History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme Will Rodgers
Here’s another reason why politically Traitor Tot is as dumb as a box of rocks. In order to make a pathetic attempt to deter or stop the federal investigations into him, even before Thanksgiving he made a huge splash by announcing his 2024 run. It made a splash alright, because it was a belly flop from a 10 meter board. But it was also one of the stupidest political things he could have done.
Because right now, you have every pendejo jerk off with an (R) after his name eyeing a run for the White House in 2024. And what a dog’s breakfast and what a rogues gallery this motley crew is! Just a partial list, you have Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Greg Abbott, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, and Calgary Teddy Cruz all vying for a possible grab at the gold ring. And at this point in his political career, Trump desperately needs every man-jackin-one of them to get into the race. For a very simple reason.
Back in 2026 the GOP presidential primaries was a Godsmack mosh pit. You had 17 different candidates running. It was so bad that the GOP had to split their debates, a 10 candidate main stage, and a 7 podium Kiddie Table debate that broadcast from an empty room before the main event. It was a total joke.
Which led me to write on Daily Kos, a month before the first primary votes were cast that the nomination was Trump’s for the asking. The math was simple. In every poll Trump had a stable and durable base of 25-35%. Nobody else in the field was in double digits. Since almost all of the early GOP primary contests are winner take all primaries, Trump could build up a delegate lead in the early contests that would make it almost impossible for another candidate to catch him once the field winnowed down. No genius was involved, just a little political calculation.
And now here we are going into 2024. And can you hear history rhyming sweetly, like a Neil Diamond ballad? You got all of those names up there, with probably at least another half a dozen considering a run. But Trumpenstein has the edge. He has something that none of those other candidates has. He has a nationally established small dollar donor base, and more importantly, he has a rock solid 25-35% base, who will follow him to the gates of hell.
Which is why The Trumpster Fire is such a political imbecile. He’s ignoring the old adage, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. All Trump needed to do was to sit back, tease a maybe yes, maybe no attitude, and wait for the rest of these chuckleheads to jump into the ring. He can sit there and continue to soak the sheeple for his Leadership PAC, to help him pay his ballooning legal bills, and when the field is full, jump in and immediately assume a commanding lead, which he would likely ride to the nomination, just like in 2016.
But Trump is purely transactional, and in jumping the gun with a move he thought would help him to solve a short term problem, he instead created a long term problem that may just sink his 2024 candidacy by winnowing down the field far too early for his practical purposes.
In an 8-12 candidate field, which he would likely have gotten if he waited, Trump could ride the early primary goldstrike to the nomination before the field narrowed. But by diving into the pool early, before it opened, he likely scared off several 2nd tier candidates like Noem, Scott, and Hawley. Potential candidate Thom Tillis has already announced he isn’t running. And Trump really needed these knuckleheads in the race to siphon off votes from other candidates.
Now, with that laid out, let’s take a look at a more likely scenario. How about a 2024 primary with Trump, Haley, DeSantis, and Abbott. A likely Haley victory in her her state of South Carolina would rob Trump f that delegate rich state. A likely DeSantis victory in Florida would rob Hair Twitler of that delegate haul. And if Abbott manages to hold home field and win Texas, he denies Trump the 2nd largest delegate haul in the primaries.
Tracking? Now granted, each of these candidates pulling off home field wins doesn’t sink Trump, nor does it vault them to the lead, but what it does is to keep Trump within striking distance of the rest of the pack. Not only does that turn the rest of the map into a brutal trench warfare, it does Trump irreparable damage. Because Trump’s whole persona is that he is the Juggernaut that no one else in the party dares to defy. To be caught in a death march 2024 for the nomination would hurt his chances.
And so, we end where we started, at the beginning. In 2015, months before the first votes I predicted Trump’s rise. Why didn’t responsible Republican candidates and strategists see the same problem, and use the necessary pressure and grief to narrow the field to make it harder for Trump? And that is the burning question for the HOPM in 2024. Did they learn the bitter lesson of 2016, and create a tight, qualified pack to keep Trump in control, maybe all the way to a floor fight? sadly my guess is no. The GOP is no longer a cohesive party, and it’s members are greedy freebooters. And Ronna Romney McDaniel is a Trump doormat. Don’t touch that dial.
I think Trump declared thinking that, if he whined enough, DOJ, et.al., would not indict him because he’s a candidate for high office—-in the same spirit as the restraint that DOJ uses 60 days before an election. It should be interesting to watch when he finds out that is not the case….
Murf, on the Texas primary, you’re overlooking the fact that Trump could stage a big win there *IF* Abbott and Cruz are both in the race at that point. Also, Texas (at least for 2016) was a “winner-take-most” race. Cruz won 44% of the vote to Trump’s 27% (and Rubio got 17% with the rest split between Kasich, Carson and others). Of the 155 delegates at stake, Cruz got 104 and Trump got 48 (and Rubio got the rest).
Now, factor in two “favorite sons” in the Texas primary–neither of whom is really all that well-liked (if Abbott were really well-liked, he would’ve done better in his primary rather than “just” 2/3 of the vote whereas in 2014 and 2018, he walked away with over 90% of the primary vote; as for Cruz, he won the 2018 primary with more than 85%–a significant improvement over his first run in 2012–but then barely eked out a win in the general election, the closest in Texas history since 1978 when the GOP incumbent won by a mere 0.5%). Honestly, I don’t really see Cruz holding 44% of the vote with Abbott also in the race and I don’t see Abbott pulling 44% with Cruz in the race; Trump likely will hold at 25-30% of the vote and his real advantage in actually pulling off a win will be how many primary voters will look at Trump as having a nationwide advantage against a Democrat (especially if Biden does run). Trump, Cruz and Abbott are all horrible people but (for better or worse) in a battle of which turd sandwich is the best choice to win the White House, I think Texas GOPers will either give Trump the outright edge in delegates (say 35-30-30) or keep him close enough to the winner (say 38-35-25) that he’ll have no reason to drop out.
I would agree wholeheartedly with you except for one sijmple thing…Cruz is up for reelection in Texas agaqin in 2024, and he can’t run for 2 offices at once…Trump kicked his ass in 2016, and perswonally, I think he’ll sit Shiva, get reelected in 2024, and keep his powder dry for 2028 then his seat is still safe…Just my take…
So, as I previously said on this subject, we’re likely looking at a repeat of either 2012 or 2016 in the overall dynamics. To wit, it will be a charisma-free frontrunner who Uncle Joe will be able to squash like a cockroach or a free-for-all that results in a winner that would be a more potent threat in earlier times…if not for a) Uncle Joe and b) the winnowing of Boomer numbers and rise of Gen Z voters. In neither scenario do I see Trump coming out ahead.