Mike Pence gave a speech today in New Hampshire, and it actually made some news (I know! I'm as astonished as you probably are...). Pence devoted the whole speech to an argument for the Republican Party to return to its conservative roots and move dramatically away from economic populism. Which is rather odd, since by "populism" he basically means "all that stuff Donald Trump said and did while I was serving as his vice president." Consistency has never been conservatism's strong suit, I suppose....

Snark aside, it was interesting to read what Pence had to say. It remains doubtful whether he (or any other Republican) can turn back the tide of populism that Trump unleashed on the GOP, but Pence is certainly making a full-throated attempt. Here are a few excerpts from his speech, from the New York Times review of it:
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I wrote about post-debate polling last week, but I may have drawn my conclusions too soon, if the latest two polls are any indication of movement. So I thought I'd revisit things today, since Labor Day traditionally kicks off the meat of the primary campaign season. (Plus, it'll get me back in the swing of talking about politics, after the 3-day holiday weekend.)

So let's start with the two polls. The first, in the field from August 24th through the 30th, is from the Wall Street Journal. Here are the results:

• Donald Trump -- 59 percent
• Ron DeSantis -- 13
• Nikki Haley -- 8
• Vivek Ramaswamy -- 5
• Chris Christie -- 3
• Mike Pence -- 2
• Tim Scott -- 2
• (all others got one percent or less)

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[Program Note: I went looking for an old column to re-run today, and started with last year's. It seemed perfect, so I decided to just go with it. Hope everyone's having a wonderful Labor Day!]

Originally published September 5th, 2022

There will be no column today, as I will be celebrating Labor Day by not doing any. Hope everyone else is having an equally unproductive day!

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

It is rare in American politics when Democrats manage to win a political "messaging" war with Republicans, but it certainly seems like they've got a doozy of an opportunity to do just that, on the issue of lowering prescription drug prices. This messaging battle really began in earnest this week, and so far Republicans are losing badly.

This week President Biden announced the first 10 prescription drugs had been chosen for price negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies. Medicare will, for the first time, use its vast purchasing power to force the drug companies to lower their obscene prices. Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs precisely because the government doesn't use Medicare's bargaining power to rein in the bottomless greed of the drug companies. The Inflation Reduction Act finally gave the government the power to bargain for prices -- but it was limited to only 10 drugs, at first. So Biden announced which drugs would be covered, and then (perfect timing) after a year of negotiations, the final prices agreed to will be publicly announced... right before the 2024 election. So of course Biden and the Democrats are going to use the issue politically. Especially since fighting for insanely-high profit margins for drug companies isn't exactly a very defensible thing, politically. But that's not going to stop Republicans from trying.

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Could we finally be approaching the official end to the federal "War On Weed"? That possibility now exists thanks to the Department of Health and Human Services, who just made a recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Agency. And while it is not the unconditional surrender that pro-cannabis activists have been hoping for, it certainly would be the first major retreat in this metaphorical battlefield ever. If the H.H.S. advice is adopted by the D.E.A., the federal government would scale back a position that can only be described as "Draconian," and instead adopt a position that is a whole lot closer to reality.

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In one month we may face yet another government shutdown crisis, if Congress doesn't act before then to pass some sort of federal budget. And from the vantage point of one month out, the possibility of chaos seems high no matter what eventually happens. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is going to be forced to act one way or another, and it seems every option he has is going to leave some portion of his own party very angry with him.

Congress, of course, is still enjoying their obscenely-long summer break and won't return for another week or two (the Senate returns next week, but the House will enjoy an extra week in the sun and won't be back until mid-September). The budget deadline is the end of the month. So far, the House has passed exactly one of the 12 appropriations bills that make up the federal budget, while the Senate has not passed any of them. The Senate, however, has passed all 12 of the bills through committee with bipartisan votes, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to hit the ground running when he returns. With such broad support for the compromise budget bills, they all stand a good chance of passing the full Senate.

