Sunrisers Hyderabad batter Abhishek Sharma celebrates his half century during the IPL 2023 cricket match between Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad, at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, Sunday, May 7, 2023. (PTI Photo)
Jaipur: Abdul Samad smashed a six off the last ball as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Rajasthan Royals by four wickets to keep their playoff hopes alive in a high-scoring IPL thriller here on Sunday.
Riding on aggressive fifties by Jos Buttler (95) and Sanju Samson (66), Rajasthan Royals posted a challenging 214 for two after winning the toss and electing to bat.
In response, Abhishek Sharma (55), Rahul Tripathi (47) kept them in the hunt before Yuzvendra Chahal (4/29) snapped four wickets to almost derail their chase.
A cameo from Glenn Phillips (25) reignited the chase as Abdul Samad’s (17 not out off 7 balls) knocked off the winning runs with a six in the last ball following a no-ball from Sandeep Sharma.
For Sunrisers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/44) and Marco Jansen (1/44) took one wicket each.
Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals: 214 for 2 in 20 overs (Jos Buttler 95, Sanju Samson 66 not out; Bhuvneshwar Kumar 1/44).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 217 for 6 in 20 overs (Abhishek Sharma 55; Yuzvendra Chahal 4/29).
Ahmedabad: Delhi Capitals overcame Hardik Pandya’s fighting unbeaten fifty (59 not out) and Mohammed Shami’s four-fer (4-11) to beat Gujarat Titans by five runs in Match No. 44 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at Narendra Modi Stadium, here on Tuesday.
Despite the win, Delhi Capitals stayed at the bottom of the points table but they have kept themselves alive in the tournament with three victories in nine matches. On the other hand, Gujarat Titans, who have six wins in nine matches, are at the top of the points table despite the loss.
Seasoned pacer Shami’s sensational four-fer helped Gujarat Titans restrict Delhi Capitals to 130/8 in 20 overs despite a fighting fifty from Aman Hakim Khan (51 off 44). Apart from Shami, Mohit Sharma (2-33) and Rashid Khan (1-28) were the other wicket-takers for Titans while Axar Patel (27 off 30) and Ripal Patel (23 off 13) were the other main contributors with the bat after Aman.
Chasing a low total, Delhi Capitals also had a poor start as they lost three wickets inside the Power-play and scored just 31 runs. It was Khaleel Ahmed, who drew the first blood for Delhi Capitals by getting Wriddhiman Saha caught behind for a duck in the last delivery of the very first over of the innings.
Skipper Hardik Pandya walked into the middle to give company to Shubman Gill, who started well by hitting a boundary off Ishant Sharma. However, Anrich Nortje was introduced in the attack soon and he dismissed Gill, who timed the ball straight to the cover fielder.
Vijay Shankar has been in good form this season and Gujarat had high hopes for him but Ishant bowled a brilliant knuckleball to get rid of the Tamil Nadu batter, leaving Titans in a precarious position at 26-3 after 4.6 overs.
Defending champions Gujarat needed a partnership to rebuild their innings but new man David Miller tried to play a cute paddle sweep off Kuldeep Yadav but was bowled, adding misery to his team’s position.
Gujarat Titans were 32/4 when Miller got out and Hardik was watching his batting partners going back to the pavilion one after another. The skipper needed some support and it came from Abhinav Manohar.
The duo of Hardik and Abhinav played cautiously against spin twins Kuldeep and Axar Patel, who were bowling nicely to keep things in control for Delhi. After bowling a few overs of spin, Warner went back to his pacers and they also bowled well, giving few boundaries here and there as the required run rate was going up with each passing over.
Hardik and Abhinav continued to grind out runs while Warner was bringing in the bowling changes in search of breakthroughs and not letting the batters settle down as Gujarat Titans were 71/4 after 14 overs.
With the required run rate increasingly sharp, Hardik decided to free his arms and got a few boundaries to get his fifty in 44 balls but Abhinav was not able to find boundaries and his struggle was ended by Khaleel Ahmed in the first ball of the 18th over.
