Eyes on the prize, not on the sideshows!

Forget about personalities for a moment. The President of the United States has very specific powers under the U.S. Constitution and numerous responsibilities according to long-established practices, no matter who holds the office. These are some of the major Presidential and Vice Presidential duties that will help determine how the entire nation runs over the next four years:

  • Face of the nation: A President represents the U.S. on foreign visits, typically gets a ton of media nationally and internationally, and addresses the nation.
  • Policy direction: While Congress actually makes and passes bills, the President or administration can recommend courses of action that become bills.
  • Veto power: Congress could pass the best bills known to mankind, but a President can kill them with one stroke of a veto pen.
  • Commander In Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces: An immense responsibility in times of war, declared or undeclared.
  • Nominations of Supreme Court and federal judges: In today’s heavily partisan judicial environment, Presidential nominations can make a difference in the Supreme Court balance or how decisions are made in lower courts. Of course, nominations need Senatorial confirmation.
  • Nominations for Cabinet or department head positions: The President nominates key federal leadership positions, like Secretaries of Defense, Interior, or State. Again, they need Senatorial confirmation.
  • Executive Orders: Presidents can issue Executive Orders, which carry the weight of law but can be stricken down in the courts.
  • Succession: If a President is for any reason unable to continue, the Vice President takes over, and the Vice President is normally from the President’s political party.
  • Senate ties: The Vice President can and does vote to break tie votes in the Senate.

There’s more, but these are some of the top issues that will really matter when it comes to the workings of the federal government, and to a not-insignificant extent much of the world. Presidential terms are for four years, and Presidents are limited to two terms in office.

Our Presidential election is still determined under the Electoral College, a bit of an odd system developed in the 1780s, but it’s the law. Each state gets a number of electoral votes, based on its number of members of Congress (House and Senate). Most states award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote, but some states award some of their votes by congressional district, and some states allow Electors to vote for whoever they want – even if the candidate isn’t on the ballot!

A candidate must earn at least 270 Electoral votes to win. But if it’s a tie (possible, since we have an even number of total votes) or if no single candidate earns 270, the election goes to the House of Representatives, which to me is a troubling eventuality that ought to change ASAP, except it’s in the U.S. Constitution so we’re stuck with it for now. If the election goes to the House, each state gets one vote, so California and its 40-some million people count the same as Wyoming and its 600,000. Sorry – that’s messed up.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, Democratic

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris is the current Vice President of the United States under President Joe Biden, serving from 2021 until now. As most readers know, Biden was running for President until late July 2024, but dropped out largely over concerns about his age and ability to handle the job. He endorsed Harris as his replacement, who received the vast, vast majority of DNC delegate votes and became the Democratic nominee. She has also worked as City Attorney and District Attorney for San Francisco, Attorney General for the State of California, and was elected as a U.S. Senator from California in 2016, serving in the Senate until she was sworn in as Vice President.

Vice Presidents are generally not in the spotlight to the same extent that Presidents are, so it’s not as easy to write about “her” record over the past four years as it would have been for Biden. Interested readers can find stupendous amounts of information about Biden through The American Presidency Project, but his administration’s record includes a few really big highlights and some lowlights:

  • Guided the nation through “pandemic recovery,” since Biden/Harris took office less than a year after the World Health Organization declared the COVID outbreak a pandemic.
  • Strong general economic performance, with nearly 11 million new jobs since 2021 and a low unemployment rate – the pandemic cost jobs and the rate hit 14.8% in April 2020 before Biden took office, but it improved to as low as 3.4% in April 2023. It’s gone up to above 4% in the most recent months.
  • Led the passage of some very significant federal bills, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the American Rescue Plan Act
  • Biden, with Senatorial confirmation, got 213 Article III judges appointed during his term as of early October 2024. One of them was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. There were also 28 active nominations awaiting Senatorial confirmation in early October.
  • There have been major international wars and conflicts during Biden’s term, including in Gaza (plus in the broader region surrounding Israel) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of October 2024, neither conflict appears near resolution, and both conflicts have included large numbers of casualties and destruction.
  • Some of the pandemic response federal spending almost certainly contributed to high inflation, though it’s reduced from a high of 9.1% in July 2022 (some prefer the “core inflation” rate, removing food and fuel from the measure, which was 5.9%) to today’s 2.9%.

There has been some discussion during the campaign about Harris not offering a lot of super-precise policy objectives, which might be attributable in part due to her working for Biden for the past three and a half years and only becoming the Democratic nominee quite recently. Still, major-party presidential candidates can and should face honest and tough scrutiny over how they plan to lead the nation, and this is whether Harris plans to largely play off of Biden’s agenda at first or not.

