Image Credits: CNN.
As a political animal, elections are usually like my Super Bowl, but Super Tuesday in 2024 was less interesting to me than NFL contract negotiations. Is Saquon Barkley really going to leave the New York Giants in free agency? I really hope not, but it’s looking more likely. God forbid he signs with the Eagles or Cowboys, how will I go on?
By contrast, it’s been obvious for months that Donald Trump would all but wrap up the Republican presidential nomination on Super Tuesday. I was pleasantly surprised to see Nikki Haley carry Vermont but she was slaughtered everywhere else and dropped out at 10am on Wednesday. On the Democratic side, things were the same. Joe Biden crushed his also-ran opponents everywhere except American Samoa where he tied Some Dude who paid for 51 votes.
President Joe Biden was sweeping every Democratic contest on Super Tuesday — except for American Samoa.
He fell short there to a previously unknown candidate named Jason Palmer. Out of 91 ballots cast in the territory’s caucus, Palmer won 51 and Biden won 40, according to the local party.
“I found out that I had won because my phone started blowing up with friends and campaign staffers texting me,” Palmer said in an interview late Tuesday.
Palmer, 52, said he never visited the territory before the caucus.
“I have been campaigning remotely, doing Zoom town halls, talking to people, listening to them about their concerns and what matters to them,” he said.
That makes Biden O-for-2 in the territory after Michael Bloomberg similarly paid for victory in 2020. The Samoan outcome was by far the most compelling result in Tuesday’s elections, and it seems like here is a good place to link to Hunter S. Thompson’s correspondence with Lyndon Johnson’s administration on becoming the governor of American Samoa.
So it goes.
There were some modestly interesting results here and there in down-ballot races. A MAGA nut fell short here, a MAGA nut prevailed over there. It’s nice to know that Adam Schiff will be facing off against Steve Garvey in the race to replaced Diane Feinstein in the U.S. Senate. My beloved New York Yankees beat Garvey’s L.A. Dodgers in 1977 and 1978, and since I was at a formidable age, I developed a real dislike for those Dodgers players. Garvey was among the weirdest with his perfect posture and hair. I’m not sure he really has the family values a conservative Christian wants in a role model, but who am I kidding?
Known as “Mr. Clean” during his baseball heyday in the ‘1970s and ‘80s, Garvey didn’t smoke or drink, and he projected the image of a man devoted to God and family.
Then came a highly publicized divorce, affairs with multiple women, multiple lawsuits — and injuries that led to the star’s retirement in 1988, at age 39.
Dude has multiple grandkids he hasn’t even met. I’m not sure even Trump can say that.
But, yes, Trump wrapped things up last night and now Mitch McConnell has decided to endorse him. I wish I could enjoy seeing The Turtle suffer this monumental comeuppance. He should have killed Trump’s second run for president in the crib when he had the chance. Now, if he wants to serve out the rest of the year as the Senate Minority Leader, he’s forced to pretend Trump is fit for office.
Haley didn’t endorse Trump when she quit which is to her credit, but she invited him to earn her endorsement which is a ludicrous proposition. She has no future in the Republican Party whether or not Trump wins in November, so she should start adjusting accordingly. Maybe she can call William Kristol or Jeff Flake for tips.
There is no longer any resistance to Trump from within the GOP. He’s on a glide path to a dictatorship, and not much can stop him now if the polls can be believed. Personally, I don’t think it’s over yet, mainly because the resistance to Trump is rock-solid. But it looks grim. It looks like the money is on Trump and he’s got a giant built-in Electoral College advantage.
Another thing that worries me is that, even if we can get something to trial, it will be hard to get a unanimous verdict against Trump now that he’s the nominee, since it becomes something of a proxy for the presidential vote. Justice may have moved too slowly in this case, to our great peril.
Ah well, we won’t go down without a fight.
Right?