Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

No one can out Trump back together again.  It’s over, and the sooner he realizes that, the better for all concerned.   I’m following Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s lead, and will write in Pence for President.  It’s the only honorable, and sensible, thing to do.  I remember the contempt I felt for people who excused Bill Clinton’s behavior with women.  Anyone who still stands by Trump deserves the same scorn.

Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway are in a tricky situation.  Ideally, Trump will soon recognize his candidacy is over, and advise the RNC that he declines to continue as the Republican candidate.  Party Rules would allow the Committee to select a replacement, which would naturally be Pence.  If that happened, Pence would win the Presidency, and Trump would have salvaged something from the mess he’s created.  But it needs to happen soon, and if it doesn’t Pence and Conway should both step down, and leave this buffoon on his own.

History will not be kind to Trump, and his whole brand.  There isn’t really any historical parallel.  His name will be up there with people like Aaron Burr, James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover.  And who wants to stay in a hotel with this sexual criminal’s name on it?  How are bookings going for that new Trump hotel in D.C.?   Any cancellations?

I think back to that crowd of 4,000 people who turned out to see him in Reno last Wednesday.  They were the truest of true believers.  A lot of them will continue to believe.  But not all.  They were just regular Americans, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, who want the best for their children and country.   They weren’t fanatics, they were patriots.  Many of them were Christians, who take their faith seriously.  How can they continue to associate themselves with this repulsive man?

I’m sure Pence and Trump will be talking with one another today.  Until the fruits of that conversation are known, everything is up in the air.  Except Trump’s candidacy.  That lies in ashes.

A while back I tried to draw a distinction between Bill Clinton, sexual criminal, and Donald Trump, a garden variety sexist pig.  I was wrong.  Grabbing women in the crotch is a sexual assault, as defined in the law.  Both Clinton and Trump are sexual predators.  Apparently they like to compare notes on their sexual exploits while enjoying a round of golf.  There is nothing to choose between them.

Because of personal flaws in my character, I have fantasized about punching Bill Clinton out, and mocking his cowardice.  Now I feel the same way about Trump.  He’s a little bigger than Clinton, and might not go down as easy, but in fact he’s a flabby pussy of a man, and he’d just go down a little harder.

It’s over for Trump, whether he realizes it or not.  Nothing he can do or say, and no black swan, can save him.  The sooner he gets out, the better for all concerned, including his family.  How does Ivanka feel about her father now?   He’s a pathetic excuse for a man, and the faster he gets off the stage the better for all concerned.

He’s said his campaign isn’t really about him, and a vote for Trump is really a vote for yourself.  But I’m not a sexual deviant, and Trump is, and he’s not me.  Has his whole campaign been an exercise in narcissism, or does he want to make America great again?  We’ll all find out soon enough.

The Governor of Montana, Steve Bullock, has chosen personal pleasure over his duties as a father, husband, and public official.  At the age of 50 he’s found a new love in his life, Meg O’Leary, the Director of the Montana Department of Commerce.  As a special treat, he used a State of Montana airplane to go to a Paul McCartney concert with her.    He’s been to Puerto Rico and the Kentucky Derby with his new flame.  The voters of Montana have been shielded from this disturbing relationship by Montana media, though it’s found it’s way into some blogs.

Less than a year ago, the Helena Independent Record hired a rising star in journalism, James DeHaven, away from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  He was quite a catch for a small paper like the Helena IR.  But he quit last week, and has now moved on to the San Diego Union-Tribune.  He hasn’t publicly stated his reasons for leaving, but it was obviously related to the fact that his editors refused to print the story of the Bullock sex scandal that he had uncovered.

The story presumably has details on the retaliation against State of Montana employees who have objected to these arrangements.  There is some evidence that Montana Lieutenant Governor Angela McLean caught the Governor in flagrante, and that this was the reason for her sudden resignation from office.

The details of this sordid affair are in the blog, Republican Uprising, which is a creation of Montana State Representative Matthew Monforton of Bozeman.   Once the national media start looking into this story, the party’s over for Mr. Bullock.  I suspect that will happen next week.  Stay tuned.

Unless I’m completely off base, there should be some action in the Alaska Senate race next week.  My analysis of this race should be up at American Thinker tomorrow.  This race is Joe Miller’s to lose.  I plan on meeting him for the first time on election night in Anchorage.  I hope to be able to see Don Young as well.  He’s remarried, very happily, and apparently as full of spit and vinegar as he’s always been.  They’re going to have to carry him out of the House of Representatives on a stretcher.  He does love his pork, but he’s also a good conservative, and always has been.  It’s been years since I’ve seen him.

The fly in this ointment is Donald Trump, and his awful numbers with women  voters.  They think he’s a sexist pig, and a bully.  I don’t know what he can do to change their minds.  He’s put himself in a pickle.

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.