Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[The_Doctor]

China Collapse. Did you take inspiration from Thom Hartmann, who predicts financial problems for China in his book, "The Crash of 2016"?

Nope, I didn't. I read a couple of articles about the Chinese crash. I should look into that book.

[The_Doctor]

This is very good TD. I haven't finished it all yet but most of it (I just started a couple days ago). Keep up the good work!

(ftr there were a few mistakes - eg, VA holds no state senate elections in 2017 besides those special election(s). They do that every 4 years - next time is 2019, and New Mexico Democrats already took back the state house this cycle)

Thank you! And sorry about the errors lol.

[The_Doctor]

Yeah, this is easily the best TL in rotation at the moment. Do you intend on going into the presidency of the individual who succeeds Pence or are you going to stop after election night 2024?

Depends on the public interest. And thank you!

[The_Doctor]

Budget Resolution in Sight; Democrats Back Down for “National Unity” as GOP “compromises”

(Late January 2022) -- (Washington. D.C).  In a string of late night discussions, Congressional Republican and Democratic leaders hammered out a deal that ended the three month government shutdown. The White House hailed the deal as “an end to our national crisis” and the President urged Congress to swiftly pass it.

House and Senate Democratic leaders said that despite their reservations, they would agree to a compromise that would lighten some of the harsh restrictions that the states were expected to enact as part of budget relief. Gone was capping the top marginal state tax rate at 3%, and requirements that debt be paid down every year, while some tax reforms and pension reforms requirements remained. Senate House and GOP leaders, in turn, admitted their membership had decided to back down, with an eye to the November calendar.

The President announced the deal in the East Room of the White House, flanked by the Congressional leadership. Announcing the deal, he hailed it as an “end to the gridlock” and “a new era of cooperation” between Democrats and Republicans. Later, the House passed the deal 404-30 and the Senate passed it 91-6.  

State leaders were more ambivalent, arguing the requirements were still onerous and would not help the long term fiscal picture of their states and was a “short term bailout.” As the economy slid into recession, and state budgets looked even more ominous for 2022, many leaders were calling for Congress to prepare for another round of bailouts.

The President’s approval rating, down to a miserable 30% with 61% disapproving, was causing anxiety among GOP leaders facing the fall midterms.

[The_Doctor]

So far my timeline isn't doing so bad against whats actually happening. This is interesting.

I'll be pretty happy if I nail 65-70% of events, which is what I'm aiming for.

[The_Doctor]

Bernie "Barry Goldwater" Sanders' Long Game

March 2022 -- (Burlington, Vermont) Bernie Sanders was, in many ways, an unlikely heir to the lineage of William J. Bryan and Barry M. Goldwater. The socialist Senator hailed to the great New Deal Democratic agenda of FDR - a strain of liberalism not present in national politics since Carter left the White House. But in a strange way, his populist brand of socialism was looking like it could merge with the future economic trajectory of the United States, post-crisis.

When Carter left the White House, the idea of an expansive government promising extensive aid to help the working class and being a source of economic growth was derided as part of the failed New Deal Democratic economics that had powered the country between 1932 and 1980. Populist movements sprung up and down but the Reaganite neoliberalism dominated the country’s politics from 1980 to 2021. Every President from Reagan to Michael Pence had embraced a version of neoliberalism as the country’s governing economic ideology. 

The economic crisis of 2008 had brought the anti-globalization discontents to the front and gave a platform to the anti-globalist left (think Sanders) and Right (think Buchanan). The country’s increasing frustration with the failure of neoliberalism had given a platform to men like Bernie Sanders, who had won Michigan’s Democratic primaries. And of course, Donald J. Trump had won the Presidency on that basis. Few remembered the anti-WTO protests of the 2000s (or the protests around China becoming a Most Favored Nation in 2000, for that matter) or the Buchanan protest against President George H.W. Bush. These discontented blue collar voters had long railed against what they viewed as multinational corporations taking away their livelihoods and leaving them impoverished.

The years after the 2016 election showed how strong the grip of neoliberalism was, though. And how, one might argue, essential to the current paradigm it was. Major corporations relied on chains of supply that were global to deliver cheap goods to their customers - and these supply chains were often in China, Mexico, or India. President Trump’s economic nationalism ran headlong into the prevailing neoliberal establishment and never recovered. The Republican strategy to neoliberalism had been to limit immigration and to hope for a tighter labor market to grow wages (and by extension, the economy) and to challenge low wage countries like China to shape up. They had renegotiated trade deals to be a little more friendly to the American worker in the hopes that it would spur economic growth. And to an extent it did. Had there been no major automation trend, this strategy might have worked.

But the reality was that automation was replacing offshoring as the next great trend of globalization. Factory jobs were being lost more and more to automation, not Mexico or China getting these jobs. As computers and technology advanced, they were replacing menial tasks. For example, self-driving trucks, while not on the roads, were increasingly moving from a fictitious to a realistic prospect. The Democrats had woke up to this reality after their loss to Donald Trump (although it was vastly less quick than they had hoped for but still very much present).

