Question 1): 1): Eight candidates to be the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2024 election debated last Wednesday (Aug. 23) in Milwaukee. It was telecast on FOX. As everyone reading this knows, the “elephant not in the room” was former President Donald Trump. Instead, Trump engaged in a bit of “counter-programing,” choosing to be interviewed for 46 minutes by political commentator Tucker Carlson, who posted the pre-recorded video on his X (formerly Twitter) account five minutes before the Wisconsin debate began. So, were there any winners or losers in the Milwaukee debate? And who won the Neilsen “ratings war” between the two contestants, Trump or the Fox Eight?
Answer 1): First, there were an estimated 12.8 million viewers of the Milwaukee debate on one or more of the FOX programs. That was higher than anything else on TV last Wednesday, higher than all three (CBS, NBC ABC) major broadcast networks combined. However, that pales in comparison with the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, when the first Republican presidential debate drew nearly 24 millions viewers, the highest-rated presidential primary debate ever and the 9th most-viewed event of all types in cable TV history. The only eight cable broadcasts back then that were more popular had been college football games on ESPN.
As for Trump/Carlson, estimates of viewership range from 74 million (Carlson’s X statistics) to over 100 million (Trump’s claim) to 180 million (independent high-tech bean-counters). But the number that signifies real “engagement” tells a very different story. If you count re-posts, quotes posted, likes, bookmarks and “replies to” — the total is only about 800,000 (By comparison, Fox TV averages 1.7 million viewers during its daily prime time broadcast.) It’s clear that “views” tell us nothing about the true popularity of a program because they have no relationship to how much actual engagement the post gets. How long do viewers look at it? One second? How many repeats or “double-counts” are there? How many actually watched the entire 46 minutes? Still, the Milwaukee debate comes off as the under card compared with Trump/Carlson’s main event, especially when the latter was paired with the mug shot of Trump taken in the Fulton Co. (GA) jail the next day that he posted on X that went viral worldwide.
As for the performances by the candidates in Milwaukee, opinions are all over the map. S0mewhat surprisingly, the general assessment is that debate was quite enlightening and entertaining. Yes, the moderators lost control, but that may have been a good thing. It turns out that 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has never been elected to public office, is the best “natural” politician of the bunch — at least, as a debater — even if he is the least likely to win the nomination. The public must have the impression the other candidates all hate him, which he no doubt relishes. As for the others, Ron DeSantis dodged expected bullets but paid the price by fading into the woodwork; Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum will shortly be history even though they acquitted themselves adequately; Tim Scott was boring; Mike Pence came off as the “grown up” but played the sanctimonious card to excess; Chris Christie was both witty and acerbic but knows he has no chance; and Nikki Haley probably wins the prize as the best of the bunch even if it doesn’t change the arc of the race. Michigan’s luckless Perry Johnson once again failed to make the cut — last year he was thrown off the ballot for fraudulent petition signatures, this time the RNC ruled he didn’t qualify for the debate because he was one valid poll short of proving he’s got 1% national support. He won’t do any better trying to compete in the next debate in California Sept. 27 because that gabfest requires 3% national support, which he’ll never get.
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Question 2): Polls reveal a majority of Americans don’t want a repeat match-up in 2024 of the two major party nominees for the presidency in 2020 — Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump. Voters want someone else instead of either or both. So far, it looks like voters will be disappointed. So, which would be more difficult, for Republicans to persuade Donald Trump to get out of the presidential race or for Democrats to persuade President Joe BIDEN to get out of the race?
Answer 2): For either Biden or Trump, probably the only trigger for an exit would be a medical crisis, not a political or legal one. Biden believes he is the only Democrat who can beat Trump. Trump would have us believe that he never lost in the first place, and should still be in office. It’s true that if Biden faced an LBJ-type 1968 scenario and he sensed he and/or his party might lose, he could very possibly get out. The only way to “convince” Trump to quit would be to beat him at the GOP convention, which appears impossible and might not work, anyway, because he would undoubtedly run as a third-party candidate. Beyond ego, Trump also hopes to trade on his status as the probable Republican nominee and possible president to fend off his legal and financial difficulties.
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Question 3): Election clerks across the state are nervous because they don’t know whether the 2024 Michigan Presidential primary will be March 11 or moved up to February 27, the date legislative Democrats voted to change it to. Is it possible that the Governor and other Michigan Democratic officials are beginning to question whether the date of the primary should be moved up or not? Of course, as of the moment it appears the Feb. 27 primary can’t happen, anyway, unless the Legislature grants Immediate Effect to the public act that created it, or else adjourns sine die this fall.
