RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2023/09/06/debating-a-democrat-n1724669

Colorado has a popular Democratic governor, Jared Polis.  

He’s a rare Democrat who says, “I’m for more freedom and lower taxes.”But is he really?

At least he’s willing to come to Stossel TV to debate.

Refreshingly, Polis supports charter schools. He even founded two. Unfortunately, his state’s school choice program only applies to government schools. Florida, Arizona, Utah, Indiana, West Virginia, Iowa and Arkansas now help parents send their kids to any school.

When I tell Polis that Colorado lags, he responds, “I’m not a fan of these voucher programs with no accountability where it can be Joe’s Taco Shop and K-8 academy and they’re getting taxpayer money.”

But it’s not true that independent schools have “no accountability.” They are accountable to parents, which is better than being “accountable” to sleepy government bureaucrats.

His state also launched universal preschool. But why? Even the much-praised Head Start program doesn’t help kids. A federal study found that by third grade, there was no difference between those who attend Head Start and those who don’t.

“Why fund something that makes no difference?” I ask.

Polis responds: “High-quality early childhood education leads to better outcomes.”

It probably would. But rarely does government offer “high quality.”  

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/09/05/the-gop-is-in-danger-of-becoming-the-pac-12-of-political-parties-n1724628

How long will the Grand Old Party (GOP) be grand? Or even a party?

EXCERPT

As I monitor the GOP in-fighting now that primary debates have begun, my sense of foreboding is something new.

Republicans fight a lot. That’s usually a feature, not a bug. We aren’t a hive mind like the Democrats, although that does seem like it would be more functional on occasion. It’s just not in our electoral DNA.

The looming problem for the GOP heading into 2024 is that the dysfunctional, non-hive mind family has degenerated into bitterly partisan tribalism. I mean, it’s ugly out there. I’m the product of a lifetime of dysfunctional holiday dinner fights; if I say it’s ugly, it’s ugly.

The hardcore Trump supporters — I call them Escalator Magas — are very problematic. They’ve decided that Trump is a god, not a politician. I’ve been on record for ages saying that the hero worship of politicians is a lib thing, not a conservative thing. Politicians are our employees, not our gurus or heroes. America functions best when the electorate understands that.

I have praised Trump’s presidency for years, but that doesn’t matter to the Escalator crowd. One can’t offer even the mildest criticism of Trump without the Truth Social hordes launching into a collective diaper-soiling. It’s tedious.

It’s even worse if one dares say ANYTHING positive about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Should you even accidentally do so, it’s like every banshee in the history of Celtic lore begins keening in unison. I wrote a Morning Briefing last week that praised DeSantis’s actions in Florida after Hurricane Idalia and now I’ve got an email stalker who wants to make sure I know every low-t bad nickname he’s come up with for the governor.

The Escalator approach is to convince everyone in the GOP to abandon primary support for any candidate who isn’t Trump. They’ve decided that the best way to do this is to be as unhinged as possible and alienate the people they want to win over. I’ve written many times that I don’t buy into the argument that Trump can’t win the general election. His hardcore fans have now convinced me that they will do everything in their power to drive away people who might consider voting for him, but aren’t interested in joining a cult.

It doesn’t matter how many disclaimers I write, I’ve learned that no Escalator MAGA can understand this sentence: I will enthusiastically vote for Trump if he is the nominee.

On the other side of the GOP divide are the people who are trying to make a rational case for DeSantis. At first glance, it would seem to be an easy case to make. The polling thus far would indicate that they aren’t making it well. That’s because it’s difficult to do when trying to woo voters who have actually convinced themselves that the most anti-federal establishment American politician in a generation is a Bush guy and a member of the Swamp. DeSantis was a conservative rock star during COVID and the Trump crowd has completely rewritten the story to concoct an alt-reality.

One they all now believe.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/donald-trump-and-the-coming-ordeal

A Wall Street Journal national poll over the Labor Day weekend has shaken some observers’ views of the 2024 Republican presidential campaign. The bottom line: It’s no longer a two-man race between former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Trump has pulled so far ahead and DeSantis has fallen so far behind that it is now inaccurate to characterize the two as locked in a head-to-head battle.

The numbers: Trump was the choice of 59% of poll respondents, while DeSantis was the choice of 13%. After DeSantis came former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 8% and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 5%.

In an earlier Wall Street Journal poll, in April, Trump led DeSantis 48 to 24 — a 24-point lead. Now, it’s 59 to 13 — a 46-point lead. “What was once a two-man race for the nomination has collapsed into a lopsided contest in which Trump, for now, has no formidable challenger,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.

