Self-obsessed Democrats will struggle to defeat incumbent Trump
The President of the United States has swapped swamps. Goodbye DC. Hello, Whitehall, Buckingham Palace, Normandy, complete with cheers, taunts, cold shoulders, warm greetings, “small protests”, acerbic tweets and (phew) no private meeting with dud Theresa May. Ever up to speed with global events, he encourages her “to stick around”. Too late, Donald! And, who exactly IS Michael Gove?
Good moment to catch up on what’s happening in re-election campaign 2020, back home in Washington DC. You know, the campaign that in early 2016 President Donald Trump was predicted never to fight, let alone win.
Gloating time for your presumptuous columnist. (Sticks out tongue). Told you so. It’s all here: A Moderate Defence of Donald Trump, Reaction 22nd July 2016 – penned at huge personal risk by yours truly, from the crucible of the Cleveland Republican Convention no less, as, only yards away, a protestor had the cheek to – set fire to his trousers!
Mind you, the piece was a bit of a two-way bet cop-out. Mimsy headline, Moderate, says it all. But I got roasted at dinner parties in the UK and east coast USA for even suggesting The Donald was in with a shout. Well, to parody Ronald Reagan in his 1980 Jimmy Carter debate: “Here I go again”.
Cue bien pensants tropes of the time. He would never last anyway. “Blah, blah, blah” went the establishment, threatened by the disruptive Trump and gob smacked by that surprise election victory. The Donald would implode; he would be judged insane and sidelined; certainly be impeached; maybe throw a hissy fit and stump back to Trump Tower; be rescued by his fellow aliens, who realised it had been fun while it lasted – but a great mistake. Best just re-programme Jared Kushner and see what happens next.
Whatever, the idea that he would be running in 2020 with a pretty good chance of being re-elected was then cloud cuckoo land.
Like him or loath him – I don’t like him particularly, but nor do I fall into the comfort trap of thinking he is straight from the pages of a Stephen King novel – here’s his first innings score.
The US economy is rolling along with solid growth of 3.1% in the first quarter of 2019. Personal income increased 0.5% in April. Ah, say detractors, but growth is patchy. No, it isn’t. In 2018 GDP increased across 49 states of the union and the District of Columbia. In only one did the needle stick on zero, Delaware.
The seemingly intransigent trend of static income figures stretching back years has been reversed, averaging 4.5% growth across all states in 2018. And that’s on top of a 4.4% increase the previous year.
On the economy, stupid, a real problem for the Democrats is that their claim Trump reforms touch only a gilded few is simply wrong. The more they bang on about it – and they do – the more people, whose incomes are rising, know they are lying.
President Trump has not embroiled the country in foreign wars. In the Middle East, shamefully ignored by Barack Obama, Israel and neighbouring countries are slowly combining their forces against Hezbollah. Trade wars blow hot, but mostly end cold. Maybe China will prove an exception, but not yet.
Democrats are currently fielding a klatch of 23 (check against delivery) candidates. To hedge their bets many of them are also thinking of standing as leader of the UK Tory party. Well, ….. maybe not. But they might as well be, for all the support they are garnering.
Already golden hopefuls are losing their glitter; like Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Senator. “Kirstin Gillibrand’s Failure to Launch” was a recent Politico – a widely followed current affairs web site – cover story.
There will be others. Booker, Bullock, Inslee, Moulton, Swalwell are five picked at random I’ve never heard of. They will be out of the race before you can say “James Cleverly”. But meantime they muddy the crowded waters.
In DC I pulled up my coat collar and slunk discreetly into The Capitol Hill Club, Washington’s Republican equivalent of London’s Tory Carlton Club, to chat with a friend (source, so anonymous I’m afraid) who plays a leading role in the Trump campaign.
He’s a campaigning nuts and bolts guy and made a number of straightforward points. This campaign has started a full nine months earlier than any other. The machinery in critical states to get the vote out is already being constructed.
Campaign finance is flowing into the coffers. Astonishingly, 90% of donations are under $100. The Trump core, those Hillary despicables, are shelling out en masse to get their man back into the White House.
The “get the vote out” operation is firing up, the personnel are in place, the campaign dynamos are humming.
Key states to be defended have been identified and territories narrowly lost last time, like New Mexico, Nevada, Minnesota and New Hampshire are all in the crosshairs.
There is a defensible record. “The Administration has dismantled all the Obama legacy except for Obamacare. It’s a huge achievement”. Easy to say, but is my guy right?
Permission for personal anecdote about deregulation. Yesterday I, along with a half dozen or so mutual fund Independent Trustees, visited the Securities and Exchange Commission, at their invitation, to discuss what regulations might be changed to ease the burden on mutual funds, not least, reduce admin costs.
PR exercise, surely? To my astonishment Dalia Blass, Director, led the SEC team. I’d expected to be hosted by a senior official – there are 4001 of them, for heaven’s sake – but not to have an hour of the Director’s time. From the start she made it crystal clear that her mandate from SEC commissioners and Chairman, Jay Clayton, was to forget deregulatory window dressing and deliver practical results – or else.
My Republican Party friend nodded. “Good to hear, but I’m not surprised. It’s true across the board, agriculture, energy, technology”.
On the organisational front, President Trump has used his time in office to make the Republican Party the fiefdom beyond Candidate Trump’s reach. This far out in the 2016 campaign he was an interloper. The July 2016 convention in Cleveland was in the enemy-held territory of Governor John Kasich. Former Governor Kasich is now reduced to sitting in a lonely corner of his Golf Club dining room, insisting on being served by the Executive Chef.
Can the Democrats get it together? My source: “The real test will be who they chose. If they pick Biden it means the professionals are in charge and they can mount a campaign. If they pick, say Bernie (Sanders), the machine will simply not crank into gear.”
There is a proxy contest going on over impeachment on the Hill, with Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to calm down hotheads and set up a Congressional Inquiry instead. That would keep Trump’s Russian involvement on the boil, but not risk the unpopularity of an impeachment process.
My prediction is that the Democrats will refuse the leash – any leash. They are self-obsessed, playing to their various vocal minorities. Biden, as far ahead in support and funding as Hillary was at this time in the 2016 cycle, will stumble – or fumble – along the way and they will pick a candidate who might have sections of the convention cheering, but strike the public as unelectable.
“But Donald Trump was unelectable”, I hear you say. Yes, but he’s the incumbent now and challengers have to plot a path towards the White House he already occupies. That’s a different task. Final word from my guy: “When uncommitted voters picture Bernie Sanders behind the White House desk, what will they do? Trump’s already behind the desk.”