Over the past 48 hours I have seen enormous amounts of hurt feelings over the Iowa result. I don’t really know why – I mean, come on: a white, Evangelical State. That is Trump’s meat and potatoes. There was little chance anyone was going to gain traction against Trump in that electorate. I was a bit surprised that DeSantis staked so much on it: he’s a much better fit for the New Hampshire electorate. But, nobody calls me up for campaign advice.
But a lot of DeSantis supporters are very upset about it all – and not just the Never Trump plants who were paid to go on social media to talk up DeSantis as a means of harming Trump. I’m talking about some sensible people. I can only assume they just invested too much emotion in their guy. Never do that: no matter what, they’re all politicians. All politicians are at least a little bit insane and they all hedge a bit even when they don’t outright lie. The people running for office are the merest tools – and sure I’d always like to have a perfectly made hammer to drive the nail in, but the nail must be driven and if all I’ve got is a wrench, I’m still going to pound away at it.
But it was also a pretty big result for Trump. True, the turnout was lower but the weather wasn’t just bad, it was downright awful. But Trump’s 51% was astounding and probably would have carried through in a high turnout. To compare, the 2016 winner got 27%, 2012 24%, 2008, 34%, 2000 40%. You generally don’t get close to a majority because the field is usually very crowded and so the votes are split up. Bottom line is that the GOP base is still solidly behind Trump. There isn’t much chance of anyone knocking him off – they’d have to win NH and SC to have a shot and polling in both States is favorable to Trump and likely to go more favorable now. Nutshell: it is highly likely that Trump is the 2024 nominee.
That the base is so solid for Trump is, I think, another reason for the anger – people were talking themselves into believing that the Orange Man, being Bad, was done for. When the results came in for Iowa that theory was proved wrong. But do keep something in mind: everyone who hates Trump (this is different from someone who might not want Trump for policy reasons) does so because the TV told them to. Tell them this and they will hotly deny it. Usually claiming they’ve hated Trump since he first became famous. But that is absurd: why in heck would you invest in hating a real estate tycoon/television personality? Nobody would do that. Nobody hated Trump before he came down that escalator. It has become for many a negative feedback loop: they took the Orange Man Bad position, have diligently sought arguments supporting the Orange Man being Bad and are absolutely shocked to find that for a lot of people, the Orange Man ain’t all that Bad.
Make no mistake about it, there was a drift away from Trump in 2022. I saw it. I talked with ardent Trumpsters. They were ready to move on. They were casting eyes at DeSantis as RDS went his most Trumpy in fighting woke ideology. But then the Mar a Lago raid happened and the GOP, on the whole, did not rise to Trump’s defense in what was clearly a politically-motivated prosecution. On the sly – and it could be seen – they, too, hoped that this would sink Trump. At that moment, I started saying that the only way to beat Trump would be to out-Trump him: in this case, it would require people to get up and loudly condemn the raid, condemn 2020 as a fraud and call for the pardon of all J6ers. That would show the Trump base that you’re serious…and failure to do that makes you a RINO/Commie traitor. And so it is happening.
Some are saying that the indictments, etc of Trump are 4D chess where the Democrats are hoping to make Trump a martyr and so get the GOP to nominate the guy they think they can beat. No. They’re not that smart. They are, in fact, enormously stupid. They are indicting Trump not as 4D chess but because the TV told them to. Yes, I know that the TV was told to say that by the DNC, but the actions of the DOJ and others are motivated by what the TV said. They consider indicting Trump a righteous act and they are certain everyone wants them to do so…after all, everyone on TV says that is what everyone wants. Maybe Trump will lose in November and the Democrats will luck out…but it is just as likely that they needed Trump as much as they needed a hole in their head.
