June 16, 2019

"In 2016, the people on the campaign like to say that they were building the airplane while it was in flight. This time, he will have a campaign that is befitting of an incumbent president of the United States."

Said Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for the 2020 Trump campaign, quoted in "Trump campaign makes a radical break from 2016/The president’s 2020 campaign is flipping the script from its ham-fisted approach the first time Trump sought elected office" (Politico).
Indeed, one official involved in Trump’s first presidential campaign likened the experience to a slow-motion plane crash: “We were strapped in on a sloppily assembled machine that was gradually spiraling out of control.”

117 comments:

Leland said...

I get the sense that if any of these unnamed sources are real and were on the campaign; they were the dead weight that if identified now will be cut free.

Michael K said...

The professional pols that run Politico don't want any of these amateurs running a campaign.

Too many rice bowls broken by that kind of thing.

Gahrie said...

Yet he still won

The Godfather said...

Are the Russians on board with these changes?

Mary Beth said...

It was innovative and exciting and it worked. I don't think it needs that much changing. The big differences will be that they'll have more money and the president won't be telling the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign.

TDP said...

Politico thinks they're being subtle with their in-kind contributions to whomever/whatever nominee the Democrat machine excretes.

They aren't and haven't been for some time. Yet they persist.

Birkel said...

So far out of control he won the election for the presidency of the most powerful and successful nation in the world.

I sure would like to be that out of control some day.

rehajm said...

I can only imagine how bad the competition must have been. Holy cow.

Big Mike said...

rehajm beat me to it!

Fernandinande said...

I have the "Orange Man Bad" song (tune = "Panama Red") stuck in my head.

Are the Russians on board with these changes?

I sure hope so, or else the little dears might be forced to collude.

wildswan said...

Trump had a message and got it through and that defeated Hillary's well-run, messageless campaign. So far the Dems are trying to run another messageless campaign (Vote Joe, He's Not Crazy vs. Vote Warren, She Is Crazy). The only one with a message is Three-House Bernie, the Commie, dug-up, like a mastodon completely intact, from a long-dead past still holding Stalin's bullet points. Destroy the American Military; Destroy the American Economy; Destroy the Americans.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Trump's campaign was analogous to a dynamically unstable aircraft, where Trump and a few others controlled its flight with exquisite precision. This class of aircraft is well regarded for its maneuverability, which will generally outperform older models.

MikeR said...

I remember hearing this about Jimmy Carter's campaign back in the day. First time was totally out of control. Second time was tightly organized, very well run.
Second time he lost, because of the Iran hostage situation and a lot of other things the American people didn't appreciate.
The American people may not be as stupid as you think.

Bill Peschel said...

Wow, imagine how big the margin of victory would have been if the Dems hadn't cheated in California and the media wasn't in the tank for them.

Big Mike said...

Humor aside, it is astonishing in retrospect (make that deeply astonishing) how rapidly Trump climbed his learning curve. In my lifetime I have seen professional politicians fail to figure it out (e.g., George McGovern, Bob Dole). His willingness to say “you’re fired” as he assessed what was working and what wasn’t certainly helped.

Bay Area Guy said...

The pols are trying to metaphor us to death.

In 2016, I thought the short slogans were effective:

Build the Wall!

Lock her up!

Drain the swamp!

Hagar said...

The media is not in the tank for the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is in the tank for the media.

The Party lacks a leader, or leaders, and a platform, so it is all just about staying in office, and the Democrat office holders just breathlessly runs after the media crying "I'm with you too! Don't forget about me!"
It really is quite disgraceful!

Greg Hlatky said...

To show how horrible Hillary was as a candidate, she had all the media, all the arts and entertainment industry, all academia, all the "public intellectuals", the entire bureaucracy, all foreign leaders, the Washington establishment and an army of long-serving operatives and talking heads on her side and lost to a political novice hated by his party who winged it his whole campaign.

Birkel said...

I'd bet that Giant Ginger, Brad Parscale, is in control.

