December 9, 2020
A TRUMP 2024 COMBACK IS ABSOLUTE FANTASY

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

I distinctly remember a post-election interview with the late Roman Pucinski (D), who had just lost a 1972 U.S. Senate bid by a staggering 1,146,047-vote margin to incumbent Chuck Percy (R).

"Polish Power," as constituted by an expected Muskie-Pucinski Illinois ticket, never materialized. Pucinski also forfeited his 14-year grip on the Northwest Side's 11th District congressional seat, which was won by Frank Annunzio (D), who moved from the West Side to run for the post.

But instead of being morose and lamenting the end of his career, the ubiquitous Pucinski was surprisingly upbeat. Quoting a Biblical parable, the congressman said "God never closes a door without opening a window." How astute and prophetic he was.

The "window" was 41st Ward Alderman Edward Scholl, a Republican elected in 1963, who had just won the area's state senate seat, so the aldermanic spot was open. The well-known Pucinski, then the ward's Democratic committeeman, ran in the 1973 special election and won with 83 percent, going on to serve 18 years in the City Council.

Fast forward to 2020: Sometimes you have to be realistic. The presidential election IS OVER. The latest tabulation shows a 81,283,443-74,221,660 Biden win, with 306 electoral votes. President Trump's lawsuits and/or recounts in PA, MI, AZ, NV and GA, with 69 electoral votes, are going nowhere. The U.S. Supreme Court must rule on any elector decertification by Dec. 14. Pennsylvania plus two other states have to switch. It is clear that God, or at least half of America's 160 million voters, have closed a door and it is not clear that there are any open windows left.

There are several national takeaways from Nov. 3:

(1) Trump and Trumpism have a hold on slightly less than half the electorate. The president increased his vote by 12 million over 2016. There is a "Trump Nation," and it is now the bedrock of the Republican Party.

(2) There are a whole bunch of Republicans - Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, James Lankford and Ron Johnson among the top tier - who want to inherit the "Trump Nation" in 2024. They are all conservatives, but (except for Cruz) they are somewhat likeable and un-obnoxious. A Trump comeback needs to be stoked by anger, not nostalgia. 2020 needs to be a "stolen" election, much like those in 1824 and 1876, for any of this to work. It's not.

(3) Only one U.S. president has ever won/lost/won, and that was Grover Cleveland (D) in 1884/1888/ 1892. It should be noted that in 1888 Cleveland won the popular vote 5,540,050-5,505,444,037 but lost the electoral vote 233-168 to Benjamin Harrison (R). He trounced Harrison 5,554,414-5,190,802 in the 1892 rematch. A 2024 Trump comeback requires a disastrous Biden-Harris administration, with lingering and bordering on permanent COVID-19-related economic dislocation, ballooning deficits and national debt, creeping inflation and unemployment. Biden must be another Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter. Trump must be the "good old days" candidate. But he'll be age 78 by then.

(4) Biden-Harris is the new face of the Democratic Party, at least until the "democratic socialists" take over, which they will by 2024, especially if Republicans win back the U.S. House in 2022 and keep the Senate. And vice-president-elect Kamala Harris is the party's politically correct future face - racially, ideologically and by gender. Harris will be the Democrats' 2024 nominee, and 2028's if she loses, and she puts a glass ceiling on all the other aspiring Democratic women and men for at least a decade.

COMEBACKS: The rule is that a candidate who loses the presidency narrowly can get a second shot (like Richard Nixon in 1968), but NOT a sitting president who loses re-election. It's over and out for one-termers. No second chance.

Teddy Roosevelt was William Howard Taft's (R) undoing. He won 7,679,006-6,409,108 with Roosevelt's blessing in 1908, but got 3,483,922 votes in 1912, a drop of 4.2 million, with 4,216,020 going to the Progressive ex-president. Roosevelt was the campaign's "spoiler." Woodrow Wilson (D) won with 6,288,214 votes, less than the 1908 Democrat. Roosevelt was on track to be the 1920 Republican nominee, but died in 1919. Taft made it to the Supreme Court in 1921.