Khaleel executed his slower ones and yorkers to perfection and gave just four runs in his over, making things tougher for Gujarat.
Anrich Nortje came to bowl the 19th over with Gujarat needing 33 runs in 12 balls. The pacer conceded just 3 runs in the first three balls but Tewatia had other plans and he hit Nortje for three consecutive sixes, to bring the equation in Gujarat’s favour.
With 12 runs needed off 6 balls for Gujarat to win, experienced Ishant had the big task in hand but he held his nerves well. The pacer gave just three runs in the first three balls with Hardik facing two of them and then removed the dangerous Tewatia in the fourth ball to keep Delhi Capitals in the game.
Rashid Khan scored just 2 runs in the fifth delivery and Ishant finished it well to give one run in the last ball to restrict Gujarat to 125/6 in 20 overs and win it for Delhi.
Earlier, Delhi Capitals won the toss and opted to bat first and were off to a horrific start, losing five wickets inside the Power-play. The horror show started in the very first ball of the innings when Phil Salt toe-ended a swinging delivery bowled by Shami to cover, where David Miller took a simple catch.
Thereafter, confusion between Priyam Garg and David Warner resulted in the Delhi Capitals’ skipper getting run out with Rashid Khan dislodging the bails at the non-striker’s end, on a no-ball. Rilee Rossow, who came into the playing XI for Mitchell Marsh, also couldn’t do much as a classic swing delivery from Shami dismissed the South African batter.
Continuing his sensational show, Shami bowled another beauty to Manish Pandey to remove him with Saha taking a stunning catch behind the wicket. In the last delivery of the same over, the duo once again combined to dismiss Priyam Garg, who failed to negotiate the slightly late movement, leaving Delhi Capitals struggling at 23-5 at the end of 5 overs.
Shami, who was extracting the juice available in the pitch due to wet weather around, had the chance of getting the fifer but Axar Patel and Aman Hakim Khan, negotiated his last over well. However, Shami, who bowled all his four overs on the trot, single-handedly had Delhi on the mat by the end of the seventh over.
From there on, Axar and Aman rebuilt the Delhi innings as they rotated the strike nicely and got the odd boundary and six against the Gujarat bowlers. The pair added a sedate fifty-run stand for the sixth wicket but Mohit Sharma was once again incisive in the middle overs and ended that partnership, by taking the huge wicket of Axar.
Delhi were 73-6 after 14 overs when Axar got out and they needed something miraculous from their lower-order batter to post a competitive total. The likes of Aman Khan and Ripal Patel showed some intent and hit Mohit Sharma and Josh Little for a few timely boundaries and sixes, giving some impetus to the Capitals’ innings.
Aman smashed Mohit for a six to complete his half-century in 41 balls as Delhi looked to get the desired finish. In the penultimate over of the innings, Ripal welcomed Rashid Khan with a six but the leg-spinner removed Aman Khan later in the over with Abhinav Manohar taking a good catch at the deep.
Mohit Sharma dismissed Ripal Patel to get his 100th IPL wicket and bowled an excellent last over to keep Delhi Capitals to 130-8 in 20 overs, which was enough in the end.
Brief scores:
Delhi Capitals 130/8 in 20 overs (Aman Hakim Khan 51, Axar Patel 27; Md Shami 4-11, Mohit Sharma 2-33) beat Gujarat Titans 125/6 in 20 overs (Hardik Pandya 59 not out, Abhinav Manohar 26; Ishant Sharma 2-23, Khaleel Ahmed 2-24) by 5 runs.
Rajasthan Royals players celebrate a wicket during the IPL 2023 cricket match between Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, in Jaipur, Thursday, April 27, 2023. (PTI Photo)
Jaipur: Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings by 32 runs in an Indian Premier League match here on Thursday.
Opting to bat, RR rode on Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 43-ball 77 to reach a competitive 202 for five.
Jaiswal and Jos Buttler (27 off 21) shared 86 runs in 8.2 overs as RR made a brilliant start.
Young Dhruv Jurel smashed 34 off 15 balls, while Devdutt Padikkal remained unbeaten on 23 off 13 deliveries to power RR past the 200-run mark.
