It is difficult to keep up with fast-moving events in America.
So far this week, we have seen one of the leading candidates have his ear shot off, a slew of conspiracy theories which inevitably followed, the other candidate suspends his campaign due to contracting COVID, and his party pretty much universally tell him to ‘pass the torch’ to someone younger. Anyone.
As if that isn’t enough headlines to digest, as I write the GOP National Convention is confirming an ex-President who is a convicted criminal and facing further federal charges as its candidate, and then endorsing his selection of a man who previously called him ‘America’s Hitler’ as his running mate.
In other news, somewhat overwhelmed by events elsewhere, Biden called Ukraine’s leader ‘President Putin’ and referred to his own second in command as ‘Vice President Trump’. Eek.
It is hard to know where to start.
While Trump literally took a bullet – or didn’t if you follow the conspiracists – it is his opponent whose campaign appears to be mortally wounded.
As the former President was swamped by Secret Service officers but defiantly rose with a fist pump to a crowd chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A”, the polling firms tested his popularity and, no surprise, it was off the scale.
With months still to go, the wise money is very much on a Trump victory.
The stock markets are starting to price in a Republican victory, both for the race to the White House and also across what we call ‘down ticket’ elections which will determine the make up of Congress and who is living in a number of Governor’s Mansions across the States.
My favourite ‘pollsters’ – Paddy Power – are offering 14-1 odds on Biden returning to the White House but will only pay a miserly 4/9 ON for Trump to secure a second term, all be it non-consecutive.
So, what might happen?
Trump-Vance is the Republican ticket. A felon and a man whose history is attracting extreme scrutiny. Never mind his previous comments about his new boss, what about his declaration last week that since Labour won the election, the UK is now the first ‘Islamist nuclear power’.
Normally such utterances would draw ire and fire, but these are peculiar times.
Such is the strength of feeling that Team Trump is the likely winner of the election, the new UK Foreign Secretary chose to forgive these wild comments and instead drew some personal comparisons between his and Vance’s upbringing, their Christian faith, and familial struggles with substance abuse.
I like David Lammy but have a sneaking feeling that as we learn even more about the prospective VP’s history – the period of time when he was calling himself James Donald Bowman, then James David Bowman, then James Hamel, before adopting the handle JD Vance when he wed his wife Usha Chilikuri – the Tottenham MP will quickly backtrack on his claim of ‘common ground’ with Trump’s new running mate.
And the Democrats?
They have a big weekend ahead.
The President must finally come to the conclusion, the one that everyone else has already reached, that he can’t win.
Then the party managers – those most ruthless members of the campaign team with a finely tuned understanding of funder and donor sentiment and waist deep in damning analysis from key seat polling – will have to act.
Biden’s health not his faculties will be cited as the reason for his decision to step aside.
There will be an enormous outpouring of gratitude and appreciation for everything the sitting President has achieved not just in the past three and a half years as Commander in Chief but across a 50-year political career. The Hollywood A list will be full of praise and the few remaining centrist media outlets will give him a hero’s send off.
And moments later, the real campaign will begin.
The SuperPACs will launch their attack ads. JD Vance will be in the cross hairs and the relentless airing of his previous comments about Donald Trump will test the Republican candidate’s patience and thin skin.
Look out for ‘I’m never a Trump guy” as he told TV’s Charlie Rose in 2016.
‘My God, what an idiot” as Vance tweeted about Trump.
‘America’s Hitler’ as his now deleted Facebook page declared
Or ‘A cynical asshole’ as he wrote to Georgia Senator John McLaurin.
We’re also likely to see a reprint of his New York Times op-ed when he proclaimed: “Donald Trump is unfit to hold our nation’s highest office’.
But beating up Trump and his buddy isn’t enough: the Dems will have to have a candidate of their own.
But who will it be?
Kamala Harris, the sitting Vice President is the bookie’s favourite. Biden would be able to instruct his delegates at the forthcoming party Convention to back Harris and the huge pot of campaign money would transfer over seamlessly.
Only fly in that ointment is while Harris’s chances of beating Trump are better than Biden’s, she still trails the ‘Orange One’ by a margin.
Some money is being laid on Michelle Obama but at odds of 25-1 to be the candidate let alone win the election, why would she bother.
Other names include Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Gov Gavin Newsom and Transport Secretary Pete Buttigeig but they are even more distant on the odds board.
So, Harris it is. Can she win?
An African American/Indian mixed heritage woman candidate is about as far from MAGA man Trump as you could get. She is a senior legal prosecutor and would be expected to competently litigate Trump’s failings, criminal convictions and the mysterious history of JD Vance.
She hasn’t exactly set the political world afire while serving as Biden’s VP but perhaps that is an advantage, there aren’t any bear traps or land mines waiting for her on the campaign trail.
Kamala who? In most voters’ minds she is a blank canvas, but one which could be shaped for success. Campaign managers could define her as a champion of multicultural America appealing to the critical black and brown votes in key states, a voice for women’s rights and an advocate for education and health care in the eyes of ‘soccer moms’ and suburban ‘BBQ dads’ – key demographics everywhere, and with a recovering economy and growing consumer confidence she could claim the mantle as the architect of economic stability after the madness of the Trump years.
Granted, it is a stretch, the bookmakers don’t set their odds by emotion or political preference, but it’s probably the best chance the Democrats, and by extension America and the rest of us have.
