Election 2024: A Historically Unconventional Race

The presidential race is thundering toward the finish line in the most inconceivable American election.  Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts.  Kamala Harris carries the Democratic Party banner without the benefit of being elected by primary voters.  

Acts of political violence are a stain on American politics since the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.  Through the decades, three presidents have been killed and there have been seven presidential assassination attempts and the murder of Democrat candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

Another distinction of this election, Trump is the only presidential candidate who is a convicted felon.  Although even Democrats have dropped the reference because independents and Republicans are convinced the verdict was produced by a sham trial, it hovers over the presidential race. 

Vice President Harris holds the Democratic Party distinction of the only nominee to not receive a single primary vote since Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968.  Humphrey's nomination at the Democratic National Convention ended with his defeat to Richard Nixon.   

President Joe Biden after campaigning for more than a year dropped out on July 21, barely four months until election day.  A humbling debate performance cleared the way for Harris to assume the mantle.  Theories continue to ruminate about what prompted Biden's abrupt about face.

With the election in the homestretch, the polls continue to show the outcome will likely be decided by hundreds of thousands of voters in a few so-called swing states.  On the bellwether list: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada.  

In 2020, Biden's victory in those states cleared the way for his election. He won those six states by a total popular vote of 312,362.   In Pennsylvania, the Democrat won by 81,660 votes out of more than 3 million ballots case.  He carried Wisconsin by a slimmer margin, 20,682 votes and Nevada by 33,596.

Razor-thin vote margins in Arizona (10,457) and Georgia (11,779) benefited Biden.  Even Michigan, a charter member of the Big Blue Wall named for traditionally voting Democrat, gave Biden a comparatively slim edge of 154,188 votes out of more than 5 million ballots.  

Consider that the 2020 race was decided by less than 400,000 votes out of 158 million ballots cast.  Turnout was seven percentage points higher than the 2016 election.  A record 66% of citizens voted in the election. Some experts are forecasting higher turnout this cycle.

The two candidates are crisscrossing paths with each other ending up in the same state on the same day as they deliver their closing arguments in swing state voters.  A shift in a scintilla of votes could end up titling the election to Harris or Trump.  Dueling camps have bombarded the air waves with attack ads.

What started out as an election about issues, has descended into the junk yard politics mantra: Negative sells.  Trump is painted as Adolf Hitler, who murdered six million Jews and started a world war.  The caricature has been responsible for fueling a toxic political divide that threatens to rupture the country.

Trump has branded Harris a socialist and critiqued her intellect in demeaning language.  His early reference to Harris' racial ethnicity cringed even his supporters.  Both candidates are covered in mud and the voters are left in the quandary of selecting the person with the fewest smudges.  

Unsurprisingly,  national polls reveal the race is deadlocked with less than two weeks until Election Day.  Looking under the hood of the polls, there are positive and negative signs for both campaigns.  Polls agree on one point: Harris and Trump both have above average unfavorable ratings. 

Worrisome for the team Harris is that she is underperforming with key demographics that were responsible for Biden's narrow win.  She has lost support among Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, particularly men in those demographics.  If the trend continues, it will not bode well for Harris.

Trump is behind with college graduates and suburban women.  Abortion is proving to be an issue that still moves the needle with swaths of voters across party lines.  It was a crucial wedge issue in the 2022 midterms and could once again cleve Trump support among independents. 

Mail-in voting, a tool used extensively during the Covid-era election of 2020, is trending lower.  It turned out to be a boon for Democrats, but at least early signs don't indicate it will be as robust this year. However, early voting is on pace to break records, galloping ahead of 2020 and 2016 levels.

Political watchers are noticing early voting among Republicans is outperforming Democrats, a once unthinkable outcome. Republicans have traditionally preferred to cast ballots on Election Day.  

On election night, the early results in Pennsylvania will offer a clue to the remainder of the evening.  Biden banked 36.2 percent more early votes than Trump in 2020 to offset Republicans voting advantage on Election Day.  If Harris falls below 25%, it will be a clunker of a start to a long agonizing evening. 

The final tally could take days, since Arizona and Nevada are notoriously slow reporting results. Whatever the outcome, expect fireworks from the losing side.  Candidates have accused each other of being a threat to Democracy. There will be no gracious concession speeches.

Adding to the turbulence is revelations by U.S. spy agencies that foreign actors are using covert influence campaigns to interfere in the election. Intelligence indicates Russia, Iran and China are sewing discord and disinformation. Expect the losing candidate to point to election interference as a factor in their defeat.  

Campaign rancor and the divisive cultural chasm have the makings of a potential power keg in the election aftermath. The nation's temperature is north of 98.6 degrees. Let's pray for decorum in the name of saving democracy.  We should all want a peaceful end to this fractious election.  

Conspiracy To Cover Up Biden's Cognitive Decline

A political earthquake rattled the Democratic Party after President Biden's debacle in the first presidential debate.  A growing schism in the party over the president's cognitive fitness is roiling Washington. Biden's handlers and family are circling the wagons, hoping to stave off a party revolt.

A growing chorus of Democrats went public urging the president to gracefully exit the race in the face of plummeting poll numbers.  But a defiant Biden in an ABC interview made it clear he is pressing on, stubbornly insisting he was the best Democrat to beat former president Donald Trump.  