For CSK, Tushar Dehpande picked up two wickets giving away 42 runs from his four overs.
Chasing, CSK never looked in the fray as they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals to be restricted to 170 for six.
Shivam Dube (52 off 33) and opener Ruturaj Gaikwad (47 off 29) and top-scored for CSK.
Adam Zampa scalped three wickets for RR, giving away 22 runs.
Brief Scores:
Rajasthan Royals: 202 for 5 in 20 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 77; Tushar Deshpande 2/42).
Chennai Super Kings: 170 for 6 in 20 overs (Shivam Dube 52, Ruturaj Gaikwad 47; Adam Zampa 3/22).
Bengaluru: Spinners Varun Chakaravarthy and Suyash Sharma collectively took five wickets while Andre Russell picked two wickets as Kolkata Knight Riders ended their four-match losing streak in IPL 2023 by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs in an high-scoring match at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, here on Wednesday.
An aggressive 56 from Jason Roy and a quick 48 from captain Nitish Rana, along with unbeaten cameos from Rinku Singh and David Wiese propelled Kolkata Knight Riders to 200/5.
In defence, Suyash began the pullback for Kolkata by taking 2/29, before Chakaravarthy and Russell picked 3/27 and 2/29 respectively in restricting Bangalore to 179/8, despite captain Virat Kohli’s 54 and Mahipal Lomror impressing in an 18-ball 34.
Chasing 201, Kohli and Faf du Plessis took a boundary each off Vaibhav Arora in the opening over. Kohli firmly punched Umesh Yadav through cover for four more, followed by du Plessis carting him for back-to-back sixes.
Du Plessis’s stay came to an end in the third over, holing out to long-on off a flighted googly from Suyash. Kohli continued to pull off him and Chakaravarthy for boundaries, though Suyash struck by trapping Shahbaz Ahmad lbw. In the last over of power-play, Kolkata struck again when Glenn Maxwell hit a slower delivery from Chakravarthy straight to mid-off.
Lomror broke a sedate period for Bangalore by sweeping fiercely off Nitish Rana for four, followed by muscling a brace of sixes through the leg-side off Sunil Narine. Kohli got a boundary on a thick outside edge off Suyash and took off for a brace on the very next ball to reach his fifty in 33 balls.
Lomror pulled Chakaravarthy for a six over deep mid-wicket, but the spinner bounced back as the left-handed batter holed out to the same region. The Chinnaswamy crowd was further silenced in the 13th over when Kohli pulled off Russell, only for Venkatesh Prasad to dive to his left and take a stunning low catch.
Though Dinesh Karthik and Suyash Prabhudessai hit a boundary each, the latter being slow in taking the second run resulted in his run-out at the non-striker’s end. Kolkata ended Bangalore’s last hope for a victory by having Wanindu Hasaranga and Karthik caught in the deep in successive overs, making the result a foregone conclusion.
Brief Scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 200/5 in 20 overs (Jason Roy 56, Nitish Rana 48; Wanindu Hasaranga 2/24, Vyshak Vijaykumar 2/41) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (Virat Kohli 54, Mahipal Lomror 34; Varun Chakravarthy 3/27, Andre Russell 2/29) by 21 runs.
Another two of the nine lawmakers listed as co-hosts of the event harmonized with Lee: “I’m not endorsing anybody. I just think it’s always good to see who’s out there,” Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) said, adding that he participated because of his home state’s first-in-the-nation GOP primary slot. “I support any person who wants to throw their hat in the ring.”
“I’m not co-hosting — I’m a special guest,” quipped Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) when asked Tuesday about his involvement. He has also not endorsed in the 2024 primary.
The DeSantis-Hill GOP meeting marks the start of a charged battle for the attention of congressional Republicans between the party’s two presumed presidential frontrunners. The favor of GOP lawmakers won’t determine the nominee, but it remains critical to campaign-trail buzz and earned media: The open distaste Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) drew from most of his Senate colleagues, for example, hurt him in the 2016 primary fight with Trump.
