While Jon Stewart keeps harping on Biden's age, the NYTimes dropped the bombshell that Robert Kennedy Jr. claimed in his 2012 divorce proceedings that a parasitic worm had eaten part of his brain and that he had lost some of his cognitive ability. Either that or mercury poisoning from eating too many tuna fish sandwiches. Take your pick.
While Stewart's schtick has grown old, the campaign keeps revealing numerous surprises from its field of septua- and octogenarians vying for the highest office in the country. Bobby Jr. is not a young man himself. He may look spry doing push-ups in front of the camera, but the man is 70 and if we are to believe his story still might have a few parasitic worms eating away at his brain. Meanwhile, a 77-year old Trump continues to doze off in front of the sketch artists in court. We hardly hear a word from 70-year old Cornell West, whom I assume is still running for president. Or 73-year old Jill Stein, who has been even more quiet. That's right, Jon, everyfuckingone of the presidential candidates is well past retirement age, but tell us again how Joe Biden is "too fucking old!"
Joe is indeed the oldest of the lot and we really don't want him to take his shirt off, but for the record he doesn't look that bad. Trump wouldn't dare let anyone capture him shirtless. The closest we get are these beautiful swings on the golf course, where he claims to hold a 2.8 handicap. Mind you, Jack Nicklaus' handicap was last recorded at 5.2 in 2020. I think Trump was noting how many times per week he averaged playing golf while he was president.
If age is such a hang up for comedians like Jon and political pundits all over the news, then why aren't we seeing young fresh faces running against them. No Labels has yet to unveil a candidate for the general election and is quickly running out of time. There is some worry Biden won't even get on the Ohio ballot in November, a critical state in the electoral college. The so-called "middle way" was the last best hope for a younger candidate who might appeal to nervous nellies like Jon.
I have to wonder if this expressed nervousness is about Biden or the possibility that we could have our first woman president within the next four years if Joe were to (god forbid) keel over. It seems the latter from what I see in the news. Hunter Walker and Luppe Luppen recently published a book in which they cite a number of disgruntled ex-Kamala aides who said, "this person should not be president of the United States." Even those you would think supportive of our vice-president liken her to a damp squib. But, Biden has no intention of dropping her before the convention this summer, so it remains to be seen if she will play a factor in the November election.
A lot depends on who Trump picks for VP. The frontrunner had been Kristi Noem until she came out with her memoirs. Since then she has been busily defending her animal husbandry skills, to put it nicely, all over the media. It has reached the point where she is turning down interviews as all she hears is "Cricket, Cricket, Cricket." This was a 14-month adolescent puppy she put out of its misery for gorging on the neighbor's chickens on some South Dakota farm many years ago. But, that's not the worst of it. She claims to have stared down the bully Kim Jong-Un, as she had plenty of practice with her Sunday School kids when she was a children's pastor. Turns out she never met Kim, although pictures confirm there was a dog named Cricket.
With Noem out of the race, this apparently leaves four guys prostrating themselves before Trump to be his number two. None of them are very appealing and it is doubtful they will score well among the suburban women vote that Trump desperately needs if he is to pull off a November victory. Tulsi Gabbard remains a dark horse. Probably the only one from this crazy field that would actually help him, as Nikki Haley is apparently a hard no.
I still think he will go with a woman as that would be the only way to offset the disastrous testimony of Stormy Daniels in the hush money case currently playing out in New York. She bared all and it wasn't a pretty visual image of her spanking Trump with a rolled-up magazine and trying to get him to quit calling her Ivanka, among other salacious revelations. Most of it we had heard before but having it come straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, had to leave even some of his most ardent supporters wondering what is the story with this guy?
It certainly was enough for former Georgia Lt. Gov. Duncan, who said he is now voting for Biden in November. RINO, you shout! But, he's not the only prominent Republican to say he is not voting for Trump. Former House Speaker Ryan said he would write in a Republican candidate of his choice, echoing Mitt Romney, who apparently wrote in his wife in 2016 and 2020. NeverTrumpers, you say.
Judging by the Indiana primary results, there are a lot of NeverTrumpers. More than 20 percent of Republicans voted for Nikki Haley in this staunchly conservative state, despite her no longer running for president. Trump carried the Hoosier State by 16 percent in 2020. That's astounding really, and punctures the balloon many polls have created of Trump holding a 95% retention rate among conservative voters. As in other states, most of these disgruntled Republicans said they don't plan on voting for Trump in the Fall. Where did Nikki score best? You guessed it, the suburbs.
While Trump appears to have rural America in his back pocket, the general election is won in the suburbs and right now that is heavily favoring Biden, age questions aside. It has become so favorable that the Biden campaign plans on taking swings at Florida, Ohio and other states that Trump won in 2020 but that they now feel are in play. Meanwhile Trump takes a wild swing at Minnesota on his day off from court, where he is scheduled to attend a Republican fundraiser. For weeks he had bemoaned that the court was denying him the opportunity to attend his youngest son's graduation in Florida the same day. It's kind of odd he would try to squeeze in both, but what's a busy man to do.
Meanwhile, Barron has been slated as one of the Florida delegates to attend the Republican convention this summer. He is apparently very much interested in the political process, but he just turned 18! If this isn't enough to make your eyeballs roll after handpicking his daughter-in-law as vice-chairman of the Republican National Committee for the expressed purpose of funneling more money into his legal defense fund.
I think that after all these revelations, Biden no longer looks so old. And even if he does look old, he looks stable and compassionate. Not the kind of guy who takes unruly dogs to the gravel pit or tries to hide notorious trysts or has worms eating away at his brain. Even if Trump and all these lurid side stories are "block[ing] out the sun" as Jen Psaki put it, people want stability. They want compassion. They don't want a president with an erotic obsession for his daughter or another one who invents parasitic worms in his head to try to get out of paying alimony, claiming that these worms reduced his cognitive abilities and thus his earning power.
Yep, Joe looks OK by comparison and that is the message his campaign team should be sending. Oh, and Kamala looks OK too.
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