Month: October 2016

Since he was a very young man, Mike Pence wanted to get into politics.  He was 29 when he first ran for Congress, failed, tried again when he was 31, and failed again.  Then he became Indiana’s “Rush Limbaugh on decaf”, as he called himself, and when he ran for Congress the third time, in 2000, he won at the age of 41.  After six successful terms in Congress, and election as Governor of Indiana in 2012, he was ready to run for President.  He would run on his conservative, Tea Party record, a solid resume of accomplishment, and excellent political skills..

Back in 2013 he was taken seriously as a potential Republican nominee.  I saw him at a December meeting of ALEC in Washington D.C., where he was a featured speaker, along with Sen. Ted Cruz.  I saw them both, and liked Pence better.  He was a natural, and gifted, politician.  Cruz was not.  Cruz was, and is, a brilliant legal advocate, but that’s a different skill set than what’s required of a great politician, like Reagan.  Cruz is playing a part.  Like Reagan, Mike Pence is a natural born Irish-American politician, and it comes easy to him.

2016 wasn’t the year for Pence.  His “lane” was occupied by Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and to a lesser extent by Perry and Kasich.  The financial support he needed didn’t materialize, and he didn’t run.

If Trump loses Pence will the favorite for the 2020 nomination, as he should be.  He’ll be 61 and in his political prime, as prepared as a man can be for the toughest job in the world.  He’d be a great President.

If Trump had political skills like Pence, he’d mop the floor with Hillary Clinton.  It would be brutal.  But Trump’s skill set is different than Pence’s.  Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” says his grandfather told him something that every one should always bear in mind.  We’re all born with a different tool kit.  Some of us are good at some things, and not good at others.  Pence showed Trump how to do a political debate.  But is that in Trump’s tool kit?  I guess we’ll find out Sunday.

I figured a few things out after seeing Trump in Reno yesterday.  Trump is not a happy camper right now.  I got the sense that he knows he’s in trouble, and needs to do something.  He almost looked tired when he came on to the stage, but then you could see him rejuvenated by the enthusiasm of the crowd of 4,000 or so.  I wasn’t close enough to him to really eyeball him, I must have been thirty feet away, standing behind four or five rows of people.  I could tell he really wasn’t enjoying himself.  This was work.  He used a teleprompter, and stayed on message, but it was the same old, same old, the stuff he’s said dozens, if not hundreds of times before.  It’s boring, and he doesn’t like doing it.

The Trump tribe are crazy about the guy, and would follow him off a cliff.  If he said gee they’d turn right.  If he said haw they’d turn left.  They’re true believers.  If he chose to exercise the Moses Option they’d go right along with him.

What could Trump accomplish as President that Pence couldn’t?  Pence would win in a landslide, and be sworn in with a mandate, a mandate to implement the Trump agenda.  Even if Trump wins he would remain a divisive figure.  There are a whole lot of people who can’t stand him.   How many people can’t stand  Mike Pence?

There’s big difference between being Trump’s age, as am I, and being 57, like Pence.  I, personally, was a hell of a lot stronger, physically, when I was 57, and I had more energy.  I’m sure just about every man would say the same.  Trump cam bow out, gracefully, and be a hero, or charge along, and humiliate himself and his family in defeat.

A lot hangs on that decision.

If you ever see a poll out of Alaska by Ivan Moore, it’s not really a poll.  It’s Democratic propaganda.  Here’s his latest.  It was taken August 27-29, well over a month ago.  He lists Caen Stevens as the Libertarian candidate, which she still was at the time.    But this “poll” has absolutely no relevance, since it doesn’t include the only real threat to Murkowski, which is Miller, who is now the Libertarian candidate.  So why does this Alaska website, “Midnight Sun” promote it now, when it’s obsolete?  It’s a feeble attempt to downplay the Miller insurgency, and its weakness is a sign of fear.  Also, Moore doesn’t give head to head numbers between Rep. Don Young and his faculty lounge Democratic opponent.  Why?  Because Young is so far ahead it’s not a contest.

