There is no Ford

Round about 2008 and 2009, I was musing over the prospects of Obama as John F Kennedy, partly due to the voguish and carefully crafted image creation and more darkly out of the murkily verified or disputed reports of an increase of threats against him. In playing the whole tapestry out, I imagined Hillary Clinton would be a Lyndon Johnson figure — she herself had in the 2008 primaries referenced Johnson as someone who could get it done “governing in prose even if not able to pull that poetry crap off” — as a succesor standing there with less flair as things fall apart and inevitable unfulfillable promises lead to disillusionment.

As turned out, Obama may have been both Kennedy and Johnson, Trump pulling together a bizarre Nixon. (Ask Roger Stone). We are at that “Last Days” stage, though if Trump were wandering around talking to presidential portraits, it would at least actually show self awareness.

So now we come to… Joseph Biden as Jimmy Carter. Election results make any partisan Democrat paralyzed, a brittle coalition and no clear promises in a setting of problems looming “not his fault”, and a party with some left-wing socialists dreaming of big things and non-ideological centrists with no plans.

Of course, if you told me in 2000 the next presidents — Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden — it is the last two names that would be insane.

Parting thoughts
Y’all really believe the Democrats would engage in a multi-state coordinated strategy to steal the presidential election, but keep the GOP in charge of the senate to block their agenda and keep GOP state legislative dominance to draw the next decade’s redistricting lines?

And, from 538 analysis, obvious strategizing in a world where the Democratic nominee was conventioning with too many damned Republicans… a sign of how mixed any win may be…

Of the eight Democrat-held seats that Republicans have flipped so far, Republican women are responsible for seven of them.

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