Donald Trump Will Soon Get Some Good News

Donald Trump has had so much bad news lately (legal issues, Ron DeSantis, getting more aggressive, etc.) that he is probably in a foul mood. But yesterday Politico had a story Tim that should warm the cockles of his heart (if he has a heart and it has cockles). The report is that Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is about to jump into the race to be the GOP presidential nominee. His preparations are well underway. He has been talking to donors, has retreats planned, and will soon go to Iowa and New Hampshire. Yup, Tim is almost certainly in. Isn't America wonderful? Even people with a chance less than 0.00000001% can run for president! What a great country!

Trump probably doesn't read Politico, but no doubt some of his staffers do and they probably told him the good news. Also no doubt his first reaction was: "It's 2016 all over again!!!" In that year, there were so many candidates that they didn't all fit on the stage and the debate organizers had to have a debate for the grown-ups and a debate for the kiddies. The result of such a fragmented field is that Trump was able to win most of the primaries with a plurality of the votes, not a majority. On Super Tuesday 2016, for example, he won Alabama (43% of the vote), Arkansas (33%), Georgia (39%), Massachusetts (49%), Tennessee (39%), Vermont (33%), and Virginia (35%). He didn't get a majority of the vote in any of these states, yet he racked up far and away the most delegates because Republican primaries tend to be winner-take-all (or at least winner-take-most). The only candidate who came close to him was Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who naturally won Texas and got 104 delegates. Without Texas, Cruz would have been down in the weeds.

So, from Trump's point of view, the more the merrier. Having half a dozen opponents who each get a few percent of the vote increases the chance that Trump ends up first and racks up all (or most of) the delegates. If you want to see the results of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, here is the Wikipedia article with all the votes, delegate totals, etc.

Now let's look at this from Scott's point of view. It is known that every morning 100 senators look in the bathroom mirror and see a future president (well, OK, 99 since Mazie Hirono, D-HI, is not eligible). Scott did that and said: "Why not me?" The mirror didn't answer, so we will:

• Race: Maybe Scott looked in the bathroom mirror after taking a shower and it was all fogged up and he couldn't see it well, but he is Black. Sad to say, many Republicans don't like Black people. Is that racist? Yes, it is racist, but he has to run in the party he's got, not the party he would like it to be. It's true that he has won three Senate elections in South Carolina. It is also true that he was an incumbent in all his races, even the first one (he was appointed to fill Jim DeMint's seat when the latter resigned mid-term). Incumbents nearly always win. He may not have noticed that he was (politically) born on third base. He didn't hit a triple. Oh, and in each of his three races for the Senate, the Democratic nominee was also Black. So, the folks who might prefer a senator of a lighter hue did not have that option.
  
  
• Religion: Scott is an evangelical and probably is thinking: "The Republican Party is full of evangelicals, so I am in like Flynn." The problem is that Mike Pence is probably also going to jump in and he is even more popular with evangelicals than Scott. Also, Pence is white and so are the majority of evangelicals.
  
  
• Profile: Quick—do you remember the Scott Act? Or any legislation he conceived and pushed through Congress? We don't. He is a low-profile backbencher whose only claim to fame is that he represents 50% of the directly elected Black Republican senators in all of history (Edward Brooke gets the other 50%). Is he a brilliant orator, like Barack Obama? Not really.
  

In short, we don't get it. Nikki Haley also has approximately zero chance of getting the Republican nomination for president, but if she does well, she is a plausible veep on a ticket headed by DeSantis. Scott is not really a plausible veep on anybody's ticket. What does he bring? A small state that always votes for Republicans? Black voters? Hardly, since the other team also has a Black veep, and since even Black South Carolinians don't vote for him.

So why is he running? Maybe to raise his profile for some other race? It is possible he wants to run for governor some day, but we don't see how a failed race for president will help there. As a senator, he has a big megaphone and can generate plenty of publicity by introducing important bills and then going to TV to pitch them. Delusions of grandeur? Maybe. Is he bored with his day job and needs some excitement? Could be. He'll get lots and lots of media attention for a couple of weeks until the media realize that he is going nowhere and move on. Other than that, it seems completely pointless to us. Note that we are not saying Scott will get zero votes. There are a small number of Black Republicans and they might vote for him just to show everyone that they exist. However, they are pretty scarce in Iowa and New Hampshire. Of course, Scott could skip those two contests and focus on South Carolina, where he might even come in third with a bit of luck. But it is downhill from there.

