Author Topic: 2024  (Read 171513 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Noonan stumbles towards grasping the essence
« Reply #1100 on: January 19, 2024, 10:02:23 AM »
This Isn’t Only a Trump Election
The non-elite feel more alienated than ever, even invaded, and they’ll be looking for better options.
WSJ
By Peggy Noonan
Jan. 18, 2024 6:40 pm ET

He got 51% of a modest turnout in a small state, but a win’s a win and a 30-point win is a landslide. Still, part of what we saw in Iowa was Donald Trump’s continual losing battle with himself. His Des Moines victory speech was unusually gracious and statesmanlike. The strategy was to reassure moderates and centrists and to undermine the coming argument against him in New Hampshire: that he’s a bad man who’s violent in his rhetoric because he’s violent in his heart.


“I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together . . . whether it’s Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative, it would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world,” he said. “I wanna congratulate Ron and Nikki. . . . They’re very smart people, very capable people.” “We’re going to rebuild the capital of our country, Washington D.C. We’re going to scrub those beautiful marble columns . . . and get the graffiti off them.” “We’re going to rebuild our cities, and we’ll work with the Democrats to do it. I’d be glad to work with the people in New York. We’re going to work with the people in Chicago and L.A. We’re going to rebuild our cities and we’re going to make them safe.”

He was trying to turn a page, but what followed the next day—late-night rants on social media, putdowns of Nikki Haley—marked a return to verbal incontinence. He can’t sustain normality. It makes him nervous. Something he said about Doug Burgum showed his assumption. The North Dakota governor, Mr. Trump said, didn’t succeed in his presidential bid because he didn’t gain “traction,” he wasn’t controversial. “Sometimes being a little controversial is good.” It is, but Mr. Trump is a poor judge of the line between controversial and destructive.

In New Hampshire, Ms. Haley may gain traction, may even triumph. Something good may happen for Ron DeSantis. Life is surprise. But it’s time: Ms. Haley should take Mr. Trump on directly and make the serious case against him. Not “I don’t like all the things he says,” but something deeper, truer, more substantive. She could ruminate on the Trump tragedy. He was a breakthrough figure, he did defeat a weak and detached establishment. But he can’t be president again because there’s something wrong with him. We all know this, we all use different words to describe the “something,” but we know what it produces: impeachments, embarrassments, scandal, 1/6.

Meanwhile three things cause unique disquiet among the non-Trump-supporting majority in America, especially after Iowa. One is that in 2016 Trump supporters didn’t know precisely what they were getting. Now they do. Eight years ago it was a very American thing to do, giving the outsider a chance. You never know in life, people grow in office, the presidency softens rough edges. That didn’t happen. They know what they’re electing now.

Second, when Mr. Trump first came in, in 2017, he didn’t know a president’s true and legitimate powers, he wasn’t interested in history, wasn’t up nights reading Robert Caro. He got rolled by a Republican Congress, was too incompetent to get a wall, was surrounded by political aides who were inexperienced and unaccomplished—the famous “island of broken toys.” This time he’ll go in with experience and can be more effectively bad. How long will it take before he starts saying the Constitution mandates a limit of two presidential terms, but his second term was stolen so that means he gets another term after this one?

Third, Mr. Trump shouldn’t be president, and neither should Joe Biden, because they aren’t what we need for the future. What do we need? Someone who feels in her or his gut the wound of the open border and will stop illegal immigration; someone who can cut through the knot of “globalism” vs. “isolationism,” a serious argument that is becoming a cartoon one (internationalists don’t really want to start wars all over; isolationists know we are part of the world and can’t just pull up the bridge). If we can cut through all that we’ll go some distance to forging a true national stance toward the world, and only then can we answer the proper strategy toward China, the responsibility of America in Asia and the Mideast. Someone who can take on identity politics, who knows we all must stand equal. Someone who can reiterate the idea that we do have national values.

Those few (but huge) things, if a leader got them right, would mark a national comeback, and not a further sinking into the mire of the dramas of the past decade.

G.K. Chesterton wrote: “What we all dread most is a maze with no center.” That’s what our national politics feel like now.

Eight years ago I wrote of the driving force behind support for political newcomer Donald Trump. America had devolved into a protected class of the socially and politically influential vs. regular people at the mercy of the protected class’s favored doctrines and political decisions. I think it still pertains, but eight years later I see new shadings. The distance between the elites and the non-elite has widened, the estrangement deepened. When the university presidents testified before Congress in December it became a catastrophe for the elites in part because viewers could fairly come away thinking: They don’t just live far away and have their own ideology, they have their own private language. Their minds seemed to work in a kind of self-satisfied robot loop: “It depends on the context. It depends on the context.” All this delivered with an honestly unconscious condescension.

Something else that I think has changed is—well, something I haven’t fully thought through, but I think the unprotected at this point do not only feel ignored and betrayed, they feel invaded. Twenty twenty, that epic, nation-changing year, tripped something off, began something new, a sense among regular people that some new ideology that doesn’t even have a name had entered their lives on all levels, in their intimate family and work space. The pandemic, with its protocols and regulations and vaccine mandates; the strange things taught in the schools, which were suddenly brought into your home by Zoom; the obsessions with gender and race, the redefinitions of the founding and meaning of America. At the office, the stupid and insulting race and gender instructions, and the index you have to meet when hiring to achieve what someone has decided is the right “diversity” balance.

I think people feel invaded by the ideology with no name. They know it is unhealthy for society, is in fact guaranteed to make us, as a people who must live together, weaker and more divided.

We are not sufficiently noting that this isn’t only a Trump election, it is also the first national election since the full impact of 2020 and its epochal changes sank in.

Voters are going to want more options. Talk will turn seriously to a third-party bid. The great unanswered question will be whether those mounting that party have enough imagination to understand what they could be this year.

ccp

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Sen. Tim Scott endorses DJT
« Reply #1101 on: January 19, 2024, 12:18:17 PM »
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2024/01/19/heres-who-tim-scott-is-endorsing-for-2024-n2633883

slowly everyone is falling in line
Looks I will too....

