Week 1 done and it was one for the history books. Some thoughts from the road. pic.twitter.com/zHD2adf1sR
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 12, 2024
Don’t get caught up in some indie record that’s much "cooler than ours" and register for our call below!
Disclaimer: Taylor is not one of our special guests, but she is always welcome to show up to our party! https://t.co/IWNXKomx3f
— Swifties For Kamala (@Swifties4Kamala) August 12, 2024
THIS TUESDAY!!!
Join KAMALA NATION as we welcome the next Vice President GOV TIM WALZ in Southern California for a Harris Victory Fundraiser event!
RSVP: https://t.co/CIyceqCoum pic.twitter.com/glDwskHGNG— KAMALA NATION (@KamalaNation) August 11, 2024
Our webpage is up! https://t.co/hXwMtPSkqk. Go there for more info on our Aug 28 livestream fundraiser show and concert with @jeffslate @emmaswiftsings @paranoiacs @ezrafurman and more! Don’t you dare miss it! pic.twitter.com/7SoCrtt1ss
— Dylan Fans for Harris (@dylanfansHarris) August 11, 2024
hot girls vote https://t.co/QdkyCwy8z0 https://t.co/DRhL3KmUNh
— kesha (@KeshaRose) August 12, 2024
Something is changing in our politics. #WhiteDudesforHarris is just one small part of a tectonic shift among white people in America. More and more of us are rejecting fear and division, and embracing a vision for our country where we all do better because we all have the same… pic.twitter.com/XeSG8eFCJj
— White Dudes for Harris (@dudes4harris) August 11, 2024
With great pride for the work she has done throughout her career For The People and for what she will do for our freedoms and our Democracy, we welcomed home the next President of the United States — our Vice President, @KamalaHarris! -NP pic.twitter.com/njtJ8wB5It
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) August 12, 2024
After pushing out Biden, the media assumed they'd spend the summer doing DEMS IN DISARRAY stories about a blitz primary leading to a 1968-like DNC and instead, Biden endorsed Harris, everyone got in line, money flowed in, polls ticked up, and they have no clue what to do now.
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) August 11, 2024
I think the thing that makes him craziest is that she is creating a massive amount of joy in America and he needs people to be absolutely miserable.
Joy is contagious and he has no idea how to stop it.
— Florida Chris (@chrislongview) August 11, 2024
On The Road – Albatrossity – Summer 2024 in Flyover Country – 9
mrmoshpotato
Awwww boo hoo. Is twice impeached manbaby traitor have a SAD! ?
Baud
The cynical part of me says this is the natural consequence of political realignment, which reportedly sees more black voters voting Republican.
But I’ll take whatever works for Team Good Guys, especially given the structural issues that favor white voters.
WereBear
It was seeing R’s losing the white vote that freaked everyone out. The floor has a hole in it!
Bobbo1
Doesn’t it feel like Harris/Walz is the hot ticket everyone wants to get their hands on so they can be in on the fun?
Ken
@mrmoshpotato:
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
Baud
@Bobbo1:
That’s the hope. A replay of Obama 2008.
BellyCat
Reminded of The Grinch for some reason.
And am here for it!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Our secret weapon…
Spanky
I think Dems in Disarray was a real possibility until We The People stepped up immediately and put our money where our mouths are. That massive amount of money they picked up in the 1st 24 hours shut a lot of people up.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Spanky: I had been putting off doing so too long, but Biden dropped out Sunday, I was on the phone Monday telling my Rep there was no one but Kamala.
Baud
@Spanky:
It’s why our adversaries put of effort into bringing We the People down through negativity.
WereBear
And a photo of Vance has surfaced, in drag while he was in Yale Law School. No big deal for a would be preppie.
But MAGA won’t see it that way. They used to keep all this stuff hidden. More successfully.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@WereBear: Eh, they mostly seem pretty good at overlooking things like that. See Rudy Giuliani. Shit, even Caitlin Jenner gets a pass. As long as you’re pulling the way they want.
Doesn’t matter. The energy on our side is palpable. They continue to be dinguses (dingi?)
I really think we’ll see history made this year in more ways than one.
stinger
I absolutely love that Ann Telnaes cartoon. The women of America, from Abigail Adams to pioneer women to suffragettes to Rosie the Riveter to Jello salad-making housewives to hip young moderns — Kamala is US! We Can Do It!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
They made fun and mocked her laugh. Black Joy bothers some people.
So, what did the Vice President do?
She pulled the Uno Reverse on them…now placing JOY as a theme for her campaign✊🏾✊🏾
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Yeah, they don’t really care about the substance. The purpose is to keep their people in line through fear of The Other.
MazeDancer
Besides loving Mr.Biden, a great deal of the anger and pushback against all the pod bros, pundits, donors, and media trying to dump him was how clearly they wanted Kamala out, too.
Joe aced ’em brilliantly.
Relief amped the joy. We can do what Joe wants! Let’s do it!
And Tim Walz makes you smile. Imagine having that guy say I’ll “walk through walls” for you. Which, he, allegedly, did at his interview.
And, in fact, he tells us all at every speech.
TBone
Joie de vivre is washing over the nation in a blue wave, retraining us. People need the thing with feathers in order to persevere.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
– Emily Dickinson
3Sice
Amanda Marcotte gets to the campaign’s core problem:
https://www.salon.com/2024/08/12/cant-replace-their-old-man-nominee-so-theyre-pretending-jd-vance-is-the-candidate/
Trying to proxy Vance (a very poor candidate) while keeping mush brains (and his narcissism) in a box is hopeless.
Hell, Vance got picked because he is a toady. They can’t square this circle.
BlueGuitarist
@rikyrah:
Yes!
team Joy to the World vs. human paraquat
thanks AL!
TBone
@rikyrah: she flips the power imbalance script at every opportunity like a boss!
It’s what endeared me so about Stormy Daniels too.
Kay
Republicans here won’t care at all about the drag photo. They’ll see it as mean spirited – jeering at drag – and approve. It’s a double reverse lib own. They’re losing, they’re incredibly sore losers, and they’re just going to get nastier and nastier. But since Harris and Walz have set this trap where they’ve defined them as miserable that helps us, now.
Jeffro
It’s kind of hard to convince people that a) there’s “American carnage” going on, and b) only trump and trump alone ‘can fix it’ if the majority are grinning from ear to ear*
*mostly at the prospect of being rid of the orange shitstain forever. but we’re also very happy with our principles and our leadership, too. =)
Eolirin
@Baud: This isn’t going to be a replay of Obama ’08. We’re not in the worst recession and financial panic in 80 years, and Trump, somehow, still energizes his base, unlike McCain.
If we get Obama ’08 like results, instead of Obama ’12 results, it’ll mean the Republican party is on its way to it’s death, nationally. This will be a bigger deal.
Kay
scarylawyer guy should credit Harris with some of Harris’ success. I mean. This father/daughter framing for a 60 year old woman who is accomplished in her own right is a little gross. Just registering my daily objection. Harris is the candidate. She’s popular. That’s hers.
Jeffro
@3Sice: I hope they do try to “proxy” JD Vance in for feeble trump…MAGA sees him as disloyal to trump (or questionable at best) and the rest of the country sees him as a weird and unrelatable chew toy for billionaires.
please DO keep putting him out there and have him do even MORE interviews, GOP!
Baud
@Eolirin:
Well, I don’t think we’re going to get Indiana. But we haven’t seen Dems this enthusiastic about a campaign since 2008, so hopefully we perform better than the average.
Eolirin
@Baud: Hell, if we got Ohio or Florida (which is probably an easier lift at this point), that’d be seismic
Beating Rick Scott would be close to the best of all possible outcomes.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Indiana was a surprise. I wouldn’t be surprised at some surprises. The mystery is just “where and what?”
I’m not just talking the Presidency either.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Agreed. Or Texas. I wouldn’t waste money there, but Biden came within 6% in 2020. A true wave election could set off seismometers around the world.
Baud
First things first. The all important polling still shows this to be a close election.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Fuck the polls.
Kay
When Harris talks about reproductive rights and Walz lists all the ways Republicans won’t mind their own business, that is policy. Democrats didn’t decide to wage a culture war with laws- Republicans did. The GOP passed laws banning abortion, banning books, and banning trans people. That happened.
When media whine that there’s no policy that’s their stupidity and rigidity and narrow obtuseness. Anyone listening to that stump speech knows EXACTLY what policy they’re talking about.
It’s not actually required that Harris preface her stump speech with “this is about reproductive rights policy” for the slowest people in the press box. The crowd gets it. Obviously. Make a fucking A to B connection, media. We shouldn’t have to lead you all the way.
Gin & Tonic
The election is two and a half months away. There is a lot of work to do and a lot can happen. Just ask President H. Clinton.
Eolirin
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Montana, Florida and Texas are all that are going to be even remotely possible as underdog wins for the senate.
North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and maybe Ohio are flippable if there’s a large enough wave. Though that wave will need to be pretty large given how much voter suppression is going to be in play.
I expect most of the surprises will come from house races. If this is a big enough wave election, it might overcome some of the gerrymandering.
gene108
I don’t think the political media understands how united Democrats are in a common vision and purpose for what they want to accomplish in D.C.
I’ve never seen this level of unity in one political party before regarding their policy goals.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Eolirin: But on the other hand, McCain had a lot more appeal to the middle than DJT, at least partially due to just being a much better person. You can’t win without winning swing and independent voters
Geminid
@Baud: There has been a notable political realignment in this century, and that is the realignment in suburban districts across the country. It was most notable in the 2018 midterm wave, when almost of the 40 sests Democrats flipped were predominately suburban.
Perhaps because it’s been so widely distfibuted, this realignment is not so noticeable as the Southern party realignment of the 1970s and 80s, but it may end up the larger of the two.
One reason is that it includes Southern suburban districts– a sort of counter-realignment. In 2018, Democrats flipped 3 Virginia districts two of which had been Republican for decades. The same happened with districts in South Carolina and a Georgia as well as two suburban Texas districts. Democrats still hold all of these except the South Carolina seat Joe Cunningham won in 2018 and then lost to Nancy Mace in 2020.
Conversely, Democrats have lost the almost all the rural yellow- and blue-dog districts they held in 2000. But Democrats come out ahead if they are trading rural seats for suburban seats.
Baud
@JoeyJoeJoe:
Trump performed well enough in the last two elections with those voters to foreclose such a categorical statement.
Quinerly
Good Morning! Where’s everyone getting their Harris-Walz t shirts and gear? I usually buy from the campaigns but nothing is grabbing my attention at this point. A front pager mentioned in a post she had ordered a shirt from a private vendor. I asked which vendor since there are so many.
