The 2024 presidential campaign trail keeps getting stranger. Normally, the primary election season marks the beginning of the process to eliminate candidates within the two major parties; this time, there is no real intra-party primary season underway among Democrats, and most of the Republican candidates have already dropped out.
It would be an understatement to call this ‘unusual.’ The first primary election is held on January 15th, and of a field of eight candidates back in August (not counting Donald Trump), only three remain: Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ambassador Nikki Haley, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Americans have voted in presidential primaries for about 120 years (depending on what source you rely on), and each time they have done that, the field of presidential hopefuls has gradually narrowed down as the primary elections unfold. Candidates have surged early on in New Hampshire and Iowa, others have bet their success on ‘Super Tuesday’ in early March, when several major states hold their primaries. But each one of them has put his or her fate in the hands of the primary voters.
Not so in 2024. This time, after a series of totally uncharacteristic pre-primary debates, candidate after candidate has withdrawn from the race, until there were only four (again not counting Trump): DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, and Governor Chris Christie. Given that Ramaswamy polls in the low single digits, the campaigns effectively entered 2024 with just three non-Trump candidates.
There is something eerie about the process by which candidates have dropped out. They quietly disappear, as if they have played a role in a TV show and the scriptwriters decided to write them out for the next season.
Who benefits from the shrinking candidate field? To answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning, when eight candidates (again not counting Trump) went into the first debate in August. It was clear that they were split into two factions, one neoconservative and one leaning in Trump’s favor.
In an analysis of their first debate, I noted:
Of the eight candidates on the stage, four of them clearly profiled themselves as members of the ‘neocon party within the party’: Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey; Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas; Mike Pence, former vice president under Trump; and Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and U.N. Ambassador.
It was clear already at that debate what this “party within the party” was after: to isolate one candidate that could take on Trump. They used the debates to single out which one of their initial four candidates had the biggest chance against the former president. When the next debate was held in late September, Governor Hutchinson had already left the race. Mike Pence also did not make the cut, suspending his campaign at the end of October.
Nobody should be surprised that Hutchinson and Pence left the campaign trail. Hutchinson came across as a political dinosaur and Pence could never explain why he wanted to be president. But, again, they were in the race only to help find the best candidate for the neocon intra-party.
They did a diligent job: anyone who watched the first two debates could see how the four neocon candidates tirelessly backed each other and took well-scripted turns attacking the Trump-leaning candidates.
Then things got weird. In a normal primary season, the non-neocon candidates would have looked forward to meeting the voters in at least the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, which are held in January. But on November 13th, Senator Tim Scott announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign—and he motivated it accordingly:
I think the voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear that they’re telling me: not now.
He made this reference to voters two full months before any voter had even gotten the chance to vote in a primary.
Even stranger is the fact that, according to NBC,
The announcement was a surprise: [Trey] Gowdy, a former colleague of Scott’s in the House of Representatives, appeared to do a double-take as he made his statement. Multiple Scott staffers told NBC News they got no warning he was ending the campaign, finding out only by watching him say so on TV.
There were references at the time to fundraising problems for Scott’s campaign, but that seems unlikely. Having gone from being a Representative in the House to winning two senatorial elections, Tim Scott is almost by definition a savvy fundraiser. He would not have launched his presidential campaign without knowing that he had enough stamina to make it to the first couple of primaries.
No, something else is afoot here.
On December 4th, Doug Burgum, former governor of North Dakota, followed Scott and suspended his campaign. In his case, part of the reason was allegedly that his poll numbers were too low to make him eligible to participate in the next primary debate.
But wait—there is no rule that says a candidate has to drop out for that reason. Those primary debates have never before taken place months ahead of the primary elections. Burgum did not have to drop out just because he could not make it to the debate. In fact, if there was any candidate who would have benefited from meeting the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, it was Governor Burgum.
A wealthy man, he could have been immune to the influence of big donors. He could have self-funded his campaign at least into Iowa.
So what is going on here? Someone made Tim Scott an offer he could not refuse. What that offer was, only the senator knows, but power plays are the lifeblood of politics. If Jack has more power than Joe, then Jack can make Joe do what Jack wants Joe to do. If Jack has to offer Joe a good job, or money, then so be it.
Again, I am not saying that Senator Scott dropped out for any such reason, but I would definitely not rule it out. Such is the nature of politics—and it matches the pattern of the unfolding Republican primary campaigns.
