Conspiracy of Dunces

Charlie: Well, Jim, off we go to the races yet again, this time with more polling from Suffolk University that contains buckets of bad news for Donald Trump, predictable bad news for Joe Biden and overall bad news for Republican aspirations all over the place. You want all the numbers, you will find them at suffex.edu. I would recommend against reading anything too deeply into these numbers, because of me! I never go beyond absorbing what I agree with in polling and keep the voice of some determined professor in head whispering “Nothing is real!” Still it’s great fun to pretend it is. In this case, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is creaming former President Trump’s immense backside in head to heads (butt to butts?) for the Republican nomination for 2024. Do I believe this? Can’t say. It’s always good for me when Trump gets bad news, but DeSantis might just be Trump with good hair, wildly conservative in so many ways. It works in Florida, but what about in the rest of the nation, where DeSantis is not really known. Time will tell. (Hows that for a cop out?) People in this poll are not excited about Joe Biden, but that’s probably because they haven’t thought much about him. What do you think, Jim?

photo by Brandi Alexandra

Jim: Relying on polls this early in the election cycle is like buying stock in a crypto exchange. The opinion gurus are as unreliable as that thirty-year-old whiz kid whose played video games on his way to bankruptcy court and, perhaps, jail. Too many things can happen that could dramatically alter the political landscape. We might find that DeSantis has a Stormy Daniels in his closet. DeSantis also could fumble the ball on some big decision in Florida, the mecca of political lunacy, and be about as popular as Mr. Tooth Decay come Election Day. And then, of course, there’s The Donald. As much as the progressive Dems want to see him fade from the scene, you can’t count him out. If the Republicans have a primary with a dozen candidates vying for the big spot, Trump could prevail in a true conspiracy of dunces. His diminished but loyal following would give him the competitive edge, particularly if the pack of GOP White House wannabes are as pitiful as the last lot. The polls suggest he’s not as popular as he used to be. That’s probably true given the latest Trump Trifecta — his legal problems; his dinner with notorious anti-Semites, Ye, the former rapper known as Kanye West, and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes; and his suggestion we trash the Constitution simply because he wants the White House back. Nevertheless, Trump loyalists would probably back him if he was a serial killer. And then, of course, there’s poor old Joe. I feel for Biden Maybe he fares better in one-on-one polling with Trump, but let’s face it, his age hurts him, even though he’s not that much older than Trump. A lot can happen in the next two years. Meanwhile, he shuffles around and just looks like an old man. Voters should give him some credit. He’s achieved more in his two years on Pennsylvania Avenue than Trump did in four. And he proved the polls and pundits wrong in the midterm elections. Yet a time just comes when you should step aside and give a younger man or woman a shot. He’s got plenty of company in Washington on that score. Do you think he’ll run again, Charlie? 

Charlie: I would hope that Joe doesn’t because he has a good track record for history, if not a good track record in a nation where his opponents will smear him mercilessly because of his age. There is no amount of crap they can drag out of the closet to imply without proving it that he has done something wrong.  He hasn’t. They should look to their hero Vladimir Putin (Vlad the Impaler as I call him) if they want to smear someone who well deserves it. President Biden has been there for Ukraine and for us, for that matter. I want him to end his term with a call for a revival of his party, hopefully by people who are not as old as mature oaks. The Republicans, I suspect, should just go pound sand and embrace the racist blob they find so exciting!

Jim: Our commentaries about Joe have a problem: What if Trump gets the Republican nomination? Biden beat him in the last election rather convincingly, even if Trump says otherwise. And I think he could beat him again in a pinch, even though the President has just turned eighty. So, the question becomes who could the Democrats nominate as an alternative to Biden who could also beat Trump if the right wing of the GOP selects him as the Republican candidate? Forget Kamila Harris. She’s been a lackluster vice president. As I scour the Democratic landscape, I don’t see much. The Dems need a good, strong candidate with some executive experience. In other words, they need a governor, someone who has actually run a state. I’m now down here in North Carolina. This is the first time I’ve even lived in the south, something I thought I would never do. Then my son and his wife blessed me with two beautiful grandsons who live about a fifteen minute drive from my home in Cary. Cary’s not the gravy and grits south. In fact, the locals say Cary stands for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees. So, I’m liking many of my new neighbors and the warm weather. But I also like Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor here. He’s won two times in a state that the Republicans have sliced up in gerrymanders so badly that the state’s political map is now at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court case. He’s had to work with Republicans, who control the State Senate and House, although that’s been a chore at times. He presides over a state with a booming and well-diversified economy. He can’t run for another term because the state constitution limits the governor to two consecutive terms. His term ends in 2025, and he’s only sixty-five. I remember when I thought that was old. I rest my case. 

—James O’Shea and Charles Madigan

James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.

Charles Madigan is a writer and veteran foreign and national correspondent for UPI and the Chicago Tribune, where he also served as a senior writer and editor. He examines news reporting, politics and world events.