Run, Donald, run!

Right-wing billionaire Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., in February (above) and speaks at a Repugnican Tea Party rally in Boca Raton, Florida, earlier this month (below). It’s pretty clear, I think, that Trump, if he is running for the White House, isn’t running as a centrist.

Reuters photos

I’ve seen some attacks on billionaire fuckwad Donald Trump from those who are (or at least claim to be) left of center, but I think it’s probably most politically strategic for those of us (who actually are) on the left to keep mum on Trump’s possible run for the presidency.

There’s no way that Trump could win the presidency in any event — either as a Ross Perot-like independent (his most likely path, if he does run for the White House) or as the Repugnican Tea Party nominee (which is highly unlikely to happen; I can’t see the Repugnican Party establishment allowing that to happen) — so I can see Trump, in an independent bid, most likely only peeling votes away from the Repugnican Tea Party nominee (who most likely will be Mitt Romney).

And this would be a good thing if you want to see Barack Obama elected to a second term.*

Although many argue that Texas billionaire Ross Perot didn’t boost Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992, I disagree. I believe that most Perot voters otherwise would have voted for George H. W. Bush. (In 1992, Perot garnered 19 percent of the popular vote, quite a lot for an independent candidate, while Clinton got 43 percent and Bush got 37.5 percent.)

There are several reasons to conclude that an independent Trump candidacy would bleed more votes from the Repugnican Tea Party candidate than from presumed Democratic nominee Obama:

• Trump has courted the right-wing vote, such as by at least one appearance at a Repugnican Tea Party rally (last week in Florida; see photo above) and by his February appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)**
• Trump is anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage and anti-gun control, which are right wing, not centrist, positions
• Trump endorsed John McCainosaurus for the White House for 2008
• Trump was registered briefly with Perot’s Reform Party, and also has been registered with the Democratic Party, but since 2009 has been registered with the Repugnican Tea Party (which is indicative of his political aspirations, methinks)
• Trump has been appearing in national polls regarding actual or potential 2012 Repugnican Tea Party presidential contenders this month, usually making the top three

I don’t see that Trump is trying to appeal to the centrists, those whom Obama prizes much more highly than (the remnants of) his own fucking base, although, admittedly, most of those who call themselves “centrists” (or “independents” or “libertarians” or the like) actually definitely lean to the right.

Trump fairly clearly wants the wingnut vote.

Therefore, I hope that he runs, that the talk of a 2012 presidential run isn’t just talk.

A Trump candidacy, in terms of Obama’s re-election chances, probably would make up for Obama’s having shat and pissed all over his base for the past two years. My guess is that Obama welcomes a Trump candidacy, too.

—

*I do not — I’d rather have a real Democratic president — but Obama most likely will not face a strong primary challenger and most likely will win re-election, I believe. 

**Admittedly, CPAC has been becoming libertarian, with libertarian nutjob Ron Paul winning CPAC’s straw poll this year and last (Mitt Romney won in 2007, 2008 and 2009), but the libertarians are wingnuts, so I make little distinction between conservatives and libertarians.

Will the Perot Effect destroy what remains of the Repugnican Party?

I’ll call it the Perot Effect.

Many if not most people don’t recall that Democrat Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election not with a majority, but with a plurality of the votes. It was Clinton 43 percent, Repugnican King George I (who was up for re-election) at 37 percent, and Ross Perot at 19 percent, a whopping number for a third-party candidate in a presidential election in my lifetime.

I have little doubt that billionaire Perot siphoned far more Repugnican votes than Democratic votes, handing the White House over to Clinton, even though my guess is that Perot’s own choice would have been George Bush I over Clinton.

Perot’s “Reform Party” ticket attracted the disaffected, those who know little about politics but who just know that they’re not happy, even if they don’t know why, and who have a penchant for attacking the wrong sources of their problems (such as immigrants, who just want better lives, and gay men and lesbians, who just want equal rights, instead of the nation’s real enemy, the thieving stupid white men who bring us stolen presidential elections, bogus wars for the war profiteers and economic collapses).

