One of the moldiest political tropes around is the one that says a presidential candidate needs to run to the base during the primaries and then pivot to the center once he or she locks down the nomination. It makes some strategic sense, for sure, and we’ve seen it in action many times although it doesn’t always work. But Donald Trump is not one for standard campaign strategy so despite the fact that he’s the defacto nominee of the Republican Party for president, he’s not making any kind of pivot to the center. If anything he’s embracing the MAGA base ever more tightly, despite the fact that there is a substantial minority of his party that’s rejecting him in these primaries. Over the weekend Trump bagged some more wins in caucuses in Michigan, Idaho and Missouri, all three of which were the result of amateur hour mistakes by local and party officials that messed up the usual primary system. Even so, from what we can gather there still exists an anti-Trump vote among Republicans and GOP leaning Independents.
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And that is not hyperbole He lost the DC primary. There were just a couple thousand votes but he just couldn’t stand it. So he had another tantrum.
Ending the Gaza carnage Yes, our outrage is selective. In a world of double standards, Nicholas Kristof reminds readers how much we have one toward Israel (New York Times): Rabbi Marvin Hier in The Jerusalem Post condemned “an unprecedented double standard” that relentlessly criticizes Israel’s bombing of Gaza but is unbothered by the Allied bombing of civilians in Germany and Japan in World War II. And the World Jewish Congress cites “criticizing Israeli defensive operations, but not those of other Western democracies” as an example of antisemitism. A fair criticism, Kristof writes, and a false one. In 2023, for example, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 15 resolutions critical of Israel, and only seven resolutions critical of all other countries in the world together, by the count of one pro-Israel group. Does anyone think that represents even-handedness?
Playing the hand you are dealt Jonathan Last throws water on the magical thinking about skittish Democrats replacing Joe Biden on their presidential ticket. (Really? Are we still talking about this?) Scary New York Times polls? How about scarier polls? Virtually all the also-mentions poll worse than Biden against Trump: Harris, Newsome, Whitmer and Shapiro. Ten days ago already, Lawrence O’Donnell’s “the governing will not be televised” monologue refuted Ezra Klein’s speculation about Democrats replacing Biden. If that was not sufficient to dispel the notion that the DNC is going to rub a monkey’s paw and produce a younger presidential candidate, Last provides bullets on why it won’t (The Atlantic): Democrats may have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but not since 2018. Unless the carnage abates in Gaza soon, there will exist the potential for protests in Chicago that (for those of a certain age) will evoke bad memories from 1968. Even the rowdies of The Big Tent Party will want to avoid that kind of bad press.
That was Trump speaking earlier today. Here are a few more: Here’s Dr. John Gartner analyzing Trump’s speech at CPAC last weekend: Trump manifested a number of phonemic paraphasias. He was trying to say evangelist, for example, but haltingly said “evangelish.” He was trying to say “three years later,” but said, “three years, lady, lady, lady.” Trying to spit out the word “lately,” he sounded like a car with a bad battery struggling to turn over. When Trump can’t find a word his whole demeanor changes. It’s almost like someone pulled the metaphorical plug. Trump looks blank, stops in mid-sentence (or mid-word), his jaw goes a little slack, and when he starts to talk again, he slurs, speaks haltingly, and often looks confused. Trying to get the word out, he shifts to a non-word that is easier to pronounce. When people are losing their ability to use language they use non-words. They start with the stem of the real word, and then they improvise from there. In my family we call sandwiches “slamichs” because that’s what my stepson called them when he was three. It was cute then.
I guess he thinks he can entice some of those RFK Jr voters over to his side. He’s also following this guy’s guidance: Shortly before Joseph Ladapo was sworn in as Florida’s surgeon general in 2022, the New Yorker ran a short column welcoming the vaccine-skeptic doctor to his new role, and highlighting his advocacy for the use of leeches in public health. It was satire of course, a teasing of the Harvard-educated physician for his unorthodox medical views, which include a steadfast belief that life-saving Covid shots are the work of the devil, and that opening a window is the preferred treatment for the inhalation of toxic fumes from gas stoves. But now, with an entirely preventable outbreak of measles spreading across Florida, medical experts are questioning if quackery really has become official health policy in the nation’s third most-populous state.
Poll angst is a Democratic pastime but it’s a waste of time and energy If you are fretting about the NY Times poll (which polled 900 people) that everyone is fretting about, here’s a reminder of a time in the not too distant past when everyone was fretting about another NY TImes poll from Joan Walsh in 2022: It’s said to be wrong to kick a person when he or she is down. If Monday’s New York Times/Siena poll were a person, it’s been stomped so severely that a compassionate observer would step in to stop the fight. But even though the poll that launched a thousand headlines claiming the midterms are moving back toward Republicans, and that the so-called Dobbs effect—a shift to Democrats after the Supreme Court did away with a 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion—is subsiding, has been pretty thoroughly debunked by pollsters and progressive analysts, it still deserves attention (but no kicking here, folks).
I thought this was excellent Mitch is leaving because his health is failing and he’s lost his grip on the caucus. Five years ago he was all in and did everything he could to maintain power by any means necessary. He’d do it again if he could. He just ran out of gas.
It helped Trump with his ludicrous assertion that Hillary didn’t have “the strength and the stamina” to be president. Do you think this garbage happens by accident? As we slog through yet another week of media onslaught saying “Biden’s old, old, old so everybody’s going to vote for Trump!” I thought I’d remind people of 2016, when one of the ongoing narratives was that Hillary Clinton was frail and dying from some unrevealed illness. I wrote this for Salon back in 2016: The right-wing smear machine is working at warp speed to convince the nation that Hillary Clinton has brain damage. That is not hyperbole or some kind of a joke. They are literally claiming that she is hiding a physical and mental disability that renders her unfit for office. And they are, as usual, being helped by members of the mainstream media who are simply unable to resist “reporting” such a juicy tale even knowing that it is absurd. And so it becomes part of the narrative, true or not, that will color the rest of the campaign and Clinton’s presidency should she win.
I wanted to share Scott Rosenberg’s analysis of this NY Times Poll that has everyone melting down today: It’s A Close, Competitive Election – Yes, the NYT released a poll today that has Trump ahead. Some initial thoughts: Lots of other polls show the race even, competitive – Three national polls released this week (below) have the race even. 538’s Congressional Generic tracker is tied, 44%-44%. A new battleground state poll produced by top Democratic pollsters has Trump and Biden tied at 40%. Another battleground state poll that hasn’t been released yet that I was just briefed on has it 41%-39% Trump, essentially the same results. Senate polling is slightly better for us than for Republicans right now. The Times poll has Trump leading among likely voters by 4 points, 48%-44%. This is a gain of 6 points for Trump since the December Times poll. None of these other polls have found a GOP surge of this magnitude or even a GOP lead. So the NYT results are not confirmed in lots of other recent polling which finds the race close and competitive, which is where I think it is now.