Enter Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign of universal college education, a higher minimum wage to recoup some of the rewards from major corporations, universal healthcare coverage, and regulating Wall Street to finance Main Street. A lot of this would have been foolhardy in the 1980s; but it made some economic sense to the 2020s and 2030s.  However, all of these made sense for developed nations that had the economic resources to reconfigure their economies and resource allocations to serve their middle and working classes, who faced the biggest threats from automation. To encourage economic growth to speed up, the middle and working class also needed help with healthcare and education coverage, ergo, the Sanders’ platform was increasingly sounding like a viable path forward in the 2020s.

On climate change, Bernie Sanders’ unbridled support for a carbon tax and aggressive climate change posture was vastly more aggressive than Hillary Clinton in 2016 and now as climate change became a pressing issue in the upcoming elections of 2024, the Bernie Sanders posture looked very much like the Democratic Party’s posture. With the country and the world finally recognizing global warming as a threat (unlike the 1980s), the Sanders position seemed far more pragmatic than if Carter had promoted it.

The weak Democratic Left that had been vigorous in its defense in the 1980s had been slowly growing stronger as the neoliberal hegemony weakened and showed cracks. The movement had been smothered under Clinton, halted by Obama, but finally was finding its voice and growing into a position of power within the Democratic Party that hadn't been seen in generations.

Left unresolved for the Democratic Party, as the Republicans imploded under Pence, was how they would handle globalization. For all intents and purposes, globalization was a trend that could not be reversed without great damage and risk. The essential question for the Democratic Party was to how to balance their ascendant populism with the global economy. That would be a question left to the next Democratic Presidency.
 
Unlike Goldwater, the old Vermonter was an avid ideologue who sought to incorporate his views into the Democratic Party via friendly takeover rather than the hostile 1964 nomination capture and simmering civil war that exploded in 1976. Start with his campaign; he had done it to shift the party to the left and then embraced Hillary Clinton, campaigning for her fulsomely. When Trump won, he shifted into the position of the loyal opposition and fought a quiet battle to redefine the Democratic Party.

Sanders constantly dominated social media, the news, and kept tabs on the up and coming Democrats in the Party that would be in a position to advance his agenda. He was closely involved in the 2018 and 2020 elections, campaigning for Democrats up and down the ticket (and building political capital) and influencing primaries to help more liberal candidates to prevail over their more moderate colleagues.  His intervention on behalf of Senator Sherrod Brown had helped him clinch the nomination over the more moderate Governor Andrew Cuomo - a pointed intervention that allowed him to put a new imprimatur on the Democratic Party.

Bernie had one grand goal: realignment. By which he did not mean a political realignment but an economic realignment powered by the Democratic Party. He intended for the Democratic Party to be in a position, when it returned to power, to cement itself as the party of the working class and to institute a new set of economic institutions to empower that working and middle class. He himself would never become President, but Bernie simply wanted to end the neoliberal consensus that had dominated the political conversation and to reorient the government towards an updated New Deal that created economic prosperity.

Like Goldwater and Bryan, his ideas would be under fire for his time. And like them, they wouldn’t be adopted in their original form. Roosevelt and Reagan had adapted and modified the platforms set forth by Bryan and Goldwater to fit their times (for example, Reagan never took an axe to Medicare as Goldwater might have wanted. And Roosevelt never touched the gold standard officially as Bryan wanted and went beyond Bryan’s vision in many areas). But Bernie’s ideas would be the nucleus for the Democratic Party’s platform going into the 2022 and 2024 elections.

And now with the crisis forcing an economic recession, as the Republican Party splintered and imploding, the great debate that was coming into center stage was the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination and the direction the Democratic Party would take. Would the neoliberals win one last time? Or would Bernie Sanders finally find the Ronald Reagan that would inaugurate a new revolution? Or would there be a third combination?

44 years after Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory, which had been 48 years after Franklin Roosevelt’s own, the country was moving into pole position for another change. The 47th Presidency of the United States was coming into view. And what that change would be anyone’s guess, but if Bernie had his way, it would be a revolution.

[The_Doctor]

Wouldn't Bernie Sanders be 83 by that point?  He would be older  than Reagan was when he took office by more than a decade.  I mean he's older than my dad by a couple of months.

He's only going to serve a single term, if that.  His age will catch up to him.  Which makes it imperative that we know who his running-mate is.

It won't be Bernie. Bernie's kind of the Moses of this story.

[The_Doctor]

Note: I’m waiting on a few articles from Ted, God of the West. So I decided to talk a bit about the coalitions. This is a bit of a 2030s talk actually, which borders on insane, ridiculous, and whatnot, but why the heck not? This is a “the GOP’s route back to power in 2036” type deal. If I’m wrong, go complain to me in 2032-2036.

