Three column on why Trump and Biden must be stopped, and how. Links to full columns are embedded in each headline.
Why an independent actually can win (Jan. 30): If, Lord forbid, the two major U.S. political parties insist on giving us another contest for president between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the feasibility of a successful independent/third-party candidacy is better than most pundits think.
This column isn’t predicting an independent victor. That outcome is still a long shot. It is, though, less long of a shot than a first glance would indicate.
History, looked at rightly, holds clues. Just because something has never happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen now; but, on the other hand, that which has indeed happened before is, by very definition, at least possible. What has never happened since the American two-party system solidified after the Civil War was an independent winner of the presidency. What indeed has happened before, though, were independent efforts (1912, 1992) that for significant periods looked to have real chances of success or which (1968) seriously threatened to force the House of Representatives to make the choice. If just a few things had developed differently in each of those three years, the “never happened” really could have happened after all….
Nikki Haley still does have a (long) shot of winning (Jan. 30): Despite conventional wisdom, this nation is not necessarily destined to inaugurate either Joe Biden or Donald Trump as president next Jan. 20. The Republican nomination battle really isn’t over….
John Bolton, a Haley critic, says she is still eons better than Trump (Feb. 6) Former national security adviser John Bolton told me Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s flaws are vastly different in kind and degree from those of other officials he has criticized.
On the Republican side, Bolton said, he would “vote for a cardboard cutout” before he ever voted for Trump, and he said he would never vote for Trump even in a general election — he would cast a write-in vote instead…..
