It shows you how far we’ve fallen as a nation when an incumbent president who has alienated our allies, fomented domestic terrorism, and is now wreaking economic havoc with his ignorant and ill-advised trade warthi, is still considered a contender for reelection — but that’s the case; at least according to Senator Harry Reid. Daily Beast:
“I’m pretty damn worried,” the former Senate majority leader said in an interview with The Daily Beast last week, a day before deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton. “Anybody that thinks he’s going to be beaten easily is wrong. As sad as it is. As hard as it is for me to say this: don’t count that man out.”
“He’s carried the term bullshit as far as it will go,” Reid said at one point, offering the slightest chuckle in appreciation of the line he’d just delivered. “I’ve never known a human being in a position of prominence that you can do nothing to damage his ego in any way. It is absolutely unbelievable.”
But in Reid’s worldview, Trump is a lost cause: a political figure whose output no one—not even White House staff—can reasonably seek to influence or control.
Reid also spoke kindly of Mitt Romney, for at least occasionally standing up to Donald Trump, and I think I know where he’s coming from. In this era of GOP enablers, anybody who even partially takes a stance against Trump is to be favorably noted. That’s the level of cowardice to which the GOP has sunk.
Reid disparaged Lindsey Graham, who he said used to be one of his “favorites” a man that he once admired for his independent stance on immigration reform.
“He was really, as my dad would say, he was a man. Well, you’re not now. He’s a boy.”
I can’t speak for Graham, but if, at the end of the day, I could only have the respect of my old Senate colleague Harry Reid or be yet another sycophant to the racist realtor from Queens, the choice would be obvious. For reasons only he knows, Graham’s chosen the wrong side of history. One hopes that whatever money or kompromat is coming from Russia is worth it. It seems to me that the price tag is his soul.
Think Harry’s using the wrong term. He’s concerned…intelligently concerned…about beating Trump, which is smart. But it’s too early to be worried yet.
Damn,
Ursula, the idiot in the WH acts like a wannabe Junior high gang-banger, all swagger smarty pants, pea brain … knows NOTHING, floats on his imaginary hot rod, all chromed, Candy Apple red paint job, all tricked out, but sitting on blocks out behind the garage because he’s not smart enough, to realize it takes a key to start it …
You can get super pissed at this guy simply because he endangers EVERYONE so deeply, with his far-away intelligence, if there actually was any, AND his continual obstruction/mad-max lies … Moscow Mitch BETTER get off his shit covered hands and DO SOMETHING about the guns/killing/dead children in concentration camps, on and on … what’s going on with the Dotard’s years of playtime with under-age girls?
The Epstein situation, absolutely, SCREAMS for his charges, as with just the info released to the public so far, shows, especially the private party between Epstein, Trump and 28 young ladies at Mar-a-Golf … 15 years of that kind of sexual abuse, according to Trump, his relationship with Epstein ended 15 years ago … it gives me hives, just to try and imagine what it must of been like for these young girls with this sniveling, grunting monster all over them … grabbing, pinching, sucking kissing, worse … there is NO WAY, this piece of hog shit should even be allowed to walk into our beautiful white house, dragging his half used toilet paper on his shoe …
But, THIS mass shooting HAS to be handled at ALL levels … IT IS a true NATIONAL EMERGENCY, fuck Trump and his personal vendettas, smarmy facial actions … Moscow Mitch needs to recall the Senate for an emergency solution, vote through the House bills at least, but outlaw any sales of ammo for these man-killing weapons, unless bought by permitted/vetted individuals with special ID’s … no LARGE purchases … or large magazines …. the identified Republicans in the Senate, getting money from the NRA, should be disqualified from voting on any gun/ammo control functions, as contaminated by dark money … Moscow Mitch, himself, would have to recuse himself from the vote as well … let Schumer handle the politics … a plain, simple straight up vote would put at least a few tools out there and the emergency session should not break out until a bi-partisan version of these bills is refined or finalized, the death and destruction is avoidable if the NRA stays out of it … hell, with all the money that has gone into MM’s pockets and all the other wealthiest people out there, there should be a massive buy-back out there, destroy those military style weapons melt them and make peaceful items out of them … restrict sales of new ones …
Oh Harry Reid, I miss you. That stoic cowboy spirit played well in contrast to Nancy Pelosi. What a team. I hope he is doing well…last I heard his cancer is in remission. May this continue to be the case.
I think he’s right – the data reinforces that sitting presidents are hard to unseat. It rarely happens. The all-out assaults on Obama and W Bush fell far short of accomplishing the task. We think of ’92 as definitive, but it wasn’t really…HW Bush came pretty close to winning in an environment with an 8% unemployment rate.