Readers can find her most current policy outlines on her website at https://kamalaharris.com/issues/ , and here are a few additional points voters might wish to consider:

  • During her September debate with Trump, she spoke about offering $50,000 tax credits to small businesses to minimize the cost burden of starting a new company, and $6,000 tax credits to parents of newborns.
  • At least according to public statements, Harris has recently called for a cease-fire in Gaza, a release of Israeli hostages, and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Readers might want to check this New York Times story for a side-by-side comparison on the positions of both Harris and Trump.
  • Harris has backed away from statements she made in years of the past about banning fracking, and large numbers of oil and gas permits were issued during the Biden years, but Harris said she intends to work toward a “clean energy economy” in which the U.S. invests in “clean” technology including electric vehicles, and adds jobs in non-fossil-fuel energy generation industries.
  • She wants to restore Roe v. Wade, or guarantee abortion rights nationwide, but she couldn’t do that as President without legislative majorities and probably eliminating the filibuster in the Senate.
  • According to Council on Foreign Relations(.org), she has “played a leading role in developing U.S. policy toward Artificial Intelligence (AI),” and news sources are giving her credit for work toward this Executive Order on AI policy that was issued in October 2023. Incidentally, the Council on Foreign Relations link above is a very good source for more information about Harris as a candidate and her work during the Biden years.
  • Before she was the Democratic nominee, she addressed a conference in Germany and called NATO “the greatest military alliance the world has ever known.” During that speech, she reaffirmed the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine, and in late September she told Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in person that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine.

Harris named Tim Walz as her running mate in August 2024. In very short, Walz is the current Governor of Minnesota and in his second term; was a member of the U.S. House from Minnesota for 12 years; served in the U.S. Army National Guard for 24 years; and worked as an educator in China, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

I don’t intend to write long passages about Vice Presidential candidates to keep this post at a manageable length, but voters might wish to dig deeper on their own because a Vice President is next in line should something happen to the President.

Campaign Website: https://kamalaharris.com/

Donald Trump and JD Vance, Republican

Donald Trump

Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States, serving from 2017 until 2021 after Biden defeated him in the 2020 election. Before running for President, Trump was best known as a real estate manager and developer, including ventures into golf courses and casinos, and as the host of the reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Trump had not served as an elected official before becoming President. He was impeached but not removed from office twice, in early 2020 and early 2021.

There are extensive records of the Trump years like this link from the American Presidency Project, but here are a few highlights and lowlights (depending perhaps on point of view) to get you started:

  • One of his first policy victories was getting the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, known informally as the “Trump Tax Bill,” signed into law. In very short, supporters expected the tax cuts to stimulate economic activity, while opponents said it would mostly benefit the wealthy and expand the national debt. This might not all be because of this bill, but the debt expanded by about $8 trillion during the Trump years.
  • Trump nominated 234 Article III federal judges that were confirmed during his term, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
  • The conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority struck down Roe v. Wade during the Trump years, with the Dobbs decision basically turning abortion policy over to the states, and conservative states were then able to propose or pass abortion restrictions of various severity.
  • The U.S. was not involved in new conflicts at the magnitude of Ukraine or Gaza during the Trump years, but that doesn’t mean there was no U.S. military action taken during that time. Readers might wish to skim this Wikipedia page for an outline of foreign policy actions from 2017-2021.
  • In 2017, he issued an executive order called the “Travel Ban,” in essence prohibiting people from largely Muslim nations from entering the U.S. He also issued an executive order that year rolling back environmental protections from the Obama era.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic basically began in late 2019 or early 2020, and perhaps 350,000 Americans died from COVID in 2020. Trump himself became very sick with COVID, but received experimental antibody treatments not available to most Americans and recovered.
  • Operation Warp Speed, a massive federal effort to fight the pandemic, commenced and was funded during Trump’s final year in office. The President himself put out puzzling statements about unproven treatments and the likelihood that COVID would just end soon, but Warp Speed did facilitate vaccine development and other public health responses.
  • He was impeached for the first time in early 2020, in part after withholding military aid to Ukraine in an effort to get information about Biden that he believed could have damaged Biden’s campaign and helped Trump win re-election.
  • Trump gave a speech on Jan. 6, 2021, which many believe helped incite violence or poured fuel on the fire that became the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on the same day. This led to his second House impeachment in January 2021.

Trump has given some indications about his intended policy direction during this campaign, such as intending to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, but also some vague non-statements like saying he had “concepts of a plan” for health care during his September debate with Harris. There is a 20-point platform outline available on Trump’s website at https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform.

