Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It Never Ends, Inside the Painted Egg is Another Egg

It Never Ends, Inside the Painted Egg is Another Egg

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Dylan Wells is some dumb-dumb writing at the Post, and the hook for her Walz stump speech story is that Walz is “conservative”, his campaign is “bubble wrapped” and the guy who’s really swinging for the fences is Junior Davenport: [gift link]

But Walz’s conservative approach to campaigning stands in contrast to that of Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), whose stint as the vice-presidential nominee has spurred headlines about his comments and controversies, including his role in spreading false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in his home state. Vance has regularly participated in interviews with both traditional and new media. He frequently takes questions from the reporters covering his campaign travel, often combatively sparring with the journalists who cover him.

If Walz would only tell a pack of lies that incite a bunch of haters to persecute a minority, he would be “less conservative” and not “bubble wrapped”.

This is also stupid:

The Minnesota governor rarely interacts directly with undecided voters within view of the press. Instead,much of his independent travel involves thanking and encouraging people who already support the Democratic ticket. […]

Perhaps the reason Harris chose a midwestern former football coach who is always in full-on dad mode is because he could inspire Democrats to vote.  Maybe it’s a strategy, not a character trait (“conservative”).  And perhaps the notion that “undecided” voters who would interact with the press or a candidate exist is nonsense.

Steve M thinks that Trump and JD are the main characters after a brief moment where Harris took the spotlight.  I think he’s right, because the press covering them doesn’t see their despicable lies as terrible acts, but rather as daring and audacious gambits, and they find them novel and amusing.

Reader Interactions

162Comments

  1. 1.

    Ishiyama

    Tim Walz has said, more than once on the campaign trail, that “Minnesota Nice” does not mean WEAK. JD Vance won’t know what hit him.

  2. 2.

    Ramalama

    Yeah I bet they love “a novel approach for” x. I’ve grown weary of novel things like viruses but remain a fan of actual novels.

  3. 3.

    Steve LaBonne

    “Undecided voters” are largely a myth. It’s all about turnout, turnout, turnout (and BJ is certainly a place where people thoroughly understand that).

  4. 4.

    SatanicPanic

    I agree with Steve M- Kamala Harris has lost some of her ability to control the narrative. Seems like the campaign is being a bit cautious now.

  6. 6.

    Anonymous At Work

    The second statement is also stupid because she is complaining that Walz never interacts with BOTH “undecided voters” AND the press at the same time in the same space, such that VERY IMPORTANT PRESS PEOPLE can interact with the undecided voters while simultaneously “standing above the fray.”  She basically wants to oversee and dictate terms of Walz’s interactions.

  8. 8.

    Tony G

    @Steve LaBonne: Yup.  More than nine years after Trump first announced that he was running for president, I cannot imagine any American being “undecided” about him.  The majority of Americans can’t stand him (hence his two big defeats in the popular vote in 2016 and 2020).  A significant minority of Americans are members of his brainless cult.  And then there are the lifelong Republicans who will vote for any Republican, even if they find Trump’s table manners to be less than optimal.  But I don’t think that anyone is “undecided” about him.

  9. 9.

    frosty

    @Steve LaBonne: Not entirely a myth – I met one at her door on Sunday. She’s taking all the mail and flyers she gets and putting it aside. She said she’d go through it just before Election Day and make her decision. OK, sez I, and handed her another flyer, this one for Janelle Stelson, running to unseat Scott Perry.

    Still better than the black guy who never votes because they’re all owned by corporations. Sheesh.

  10. 10.

    Motivated Seller

    Remember this when they cry, “But we’re the 4th estate!” as they are being thrown to the wolves that run Project 2025.   They are thirsty for lies.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Anonymous At Work:

    she is complaining that Walz never interacts with BOTH “undecided voters” AND the press at the same time in the same space, such that VERY IMPORTANT PRESS PEOPLE can interact with the undecided voters while simultaneously “standing above the fray.”  She basically wants to oversee and dictate terms of Walz’s interactions.

    This.

    @Ramalama:

    Yeah I bet they love “a novel approach for” x. I’ve grown weary of novel things like viruses but remain a fan of actual novels.

    This too.

  13. 13.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Belafon: And what actually matters is local media in the swing states where she is holding rallies, not the national media. The bellyaching of the latter reflects their uneasy awareness of their encroaching irrelevance.