God grant us an even worse Dem opponent.   :oops:

ccp

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great campaign add for Ron and Nikki
« Reply #1102 on: January 20, 2024, 09:44:12 AM »
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nikki-haley-jan-6_n_65ab471be4b076abd7abb095

Trump of course rehashing for the endless number of times how he is alleged to have offered Pelosi NG
and she refused.

Problem is he was not talking about Pelosi!

78 yo .....

What a gigantic gaff.
What is he going to tweet about this - my guess - nothing.

Crafty_Dog

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On this Haley is right and Trump is wrong
« Reply #1103 on: January 21, 2024, 06:06:09 AM »
Trump Isn’t Serious About the National Debt
He joins Democrats in saying that any reform to Social Security would toss granny off a cliff.
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Jan. 19, 2024 6:43 pm ET


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MAGA Republicans claim to be worried about the country’s $34 trillion debt, and this week the House Budget Committee advanced a bill to create a bipartisan fiscal commission. Have they checked with Donald Trump?

After winning the Iowa caucuses Monday, Mr. Trump replayed a golden oldie of a campaign pledge: “We’re also going to pay off the national debt. It’s about time.” He said the same thing in 2016, before he added about $8 trillion to the tab. Roughly half of that was Covid relief, so perhaps voters grade him on a curve. Less forgivable is that he’s now playing for the Democrats on entitlements.

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“Americans were promised a secure retirement. Nikki Haley’s plan ends that,” says the grim narrator of a Trump advertisement playing in New Hampshire. A new radio spot adds: “Year after year, you paid into Social Security. Now Nikki Haley wants to keep you from collecting what’s yours.” The Trump campaign alleges Ms. Haley would cut benefits “for 82 percent of Americans.”

This is dishonest. Social Security is running out of money, and doing nothing will result in a 23% cut to benefits within a decade. The retirement trust fund, according to the latest report, will be depleted in 2033, at which point the incoming cash “will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.” Does Mr. Trump have any plan to prevent this outcome in only nine years? Nope.

Ms. Haley hasn’t issued a detailed proposal, but what she says doesn’t fit Mr. Trump’s narrative. “I will protect those receiving Social Security and Medicare—that’s a promise,” she said last fall. “We’ll keep these programs the same for anyone who’s in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or older, period.”

Then she added that she would “limit benefits on the wealthy” and “raise the retirement age only for younger people who are just entering the system. Americans are living 15 years longer than they were in the ’30s. If we don’t get out of this 20th-century mindset, Social Security and Medicare won’t survive.”

Whatever Mr. Trump might say about getting the debt under control, it won’t happen without changes to these programs. Social Security was 19% of total federal outlays in 2022. Medicare was 12% and Medicaid 9%. The category of “other means tested entitlements” was another 10%. Add those up, and they’re half of federal spending. As social programs keep growing, they crowd out everything that’s counted as “discretionary,” including national defense, which was 12%.

This problem will get worse. By the year 2053, Social Security outlays will climb to 6.2% of GDP from 4.8%, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Medicare will go to 5.5% from 2.8%. “Rising health care costs per person and the aging of the population are the main reasons for the sharp increase in projected spending on the major health care programs,” CBO dryly notes. Ditto for Social Security.

Republicans used to grasp this reality, and Democrats hammered them as heartless while pretending not to understand math. Recall the Medicare attack ad in which a doppelgänger of Rep. Paul Ryan pushed a grandma in a wheelchair off a cliff.

Today the putative leader of the Republican Party is taking the same line against Ms. Haley. She’s the one candidate in 2024 who is honest about what’s driving the debt, and Mr. Trump is trashing her for it. Ron DeSantis has switched jerseys on this issue as well. He has been arguing that because life expectancy has dipped slightly amid Covid and the opioid epidemic, the U.S. can’t possibly adjust Social Security to account for the enormous gains in health and longevity since the 1930s.

It’s dizzying. House Republicans are at one another’s throats over modest bills to keep the government running, and some of the rabble rousers are now debating whether to knife their second Speaker in three months. Yet Mr. Trump is running a presidential campaign all but promising America a future as a broke, weak welfare state, and none of the MAGA debt agonists object. Incoherence, thy name is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.



Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1106 on: January 23, 2024, 07:26:50 AM »
Not a stupid piece at all.

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ for Haley
« Reply #1107 on: January 23, 2024, 08:44:35 AM »
The 2024 Republican Choice
A second, chaotic Trump term, or a new conservative beginning?
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 21, 2024 5:56 pm ET

The polls show Americans want to move on from President Biden, and Republicans have a choice to make about the alternative to offer voters in November. Will it be the prospect of a second Donald Trump term, with its inevitable turmoil and polarization, or will the GOP look forward to forge a new conservative governing coalition?


That’s the essence of the choice facing Republicans as New Hampshire holds its primary on Tuesday. The Trump campaign, the press and the Biden Democrats say the race is over. Mr. Biden wants Mr. Trump as the nominee because he believes Mr. Trump is the easiest to beat. But before the die is cast, it’s worth thinking about the risks GOP voters would be taking, both in November and in a second term if by some chance Mr. Trump defeated Mr. Biden.

***
The election risks are sitting in plain sight. Mr. Trump faces 91 felony charges in four different indictments. You can think the indictments are politically motivated and an awful precedent, as these columns have argued. But they exist, and amid the legal battling a jury could convict Mr. Trump by the summer.

Then what? Mr. Trump would never withdraw. But no fewer than 31% of Iowa caucus voters said in the entrance poll that a conviction would make Mr. Trump unfit for the White House. That would mean Mr. Trump can’t win. GOP voters would have played into Democratic and media hands.

If Mr. Trump does somehow win, Democrats predict a second Trump term will end in dictatorship. But that undersells the resilience of American institutions, which have held up so far against the stress test of Mr. Trump and his enemies, including the riot of Jan. 6, 2021. Congress responded quickly and ratified the Electoral College votes. The plotters were a rump group opposed across the government. There was nothing close to a coup d’état.

