RFK & AIP

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

 Voters are not happy about having to choose between Trump and Biden.  Trump allies are trying to boost RFK Jr. in an effort to split the anti-Trump vote.

Jenavieve Hatch at The Sacramento Bee:

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he has officially made the California presidential ballot after the far-right American Independent Party offered to nominate him as their candidate.

Kennedy, who announced Bay Area tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his running mate last month, celebrated the AIP nomination Monday in a five-minute YouTube video.

He acknowledged that “ironically” the AIP was originally the party of segregationist and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, “but it’s had its own rebirth before I came along.”

The AIP’s contemporary platform is staunchly conservative — its members are strong proponents of small, limited government and taxation, Christian conservative values, the Second Amendment and secure borders. In California, there were 825,981 AIP voters as of October 2023 — just under 4% of the state’s registered voters.

The counties with the highest percentage of AIP voters are rural Lassen, Modoc and Calaveras counties.

 From the latest available platform of the AIP:

The Protection of Life, and the Duties and Rights of Families

We believe in protecting all human life however weak, defenseless, or disheartened; we endorse the family as the essential bulwark of liberty, compassion, responsibility, and industry; and declare the family's right and responsibility to nurture, discipline, and educate its children. We maintain that all humans are persons from the beginning of their biological development and especially deserve our love and nurture when they are weakest and most dependent.

Marriage Between a Man and a Woman

We insist that marriage is between a man and a woman and assert the role of the law in establishing and reinforcing the mutual rights and obligations of that God-ordained contract.

The Individual and Common Defense

We assert the absolute, concurrent Second Amendment guaranteed individual right to self defense against impositions by other citizens or our government, coupled with a strong common defense, a common defense which requires a national sovereignty not damaged by imprudent or un-Constitutional treaties.

Fake Elector Update

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Rashad Rose at CNN:

Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman, one of the so-called fake electors charged in the Arizona 2020 election subversion case, announced Saturday that he’s been elected as a Republican National Committee national committeeman for the state.

“I’m humbled and honored to have been elected as the next RNC National Committeeman for Arizona!,” Hoffman said in a post on X Saturday.

His selection comes just days after a grand jury in Arizona handed up an indictment against former President Donald Trump’s allies, including Hoffman, over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

CNN previously reported that Hoffman sent a two-page letter to former Vice President Mike Pence on January 5, 2021, asking him to order that Arizona’s electors not be decided by the popular vote of the citizens, but instead by the members of the state legislature.

...

Boris Epshteyn, a former White House aide who remains one of Trump’s closest advisers; former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and Rudy Giuliani are also among those who have been indicted, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

While Trump is not among those charged in Arizona, the details in the indictment suggest he is “Unindicted Coconspirator 1.”

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez at WP:

Also charged are the Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner, including former state party chair Kelli Ward, two state senators and Tyler Bowyer, a GOP national committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the pro-Trump conservative group Turning Point USA.

 

RNC: It Takes a Fief

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended. Trump has begun turning the RNC into his personal fiefdom. 

David M. Drucker, Charles Hilu and Michael Warren at The Dispatch:

The Republican National Committee was poised to open and staff 40 satellite campaign offices across key battlegrounds when former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee, abruptly replaced RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and her deputies with fresh leadership.

Trump’s new RNC team, led by Chairman Michael Whatley, Co-Chair (and Trump’s daughter-in-law) Lara Trump, and senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, killed McDaniel’s 2024 blueprint. Roughly six weeks later, neither the committee nor the Trump campaign has much infrastructure or personnel in the swing states that will decide the November 5 election, multiple sources in Washington and the crucial battleground states told Dispatch Politics this week.

That means few if any regional and local campaign headquarters; little to no deployed field staff; and little to no traditional voter turnout activities, such as door-knocking, phone banking, or volunteer organizing. Even after the Trump-led RNC’s reimagined field program eventually emerges, their strategy is to concentrate almost exclusively on the half-dozen states that will determine Trump’s fate. Republicans elsewhere? They’re on their own.

