The 2020 Election, Part 1

Already?

Yes, although I sure hope that this thread isn't too active for awhile.  However, as the Democrats have already announced that their first debate will be in June, 2019, I suppose its time to start this thread.

It seems like we just completed the 2018 election, because we did, and of course the 2016 election isn't all that far back. And that's why we're already on the 2020 election.

More than any election in modern history the results of the last Presidential election have simply not been accepted by a large percentage of the public. And at the same time, the President has never modified his conduct, as some hoped he would, to become "Presidential".  As a result, the Democrats have been "resisting" the entire time, and now they're lining up to run in 2010.

And what a long line it is already.

So far the Democratic candidates are:

Michael E. Arth

Arth is a resident of the United Kingdom and has to be regarded as a gadfly.

Corey Booker

Booker is the vegen Senator from New Jersey.  He's loud and brash from a region that seems to produce loud brash politicians that the region seemingly loves but which the rest of the country really does not.

Booker is a bit of a media darling with a media that's centered on the East Coast but he's very unlikely to be popular with Democrats outside of that region.

Harry Braun

Renewable energy consultant with no chance whatsoever.

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg is an openly homosexual mayor from Indiana in a race that seem to be featuring a collection of mayors.  As a rust belt mayor, he comes from the part of the country which gave Trump early support, but his open gender orientation and his party would tend to indicate that he's on the leftward side of the party which the rest of the nation might not feel comfortable with.

Julian Castro

Castro is the Mayor of San Antonio.  As a Texan he may have advantages that the other Democratic candidates may not

John Delaney 

Delaney is a Congressman from Maryland.

Tulsi Gabbard

Gabbard is a Congressman from Hawaii.

Kirstin Gillibrand 

Gillibrand is a Senator from New York, making her yet another New Yorker in politics. There seems to be an unending supply of New York Presidential hopefuls.

Kamala Harris

Harris is a Senator from California.  She's well known but has some baggage, apparently, that she'll have to overcome.

Amy Klobuchar

Klobuchar is a Senator from Minnesota.

Ken Nwadike Jr.

Nwadike is a film maker from California.  He stands no chance.

Elizabeth Warren

Warren is a Senator from Massachusetts and a former Harvard professor who likely stands no chance.  She was a popular name for the Presidency for quite some time, but her bolt is basically shot in a race that is full of well known names that aren't as tainted as hers and which are younger than she is in an era that actually seems to be turning towards younger candidates.  I suspect that Warren will remain in the race for a long time, but I'd give her little chance of success.

Robby Wells

Wells is a former college football coach who has previously been associated with the Constitution Party, which makes his running in the current Democratic Party rather odd.

Marianne Williamson

Williamson is a spiritual teacher from California and stands no chance. 

Andrew Yang

Yang is an entrepreneur who stands no chance.

A really early candidate,  Richard Ojeda, has already dropped out.

Democrats have tacked enormously to the left since Trump was elected in away that they have not done since the late 1960s.  There's a real gamble in doing that as the electorate may very well not be doing that.  Anger with Trump in the Democratic camp doesn't necessarily equate with joining the hard left, but the running Democrats seem to have largely assumed that, so far. 

There's some candidates that people are waiting to see if they will emerge.  Joe Biden is chief among them.  But, while nobody will agree with this, I think that the field is wide open enough that Hillary Clinton may try one more time.  She's come back again and again, and it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Republicans

Usually an incumbent President is safe from challenges inside of his own party, but there's nothing "usual" about Donald Trump.  There's been at least some discontent with Trump the entire time he's been President and it'll be interesting to see if the GOP his able to hold thing together going into the 2020 election.

Here's how things are so far:

Trump and Pence, presumably.  

But they'll likely have at least some GOP opposition. Indeed, they already do.

Bill Weld.

Weld is the former governor of Massachusetts and ran as the Libertarian candidate in 2016.

An interesting potential candidate is Ben Sasse from Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic who is well liked. Sasse is clearly positioning himself to run for the Presidency and nearly did after Trump was nominated, but he is likely also calculating whether to run in 2020 or 2024.  The choice will be critical as if Trump appears weak, 2020 will be his best bet and not 2024.  If the Democrats put a President in 2020, Sasse's chance my have passed forever.

Independents

This race may be the first one in a long time in which there's some serious independent candidates.  Indeed, with the Democrats tacking to the left, many of the third party candidates who are normally to the left of the Democrats may simply choose to attempt to run there and at least one of the candidates from the right who is normally in a third party is running in the GOP race.  So the emergence of middle of the road independents may be a feature, and might even be a realistic feature, of this race.  Howard Schultz of Starbucks has been mentioned a great deal in this context.

So they're off and running.  Let's hope we don't have too many updates of this thread until 2020.  I think the entire country is tired of politics, by and large.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Update, February 22, 2019

Bernie Sanders, late of Vermont but originally from New York has joined the Democratic contest.

This is no surprise.  Indeed, it was inevitable, but frankly it shouldn't have occurred. Bernie did much better than anyone would have expected in the last Presidential primary season and he may have actually have been the nominee, maybe, but for the fact that the Democrats have somewhat of a rigged system, but his bolt is shot by now.

Sanders is 77 years old and therefore is actually the pre baby boom generation. Technically Sanders if from the "Silent Generation", which my father and maybe my mother (depending on where you draw the lien) was from who are regarded as having focused on careers and family over activism and therefore were "silent".  There's a lot to admire about Sanders personally, but he's obviously not silent and quite the activist, which is what attracted people to him in the first place.

But he's way up and years and the field he plowed is one in which he (and oddly enough Trump) have effectively broken the ground in and there's a bunch of younger plow mules in it now.  Sanders getting back into the race really simply contributes a certain element of pathos to it.  He ought to have stayed out.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Update, March 7, 2020

In colonial times gathering, including polling, featured beer.  Now a Democrat proposes that a brewer prevail at the polls.

And a crowded field gets a bit more crowded.

Colorado Governor and former Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper, jointed the race as a Democratic candidate.

Hickenlooper was fairly popular in both political offices.  He came to Colorado as a geologist in the early 1980s and was laid off in the big petroleum decline of that period. Rather than leave, he started a brewpub which was successful and went into politics after that.

In other election news, Hillary Clinton claims she won't be running.  We'll see.

Former New York Mayor Bloomberg, who is a Democrat who was once a Republican, and who is super wealthy, has also announced that he's staying out.  The Punditry believe that this positions Joe Biden to run.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Updated, March 11, 2019

Will Democrats go with the Joe they know?

If Joe Biden isn't running, that will be the surprising news.

Biden, last week in an interview, asked if he was running for the Presidency.  He didn't say that he was, but he did say that he had an announcement coming up and "don't be surprised".

Michael Bloomberg and Senator Sherrod Brown, both of whom were presumed to be candidates with Brown all but saying he was, have now dropped out to make room for Biden.

This really throws a curve ball into the hopes of the large field of candidates.  With the Democrats leaping towards the left against a latent effort to lash them to the decks of the middle, by more established members of the party, Biden stands to complete that task and secure the nomination.  Indeed, should he run, my prediction is that he'll take the nomination.

Democrats will go with the Joe they know.

And he's surely running.

_________________________________________________________________________________

March 12, 2019

This isn't a comment on the race per se, but how odd the political times have really gotten.

I don't usually watch the Sunday news shows on Sunday, as I'm busy on Sunday doing other things.  I do listen (not watch) them later, by podcast.  So I catch up on them a day or two or three after they run.  That's why my commentary on them is rarely perfectly timely.

At least Meet The Press brought something into sharp focus which has already been pretty obvious.  The Democrats are undergoing a struggle that the GOP did about four to six years ago in that they face an upstart insurgency that they can't control.  Theirs is evolving, moreover, much more quickly, and comes at a slightly different time in American demographics.

Truth be known the Democrats have long bought off o the thesis that demographics are history and that history was on their side.  The problem with that thesis is, as we've noted in one of our laws of history, is that you never know what side history is on until its history.  History is fickle that way.  Anyhow, the Democrats have sort of gleefully thought that as certain minority demographics rise in the country they will; 1) remain an unchanged identifiable demographic which; 2) will always be Democratic.

Of course, things never really remain that way.  People keep being people and pretty soon the strong ethnic identify becomes weaker over time and, as people's fortunes rise, their political economic views decrease in favor of differing economic concerns and philosophical views.  There's no reason to really believe, for example, that at some point the inherently conservative social views of Hispanics won't override their economic views.

