Today is Friday, December 8, 2023. “With fewer than 40 days until the Iowa caucuses, leading Senate Republicans believe the 2024 GOP presidential primary is already over, with former President Donald Trump sitting comfortably atop the polls and his rivals more interested in squabbling with each other.” This sad fact is the lead paragraph in a HuffPost article by Igor Bobic entitled ‘The Cake Is Baked’: GOP Senators Believe Trump Is a Lock for 2024 Nomination.”

The party’s presidential debate in Alabama this week yielded the poorest television ratings of the primary cycle so far and the four candidates who ended up on stage made little progress in distinguishing themselves from likely front-runner status. Instead of denouncing Chump who refused to appear with them on stage for the fourth time and mentioning his fascistic campaign, they mostly stuck to feuding with each other, resulting in alienating those few viewers stuck with watching this debacle. They traded barbs with one another, sharing, even, wild conspiracy theories popular on the far right.

Thus one loathsome senator, “Lady” Graham of South Carolina has declared, “The cake is baked,” portraying himself as one of Chump’s biggest loyalists, which he told HuffPost on Thursday about the state of the presidential race. Another first-term senator, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, stated, “I think this is over.” He added, “The sooner you get to the [GOP’s 2024] convention the better, but I think he’s got the nomination in hand.” A critic of the disgraced front-runner, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said, “I think it was over before it began.” He added that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley “has a shot, but a very long shot” at snagging the nomination. The retiring senator added, “I think Trump is the presumptive nominee and has been from day one.”

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has mounted the loudest arguments against Chump and the risk he poses to democracy should he be elected to the White House again. For this, I express my wholesale admiration for his courage in taking on the Orange Hemorrhoid. But, unfortunately, he is hated by the GOP primary electorate, and it’s likely just a matter of time before he, too, pulls the plug on his candidacy.

Meanwhile, Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, has impressed many in the party with her debate performances and has started to win over anti-Chump donors, but her incremental climb in polling averages has not been nearly enough to catch up with the beefy front-runner. And entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswarmy is acting just like the “blowhard” he really is, as he was called by Christie during a moment in this last debate.

And the less written about floundering Ron DeSatan’s campaign, the better. He is a terribly awkward candidate who never could find his footing in the race. If I have to watch him smile more like a silly Cheshire cat, I’ll scream.

The sad fact, even now, is that Republican voters still love Chump, despite his 91 criminal charges, and GOP elected officials are slowly coming to grips with the realization they may need to get on board with his campaign sooner or later.

One senator who feels that presidential polls “feel less reliable” is Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming who added this of the GOP race: “To me, it doesn’t feel locked down. I do think there could be an Iowa surprise, but I don’t know if it will carry on past Iowa, that’s the thing.”

Another Republican senator, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a Chump critic and a physician, suggested the presidential race could be upended in either major party by a surprise medical issue with the Orange Turd or with President Joe Biden.

Cassidy asked HuffPost, “If I said that a 78-year-old or an 82-year-old has a stroke tomorrow, would you be surprised?” in referring to how old the two candidates will be next year.

He continued along these medical lines in characterizing both candidates’ age and their potential susceptibility to a medical emergency, by saying, “If I said they either respectively show signs of mental decline or is significantly obese with poor dietary habits, would you think they would be more or less likely to have a stroke?” Cassidy said he was just talking as a doctor and added, “This is the unknowns that we know, but to channel my inner [former Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld: There are unknowns that are unknown.”

So anything could happen in less than a year, folks, so let’s not be sanguine about Donald Chump actually being the front-runner weeks from now; anything can happen, and usually, it does.

It’s another weekend looming, so have a good weekend everyone.

Stay safe and be well.