THIRTY THIRTY THIRTY FIVE MORE DAYS TO GO - UNTIL THE NEXT ELECTION.

 My apologies for being out of the loop for a while. I meant to come back to the blog sooner but the obligations of Life got in the way. With that in mind, let's talk about the 2024 presidential election.

As I post this we have only 35 days to go until November 5, 2024 - election day in the United States. This has been a journey full of negative campaign ads, primary ups and downs that took candidates by surprise, and even a change at the top of the ticket for one party. But we are here now. On the presidential side it is down to either the Mad Fuhrer of Mar-A-Lago (a/k/a.: former electoral vote winner Donny) for the repubs and current vice president Kamala Harris for the Democrats. Will probably be going into some of the details later on as we head closer to election day but, for now, I thought it would be a good idea to point out a few things as those readers in the U.S. navigate the final stretch of the election season.

First, while a lot of people may want to take the polls at face value it should be pointed out that former electoral vote winner Donny can still win this damn thing. The polls in the "swing States" where, thanks to the Electoral College, seem to be the only ones that matter in the eyes of the mainstream media, show The Mad Fuhrer and Kamala neck and neck - and those of Harris's lead being within the margin of error. While we are at a point in the race where election polls begin to matter, the most important one and the only one that really matters is the election itself. Because of this the polls should be taken with a grain of salt. A prime example why they should be taken as such is that on Election Day 2016 Donny had a reported approval rating of less than 20% yet still won the electoral vote ( Hillary Clinton still won the popular vote but, because the Electoral College, the popular vote doesn't really matter). Does this mean that Donny's guaranteed another victory? No of course not. I'm just saying we should be more careful and not jump to conclusions this close to election day.

It's at this point that we should probably look at another media framing that popped up briefly in the last few months. There were a couple media sources that compared vice president Harris to the last woman who ran for president, former first lady Hillary Clinton in 2016. Admittedly, the fact both are women is one thing that makes for easy comments among writers of political news think pieces. However, while there seem to be some similarities (such as an apparent lead in the polls leading up to election day) Harris and Clinton differ in enough ways to make this comparison not exactly and not entirely accurate. Both in the circumstances of how they entered the race and how they're approaching it so far. Again, this is a tight race and people are looking for easy comparisons. This one though is flawed at best.

From here let's take a look at the vice presidential candidates. Former electoral vote winner Donny's choice of OH Senator J.D. Vance seemed to be a pic that could be divisive as much as the media perception that it would help Donny. This was at a time when Joe Biden was still running for re-election and it was assumed that vice president Harris would still be Vance's rival. However, biting stepping down from the presidential race on July 21, 2024 changed things. His encouragement for the Democrats to support moving vice president Harris into being his successor created the change of enthusiasm and over time created the sharp turnaround for the Democratic Party's fortunes. Her choice of MN Gov. Tim Walz as a running mate took expectations sideways, especially when he managed to point out the weirdness among much of the Repub Party platform, and in Project 2025. This makes the vice presidential candidate debate tonight one that will pique curiosity for a lot of people. Though some people say the debate performance of these two shouldn't mean that much the fact is it's a possibility that any president could die before their term in office is up. With Donny's age and perceived health issues now on sharper focus after Biden leaving the race it shows there's definitely a chance that Vance could end up president before Donny's term would be up due to issues related to age, health, and a job that is extremely stress related. This adds gravity to the vice presidential debate that might not normally exist in another race or another time.

Then there's the Mad Fuhrer of Mar-A-Lago's increasingly angry and violent rhetoric during his rallies. Referring to immigrants and migrants as vermin he is stirring up more anger amongst his base to to view those who choose to come to this country (especially those of a different race) as less than human in the process. Add to this is repeated threats to prosecute and lock up his political opponents as well as him still claiming that the 2020 election was stolen and it seems that all the attempts to make Donny look less unhinged or even rational in comparison (a new term, sanewashing, has emerged in political press circles to describe this) are doing a disservice to the American people. Because of this, and the fact that you would almost definitely enact much of project 2025 if he gets in office again, he has proven that that under no circumstances should he get this job a second time.

That choice, however, up to the American people and the Electoral College. The fact that there are still undecided voters at the stage of the game leads one to wonder what exactly is going on but, to some degree, that's the case every election. While I won't tell people who to vote for a clear look between what Harris is proposing and the threats and authoritarian leanings being offered by Donny should make this an obvious choice.

We have 36 or so days to go. We'll see what goes down in those days and how it affects the election. Until then, pay attention to the issues attention to issues and be on the lookout for misinformation - there's a shit ton of it out there.

The Curious Continuing Case of Joe Biden and Whether He Should Keep Running For Re-election or Not

 It's July 2024 and it's been more or less two weeks since the first presidential debate of the 2024 race between current president Joe Biden and former electoral vote winner Donny. The earliest debate ever for an American presidential race, it was also one that found Biden struggling both with a reported cold and having to both answer questions wow doing the sole job of fact checking his predecessor while Donny seemed to pile on the gish gallop and refusing to answer one question. In the wake of a bad debate performance there been a number of calls for President Biden to drop out oh and not seek a second term, thus leaving the race open to someone these people feel can handle the task of a battle with the former electoral vote winner and keep him from returning to office in November.

Personally, I'm not sure whether Biden should drop out of the race or not. Yes he did bad and was struggling early on but he did pick up more as the debate continued. I was intending this to be a straightforward post commenting on the debate itself but since we seem to be unable to avoid this issue it's clear that it needs to be discussed.

First let's address the debate itself. It's an unavoidable fact that President Biden faltered here. Some reports since claimed by an even admitted to trying to stay awake under the debate stage as a result of international travel. Add to this the early explanation that he had a cold and some of this appears to make sense. However, President Biden needed to bring the energy he had during the State of Union Address a few months earlier to this debate, which he unfortunately didn't.