Amidst the turmoil, the lackey Biden mainstream media did the unthinkable. They turned on the president after propping him up for four years, despite a spate of public episodes offering evidence that Biden was neurologically impaired.  

Editorials and opinion pieces in The New York Times called for the president to bow out of the presidential race.  The Washington Post published a column with suggestions for a speech tailor made for Biden's  campaign withdrawal.    

The Times reported that at last month's G-7 meeting in Italy observers were said to be "shocked" at Biden's state.  Another unnamed official confessed Biden appeared to be "out of it," according to The Times. Other media felt emboldened by The Times reporting to pile on. 

A string of articles based on administration insiders painted a picture of an out-of-touch president, who is shielded by his staff from bad news in fear of igniting Biden's temper tantrums.  His handlers limit his schedule to a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to avoid sapping the 81-year-old's mental and physical energy.

The media's sudden about face is prompted by a realization they can no longer lie about Biden to Americans who witnessed a decrepit president with their own eyes. The president's halting speech, raspy voice, nonsensical word salads and non sequiturs were on full display.   

Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson undressed journalists covering the president for failing to "hold power accountable," while participating in a "massive coverup" with the White House to shield Biden's obvious mental decline.

"It is our duty to poke through White House smoke screens and find out the truth," Abramson said.  "The Biden White House clearly succeeded in a massive coverup of the degree of the President's feebleness and serious physical decline, which may be simply the result of old age."

Another respected liberal journalist Carl Bernstein told CNN how multiple well placed sources disclosed to him that Biden's abysmal debate performance was not atypical but increasingly representative of the president's mental fog.  Bernstein's sources reported 15-to-20 similar episodes.

The media knew.  But the powerful who control the nation's news outlets choose to deceive Americans.

Instead of independent reporting, the fawning media regurgitated press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's talking points.  Behind closed doors Biden runs circles around his staff.  His mental sharpness amazes everyone around him.  He has the energy of someone half his age.  All lies.  

The messaging was picked up by Democrat leaders such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Vice President Kamala Harris.  Biden is fully engaged and sharp these top Democrats swore.  Other Democrats chimed in right on cue.  More lies.

You would expect as much from Democrats panicked the truth about Biden would seep into the voters' conscious.  Even when online videos and Fox News documented the president's verbal stumbles, confusing and dazed appearance, Jean-Pierre called the visual evidence "deep fakes."

But the debate ended the charade.  The cellophane wrapped president appeared on television for 90 minutes looking every bit of his 81-years, pasty-faced, staring blankly in the distance and seemingly unable to summon up talking points that had been drummed in him for six days.

Those who blame Biden for not being truthful about his mental decline should point fingers at the media. Their job is to honestly report on the occupant of the White House even when they know the truth will help the hated Donald Trump.  But they were invested insulating Biden from criticism.

For example, the White House press corps never insisted that Biden stand for a full press conference until post-debate. Consistently answering reporters questions is a basic tenant of presidential coverage. Yet Biden has held the fewest press conferences since Ronald Reagan.  

At one point in 2022, Biden went nearly 200 days without being interviewed by an American TV journalist.  Jean-Pierre claimed the president had taken more questions than his predecessors combined. There was no push back from fact-checkers.  The White House press corps never challenged the lie.

Every American should be convinced the media cannot be trusted.  They willingly, knowingly participated in a conspiracy to coverup for Biden. The media cabal's sudden interest in exposing the truth is a sign they have new marching orders from Democrats hoping to oust Biden from the ticket.

The nation deserves an answer to these questions: "Who orchestrated this massive conspiracy that involved Vice President Harris, the media, cabinet members, donors, White House staff, congressional Democrats and foreign leaders? Were power brokers pulling the strings behind the scenes?"

The fallout from the coverup doesn't just rest on Biden's decision to obstinately stay in the race.  How can a man with serious cognitive issues remain president for four more months?  Can he be trusted with nuclear codes and critical midnight decisions? The nation is at risk every day Biden clings to power. 

Democrats should remind Biden he pledged to be a one-term president when he ran in 2020.  He admitted he was no "spring chicken." Perhaps he was being honest or it was just a ploy.  This will not end well for Biden, the Democratic Party or those who knowingly fed falsehoods to voters.

What will Biden and Democrats do?  First Lady Jill Biden and their grifter son Hunter Biden are isolating the president in a cocoon to ward off detractors. No one has been able to pierce the bubble. Jill and Hunter will not allow Biden to go quietly into the night.  

There is a nuclear option.  Democrat leaders, including Vice President Harris, could meet secretly with the president and threaten to invoke the 25th Amendment, which provides for removal of the chief executive if he is incapable of serving.  

Faced with the certainty of an ouster,  Biden could choose to magnanimously resign or suffer the humiliation of being thrown out of office. 

What if Biden calls their bluff?  Would Democrats really want to hang out to dry one of their own in a messy public flogging?  The next few weeks should provide some answers.  This writer's opinion is the party is stuck with Biden at the top of the ticket.   

Joy Reid, a co-host on ABC's The View, may have been prescient when she asserted on air she would vote for a comatose Joe Biden over Trump.  That perspective may be shared by large numbers of Democrats.  That's why a Biden candidacy may yet survive the political gallows.