Tommy Duncan said...

Trump won the first time because he was focused on the obvious objective: Winning the electoral college.

Hillary was busy winning the popular vote.

Remember the joke: Hillary, please tell these nice people where the bad Orange Man touched your electoral college.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

it is astonishing in retrospect (make that deeply astonishing) how rapidly Trump climbed his learning curve.

His kids are not as swift a study. They fired Lewandowski, who had gotten them there, and hired Manafort, the worst mistake of the campaign.

traditionalguy said...

And then along came Kelly Ann Conway, and Trump became unstoppable. Campaign Brains and emotional intelligence in one package. That is called the Great Woman Theory of History.

Tank said...

I am guessing that the next campaign will be about the same as the last campaign.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

"Out of control" was its best and defining quality. Out of the control of the media, the establishment, the experts, political correctness, and the consensus of the herd, and that continues. It is the true source of the hatred and the desperation of the forces against him and those who support him. The battle will be worse this time now that the enemies of the people know they can actually lose.

Drago said...

Michael K: "His kids are not as swift a study. They fired Lewandowski, who had gotten them there, and hired Manafort, the worst mistake of the campaign."

Trumps kids experiences, though impressive enough to a degree, cannot possibly match the formative experiences of The Donald which created the crucible in which he was forged.

Its not easy for the children of very successful individuals to live up to the parent(s) as it is that instinctive and insightful approach most successful leaders possess that sets them apart and is rarely duplicated.

That instinctive approach is also what leads to the disruptive and apparently chaotic atmoshere that lesser minds cannot fathom, but more often than not leads to successful outcomes.

In Trumps case these lesser minds are screaming for Trump to follow a familiar pre-determined and artificial template of behavior and decision-making so they can understand what is happening....(not gonna happen)...and that also explains how the left/far left/Far-left-LLR's (like Chuck) keep getting everything wrong.

Gk1 said...

I read Politico like I am sure servicemen who listened to Tokyo Rose or Lord Haw Haw did for entertainment purposes only. They are the mouth piece for the democrats so I have to figure out what their angle or who benefits, is not on what they are supposedly writing about.

Fernandinande said...

Don't forget the chaos! There was chaos, right? Don't forget it!

Michael K said...

In Trumps case these lesser minds are screaming for Trump to follow a familiar pre-determined and artificial template

They thought Manafort had convention experience but his experience was decades old. They didn't know about his Ukraine connection. Rookie mistake but Trump depends more on family because all the establishment was/is against him.

The mistake did more harm to Manafort as no one was interested in his Ukraine connection until he got in the Trump orbit. Then all the furies descended.

rcocean said...

Trump's campaign staff is irrelevant. All we'eve been hearing is Trump/Trump/Trump 24/7 for 2.5 years. He constantly on TV giving interviews. What can his campaign staff do? Who can they reach that hasn't already made up their mind about Trump?

It'll all be about winning the debates and doing attack ads on whoever the D's nominate. Given the D's insane proposals, the attack ads can write themselves.

Francisco D said...

"We are flying the plane as we are building it" is a commonly used phrase in the business world.

In my 20 years of business consulting, I had clients undergoing changes in how they operated. They described the organizational climate in those terms. Chaos is less of an issue than tolerance for ambiguity.

Trump faced deep odds running against Hillary. The campaign had to do things differently than traditional campaigns.

rcocean said...

IRC, Manafort was some sort expert on doing conventions. He managed a couple of them.

rcocean said...

In 2020 the R's in Congress won't be stabbing Trump in the back, like 2016. Although the 2016 vote shows few people care what Mitch and his gang say. Hopefully, Kristol and his backstabbing Never trumpers will come out for the D candidate. That should win Trump some votes.

J Lee said...

Incumbents either run on their record or try to run away from their record. As of now Trump looks like he's going to be able to do the former, where in 2016 everything he said he would or wouldn't do was still a hypothetical.

