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We are about a year away from the first major party 2024 primaries and caucuses and there is exactly one announced candidate for president.
This is not “normal” by the standards of the modern process of picking presidents.
And, besides the incumbent, there is no sign that anyone of significance on either side is getting in any time soon.
So Donald Trump has officially entered the fray and Team Biden tells everyone to expect their man to take the formal plunge in the next few months.
And/but with no Democrat on the horizon to challenge Biden and Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin not looking to enter any earlier than the completion of their legislative session, the rematchable 2020 candidates have the terrain – and most of the scrutiny – all to themselves.
So instead of Iowa living rooms, New Hampshire town halls, and South Carolina Lizard’s Thickets, we are due for just lots and lots of press attention and leaks about (and, someday, actual developments in) legal and investigative scrutiny of the two men who ran against each other in 2020.
So today we have:
BIDEN
* All news organizations, including the Associated Press, were told by a source that there is a second batch of classified documents found in a second Biden location, but not anything about said location or anything specific about the nature of said documents. (Halperin’s Sixth Rule of Washington: When documents became famous for being secret, they will not stay secret, so we shall likely learn more about these mysterious documents soon.)
* A very long New York Times story about Hunter Biden (three bylines), reviewing all of his potential legal issues, with some interesting sourcing.
* A very unusual real-time New York Post editorial board annotation of the New York Times story about Hunter Biden, pointing out some flaws.
TRUMP
* Politico gets a rare joint interview with senior Trump advisers Brian Jack, Chris LaCivita, and Susie Wiles, who say the former president will launch his visible campaigning in South Carolina this month with an event that is not a rally, while confidently sharing other details about the early days of the effort.
* The New York Times (four bylines) looks at the challenges and methods for special counsel Jack Smith, as he moves pretty fast on both Mar-a-Lago and 1/6.
* The Washington Post reports on a new set of subpoenas that went to Trump officials connected to 1/6.
Normally, all or most candidates would want to get in the race early, to start raising money, signing up consultants and first-in-the-nation activists, and begin introducing themselves to voters around the country.
But as of now, we have Biden clearing the field on his side (even without being a formal candidate), and Trump having the official lane to himself.
Other Democratic hopefuls (and their supporters) have the attitude that if Biden runs, it is his nomination for the getting. But they are all quietly thinking through how to launch and race fast if for some reason Biden ends up not being there when the primaries start.
On the Republican side, the two top Trump alternatives, DeSantis and Youngkin, have (for different reasons and with very different postures) quiet confidence that they can enter much later and still compete fiercely.
Haley, Pence, Pompeo, etc. are doing plenty every day to make running possible, without formally getting in. The attention they get is quite episodic, at most.
In other words, this is the strangest start of a presidential campaign in the modern era.
Polls consistently show that large numbers of voters in both parties don’t want Biden and Trump to be nominated again. And yet they are the marquee names, and the ones best positioned right now to be major party nominees.
Both men have a lot going on in their lives that could have a decisive impact on their chances to win in November of 2024, as the current news cycle demonstrates.
Logic suggests a Biden/Trump rematch, with Biden running with Kamala Harris and Trump choosing someone new.
But “no one” thinks that is what is going to happen.
But “no one” could be wrong.
And they could be wrong because everyone else who wants to be president waits too long to overtake the frontrunners.
One upside of waiting is it leaves the scrutiny to Biden and Trump, and who wants scrutiny?
But winning a major party nomination is hard to do. Biden and Trump have both done it, through multiple national campaigns.
With the exception of Pence (and, perhaps, a certain Clinton or Kerry), no one else mulling has done that.
And the 2023 calendar is going to tick relentlessly.
The patrons in those early state diners are getting impatient.
****
ESSENTIAL READING
* None (besides what is above).