As the great Teddy White once remarked, wave elections overwhelm everything, and then when they recede, they leave new patterns in their wake. Since 2024 will feature the break up and reconfiguration of two great coalitions, this is my guess how it all looks in 2036. (Yes, the Democrats will have 3 terms of the White House in this timeline).

I’m well aware that this is a bit jarring to the liberals who are wealthy wine track Democrats, to think that in 20 years they might be voting Republican and working class Republicans might find it jarring in 20 years that they might be voting Democratic. At this point, we’re just seeing faint hints that could go either way.  This is worth a debate, some feedback is welcome.

The election of 2024 will - given its importance - will have 50 state results. So you can ponder this article with that one.

Democrats Becoming Party of South (+Southwest) while GOP Adopts “Northern Strategy”

April 2022 -- (Austin, Texas) As the parties deal with the crisis, laying underneath the fault lines was a changing geographic alignment that would have surprised anyone who had watched the 2000s and the 2010s. The Republicans were slowly adopting the “Northern Strategy” while the Democratic strength was moving steadily southwards, to the New South and the Sunbelt, with a possible assist from the Midwest. While the Southern states, rural areas of the Midwest, and the Interior West still held sway in the GOP, their grip was lessening (the GOP had foreshadowed their Northern realignment by nominating a Massachusetts Governor and a New York City businessman in the 2010s). Meanwhile, the Democrats had come close to winning Arizona and Georgia in 2016.

To be sure, the faint hints were clear in 2022 for the GOP and the DNC, alike. The Democratic Party, in 2022, still ruled on the coastal areas and Illinois. The Reaganite coalition still centered itself in the South, the Interior West, and the Midwest. And it would take a few more Presidential elections to shake out the coming coalitions and their geographic situations.

President Pence had carried Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, and cut Rhode Island’s Democratic margin further still from 2016. (Rhode Island was (52-43% Democratic in 2020). There was an inkling that northern whites were breaking for the Republican Party and as the GOP slowly moved away from divisive social issues they were finding common ground with economic issues. Analysts had noted that the trends began in 2016 and were accelerating in 2020. It was anyone’s guess if the Crisis would stop that in its tracks or if it would resume post-Crisis. What stopped the Northern strategy from being an effective reality was that the social conservative and populist nationalists moorings of the Republican Party stopped rich urban voters from switching allegiances. That, yet, could change in the future.

The Democrats were demonstrating strength in the minority heavy-South and Southwest, meaning the stretch of states from Virginia to California were slowly moving (or were already) in the Democratic camp. Either Sherrod Brown or Clinton had carried these states or come close to, demonstrating the growing power of the Latino and African American bloc (and in California, the Asian bloc). In 2024, the Democrats were poised to marry the old Democratic strongholds of the 2000s and the 2010s with the new South and Sunbelt, but after that, who knew?

The coalitions were slowly resorting themselves into a historical pattern in a sense. The Democrats were coming home to their Jeffersonian-Jacksonian lineage with the Bernie Sanders wing dominance - the working class great Democratic majorities of the first half of the 19th century and the 20th century. This Democratic majority could be rooted in the Sunbelt and married to working class voters of all races, rather than the wine track Democrats that had had considerable influence in the party since 1992.  Think of the border counties of Texas voting Democratic and then aligning with predominantly working class counties in the state to make Texas as as Democratic state.

The GOP was lagging behind but thoughtful analysts noted that the Northern Strategy would be more effective if wealthy urban voters no longer had to contend with the GOP’s social conservatism rooted in the South and the Interior West. Like Bill Clinton capturing New England liberals, by allowing them to vote their liberal conscience for a “New Democrat,” the GOP could run a candidate who would give urban voters permission to break from the Democratic Party. Particularly, liberal upper scale voters who could vote GOP without dealing with the social baggage. Counties like the rich collar counties in Illinois who had voted Democratic because of their horror at the GOP’s social baggage could go back to voting GOP, under a new configuration. Think of the counties around Philadelphia resuming their Republican loyalties and voting GOP, aligning with richer counties out in West Pennsylvania, to deliver the state to the GOP.

Some things would stay constant, in a sense. The Democrats, by no means, would abandon being a multicultural party that was split between various races and were predominantly urban. They would carry Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, and the urban areas. The GOP, for that matter, would continue to be popular in rural counties, while the suburbs would be fought over. The difference, going forward, would be that the Democrats might be a little weaker in the great cities while the GOP ceded some working class rural voters to gain some strength in the suburbs and the cities. 

Time would tell if this would hold true or if the future would continue to surprise us.

[The_Doctor]

Ugh, a fundraising event I had to present at ran like an hour and a half later than I had planned for and I didn't have time to finish up. Things should be posted tomorrow, though

No worries, man. Thank you for this. Take your time.