The better question in our view is whether Mr. Trump can deliver the policy and political victories that GOP voters want. There are many reasons to think he can’t.

Start with the fact that Mr. Trump would be an immediate lame duck. He can’t serve more than one more term, and if he does win it will be narrowly with little political capital. He has never reached an approval rating above 50%, and his rolling seven-week RealClearPolitics average favorability is 41.5%. If there’s a strong third-party ticket, he might win with the smallest plurality since 1912. Mr. Trump would lack the most potent presidential power—the ability to persuade.

Republicans are favored to win a Senate majority, albeit narrowly. But the House is up for grabs and could easily go Democratic. If the first term is a guide, Democrats will oppose anything Mr. Trump proposes that isn’t one of their priorities. Mr. Trump could use executive power to repeal Mr. Biden’s regulations and appoint judges. He could approve drilling for domestic energy in particular. But if Democrats control either house of Congress, conservative legislative priorities would be dead on arrival.

Trump supporters say his first term was successful until the midterms and Covid, and it was on the economy, deregulation and judges. But tax reform was teed up for him by years of spade work in the House GOP. The Federalist Society gave him a list of judges to nominate and Mitch McConnell moved them through the Senate. A GOP Senate could still confirm judges, but the current Republican House can’t pass a budget, much less come up with a governing agenda for 2025.

One reason is the intellectual confusion of the Trump-era GOP. There’s nothing like the unified agenda that Ronald Reagan carried into office after 1980, or even Mr. Trump after 2016. Republicans favor lower taxes, but Mr. Trump wants to raise the price of every import with a 10% border tax. They want to reduce the national debt but he won’t touch entitlements. They favor “peace through strength” but won’t seriously increase defense spending. The MAGA GOP has no desire to limit government but wants to use it for its own political purposes.

Mr. Trump says he now knows from hard experience how to manage the executive branch, but his governing style is undisciplined to say the least. The internal opposition will still be implacable, the leaks unending, the press relentlessly hostile. This is another reason the Trump-as-Hitler fears are implausible.

It also isn’t clear Mr. Trump could attract first-rate advisers. The lure of power is strong, but anyone who takes a job had better have a lawyer on retainer. No conservative who wants a career in the law is likely to accept a job in the White House or Justice—not after what Mr. Trump asked his lawyers to do after the 2020 election.

Looking ahead, a second Trump term would surely mean a Republican wipeout in the 2026 midterms. The Senate map that year tilts strongly Democratic. There would be no more Supreme Court confirmations. If the GOP takes another MAGA turn in 2028, the stage would be set for Democrats to run the election table, break the Senate filibuster, and pack the Court.

***
The failing Biden Presidency obscures all of this for millions of GOP voters, who see a Trump victory as a return to better, pre-Covid times. This misses that Mr. Biden’s failure presents the GOP with an historic opportunity. The President hasn’t fulfilled his promise of a return to normalcy and instead has delivered more polarization. Bidenomics hasn’t lifted real incomes, while the world is more dangerous than at any time since the 1930s.

But a Trump victory will bring no return to normalcy, nor the “unity” he sometimes mentions before he denounces some other former ally. A different GOP nominee would shake up political categories, win independents, and offer a better chance at a conservative restoration.

If Republicans nominate Mr. Trump again, that’s democracy—the worst system except for all the others. But our unhappy guess is that, sooner or later, the choice will end in tears for his voters.




DougMacG

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Re: Dem candidate Dean Philips on MAGA
« Reply #1111 on: January 24, 2024, 06:09:37 PM »
https://twitter.com/SteveLovesAmmo/status/1749918457573818513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1749918457573818513%7Ctwgr%5E5ce17d6616f872393703b0bee81e2deef7eadb18%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paragonpride.com%2Fforum%2Fthreads%2F2024-politics-serious-and-satire.12815%2Fpage-12

For fun I was hoping he might disrupt the Biden train but he was only able to get 20% of the vote against someone who wasn't even on the ballot.

Please don't be fooled by my congressman Dean Phillips. He has the gift of moderate speak and he votes identical to Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries and Ilhan Omar. That is dishonesty by definition in my humble opinion.

He says he is running to continue the Biden policies. It doesn't get much worse or more left than that.

If he is starting to think right on anything at this point is just Bill Clinton like slickness, without the charisma.

He had his chance and he blew it.

OTOH, he isn't going away. He didn't leave his seat in Congress and raise his National profile for nothing. He has more money than God (God doesn't use money). Inherited his adopted father's inherited big vodka business. What is more patriotic than selling High profit, cheap booze to working people and not paying Healthcare to your workers until called out on it politically.

Other than that, nice guy.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2024, 09:40:04 PM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ
« Reply #1114 on: January 26, 2024, 05:02:37 AM »
The Trump-MAGA Purge
The former President wants to banish Haley’s donors and anyone else who doesn’t bow down before him.
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Jan. 25, 2024 6:31 pm ET


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Donald Trump has decided the way to unite the GOP, after his 54% to 43% victory in New Hampshire, is to purge Republicans who are still skeptical of him. Retribution is at the top of his mind, as he said when launching his campaign. Yet this politics of subtraction will make it harder to beat President Biden.

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Many of Nikki Haley’s supporters, including longtime Republicans, aren’t persuaded that Mr. Trump deserves a second term. In New Hampshire this week, “three-quarters (77%) of Haley voters said they would not vote for Trump in November,” according to a Fox News survey of 2,000 people. This is a symptom of Mr. Trump’s political weakness, not its cause. The obvious move for Mr. Trump is to assuage the concerns of these voters and welcome them into the fold.

Instead he wants to banish them. “Nikki ‘Birdbrain’ Haley is very bad for the Republican Party and, indeed, our Country,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday on his social-media site. “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them.”

