Who's Next? Who Knows?

 

 

It was back in my first blog, Alan's Alley, that I made my first prediction about an upcoming Presidential election.

It was 2006, and I predicted the next President would be either John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or this guy from Illinois, Barack Obama.

 

Granted, it didn't take  Nostradamus to figure that one out. But I came back in 2011 and predicted Mitt Romney would win the Republican nomination.  I was right again because Republicans usually nominate the guy next in line. In 2008, that was McCain; in 2012, that was Romney.

In 2013, my psychic powers went kablooey. 

I predicted the Republicans would retake the White House with a blunt-talking fatty from a Northern industrial state:  Chris Christie.

I based this on something Chris Matthews said-the new President is always different from the last President.  Kennedy was young, and Eisenhower was old.  Carter wouldn't tell a lie, and Nixon, well, you know.  I thought, who is more different than Barack Obama besides Chris Christie.  

Oops.

I'll admit I didn't see the Donald Trump phenomenon coming. Sure, he was on TV every week and the show did quite well, but I didn't see him as Presidential timber at all.

 

Well, he won and we had four years of the Donald Trump experience which was real, as they say.

The Trump years ended like most things with Trump: badly. He took his obvious defeat like a big baby, practically ordering the Secretary of State of Georgia to find 13,000 votes. 

I knew Trump didn't have any facts on his side when he couldn't believe he lost Cobb County.  He lost Cobb County in 2016.

The talk now with the Washington Mainstream Media folks is Trump is a shoo-in for the GOP nomination in 2024. I can think some people that want Trump to take another swing at it:  The Mainstream Media, comedians, Democrats, and Stephen Colbert.  He gave them so much to talk about.

I think Republicans want somebody new in 2024.  I mean, we bought the World Of Trump and we got the t-shirt.  Do we want to go back?

I don't see it.  What I do see is Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.  DeSantis is from a middle-class background but graduated from one of those hoity-toity schools.  He was in the Armed Services.  He was born in 1978. Important historical fact: Biden was still in his first term as a senator and Trump was still married to his first wife when DeSantis was born.

Speaking of President Biden, I told everyone in 2020 that Biden was too old to be President.  I got that one right.

It is almost painful watching Biden trying to project being Presidential.   You may not have heard about a speech he gave when he signed an executive order where he repeated the teleprompter instruction like Ron Burgandy.  Oh, if only Johnny Carson were alive today. 

 

Biden's poll numbers are low.  How low are they?  They are so low that some Democrats (i.e., their wealthy donors) want Pete Buttigieg to replace Biden on the Democratic ticket.

Despite the fact that never in U.S. history has a Secretary of Transportation ever won the White House, much less a party's nomination for President, the idea that they would consider throwing Kamala Harris under the bus is astonishing. 

Kamala Harris is a person whose resume looked real good but her performance has been so-so, at best.  Still, you wouldn't deny her the nomination if Biden retires to the Old President's  Home. Would you?

And for Pete Buttigieg?  I know he was the mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana, but his performance with the supply chain crisis has shown me that maybe he should have stayed in South Bend.

We have a problem with air travel. Apparently, we have a pilot shortage.  U.S. commercial airline pilots are forced to retire at 65 years old.

When Neil Cavuto suggested to Buttigieg that maybe the retirement rule be temporarily waived since there has been so much disruption of air travel during the 4th of July holiday.

Buttigieg said, "That regulation is there for safety reasons".  He went on to say, "I haven't seen any piece of information or data that would suggest that the reasoning has changed. And so I'm going to look at other steps that are not affecting safety."

The President of The United States is almost 80 years and he has direct access to nuclear codes.   I think that is a safety issue.

Additionally, it doesn't bother Buttigieg that school-aged children ride in buses with drivers over 65 years old. That seems to me to be a safety issue, too.

Isn't it ironic that this form of prejudice is tolerated?  When a pilot is 64, he can fly the friendly skies.  But one month later, when he is 65, he has to retire, or he might fly the Miami passengers to Detroit or into the side of a mountain.

So who do I think is going to win the Presidential election in 2024?  Who knows?

Sometimes we just close our eyes and pull one out of a hat.