Can Trump win? Sure. There’s a non-zero chance he wins big but don’t make any plans on that. Right now, given polling, he’s well positioned to get past 270 outside the margin of fraud. A lot of people are harping on suburbanites and Independents hating Trump. True, they do. But at least the Independents also hate Biden. Stepping away from the fraud that actually installed Biden, he did do better among Independents in 2020 than Hillary did in 2016 – but at that time he was still a mostly unknown quantity and the MSM pumped him up as kindly Uncle Joe who was going to end the stress of the Trump Era and let America just move forward…we were supposed to get the late 1990’s and this time without even so much as a blue dress to disturb the peace.
Didn’t get that, did we?
The MSM is still relentlessly covering for Biden but what the MSM can’t do is make us not see the price of gasoline and butter. Can’t spin the Afghan defeat into a win. Can’t make us think that Ukraine is going well. Can’t shake us from seeing that under Trump the middle east was largely peaceful while under Biden it has exploded. Sure, the MSM will never talk about the border crisis…but it is a crisis and via non-traditional media, people are seeing it…and the GOP sending illegals to Blue cities is also making it more noticeable. The pragmatic facts of life is that the Independents now hate Biden at least as much as they hate Trump…and as Biden is the person currently making them mad, the jump ball for independents slightly favors Trump at the moment.
As for the respective party bases: who is going to be more motivated in November? My bet is on the GOP base. Democrats are trying to work up “democracy” and abortion as their key campaign messages but that is thin gruel…especially as a crucial part of their base, black voters, is very much angry when they see illegals getting free housing and phones while black Americans get nothing. Not saying these people will vote Trump…but staying home works out just the same.
It is a wide open race and there are so many variables that nobody can say what is going to happen. For goodness sake, Biden might keel over at any time now and that would just put a tornado into politics as Democrats scramble for a replacement. And imagine if that happens in, say, September? Buckle up, kiddos, we’re in for a wild ride.
Blogs For Victory 
It’s amusing that, after coming in third, Nikki Haley is insisting it’s a two person race. That woman is desperate … she has all the establishment money and support behind her and just wants to be President sooooo bad. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen Nikki.
The turnout in Iowa wouldn’t have mattered, the results would have been the same. And I’ve noticed a more conciliatory tone from Trump which I think will serve him very well, and will be a stark contrast to the increasingly angry Democrats. I do hope he continues with this more measured tone, but that is not a given lol. Jamie Dimon came out in support of Trump and MAGA yesterday which has to have some heads rolling this morning, and I think and hope it is the beginning of a massive political shift. More and more evidence of ballot fraud is being exposed and now a near majority of Americans believe the 2020 election was not handled properly, and this effort amongst Democrats and the Media to paint MAGA as a “threat to democracy” is not gaining any traction, but that’s all they got so they will continue with it.
The problem Democrats, Nikki Haley, and RDS have is that Trump WAS President, and in light of the current chaos, everyone remembers how good things were when he was President. The other part of that equation is the political persecutions against Trump, which are all falling apart, and everyone is seeing that and realizing these lawfare efforts are completely UnAmerican. The fact is, Democrats have massively overreached in their effort to characterize MAGA as a threat to “democracy”, and their base has become so factionalized that that party is soon to implode. Do you think the pro Hamas wing of that party will vote for Biden again? I don’t.
The other part of that equation is the political persecutions against Trump, which are all falling apart, and everyone is seeing that and realizing these lawfare efforts are completely UnAmerican.
Coffee & Covid has a complete rundown on the current status of all of the Trump court cases.
You know what would really freak out the Left and bury Nikki for good? If Trump were to say that although he believes he is the best person in the race to be president, if for some reason he were not running then clearly Ron DeSantis would be the best choice for the nation. Ron is far enough behind now to pose no threat, and this would have an amazing impact on the rest of the election cycle. It would get rid of Nikki once and for all, it would provide some unity in the campaign, it would mark Trump as (finally !) something of a statesman and it would set Ron up for 2028.