Here’s the link. Hope it’s ok to share.The reason I am excited about these shirts is you can choose where the printing is. I have a thang for black or dark gray shirts with printing on the BACK. I think this particular messaging is pretty cool on my back and not on my chest.😎 I’m very excited about this shirt!
https://printerval.com/mind-your-own-damn-business-t-shirt-harris-walz-tshirt-p401911672?spid=3408931302&qs_tr=MIND+YOUR+OWN+BUSINESS+Harris-Walz
Kay
@Eolirin:
The furthest I see right now is NC and that’s partly because the D governor candidate is ahead, which will help. They’re nervous about it. The nutcase Republican has renounced his former abortion position to try to salvage his campaign. I’m hoping for Biden plus NC. I’d be thrilled with that.
But we’re still w/in margin of error. Biden was up btwn 6 and 9 in 2020, so assume we underperform polling again. She needs to be up further.
Baud
@Geminid:
As long as we come out ahead.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
When gerrymandering breaks, it breaks hard. It’s like a seawall.
Sure, you can engineer a bunch of R+5 districts to inflate your numbers in the legislature. What happens in a D+6 election?
Eolirin
@JoeyJoeJoe: He did, but his party had just overseen the worst financial collapse since the great depression, and he came across as clueless around what to do about it so he lost all of those folks too. Moderates aren’t as intensely partisan so when your party screws the pooch that badly you lose them. Trump’s people will ride or die regardless of circumstance. They’re just not enough to win if everyone else gets alienated.
If the moderates all break for Harris despite the lack of Republican induced crisis, it’s a much bigger deal than Obama’s victory. It’ll mean the Republican party no longer has a nationally viable coalition.
Kay
@Eolirin:
She still has room to grow with young people, Black men and Latino men. I think that’s a positive -she’s up without it and we could still get it.
Eolirin
@Kay: Obama was tied and down in polling all through October 2012. I don’t think people actually broke late in that race. I think the polling was just very off.
Polling, especially in August, and well before the application of likely voter screens, is mostly useless.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
But I’ve already measured the drapes.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Yes, oftentimes people break late and the polls change drastically just before the election.
Geminid
@Eolirin: Hawley in Missouri might be vulnerable in a wave election. Lucas Kunce, Hawley’s Democratic opponent, seems to have the elements if a strong candidate. And I wonder if incumbency will be very much an advantage for Hawley this year.
Jeffro
Not required, no, but if you move the last quote mark, it would be a HUGE hit for her to say that at her next rally! LOL
“Ok…this next part is about reproductive. rights. policy. for the slow folks in the press box.” – KH
(crowd goes nuts)
“oh…was that those ‘vibes’ I keep hearing about?” – also KH
LOLOL
Baud
@Geminid:
Getting rid of Hawley, Cruz, and Rick Scott in one election is Disney movie territory. I shall not dare to dream.
Jeffro
OT but in local news, I see that absolutely nutso VA Lt Gov Winsome Sears is mulling a run for Governor (and is, accordingly, changing her tune on trump)
I have done a fair amount of good things in my life, but not nearly enough to have the kind of karma where Sears and AG Miyares duke it out all year for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, presenting themselves as the bright, bold future of the VA GOP.
Bye-bye purple state, we’re going deeeeeep blue here!
TBone
Janey Godley and her bestie are Swifties:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kN8SH9yngTs
Betty
If this election comes down to the party of good news v. the party of bad news, I believe the majority of people are ready for the good news folks. One of the best spokespeople for the good news, besides the Harris-Walsh team, is Pete Buttigieg.
narya
@Geminid: I think the realignment is, in part, a result of (a) what Biden was able to do with the thinnest of majorities in the Senate and (b) what Nancy Smash was able to do, including stepping aside for Jeffries/the next generation. We’ve all been hanging on grimly for sooooo long, and, wait! Look! Change for the good IS possible! Also too: people coming around on the Affordable Care Act. And Harris had her own part in it, so it really feels like the next generation is stepping up AND bringing along the next generation after that. As an Old, I love to see it.
sdhays
@3Sice: This is what I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t seem normal to have the VP candidate the daily face of the campaign, and Trump really didn’t select for that capability.
Biden did, way back in 2020, because he wanted a strong co-campaigner and governing partner, someone he knew could step in if the country’s oldest President couldn’t keep going. Biden isn’t threatened by strong partners or strong women. Trump, of course, is threatened by everything because he’s a sad nasty narcissist.
hueyplong
Trump is not static. He’s getting worse, and that “getting” could accelerate as the perception of losing becomes hardened. We all think he’s a malignant narcissist, which won’t exactly put the brakes on his emotional and cognitive decline. He could be in seclusion by Oct 1 as the public reads/hears “insider” accounts of his ever-escalating impotent rage at his staffers, Harris, and the world in general. Either his social media “truths” will get out of hand or else stories will be speculating as to why he isn’t issuing any more of them.
At some point he’ll blame one of those two advisors we’ve been hearing so much about and will fire her/him. That might start a feeding frenzy.
It’s a fun scenario to contemplate with a month and a half to go before we even hit Oct 1.
E
Locally (purplish part of TN) the Republicans are all in on messaging that says Tim Walz supports infanticide. These people really are weird.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: @Baud: This is the state of Misery after all.
206inKY
I’m livid this morning from a NYT color-coded visual, “Here is a comparison of the major career moments of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates,” that makes it look like Vance has more military service than Walz, casts Kamala and Walz as lifelong politicians, and implies people can’t wear multiple hats.
Pure propaganda for Trump.
Eolirin
@Kay: This isn’t going to be about what groups Harris manages to “win over”, or who she’s getting better or worse polling numbers from, it’s going to be entirely about who shows up and who stays home.
Whether there’s an enthusiasm collapse due to Trump seeming feeble and thus unable to energize his base, the weird label sticking enough to cause people to distance themselves, Dobbs and Harris’s rock star level enthusiasm driving record turnout, etc, will determine everything.
If we see a 5 point drop off in Republican turnout and a couple of point boost in Democratic turnout vs 2020, Texas is in play. That’s not necessarily going to show up in registered voter polls, and it’s likely going to get missed by likely voter screens that make assumptions based on historical turnout patterns, as they try to compensate for low response rates.
Polling is bad at capturing black swans when there are low response rates and the data needs to be massaged more to compensate.
It’s the same with Trump’s high numbers of black voters when the data on the cross tabs implies huge margins of error rates for that population because there were so few responders (in one case there were three). When those results are normalized to population levels, they add more uncertainty to the poll results than the base margin of error would suggest.
Polls can fail in all kinds of ways and the failure points are relatively predictable. What isn’t is the direction of failure. It’s entirely possible that the improvement Harris is seeing is entirely due to enthusiasm leading more Dems to pick up the phone, but also galvinizes right wing turnout, who, feeling attacked, start answering less, and the race hasn’t actually changed that much since before the debate, simply going from a close race with low turnout on both sides to a close race with higher turnout on both sides, and we narrowly lose PA.
The only numbers that are going to matter are early vote totals and election day turnout.
Quinerly
The ketchup will fly.
Kamala on the cover of Time.
https://time.com/7009317/reintroduction-of-kamala-harris/
Kay
@Eolirin:
The only reason I disagree is Obama 2012 had a meeting in DC for “bloggers” and John hates (most) people, so he asked if I wanted to go. My husband always has air free miles (and I like DC) so I went. They said they were never behind. They were absolutely confident mid summer. Stephanie (I can’t think of her last name, but Harris just hired her) led the info session. Axelrod was there and he told us specifically that they were ahead in Ohio from April on. They knew they had it. They didn’t say that publicly, but they knew.
Geminid
@Baud: I like to think that I’m not dreaming so much about knocking out Scott, Cruz and Hawley as keeping an open mind on the question. Also, I believe we have strong challengers in Mucarsel-Powell, Allred and Kunce.
And last month I saw Rick Scott telling reporters about his projected bid to succeed McConnell as Republican Senate leader. The guy may be overconfident.
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: Send them all back to Transylvania.
Kay
IMO anyone who tells you nothing matters until after labor day is living in the 1990’s
Democrats specifically and with great effort expanded early voting. 40% of people voted prior to election day in 2020. Pandemic, but still. It’s convenient and people love it. It’s changed the timeline.
It’s what the losing side says.
Baud
@Harrison Wesley:
What have the blood sucking walking undead done to you?
Eolirin
@Baud: I really don’t think that happened in 2012. Obama and Romney were alternately up by 6 in August and September depending on what poll you looked at. There weren’t any changes to fundamentals in October that should have brought the race close that would have changed by November. The debates and the 47% comments and the dog on the roof of the car stuff had all happened well before the polling suddenly jumped Nov 1st to hit close to the final election results.
Ken
Plus if they all fall off cliffs at the same time, questions will be asked.
(Though with the Supreme Court’s ruling, all Biden has to say is “presidenting here, don’t have to tell you”.)
Kay
Stephanie Cutter. She was Obama 12 and Harris just hired her. She was the one who told us they were always ahead and never less than 2 points ahead in Ohio in their own polling.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I dare to dream Rick Scott will be ousted, but I don’t expect it. Our primary is this month, and it looks like Deborah Mucarsel Powell will be the Dem nominee.
Scott seems nervous! He’s running ads on all kinds of streaming platforms, lying in an “aw shucks” voice that he’s a regular guy and not an extremist. It would be so sweet if he loses!
BellyCat
@Ken: I was visualizing same and you beat me to it, but better!
Eolirin
@Kay: Sure, but that wasn’t based solely on publicly available polling data, which was all wrong, until Nov 1st. So if we’re reduced to using only publicly available polls, we really have no idea what’s going on.
Geminid
@Jeffro: There is not a Republican in the state of Virginia who would come close to beating Abigail Spanberger. Glenn Youngkin is fortunate in that he can’t run for a second term, because Spanberger would flatten him.
zhena gogolia
@MazeDancer: Watch out. We’re not allowed to give Biden credit for anything. It’s not enough to push him out, we have to make sure he isn’t given any agency or skill.
Eolirin
@Eolirin: I should amend this to say, the only numbers that we’ll have access to as normal citizens who aren’t associated with the Harris campaign.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
“Nosferatu and You!”
hrprogressive
The part about the media hoping for “the summer of dems in disarray” is 1000% right.
The Gilded Betters in the media wanted to shove aside Biden, not just because they really hope for a Trump Reich, but because they wanted to get easy revenue writing doom stories about how the Democratic Party was coming undone at the seams.
It’s definitely why I was “Team Joe Should Stick It Out” for so long.
I legitimately did not expect 99% of the Party, voters, and donor base to nearly instantaneously endorse, line up behind, and start financially supporting VP Harris.
I, and many others, were wrong about what the aftermath of Joe stepping aside ended up being.
And boy howdy, I’ve never been so happy to actually be wrong.
And the media wasn’t expecting it either. And neither were the GOP.
Everyone had their preordained narratives and outcomes ready to go, and instead, Joe, MVP, and you know, the citizens of this country said “nah, about that” and…here we are.
Truly on the precipice of electing our first Woman POTUS.
Yes, “ignore the polls, do the work, etc” will apply up and until she’s officially elected, and sworn in.
But it is okay to acknowledge that the last three weeks have completely reset everything; The narrative, the state of the race, the polling, the zeitgeist, all of it.