Ms. Haley’s donors aren’t naifs and presumably won’t be intimidated from exercising their constitutional rights. But Mr. Trump’s threat reveals once again where his heart is. When his aides tell him that he should disavow the notion of payback, he does it, for a moment. Then he reverts to form.

“I don’t get too angry. I get even,” he said Tuesday night in New Hampshire, in what was supposed to be a victory speech. He may find people react to his threats by voting for another candidate, or not at all.

A similar bad omen for Republicans is the GOP dysfunction in big swing states, including Arizona and Michigan. The latest is that Kari Lake secretly audiotaped the Arizona state party chair, Jeff DeWit, urging her in 2023 to skip this year’s Senate race. The “ask” from “back east” was if there were “any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll?” Mr. DeWit proffered. “Is there a number at which . . . ”

Mr. DeWit’s words were ill-chosen, and he resigned Wednesday. But as he did he decried the “betrayal of trust” involved in the recording of “an open, unguarded exchange between friends in the living room of her house,” which occurred “while I was actually employing Lake in my private company.” He said his proposal to Ms. Lake was not a bribe but a suggestion, for her sake and the GOP’s, that she find something else to do for two years and then run for Governor again in 2026. The leaked tape looks like an attempt by Ms. Lake and her allies to take over the state party.

What a fiasco. In the past six years, Arizona Republicans have lost both U.S. Senate seats, as well as Ms. Lake’s narrow 2022 defeat for the governorship. The state’s three-way Senate contest this November could be a good opportunity for a GOP pickup, with liberal voters split between independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and presumptive Democratic nominee Rep. Ruben Gallego. Yet the GOP seems prepared to nominate the polarizing Ms. Lake, who’s again busy firing inside the tent.

If Mr. Trump and other MAGA figures spend the coming months trying to purify the GOP of everyone who won’t kiss his ring, it will be a high act of self-sabotage. It will also be a good reason to vote for someone else.

ccp

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1115 on: January 26, 2024, 06:17:59 AM »
" If Mr. Trump and other MAGA figures spend the coming months trying to purify the GOP of everyone who won’t kiss his ring, it will be a high act of self-sabotage. It will also be a good reason to vote for someone else. "

there is no one else unless we are talking about Biden or RFKJr
I suspect many will stay home.
Even Cheney would not come out and say she would vote for Biden , she would stay home is my hunch.
Sununu said what we (or at least me) say - he would vote for Trump since he is the party nominee - he is still better than any crat.  (Margaret Hoover's face turned into the elephant man when he said that - she would vote for anyone other then trump - she irritates the heck out of me - like all these other ex Bush people who now voice the Democrat Party themes.


Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Strassel
« Reply #1116 on: January 26, 2024, 06:40:23 AM »
Nikki Haley Needs a Rationale
Republican voters are open to voting for someone other than Trump—but why her?
Kimberley A. Strassel
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Jan. 25, 2024 6:08 pm ET


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From the sound of a vituperative Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Nikki Haley is doing something right. From the look of those South Carolina polls, she isn’t doing nearly enough. Now is the moment to see if a Trump challenger can hit on a magic formula.

The notion that this contest is already over is absurd. Only 434,000 voters in two states have so far recorded a preference for a Republican nominee—about 1.4% of the 31 million who took part in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries. In the race to secure 1,215 delegates for the nomination, Mr. Trump leads Ms. Haley, 32 to 17. That Haley number is almost exactly what Mr. Trump had after the first two races in 2016, the year he won.

Math can hold a dubious place in politics, but time is also on this competition’s side. It’s a month before the South Carolina primary, and we’re in an anything-can-happen political era—buffeted by prosecutors, leaks, bizarre scandals, Supreme Court moments and elderly candidates. Ms. Haley needs only one thing to keep this a live fight—money—and she’s got plenty of it. Mr. Trump knows this, which explains his irate Truth Social threat to bar permanently “from the MAGA camp”—“from this moment forth”—anybody who “makes a ‘contribution’ to Birdbrain.”

Ms. Haley’s donor loyalty isn’t the only thing crawling under Mr. Trump’s skin. After months of rivals’ tiptoeing around the putative incumbent, Ms. Haley in the days leading to New Hampshire sharpened her criticism—raising concern about Mr. Trump’s age, lumping him in with Joe Biden, reminding Republicans of his record of losing elections. Attacking Mr. Trump can be risky, for fear of alienating voters already fed up with the left’s lawfare assault on the former president. But factual criticisms are digestible, even persuasive, and Ms. Haley’s emerging formula helped boost her to 43% of the Granite State vote—7 points higher than polls predicted.

Ms. Haley has money, she has a two-person race, and she has arguments for why Mr. Trump would be the wrong nominee. What’s missing is the case for why she’d be the right one. “Stand for America” and “Generational Change” aren’t going to set the masses alight, at least not to the degree she needs to start winning.

Campaign slogans can be overrated, but they can also capture a national desire. Liberals wield the shorthand “MAGA” as a term of scorn, but don’t forget its actual promise—make America great again. Mr. Trump still uses his catch phrase to great effect, animating his audiences with a promise of a “movement” that is “pro-border, pro-jobs, pro-freedom” and “100% pro-America.” This time around he doesn’t even have to bother with policy specifics; voters know what he did last time and simply expect a repeat.

Ms. Haley doesn’t have that luxury. She certainly has reform specifics—on taxes and education, healthcare and entitlements. But outside her in-person events, or the occasional debate minutes devoted to substance, few hear them. Most of her TV ads feature anodyne promises to “fix the economy,” “beat China” and “strengthen the cause of freedom”—promises that could as easily feature in a Biden ad.

Mostly she lacks an animating rationale for her candidacy, one that can be articulated in a few words, then illustrated and propelled by a handful of hard-charging policy priorities. MAGA resonates, but there are other ways to speak to today’s bipartisan American frustration. This column last week described the tens of millions of Americans who feel impotent against a ruling elite. And there’s no lack of recent prior examples of Republicans tapping into parts of that rage. Glenn Youngkin channeled parental anger over the education machine. Ron DeSantis tapped into voter disgust with corporate social engineering. Vivek Ramaswamy initially got traction with his calls for deep-state overhaul.