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Way back in 2015, late-night television's Stephen Colbert had a ritual bit he'd run every time a presidential candidate dropped out of the race. Using the impressive ceiling in his studio, he projected an image of the also-ran candidate à la how the deaths of each "tribute" in The Hunger Games were announced. He called it the "Hungry For Power Games." Of course, earlier this year, late-night television was the first to go dark when the Hollywood writers went on strike, so we can't expect this sort of thing in the current campaign until they are all back at work (and being paid better). Which is a shame, because the Republican presidential field is already beginning to narrow. Today, the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, became the first to officially drop out of the race.

You might be thinking to yourself: "Who?" -- and you would not be alone. Suarez wasn't exactly a national name to begin with, and after spending a few months campaigning for the highest office in the land, he still isn't (not by a longshot). He was pretty obviously running to raise his own profile in Florida, perhaps to run for a higher office there one day. In other words, it was a good way to build a little home-state name recognition, even if it didn't work to any noticeable effect north of the Florida-Georgia line. Unless he goes on to bigger and brighter things one day, Francis Suarez won't even make the cut as a future answer on Jeopardy! (although he could conceivably show up in the toughest of political bar quizzes... probably as the answer to: "Which obscure Republican candidate in the 2024 race answered an interview question about China by asking: 'What's a Uyghur?' and then later in the interview exposed his ignorance even further with: 'What did you call it, a Weeble?'").

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Donald Trump's legal calendar for early 2024 is filling up fast. Today, the federal judge in Washington D.C. who is overseeing Trump's January 6th trial set the trial's start date for March 4th. As many have noted, this is one day before fifteen states will hold their primaries on "Super Tuesday." While some are expressing astonishment that the trial date is surprisingly early, I find myself frustrated that it is actually scheduled far too late -- because by the time it is over, Trump may well already be the de facto Republican nominee.

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We will start this column (as every public speaker is taught to) with a joke. We saw two Republican spectacles this week: the first was watching all the "not-named-Trump" presidential candidates trying to verbally mug each other onstage for two hours, and the second was Donald Trump himself scowling into a jail camera for his first-ever mugshot. You might say it's been a very muggy week all around.

[Pause for audience laughter....]

Seriously, though, the week did have a rather apocalyptic feel, at least from the vantage point of California, which experienced (early in the week) what people began calling a "hurriquake." That's an earthquake happening during a very rare tropical storm hitting the Southern California deserts. "Locusts" began trending on the former Twitter. There was a feel of: "What next?!?" in the air. Sharknadoes didn't seem out of the question, to put it another way (thanks, Ted Cruz!).

What was next, of course, was the real kickoff of the Republican presidential nomination contest. Before we get to what actually happened, we do have one rather critical comment to make: It is now time for some Republican candidates to start exiting the race.

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Donald Trump is (as I write this) inside the Fulton County Jail, being processed and booked for the fourth time. This time he's not getting quite such kid-glove treatment, from either the Georgia officials or the media. For the first time, Trump will be fingerprinted and he will have a mugshot taken. Data will be entered (but probably not verified) about Trump's weight and height. Of course, he did arrive with a police and Secret Service escort (and not at the main entrance) and he will not have to sit in a holding tank with other prisoners. The broadcast media isn't going to get much in the way of live shots, which is probably why they didn't cover Trump's flight or even his motorcade in Atlanta. NBC and CBS only cut into their programming when Trump arrived at the jail, and ABC still isn't covering it (I should add that these are just my local affiliates, other stations may have handled it differently). After Trump's three previous surrenders, the media excitement level has been dialed way down.

The other big difference between the first three and this one is that Trump will not be facing a judge today. There will be no arraignment happening. This could come later (first week of September, most likely) however it may be a low-key affair -- the laws of Georgia may allow Trump to just sign a document pleading not guilty rather than having to physically show up. Since Georgia is the only jurisdiction that will definitely have cameras in the courtroom, this means we'll have to wait a lot longer to see Trump sitting in front of a judge on live television, to put this another way.

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