Wrong again. (Go here to read the NYT report on Cory Booker's withdrawal from the race for Democratic presidential nominee).
I'm not sure why Booker's campaign failed to take off. He had flaws but none struck me as more significant than any of the remaining candidates.
FWIW (and it's not worth much), I suspect any of the current contenders will follow the footsteps of Hillary Clinton and fail to mobilize large numbers of African-American voters as part of the Democrat's base. Which, when combined with the solid state of the U.S. economy, bodes well for President Trump.
Any more predictions? How about vice-presidential candidate Cory Booker?
_______________________________________________________________________
An updated update: Go here to read a piece in the NYT about the jockeying for position among various Democrats (including Cory Booker) for the 2020 nomination. Of them, my money is still on Booker.
Update: While I can't say for certain that 2020 will see the election of Cory Booker as president, Paul Ryan's retirement (as well as the retirements of many other Congressional Republicans) is consistent with my prediction of a near-term Republican political collapse.
(For my single pre-election post go here. I expect this will be sole post-election comment because, after all, politics in American are third in importance to entertainment and entertainment's step-child, sports. Or, as put here by Carl Trueman, politics in America are entertainment and if there's something I'm not, it's entertaining.)
Looking forward from the aftermath of the recent presidential election, I want to consider very briefly the factors that made it anomalous and then extrapolate to 2020. First: Republicans should draw no long-term hope from Donald Trump's election. Consider two sides of the same coin: Trump eked out narrow victories in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, states that Barack Obama carried with ease in both 2008 and 2012, and that Hillary Clinton massively under-performed her predecessor.
In other words, the extent of Trump's success in those and other states reflect less a movement toward him or Republicanism than a rejection of Clinton and the Establishment generally. In four years, however, Trump will be "the Establishment" and he won't be running against the lamentable Mrs. Clinton. And, in four years, many of Trump's vociferous supporters will be no better off than they are now. How could they be when the forces causing the disintegration of American society--consumer capitalism run amuck and hyper-individualized sexual autonomy--will continue to grind the fabric of society into dust notwithstanding the election of Trump (as well-articulated in this review of Robert Putnam's latest book, Our Kids:The American Dream in Crisis).
Some have pointed to Trump's slight gains in percentages of Hispanic and African-American voters vis-a-vis John McCain and Mitt Romney (check the Pew Report here) as reasons to hope for a long term inroad in these growing demographics. Not so fast. While Trump's percentage of Hispanics and African-Americans was comparable to the two preceding Republicans, his total votes from each of those categories actually declined. In other words, large numbers of folks from these demographic groups simply did not vote. Republicans encouraged by Trump's minority percentages might also want to look into those of George W. Bush, which were even better.
Which brings me to Cory Booker. Booker is everything Hillary Clinton was not: young, energetic, and, of course, African-American. Booker is Progressive-credible, something that the the beneficiary of the self-serving Clinton Foundation could hardly claim with a straight face. (A point nailed by Lawrence Lessig here.) Booker is likable, something that ... And by 2020 Booker will have served in the U.S. Senate for seven years, only slightly longer than had Barack Obama when he was elected president.
I am not the first to suggest that Cory Booker is in a good position to run for president in 2020 but in my opinion he is the most likely to succeed among the names that have been bruited.
I'm not sure why Booker's campaign failed to take off. He had flaws but none struck me as more significant than any of the remaining candidates.
FWIW (and it's not worth much), I suspect any of the current contenders will follow the footsteps of Hillary Clinton and fail to mobilize large numbers of African-American voters as part of the Democrat's base. Which, when combined with the solid state of the U.S. economy, bodes well for President Trump.
Any more predictions? How about vice-presidential candidate Cory Booker?
_______________________________________________________________________
An updated update: Go here to read a piece in the NYT about the jockeying for position among various Democrats (including Cory Booker) for the 2020 nomination. Of them, my money is still on Booker.
Update: While I can't say for certain that 2020 will see the election of Cory Booker as president, Paul Ryan's retirement (as well as the retirements of many other Congressional Republicans) is consistent with my prediction of a near-term Republican political collapse.
(For my single pre-election post go here. I expect this will be sole post-election comment because, after all, politics in American are third in importance to entertainment and entertainment's step-child, sports. Or, as put here by Carl Trueman, politics in America are entertainment and if there's something I'm not, it's entertaining.)
Looking forward from the aftermath of the recent presidential election, I want to consider very briefly the factors that made it anomalous and then extrapolate to 2020. First: Republicans should draw no long-term hope from Donald Trump's election. Consider two sides of the same coin: Trump eked out narrow victories in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, states that Barack Obama carried with ease in both 2008 and 2012, and that Hillary Clinton massively under-performed her predecessor.
In other words, the extent of Trump's success in those and other states reflect less a movement toward him or Republicanism than a rejection of Clinton and the Establishment generally. In four years, however, Trump will be "the Establishment" and he won't be running against the lamentable Mrs. Clinton. And, in four years, many of Trump's vociferous supporters will be no better off than they are now. How could they be when the forces causing the disintegration of American society--consumer capitalism run amuck and hyper-individualized sexual autonomy--will continue to grind the fabric of society into dust notwithstanding the election of Trump (as well-articulated in this review of Robert Putnam's latest book, Our Kids:The American Dream in Crisis).
Some have pointed to Trump's slight gains in percentages of Hispanic and African-American voters vis-a-vis John McCain and Mitt Romney (check the Pew Report here) as reasons to hope for a long term inroad in these growing demographics. Not so fast. While Trump's percentage of Hispanics and African-Americans was comparable to the two preceding Republicans, his total votes from each of those categories actually declined. In other words, large numbers of folks from these demographic groups simply did not vote. Republicans encouraged by Trump's minority percentages might also want to look into those of George W. Bush, which were even better.
Which brings me to Cory Booker. Booker is everything Hillary Clinton was not: young, energetic, and, of course, African-American. Booker is Progressive-credible, something that the the beneficiary of the self-serving Clinton Foundation could hardly claim with a straight face. (A point nailed by Lawrence Lessig here.) Booker is likable, something that ... And by 2020 Booker will have served in the U.S. Senate for seven years, only slightly longer than had Barack Obama when he was elected president.
I am not the first to suggest that Cory Booker is in a good position to run for president in 2020 but in my opinion he is the most likely to succeed among the names that have been bruited.
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