Answer 3): The Michigan Democratic Party has to be watching the national scene closely to determine whether the Feb. 27 date will even matter. If RFK, Jr., has been disposed of as a challenger and Biden is still alive and not incapacitated, the Dems may hope the primary didn’t even exist. The only reason to keep it in law that early is to cause the Republicans problems. The Democrats have already forced the Michigan GOP to concoct a plan to award most if not all of its delegates in a state convention, not through a primary which would result in punishment by the RNC in the form of lost delegates to the national convention. A Michigan GOP nominating convention will ensure Donald Trump gets most or all of the party’s delegates, and Trump is exactly who the Democrats want to see running in November, 2024, for the Republicans. And Democrats would have what they have always wanted, which is to advance Michigan to a better position (Feb. 27) on the presidential primary calendar, in 2028 if not next year.
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Good for Gov Nikki Haley to present herself as a Centrist. She has stated a number of months for a woman to have reproductive choice
Most significantly, Haley wants to campaign on other substantive issues.
How refreshing, if we had a Presidential campaign on the ISSUES
“Reproductive choice” should be prevention, not murder. Why all the code words, anyway?
Some observations:
(A) Perry Johnson enjoys some popularity in Michigan but needs to aim lower – he should run for a U.S. House seat in Michigan as Dave Trott did as a political outsider and did well with his self-funded campaign that crushed incumbent Kerry Bentivolio
(B) Asa Hutchinson is the only candidate that will not support Trump as a nominee and he received ZERO percent in the latest GOP candidate poll;
(C) Bob Barr has rightfully pointed out that Hunter Biden’s income from Ukrainian sources may not be a crime – just poor judgment – and Chris Christie has alluded to the fact that Joe Biden has no criminal charges pending against him – his son does;
(D) Fani Willis is being cast by many as a publicity hound who has sought this expansive indictment to make a name for herself despite the fact that her county has an astronomical violent crime rate – this is something that works to Trump’s advantage;
(E) the electorate feels that a Trump-Biden rematch represents two of the worst candidates in any general presidential election in the nation’s history – neither are qualified and the news is dominated by Hunter Biden’s dubious conduct and the Trump Train’s ludicrous and discredited election fraud claims;
(F) Michigan’s GOP congressional delegation virtually handed the Michigan delegates to Trump via their early endorsement;
(G) It is almost unheard of for an incumbent president to face any serious challenge to a re-election bid from someone within his own political party (few remember John Wolfe vs. Obama in 2012 or Lyndon LaRouche vs. Bill Clinton in 1996) and the last Dem incumbent to stave off a serious challenge from within his own party was Jimmy Carter in 1980 when Ted Kennedy lost 25 of 35 primaries
(H) Bernie Sanders recent expression of support for Biden’s re-election bid virtually dooms any chance Mariane Williamson may have had against Biden – as has biting criticism from her campaign staffers.
(I) the 2024 presidential race will be unique and historic as Trump will likely be facing non-stop trials while seeking the GOP nomination. Trump does not need to campaign to receive the nomination.
Joe, Biden‘s two biggest problems are 1) he’s not nearly as entertaining as Trump (i.e. boring) and 2) his age.
The reality is he’s been a very productive president, perhaps the most productive in our lifetime. Whether or not you agree with his achievements, nobody can deny that he has a substantial record of accomplishment.
As for the age issue: he’s only about three years older than Donald Trump, and obviously in much better physical condition.
His pulling numbers suggest the White House has done a terrible job connecting Biden with the many successes that Americans like out of this administration. His initiatives are for the most part very popular, but very few people are either aware of them, or not aware that they were Biden programs to begin with.
He has the time and the money to deal with that in the next 15 months.
Add to that the current polling showing a majority of Americans do not think a convicted felon should be president and will not vote for Trump. The MAGA faithful will be true to him, but that is only 30 to 35% of the electorate.
His biggest concern isn’t the Republican opposition. It is the prospect of a serious third-party candidate playing spoiler. I cannot believe that the prospective third-party candidates deep down really want to have their legacy as having helped put Donald Trump back in the White House.
“…………the reality is that he has been a very productive president. Perhaps the most productive in our lifetime”.
Really? Like the withdrawal from Afghanistan or the inflation that has eroded the life savings of elderly Americans. Or the immigration nightmares in Texas and Arizona.
America should hope that a third-party candidacy – perhaps RFK, Jr or Ms. Williamson will cause Biden to lose in 2024. Just as Bush lost in 1992 due to fellow Texan H. Ross Perot and his Reform Party..
