"I am not throwin' away my shot
I am not throwin' away my shot
Hey yo, I'm just like my country
I'm young, scrappy and hungry
And I'm not throwin' away my shot
It's time to take a shot."
Lin-Manuel Miranda, "My Shot," from Hamilton, 2015.
I had to remind myself of his name to write about him. Doug Burgum.
Doug Burgum is the guy on the end of the stage, on our right.
Here he is close up.
With an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion, he can afford controversial stunts. He couldn't afford to waste his shot. He did. He needed to have distinguished himself by saying something memorable. Pence said he wanted a national ban on abortion; Burgum said this should be a state matter. He didn't pound on the point, say why a national ban would be a disaster, or generalize from it to some bigger concept of states' rights. He needed a reason for people to say, "By gosh, Burgum is right" but his was a soft toss of a tiny pebble into a big pond, leaving barely a ripple.
Burgum has a tough job. Burgum appears to want to look normal. Reasonable. He would be old-style GOP leadership, promoting low taxes, small government, fewer abortions done with low-temperature rhetoric. There is a market for "normal" in the GOP electorate, but the energy in the GOP goes to flame throwers, and now it has two of them, Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. Attention switched to Ramaswamy, who crashed the party with know-it-all flash and sweeping insults, giving the GOP audience an amped-up younger Trump. Nikki Haley distinguished herself by standing up to Ramaswamy, telling him he was a dangerous, inexperienced fool. That interaction defined the candidate's positions, making Haley the "normal" candidate, who stands up to upstart Trump wannabes -- although not yet to Trump. If Burgum has any position on the mental map of voters, I don't know what it is.
Why bother even wasting a blog post on him? Burgum will be an example of candidates dropping out. The field is clearing. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez just dropped out of the race, but he doesn't really count because who knew he was in it in the first place? Burgum will need to get to 3% in a national poll to be eligible for the next debate at the Reagan Library. If there had been votes up for grabs, after that debate Haley or someone else would likely get them, not Burgum.
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8 comments:
At least your $20 card contributed back to the economy. As far as I'm concerned, any one if those VP wannabes who said they'd support Accused Felon #1135809 even if he's convicted disgraced themselves, their "party" and the Nation.
Doug Burgum probably got himself elected as governor of North Dakota by doing exactly the same thing that he did on the debate stage last week.
Running for president is different. There’s an element of Jungian archetypes in the presidency that is not strongly engaged in elections for governor.
Barack Obama got elected saying things like, “We are the people we’ve been waiting for.” Donald Trump got elected saying, “Make America great again.“
No one runs for governor that way. “Make Oregon great again“ end “We are the Oregonians we’ve been waiting for“ would sound silly and out of place.
Doug Burgum didn’t exactly distinguish himself on the debate stage.
Chris Chistie distinguished himself as the anti-Trump, but that won’t sell. It’s Trump’s party now.
Asa Hutchinson distinguished himself as the rational candidate, but that won’t sell either. This is the party that doesn’t believe in climate change and thinks violent insurrectionists are patriots.
Ramaswamy distinguished himself for being as crazy as Trump which the base loves, but he’s a dark-skinned Hindu. We’re talking about the party of White identity politics here, so forget about it.
As I said, it’s Trump’s party now, but if his crimes catch up to him and interfere with his campaign, Ron DeSantis would be the guy to beat. He’s obnoxious and blatantly panders to the base with his anti-Black history 'war on woke,' as if that were the biggest problem we face. Never mind about all the fires, floods, killer heat, superstorms, melting icecaps etc. Our overriding challenge is to pretend that racism no longer plagues the U.S.
I would have held out for $50...kind of a cheapskate.
Rick; that will be the next round. But it's going to take more than that to get him to the head of the pack. His 6 week Abortion Ban in Flyover Country will stop him in the sane states.
I saw Asa Hutchinson on Chris Hayes tonight. Warmed up cold pablum....He denied any crisis in Clinactic change, without explicitly saying so. Recycled sane Republican with all the charisma of a dish of cold oatmeal.
Mike Steely; if DeSantis is going to replace the Leader, he better hurry. Reported earlier he has fired more campaign staffers and closed more field offices. Hardly the moves of a resurgent campaign for National Office.
Ed: There is no doubt that T-rump remains the Republican psychopath of choice. If anything of a legal or mental health nature were to derail his campaign, DeSantis remains his closest challenger - behind by only 40 or so points. Some thought Ramaswamy might pass him, but a Hindu lead the White Nationalist Party? I don't think so.
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