Thoughts on Iowa

by: john Harrison

Former President Trump is getting a lot of great press about his recent victory in the Iowa Caucus. However, all is not what it seems. Fifty years ago, on March 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson appeared on national television and announced that he was partially halting the U.S. bombing of Vietnam, and that he had decided not to seek his party’s nomination for president. LBJ had barely survived a surprisingly strong primary challenge from antiwar Sen. Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire, who took 42 percent of the vote to LBJ’s 48 percent on March 12. So, while former President Trump won in Iowa by 51% and thereby bettered former President Johnson, it still means that in 2024, this year, this election, that at least 49% of Republicans, would prefer a different candidate, and it is only a little more than half of the well over 90% support that former President Trump received in the 2020 Iowa Caucus. It really ought not to have been taken as such good news for the former President’s current candidacy, but it has been.

I predict that Nikki Haley will “win” in New Hampshire. For a current, or former president to not to receive at least 75% of the vote in a party primary is disastrous. If a candidate cannot dominate his own party, while they may “win” the primary, they will lose the election. Simply stated, a candidate needs to have at least almost all of their Party’s vote to win. While former President Trump has an incredibly strong base in the Republican Party, it is also clear that even in probably the most conservative Republican Party primary state that he also has a growing part of the Republican Party that prefers another candidate, almost any candidate.

The truth is that the Iowa Caucus has not predicted a winning Republican Party candidate since at least 2000. There is a “fact checker” that says that this is not correct even for Republican candidates, but it is wrong. They seem to think that the Iowa Caucus predicted a winning Republican candidate because it predicted Trump in 2020, when he lost, even though it predicted Cruz in 2016, when Cruz lost. In the most accurate words I can think of, this is a profoundly stupid conclusion, incredibly stupid, just stupid. I think you get the idea.

I hope Nikki Haley wins in New Hampshire. I hope President Biden withdraws from the election. I am 77 years old, I want to vote “for” someone for President while I am alive, rather than voting against the other candidate. Can we make it happen?   

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My book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive  is available on Amazon both as a paperback and on Kindle. It is a Five Star book with lots of reviews, many by others that were there as well. Please give it a look. See; Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive 1968

Recent Reviews of Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive:

“John Harrison does an eloquent job writing what it was like being in the infantry during the Vietnam war. I know, I was in the infantry in Vietnam. There is a statistic which states that only 1 out of 10 who served in Vietnam were in the infantry. All of us have been asked what that was like at one point since our return. It is an impossible question for most of us to answer in part much less in full. John Harrison manages to do this in his book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive. So, if you are inclined and wonder what it was like, or you want to tell someone else what you went through, buy this book. Show it to your friend, show it to your family. It tells your story. To, “LT” John Harrison- thank you Sir.Salute.”

“John Harrison’s book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive, is a series of short stories, told mostly in the first person, that weaves together the humor and violence that only a talented writer can accomplish. The result is a compelling book that is hard to put down. John’s words flow easily on the pages, making an easy read. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has been there and did that, or anyone wanting to know a personal record of one lucky Lieutenant in Vietnam and the people that made it possible for him to return home.
Dan Hertlein, helicopter mechanic with the 192nd AHC at LZ Betty 1968″

“John is the soldier speaking the truest story of Vietnam. I will confirm his action as I was in a different company same battalion, fighting the same battles.”

 

Rambling thoughts on Election 2024

By: john harrison

The idea that one of two very elderly men is the man best qualified to lead America in 2024 is simply ludicrous, but that is very probably our future choice, our only future choice according to the general consensus put forward by the media. However, the media is wrong again. Let’s take a look at former President Donald John Trump first.

Trump will be 78 if he is re-elected as president in 2024. That will make him, old. How could a 78 year old man be nominated, much less re-elected as our president? Unfortunately, that is easy to prophesy. In 2016 he ran against a gaggle of professional, well financed, very experienced, seasoned, politicians and won the Republican nomination for president. How did he do that?

He faced varying numbers of foes in the various primaries in 2016, and always charted the highest number of votes among the candidates, but what every body forgets is that he rarely charted above 35% in the primaries, and everybody else was far below that number. At the end off the day he had “won” every primary, but around 60% +/- of Republican voters had uniformly voted for someone else in 2016. Nonetheless, he became the nominee of the Republican Party. He is about to repeat that feat and for the same reasons. 

So far, we have as candidates, or potential candidates for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination: former President Donald J. Trump, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Arkansas’ former Governor Asa Hutchinson, current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, current New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, South Caroline Senator Tim Scott, current Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, current South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, former congresswoman Liz Cheney, former national security adviser John Bolton, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. 

