Assuming the Republican Senate continues to defend an alternative reality, the fate of Trump will be left to the electorate. That makes one question paramount. Who among the Democratic field is most likely to be able to take the fight to Donald Trump — to attack his manifold vices, failings, and vulnerabilities clearly, logically, forcefully, calmly, relentlessly, persuasively and irrefutably? And do so while being relatively immune to Trump’s usual smears, slanders, caricatures and lies?
Joe Biden? Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? Pete Buttigieg? Or some of the laggards in the race like Mike Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar or Michale Bennet? All have merits and demerits, but after the performance by the House impeachment managers the obvious front runner ought to be Adam Schiff. Unfortunately he’s not in the race so will be unavailable to prosecute the case against the impeached presidential candidate, despite seeming more able to do so than any of the others, including his fellow former prosecutors — Klobuchar and Harris.
Ah well, “For all sad words of tongue and pen/The saddest are these,’It might have been.’” Still, all is not lost. If Bloomberg can be believed, even if he doesn’t win the nomination he is prepared to invest heavily in defeating Trump. In his case, it is rumored heavily could mean $1 billion. Such largesse may be needed.
Trump is reportedly raking in enormous sums from the MAGA-hat crowd and, as the Washington Post reports, from many of the fat cat Republican donors who shunned him in 2016. Having been enriched by the bribe he offered them in the form of a tax cut that favors the rich and corporate, they want to keep the gravy train chugging along for another four years.
As of the first week of January, Trump and the RNC had over $300 million on hand compared to $123 million on hand for the top six Democratic candidates in the race. Trump has been raising lots of cash from the true believers during the impeachment drama by selling anti-impeachment merch and persuading fans their money is the equivalent of a Sunday offering that will make them right with a higher power (Him) and combat the forces of darkness (Democrats).
Bloomberg, of course, is in a league of his own, having raised nothing from donors but already ponied up $250 million to get to 9% in one recent national poll. Since he is worth over $50 billion (equal to about twenty Trumps) he can afford to forgo donors and still spend Trump into his seventh bankruptcy.
If Bloomberg doesn’t secure the nomination, one hopes he will not just help the eventual democratic nominee to beat Trump but will chip in to turn a Senate that has disgraced itself in the impeachment charade Democratic. According to professional campaign trackers, the most vulnerable Senate Republicans are Susan Collins of Maine, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, David Perdue of Georgia, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and even Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
At present, Collins has a war chest of $7 million on hand as does Gardner, McSally and Perdue have $6 million each, Tillis has $5 million and Ernst $4 million. McConnell has $9 million on hand, but as the Senate Majority Leader has immense power to make or break legislation and is thus able to collect many large “contributions” from those with business before the Senate.
Still, all of those candidates at present have only a total of $44 million on hand. Bloomberg could see that and raise it $450 million and still only have spent one percent of his net worth. That’s like a millionaire paying for his kid’s first semester at Yale, or someone with the country’s average net worth buying a big screen TV at Costco. Not a stretch.
And if an impeached president who has never risen above 46 percent in job approval is vulnerable, so are senators like Collins whose weakness and enabling of Trump has been denounced in her home state as not the independent Maine way. Also at risk may be McSally, Perdue and Gardner in states trending less Red and more Blue, Ernst in a state that has voted Blue for president in six of the last ten races, and even McConnell who is surprisingly unpopular in a state that keeps reelecting him.
It’s possible that Trump may have worn out his welcome given his cozying up to Putin, failure to deliver on infrastructure, healthcare and other popular reforms, his obvious corruption and self-dealing, and his willingness to endanger the economy wth trade wars and tariffs. It is hard not to notice his willingness to enrich the donor class while neglecting the working stiffs who gave him their votes.
The old political truism that you can’t beat somebody with nobody still stands, but you can beat an unpopular, untrustworthy somebody and his craven enablers when they so obviously place their party and personal ambition above that of the country and the well being of the voters.
Is having packed the courts with anti-abortion judges really enough win a criminal president a majority of the votes nationwide and his co-conspirators in the Senate a victory in a half dozen teetering swing states?
We shall see. The outcome may well hinge on how many women, minorities, and millennials turn out to vote. They have good reason to ask what Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the supine senators have done for them lately.