That Was The Month That Was; 100 Days To Go
A lot of weirdness in the last 30 days, but the next 100 days will be weird and dark and desperate. Buckle up!
(Ed. Nore: Because of ongoing problems with my laptop, this newsletter was assembled with a No. 2 pencil and an 8-foot length of 12-gauge baling wire.)
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Monday, July 29, 2024
What a month it’s been! Especially if you’re a political junkie. For posterity’s sake, let’s do a timeline of the last month(-ish):
June 27 — The first Biden vs. Trump debate, organized so early in the election season at Biden’s insistence The format was badly-designed to allow Trump to lie with impunity, which he did more than 20 times. But the takeaway, burned into Americans’ consciousness, was Biden’s slow, confused, mumbling and fumbling mien during the debate.
June 28 — Almost immediately, the drumbeat begins (including in this newsletter) …
Three-Point Shots, Vol. 2, No. 7: June 28, 2024
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… that BIDEN MUST GO. Biden and his palace guard fight back energetically, but seem unable to quell the rebellion.
July 2 — Austin-area Congressman Lloyd Doggett — himself no spring chicken — becomes the first congresscritter to publicly call for Biden to step away from the Democratic nomination. In his district, dozens (?) of previously-loyal Doggett voters pledge never to vote for him again.
July 10 — Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump is grazed by a bullet during an attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. One bystander is killed, two others wounded. The bullet causes a superficial wound to his right ear.
July 15 — The Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee. Trump announces his vice-presidential choice, freshman Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
July 18 — In an agonizing 92-minute speech, Trump accepts the GOP’s nomination as its presidential candidate. Trump’s speech began with a paean to national unity and purpose, but quickly devolved into his same tired, lie- and grievance-filled stump speech.
July 21 — Biden announces he is withdrawing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential nomination. He is not the first President to decline to run for a second term, but he is the first to drop out less than a month before his party’s nominating convention.
Twenty minutes later, Biden endorses his Vice President, Kamala Harris, for the top spot on the ticket. Among Democrats, Kamalamainia begins almost immediately.
July 28 — One week later, three trend lines are obvious:
Democrats are relieved to have an alternative to Biden, and enthused over Kamala. She raises over $200 million in her first week as a candidate, two-thirds of which comes from first-time donors. She also displays genuine grassroots enthusiasm, with 170,000 volunteers signed up in one week, driven by a series of Zoom calls:
last week, the Win With Black Women Collective held a zoom call in support of Kamala. over 40,000 attendees logged onto it.
this was followed by a Black Men for Harris zoom call that drew more than 50,000.
next came White Women: Answer the Call. it broke all records for a zoom session with over 160,000 participants.
Tonight, if you’re interested, there is a White Dudes for Harris Zoom call, for which you can register here.
Among Republicans, there was the default to the racist/sexist/misogynist playbook: Trump’s surrogates attacked Harris as a “DEI candidate,” beginning the racist dog-whistling everyone knew was coming. That bombed so badly (especially when her qualifications are compared to newly-minted Senator J.D. Vance) that the campaign put out the word to stop it. Pro Tip: When Kevin McCarthy is serving as a moral guidepost for your party, you know you’re in trouble.
It will, of course, get worse before it hits rock bottom.
The GOP is also dealing with buyers’ remorse over Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate. There is, for example, his idea, advanced in a 2021 speech, that people with children should be allowed to cast additional votes on behalf of their offspring. “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power,” he said.
A consensus is emerging: the guy is just weird.
The next big shoe to drop in all this will be Harris’s selection of a running mate. The Conventional Wisdom seems to be it should be a white male. Of the names most prominently mentioned, who do you think should be her choice?
I’ll announce the results on August 16, just before the Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago on August 19.
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The only thing I don’t like about Kelly, and it’s not about him per se, is it will leave his seat vulnerable. On that basis alone I’m voting in poll for a governor.
I can't answer your survey. I keep going back and forth between Shapiro and Kelly. Shapiro has great political skills and, unlike some past veep picks who didn't deliver their state, probably could deliver Pennsylvania. He and Harris know and like each other, having worked together as state attorneys general. His being very pro-Isr