[The_Doctor]

Looking forward to the 2022 election results!

By the way, the guy from the prologue who succeeds Pence, what are they up to right now?

You'll see in 2023.

[The_Doctor]

Thanks to Ted B, God of the West for his wonderful work on the midterms

[The_Doctor]

Notes: We are doing two articles a day. I've written everything but the last two articles and the Election Night 2024 shindig. This timeline will be finished probably next week (it began in November 2014).

Democrats Roar into Capitol Hill in 2023 and take levers of power

(January 2023) -- Washington. D.C. As January 2023 dawned, Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave way to Speaker Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ceded the majority leadership to Senate Majority Leader Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Democrats ended Election Night with 54 Senate Democrats and 241 House Democrats, with the GOP at 46 and 194 seats. Among the state, 32 states had Democratic governors with only 17 GOP governors. The GOP looked very much like a party that was clinging onto the White House but otherwise shut out of the government.

The new Republican House and Senate Minority Leaders were Steve Scalise (R-La.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.) Both McConnell and Ryan announced that they were leaving the GOP leadership and Ryan had in fact announced a retirement from Congress altogether in 2024. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had been knocked off in the 2022 wave.  Embattled Congressional Republicans prepared for life anew in the minority - in the House’s case, it hadn’t been since 2010 and the Senate, 2014. In the new majority, the Democrats had passed over Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) for Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). The first female Senate Majority Leader, Gillibrand was seen as a rising star who now led the Senate Democrats and the U.S. Senate.

The average House Democrat won from three types of districts. (1) The heavily Clinton - Brown districts, which numbered 205 in 2016 (Democrats won most of them) (2) The light Trump districts that were under 50% - another handful of districts (numbering 23-28 and Democrats won a bloc of this). (3) A handful of working class districts that voted for Trump and Pence that swung heavily to the Democrats in the midst of the crisis. (The Democrats won a bloc of these districts as well). 

In the Senate, Democrats had picked up five Midwestern seats, two Southern seats, and a Sunbelt seat to sit at 54 seats, compared to 46 for the Senate GOP. The 2024 map, of course, was the looming 2018 map that had seen the GOP net 4 extra seats.

Consequently, unlike the 2007 Democratic majority, which came from many Bush 43 friendly areas that had gone clearly Republican in 2004, this new Democratic majority was more friendly and had fewer conservative voters to answer for. Time would tell how they would govern.

President Pence welcomed the new Congress and urged “cooperation” and “compromise,” but increasingly was seen as an ineffective leader with a dubious 2024 future.

[The_Doctor]

Notes: We’re skipping ahead 12 months, then skipping back to cover the rest of the political events during 2023. We’re squaring away the Congressional battles.
Tone: Time Magazine Piece in December 2022

Democratic Congress and President Pence Lock Horns

December 2023 -- (Washington, D.C.) What had begun as a collegial attempt to work on a bipartisan basis quickly devolved into mudslinging and posturing, between the President and the newly sworn Democratic Congress. The Democratic majority wanted to posit themselves as the responsible party that would respond to the crisis and cast Pence as the failed President that they thought he was. Meanwhile, the White House wanted to look like it was actually doing something about the crisis but they were continually being thwarted by Congress. This set up a dual image of two branches picking out very different versions of reality. The President made himself out to be the dealmaker in chief, who would listen to Congress and govern on a bipartisan basis. Congress cast itself as sending Pence necessary bills that he should sign to create real relief for the public. As a consequence, neither side got anything done.

The session began collegially enough, as the Democrats sent the President a series of bills that the Republican majority hadn’t. They sent a revised bailout package, which Pence signed with some relief. The midterms had decisively decided who would win that argument and the President had little appetite for holding up a relief package that could continue to dog the Republicans in 2024. A number of Trump - era initiatives, such as the Muslim ban, was modified by Congressional statute. Again, the President signed it into law, eager to not repeat the stormy Trump years.

From there, however, things devolved. Congress sent the President a student loan initiative that would have helped the Federal Government assume some of the debt in order to help struggling students who were suffering in the middle of the crisis. The President vetoed. Congress tried to override, but didn’t succeed. Next, the Congress sent the President some small bore healthcare initiatives rolling back the worst of the Republican reforms to the Affordable Care Act. No dice, again. The President vetoed, and a war of words erupted. Republicans, aware of the weak hand they were playing, tried to cast themselves as the responsible guardian of the federal purse and argued they were open to reforms but not the ones the Democrats wanted. The Democrats cast the President and the Republican Party as “heartless” and wedded to the mega-rich.

All of the posturing was a setup for 2024. Everyone, but the President, that is. The crisis had winded the President and he was privately mulling not running for another term. He did not want to end his career facing a difficult election and being cast as the Herbert C. Hoover or Jimmy Carter of his generation and times.

Then Senator Rafael E. “Ted” Cruz started preparing for a run. And that changed everything.

