What do Dr. Jill Biden and ill-defined disgruntled American political naysayer organization No Labels have in common?
Answer: Neither one of them can locate a presidential candidate with a shot of winning this year.
In Dr. Jill’s case, she’s undoubtedly stuck wandering the cavernous halls of America’s executive mansion searching for the confident (if truth and intellectually-challenged) Democrat politician she’s always known, she herself surely having to steer him in the correct direction at dinner time and after his having delivered speeches to ever-tolerant party audiences. The chore must be arduous for the some-younger (age 72) first lady, a woman so desperate to hang on to her government funded benefits and perks that she insists her doddering dunce hubby is actually leading his opponent comfortably in recent opinion polls.
As far as “No Labels” is concerned, last week they finally called it quits on their search to invent a bipartisan “moderate” presidential ticket that would represent a legitimate third choice to those fed up with the entrenched two-party system, where Republican Donald Trump is set to compete with president senile bucket o’ bones Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. in a 2020 rematch that will go down in history one way or another.
Neither Dr. Jill’s nor No Labels’ quest is or was likely to bear fruit, since the first lady’s helplessly senile husband will never get better, each passing day representing the apex of his fleeting capability and the political grim reaper waiting patiently for the moment senile Joe can’t remember anything any longer. Meanwhile, No Labels thought they would take advantage of Americans’ dismay with 2020’s rehashed choices to formulate a centrist entity. But they were doomed from the outset, too.
Which searcher was more forlorn from the beginning? Here’s thinking Dr. Jill takes the prize. In an article titled “Guaranteed: Jill Biden says ‘it’s obvious that Joe will win this election’”, Victor Morton reported at The Washington Times:
“To heck with the polls — Jill Biden says it’s ‘obvious’ she will get a second term as first lady.
“Mrs. Biden dismissed some discouraging poll numbers in an interview [last] week on ‘CBS Mornings’ and said President Biden is surging and will win in November. Co-host Tony Dokoupil noted a Wall Street Journal poll showing former President Donald Trump leading in all but one of seven key battleground states, which Mrs. Biden dismissed.
“’No, he’s not losing in all the battleground states. He is coming up, and he’s even or doing better,’ she stated. Mrs. Biden then confidently stated the ‘obvious.’ ‘You know what? Once people start to focus in and they see their two choices, it’s obvious that Joe will win this election,’ she said.”
Stand by your man, right? The dutiful wife searches for him by day and night then marvels why the current Oval Office holder isn’t regaining what he once had. Then she obediently denies what is happening. That, my friend, is “obvious”.
To be fair, no one should be too hard on poor ol’ Dr. Jill over her ill-advised “guarantee” of victory. After all, the woman is stuck between a rock and a hard place, needing to maintain a hopeful, confident presence in public and the necessity of trying to calm down her excitable octogenarian husband who likely spares her no tongue lash if she ever attempts to make him see things realistically.
Besides, many a famous athlete has issued a similar victory “guarantee” only to be unbelievably off-base – and no one, to my knowledge, ever called the poor bragger to collect on wagers made in his name.
To “guarantee” victory for senile Joe in November, Dr. Jill would similarly have to swear that stepson Hunter’s business deals were on the level and Joe Jr. (her husband) never collected a dime from the boy’s creative use of the family name to pressure foreign business entities to proffer checks to fund his scumbag prurient and chemical interests. Or that Biden (Joe) always told the truth, never exaggerated or concocted a fib for political expediency, either. Or that he is the one who really calls the shots on a daily basis for his administration. Or, most impossibly, that she really does like Kamala Harris. Yuck.
The sorry truth for No Labels? No one wanted the job. Not even 2024 GOP primary loser Nikki Haley and no-niche-but-the-buffet-table Chris Christie was eager to commit to running the long campaign knowing full well they’d never compete on anything like equal ground with the Republican and Democrat machines. There’s simply no room for a “centrist” political party any longer, not that there ever was a clamor for one.
So much for the argument that Trump will struggle to fund his campaign. There will be plenty of money available when the need arises and, as Dr. Jill forecasted, Americans begin paying attention. If there still are any Never Trump adherents, they need to come to their senses. Now.
All of us can probably remember a classroom election in grade school when two popular kids squared off against each other for class president with the students equally split between the boy and the girl, the support typically broken down between the sexes represented in each category. Then there was invariably an outcast or two who despised both of them and begged the teacher to be able to write in a different name on their card so as to still exercise a vote while knowing beforehand that either one of the nominees would end up the winner.
It was a feel-good ruse back then, and it’s a feel-good ruse now, the difference being that there are rich non-conformists who bet their public profiles would be increased by purposefully declaring – and spending money to bolster – their case that neither of the two major party names are legitimate and therefore something needs to be done to demonstrate how ticked off they are.
If you’ve got billions stashed away in some computer with lots of numbers, what practical difference does it make if you slash a few hundred million from the big “total” number?
It didn’t work. Now what? How to get them off the sidelines?
The most realistic solution at this point is to somehow convince a few of the most visible Never Trumpers to come forth with a public admission that they intend not to waste their chance to save the country from further disaster under broken-down senile Joe and therefore intend to do everything they can to further Donald Trump’s cause.
Yes, such astonishing clarity would likely cost the person further speaking slots on liberal Sunday morning cable talk shows – and might even earn them permanent enmity from Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel – but what else would the person have to lose? Their stock portfolio is probably doing quite well under senile Joe and his bumbling swamp-money dependent advisers, but what happens when the margin call actually comes due?
Will Joe Biden turn on them and name names as someone who hasn’t “paid their fair share” while demanding that taxes be raised to confiscatory levels so as to appear like the Democrats are “doing something” to pay back all the loot?
Time would reveal, but if the NeverTrump holdouts cease being negative Nellies and agree to come back onto the Trump reservation, they’d be welcomed with open arms. It’s even conceivably possible that Liz Cheney could earn some measure of forgiveness if she and her ideological cohorts admit their errors and work for something positive rather than continue their whining and griping campaigns.
With No Labels officially out of the equation and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeming to pull votes away from Dr. Jill’s better half (even for her?), there will be additional pressure on the Never Trumpers to commit to…something. The only mystery left is what way they will eventually lean – and how much pride they’re willing to swallow.
One way or another, there are a lot of political people lying to themselves about their prospects for capturing the White House in this year’s election. No Labels finally copped to the futility of their situation, and Dr. Jill Biden isn’t quite prepared to acknowledge how awful things look for her side. Donald Trump is far from a lock to win this year, but everyone must choose.
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2024 presidential election