barrycasselman: THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: It's Not Over Yet

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: It's Not Over Yet

With his formal announcement, Joe Biden appears to

have locked up his renomination as the Democratic

nominee for president in 2024. With his current big lead

in the polls, Donald Trump appears now to be the likely

nominee for his Republican Party for president in 2024..

Considering the negatives in public opinion for the

re-election of the Biden-Harris ticket or for a comeback

win by a Trump-led ticket, it seems that the current

conventional wisdom that next year will see a replay

of 2020 is a defiance of common sense and political

gravity.

I would suggest that, far from any certainty, both races

for the presidential nomination are far from over.

On the Democratic side, we have likely not seen the

end of the challenge to the frail and rapidly aging

president. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is not going to be the

Democrat who defeats him, but the Kennedy scion’s

growing appeal, like Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 challenge

to Lyndon Johnson, mighy lead to a delayed entrance

of at least one or more conventional Biden challengers.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump’s current lead in

the polls is almost certainly the result of his recent legal

indictment, and the fact that his major GOP rival, Florida

Governor Ron DeSantis, has not yet announced his

candidacy. While Trump currently leads DeSantis among

Republicans in most national and state polls, those same

polls show DeSantis doing better than Trump against

Biden in almost every case. This curious divergence

suggests that DeSantis is the stronger GOP nominee

against a Democrat in 2024.

In addition to the major party campaigns, the weakness

of the frontrunning candidates, and the widespread

economic and international uncertainty, makes it very

likely that serious third party candidacies could soon

emerge. A centrist “No Labels Party” effort is already

underway, and it could easily attract well-known

figures if one or both parties seem unusually vulnerable

in the November, 2024 campaign.

Governor DeSantis, now on his obligatory international

tour that includes Japan, Great Britain and Israel, is the

most serious potential Republican challenger, but his

timetable for entrance into the race has narrowed with

the first debates only months away. There are already

some credible other figures in the GOP race, but the

political reality is that only Mr. DeSantis could defeat

Mr. Trump in the upcoming primary campaign contests.

Although the obvious political nature of the timing of the

New York indictment of Mr. Trump has rallied Republicans

to his side for now, it is not at all clear this and his other

looming legal problems will sustain support for him.

Every public opinion poll indicates that voters of both

major parties, and independent voters, want younger and

less controversial choices than Biden and Trump. By

keeping Kamala Harris as his running mate, the president

is also offering voters a choice even more unpopular than

he is, and who has been decidedly unimpressive as vice

president so far.

Perhaps, after all, it will be Biden vs. Trump next year.

But public dissatisfaction with that prospect is so great

that the possibility of surprise in one or both parties’

tickets is higher than any presidential cycle in memory,

perhaps ever.

This presidential nomination campaign cycle has just begun.

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About Barry Casselman

BARRY CASSELMAN is an author, journalist and lecturer who has reported and analyzed American presidential and national politics since 1972.

He founded, edited and published his first newspaper when he was 29. He has been a contributor to many national publications, including The Weekly Standard, realclearpolitics.com, Politico, Roll Call, Washington Examiner, The American Interest, Utne Reader, Campaigns and Elections Magazine, American Experiment Quarterly, Washington Times, The Rothenberg Political Report, Business Today, Election Politics, Business Ethics Magazine, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Insider, and American Commonwealth.

His regular op ed columns and other commentary in print, and on the internet, are distributed through the Preludium News Service. His blog ‘The Prairie Editor” has an international readership and appears on his website at www.barrycasselman.com .

He was a political analyst for WCCO-AM (CBS) for several years, for KSJN-AM (Public Radio International), and for KUOM-AM (National Public Radio). He has also broadcast on RAE in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and beginning in 2000, he produced and broadcast for Voice of America. In 2006, he presented news commentary on LBC, the independent 24-hour news radio network in London, England. He also provided election night analysis in 2006 for Minnesota Public Radio. In 2008, he returned to WCCO-AM for periodic national election commentary. Beginning in 2011, he began weekly commentary on the 2012 presidential campaign on a national radio podcast program originating in Dallas, TX.