[The_Doctor]

Pence is Gerald Ford and Cruz is Reagan (without the being President part)?

Ish. If Ford was an elected President in his own right. And Pence is plenty conservative, it's just conservatives are outraged by his attempt to broker a compromise and a middle road during the debt crisis. Ergo, Cruz. Cruz is well reputed to being ambitious and he'd be still the Senator from Texas and see an opening for himself in 2024 as the dark horse nominee or the runner up for 2028. Either way, win-win. (Or so he thinks).

[The_Doctor]

Notes: Election Night 2024 is tentatively scheduled for Friday, at 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. You'll get a steady stream of 2 articles per day and then we'll have the election night, then the inauguration of the new President over the weekend.

The Tax Cut of 2022 is a Failure

May 2023 -- (Washington, D.C.). President Pence had initiated a sizable tax cut to respond to the crisis of 2022, in a bid to stimulate the flagging economy. However, members of both sides of the aisle acknowledged that a year later, it was a failure. The tax cut had shrunk several brackets, and flattened out the tax rate. The top rate was at 30% and it moved millions of Americans off the income tax rolls entirely. The effort was designed to enact tax reform that built upon the 2017 efforts and to stimulate a recovery. But it had failed. Real GDP growth had barely budged upwards in 2022, going up only .5% and was going up at an anemic pace. Unemployment was at at 6.4% in the aftermath of the crisis.

The problem, as economists pointed out, was that nobody was getting a job during the recession that gripped the nation. The States had cut to the bone and Washington, stalemated as it was, wasn’t ready to come to the rescue with a stimulus package, as it had in 2008 and 2009. The Republicans were deeply suspicious of any bailout package. The Democrats wanted a stimulus package, but didn’t even remotely agree with the President on what to pass. So, on a party line vote, a tax cut was passed and enacted in order to stimulate the recovery. The tax cuts echoed what Hoover did in the worst of the crisis; enact more of the GOP’s orthodoxy to cure the crisis (in his case, Smoot-Hawley). Failing majorities tended to use their greatest hits to try to save the country from whatever was ailing it. And so, President Pence’s tax cut was the Reagan GOP’s version of it.

The failure of the tax cut hit at the soft underbelly of the Republican Party. That being that the white working class that the Republicans needed for their electoral majorities needed, in substantial numbers, an economy with jobs and an effective stream of government revenue to their pockets to survive - as doctors, lawyers, firefighters, police officers, contractors, and countless other professions. With the states cutting to the bones, they had no money and were the hardest hit of the downturn. Only Social Security remained untouched as the only revenue stream going to the working class and they helped mainly the elderly and the poor, not the vast bulk of working class Americans. Republicans in Washington had cut deeply into the federal budget, also compounding the damage.  

The economic slump was deep and pervasive, and while not on the order of the Great Depression, it was getting on the order of the Ford - Carter years that had seen the incumbent party thrown out.

[The_Doctor]

The Big Three Seeking the Democratic Presidential Nomination

July 2023 -- Washington, D.C. As Democratic Party activists gathered across the country to consider their options, they had a field of three leading clear candidates who would be seeking the presidency.

The first, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y), was a failed primary candidate for the Presidency in 2022 and who had sought (and won) a fourth full term as New York Governor. Governor Cuomo brought to the table the pragmatic liberal streak that had enabled him to win four term in New York. Embittered and yet emboldened by his 2020 loss, he believed he was a competitive candidate who would easily win the White House, fulfilling his father’s final mission of becoming President of the United States. Cuomo had positioned himself starting in 2016 and was not about to let a 2020 loss stop him.

Sen. Cory Anthony Booker (D-N.J) was an ambitious African American Senator from New Jersey who was a (to put it kindly) a vocal and hard to miss figure on the camera. A liberal from New Jersey in his own right, he campaigned in the same political space as Governor Cuomo. Booker was seen as strong on civil rights and attractive to the African American bloc in the Democratic Party and urban voters, as a former Mayor.

The last was the two term Governor Richard Cordray (D-Ohio), the former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who had become Ohio Governor. Eking out a 51-48% margin, he had won re-election by 57-41%. Despite battling a Republican legislature, the governor had operated as a populist liberal with a long track record of populist liberalism.

The Democratic Party was now in a period of transition, after facing two electoral losses and having just recaptured Congress. Liberal activists were deeply wary of the challenge of electing a President and then facing Republican obstruction who would try to convert their resistance to winning the midterms. The activists had a tall order: a President who would not only win but who would be able to keep Congress during his Presidency and pass a real progressive agenda.

A variety of other Democrats, eyeing the White House in 2024, would also run. But these would be the Big Three.

[The_Doctor]

Actually, the prologue is mistaken in two areas because when I first wrote it. Minor tweaks, actually. But at this point, I don't want to give away the 47th President's name. So don't assume it's not one of these big Three.  