And the same thing works for the Democrats. If the economy collapses or the U.S. gets into a major foreign entanglement, they're in a lot better shape for 2020. But for now they have to run mainly based on Trump's personality somehow making life worse for the majority of Americans than it was during the Obama years, as opposed to being able to take any actual economic or other quality-of-life numbers and say most people are worse off now than they were four years ago (it's why Biden's campaign started off as trying to run on simply bringing back the more mannered Obama years. But the left side of the Democratic Party is pushing him towards trying to run on the idea the nation's become an economic basket case and an environmental hellhole since 2016, and radical changes must be made in society).

rcocean said...

"We are flying the plane as we are building it"


A bad metaphor since its physically impossible. Unless you're just doing some interior decoration.

Bay Area Guy said...

Bannon says, on a substantive level, that Trump won because he tapped into the concerns of millions of blue collar workers, who felt that the globalist elites had sold them out.

traditionalguy said...

The real mystery is why DJT had to Pence on the team. Pence is a stealth religious actor with more Deep State ties than Ryan ,Romney and Bushies put together. He apparently was going to move in when the long planned Billy Bush Tape hit job was released.

David Begley said...

Bay:

How right you are. I’m sure no Dem will draw crowds in Iowa like Trump did. Bernie does the best. If Biden ever really shows up, I’ll be interested in the crowd size.

wild chicken said...

and hired Manafort, the worst mistake of the campaign.

I thought Manafort was the one who knew how to work with state parties. Exactly the kind of thing most noob candidates don't handle well.

And Ukraine is not Russia, far from it. And Manafort's advice to Yanukovych was to distance himself from russia.

But media doesn't get those nuances.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

...and yet Trump's plane was able to land in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Birkel said...

They hired Manafort based on press reports of a potentially brokered convention.
But then Trump secures the delegates by our-working every damned body.

Also, they trusted the press.
Never a good look.

Curious George said...

They should have copied President Hillary's.

tim in vermont said...

Remember when Trump was playing his own publicist? He was right that he'd never get a better one.

Yancey Ward said...

On the surface, you won't notice a difference between how 2020 is run versus 2016- it will still be Trump traveling everywhere with huge rallies at all the stops. The Democrats had better choose a candidate that can match Trump's pace, or it will just be a repeat of 2016, but with Trump winning 5-6 more states- or they had better hope for recession.

Sara D said...

speaking of planes, looks like the president of Mexico is selling his presidential plane to pay for the immigration deal he made with President Trump

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mexican-president-selling-his-luxurious-presidential-plane-to-pay-for-us-immigration-deal

iowan2 said...

Candidate Trump is like President Trump, dominates the news cycle. Remember that big news conference Nervous Nancy had on the Thursday? Big bomb shell. Laid out all the legislation she passed and sent to the Senate, where the grim reaper McConnell will let the legislation die. Big accomplishments to make the Republicans look bad, and prove the Dems can chew gum and legislate at the same time. Remember all of that?
No?
President Trump gobbled up the news cycle. Told Stephe???ous that he would consider taking a meeting with Norway to talk about dirt on his opponent.
So the media was forced to spend the next 4 days explaining how Clinton's wife hiring foreign agents using cut-outs to get dirt is perfectly legal, but having foriegn agents walk intel in the front door is a crime.

Airplane still under construction. No safe landing in sight.

stevew said...

"ham-fisted", and yet he won.

Bay Area Guy said...

The big wig muckity-mucks of the Dem Party (embodied by John Kerry) care much more about Brussels and Davos, than Bakersfield and Fresno.

The Brussels/Davos jet set crowd need to be horsewhipped to within an inch of their lives.

It will re-focus their attention on important things (work, family, church, local community)

rhhardin said...

The fantasy is capture of the Trump campaign by the deep state.

Michael K said...

Bannon says, on a substantive level, that Trump won because he tapped into the concerns of millions of blue collar workers, who felt that the globalist elites had sold them out.

Bannon is still the best source for what is going on in society, not just the US. I have watched his video meetings with European groups and he is predicting what is happening there.

Euronews interview.