“The RNC was aggressively staffing up in 10-plus states and it was put on hold when Trump started to make the changes at the RNC,” a veteran Republican field operative said. “The new regime is moving quickly to get the field operation going but I expect it to be narrowly focused on presidential battleground states, as opposed to expanding operations in states like California and New York, where there are a lot of House seats in play.”

In early March, the RNC’s new leadership sacked more than 60 full-time staff across the communications, data, and political departments. As Dispatch Politics reported soon after, roughly 40 of the 60 let go were field troops.

The majority of all fired employees were immediately invited to reapply for jobs. But weeks later, the field program is lagging, especially compared to the voter turnout operation stood up by President Joe Biden. The incumbent Democrat’s campaign has opened 30 headquarters alone in Michigan and has multiple such offices in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida.

The decision to jettison McDaniel’s preparations for a robust ground game that was similar in scope and strategy to the RNC’s efforts to boost Trump in 2016 and 2020 appears to have originated at the top. Trump repeatedly told McDaniel in conversations before he pushed her out of the chairmanship that he did not need the RNC to focus on “get-out-the-vote” activities. Rather, knowledgeable Republican sources told us, the former president informed McDaniel he wanted the committee to prioritize “election integrity” efforts.

 A key figure in the "election integrity" effort will have the major distraction of trying to stay out of prison.  Pema Levy at Rolling Stone:

The attorney running the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” effort has been criminally charged by the state of Arizona for her efforts to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election. This turn of events highlights the Orwellian meaning of the phrase “election integrity,” as used by Trump and the Republican Party: An effort to win at all costs.

[Christina] Bobb endeared herself to the former president as a fervent supporter who worked as both a Trump associate and a journalist as part of various efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 results. As Mother Jones reported when the RNC hired her last month:

As a correspondent for OAN, Bobb promoted the Big Lie—enough that she was a named a defendant in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against the network. But Bobb was not just a purveyor of the Big Lie—she was also part of the operation. Weeks after the 2020 election, Trump brought in a new team of lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, to help him subvert the results and remain in office. Though Bobb has not been charged with any crimes, she worked with that team to help coordinate the scheme to certify fake slates of electors in states Biden won, a plot that is part of both the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia and the federal charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Now Bobb has joined the list of Trumpists who have been charged with a crime. (Bobb’s name and charges have been redacted in the indictment until she is served, but multiple outlets have reported she is among the Trump allies charged.) Arizona charged each of the state’s 11 fake electors, which include sitting members of the state legislature and leaders in the state GOP. Arizona also charged Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn, Mike Roman, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis with related crimes.

 

Kristi Noem Is Going Through Some Things

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  One remaining question is the Republican vice presidential nomination.  One contender just took a serious hit.  Trump hates dogs, but millions of voters love them, and they will not approve of this news about Kristi Noem.

Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:

Conservative pundits have condemned the South Dakota governor and possible Trump running mate Kristi Noem, amid widespread horror over her admission in a new book that she killed both an “untrainable” dog and an unruly goat during a single day in hunting season.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump White House staffer turned critic, said: “I’m a dog lover and I am honestly horrified by the Kristi Noem excerpt. I wish I hadn’t even read it. A 14-month-old dog is still a puppy and can be trained. A large part of bad behaviour in dogs is not having proper training from humans.

“Dogs are a gift from God. They’re a reflection of his unconditional love. Anyone who would needlessly hurt an animal because they are inconvenient needs help.”

The Guardian revealed Noem’s story, which is contained in a book out next month. In No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, Noem describes her frustrations with Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer who Noem says ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbouring family’s chickens.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, saying Cricket was “untrainable … dangerous” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

“At that moment,” Noem says, “I realised I had to put her down.”

Noem describes taking Cricket to a gravel pit on her farm and shooting her. Remarkably, Noem then describes how she also chose to kill an unruly, unnamed, un-castrated goat, first botching the job then finishing the animal off with a third shotgun shell.

The news roiled the race to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, of whom Noem is an ardent supporter.

Sarah Matthews, another Trump aide turned opponent, said: “When I saw tweets about Kristi Noem murdering her puppy, I thought to myself, ‘Damn, one of the other VP contenders’ teams found some oppo,’ until I realized SHE wrote about it in HER book.“I’m not sure why anyone would brag about this unless they’re sick and twisted.”