Anyhow, a really remarkable feature of what's been occurring in this shift is that a Democratic political class that is solidly Baby Boomer is getting whacked upside the head by the Millennial and the Sub Millennials and they don't like it.  Meet the Press was fully of commentary on how Millenial politicians like Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez have got to learn to respect their "wise" elders like Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi the Wise?  Many millennials are giving that the m'eh.

I'm not making that up.  I heard that very comment, more than once, by the pundits on Meet the Press.

Now, make no mistake.  I'm not endorsing Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez here.  I have lots of problems with a lot of her views.  But I'm also not going to dismiss here the way that Nancy Pelosi basically has done.

And that hasn't worked for Pelosi.  She dissed Oscasio-Cortez with her Green New Deal, and there are a lot of reasons to criticize that.  But simply dissing it was politically stupid and not an example of wise sagism.  And it didn't make Oscasio-Cortez crawl in and kiss her hand and submit. On the contrary, Oscasio-Cortez and her fellow travelers came out on the offensive and implicitly make Pelosi part of a political hit list they put together of candidates that they intend to politically drive under for being moderate, which is pretty much exactly how they've put it.

Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez. . not a Baby Boomer, not a moderate, and not going away.

Indeed, the Republicans, although certainly for at least partially cynical reasons, have done a much better job of adapting to the new political reality (which we'll get to below) than the Democrats, perhaps because they've suffered a base shift in recent years that is still tearing their party apart.  Senior Republicans in Congress have recently been criticizing Oscario-Cortez's policies but in a serious way.  Republicans started off with Reddit, Twitter and Facebook snits, but now they're running op-eds in major newspapers treating Oscasio-Cortez and her fellows as adults who need to be addressed.

Now, as noted, that's partially a calculated political move, and a risky one. Republicans, by doing that, are seeking to portray Oscasio-Cortez as the face of the Democratic Party.  And by doing that, they may actually make her the late 20s face of the party at a point when a major demographic shift is about to happen in politics (more on that below), but that's only part of it.  Part of it is that they've picked up on that shift quicker than the Democrats have and grasp it.  They realize that she very well may be representative of a new age in politics, literally, if not necessarily philosophically.  

Indeed, they should grasp it as they themselves nearly had a candidate in a younger generation, Marco Rubio, who will twenty years older than Oscasio-Cortez is still a good thirty years younger than Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. And they've been pondering demographics for awhile.  They may actually see what's going on at the very time the Democrats seem to solidly believe that the Baby Boomers will be in power forever.

The irony of all of this was oddly pointed out last night when I stopped by PBS and caught a documentary featuring the performances of Peter, Paul and Mary at The Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964 and 1965.  It was one of the PBS fundraising episodes and you could buy the CD (which I'm not about to do) and one of the hosts gushed about how watching this reminded all of us what it was like to be on the cusp of change at that time.

That was right after the song above played.

How thick with irony.

I'll be frank, I'm not a Peter, Paul and Mary fan. And I don't like this song either, which I regard as the self indulgent anthem of a generation.  But the point is blistering. The generation that sang that song demanded to be heard immediately and it pretty much was.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Hmmm. . . not like that generation seemed to be very willing to listen to their wise old elders.

Nancy Pelosi is part of that generation.  So is Trump for that matter.  And Chuck Shumer.  And Joe Biden.  Nancy Pelosi actually attended JFK's inauguration. 

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

History, as they say, doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

The Boomers did a good job of demanding attention as a generation in the 1960s, amplified self indulgence as a virtue in the 1970s, and can be legitimately criticized as not having all that good of job of running things since.  You cannot blame every single member of a generation for anything, and there are vast numbers of Boomers who ran contrary to the spirit of their times at any one time.  Indeed, part of that expressed itself in the election of Donald Trump.

In the 2020 General Election for the first time in decades Boomers will be outnumbered in the voting population by younger generations, some of which, such as my own, aren't young any more either.  The collective mass of non Boomers in the voting population doesn't see things all the same way by any means, but there are some common threats running through it all the way from the bottom end of it at age 18 up to the upper end in the mid 50s, a bit cohort that has lived in the shadow of a demographic that has held political sway from some point in the 1970s until the present day and which has been basically told to agree with their political elders as soon as they became elders.  Some of those groups are never going to be heard from as their views were so swamped by the massive generational cohort of the Boomers. But the youngest generations in that group will be heard from and, like the Boomers in the 60s, are demanding to be heard right now.  Boomers telling them to sit down and be quiet are fooling themselves.

None of which means that politicians like Biden don't have a good chance.  Biden is older, to be sure. So is Sanders. So the evidence is good that younger voters, who seem to like both of these candidates, if they are in the Democratic camp, are willing to consider older politicians, including Boomer and Pre Boomers, but they are impatient and tired of the status quo.  As noted, that was part of what helped Trump come up last go around, and Sanders voters and Trump voters oddly identified with each other, even if those two candidates do not.



________________________________________________________________________________

March 14, 2019

Picking up where we left off a couple of days ago (and with no new announcements to report) the other problem the Democrats were struggling with last week was what to do with a problem named Ilhan Omar.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Congresswoman Omar is the second Islamic Congressman from her district in Minnesota.  Keith Ellison was the first, and in fact was both the first Muslim to be elected to Congress and the first African American to be elected from Minnesota.  But Ellison fits into a distinctly different category than Omar.

Ellison was born in the United States and was a convert to Islam.  Muslim converts in the United States were of all stripes (its arguable that this has changed since 2001) but the notable about them is that there was a distinct strain of Islam that was informed by the Black Muslim movement of the mid 20th Century. That movement was militant, and some of it still is, but those who converted to Islam influenced by that movement, who were often African Americans, were not to the same extent.  Often there was an underlying ethno political aspect to it that was built on the mistaken thesis that Islam was the predominant religion of region from which African slaves had been imported from.  This is in fact in error, slaves tended to actually be animist or sometimes Catholic, not Muslim.  Africa is a big continent and its not really safe to assume what people are or were simply based on their being African, but that was a common belief at the time.

Be that as it may, Ms. Omar really is an African and in fact was born in 1981 in Mogadishu, that Somalian town that's become the very emblem of what a failed state means.  She entered the United States at age 14 as a refugee and became a U.S. citizen at age 17.

Now, that's generally the sort of story that Americans like in one fashion or another.  A refugee child comes to the United States and makes good.  But it symbolizes something larger than that.

Current Americans are aware that the United States has been undergoing an epic level of both legal and illegal immigration. Rates now vastly exceed those which were legally allowed prior to 1975.  The Democrats were instrumental in that change and, moreover, were instrumental, thanks to one of the very rarely passed legislative efforts of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, to changing the immigration system from one that favored the relatives of the already admitted, largely from Europe, to the underprivileged around the globe.

A person can debate that one way or another, but one thing that developed over time, and which we've noted before, is that both parties came to have a cynical role in the ongoing high rate of immigration, which most Americans no longer support for a variety of reasons.  Indeed, a recent article in the Atlantic, which takes a fairly liberal view of things, pleaded with the Progressives to greatly reduce legal immigration.  In the case of the Democrats, they came to hold the view that all immigrants were future Democratic voters.

There are real reasons not to hold that assumption correct but there are also reasons that the Democrats could assume that, at least for the short term. Dating back all the way to the post Mexican War period, immigrants have in fact tended to be Democrats for economic reasons. Democrats, no matter what their states views on any one thing have been, have tended to very strongly back the local economic needs of immigrant populations, even to the detriment of native poor demographics. Most immigrant populations, in turn, tend to value economic concerns over all others, for logical and natural reasons.  But to be fair, that relationship has also often informed Democratic politics on various things on a greater level.

The problem with this turns out to be that the greater diversity of the migrant pool, which has very much increased in diversity in the last thirty years, at some point begins to mach one population against another.  This first became notable in the riots following the Rodney King matter in California some years ago in which a primary target of African American rioters became migrant Koreans.  This had nothing to do with race but with economics, however.

Now, however, we're seeing the first real instant of irreconcilable views both of ethnicity.

That migrant populations have their own cultures and look back upon things occurring in their native lands long after the original migrants have passed on is well known.  The famous example of Irish Americans is a good one, as Irish Americans basically funded the Irish Republican cause long after there was any way to rationalize it. Some still look on Ireland in that fashion to a fairly absurd extent today.