The Great Depression was Hoover's undoing, beginning with the 1929 stock market collapse. Instead of stimulating the economy through added debt to pay for temporary business subsidies and personal payouts, expanding the money supply (as is now standard economic operating procedure), Hoover cut government spending, contracting money availability and worsening the situation. Hoover won 21,392,190-15,016,443 in 1928 (444-87); he lost to Franklin Roosevelt (D) 22,821,857-15,761,851 in 1932, an astounding loss of 5.5 million votes.

Runaway inflation, gas lines and the Iran hostage stalemate were Carter's undoing. Carter ran as an "outsider" in 1976, promising "New Politics," and beating Gerald Ford 40,828,929-39,148,940, a 1.6 million margin, with the electoral 297-240. In 1980 he got 35,481,435 votes, a Hoover-like drop of 5.3 million, to Ronald Reagan's (R) 43,899,246 and John Anderson's (Ind.) 5,719,439. The Republican vote was up by 4.7 million and the anti-Carter vote up by 10.4 million.

The Gulf War should have sealed George H.W. Bush's 1992 re-election, but a 1991-92 economic downturn and Ross Perot (remember him?) were his undoing. Bush won 48,881,221-41,805,222 and 426-111 in 1988, but dropped to 39,102,303 in 1992, a loss of 9.7 million. Perot got 19,741,065 and Bill Clinton (D) 44,908,254, 3 million more than Michael Dukakis in 1988. The electoral was 370-168. Bush's legacy is salvaged by the fact that his son won the presidency in 2000.

COVID-19 ravaged Trump's booming economy more so than Trump fatigue. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton 65,853,514-62,984,828 in 2016, but won the electoral 304-227. Unlike prior one-term losers, Trump boosted his 2020 vote by 12 million, but Biden by 15.5 million more than Clinton.

Grover Cleveland was an anomaly. He won 4,911,017- 4,848,337 in 1884 over James Blaine (R), by a 219-182 electoral vote. He won 5,540,050-5,444,337 in 1888 over Harrison, upping his vote by 600,000, but lost the electoral 233-168. He came back to win in 1892 by 5,554,414-5,190,802, getting the same vote while Harrison was down 250,000, with the electoral at 277-145. Harrison was an abysmal president. The Panic of 1893, an economic depression, ushered in a Republican era through 1932.

2024 REPUBLICAN FIELD: Outgoing vice-president Mike Pence is Trump Lite, meaning bland and boring but tied to Trump nonetheless. He can't run if Trump runs. But he is not the leader of the "Trump Nation," and he will spend the next 4 years campaigning and raising money for Republican incumbents and candidates. Three prominent conservative Republican senators who ran in the 2016 primaries are already out of the gate: Cruz of Texas, Rubio of Florida and Paul of Kentucky. All are fixtures on FOX News and all will be ongoing and vociferous critics of Biden-Harris policies. All have a semblance of a national organization and a fund-raising base.

The man to watch is Arkansas senator Cotton, who has both a military and policy background, is also a FOX fixture and was re-elected in 2020 without Democratic opposition. Cotton will likely chair the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (RSCC) for the 2022 cycle, giving him a pretext to travel around the country. Second-tier possibilities include senators Johnson of Wisconsin, Hawley of Missouri and Lankford of Oklahoma.

There are two Republican women in the mix, one of which will certainly be the veep candidate if a man wins the presidential nomination: Former UN Ambassador and 6-year South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, a big Trump booster, and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, who is getting a lot of TV facetime by appearing in her state's tourism ads.

The 2024 key, as in 2020, are the early contests: The January 2024 Iowa caucuses, the February New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, then on to Florida. It's all about retail politics and constructing a ground game by spending months in those states. Trump won't do it. Pence will fall by the wayside. The 2024 Republican nominee will be either Rubio or Cotton.

2024 DEMOCRATIC FIELD: The ascension of Harris blunts the presidential prospects of senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), as well as governors Gretchen Whitmer (MI) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM). Klobuchar wants a Supreme Court seat, but Biden has promised to pick a Black woman for the next vacancy.

The expectation is that the 78-year old Biden will not run for a second term in 2024. New York governor Andrew Cuomo, America's poster boy for COVID lockdowns (and screw-ups) and CNN's mascot, is a lock to be on the 2024 ticket with Harris as vice-president.

Looking at 2024 there are a whole lot of open doors.