The time table for the withdrawal from Afghanistan was originally set by the Trump administration as part of the deal made with the Taliban without the participation of the (then) Afghani government. The deal included the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters prior to the US withdrawal. The time line for our withdrawal negotiated by the Trump administration was impractically short, but expanded by Biden. Biden’s option was to stay in Afghanistan, which few of us supported. Trump himself made substantial contributions to inflation, both by his deficit spending when the economy permitted a reduction in the deficit as well as during Covid, and by arranging for an agreement for cuts in the production of oil by the world’s largest oil producers just before demand increased. That agreement continued in effect well after Biden took office. As it is, the US experienced less inflation than most of the industrialized world, and has recovered in good fashion. The border has been a mess for decades, and will continue to be so until congress passes serious legislation addressing the realities of immigration issues.
Well, the inflation rate in 2020 was 1.23%. In 2019 it was 1.81%. Try again. In 2021, the rate was 4.70%, up 3.6%. In 2022, the inflation rate was 8.00%, up 3.3% from the previous year. The arming of a terrorist army could have been avoided had there been competent people involved in the operation. Biden promised over and over that he’s going to shut down big oil and executive orders to that effect were flying out of the out box on January 20, 2021. Are you an AIBOT? An AIBOT would have good data, so I’d guess not.
If you disagree, please reply to my specific points. No one disagrees that we had inflation as we recovered from Covid. The question is what Biden inherited, and how did he deal with it.
Yeah, $4.00 a gallon gasoline, 14% higher prices in two years, much higher utility bills, 24% higher grocery bills, mortgage interest rates so high no one can afford a house, car prices 40% higher, scarcity of used cars and trucks, shortages of necessities, supply chain issues, wages lagging way behind surging inflation, baby formula shortages, slow response to the train disaster, the disastrous, deadly, costly withdrawal from Afghanistan that armed an entire terrorist army, the millions of undocumented aliens pouring over the open border, the fentanyl crisis that killed 100,000 Americans last year and the year before that and the year before that, the rogue parole board releasing inmates from prison years before the completion of their sentences, local prosecutors not prosecuting crimes by using plea bargains, yeah, what’s not to like? Try again. Is this an AIBOT?
What a horrible system of two-party BLAH. Trump-Biden. Take it or leave it.
And you wonder why Americans (generally) hate politics? Walt Sorg’s best thought is that a 3rd party can only play the role of spoiler. He’s not wrong due to crappy election rules.
The revolution is coming. Maybe at some point we’ll have the common sense adopt Ranked-Choice Voting and meet the promise of multi-party democracy.
If not, July 6th will become a time-marker of the next wave of idiots.
Bill:
In 2016, the Libertarian Party fielded Gary Johnson and he was the best presidential candidate that election cycle. The GOP organization in Michigan feared he would siphon off votes from Trump that year and made extraordinary efforts to encourage their own activists to vote for Trump in November.
In 2016, the Libertarian Party made its finest showing in any presidential election.
Your party needs to field more candidates at the county and local levels in Michigan. It will push the GOP to work harder to be attentive to its grassroots. If the Libertarians would have nominate candidates in Macomb County, for example, the Republican Party majority would disappear from the Board of Commissioners and incumbent elected county officers would be voted out.
A good summary Bill. Comments:
1) Pence throws his good Trump/Pence reputation & friendship away by insisting Trump did not honor the constitution – who cares. Disqualifies himself from being VP again.
2) Vivek will be Trump Chief-of-Staff.
3) Haley or Desantis or Pompeo are leading candidates for VP. I prefer Ron at this time.
4) The rest are chaff merely dispersing the anti-Trump vote – like 2016.
5) If Biden is still vertical, it will be Trump/Biden.
6) Republicans will lose again UNLESS they can mount an effective ballot harvesting campaign to rival the DNC machine – which I don’t see happening – in which case it will be game on with the Republicans having a slight edge . . .
Nice article Bill, as usual.
Yes, nice article, but most comments are delusional.
Hey Bill…..insightful article, as always. Both Trump and Biden are national embarrassments. Look into No Labels whose motto is Country Before Party. They are holding back on naming nominees, but the front runners are Manchin and Huntsman, one a Democrat, the other a Republican. Wouldn’t that be novel?! It is a return to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals book wherein Lincoln surrounded himself with those who disagreed with him. Huntsman and Manchin are good friends and vow to work together to reunite our sadly and deeply divided country which, in my opinion, is the number one issue facing our country today….