Dem Presidential Primary Not The Only Show In Town

Most of the attention on presidential politics is focused on the Democrats, since just about everyone but Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton may run. But there is now some talk on the GOP side. There are still some “Never Trumpers,” like Bill Kristol, who was against Trump at the outset. But now, there are also “No Longer Trumpers,” like Joe Walsh.

The New York Post says that conservative talk show host, and former GOP congressman, Joe Walsh, may run against Trump.

“You’re running out of time. But more importantly, these are not conventional times. Look at the guy in the White House. These are urgent times,” said Walsh, who last week apologized for his role in helping elect an “unfit con man.”

Walsh, who was elected in 2010 as part of the Tea Party movement, said he voted for Trump in 2016 only because Trump wasn’t Hillary Clinton.

But he said he changed his views after Trump’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, last year in which he sided with the Russian strongman over his own intelligence community’s assessments of meddling in the election. . .

Calling Trump a “horrible human being,” Walsh said the president was setting a poor example for children with his divisive rhetoric.

Trump is already facing a GOP primary challenge by former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld — and also could face a challenge from former Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

However, the National Review says Walsh is not the answer.

newly announced GOP presidential candidate Joe Walsh isn’t the natural contrast to Donald Trump that he thinks he is. . . His view on American Jews and Israel, for example, echoes the president’s recent remarks. . . Walsh just had the good sense to not call American Jews “disloyal” to Israel.

In November 2011, he lost his temper and screamed at a woman at a town hall meeting.

. . .[and] In the coming weeks, you may hear that Walsh was “suspended from his radio show for using racial slurs,”. . . Walsh’s in-your-face persona from the past decade is not the most natural contrast to Trump today. Last week he apologized for “helping put an unfit con man in the White House.” . . . he had a pretty Trump-y public persona, which raises some tough questions about why Walsh would be the right guy to replace Trump on the GOP ticket.

But Bill Kristol says his brashness is exactly what is needed to get under Trump’s skin.

Mr. Kristol has been a “Never Trump” Republican since Mr. Trump was elected in 2016 and has been working hard over the past year to recruit someone to run against him.

Mr. Kristol said Mr. Walsh’s comfort with the in-your-face format of conservative talk radio makes him a potentially more effective combatant against Mr. Trump than someone like William Weld, the genteel former governor of Massachusetts, whose own primary challenge to the president has gained little traction. . .

“He has a different appeal than Bill Weld,” Mr. Kristol said. “The fact that he was a Tea Party congressman who voted for Trump in 2016 gives him an ability to speak to Republican primary voters that ‘Never Trumpers’ like me don’t have.”

In addition to Walsh, Weld, Sanford, and Kasich, Michigan’s Justin Amash has also suggested that he may challenge Trump, either inside the GOP, or more likely, as the candidate of the Libertarian Party. The Week says Amash should stay inside the party.

Meanwhile, Anthony Scaramucci has turned against Trump—even after recently publishing a book praising Trump. “The Mooch” is not running, himself, but he says he is starting a PAC to attack Trump, according to Fox.

His goal is to weaken Trump-just enough-by eroding a few percentage points of “The Donald’s” support.

Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci is launching a PAC in order to “dismantle” President Trump and claims he could potentially sway as much as eight percent of his voters.

During a Tuesday interview on the “Hacks on Tap” podcast, Scaramucci casually mentioned that he was going to be “running advertisements” from his own political action committee featuring him and his wife describing what the president “does to people” in hopes of swaying white suburban women. . .

“At the end of the day, you know, I can grab ahold of five, six, eight percent of the people that know he’s nuts and possibly move them,” Scaramucci added.

Scaramucci’s rejection seems to have bothered Trump greatly, although he claims it has not, yet Trump pumped out a lot of tweets on the subject.

CNN thinks the reason is that Trump has few people he trusts.

The answer is, as always with Trump, tied directly to how he views the world: There are only two kinds of people — the pro-Trump ones and the anti-Trump ones. People who have been pro-Trump for a long time, or at least before he was elected president, he keeps closer and values more. Those are his OG people, the ones who have been with him from the jump.

It’s not a big group — and it’s mostly family. But there are a few non-family members in there — and Scaramucci was one. When those pro-Trumpers turn on him, Trump goes bananas.

Speaking of people who have turned on Trump, Page Six says it was probably Nikki Haley who encouraged Scaramucci’s crusade.

Curiously, Page Six is told the Mooch dined with fellow Trump turncoat Haley at famed Harlem eatery Rao’s 10 days ago, where a witness saw them “in deep discussion.” Could they be plotting something? The administration’s former UN ambassador also slammed POTUS recently after he mocked Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings after his home was burgled. “This is so unnecessary,” she tweeted.

Trump attack dog Kellyanne Conway responded, “THIS is so unnecessary. Trump-PENCE2020,” apparently making a dig about rumors that Haley could have been Trump’s running mate had she stayed on his good side.

All of this is surprising. Trump has an incredibly high approval rating among Republicans, although probably not the 94% Trump claims.

In the past, presidents who have had serious primary challenges have lost re-election. Ford was challenged by Reagan. Carter was challenged by Teddy Kennedy. George H. W. Bush was challenged by Pat Buchanan.

However, the question is whether the primary challenge weakened the president, or if a weak president invited a challenge. Say what you will about Trump, but he does not have the image as being weak.