All this said, we always like to be positive. So, to end on a positive note, we will say we think his chances of getting a major party presidential nomination are vastly higher than those of Marianne Williamson. (V)

Wait, There Is Yet Another Case against Trump Pending

Last week we ran a small table listing five of Donald Trump's legal woes. But actually, we missed one. There is a sixth problem lurking out there. It is very low profile and very wonky, but it could surface one of these days. Let's take a look. It is significant in the sense it may be the key to why Trump isn't posting on Twitter, even though Elon Musk reinstated him months ago.

The circumstances are murky, but here is what we know. When Trump was kicked off Twitter for lying all the time, he decided to found his own boutique Twitter clone, which he called TRUTH Social. It is legally owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, a company he formed just for that purpose. He owns 99% of the shares, even though he didn't put any money into the company.

A second relevant company is Digital World Acquisition Corp., headed by financier Patrick Orlando, a former derivatives trader for Deutsche Bank, for many years the only bank willing to deal with Trump (though now, even they won't touch him). Digital World is a Special Purpose Acquisitions Company. Companies of this type collect money from investors with the intention of later buying up one or more other companies and either running them for a profit or flipping them. Typically it takes 1-2 years to locate a target and then buy it with the capital the SPAC has in the bank. Sometimes it is a merger, rather an outright purchase. This is pefectly legal and actually quite common. Obviously it works only if the investors have a lot of faith in the skills of the SPAC's CEO and are willing to go on a blind date with him. Orlando is apparently a pretty fast talker. He raised $1.25 billion for Digital World. He could have opened the biggest chain of used car lots in the world, but he didn't. Here is a list of some of Digital World's investors. Many of them have ties to Trump. There were also others who put in as much as $30 million apiece. Some of them might be Russian.

On Sept. 8, 2021, Digital World had an IPO in which it raised another $293 million. In its SEC filing, Digital World said that it had no prospective targets for purchasing or merging with. In Oct. 2021, it merged with Trump Media & Technology Group, pouring something like $1 billion into Trump's company. Since the average time for a SPAC to do due diligence and pick a target for buying or merging with is 17 months, doing it in a single month is a massive red flag. The SEC suspects that Orlando planned the merger with Trump's company from the get-go but didn't bother to mention this in the IPO filing. This violates securities law since, at the time of an IPO, the company going public is required to tell buyers of its shares what it is up to and what it plans to do. Having a secret deal lined up that only a few insiders know about is a big no-no in IPO-land. When the SEC got wind of this, it put the merger on hold. Indefinitely. Bummer for Trump since an injection of $1 billion would have been nice. Remember, it is always about the grift.

SEC officials think that Trump knew Orlando beforehand and they might even have had some discussions before the IPO. Having secret discussions between insiders that are not public just before an IPO violates all kinds of laws.

But there is more. In Dec. 2021, Orlando wired $2 million to Trump's company from Paxum Bank and then $6 million more. Paxum Bank is located on the tiny island of Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic). The bank is partly owned by Anton Postolnikov, a relation of Vladimir Putin's ally Aleksandr Smirnov, who has worked in several high-level jobs close to Putin. The SEC has reason to believe Paxum engages in money laundering. So mix Trump, multiple shell companies, big money, an IPO that might have violated securities law, Russians, a bank that is tied to a Putin associate and might be engaged in money laundering—what could go wrong here? Could it be that Trump is doing big-time money laundering for the Russians in exchange for them financing a company of which he owns 99% of the stock? The SEC is curious about this.

If this story is even close to being true, Trump must know that he could be facing life in prison on all the violations of securities laws. Paying off porn stars is small potatoes compared to this stuff. He knows if he is elected president, he could appoint a friendly SEC chairman who could close the investigation and not bring charges. This suggests that he will not drop out of the race no matter how many indictments he faces because he can't reasonably expect Ron DeSantis to appoint an SEC chairman who will let him off the hook. DeSantis has nothing to gain from doing that.

