05-19-2019, 11:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-20-2019, 12:11 AM by Eric the Green.)
(05-19-2019, 10:23 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: For #2, I was awaiting the announcement of anyone with significant achievement in public life (especially being a current or former Governor or US Senator or cabinet secretary, but even a current Congressional representative, big-city mayor, or military hero) who is not preposterously old (let us say Bob Dole). Weld was Governor of a State whose governorship Republicans rarely win.
The point is 'significant'. Thus a joke such as the deceased Harold Stassen as a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency does not qualify. The current list of serious candidates on the Democratic side includes a mayor of a moderate-sized city (Pete Buttegieg, South Bend); should a Republican mayor of a city of similar size run against Donald Trump I would have to include him. It's hard to think of any war heroes who would run as Republicans.
If the intra-party challenger is some other rich plutocrat, then because that person has the same qualification as Trump before running for President, he would have to be added.
Possibly, but (s)he or any candidate would have to demonstrate some standing in the polls and in the primaries and caucuses to be considered a factor in the Lichtman Key #2. Lichtman said as much in 2016. So far that hasn't happened, and I see no-one willing or able on the horizon who might fill the bill. I knew about Buttigieg well before he announced, and scored him, so he was no surprise to me. But who knows; someone could appear, and then #2 is subject to change, IMO. It seems unlikely enough now that I can't give the Democrats the key on that one or change it to green.
Trump was an allegedly rich plutocrat, and also a celebrity and a TV star who played the role of an executive, so all that put him in the running.