However, the biggest clue is in Governor Chris Christie’s sudden campaign dropout. Standing on the doorstep of the primaries, Christie said that “it’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination.” Again, forget the actual votes—the opinion polls are what count.
Right before his announcement, the former governor was hot-miked. Forgetting the rule that all recording devices should be treated as ‘on,’ Christie said things that allegedly were not supposed to be recorded:
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was heard on a hot mic predicting that Nikki Haley is “gonna get smoked” in the race against Donald Trump, shortly before Christie bowed out of the contest in a move widely seen as boosting Haley’s campaign.
Why did Christie not stick around to see the results from the New Hampshire primary? It is being held on January 23rd. And why did he take a jab at Haley on the way out?
He could have just been disgruntled. That happens to all of us. However, Chris Christie is not ‘all of us.’ He is a well-seasoned, experienced politician. You don’t become a two-term governor of any state, especially not as a Republican in New Jersey, if you make such basic mistakes as being hot-miked.
More than likely, Christie made his comment on purpose. He took a jab at Haley because he believes she needs strong reinforcement as a candidate if she is going to defeat Trump. But I would also suggest that he did it because he has been told by influential individuals—a combination of donors and campaign strategists—that the ‘neocon party within the party’ is throwing its weight behind Haley. She has apparently withstood the test of the debates and solidified herself in the opinion polls.
Christie has likely been told that from here on, he is going to do what it takes to make sure that Haley emerges victorious from the primaries. One of the things he had to do was to avoid taking any primary votes away from Haley, hence his sudden sortie from the campaign trail.
Given the meager field of candidates left to face the primary voters—again not counting Trump—the neocon intra-party has been relatively successful. They now have their candidate of choice; as far as Ron DeSantis is concerned, he is known behind the scenes as malleable enough to suit the neocons as a fallback option, should Haley fall flat to the ground.
Ramaswamy will remain as a maverick for as long as he does not pose a credible threat to Haley’s victory.
It is clear by now that the neocon intra-party has orchestrated the GOP primary season with a firm hand and followed a carefully crafted plan. Their last remaining problem is to make sure that Haley edges out Trump in the primaries. That is going to be tough, unless some event forces Trump to withdraw or implodes his support.
I predicted back in September that Trump was not going to be the Republican nominee for the November election. I made this prediction based on the machine-like performance of the neocon intra-party that was put on display in the first couple of debates. I stand by this prediction, but it is important to note that the neocons have had to work very hard to get to where they are today. They have now identified the one candidate they believe in—and they have thrown their might and weight behind her. Yet, she still trails Trump badly in the polls; according to RealClearPolitics opinion poll report,
- In Iowa, Trump has 51% of the voters behind him, with Haley and DeSantis both at 17%; Ramaswamy gets 7%;
- In New Hampshire, Trump’s latest number is 45%, with Haley at 31%, Christie at 9%, and DeSantis and Ramaswamy at 6%.
With Christie out of the race and his voters presumably getting behind Haley, it looks like she is within the margin of error of defeating Trump. This is no mirage—it could indeed happen—but it is important to remember that the New Hampshire primary is open to so-called undecided voters. You can show up at the ballot station on primary election day, register as a Republican, and vote. (The Democratic primary works the same way.) This means that whatever candidate can rally independent voters can actually tip the scale in his or her favor.
The neocon intra-party appears to not be very concerned about Iowa—to them, it is a lost cause. Instead, their bets are on using the independent-voter tactic to defeat Trump in New Hampshire. If Haley does edge him out, it is going to give her a major media boost and pull in a lot of new donors.
This could work, but even if Haley does not outright defeat Trump in New Hampshire, a strong performance where she is, say, within single digits of Trump, will give her enough of a boost for the remaining primaries.
If it comes down to a protracted battle through all the primary states and Trump still edges out Haley with more delegates to the GOP convention this summer (where the presidential candidate is chosen), Haley can still edge him out. Her ace in the hole is called Ron DeSantis: by staying in the race and catching Trump voters who aren’t ready to jump ship and support Haley, DeSantis can rake in a fair amount of convention delegates. He is then free to drop out late in the primaries and dedicate his delegates to Haley.
DeSantis can do this even if there is no clear winner in the primaries and it comes down to the convention to choose the candidate. He could be offered the vice presidential slot as an incentive.