Yeah, I sometimes need to plan better. And sometimes, I'm just evil in trying to leave my mistakes to keep you guessing.

(Sorry, for real. I have had 95% of the timeline planned out since November, but I've had to tweak it).

[The_Doctor]

Tone: Time Magazine Piece.

President Pence Faces Primary Challenge from Senator Cruz

August 2023 -- (Austin, Texas) Senator Ted Cruz, the runner up in 2016, is eyeing a bid for the Presidency against the incumbent Republican, Michael R. Pence. For that matter, the embattled President weighed a bid for a second term before deciding to run. But weakened by the 2021-2022 crisis, President Pence is looking like a President who could face a serious challenge from the Right. Enter the dynamic young Senator from Texas, Edward Rafael Cruz. At age 54, compared to the 65 year old Mike Pence, the senator saw an opening to challenge the Republican incumbent.

Senator Cruz, for months, has been eyeing the challenge to Pence, in the hopes of ousting him and taking on the Democratic candidate to reprise the 2016 campaign once more - or being a runner up to win the nomination in 2028. Aides to the Texas Senator said he would be focusing on a Presidential campaign to define “conservatism for the next generation.” Having won a 2018 midterm 55-43%, Senator Cruz found himself positioned as the guardian of the conservative movement, after Donald Trump. For months, he had been visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, testing liners that challenged Pence’s “weak spine” and the “great sellout of 2022.”

Meanwhile, according to White House aides, President Pence was reluctantly pushed into the 2024 Presidential race. With the toughest race of his political life ahead of him, the President agreed to run again for the sake of maintaining the Republican coalition and to try to pull off one last win. Gone was the youthful exuberance that had marked the happy warrior; the last three years had vastly aged the President. The aging President saw the challenge from Cruz as a dangerous sign for the Right and a possible ditch for the conservative movement were Cruz to actually win the nomination. Still, a tough election campaign loomed, with the President having a 29% approval rating and just 61% approval among Republicans.

The President announced for re-election in August 2023, and Senator Ted Cruz quickly followed up in September 2023. The White House prepared for a brutal primary struggle, casting itself as the guardian of responsible Republican values. Senator Cruz, for his part, viewed himself as the Great Conservative Defender of the Faith.

Time would tell who would win out the hearts of the GOP electorate.

[The_Doctor]

As for justices, either Ginsberg retired as did Thomas. I am not going to get into the Supreme Court too much because I have a standing belief that the Supreme Court is a majoritarian institution; e.g, when the country shifts left, the Justices will do the same thing appropriately. But yes, it's a very conservative Court right now.

It's a 6-3 conservative Court.

01. John G. Roberts (chief justice) (Conservative)
02. Diane Sykes (Associate Justice) (Conservative) (Replacing Scalia)
03. Stephen Breyer (Associate Justice) (Liberal)
04. Samuel Alito (Associate Justice) (Conservative)
05. Elena Kagan (Liberal)
06. Sonia Sotomayor (Liberal)
07. Neil Gorsuch (Conservative) (Replacing Kennedy)
08. Thomas Hardiman (Conservative) (Replacing Thomas)
09. William Pryor (Conservative) (Replacing Ginsburg)

[The_Doctor]

Last PSA. (Read the Cruz v. Pence article above).

If you want ANY topics written about, post here or PM me. I'll try to squeeze it in. You have until Thursday night, because Friday night is election night. 

[The_Doctor]

Interesting. Ben Sasse, the Last Best Lieutenant of the Conservative Idiot Brigade has targetted Cordray. Props to you TD for doing an awesome job so far!

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/97607116/?client=safari

This is why I think he runs for Ohio Governor. .

[The_Doctor]

Last PSA. (Read the Cruz v. Pence article above).

If you want ANY topics written about, post here or PM me. I'll try to squeeze it in. You have until Thursday night, because Friday night is election night.  

Just curious, but what's going on w/ our former Presidents? Are Carter/Bush 41 approaching 100 or have grim events occurred? What're Clinton (I'm curious about *both* Clintons actually), Bush 43, & Obama up to as well? And as for Trump, I just presume he's been staying out of the spotlight post-resignation (the same as what he was doing as of Inauguration 2021)?

EDIT: If possible, Veeps as well, please. Mondale, Quayle, Gore, Cheney, Biden? What's up w/ Uncle Joe & the gang (minus Bush 41 & Pence, of course, b/c Bush 41 was already counted as a President & Pence is busy w/ being the incumbent President & all)??

I assume both Bush and Carter have peacefully passed (hopefully, they are still alive, but they are 92 and they would be nearing 100 now). The Clintons are still around and kicking but they're in their 70s and the Democratic Party has kind of stopped being their property. They are elder statesfolk helping the younger generation but they aren't dominating the news.

