Here is a quick Republican presidential primary poll for you. Does three separate candidates floating imminent campaign announcements in 24 hours indicate:
- a) A real fear among Republicans that Donald Trump, despite his commanding lead in polls, is a weak candidate, and the so-far-number-two guy, old Ron “Pudding Three Fingers” DeSantis, is flaming out harder than the Cocoanut Grove, thereby turning the nomination contest into a wide-open race?
- b) A cheap money grab by masochists with a desire for public humiliation on the way to pulling less than two percent in Iowa and dropping out faster than you can say “Buddy Roemer”?
- c) A push for publicity to boost their chances of appearing on the next season of “The Masked Singer”?
Dunno! But three floats equals a trend, so let’s catch up.
First up is Chris Sununu, governor of the state of New Hampshire. Sununu told Puck’s Tara Palmieri in an interview on Thursday that there is a “61 percent chance” he runs for president. Which is an oddly specific number. Why not 62 percent? Or 58 percent? Does that number increase if he ever gets above his current average of between zero and two percent in early polls?
Sununu’s strategy so far has been to go at Donald Trump head-on. He appeared on CNN after Trump’s town hall last week to taunt the former president that he is a weak, whiny baby who is scared to get on a debate stage with other candidates. This is a bit like an ant taunting an elephant for not wanting to fight in a UFC bout: It sounds good to the ant for precisely as long as it takes the elephant to stomp on it.
At best, Sununu is boosting his visibility before 2028, when Trump will either be termed out, in prison, or anointed Supreme Leader in a post-United States dystopia of competing militaristic fiefdoms on the North American continent. At worst, he’s aiming for a Cabinet post. And who can blame him for wanting to move to Washington DC? The only thing we like about New Hampshire in winter is not being there.
Next we have Tim Scott, whose hilarious effort to join Nikki Haley in the “If Republicans are such racists and misogynists, then how are we both being allowed on the debate stage without being pelted with slurs and half-empty tins of Red Man” lane of the primary we have been documenting for several months now. Apparently after long months of dating, Scott is ready to put a ring on it. Which led to this lede from The New York Times:
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina will announce his candidacy for president on Monday and will enter the race with around $22 million cash on hand, making him one of the most serious competitors for the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, even as Mr. Scott has hovered around 2 percent in Republican primary polls.
Don’t forget the lukewarm “sure, I’d consider backing him, maybe, depending on things and stuff” endorsements from his fellow senators!
The media would love a close horserace to write about for the next year. But what it does not seem to have factored in – or at least the Times hasn’t – is Scott’s cheerfulness and a personality that’s about as fiery as a bowl of cold wheat germ. What evidence does anyone have that the Republican electorate, with its large number of white nationalists and equality-loathing used-car dealers and dentists, an electorate that has for several campaign cycles boosted some of the sourest, meanest people to ever stalk an American campaign stage, will come around on a Black man with a sunny disposition and all the charisma of a flounder?
None. The media has none. But what’s it supposed to write about, for God’s sake? Issues that affect voters?
Last but certainly not least, we have the return of Chris Christie. On Thursday a reporter in New Hampshire claimed that sources are telling him the former New Jersey governor will announce a presidential campaign run soon, that he will focus on New Hampshire (presumably hoping to better his sixth-place finish in 2016, after which he quickly dropped out of the race), and that he’ll have the financial backing of billionaire Steve Cohen, the owner of the perennially underachieving New York Mets.
To give you a sense of Cohen’s instincts for picking winners, well, he bought the Mets, didn’t he? But also this season he is spending a combined $86.6 million on two pitchers aged 38 and 40 who have combined to pitch a whopping 44 innings, and his team is carrying a payroll of roughly $346 million (nearly $80 million more than the next-highest team payroll) with the result that it is sitting at one game below .500 with a quarter of the season gone.
Cohen also backed Christie’s 2016 campaign by donating millions to super-PACs supporting the governor who, again, finished sixth in New Hampshire and immediately dropped out of the race.
He might be a gazillionaire but Cohen’s instincts on which horse to back for how much money in both politics and baseball could use some massive re-calibrating, is our point.
The other name apparently all in on Christie? According to the New York Post it is Anthony Scaramucci, record holder for shortest stint in the Trump administration, which was famous for the shortness of its stints. Anyone want to take bets on how many Scaramuccis will elapse between Christie’s campaign kick-off and Christie’s ignominious withdrawal announcement?
Maybe Christie thinks he can damage Trump early in the nominating process? If so, a doomed campaign is probably not the best use of time and money for that, but it’s not our time or money.
It seems to us, at least in the case of Sununu and Christie, that they are banking on the GOP imploding over Donald Trump eventually, and they will be there to pick up the pieces and lead a new Republican Party back to glory. Sure, why not? People have been predicting Trump will destroy the party since 2016. Eventually, maybe it will happen and those people will claim to be the most prescient soothsayers of American politics.
Yr Wonkette continues to think that the sun will go supernova and consume the Earth before collapsing into a cold white dwarf long before Trump can lead the GOP to a similar end. We’ll be happy if one of these three yahoos proves us wrong, though.
