A Democratic Year Develops

Supporters of President Donald Trump are beginning to see the challenges in the making for their man. And those who detest the current Commander in Chief are salivating with delight as projections for the upcoming fall election turn increasingly blue in color and leftward in leaning.

And perhaps a sign of the demise of Donald was me warming up to him during the initial wave of coronavirus that struck America during March and April. While I have never been a major MAGA guy, I respect anyone who is sitting in the Oval Office. Donald Trump is a difficult guy to like regardless of how one feels about our President. I came on board late, but my reasons for liking him are way different from his following. 

But aren't both parties sort of difficult to like these days? We hear way more in the way of negative campaigning than we ever do positive talk about the direction anyone wants to lead us in. 

The pandemic is driving our country crazy in a bad way. The Trump camp says that the whole thing is a plot to scoot the President out of office after four years. They're wrong, but bad election year luck struck two guys named Carter and Bush in the past forty years. We don't often push out a sitting President. But when it rains, it pours. And when the bug bites, it bites hard.

When I hear and see that states such as Georgia and Texas are too close to call, I realize that this is not a Republican year. When 270 To Win colors Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania light blue and President Trump won the White House four years ago by winning those states, it is not a good thing for Republicans.

Trump told FOX News this past spring that he never would cancel the Republican National Convention. But now it's getting scaled back because America can't get on the same page about COVID-19. We should have had this thing whipped by now. If there is one parting gift President Trump can give the country, it is his determination to keep the economy trucking when the national mindset was to shut everything down and rely on government programs and unemployment to keep us afloat.

All things in moderation. Take care of the people. Take care of businesses. Stay unified ... Yeah right. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has done little to earn my respect, seemingly suffering from mental incapacity at times. Ripping up a copy of the State of the Union speech in February was totally inappropriate. Giving an interview from her expensive house in California and laughing about gourmet chocolate during the height of the first wave of COVID-19 is inappropriate, too. Democrats are supposed to be about the working class common man, right?

The bottom line, at least for now, is that nothing good for a sitting President can come from a year such as this. The times are unprecedented, and leadership is a tricky thing to provide. But I still say that anyone who can be a statesman and know when to fight and when to collaborate with his/her political enemies will take the country by storm and win big in any election cycle. Ronald Reagan lost a total of seven states. In two elections. And for six years, he had a House speaker named O'Neill to work with.

But Reagan also coined the term "October Surprise". The surprise this year could come in the form of an effective antibody treatment for the virus. Or a vaccine developing at Warp Speed. 

If either happens, we could be looking at four more years of Trump. 

For now, the smart money is on 36 year U.S. Senate veteran and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Photo: AP Images