Trump very well could win, but he faces hurdles. I don’t see the warrior we need to defeat him in any of our candidates yet. I’m optimistic one will rise…but I honestly don’t know who that will be yet. (Spoiler: probably not Delaney.)
“We think of ’92 as definitive, but it wasn’t really…HW Bush came pretty close to winning in an environment with an 8% unemployment rate.”
Um, he also faced something that has pretty much doomed every incumbent president when it’s happened: Primary opposition for renomination. During the 1992 campaign, Bush only got 72.8% of the total vote cast by Republican primary voters (in the 17 states that held primaries or caucuses in Feb and Mar, Bush scored above that 72.8% level in just 1 contest while coming within a half-percent of that in 2 others). In 1988, when he was running as the “natural” successor to Reagan (which is the usual VP play), he could only score 67.9% so he did improve in 1992 but the very fact he couldn’t pull in better than 72.8% in 1992 did NOT bode well for his re-election prospects. He’d also managed to antagonize the “fiscal conservative” wing (breaking his “no new taxes” pledge) and the “evangelical/social conservative” wing (rightfully putting the whole abortion issue so far off the stove it wasn’t even getting any bit of heat).
Looking at other presidents running for re-election:
1972: The current system wasn’t in place, with a LOT fewer contests (only 18 were held) but Nixon won the GOP primary contest with nearly 87% of the votes. Nixon won re-election.
1976: Another contest that differed from the current system (only 28 contests held) but Ford–who hadn’t been elected President–was the incumbent. He also faced SERIOUS opposition from a certain former actor turned governor and could only manage to win 53.3% of the primary vote (and only got 52.6% of the convention delegate vote). Ford lost the election.
1980: Carter was running for re-election. He could only pull in 51.1% of the primary/caucus vote total against Ted Kennedy but, of the 36 states he won, 6 of those came with vote counts BELOW that 51.1% average (by comparison, Kennedy who had a 37.6% average of the total vote won every one of his 12 states with margins higher than that average with 5 being absolute majorities). Carter lost re-election.
1984: Reagan ran for re-election. He faced no kind of significant opposition (while he won over 98% of the vote cast during the 1984 primaries, he’d still won more primary votes in 1980 than were cast in total in the 1984 primaries). He won re-election by some 20 percentage points and the most sizable electoral margin since Alaska and Hawai’i became states (outperforming Nixon’s electoral margin in 1972).
1996: Clinton faced only the most token of opposition during the primaries (he still failed to make the 90% mark–Democrats! am I right?) but most of that opposition dropped out early with only nutcase Lyndon LaRouche holding out (he qualified for delegates in two states but both states refused to award him any and courts upheld the state parties’ decision). Carter won re-election because of the Electoral College as he failed to win a majority of the popular vote (his GOP opponent won even fewer popular votes).
2004: Dubya faced nothing but token opposition and wound up with more than 98% of the primary vote cast. While his 2000 election was cast in serious doubt, his 2004 election was not. Despite reports of some shenanigans (especially in Ohio), overall the election was pretty much a more legitimate affair than 2000’s. (The fact that a number of states put amendments and propositions to ban same-sex marriage on their ballots to boost right-wing turnout played a minor but significant part in Dubya’s [re-]election.)
2012: Obama faced almost no opposition whatsoever but, like Clinton in 1996, failed to crack the 90% mark. He still managed to win re-election.
So, the three elections when the incumbent has been “below par” in his party’s primary contests, he’s also gone on to lose re-election. Right now, Trump doesn’t have any real opposition within the GOP which, from a historical context, bodes very ill for the country’s continued existence as a functioning democracy. (I honestly am at a point where I believe Trump WILL actually declare some “national emergency” to postpone the November 2020 election, especially if polls don’t show him winning in any context–whether there’s a Republican “rebellion” that might split the Party akin to the Teabagger Movement in 2010 or third parties front some big names that voters *might* select. I hope that I’m being unnecessarily pessimistic but, at this point, that hope is looking more like a scene from “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”)
This still being Amurrica … the benighted land that installed this wretched POS in the first place … beating him of course won’t be easy. If this was 2008 or even 2012 Biden I’d be confident but man he has gotten O-L-D. (Me too but I’m not running.) I’m utterly convinced Warren and Harris would be certain losers, so I have to laugh when I hear about our ‘incredibly talented field.’ I wish Beto or possibly Booker would catch on but …