And all of it looks pointed towards a Harris Walz Administration.
It is okay to Hope Again.
Mousebumples
@Kay: they’re whining that the Dems aren’t advocating for unpopular policies they can use to tear them down or to claim Dems in disarray.
Random unrelated thought – I forgot Harris was from SF (SF DA). Given that that’s Pelosi’s area, I wonder if Pelosi was extra mindful of not wanting to seem to be putting her thumb on the scale for her local friend/ally? (the blitz primary idea just seems like it would have been chaos waiting to erupt, which doesn’t add up for my understanding of Pelosi) Not worth knowing now, but I’m hoping there will be good coverage of this in more depth after we win in November!
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: +1
We haven’t even had our convention yet. Lots and lots of people still aren’t paying attention yet.
80 some-odd days to go, and early voting starts sooner than that. But lots and lots of things are going to happen before election day. Like the FY25 federal budget. Lots and lots of opportunities for Team D to run up the score and for the MAGAs to keep stepping on rakes and such like.
GovExec.com (from August 7):
All together now – “DO NOTHING CONGRESS!!1”
We need to run up the score everywhere we can, and keep the monsters from trying to steal the wins. The future depends on it.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: Your account of what Scott ads look like is encouraging.
Soprano2
This also has the benefit of being true! JD Vance can’t even tell an interviewer anything that makes him happy. Think about how that sounds to normal people – weird! To me that had shades of Sarah Palin getting offended when Katie Couric asked her what news sources she used to inform her beliefs. It was a softball question, but instead of answering it she got all offended. To them everything is a trap, even questions like this. They only want to talk about their ever-growing list of grievances.
NotMax
We’ve all probably heard of a sine wave.
Increasing feeling come November we’ll be looking at a sane wave.
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: Genuinely the narrative reset was the biggest thing that enables all the others. Being excited for Biden was uncool and relentlessly pushed as uncool.
It’s cool to be excited for Harris.
With a press and culture that’s only responsive to vibes, this was the only way this was going to go.
I still find that to be intensely fucked up about our press and our society. I find the press enabling of that to be deeply disturbing, even. I don’t see how we can long survive, even if we get through the current crisis of Republican insurrectionist tendency, if we don’t do a better job of making substance matter. But that’s a fight to be having after we win this one.
schrodingers_cat
What is the proof for this political realignment. Opnion polls, actual elections, exit polls? I remain highly skeptical of this.
AM in NC
@Eolirin: We can hope for Prez. here in NC, but I have had my heart broken too many times by my fellow citizens to count on it in any way.
Things won’t really get better here until (at the earliest) 2028, IF we retain Democratic State Supreme Court members this year and vote in more Democrats in 2028 to retake the majority.
We had the majority for a couple years and managed to get rid of the gerrymander, which the GOP tied up in court until they could retake the majority and promptly re-instate their discriminatory maps.
Having a state where one party has made a lot of votes pointless does depress turnout across the state, and Republicans know this.
They are horrible people here. So we fight them.
sdhays
@Betty Cracker: Was it just 2022 when he put out a disastrous policy blueprint calling for the privatization of Medicare while he was head of Republican Senate Campaign Committee? That guy’s only setting seems to be “overconfident”, although not enough to lose in Florida, so far.
Soprano2
This is what I try to impress on people – I don’t care if they don’t want their kids to read certain books, or if they don’t want to get an abortion, but quit passing laws that impose your religious beliefs on all of us! I’m not trying to impose my liberal beliefs on you!
Mousebumples
This made me laugh aloud, thanks.
Steve LaBonne
I confess that just as I had no idea that Biden would be such a great President, I had no idea that Harris would be such a terrific candidate (even though she was my clear second choice in 2020 after Warren. Which was not smart of me because Warren would not have won and I believe Harris could have). Going from numb despair to joyous anticipation in a matter of days is quite a sensation.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
If there’s one happening, it’s too early for there to be “proof.” But Republicans have been getting more minority votes recently, and we’re improving in places like Arizona and Georgia and even Texas.
Soprano2
@Geminid: You’re right about that. Kunce is the best possible candidate the D’s can run against Hawley. Kunce is running bio ads about himself, while Hawley is running an ad saying Kunce wants to ban pickup trucks. I hope Kunce runs an ad telling everyone Hawley doesn’t even live in Missouri. He’s supposedly building a house in Ozark, which is just south of Springfield, but it’s still in the “construction” phase. I don’t think he or his family have any intention of moving back here.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I think Harris is a stronger candidate now than she was in 2020. Her time as Veep has really strengthened her.
kwAwk
Since this is an open thread, I thought I’d pop in for one of kwAwk’s unpopular opinions.
I say this as an Iraq War vet and with 6 years in the Marine reserves, when the right wingers are questioning Walz’s service and how and when he left his unit, maybe this would be a good time to pivot the conversation to why the fuck were we activating the Minnesota National Guard in 2005 to serve a 2 year deployment in Iraq in the first place? This was almost 4 years after 9/11 and long after the national emergency had passed.
It has always seemed to me that the actions of the Bush administration during this time broke the compact of what the reserves were supposed to be because at this point they were too cheap to expand the active duty ranks to the level necessary to maintain ongoing operations.
Eolirin
@AM in NC: It won’t take much of a swing to win statewide, even if the legislature is screwed until the maps can get tossed. Biden and the last few Senate races were only about a point apart, right?
@schrodingers_cat: Actual election data is showing a shift rightward with rural areas and leftward with the suburbs. Also rightward with non college educated males and leftward with the college educated. So some kind of realignment is happening. The exact shape and how it all shakes out tbd.
Frankensteinbeck
MSNBC was slavering for it. People like Maddow had a twinkle in their eye discussing that Biden hadn’t endorsed Harris in his resignation message. People I am damn sure are liberal and passionately vote Democrat. Pundit Brain Worm is a real thing. This was their chance to ride a political story that would go down in history.
Dumbasses. Harris was the only result that was ever going to happen. Was Biden ever going to not nominate Harris? Were the Biden/Harris delegates ever going to switch to someone other than Harris? Were serious numbers of Democratic public figures going to endorse anyone else when Harris was the only candidate who could win? Harris had the nomination locked up.
Now, the roaring enthusiasm of the grassroots, that was a thing that couldn’t be predicted and I am grateful for. Harris’s skill with inspiring that, organizing that, pursuing tone to build on it – she may have had the nomination locked up, but what she did with it has been awe-inspiring. The woman is good, and I’m sure she’ll be as titanic a president as she is a candidate.
EDIT – @zhena gogolia:
Look, I’m in the ‘Biden was done dirty’ camp, but this is damn near the exact opposite of both public and Balloon Juice sentiment.
Gvg
This election is not just about reproductive rights. It’s also about everyone’s privacy. And right to life. Healthcare is life and it’s being interfered with, for men too in that certain drugs being banned have uses way beyond abortion for both sexes. Stopping women at the border will cause men to be arrested too, unjustly, unrelated to helping women get abortions. It will lead to everyone’s mail being monitored if we allow it. Just outrageous. These things need to be pointed out. They are saying this out loud, proposing laws on the record in some states. Stuff like this used to get struck down by courts but we can’t count on them now. We also used to vote people out of office and call the commies…..well they aren’t communists but they are anti democratic.
The Republican Party should be bleeding support from ALL groups even whites. But people are slow when they have been safe for generations.
Soprano2
@206inKY: Wow, that’s seriously messed up! I hope they’re dragged as much as they deserve for that.
edgefigaro
Monday morning vent.
Had my interview with Nat’l office two weeks ago, it was 15 mins, said they would refer me to Wisconson Dems and I’d hear from the state office this week sometime.
I don’t like this waiting anxiety. I want to get on with it. My father is taking a trip up to visit my aunt this weekend, and I’d really like to be able to get started. I’ll need to do a lot of networking immediately just for my life to function.
My biggest anxiety is “i’ll hear in two weeks” turns into “not interested but we won’t tell you” or “we’ll tell you in a month, sorry it took so long.”
Gromble gromble gromble. Thanks for letting me vent.
Leto
@sdhays: also remember that the company he ran was convicted of one of the largest Medicare frauds in history. That “blueprint” was the 2.0 version of that. Fortunately for us he released it under-cooked, and ahead of time, so that we had time to beat them about the head with it.
p.a.
Infanticide!?!? That’s their big take🤡 Oh and socialistSocialistSOCIALIST! (Gotta give them that: 100 year record of success after all- from both parties for a lot of that time.) Could the Lefty McLeftface smear finally be seen as the fraud it’s always been?
Thing to watch over time: Rethug power base in white non-college educated. Colleges are in some shit over costs & demographics; cutting costs & programs as college-bound population (especially males?) drops.
Quinerly
@Frankensteinbeck:
Granted I was at brunch at The Cowgirl when the Biden news came down on that Sunday so I didn’t see anyone’s “twinkle.” He endorsed in less than 30 mins in a second message as I recall. Rachel was on during those 30 minutes on a Sunday?
Jeffro
@206inKY: I saw that too.
It does make trump look old, though ;)
Leto
@kwAwk:
The Surge. It was implemented just as their tour was winding down, and they were a part of it. Like so many units who were nearing the end of their deployments, only to be told: sorry, you’ve got another 12 months to go. At least they weren’t on the plane flying home when they were told.
Also we’re not gonna relitigate that. Shrub, and co., absolutely broke that compact, but we’re not gonna rehash that.
bbleh
@Baud: @Gin & Tonic: @Eolirin: yes yes yes! And the Republicans are MUCH more organized in their sabotage. There is a very real chance that we could end up like Florida 2000 only nationally.
We have to win DECISIVELY and OVERWHELMINGLY at the polls, so there can’t be any doubt. And that takes work! We need to identify, register and turn out our voters, especially the low-propensity / low-info “leaners.”
Not trying to be a downer, and excitement and joy are indeed infectious, but we need to turn them into VOTES.
zhena gogolia
@kwAwk: Yeah, but good luck getting that conversation going!
Frankensteinbeck
@Quinerly:
They had everyone rushing in to comment. It was only a half an hour, but god damn they were drooling during it. That Biden hadn’t nominated Harris yet was THE topic.
I absolutely concede that memory is tricky and I might be pasting Maddow’s attitude over the “Will Biden drop out?” period that I saw so much of into a brief event that was a blur of me watching the news in shock. I knew what would happen, but still, it was a painful and scary moment.
Scout211
New polling finds that the attacks on Vance are working. I know, it’s one poll by one group so who knows if it’s a trend, but it’s interesting.
I don’t call it “attacks by Democrats” as the article states, though. I think it’s more likely that everyone is taking a closer look at the guy now and he is clearly weird.
And in sort of silly news, the bookmakers are starting to bet on Harris-Walz.
Jeffro
@Geminid: Youngkin would definitely lose to Spanberger…I dunno about her “flattening” him, though.
I’m just looking forward to Sears & Miyares sliming each other, then trying to ‘pivot’ for the general election. It could set the VA GOP back another couple of cycles, which would be very welcome.
