Political Thoughts of Timothy A. Raty

 President Joseph R. Biden (D) and the rest of the Democrats seemingly made the right call in replacing him as their Presidential Nominee with Vice President Kamala Harris (D). There is now a resurgence of energy and optimism on their part, profoundly amplified by generous and original donations, and reflected in improved poll numbers. When I wrote my last post about the State of the Race, the Democrats were at risk of inadvertently transforming safe states into battlegrounds (such as Minnesota and New Hampshire). Now mitigated, the risks are that the Republicans could lose most of the traditional swing states (including Florida, which was considered safe for them at the beginning of this election cycle). Gov. Tim Walz (DFP – MN), surprisingly, has turned into a good runningmate choice for the Harris campaign. His folksy persona has been warmly embraced by liberals and moderates alike, and progressives are very fond of his record. Likely developed by his experience as a high sc...

Events of the past month have turned the most boring Presidential race since 1956 into a historic one. Former President Donald J. Trump (R) was nearly assassinated and a major pressure campaign has been launched to convince President Joseph R. Biden (D), who gave the worst televised General Election Debate performance in history, to end his campaign in favor of a (hopefully) more electable replacement. Rumors are that President Biden, while recovering this weekend from Covid-19, is seriously contemplating ending his campaign. Time will tell the validity of such. Prior to these events, I believed that this election would be as close as in the year 2000, when Vice President Al Gore (D) beat Governor George W. Bush (R) in the popular vote by 0.5%, but lost the Electoral College 271 – 266 – 1. Biden was likely to win the popular vote again, but flipping a coin to guess who would win the Electoral College would have been appropriate, as everything would come down to turnout. The only diff...

 With former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley (R-SC) set to announce her pursuit of the Presidency later this week, here are my initial projections on how the nomination battles will end. This, of course, comes with the caveat that in politics a week is a lifetime and anything can change quickly (just ask most of the candidates who were leading in the polls a month before the Iowa caucuses this century and cratered, such as Howard Dean [2004], Mitt Romney [2008], and Newt Gingrich [2012]), both politically and by force majeure ( e.g. , a candidate dying).  Republican Nomination: This is former President Donald Trump’s (R-FL) to lose – even if he is indicted over any one of the slew of crimes for which he is under investigation. There are two reasons for this conclusion:  ·         First, he is the leader of an informal cult, whose followers believe he is God’s Messiah (or “ Chosen One ”) for the United States of America. According to one report , Tru...