Hypocrisy is the grease of politics, and today’s kabuki in D.C. was a beautiful example. Everyone acted their part well, even the irascible Lindsey Graham. The fact remains that Trump is not a conservative, didn’t win the nomination by pretending to be a conservative, and won’t run against Clinton as a conservative. If you were forced to categorize him ideologically, he’s some kind of eccentric centrist. He’s his own man, who will do things his way. At a fundraiser in Long Island last night, after denigrating his defeated rivals for the nomination, he said of Clinton, “She got her ass kicked last night.” I’m sure the sophisticates of New York ate it up. Trump’s an old man, and he doesn’t want to learn any new tricks. He’ll win, or lose, on his own terms. This is exactly what endears to him to his cult, and he won’t change.
There’s no sign of interest in an Abbott run as an Independent. It’s probably just as well, now that I think about it. It would probably hurt his chances in 2020, when we really need him. It’s a long ways off, but I’d sign up for Abbott in 2020 right now. I went to GoDaddy and tried to reserve the web domain of abbottforpresident, but it was taken. He’s 58, and a principled constitutional conservative and legal scholar. A tree fell on him and broke his back when he was 27, and he’s been confined to a wheelchair ever since. It didn’t prevent him from winning election as Texas Attorney General, and as Governor two years ago.
There are other possibilities, like Gov. Bevin of Kentucky and Sen. Sasse of Nebraska. Cruz and Rubio may both want to run again, but I have my doubts that anybody who was running this year would be right for 2020. I think we’ll want to start over. But, at least tentatively, I have a candidate. He spoke to the Texas Republican State Convention today, and spent a lot of time promoting the Convention of States and Article V. With his active help, we should get to 34 next year. He understands that the key to success for the Convention of States is the BBA. At least, the Texas Public Policy Foundation understands it, and they’re tighter than ticks with him. This bodes well.
I read somewhere today that Republicans have to repudiate Bush’s Iraq war in order to win any future election. I couldn’t agree more. It was a disaster. It cost us the White House in 2008, and until we listen to what the voters were saying that year we’ll never win it back. Our next nominee has to make clear that, in retrospect, Iraq was a colossal screw up, and we’ll never, ever, do it again.
For some reason they didn’t put my article out on American Thinker today. Maybe tomorrow. Today I was thinking about race relations when I was a kid, back before affirmative action. I grew up in Richmond, went to high school and college in Berkeley, and had a fair amount of interaction with black people, only occasionally unpleasant. Right after my 16th birthday, when I got my license and car, I went in to the black part of Berkeley to a liquor store where a lot of black guys used to hang out. I parked my shiny white ’56 Ford, walked up to one that didn’t look particularly unfriendly, and asked him if he’d buy me a six pack. He said, sure, so I gave him five bucks and asked for a six pack of Lucky Lager. He came out with the beer, and offered me my change, which I declined, and thanked him for his trouble. I used to do that all the time.
Black music was so good back in those days. I listen to oldies all the time, and some of those old black crooners had such powerful, velvety voices. You don’t remember a guy named Ed Townsend, but you might recognize his best song, “For your love, I would do anything for your love.”
Blacks and whites just got along better when I was a kid.
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