Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the music for the great Broadway hit, Fiddler on the Roof¸ wrote a song earlier (1955) that seems fitting today.
They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain.
There are hurricanes in Florida.
And Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don’t like anyone very much.
He called it “The Merry Minuet,” and it became a big hit in ’56 for the Kingston Trio.
It seems to fit our times, almost 70 years later, with a few nationality changes. Palestinians, Jews, Russians, Ukranians, Republicans, Democrats. And so forth.
While the world seethes with 2023 Merry Minuets, we’re are reminded that we are only a year away from The Big Political Dance of ’24—The Election.
The pundits made sure last week that we know it.
Biden wants to shuffle onto the podium in January 2025 and be sworn in again. Trump wants to rant his way to the podium to begin his revenge tour in earnest.
Will the zoo animals in the Capitol have passed a budget by then?
A year away from the national election and you and I are in a runaway stage coach driven by headless horsemen.
Donald, who promised to drain the swamp in 2016 is now living proof of the old adage that, “If you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s too late to drain the swamp.”
Joe, who has presided over a pretty strong economic recovery can’t find enough ears who can hear abot it over the cacophony of today’s politics when he tells us how good we have it.
A year away, and—-what?
A year is a long time in politics. Nothing is a given a year out in politics.
Kelly Gordon and Dean Kay put it this way in a song popularizd by Frank Sinatra;
You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.
A political career can become political careening in a matter of days or hours. We’ve seen it happen time and again in Missouri politics as well as nationally.
Joe is growing older and vows to run for re-election. Trump is growing older, too, and is running from coviction.
What is the backup plan for both parties if decisions are made by others for both of these guys’ goals? And a key issue, not often on the front page despite its great importance a year away, is who will be their running mate—because, at their ages and the different uncertainties about their abilities to serve second terms, our parties might wind up nominating someone who either won’t make it to inauguration day or, if inaugurated, might not last the next four years?
Both parties do have rules allowing replacement of candidats on the national ticket. Older Missourians will remember when Tom Eagleton resigned as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after information was leaked that Eagleton had undergone shock therapy for depression and exhaustion three times in the early to mid-60s. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of President Kennedy and founder of the Peace Corps.
Ballotpedia lists these folks as potential VP candidates in 2024:
For the Democrats:
Incumbent Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressman Lauren Underwood of Illinois, U. S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgie, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
On the Republican side: U. S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, Congresswoman marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, 2022 failed governor candidate Kari Lake of Arizona, Congresswoman Nancy Made of South Carolina, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, New York Congresswoman Elise Stevanik.
They have a year to show that they not only are Vice-Presidential material, but would be logical people to pick up the torch if either of the old men lay it down or are forced to lay it down.
If, within the next year, Joe winds up in a home and Donald winds up in the big house, who becomes the most viable person to take their places on the ticket? Are there others who will emerge in the months ahead? Any number of circumstances could lead to the most chaotic but interesting and significant conventions in decades, events that could lead to a lot of negotiations in vape-filled rooms if the two people most determined to fight for the job suddenly drop out of the picture after the primaries and before the conventions or are determined by the conventioneers to be bad choices after all.
Although the two leading figures in both parties don’t want us to think about it, there is no sure thing about politics in 2024.
You’re riding high in April, shot down in MayBut I know I’m gonna change that tuneWhen I’m back on top, back on top in June
…I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race
That’s life (that’s life)
I tell you, I can’t deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it
We only hope our heart can stand it.
We’re a year away. A long time.
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