Oh, and Twitter. It is rumored that when Trump talked to Orlando early on, he promised to stay on TRUTH Social, and on that basis Orlando found investors who thought that TRUTH Social would be a financial success. If Trump were to suddenly dump TRUTH Social and go back to Twitter, the value of the merged company (assuming the SEC allows that, which seems unlikely at this point), would instantly drop to zero. The investors would not be happy. Cue lawsuits from a bunch of steaming billionaires who felt duped and are quite capable of hiring the best lawyers in the business. Trump doesn't need that in the middle of a presidential campaign. So he may stick to TRUTH Social for the time being. Being on Facebook and YouTube is different since they are not direct competitors to Twitter. Next time we tell you something is murky, believe us the first time. (V)

How Will an Indictment Change Trump's Standing with the Voters?

A question that is on the mind of many people is: "What will be the political fallout if Trump is indicted?" Nobody knows, of course, but we may begin to learn in a few weeks. Almost everyone expects a short-term bump for him and lots of money coming in, but the long-term effect is hard to gauge. The other Nate (Cohn) who normally deals in numbers, data, and polls, is trying to put together what he knows and make an educated guess of what might happen. Here is an outline of what he is thinking:

• The Mar-a-Lago search: Cohn thinks this is the best analogy to an indictment. The FBI got a warrant to search his property and executed it. It found evidence of a crime. This is not the same as an indictment, but the news was essentially "Trump committed a crime" (holding defense documents outside an authorized facility and lying about it). Think of it as indictment-lite. Trump's supporters and conservative circled the wagons and called it a witch hunt. They could do exactly the same thing with an indictment. The event had no affect on Trump's polling.
  
  
• But a new line would be crossed: That said, an indictment crosses a new legal line. Trump has never been formally accused of a crime that will lead to a trial and his possible conviction. For some of his less enthusiastic supporters, this could be a signal to look for a new champion.
  
  
• The base knows him already: Trump has already had enough scandals to kill nine cats, from the Hollywood Access tape to Stormy Daniels and so much more. There is a core group of supporters that will never, ever leave him. Ever. Also not for an indictment.
  
  
• There is no upside: Last weekend, Chris Christie noted that there is no upside to being indicted. It might not be fatal, but there probably are precious few voters who currently dislike Trump but as soon as he is indicted will jump on the bandwagon. The ones already on it won't jump off, but very few Trump haters will suddenly realize that he is honest man and the government is unfairly picking on him.
  
  
• He's not superman: Everyone thinks Trump is invulnerable and all the bullets just bounce off, especially after the FBI executed the search warrant. His polling is currently in the mid 40s. That doesn't scream "invulnerable." Opponents could say: "Do you want to take a chance nominating a guy who might be in prison come Election Day 2024? Could he function as president in prison? It's too risky." Some people might buy that, especially when there are multiple Trumpy alternatives out there.
  
  
• His weakness: It is one thing to rally your base by crying "witch hunt" when you are at 55%. It's something else when you are in the 30s or 40s. If Alvin Bragg's indictment is quickly followed by Fani Willis' indictment, and maybe a scathing report from special prosecutor Jack Smith, that could convince enough of this supporters that he can't win a general election, even if they still love him. They really want to win and if they think Ron DeSantis is ideologically acceptable, even if not perfect, and he could beat Joe Biden, Trump's base of support could drop to 30%. You don't win elections at 30%. Trump is already so low that bleeding even 10% of Republican voters could be the tipping point.
  

Cohn also notes that how Trump responds to the indictment(s) could also be important. If Bragg's only charge is failing to report an election contribution in kind, nobody is going to understand that, especially if his defense is that he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels simply to keep Melania from finding out. If the charge includes claiming a $420,000 deduction for fake legal fees and thus committing tax fraud, more people will understand that and may disapprove. Also, will Trump actively try to rally protesters? Will they get violent? These are only the known unknowns, but they are all we have now. (V)

Are Minority Voters Really Becoming Republicans?

There has been a lot of noise lately about how minorities are moving toward the Republicans and woe be to the Democrats. Is this at all true? And if so, is it a real danger to the Democrats? Not so fast.

