Why Economic Conservatives Must Stop The Donald At The 269-Vote Line

It looks increasingly like the causes of liberty, peace, free markets, fiscal rectitude, sound money and small government are getting a serendipitous last chance. That is to say, with Biden potentially going down in flames, we can now look to Robert F. Kennedy Jr and/or the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to assure that the Donald doesn’t get a reprise in the Oval Office, either.

At this point in the election season, it is already truly difficult to see how Biden can cross the finish line in the regular way through a popular vote and Electoral College majority. And that’s to say nothing of what may be the virtual impossibility of that after the Dems reenact the 1968 Chicago convention fiasco in the one and same  “windy city” two months from now.

As it happens, fully 88 of Biden’s 306 electoral votes from 2020 are now in play in eight battleground states. Yet he faces the exceedingly challenging task of retaining at least 52 of these votes to stay at the 270 margin required to carry the Electoral College.

The Biden/blue states in play and their electoral votes are as follows:

• Arizona: 11.

• Georgia: 16.

• Pennsylvania: 20.

• Michigan: 16.

• Wisconsin: 10.

• Nevada 6.

• New Mexico: 5.

• New Hampshire: 4

So Biden might well be stopped, but the fly in the ointment, of course, is that 38 or more of these in-play votes could go to Donald  Trump, thereby bringing him to the magic 270 number (from 232) and back to the Oval Office. The job of small government, anti-war economic conservatives, therefore, is crystal clear. They must move heaven and earth to assure that as many of these battleground electoral votes as possible go to RFK, but that in no event do 38 or more go to Donald J. Trump.

The fact is, the Donald stands for none of the core values enumerated above. Yet the MAGA rank and file has greeted him like he was the second coming— if not of Jesus Christ, then at least Grover Cleveland.

We reference the great Grover Cleveland not only or even mainly because he was the one historic case of winning the White House (1884), losing his reelection bid (1888) and then winning again the third time around the track (1892).

Far more importantly, Grover Cleveland was the anti-Trump. He stood for something worth winning the White House to advance. That is, staunch adherence to sound money under the gold standard, free trade, budget surpluses, non-intervention abroad and a small Federal government in Washington.

Needless to say, the Donald is about his own advancement and glory rather than any of these principles. We dare say he has never made the acquaintance of most of them.

Indeed, without welfare domestically and foreign wars abroad, Cleveland was able to leave the $1.62 billion public debt he inherited 25% lower at $1.22 billion when he left office. That was a far cry from the Donald’s $8 trillion add to the national debt—more than the first 43 presidents during the initial 216 years of the republic managed to accomplish on a combined basis.