If Trump really does have the courage of his convictions about what the nation needs in its president, and if he really does have the best interests of the United States at heart, he should be looking ahead at who would be the person most likely to carry on the legacy he will be leaving behind, and he should start building a foundation for that. Because really, who in the party is closer to Trump in political philosophy and skills than DeSantis? Trump is going to leave office with an incumbent VP running for his position, making things really hard for DeSantis, and I can’t think of a single person more qualified than Ron. When I think of who I would like as Trump’s VP it comes down to Kristi Noem and Elise Stefanik, and while both are strong and qualified I don’t think either would bring more talent and experience to the table than DeSantis.
If I could see Trump actually acting like a statesman and starting to build a legacy for the next 12 years by starting now to set up DeSantis I would move from accepting him as a candidate to actually respecting him. Short of having DeSantis as his VP, I can’t think of a better strategy to do this.
From your lips to Trump’s ears.
I would love to see something like that. In fact, IF Trump can be more of a statesman as he has been recently, he will win in a landslide.
Don’t lump RDS in with Dems or Haley as a Trump-basher. DeSantis has been very precise in naming specific decisions of Trump’s with which he does not agree but in general has refrained from going after Trump or criticizing the condition of the nation under Trump. I don’t think he ever really criticized Trump until Trump went into one of his infantile name-calling tantrums about Ron before Ron even announced that he was going to run.
Hunter Biden FINALLY sets date for deposition in impeachment probe: President’s son will be grilled on February 28 after Republicans pushed off contempt of Congress charge so he would sit down for interview
Why are they waiting for over a month??? Bring him in now and ask just one question … when you sent the WhatApp message to your Chinese counterpart that read, “my dad is sitting next to me and we are waiting for payment”, was your dad in fact sitting next to you? If so, then game over. If not, then why did you use your dads name to extort money?
This is not the time to be timid. Now is the time to go for the jugular.
Timing? For one thing, if we get too conclusive on Joe’s corruption it is just more likely they will pull him out in favor of someone else, and as bad as Newsom is he would still affect the age calculation as it would then be old vs young. Or a last minute Michelle substitution making it entirely about race. Maybe the calculation is that the closer to the election the better.
LOL! Lucky guess?
And once again, the Left relies on its handy-dandy redefinition strategy to attack Trump. In this case, “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,'” (Judge) Kaplan wrote.
This judge, unhappy with the hard cold facts of the New York Penal Code in adjudicating a case in New York and assumedly under the jurisdiction of the penal code for that state, arbitrarily decided to go outside this obviously-too-restraining legal definition. He complained that the findings of the jury “mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life”. Yes, a judge dismissed a jury verdict because it focused on the law and not how people in “everyday life” feel about an act, or “common modern parlance”. (This is also how the Left views the definition of legal terms like “insurrection”—not the legal definition, but how the act makes people FEEL.)
In other words, the jury said OK, we’ll convict him for sexual abuse because it looks like he touched her without her permission, but the judge relied on her hyper-emotional description of being “penetrated” by something she could not identify but which “penetrated” her for quite some time, causing excruciating pain.
The thing is, she filed under New York law, and the judge decided that New York law didn’t accomplish what he wanted so he decided to apply general definitions from other sources.
I’m going to assume, based on evidence, that I am the only woman currently posting here, so I will ask you men to take my word on this: There are few areas offering less privacy than a changing room in a high-end department store. Not all of these areas have doors, and those that do have partial doors that do not go to the ceiling or the floor. Most have a very small corner shelf or bench just big enough to sit on to remove shoes or pull on pants. If not adjacent to other changing “rooms” they are in close proximity. I’ve got a lot of years of experience of overhearing conversations from other changing rooms, as women quietly discuss what they are trying on and getting opinions on decisions about it. In addition, the staff in these high-end establishments are notorious for keeping an eagle eye on who goes into these areas and for popping in unannounced, ostensibly to “provide assistance” but really to supervise every single thing that goes on, every garment taken into the area and any possible effort to steal any of it. This is all expensive stuff, and they keep very close track of it.
