Need a little wisdom, call a veteran of the old wars.
Stuart Spencer,
96 next week, ran
Ronald Reagan’s
campaigns for California governor in 1966 and 1970, and his presidential campaigns in ’80 and ’84. He was sort of the first political guru and good at his job.
Give me a read on things, I asked. He was on the phone from his Palm Desert home.
“Biden’s got a lot of problems but I thought he did well,” Mr. Spencer said of the State of the Union address. “He answered the questions of age and health. He was vigorous, almost feisty. The number one problem he has is his age, but he did a masterful job of showing his energy.”
He does not see Biden facing a presidential primary challenger.
“Their problem is
She’s an absolute, total lightweight. She doesn’t have the touch.” The touch is that indefinable thing that makes people like you, root for you, sense some magic in you. “Some people have it and some people don’t.” California politicos in both parties, he says, were shocked when Biden chose her as vice president in 2020.
What to do about Ms. Harris? “It’s a real problem. Biden has to show leadership on it and let the party know what he wants—and enforce it. It’s a messy situation but Biden has to be involved in it. He’s gonna have to decide.”
As for the Republicans, “They’re not in a good position. As long as Trump is the reality, it hurts us. He has a personal following, not a party following.” Mr. Spencer has opposed
since the beginning. This year he thinks Mr. Trump will face primary opposition. Potential Republican aspirants once feared him. Not now.
“They’re not afraid of Trump. They think he can be had. I don’t think Trump has the strength he had last time. He was unbeatable in 2016. He’s not unbeatable now.”
The party must watch who it replaces him with. A threat is “the Trump imitators.” “To be a demagogue” in America, “is not difficult,” Mr. Spencer says. “You get a lot of action.”
“A demagogue politically is someone who takes any given issue and beats it to death, and the facts aren’t important, it’s all positioning themselves. It’s all Johnny One Note.” “The key to their…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RSSOpinion…