There are no foreseeable events in the next few months that will change that dynamic. That means the possible game changers come next year, at two times. One is when voting starts with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. The other is when the first of Trump’s many criminal trials begins, possibly on March 4.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-iron-grip-on-his-party-trump-evangelicals-hunter-investigations-62c1cb3?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

From the moment Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, his critics on the left have bewailed the overwhelming support he receives from evangelical Christians. How could those who claim to esteem traditional moral values—monogamy chief among them—support a profane libertine like Mr. Trump? The implicit charge was that socially conservative Christians cared more about political ends than about moral values. But the charge was specious. Their political ends were perfectly consistent with the values they purported to hold, even if the agent through whom they sought to promote those values (Mr. Trump) didn’t exhibit them. And anyway I’m not sure what choice socially conservative religious voters had on Election Day in 2016. Were they supposed to vote for Hillary Clinton?

The idea that lust for power explains evangelical support for Mr. Trump is one form of a larger accusation leveled by liberals and progressives against Republicans in the Trump era. Every time a Republican praised the 45th president, it was an indication of the party’s “fealty” or “near-total fealty” or “total fealty” to the president. And every time a Republican candidate took Mr. Trump’s view on a subject, it was an instance of the president’s “grip” or “iron grip” or “death grip” on the GOP.

I gladly concede that many Republican candidates and officeholders aligned themselves in unseemly ways with Mr. Trump. Some sang his praises as president despite having scorned him as a candidate. Others took up his crotchets as their own—voter fraud, trade deficits—having never complained about those things before. And many—though far from all—remained silent about his erratic, frequently childish and vulgar personal behavior. Still, some form of “fealty” by Republicans to a sitting Republican president is unavoidable, and it was hardly surprising that the head of his party had a “grip” on it.

Whatever may be said about the GOP’s solicitous attitude to Mr. Trump during the years of his presidency, it compares favorably with the left’s omertà in the face of President Biden’s obvious mental infirmity, incompetence and what appears to be a history of self-enrichment.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/bidens-age-economic-worries-endanger-re-election-in-2024-wsj-poll-finds-67a7bba8?mod=hp_lead_pos3

Voters overwhelmingly think President Biden is too old to run for re-election and give him low marks for handling the economy and other issues important to their vote, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that offers a stark warning to the 80-year-old incumbent ahead of the 2024 contest. 

The negative views of Biden’s age and performance in office help explain why only 39% of voters hold a favorable view of the president. In a separate question, some 42% said they approve of how he is handling his job, well below the 57% who disapprove.

And Biden is tied with former President Donald Trump in a potential rematch of the 2020 election, with each holding 46% support in a head-to-head test.

The Journal survey, while pointing to a large set of challenges Biden faces in persuading voters that he deserves re-election, also finds weaknesses in his likely opponent. Voters in the survey rated Trump as less honest and likable than Biden, and a majority viewed Trump’s actions after his 2020 election loss as an illegal effort to stop Congress from declaring Biden the proper winner.

The economyInflation and rising costsSecuring the borderImproving infrastructureDealing with ChinaCreating jobsWar in Ukraine0%10203040506070

“Voters are looking for change, and neither of the leading candidates is the change that they’re looking for,” said Democratic pollster Michael Bocian, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. 

Although the candidates are only three years apart, 73% of voters said they feel Biden is too old to seek a second term, compared with 47% of voters who said the same of the 77-year-old Trump. Two-thirds of Democrats said Biden was too old to run again. 

By an 11-point margin, more voters see Trump rather than Biden as having a record of accomplishments as president—some 40% said Biden has such a record, while 51% said so of Trump.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/us-consumers-crush-bidens-reelection-hopes

Summer is over. Kids are heading back to school, workers are heading back to their jobs, and the 2024 campaign is heating up. Joe Biden is touting “Bidenomics” to voters, boasting of job gains and, finally, some rise in real income.

But Americans, who have been spending like crazy on vacations, eating out and travel, may be about to rain on Joe’s parade. Consumers are stretched financially, having financed their summer holidays and post-pandemic spending by saving less and borrowing more – not a sustainable trend. People have been willing to pile up debt because jobs have been plentiful and they’ve not worried about a sudden loss of income. That appears to be changing.

Plunging consumer confidence, rising debt delinquencies and a weakening jobs market suggest that the party could soon come to an end, with the economy hitting an unexpected rough patch as we approach election season.  

Given that the Real Clear Average of polls on the president’s handling of the economy today shows only 38% approving and 58% disapproving, a downturn could clobber his reelection hopes.

A recession is not the consensus forecast. Despite aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, the economy has remained resilient, mainly thanks to unexpectedly robust hiring.   