A fruitful and unifying kernel (a basis for that Haley rationale) rests in the simple word “freedom,” a word that is bigger even than MAGA, and has grown more powerful during three years of stifling Biden rule. Average Americans want to be free again—free from failing teachers and diversity mandates, from Facebook censorship and three-hour wash cycles, from IRS complexity, smash-and-grab robberies and unchecked illegal immigration. They want a candidate who promises to guarantee that freedom by going to war with spenders on both sides, tyrannical bureaucrats, ivory-tower institutions, and bad guys around the world.

That’s a movement that’s even bigger than MAGA, especially if it could be harnessed by someone who doesn’t have Mr. Trump’s baggage or alienating ways. It’d take some thought and prioritization—and require a reboot by Ms. Haley’s campaign. But what she needs most right now is to capture attention in a big way.

ccp

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right Halley does not have the overall vision or plan as noted abobe
« Reply #1117 on: January 26, 2024, 07:17:36 AM »
and Trump proves one can have both charisma
but also the antonyms of charisma at the very same time:

unappealing   repellent
repugnant   revolting
unalluring   scurrilous
detestable   uncultivated
unfriendly   uncivil

DougMacG

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Re: How Steve Cortes ended DeSantis's campaign twice
« Reply #1118 on: January 26, 2024, 08:00:22 AM »
https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/26/how-steve-cortes-ended-desantis-campaigntwice/

"The DeSantis campaign relied on the “not-Trump” vote to coalesce around a “Trump-ish” person that Trump people would support later. DeSantis sought to thread a needle in time."

I get that it didn't work but I don't get what he could have done better.

Trump has a certain loyalty that was earned by him and cemented by the prosecutions, and he eliminated most of the unforced errors by staying out of the mix in the debates.

RD could have been more centrist but he isn't.   He could have been more flamboyant and charismatic but he isn't. He could have praised Trump policies more, separate that from the person, but the loyalty is more to the person than the policies.

As Nikki defines herself as the anti Trump and loses, DeSantis may be in a better place to follow Trump than her whenever that time comes.

But still he carries the mantle of tried hard but didn't catch on.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2024, 08:07:13 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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2024, The GOP race was over when ...
« Reply #1119 on: January 26, 2024, 09:33:31 AM »
The GOP race was over when  .

When DeSantis polled better before entering than after,
When the field got crowded and Trump left them to fight each other,
When Trump led DeSantis in Florida by 20 points,
When Trump led Haley in SC by 20 points,
UPDATE: 27 points:. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/26/poll-trump-27-points-ahead-of-haley-in-south-carolina/
When Iowa proved polls right, even in caucuses,
When Trump consistently led Biden in general election polls removing the electability issue,
When Biden refused to drop out, eliminating the generational issue,
When all the 3rd party hopefuls were anti-Trumpers, not anti-Bideners.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2024, 09:05:32 PM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1120 on: January 26, 2024, 10:27:33 AM »
"I get that it didn't work but I don't get what he could have done better."

With the benefit of hindsight (and surely I did not see this at the time) he should have been willing to brawl with Trump when Trump went after him with a series of ads mocking him.  THIS was the moment to make his case-- which this article summarized well.

ccp

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1121 on: January 26, 2024, 10:42:38 AM »
This will be the first Presidential election since when 1960 that there will be NO debate between the two party nominees.

I would be shocked if Biden is allowed to debate.
And I will be surprised too if he is the final nominee.
Some are suggesting the real nominee will be announced in late Spring or early Summer.
The DNC is just waiting now.

Any thoughts? on this?


Body-by-Guinness

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Re: 2024, The GOP race was over when ...
« Reply #1122 on: January 26, 2024, 12:52:42 PM »
The GOP race was over when  .

When DeSantis polled better before entering than after,
When the field got crowded and Trump left them to fight each other,
When Trump led DeSantis in Florida by 20 points,
When Trump led Haley in SC by 20 points,
When Iowa proved polls right, even in caucuses,
When Trump consistently led Biden in general election polls removing the electability issue,
When Biden refused to drop out, eliminating the generational issue,
When all the 3rd party hopefuls were anti-Trumpets, not anti-Bideners.

Responding to several posts above.

Pardon me for going all English major on this list, but I think a major DeSantis problems was his failure to develop his own "voice." Donald has his distinct, bombastic and abrasive style that appeals to disenfranchised Americans, Nikki has her measured and soothing delivery the country club and (overlapping) RINO klatches find appealing, Vivek owns a data driven and direct delivery appealing to independents and libertarians, while Ron ... has great policies and results delivered in a white bread tone sans much in the way of oratorial inflection or particular passion.

Make no mistake, I'm not arguing in favor of oratorial artifice--of which there is plenty of already--and wish it was possible to live somewhere leadership quals were measured by results rather than marketing and delivery but hey, the water in which the electorate swims is the water within which the electorate swims. Indeed, I keep meaning to write a piece arguing modern media methods are responsible for many of the political ills we endure as the same techniques used to sell tampons, toilet bowl cleaner, and toothpaste--30 second or so audio and visual sensory bombardments seeking to short circuit reason and appeal directly to emotion--are how our political candidates are sold too. One of the reason I suspect the MSM loathes Trump to the degree that they do is that he unabashedly has beat them at that game, turning their tools against them.

Speaking of which, and excuse the non-sequitur, what the hell happened to Kennedy? Did I miss him dying or dropping out? How'd he go from the existential threat and spoiler that was gonna siphon off Biden voters aghast media hand-wringers warbled about to cricketland? The MSM get together and decide if they stopped reporting on him (and hence marketing him) he'd go find a Kennebunkport rock to crawl under?

And to Doug's list I'd add "When the media made a martyr of Trump." Nothing like a virtual crucifixion and subsequent rise from the digital dead to get excite the True Believers.