Indeed, Irish Americans are a really good example of this as the one and only Catholic President we've ever had was from an Irish American family.  No prior Catholic candidate was able to succeed because of the Protestant assertion that Catholics were inherently loyal to a foreign power, the Vatican.  John F. Kennedy made a basic bargain with the electorate to ignore his faith to obtain the office, something that brought Catholics into the mainstream but which has also enormously harmed them to the present day.  Mitt Romney seemed to be creeping up on making a similar bargain with the electorate for the LDS when he was running.

No Muslim candidate has made that bargain so far and it might not really matter if they do, as Ms. Omar has brought into focus what happens when the demographic pool becomes so large that competing views can't really be accommodated.

Those comments, which she has now made on two occasions, make it plain that she holds a fairly hostile view of Israel.  Negative views on Israel are not unique in Islamic communities that have North African origin.  They are probably not particularly common among the old Muslim converts of the native born in the United States, although post 9/11 there have been converts to radical Islam, although the numbers are no doubt quite small.  It can't be said and shouldn't be that Ms. Omar is radical.  She must not be, or she wouldn't be in Congress at all, as radical Islamic women do not run for office.  But she's obviously very sincere in her Islamic faith in a fashion that Rashida Tlaib, another Muslim woman elected to Congress this cycle, is not.  This is not to say that Tlaib, who is genuinely a political radical (she's a member of a body called the Democratic Socialist of America), is not sincere, it's just of a different stripe.  Tlaib is foul mouthed and doesn't dress in a traditional fashion, so she fits more into the radical demographic in the United States and in Islamic regions in a way that Omar doesn't.

At any rate, for the first time ever, the Democrats are now faced with the fact that large demographic groups within their party are at odds with each other and with the larger American concept of getting along with everyone. In this case, moreover, the new demographic, which really didn't exist in any appreciable numbers until quite recently, is clearly at odds with the views of American Jews.

Jews have been an identifiable American demographic back to the country's founding but really started coming into the country in large numbers in the late 19th Century.  Faced with oppression everywhere, the United States, which is not without its own native born anti-Semites, is none the less the nation that is the least anti Semitic in the world and the most friendly to Israel.  Member of the Jewish faith are found in every party, but traditionally the Democratic Party has been the party that they most identified with.  Now the Democrats find this old identifiable demographic finding itself clearly at odds with a new one.  And Democrats aren't doing a good job of handling it.

The Democratic Party hasn't been able to silence Omar who has kept on speaking.  Indeed, Omar and Tlaib (who has said nothing anti Semitic) won't be silent, and are like Oscasio-Cortez in that fashion.  This left the Democrats trying to condemn what they said, but fearful of upsetting the new Islamic demographic, they simply condemned all sorts of prejudice, which caused Omar to come right out and declare that to be a victory, a declaration that had some justification.  

We don't know how this will play out, but it'll play out in some fashion that's going to upset somebody.  A prior example would be that of Cuban Americans who were solidly Democratic back in the 60s but who are solidly Republican now.  The views of both parties came to strongly influence their views and that Hispanic demographic is an undeniably Republican one that was once Democratic.  The Democrats now face a tricky situation that could end up being a huge distraction for them in the 2020 election, and so far there's no good evidence that they've figured out how to address it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

March 16, 2019

Our recent focus here on Democrats and their internal divisions shouldn't, we'd note, be taken to mean that the GOP has broken free of them.

It's been apparent the entire Trump presidency that the GOP is sharply divided between those in the GOP who support Trump and those who despise him.  And the Trump supporters in office are themselves divided between those who support him for political expediency and those who truly support him.  There's huge philosophical divided in the Republican Party.  The amazing thing has been that the GOP hasn't split apart or collapsed under the strain, which is a tribute to those who control it at the top. People have been praising, or at least were, Nancy Pelosi for keeping things all together but like him or not its really Mitch McConnell who has done political yeoman's work in that regards recently.

The question all along has been at what cost this unity has been purchased.  Political pundits have held the entire time that this was going to destroy the GOP long term, and certainly the Republicans suffered in the last election.  Be that as it may, Trump's base has remained steadfastly loyal, so much so that President Trump himself can't really stray much from his base without suffering real political consequences.

All of this came to a head recently over the use of emergency funds to be used on the border wall. As everyone knows, Trump declared a State of Emergency to appropriate funds unilaterally.  The GOP voted to disestablish the State of Emergency yesterday. Trump is going to (and maybe already has) veto that measure.  There aren't the votes to override the vote.

Wyoming's two Senators voted against the bill, fwiw.

The entire State of Emergency law is a threat to democracy in the first place and emblematic of the complete lack of courage in Congress.  Since the start of the 20th Century Congress has slowly allowed the Oval Office to co-opt its power and has, at this point, largely ceded huge aspects of its Constitutional duties to the Executive.  Congress is supposed to control the purse strings, not the President.

The U.S. got through two World Wars without an Emergency appropriations power of that type existing. When the Japanese struck in the Pacific, President Roosevelt went to Congress for authority to act, that being in the form of a Declaration of War.  When the United States intervened in Mexico in 1916, President Wilson felt his powers so constrained that mobilized National Guardsmen, who were believed to face the real threat of imminent war,  were not allowed to cross the border with the Regular Army and he had to go to Congress to ask for the size of the military to be increased.

Indeed, while comparisons of this type can go much too far, it's well worth remembering that the Roman Republic fell to the Roman Empire through the actions of the Roman Senate.  The Roman Senate had a policy of creating Dictators for emergencies.  Finally, they just loss the ability to take that step through their own largess and the Emperors came in.  The Congress of the United States has gone a long ways towards making the President some sort of elected Emperor.  It's time for it to knock that off.

All of this is the case whether there's an emergency or not.  The President has plenty of legitimate powers he can exercise.  Allowing a President to redirect funds, something that wasn't need in World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Korean War or the Vietnam War, all of which were legitimate emergencies, is going to far.  Many Republicans in office seem to realize this.  If we get a Democratic President in 2020, or 2024, and this hasn't been reeled back in, there will surely be new emergencies that those who failed to address this will be plenty upset about.

Speaking of Democrats and the President, this week Beto O'Rourke announced for the office.

This was long expected but its hard not to see O'Rourke's announcement at this point as an effort to grab the limelight before Joe Biden steps in.  I suspect it'll fail.

For whatever reason, O'Rourke is one of the Democrats who attracted a lot of attention early on but who is really fading now.  Prior to the vast number of announcements O'Rourke seemed like the Great Young Hope of certain Democrats, but now there are candidates every bit as youthful who are running for the office and even younger Democrats getting attention in Congress.  O'Rourke doesn't fit in with any of them very well as he either seems really superficial in comparison to them, something that's emphasized by his childish nickname, or he seems old in comparison to the.  He's already in trouble for statements he made in his youth and I suspect his Texas star has already faded.

________________________________________________________________________________

March 26, 2019. The all the eggs in one basket edition.

We're taught, from our earliest years, the cliche that we "shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket".

But that appears to be exactly what the Democrats have done.

The last two Presidents, if we include Trump in that set of parameters, have been subject to the wildest reactions from their opponents.  President Obama, from the onset of his election, was accused repeatedly of being a Socialist and a secret alien (including, in that latter charge, by our current President).  The result was predictable.  The extreme level of personal accusation in some quarters didn't work against him, and while he lost ground in Congress, he remained in office for a second term.

So, his being a Democrat, the Democrats surely learned by that, didn't they?

Nope, not at all.

Trumps election brought a visceral reaction from Democrats that was, amazingly, even more extreme than the extreme reaction that President Obama's election brought in some quarters of the Republican Party.  The party as a whole has lurched to the left, indeed ran to the left, and now even left wing old ossificants such as Nancy Pelosi find them self out-lefted by both old up and coming pre Boomers, like Sanders and young up and coming Millenials like AoC, the latter of whom is on the cover of Time magazine this week as "The Phenom".

Well, the predictable, and predicted by me, has occurred.  The Mueller investigation ended not with a bang followed by impeachment, but with a legal conclusion that wouldn't support one.

And it turns out that the Mueller report, more than anything else, is what the Democrats had going into the election.  

The reaction to that has been predictable.  Trump is doing victory laps around the Oval Office. Democrats are crying in their free trade, decaffeinated, gluten free, free range, green tea.  Democratic media figures who were counting on something explosive have been flopping about on the decks of the media like fish gasping for air on a dock.  Republican media figure who were all steeled to condemn Mueller are now full of praise for the stalwart Marine veteran of the Vietnam War.

