Vivek Ramaswamy might be a good potential leader. I do not know all his views and he needs to aim for a Governor's position first. If his beliefs align with President Donald Trump's economic policies, he will get my vote if President Donald Trump does not win the nomination. DeSantis very weak response to the indictment by Alvin Bragg, showed him to be a weak leader. Hell, if Ted Cruz and Kevin McCarthy can issue strong statements to slam Bragg, as aspiring President of the United States, he should be able to do as well. Instead, he slams Trump for paying off an accuser? Lame and pretty weak. Tens of millions of American voters saw that on national TV.
Yep. As I have said in a couple earlier posts- so I will keep it short- I look to certain candidates for their value in working the leading candidates over to force issues with them- and not necessarily whether they can win. This is on contrast to those who knee jerk respond "oh, so and so can never win and will just split the vote, so Biden or Trump can win, blah, blah, blah." Vivek is a wicked smart fucker and articulate as hell and he is putting in the work. No reason in the world why I would not want to see him get in if he wants. Down the road, when he is holding a handful of electoral votes and it is later in the election and he needs to free them up, well, that is another matter. But right now, both the pubs and the dems need to get some bodies into the primary that are not stupid and love the country. Vivek passes those two tests, so that's fine. He brings some entertainment value too because he is so full of himself. So he is good one to add into the mix. Vivek has a degree in biology from Harvard and law degree from Yale and had created a sold a pharmaceutical or some such research firm early on to finance himself and his campaign. Geezuss.. We are not talking Kamala of Buttigieg here. Andrew Yang somewhat maybe. Andy was never going to win but he had entertainment value at times ("I am Trump's worst nightmare- an Asian who loves math"). Everyone needs to loosen up a bit and let people do what they gotta do and work it out on the playground. Both Trump and DeSantis need to lighten up a bit. They are taking on very grim and sullen grudge-match personas. Vivek going to capture some votes from the younger and perkier voters just for some relief from the grim guys. Tim Scott will pick up some of those votes too because he is a happy warrior.
Hacks everywhere keep saying President Donald Trump cannot win yet, the extreme liberals and RINOs doing their utmost to stop him from getting into the race? Does not make any sense or pass the smell test. And the fact they have used numerous lawsuits to try and stop him shows how comical all these clowns are! On the plus side, they are drumming up sympathy for President Donald Trump so as to make fund raising, that much easier.
Y'all will recall that a month or so back I made the point that - while third party candidates go nowhere and it is way to costly and too much work for a candidate to get on the ballot- that you have to watch your arse this time around because there is this NO-LABELS PARTY that has done/is getting on he ballot each state - with the idea that they will find a candidate later down the road. The issue came up for me in regard to Manchin- that if he decided to run third party that he could run on the NO-LABELS PARTY at the last minute. It is a far-fetched sceneario- but it comes to mind again- because I am watching Carl Rove - who has apparently been reading the forum- lay out that possibility right as we speak. You are welcome Carl. The other major, major, major development in that scenario since I spun it out is that it is now largely believed that Manchin cannot be re-elected in West Virginia since the popular governor there has announced that he is going to enter the Senate race. I doubt that Manchin believes- despite public bloviating to the contrary- that he can be re-elected. In other words, as crazy as that third party scenario would be- what else is Manchin going to have to do? Note that I am saying nothing about whether he would be electable. It would complicate the landscape in a way that no pundit on the planet could foresee. Also not saying he will do it. Just saying, that for all the reasons discussed- especially the No Labels Party on the ballot, it is not out of the question. But in past years, going third party without doing the homework for months in advance? Nope. "I am feeling very Rumsfeldian about this election." - Tree
Rick who? Rick Perry teases possible presidential bid, declines to support Trump campaign https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/14/politics/rick-perry-president-2024-trump-cnntv/ Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Sunday teased a possible 2024 presidential run while declining to support Donald Trump’s campaign, becoming the latest onetime Trump appointee to distance himself from the former president’s third White House bid. Perry, who unsuccessfully sought the 2012 and 2016 GOP presidential nominations, told CNN’s Jim Acosta in an interview that he hasn’t “written off” the idea of running for president in 2024, saying there was “a lot of time” before a decision would need to be made. When asked if he believes Trump should be the Republican nominee next year, the former Texas governor said, “I’m still trying to sort that out for myself.” “He may get to hear me call him names again,” Perry added, alluding to previous clashes between the two men in the 2016 Republican primaries. “If you’ll recall, I didn’t announce for president in 2011 until August, so we’ve got a lot of time left.” When asked explicitly if he was considering another run for president, Perry did not give a direct answer. “It’s early in the process, I think, for any of us to sit back and say, ‘I’m for this person or that person,’” Perry said. “It certainly is something that I haven’t taken off the table, but the chances of it happening are probably a little bit slim.” “There’s a lot of time left, and we’ll see how this all works out,” he added. Perry is the longest-serving Texas governor in history, assuming the role in 2000, when Gov. George W. Bush resigned to become president. He won three full terms before opting against reelection in 2014. Trump picked Perry as his energy secretary in 2017, a position he held until he resigned in 2019 amid scrutiny over his role in the administration’s dealings with Ukraine – which stemmed from a whistleblower’s allegation that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate now-President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, and that the White House attempted to cover up the conversation. Perry was again embroiled in a Trump-related scandal when members of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol identified Perry as the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an “AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY” for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states’ electors to Trump, sources told CNN at the time. Other texts between Perry and Meadows discussing how to overturn the election, signed by the former governor, also found the light of day during the investigation. In his CNN interview Sunday, Perry denied sending the text message to Meadows, calling it “misinformation.” He did not respond when asked by Acosta if he agreed with the strategy to form alternate slates of 2020 electors in key states. “I got called on (the text) a couple times. Number one, it’s not my style of speak, or texting, so to speak. So again, there is a lot of misinformation out there, Jim, and that was one piece of it,” Perry said. “So I can assure you that that didn’t come from me.”