This is the same description that I’d give to those who attend today’s “tea parties,” which are fucking ridiculous, because the Boston Tea Party was about the oppressive British taxes, yet here are the oppressive corporations sponsoring the “tea parties.” Yeah, like your oppressor is going to free you from your oppression. Fucking duh.

Is the “‘Tea Party’ Party” going to have the same effect in future elections that Ross Perot had in the 1992 presidential election?

Reports Yahoo! News:

A new Rasmussen poll finds that the “tea party” movement’s popularity is growing, so much so that it garners more support than the Republican party on a generic Congressional ballot. The poll hints that the burgeoning discontent among conservatives within the GOP threatens to splinter the party at a time when the popularity of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are waning as we head into an election year.

The “tea party” movement was conceived out of antipathy for President Obama’s economic stimulus plan and cultivated by groups like Freedom Works and conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck. Its guiding principals are centered around opposition to tax increases and the expansion of federal government spending. The movement rose to prominence when it organized highly-publicized protest gatherings across the country on April 15th of this year.

The respondents to the Rasmussen poll were asked the following question: “Suppose the ‘tea party’ movement organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district, or the ‘tea party’ candidate from your district?”

The response of all those who were polled was Democratic 36 percent, “tea party” 23 percent and Republican 18 percent. Further, the poll found that independents are more inclined to vote for a “tea party” candidate over Democratic or Republican candidates….

I see a pattern here…

Recall that last month’s special election in New York state for a U.S. House of Representatives seat went to the Democrat, Bill Owens, with 49 percent of the vote. Dierdre Scozzafava, the Repugnican candidate, was forced out of the race by right-wingers because she isn’t enough of a she-Nazi, like Sarah Palin is. She garnered 5 percent of the vote even though she’d dropped out of the race – and endorsed Owens. Doug Hoffman, the stupid white man the wingnuts fronted on the “Conservative Party” ticket because they weren’t happy with Scozzafava, got 46 percent of the vote.

Add Scozzafava’s 5 percent to Hoffman’s 46 percent and that’s 51 percent, which indicates that if it weren’t for the schism, Owens would have lost the election. Instead, the Congressional district that had been in the hands of the Repugnican Party since the 1800s went to a Democrat.

I say the same thing about Bill Clinton — if it weren’t for the schism within those who usually vote on the Repugnican Party ticket, Clinton never would have been president.

So, I’m all for the schism within the Repugnican Party and the right wing. The schism should only continue to help Democratic candidates. Better to win with a majority rather than with a plurality, but hey, a win is still a win.

I never thought that I’d utter these words, but I utter them now:

Go Sarah Palin! Sarah Palin on the “Tea Party” Party ticket in 2012!

Hell, while we’re at it: Palin-Beck or even Beck-Palin on the “Tea Party” Party ticket in 2012!

Finally, I can’t resist a swipe at those “independents.” Independents, by my definition, are fucktards who know jack shit about politics and who have no intention of educating themselves on politics but who vote anyway. Because they’re ignorant fucktards, they are easily (mis)led by the likes of Glenn Beck, the Fox in sheep’s clothing who is paid by the Fox Corporation to make the chickens think that Colonel Sanders just wuvs them.

So yeah, putting the “‘Tea Party’ Party” in charge of the nation exactly would be putting the Fox in charge of the hen house.

About all that I can say about that is: Over. My. Dead. Body.

But that shouldn’t be necessary, because while the Repugnicans and wingnuts squabble amongst themselves, the Democrats should continue to build upon their majority.

Now if the Democrats only would actually do what’s in the best interest of the highest number of Americans…

On the anniversary of Obama’s election

Today I received an e-mail from Organizing for America*, the remnants of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, titled “One year ago.” It’s meant to be nostalgic.

 Ah, yes — memories:

It was almost one year ago, on November 4, 2008, that I walked into my neighborhood polling place knowing that I’d vote for either Democrat Barack Obama or independent Ralph Nader, for whom I had voted in 2000 (when he ran for president on the Green Party ticket). Even as I walked through the polling-place door, I still wasn’t 100 percent sure which of the two candidates ultimately would get my vote.

In the end, I ended up darkening, with my black ballpoint pen, the oval next to the name “Barack Obama.” I knew that he’d win California anyway, and in the end I found the opportunity to vote for the nation’s first non-completely-white president to be rather irresistible.

