Reid K. Beveridge has covered politics in various states and Washington, D.C., since 1965. He is now retired, living in Delaware.
A lot of the talking heads are saying, “Oh, woe is them (the Republicans).” They lost the midterm election they were supposed to win in a red wave. And even though they will be a majority in the House of Representatives, they are split, and we don’t know if Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, of all places, will be elected speaker given the five or more holdouts. Oh, woe is them.
The Democrats occupy the White House and will have a one-vote majority in the Senate, unless Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who left the Democratic Party Dec. 9, switches entirely to the Republicans. This leaves the Republicans with very little role to play in Washington other than obstruct what President Joe Biden wants to do, and perhaps defund a couple things that deserve it, such as the addition of 87,000 IRS agents to annoy the American people by questioning everything in sight.
Sometime between now and Jan. 3, 2023, the Republicans in the House will decide who is going to be their speaker. Most likely, McCarthy will make the deals to get the 218 votes required. Among other things, that could empower the Republicans to hold hearings on the Biden administration and the Biden family, which should prove interesting.
That will leave the talking heads little to talk about other than the 2024 presidential election. Already we have two candidates: President Biden says he plans to run. Former President Donald Trump has announced he will run. Let us gently suggest that neither of those two will be their party’s nominee.
Taking Biden first, the problem with his candidacy is obvious. He will turn 82 years old in November 2024. Even Joe Biden’s most fervid supporters have to admit that Biden is not the man he was even a few years ago. Twenty or so years ago, I went to an event where Biden was to be the keynote speaker. He had been asked to speak for 20 minutes. He spoke for an hour and 15 — completely extemporaneously and without notes.
Today, it is one gaffe after another. And we don’t mean the kind of gaffe that is really telling an inconvenient truth. The other day, he called France “Frank.” Earlier, he couldn’t seem to remember the name of his secretary of defense when Lloyd Austin was standing almost beside him.
Love him or hate him, no one would say those things — which, as a Delawarean, I lament — about Donald J. Trump. But at the same time, Trump may be worse. The lament here is that Trump’s policies and his governance in general were quite good. The problem was all the drama one had to endure to get those policies.
Given all that, one might assume that the Democrats would have an easy time in 2024. But wait. The problem for Democrats is that they don’t have many realistic alternatives to Biden. How about Vice President Kamala Harris? Are you kidding? A president who giggles. Or, more accurately, cackles. Does anyone take her seriously? She dropped out of the 2020 primary contests even before the Iowa caucuses.
And, beyond her and Hillary Clinton, there just isn’t much. No governor comes to mind. No senator does either. Maybe Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. But she didn’t last long in 2020 either. Or how about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer?
Then, of course, there is California Gov. Gavin Newsom. I’m sure a majority of Americans want all of us to be like California.
Notwithstanding all the chatter about a Republican Party in disarray, the GOP actually has a lot more credible candidates available for 2024. The leader clearly is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He won reelection by 19 points last month against a very credible opponent.
And, of course, there is former Vice President Mike Pence. Or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Then, there is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
What is becoming clearer by the minute is that no Republican can be successful if they insist in relitigating the 2020 election. Trump is obsessed with his defeat. This year, he endorsed a bunch of people for various offices who agreed with him. Mostly, they lost.
Joe Biden should be beatable in 2024. As evidence, consider the Democratic National Committee’s decision to rearrange the primary and caucus schedule, bumping Iowa and New Hampshire from the first and second positions. Why? Well, because Joe Biden lost both of those in 2020. And put South Carolina first? Because Joe Biden won South Carolina to save his candidacy.
All this is based on the conventional political wisdom. The question before us now is whether the conventional political wisdom applies anymore in post-COVID-19 America. We don’t have Election Day and election night anymore. We have election week or election month. We have a couple congressional races that still weren’t decided a month later. Early voting starts some places more than a month before Election Day.
