Yeah, which red side figured out a couple years ago and worked to get him out of the way.

Obama was a generational charismatic talent, a real outlier. I remember watching him give his 2004 DNC speech and was just blown away. But even then I didn't think he had much of a chance to win 2008. His ascendancy is not a fair or realistic bar to measure others by.

To use a tired sports analogy, it's a big unfair to ask every starting QB to go 5000/50 in their first starting year like Mahomes. It's ok for Josh Allen to have pedestrian 1st and 2nd seasons before becoming what he is or Tua to look lost for a couple of years.

I think Whitmer's Q rating is really low right now across the country. What's the national story on her? That she got screamed at by Q folks during mask lockdowns? Newsom's is better but it's still a bit low for being the California governor but I do think he's one of the best, even though he's only been in office one term.

To the others, I'm trying to figure out Warnock. I think he's a gifted politician who won against all odds in 2020. And may do so again this year. Does he have much ceiling left or is he good where he is? Same with Fetterman. I thought he had a real chance to go higher than Senate - will have to see how he recovers from the stroke. But, again, he's a prospect - not someone ready to take the next step yet.

But maybe I'm looking at this all wrong: get people in office before they have time to be targeted too much by the machine. But it means you get 1 chance to define the candidate on a national stage and, more often than not, they'll get defined by circumstances and being a political novice gets you eaten alive and your star falls (see: Beto).

SI

He may be more of a 2028 or 2032 candidate, but the most buzz I've heard from last night was around Wes Moore who won the MD governorship. First time running for elected office and apparently impressed a bunch of folks.

I feel like Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan SOS, may be the real rising star from Michigan. She is young, really well-spoken, born in Pittsburgh (PA swing state appeal), and a Harvard-educated JD. She did a good job dealing with the GOP shenanigans in 2020 and seems like she could be a governor and then move on to something bigger.

Mayor Pete won't go anywhere until he figures out how to appeal to the African-American vote.

However, I think tonight's results just increase the chance Biden does run again. If he was questioning it, the overperformance probably has emboldened him.

He needs to do his own reelection campaign and the party a favor by picking a different running mate.

The last time a President changed VP during a reelection was ... FDR?

He's not going to drop the first female POC VP ever.

I'm not saying he will but he should.

If Biden does lose in 2024 I could see him retiring a few days early and let Harris be the first female POC president.

Honestly, I would hope that Kamala does not agree to being a "token" first woman POC President. I wouldn't want to have that "asterisk" by my name forever in the history books.

They need someone the GOP hasn't been already targeting for 10 to 20 years. They need a fresh, lively face. Biden needs to walk off while he still can.

Yeah. The republican party is so toxic right now the dems should coast to any victory with a halfway decent candidate. It is amazing that person seemingly isn't out there. Mark Kelly maybe?

Mark Kelly is another good one.

Yeah, maybe that's what I lost in my math: someone Fox News and the hate ecosystem hasn't fixated on for years

That said, it means the candidate is a bit unvetted so you run a real risk of being defined by whatever dirt is dug up first.

SI

Eh, Fox (and Sinclair) can amplify shit pretty quickly. Even for Wes Moore they got together the attack of "HE LIED ABOUT BEING FROM BALTIMORE!" They'll find something for whoever emerges.

And if not they'll just make something up. He was born in Kenya I tellz ya.

I could see Kelly not wanting to put his wife through that. Imagine some of the cruel stuff they'll come up with about her.

Pritzker, Whitmer, and Shapiro should be the top picks in the party if Kelly is not interested.

I've been watching FoxNews this afternoon.

There's been 3 separate guests that have basically said DeSantis was the future. Republicans like Trump, appreciate what he's done etc. but they want normalcy, no drama, didn't like the baggage etc.

Trump said he'll announce mid-Nov. Wonder how long DeSantis will wait for his announcement.

Who I really want is Katie Porter. I don't think she has a chance, though.

My Chicago area relatives really like Pritzker

SI

As has been the case since he decided he was a Republican, the issue for Republicans is Trump feels like he gets to decide when the party moves on from him. What does normalcy look like for the Republican party if it is not blessed by Trump? Remember, DeSantis was blessed by Trump. In some ways, Trump is to Republincans what the Clintons have been to Democrats for years.

It is clear now that Trump can't run if Republicans want to win the White House. The question is will Trump allow DeSantis to run without having to remind everyone constantly that the only reason DeSantis is where he is today is because he rode Trump's coattails in 2018. I think DeSantis will be a strong candidate in 2024. I don't think his performance against Charlie Crist is as big of an indication of that strength as I hear national pundits say. Dr Oz would have beaten Crist last night if he was the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Florida.