Of course, some Democrats just can't let it go.  In a week in which sober media commentators have noted that Mueller's report makes impeachment impossible, NPR came out with this headline:

Impeachment Just Got Less Likely And 6 Other Takeaways From The Barr Letter

Less likely?  Try impossible.

The New Yorker declares:

On the Mueller Investigation, the Barr Letter Is Not Enough

The New Yorker is correct, for what its worth, but the secret hope that Mueller some how unrings the bell in the report is just piling more eggs in the basket that's oozing yoke out the bottom.  The report will be released. . . but the fact that President Trump is among those demanding that probably tells you all you need to know about what it says.

Now, we don't know what all is in the report and Trump's troubles in this quarter are not over.  There are still investigations independent of Mueller's pending in New York. But this ship has in fact sailed and its' not going to come back into port.  Democratic hopes that this entire story revives and is entertained by a public that's sick of it are hopes in vain.  People were very tired of this entire matter and the fact that it came out the way it did means that average people who don't have posters of Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and AoC up on their walls are mighty glad that it is.

Which means that the Democrats really need to come up with talking points that just don't sound like screams to man the barricades in Barcelona circa the 1930s.

A sober political associate of mine points to Joe Biden and Beto O'Rourke in this vein.  I've discounted O'Rourke, who I feel is the American equivalent of Justin Trudeau and just as unqualified the Oval Office as Trudeau is to hold his, which is to say unqualified, but he has a point.  Maybe O'Rourke is more politically savvy than his childish nickname would suggest.  At any rate, Biden was already positioning himself as the "old" non AoC progressive and O'Rourke really doesn't posti himself as a progressive at all.

So the question now is can the Democrats adjust. Goodness knows that they have plenty of time in which to do so. But by the same token, having taken a hard and fast "resistance" position now for three years, assuming a mid course change would be assuming a bit much.

_________________________________________________________________________________

April 16, 2019

The fact that we haven't posted here since March 26 might lead some to believe, or perhaps hope, that the fields had stabilized and perhaps started to narrow.

Nope.  That hasn't happened.

Of course since then we had the weird spectacle of Joe Biden apologizing/not apologizing and getting it while not getting it on his creepy habit of touching women in what he seems to feel is a fatherly way and which they don't like.  When a couple of women brought this to the nation's attention Joe dug the hole a little deeper by seemingly being unable to really understand what the whole thing was about, and then suddenly he looked and sounded much older. . . and indeed, he is old.  His start may have faded nearly as soon as it had illuminated.  He hasn't recovered yet.

In a different example of not getting it, Ilhan Omar made yet another statement in a public speech that is of a type that's difficult not to regard as anti Semitic.  The President stepped down to the occasion and Tweeted about it, which he should not have done.  A Democratic spokesman on Meet The Press simultaneously tried to say he'd heard her talk and found nothing wrong with and then when confronted with what she's said, soft condemned it.  All of this does several things, but what it amplifies is that there in fact now regional demographics in the Democratic base that in fact no longer hold pro Israeli views and in fact are hostile to the Jewish nation.  The Democrats don't want to alienate them, and so they're trying not to do that while not appear to be anti Semitic.  Trying to find a path through the swamp, Democratic left wing hero of the moment AoC claimed that attention to Omar and herself was an attempt to silence women of color in Congress, which is absurd.  Those who suggested that the President shouldn't tweet about it in the fashion in which he did, which was inflammatory, were correct however, in my view.

Of course, to add to that, I don't think Presidents should tweet at all.

The President took to his Twitter account to suggest yesterday that perhaps the French should resort to air tankers to put out the fire in the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, a bizarre suggestion that only serves to amplify in all sorts of ways the unnatural unreal world in which we live in.

Mike Gravel of Alaska announced his candidacy/non candidacy on April 2. Gravel is a former Senator from Alaska.  Gravel is quixotically a left wing politician in a very right wing state and is 89 years old.  He claims to be running only so he can appear in debates and push the discourse to the left.  His candidacy is going nowhere.

Tim Ryan, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio, came out two days later with a strong push aimed at rust belt workers and a vision to revitalize American industry with new technologies.  He made Meet The Press last weekend and makes a very appealing and cogent pitch for revitalizing industry by marrying it with new technologies in new fields in new industries.

Ryan has been in Congress for awhile, and was one of the Democratic Congressmen who signed a statement in 2006 identifying themselves as Catholic and declaring allegiance to Catholic principals.  Nancy Pelosi was also one, so clearly some of those who executed that document have hugely elastic principals.  Ryan so far has only come out on a singular economic issue, although he was widely talked about before he announced, so it'll be interesting to see if he keeps tacking more to the middle while at the same time sounding progressive in other areas.

Eric Swalwell from a Congressional district in  California announced on April 8.  Not surprisingly, he's tacking to the left with proposals that probably are popular in his district but not elsewhere. His candidacy is going to go nowhere.

Bill Weld, who was already running and who is mentioned above, made his candidacy official on April 15, tax day.

If this seems like a crazy number of candidates, it is.  Democrats are careful to state each time that they're celebrating the interest in their party, but there are now so many candidates that the oddity of it is that attention now must fall, by default, solely on those who are real front runners.  So a lot of these candidates simply aren't going to be heard from and will disappear from the race as it progresses.

_________________________________________________________________________________

April 17, 2019

Not posts for a long time and then two in two days?  Yep.

This time we post on a local race.

The Tribune is reporting that Representative Cheney is off to a good start on fundraising for her next reelection campaign.

Yes, next campaign.

There's something massively wrong with a system in which fundraising for the next campaign, even if we're dealing with a two year term, starts less than four months into a term that was just won.

I'm not signaling Cheney out in this.  I'm just nothing it. But that's really fouled up.  American political campaigns are absurdly long to start with and they're effectively becoming year around permanent campaigns.  That might make sense if we had a parliamentary system in which elections could happen at any moment, particularly if we had one like the Italian parliament which never makes it through their terms, but in our system that's a huge symbol that the system needs fixing.

The nation would be much better off if the campaigns of all types were shorter, perhaps four months or so in length, and if nobody could raise a dime in that effort until that period commenced.  That would require some sort of Constitutional Amendment, however, and that's not going to happen any time soon.  The fact that were in a permanent campaign season, however, is something that really ought to disturb us.  Almost no nation that has had that occurred has endured it well.

_________________________________________________________________________________

April 19, 2019

The report has two volumes. The first one deals with the Russians and the Trump campaign.  It concludes that while the Russians did interfere with the 2016 Presidential Campaign, the Trump campaign did not engage in a conspiracy with them.

That was the big topic being investigated early on.  And Trump comes though clean on that one.

Then then there's the obstruction of justice matter, which is dealt with in volume 2.

Not exactly a real exoneration:

IV. CONCLUSION

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgement, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the Presiden's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President?s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

So this issue will clearly live on.

Here you have to be a bit amazed a la Nixon and Watergate. While varying theories abound (I've even heard one that the break in to the Watergate Hotel was to obtain evidence that Democratic Party was receiving funding from the Red Chinese and then Nixon kept that a secret from the public for the good of the nation), the general belief is that Nixon didn't order the break in, but he did engage in the cover up, which was a dumb move.  Mueller didn't say that Trump attempted to obstruct justice, it just doesn't draw a conclusion, and it is plain that he did maneuver against the investigation, when, based on the conclusion in volume no. 1, he didn't have to.

_________________________________________________________________________________

April 20, 2019

Having now heard the NPR commentary on the Mueller report, it's almost impossible to imagine this not being the principal topic in the election going forward.  I haven't read the two volume 400 page report, but the synopsis of it from reporters is pretty shocking.

As everyone knows, Mueller concluded that there was no conspiracy regarding the election that was undertaken with the Russians, but there was plenty of discussion on this and that within the campaign.  What the Trump campaign was thinking is baffling.  Trump himself comes across extremely poorly, and it appears to be the case that he may have been saved from a direct accusation of obstruction of justice by the fact that his staff did not always follow his directions, something that's been talked about in press before.

During the last campaign I noted that by electing Trump the GOP had taken a course where it was going to have to be identified with him.  At this point that risk now seems paramount indeed and this will be hard to overcome in the upcoming campaign.  At least one Republican is trying to separate out already, however, that being Utah Senator Mitt Romney.  It'll be interesting to see if Romney is positioning himself to run against Trump in the primary.  The level of outcry over the Mueller report's contents may determine that.  Trump has weathered the storms that have kicked up in his Presidency so far, but this one he might not.  The topic of impeachment has come back up, although it appears that it is unlikely to occur.  What isn't unlikely to occur is hard Democratic focus on what's occurred, which would seem to be hard to overcome.