But now the jobs market is clearly sputtering, albeit from a frantic pace.  In August employers added 187,000 jobs, far below the monthly average of 271,000 over the past year. While job gains have plummeted, reported additions for recent months have been revised sharply downward. Also, wage gains slowed last month. That is what the Federal Reserve has been hoping to achieve through its aggressive interest rate hikes. The question is, will hiring slow or turn into layoffs? 

Employers across the country have defied prognosticators for months by continuing to add or keep workers even as corporate profits turned down. Companies had struggled to increase staff after the pandemic shutdowns, and were taking no chances of again facing a shortage of labor.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/08/31/rfk-jr-still-pushing-20-in-dem-primary-polling-despite-constant-attacks-censorship-smears-n1723508

Biden 60% Kennedy 19% Williamson 10%

A recent poll conducted by Big Village CARAVAN assessing Democrat Party voter preferences in June 2023 found that the Brandon entity is sitting at 60.3%, RFK Jr. is at 19%, and Marianne Williamson is at 9.7%. “Someone else” gets 10.9%.

This means that just about 40% of his own party’s voters actively oppose the re-nomination of Joseph Brandon and endorse other candidates — nearly unheard of for a sitting president. And this is without any debates and with the entire corporate state media in his corner.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ron-desantis-hurricane-idalia-florida-a4ec7f61?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Ron DeSantis spent Thursday visiting rural Florida counties hit by Hurricane Idalia, and during his morning news update the Governor was in command of the details. “As of 6 a.m. today,” he said, “there are approximately 146,000 power outages reported across the state,” but thousands of borrowed linemen were at work, and 420,000 accounts had already been restored.

As of the night before, Mr. DeSantis said, authorities had done about 40 successful rescues. “All state bridges, including the Cedar Key Bridge, have been cleared, and that happened within 12 hours of landfall,” he added. Schools? “Thirty of the 52 districts that closed during the storm are open today, and an additional eight will be open tomorrow.” Fuel, water, tarps? “All that stuff we have an abundance of, and we’ll be providing that as needed.”

The driving winds in Florida’s Big Bend region were enough to rip off roofs and topple a gas-station canopy. Yet worse appears to have been avoided because Idalia hit mostly rural areas, after a forecast of its path that Mr. DeSantis called “pretty doggone accurate.” The contrast is with Hurricane Ian last year, which was predicted to hit the Big Bend but veered into Fort Myers and killed about 150 Americans.

Mr. DeSantis received high marks for his handling of that disaster, in particular after the state Transportation Department made swift emergency repairs to two bridges the storm damaged, stranding thousands of residents.

Hurricane Idalia cleanup isn’t over, and perhaps there will be hiccups. But if there aren’t, we’ll know it by what we don’t read in the national press. The Governor will get no credit for success.

This seems to be Mr. DeSantis in his element, examining the figures, the emergency response plans, the Covid-19 statistics, and then synthesizing it into government policy. Everyone knows an introvert like this, and the flip side of the personality type is that Mr. DeSantis, now a 2024 presidential candidate, has proved less than adept at making small talk with Iowans.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/08/30/what_if_biden_backs_out_of_the_race_149692.html

President Biden has declared he’s running for a second term, but it’s far from certain he actually will. His infirmity and low poll numbers raise serious doubts. His physical decline shows when he walks or climbs the stairs of Air Force One. His cognitive decline shows when he refuses to hold press conferences or answer even the simplest questions, like how he feels about the devastating fires in Maui. His decline in the public’s estimation shows when pollsters ask Americans how they’re doing. Four out of five answer, “Not good. Not good at all.”

Voters also say they don’t want another general election choice like the last one. So many votes in 2020 were negative ones “against the worse candidate,” not in favor of the better one. They don’t want another grudge match between two unpopular candidates.

Biden’s dismal poll numbers form a somber backdrop for his reelection campaign. That backdrop is even darker now that his health problems are so visible. These mounting problems may not prevent him from running, but they do lessen the chances. True, he keeps saying he is running. But, like all politicians, he may be deceiving the public or himself. The biggest “tell” is that Biden is avoiding the very things active candidates do. He’s not campaigning. He’s not attending a lot of small events with big donors. He’s not running ads. He’s not using the White House’s bully pulpit to address the nation on our challenges and his response to them.

Still, those signs are not definitive. Biden might be lying low because the Republicans are fighting among themselves. Why get in their way? Better to wait until late autumn to ramp up his campaign.

He might be unsure if he really is running, uncertain if he is up to the arduous task, physically and mentally.

Or he might have already decided, privately, that he will not run but is delaying the announcement since it would immediately turn him into a powerless lame duck.