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(51?e Ahuattce The ADVANCE, August 30, 2023/Page 7A A free press is not a privilege but organic necessity in a great society. -Walter Uppmann COMMENTARY out of CONTEXT A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE. Quotes for our Times: Derek Hunter, Washington, DC, based writer, radio host and political strategist: They don’t like Joe all that much in Re- hoboth Beach either. The people who know him the best like Joe Biden the least, That's an oversimplifi cation, and no Republican is going to win the state, but it is telling, And, at least in my experience, it's not unique to a beach town where Joe vacations. That leaves a huge opening for whoever the Republican nominee ends up being. Ideas still matter, but being more liked than President Indif ference and inflation matters a lot too. Kurt Schlichter, conservative commen tator, attorney, retired Army Infantry colo nel with a masters in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College, and a former stand-up comic: Fluid situation: Don’t impeach Biden ... Not just yet. We have to create the narrative us ing the evidence before the impeach ment process starts, and why present the climax now when it will be long forgotten by the time the election rolls around? We want the truth fresh in the voters' collective mind. There are several Democrat senators running for reelection in 2024 who we need to toss on the rack and torture by making them either vote to let off the crook-in-chief and alienate decent Americans, or vote to remove him and alienate Democrat vot ers. Why would we give them a year to let voters forget they covered for the Grafty Gaffer by impeaching Biden now?. Mary Katharine Ham, writer, speaker, and Georgia Bulldog: Top takeaways from first Republican debate: the good, the bad and the underestimated. Does any of it matter given the "ele phant not in the room," as Fox News anchor Bret Baier called him, was on his way to Georgia to turn himself in in the wake of his fourth indictment instead of on the stage on Wednesday? That remains to be seen, but if you want to remain the champ, you have to get in the arena to throw punches at some point. Gregg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst and commentator: Three reasons why Joe and Hunter Biden got away with their great sell-out of America. Rep. Jim Jordan, as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has launched a new investigation into the Biden fam ily which focuses on how Weiss negotiat ed the ludicrous plea deal that allowed Hunter Biden to dodge jail time, as well as Garland's dubious testimony that no one at the Justice Department interfered in the case. Republicans in the House are deter mined to uncover the full story of the Biden family corruption scams. They can't crimi nally prosecute, but they can expose the ugly truth. With a presidential election around the corner, voters deserve to know whether their president is a crook. Write Us A Letter Have you a gripe? How about a compliment for someone for a job well done? Lef us know abouf if wifh a leffer fo fhe edifor. We urge anyone fo wrife us abouf any subject of general public interest. Please limit all letters to 250 words double spaced. All letters must by signed, but we may withhold the writer's name upon request. Please write to us at The Advance, 205 E. First St., Vidalia, GA 30474 or email: theadvancenews@ gmail.com (Subject Line: Letter to the Editor). The GOP race is not quite as over as it looks RICH 1 LOWRY COLUMN | If it “got late early” in the old majestic Yankee Stadium with its long shadows, as the famous Yogi Berra quote had it, it’s gotten late before about the fourth inning in the Republican presidential race. In 2016, Donald Trump loved to pump out the results of unreliable online polls that showed him trouncing his com petitors by ridiculous margins. Now, he doesn’t need to bother with the shoddy polls; he can do the same thing with blue-chip media polls. The new national CBS poll has him lead ing second-place Ron DeSantis by 46 points, 62-16. The latest Fox News poll had a more mod est 37-point Trump lead. (Vi- vek Ramaswamy is third in both surveys, at 7% and 11% respectively.) It’s sometimes said that Trump is the de facto incum bent in the race, and indeed these are the kind of numbers you’d expect of a sitting presi dent who is sweeping marginal opponents to the side as he se cures his party’s renomination. The top-line results aren’t that different from the primacy race — such as it is — on the Democratic side. The Fox poll has Joe Biden beating Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., 64 to 17, with Marianne Williamson at 9. Is there a mercy rule in presidential politics? Trump could be forgiven for looking at his opponents and seeing: a highly touted gov ernor whose campaign has steadily sunk in national polls as he’s shed staff and fired a campaign manager; a young, smooth-talking entrepreneur who isn’t a threat to him but is helpfully soaking up some share of the non-Trump vote; a sunny senator who has made some gains but certainly hasn’t bro ken out; a former vice president who is hated by MAGA (for all the wrong reasons); a former governor who is a gifted politi cal pugilist but is unpopular in the party; and a bunch of others whose names he doesn’t neces sarily need to know. What’s not to like? Even if one of the candi dates surges and sweeps up all the current non-Trump vote, there’s simply not enough of it to get to 50 right now. No won der Trump is talking as if the race is over, the Trump super PAC is running spots hitting Biden, and Trump says there’s no need for him to show up at the Republican debates. The cockiness could well be justified, but a sense of in evitability can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it dis heartens the opposition and communicates strength; on the other, it can fade into a high handed sense of taking the vot ers for granted. And Trump still has to win Iowa, where his support is a lit tle softer. After all the talk of having the election stolen from him in 2020 and the chest-beat ing about his dominance now, a defeat there — in a clean pro cess overseen by fellow Repub licans — would be a stinging setback that might change the dynamic everywhere else. The new NBC News/Des Moines Register poll has Trump at 42%, with DeSantis at 19% and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott at 9%. That’s a substantial lead, but both DeSantis and Scott have large portions of the electorate saying they are their second choice or that they are actively considering them. Both also have high favorable ratings comparable to Trump’s. In the portion of the survey conducted prior to the Georgia indictment, his lead was 38 — 20 over DeSantis — again, siz able, but not nearly enough to say he has this thing put away, not in the middle of August. Iowa can break late. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santo- rum, who won Iowa in 2012, didn’t really start moving until late December. Former Arkan sas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won four years earlier, started his upward march around No vember. If someone is going to replicate this kind of climb, the big upward move may still be months away. So it looks late out there, no doubt, and has for some time, but it’s not over. Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review. (c) 2023 by King Features Synd., Inc. GRITTY First Principle for Debaters: Connect With Voters As I noted in my column of several weeks ago, it’s a plus for everyone that Donald Trump will not show for the Re publican debate. And now it’s offi cial. He’s not showing up. Now we can have a debate about issues and not about Trump. Let’s also keep in mind, regarding the debate, Republican voters must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. That is, although the most immediate focus is who will be the Republican nomi nee, the point of the whole exercise is win ning the presidency. It doesn’t much matter if Republicans nominate a candidate who makes them happy but who is unlikely to win the big prize — the presidency. Although Trump maintains a massive lead in polling among Republicans, the de bate presents an opportunity for the other candidates to establish their credibility and viability of their candidacy in the general election. Let’s recall that Trump’s final approval rating at the conclusion of his presidency was 34%. This is an approval rating that es sentially guarantees a victory for the chal lenging party in the election to follow. Most recent RealClearPolitics polling shows Biden marginally ahead of Trump, but not in a statistically significant way. RealClearPolitics betting odds shows Biden at 35.1% and Trump at 26.9%. It is not without reason that Democrats are doing everything possible to increase the likelihood that Trump is the Republi can candidate. The good news for Republicans is that there remains general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country; only 18% are satisfied, per most recent Gallup poll ing. President Joe Biden’s approval, mea sured by Gallup, hovers at 40% and disap proval at 55%. So, fundamentals look positive for a change in party. Additional fundamentals that point Please see Star page 8A By Star Parker Come On Down From the Porch By Amber Nagle M y mother, my sister, and I watched the show every day during the summers. The three of us would work outside for a couple of hours, then break for lunch ten minutes before “The Price is Right” came on. We’d cut large slabs of watermelon and set the slic es on metal TV trays. We’d balance the trays on our laps as we sat on the sofa and watched. Johnny Olson was the announc er in the 1970s. It was his energetic voice we heard first as he called the names of spectators and urged them to, “Come on down!” The contes tants sprinted toward the stage with their hands in the air in what is best described as pure, unadulterated joy. Then Olson would introduce the host, “Bob Barker,” and Bob would march through an opening in the stage and get the show moving. I loved the excitement. I loved playing along. I loved the beautiful models that waved their arms with graceful flourishes near washers, dryers and living room furniture. Most of all, I loved Bob Barker. He died last week at 99 years old, and the news made me sad, as if I had learned that a distant family member had passed. Through the years, had my sister and I been on the stage, we would have won dozens of cars, hundreds of boats, a herd of motorcycles, and numerous vacations to faraway countries with names like Bora Bora, Montenegro, and Cancun. We’d grab our family’s big blue globe, spin it around and try to find the exotic des tinations on the Earth model. It was like a summertime geography class. “The Price is Right” made us think. Take the Showcases at the end of the show, for example. To be com petitive, you not only had to have an idea of how much things cost, but also, you had to add them up in your head, and bid the closest to the ac tual price, without going over. Bob was always kind to the con testants, and he’d ask them a little about themselves. He always wore a snazzy suit, and he had a bright, million-dollar smile. He guided contestants through a whirlwind of price tags, games, prizes and spin ning wheels. But Bob was more than just a game show host. He was a tireless advocate for animal rights. His pas sion for our furry and feathered friends was no secret. He refused to allow fur coats as prizes on the show, and sometime during his tenure, he began closing “The Price is Right” with a familiar and meaningful sign- off: “This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet popula tion — have your pets spayed or neutered.” Bob Barker showed us that com passion extends beyond the human realm, making sure animals had a voice even when his microphone was turned off. He was also one of the first celebrities to adopt a veg etarian diet due to his immense love of animals, and he started his own foundation to provide grants for free or low-cost spay and neuter clinics and other animal causes. In more recent years, my hus- Please see Amber page 8A