And edited to add a response to CCP's question. Given the unprincipled boldness with which "Progressives," the permanent bureaucracy, and the MSM slathered on their lies last time around and how few consequences they endured for their duplicity I'd expect more of the same. Squared. If not more.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2024, 12:59:07 PM by Body-by-Guinness »

DougMacG

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1123 on: January 26, 2024, 09:29:04 PM »
BBG:. "When the media made a martyr of Trump."

Right.. He built a bond with his fans and this cemented it, starting with phony Russian collusion? Ukraine "perfect" phone call, the Big Lie, Jan 6, impeachment 2.0 trial after leaving officr, armed raid on Mara Lago for what all President keep, the attack on his business, the xrazy lady raped in a store and 91 felony charges withiut noticeable wrongdoing.

Hindsight is fair game and wanted but I don't think any of it would break the bond. He leads Haley by 27 in her home state, and they love her.

Rush Limbaugh and Trump for a long time didn't know each other, then became close. Trump wanted Rush's audience. Rush commented about both of them, the media didn't make, the media can't break them. Only Trump himself can break the bond with his followers, and attacking him only makes it stronger, it seems.

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2024 Why the pundits say the primaries are over
« Reply #1124 on: January 30, 2024, 10:11:59 AM »
Why the pundits say the primaries are over:

GOP: Trump 73, Haley 19

Dem: Biden 72, Phillips 4, Williamson 4

   - Emerson latest

Only Trump can knock Trump out the primaries.  I have no idea what can knock Biden out.  He's barely in but kept the decks clear and is winning by a landslide.

General Election:  5-Way: Trump (R) 41, Biden (D) 39, Kennedy (I) 5, Stein (G) 1, West (I) 1

Not much of a lead under the circumstances!
« Last Edit: January 30, 2024, 10:16:06 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1125 on: January 30, 2024, 10:51:05 AM »
we keep seeing headlines on drudge for example

economy is great

consumer confidence is up  :roll:

rasmussen has Biden favorable 47%

I don't know who or what to believe anymore

everyone is stepping up to the microphones screaming and yelling their own agendas

I can only with a few I trust
I like O'Reilly he seems legit though leans rights
he recommends a sight called tangle as being mostly unbiased
with objective news:

 https://www.readtangle.com/

 I have not checked it out so cannot say for sure if any good

Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1126 on: January 30, 2024, 12:42:58 PM »
"He recommends a site"   :evil:

Body-by-Guinness

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You Can Tell What They Think of Us …
« Reply #1127 on: January 30, 2024, 06:31:36 PM »
… by the lies they tell:

Turning the border against Trump
Democrats and RINOs desperately try to wipe the open borders off their shoes
JAN 30, 2024

If President Trump wins in November, he can thank Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the win. No one has done more to change public opinion about Biden’s Open Borders policy than Abbott. He shipped the invaders to sanctuary cities and lo and behold, black voters suddenly rose against Democrats who bent over backward for the illegal aliens.

In November, the Wall Street Journal reported, “By championing legal and illegal immigrants and largely ignoring border security, the Democrat Party has alienated key voting groups—including Hispanics.”

Hispanics? It is worse than that because the invasion of illegal aliens puts the black vote in jeopardy for Democrats. Black voters provide one out of four Democrat votes.

The New York Times chimed in, “Black voters are more disconnected from the Democrat Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.

“New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22% of black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71% would back Mr. Biden.

“The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8% of black voters nationally in 2020 and 6% in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12% of the black vote in nearly half a century.”

The black vote is only part of the problem. Most Americans oppose Biden’s refusal to enforce immigration laws.

Paul Bedard reported yesterday, “A sizable majority of the public supports Texas’s construction of a wall along its border with Mexico and feels that President Joe Biden’s efforts to stop it are the first step toward civil war.

“In a sobering analysis of the escalating topic, 69% of likely 2024 voters said that they support the border wall and razor-wire fence that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has ordered. Among those, a majority, 51%, said they strongly back Texas in its fight to stop illegal immigration and the surge of gotaways getting past federal border agents.”

The governors of 25 states signed a letter of support and some sent National Guardsmen and state troopers to help guard the border.

Bedard wrote, “The topic threatens more than Biden’s re-election plans. A majority of voters told Rasmussen Reports that Biden is stoking the fires of civil war.”

Well, how does one spin their way out of this mess? The Obama-Ordered Open Borders policy is dog shit in the eyes of the electorate. Ever step in dog doo? Back when I was a kid and owners never picked up on their pets, I occasionally did and scraping it off your shoe is nearly impossible.

The Einsteins in DC believe they can do so by shifting the blame to President Trump — you know, the man the people elected to get the wall built that Democrats and RINOs refused to build.

The same pieces of, um, open borders now want to blame Mister Trump for the mess they made. The claim is Biden cannot defend our border unless we send billions more to Ukraine. If true, why didn’t the border close down when we gave that first $100 billion ($100,000,000,000) to Zelensky?

Democrats and RINOs in the Senate agreed to a bill that would allow 5,000 illegal aliens in each day — claiming they are refugees — before arresting even one. This is a compromise between those who want an open border and those who want no border at all.

The press is not going into details. Instead it shows Biden as a great man who wants to close the border door and Trump as a villain with his foot in the door.

On Sunday, Meet the Press showed two clips. One had Biden braying, “If that bill were the law today, I'd shut down the border right now and fix it quickly. A bipartisan bill would be good for America and help fix our broken immigration system and allow speedy access for those who deserve to be here. And Congress needs to get it done.”

The other showed Trump saying, “I'd rather have no bill than a bad bill, a bad bill you can't have and that's what was happening in the House.”

Then the show’s hostess interviewed Little Nikki, who said, “But the reality is every time he’s talking about defending himself in court, he's not talking about getting our economy back on track. He’s not talking about closing the border. He’s not talking about how we’re going to get our kids reading again and getting us focused again. He's not talking about law and order. That's the problem is — he’s not talking about what the American people want.”

