[ Posted Thursday, January 25th, 2024 – 16:22 UTC ]
The mainstream media has had eight years to figure out how to cover Donald Trump. But quite obviously they still haven't really figured out the best way to do so. They ping-pong back and forth between largely ignoring him or giving him a huge (and free and unchecked) megaphone to use. This conundrum is upon us once again in a big way, since at this point Trump has to be seen as the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024 – 18:45 UTC ]
As I sit here watching the New Hampshire primary election results roll in, there don't seem to be any huge surprises developing yet -- most of the votes aren't in yet, so I suppose there's still time... but the chances are the headlines are soon going to be reading something along the lines of: "It's Over Almost Before It Began," as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden wrap up their respective nominations.
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[ Posted Monday, January 22nd, 2024 – 17:02 UTC ]
As usual, the first presidential primary in the country will take place in New Hampshire tomorrow night. But this won't be your garden-variety Granite State primary, on either side of the aisle. For Republicans, their choices have already dwindled to only two, while on the Democratic side the frontrunner isn't even on the ballot. Neither one of those things is normal.
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[ Posted Friday, January 19th, 2024 – 17:54 UTC ]
President Joe Biden got some excellent news today: the "vibecession" seems to be over. For those unfamiliar with this neologism, the term was coined by an educator a while back to explain the disconnect between the economic reality (measured by all the economic indicators) and how people actually felt about the economy. The economy has been doing amazingly well in recovering from the COVID pandemic slump, while at the same time public perception has remained a lot gloomier.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 – 16:44 UTC ]
It's mostly been lost in the fray of yet another government shutdown crisis, but there was actually some good news out of Washington this week. Congress (are you sitting down?) could actually be on the brink of doing something. No, really! And even more surprising: they could be on the brink of doing something good.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 – 16:06 UTC ]
Nikki Haley, upon finishing third in the Iowa caucuses last night, had a rather bizarrely optimistic pronouncement. It ranks right up there with Bill Clinton proclaiming himself "The Comeback Kid" after finishing only second in New Hampshire, in fact (although, to be fair, Clinton's spin-job worked wonders for him). Here's what Haley had to say last night: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race." The audience reportedly applauded and cheered.
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[ Posted Monday, January 15th, 2024 – 19:19 UTC ]
With fewer than 750 votes in -- less than one percent of the total -- the news organizations have already called the Republican Iowa caucuses for Donald Trump. As I write this, Ron DeSantis is up over Nikki Haley by a count of 161 to 159, so obviously there is still going to be a close race for second place. Neither one of them is topping 16 percent as of now, while Trump sits above 60 percent. All of these numbers could swing as the evening continues, but the fact that Trump is going to walk away the winner is already set.
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[ Posted Friday, January 12th, 2024 – 18:50 UTC ]
It is shocking (it always is), but here we are on the brink of the 2024 presidential election cycle's official start. The Iowa caucuses will be held Monday. Most of us, thankfully, will have a few more months to go before being faced with the prospect of going to the polls for our state's primary, when (hopefully) the weather will be a lot better than it is predicted to be in the Hawkeye State three days from now. They may be heading to their polls in the midst of a blizzard, with the temperature forecast to be: "Oh CRAP it is cold!" with windchill factors being as low as: "I can't feel my toes... or my face... just leave me here in this snowbank for the wolves to find...."
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[ Posted Thursday, January 11th, 2024 – 16:11 UTC ]
The speaker may have changed, but the underlying dynamics of the Republican-led House have not. Kevin McCarthy was ousted -- the first House speaker in American history to lose his job this way -- because he had to work within the reality that having a slim GOP majority in the House simply did not mean that the hardliners in his caucus got to dictate terms to everyone else in Washington. The Democrats hold the Senate and the White House, and they're never going to knuckle under to the MAGA hardliners and just give them everything they want. Now Mike Johnson is in charge and is facing exactly the same demands from exactly the same members of the GOP's "Chaos Caucus," who still refuse to admit any reality outside of their own warped view of how Washington should work. And Johnson may wind up facing the same fate as McCarthy before all of the dust settles.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 10th, 2024 – 18:05 UTC ]
I was just sitting here contemplating what to write about today when some breaking news made the decision for me: Chris Christie has just ended his presidential campaign. This is going to shake things up in the Republican field, obviously, but will it shake things up enough to make any sort of difference? That remains to be seen.
We won't have to wait very long for the other major candidates' reactions, since Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are scheduled to hold their first one-on-one debate tonight on CNN, while Donald Trump will be holding a town hall over on Fox. Undoubtedly all three will be asked at some point to react to the breaking news, so we'll see if Nikki Haley (in particular) can contain her glee.
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