Yes, there has been a slight motion by minorities to the right in the past decade, but in some recent elections, they still favored the Democrats by over 35 points. That's not as good at 50%, but much better than 0%. And speaking of 50%, in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden got 73% of the minority vote to Donald Trump's 25%. That's a 48% gap in a major election. If 2020 had featured only Asian, Black, and Latino voters, Biden would have swept every state. Biden's margin was smaller than Barack Obama's, but he was both a member of a minority group and a remarkably gifted politician. Naturally, when he wasn't on the ballot, everything reverted to the status quo ante.

The voting patterns of Black, Asian, and Latino voters aren't the same. They are not interchangeable. Before 2008 and after 2012, Democrats got 85-90% of the Black vote. That appears stable. It is hard to say Black folks are deserting the blue team. And they are about 11% of the electorate.

Sometimes Asians vote for Republicans. They were split 50-50 between the parties in the 1990s, so their willingness to vote for Republicans is nothing new. But they are only 4% of the electorate and are a factor in only a small number of states.

The interesting story is the Latinos They are about 10% of the electorate, but a larger share in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. The group typically gives 60% of its votes to the Democrats. That has been true for 30 years. There was one surprising result in a U.S. House district on the Mexican border a few years ago in which a Democratic district flipped, but one election in one Latino district does not a trend make.

Among white voters, certain patterns are very clear. People who have 4-year college degrees and people who are not Christians are very strongly Democratic. Other white demographics are moving rapidly to the Republicans. Among minority voters, the story is different, as education isn't the big dividing line. Some Latinos are conservative and drawn to the Republicans' pitch about family values. Also, minority voters who are skeptical of Black Lives Matters are more likely to vote Republican. Among Latinos, those who are Catholic or aren't religious are Democrats. Those who are born again are more likely to be Republicans. Here is a little chart based on the 2020 presidential election.

As you can see, religion was a huge factor among Latinos, but even in the reddest cohort, Democrats got 48% of the vote. The good news for Republicans is that while minority populations are growing, this will not create a voters-of-color giant that flips Texas and keeps Democrats in power forever. The bad news for the GOP is that minorities still favor Democrats and that is not likely to change soon. In close elections, this matters. (V)

The NRSC Has a Plan: Find Candidates Who Are Filthy Rich

In the past two cycles, Democrats raised more grass roots money from small donors in Senate races than Republicans did. The NRSC has taken note of this and thinks it has the answer: Nominate candidates who are so rich that they can pay $20- or $50- or $100-million for their campaigns out of their own pockets. That would change the balance of ads and also save the NRSC a ton of money that could be spent helping candidates who are not rich. Sounds like a plan.

So far the NRSC is talking to at least 10 very wealthy people who are potentially interested in running for the Senate in half a dozen states. These include Tim Sheehy in Montana, who founded an aerospace company, Eric Hovde, a real estate executive in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), a coal magnate and the richest man in West Virginia, David McCormick, a hedge fund manager in Connecticut, and Karrin Taylor Robson, a land-use attorney in Arizona. Many Republicans think this approach is a fine idea. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said: "In politics, as in life, money doesn't buy happiness, but poverty doesn't buy a damn thing."

However, getting rich businessmen and businesswomen to run also has enormous downsides that Republicans are forgetting. Most of these people have never been in politics, have never run for office, and know next to nothing about the process or what works. That is completely different for Senate candidates who are current or former governors, U.S. representatives, or state senators. Also, business owners and executives are used to giving orders and expect everyone to obey immediately. They are not used to getting blowback from opponents and are certainly not used to having oppo teams scour their past for one unfortunate remark or photo that is suddenly front and center. They are also not used to dealing with hostile reporters who are trying to trip them up. And they are certainly unprepared (in some cases) for sustained direct attacks from Donald Trump because they refuse to state point blank that he won the 2020 election and it was stolen from him.

