|
|
|
'Second term syndrome' hits Biden and Trump for 2024 run to White House
|
|
|
|
Top Stories |
|
|
|
|
IANS | 24 Nov, 2022
The 'second term syndrome' seems to have sunk into the minds of both the
current US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump,
anxious to occupy the White House again from where power flows, global
attention follows and decisions affecting the world are made.
Both
Biden (80) and Trump (76) are aging politicians who will be 82 and 78
when they run for the White House in 2024 and generally not favoured by
either the Democratic or Republican voters, who both want a younger face
like Ron DeSantis, the Republican Florida Governor who won a
spectacular race, and Democrats -- California Governor Gavin Newsom and
Vice-President Kamala Harris, all in their 40s and 50s.
Biden has
announced his intent to run but he has not made a formal decision or
announcement to oppose Trump, though majority opinion in the Democratic
party is that if either Trump or DeSantis were to win the primaries,
Biden is most favoured to beat them both by a larger margin in case of
the former and probably by a smaller margin the latter.
Even as
the Democratic National Congress awaits a formal announcement from
Biden, a flurry of candidates are already lobbying with their donors and
preparing for Plan B, should Biden choose not to contest on health
grounds.
Though Biden has been successful in stemming the tide of
the Republican Wave against his inept handling of the inflation issue,
voters had abortion rights and jobs and election deniers as a threat to
democracy uppermost in their minds while voting.
While 61 per
cent of the Republicans want Trump to run, there is a doubt if he will
even make it to the primaries because billionaires and donors and media
barons see a great future for the GOP in DeSantis rather than Trump. In
fact, billionaire media baron Rupert Murdoch lampooned Trump in his
networks from Fox News to the New York Post to Wall Street Journal
running edits against him as a liability for the party with his legal
baggage. Post-November midterm polls show a seven per cent rise in
popularity for DeSantis against Trump.
Trump has to contend with
the January 6 panel hearings of his alleged involvement in the Capitol
Hill's insurrection, face the tax fraud evasion case with the New York
Attorney General Letitia James (Democrat) suing him for $250 million in
punitive damages for tax fraud, obtaining loans from banks on fraudulent
claims by inflating its property values, and the Department of Justice
chasing him for the 11,000 top secret documents he spirited away to his
Florida home instead of handing them over to the National Archives. This
is not going to be easy for him, media reports say.
The BBC
of the UK says Biden is the oldest President in US history and his
approval ratings have stalled in the low 40s. Is President Joe Biden
ripe for a primary challenge in 2024, the network asked?
With
both of them being too old and voters wanting a young energetic
President, there is a chance for a lot of young liberals to make it to
the primaries. Starting with Vice- President Harris.
Perhaps
nobody would benefit more from an aging President stepping aside than
his Deputy Kamala Harris, says BBC, adding a former prosecutor who went
on to serve as California's Attorney General and as its junior US
Senator, the 58-year-old broke glass ceilings in 2020 as the first
female, black and Asian-American Vice-President in the US history.
Last
year, she briefly served as acting President in the 85 minutes it took
Biden to undergo a colonoscopy. Problem here is that Harris is even less
popular than the President and some voters have even questioned her
competence.
Since assuming office, she has been given some of
the administration's toughest portfolios -- influx of immigrants at the
southern US border. Conservative critics have accused her of awkward
public appearances. High staff turnover and reports of low morale in the
Vice-President's office have only made matters worse, the network
claimed. But her supporters have claimed she has been a victim of
misogyny and sexist slander.
Gavin Newsom: He is in the
spotlight among the Democrats garnering a lot of attention in the 2024
buzz for presidency. Newsom, 55, came into national focus when he issued
the same-sex marriage licenses in 2004 in utter violation of the state
law as the Governor of California. He is a wine merchant who strayed
into politics and made it good when he was elected Governor of his home
state in 2018. Soon enough he became champion of the progressive
campaign against the conservative Trump administration.
He has
earned considerable admiration for his assertive leadership when the
Covid-19 pandemic broke out. But he was also caught-on-camera on the
wrong foot at a dinner in which he flouted his own Covid rules leading
to a call to end his governorship before his term ended.
Finally,
defeating the Republican-led recall, Newsom has just begun his second
term as the California Governor having won impressively in the November
midterms.
Newsom has a massive campaign war chest and the backing
of major Democratic donors, but it is his willingness to pick fights on
the national stage recently -- from launching ads in Republican-held
states like Florida and Texas to criticising his own party for its weak
messaging -- that is drawing attention to his future ambitions, BBC
said.
Pete Buttigieg, the Transport Secretary, is now attracting a
lot of attention among the Democrats. In 2020 he was among 28
candidates who ran for the primaries seeking candidacy in 2020. Pete
Buttigieg was the only star that shone at the time, though he lost the
bid.
The 40-year-old out-performed seasoned politicians before
dropping out of the race and endorsing the eventual President, media
reports said.
Buttigieg is young, dynamic, suave, sophisticated
and polished in his speech. Voters gravitated towards the Harvard
graduate who attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and served with the
US Navy in Afghanistan. He is however tainted by his gay leanings.
Dubbed "Mayor Pete" by his supporters, Biden chose him as Transport
Secretary.
Bernie Sanders: If Biden is being thought of as old,
then Sanders is an 81-year-old Senator from Vermont. If he is to be a
Presidential runner, it does not make sense. But many voters perceive
the experienced lawmaker with a long tenure in the Senate as the
frontrunner for a growing left-wing movement in the country.
It
may be recalled that Sanders, an independent candidate from Vermont, who
always votes with the Democrats, nearly beat the odds in the 2016
presidential nominating contest against Democratic heavyweight Hillary
Clinton, BBC recalled.
Other presidential hopefuls in the
Democratic party are: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: She is known to her
legions of adoring fans as "AOC", the youngest woman ever to serve in
Congress. She will turn 35 -- the minimum age to be the US President --
one month before the 2024 election. Ocasio-Cortez has big plans for
America and her popularity is ever growing with the supporter base
expanding. She has avoided questions about her future, telling GQ
recently that her time as a lawmaker has given her "a front-row seat" to
the misogyny of American society.
Ro Khanna: A self-acclaimed
"progressive capitalist", the Indian-American lawmaker represents the
heart of Silicon Valley in Congress. He has indicated he will not run if
Biden is the nominee.
Elizabeth Warren: The 73-year-old Senator
from Massachusetts is champion of the Left movement against the Supreme
Court turning down the Roe Vs Wade case and stands staunchly for
abortion rights.
Gretchen Whitmer: The 51-year-old from Michigan
faced a kidnapping plot in her first term as the state's Governor, then
swept through the re-election in the midterms. She says she has no plans
to ever run for President.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
|
66.20
|
64.50 |
UK Pound
|
87.50
|
84.65 |
Euro
|
78.25
|
75.65 |
Japanese
Yen |
58.85 |
56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
|
|
Daily Poll |
|
|
PM Modi's recent US visit to redefine India-US bilateral relations |
|
|
|
|
|
Commented Stories |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|