Bush 43 is just around, and being a former President. There's not much to say because the GOP has kinda rejected him, kinda respects him as a former president. The Bushes are kind of in a weird place, being GOP royalty but also rejected. 

Obama is featured in the 2024 Democratic Convention, playing the role of Wilson had he lived. He and Bernie are very much godfathers to the new progressive left. He's a popular ex-President who is definitely involved behind the scenes to inaugurate the long dreamt of Democratic majority. He has scores to settle with the GOP that undermined much of his Presidency. We just don't hear about it. You can safely assume Obama campaigned for candidates in '18 and '22 but avoided a lot of overt criticism of the Pence White House. He definitely said stuff when Trump faced impeachment and definitely was involved in that behind the scenes.

Trump has taken the gigantic hint of rejection and impeachment and sulked all the way back to New York and periodically tweets but at age 78, 79, he at this point knows he's a failed President and while he chatters with his people and talks to Pence in secret, Trump is a non-factor in politics. He has fallen and bigly. The trump clan has also taken the hint and stayed out of public life. Donald Trump would like to be rehabilitated but with Pence imploding, Trump Tower is increasingly gloomy. Roger Stone is ticked, Bannon is eternally depressed, blah blah blah. The nationalists are angry about Pence. Trump kvetches and praises Pence at various points in private. This group of people are stunned at how all it turned out and how badly they bungled it. And now that Pence isn't rehabbing their legacy, they're trying to grapple with the consequences of Trump being a failed President.

Mondale is barely around. He's 96 years old, a former Vice President. Quayle is still not being recognized at airports and various places. Gore is a celebrity, albeit an aging one. Global warming is still his thing, he still speaks out. Cheney is immortal because of his soul being a horcrux. He comments, he tends to Liz Cheney's Wyoming career, he putters around, he makes noises and talks to the White House occasionally.

Uncle Joe Biden is still very active in Democratic politics and cancer research. In fact, the Democratic Party will be likely taking a road traveled by Joe Biden to attract populism. In many ways, the '24 elections will vindicate Biden's retail populism over Obama's intellectual technocracy, as '20 did. Expect Joe to be very happy in 2025. Joe Biden is the unsung hero of this saga.

[The_Doctor]

I was wondering if you can do a article on Asian Voters, or each of the Minority Groups.


Also I was wondering about Mitt Romney, John Mccain.......



I find it funny that Paul Ryan was succeeded by Tim Ryan..... They are both Ryans.

I will cover the minority groups in the 2024 election round up.

Mittens Romney is still around, talking but less visible. McCain retired after the 2022 midterms. He's 86, he doesn't say much anymore. He's not happy about the GOP's trajectory and hasn't been since Trump was President.

[The_Doctor]

Note: Since Flying Spenstar demonstrated visible enthusiasm for the identity of the 47th President, I’m going to feel bad if I don’t simulate some primary coverage. So here we are. Excellent guilt tripping rhetoric, Flying Spenstar (I’m kidding. I’m pleased that people are this enthusiastic).

Today we'll wrap up primaries, tomorrow Convention and the GE, then Friday night, Election Night. Tomorrow may see 4 articles to just wrap up everything.

Cruz and Pence Struggle while Cordray Holds Lead in Democratic Primaries

March 2024 -- (Detroit, Michigan). Governor Richard Cordray is leading the nomination struggle for the Democratic Party while President Pence and Senator Cruz are locked in a battle for the GOP nod (with the President having an edge). As the Super Tuesday primaries wind down, here’s a look back.

Governor Cordray campaigned as a populist progressive, in the model of Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders. Relying on a grassroots movement that powered him to the nomination, Cordray utilized a new way of campaigning that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders had built in 2016.  The Democratic nominee barely spent on TV ads, preferring to plow his money into digital, reality, and social media.  

In many ways, Cordray was a successful establishmentarian Sanders. An accomplished populist liberal, he had won statewide office in Ohio twice and clerked for conservative justices in Washington, and then led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, before becoming Governor of Ohio. His populist credentials were clear and so were his establishment credentials. Sanders had paved the way for someone like Cordray to rise and so here we are.

Cordray did not shrink from his progressive ideology in the primaries. He campaigned, unabashedly, as a populist economics-oriented Democrat. The usual suspects from 2016 - student loan debt, reforming the tax code to be less friendly to the top 1%, fighting Wall Street and deregulation, universal college tuition, universal healthcare via single payer (through Medicare for all), and reforming law enforcement agencies around the couantry - were among the core of the Democratic agenda that Cordray pledged to advance if he were elected President. And on trade, he cut a median path, promising to uphold free trade deals as long as they didn’t hurt working class voters.

As far as the crisis went, Governor Cordray hammered the GOP handling of the crisis of 2021. He linked it to the GOP’s failure to meet and address pressing needs that the country had and decried the polarization that become so intense that the Republicans were unable to come together with the Democrats to bail out states that were functionally insolvent.  He pointed to the President’s inability to unite the country and vowed he would be that uniter who would bring the country behind a progressive agenda.  Governor Cuomo and Senator Booker largely echoed this critique and agreed with Governor Cordray about what to do; but they argued that they, not the Governor of Ohio, was best suited to handle the crisis.

