The Kickoff to 2024 Politics – “The Sunday Political Brunch” - January 7, 2024

Sunday, January 07, 2024

Mark Curtis, MINDSETTER™

 

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FBI Footage of January 6 attack.

Happy New Year and happy political news! We are less than two weeks from the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary, both could quickly dispatch much of the remaining field of candidates. The big question: Is Trump’s lead in the polls just too much for any opponent to overcome? Let’s “brunch” on that and other political nuggets this week:

 

“Trump Case Rockets to U.S. Supreme Court” - Late Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would hear the appeal by Former President Donald Trump, after he was kicked off the ballot in Colorado. He has also been pulled from the ballot in Maine. The Colorado high court said Trump committed insurrection in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots, and is thereby barred from the ballot by the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But Trump has not been formally accused or charged with any such crime, let alone being convicted. I’m not a lawyer, but I am familiar with the concept of “due process” from the same Constitution. At the very least, I predict a 6-3 win for Trump after the case is heard on February 8th, but this could be a 9-0 vote with even the court’s liberals agreeing on a violation of due process.

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“Biden Stokes the Fire” – Also on Friday, President Joe Biden stoked the flames of discontent with Trump at his first campaign rally of the year in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. He spoke at the historic Valley Forge, condemning Trump’s actions on January 6th. Biden said that the Capitol riots marked a day where, “we nearly lost America - lost it all.” Biden added, “What’s Trump done? He’s called these insurrectionists ‘patriots,’” Biden said, “and he promised to pardon them if he returns to office.” Trump’s campaign responded by addressing the Supreme Court taking his case. The statement said, “We are confident that the fair-minded Supreme Court will unanimously affirm the civil rights of President Trump, and the voting rights of all Americans, in a ruling that will squash all of the remaining ballot challenge hoaxes once and for all.”

 

“And Then There Were Three (or Two)” –We began with about a dozen Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination this year, but now only three have qualified for the next Republican debate in Iowa on January 10th. Only former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) Florida, and former Gov. Nikki Haley (R) South Carolina made the polling threshold to be on the debate stage. Trump has already declined, so this will be a just a Haley-DeSantis jaw-fest.

 

“The Debate Slate” – The Haley-DeSantis debate could be lively, perhaps as a preview to the 2028 presidential contest, when both appear viable as a potential Trump successor. But the debate loses some of its luster since it won’t shape who Trump’s VP nominee might be. That’s because the U.S. Constitution says the presidential and vice-presidential nominees for their party, must be residents of different states. Trump and DeSantis are both legal residents of Florida, so they can’t pair up. South Carolinian Haley is the only viable option, so expect her to play it safe and be non-confrontational.

 

“Manchin Goes to New Hampshire” – As I reported here last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D) West Virginia, (my base of operations), will be traveling to New Hampshire later this week with a speech and rally set for Friday, January 12th. On Wednesday, Senator Manchin and I got to talk about his trip. He said, "Well, as you know, there's people all over the country right now, they feel hopeless and helpless within the political arena. And politics is forcing people apart. Pick a side. What side are you on? There's only one side, the American side. We're trying to invigorate people to come back to the centrist middle.”

 

“I Say Manchin is IN! – I said it in this column last week that I thought Manchin would jump into a pool of third-party candidates, and I stand by that, based on what he told me this past week. Manchin said, “I'll be in Massachusetts. I'll be in Maine. I'll be all over New Hampshire, talking to people, seeing if we can get people to come together. There's an awful lot of Democrats and Republicans that feel like I do. Basically, the parties have left. They've gone too far to the extremes, and that's not how you are going to fix it. I want people to know that it won't be fixed in Washington. It's going to be fixed in, basically, in rural America and all over America.” Like I said, my bet is Manchin’s running for president in a third party.

 

“My Memories of Senator Herb Kohl” – Last week I promised more on the late Senator Herb Kohl, for whom I worked in 1993. Don’t judge, but this is how deals get done in Congress, and yes it does look like “sausage making.” There was a three-way deal: Sen. Robert Byrd (D) Virginia wanted the closest firehouse to the Capitol re-opened; Sen Dan Inouye (D) Hawaii wanted George Washington University Hospital (his alma mater) named after him; and Sen. Kohl from Wisconsin wanted a Pentagon contract for hundreds of Humvees made by Oshkosh Trucks in Wisconsin. I was one of three Senate staffers on the Appropriations Committee negotiating team, where each Senator had a representative. The stress gave me a painful stomach ulcer. It was one of the ugliest, but most instructive, chapters of my career.

 

“The Outcome” – I’ve held the deal in confidence for 31 years, promising to release it only after all three senators passed. “Don’t let them roll me! Don’t let them f-ing roll me, Mark!” Kohl screamed at me on a number of occasions, as he feared his part of the deal would collapse. He was a first-term senator up against two of the Senate’s biggest legends. And Kohl was up for reelection in 1994. It was intense. The staffers from the other offices were tough, almost bullying me. But, as unseemly as the three-way deal sounds, there was nothing illegal about it. It was classic Capitol Hill logrolling. “You vote for my project, and I’ll vote for yours.” But retaliation was the fear. Losing the Oshkosh Trucks contract could have cost Sen. Kohl a second term.

 

“This is How DC Rolls” - The pressure on me was enormous. Thank God, someone leaked the deal to the Washington Post, and it was never consummated. But I don’t judge. This is how business gets done in Washington. I always tell people, watch the Academy Award winning movie “Lincoln” as it explains the unseemly process well. It’s ugly, but the democracy has survived 250-plus years. In the end, the firehouse was temporarily revived (but gone now). We still got a lot of deals for Oshkosh Trucks. The hospital, (and I don’t know why), never got named for Sen. Inouye, an authentic Asian-American war hero, who graduated from GW’s law school. Interestingly enough, the hospital’s emergency room is named after President Reagan, where his life was saved post-assassination attempt in 1981.

 

“Fame is a Funny, Fickle Thing!” – I left Senator Kohl’s office in November 1993, to go back into political reporting with Cox Media, which had TV outlets in major markets all across the country. One night we ran into each other at a Capitol reception and decided to walk out together down the Senate steps. All of a sudden, a family started yelling at us, “Mark, Mark, can we get your picture?” Herb said, “Who are these people?” And I said, “I don’t know!” After the pictures were taken, the mom said, “Mark, we watch you report from the Capitol every day on WSOC-TV in Charlotte! But who is this man you are standing with?” So, I introduced them to a slightly bemused Senator Kohl (who also owned the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team). The reach of daily television is amazing. They were wowed to meet both of us!

Mark Curtis, Ed.D., is Chief Political Reporter for the seven Nexstar Media TV stations serving West Virginia, its five neighboring states and the entire Washington, DC media market. He is also a MINDSETTER™ contributing political writer and analyst for www.GoLocalProv.com and its affiliates.


 

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