There has also been a great deal of public interest regarding “Project 2025,” a conservative vision for the future from The Heritage Foundation that includes a roughly 900-page document called “Mandate for Leadership” with lots of policy suggestions on issues including the economy, governance, health care, immigration, and so much more. In public statements, Trump normally denies direct connections with Project 2025, but some of the various authors actually worked in the Trump administration, and Trump has said there are good ideas in Project 2025 while he’s also said he won’t read it. This story from Forbes includes statements from people who at least say Trump knows about Project 2025 and supports it. One way or another, it doesn’t seem like he has his stories straight.

Readers interested in what a modern conservative agenda might look like, Trump or no Trump, could visit the Project 2025 website directly or pore through any of a huge number of stories and opinion pieces available on the Web, like this one from CBS News. Boulder voters in particular might wish to consider that part of the Mandate for Leadership document said a new government should “break up NOAA” – the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that has a very significant campus in Boulder – calling NOAA “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

Trump’s running mate in 2024, J.D. Vance, is a current U.S. Senator from Ohio who was elected in 2022. He served as a military journalist with the U.S. Marine Corps for four years. He earned a law degree from Yale Law School, and worked as a corporate lawyer before turning his focus to venture capital. He is the author of “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” and a film version of the book was released in late 2020.

Campaign Website: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

Chase Oliver and Mike Ter Maat, Libertarian

Chase Oliver worked in the restaurant industry for about 13 years before becoming involved in political activism, per Wikipedia. He has not served in elected office, but finished sixth in a 2020 Georgia 5th Congressional District special election, and finished third in the 2022 Georgia U.S. Senate general election. In both elections, Oliver ran as a Libertarian, but Wikipedia notes that he supported former President Obama in 2008 before becoming a Libertarian in 2010.

For a few points on Oliver’s policy stances, per his website:

  • He supports reducing federal spending and “printing money,” in part to help limit inflation.
  • He supports simplifying the U.S. immigration procedure so immigrants who clear background checks can become legal workers faster.
  • As a Libertarian, he supports ending a wide range of government restrictions, including restricting abortions “before viability” and drug criminalization.
  • He supports gun ownership rights, stating that people should have the right of self-defense.
  • He opposes American involvement in what he calls “endless wars,” and would prefer policies based on international goodwill and free trade.

Mike Ter Maat has worked as a businessman, economist, and police officer. He has not held elected office, but ran as a Libertarian and finished third in a 2022 Congressional special election for Florida’s 20th Congressional District.

Campaign Website: https://votechaseoliver.com/

Jill Stein and Butch Ware, Green Party

Jill Stein graduated from the Harvard School of Medicine, going on to work in internal medicine, as a professor of medicine, and as an environmental activist and author. She was elected to the Massachusetts local body Lexington Town Meeting in 2005 and 2008. Stein has also run unsuccessfully for a number of offices, including: Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010; the Massachusetts state legislature in 2004; and President of the U.S. in 2012 and 2016.

There’s a super-brief sample from Stein’s website of policy positions that she supports below, and readers should know there are many, many other positions listed on her site:

  • Free public education for all, and elimination of student debt
  • Tax reductions for people earning below the real median income
  • Transitioning all utilities to public nonprofit status
  • Banning corporate stock buy-backs
  • Codifying Roe v. Wade
  • Ending the “war on drugs”
  • She wants what she calls a “Real Green New Deal,” which could go beyond what we’ve seen proposed in other Green New Deals to include a fracking ban, a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure, and cuts in military spending to help free up money for programs and projects
  • She would socialize “big agribusiness,” foster more organic farming, and ban pesticides.

Butch Ware is an educator who has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. He is currently a historian of West Africa at the University of California – Santa Barbara.

Campaign Website: https://www.jillstein2024.com/

Cornel West and Melina Abdullah, Unity Party

Cornel West is a long-time philosophy professor, as well as an author and music producer. He is currently a professor at Union Theological Seminary, and was a professor at Harvard plus a Professor Emeritus at Princeton. He has written 20 books, including Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and has produced three music albums. He had not run for elected office until this cycle. He has been involved in political activism on a number of fronts, including supporting Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. He worked as a senior advisor to then-Presidential candidate Bill Bradley in the 2000 election, and was an honorary chairman of Democratic Socialists of America.

West has a fairly lengthy Platform page on his website to outline many of his positions, but here are a few highlights:

  • Favors gun safety measures including a national registry, national Red Flag laws, and gun ownership licensing requirements
  • A proposal called “Beyond Medicare for All” that includes access to health care but also a holistic approach to help ensure the health of the individual
  • Supports “dismantling U.S. imperialism” and cutting military budgets
  • Full support for reproductive rights, saying bodily autonomy is a fundamental right
  • Supports reparations for Black U.S. citizens

Melina Abdullah is Professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA’s College of Ethnic Studies, as well as Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter – Los Ángeles and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, where she is also Director. She is also a writer and radio producer.