Oxford Union.

Very impressive at Oxford Union.

Ray - SoCal said...

Agree, Manafort has paid.

Swamp creature that became a scapegoat.

Same with Michael Cohen.

And Billy Bush.

And yet, the Aswan’s escaped justice.

Democrats don’t abandon Democrats.

Not to mention Hillary’s server.

With the GOP, you are guilty until proven innocent, and we don’t dare help, due the fear of being tainted.

Trump is doing an amazing job of showing the hypocrisy of the system, and how the uniparty / elites / deep state only care about themselves.

What a strange time.

And I’m not sure anyone else could do what Trump is doing. It’s amazing the attacks he has survived, and he keeps counter attacking.


Guildofcannonballs said...

I like this "flip the script" terminology because I like Kid Rock and he uses it.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2018/12/05/kid-rock-joy-behar-nashville-christmas-parade-fiasco-david-briley-david-plazas/2214824002/


Ray - SoCal said...

2020 Election Black Swan Event...

What happens if an African Ebola carrier, illegal immigrant, crosses the US Mexican border?

Michael K said...

If you listen to Bannon at Oxford, at 10 minutes you can hear the idiots demonstrating outside.

I went to see him in Tucson a year ago and there were idiots demonstrating there.

They have no idea what they are opposed to.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Betcha that 'campaign plane' is painted Red White & Blue

narciso said...

there are idiots demonstrating elsewhere, Orlando where the President is kicking off his campaign start is kind of Ground Zero, well nowhere near as Palm Beach County,

narciso said...

he's covering the mexico beat:


https://babalublog.com/2019/06/16/the-washington-post-condemns-sara-sanders-as-a-liar-and-mouthpiece-for-fascism-but-the-wapos-star-reporter-nick-miroff-is-married-to-an-apparatchik-of-the-stalinist-castro-regime-whose-f/

narciso said...


signs of self awareness?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-warns-of-very-real-risk-of-trump-win-in-2020-says-frustration-with-pelosi-is-very-real

Michael K said...

narciso, I wonder if they will still be able to afford the Stalinists when Nick Sandmann is done with them.

$250 million plus treble punitive. That's starting to be real money.

wild chicken said...

or they had better hope for recession

MSM is frantically trying to wishcast us into recession as we speak. "The recession has already started!!" They scream.

Maybe, maybe not. They didn't see the last one coming.

narciso said...

they do seem to reading entrails, namely their own,

Sebastian said...

"a sloppily assembled machine that was gradually spiraling out of control"

. . . but spiraling just fast enough to cross the finish line in first place.

Anyway, in politics as in Hollywood, nobody knows anything.

Fen said...

And then along came Kelly Ann Conway, and Trump became unstoppable. Campaign Brains and emotional intelligence in one package. That is called the Great Woman Theory of History.

The first woman to lead a Presidential campaign pulls off the greatest upset in American political history. And all we hear from the "feminists" are crickets.

Kelly Ann Conway's name should be on the lips of every little girl as an example of what a woman can accomplish. Instead, we get this Brie Larson PCBS.

Sam L. said...

It WORKED, didn't it?

Browndog said...

Trump may or may not be re-elected. I suspect he will. He'd win 45 States if not for the media driven narrative/fake news.

The question is, what comes after Trump.

Half of this country wants it destroyed, the other half wants it preserved. Sincerely held beliefs on both sides, I believe.

They told us to vote. We did. We elected Tea Party candidates to Congress, in historic numbers. Boehner-McConnnell chewed them up and spit them out.

Fine. How about a President?

Not one republican in the Senate, few in the House will even defend him, let alone champion his cause.

His cause being America.

It's been said--You won't like what comes after Trump. It is meant as a warning to the ruling class.

rehajm said...

Ham fisted? Voters LOVE ham!

JackWayne said...

Maybe part of the problem was the FBI weaponized against Trump because CrowdStrike is a Democrat apparatchik?

Narayanan said...

Blogger bagoh20 said...
"Out of control" was its best and defining quality.