As Republicans really ought to know, but seem to have forgotten, a million negative ads are worthless if you have a "candidate quality" problem. They really ought to be searching out quality candidates, but that doesn't seem to be the NRSC's focus. The idea that if someone is rich enough, they can just bulldoze their way to a primary win and then buy the general election really isn't often true. There are plenty of rich senators, but rich senators who came out of nowhere and made it on their own using money are rare. Yes, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) did it, but he was Trumpy as hell and had Trump's full backing. We think that Trump's backing is what did it, not Vance's money. It works sometimes, but not always. Here is a list of the 10 richest senators, their net worth as of 2019, and their background:

Senator	Net worth	Background
Rick Scott (R-FL)	$260 million	Governor of Florida
Mark Warner (D-VA)	$215 million	Governor of Virginia
Mitt Romney (R-UT)	$170 million	Governor of Massachusetts
Mike Braun (R-IN	$140 million	Indiana state representative
John Hoeven (R-ND)	$95 million	Governor of North Dakota
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)	$90 million	Mayor of San Francisco
Ron Johnson (R-WI)	$75 million	CEO of paper company, never held public office before Senate run
Jim Risch (R-ID)	$40 million	Governor of Idaho, before that Lt. Governor, and state senator
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)	$35 million	County executive of Jefferson County, KY
Steve Daines (R-MT)	$33 million	U.S. Representative

As you can see from the table, all but one of the ten richest senators (Johnson) had served in elected office before running for the Senate. They knew how to organize a campaign, raise money, hire political aides, read polls, and talk to voters. Five of the above were governors before becoming senators, so they knew how run a statewide campaign and were well known to the voters on the day they announced. They had all been heavily vetted by the voters before even starting a Senate campaign.

Can rich guys buy a Senate seat? Johnson did, but it is getting harder. You have to be filthy rich. Merely very rich isn't enough anymore. Here are the most expensive Senate races in 2022.

Note that the numbers above are the total spending so to get an idea of what a candidate has to spend, divide the totals in half. But even for a tiny state like New Hampshire, if you can't pony up $25 million, you're not going to be able to self-fund the race. For someone with assets (typically stock) worth $100 million, there will be capital gains tax (possibly federal and state) in order to get $25 million in cash. That means the candidate would have to sell at least $30 million in stock to generate $25 million in campaign funds. In practice, this means that someone worth only $100 million can't really self-fund a Senate race. Realistically, in a medium-sized state like Ohio or Wisconsin, you need assets of $500 million or be willing to sink a large fraction of your assets into the race with no guarantee that you will win. The pool of people with political ambition and that kind of money is small. And people that rich are likely to be way out of touch with the voters and have a crudité problem, that is, a candidate quality problem.

So yes, being rich is better than being poor if you're running for office, but if the NRSC thinks that just finding 10 random billionaires will do the job, it is likely to have an unpleasant surprise on Nov. 6, 2024. (V)

Is Florida's Population Growth Due to DeSantis?

Ron DeSantis has recently taken to bragging about how people are fleeing California and New York and flocking to Florida. He credits this to his leadership. Is there any truth in this? It is true that Florida was the fastest-growing state last year and maybe it is where woke goes to die, but it is not that simple. Florida is also where old people go to die and that has been true for decades, regardless of who was governor. The old joke is that Florida is God's waiting room. They go for the warm weather and cheap housing, not for ideology. During Rick Scott's administration, population growth was 1.5% to 1.8% Under DeSantis it is 1.0% to 1.1%. Put another way, since DeSantis took over, the growth rate has dropped precipitously.

The claim that Californians are rushing to Florida should be tempered somewhat by the fact that for every six Californians who moved to Florida last year, five Floridians moved to California. The flows are almost equal. And one-third of Californians who moved to Florida were over 50, compared to 20% for Californians who moved to other states. A state mostly full of old people is a demographic nightmare, something DeSantis never mentions. Also relevant is that far more Californians who left their state went to Arizona rather than Florida, which undercuts the idea that they moved to Florida because they wanted to be his subjects. It further supports the idea that the flow is old people who want warm weather and cheap housing, something both Arizona and Florida have.

