October 3, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Why is Joe Biden skipping the New Hampshire primary ballot and ceding the state to Robert Kennedy, Jr.?
By Robert Romano
“Joe Biden Likely Won't Be on the Primary Ballot in New Hampshire.”
That was the headline from Time.com’s Philip Elliot, reporting that President Joe Biden is ceding New Hampshire and her delegates for the Democratic nomination, apparently to Robert Kennedy, Jr., by not appearing on the ballot for the first in the nation primary on Jan. 23, 2024.
Biden and the Democratic Party had planned to have South Carolina go first on Feb. 3, 2024, but New Hampshire responded by moving their primary up, and now Biden is effectively boycotting the state to stick to his party’s calendar.
Biden’s plan to bypass New Hampshire is a calculated risk, but it is not without merit. Biden didn’t compete in New Hampshire in 2020 for the primary either, but owing to his performance in South Carolina that catapulted his campaign, he managed to replicate Bill Clinton’s 1992 comeback win for the Democratic nomination, who also lost Iowa and New Hampshire.
Ultimately, Biden easily won New Hampshire by 10 points, and so that’s all the proof Biden needs to justify skipping the state in 2024. All it will do is expose Biden’s weakness among certain segments of the electorate, particularly independents.
And there is certainly cause for concern.
Ironically, Biden had been leading New Hampshire on average with 70 percent to 10 percent for Kennedy and 6 percent for Marianne Williamson.
In 1952, Harry Truman actually lost the New Hampshire primary to Estes Kefauver, prompting Truman to withdraw from the race rather than be annihilated by Dwight Eisenhower.
In 1968, Lyndon Johnson similarly did not appear on the New Hampshire ballot, but a last minute bid for a write-in campaign allowed Johnson to barely prevail against Eugene McCarthy, who garnered 42 percent of the vote in the primary to Johnson’s 49 percent. Johnson’s weakness with independents ultimately prompted him to withdraw from the race.
In 1980, another Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, surprised incumbent President Jimmy Carter by running for president, and picked up nearly 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, signaling Carter’s weakness with swing voters that would prove fatal in a 44-state rout by Ronald Reagan.
Politics is perception, and Biden’s hope to break the New Hampshire jinx is by simply foregoing its judgment and hoping the news media ignores what could be an easy win for his opponent Robert Kennedy, Jr.
The mistake is that the calendar is irrelevant: swing voters will show up in the other states, too. The size of Biden’s victories against Robert Kennedy will matter — a lot. Carter in 1980 lost chunks of votes to Kennedy, and even as the incumbent president still easily won the primary, but the process state-by-state fostered those who ultimately became Reagan Democrats.
The latest Messenger-Harris X poll taken Sept. 29 shows Biden’s current lead on Robert Kennedy among just Democrats is 61 percent to 16 percent, which is the headline number reported. But among independents in the poll—who in states like New Hampshire and South Carolina can vote in open primaries—Biden is losing to Kennedy 28 percent to 25 percent.
Not including independents in the reported result could be setting up a false expectation for how Biden will perform in the primary, but even if Kennedy only polls 15 percent on average in every state, that would mean 15 percent of the traditional Democratic vote, which in part includes independents, is on the table in the general election, giving whoever the Republican nominee ultimately is an opportunity to persuade the general electorate that it’s time for Biden to go.
This matters because when the same people are asked in the poll who they’re voting for in November 2024, it’s former President Donald Trump with 45 percent and Biden with 42 percent. Trump unsurprisingly picks up 11 percent of Democrats compared to Biden only picking up 7 percent of Republicans, and Trump narrowly edges Biden among independents, 38 percent to 37 percent.
When given the opportunity to vote against a sitting president, whether Truman, Johnson or Carter, when enough do so on a statewide basis in primaries, it demonstrates historically a weak incumbent as anti-Biden voters in a primary are far more likely to be anti-Biden voters in the general election.
It’s a lot like ignoring the polls as a strategy. From Biden’s perspective, no matter what, 2024 is his last political stand, the moment that fate will make or break for him and the Democratic political machine that seeks to prop him up. Only time will tell.
Biden hopes to bypass this early, predictive reading of voters in New Hampshire by hiding it, but it is in vain and might only provide false comfort that swing voters are not already telling themselves that this is a reckoning and it’s time for a change, especially if Kennedy voters become anti-Biden voters.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/10/why-is-joe-biden-skipping-the-new-hampshire-primary-ballot-and-ceding-the-state-to-robert-kennedy-jr/
Video: No Deal! Matt Gaetz Gets His Way, Now What?
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To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDhCIlnXjz4
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To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLFfccjabrc
John Binder: UAW Strike Expands to 25,000 Auto Workers as Talks Stall Over Job-Killing Electric Vehicle Mandates
By John Binder
More than 25,000 auto workers are now striking against General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis as negotiations stall over worries that President Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates will spur massive job losses and wage cuts down the road.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced that about 7,000 auto workers at GM’s Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Lansing, Michigan, and Ford’s Chicago Assembly in Chicago, Illinois, were joining the strike against the Big Three.
The UAW strike now includes auto workers at 43 plants across 21 states. Meanwhile, Fain said the UAW is making significant progress with Stellantis.
“We will win. Our strategy is working,” Fain said. “… over the last ten years, the Big Three have made a record quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits. Over the last six months, the Big Three have made a record $21 billion in total profits.”
Holding up negotiations, new reports reveal, is automakers’ commitment to carrying out Biden’s EV mandates that seek to shower billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies on companies producing EVs over gas-powered cars.
As Breitbart News has long detailed, the rapid EV transition by Biden and automakers could spell the elimination of millions of American auto jobs and slashed wages because the green vehicles demand far less labor to produce.
“Keep in mind, these battery plants don’t exist yet. They’re mostly joint ventures and they have not been organized by the UAW yet because the workers haven’t been hired, and won’t be for many years to come,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told the Detroit News on Friday. “They won’t scale until the next contract.”
Fain said the UAW and Ford “are far apart on core economic proposals” like the automakers’ planned four EV battery plants which he said “Farley himself says is going to cut 40 percent of our members’ jobs.”
Indeed, Farley bragged last year that EVs would be far easier for automakers to manufacture than gas-powered cars, noting they will include “half the fixtures, half the work stations, half the welds, [and] 20 percent less fasteners.”
“We designed it, because it’s such a simple product, to radically change the manufacturability,” Farley said.
Most prominently, auto workers worry their jobs will be eliminated altogether as a result and that supply chains will be dominated by China, which controls nearly 70 percent of the world’s lithium, 95 percent of manganese, 73 percent of cobalt, 70 percent of graphite, and 63 percent of nickel.
To view online: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/09/29/uaw-strike-expands-to-25000-auto-workers-as-talks-stall-over-job-killing-electric-vehicle-mandates/