At the time of this alleged assault, Donald Trump was probably the most famous man in New York. He was constantly in the papers and the topic of gossip columnists and TV shows. He is a big man, flamboyant in appearance and manner. Yet he supposedly marched through a department store and then through an area of women’s clothing, past clerks, into a changing area reserved for women, and still supposedly unnoticed entered a changing room where a woman was already present and then engaged in a vigorous if not violent sexual attack on her involving penetration by his penis and other, unnamed and unseen artifacts that caused great pain. During this ordeal, the woman did not call out for help or make noise that might attract any attention. After this episode, this well-known man then left the changing room and strolled out through the women’s department unnoticed, while his “victim” remained silent, never calling out for anyone to help her or detain him or even identify him.
And BTW she never filed a complaint until the #METOO movement got the statute of limitations removed for sexual attack claims and the man in question was President of the United States as well as the repeated target of rabid partisan attacks.
“She acknowledged that she could not see exactly what Mr. Trump inserted but testified on the basis of what she felt.”
Many years ago there was a TV series that was a parody of the old Tonight Show, called Fernwood 2Nite. In one episode a woman guest was explaining that she had been abducted by aliens and “molested”. As the host (Martin Mull at his funniest) questioned her about this experience, he finally said “But didn’t you say they just pointed a light at you?” To which she replied “If that light went where it was pointed, I was molested”. I’ve always found that to be one of my favorite lines, and it comes to mind in E. Jean Carroll’s testimony.
BTW, the episode with Tom Waits is pure comedy gold—though it helps a little to know that Waits had a reputation for somewhat obscure song lyrics and a distinctly LA-hip persona
(Back when my late husband and I used to entertain a lot, when I got tired I could empty the house in ten minutes by just putting on a Tom Waits album.)
Back when I was doing college radio, we had a jazz show that I would host from time to time and I would play Tom Waits, only because his average song length was about 5 minutes … which would kill some time lol. His approach to music is much like Stephen Wrights approach to comedy … dry, mostly boring, but sometimes great.
Then you will understand this more than a lot of people will. Even chugging Harvey’s Bristol Cream is a hoot.
If you like jazz you might be familiar with the old Don and Sue Miller jazz party held every spring in Paradise Valley. We were regulars for many years, after attending the Dick Gibson jazz party in Colorado over Labor Day weekend. That was real jazz, not just discordant noise that most people now think is jazz.
That’s hilarious. “Almost a thrill for me ..” Howard Hessman (I think) was great
Martin Mull played Barth Gimble, the talk show host. Though he may have been Garth Gimble. I never watched Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman but one of these two twins was a character on that show. IIRC he was killed by a falling aluminum Christmas tree. In any case, Fernwood 2Nite was a spinoff of Mary Hartman and had shows that were about what was happening in the country at the time, and the Gimble who got killed was such a hit they needed a way to bring him back so they gave him a sleazy twin. There had been a lot of UFO sightings so they had to have an alien abduction, and when people started talking about electric cars (yes, even back then!) the local mechanic brought in one he had been working on, a huge land yacht like maybe an old Impala, or something like that. When he opened the hood it was packed full of C batteries. and he spent the whole show taking them out one by one and testing them to figure out why the car wouldn’t work. The set of the show was totally cheesy, with two mismatched easy chairs and an aluminum TV table for a desk.
Howard Hessman was DJ Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati, another great oldie that had one of one of the all-time great Thanksgiving shows. You owe it to yourself to watch. And it will remind you that talent can produce entertainment so funny it makes you cry, with no nudity or f-bombs.
Martin Mull !!! Forgot about him. He was good. RDS just suspended his campaign and his speech was excellent. I like him even more and he has my full support in 2028 if he chooses to run
https://x.com/rondesantis/status/1749159384112845285?s=46
He’ll run, though probably against an incumbent. This is why Trump’s VP choice is so important. Will he pick an obvious “assistant to the president” type, or a “qualified to be the next president” type? Here’s where Kari Lake might fit in. While she would do a great job as backup to the president, in 2028 she would still not have the firepower to effectively challenge RDS. A little back-room negotiating to give her the clout of being an outgoing VP in 2028 and well set up to challenge Mark Kelly for his Senate seat might get an agreement to back RDS for a presidential run. Long-range planning adding a Senate seat plus getting a perfect successor to Trump and what he will accomplish, without the infighting and melodrama that sucks the life out of so many campaigns, is the kind of thing the Left is so good at and what the Right has never figured out.