Cordray had been shaped, invariably, by his time in Washington. As Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and later as Governor of a Rust Belt state, he had gained the critical policy education to talk credibly as a Democrat to the working class that were interested in his message. Like both Governors Roosevelt, his education at the state and agency level now proved invaluable as he reached for the highest rung in political power.

The campaign had their own app, of course. They had their own Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and their own virtual reality headspace. Gone were the days where you had to attend the rallies in person; now you could just simply watch the rally in 3D.  Likewise, you could interact with other volunteers in 3D and talk to them to help coordinate for the campaign. As a result of this technology, the small donations war was won by Cordray, who gained the kind of $5, $10, and $20 dollar donations and a loyal grassroots following that had been the hallmark of winning Democratic campaigns in 2008 and the successful GOP campaign of 2016.  

In this fashion, Cordray won Iowa and powered past Cuomo’s money machine. Mario’s heir was once again running as a pragmatist center-left Democrat who wanted to build high speed rail and the like. Very much an Obama liberal in the 2020s, Cuomo wound up being the conservative in the race. Like all the Democrats, he favored a blank check to the affected states in the debt crisis. Like all the Democrats, he favored universal college and restoring the Affordable Care Act. His donations were largely from New York industry and businesses on Wall Street. In a sense, he tried to campaign as a better populist but in the end, he couldn’t beat the progressive grassroots that had taken over the Democratic Party.

By the end of the Super Tuesday primaries, Cordray had replicated the Bernie primary states and added Texas, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Missouri, while ceding Maine and Vermont to the Governor.  At the beginning of April, Cordray held a lead for the Democratic nomination among delegates but Governor Cuomo had not dropped out, banking on New York’s and the Northeast’s Democratic primaries.

On the GOP side,  President Pence won Iowa narrowly, holding a Midwestern home region advantage. In New Hampshire, Senator Cruz lost by just 53-46%, and then in South Carolina, won 55-43%. But in a string of Republican primaries in March, the President turned back the challenger, winning a delegate lead by the end of March. After the shaky start, the President looked poised to take the GOP nomination again for the 2024 elections.

The nomination struggle had been especially bitter, given the Senator’s challenge to the President at a time where the GOP was weakened. The Senator had criticized the President’s conservative bonafides and cast himself as the true believer who would have held steady during the crisis, rankling many in the White House. The mild mannered affable Pence turned street fighter (much as he did in 2020) to turn back the challenge and the Senator was lambasted for being a political opportunist, not getting along with many of his colleagues, and so on. The bad blood between the two had become so intense by the end of March that some speculated Cruz would run third party to split the vote.

Only time would tell.

[The_Doctor]

Notes: Second article wrapping up the GOP fight after this. Then four articles after this talking about Convention and the General Election, with Election Night tomorrow.

Ohio Governor Richard Cordray Democratic Nominee for President

April 2024 -- (Columbus Ohio) Governor Richard Cordray (D-Ohio) has emerged as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He dispatched Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), who conceded after the April primaries failed to go to him (with the exception of New York). Senator Booker had dropped out in February, after failing to gain traction in the early states.

The Democratic nominee-in-waiting now turns to taking on the Republicans and tapping a Vice President. At the top of his list? Secretary Julian Castro (D-Texas), a former HUD Secretary. The potential Ohio-Texas ticket were situated in two states Trump and Pence carried; and now they would be the states that could be at the heart of the comeback. Others include Governor Tyler Olson (D-Ia.), Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). A senior Washington law firm was already beginning to vet the potential Vice Presidential candidates.

The ticket would be constituted on the basis of - according to Democratic insiders - balancing contrasting wings of the Party. FDR - a New York liberal - had John Nance Gardner, a Texas establishmentarian Democrat. John Kennedy - a Northeastern Massachusetts liberal - had Lyndon Johnson, a more populist Texas Democrat (again). Barack Obama was a Midwestern African American liberal who had been complemented by the blue collar Scranton native named Joe Biden. The only name on the list that didn’t fit this formula was Iowa Gov. Tyler Olson (D), who would be a doubling down on what Cordray was.

The Democratic nominee-in-waiting was quickly endorsed by all the wings of the Democratic Party as the Party fell in line behind him. Senate Majority Leader Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Speaker Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and the rest of the Congressional Leadership endorsed Governor Cordray a day after the nomination was clinched. Governor Cuomo and Senator Booker also endorsed the Governor.

Anxious Republicans watched the Democrats unite around their cheery and optimistic nominee, with his tousled blond hair and boyish good looks, and then looked with despair to their weary and white haired President locked in a struggle with Senator Ted Cruz.