So far, the neocon intra-party has played its hand carefully and, against all odds, prevailed in its tactical efforts to challenge Trump in the primaries. This is still Trump’s primary race to lose, but I stick to my prediction: when the Republican convention concludes on July 18th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, their candidate for president in the November election will in all likelihood not be Donald Trump. That does not mean that I want to see Haley as president—I don’t believe she has what it takes to lead America—but looking at the campaign trail as it stands now, I cannot reach any other conclusion.
Nikki Haley and the Neocon Kingmakers
The 2024 presidential campaign trail keeps getting stranger. Normally, the primary election season marks the beginning of the process to eliminate candidates within the two major parties; this time, there is no real intra-party primary season underway among Democrats, and most of the Republican candidates have already dropped out.
It would be an understatement to call this ‘unusual.’ The first primary election is held on January 15th, and of a field of eight candidates back in August (not counting Donald Trump), only three remain: Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ambassador Nikki Haley, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Americans have voted in presidential primaries for about 120 years (depending on what source you rely on), and each time they have done that, the field of presidential hopefuls has gradually narrowed down as the primary elections unfold. Candidates have surged early on in New Hampshire and Iowa, others have bet their success on ‘Super Tuesday’ in early March, when several major states hold their primaries. But each one of them has put his or her fate in the hands of the primary voters.
Not so in 2024. This time, after a series of totally uncharacteristic pre-primary debates, candidate after candidate has withdrawn from the race, until there were only four (again not counting Trump): DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, and Governor Chris Christie. Given that Ramaswamy polls in the low single digits, the campaigns effectively entered 2024 with just three non-Trump candidates.
There is something eerie about the process by which candidates have dropped out. They quietly disappear, as if they have played a role in a TV show and the scriptwriters decided to write them out for the next season.
Who benefits from the shrinking candidate field? To answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning, when eight candidates (again not counting Trump) went into the first debate in August. It was clear that they were split into two factions, one neoconservative and one leaning in Trump’s favor.
In an analysis of their first debate, I noted:
It was clear already at that debate what this “party within the party” was after: to isolate one candidate that could take on Trump. They used the debates to single out which one of their initial four candidates had the biggest chance against the former president. When the next debate was held in late September, Governor Hutchinson had already left the race. Mike Pence also did not make the cut, suspending his campaign at the end of October.
Nobody should be surprised that Hutchinson and Pence left the campaign trail. Hutchinson came across as a political dinosaur and Pence could never explain why he wanted to be president. But, again, they were in the race only to help find the best candidate for the neocon intra-party.
They did a diligent job: anyone who watched the first two debates could see how the four neocon candidates tirelessly backed each other and took well-scripted turns attacking the Trump-leaning candidates.
Then things got weird. In a normal primary season, the non-neocon candidates would have looked forward to meeting the voters in at least the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, which are held in January. But on November 13th, Senator Tim Scott announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign—and he motivated it accordingly:
He made this reference to voters two full months before any voter had even gotten the chance to vote in a primary.
Even stranger is the fact that, according to NBC,
There were references at the time to fundraising problems for Scott’s campaign, but that seems unlikely. Having gone from being a Representative in the House to winning two senatorial elections, Tim Scott is almost by definition a savvy fundraiser. He would not have launched his presidential campaign without knowing that he had enough stamina to make it to the first couple of primaries.
No, something else is afoot here.
On December 4th, Doug Burgum, former governor of North Dakota, followed Scott and suspended his campaign. In his case, part of the reason was allegedly that his poll numbers were too low to make him eligible to participate in the next primary debate.
But wait—there is no rule that says a candidate has to drop out for that reason. Those primary debates have never before taken place months ahead of the primary elections. Burgum did not have to drop out just because he could not make it to the debate. In fact, if there was any candidate who would have benefited from meeting the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, it was Governor Burgum.
A wealthy man, he could have been immune to the influence of big donors. He could have self-funded his campaign at least into Iowa.
So what is going on here? Someone made Tim Scott an offer he could not refuse. What that offer was, only the senator knows, but power plays are the lifeblood of politics. If Jack has more power than Joe, then Jack can make Joe do what Jack wants Joe to do. If Jack has to offer Joe a good job, or money, then so be it.
Again, I am not saying that Senator Scott dropped out for any such reason, but I would definitely not rule it out. Such is the nature of politics—and it matches the pattern of the unfolding Republican primary campaigns.