You look at the two of them and (much like trump and Vance nationally) want to go, “is that the absolute best y’all can offer up, Virginia Republicans? Ye gods.”
Another Scott
@p.a.: There was a story (that I didn’t read, just saw the headline) that “lizard brain” isn’t actually a thing. Maybe so, but all the GQP knows to run on is fear and anger.
It would be great if we were all logical beings who weighed the plusses and minuses of proposed policies and actions, and always chose the better course. But we don’t.
If they can only run on fear and anger and a return to a past that never was, then we can counter it by running on joy and happiness and wonder and optimism about the future. They run on riling up the lizard brain, we run on ultimate laughter (laughing so hard we can’t breathe) and love and brotherhood.
Please proceed, Donold.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t think you’ve been reading all the comments.
Kay
@Mousebumples:
There was no mechanism within the rules for a “blitz primary”.
An “open” primary is required. Not contested. But “open”. There is no mechanism in the process for Biden to coronate someone. You would have known they were planning for a “blitz primary” because they would have had to change the rules. They didn’t have time to change the rules and it would have had to go to a vote w/in the DNCmembers.
The “open” primary was not a choice by Pelosi or anyone else it’s the rule.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Absolutely, but she probably would have been better in 2020 than she was able to show in the primaries. She got stuck in between the “moderate” and “progressive” lanes and couldn’t really establish her own profile in a crowded field.
Frankensteinbeck
@zhena gogolia:
A couple of people like Bupalos are wild outliers who have gotten a lot of pushback. From the moment Harris started to take off, which was really damn fast, Balloon Juice has been flooded with “Holy shit, did Joe pull a jujitsu on those motherfuckers?”
EDIT – As I say frequently, I actually don’t think he did. I think he bowed to necessity in the hope that someone else could save the country, and that necessity was created by other people, including us. He’s still a great politician and great president and he did the painful thing no one else would have been strong enough to do.
bbleh
@Quinerly: omg is that fer realz? he might just stroke out completely.
citizen dave
Hoosier here–will note that Obama in 2007-08 campaigned the shit out of our nation. He visited Indiana 48 times!
I stipulate that Dems are the deep deep policy party, governing party, etc. Republicans are no longer the adults in the room. That said, I see this thought on twitter–Can Kamala meme her way to victory? Well memory is fuzzy, but my recollection is that W Bush rode to victory* mostly on the “Do you want to have a beer with this guy?” meme
Presidential politics has so often been vibes (to use the current vernacular). Or, even worse if this is how it works, high school student council election vibes…
Mousebumples
@edgefigaro: good luck! I’m hoping to have you on the ground in Wisconsin soon.
One thought – with the primary TOMORROW, that is probably their focus in the short term.
I’d suggest writing a follow up/check in email message to send – probably Wednesday am, if you haven’t heard from them.
If we know whether the amendments passed or failed, that could also be worth mentioning, at that point.
suzanne
Agree.
Think of the Trumpy MAGA-y people that you know. All of the ones I’ve met are grumpy, resentful, and uncool.
p.a.
My totes unevidenced thought on this, if it is happening, is maybe a decline in the trad black & hispanic churches & rise of storefront, unaffiliated preachers coming from evangelical traditions. And the tried-and-true (historically for white US newcomers) tradition of getting up a step or two on the ladder then kicking out the rungs below you.
Mousebumples
@Kay: yeah, I might be conflating old reporting at this point. Or reporters who wanted a blitz primary were conflating the 2, framing things as they wanted, etc.
I agree that the open primary is within the rules. Which makes sense!
I’m just glad that I was very very wrong about how things would go if (then, after) Biden stepped back.
RevRick
Here in PA, we’ve been bombarded with ads funded by rightwing billionaires screaming about Kamala, the border czar, letting hordes of illegal aliens butchering decent Americans and poisoning them with tons of fentanyl, all the while creating crushing inflation by passing trillions in reckless spending.
The results: Polls show Pennsylvania trending anywhere from 4-6% bluer, such that Kamala now has a definite lead.
If everything and the kitchen sink isn’t working, I would say it’s looking mighty good for our side.
Kay
Joe Biden was a great President but not a popular President, and to get re elected he had to be popular.
Bill Clinton was a mediocre President but popular, so re elected.
One does not inexorably lead to the other. We could have continued to deny this and continued to complain about how dumb voters are OR we could win.
Most Democrats want to win.
Baud
@RevRick:
Excellent. But those are the same arguments that would have been used against Biden, right? Did you notice any changes to the content other than switching out Biden for Kamala?
catclub
@Eolirin: yeah, 2008 Obama got Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, NC, Florida
anything past NC and Florida is seismic now.
Baud
@Kay:
Dems are allowed to complain about the situation. Yes, Dems want to win, but political expediency also ruffles our feathers. It has before and it will again.
Kay
Donald Trump was a bad President and also unpopular in 2020. But the two things don’t have to go together. That’s always been true.
Baud
@catclub:
We can get AZ and GA now, which Obama couldn’t. You have to look at both sides.
Quinerly
@Frankensteinbeck:
I fail to understand why on earth the whining accusations that no one gives Biden credit have to be interjected in happy morning threads. That and the accusations that “Dems will stab Kamala in the back” comments. So tedious. I am beginning to see it as trollish and I debated on even saying anything. I usually just stop reading the comments when I come to those comments. Start scanning for interesting links buried in the comments.
Saw your edit and I agree with you that everyone here who posts regularly gives Biden credit for everything he has done. I haven’t heard a Democrat in office not give him credit. Pundits on MSNBC regularly give him credit. Historians like Beschloss and Meacham give him credit. There’s a third historian who pops up on MSNBC who sings Biden’s praises. Can’t recall his name. Many of us who have been following BJ for many years yet felt he needed to step aside were also giving him credit while hoping/advocating for a “reset.” I, for one, never engaged in armchair diagnosis about cognitive decline or Parkinson’s (although my friend who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s is convinced Biden has it based on his early stages that weren’t diagnosed until over a year after onset).
History and the Democratic Party will hail Biden as a hero. Hell, they and we already are.
Harrison Wesley
@RevRick: Doesn’t hurt that the governor has such a high approval rating.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Which minority demographic? You specifically said black. There are many Latinos/Hispanic people that identify as white. Ds still manage to get around 60% of that vote.
If the Rs were not so openly racist they could easily get more minority votes.
Quinerly
@Kay:
THIS!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I believe they’ve been gaining across black people, Latinos, and maybe a little of Asians.
And as the saying goes, if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
Kay
@Baud:
yup. And I’m allowed to push back. I think it’s not what happened.
As I said I’m also deeply uncomfortable with this frame where Biden is solely responsible for Harris’ success. I think it’s sexist and patronizing and gross. We’re aware that’s what the GOP attack on her is, right? That powerful men made her?
I don’t think we should have our own weird version.
Booger
@Jeffro: I still harbor enough animus against any kind of Sears (FOADIAF, Eddie Lampert) that she ain’t getting anywhere…and I’m a lifelong Virginian who hasn’t missed and election since 1978.
I would pay good money to see her and that petty little empty suit Miyares duke it out Thunderdome style.
Baud
@Kay:
Yes you can push back. Anyone can say anything. I think we’ve reached a consensus that we don’t have any influence on anything.
Quinerly
@bbleh: the author is on Morning Joe this AM. The article is definitely worth the read.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Where are you seeing this? In election results or polls? Or both.
Quiltingfool
@Soprano2: Hasn’t Hawley been building that house for years? WTH! He needs a new general contractor if that house is taking more than 18 months to build, or he is running out of money.
Maybe he and his wife can focus on the *house* if he loses in November. I so wish that would happen, but the guys at Electoral.com think that Hawley will win. Damn it.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I haven’t looked lately. Basing it on memory.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Uhhhhhh…who said that?
RevRick
@Baud: Not at all.
Biden’s age was a huge factor in the turnaround, but now that shoe is on the other foot. And the GOP playbook is clearly not working.
MomSense
@Kay:
Yup. MA was bad for Warren. She was underperforming Obama so the Mass combined campaign redeployed a lot of people from NH back to MA. So Maine picked up the slack in NH. I found myself in NH every weekend and doing both the ME and NH state calls. Crazy times. No that election was not as close as people thought later on. They took a big gamble and spent a lot of money early on and that was key to Romney running a defensive campaign the whole time.
catclub
@hrprogressive:
These two statements are contradictory. The way to get a Trump reich was to have Biden hang in all the way. And if Biden hung in all the way then the Democratic party might have been coming apart at the seams, as well.
Mousebumples
This seems like good politics. Outside of the moneyed donors who benefit, people hate this crap.
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, but she was defined before she was even nominated.
Jeffro
Bank of America CEO: no recession in sight
CNN: violent crime is dropping like a stone in the US
trump campaign ad, released today:
“Our economy is shattered” = “I can’t handle Kamala’s record crowds”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Ok thanks. If Rs tamp it down to W levels of prejudice they would win a lot more minority votes.
catclub
@Baud: Good point.
Baud
@Mousebumples:
Oh nice. This speaks to me. I think the time cost to consumers gets undervalued in traditional cost/benefit analysis.
Mousebumples
@Jeffro: my fee-fees are shattered, etc.
RevRick
@Harrison Wesley: He had a high approval rating before Kamala replaced Joe, and she picked Walz over Shapiro.
Motivated Seller
I’m so old this Roxette song is the first thing I thought of with the word “Joyride”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCorJG9mubk
Quinerly
@Scout211:
You and I seem to be reading the same articles this AM. The feed from memeorandum.com is my AM go to. I bet the articles about betting and about Vance will catch Trump’s eye, too.
I think we can expect a day of crazy, incoherent tweets, with hopefully Kamala’s Time cover pushing him over yet another ledge. I don’t think he has any campaign rallies scheduled this week. Lots of time on his hands.
Eolirin
@catclub: Florida by itself is seismic.
Frankensteinbeck
@Motivated Seller:
Ditto. I figured there were more Joyrides that were more recent, and I’ll have to look up what was actually used. Also Roxette was just really great.
Quinerly
@Kay:
THIS!!!
zhena gogolia
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: No one. No one.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, probably, and Dems might get some white voters back. Who knows how things will unfold? Things are always changing, whether we notice it or not.
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub:
I think it’s pretty clear the Punditariat believed there would be a chaotic contested convention and Democrats splitting into angry warring factions, which would have guaranteed Trump’s victory.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@zhena gogolia: What I thought.
Leto
@Motivated Seller: you’re not the only one.
Baud
The media was hardly kind to Kamala over the last four years. I bet they’re surprised at how well she’s been doing.
RevRick
@schrodingers_cat: It all goes back to Nixon’s Southern strategy of making the play for Southern white racists, who have constituted about 85% of Southern whites. The assumption that Northern GOP conservatives was that they could win their votes while maintaining control of the party.