True. Also *in touch* and *grounded in reality*

where media thought the movie they're showing was destroying him when people saw a gladiator fighting for them.

Greg Hlatky said...

Ham fisted? Voters LOVE ham!

Could lose him the Jewish vote.

Narayanan said...

,,,how rapidly Trump climbed his learning curve,,,

Exactly. Synergy from being in touch with the base. How many hands did Trump shake v how many by Hillary!?

Narayanan said...

Not in Israel.

Despite Judaism's prohibition on eating pork, pigs are raised, slaughtered and processed as food in Israel. Pork, referred to as “white meat” in Hebrew, has been available at numerous restaurants and stores in Israel for decades.Mar 14, 2018

Narayanan said...

http://www.bobbiecarlylesculpture.com/SelfMadeMan.php

narciso said...

When you give the Cortez of the world power:

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/06/14/denying-reality/

FullMoon said...

Keep in mind that disgust, revulsion dislike, if not actual hatred of the corrupt, dishonest, elitist feckless cunt Hillary and her gang of cutthroats contributed to Trumps victory.
Millions who voted against Hillary need to stick with Trump this time around.

I will.

narciso said...

The real Alexander pierce:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/06/robert_mueller_a_scary_and_mendacious_man.html

Browndog said...

Koepka teeing off-

Fernandinande said...

"We are flying the plane as we are building it"
A bad metaphor since its physically impossible.


A nonsensical and uncommon expression - only 4 google results, and two are academic. But replace 'building' with 'changing' and it makes more sense but is not spiffy.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

I disagree, being physically impossible makes it a *great* metaphor.

Michael K said...

. He'd win 45 States if not for the media driven narrative/fake news.

I wish I was confident. The Democrats ran test programs with Ballot Harvesting in CA and AZ. Both were successful.

Vote fraud is the worst threat to democracy we have now in this country. All the GOP Congress members in Orange County, a GOP stronghold for decades, were defeated by "late" votes.

Meade said...

“Bannon says, on a substantive level, that Trump won because he tapped into the concerns of millions of blue collar workers, who felt that the globalist elites had sold them out.“

Blue collar voters — true. But frequently forgotten is the fact that Trump won the college-educated white voters by a four-point margin over Crooked Hillary.

The Godfather said...

Since 1952 the pattern of Presidential elections, that control of the White House changes from one party to the other every 8 years, is almost unbroken. In 1980, Reagan defeated Carter, after only 4 years of a Democrat White House, and then in 1988 Bush was elected to the "third Reagan term" (and then lost to Bill Clinton 4 years later). So in 2016, after two Obama terms, generic Republican Candidate X could be expected to beat generic Democrat Candidate Y. But the Democrats didn't nominate generic Candidate Y, they nominated Hillary Clinton, one of the least appealing major party Presidential candidates since Tom Dewey. Trump's victory was not the result of a brilliant campaign against formidable odds. Trump simply managed not to lose an election the Republican candidate was destined to win.

This is not to minimize Trump's accomplishment in capturing Blue Collar, Rust Belt votes in 2016; a supposed political novice he saw where the votes were and went after them, while Hillary relied on her "fire wall". But those who claim that 2016 proves that Trump is a political genius who will devastate whoever the Democrats nominate in 2020 are living in a dream world.

In 2020, the pattern should have Trump re-elected, no matter who the Democrats nominate. The Democrats don't appear to have a potential equivalent of Reagan 1980. But Trump needs to run a very good campaign and not simply a clone of the 2016 campaign. His cheer leaders should not forget that.

Browndog said...

K-

Which is why the democrat will win by 5 million votes in California this year-

More "evidence" that the Electoral College is "un-Democratic", and bind the other States that passed into law "popular vote" statutes.

Hillary got 4 million more votes than Trump in 5 California counties. Thnk about that one.

narciso said...

squirrel chasing is good up to a point:


https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/16/pompeo-trump-media-foreign/

Derek Kite said...