DeSantis also claims that since he just won a gubernatorial election in a landslide, he is a shoo-in to win the presidential election. Yes, DeSantis won reelection in Florida by 19 points in 2022. Congratulations. However, Michael Dukakis won reelection in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election in 1986 by 38 points—double DeSantis margin—and went on to lose the presidential election 2 years later. Being popular in your home state doesn't always translate into being popular nationally. Things that resonate with local voters don't always resonate with voters 1,000 miles away. Republicans might want to ask themselves if DeSantis is their Dukakis. (V)

A New Battle: Red States vs. Blue Cities

Many red states aren't completely red. Most have deep blue cities. And blue states often have deep-red rural counties. As a result, intrastate battles are heating up, and in all states, the states have the advantage over the local governments. This asymmetry is due to the Constitution. It grants certain powers to the federal government, but reserves the powers not enumerated to the states. It doesn't grant cities any powers at all. Any powers cities have, such as the ability to pass ordinances and the power to tax property, come from the states. The state legislatures are free to repeal any laws granting cities these powers anytime they want to and are increasingly doing so.

For example, housing prices are rising in Florida, so voters in Orange County (Orlando) passed a voter initiative last year to establish rent stabilization to keep landlords from increasing rents too fast. Republicans in the state legislature didn't like that so the state Senate just passed a bill to block the initiative. The GOP bill will probably become law soon. Other states are passing laws revoking cities' authority over school curriculums, minimum wages, and many other things where Democratic voters in cities and Republican state legislatures don't agree.

This is part of a trend from minimalist preemption to maximalist preemption. In the former case, cities were largely free to go their own way as long as they didn't violate any state laws. In the latter case, cities are not allowed to do anything at all unless the state legislature has granted explicit authority for them to do it by passing an enabling law. This shift is mostly clear in red states that want to hamstring blue cities. The reverse is rarely true. State legislatures in red states see big cities as potential powerful adversaries. This is especially true in the South. State legislatures in blue states rarely see thinly populated red counties as a serious threat.

For example, in the past few years, over 25 states have prohibited local governments from raising the minimum wage above the state minimum wage. Eighteen states forbid local governments from banning plastic bags. Twenty states have laws banning local ordinances prohibiting gas stoves. Forty-two states have laws preventing local governments from passing gun-related ordinances. Other issues states want to control are rent stabilization, affordable housing, zoning, taxes, LGBTQ+ rights, drag shows, abortion, and more. There is not much cities can do about that other than try to take over state legislatures, but that is difficult due to gerrymandering, which is up to the state legislatures.

A key principle here is subsidiarity. This says that control should be at the lowest level where it can do the job. It is a key organizing principle of the European Union. It is also referenced in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What does that mean, actually? It certainly says that the federal government has only the enumerated powers and no more. The founding parents would be shocked to see how big the federal government is today, but a lot of its powers come from the interstate commerce clause. But what does "or to the people"? mean. Does it suggest that some powers belong to authorities lower than the states, presumably meaning the counties, cities, school boards, water districts, etc.? The Supreme Court has never really clarified this. (V)

Let the Mud Wrestling Begin

Did you think the upcoming epic battle between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis would be about the issues? Like who will cut taxes for rich people more? Or who will be better at punishing woke corporations? Could be, but the initial round seems to be each one attacking the other's sex life. DeSantis recently brought up the Manhattan D.A.'s case by saying: "Look, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair." The meaning of the statement is extremely vague but it does bring up the subject of Trump having sex with a porn star. Trump responded by suggesting that DeSantis had an affair with underage female students and maybe with a man, even though there is weak evidence for the former (basically, one ambiguous photo) and no evidence at all for the latter.

Is this an aberration, and soon we will get back to taxes, immigration, and the like? Don't count on it. Trump wants to get under DeSantis' skin and thinks that hitting him on personal things might do it since DeSantis tries very hard to keep his private life out of his campaign. DeSantis, for his part, knows that at least some evangelicals don't like pornography or adultery, and tying Trump to both of them in one neat package might peel off some of them.

Private communications picked up by Rolling Stone suggest that Trump will soon attack DeSantis' voice for being effeminate. It's only a small step from there to being gay, right? Well, no, it isn't, but Trump wants to plant the seed.

The reality is that while their focuses are different and their styles are very different, waging a battle on the issues will be be tough for both candidates because they have similar views on many of them. These include taxes (cut them for rich people), immigration (stop it), crime (shoot first, ask questions later), inflation (it's Biden's fault), fossil fuels (good), sustainable energy (bad), abortion (murdering babies), and many other issues. There probably aren't enough policy differences to base a campaign on them, so there is going to be a lot of personal attacks and discussions of "character." These are only the first ones. Expect a lot more. (V)

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