_________________________________________________________________________________

April 22, 2019.

Seth Moulton, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, announced he was running for President today thereby adding to the already enormous Democratic field.

Moulton is a Harvard graduate with a degree in physics who served as a Marine Corps officer after obtaining his degree.  He has the usual slate of "progressive" ideas currently symbolizing the Democratic left.

The amazing thing is that with a field this crowded candidates are still entering.  Joe Biden is expected to enter the Democratic race officially this week, which pundits believe will jump him to the top of the Democratic pack irrespective of his recent troubles, but none the less lesser known candidates continue to get into the crowded bus to run against the better known ones.

_________________________________________________________________________________

May 5, 2019

In big news in a local election, Senator Enzi, age 75, announced he will not run for reelection in 2020.

This means that the 2020 Senatorial race in Wyoming is going to be a really big deal.

My early prediction is that Liz Cheney will seek to move into Enzi's seat.  For a very long time there's been a strong tradition in the state of the Congressmen moving into the Senate under these circumstances.  That would, of course, make the race for the Congressional seat a hot one as well.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes in the current political climate.  My guess is that the race for these seats may fairly strongly resemble the recent race for the Governor's office.  Indeed, in terms of a wild card, if there was a candidate who could simply walk into this seat, if he wanted to, it would be recently retired Governor Mead.  There's no indication that Mead intends to come out of retirement, but if he's reading the papers, the thought has to be crossing his mind.

_________________________________________________________________________________

May 13, 2019

The Tribune gave two separate analytical stories on consecutive days regarding the upcoming race for the seat Senator Enzi will be vacating.

The first was a lengthy in depth analysis that came to much of the same conclusion that my entry immediately above did. That is, Cheney is likely to run and if she does, she'll take the seat.  The Trib also mentioned Mead as a possibility.  It mentioned Cynthia Lumis as well, which I did not, but she's definitely a possibility.  Lumis retired from the House as her husband was very ill and dying.  He's since passed away.

There's a lot of scenarios to play out here but one thing I suspect is that Cheney may not be particularly coordinated or even willing to coordinate with Mead or Lumis.  Therefore what we shouldn't expect is for Mead or Lumis to go to Cheney with an intent to run and Cheney abstain from running.  I suspect that Cheney knows now whether she's running or not, and I suspect she is.  She'll not announce for a while, however, as that's been her in office pattern.  Mead and Lumis aren't going to jump in immediately either, but if either one of them wants the office, they should likely announce before Cheney or at least let it be known that they'll likely run, as that will put pressure on Cheney not to run against  them which would also cause the fight for the House to launch, which we've already noted would occur if Cheney runs for the Senate.

If Mead wants the office, he could have it. The same is true for Lumis. Indeed, if the GOP hasn't reached out to both in the hopes of securing an easy win without much effort followed by an easy run by Cheney for the House, it's being foolish.

The more recent article noted the possibility of a large field of candidates for the Senate seat.  I don't see that being the case unless Mead, Lumis and Cheney all abstain from running for it, which I just don't see happening.  If none of them did, I think that would be likely, and the race would resemble the recent Governor's race pretty closely.

On abstention, the Sunday article mentioned that Cheney might choose not to run in order to prevent the insertion of more political drama into the 2020 election.  I just don't see that being a credible view.  Cheney's seat in the House is now secure and her running for the Senate, which would almost certainly be a successful race, doesn't make the 2020 Presidential Race any more or less dramatic.  At the most, it might mean that a Congressman who has risen up in the GOP surprisingly rapidly would be removed for a freshman House member, but given the the minority position of the House currently and that this will likely be the case in 2020, I can't see that being a real factor in her consideration.  Indeed, it'd make more sense for her to use her rising stature to move to the Senate.

This is particularly the case if we consider that Cheney is ambitious and shows ever sign of trying to advance politically if she can.  If limited to the House, which is no small limitation, she'll keep moving up GOP ranks there.  But I'd be amazed if she wasn't constantly open to higher office, whatever that might mean.

So, again, my prediction right now is that Cheney will run for the Senate, but Mead and Lumis are thinking about it.  My guess also is that the State's GOP is already trying to sort this out as if Mead or Lumis run, they need to try to get Cheney not to quickly.  On the other hand, if Mead and Lumis aren't going to run, and Cheney is, they need to try to sort out who will run for the House. There's no obvious candidate for that right now, so it's highly likely that we'd see a big field for that race that would feature the same candidates who ran against her in her first run, combined with several who recently ran for Governor. And that's just in the GOP primary field.  Gary Trauner, I suspect, is likely to be the Democratic candidate for the House or the Senate.

_________________________________________________________________________________

May 20, 2019

I managed to miss it, what with all going on, but New York City's Mayor Bill De Blasio announced he was running for the already extremely crowded Democratic nomination a few days ago.

De Blasio would be positioned on the far left of the Democratic field and will be regarded in most places as a gadfly.  Born William Wilhelm Jr., De Blasio has made a name for himself in that regard, and that won't assist him in this campaign. While his determination to run in this year makes sense, as its the most left leaning Democratic field of all time, his policies and views are not likely to be a hit outside of the city where he's mayor.

Another Democratic announcer, Steve Bullock, is more likely to get attention elsewhere.  Bullock is the Governor of Montana. Montana has surprisingly liberal politics, so that it has a Democratic Governor isn't hugely surprising, but it also is a Western state where a lot of issues that bother Western voters are approached much differently than they way they are in the east.

It doesn't really matter, however.  At this point, Joe Biden is pulling so far ahead of the the remaining candidates that the race has effectively become, even at this point, a contest between Biden and Trump. To the extent that there's really anyone in the Democratic Party, right now, who is effectively challenging Biden, it's Bernie Sanders, and he's far behind.

Predicting an outcome in a primary season that's a year away is, of course, risky.  But unless some major developments occur, Biden appears to have captured the lead and will be difficult to displace from that lead at best.  He's highly likely to be the Democratic nominee.

_________________________________________________________________________________

June 13, 2019

It was nice to have a break in this thread really.

But that's over.

Back to school. . . or um work. . . or rather.. . politics.

People are now announcing, in a somewhat broken and halting fashion, their intent to run for Senator Enzi's seat.  We still feel that Elizabeth Cheney is the odds on favorite for the seat, and that right behind her is the wild card of former Governor Mead, perhaps now refreshed after a few months out of office.  If he runs, he'll get it.  If she runs, she'll get it.

But others are declaring.

The first official declaration is that of Yana Ludwig, who is described by the Tribune as a Democratic "activist".  She's been active in at least Albany County and has been a founder of Albany County for Proper Policing and also active with Showing Up For Racial Justice.

She is self declared as a Socialist.  Indeed, she issued a rather naive statement to the Tribune on that.

I think people are trying to throw socialism on as being left of Democrats, but we’re talking about economic systems – not political orientations, I do identify as a socialist, and I’m going to be really open about that on the campaign."

And for that reason, that campaign is going absolutely nowhere.

Indeed, its the very sort of position that causes people to not take Democratic candidates very seriously in the state.

Filing with the FEC was a Democrat Chuck Jagoda, who lives in California. There's been a rash of out of state filings recently by people who seem to think that a non resident can legally run for office here. They can't.  But it keeps happening.

I don't know anything about Jagoda, who may be an actor, but a Democrat from out of state not only can't legally run, he'd have no point in running.

And then on the Republican side a Joshua Wheeler has announced and set up a website.  He notes his experiences as a veteran and declares himself to be conservative, but I otherwise know nothing about it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

June 21, 2019

And the election for retiring Senator Enzi's seat is now over.

Cynthia Lummis has officially registered to run for the seat, even while her unofficial staff has declared simultaneously that she hasn't decided yet on whether or not she's running.

She's running.

The pretext for non running is that she retains a PAC and the PAC's must be tied to an office.  Her's remained tied to her former House seat and, it's maintained, she was simply switching it while she ponders.

Well, whatever, she's running.

Not making an official announcement yet is wise and it keeps a campaign from really starting.  Her filing acts as a placeholder while she gets up and running and places her in a good position to start her campaign when she wants to, or needs to.

