Befuddled CNN panelists
by BeijingIrish (2024-01-11 11:13:09)

In reply to: I called Trump being DOA last year.  posted by EricCartman


I rarely watch news on TV, particularly the evening news programs on the cable channels. I do watch the local channels in the morning, mainly to get the sports and weather. My wife watches the Evening News Hour on PBS as she prepares dinner, and if I am in the kitchen with her, I’ll watch that. I realize that Amna Nawaz, Geoff Bennett, and their PBS colleagues are Bolsheviks, but I enjoy watching the Jonathan Capehart/David Brooks segment on Fridays.

I did watch the Haley-DeSantis debate on CNN last night. I started watching about 15-20 minutes before the debate started—CNN had a panel, and the participants discussed the impact of Christie’s withdrawal on the upcoming primaries. It was interesting to watch them struggle with the notion that yesterday’s development improves the non-Trump candidates’ chances. They tried so hard to find reasons why the consolidation resulting from Christie’s departure is not a major development. Trump is a lock, blah, blah…

It seems to me that the pundits, excluding the Fox people, are really rooting for Trump, (1) because they look forward to savaging him during the campaign; and (2) he would lose to Biden. A Trump-Biden race would mean higher ratings. Also, they don’t want to cover a Haley landslide. Looking sad and lamenting a Democrat loss on election night is tough—2016 was enough. “Boo hoo hoo. Why don’t the American people think the way we tell them they should think?”

A couple of months ago I posted a comment to the effect that I thought neither Trump nor Biden would be their party’s candidate in 2024 (I added a caveat that I was aware that my prediction could be based upon wishful thinking or naivete). I continue to hold to my prediction, although I am less convinced that the Democrats will have the cojones to boot Biden/Harris off the ticket. I am more confident that, if DeSantis were to withdraw after a third-place finish in Iowa, Haley would cruise in NH and SC.

If I am wrong, and Trump is the GOP candidate, it’s seppuku for me. I would stage the event in GOP campaign headquarters and have eaten a peppery lamb vindaloo from the Star of India an hour or so before.





In 2016, I referred to CNN as TNN.
by Revue Party  (2024-01-11 12:27:56)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

The Trump News Network. All Trump. All the time.

They were openly cheering for him (while pretending to scold) because he is a ratings darling. The golden goose.

They have the ability to shut off his oxygen--attention--and they simply cannot do it.


I hope you don't have a sword on hand
by ravenium  (2024-01-11 12:27:41)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Because I feel like something, anything should have indicated an erosion in GOP support for Trump. Not a single poll.

Granted voters don't have to be afraid of him, but apparently the RNC does. Until something breaks the fear spell, the GOP is basically dead. Seppuku indeed.

This is also sad, because without two healthy parties, the Dems wither in their own regard.


The logistics of removing Biden and choosing a replacement..
by EricCartman  (2024-01-11 12:12:24)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

make this a highly unlikely scenario, even thought it would be the correct move.

The Economist lambasted the Democrats for running Biden again, while noting how the party is basically pot committed and must push forward.

Back in 2023 Mr Biden could—and should—have decided to be a one-term president. He would have been revered as a paragon of public service and a rebuke to Mr Trump’s boundless ego. Democratic bigwigs know this. In fact before their party’s better-than-expected showing in the midterms, plenty of party members thought that Mr Biden would indeed stand aside. This newspaper first argued that the president should not seek re-election over a year ago.

Unfortunately, Mr Biden and his party had several reasons for him fighting one more campaign, none of them good. His sense of duty was tainted by vanity. Having first stood for president in 1987 and laboured for so long to sit behind the Resolute desk, he has been seduced into believing that his country needs him because he is a proven Trump-beater.

Likewise, his staff’s desire to serve has surely been tainted by ambition. It is in the nature of administrations that many of a president’s closest advisers will never again be so close to power. Of course they do not want to see their man surrender the White House in order to focus on his presidential library.


Here the Leader discusses the challenges of selecting a new candidate:

Were he to withdraw today, the Democratic Party would have to frantically recast its primary, because filing deadlines have already passed in many states and the only other candidates on the ballot are a little-known congressman called Dean Phillips and a self-help guru called Marianne Williamson. Assuming this was possible, and that the flurry of ensuing lawsuits was manageable, state legislatures would have to approve new dates for the primaries closer to the convention in August. A series of debates would have to be organised so that primary voters knew what they were voting for. The field could well be vast, with no obvious way of narrowing it quickly: in the Democratic primary of 2020, 29 candidates put themselves forward.

The chaos might be worth it if the party could be sure of going into the election with a young, electable candidate. However, it seems equally possible that the eventual winner would be unelectable—Bernie Sanders, say, a self-declared democratic socialist who is a year older than Mr Biden. More likely, the nomination would go to Kamala Harris, the vice-president. Ms Harris has the advantage of not being old, though it says something about the Democratic Party’s gerontocracy that she will be 60 in November and is considered youthful.

Unfortunately she has proven to be a poor communicator, a disadvantage in office as well as on the stump. Ms Harris is a creature of California’s machine politics and has never successfully appealed to voters outside her state. Her campaign in 2020 was awful. Her autocue sometimes seems to have been hacked by a satirist. Immigration and the southern border—a portfolio she handles for Mr Biden—is Mr Trump’s strongest issue and the Democrats’ weakest. Ms Harris’s chances of beating Mr Trump look even worse than her boss’s.