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Two Scenarios That Should Give Republicans Flop Sweat

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The first caucus and first primary results are in the books, and it has become abundantly clear that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican Party nominee. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley survived to the round of two and has enough campaign resources to get through March, but losing badly in her home state of South Carolina, and subsequently getting wiped out in Nevada and Florida doesn’t sound like a solid path forward. Haley might try to hang around and pick off a state or two on Super Tuesday, but in all likelihood, going 0 for the first 5 is not the way to draw up a winning strategy.

Can Trump win? Absolutely. Is it likely he beats Joe Biden? Even with the current President wallowing in the mid-30s, the honest assessment is Trump’s negatives currently outweigh the positives with way too many suburbanites, independents and seniors.

That said, we may be witnessing a black swan-level event in real time as Joe Biden continues to suck as president on every perceivable measure. And it’s not just conservatives that believe Biden is the worst ever. The Messenger-Harris poll is just one of several that show Biden has hemorrhaged support with independents, with Trump now leading Biden by 11. The 81-year old president is also facing a growing problem within his own political tent – the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.

In Manassas, Virginia Tuesday night, the first semi-official re-election rally for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, when it was finally time for the President to speak, after suffering through remarks by Second Fella Doug Emhoff, First Doctor Lady, Dr. Jill Dr. Biden, Ed.D., and Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden began his 19-minute remarks with a nod to the not-governor, Terry McAuliffe, as the real governor of the Commonwealth.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre thinks it was a funny joke and was annoyed that people are reading into it that election denying is cool again so long as it’s Republican victories we’re talking about denying.

As far as the speech is concerned, it was typical disaster fare by Joe Biden – wandering, angry, incoherent, and delivered by someone who cannot read and speak without slurring his words and stumbling over the text in the teleprompter. His inaugural campaign stump speech was all that we’ve come to expect out of this administration. What wasn’t normal was the frequency and intensity of the protestors interrupting and heckling the president. No less than 13 times during his 19-minute remarks, pro-Hamas protestors jeered at the President, calling him “Genocide Joe” at one point. The crowd responded with “Four more years” chants to shout them down, but it kept happening over and over and over. At one point, you could hear one of these anti-Semitic nuts shouting, “How many kids have you killed today, Joe?” The irony of a question like that asked of Joe Biden at a campaign rally with a giant video screen behind him with the message Codify Roe was not lost on me. As a pro-life Republican, it was actually snicker-inducing to see the concern about the life of innocent kids at a rally to wipe out 500 pro-life laws all over the country and replace it with a national law to enable the taking of life of the unborn up to the point of delivery.

The constant heckling clearly rattled Biden. Another video captured a hot mic moment with one of the event’s organizers, lamenting that these protests were going to go on all night. The protests certainly rattled the Secret Service, who formed a human border wall on stage immediately after Biden finished his speech until everyone was safely out of the arena.

At Wednesday’s UAW speech, Biden didn’t fare any better. The protestors followed him there, too.

Biden does have a very real problem with a sizeable chunk of his base, and he doesn’t have much support with which he can lose and still beat Donald Trump in November. What cannot be overstated, however, is how a general election campaign will be framed by media, and to what effect that will have on the outcome. Bill Clinton’s campaign guru, James Carville, gave the game away yesterday on MSNBC with Ari Melber.

Trump could win, Carville predicts, if he’s treated like a normal candidate. Fortunately, media will never treat Donald Trump like a normal candidate. Here’s Joy Reid, also Wednesday night.

When you start a sentence with, “Like Trump, Hitler…”, there’s nothing normal that will ever form the predicate of the sentence. Normalcy will never be used to described the matchup between Trump and Biden.

So what could happen that should strike fear into the heart of every remaining Republican voter in the 48 remaining primary states? Here’s one Doomsday scenario.

By May, polling begins to show a rebound for Joe Biden and there is an inversion in the RealClearPolitics daily tracking poll of the head-to-head matchup between Trump and Biden. It actually got close to that inversion point on January 11th, by the way, with Trump’s lead over Biden shrinking to one point. It’s rebounded some since then, with a spread currently sitting at 3.8%. That daily tracking number will be watched by Democratic pols more than the stock market between now and May. But if the avalanche of negative media on Trump brings that margin to the point where Democrats feel Biden will pull the election out, especially with Trump still hurting with indies, they’ll ride Biden to the win. That would be bad.