Today, I wish that I had resisted.

Barack Obama has turned out to be pretty much another Bill Clinton — a “centrist.” Which means a coward. An appeaser. A politics-as-usual kinda guy.

There was nothing “centrist” about the eight long years of nightmarish rule by the unelected BushCheneyCorp. When the Repugnicans have the power, they don’t hesitate to use it. Remember when Gee Dubya was “re”-elected in 2004 with only 50.7 percent of the popular vote, but the members of the Bush regime called this a “mandate” from the American people nonetheless?

Here is Obama, having been elected by 53 percent of the people, which by the opposition’s definition, anyway, is a huge ol’ fucking mandate, and here is Obama with both houses of Congress dominated by his party, yet what accomplishments has he made?

That “Saturday Night Live” skit in which Obama reassures his opposition not to worry because thus far into his presidency he’s done nothing — it’s pretty accurate.

While the Democrats, led by the Obama White House, aren’t owning their power, I see that the wingnutty Repugnicans (which, in most cases, is redundant) were even successful in forcing out the Repugnican candidate in a U.S. House of Representatives race in New York state (the special election is on Tuesday and she dropped out of the race yesterday) because they consider her to be too moderate — and I think: Damn, why can’t we progressives force out those “Democrats” who are too moderate?

Instead, we have “Democrats” like Harry Reid and my U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein, whom I have always thought of as Mrs. Joseph Lieberman.   

“Base sends GOP warning shot in NY-23,” a Politico headline reads, and I think, Why isn’t the base firing warning shots at the “Democratic” obstructionists in Washington?

Why can’t we progressives be as aggressive as the wingnuts are? Especially when they’re wrong about just about everything and we’re right about just about everything?

It’s too early to know whether the wingnuts’ victory in New York state in pushing out the Repugnican candidate they deem to be too moderate will help or harm the Repugnican Party in the short term, I suppose, but, it seems to me, pushing out the woman candidate (Diedre Scozzafava) for yet another conservative white male candidate (Doug Hoffman) will harm the Repugnican Party over the long term because, although the stupid white men are trying to fight it, rule by stupid white men is going the way of the dinosaurs in an increasingly diversifying nation. 

That Hoffman is running on the “Conservative Party” ticket doesn’t seem to bode well to me. It was when the Southern racists broke off from the Democratic Party, apparently starting with racist Strom Thurmond’s running for president on the “Dixiecrat” ticket in 1948, that the Democratic Party lost the South.

Should the wingnuts succeed in gaining some third-party strength, it seems to me, this will only help the Democratic Party. As The Associated Press notes, in the 1992 presidential election, billionaire businessman Ross Perot’s third-party ticket (the “Reform Party”), which had a bent to the right, won 19 percent of the popular vote; “Perot vastly altered the dynamic of that contest,” the AP notes, adding, “Democrat Bill Clinton was the beneficiary of that three-way contest, taking away the presidency from [Repugnican] George H.W. Bush with just a plurality of the vote.”

Any third party that might emerge over the coming years that comes even close to the success of Perot’s Reform Party in 1992, it seems to me, probably would stem from white angst and thus probably would siphon away Repugnican votes.

That scenario probably wouldn’t give progressives much leverage, however, because the Democratic presidential candidate could win with a plurality, like Bill Clinton did in 1992.

Those of us on the far left and the far right aren’t really represented in Washington, D.C., however, and I’d be fine with a four-party (or multi-party) system: the Democratic Party could be for those who are center-left, the Repugnican Party could be for those who are center-right, the wingnuts could have their own party (the “Conservative Party” or whatever the fuck they want to call it), and we progressives could have our own party, too — the Green Party, preferably. 

Or maybe it just needs to be a fight to the bitter end, a (bloodless, hopefully) rematch of the Civil War. That seems to be what those on the far right want, and as a member of the far left, I say: Let’s give that to them.

*Remember when the remnants of Howard Dean’s failed campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination became Democracy for America? Damn, are the Obama people copycats… They act like Obama did it all on his own, when, in fact, Obama only rode in on the wave that Dean and his supporters created…