Doug Burgum is the kind of candidate the Electoral College would select to be president if the Electoral College was actually a group of 538 elder statesmen who compromise to select a well-qualified executive to lead the country. But of course that’s not how it works.
Jack: DeSantis may figure that he doesn’t need to hit Vivek because others are doing it for him. And overall he doesn’t seem interested in mixing it up with anyone
In a sign of where the current party is, it’s about an hour into the debate at the Reagan Library, and Reagan’s name has hardly been brought up by the candidates. In the 2008 debate there, candidates were tripping over each other to present themselves as the most natural successors to Reagan. Yet not even Pence (who is the candidate most representative of that style of Republicanism) has talked about Reagan’s legacy.
Donald Duck appears to be trending on Twitter, or X — whatever we call it now. That’s our politics now. On a good day?
Jeff, will it ever be the year for a North Dakota governor?
Nikki Haley delivered the most policy-dense answer of the night on health care. From calling for transparency from “insurance companies to hospitals to PBMs [Pharmacy Benefit Managers] to the pharmaceutical companies,” to the tort reform to reduce medical practitioner’s legal exposure, to ending certificates of need, Haley articulated in 30 seconds a vision for reform that could actually deliver results. It’s just a shame that a GOP president would need healthy Republican majorities in Congress to do any of that.
Wait, is Reagan an option?
The shame of Doug Burgum is that pretty much everything he has said was sharp and defensible at the very least, but…it’s not his year.
And now an ad for Billions, a dumb show that keeps getting dumber. (Not unlike the debates?)
This clip of Reagan’s Farewell address talking about informed patriotism just won the debate.