Oh, for the best, expect the worst, some preach and pain, some tiredness, the way of knowing which way it's going.

Oh, for the best, expect the worst.

Welcome to the commentary magazine Daily Podcast today is Friday, May 12, 2023.

I'm John Puphord, the editor of commentary magazine with me as always executive editor,

A Greenwald Hype.

Hi, John.

Media commentary columnist Christine Rosen, Hyde Christine.

Hi, John.

And Christine's colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington commentary columnist, Matthew Contnetti. Hi, Matt.

Hi, John.

Matt, we're going to talk about Title 42 in the immigration crisis, but Matt does have a piece out this morning reflecting on some of the things we've been talking about this week about the invisibility of the Republican primary by which I think you what you mean by that is that there's a front runner and none of the other candidates are talking about the liabilities problems or difficulties of the front runner.

But thus raising the question of what it is that they're doing.

And you make the point you try to sort of, um,

D romanticize or bring back into portion the fact of Trump's actual political power in the United States, which is to say that aside from the astonishing victory in 2016 his record is bad his record his own re-election

and the effect that he had on the Republican Party in 2018, 2020 and 2022, which would suggest of all the ability, but we see that there are people running against him who are not doing anything to enhance this message of vulnerability to other Republicans and therefore he just seems to be walled sing in to

the domination.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I was just thinking about previous primary cycles where typically you have a front runner and the natural response of the people who want to climb in front of the front runner is to attack him or her.

And that's the, you know, I've been my first presidential campaign was 2004, you know, I'm a youngster, but that was the case in the Democratic primary in 2004, you know, how our dean kind of exploded over the summer of 2003 and then they all started trying to his rivals started scrambling to try to figure out how to attack him and.

You know, get part was caught up in that and John Kerry eventually got the nomination john Edwards was involved and then in08 the same thing, you know, you had Rudy Giuliani was a very strong front runner in 2007, McCain's campaign looked like it had collapsed Mitt Romney was in the mix and in the December of 2007, McCain started really talking about the success of the search in Iraq kind of hitting Romney on his lukewarm support for the surge.

And McCain comes and would they course with Obama and Hillary it was the same thing Hillary was just a formidable front runner in 2008 all through 2007 until basically November, December and Obama really starts making the case for change and leadership.

And my point in the column at the free beacon this morning is well, no one's making the case for a change and in fact everyone is defending Trump, which is kind of amazing, you know, you have Nikki Haley the former South Carolina governor.

Who is she's a woman in case we haven't noticed and the headlines out of the sexual assault and defamation verdict in New York, she completely avoided the question entirely she didn't want to talk about it that's his case she said that's not my case I want to talk about well what else do you want to talk about your you're in single digits the only way you get out of single digits is by attacking the front.

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