And institutional support still acts as a crucial validator, particularly for a nascent candidate like DeSantis, who has faced nagging questions about his viability after recent stumbles. Just three House Republicans — and no senators — have endorsed DeSantis, compared to dozens for Trump, although Tuesday’s event is the first signal that the Florida governor is looking to change that.
“Trump’s a known quantity. He’s not. I think he would probably benefit from sitting down and talking to people,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of DeSantis. “Trump’s in a good spot. I think DeSantis brings a lot to the table and it would be a serious challenge for President Trump.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon she would attend the event as well, making her the second senator to meet with DeSantis. Asked if her appearance equaled an endorsement, she replied: “Not yet.”
“Tim Scott is forming an exploratory committee. And … Ron DeSantis and I were very good friends in the House,” Lummis said. “We’re still in the kind of stay-tuned phase.”
Despite the desire for new blood at the top of the ticket, Hill Republicans still prioritize avoiding Trump’s anger. And the general hesitancy to back DeSantis, who still has not officially declared his intent to run, underscores a persistent reality in GOP politics that he will have to confront: Crossing the former president remains a risky endeavor. Trump and his team are paying close attention to which members have — or have not — backed his campaign, and have been strategically rolling out endorsements from inside the Capitol in recent weeks.
There was at least one exception, though: First-term Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), who served as DeSantis’ secretary of state until she was elected last November, endorsed DeSantis just hours before the event was set to begin Tuesday.
“His leadership and his vision made Florida a shining beacon of freedom,” Lee said in a statement, becoming the first in the Florida delegation to back him.
Trump’s team, though, had an answer for that. His campaign had already rolled out his endorsement from Rep. John Rutherford of Florida hours earlier, the second from the state’s delegation within 24 hours. (Rep. Greg Steube endorsed Trump on Monday night).
Across the Capitol, Trump has nearly doubled his Senate endorsements over the past month, with nine senators now endorsing him — roughly 20 percent of the conference. That support includes Graham, Tennessee Sens. Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn, as well as Sens. Ted Budd of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, J.D. Vance of Ohio and Eric Schmitt of Missouri.
And there may be more on the way.
“I think Trump will clean them up. I think the polls are pretty indicative of where most would be. Despite Trump’s challenges, he was the original,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate.
And Trump started wooing members months ago. He recently held a 3.5-hour dinner with GOP lawmakers over the weekend while he was in Nashville for the RNC retreat, where he ate with Hagerty, Blackburn and Tennessee GOP Reps. Chuck Fleischmann, John Rose and Diana Harshbarger, according to Fleischmann.
“I don’t know many people going to the DeSantis event,” Fleischmann said on Tuesday afternoon, a day after he formally endorsed the former president. “I think he and the other candidates who might seek to challenge President Trump for the nomination are going to realize very, very quickly that it’s Trump’s nomination.”
Several House Republicans, when asked on Tuesday if they planned to attend the DeSantis meet-and-greet, cited vague scheduling conflicts.
Another early Trump endorser, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), called the gathering “a meeting for supporters of the governor’s 2024 presidential aspirations” but declined to comment further beyond saying: “I wish the governor well.”
It’s not yet clear exactly how many members will attend the DeSantis event: People familiar with the planning offered a variety of numbers when asked about attendance. Some GOP lawmakers on Tuesday said they hadn’t yet decided whether to go, given the busy week in D.C.
The “special guests” listed on the invitation include Feenstra, LaHood, Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) as well as Sens. Lee and Lummis — in addition to Reps. Lee, Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas), all of whom have formally endorsed the Florida governor.
In a brief interview, Massie suggested that some members might fear their Trump-supporting voters would turn on them if they endorsed the former president’s potential opponent. He also appeared to suggest that some lawmakers might be looking for a quid-pro-quo as they try to get through their own elections.
“I think when somebody comes out for DeSantis, it’s meaningful to DeSantis,” said Massie, who once fought for his own Trump endorsement back home. ‘When somebody comes out for Trump, it’s meaningful for the person who’s endorsing Trump, not necessarily Trump.”
At least one Republican who doesn’t plan to attend, though, said he’s happy the Florida governor is here — and happy he’s apparently looking to enter the race.