This wasn't a win for the other side though. Former electoral vote winner Donny veered quickly to his talking points projecting racism, and projection that early on actually seemed to turn some debate watchers off. This was an instance where he needed to give the illusion that he was a nice person somehow managed to get Biden a minor bump in the polls afterwards (though this has reportedly reversed itself since).

That's still doesn't stop the party insiders, consultants, pundits and others who are now calling for Biden to step down. Motivated by a growing fear that keeping Biden in the race will tank any chance of keeping Donny from winning in November they're hoping that pulling out before the convention would still give them time to make up the gap. I understand this concern (I'm worried as well) but there are a couple of things we need to take into consideration when looking at the possibility of President Biden dropping out the race.

WHO WOULD REPLACE HIM?

With the election only four months away any decision by Joe Biden to leave the Presidential race brings about the question of who would replace him.

The seemingly obvious answer would be vice president Kamala Harris as a way of keeping at least part of the ticket consistent. However, there are reports that power brokers in the Democratic Party are overlooking Harris as a possibility for the Oval Office despite four years being one heartbeat away. A couple of other names have been mentioned but from what I understand none of the reported potential Biden replacements are well known enough nor have enough money to fully fund a race against the Mad Fuhrer of Mar-A-Lago at this point in the game. Most of them or else are saying publicly that they're standing behind Biden for now.

In addition, a recent poll finds that, of the people thrown about to supposedly replace Biden such as Michigan Governor Whitmer and California governor Newsome to name two examples, only his running mate vice president Kamala Harris seems the poll better than the Mad Fuhrer of Mar-A-Lago.

While I have some issues with Kamala Harris I realized that choosing her to step up if Joe Biden decided to drop out of the race might not be as problematic having somebody completely knew the race step out and run for the highest office in the land either starting at the convention itself or just before the convention would.

WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST TIME EITHER A PRESIDENTIAL OR VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DROPPED OUT OF THE RACE?

With the talk about weather Joe Biden should drop out or of a brokered convention for the Democrats One needs to remember that it was kind of done before.

In 1972 the Democrats appointed Tom Eagleton to be George McGovern's running mate for the presidency. A short time later it was revealed that Eagleton had previously receiving electric shock therapy for depression at Barnes Hospital in St Louis. The news from that caused Eagleton to be dropped from the vice presidency consideration to be replaced by Sergeant Shriver. Thought the circumstances weren't exactly like they are now they were similar enough to have a similar reaction in the mind of public. In the November 1972 presidential election the government was trounced by Nixon in landslide, winning 49 of the 50 states.

In hindsight, Nixon's victory would be a short lived as Fallout from the growing Watergate investigations would lead to a number of convictions amongst his staff and several key resignations, including vice president Spiro Agnew in 1973. Nixon himself, facing an overwhelming possibility of impeachment as well as possible criminal charges in regards to his possible role in Watergate, would resign in early August 1974 leading to your presidency of Gerald R Ford and vice president Nelson Rockefeller (the only time in American history when both the President and Vice President were neither elected but appointed by Congress). With the current Supreme Court giving former electoral vote winner Donny immunity for "official acts" (though leaving the door open as to what counts as an official or an unofficial act) it's extremely unlikely that if Donny gets a second term he would face that level of accountability with his own party being willing to support everything he does and an opposition party you might be facing prosecution for political reasons under project 2025 and the power it would give him.

AS THINGS ARE NOW.

As I finish this piece Biden has said that he's in it for the long haul. While several key Democratic allies are siding with them for now there's still the incentive beating the media that Biden is too old and may not have what it takes to Donny this November. There may be a possibility this is true but it overlooks that Biden has advisors and a team to help him through this. It also seems to forget that this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if they keep banging on the drum saying that Biden needs to go and that the Democrats will automatically lose in November otherwise.

Yes, Joe Biden will be 86 years old at the end of the second term if re-elected. There are no guarantees that he will survive another term. But there are no guarantees that any present will survive one term in office, much less two. Even if a leader is in perfect health there is always the risk of assassination while in office or even death by something unforeseen like a plane crash. A food line of continuity is supposedly what having a good vice president is for (at least if one believes Dubya's former Vice President Dick Cheney. Others have different on that). That should also be considered when it comes to the issue of whether Biden can hack out a second term or not

In other words, it doesn't have to be this way. If the Coupublicans could make Donny electable in 2016 despite his playing footsie with white supremacists on social media in the hot mic Access Hollywood moment where he discussed grabbing women "by the pussy" apparently without consent, little if any reason why the Democrats can't make Joe Biden electable this year

SHOULD BIDEN DROP OUT?

As I said earlier I'm still not certain whether Biden should stay in the presidential race or not. However. The best made by Biden and his family, not by Consultants are pundits who may be hedging their best regardless of the election results. I also concur with comedian John Fugelsang the decision should be made until after former electoral the winner Donny names his VP candidate.

Should Biden and company have prepared for this possibility? Yes. Does running around acting like all is lost if Biden stays in do anything constructive? Not really. Whatever happens - it's important to note that project 2025 and the current GOP platform (which, according to some, seems to embrace a lot of Project 2025 in it) is far more pressing and far more of a threat than weather the top of the Democratic ticket is Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or somebody else.

I don't know who's going to win in November. Neither do you right now. What is important and necessary is to let people know how horrible project 2025 is and it's important that the party and leader it would give power to, while stripping rights away from the rest of us, needs not just merely to be defeated but has to go down in flames like the Hindenburg.

Right now that's what needs to be done regardless of who gets the Democratic nomination. Now let's take a deep breath, remember that, and get the word out.