Right now, she doesn't need to. The only other Republican running is unknown and the Democrat has no chance whatsoever.  Indeed, the currently running Democrat won't be the nominee in the Democratic Party unless Lummis' announcement causes every other potential Democrat to decide not to run, which is at least somewhat unlikely.

The only thing that could disrupt Lummis' campaign at this point would be for Matt Mead to announce. While that's been speculated upon, my guess is that Lummis already knows that Mead isn't running, and even if they haven't been in communication, unless Mead has an extremely strong desire to return to politics, Lummis' announcement will preclude it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

June 27, 2019

Part One of the first Democratic debate was held last night, and you won't be reading any commentary about that event here.  I didn't watch it.

Part of the reason was that I worked late and when I got home it would have already been well in progress.  And nobody else in the family showed any interest in turning it on, including the other highly politically minded denizen.  I didn't suggest it either.

It just seems too early, and indeed, it really is.

A debate this early frankly is a disservice to a nation that just doesn't get a break from politics anymore.  Like him or despise him, Trump is the President and the ongoing campaign against him, which really commenced prior to his being sworn in, just isn't what the country needs.  By the same token, Trump's style means that the nation never gets a break from Trump, which is fatiguing in the extreme.

I'm old enough to remember prior controversial Presidents.  While not really remembered as such now, Ronald Reagan was a very controversial President and for those on college campuses during his administration, and I was, there was as certain "resist" type of thought that was frankly fairly unthinking, but it was nothing like what we have today. And Reagan, for his part, cajoled and frankly often played sort of dim rather than rushing out to be in everyone's face all the time. For that matter, a lot of what he did on the international scene was not only out of the public eye, it was clandestine, which was a problem in its own right.

Clinton was controversial although in retrospect its very difficult now to appreciate why that was the case.  It's a bit reminiscent of now in that the opposition party simply couldn't stand him.  That turned out to be a problem in that the entire impeachment debacle, and that's what that was, resulted in the end.  And of course I guess we got a foretaste of the current political fare during President Obama's administration as there were those who were always conspiratorially minded regarding him.

This weekend on Meet the Press Chuck Todd noted, although I think he's likely off the mark, that Trump's calling Biden "Sleepy Joe" may backfire as a sleepy, i.e., less in the news all the time, President might be just what the country might want right now.  I don't know about that, but the country really needs a break from constant politics.  It's just too much.

 On another matter, part of the problem of modern politics was demonstrated on Meet the Press when one of the members of the "round table", Doris Kearns Goodwin, inadvertently revealed how antiquated the political class is.  Maybe that will change this election, but her comment was telling.  Remarking on Trump, she made an analogy which started off, addressing Todd, to the effect of "when we were all kids we watched the Ed Sullivan Show. . ."

Chuck Todd didn't watch the Ed Sullivan Show when he was a kid.

The Ed Sullivan Show was a huge deal. . . prior to Todd being born.  Todd was born in 1972.  The Ed Sullivan Show ran from 1948 to 1971.  Frankly, I had to look that up as I don't have a first hand recollection of the Ed Sullivan Show either and I was really surprised to learn that it was still running when I was a kid.  Up to around age 8 in my case.  Apparently my parents didn't watch it, or it was on really late when I was in bed (I know that's the case, for example, for The Dean Martin Show).

Anyhow, an offhand reference to the Ed Sullivan Show has to be a total mystery to most of the viewing audience who no doubt wondered "who is Ed Sullivan?" But people who can indeed remember first hand the Ed Sullivan Show are those who have been driving the car to a substantial degree from at least right about the time it was cancelled.




_________________________________________________________________________________

June 29, 2019

Anticipating a run by Liz Cheney for Mike Enzi's seat, Robert Grady, a former adviser to George  H.W. Bush has announced that he's exploring running for that seat.

Of course, I'd guess that much of that exploration would depend upon whether or not Cheney decides to run for that office.  Now that Lummis has entered the race, maybe, she might have decided to forego that.

Brady is a Harvard educated native of Livingston, New Jersey who is also a venture capitalist who relocated at some point to Jackson.  He was an economic adviser to Governor Mead.  Recent politicians who have relocated to Teton County and ran for Wyoming office haven't been successful, such as Dodson And Freiss.  Brady has been in Teton County long enough, and has been active in the community there, and has his association with Mead, such that he might be able to overcome that and make use of his former association with Mead and President Bush.  Of course, whether or not he runs for office at all will depend upon what Cheney decides to do.

_________________________________________________________________________________

July 5, 2019

A poll is already out, apparently leaked out, rating the respective primary chances of Cheney and Lummis against each other.  Cheney comes out about 20 points ahead.

Neither person has actually announced they're running as of yet, which is smart on both of their part.  And the value of a poll so early is really questionable.  As was noted in the news article about it, Cheney may be ahead to that degree simply because she's currently in office and therefore has current name recognition whereas Lummis has been out of office for awhile.

Still, it's not only interesting that an early poll of that type has been taken, but that somebody leaked it.  There's reasons for those things.

As a minor prediction, as the election season arrives, if the poll results remain more or less the same (which I doubt they will), and if they both declare themselves candidates, which I also doubt (I think that will be worked out beforehand), I think Mead will enter the race.  He has really good name recognition and would be pretty popular, I suspect.  If he's tempted, I also think he'll enter before Cheney and/or Lummis announce.  Indeed, I also think that would be worked out beforehand.

By "worked out", I'll note, what I mean is that I think the GOP will get together with its three main potential candidates and work so that only one of them announces, rather than have them run against each other.

_________________________________________________________________________________

July 10, 2019

The one out, one in, edition.

Yesterday, Tom Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund investor, announced that he was running for President on the Democratic ticket, so an already crowded Democratic field ended up with a new name.

While most likely not a name really known to most Americans, Steyer has been active in politics for some time. Clean energy and climate change have been an apparent focus of his.  He became active in politics, he's stated, after a revelation about the faith of his mother, the Episcopal Church, focused his attentions in a new direction.

Knowing little about Steyer, it's hard to gauge his chances.  He has the money to make his message known and he is not a career politician, which may provide appeal to the Democratic rank and file in a race filled with career politicians.

At the same time, Eric Swalwell, a Congressman from California, saw the handwriting on the wall and dropped out. The first Democrat to do so.  He had no chance right from the onset, but is to be credited for realizing that on a timely basis.

________________________________________________________________________________

July 13, 2019

This past week Cynthia Lummis made her campaign for U.S. Senate official.  In my view, this contest is now over and she has won.

Interestingly, what I thought would happen, that a deal would have been worked out in the GOP about who would run before the announcement was made, may not have.  Her campaign was asked about Liz Cheney and her reply was somewhat cryptic, only noting that Cheney would have to make her choice, but that Wyoming would have have great team with Cheney remaining in place. This hints pretty strongly that upon being approach Cheney would not promise not to run and in fact is considering doing so.  On that we should keep in mind that Cheney's original bid for office was against the retiring Senator Enzi who seemed to have taken a degree of offense at her campaign's presumption that he was bowing out at that time.  She may still strongly harbor desires for that office.

It'll be interesting to see what she does, but my prediction is that Cheney will not run for the Senate now that Lummis has chosen to go for that seat.  Cheney is over a decade younger than Lummis and Barrasso and she may have a chance to run for the seat yet in the future.  It'd likely be politically fatal if she tried to run against Lummis for it, as she'd lose her House seat and would be unlikely to obtain the Senate seat.

As for Lummis announcing over a year prior to the election, I wonder if this was in order to put in her setting as a place holder.  If no deal could have been worked out with Cheney (or Mead) announcing first would be a wise strategy as after that, it looks like everyone is trying to bump her out of a position that she's would appear to be strongly entitled to.

_________________________________________________________________________________

July 20, 2019

I was surprised to hear yesterday that Cynthia Lummis is already running some sort of video campaign advertisement, which is very early for that.  But then, elections have been like this, this year.

I also heard that the ads content has her campaigning on her support for Donald Trump.  Looking up her campaign website, which is already up, it takes that approach as well, without naming him specifically.  Wondering about the video ad, I found it:



It didn't come across quite the way it had been explained to me.  From the explanation, I was expecting something like what Sam Galeotos did in the 2018 General election where he lashed himself to the deck of the SS Trump. That's basically what killed off his chances at becoming Governor.  This ad is more subtle than that, although in its concluding portions it does make reference to the border wall that has and is a major Trump talking point, and it talks about opposing the "Green New Deal" and opposing "Socialists".