“I met him, great guy … But I’ve already got my candidate,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who has endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. “We got a good stable to pick from … This will be competitive. We gotta win in 2024. We gotta change course.”
Olivia Beavers contributed.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Bengaluru: Chennai Super Kings defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by eight runs in their Indian Premier League match here on Monday.
Set an imposing target of 227, RCB looked on course until the departure of Glenn Maxwell (76 off 36 balls) and skipper Faf du Plessis (62 off 33) in quick succession. The duo added 126 runs for the third wicket to raise hopes of an RCB victory.
Earlier, CSK scored 226 for six after being asked to bat first.
Opener Devon Conway struck 83 off 45 deliveries and was involved in a 74-run partnership for the second wicket with Ajinkya Rahane (37 off 20 balls).
Later, Conway added 80 runs for the third wicket with Shivam Dube, who blazed away to a 27-ball 52 with the help of five sixes and two fours.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings: 226/6 in 20 overs (Devon Conway 83, Shivam Dube 52; Mohammed Siraj 1/30).
Royal Challengers Banaglore: 218/8 in 20 overs (Glenn Maxwell 76, Faf du Plessis 62; Tushar Deshpande 3/45).
When playing offense, the first thing DeSantis must understand is that you cannot beat Trump by going after his many negatives, a rule the Florida governor has yet to grasp. Last week, when discussing the expected hush-money prosecution of Trump by the Manhattan district attorney, DeSantis tippled a little shade on Trump by saying, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some kind of alleged affair.” The remark gathered ooohs and ahhhs from pressies, but did it move the conversation? Nearly everybody, including Trump supporters, believes he had a fling with Stormy Daniels and paid her to shut up about it. And that realization is already baked into Trump’s political value. The same goes for Trump’s purloining of classified documents or his jigging with the Georgia election count. Taunting Trump with his bad behavior never seems to do him any harm.
The same goes for attacks on Trump’s vulgarity. His cruelty. His penchant for interruption (Slate’s Jeremy Stahl counted 128 interruptions of Joe Biden or moderator Chris Wallace at one of the 2020 presidential debates.) Or his vile treatment of the truth. Remember during a 2020 campaign rally when he baselessly alleged that Biden was on drugs: “Look, he’s been doing this for 47 years, and I got a debate coming up with this guy,” Trump said. “They gave him a big fat shot in the ass, and he comes out and for two hours he’s better than ever before.” It makes sense to fact-check a guy like this for the historical record, but not for political purposes. Challenging his lies won’t slow his advances because he’s got a bottomless supply of lies he can spend down.
Even the rumored indictments and prosecutions of Trump won’t give DeSantis much in the way of ammunition. Again, these allegations are already discounted in the Trump price. Trump in prison orange wouldn’t be much of an aid, either.
If you don’t agree that accentuating Trump’s negatives will cut him down to size, just look at the body count of Republican presidential candidates from 2016 who incorrectly thought they could beat Trump by calling out his racism, misogyny, sociopathy or ideological heterodoxy. Not even opponent Ted Cruz, a college debate champion and graduate of Harvard Law School, could land a punch on him in 2016. Should DeSantis take this well-trod route, he’d end up sputtering and defeated, just like all of his Republican countrymen who have gone before him. “You’re not going to win in an insult slugfest with Donald Trump,” an advisor to Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign told POLITICO’s Sally Goldenberg recently. “That’s his strength.”
Trump’s vulnerabilities reside in his positives, and that’s where DeSantis should probe for cracks and fissures. This is no independent discovery. GOP campaign strategist Karl Rove was famous for eroding an opponent’s strengths. For example, under the Rove lens during the 2004 presidential campaign, patriotic war veteran Sen. John Kerry was portrayed as something of a weakling as he challenged President George W. Bush (who, unlike Kerry, spent the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard). “Sometimes people’s strengths turn out to be really big weaknesses,” Rove told Fox News in 2007. “We tend to — you know, people tend to sometimes in campaigns accentuate things that they think are big and important, and they exaggerate them.”