His whole presidency is based on his desire to close the border. We all know where he stands. We also know he can fix the economy because he did so before. Haley and the rest of the in-crowd wants to erase our memories about the border.

It could be shut today. Biden says he cannot. He lies, but the press plays along and pretends that Biden cannot enforce the law until Ukraine gets more money.

The Hill screeched, “Former President Trump’s push to kill the border deal in order to deny President Biden a legislative win is upsetting members on both sides of the aisle as negotiators hope to wrap up work on an agreement within days.

“Trump had been the sleeping giant in the background of talks, but his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, coupled with his recent remarks calling for Republicans to oppose any border package short of H.R. 2, have complicated the path forward for the Senate.

“Lawmakers say they are worried that killing the deal would be a major disservice given the situation at the border and in Ukraine.”

It quoted deranged Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow, who said, “If politics get in the way of this — if Donald Trump who wants to help his friend [Russian President Vladimir Putin] with Ukraine and wants to keep the border alive as a major issue — if that prevails, that would be a really horrible disposition to all this.”

And delirous Democrat Senator Mitt Romney said, “The reality is that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border, and someone running for president ought to try to get the problem solved as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”

This strategy is stupid — so stupid that Larry, Curly and Moe wouldn’t touch it with Shemp’s pole.

Lemme show you why.

The Jeff Bezos Post said, “Republican front-runner Donald Trump said he wants to be held responsible for blocking a bipartisan border security bill in the works in the Senate as President Biden seeks emergency authority to rein in a record surge of unauthorized border crossings.”

Emergency authority?

They really want you to believe his hands are tied. Sheesh.

Trump said, “As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. I’ll fight it all the way. A lot of the senators are trying to say, respectfully, they’re blaming it on me. I say, that’s okay. Please blame it on me. Please.”

For more than 8 years, these America Last fools have called President Trump’s efforts to close the border racist and a bunch of other deplorable names. The attempt to reverse the political polarity and blame him for this mess is ridiculous and I cannot see how it works.

They know it.

The Bezos Post said, “The increase in apprehensions at the southwest border has become a top-level policy challenge for the Biden administration and a core theme of Trump’s bid for a rematch this November. Biden’s management of the southern border and immigration is his worst-rated issue in polls, while survey respondents say they trust Trump more on the issue.”

Increase in apprehensions? That’s like saying Biden reduced inflation. Politics is all smoke and mirrors, I suppose, but the public knows better on these two issues. It sees open borders for what it is — something you cannot easily scrape from your shoe. The stench stays with them.

I thank Governor Abbott for changing public opinion about the invasion by sending the invaders to those smug, self-righteous sanctuary cities.

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/turning-the-border-against-trump?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR0HhnRKr1ZhkCZumvajdXR3VDKgNqKxuysoOEXEZ40rR6XC8Zs078UHc5I

Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1128 on: January 31, 2024, 05:11:11 AM »
DeSantis deserves credit to for shipping out illegals to Martha's Vineyard and elsewhere.

DougMacG

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1129 on: January 31, 2024, 05:44:09 AM »
DeSantis deserves credit to for shipping out illegals to Martha's Vineyard and elsewhere.

Right, and also the great praise of Gov Abbott (which I agree with) is in direct contradiction to what Michael Yon was saying a short time ago.  We  need to sort that out.

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1130 on: January 31, 2024, 05:54:44 AM »
IMHO Yon has a point, albeit overstated, even now.

Were Abbot to truly act upon his assertion of invasion per Art 1 Section 10 Clause 3 he would be barbing up the entire border.   In a certain sense what we have now is Kabuki theater. 

Or, is it possible that Texas's argument that the Feds have to prove the park in question is federal land a preface to asserting Texas's sovereignty over the entire border?

That said, unlike Yon, I do praise Abbot.  What he is doing here is politically potent. 

DougMacG

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2024 Bloomberg Swing State Polls
« Reply #1131 on: January 31, 2024, 06:06:07 AM »
Bloomberg Swing State Polls published this morning:
Georgia: Trump 49, Biden 41
Arizona: Trump 47, Biden 44
Wisconsin: Trump 49, Biden 44
North Carolina: Trump 49, Biden 39
Michigan: Trump 47, Biden 42
Pennsylvania: Trump 48, Biden 45
Nevada: Trump 48, Biden 40
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Biden won all but NC on that list last time, and still only won by 44,000 votes.

It's so easy to say polls don't matter, it's too early, they're often wrong, etc.
Then results start coming in showing the polls were right.

Looking at this, unless it is all wrong or manipulated, is there ANY chance Joe Biden will be the nominee come November?

Also recall the early voting phenomenon especially of Democrats.  They can't wait until the last day of October to switch him out.

If they switch him out, doesn't the new guy (or gal) have to defend the same record, same policies?

Looking back to Obama's reelection in 2012, I used to torture Obama supporters with the question, is it his (disastrous) economic record you like best about him or his (atrocious) foreign policy you like best?  (All they can point to is hatred of Republicans.)

Biden has an even worse record to defend - without the charisma.

ccp

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But what is the result if Trump convicted
« Reply #1132 on: January 31, 2024, 09:14:50 AM »
we know with certain he will be convicted in DC

Left wing media reporting this the past few days:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4439535-swing-state-voters-trump-convicted-2024/

Don't know what to make of this.
It will embolden us but not sure about the "swing voters" if true or not.

I am thinking if he is sentenced to jail can they appeal and delay imprisonment long enough for him to pardon himself?

Crafty_Dog

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Heh heh
« Reply #1133 on: January 31, 2024, 06:08:10 PM »


“It’s Haley’s job to make the very unlikely seem possible,” Mark Weaver, veteran Republican strategist, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “She has to keep a straight face while doing it, which is the hard part.”


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Re: thoughts from Kurt : "black swan: ruminations for 11/24
« Reply #1135 on: February 01, 2024, 01:54:39 PM »
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/02/01/the-black-swan-events-that-could-determine-this-election-n2634404

Point is well taken, they aren't out of tricks and we better not be surprised.