I think the interesting part of this is that this is an apparent early adoption of what is widely believed to be Trump's strategy for the 2020 election.  The border wall will be spoken of a lot as it remains a visual hot button item for a certain section of his base.  The Green New Deal was still born and isn't going anywhere, and was actively opposed by Nancy Pelosi, but because it remains a talking point for some Democrats, and it will be mentioned in the 2020 Presidential election, it remains a foil on the GOP side as well.  And the use of the term "Socialist" is likewise out of Trump's playbook and has become a really handy tool for Republicans as Democrats have failed to disassociate themselves with Socialism, with some even embracing the term, often with no real grasp what Socialism actually is.

Combined with that is the traditional Wyoming themes; hard work, outdoors, etc., combined with social conservatism, such as opposition to abortion.  The ad appears to be trying to bridge the GOP in general, with a late hard lean on the new GOP items that came up in the last election.

Lummis might be wise to take this approach and she appears to be fairly skillfully welding all of these together.  But there is a danger to it as Trump really isn't as widely admired in the state as Republicans seem to believe.  Indeed, I heard about the ad from two people who had an instant negative reaction to him being mentioned and were therefore already disinclined to vote for Lummis.  And as noted, Galeotos sank like a rock once he started to try to bill himself as Wyoming's Trumpite.

Of course right now Lummis has no real competition and if she gets it, it'll be from Cheney.  Whether Cheney would try equally as hard to bridge the GOP is yet to be seen.  She might actually not bother to try to closely associate herself with Trump which ironically might help her a bit in a race with a candidate who has, although I still feel that Lummis has the nomination, and therefore the position, wrapped up.

On this race, another minor candidate has some signs up in the vicinity all of which feature his silhouette standing at attention and saluting.  His website notes him to be a "combat veteran" and if you go deeper into it it notes that he served with the Wyoming Army National Guard in Iraq.

FWIW, putting a silhouette of yourself saluting at attention is a really dangerous limiting presentation and actually tends to be off putting to some veterans.  I'll leave it more or less at that, but at least voters of middle age or up can remember a time when any male candidate had likely served in World War Two, Korea or Vietnam, and any male voter from his mid 50s up has a pretty high chance of having served themselves.  Emphasizing your veteran status with that demographic at least doesn't go too far and may be off putting with them.

On other stuff, something related to the 2020 election that was posted here earlier today:

Dissension in the local GOP

_________________________________________________________________________________

August 21, 2019

John Hickenlooper, who had performed well in the last debate, but who has his eyes focused on the Senate, and who may be receiving help keeping them focused there from fellow Democrats in Congress who hope to take the Senate back in the next election, dropped out of the Presidential race last week.

Hickenlooper took approaches in the recent debate, to the small extent I saw it, that were outside of the pack and well thought out.  Notably, he was opposed to the U.S. basically surrendering under excuse in Afghanistan and withdrawing.

It's strongly suspected that the Democrats asked him to focus instead on the Senate, where he has a strong chance of obtaining a seat from Colorado.  His chances to obtain the Presidency were always poor.  If that's correct, it's a wise move on the Democratic Party's part as it shows a focus on an overall governmental effort rather than just the Presidency.

Also dropping out this month was Mike Gravel of Alaska, who stood little chance in the first place.  The former Alaska Senator, age 89, was a bit of a gadfly candidate to start with and his campaign, as predicted, when nowhere.  Gravel reflects an earlier era in Alaska politics, prior to the oil revenue there, which produced a unique set of politicians.

California Representative Eric Swalwell, who was basically running on gun control, has also dropped out.

Swalwell seemed focused on gun control and his early failure may show that the issue has much less traction than supposed.  The failure of a special session in currently troubled Virginia, also called for legislation on that topic, produced nothing.

Indeed, the entire topic has been much in the news of late, but that might mean a lot less than supposed.  Nothing concrete has occurred and an early indication by President Trump that he might entertain some changes in the law have been somewhat countered since them.  Principally these dealt with background checks.

Democrats continue to speak on the issue, but rarely show any real understanding of the topic.  Kirstin Gillibrand, for example, was on a weekend show saying that all the weapons in issue had been "high gauge", which makes no sense of any kind whatsoever.  She also proposed to make semi automatic rifles "illegal" "like machineguns", which actually aren't illegal but which are subject to a separate set of laws.  A person proposing legislation ought to be aware of what the law actually is, as well as the nature of what that person is discussing.

A more knowledgeable speaker running for that office from the Democratic candidate did focus on large capacity magazines, which are a real thing at least and are a topic that makes some sense discussing in this context.  He was also focused on "military style" weapons, a popular focus for Democrats, but one which is hard to define and which, in the modern context, would be difficult to do anything about really (that would have had to have been done, if it were to be done, in the early 1970s).

A host on one of the weekend shows noted on this issue that generally gun owners tend not to be opposed to universal background checks until it becomes clear that running any check through a dealer means running even a gift, or potentially a loan, to through the system.  At that point they become concerned.  Perhaps cognizant of that what seemed to be some early support from Trump seemed to have somewhat lessened.

As per usual, when this topic comes up there tends to be a discussion regarding the NRA and whether it is "loosing power".  This sort of speculation is routine but this go around there's more to it, as there has been real trouble, both financially and politically, within the NRA recently.  There was a big shakeup after the recent national meeting in which long time NRA figure Chris Cox lost his position and Ollie North was evicted.  The choice of North for anything was really questionable in the first place and some might regard his ouster as sort of a return to some sort of reason.  Cox was a public voice for the organization and some have wondered if he was posed to be its next head after Wayne LaPierre.  Along those lines, there's some who speculate he was supporting an attempted "coup" with in the organization.  There's precedent for that as way the organization is currently run, and its current views, sort of came about due to something akin to that in the 1970s.

This always spawns a lot of interesting back channel traffic in the firearms media to a degree with some suggesting its time to overthrow the NRA. That's why it won't happen. Those people are actually far to the right of the NRA and want no gun regulation at all, with some even maintaining that there should be a push for the deregulation of machineguns.  That's not going to happen and that's why the NRA leadership, which isn't radical in the overall context of things, isn't going to change and isn't going to suffer from diminished support either.

On other matters, there's real concern that the economy may be headed into a recession with indicators that it is.  If that occurs that would really threaten President Trump's chances for reelection and perhaps end them.  He's been talking as if he's concerned.

He's also been distracting the electorate, which he's good at doing.  This past week mention of buying Greenland, which isn't going to happen, certainly did that.

_________________________________________________________________________________

August 22, 2019

Yesterday Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington, dropped out of the Democratic race.  I don't think I'd mentioned Inslee above, which provides the reason for his dropping out.  He just wasn't getting any traction.  His primary message was on climate change apparently, but he didn't qualify for the next round of debates.

The Democratic field is definitely now growing smaller rapidly, which doesn't make it small.  Four subtractions in just a couple of weeks gives pretty good evidence to a major contraction in the field going on now.

_________________________________________________________________________________

August 24, 2019

Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton announced yesterday that he was dropping out of the Democratic field for the office of Presidency.

Moulton made headlines early on by coming out for banning military style semi automatic rifles, analogizing them to the M16 he carried as a Marine officer in Iraq.  His positions were generally liberal but he did uniquely favor the expansion of nuclear energy.  His campaign was one of the large number of Democratic ones that was basically going nowhere.

With all of these announcements coming one after another, including Hickenlooper's, who was the best known of the departing candidates, the Democratic field is now rapidly thinning and it can be expected that this trend will continue on until there's just a few left quite soon.

Regarding Hickenlooper, he has announced his bid for a Senate seat from Colorado.

And with this entry, part 1 of this thread concludes, as its now so lengthy that it takes up the entire page when posted.

And its only August 24.

August 23, 1919. Exhibitions in Toronto, Trouble for the Motor Transport Convoy in Utah, Fighting in Mexico, Lithuania and Ireland.

While the U.S. Army was testing its recent wartime vehicular acquisitions in a cross country trek, Toronto was enjoying a victory related exhibition.

Vehicle attrition was beginning to set in with the transcontinental Motor Transport Convoy.

While better progress was made on this day, for the second time this week a vehicle was pulled out to be shipped by rail.  On this occasion, the vehicle was pulled out entirely and taken back to Ft. Douglas, Utah, which is just outside of Salt Lake City.

Officer's quarters, Ft. Douglas, Utah.

Things were not going as well as hoped for, for the Army, further south.