Campaign Website: https://www.cornelwest2024.com/

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his Presidential campaign in August 2024, but his name will still be on the Colorado Presidential ballot. I cannot recommend voting for a candidate whose campaign is suspended, and that means I won’t be taking the time and space to write anything of substance about him here.

Also On Your Ballot

The following candidates have qualified for the Colorado ballot, but I’m not going to write about them because they will not be competitive. You can click on the links listed here for website URLs, though I couldn’t easily find sites for all candidates.

Richard’s Take

Vote Harris and Walz. I almost always want to focus first on the positive attributes of the candidate I endorse, but in this case I must strongly urge readers to remember four words.

Trump must be defeated.

Next, guess the arch-liberal who said this:

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

Yep, it was none other than former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney.

I hope voters who are still undecided will set aside the side-shows and take a second look at the beginning of this post. There’s an election between personalities in 2024, but the results of this election will manifest through the workings of the entire federal government over the next four years.

For one vitally important example – anyone who doesn’t like the workings of the conservative U.S. Supreme Court must understand that the current conservative majority was put in place by George W. Bush and Trump. If Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would have won tight elections in 2000 and 2016, the very composition of the Supreme Court would be completely different. Why give Trump a chance to appoint more Justices in his own image?

Never again!

But I won’t deny there is the gigantic sideshow. Trump’s record of malfeasance both in and out of office is simply too severe and extensive to excuse. His role in inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection alone frankly ought to be enough to forever keep him out of the White House, but there’s so much more:

  • He had a record of legal conflict way before he ever ran for office. This Wikipedia page outlines some of Trump’s thousands of legal cases, a number involving taxes, business practices, and fraud. It’s worth a skim if only to understand the magnitude, but I’ll add in fairness that he didn’t lose all the cases mentioned here.
  • He’s also had a long history of sexual misconduct, alleged or otherwise, and again there’s a Wikipedia page that can help illustrate the magnitude. He was convicted of sexual abuse in the recent E. Jean Carroll case, and was also convicted on 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money case – in which keeping this affair out of the press might have saved his 2016 campaign.
  • There has never in U.S. history been a Presidential candidate who ran after being impeached, but Trump’s been impeached twice.
  • A whole bunch of people involved with Trump’s campaigns have been charged and/or convicted of crimes, including Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, his attorney Michael Cohen, and Roger Stone.

I could go on, and on, and on, like if we want to talk about his pressuring of the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” more votes so he could win the state in 2020. But I think readers get the picture. It frankly boggles my mind that Trump can even still be in this race given his record, plus he’s 78 years old and showing signs of the aging that knocked Biden off the ticket – but we’d better be honest, under the Electoral College he has a chance to win.

Harris has a solid record of service, including as Attorney General in the largest state in the Union, a term in the U.S. Senate, and four years as Vice President. She is extremely intelligent and performed admirably in her debate against Trump on Sept. 10 – I’ve seen a fair number of polls saying she was a clear victor, and Trump probably won’t debate her again. Anyone who is not a serious Presidential-level geek probably never sees even a tiny fraction of news about the VP relative to news about the President, myself included. But my recent digging into Harris’ positions and experiences has given me a lot of confidence in her ability to handle the job, knowledge I didn’t completely have when there was debate over whether Biden should drop out of the race.

Walz has served his country in the National Guard, held a seat in Congress for six terms, and governed a reasonably large state in Minnesota. I personally think he did a better and more truthful job than Vance in their VP debate, with very good command of the issues. However, Vance is a smooth speaker and some polls seemed to indicate a dead heat, even though morning fact-checking revealed substantially more mistruths or mistakes coming from Vance than from Walz.

We’ll all agree and disagree with some of their policies and proposals, but Harris/Walz is a solid ticket and you’ll get competent governance, which is very largely what matters. I cannot guarantee that there might not be scandal over the next four years if Harris wins, but I think I can guarantee it won’t reach the levels of Trump’s presidency.

I can understand why people might want options to Democrats and Republicans, but voting a minor-party candidate in 2024 instead of voting Harris/Walz is an extremely dangerous action with very little upside. Under the Electoral College, only one candidate will receive all of Colorado’s Electoral votes, and that’s what the election is literally about. I don’t expect Colorado’s election to be super-close, but why risk it? If Trump wins Colorado, it might swing the entire election and we’d be stuck with more weirdness and probably more scandal for four long years.

Just vote Harris/Walz and make sure we don’t put Trump and his troublesome cast of allies and supporters back in power, plus let your friends in swing states know that’s what they need to do. This is deadly serious.

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