We return after our extended holiday break to a growing realization in the political world. We had already come to this conclusion a while back, but it seems more and more people are now realizing that, barring any force majeure appearing on the horizon, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president next year. His polling tells this story plainly: Trump is up roughly 50 points over his nearest competitor nationally, and although his lead isn't quite as commanding in the early-voting states, it is still pretty daunting (Trump is up roughly 30 points in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina). Voting will begin next month, meaning there just isn't much time left for any of this to change -- and no real reason to think it will.

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President Joe Biden seems to be having some trouble getting young voters enthused about voting for him next year. There's a very simple answer to this problem -- one that he should adopt as soon as possible. He should announce that he has "evolved" on the subject of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults, and unveil a new plan to make it happen on the federal level. This wouldn't be anywhere near as risky as the first time the word "evolve" was attached to Biden getting out in front of a political issue. For Biden, it'd be seen as a real Nixon-goes-to-China shift in position, which would only add to its appeal. And it is tailor-made to get young voters to the polls in droves (as well as plenty of older voters as well).

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I read a rather interesting article in my local paper this weekend which put forth an idea that has the possibility of injecting some excitement into President Joe Biden's re-election campaign. The idea's a pretty simple one: Vice President Kamala Harris should voluntarily announce she will not run for her office again on Biden's ticket, and instead will be returning to California to run for the governor's seat in 2026. This would free Biden up so he could name a new running mate, which could indeed generate some enthusiasm among the Democratic voting base.

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Donald Trump just gave the team working to re-elect President Joe Biden a rather large early Christmas present. Apparently, Trump has never gotten over his failure to enact "a full repeal" of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise affectionately known as "Obamacare"). This involved the big dramatic scene with Senator John McCain turning in a "thumbs-down" vote on the Senate floor, in literal fashion -- which was a complete humiliation for Trump. A humiliation, like all the others, that he's never forgotten or gotten over. So he's looking to re-fight that particular battle, it seems.

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Will we ever get to see Donald Trump debate anyone before the next presidential election? That was my immediate thought upon reading that the Commission on Presidential Debates (C.P.D.) has just announced the schedule for their four planned debates (three presidential, one vice-presidential). I consider this to be rather optimistic for a number of reasons, since at this point the safe bet would either be that any debates which are held won't be run by the C.P.D. -- or that Donald Trump won't show up for any debate (no matter who is running it).

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Over 20 years ago -- right around when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of our state -- we were fond of shocking people by pointing out: "Politics has become indistinguishable from show business." The entertainment industry and our political system had been slowly merging, ever since the ascension of B-movie actor Ronald Reagan to the White House in the 1980s. But we have to say, we never foresaw the day when politics would become completely replaced by entertainment and entertainment alone. And we seem to be fast approaching that point.

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There were supposed to be three big political stories this week, but in the end two of them turned out to be duds. Donald Trump testified at his New York fraud trial, but without video or audio recordings of him answering questions under oath, the impact was significantly lessened. The other Republican presidential candidates (the five who qualified, at any rate) met for their third Republican debate, but it mostly turned out to be a snoozefest.

Tuesday night, however, more than lived up to expectations. The off-year elections which were held ended up as a big night for Democrats almost across the board. Put quite simply: abortion rights won. Big time. Everywhere.

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So instead of a microanalysis of sheer meaninglessness, I decided to write today about the rest of the field, which grew in two significant ways today. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced he would not be running for re-election (which just about guarantees a pickup for the Republicans in the Senate). And Jill Stein announced she would be the Green Party's presidential nominee this time around.

Manchin is not exactly being coy about his plans, either. He is making his bid for the presidential nomination from the "No Labels" effort -- which has tens of millions of dollars behind it and is already getting itself on state ballots in multiple states. Manchin wasted no time in making this pivot, as evidenced by his statement of retirement:

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What was previously merely obvious has now become downright undeniable: the right to have an abortion is the most potent political issue around right now. When women's reproductive rights are on the ballot, it is a winning issue. Every time. This is going to help Democrats and continue to hurt Republicans for as long as women's rights are not universally protected in every state in the Union.

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And then there were six... or five, really. The Republicans just announced who will be allowed on their debate stage tomorrow night, and they have once again winnowed their field. This time around, only six presidential candidates made the cut: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, and Tim Scott. However, Trump has already said he's not going to show up, which will leave only five on the debate stage. Asa Hutchinson did not qualify for his second straight debate (making me wonder why he's still in the race), and this time around Doug Burgum also got shut out (which he is not happy about). Mike Pence completely took himself out of the running last week, so the debate field has shrunk down to manageable proportions. Each candidate should get a decent amount of speaking time with only five of them on the stage, to put this slightly differently. And the moderators won't have to waste time on the longest-of-the-longshots.

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