NO WONDER THE DONALD NO IS SMIRKING!
His rivals for the White House are squaring up. Just one problem: they’re a Corbyn clone, an old duffer, a bunch of no-hopers and a tycoon who hasn’t even shown up yet...
Even by his own appalling standards, Donald Trump is looking insufferably smug at the moment. The President of the United States gave a sit-down interview with Fox news on Sunday in which he boasted of starting a ‘positive revolution’ in the country.
Preening and polishing himself with all the self-regarding vanity of a cocky matador just begging to be horned in the groin, he harrumphed with his customary bravado: ‘I don’t know how anybody could beat me.’
The reasons for Trump’s bumptiousness are not hard to discern. Last week, his job approval rating hit 45 per cent, just shy of where it was during his inauguration three years ago. Meanwhile, his Senate impeachment trial is set to conclude tomorrow and will almost certainly result in his acquittal.
Bringing the biggest grin to Trump’s lips, however, are events here at the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic Party‘s first step in selecting their candidate to stand against him in november’s race for the White House.
By breakfast time today, Iowa Democrats will have decided on their choice. While a long campaign lies ahead, whoever wins here more often than not ends up being the presidential nominee.
For Americans tired of their President’s brash behaviour at home and alarmed by his increasingly aggressive posturing abroad, this is being billed as the most important election of their lifetime. How disappointing, then, that the best the Democrats could come up with is an uninspiring collection of political has-beens and never-weres, all of whom resemble roadkill in the wake of the Trump juggernaut.
In short, they’re an absolute shower. All the momentum looks to be with Bernie Sanders, the senator for vermont, a sinewy old gizzard who electrified the 2016 Democrat contest when – seemingly from nowhere – he ran eventual winner Hillary Clinton right down to the wire.
Sanders would be a presidential candidate like no other. A self-proclaimed socialist, he espouses far-Left ideas that include free healthcare for all, free college tuition fees and a ruse to cancel student debts.
His proposals are bold, eye-catching and almost certainly unaffordable.
Watching Sanders campaign, it is almost impossible not to draw parallels between him and Jeremy Corbyn’s illfated rise from sandal- wearing, backbench laughing stock to leader of the Labour Party. Appearancewise, he is wiry and dishevelled. His Brooklyn accent is more of a croak than a melody. He talks about taking on Wall Street, the big pharmaceutical firms and taxing big business and Trump’s ‘billionaire friends’ to the hilt.
LIKE Corbyn once did, he attracts an almost cult-like following, particularly among young voters. At a Super Bowl party in Des Moines on Sunday, they gave him the sort of rapturous welcome reserved for movie stars. ‘Bern-ie, Bern-ie, Bern-ie!’ they chanted in unison.
Sanders’ main obstacle could be stamina. His 80th birthday is less than two years away and last year he suffered a heart attack.
Running almost neck-and-neck with Bernie is equally dodderylooking centrist Joe Biden, who served as vice president to Barack
Obama and who is the Democrat establishment’s candidate. At 77, ‘Sleepy Joe’, as Trump has taken to calling him, is only four years the President’s senior, though he looks an awful lot older.
The impeachment trial – in which Trump stands accused of threatening to withdraw aid from Ukraine to pressure them into investigating Biden – has arguably been more damaging to Sleepy Joe than it has to Trump.
That is because it brought to light the large sums, reportedly over $80,000 (£60,000) a month, his son Hunter was being paid by a Ukrainian energy company.
Yesterday, there were signs the controversy was finally getting to him. Asked about it during an interview with nBC, Biden huffily snapped at his female interrogator: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Biden’s speech is peppered with folksy little interjections such as ‘that’s the God’s honest truth’. As Obama’s vP, this colloquial schtick was mildly charming – the harmless old duffer shadowing the inexperienced wunderkind.
now he seems more like the creepy uncle at the family wedding whose hugs with the younger guests linger just a few seconds too long.
A Biden rally at a school in Des Moines on Sunday was a painful affair. Dressed in a blue blazer and flannel trousers, he appeared ill at ease among the provincial crowd.
Joining Sanders on the far-Left ticket is Massachusetts senator elizabeth Warren.
She is a passionate speaker, albeit a slightly hectoring one and, oh, so painstakingly ‘woke’.
Last week she prompted collective eye-rolling among floating Iowan voters by pledging to have her future education secretary vetted by a nine-year- old transgender youth. Warren has at least won the backing of the handwringingly liberal new York Times.
Bafflingly, the paper also chose to endorse the more moderate candidate Amy klobuchar, a former lawyer whose campaign appears to be running out of puff – though picking up a $6,000 bar bill during a Super Bowl party she hosted just outside Des Moines on Sunday may have bought her a couple of extra votes.
The surprise package so far has been ‘outsider’ Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Boot- edge- edge), the 38-year- old mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
‘Mayor’ Pete is a Harvard grad who worked for consultancy giant Mckinsey. He served in the military, winning the joint service medal during a seven-month tour of Afghanistan. He is also gay.
At a rally at the national Cattle Congress up in Waterloo, I watched him converse fluently in French with a reporter. What I would pay to see the less linguistically dextrous Trump try doing the same.
notable by his absence is Mike Bloomberg, the media tycoon and former new York mayor who is skipping all four traditional earlystate contests – Iowa, new Hampshire, nevada and South Carolina – to focus on big states that hold primaries soon afterwards.
candidate has ever won the Democratic nomination by pursuing such a risky strategy but, then again, none has ever enjoyed the staggering scale of the resources at Bloomberg’s disposal.
An estimated $58billion (£45billion) fortune makes him the seventh-richest man in America.
After shelling out $200million – including a treacly but powerful $11million ad slot during Sunday’s Super Bowl – he is already polling nationally at 8 per cent. not bad considering he only entered the race 70 days ago.
Bloomberg’s vast wealth and impeccably liberal credentials means he remains a fashionable fixture on the London and new York cocktail party circuit but it’s not certain that his slightly lofty, metropolitan charms will appeal to voters outside of America’s major cities. next to Trump, he is ever so slightly dull.
It is possible, however, that the size of Bloomberg’s bulging wallet mildly rattles Trump, whose billionaire status and propertyempire value has for years been the source of conjecture.
Bloomberg’s well-remunerated campaign team will no doubt take it as a compliment that Trump spent large parts of his weekend interview childishly dissing their man over his height, making the (totally false) claim that 5ft 8in Bloomberg was negotiating to obtain a soap box to stand on during the primary debates.
Which of this rackety collection of candidates will emerge to face Trump remains unclear.
All we can be certain of is where the current occupant of the Oval Office intends the contest to take place: in the gutters.