican nominee for this office, but of course, that election will not be close.

What did I do for the Presidential race? Lots of states have had people voting for Uncommitted because they are mad at Joe Biden for what they see as too much support for Israel. I was glad he was supporting Israel right after October 7, and I choose to believe that is where his heart really is, but I am disappointed by the pandering he has been doing to the anti-Israel left because he is scared of losing their vote. In Illinois, Democrats were encouraged to write in "Gaza" instead of voting for Biden and indeed there was a huge undervote in the Presidential election in Cook County as compared to the States' Attorney election. I was once of those undervotes. I did not write in "Gaza" although I obviously care about the innocent people being killed and harmed there. I know that sole reason they are being killed and harmed is Hamas though. My 2024 Presidential Primary vote was to write in "SUPPORT ISRAEL JOE."

The campaign has gone on for the past two weeks plus regardless of how much attention I have been paying to it as compared to usual. Some polls show a modest Biden comeback. Buyer's remorse is often a real thing when it comes to Presidential nominees,and there should be a hell of a lot of remorse over Trump. The day to day optics of the Biden campaign continue to be weak but they are raising a ton more money than Republicans and will have far greater advantages in infrastructure and organization in the swing states. Those things will probably matter, but the election is very close and America should have a better option. As we see day by day, and for specifics that I am not going to bother getting into this weekend, we can all see that Donald Trump is an unprincipled grifter and a general menace to society. Some people think those are some of his better qualities however. If he sells a lot of his Bibles, maybe it would be a good idea for the purchasers to try to actually read some of the book.

I was very saddened this week to learn of the unexpected death of Senator Joe Lieberman. Going back to the 1990s, I knew that I was in a different political party and that we had many different views on domestic and social issues, but I always saw him as someone worthy of respect, and my respect for him only grew as the years and decades moved on. Of course, he came very close to being elected Vice President in 2000, which would have been a very upsetting thing to me, but it was a proud moment for all Jewish-Americans when he became the first, and thus far only, member of the Tribe to become part of a national ticket. I believe this factor nearly won Florida for Al Gore. I did not happen to catch Gore's recent eulogy to Lieberman at his funeral which may have provided a contrast to what I first observed. Gore's initial statement was very nicely said but nowhere in it did he refer to Lieberman as a "friend." Indeed Lieberman lost a lot of friends for standing by his principles. At one point, he even had to win reelection as an Independent. I "supported" him in that 2006  race, even as Republican also ran, and in the first year of this blog, wrote a very corny and hasty online letter to him asking him to run as an Independent. I mused that maybe one day he could be come the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, and indeed that is said to have almost happened. In 2008 he supported John McCain over Barack Obama and was never really welcomed by Democrats again. Perhaps, he was ok with that, as his former party has changed a lot since when he was a young man. In many ways, I can relate as to what has happened in my party and that only makes me admire Joe Lieberman all the more.

In recent months, I would see the older looking 82 year Lieberman on television in the capacity of the leader of the "No Labels" group talking about the need for a centrist alternative if the choices were once again Trump. If he were 20 years younger, he might have been an obvious option. Things just do not seem meant to be for that group to put forward any candidate this year though and the unfortunate death of the Senator, after a reported fall, only leads to that sadness. 

 

Still, Joseph I. Lieberman had a remarkable and consequential life. I will have continued to disagree with him on many policy matters, but the man was truly the definition of a "mensch." In this age of social media cruelty and rising anti-Semitism, it can be tough to reconcile just how vile some people can be. In this case, it seems to mostly come from liberals.

Senator Lieberman will be well remembered in history for being uncommonly principled and uniquely American. May his memory be a blessing.