Casselman was the original host of “Talk To Your City” on the Minneapolis Television Network, and was a frequent political commentator for KTCA-TV (PBS). In 1992 and 1994, he presented election night analysis for the Conus coast-to-coast All News Channel. In 1996, he provided live coverage from the presidential primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire for All News Channel nationwide. He has also appeared on C-SPAN. In 2008, he was interviewed by ABC-TV Evening News with Charles Gibson.

He has covered national presidential primaries, caucuses and straw polls since 1976, and attended Democratic and Republican national conventions since 1988. He has traveled throughout the United States to report on significant political events, including the national congressional debate in Williamsburg in 1996, the presidential debates, national conventions and events of the Democratic Leadership Council, Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee, United We Stand America, Reform Party, National Governors Association, NAACP, AFL-CIO, Christian Coalition, CPAC, Green Party and the Independence Party.

In 2012, he was invited to be a civilian participant in the 58th annual seminar on national security at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Also in 2012, he was a speaker at the Jefferson Educational Society's Global Summit IV. At that event, he received the Thomas Hagen "Dignitas" Award for lifetime achievement.

From 1990-2011, he was the executive director of the non-profit International Conference Foundation, and hosted more than 500 world leaders, foreign journalists and other international visitors. At the non-partisan Foundation, he also organized four national symposia: the first on low-income housing with then-HUD Secretary Jack Kemp; the second, a highly-acclaimed conference on “Locating the New Political Center in America” with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and leading spokespersons of the Clinton administration as well as newly-emerged independent groups; the third, a symposium on public communications with then-Governor Tom Ridge, former White House press secretary Mike McCurry, Tony Blankley and other national figures; and in 2003, a symposium on homeland security with Secretary Ridge and leading local and national experts. During this time, he also organized numerous smaller conferences, tours and events for the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Department of State for its International Visitor Program and its Foreign Press Center programs. In 2008, he organized a special program for international media and visitors attending the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The Foundation also sponsored programs presenting domestic and international authors and their books.

In 2007, Mr. Casselman helped create and plan the nationally-broadcast and podcast dialogue between former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at the Cooper Union in New York City, and he continued to work on related debate and public policy discussion projects in the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

Mr. Casselman has been a lecturer on public policy at Princeton University’s annual international business conferences in New York, and its regional conferences in Chicago since 2005; He also has been a guest lecturer at George Washington University, Carleton College, The Chautauqua (NY) Institution, Gannon University, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Santa Barbara City College, University of St. Thomas, Metropolitan State University, Augsburg College, University of Minnesota, Jefferson Educational Society, and on the international voyages of the Queen Elizabeth 2, Sagafjord, Vistafjord and Royal Viking Sun. He has made presentations on journalism and the arts at Carleton College, University of Minnesota, College of St. Catherine, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Walker Art Center, Metropolitan State University, Mercyhurst College and the Brazilian Writers Union in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

His non-fiction book North Star Rising was published in 2007 by Pogo Press, an imprint of Finney Company. In 2008, Pogo Press published Minnesota Souvenir, Casselman’s history and visitor guide for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul. He was editor and co-author of the book Taking Turns: Political Stalemate or a New Direction in the Race for 2012, a preview of that year's national election.

He has been cited in Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics and in William Safire’s Political Dictionary. Casselman has invented a number of political words and phrases which are now in frequent usage, and listed in various online dictionaries.

He is also a widely-published American poet, short story writer and playwright whose work has been translated and published in Europe, South America and Asia. He is the author of four published books of literary prose and poetry. His work has been frequently anthologized. Two of his plays, in collaboration with composer Randall Davidson, have been performed by the Actors Theater of St. Paul, Minnesota Orchestra, St. Donat’s Ensemble of Wales, and by independent productions at the Union Depot in St. Paul and the Foss Theater at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. He has provided original texts for two award-winning experimental films, as well as texts for other independent short films and videos.

Barry Casselman was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. with major honors from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has also studied in Paris, and attended the University of Madrid. He now lives in Minneapolis.

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: It's Not Over Yet

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