RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/9/biden-fails-crisis-management-in-hawaii-desantis-s/

One legitimate measurement of the readiness and capability of a candidate to be president is how he or she responds to a crisis.

In a moment of crisis, the core of human beings is on display. Some people wither; others shine. Either way, it is always a peek into the foundation of the person — his or her value system.

We had two examples of this recently, as both President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had the opportunity to respond to crises, in the wake of the devastating fire on Maui and Hurricane Idalia, respectively.

How did they do?

Unfortunately, the president embarrassed himself. While the fires were burning, Mr. Biden remained on the beach and in the beach house of a wealthy donor; he could not even manage an encouraging or sympathetic comment or two to the Maui survivors. When he finally did get around to visiting Hawaii, he compared the fires — which destroyed an entire community and may have killed more than 100 people — to a small kitchen fire he once experienced.

It will not surprise you to learn that the president has managed, in the retelling, to turn that kitchen fire into an inferno that almost killed his wife and his cat, and destroyed his 1967 Corvette. The president wasn’t clear about which loss would have been the greater personal tragedy.

He did this while talking to survivors who, in many instances, were and are certain that their loved ones are dead among the ashes.

https://themessenger.com/opinion/the-presidential-election-narrative-is-changing-with-likely-consequences-for-fundraising

There has been a huge change in the race for president, and it has more to do with elite opinions about the outcome of the race than it does with the actual numbers.

While there has been a marginal improvement in Donald Trump’s position vis-à-vis Joe Biden, largely due to Biden’s low ratings both for job performance and for his handling of the economy, Biden is also plagued by an increasing number of Democrats who are lukewarm to his position atop the party’s ticket.

Indeed, due to Biden’s age and an increasing perception of corruption involving his son Hunter Biden — who we learned this week is likely to be indicted on gun charges before the end of the month — Biden’s vulnerabilities as a candidate are rapidly piling up.

The reason this is important, is that with a spate of polls, including recent national polling by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, showing that Trump’s ratings as president (52% approve, 44% disapprove) are close to 10-points higher than Biden’s contemporaneous ratings (44% approve, 54% disapprove), political analysts are starting to realize that what happened in 2016 could well repeat itself in 2020: That is, an upset victory for Donald Trump.

To be sure, for the last six to nine months — both before and after the former president’s four indictments — the narrative among elites had been pretty much as follows: Trump is damaged goods due to his indictments; he can’t focus on a campaign; swing voters, suburbanites, and women will not vote for Trump; his focus on 2020 will just detract from hopes for a better future, and the GOP must do everything they can to find a stronger nominee.

Meanwhile, the data continues to show Trump with roughly a 40-point lead over his closest primary opponent, a 1-point lead over Biden in SCR’s recent polling, as well as a considerable advantage over Biden in the aforementioned retrospective versus current approval rating of the two administrations.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-joe-biden-really-running-again/

Will President Joe Biden be on the ballot in the presidential election of 2024? It’s a question that Biden seemed to answer four months ago when he announced, in an online video, that he would be running for re-election next year. ‘Let’s finish this job,’ he said. ‘Because I know we can.’ 

Three-quarters of Americans say they’re ‘seriously concerned’ about Biden’s mental and physical competence to do the job

Team Biden must have hoped that, after making that announcement, the doubts surrounding his bid for re-election would go away. As the polls increasingly show Donald Trump cruising towards a re-nomination for the Republican ticket, America appears then to be heading – grimly, inevitably – towards a repeat of 2020. Trump vs Biden 2024: this time it’s more depressing. 

But the concerns about Joe Biden’s fitness for office now, let alone another four years, have never gone away. In fact, they’re intensifying again. 

He’s an unpopular president: his approval ratings have remained stuck around 40 per cent, though it’s worth noting Obama’s were not much better. The Biden administration like nothing more than to talk up his economic accomplishments – record jobs! Manufacturing boom! – yet the public doesn’t agree. Some 60 per cent of Americans now say that Biden’s policies have made the country worse off. The number of people who think America is on the ‘right track’ under his leadership is currently less than 25 per cent. 

Democrats can and will find comfort in telling themselves that Biden beat Trump in 2020 and, with the added advantages of incumbency, he can do it in 2024. America isn’t really going to vote for Donald Trump again, is it? 

General Election Polls (CNN)
Trump (R) 47, Biden (D) 46

Biden (D) 47, DeSantis (R) 47

Biden (D) 46, Ramaswamy (R) 45

Haley (R) 49, Biden (D) 43

Biden vs. Pence, Scott, Christie

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.