That’s 12 candidates, plus Trump, if all of them run. As far as Trump should be concerned, the more the merrier. He has the hardest base, and like he once said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” (Trump said that at a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa (CNN)). And, he probably could. That means his 35-40% of the Republican vote has not gone away, and his efforts to energize that vote by taking what seem to be extreme positions today is a well calculated effort to keep his base happy and thereby win the Republican nomination in a crowded field. If it stays crowded, and it did in 2016, former President Trump will be the Republican Party’s nominee in 2024 because he will “win” all of the primaries, with nonetheless a minority of the total votes cast. Probably, about 35 – 40% of the total vote. It will be enough for him to win the Republican presidential nomination, again.

On the other hand we have President Biden, now fully announced as a candidate and running. He does not yet face a full field of candidates, but he has a poor approval rating, a son who is trouble personified, and a difficulty with gaffes when ever he speaks. 

Opposing President Biden so far we have Marianne Williamson, who also ran last time, but dropped out early, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Ms. Williamson has been ignored by just about everyone, and deservedly so if her last performance as a presidential candidate is an indication of the quality of her current attempt.

On the other hand, the press has been quick to portray Kennedy as an “anti-vaxer” who peddles dangerous falsehoods about the efficacy of vaccines, and that not even the other members of the Kennedy family support his presidential bid. Thus far the media has uniformly ignored his enviable record as a trailblazing environmental lawyer and college professor who has taken on the “Big Guys”, he describes them as the big polluters, and repeatedly won equally big cases. While he personally does not have political experience, he also does not have any political debts to pay. Although Kennedy’s knowledge of vaccines is clearly questionable, his directness and honesty in continuing to hold and publicly profess his beliefs in the face of continuing disparagement by the press and others is refreshing. Like his late uncle, JFK, he does not adopt his opinions based on what is popular, but rather what he believes is correct. I think they all underestimate him, profoundly.

I predict that the Democratic New Hampshire Primary will once again shatter the hopes of an incumbent president. In 1968 Eugene McCarthy unhorsed President Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire, not by beating him, but by showing beyond any doubt how weak he was as a candidate. The same thing will happen once again with President Biden. Whether fair or not, the man really never has been very good at thinking on his feat. His record for gaffes is endless. The most recent being forgetting that he had been in Ireland only three weeks before when questioned by a child. Comparing that to Kennedy’s vaccine views, it really matters little whether you are wrong because you don’t believe the science, or you are wrong because you can’t remember what the science is. Either way, you’re wrong.

Also, at some point the Kennedy Family’s famous loyalty to each other will kick in. When that happens Robert Kennedy, Jr., will have all of the political experience anyone could ever want at his beck and call. All by itself, when that happens it makes him a formidable candidate. It was his father, Robert Kennedy, Sr., who called Coretta Scott King when Dr. Martin Luther King was cast into the Birmingham Alabama Jail at the height of our 1960’s racial divide. It was also Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., as the Attorney General who repeatedly called the local officials, starting with the governor on down, to tell them that he, and the entire Justice Department of the United States of America was carefully watching everything they did with respect to Dr. King and that no one is immune to the law. Neither Dr. King nor his wife ever forgot the effect of those telephone calls, and many still remember them today. That will make the South Carolina Primary particularly interesting this time around.

We are about to see another upset. Stick around, the fat lady is not even in the building yet. 

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My book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive  is available on Amazon both as a paperback and on Kindle. It is a Five Star book with lots of reviews, many by others that were there in Vietnam with me as well. Please give it a look. See; Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive 1968

Recent Reviews of Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive:

“John Harrison does an eloquent job writing what it was like being in the infantry during the Vietnam war. I know, I was in the infantry in Vietnam. There is a statistic which states that only 1 out of 10 who served in Vietnam were in the infantry. All of us have been asked what that was like at one point since our return. It is an impossible question for most of us to answer in part much less in full. John Harrison manages to do this in his book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive. So, if you are inclined and wonder what it was like, or you want to tell someone else what you went through, buy this book. Show it to your friend, show it to your family. It tells your story. To, “LT” John Harrison- thank you Sir.Salute.”

“John Harrison’s book, Steel Rain, the Tet Offensive, is a series of short stories, told mostly in the first person, that weaves together the humor and violence that only a talented writer can accomplish. The result is a compelling book that is hard to put down. John’s words flow easily on the pages, making an easy read. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has been there and did that, or anyone wanting to know a personal record of one lucky Lieutenant in Vietnam and the people that made it possible for him to return home.
Dan Hertlein, helicopter mechanic with the 192nd AHC at LZ Betty 1968″

“John is the soldier speaking the truest story of Vietnam. I will confirm his action as I was in a different company same battalion, fighting the same battles.”

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