What part of Nancy Pelosi’s partisan impeachment plan is actually working?

Let’s examine the impact so far of what was widely touted as a historic impeachment of President Donald Trump:

His job approval rating is back at its highest level since taking office 1,068 long days ago. That’s up six points since the House began impeachment.

Donations to help the billionaire’s reelection bid continue at a record pace.

Polling support for impeachment and removal from office, which are wildly popular on the Democratic left, has slid to minority support nationally in most surveys.

House support for impeaching the president remains partisan. Only Democrats and one independent voted yes on both articles.

Opposition to impeaching Trump has become a little more bipartisan. Three Democrats joined all Republicans to vote no, and one Democrat, a presidential candidate, voted present. One of those three Democrats was so strongly opposed to impeachment that he’s switching parties.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was strongly opposed to impeachment before she was strongly in favor, now appears to have second thoughts. She’s not immediately forwarding the articles to the Senate, as the Constitution expects. Looks like she wants some quid pro quo on shaping the Senate proceedings.

“I am not sure,” GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell wryly observed, “what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want.”

But that’s Pelosi’s cover story and she’s sticking to it.

That’s because a) she doesn’t want to wade further into that political quicksand just 45 weeks out from her party’s real chance to defeat the Republican, b) she knows, like everyone else, the Senate is certain to fall short of the two-thirds vote necessary for conviction, or c) she sees some political advantage to holding the transmittal over Trump’s head for some indeterminate time, though the Constitution does not provide for that.

Or perhaps all three.

It is also conceivable that Pelosi hopes that maintaining possession of the impeachment documents at least through the holidays might bait this highly-baitable president into some new unhinged statements that could sway popular support back her way. Ask yourself now, do you know anyone whose opinion of this president was changed by these hearings or votes?

Given the numerous controversial statements and, uh, nontraditional presidential behavior Trump has often glided through, that plan seems as vain as hoping Bernie Sanders will stop shouting.

The impeachment issue has siphoned much of the public and media attention away from the Democrats’ still-crowded presidential primary race, which must be successful to get rid of Trump. Like chickens instinctively establishing their pecking order, the candidates are reduced to bickering over fundraising, not the highest priority within their base.

Everyone in that crowd already agrees Trump needs to go, except for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who says a formal censure would suffice.

With one looming exception, that monochrome race has fallen into a familiar rut that glazes the eyes of many except a cadre of political devotees imprisoned in wintry Iowa and New Hampshire who relish all the excessive national attention and visiting expense accounts every four years.

The exception is multi-multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, yet another arrogant New Yorker who knows he knows what’s best for the rest of the country, as Mayor Bloomberg knew what’s best when trying to ban super-sized sugary drinks in that city.

Bloomberg’s spending literally hundreds of millions of his $50-plus billion on an unprecedented strategy that ignores the early states that usually shape the race. Instead, he’s focused on later states that vote in March and April, counting on a delegate deadlock emerging from early contests. So far, he’s bought his way to 7% support.

Can four people be simultaneous “front-runners”? Pete Buttigieg, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, one about to turn 38 and three nearly twice as old.

As the annual holiday happy haze settles in, impeachment has given Democrats and media an excuse to ignore or play down a bustling economy that refuses to stall and cripple a president’s reelection hopes, as it did to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992.

With a revised North American trade pact in hand and the international trade picture looking up, stock markets have bid and bought their way to new records, with 50% gains since Trump’s election. New housing starts are up. New jobs greatly exceed expectations. Unemployment remains low and among Hispanics and blacks, has fallen to historic levels.

So, other than all that, Pelosi’s “historic” impeachment plot to oust Donald Trump is working just perfectly, along with clearly crippling all hope this president has of a second term.

This story was originally published December 24, 2019 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What part of Nancy Pelosi’s partisan impeachment plan is actually working?."