Good Morning.
My younger son and I talk politics. He lives in a suburb of Chicago and checks in almost every day to chat about the latest earthquake or after-shock in the unsettled political environment in which we find ourselves. Sometimes he's in his car on the way home for lunch or driving quite a distance to an appointment with a potential donor - he's a development officer at a small private college. Sometimes I'm having my first cup of coffee in the morning or my last bite of dinner at night. I never know when the phone will ring and I need to be up to date on the latest tremor in Washington and beyond.
We thoroughly dissect all of the news makers, whoever and whatever they are. We refer to some of them by their last names like Flynn, Cohen, Mueller, Kasich, Biden, Flake, and Sasse, and for others we use first names: Paul, Nancy, Bernie, Marco, Beto, and Lindsey. The head guy is never called by either his first or last name. He is simply he, and anytime either of us uses the word he, it means you know who. The First Offspring are The Kids. They're in this together.
We punctuate our sentences with grunts, sighs, and an occasional expletive. I try not to get shrill because a raging soprano is, quite frankly, not as effective as a disgruntled baritone. We scrutinize every piece of information like the seasoned pundits we also analyze right down to their biases and hair styles and try to figure out what's coming next. That's not easy when there's another upheaval every few hours. So do you think he paid off the women with money from the foundation? Maybe. Do you think The Kids will be indicted for something? Maybe. So did Russia tell him to get out of Syria? Probably not but they're awfully happy about it. Why is he protecting Saudi Arabia? Money. What do we do now that Mattis is on his way out? Pray a lot.
We should be able to get into something that used to be known as political science, my son's field of both undergraduate and graduate study, but even that has taken a hit lately. The government being held hostage unless five billion is made available for the wall isn't exactly lofty subject matter for a master's thesis. The chewing out of a three-star Army general by a tough old judge isn't intellectually stimulating material for in-depth analysis by historians, journalists, or a couple of amateurs
chatting away on the phone.
We try to project into the future. So does Mueller have the goods on him? You bet. So if he thinks he'll be impeached, will he resign like Nixon? Not sure. If he manages to hang on, does anyone challenge him in the primary next time around? Like who? Marco? Flake? Sasse? Does Kasich run as an Independent? Could be. Which party would that impact? Both because
he'd peel off the moderates in both parties. How many Dems will run? Up to two dozen.
With regard to 2020, there's a lot of discussion about age and here is where I have a certain edge over someone a quarter of a century younger than I am. It's just easier for me to declare that Biden and Bernie are pretty old. What about Beto? Beto versus Sasse, nice and young. I like that, nice and young. Don't you want women on the tickets? That's a second advantage in addition to my age. I can detail the flaws of the various women on the political horizon and get away with it. What I can't do is figure out how to sleep at night while the country is coming apart at the seams which is why I've been writing this since
5:30 a.m.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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