What are Trump’s positives? In his campaign 2016 kickoff, he promised, “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall,” and continued to praise his wall throughout the 2020 campaign. The wall turned out to be a Potemkin affair, with PolitiFact finding in 2020, “What the administration has mostly done is replace old and outdated designs with newer and improved barriers.” DeSantis could easily out-wing and out-demagogue Trump on the border (remember his airlift of asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard?) by savaging Trump’s wall as an illusion.
DeSantis could squeeze Trump on his Covid response, and already has, moving to the right of the former president with vaccine skepticism. When Trump fired back, DeSantis taunted him by saying that voters approved of his policies and rejected Trump’s because he won reelection and Trump lost.
Trump’s North Korea policy, one of the biggest slices of cake on the Trump vanity menu, would also be a ripe target for DeSantis. He could ridicule Trump for having achieved nothing more in his romance with Kim Jong-un than the exchange of perfumed love letters. Trump has long claimed to represent working- and middle-class voters who have been discarded by political elites; DeSantis could puncture his populist appeal by depicting that crusade as a sham of hot air. He could compile a greatest hits compilation of the goofiest White House moments from the tell-alls and investigative books about the Trump administration to tarnish Trump’s alleged leadership skills. He could accuse Trump of going soft on Biden because in one recent week, Trump attacked Biden on Truth Social once for every time he attacked DeSantis.
To defeat Trump, DeSantis must play offense, and the best example of how to play offense against Trump can be found in a recent piece by scholar Jennifer Mercieca, whose 2020 book, Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, throws bright light on his dark rhetorical skills.
Mercieca judges that porn star Stormy Daniels has bested Trump over the course of her five-year public battle with him. Daniels refused to be intimidated by Trump’s threats (ad baculum) and shrugged off his lawyer’s attempts at coercion. She didn’t let Trump reduce her to an object (reification) of scorn or hatred. And when she retaliated against him, it was with the artillery of humor, insulting his manhood. “In addition to his…umm…shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women, and lack of self-control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality. Game on, Tiny,” Daniels tweeted.
Maybe Daniels should be running against Trump instead of DeSantis.
DeSantis should enter the contest with real optimism because, as 2020 showed, Trump can be beaten. Not only can he be beaten, but beaten by a wide margin by a wobbling Democrat who is barnacled to a half-century of liberal Democratic policies and is nobody’s idea of a demagogue-tamer. Trump threw everything he had at Joe and still came up a loser. Never mind the early national polls, which show Trump whipping DeSantis. The primaries are a long way away, Gov. DeSantis! It’s not too late for you to go into training with Stormy Daniels for your big bout!
******
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Biden is not a dead man walking; he’s an old man getting around stiffly. Biden is vulnerable, but certainly electable; diminished, but still capable of delivering a message; uninspiring, but unthreatening.
No one is going to mistake him for a world-beater. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, he leads Donald Trump by a whopping 0.8 percent. If his job approval has been ticking up, it’s still only at 44 percent. He walks as if he is only one step away from a bad fall, and an NBC poll earlier in the year found that just 28 percent of people think he has the mental and physical health necessary to be president.
That said, he’s in the office, and no one else is. Incumbency bestows important advantages. The sitting president is highly visible, is the only civilian in the country who gets saluted by Marines walking out his door every day, has established a certain threshold ability to do the job, and can wield awesome powers to help his cause and that of his party.
Since 1992, Trump is the only incumbent to have lost, failing to join Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama as re-elected incumbents.
Biden was never going to be the next LBJ or FDR as a cadre of historians had seemingly convinced him early in his presidency. But he punched above his weight legislatively during his first two years, getting more out of a tied Senate and slender House majority than looked realistically possible. He’s set up to have the advantage in this year’s momentous debt-limit fight, since it’s hard to see how congressional Democrats aren’t united and congressional Republicans divided.
Biden’s age is a liability for him, but comes with a significant benefit — he does not look or sound like a radical any more than the average elderly parent or grandparent. This has enabled him to govern from the left — he would have spent even more the first two years if he could have — without appearing threatening or wild-eyed. He hasn’t restored normality to Washington so much as familiarity as the old hand who has been there since 1973 and made his first attempt at national office in 1988.
