All of the main remaining Democratic candidates for president are B’s:
Biden, Bernie, Bloomberg and Buttigieg.
Coincidence?
All of the main remaining Democratic candidates for president are B’s:
Biden, Bernie, Bloomberg and Buttigieg.
Coincidence?
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump adopted a WWE strategy at one of his debates with Hillary Clinton. When Clinton had the microphone, Trump would leave his position at his podium and circle around behind Clinton, stalking her. Just like they do in World Wrestling Entertainment events. He not only stole her air time, he creeped her out.
The strategy worked well enough for Trump to try it again. Except this time it is on a higher level. The primaries this time around are about the Democrats – there is no challenge to Trump.
Nevertheless, he is swooping into the primary states just in time to steal the Democrats’ air time. His rallys are designed to unnerve them. As the Democratic field winnows, he will work harder to creep the winner(s) out. Unless the Dems start watching WrestleMania, it will probably work.
There are plenty of theories about the Democrats’ “real” end game in the impeachment proceedings: turning voters off on Trump, turning voters off on Republican senators; highlighting the swampiness of the President’s team. It could be all of these. But there is other objective that might be in play.
At the end of the day, Chief Justice Roberts could be their real target. Sometime soon the Supreme Court is going to have to decide on how big of a stone wall Donald Trump can erect. So far, Trump has gotten away with ignoring all requests for information from Congress and state prosecutors.
The Democrats may be trying to show Roberts what happens when the President is allowed to get away with stonewalling. He becomes untouchable. Roberts is a conservative, but he is a constitutional conservative, not a partisan conservative. Team Trump’s efforts to rise above the law might just rub him the wrong way and backfire on them.
One hundred years ago, bully was a good thing. The word meant fantastic, awesome, wonderful. President Teddy Roosevelt thought the presidency was a great platform to preach his message from – he called it a “bully pulpit”.
Bully no longer has that positive connotation but under bully in chief Donald Trump the pulpit lives again. Trump bullies his opponents because it works, just as it does in the schoolyard. Until someone fights back and beats the bully up, the bully will just keep on doing it.
Trump not only bullies his opponents, he bullies his own team. Trump bullied Jeff Sessions unceasingly until he finally fired him.
The latest casualty is John Kelly. Kelly joined Trump’s ‘team’ in the summer of 2017. Within 3 months Trump gave him the bully treatment. Kelly didn’t fight back and from then on Trump owned him. Now he is gone as well.
So far, no Republicans have had the guts to push back on Trump’s bullying. It will be interesting to see if the Democrats can effectively push back once they take control of the House.
Hint: Don’t bet on it.
The 2018 campaign is almost over and no matter who wins or looses this week, one thing is abundantly clear. No one comes even close to matching Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
For the past several weeks, Trump has been able to command an incredible amount of press coverage while crowding out anyone from the Democratic side. Yes, Barak Obama got some press, as did Bernie Saunders. And two-time loser Hillary Clinton is still kicking around and acting like she has a political future, which is catnip to the press.
But no one can put out a message on the campaign trail like Trump. Quite frankly, the Republicans are going have to think about lifting the ‘Great Communicator’ mantle from Ronald Reagan and giving it to Trump instead.
For the Dems to have any chance in 2020 they are going to have to find people that can take campaigning to a higher level. Maybe not at the Trump level, but at least close.
Donald Trump recently proposed a new tax cut for the middle class. The pundits have noted that he did this because the big tax cut that the Republicans passed last year does not seem to be resonating with the voters, at least the middle class ones.
They are missing the point.
Trump is openly admitting that last year’s tax cut was really for the corporations and the wealthy.
It should be an easy point for the Democrats to make. “Hey middle class, Trump promised you a tax cut but pulled a bait and switch. He admits it. Listen to him. Now he says he’ll make it up to you with another “middle class” tax cut. He’s hoping you’ll fall for the bait and switch again so he and the wealthy can do more to help their kids at the expense of yours.”
Will the inept Dems, who are sliding in the polls, figure that message out? Not likely.
Hillary Clinton continues to be in the news once a week. And, unlike her husband, it is not for humanitarian or charitable reasons. No, Hillary continues to be in the thick of it politically.
The question is why. She is an accomplished policy wonk, but a failure as a politician. Sure she won election as a senator from New York in the afterglow of her husband’s presidency, but that was really his victory, not hers, as he was still president when the election took place.
On her own, she is a political disaster. She lost the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination to Barak Obama. She lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. Both times, she snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Nevertheless, Hillary persists in the political arena (sorry, couldn’t resist). Why? Possibly because her ego won’t let her stand down. Or because Donald Trump keeps bringing her up to deflect from his own issues. Or because the media knows a juicy story and won’t leave her alone.
The biggest reason, however, is that a year after the election the Democrats don’t have any new leaders. Bernie Sanders was never a Democrat in the first place, and quickly moved back to his own path after the election. Nancy Pelosi is a great political operative but is completely tainted politically as a far left liberal. Chuck Schumer is the closest the Dems have to a leader, but he has been in Congress for 35 years and in the Senate for 20 and is old news.
Until the Democrats get some new leaders, the spotlight will default back to Hillary. Which is unfortunate for the Democrats, because she is not doing them any favors.
Does the Democratic Party stand for anything other that ‘not Trump’? One has to wonder. Since Donald Trump won the presidency they have lost two special elections. The key point both Dem candidates were campaigning on was simple and negative: reject Trump. They lost.
At least Trump has a positive message: We’re gonna shake things up with that fossilized bunch of do-nothing blowhards in Washington. And while we are at it we’ll fight for the people that have been left behind by technology, gloabalization, environmentalism, etc.
The Democrats? All they seem to be saying is: “Trump a horrible person. It’s amazing that people are stupid enough to support him. He is going to ruin the country.”
Dissing Trump and his supporters is not a party platform. The Democrats need a positive message, one that resonates right in the gut of the people that agree that Washington is broken and who are hard working but being left behind economically. These folks should be the Democrats’ core constituency but they have given them up to the Tea Party and Trump.
Until the Democrats come up with a compelling, gut-grabbing positive message they will not be able to win many elections. It will probably take a change in the Democrats’ leadership away from elites like Nancy Pelosi for this to happen.