Tim Kaine is probably a decent man, but he was given an assignment for which he was spectacularly unequipped.  You don’t send a poodle to do a Rottweiler’s job.  It doesn’t ever work.  Apparently someone told Kaine that arching his eyebrow  made him look sophisticated and skeptical.  He looked like a cartoon villain.  I couldn’t take my eyes off that eyebrow, and Babbie and I turned it off after half an hour.  It was like watching a football game when the score is 35-0 after the first quarter.  Unless you’re a Republican sadist, or a Democrat masochist, there was no reason to watch more.

Politico has the sub headline right.  “Is there anybody outside the Trump family  who isn’t wishing we could flip the ticket?”  All the Republican “insiders” agreed.

There’s still time.  Donald.

That’s the way people like Trump look at politicians.  Why suffer the hassle of running for, and holding office, when you can buy or otherwise influence or control, a whole bunch of elected officials?  This seems to be the way Trump operates his businesses as well.   Why go through the hassle of running a company, when you can hire someone to do it for you?  Trump’s a big picture guy, who doesn’t want to sweat the details unless he has to.

In a sense, honest people who run for public office, as I did in Alaska, are fools.  I was in the Alaska Legislature from 1982 to 1990, at a time when  there was so much oil money coming out of Prudhoe Bay that everybody  in Alaska with any sense and ambition was getting rich.  The lobbyists who would follow me into the bathroom when I was taking a leak, in order to get a word in with me, were making as much as half a million a year.  I made $45,000 for a four month session, sometimes longer.  If I would have sold out, as a lot of people in the Legislature did, I could have made big money too.

I’m not complaining.  If had sold out, I would have been a whore, and I would no longer have any self respect.  I’m saying guys like Trump think I’m some kind of chump.  And maybe I am.

And so is Mike Pence.  He’s worth $500,000. Total.  He’s 57 years old, an able, capable man, at the height of his earning potential.   And he’s still putting money away for his kids’ college.   What a chump.

Trump and I are alike in many ways, and neither one of us should ever be President.  I think Trump is as smart as I am, and there’s good and bad in that.  Big picture guys, guys that don’t like to sweat the details, who don’t like being in a lot of meetings, who don’t put up with any bullshit, who are impatient with dullards, who just want to do things rather than talk about doing them, these kind of guys would not be good Presidents.  For a :President, you want a normal, intelligent and diligent man.  You want a Reagan, or a Pence.  Trump’s not normal, and he’s only diligent if he really has to be.  That covers me, as well.

What Trump is, is a traitor to his class.  He comes from a different world than the one I came from.  And I believe he wants to do right by people like those I grew up with.

I’m going to see him tomorrow in Reno.  It’s about 100 miles as the crow flies from where I live in the Gold Country.  I’ll get there early, so I can get as close to him as I can.  I want a real good look at him.  I won’t be wearing any Trump paraphernalia.  Just an old Goldwater button.

The idea of Trump exercising the Moses Option is based on a couple factoids.  I saw Donnie Deutsch on WADR back in July, and he swore Donald Trump had no interest in serving as President.  He claims to know Trump personally, and finds it inconceivable that Trump would exchange his fabulous lifestyle for the grind of the Presidency.  Later, on Morning Joe, he restated his case, predicting that Trump wants to start a new Trump TV Network, or something.  This makes sense to me.  The idea of running for an office, winning, but not actually serving, appeals to certain people.  I’m one of them.  I ran in four elections, won them all, and, as a result, was forced to serve eight difficult years in the State Legislature, where I mainly wasted my time, and put a strain on my family.  If I could have won the election, and then had someone else actually go to Juneau for four months or more, I might have done it.

The other clue is Trump’s refusal to confirm that he would serve if elected.  Just three months ago he told the NYT they’d have to wait and see if he would actually serve.  He said the same thing back in 2015.  So if he pulls a Moses, it ‘s not like we weren’t warned.