Well, now the GOP is thoroughly Dixiefied, with all the retrograde fascism that represents. The more evident that becomes, the more they repel larger swaths of the electorate.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Kay: The frustrating part is that performing the duties of President of the United States requires a very different skill set from defeating Donald Trump, and Biden, while killing it in the former role, was having more and more difficulty in the latter role. If the money men and the GOP-sympathetic media hadn’t spent three weeks whipping up a frenzy over his poor performance in the debate – and over six years digging up every bit of dirt that looked like it might just possibly stick to him if thrown, things might have been different, but if the world were just, Donold would already be rotting in prison.
WereBear
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Most of the #notalltalk is about the men.
The way Harris showed off her strengths, including choosing Walz now and running with Biden then… doesn’t get talked about.
The massive leap in her speechmaking since her 2020 run. Building this juggernaut. Teasing The Convicted Felon and then laughing at him.
Our presidential candidate shaped her campaign. I’m in awe.
She has boosters but I declare that SHE is the rocket.
Subsole
@Eolirin:
Small amendment to an otherwise solid post:
They will have no viable coalition so long as they run Trump.
Maybe I am hopelessly cynical, but I think some heads are going to spin at how fast We the People revert to mean once Orange Bad Man goes where he should.
And, as long as I am being Dudley Downer, I am also less sanguine about our chances this Fall. We were pretty damn sure of victory before, and the bad guys overperformed.
Trump is, sadly, a WWC beast. Only Reagan drove more assholes to the polls.
We are going to have to scrap for every inch, folks. It’s a knife fight. Please, please, please do not get cute. No going after Florida or Texas or any of that weird shit. Lock down the Blue Wall – and I mean spot weld that fucker to the floor – pick off GA, AZ, and SC if we can. We can get cute after we’ve broken their backs.
Eolirin
@Baud: Asian support has always been higher for Republicans than other minority groups. I think the data suggests they’ve lost some ground, though there may be a reversion to mean going on there.
If we’re losing blacks it’s only black men, and the election data we have suggests it’s small. I don’t trust the polls suggesting a large drop in support. There have been methodological issues with the ones showing the largest drops.
We could lose a lot of Latino support though, and that seems more supported with election data, at least regionally, though again, it seems to be mostly men. A lot of them do identify as white, there’s been a take over of spanish language radio by right wingers, and historically, like during the W administration, there has been more support for Republicans than there is now.
I think that’s where we’d need to play the most defense. And that group isn’t even remotely close to monolithic so it’s going to take a lot more work.
Steve LaBonne
A poll just came out with Harris a point ahead of Assmouth on being trusted to manage the economy. When is the last time that a Democrat came close to flipping that perception?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They are going to continue being nasty. And we better have her back.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
This. In this way, she’s not unlike Biden after his previous runs and stint in the VP’s office.
hueyplong
@Motivated Seller: And I’m so old that when Trump “truthed” that the economy is “shattered,” I immediately flashed back to Eighties Stones:
And look at me, I’m in tatters
I’m shattered
Shattered
Shadoobie, shattered, shattered
p.a.
@Subsole: I agree. Wish I didn’t. It will be a rockfight. In the mud.
Maybe I’m PTSD from 2016. And 2000.
WereBear
@Mousebumples: With my autoimmune at its worst (pro tip: don’t have a stress related illness during a time of great stress) I could handle a real conversation, say going into the bank and straightening things out, and competently focus.
The customer service switched to the current Spanish Inquisition/Beat the Clock kind of competition. It was a factor in us getting rid of all cards except the ones from this bank. Because even though that’s a separate company, they will intercede for us.
And yes, even on a good day, I hate it. They are like these clawing SF parasites which kept snatching at someone’s attention like a toddler bored to distraction but too tired to go to sleep. The worst offenders have been exiled so I don’t have to deal with their joke of a “system.”
Quiltingfool
@Subsole: No spot welding, needs to be a weld that is difficult to remove, lol!
My husband watches lots of you tube stuff involving welding. I pick up some information even though I try not to, lol!
lollipopguild
@mrmoshpotato: I think one reason Taylor Swift is so popular is that you do not go to a Swift concert to watch Taylor perform you go to her concert to PARTY with Taylor. Forty thousand people at Munich who were on the hill outside the stadium partying with the 70,000 people in the stadium.
Subsole
@hrprogressive:
For some reason, I keep seeing Marlo Stanfield gazing into Peter Baker’s eyes and saying
“You want it to be one way…”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RevRick:
And who said traditional advertising methods and outlets don’t work?
//
Kay
Maybe explain what “allowed” means. Scarylawyerguy is “allowed” to write stupid sexist shit on Twitter and I’m “allowed” to say I think it’s stupid and sexist.
Or does “allowed” really mean “we can say whatever we want and anyone who disagrees with us is being mean”. Because that’s really close to the Right wing definition.
I don’t know scarylawyerguy. It’s not a personal attack. I think the hero worship is weird and sexist in this context I’m thankful the majority of Democrats didn’t seem to go there. Once again, Twitter is not real life.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Frankensteinbeck: Hell, they were feeding that narrative well before Biden passed the baton. We’re just lucky that there was a clear succession plan in place between Biden and Harris, and that if the Time article is right, she had already done a lot of campaign ground work in advance of an anticipated 2028 run that could be quickly repurposed for 2024 (and having access to the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign apparatus didn’t hurt either).
TBone
Comment of the Day (so far):
brendancalling
@WereBear: I wrote a poem about JD last night! It goes like this:
“On a break from humping a couch,
JD Vance proclaimed with a shout:
’I don’t like folks in drag,
Trans-people, and fags—
Please don’t look at those pics that leaked out!’”
Thanks, try the veal.
Eolirin
@Subsole: If it looks like there’s any chance we need to contest Florida this cycle. Same thing with Allred vs Cruz. Those are our only pickup opportunities if Tester loses. The Senate is almost as important as the Presidency right now. I’d rather we fail to regain the House if it means keeping the Senate
Also it’s an open question if the rabid parts of the base will accept a shift back to moderate. It’s what’s ripped the MI and AZ GOP parties apart.
catclub
@catclub:
The predictit marketplace 1 month chart for georgia is delightful.
Subsole
@Soprano2:
Yep.
“Your pastor doesn’t get to tell me how to live.”
“If I want your church to run my life, I will go to your church.”
Both of those are simple, direct, defiant, and relatable.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Agree.
TBone
More victimhood from the Sorest Loser 😆
Can’t wait for the discovery phase! Oh, what’s that? You’ve
been hackedare a hack? 😆https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-plans-to-sue-doj-for-100m-over-mar-a-lago-raid-report/ar-AA1oEW1a
🎶😁
https://youtu.be/AL8chWFuM-s
catclub
Yes. She hired a lot of Obama campaign veterans that Biden had failed to hire. One wonders why.
Kay
I think Joe Biden was a great President but of course he endorsed Harris. He chose her as his VP! I would be shocked if he hadn’t have endorsed her, and so would everyone else. The great thing he did in my view is step down as a candidate – that was hard and self sacrificing. Picking Harris was what I would expect. It means he still thinks she’s the best choice for President other than him.
His endorsement isn’t filling those halls and his endorsement didn’t pick Walz although the conventional wisdom (including me) was Shapiro. She did that.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat:
I would be curious about the age breakdown on those ethnic groupings.
I think a lot of folks are somewhat unaware of the rank misogyny a lot of the kids these days have been getting shoveled into their heads via social media and peer groups. I have seen it, and it cuts across ethnic and economic lines.
Baud
@TBone:
“Please pay attention to ME again, media!”
schrodingers_cat
Stray thought this morning:
No one complains about minorities and immigrants when they win medals for Team USA or Nobel Prizes.
charon
@Kay:
It is Vance’s intent at jeering, but it is not so much jeering at drag as it is jeering at women.
Vance’s intent was not homophobic but misogynist.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Haters complain when they don’t win gold though. Also when the women don’t win.
schrodingers_cat
@Subsole: I have no doubt. The percentages of young people voting is still quite low compared other age groups.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s been increasing lately. Hopefully still will do so, now that the old candidate is on the GOP side alone.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: True that. I read somewhere that 63% of the Team USA gold was from women athletes.
TBone
@Baud: 🎯
Every single day!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Interesting. I didn’t realize it was that lopsided. Makes some sense. We probably do better than most places in elevating women’s sports.
Kay
Media may not love Walz – he’s not conservative and conventional enough for them, but our base loves him. Which means Harris knows our base better than the conventional wisdom or media. Fabulous. She still has a lot of room to grow just with our base. She knew that, apparently. I did not – I was Shapiro.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Younger people lean more D because as a cohort they are less white then other age groupings. Over 50% of white youngsters are still vote R, that’s what 2020 data suggested IIRC.
Eunicecycle
@Kay: I read somewhere (maybe a biography) that Jimmy Carter was told he was going to lose IN JULY. I remembered that when it was reported that Biden was told the polls were bad last month. I know polls were better back then (only landlines, no caller ID, etc) but that tidbit stuck with me.
Subsole
@Leto:
As a nation, we will never rehash anything Bush and his merry little gang of pirates shattered.
Not least because the folks who could point it all out have never reckoned with their complicity in events.
I actually think that’s where the media started its slide into today’s sorry state. When they just shrugged and let Bush off tge hook (because it was the only way to let themselves off the hook), it pretty much guaranteed that they could never hold another Republucan accountable.
TS
@catclub:
I remember the queues to vote in Florida – 1am people were still in line. they knew Obama had won the election before they voted. What an amazing evening.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Geminid: I would love to believe that Hawley is vulnerable in my state. I hate that smarmy jerk. Unfortunately, I really don’t see it.
Mousebumples
@schrodingers_cat: that sounds right. And 50% or more for the silver and bronze medals.
Also, Title IX means tons of international female athletes come to USA colleges to learn and compete. I’m not sure on numbers, but that’s a great impact we’re having on female athletes, around the world.
Kay
@charon:
I agree. That’s why they’ll love it. It’s the exact mean spirited shitty “humor” they love. Vance is the fucking poster boy for it. He’s as mean as his (chosen) father figure, Donald Trump. Of all the honorable and good men in this world the fatherless Vance chose Donald Fucking Trump as a role model. A rapist and a bigot who has never done anything other than sow division and violence. It’s all you need to know about JD Vance.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Thank Title IX.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
That same thought went thru my head last week when black athletes from the UK competing in the track events were winning medals while race riots erupted across the country back home. Women like Katrina Johnson-Thompson in the Heptathalon or sprinters like Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita.
oldgold
Up ahead, in the next 50 days, there are 3 events looming that could shake this race up.
The September 10 debate;
Trump’s sentencing September 18; and,
The possible government shutdown on October 1.
I doubt 1 does. 2 and 3 have potential for doing so, but pose more downside risk for Trump than Harris.
catclub
I did not point it out in the thread yesterday on Biden’s interview, but if you had said in 2010 that between Obama and Biden, Biden would be the better and more consequential president, it would get an unbelieving laugh.