You and I both know there’s almost a zero possibility Biden will survive in office at his current rate of decline through his full second term. The actuarial odds are we will see this country being run at some point by a President Kamala Harris. And she’d probably have a Democratic Congress behind her as the coattail effect of a Trump loss would cost Republicans the House of Representatives. Kamala Harris is Joe Biden without the age and experience. Kamala Harris is Hillary Clinton without the charm and self-awareness. Kamala Harris is Bernie Sanders without the moderation and rhetorical filter. That’s Doomsday scenario number one.

Doomsday scenario number two is by May, Joe Biden is losing outside the margin of error to Donald Trump, even after a couple months of attempted Jedi mind tricks and Hitler comparisons by the media. If panic sets in, the DNC convention in Chicago will be a wild affair. 1,895 out of the 3,788 pledged delegates are required to get the Democratic Party nomination. If Joe Biden gets pushed out and gives the Lyndon Baines Johnson “I will not seek, and I will not accept” speech, or if he becomes incapacitated, there’s no one in second place that would have the 1,895 delegates on the first ballot. Not Dean Phillips, not Marianne Williamson. There would be a second round with a bunch of new brand-new candidates appealing to the now-unbound delegates.

Conventional wisdom, pun intended, would dictate that Vice President Kamala Harris would be the natural repository for Biden’s delegates, especially if she is an incumbent following a resignation by Biden. But even as an incumbent, she wouldn’t have the delegates on the first round. It would have to go to a second round. That could get complicated if California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, or Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro get involved, but once you hit the second round, the superdelegates, all 744 of them, come into play. They’re not allowed to vote in the first round, but if Biden can’t go and his bound delegates are up for grabs, that second round becomes very, very interesting.

I’ve floated the theory that if Kamala Harris becomes the nominee, I’m not worried. I think Donald Trump actually has an easier shot of beating her than he does of beating Joe Biden. Governors Shapiro and Polis would definitely worry me as a matchup, but not as much as the Michelle Obama rumor that refuses to die. And I’m not the only one thinking about this option. Here’s Ted Cruz on his Verdict podcast.

Even legendary New York Post gossip columnist, Cindy Adams, thinks the ground is moving beneath the feet of the Democrats right now.

Reportedly, and I’m being told, “Obama has polled donors.”

Coming soon . . .

His plan? Around May, Biden announces he’s not running (even mentally). The so-called plot is that come the August convention, ­Michelle gets nominated.

Next step, Hunter’s father — the temp — drops out just before that convention.

For now, he still play-acts like he’s a real candidate.

Again, if the ripcord on Biden is pulled, I don’t worry about any other potential matchup with Donald Trump. A matchup with Michelle Obama terrifies me. That outcome would probably end up being the most lopsided electoral victory in my lifetime, maybe with the exception of Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984. And with an Obama rout, Republicans would not only lose the House and Senate, they’d lose governorships and state legislative seats all over the country.

Michelle Obama wouldn’t have to raise money, she wouldn’t have to run a primary campaign, and she wouldn’t even have to debate Donald Trump. She could just say Trump is beneath her, she’s not going to stoop to his level of rhetoric, that the country needs to reach higher. Media will coronate her. Could Nikki Haley beat Michelle Obama? Doubtful, but it would sure be a much more interesting campaign.

There are countless potential twists and turns ahead in the primary campaign, during the transition to the general election, including the conventions, and the post-Labor Day sprint to November. The U.S. life expectancy has dropped a bit over the last couple years, mostly thanks to COVID. The most recent data says that one day beyond 77.28 years, and you’re playing with house money. We’re speculating on all sorts of outcomes on two nominees who both are on the other side of that actuarial curve.

Normalcy, or a return to normalcy, was Joe Biden’s biggest selling point in 2020. He’s delivered exactly none of that. A return to normalcy may sound like a strong desire to a majority of the American electorate, but I’m not even sure that’s what either political side wants right now. The bases of both political parties want to electorally destroy the other side. The leaders of both political parties have openly said in speeches that their likely opponent is a threat to democracy itself. I don’t think James Carville has anything to worry about with the nominees being treated like normal candidates. We’re in for one of the rockiest political cycles we’ve ever seen.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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David Strom 11:20 AM | November 21, 2024
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