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| Blumenthal and Biden |
Some people, both within the Democrat Party and Connecticut’s media, likely wish that former President Donald Trump would be on the ballot in 2022. The presence and non-presence of Trump on campaign ballots has been, some would say, a boon to Democrats in deep blue Connecticut. There is a sense among Republicans that Democrats even now are preparing for a rerun of the last off-year presidential election, when Republicans across the board were vilified for having failed properly to vilify the nominal head of their party.
But elections are better rerun in the heads of the victors
than they are rerun in fact – because things change. Trump is no longer
President of the Republic or head of the Republican Party and, now out of
office, he no longer presents a real and present danger to our democracy.
Then too, any comparison between Trump and current President
Joe Biden may present some difficulties for Connecticut’s incumbent Democrats
running for reelection.
Biden was installed as President more than a year ago,
before “insurrectionists” at the Capitol building in Washington DC on January 6
could succeed in overthrowing the Republic and installing Trump as their
rightful President.
President for a full year and well past the usual honeymoon
period, Biden appears to have stepped into the character sketched, justly or
not, by former defense secretary in the Obama administration Robert Gates when he said Biden has
“been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue
over the past four decades.”
It is impossible to defend Biden’s botched withdrawal from
Afghanistan. Even current U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal appeared less than
pleased with the too hasty withdrawal.
This writer noted back in August that Biden, in danger of
becoming the Trump of the upcoming 2022
elections, “has been seriously wounded
by his political actions -- which always speak louder than words -- on the now
permeable US southern border; the closure of the nearly completed US-Canadian
XL energy pipeline, a servile bow to the environmental lobby; the Presidential
sprint to plunge the nation into a post-Coronavirus recession; and most
recently Biden's loss of Afghanistan to untrustworthy Pashtun Taliban
pirates.”
In late August, responding to a removal date certain of
August 31 from Afghanistan, this writer observed that “Senator
Dick Blumenthal, for one, has said he does not favor a withdrawal of American
troops in Afghanistan until it is certain all Americans have left the sole
airbase Biden has not yet surrendered to the Taliban. But Blumenthal, alas, is
not Biden, who fully intends to satisfy the Taliban non-negotiable demands that
remaining American troops must leave Afghanistan by Biden’s self-enforced
withdrawal date of August 31.”
It was, to be sure, not a fulsome criticism of Biden, rather
a polite disagreement publically expressed, very unusual for Blumenthal, who
tends to be a reliable soldier in the ongoing political trench warfare between
Democrats and Republicans.
Blumenthal is no longer alone. For the reasons mentioned
above, Biden’s approval rating has plummeted, and some few Democrats, a little
less than a year before the upcoming elections, have become cautious in their support
of Biden.
No wonder: Business Insider reports, “On January 20, 2021, newly sworn-in President
Joe Biden enjoyed approval ratings near 60%. He heads into his second year in
office with 43% of the public approving of his job performance, according
to Gallup's tracking poll, down from a peak of 57% from January through April last year. Biden hit a record low in the first Politico/Morning Consult poll
of 2022, falling to a 40% approval
rating.”
A new poll
undertaken by the University
of Georgia shows Biden’s
approval rating plummeting to 34 percent from a 51 percentage rating in May. Ballotopedia reports, “On average, 35.6% of Americans
have said the country is headed in the right direction during President Biden's
term, with weekly averages ranging from 23.5% to 43.2%. At this point in
President Trump's term, an average of 34.1% of Americans felt the country was
headed in the right direction, with weekly averages ranging from 29.3% to
39.4%.”
The Biden-Trump head
to head comparison is pretty much a wash, the chief difference between the two
being – Biden is president, Trump isn’t.
The threshing floor
on primary day, August 9th, will find four Republicans vying for Republican
acclamation. They are, as of this date, John Flynn, a former portfolio manager, Robert Hyde, a Simsbury landscaper, Themis
Klarides, former Republican
leader of the state House, Leora Levy and Peter
Lumaj.
The Republican primary may offer us the first sketch of
Republican victories, or not. Blumenthal is a high hill, but given the present
correlation of forces, nationally and in Connecticut, no Democrat is safe from
the righteous anger of disapproving Connecticut citizens. If the contests for
seats on the Connecticut Congressional Delegation are fairly contested and
reported, Republicans will have their best chance in years to storm San Juan
Hill.
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