The GOP presidential campaign is over
These 4 people secured Trump's nomination.
I’ve worked in over a hundred political campaigns and have seen firsthand how a great campaign, even a great commercial, could change their course.
For this year’s presidential primaries, it’s the opposite. The campaigns are meaningless.
The Democratic side was sealed by history; presidents rarely lose a primary, and Joe Biden will be no different. Even a weak president has enough power to control his party’s nomination.
The Republican side was sealed by the four prosecutors pictured above. Jack Smith, Alan Bragg, Fani Willis, and Letitia James did what no Super PAC or influencer with the power of a Murdoch, Koch, or Soros could accomplish. Intentionally or not, they ensured Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee.
Rewind to ten months ago. Analysis from Real Clear Politics, aggregating major polls from July 2022 to March 2023, painted a picture of a growingly competitive race. Trump was ahead but not decisively so. DeSantis was a substantive threat, and a majority of Republicans wanted someone other than Trump, especially after their disappointing midterms.
Then, the campaign was superseded by the legal system. Prosecutors – federal, state and local – indicted Trump on 91 felony counts, with most trials set for the height of the campaign season.
We’re told to ignore that coordinated timing, or how some prosecutors literally campaigned on getting Donald Trump, or how most – not all – of the indictments stretch into the ether to draw their conclusions. We were assured this was all about justice, not politics, but many of us clearly saw the opposite.
For those Republicans who had tired of what they saw as Trump’s unethical reactions to an election he lost, they now saw a legal system not used to mete justice, but to deny them the ability to actually vote for the leading Republican candidate. For those of us who didn’t believe the 2020 election was illegally stolen, it became clear that 2024 was headed that way.
The die is cast. The prosecutors solidified Republicans behind him, something Trump hadn’t been able to do on his own. The media will tease us along the way, of course – “He’s slipping in New Hampshire!” – but this is a race Trump can’t lose.
Is it part of the prosecutors’ plan? Did they want to boost Trump, only to knock him down before the main election? Or did they think that loading him with 91 felony charges would end his run? Hard to say. But in the end, their motivations matter little.
Barring an act of God, our November election will be a rematch of 2020.
Yet as foregone as the presidential primary appears to be, the general election will be quite the opposite. The legal wars have barely started in earnest, and the prosecution strategy may still prove successful.
It seems highly improbable that prosecutors will go 0 for 91 in their conviction quest, especially given several of the venues and judges. Yet we still don’t know how the cases will play out. Might Trump literally campaign from prison? Even the craziest-sounding predictions have a possibility of occurring.
The drama’s coming. And with two closely polling candidates, the general election campaign for president is by no means meaningless.
— Ken
I do not understand the "ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN" group. Mutiple incidences by multiple states who defied election rules and state laws. Mutiple Democrats who ignored their state laws and changed the rules and process on their own, for their own personal party's agenda and not going through their state legislature who is the only one who holds this power! My common sense tells me this would be no different than a team member at a track meet, halfway through the race, simply cutting across the field to the other side putting himself ahead of those in front of him - who are running the race by the rules - and then declaring said short-cut runner the winner!!!!! This truly baffles me, I can apply this to many examples - FAIR IS FAIR, RULES ARE RULES, LAWS ARE LAWS and the have a purpose they make the playing field fair and equal for everyone in all instances. It appears to me that people are stuck on ballot stuffing, illegal voting, multiple voting, machine doubling counting and such when they refer to "not stolen", so I would ask what do you call it when the rules of protection, of fair play are not followed, what do you call it when you cheat to win????? then reward the cheaters with a win instead of disqualifying them? THIS IS EXACTLY HOW OUR CONSTITUTION, OUR RIGHTS ARE BEING SHREDDED...... few are following our rules and laws - ESPECIALLY CONGRESS - they are normalizing "not following the rules and laws they are bound to, and it is exactly why America is 34/37 TRILLION IN DEBT, OUR BORDERS ARE OPEN, and the country is swirling the toilet bowl. LOOK at how many Governors are ignoring the Constitution and the People's Rights, destroying the ", UNITED" in United States Of America, ENOUGH SAID.
Like any competent cult leader, Trump has persuaded his supporters that he's infallible, so any attempt to expose his wrongdoing must be a nefarious plot by corrupt forces to persecute him and his believers. Plus, there are plenty of non-Trump cultists who will hold their noses and vote for him because they support his policies or they're disappointed with Biden.
So it was foreseeable that being prosecuted might not hurt his campaign much and might actually help it. But if you're a prosecutor, you shouldn't let political considerations like that factor into your decisions. You need to prosecute based on the evidence, and the evidence says this guy is a criminal. Now we'll see if the cases hold up in court.