Bye-Bye Birdie

Prepare to say goodbye to Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Joe Manchin and maybe Eric Adams

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

If money is tight or you’re already up to eyeballs in subscriptions, here’s another idea — share this article. Email it to a friend (or even an enemy). Post it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Text or email it to your wife, husband, mother, father, brother, sister, or even your creepy second cousin in Azerbaijan. Word of mouth is often the best way to build support for a creative endeavor, so if everyone here sends it to just one person … it would be much appreciated!

See Ya, Wouldn’t Want To Be Ya

Shutterstock

I didn’t watch Wednesday’s latest Republican debate because a) life is too short, and b) it doesn’t matter.

It seems that the major soundbite was Vivek Ramaswamy (remember him) acting like a jerk to Nikki Haley — and her calling him scum.

Peter Hamby has a good take on Vivek’s rise and thankful fall in the GOP presidential sweepstakes. This is a great lede.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s flash-in-the-pan presidential campaign was already well on its way to its predictable end—a forgettable, single-digit finish in Iowa followed by a pledge of fealty to Donald Trump—but Sean Hannity put an early nail in his coffin last week on Fox News.

Hannity asked Ramaswamy about comments he had made, in a separate interview with Tucker Carlson, suggesting that his Republican rival Nikki Haley’s support for Israel was driven by financial motives. Ramaswamy, in his usual way, tried to dodge, talking a mile a minute and claiming that Hannity was mischaracterizing his words. That set the host off.

“Vivek, stop right now; you do this in every single interview,” Hannity shot back. “You say stuff and then you deny it. You deny your own words. So, you know, why don’t you just own what you say and stand by it and stop playing these games… You go on these shows, people quote your exact words, and you deny your own words. I am saying if you are going to be your presidential candidate, and I give you your exact words, either own it, or give it back.” Hannity ended the interview shortly thereafter. 

You have to be a special kind of person to make Sean Hannity look like Edward R. Murrow, but congrats to Vivek Ramaswamy for somehow achieving that feat.

Read the whole piece if you can; it’s really good. As my mother might say, this guy is a real turkey. (Also, check out Politico’s take on why Haley and Ramaswamy hate each other so much).

As for the larger Republican nomination race, this isn’t really a contest anymore. I mean …

Listen, I like a good political fight as much as the next guy, but if this were a Little League game, we’d invoke the mercy rule. Four criminal indictments have only strengthened Trump, and no other candidate has gained traction against him. One could argue that the remaining candidates are trying out to be Trump’s running mate next year, but it ain’t gonna be Chris Christie or Ron DeSantis (neither would likely take the job if offered). Ramaswamy is possible, I suppose, but see above. Haley has a shot, though I think it’s far more likely Trump picks South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. I suppose we have to go through the motions of this nominating contest, but we pretty much all know how this one will turn out.

Manchin Agonistes

Shutterstock

So this happened.

Centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Thursday he won't run for re-election next year, a much anticipated decision that will reshape the battle for Senate control in 2024.

"After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”

So there are a few things to cover here.

First, what does this mean for the Democrats’ hopes of keeping control of the Senate?

According to the Cook Political Report, WV looks like a lost cause (before Manchin’s announcement, they had WV as a toss-up; now it’s solid GOP). But, truth be told, the chances of Manchin holding that seat were always slim. Now, Democrats don’t have to waste money there, which is not much of a silver lining.

But, the chart above surprised me. Cook has Montana and Nevada as Lean Democratic states (I assumed that Casey, Baldwin, and the open Michigan Senate seat would lean blue). If that’s correct, then the two toss-ups are Arizona and Ohio. I tend to think that if Kari Lake is the GOP nominee, which seems likely, this one will move to Lean Dem. So that leaves Ohio, which suggests that the Democrats’ hopes of keeping the Senate might be a bit better than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I think incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown will lose next year. The increasingly rightward lean of Ohio combined with the higher turnout of a presidential election in a state that will almost certainly go for Donald Trump makes this a very hard slog for Brown. But it’s certainly not impossible. However, it reinforces my view that the single most important election of the 2024 cycle will be the Ohio Senate race.

By the way, here’s the other reason why 2024 will be so tough for Democrats.

Double oof.

Rick Scott and Ted Cruz are two of the most dislikable politicians in America, and I would dance a jig if either of them lost … but don’t count on it happening. Scott has won three close statewide races, and Florida has gotten even redder since then. Texas is Texas, and while one day I expect the Lone Star State to, at some point, move into the toss-up category, I doubt that day will come in November 2024.

Keep in mind that Cruz won reelection in 2018 (a good year for Democrats) by 2.6 points against a strong, well-funded opponent (Beto O’Rourke). In 2020, Trump beat Biden in Texas by 5.5 points — a relatively good margin for a Democratic candidate in Texas, but not nearly close enough to expect Biden to prevail in 2024. In 2022, Governor Greg Abbott handily won reelection — beating O’Rourke by 11 points.

In 2024, Cruz will be up again and will almost certainly get a boost from Trump’s presence on the ticket. Maybe Democrats can narrow the margin and win this race. But it feels as though Texas has not shifted nearly enough to give Democrats a great chance of winning a statewide race, which the party hasn’t done since 1994.

The second question raised by Manchin’s departure is: will he run for president as a third-party candidate — and will it matter?