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As the work week closes (for some), the NBA playoffs rage, the Twitter blue checks disappear, and we wait for another “Lasso,” here is what is happening with our current mega battles:
Donald Trump vs Ron DeSantis
State of play: The intensity and pacing of this daily battle between the camps and in the media months before any voters vote is (I think?) unsustainable.
What to look for: As I said earlier in the week, DeSantis most certainly needs another gear to win this war – and his events over the next seven days will give us some insight into whether he has that potential or not.
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Joe Biden vs expectations
State of play: Amidst news reports that he plans a Tuesday video announcement that he’s in it to win it again, there are these twin fresh polls:
Only about half of Democrats think President Joe Biden should run again in 2024, a new poll shows, but a large majority say they’d be likely to support him if he became the nominee.
The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 26% of Americans overall want to see Biden run again — a slight recovery from the 22% who said that in January. Forty-seven percent of Democrats say they want him to run, also up slightly from only 37% who said that in January.
What to look for: A lot of nouns and verbs and MAGA this and MAGA that…
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Kevin McCarthy vs his own Conference
State of play: The Speaker ain’t got the votes for his debt ceiling gambit yet, but the AP is bullish on his prospects:
Republican lawmakers, some who have never before voted to raise the nation’s debt limit, now are seriously considering doing just that. They say McCarthy has built up goodwill by listening to — and accepting — many of their proposals. Rather than fight amongst themselves, they want to force Biden to the negotiating table.
To be sure, McCarthy does not yet have the 218 votes in hand for passage. The GOP leadership team is furiously whipping the tally ahead of next week’s vote. Many Republicans are wavering, and the proposal is expected to win almost no votes from Democrats, all but dead on arrival in the Senate.
Biden said the “wacko” ideas in the Republican plan would hurt Americans. Biden’s senior advisers have doubted the speaker will be able to bring the bill to passage.
Even though the Republican package has almost no chance of becoming law, it is a political strategy designed to put an offer on the table. Republicans want to shift the blame and draw a reluctant White House into negotiations Biden has refused to have over the debt ceiling. In some ways, this is the easy part, with the real lift still to come.
“I think we’re in very good shape,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters Thursday.
McCarthy scoffed at the political drama ahead of the upcoming vote. “I want you to see as the clock goes up, I want you to write stories like, I’m teetering, whether I can win or not, and the whole world hangs in the balance,” he said sarcastically. “And then I want you to write a story after it passes, Would the president sit down and negotiate?”
What to look for: If Team McCarthy can get to 218 (and you should still bet on “yes”), it will be a game changer with multiple impacts, including, Politico suggests, leading some Democrats to push the White House to start negotiating.
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Christie vs expectations
State of play: It’s like olden days with some in the Dominant Media besotted by the Jersey Straight Talk Express, such as this New York Times account of his Thursday trip to New Hampshire; the press wants a Trump slayer who they know and (often/sometimes) like.
What to look for: Does the Big Boy (W’s nickname for him…) swan dive into the pool or not???
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Hunter Biden vs Judgment Day
State of play: As the New York Times belatedly covers the IRS whistleblower (and the new counterattack accusations from Hunter’s lawyer that the accuser is the one breaking the law….), Andrew McCarthy writes this in the New York Post:
Let’s say you lied on a required federal firearms form to conceal your use of illegal drugs so you could buy a .38 caliber handgun, then you irresponsibly lost that gun across the street from a school, and then the government found video evidence of you waving that gun around while cavorting with a prostitute.
If you had done all those things within a few days in 2018, do you suppose that by five years later, the government would have taken exactly zero action against you?
No arrest.
No indictment.
No prosecution.
What to look for: There is a new storyline likely to develop here well before the Bidens are back on Nantucket for Thanksgiving – and it is going to change forever the way you think about what happened. How’s that for a deep tease!!!
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Republicans vs abortion
State of play: The Washington Post and Politico both have articles on how clueless and politically damaged the party is in the post-Roe world, with the warnings of Ronna McDaniel, Kellyanne Conway, and others falling on ears that are more than deaf.
What to look for: The aftermath of the Supreme Court announcement on the abortion pill, months of Democrats making political hay, and the forced end of telling silences of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.