Impeachment, Biden Leads, McConnell's Carnage - Jan 13th Notes
Notes On 2020 – Iran/Iraq, Impeachment, State of the Union/Budget, IA/NH/NV/SC, Booker dropping out, many Democratic debates - our system is about to get overloaded and polling, which has been pretty stable in 2019, could get awfully bouncy and volatile in the days ahead. But let’s look at what we know now.
Biden remains in the strongest shape of any Democrat and given the increased sparing in recent days we should expect a feisty debate tomorrow night. One note on the current “electability” discussion – the Justice Democrats, the group aligned with AOC and thus loosely with Sanders, only won 7 of 79 of its 2018 races and only 4 of 76 if you remove three safe incumbents. They didn’t win in a single Trump district – only safe Democratic ones.
Trump - we know he is an historically unpopular President, and was been beaten badly in the three elections from 2017 to 2019. But what has been very suprising to us in the past weeks is the President's struggle to persuade the American people about the two big new issues he faces - Impeachment and Iran. Look at the numbers which follow - lots of 20s and 30s, not so many 40s and no 50s.
Highlights from recent polling on the Iran conflict:
Approve of Trump’s handling 43/56
Less/More Safe 52/22
Trump's behavior w/Iran reckless 52/34
Divert from Impeachment 47/39
Congress should limit Trump's war powers 55/33
Impeachment polls taken at the end of 2019 tell a similar story (Politico/Morning Consult and Fox News):
Approve Convict and Remove/Don't Approve 52/42 (P/MC)
Witnesses/No Witnesses 54/27 (P/MC)
More Likely to Vote for Member Who Vote to Impeach/Less Likey 43/34 (P/MC)
Abused His Power? Yes/No 53/38 (Fox)
Obstructed Congress? Yes/No 48/34 (Fox)
Committed Bribery Yes/No 45/37 (Fox)
Wrong to Ask Foreign Leader to Investigate Rival Yes/No 60/24 (Fox)
Democrats Running Inquiry Fairly? Yes/No 45/42 (Fox)
All of this suggests the President is a bit of a spent force now. Failure to convince the public about these two issues, or even get close to parity, has to be extraordinarily worrisome to those running the 2020 elections for the GOP. The public has grown weary of him, and a majority are ready for him to go.
Impeachment - What is perhaps most shocking about the last few weeks is that the President is either so desperate or out of control that in the Iran conflict he did exactly what the House has Impeached him for – he appears to have once again broken US laws/abused his power in the conduct of US foreign policy; and is once again obstructing reasonable oversight into what took place. Like the Ukraine affair, it is far easier to understand how the President’s recent actions in the Middle East have benefited Russia’s ambitions than our own, which is the principal reason NDN has called on the House to conduct a broad review of the President’s national security decisions over the past year.
Given the totality of what has happened – serial lawbreaking by the President, his top aides going to jail and a new investigation and more arrests, years of clearly criminal obstruction, and behavior more befitting of a King than a President – it is just outrageous how Mitch McConnell is approaching the impending “trial.” How can one have a trial without witnesses? There is and has never been such a thing. How can the Senate actively enable and encourage the suppression of testimony and witnesses given months of complaints from the GOP about reliance on hearsay? The whole thing is beyond absurd and beneath this great country. Mitch McConnell is in the process of degrading one of the most important tools for advancing democracy mankind has ever created, the US Senate. There is no win here for McConnell, no claims of “innocent” for our corrupt and venal President; there is disgrace, dishonor, and what will be a far harder election this Fall than any of them currently understand.