And violence was erupting elsewhere as well.

In Ireland, fifteen year old Francis Murphy, a member of Fianna Éireann, an Irish Nationalist Youth organization, was shot dead in his home by British soldiers in what amounted to sort of a drive by shooting.  The shots were believed to have been fired in retaliation for recent violent nationalist activities.

Fianna Éireann members in 1914, practicing aiding the wounded.  The organization was a nationalist youth organization with scouting elements.  Note the kilts, which aren't really an Irish thing.  Note also the Montana Peak type hats which were associated with scouting at the time.  Photograph courtesy of the Irish Library via Wikipedia Commons.

And in the East, fighting between Poles and Lithuanians broke out in the city of Sejny over the question of who would control the city. The Germans, upon evacuating the region in May, had left it in the hands of Lithuania, which is not surprising in light of German support for German freikorps fighting there.  The Poles in the city objected.  Ultimately the region would remain in Lithuania.

Polish cavalry in Sejny.

Saturday was the day the nation's magazines tended to come out, although its doubtful anyone we discussed above read this weeks. Maybe soldiers on the convoy might have acquired some late.

Country Gentleman, perhaps in the spirit of the time, portrayed aggressive roosters on its cover.

The Country Gentleman from August 23, 1919.

The Saturday Evening Post had a less than inspiring Leyendecker illustration depicting a life guard, perhaps in tribute to the hot month of August, which was about to become the cooling month of September.

Greenland?

 The White House Retweeted

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 15h15 hours ago

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

43,699 replies19,488 retweets94,918 likes

Show this thread

What on earth?

There is a point at which the news becomes so surreal, you just can't quite grasp that something is really in the news.  The bizarre news on the President making sounds on purchasing Greenland is news of that type.  The New York Times, no friend of President Trump's headlined an article on this in this fashion:

Trump, Greenland, Denmark. Is This Real Life?

Or a Peter Sellers movie?

Whatever a person thinks of Trump, or the New York Times, the Times pretty much nailed it.  It feels sort of like something out of The Mouse That Roared, or something like that. It's really hard to grasp what's going on here and a person has to suspect its some sort of odd news cycle diversion.

The story started off with what seemed like a joke and then evolved into something that just seemed like innocent ignorance, combined with a discount of the original suggestion.  But now its escalated to cancelling a state visit with the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, who made it plain that purchasing the Danish possession was not going to be discussed.  Trump has since referred to Frederiksen as "nasty".

The irony there is that while Frederiksen is a Danish Social Democrat, she's a populist conservative on the European scale.  As Prime Minister she's opposed liberal immigration into Denmark, supported confiscation of items from refugees, and supported banning the burka.  She's critical of globalism and has made open comments about Islam being a barrier to integration in Denmark in a way that no American politician would dare.

In other words, Trump and Frederiksen should get along fine.*

Instead, we now have the American populist President insulting the Danish populist Prime Minister over Greenland.

I'm quite certain that 100% of the leadership in the President's party, as well as probably 98% of the people who work in the Administration, have the same reaction. Greenland?

The United States isn't going to buy Greenland.  Denmark isn't going to "sell" Greenland.  Greenland is self administering and if it has a change of status of any type, and it could, it would become an independent nation, something that it more or less would like to do, and which with its independent status, it more or less nearly is.  In my view, that's what it should be, which is not to say that its really actively asking to be that.

The flag of Greenland

Moreover, there was never an era when the US was going to "buy" Greenland.  If the country ever had any interest in doing that, it would have been about the same time as we fought the War of 1812.

88% of the residents of Greenland are Inuit.  Culturally, that places Greenland a lot closer to northern Canada, which isn't purposing to annex it, than it does to the United States.  If Greenland, however, was to join a North American nation, it'd be Canada. . . not the United States.

Greenland has belonged, in one fashion or another, to Scandinavian countries since 986 when it was first settled by Norwegians and Icelanders.  At that time, all Scandinavians, while not unified in rule, were close in culture and the distinction between a Norwegian, Swede or Dane was more theoretical than real.   Hitting Greenland during the Medieval Climatic Optimum, Scandinavians successfully colonized the coastal areas and a Christian Scandinavian population lived there all the way into the 1400s.  At the same time Greenland was also inhabited by the Dorset Paleo Indian culture, which also disappeared from the region around 1500.

The 15th and 16th Centuries were not kind.

As the Dorsets declined the Thule came in. They're an Inuit people and they make up the vast majority of Greelanders today, as noted.  The Danes came back in as early as 1605 when they started a dedicated effort to relocate the Scandinavian communities of Greenland which they had never forgotten, unaware that those colonies had been abandoned.  Still, a 200 year long recollection that they had been there is impressive.

Denmark and Norway shared a joint monarchy during this period which dissolved in 1814.  Norway went into a sort of unhappy union with Sweden shortly thereafter, but it maintained a fair degree of independence until Norway formally left that union in the early 20th Century.  All the way until 1933 Norway, however claimed unoccupied areas of Greenland until that claim was extinguished in favor of Denmark that year.

The first real substantial contact with the United States came in World War Two, during which the U.S. occupied Greenland as Denmark was occupied by Germany.  Greenland basically became self administering during this period but the experience did open up what had been a highly isolated society due to the American presence.  It pushed for self administration after the war but did not achieve it until 1979, in part, and 2009, in full.

It's pulled out of the European Community, which shows how self governing it is.

After World War Two the United States did maintain a military presence in the form of Thule Air Force Base, which was opened in 1943 and is still in use.  The US actually offered to buy Greenland at that time, offering Denmark $100,000,000 in 1946.  As Greenland was much less independent than it is now, perhaps this is not surprising.  The US had actually pondering buying it once before, in 1867, when Congress put an end to the idea.

In 1867 and 1946, of course, the situation was much different than it is now, in 2019.  Greenland for all practical purposes is independent in everything but name.  Greenland has full internal autonomy but does not administer its own foreign affairs.  With the 2009 arrangement, however, granting fully sovereignty over resources to Greenland, it's assumed that independence is on the horizon.  Greenland still maintains a close association with Denmark, and Danes make up a significant portion of the 12% of the population that's not Thule, but the end of Danish rule is coming.

The beginning of American ownership is not and its a really odd thought that anyone bothered to ask the Danes to sell something that they basically are giving back to the people who live there.  The Danes have never shown any interest in giving up Greenland to another country and remarkably reestablished contact with Greenland after a 200 year absence in the first place.  They contested Norway's claim to an unoccupied portion of it. They've been very clear in their views.

So what brought this about is really a mystery.  To Americans, it's probably just one more distraction, but if you are Greenlandic or Danish, it's no doubt insulting.  And now the insult for the Danes has been compounded.  And for what reason?

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Which may be trivializing the seriousness of her views.  She's also a strong opponent of legal prostitution in Scandinavia.  Frederiksen is Prime Minister, it should be noted, as head of a minority party in coalition with parties of the left.

It was a bad day for the Motor Transport Convoy. . .

August 22, 1919.

Nothing was going right.

And the water had to be hauled in by horse.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Army was travelling by horse:

In other localities, things were more tranquil.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, August 22, 1919.

While the U.S. Army was crossing the United States on the Lincoln Highway. . .

RAF Captain C. K. Shepherd was crossing by a more southerly route by motorcycle.

This year an eccentric American duplicated his route, on a vintage motorcycle, as near as could be done.

Rural Nurse, Virginia. 1919.

August 21, 1919. Dissension in the ranks, Orr's Ranch to Granite Rock, Utah. 15 miles in 7.25 hours. New dry docks at Pearl Harbor. Pursuit in Mexico.

Things were getting heated in the Motor Transport Convoy on this day in 1919.

The commander of the convoy, concerned about the fate of the vital Militor, pulled it out of the convoy and had it shipped by rail to Eureka, Nevada.  The diarist recorded his dissension in the diary, not something a junior officer would do lightly.  Indeed, something of that type risked being a career ender.

But the diarist may have well be right. Progress that day ground to a halt.  While the Militor was now suffering from its hard use, the convoy may well have suffered due to its absence.

On the same day, the wife of the Secretary of the Navy was present in Hawaii to push a button to open a new dry dock at Pearl Harbor.

American troops continued a new pursuit south of the border, but Mexico was once again not pleased.

Elsewhere there was a food sale:

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: San Miguel Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And in the same year that slavery was introduced into British North America:

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: San M...: Churches of the West: San Miguel Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico : This church is the oldest church in the United State...