Now 2012, that was a well run campaign. Ran like a clock.

Victory is optional. Payment isn't.

narciso said...

in all the special pleading in time and the times



https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2019/06/11/venezuela-maduro-owes-hundreds-of-millions-to-chinese-tech-firms/

narciso said...

true, but how many states have legalized harvesting,


https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/the-armies-of-shadow/

narciso said...

this would be a very foolish thing to do:


https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1141171/World-War-3-threat-US-Russian-power-grid-conflict

Leland said...

A bad metaphor since its physically impossible.

Boeing read that, handed off their beer, and went to go build a new 737 Max.

John henry said...

What have you been up to in Sandpoint Idaho, Ann?

Pizza Huts guest wifi has you blocked as inappropriate.

I hope they don't throw me out for knowing you! At least not before we eat.

You are in great company. In a McDonald's in Calgary last week The Gateway Pundit was banned for being unreliable as well as inappropriate.

Using my cell signal to send this.

John Henry

Michael K said...

Hillary got 4 million more votes than Trump in 5 California counties. Thnk about that one.

Some precincts had 114%^ turnout of registered voters. California has probably 3 to 4 million illegal voters. When illegals get drivers' licenses, they are registered to vote.

Now, with vote harvesting, they don't even have to show up or fill out a ballot.

Admin Michael (M.D.) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

the less ethical version of mueller, mandelbrit, got a conviction out of Netanyahu's wife, for having a hot mail prepared, at the mansion, good grief

narciso said...

This I'd thr kind of picayune carp, the deep state over there deals with:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-wife-went-through-four-years-of-hell-fighting-fraud-charges/

Bruce Hayden said...

Blogger John henry said...
“What have you been up to in Sandpoint Idaho, Ann?

Pizza Huts guest wifi has you blocked as inappropriate.

I hope they don't throw me out for knowing you! At least not before we eat.

You are in great company. In a McDonald's in Calgary last week The Gateway Pundit was banned for being unreliable as well as inappropriate. “

Expect to be through Sandpoint maybe Wed, on the way to visit a friend who Iives at the bottom of the lake. Every Wed evening throughout the summer there are sailboat races there, and they are always looking for crew (I am closer to ballast, but it is still fun, and the barbecue afterwards at the marina makes up for occasionally being almost becalmed). Plus the two of us get to solve the world’s problems when we get back to his house. Plus, he is supposed to help me finish assembly of a MSR (modern sporting rifle) build (we finished his last time I visited a couple weeks ago).

You probably know this, but the lake that Sandpoint sits on, Pend O’Reille, is fairly unique. It is deep enough not to freeze, and seismically inactive, which is why the Navy has its sonic test facility there. Also, the glacial plug for Glacial Lake Missoula was about 30 miles east of Sandpoint, by Clark Fork, ID, right before you hit the MT state line. The plug was caused by the glacier pushing down from Canada, blocking the Clark Fork river there. The water would then backup well above Missoula, forming a lake several thousand feet deep. Then the glacier would retreat, and the plug would pop, releasing all that water to drain the lake over a period of a day. That much water, released so quickly, would then take a shortcut through Spokane, ultimately scouring E WA and OR into what are now called their ”scab lands”, on their shortcut to the Columbia River, and the ocean. Rinse and repeat multiple times, though no one seems to know exactly how many times. One of the biggest influences on the geography of the eastern half of those two states.

ken in tx said...

A better plane analogy would be being a student pilot flying solo with a plane load of passengers.

Big Mike said...

Anyone interested in the story of Glacial Lake Missoula might want to go here for more details. The latest estimate is that when the glacial ice dam finally failed and released the water in Glacial Lake Missoula, it drained at a rate of almost 9.5 cubic miles of water per hour.

Seeing Red said...

In 2020, the pattern should have Trump re-elected, no matter who the Democrats nominate. The Democrats don't appear to have a potential equivalent of Reagan 1980. But Trump needs to run a very good campaign and not simply a clone of the 2016 campaign. His cheer leaders should not forget that.

