Handicapping the Race -- and I am sure to be completely Wrong!

 As of February, a crowded field is brimming with enthusiasm, and things look like they will be amazing as the race for President heats up. 

There will be a few over-riding themes:

Socialist Ascendancy:  The activist Democrat base has gone full Socialist.  (Never go full Socialist!)  The candidates will continue to lurch leftward as they try to capture the Bernie 2016 vote. 

Intersectionality for the Win!:  The victim Olympics require you to maximize your intersectionality points.   This explains why Kamala 'Horizontal' Harris has an early lead, and why Elizabeth Warren is desperate to get points for being an American Indian.  The candidates will battle it out for Victim of the Year status. 

Trump Derangement Syndrome: the Democrat candidates will compete for who hates Trump the most.  This will be evident at the personal and the policy level. 

 

Elizabeth Warren – Fauxcahontas is already dead politically.  Her botched attempt to claim Indian ancestry is full of lies and deception.   She has the charm and charisma of a priggish school marm with negative intersectional appeal.  She is awkward on camera, and has zero social media savvy.  She won’t rise above 3% in any primary, but will stick around through sheer stubbornness.

Amy Klobuchar – Who?  The long knives are already out for nasty Amy.  Tarred as a mean person, she lacks name recognition and star power.  The Media clearly have it in for her early in the process. 

Julian Castro – Julian lacks the branding to overcome the field.  He is Marco Rubio of the Democrat party.  He is a plausible candidate for 2024, but completely lacks name recognition and real accomplishments.

 

Tulsi Gabbard – Young and female are still not assets in a Presidential race.  She is only a Representative, and from the worst possible state to represent, electorally.  Hawaii is not politically relevant and neither is Gabbard.

Kirsten Gillibrand  -- She is the perfect Democratic candidate, a younger Hillary.  Her biggest asset, however,  is also her biggest liability.  She takes any political position at any time, often taking multiple positions in a single statement.  She will be branded a flip-flopper. 

Cory Booker – Spartacus is too transparently willing to say anything to score political points.  He is running on his record in Newark, which is just as much of a crap fest today as it was when he became Mayor.  Running as face of Newark is like plastering your name on outhouses.  Not the image you want, even if your brand is ‘insane guy’.

Kamala Harris – She will be torpedoed from the hard Left because of her history as a prosecutor.  She has all the charm and natural charisma of Hillary Clinton (which is to say…none) without the political savvy.  She will be nicknamed 'Horizontal Harris' by Trump as a reference for her preferred method of getting ahead.  She is the front runner, and s

he will wither and die on the campaign trail, and get destroyed ing debates.

Bernie Sanders – Bernie is in a tough spot.  Bernie had success in 2016 because he went to the Left of Hillary. There are currently several candidates that are running hard to the Left of 2016 Bernie.  Bernie is going to have a tough time getting any further to the Left than Harris, Booker and others that have embraced the Green New Deal. He can’t get further to the Left on immigration— Beto wants to tear down the existing walls at the border.  Bernie will have a hard time this cycle because the entire field is running as Bernie in 2020.  Oh. Also because he’s like 100 years old.

Pete Buttigieg – Who? Trump will nickname him Beavis and Buttigieg.  No chance. 

Bill Weld – Weld is a straight white guy who was Governor of Massachusetts.  He is Mitt Romney without the support of the Mormon vote.  He is one of the least insane candidates in the field, and therefore won’t poll more than 2%. 

Marianne Williamson – Authors and lecturers are too smart for politics.  She has never won elected office and won’t make it out of Iowa.

John Delaney – Who?  Zero name recognition will doom this non-intersectional candidate. 

Beto O’Rourke – Robert has the media behind him in a way that other candidates do not.  No one has more fawning articles written about him, and he attracted national attention in his failed Senate bid.  Despite the media fawning over him, he does have some awkwardness on stage, and he has had some awkward first steps.   Media support will put him over the top against more intersectional candidates. 

My prediction for the winner:  the guy with the Media backing and the telegenic presence.  

Beto will end up with the Nomination. 

Mandatory Background Checks will have no effect on Crime

The Democrats are going for mandatory background checks on all gun transfers. 

This law will have massive costs, create tens of millions of felons through civil disobedience, and have zero effect on gun violence. 

This proposed law, like virtually all gun control proposals, would not have stopped a single mass shooting in the past 20 years, as an example of how little effect it would have.

The Democrats are currently proposing that all firearms transfers would need to be conducted through a Federal Background check.  Let's review the possible categories that this law would effect:

Sell a gun to a lawful possessor -- the law would have no effect here other than to inconvenience both parties. It would also incur a hefty transaction cost.  For example, my friend, a legal gun owner, sold me, a legal gun owner, a 20 GA youth pump shotgun for $100.  Forcing us to do a background check imposes a 25-50% tax on the transaction for no benefit.  The law does nothing here but impose costs and aggravation.

Sell a gun to a prohibited possessor -- This is already illegal.  Prohibited possessors are...wait for it... prohibited from possessing a gun.  This would making selling a gun to a felon double-illegal. 

Loan a gun to a lawful possessor -- This would impose massive inconvenience on gun owners for no benefit of any kind.  A friend of mine has asked me to store his firearms while he is in the midst of a bad divorce.  Under this law, doing my friend a favor would result in a background check and some multiple of transfer fees.  And when it was time for me to give him his guns back, we would have to repeat the process in reverse.  This is massive imposition on lawful gun owners for no reason.

Loan a gun to a prohibited possessor -- This is already illegal.  Prohibited possessors are...wait for it... prohibited from possessing a gun.  This would making giving a gun to a felon double-illegal. 

The FBI crime statistics reveal that crime guns are stolen or purchased on the black market.  Very few, if any, crime guns are obtained at gun shows or through private transfers.  This law would prevent exactly ZERO crimes.

It would, however, create a massive bureaucracy, cost billions of dollars, impose severe restriction on lawful gun owners, create a national registry of guns that would to nothing to reduce crime, and everything to increase the risk to gun owners that this information would be misused. 

Democrats are going for Full Gun Registration

Democrats are going for full gun registration.

Sure, they call it 'closing the gun show loophole', or 'mandatory background checks', but in reality, it is a call for full gun registration.

Any law that bans private sales of firearms will necessarily require gun registration.  Let's assume that I own over 20 firearms.  How will the police be able to tell which of them I bought with a background check and which I did not?   If there is no list of 'pre-background check' firearms, I can simply claim I bought the guns prior to the ban. 

Possession would also have to be deemed the equivalent of ownership, as it is currently for the prohibitions against felons carrying a gun.  If I have gun in my possession and the police demand to see evidence I passed a background check, I could simply claim it is not my gun, I am simply 'holding it for a friend'. 

In order for such a law to work, every firearm in the country would need to be registered with the government.  The government can then check the list of legal guns against what I have in my possession, and charge me with a crime for any discrepancies. 

This is an insanely dangerous and likely un-constitutional law. 

It would instantly turn tens of millions of law abiding gun owners into felons, as registration rates would fall well short of actual ownership.