Trump will be the nominee if he runs, he has completely held the party hostage. They had their chances to get rid of him and chose not to and now are stuck with him, likely until the day he dies.

In a normal situation, McConnell and others would sit down with someone and get them to do the right thing for the good of the party. This happens all the time as part of horse trading for running for certain offices. Likely these are conversations people are having (or trying to or about to have) with Biden. The problem here, of course, is that Trump does not care about anyone but himself. So the party is almost powerless to reason with Trump for their own intra-party "orderly transition." He will burn down the party before that happens.

Even if Trump is tried and convicted and can't run, he will do all he can to disenfranchise his voters to the point it will tank the Republicans.

Theoretically, by trump's own words, he's too old to be president. Not that what he says matters, but he's just too old, but...

Let's pretend that Mitch was somehow silver tongued enough to convince Trump that this was a good idea tonight. And I don't mean Trump said he wouldn't do it with his fingers crossed, but in his heart of hearts, he agreed with Mitch that it was a good idea and was all in. Tomorrow, Trump would wake up and be out there talking about how great it would be if he ran for President in 2024. Just like with any negotiation during his administration, it was like trying to nail Jello to a wall. It's hard to negotiate with someone who has both the attention span and impulse control of a kindergartner.

SI

From what I can tell by watching TV, the awful crime wave of October is no longer a problem.

He's fine. It's nice to have a Democratic Governor who isn't either a) a felon, b) beholden to the Chicago machine, or c) both, so Pritzker benefits from outstandingly low expectations.

The office of Illinois Governor is one of the weakest gubenatorial offices in the country, so there's not a lot he can influence. Power is mainly held by the Speaker of the House, who was Mike Madigan for like 40 years until he finally resigned in disgrace. It's going to take forever for the state government to dig out of all the holes Madigan put them into (financial & otherwise), not helped by the fact that almost all of them, both parties, are mainly in politics to grift.

But anyway, JB has distinguished himself by being willing to talk straight and tough and supporting a lot of good legislative and statutory causes. Whether that translates to national appeal is hard to say.


Tried & convicted & appeals exhausted by November 2024? Hard to believe that will happen on anything for which he is currently under investigation.

Yup. He has the resources & support to stall forever.

After nightly updates on the crisis at the border (usually B roll of desert played over Republican politicians spewing BS), last night I had to go to bed without any new news.

There's good evidence that GOP is moving away from him. He doesn't get to decide. No, it's not there yet but it is trending away from his special brand of "baggage, drama". The mid-terms show this.

I (think) I agree on the Clinton comparison. Clinton became much less relevant after the Dems found their next star in Obama. I'm thinking DeSantis is the frontrunner to be that next Obama.


Maybe. But what I've heard is DeSantis was able to win over the latino/hispanic votes (e.g. Miami-Dade) and doubt Dr. Oz could have done the same.


Honestly, its not that clear to me. I do think Trump could still win the White House assuming there is not a strong GOP alternative. Because I can't think of anyone else, I think DeSantis is that person right now. Some 2024 questions running around in my mind:

1) Will Trump run again - I think the odds are for it, he's a narcissist
2) Will DeSantis run - yes
3) Who wins in Trump vs DeSantis - debatable, but fair chance DeSantis can pull it off with the right donors & leadership support (e.g. tired of Trump)
4) Can DeSantis beat Biden - I'd bet on DeSantis and the presumed latino/hispanic support, contrast in age
5) Can Trump beat Biden - toss up but give slight edge to Trump. Biden's (normal aging) cognitive decline is apparent to me. Not saying he's not fit to be President now but he will be less fit each year. So is Trump's but his gets explained away or minimized because of all his other crap

My answers on those points:

1) Yes.
2) Not necessarily. As has been noted, he's young enough that he can afford to wait. Taking on Trump is risky. I've seen stories before the midterms saying that he's been telling donors he won't run if Trump does. That's not iron-clad of course and it could be nonsense, but I think it's far from foregone that he runs. Could go either way.
3) Debatable, as you say.
4) Probably DeSantis
5) I think Biden would win easily. Trump has been weakened. Unless inflation is still at current levels or worse which is extremely unlikely, Biden wins. Possibly in landslide fashion. Trump's baggage dwarfs Biden's cognitive decline.

I also think it's wise not to attach too much importance to the Florida results and then project them nationwide. Florida was an outlier, and probably not something you can generalize to the rest of the country. There are a lot of potential reasons for why it happened, we don't know what they are yet, and DeSantis just being superawesomeamirite is only one potential explanation.