However, the biggest clue is in Governor Chris Christie’s sudden campaign dropout. Standing on the doorstep of the primaries, Christie said that “it’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination.” Again, forget the actual votes—the opinion polls are what count.
Right before his announcement, the former governor was hot-miked. Forgetting the rule that all recording devices should be treated as ‘on,’ Christie said things that allegedly were not supposed to be recorded:
Why did Christie not stick around to see the results from the New Hampshire primary? It is being held on January 23rd. And why did he take a jab at Haley on the way out?
He could have just been disgruntled. That happens to all of us. However, Chris Christie is not ‘all of us.’ He is a well-seasoned, experienced politician. You don’t become a two-term governor of any state, especially not as a Republican in New Jersey, if you make such basic mistakes as being hot-miked.
More than likely, Christie made his comment on purpose. He took a jab at Haley because he believes she needs strong reinforcement as a candidate if she is going to defeat Trump. But I would also suggest that he did it because he has been told by influential individuals—a combination of donors and campaign strategists—that the ‘neocon party within the party’ is throwing its weight behind Haley. She has apparently withstood the test of the debates and solidified herself in the opinion polls.
Christie has likely been told that from here on, he is going to do what it takes to make sure that Haley emerges victorious from the primaries. One of the things he had to do was to avoid taking any primary votes away from Haley, hence his sudden sortie from the campaign trail.
Given the meager field of candidates left to face the primary voters—again not counting Trump—the neocon intra-party has been relatively successful. They now have their candidate of choice; as far as Ron DeSantis is concerned, he is known behind the scenes as malleable enough to suit the neocons as a fallback option, should Haley fall flat to the ground.
Ramaswamy will remain as a maverick for as long as he does not pose a credible threat to Haley’s victory.
It is clear by now that the neocon intra-party has orchestrated the GOP primary season with a firm hand and followed a carefully crafted plan. Their last remaining problem is to make sure that Haley edges out Trump in the primaries. That is going to be tough, unless some event forces Trump to withdraw or implodes his support.
I predicted back in September that Trump was not going to be the Republican nominee for the November election. I made this prediction based on the machine-like performance of the neocon intra-party that was put on display in the first couple of debates. I stand by this prediction, but it is important to note that the neocons have had to work very hard to get to where they are today. They have now identified the one candidate they believe in—and they have thrown their might and weight behind her. Yet, she still trails Trump badly in the polls; according to RealClearPolitics opinion poll report,
With Christie out of the race and his voters presumably getting behind Haley, it looks like she is within the margin of error of defeating Trump. This is no mirage—it could indeed happen—but it is important to remember that the New Hampshire primary is open to so-called undecided voters. You can show up at the ballot station on primary election day, register as a Republican, and vote. (The Democratic primary works the same way.) This means that whatever candidate can rally independent voters can actually tip the scale in his or her favor.
The neocon intra-party appears to not be very concerned about Iowa—to them, it is a lost cause. Instead, their bets are on using the independent-voter tactic to defeat Trump in New Hampshire. If Haley does edge him out, it is going to give her a major media boost and pull in a lot of new donors.
This could work, but even if Haley does not outright defeat Trump in New Hampshire, a strong performance where she is, say, within single digits of Trump, will give her enough of a boost for the remaining primaries.
If it comes down to a protracted battle through all the primary states and Trump still edges out Haley with more delegates to the GOP convention this summer (where the presidential candidate is chosen), Haley can still edge him out. Her ace in the hole is called Ron DeSantis: by staying in the race and catching Trump voters who aren’t ready to jump ship and support Haley, DeSantis can rake in a fair amount of convention delegates. He is then free to drop out late in the primaries and dedicate his delegates to Haley.
DeSantis can do this even if there is no clear winner in the primaries and it comes down to the convention to choose the candidate. He could be offered the vice presidential slot as an incentive.
So far, the neocon intra-party has played its hand carefully and, against all odds, prevailed in its tactical efforts to challenge Trump in the primaries. This is still Trump’s primary race to lose, but I stick to my prediction: when the Republican convention concludes on July 18th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, their candidate for president in the November election will in all likelihood not be Donald Trump. That does not mean that I want to see Haley as president—I don’t believe she has what it takes to lead America—but looking at the campaign trail as it stands now, I cannot reach any other conclusion.
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