Warning Sign As Trump And Palin Campaign for Different Candidates In Alabama

(Picture at BREITBART)

  Given the current state of the Democratic Party, the substantial possibility of their nominating a "progressive" candidate and the historical odds favoring sitting presidents running for reelection the greatest danger to a Trump 2020 run could come from within the GOP.

From the commencement of the primary system in 1912, every time a sitting president or vice-president has faced a realistic primary challenge they have lost the subsequent presidential election or withdrew from running after facing near certain defeat in the primaries.

Prior to that the only sitting presidents not to be renominated at conventions were Franklin Pierce, considered among the worst presidents, “the only time in U.S. history that an elected president who was an active candidate for reelection was not nominated for a second term" and the non-elected presidents Andrew Johnson and Chester A. Arthur.

   This historical truth is exemplified by President Taft's disastrous reelection campaign when former President Teddy Roosevelt bolted the party after failing to get the nomination even though he won over 51% of the primary vote.

   President Truman withdrew after losing the New Hampshire primary to Estes Kefauver. President Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race after narrowly winning the New Hampshire primary. President Carter faced a massive challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy which was not resolved until Kennedy's begrudging endorsement of Carter at the convention "one of the nastiest on record".

  President Ford faced a similar challenge from Governor Reagan which went down to the wire at the GOP convention. In 1992 President G.W. Bush's reelection bid (his 1988 primary run as VP for the presidential nomination  was never in doubt) had to fight off a serious challenge from the right via Pat Buchanan "the fact that Buchanan received more than two million votes nationwide, prognosticated disaster in the fall."

   Sitting Vice-president Hubert Humphrey after the worst nominating convention in American history and a bruising primary campaign  (using "favorite sons" as substitute for campaigning himself) went on to lose to Nixon in 1968. VP Al Gore who went on to lose the presidential race to G.W.Bush was challenged for the Democratic presidential nomination by Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey who only lost the New Hampshire primary by 3 points.

  Former vice-president's had a mixed record with Walter Mondale winning the 1984 nomination after a primary battle and losing the presidential election and Hubert Humphrey being defeated by George McGovern for the 1972 nomination.

At this point in President Trump's administration there is not the slightest breath of speculation that he might be challenged for the nomination in 2020, nor has any Republican of note given any overt sign that he or she might do so.

However, such was the case during the first year of Jimmy Carter's presidency when the breaking with tradition cardigan wearing president with the big toothy grin was hugely popular. President G.W.H Bush seemed unbeatable after the Gulf War. Both presidencies ended very badly.

Are there any straws in the wind which, even at this point, might lead to a similar ending for President Trump? Yes there are.

​Damon Linker at 'The Week' who, apart from considering himself 'smart" ("a lot of smart people got Trump wrong") has been apocalyptic regarding Trump ("poised to lose in biggest landslide in history") right from the start, now sees the entire GOP breaking up;

"If the members of Trump's base do finally turn on him, where are they going to go? Into the arms of pro-immigration Paul Ryan and whatever candidate the still-reigning GOP establishment puts up in 2020? Or will they instead stew through what remains of the Trump presidency (including the now much-more-likely Trump impeachment) while they await a more competent and ideologically coherent candidate to emerge from the fully energized Breitbart/Bannonite wing of the party?

I'd place my bets on the latter. Which doesn't mean that such a hard-right nationalist "workers party" candidate would automatically win the GOP nomination. But it does mean that the 2020 primaries would be a contest over which faction gets to call itself the Republican Party and which ends up forced into the third-party wilderness."

This is of course utter nonsense and is refuted by no less than the New York Times which ruined an otherwise instructive article by titling it "When Trump say jump his followers say how high?" The gist of the academic study is that politics is now completely tribal and policies do not count no matter the flip flops, all that matters is a person’s side "wins" against the other party.

However, politics policies core beliefs and flip flops do matter and have their breaking point as regards the internal opposition and this is where an internal fissure could lead to a 2020 challenge.

The outlines of such a fissure showed its first sign in, of all places, Alabama where the extraordinary sight of the GOP’s sitting president and past vice-presidential candidate will be canvassing for different senatorial candidates in the same week.

“Former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is heading down to Alabama to help boost former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) in his primary against appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL), joining forces with a pro-Trump super-PAC to try to knock out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) strongly preferred candidate.
Palin will join a bus tour run by Great America Alliance, a pro-Trump group that recently added former White House staffer Andy Surabian, who has close ties to recently ousted former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. The planned rally will occur late next week, according to a strategist close to the organization.”
And from President Trump; “I will be in Huntsville, Alabama, on Saturday night to support Luther Strange for Senate,” Trump tweeted. “‘Big Luther’ is a great guy who gets things done!” 

  The mystery of Trump supporting a McConnell choice is a spectacle of much fascination whose machinations are too arcane to consider without minds being boggled. "The Art Of The Machiavelli" might be a Trump book in progress.


With Palin the certainty is core beliefs trump party and political appointment. Palin endorsed Trump well before anyone else and it is likely her support prior to the Iowa caucuses was instrumental in gaining Trump the credibility of a second place finish.


That she would campaign against Trump’s chosen candidate simply reinforces to her followers that principle counts above all else. Nobody else in the GOP could mount a primary challenge without some degree of self-seeking being attached to such an effort except “you don’t need a title to make a difference’ Palin.


 That Bannon, who touted Palin for president prior to the rise of Trump, is supporting her efforts in Alabama gives financial and media substance, allied to Palin’s personal mass following, to any future schism. So too is his attack on the same McConnell Trump is supporting "Bannon: Why Are McConnell And Ryan Letting Democrats Investigate Trump?"


If an internal breaking point comes, perhaps on “The Wall” (Hannity; "The wall better be part of Trump's deal"  
"Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, said activists were “very, very concerned" )  then President Trump, or perhaps more accurately the Priebus/Christie team who advised on cabinet appointments, may come to sorely regret not bringing Palin into the administration and not keeping Bannon in it.

See also;
"Trump's Move to the Left Ensures a Primary Opponent"