Since the midterms and likely in anticipation of a reelection campaign, Biden, who usually does whatever his party wants him to do, has shown a small independent streak. It’s hardly Bill Clinton-level triangulation, but the president is apparently mindful of the need to make a few feints to the center and of how progressive squawking can help him look more moderate.
He said he wouldn’t veto congressional action blocking a D.C. crime bill, earning a rebuke from AOC among others. He’s considering bringing back family detention at the border, and pro-immigration groups are outraged. His approval of the Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope “greenlights a carbon bomb,” according to the group Earthjustice.
Importantly, in 2024, nothing Biden does will be considered in isolation, but instead compared to his Republican opponent. As of now, Trump has the best odds of being, once again, that adversary. Trump would have some significant chance of beating Biden, simply by virtue of being the Republican nominee, and there’s always a chance that events could be Biden’s undoing.
But Trump would probably be weaker going into a rematch than the first time around. He lost to Biden in 2020 — before he denied the results of a national election, before a fevered band of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, before he indulged every 2020 conspiracy theory that came across his desk, before he said the Constitution should be suspended and before he made his primary campaign partly about rebuking traditional Republicans that the GOP suburbanites he’d need in a general election probably still feel warmly about.
There’s also a strong possibility that Trump gets indicted once, or even twice, in coming months. Such charges would be perceived as unfair by Republicans — perhaps rightly so — but they would add to the haze of chaos around Trump.
Ron DeSantis or another Republican contender presumably matches up better against Biden, based on the generational contrast and the absence of Trump’s baggage alone. Yet, if a non-Trump candidate wins the nomination, he or she will have Trump in the background, probably determined to gain revenge against him or her. Imagine, if after Biden defeated the rest of the Democratic field in 2020, they didn’t leave the race and collectively endorse him, but sulked and found ways to undermine him.
Then, there’s the state of the GOP generally. It has an impressive crop of governors. Otherwise, it hasn’t seemed to take on board the lessons of the last couple of years. First, there’s a real chance that it will re-nominate Trump, after everything. Second, various state parties are irresistibly drawn to politically toxic, proven losers. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who got wiped out in the gubernatorial race last year, is thinking about running for Senate next year and handily leads in early polling. Kari Lake, who threw away a winnable gubernatorial race that she still maintains she won, is looking to enter the GOP primary for Senate, and would be a prohibitive favorite.
There’s no fortune quite like being lucky in your enemies, and Biden could well get a big break in this respect yet again. However much Republicans may wish he were a pushover, he’s not, and they should be acting accordingly.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Delhi: India on Monday qualified for the prestigious World Test Championship (WTC) final after New Zealand defeated Sri Lanka by two wickets in a thrilling last-ball finish in the Christchurch game.
India will play Australia in the WTC final at The Oval from June 7.
This is India’s second successive entry into the WTC final, with the previous one coming in the inaugural cycle in 2021, where they lost to New Zealand.
With the Dimuth Karunaratne-led side’s only shot at the WTC final berth hinging on a 2-0 victory against the Kiwis in the away series, the loss for the Islanders ended their hopes of securing a spot.
Australia was the first team to secure a WTC final berth after humbling India by nine wickets in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar series at Indore, leaving the hosts praying for a favourable result in the first Test between New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
The result in Christchurch took the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar series in Ahmedabad out of the equation as earlier India had to win the contest to secure the WTC final spot.
Australia is sitting atop the WTC table with 68.52 percentage points (PCT).
Had Sri Lanka won the Test on Monday and strived for victory in the second match at Wellington, their PCT would have jumped from 53.33 to 61.11 — higher than India’s 60.29 before the start of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad.
In order to take all the scenarios out of the equation, India had to win the Ahmedabad Test — which would have taken their PCT to 62.5 — and retain their second position on the WTC table.
But with New Zealand acing a record chase of 285 runs on Monday, thanks to former captain Kane Williamson’s unbeaten 121, Sri Lanka were left ruing their chances.