Very angry people turn out.

I hope the 2020 economy isn’t like 76-79 and we don’t have hostages.

Beasts of England said...

'I hope the 2020 economy isn’t like 76-79 and we don’t have hostages.'

Our economy is still on the upswing. And, if we have hostages, it won't be for 444 days with Trump.

veni vidi vici said...

And yet they still managed to beat the combined forces of Hillary's Billion Dollar War Machine, the corporatist media, and the GOP's establishmentarian power center.

Do we need again to mention just how atrocious the Clinton campaign and candidacy was at doing the one job with which it was tasked?

Unbelievable. Truly.

Seeing Red said...

50 POINTS I tell you! 50 points ahead!

veni vidi vici said...

Trad Guy: "The real mystery is why DJT had to Pence on the team. Pence is a stealth religious actor with more Deep State ties than Ryan ,Romney and Bushies put together. He apparently was going to move in when the long planned Billy Bush Tape hit job was released."

I don't see this as a big deal nor a mystery. Recall 1980: Reagan was the rogue outsider that the right & proper (TM) establishment types didn't like the cut of. It's not unreasonable that the party/RNC GOTV etc. ground machine had substantial input into his choice of running mate, and he chose ultimate Northeast Establishment totum GHWB to mollify the party's big-money power base that they had someone "inside" that could keep an eye on things.

Fast forward to 2016: The Northeast Establishment has faded from prominence, and Romney's embarrassingly poor showing in '12 only cemented their demise. Instead, you had the Evangelical big money power base that's been driving GOP policy and still owned the reins since their boy W was the last guy in the White House.

Pence was the head of the "Study Committee" during his tenure in Congress, leading the Evangelical caucus during that time. He was their totum, just as Bush 41 had been the Northeastern Rockefeller types' totum in '80. It's all but doubtless they pretty much insisted he be on the ticket in order for the party not to essentially sit out the presidential election and concentrate all assets on congressional races in '16, and so there's Pence, the current GOP establishment big-money power base's man on the inside, to keep an eye on things lest they start veering out of control.

Frankly, both the foregoing conjectural-with-the-ring-of-truth scenarios speak to the stability and wisdom of GOP party politics. Many idiots but the larger underlying currents seem fairly well thought-out, even if they don't always win the day.

My guess is the next power base is likely to be an amalgam of blue collar rank and file types and American-interests-first business types, although it's hard to point to where their centralized "authority" / power-center is at the moment, and how that will be fused with or will morph the big corporate money entities to stay on board. Then again, there's nothing like winning to attract and keep one's followers.

veni vidi vici said...

Despite their evident, obvious, and cringe-inducingly hamfisted efforts to attract or peel-off religious people's support from the GOP, the Dems are doomed to miserable failure in that effort, in the same way any GOP effort to out-beta Beto or win the pink and blue-haired barren never-married no-stake-in-the-future-but-we-care-enough-to-tell-you-how-to-live-and-raise-your-kids-we-never-bothered-having pussyhat ladies would likewise crash and burn.

Kind of makes you wonder why Pelosi &co. are persisting with it, since it is both utterly unconvincing to religious folks and infuriating to the Dem die-hard base. I guess with little to lose going into '20, it's as good a time as any to try new things. lol.

effinayright said...

Browndog said...
K-

Which is why the democrat will win by 5 million votes in California this year-

More "evidence" that the Electoral College is "un-Democratic", and bind the other States that passed into law "popular vote" statutes.

Hillary got 4 million more votes than Trump in 5 California counties. Thnk about that one.
***********
Yeah, I'm thinkin '...that the name of the game is Electoral College votes, not popular votes.

And I'm thinkin' that any state that tries to disenfranchise their own voters by NOT adhering to the Constitution is gonna get its peepee whacked. I doubt any Supreme Court is going to let a state ignore the Electoral College system, no matter how obfuscatory the progreessive argument. There's too much history regarding the system to ignore, or brush aside---especially as about six sttes could determine EVERY election.