Two Old Men

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

Jonathan V. Last: "When people say Biden is “old” what they mean is “frail.” Trump is functionally the same age as a Biden, with a much worse BMI and cognitive functioning. But because Trump can yell at the moon like a mad dog, people see him as “vigorous” and age isn’t a problem.

But Trump's behavior at trial may change perceptions.

The voters are unhappy.  Really unhappy. Many think both are unfit.

Hans Nichols and Alex Thompson at Axios:

President Biden has introduced a change to his White House departure and return routine. Instead of walking across the South Lawn to and from Marine One by himself, he's now often surrounded by aides.

Why it matters: With aides usually walking between Biden and journalists' camera position outside the White House, the visual effect is to draw less attention to the 81-year-old's halting and stiff gait.

Zoom in: Some Biden advisers have told Axios they're concerned that videos of Biden walking and shuffling alone — especially across the grass — have highlighted his age.Weeks ago the president told aides that he'd prefer a less formal approach, a White House official told Axios. He suggested that they walk with him.... By the numbers: In March, Biden's five walks to and from Marine One at the White House were by himself, or with family members.Starting April 16, Biden was joined by staff or lawmakers nine out of 10 times he walked to and from Marine One.

...

Between the lines: Biden resisted taking steps to account for his age early in his presidency, but has shifted gears recently.Besides the different footwear, he now enters Air Force One on a lower level, taking shorter stairs than the ones used on his early trips to climb to the plane's cabin. Biden also continues to do physical therapy and stretching exercises most days.

Ryan Bort, Asawin Suebsaeng and Catherina Gioino at Rolling Stone:

Among the heavily recurring topics in Trump’s private sniping this past week — according to the source, another person familiar with the situation, and a different Trumpworld figure briefed on the matter — is the former president’s bitterness towards New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who reported in print, online, and on CNN that Trump was visibly nodding off while in court. “He appeared to be asleep,” she told the network. “He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest, and his mouth kept going slack.”

The observation immediately went viral, provoking an irate denial from Trump’s campaign and reigniting the former president’s antipathy towards Haberman, who has been reporting on him for years. The resentment lasted the entire week, the sources add. It did not help Trump’s denial that he continued to doze off while seated in the Manhattan courtroom throughout the rest of the week. “Trump appears to have fallen asleep in court again,” Haberman wrote on Friday. “His eyes were closed for extended periods and his head dropped down twice.”

In recent conversations with Republican associates, Trump has repeatedly torn into Haberman and her CNN appearances, attacked her journalistic credentials, and bizarrely insisted that she was wrong about him falling asleep. Despite his dozing being widely reported, the former president has laid much of the blame for the detail going viral at Haberman’s feet. He was even observed glaring at her on Monday as he exited the courtroom following her CNN appearance.

It’s not just Haberman who’s been inflaming Trump during the first days of his criminal trial.

Trump has also privately asked people close to him if they agree that the courtroom sketch-artist must be out to get him, two of the sources say. Trump has critiqued the sketches of him that have circulated in the media this week, and insisted some of the images were likely drawn to make fun of him. One such sketch captured Trump snoozing, with his eyes closed and head tilted.

Unhappy Voters, Continued

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

The nomination phase is effectively over.

The voters are unhappy.  Really unhappy.  From Pew:

The RFK Effect

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.

 Voters are not happy about having to choose between Trump and Biden.  Trump allies are trying to boost RFK Jr. in an effort to split the anti-Trump vote. The tactic might be backfiring.

Hans Nichols at Axios:

A trio of recent polls shows that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent candidacy may be hurting former President Trump more than President Biden.

Why it matters: President Biden says his polling numbers are moving in the right direction. They look even better when the latest results for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are factored in.

By the numbers: Biden and Trump are tied 46%-46% in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll.

• Throw RFK in the mix, and it's still tied 37%-37%.
• But force RFK voters to choose and they break 47%-29% for Trump.
• That dynamic is consistent with two other polls — a Marist survey on Monday and a NBC News one on Sunday — that show Biden's margin increasing when RFK and other third party candidates are included.