But he doesn’t have to wait until after the election to do a Moses.  He could do it tomorrow, or he could do it at the end of the third debate on Oct. 19th, or any time between.  He could do it the last week of the election, for that matter.  He just announces he’s withdrawing from the race, and asks Reince Priebus and the RNC to name Mike Pence as the replacement GOP Presidential nominee, with the Vice President to be selected jointly with Pence.  Trump’s name would appear on the ballot, but that wouldn’t matter.  Pence would be the Presidential nominee of the Republican Party.  You’re not voting for Trump, even though his name is listed.  You’d be voting for Pence.

I think Pence would win in a landslide.  He’s got Trump’s positives without his negatives.  He’d unite the Party, and win the independents easily.  Republicans would keep the Senate, and President Pence can do what Trump would have done if he were elected.

Does this make Trump a quitter, or a genius?

His name wouldn’t go down in the history books as President.  He’d have a special category, all to himself.  He will have transformed the Republican Party in his own image, changed the direction of American trade, immigration and foreign policy, and gone a long way to fulfill his promise to Make America Great Again.  Does that sound like a loser to you?   Or political genius  – – winning by losing.

The Trump brand, and the Trump family, would be American icons.  He could have an appointment as a roving Ambassador without portfolio, flying around the world in his Trump plane, making deals.  And, yes, Donnie, he could have his own TV network, if he wanted one.  He’d go back to living the high life, and no one would begrudge him a thing.  Even the people who loathe him, personally, would have to tip their hats.  What a guy.

Having gotten to know a little about how Trump operates, I can only imagine the way he’d orchestrate the whole thing.  It would be dramatic, that’s for sure.  Trump has confounded the chattering class this whole campaign.  With this move, he’d leave them speechless.

Because of his pride, Yahweh did not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land, and Joshua went in his stead.  But Moses is the man we all remember from the Exodus, and honor to this day.  Let Pence be Joshua.  Trump can be Moses.

 

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

From “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats in 1919.

 

The center certainly wasn’t holding in 1919.  The whole world was going to hell.  The War to Make the World Safe for Democracy had been won, but all about was chaos, as ancient empires and powerful kingdoms collapsed.

We’re a lot better off today than we were in 1919.  It was a terrible year in American, as well as world, history.  President Wilson had lost his mind, and the government was being run by his nutty wife.  And everything seemed to be coming apart.

Then we had an election, the greatest landslide in American political history, and we returned to normalcy.   That’s what most Americans want, normalcy.  And who’s the most normal politician around?  Mike Pence, the normal man from the normal State of Indiana, where normal was born.

Everybody will get to see him Tuesday night, and it will be like a breath of fresh air.  Why can’t this guy be President?  That’s what everyone will be asking.

Trump’s surrogates are now calling him a genius, which may, in fact, be true.  But geniuses don’t blow a race against the most disliked woman in America, which he is in the process of doing.  Unless he really is a genius, and is exercising the Moses Option.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Senate race in Alaska and, if he doesn’t screw up, Miller should win it.  All the stars are aligned.  It’s like the perfect set up.  Murkowski doesn’t have a political base.  She’s not a conservative, but she’s not a liberal either.  She’s nothing, but a set of platitudes rattling around in her head.  She’s not handing out the money the way Ted Stevens did.  Those days are over, Ted’s dead.  She’s got the Native Corporations, and some other special interests, but Big Labor hates her, the Bernie Brigade hates her, the conservatives hate her, and everyone understands she doesn’t have a brain in her head.  Miller’s going to beat her.  He’s a good enough candidate to do it.  You don’t need to be Marco Rubio to win a Senate seat in Alaska.  It’s a small pond, in terms of political talent.

There’s a way to get the story on Montana Gov. Bullock out into the public.  Actually, more than one.  Plenty of time to try a few.  I really don’t like Bullock.  He doesn’t seem like a Montanan to me, just a slippery lawyer.   Gianforte would probably be a great Governor, in the mold of Matt Bevin in Kentucky.  And we could use some help on Article V.

There’s a small storm gathering out of the Northwest.  It will blow over by morning.