Hard to top covid and (and George Floyd), shutting the world economy down right when we hit best economy ever - but they will try.

Building things up is harder than tearing things down.  They need an event that makes people rally around Biden and the Democrats.  If they knew how, they would have done it already.  They spent extra trillions with nothing to show for it, just more inflation and more wars.

Weird that they didn't throw a tickertape parade when Biden got out us out of Afghanistan.  They actually did want to celebrate it until it all went wrong.  What is there that can go right for him?  Win the war in Ukraine?  Win in Gaza?  How? We don't even know which side we're on.  Maybe an illegal will cure cancer before election day.  https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/06/12/joe-biden-cure-cancer-campaign-richmond-bolduan-sot-ath-vpx.cnn 

Their policies don't build us up or pull us together.  Their policies came to be known as Build Back Broker.  Debt, crime, suicide and skyrocketing mental health issues tell the story.

DougMacG

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Re: 2024, polls
« Reply #1136 on: February 01, 2024, 02:01:54 PM »
I shouldn't have posted favorable polls because here it swings the other way.
https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3889


DougMacG

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Feb 1 2024 Betting Odds
« Reply #1138 on: February 01, 2024, 05:16:22 PM »
Latest Betting Odds: Trump 43%, Biden 33%, M. Obama 8%, Haley 4%, Newsom 3.7%, Kennedy 3.3%, Harris 1.7%
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting-odds/2024/president/

A couple of very strange things there: Michelle O is the leading alternative to Trump-Biden?  They must know something I don't.  Harris 1.7%?  That's about as statistically close to zero as you can get without hitting it - and she might be the incumbent!

Body-by-Guinness

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Where the candidates stand on crypto (Crypto crosspost)
« Reply #1139 on: February 01, 2024, 06:32:29 PM »
Where the candidates stand on crypto:

https://www.cato.org/blog/where-trump-biden-stand-cbdcs

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Biden’s Cybersecurity Analyst Tells All
« Reply #1140 on: February 01, 2024, 07:17:01 PM »
James O’Keefe works his magic on a “date” with Biden’s cybersecurity analyst. Dude starts telling all, not that the MSM will cover any of it.

Worth a watch on O’Keefe’s X pages but be prepared to cringe:

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/01/31/new-james-okeefe-undercover-video-exposes-dysfunctional-biden-white-house-n4926017

Someone is gonna need to update his resume.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2024, 07:26:50 PM by Body-by-Guinness »

ccp

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1141 on: February 02, 2024, 08:59:49 AM »
" Weird that they didn't throw a tickertape parade when Biden got out us out of Afghanistan "

They did hold one, we just missed it.

It was given in Kabul for the Taliban....... :wink:

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1142 on: February 02, 2024, 09:26:54 AM »
ccp:  "I hope they are polling to determine who the best VP pick would be to perhaps woo independents."


The answer is Nikki but the best guess nominee at this point is Elise Stafanik.  Maybe she will have a voice with suburban, independent leaning women.

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1143 on: February 02, 2024, 03:18:49 PM »
My concerns with Nikki:

A) She is not true MAGA;
B) Rapport with Trump would never be there;
C) Trump would look hypocritical with his base, and with everyone else.

For me ES seems like a pick based upon a condescending view of we voters- just like Oz in PA and Herschel Walker in GA.   Sure she is a pro-Trump Congresswoman, but what on earth are her creds to step in as President?!?

Who do we think would be a good choice?

DougMacG

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Re: You Can Tell What They Think of Us …
« Reply #1144 on: February 04, 2024, 07:23:59 AM »
Important point from a recent, great BBG post:

“In a sobering analysis of the escalating topic, 69% of likely 2024 voters said that they support the border wall and razor-wire fence that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has ordered."


My thought, we are looking for 60-40 issues to run on, not 50-50 ones (or worse), and here a 70% issue clearly favoring Republicans rises right to the top.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1145 on: February 04, 2024, 09:02:09 AM »
Trump had an extended serious interview (40 minutes?) with Maria Bartiromo today.  I thought it quite strong and well worth tracking down to post here.

Regarding VP, he spoke well of Tim Scott being a better spokesman for him (Trump) than himself (Scott).   

Also interviewing very well today was Gov. Kristi Noem.   She is now on my radar screen for VP.


Crafty_Dog

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Nikki on SNL
« Reply #1146 on: February 04, 2024, 09:09:36 AM »

DougMacG

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1147 on: February 04, 2024, 09:37:50 AM »
Trump had an extended serious interview (40 minutes?) with Maria Bartiromo today.  I thought it quite strong and well worth tracking down to post here.

Regarding VP, he spoke well of Tim Scott being a better spokesman for him (Trump) than himself (Scott).   

Also interviewing very well today was Gov. Kristi Noem.   She is now on my radar screen for VP.

I wondered what you thought of her when you asked who should be Trump's running mate / VP.

There aren't that many female, two term Republican governors available if you eliminate Nikki Haley.  (Also eliminating DeSantis on state and gender.)

Noem served in the state House and Congress before being elected to two terms Governor.  On foreign affairs, she served on the House Armed Services Committee.

It's not a swing state but it is a model for the nation that holds up against Calif, NY quite well. In her reelection she won roughly the same percent as Trump in her state.

She is perhaps readier to step in as President if needed, more so than Stefanik, with extended government executive experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristi_Noem

ccp

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Repub VP
« Reply #1148 on: February 04, 2024, 10:10:07 AM »
Wasn't she busted for an extramarital affair recently?

I wonder if Condoleezza Rice would fit?

Why does it have to be a woman?

Rick Scott?
Tom Cotton?
Josh Hawley?

not enough crossover appeal for them, I guess.



Crafty_Dog

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Re: 2024
« Reply #1149 on: February 04, 2024, 02:39:17 PM »


"Wasn't she busted for an extramarital affair recently?"

With Corey Lewandowski?

Do note my description of the Trump interview-- that he described Tim Scott as being a great advocate for him (Trump) since he withdrew from his campaign.