I think a fair explanation is that Florida is a MAGA-crazy magnet at this point.

Yes, I can also see DeSantis biding his time till 2028 (surely Trump will be dead or invalid by then).

I can also see the calculus that if Trump runs and wins, will DeSantis want to wait till 2028 knowing the VP will be the presumptive GOP candidate?

Another scenario I thought of was Trump having DeSantis as VP and, therefore, heir apparent for 2028. I don't see DeSantis agreeing to this (e.g. wanting to live through the craziness).

There's probably some secret reach outs & internal polling going on right now about DeSantis vs Trump.

I can't imagine DeSantis not running now. Are his political fortunes ever going to be higher than they are right now? I mean, it's possible they could be better by 2028, but I'd bet against that.

Trump will say something like this-

“The 2020 election was full of fraud, and the result was stolen from me. In 2024 I’ll be on the ballot in all 50 states, join me to take back what is ours”

Unlimited fundraising opportunities and let the Republicans squirm knowing they can either endorse him if he’s a 3rd party spoiler.

The Florida GOP is probably the most efficient in the country, and the Florida Democratic party is a tire fire.

I heard on the radio today something like 300+K people have moved there since Covid started. Factor in the Cuban vote that skews overwhelmingly red and Florida will be a red state for the foreseeable future.

There's a new crop of Boomer retirees moving in every year.

I can tell you from my wife's family still in Florida and all of her high school FB friends, they are not just MAGA but on the cult side of crazy. I don't know how/why my wife would even want to scroll through it. My GA high school friends were enough to drive me off FB, but hers are on another level.

This. Look at who the D's put up for a candidate. Charlie Crist was a Jeb Bush appointee, became governor with the backing of you guessed it Donald Trump in 2006, lost to Rubio twice in 2010 once in the primary and again in the general, switched party because said tire fire and lost to Rick Scott, rode Obama's coattails to the House in 2016, before getting his ass handed to him by DeSantis this time.


And this. I would argue it is much closer to a state of anarchy with the ability to call on conservative talking points when needed. It is very much a leave me alone but make sure you put your foot on the neck of THOSE people sort of thing.


I don't think this is not the factor it once was. I would love to see some data but anecdotally it feels like senior citizens are entering the Florida market with less and less spending power than in the past. And that was before the pandemic. That is not to say that Boomers are not coming at all. It just seems like it is less than in the past. Like I said above, the red is more of the Don't Tread On Me variety than anything else.

I'll assume very low odds that a GOP House will play along. Wonder what options Joe has here.

Federal court strikes down Biden's student loan forgiveness program | CNN Politics

I'm pretty sure I saw during election coverage that 500,000 retirees moved to Florida since Covid hit. I could be remembering wrong though. I don't doubt that the new group has much less spending power than previous groups though. So many people retired earlier than they planned in 2020.

The law was always on dubious standing. Biden knew this and went ahead aways. That's why keep kept on changing the forgiveness program so that no one should have standing to sue.

Personally I think any taxpayer should have standing to sue on matters like this.

I mean, wouldn't that mean you can have standing to sue on any budget item? What if people sued on the defense spending amounts or any particular program they did not agree with.

I'm not really sure it was a "law" per se, but rather I thought it was a program they felt they could enact under the DOE or something.

Law was the wrong word.

But this is not simply disagreeing with the spending. This is questioning whether Biden has the authority to create this particular program.

And I think taxpayers should have standing in the case because the debt wiped away by the program now falls on the taxpayers to pay.

Not to mention that any government action should be subject to oversight to make sure they're acting within the law.

What about the tax breaks for the wealthy...we are getting stuck with the deficit that created. Can we sue on that? Every time we spend more than we have, the taxpayers take on that debt...so can we sue?

Seems like congress can get together and change the DOE budget to eliminate that if they don't like it, right? I just don't get why they suddenly have standing to sue over a program they don't like just because it adds to the debt.

I think you're missing one of my arguments, and that is Joe Biden is on dubious legal grounds in cancelling the student debt. This is not simply a matter of "not liking" a policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...texas-lawsuit/

So, not a lawyer, but this seems dubious:



He didn't even consider standing in ruling the case? Isn't that kindof important?

And, in what is a shock to no one, it's a case of FYGM. One of the plaintiffs in the case got $50K in PPP loan forgiveness:
Plaintiff in Biden Student Debt Lawsuit Had PPP Loan Forgiven

SI