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
Another good President who wasn’t popular. A lot of moderate Republicans think George HW Bush was a good President who wasn’t popular. Romney too. They think he would have been great, but people didn’t want him. It’s a hurdle! Probably can’t get over that!
Biden was great though, so it stings. But it’s true. Not popular.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I haven’t seen anything in Project 2025 and title IX. I can’t believe they ignored that.
(I initially wrote Project 1025, which is a more apt title).
RevRick
@Eolirin: With regards to Arizona, the GOP seems to be in a death spiral as evidenced by the endorsement of Kamala by the GOP mayor of Mesa. Let’s not forget that California used to be a reliably Republican state… until the GOP governor backed a draconian anti immigrant voter proposition. And aside from Ah-nold, it’s been downhill ever since.
Baud
@catclub:
But let’s not fall into Great Man thinking. Biden was able to do more in large part because the party and the country were in a different place.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Didn’t Jonah Goldberg’s wife produce a screed against Title IX a few years ago. I am sure its hidden in Project 2025
Found it
E.
@Kay: I don’t believe you are being fair to most of the loyalist side in that debate, and their motivations for being wary of Biden dropping out because of what looked like a press-driven smear campaign. Do you really want to argue that the Black Congressional Caucus doesn’t want to win elections? Just wants to complain about how dumb voters are?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t know about her, but it’s been on their target list for years.
catclub
The 1980 economy was down 5%. It was a huge bad outlier for any incumbent. No polling necessary.
This year’s economy is great.
Belafon
@catclub:
Not necessarily. It wasn’t a guarantee. Even those Democrats who weren’t keen on Biden staying would have voted for him, as would anyone who saw Trump as dangerous. Democratic chaos was a sure fire way to having Trump win.
A lot of the push from people like Pelosi to pushing Biden out was about the House and Senate, not necessarily whether he could win.
BR
@catclub:
I don’t know that I buy the framing that Biden is more consequential than Obama. I think the ACA and CFPB alone cement Obama’s place in history, all the more given that his staff wanted to give up on them and he pushed on, and now they are both taken for granted. If anything comparing Obama and Biden is a bit apples and oranges. Different circumstances, different needs.
catclub
@Baud:
agreed. the future is hard to predict.
Subsole
@p.a.:
And 2020. Remember, this asshole gained votes after 4 years of his bullshit.
Be happy, be joyful, but don’t let your enthusiasm make you blind.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: Title IX hadn’t really had a chance to take effect when I was in high school; ergo, there were three sports for girls, all coached by the same person (so if she hated you, forget about it)–field hockey, basketball, and softball. My SIL is almost exactly ten years younger than I am–and, TBF, much more athletically gifted than I could hope to be–and she had at least a partial athletic scholarship, and there were way more sports available. I’ve played a number of sports over the years, all recreationally (and none particularly well), and I think the experience of playing ANY sport can really have a positive impact on how one interacts in the world. Play hard–and then have a beer afterward, with your opponents. That particular experience translates well into other arenas, and women my age and older mostly didn’t have much opportunity for it. So, yes, I do thank Title IX
ETA: and that ability and comfort with competition is exactly why the right hates it.
geg6
@Baud:
Apparently not. At least not according to some.
RevRick
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: You’re right about Hawley. For him to lose would take a Democratic landslide on the order of 450 electoral votes.
Quinerly
@E.:
As an aside, there’s a short snippet buried in a long Guardian or Independent piece I read yesterday that recounts Clyburn going to Biden and discussing with him that he should drop out. Only place I have seen that reported. Well worth tracking down that piece.
Subsole
@Quiltingfool:
Fair. Though realistically if we’re securing, I’d say rebar and concrete the bastard to the foundation. Welder would probably have…adverse effects…on most flooring material.
geg6
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Goalposts are just not stationary in some circles.
TBone
https://www.yahoo.com/news/isaac-hayes-estate-sues-donald-083435012.html
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys 😎 is fair play.
hueyplong
@BR: Also, both Obama and Biden prevented an alternative history in which Republicans held the White House. On that score, a second Trump term was a scary prospect.
As it is now.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: *Waves* good to see you back.
BR
@Kay:
I was nervous leading up to her pick for that reason — can you imagine what TikTok would have done with the Shapiro voice cloning of Obama? Instead we get happy dad memes with Walz.
Two days before she picked her VP, I talked with my dad who for a retired engineer has remarkable political instincts. (He’s called the primary nominees on both sides, and winners, in every election in my lifetime.) He said Walz was the better pick because as he put it “Shapiro shouts 20 decibels louder than Harris, so people will think he’s the one running for president.”
TBone
@Mousebumples:
🎶😁
https://youtu.be/1NLV24qTnlg
Kay
@E.:
Do you really want to argue that Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer and Obama were plotting to get rid of Harris and therefore decided to take Joe Biden out although every single one of them knew he would endorse Harris, because endorsing Harris was expected? The unusual event would have been Biden NOT endorsing Harris. They needed all of this to operate by consent. A LOT of people had to consent, including all the delegates. They know that. You just don’t know delegate counts better than Obama. He’s the expert. Pelosi said Harris was working behind the scenes to ensure support which I would absolutely expect her to do and I am ridiculously thankful to her for making this absolutely insane scenario she was thrust into look easy. She’s talented. I credit Joe Biden with picking her as VP and stepping aside when it became clear to most of leadership that he would lose. That was hard and self sacrificing. Endorsing his chosen VP was not – it’s a given.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
This isn’t going to be about what groups Harris manages to “win over”, or who she’s getting better or worse polling numbers from, it’s going to be entirely about who shows up and who stays home.
cain
@MazeDancer: Biden layed up the shot with Kamala, and we came in like a pumped MIchael Jordan/Shaq/Le Bron and slammed that ball into the basket and grabbed the hoop and made sure nobody else but her was in there.
We saved America from centrists and fascists and didn’t allow those rich donors to have their way.
hueyplong
@Quinerly: Clyburn, arguably the kingmaker who gave Biden a path to the nomination in 2020, would have been the most credible (to Biden) person to say it was time to step down.
Kind of hoping that’s how history views the process.
Omnes Omnibus
As far as the people who are urging people not to get overexcited by the enthusiasm for Harris go, it is good not to get too car ahead of ourselves. BUT massive enthusiasm can be turned into votes. It is easier to GOTV from people who are going to rallies and talking excitedly about our candidate. You just have to tell them how and when and where. You don’t have to convince them of why. We are set up for something great. If we do the work. Confidence does not equal complacency.
JML
It’s going to be very interesting to see how successful the Harris team is in moving supporters through early voting and banking as many votes as possible prior to election day. Each vote you get done ahead of time is one less you have to turn over to GOTV, and in battleground states that could be the difference maker, especially since the GOP doesn’t have the same kind of ground game they usually run, having turned it over the Grifter Central.
There’s some very interesting potential paradigm shifts that could come into play this election, impacting campaign structures and polling models. But it’s also why the GOP has been so desperately trying to make it harder and harder to vote at the state level, firmly convinced (rightly, I think, although TFG definitely managed to activate a significant cadre of low-information, low-propensity voters that made an impact in 2016) that bigger turnout favors the D’s.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@catclub:
Biden: Best President Of My Lifetime
Obama: Best Republican President of My Lifetime beating out Clinton as Second Best
And while I’ve always been a big Biden fan, yeah, I would have had the same unbelieving laugh reaction in 2010.
rikyrah
Omari Hardy
@OmariJHardy
The media that wants detailed policy proposals from Kamala Harris is the same media that ignored Project 2025 until Taraji Henson shouted about it at the BET Awards.
https://x.com/OmariJHardy/status/1822712168728481891
Kay
@BR:
I hate that Tik Toc matters but I have reluctantly concluded that it does, so I agree.
The thinking behind Shapiro was simple (and I was on Team Shapiro). Less risk. He would give us a point or two in PA and Trump probbaly cant win without PA. But she made her own decision. Admirable. I love that she’s a risk taker. She’s confident. The Dem base in my area really do love Walz and since she didn’t have a primary she probably needed base consolidation. Good move. Need the base first and then the flighty, indecisive swing voters.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I am pretty excited but I just want us to have her back not feed her to MSM wolves like we did not that long ago with another great candidate. When the inevitable attacks against her will ramp up as we head into the fall campaign.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: Quite often success breeds success. I’m a natural Eeyore, but even I sense the direction of the race has shifted decisively in the Democratic direction. My main concern right now is defending the Ohio and Montana Senate seats.
TBone
Nobody gonna harsh my buzz. Nobody!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Yg5yEhPME
It’s silly season and I’m so down with it, I’m up.
Fair Economist
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Unfortunately the Republican gerrymanders these days are generally around R+10. That takes an FDR 1932 landslide to take down.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I think Spanberger will crush whoever Republicans nominate next year. She’ll have coattails too, and will start her term with a Democratic majority in both General Assembly houses.
A year ago, when Spanberger let Democrats know she would seek another congressional term and run for Governor instead, Bill Bolling described Spanberger as “a formidable politician.” He could not see anyone on the Republican bench who could compete with her.
I consider Bolling, the former two-term Republican Lt. Governor, a shrewd observer of Virginia politics and politicians. Bolling won all 8 of his 8 political campaigns so he was no slouch himself.
When Spanberger made known her intention to run for Governor, I asked the 5 Charlottesville Democrats I talk politics with what they thought. One is very liberal, two are liberal and two are more moderate, and they were all enthusiastic. I found this interesting because they usually don’t pay much attention to neighboring districts. They might not have recognized Shenandoah Valley Republican Rep. Ben Cline, or Richmond Democratic Rep. Jennifer McClellan, but they knew who Spanberger was and they liked what they saw.
Uncle Cosmo
One more time for those of you who haven’t been paying attention:
Everything in the news that claims to be “honest poll results” is in fact the product of customers paying for numbers that fit the story they want to tell.
Are there honest polls? Most likely. But you and I will never see them until long after the fact. They are all produced for campaigns that have a desperate interests in knowing, as precisely as possible, the state of the race(s), for good or ill, along with all the crosstabs money can buy, in order to determine strategy going forward. No one is giving freebies to the opposition, so they are all closely held –
probablycertainly more securely secret than anything that ended up in a cardboard box in a Maura Loggo shitter.Kay
@BR:
My approach was “don’t lose” and her approach was “win”. Hers is better.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Typically when the President is not running again (usually because of a term limit), and there’s a full open primary campaign, the President does not endorse a primary candidate. Obama didn’t endorse in 2016 until Hillary Clinton had clearly won, which led to all sorts of weird speculation about bad blood between them, but he was following tradition.
For that reason, it was mildly surprising to me that Biden did endorse Harris, and it was a signal that this was not a normal situation and the first sign that there might be a rapid resolution of the presumptive candidate.
Omnes Omnibus
This is, was, and always will be a remarkably stupid take.