We don't live in a Democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. The Supremes will remind us all of that.

Michael K said...

Also, the glacial plug for Glacial Lake Missoula was about 30 miles east of Sandpoint, by Clark Fork, ID, right before you hit the MT state line. The plug was caused by the glacier pushing down from Canada, blocking the Clark Fork river there. The water would then backup well above Missoula, forming a lake several thousand feet deep.

I have a nice fossil sting ray (Heliobatis radians) from the Green River formation, a little south of Lake Missoula.

Tim said...

And he still won

etbass said...

“We don't live in a Democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. The Supremes will remind us all of that.“

Sounds good. Has the new law been challenged in a federal court?

wildswan said...

I'm quite sure that large obvious trends will lead to election victory. And there are no large obvious trends with a Dem candidate floating on their surface. I don't believe socialism will be attractive closer to the election. Venezuela is an example of socialism and also of the Green New Deal in action. Oil use has fallen from 792 thousand barrels in 2012 to 409 hundred thousand in 2018. That means fossil fuel demand was cut in half in six years and in another six will be down to zero - just what AOC wants for the US in the next twelve years. Same with air conditioning. Air conditioning is off sixteen hours a day because the electricity is off - just what AOC wants for the US over the next twelve years. For bonus points, picture the same cutbacks in Wisconsin - furnaces on half the time in winter, lights off sixteen hours a day in winter. MmmmHmmm. Bernie, you say wants this? And Joe? And Tin Lizzie? Rely on sun power in the Rust Belt in winter by the Great Lakes? That the Dem position? running against Trump? maybe he won't notice? MmmHmm.

wildswan said...

ooops -

"Oil use has fallen from 792 thousand barrels in 2012 to 409 thousand in 2018"

cf said...

bruce hayden, Yes! we hereabouts along the Willamette River into Portland love our "Glacial Erratics" the whale-sized boulders that were stuck in icebergs floating in the giant lake that was above us because of that flood. It is cool to climb a hill and sit on one -- and there is no hill higher around! -- and think this boulder melted out of an iceberg above us, it was all under water. cool.

Michael K, Yes! california is weaponizing their votes for democrats, no doubt about it, and don't you know there must be squads already assembling the programs for online hijinks to affect the outcome, like they facebook "tested" in ... somewhere where they could experiment . . . georgia, or was it Alabama?

I dread what the dems are dreaming up right now.

Narayanan said...

Blogger etbass asked ...Has the new law been challenged in a federal court?

It is not a single law.
And there is no enforcement mechanism.

I don't see how it becomes federal question.

Do the State Constitutions permit this should be the only question.

If State Supreme Courts strike it down there is nowhere for Democrats to go.

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Josephbleau said...

"Blue collar voters — true. But frequently forgotten is the fact that Trump won the college-educated white voters by a four-point margin over Crooked Hillary."

The MSM never told me this, the public hypothesis is that the more educated you are the higher the probability of voting Democrat.

Also, Iran conducted foreign election influence against Carter by capturing the embassy hostages. Ted Kennedy solicited foreign election influence from Russia by visiting and asking them to suborn Reagan. Hitler suborned the election of FDR by declaring war.
Hillary asked/paid foreign entities to suborn the President of the US. Obama suborned Israeli elections. Who are these crazy (democrat) people who claim an innocent man worse than a guilty woman?

Fen said...

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No idea what Binance is, but what an odd way to promote(?) a thing. I'm almost curious enough to find out what the hook is.

For laughs, here's a great TED on What Happens When You Respond To Spam. Enjoy!

An interesting lesson is they dumb down their pitch, so that only the most naive will respond, ensuring they don't waste time on skeptical curmudgeons like you guys.

Known Unknown said...

What a way to shit on Kellyanne Conway, who as far as I know, is the only woman to have run a successful Presidential campaign.

Kirk Parker said...

Bruce,

"to visit a friend who Iives at the bottom of the lake. "

Is his name Cousteau?