Oh I watched WKRP religiously lol. I watched that Thanksgiving show the day it aired and will never forget it
I’m not familiar with that, but I do like Jazz, which has become a lost art
RDS just suspended his campaign and his speech was excellent. I like him even more and he has my full support in 2028 if he chooses to run
I think Obi Ron’s biggest problem was timing. I said, well before he announced to run, that I hoped he wouldn’t. He’s got lots of time, and a second full term as Florida Governor would give him a solid resume for 2028, plus he’d likely have Trump’s full support. All this run did was waste a lot of money and piss Trump off.
As for Trump being pissed off, I don’t think that will have a long-lasting effect. RDS has said that Trump’s attacks on him were just normal political strategy and he holds no grudges, and I don’t think Trump would maintain a serious grudge against RDS for running against him because Ron never attacked him personally. Actually, Ron ran the cleanest and most ethical campaign I have seen.
But you’re right about the timing. I think Ron rolled the dice on the speculation that the lawfare campaign might derail Trump, either into not running or being too damaged to be a real threat. He had to know it was a gamble, and he lost, as the attacks against Trump turned into a perfect storm in his favor. But he did get his name and face out there, he did dominate the debates, he did reach and impress a lot of people who really knew little or nothing about him, and he did create a foundation for a 2028 run. I think he’ll come back to Florida and continue creating an impeccable record of fighting for the rights of people against bureaucracies and the Left for the next two years, while a team firms up a platform to kick in in 2026. I think he’s learned a lot about what it takes to run for national office, and has four years to put it in play.
I agree with you—on one hand I didn’t want him to run, if only because running against Trump has built-in danger from a large segment of the GOP. But on the other, I can see the calculation that he needed to get in the fray and not let other Republicans get established in the public eye while he remained “just a governor’. And I think it has worked out really well. The most obvious challengers have been shown to be not challenging at all—the closest has been Haley and four more years of information about her ought to get rid of her. Hopefully out of the spotlight of a presidential election cycle the whole natural born citizen thing can be addressed, to get it out of the way before the 2028 campaign. Trump has already said he wants to go after the errors in interpreting the 14th Amendment’s automatic citizenship spin, and he has a good chance of getting this front and center, given the issues around illegal immigration and the Dem efforts to turn this into votes. If the birthright citizenship issue is addressed and especially if it is rejected (as I think a SCOTUS ruling might do) then natural born citizenship would be a logical adjunct to this issue.
It’s getting hard to quantify just how stupid and incompetent this administration is …. example 2,987,564
Jill Biden speaks at school called HUNTER HIGH
Yup, you’ve read that right. Someone in the administration thought it would be a good idea to have the fake doctor Jill give a speech at a school named Hunter High. And these people want to “save the planet”?? What could go wrong?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12985685/jill-biden-hunter-high-hunter-biden-cocaine.html
Kids these days have no imagination. In my day, someone would have slipped in an apostrophe and an “s” so the sign read Hunter’s High.
The Daily Mail did its best to provide cover for Joe—in its last paragraph it claimed No evidence has emerged so far to prove that Joe Biden, in his current or previous office, abused his role or accepted bribes”
I don’t know if the UK even has a real newspaper any more. That embarrassing piece of crap the Guardian wrote about Laura Loomis and her observation about Haley’s ineligibility for the presidency was a new low even for birdcage liner papers and now the Mail is trying to do its part to prop up the flailing Left.
The Daily Mail is like the National Enquirer in a lot of respects but it does have stories no one else covers.
it does have stories no one else covers and it often covers them in ways no reputable newspaper would