Eolirin
@Baud: It’s not just that. Biden is better at hires than Obama was, overall. His foreign policy team is the weakest link, and that’s not saying a lot; even Jake Sullivan is no Arne Duncan.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
FWIW, I’m 100% for enthusiasm even though I don’t partake anymore. And the risk I see isn’t complacency. It’s that we got some unforseen road block and the bubble pops because people weren’t emotionally prepared to grind through. I think reminding people that we haven’t won yet helps. It’s also what I see Kamala doing in her speeches.
Subsole
@TBone:
Lol. Love it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh well. I realize the “take” on Obama won’t be popular and there is a slight element of snark in my take. Plus, (R) in this case is mostly a reference back to when the GOP wasn’t batshit crazy.
Baud
@Eolirin:
I agree about the hires, but hires are not completely divorced from the people who make up the party.
Subsole
@Eolirin:
Frankly I don’t see how we keep the senate. I’m just hoping Mitch has a [REDACTED].
schrodingers_cat
You nailed it.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: Yes, that’s why I think they don’t actually intend to ever move here. I’m sure his kids like their fancy private school in D.C. and don’t want to go to Ozark schools.
BR
@Kay:
That might be a summary of her whole campaign right now, not just her VP pick. She’s been relentless on offense in a way that we haven’t seen Dems since probably Obama ’08/’12. Vance is now permanently underwater in approval, and Trump is reacting to her crowds and trolling rather than driving his own agenda.
Kay
This is probably bad but I’ll say it. I also love how Harris has unapologetically changed positions from 2020. She probably had to and if you must that’s the way to do it – charge ahead. All of the sad sack meeping by media and the Trump campaign doesn’t matter, which Republicans have known for years. They’re only complaining because we did a power move and under their rules we’re not allowed to. She didn’t ask permission and look – no normie gives a shit.
TBone
@Subsole: 🩷🤣
stinger
@Quinerly: In the Time article, I note that when Democrats win, it is “overperforming”. Democrats aren’t supposed to win!
Jeffro
great insight, especially “(chosen)”
Vance has agency and could have chosen differently. He didn’t.
Soprano2
@Mousebumples: Can I get them to quit telling me how much they care about my call while I’m on hold for 20 minutes? Just put the damn hold music on, quit interrupting it every 15 seconds with some kind of ad!
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
A useless reference for anyone under 70.
Harmful because the R label is often used by propagandists to persuade liberal and lefty minded ignorant people not to vote blue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
I think that is a legitimate concern.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: I am always emotionally prepared to grind through. If not, I’d be dead or drunk in a gutter.
Women are very tough that way.
Captain C
@206inKY:
At this point, the FTFNYT ought to make that their new slogan, replacing “All the the news that fits our preconceptions” or whatever it is now.
Soprano2
Wow, he’s definitely hiding out for some reason. He should have at least 3 or 4 rallies planned, minimum, especially right before the Democratic convention. I thought he had better campaign managers this time? I guess the manager doesn’t matter when the candidate is a narcissistic piece of shit who thinks he knows better than anyone else about everything.
TBone
@Soprano2: I would like to eliminate the need for a call in the first place.
Frankensteinbeck
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I’m pretty sure no Republican would have passed the ACA, and certainly would not have worked so hard for it. Note that ‘Romneycare’ was passed by a Democratic supermajority against Romney’s wishes. Obama was at the time the most liberal president in a generation, and made possible the even more liberal Hillary campaign and Biden presidencies after him.
Quinerly
@stinger:
I have accepted how the press frames Dem vs Repugs. Not a damn thing I can do about it. I believe one reason Harris will win is she understands that too.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus:
If.
Quinerly
@Soprano2:
Interview with Musk today.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eolirin:
That’s probably a less “stupid” take than mine on Obama and characterizes better why many Dems like me look back on his presidency, in terms of policy and execution, in similar ways to how we look back on Clinton. I was an enthusiastic supporter all 4 times I was voting for either man, still glad they were president over the other options. Still sad they didn’t, in the end, reach the potential of their clear political gifts.
Part of what’s colored by view is what’s happened since plus the commentary of outliers originally in the Cabinet like Robert Reich.
BR
I’m looking forward to the epic train wreck today that will be the Musk / Trump interview. Two incoherent and weird galaxy sized egos who have no conversation skills. What could go wrong.
Eunicecycle
@TBone: I saw someone hypothesize that if Trump wins the election he could instruct the DOJ to settle the suit for millions of dollars and he couldn’t be stopped. He was Presidenting!
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
Normally, I’m right with you on this. Have been pretty much ever since the GOP won 2004 on turnout.
But this year I think, first of all, we have a big opportunity to win that 5% of the voting population that’s low-info undecideds. They tend to decide based on superficial impressions, and right now, all those superficial impressions are rolling our way.
If we can get 7/10 of that 5% group, that adds 2% to our share of the vote. At a time when we’re winning or losing states by fractions of a percentage point, that’s BIG. And it brings outlier states like FL, OH, TX closer to winnable.
And, yes, there are loosely attached Republicans out there. There are going to be people who would have almost certainly voted for Trump against Biden as long as both sides were grim. But now one side’s having a blast, and the other side’s all gloom-and-doom, and there are going to be defections.
Not saying we should forget about turnout. We shouldn’t stop writing those postcards and supporting or participating in other GOTV efforts. But turnout edge PLUS winning those low-info voters and getting some defectors is what can turn this into a ‘wave’ year.
TBone
@Eunicecycle: run! run away and hide from that person! 😆
You’re welcome at my backyard party today 🎶
https://youtu.be/yLWabX6GZFU?si=jq8InzpYFAGKOwd1
(He is not currently the president and cannot officially sue the DOJ in any capacity except private citizen.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Frankensteinbeck:
Agreed. I realize that when I trot out my semi-snarky crack on Obama, it overlooks that seminal event and he, along with Nancy Smash, deserve all the credit in the world for that accomplishment.
I always drift back to other aspects of his Cabinet and policies when criticizing him.
Sean
This condensed 3-month campaign, culminating in what will surely be mid to late October rallies featuring Obama, Whitmer, Buttigeg and the rest of the team alongside Harris/Walz (probably with an insane celebrity roster), feeding all that voter energy right into a well-funded machine to bank votes across swing states is going to be really exciting. I will still be an anxious wreck, but we haven’t had that energy of “this is actually fun when we do it this way” in a long time.
For now I am waiting on my postcards to arrive so I can get to writing.
Eolirin
@Subsole: I think Tester has a winnable race, polling has him only down by a couple of points. Strong GOTV or a falloff in R turnout could give him a very narrow win.
If there’s a collapse in Trump’s numbers, Florida is winnable for both Harris and Powell. The state isn’t that far out of reach.
LAC
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, that is some leap. Need to see the actual data on that one.
Quinerly
@hueyplong:
Me too.
Sister Golden Bear
FYI, there’s also a Trans Folks for Harris Zoom call on Tuesday, organized by one of the major trans rights groups.
Mousebumples
Quinerly
@Kay:
THIS!!!
Eolirin
@Soprano2: That he doesn’t have any campaign appearances is a sign he’s got better managers this time. Every time he goes out and does something it’s been going really badly.
Trivia Man
@Eolirin: State leg races are vital for this. Even if we can’t actually flip WI Assembly, a huge gain will make inroads to finding sane republicans we can work with. Other states may see enough gains to even start reversing gerrymandered state houses.
Uncle Cosmo
Polling is like accounting, e.g.:
As Rasmussen has so often demonstrated, there are so many plausible variations in sample selection, question order and phrasing, and turnout models that a competent but unethical research operation can screw with a survey to produce nearly any result the customer needs it to be for purposes of clickbait or deceiving the audience.
TBone
Remember people
and/or
Remember, people
🎶😍 Corny is what’s for lunch
https://youtu.be/uaqoQr-aCtQ
,la
Kay
Good work by the AP. They actually tried to find and count women who were refused best practices medical care by either religious fundamentalists who own hospitals or anti choice laws.
The United States is behind just about every wealthy country on medical care for women. We’re a ridiculously sexist country, and backward.
Imagine if Democrats had passed laws that resulted in men bleeding out in an ER bathroom. We would be seating the tribunal to convict them right now. It’s women so no one gives a shit.
cain
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
The GOP will find religion and suddenly will decry gerrymandering. They have no principles.
Fake Irishman
@Kay:
I think what drives me nuts about the whole situation is that you don’t have to be all that charitable to make everyone in the situation look really good and hand out lots of credit for their actions without denigrating or belittling anyone.
Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer + legislative dems saw a problem and figured out a way to reach Biden without demolishing the party
Biden finally got the information he needed to see, and made what must have been an extraordinarily difficult decision, managed it quite gracefully and immediately went full fledged for Harris in a maximally politically effective way.
Harris quietly made all the correct moves to be ready to line up support if Biden stepped down all while doing everything in her power to help him win while he was the presumptive nominee. And she was ready when she got the news he was going to announce. This was an extraordinarily difficult balancing act and a testament to her political chops.
Every other ambitious Democrat immediately read the room and vociferously endorsed Harris within hours, holding back a few senior statespeople to squish potential rivals a few days later (which wasn’t necessary)
This speaks very well of our elected officials and party leaders. They got a bit lucky, but they all managed this very difficult and unprecedented situation quite well. There are a few (not too many, but a few) commentators here who would do well to remember that….
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
👍
Old School
From NBC News:
Eunicecycle
@catclub: No it’s not! I just saw a commercial on TV that said it’s terrible! And it’s Harris and Sherrod Brown’s fault!
/s of course. But I did just see such a commercial!
hueyplong
I don’t see our side’s enthusiasm turning into demoralization this fall.
After having the “first female president” moment snatched away by what proved to be the most repugnant president in American history, it ought to take quite a bit of adversity to keep the Dem electorate from strongly desiring to finish the job against the same monster this year, with the stakes even higher thanks to Dobbs and Project 2025.
Baud
@Old School:
Oh hey, they finally noticed. I wonder what changed.
UncleEbeneezer
@Steve LaBonne: I wouldn’t assume that Harris would’ve gotten the same enthusiasm in 2020. Many of the people now praising her (and trying to take credit for this moment), were shitting on her with because she was a “Cop” who didn’t support Medicare4All and the GreenNewDeal. She could have very easily been bashed for these things, by people on our own side, right up until Election Day, just like they did to Hillary.
zhena gogolia
@stinger: Never! We just struggle and try.😄
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve said this before: Joe and Kamala are a team. They like each other and they work well together. Both have always known that it was a significant possibility she’d have to take over from him on short notice, and both are competent enough to have planned for that and done the groundwork to set up for it. I think when Biden chose to step down, they activated that plan, which they had *both* worked on, and it worked, because they are *both* good at what they do.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Nice!!
Mousebumples
@Trivia Man: I think he Assembly is flippable. Unless we run the table, I think we can’t reasonably flip the Senate until next year. (too many of the seats held by Dems are up this year, so limited flips available)
I’m hoping for a wave election to flip some of the still gerrymandered US House seats. Paul Ryan’s old district and the one held by the insurrectionist (SW WI – LA Crosse area) seem in range.
