President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

How did we not expect “shittweeting?”

 

Not many people remember, but his campaign bottomed out at one point before he won the nomination in 2008. He was the favourite in 2006 or so, and then he was in the toilet. Most of his staff left. He was running out of money. He decided he was going to keep going, but he was going to go back to basics. His way. He was going to speak almost exclusively to VFWs and small grassroots organizations in key states. We probably saw every inch of Iowa and New Hampshire. No joke, I think I've done every inch of road in New Hampshire.

His campaign was so small at one point, we flew from Iowa to New Hampshire on a 10-seat private plane, and only four seats were occupied. There was John; one of his old war buddies named Orson; one of his last staffers, a young woman named Brooke; and me. It was late. We ate cold Chinese food and flew in the dark. Orson and John were telling stories of their time in prison together. I can't remember the specifics, but one of them included John standing on Orson's shoulders to send messages via semaphore to other prisoners in the camp. Like, imagine that's the basis of your friendship? So we sat there on this plane, eating cold egg rolls, shooting the shit about war and sports and politics and life on the road. (John had an outsize love for Craig Counsell, incidentally.) John was pathologically incapable of being alone, and he abhorred silence. I think he kept me around mostly because I talk and say dumb things. He was entertained by my idiocy.

Anyway, we landed in the middle of the night in some godforsaken place in New Hampshire. Nobody was waiting for him at the airport. Not a soul. We had been laughing and joking on the flight, and now he looked crestfallen. I remember thinking, Well, maybe that was it. Maybe that's the end of it. In the morning, he'll call it quits.

But he kept going, and he rose from that night—an empty plane arriving at an empty airport—to secure the Republican nomination for president of the United States. For all his mistakes, he was stronger than any of us could ever dream of being.

 

Fantastic; thank you.

 

He had to have pondered in 2009 about the cruelty of fate that allowed him to win that nomination in the one election where it was a certain ticket to defeat, when if he'd won it in 2000 he'd likely have been President. An incumbent of his own party with a sub-30 approval rating and a global financial crisis six weeks before Election Day. That's why I think his asking GW Bush to do one of his eulogies is so amazing. Obama merely defeated him. Bush defeated him once, then sank him eight years later. To take that without bitterness is real character.

 

No problem. Nice memories. I feel lucky to have known him a little.

One of my nerdier campaign memories—John's speechwriter and co-author is a guy named Mark Salter. I really like Mark. He always looks like he's just woken up. Super, super smart. Knows a ton about history. Wrote in a sometimes arcane kind of way that could make some VFW speech sound like the Gettysburg Address.

Mark, then at least, was also a chainsmoker, especially when he was writing. I remember so many times he'd drag a desk or a table into a hotel parking lot, and he'd be sitting there, wrapped up in a blanket with snowdrifts around him, writing speeches in a swirl of smoke.

 

Not just that, but the 2000 nomination process was fucking ugly. After McCain won New Hampshire, robocalls (attributed to Karl Rove but never confirmed to have been him, I don't think) went out in South Carolina, push polls that talked about "John McCain's illegitimate black baby." John and Cindy McCain have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. I would have murdered over that. McCain asked the guy who beat him with such tactics to speak at this funeral.

 

I'd expect a high-profile popular historian/biographer like Jon Meacham or H.W. Brands will put out a full-scale bio of McCain at some point.

 

I saw that clip this morning. The timing... McCain reacts immediately. "No ma'am". There was no time for any political consideration. He could have rehearsed that in a mirror and had it in his pocket for when the time was right, sure, but if he was that good he should have gone Hollywood.

I think that moment was gut McCain, and it's how I prefer to remember him.

I would have voted for the Straight Talk Express.

 

That's because it is crazy. Our elections the past two decades, for all the time and money people spend trying to figure them out, have been unpredictable.

Florida. Post 9-11 some inexperienced young guy named Obama becomes super popular. Picking Palin. Howard Dean can't survive a strange noise, but Hillary and Trump get nominations despite actual scandals (not equating the two, but Hillary doesn't look good compared to other recent Dem nominees). All the circumstances that had to come together for Trump to actually win.

I wouldn't have bet money on any of that stuff actually happening and it all did.

 

The fact some of us don't think he really wrote that tweet says a lot about this president.

 

This is the politics thread; take all this kumbayah bullshit to the RIP McCain thread.



Kidding. Great stuff.