While some question if there will be a November General election?
That is just plays to Donald nTrump’s fantasy …
There WILL be a election…
The campaigning IS gonna be unlike anything we have seen in modern times…
And it IS already running….
And Republicans ARE working to suppress as much of the vote as they can by working against mail-in voting….
….the 200-day stretch of campaign that still stands between now and November 5, it has also brought home a stark new reality. Though the primary has followed a largely traditional path, it is now clear that long before we hit November, campaigns will be in totally uncharted waters.
The coronavirus pandemic poses challenges to the candidates and their operative unlike any ever seen or even anticipated. From the earliest days of American politics, the whole system has been driven by interaction with people: from Fourth of July speeches to door-to-door canvassing to conventions themselves. Even in the age of TV and social media, political fortunes rest on in-person contact, and candidates being in the right place and the right time—precisely what cannot happen now.
With some kind of social distancing policy possibly in place for months, and no vaccine on the horizon till next year at the earliest, campaign insiders are already asking questions that don’t appear to have any good answers. How do you hold a safe convention, or create a new kind of “virtual” event that accomplishes anything a convention is supposed to do? How do you try to unify a party without being able to bring any of its factions together for face-to-face negotiating? What kind of a campaign can you even run if the key element of a campaign—regular, in-person visits to battleground states—is off the table? How do you mount a “get out the vote” campaign if door-to-door canvassing and sign-up efforts at mass rallies are out of the question?
To get a sense of what we may be seeing in the weeks and months ahead, I asked veterans of past campaigns, both Republicans and Democrats, how they might grapple with these dilemmas. Here’s what they foresee, and what they worry about….
Yes we have never seen a campaign like this one that’s developing.
Likely, no conventions ,in the sense of traditional ones , no rallies, .at least with large audiences.
Will there be debates?If so, likely without an audience.(haven’t seen that since 1960)
We are definitely in unchartered territory here.
He, he, he….
Trump and a debate?