Focus on Democrats is helping Trump

David Druker:

Leading Democrats are elbowing President Trump out of the way and commanding more of the media's attention, a development that ironically is helping Trump by reducing the relentless and often harsh spotlight on him.

The Democratic rise to power in the House of Representatives plus the party’s spirited presidential primary is competing with Trump for news coverage and on social media platforms, according to data gathered by the Washington Examiner. This shift from the previous two years, when the president dominated the political conversation, is a welcome relief for many top Republicans. They are convinced that Trump cannot win re-election if the campaign is a referendum on him.

“We’ve had our best two months in the last two years — since Elizabeth Warren announced for president on Dec. 31. For the first two years, all we talked about was Trump,” said Jeff Roe, the veteran Republican strategist who managed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2016. “The game has just changed, and it’s helping Trump.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was the first major Democrat to declare for the 2020 presidential race, signaling the news on New Year’s Eve. The Democrats, having won the House in November, assumed the majority a few days later. Since then, the share of media exposure enjoyed by leading Democrats has more than doubled from what it was last year, compared to Trump.

According to the media analytics firm Meltwater, a collection of leading Democrats in Congress and running for president chosen by the Washington Examiner saw their share of coverage in news stories grow from just 8 percent in all of 2018 to 20 percent during first two-plus months of this year. That means Trump is still receiving the lion’s share of the limelight, but Republicans say the downward trend is what matters.

With the Democrats hogging some of the attention, Republicans are more confident that 2020 will not turn on Trump’s provocative behavior. That’s what happened in the midterm elections, costing the GOP critical support in key battlegrounds. In this new competitive environment, Republicans see an opportunity to turn the presidential contest into a choice between Trump, however unsavory for many, and a Democratic Party that has drifted unacceptably left.
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Beto O'Rourke is a case in point:

Robert Francis O’Rourke, nicknamed “Beto,” has just begun his journey through the democratic primary process, and he’s already causing the adoring progressive Democrats and his MSM fans to cringe.

First up, “Beto” announced his official candidacy just as a long and winding interview between him and Vanity Fair hit newsstands. During the interview, the youthful candidate had whimsical words when asked why he chose to run for the Presidency, saying at one point that he was “born to” do it. That won’t play in New Jersey where they believe the liberal Bruce Springsteen was born to run. Actually, it didn’t play anywhere, the reaction from the political world was a swift one, rife with eye-rolling and plenty of cringing.

Now, just a few days later, “Beto” is back at it, giving the media plenty of cringe-worthy gaffes.

Yesterday was a day that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke may want to forget. His first swing through Iowa as an official candidate was marred by a “joke” about his wife that drew heavy criticism and the revelation by Reuters of his membership in a hacker group as a teenager where he posted a story about kids getting run over by a car on the group’s message board.

O’Rourke was on the defensive most of the day, apologizing profusely for saying his wife Amy raised their three kids “sometimes with my help.”

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There is more.  O'Rourke's announcement sounds like a play for leadership of a doomsday cult as he bought into AOC's twelve years to the eve of destruction on climate change.  Other Democrats have also released their inner crazy on the campaign trail.  Bernie Sanders has sided with the Despots who have driven Venezuela into the socialist ditch.