Depending on who wins the WI-08 GOP primary tomorrow, I could see a Todd Akin level screw up. I’m so excited to have A FEMALE OB/GYN running for the Dems!
But with more female turnout, I could see voters going with Kamala Harris & Tammy Baldwin & Dr. Kristin Lyerly.
hueyplong
@Old School: That NBC quote could use some editing.
After years of condemning former President Donald Trump for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories, Democrats, who couldn’t fail to notice that we did nothing to push back against such disinformation and in fact helped spread it, are now poking fun at his running mate using a false, vulgar rumor, thus exposing our selective enthusiasm for combatting same.
Jeffro
@Mousebumples: LOL
they always do this fantasy stuff when they can’t cope any other way
next up will be “HILLARY IS COMING BACK FOR THE NOMINATION, YOU JUST WATCH!”
sad
zhena gogolia
@Fair Economist: Yes.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Well, what if it’s a wave election? I’m not saying it will be, I’m saying that if it is Hawley “might” be vulnerable.
And there is a Joker in the deck this year, and that is Donald Trump. If he continues to devolve, Trump has the potential to really hurt downballot candidates
Omnes Omnibus
@Mousebumples:
I’ll go farther. I think we will flip the Assembly. I agree with you about the Senate.
Jeffro
@Old School: ‘false and vulgar’ – oh my
these are the same reporters who covered trump for the past 9 years, right? (HARD eyeroll)
Eolirin
@Old School: Vance fucking a couch memes are totally the same as Obama not being a citizen, or COVID being able to cured by drinking bleach right, NBC?
Also note there’s no concern about the spreading of disinfo or conspiracy theories, just of asserted Dem hypocrisy in having fun with the couch fucker memes.
jonas
@Old School: Once again, Dems have to be the grownups while Republicans get a pass for acting like wilding toddlers. Wash, rinse, repeat.
You’d think at some point these reporters and headline writers would see that they’re becoming parodies of themselves, but they just can’t quit it.
rikyrah
WTFGOP
@DogginTrump
Hey
@MSNBC
@CNN
@ABC
@NBCNews
@CBSNews
I just wanted to rub it into your faces that yesterday, the Kamala Harris rally in Nevada had 3 MILLION people streaming it Live because you all refuse to show anything related to Kamala Harris Just think, those viewers could have been yours if you all got your heads out of trumps cavernous ass But hey, you keep being you & we will keep boycotting MSM like the plague
11:49 AM · Aug 11, 2024
https://x.com/DogginTrump/status/1822676804232163359
Fake Irishman
@Kay:
BTW, I was in Putnam County Ohio all of last week visiting my wife’s extended (very German Catholic) family and thought of you. (I always glance at the local law offices and wonder hmm….) They slant conservative, but there are Dems and the more educated ones in particular loath Trump. Anything less than 80 percent for him in that county is a good omen. Hope Michigan is treating you well!
Baud
@rikyrah:
👍
Their probably too busy preparing to report on the Musk interview today.
BR
@Kay:
I was just about to post that article. It’s good the AP is covering what’s happening. It’s happening every day across half the country.
There’s a saying I like from security expert Bruce Schneier (he was commenting on all the post 9/11 nonsense at the time) — “If it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. News is by definition something that doesn’t happen very often.” Back then he said he worried about car crashes and domestic violence because they were so common as to not make the news.
MCA1
@RevRick: Yeah, I saw some of the same during a long weekend in Northern Michigan. The tone contrasts greatly with the ads Harris is running there, which are all about positive achievements, including work re: the border (there were also 2-3x as many Harris ads as there were Trump ads).
A great distillation of the election generally: do you want the happy warrior or are you more compelled by this dark vision of the country being in ruins? Clearly up where I was, the latter is the case for a lot of folks, but I don’t think they understand how much they’re in the minority and a bubble. The mood of the country seems to be moving away from their fearfulness.
Trivia Man
@Fair Economist: the only viable solution i see is US Congress in D hands giving some kind of voter protection legislation. Right yo vote, clarity on how to draw lines, prohibiting party-based decision points… there must be some way yo do it constitutionally.
BR
It’s remarkable how literally every day the NYT comes out with stories that try to help Trump in the most underhanded and absurd ways. I don’t get how their readership doesn’t see it. I’m glad that I’ve gotten everyone in my life to switch to other papers like the LA Times. But NYT still drives national coverage.
MCA1
@Fake Irishman: Yes to this. = “healthy political party.” In contrast to their counterpart, which is behaving like the host body for some sort of invasive zombie. I think subconsciously some of the undecided middle of the country has perceived this. One party was faced with a thorny problem, and solved it. The other continues to double down over and over and over again when it’s been provided more off-ramps than an interstate highway.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
Which is why I don’t understand the comparisons to where the polling was in 2008 on a particular sunny day in September. Heraclitus’ river and all that.
But there is some great man about Biden. I think of the college debt forgiveness…it alienated a not insignificant percentage of his base…yet he kept at it, category by category, loophole by loophole. But an extra 3-4-5 hundred a month does make a difference in people’s lives and the overall economy and it’s a literal drop in the bucket compared to what Republicans are willing to spend to coddle the already wealthy.
EarthWindFire
@hrprogressive: All of this. I think expected the brokered convention that the media dreamed of and have been so excited about how well this has gone. It feels good to feel optimistic!
SatanicPanic
@BR: Same. The ACA is the most consequential liberal legislation since Great Society.
And Obama being the first Black president is a huge deal for everyone who never thought they’d be eligible to participate in government at that level.
I like Biden, and consider him a very good president, but Obama is still number one. Maybe Harris will top him.
Fake Irishman
@Kay:
FWIW Biden’s team had a pretty accurate internal picture in 2020 too. If you read Greg Bluestein’s account of the election from a Georgia perspective, Biden-Harris knew they were down a little in Florida and had started redistributing resources to Georgia from NC because they thought the data was telling them they had a better shot in GA.
They were right.
ArchTeryx
@Harrison Wesley: The monsters there are a decent bunch these days and don’t deserve those three assholes in their town.
Gvg
@Matt McIrvin: the not normal situation was we had already had all the primaries. There is no provision in laws for a do over. That was why the calls for Biden to step down this late were back stabbing meant to sabotage the Democrats.
There was no substitute process. We had already used our process.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I don’t think the left cares a ton, either: I mean, I’m not even sure what policies she changed since 2020.
I do see a lot of whining about it from conservatives, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything other than just bouncing off.
Fake Irishman
@Trivia Man:
Yep: Dems came up short in VA in 2017, but they got enough to get Medicaid expansion through.
E.
@Kay: You keep accusing me of holding positions I do not hold. I am delighted with what has happened and in most regards I feel it happened exactly as it should have. What I am trying to say is the people who were holdouts up to the end, like me, were not holdouts because we don’t care about winning and just want to be right, we were worried this was a media-driven coup.
Now, days or sometimes weeks later, the news comes out that some of the very people I was waiting to hear from before getting on the bandwagon — Clyburn, the Obamas, Jill Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries — were urging Biden to step down, but at the time they were not talking, or were making positive sounding noises about Biden staying in.
I was for keeping my mouth shut until hearing from them, and I don’t think that was a position that deserves sneering attacks about how people like me just don’t want to win and so on. You said: “We could have continued to deny this and continued to complain about how dumb voters are OR we could win. Most Democrats want to win” which is why I commented above.
Soprano2
@catclub: And the Iranian hostage crisis was on the news every night. CBS had a countdown of how many days they were held. Carter tried to rescue them and it failed. It was more gutsy than most people realized because it had a 5% or less chance of success!
dc
@Spanky: Exactly, millions of us small donors replied with our $ right when Biden endorsed Harris. And the ball started rolling. We can thank the president and ourselves for not enduring the Survivor style convention that even pundits who were nominally supporting Harris in their calls for Biden to step aside and for the Dems to hold mini primaries, open conventions, hot dog eating contests to determine the nominee were salivating for. Thank you, Biden, Harris and us for joy and hope instead of the drama and the disaster.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: My favorite Sarah Palin memory is an obscure one. She was asked to name a SCOTUS opinion other than Roe v Wade that she disagreed with. And she was a deer in the headlights. But what made it extra ridiculous was that there had been a recent SCOTUS opinion that overturned the judgment in the Exxon Valdez case which reduced the payments owed to Alaska citizens and I watched an interview with her where she condemned it harshly! But either she was so dim-witted that she’d forgotten about it or, more likely IMO, she was paralyzed by not knowing how her attacking a pro-corporate opinion would play on the national stage.
wjca
Nope. Looking to go lots bigger than that.
Not least because people who can only take change slowly and in small steps have, thanks to Obama, adjusted to the idea of a black person in the White House. Racism is far from gone. But an adjustment has occurred in a significant part of the electorate.
Captain C
@Jeffro:
With a sprinkling of “No one [reputable] will loan me money anymore now that I’ve stiffed pretty much everyone!”
Citizen Alan
@Eolirin:
Strong disagree. Losing the Senate means President Harris’s legislative agenda will be stymied and her ability to nominate judges and get them confirmed will be shut down for at least 2 years. Not retaking the House means that Mike Johnson and his fellow travelers will decide whether Harris’s victory gets certified.
I am growing increasingly alarmed by the very real possibility that the GOP doesn’t even care about winning the elections because they expect that any Dem victories will simply not be certified.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well now that’s just silly. If you want to say that Obama and Clinton were politically in the same orbit as an Eisenhower-era liberal Republican, say that. But calling them Republicans today means ignoring what Republicans of today are. Democrats can disagree about what the top marginal tax rate should be without being considered a fascist.
MisterForkbeard
@Old School: “Democrats are repeating a joke about Vance that everyone knows is false. Republicans tried to overthrow the country based on misinformation, lies and conspiracy theories. Both sides have a problem with the truth.”
Captain C
@BR: FTFNYT Headline: “Two Coherent Geniuses Discuss Totally Normal Worldviews and Why the Democrat Party is the Source of All Evil”
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: So … 1866?
RevRick
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: That is a flat out ridiculous claim. The GOP operates on a three-part economic agenda:
1). Cut taxes on the wealthy;
2). Cut regulations on business;
3). Oppose downward redistribution of wealth.
Obama’s two signature pieces of legislation were the ACA and Dodd/Frank. The first went against all three parts of the GOP agenda and the second went against the second. And that doesn’t even touch the auto bailout. Or the Stimulus.
kwAwk
@Leto: The surge didn’t happen until 2007.
dnfree
@zhena gogolia: This just makes me sad.
“@MazeDancer: Watch out. We’re not allowed to give Biden credit for anything. It’s not enough to push him out, we have to make sure he isn’t given any agency or skill.”
Who isn’t giving Biden credit or agency for his accomplishments? I know you’re convinced he was pushed out, but I don’t think we know what happened and why. This may BE yet another accomplishment for Biden.
apocalipstick
@Geminid:
I think Hawley is safe, just like Cruz in Texas. No one really likes Hawley, but the rural areas of the state really, really want to be Mississippi.