  14. 14.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Why won’t Walz talk to this panel of “undecided” voters in red hats and Don’t-Tread-On-Me tee shirts we’ve assembled at this Nascar race?

  15. 15.

    BR

    @SatanicPanic:

    I keep hoping that we’ll get saturation campaigning and coverage from Harris/Walz starting this month. Harris and Walz can plan out a schedule of Trump bait to get him off message, like they did in August — Walz calling them weird, Harris saying he’s chicken, Barack Obama mocking his crowd size, Michelle Obama mocking his inheritance. Have one person drop one out there per day and then have tons of campaign events, podcast interviews, whatever. It’s so doable, and I hope they do it.

  17. 17.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Tony G: Like my fuckhead governor who claims to be furious about Trump and Vance’s Springfield lies but still supports them.

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    @frosty:

    OT – I think you were the one who was recommending the Baltimore Banner a few months back.  Good recommendation – thanks!

  19. 19.

    Belafon

    Trump’s statement about one day of violence is to get the cameras and the recorders pointed at him. He knows there is no statement that Harris will make that will outdo that. And grabbing the camera controls the narrative, especially when the media changes it to “Trump discusses vigorous audition requirements for citizens.”

  21. 21.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Belafon: Keeping him under wraps near the end of the 2016 campaign seemed to help him, though. Who really knows how these things work.

  24. 24.

    BR

    @Belafon:

    There is: mockery. Like even back in the John McCain’s tire swing days, the beltway press is like a bunch of high schoolers who are watching the two popular kids taunt and fight each other. They will write about hostility, mockery, drama, and scandal. When Harris and Walz were out there mocking Trump and Vance every day, they covered it. They’ll have to play that game, and it won’t take much time out of a 30 minute stump speech to do it.

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Steve LaBonne:

    Like my fuckhead governor who claims to be furious about Trump and Vance’s Springfield lies but still supports them.

    I feel for ya – being an Ohio resident these days must be like constant nails on a chalkboard.

    That worthless schmuck DeWine must feel trapped between the MAGAts and the truth, but he could always resign if he can’t take the heat.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    @BR:

    Mockery is good, but how do you mock them for setting the stage for an American Kristallnacht?  That can only be responded to strongly and seriously.

  29. 29.

    SatanicPanic

    @BR: Yes, this. The media would happily cover Harris if she were out there making Trump look weak. As some people are pointing out, maybe it doesn’t matter tho. Who knows.

  30. 30.

    Old School

    Immigrants are flooding across our border and weakening our country. Many are drug addicts, who father out-of-wedlock children, refuse to pay their bills, and show more loyalty to our foreign adversaries than they do to the United States.

    by Elon Musk— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) October 1, 2024

  31. 31.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think she’s doing anything different, but the mediots have decided that her turn as the new shiny object has expired so they’re back to their default setting of giving Trump most of the spotlight because he’s box office. I’m not sure he’s helping himself with his mixture of criminal insanity and dementia, but I guess we’ll see.

  32. 32.

    peter

    Dylan Wells has the same warped view of the world (and a pathetically skewed sense of her importance in it) as Maggie Haberman and the rest of the stenographers. What matters to her is that “Vance has regularly participated in interviews with both traditional and new media” and that Walz “rarely interacts directly with undecided voters within view of the press.” It’s all so inward. What counts is what happens when they’re in the frame. It’s all about them.

  33. 33.

    Dave

    @Steve LaBonne: It helped because at that point the media was in a feeding frenzy over email practices and the obviously corrupt HRC not sure that you could apply that dynamic to this election.

    That and Trump was new and “exciting” the entire dynamic worked in his favor.  Thanks media, The Apprentice, and Comey.

  35. 35.

    Melancholy Jaques

    the press covering them doesn’t see their despicable lies as terrible acts, but rather as daring and audacious gambits, and they find them novel and amusing.

    This, more than any other single factor, is and has been Trump’s main source of support.

  38. 38.

    TBone

    Now I’m remembering the Tik Tok shared recently by Humboldt from the dentist who was assaulted by his male (always the males)  patient(s) licking his fingers.  “If my fingers were a Tootsie Pop, he’d have found the center!” 😆

  40. 40.

    rusty

    So, it would be better for Walz to talk to a handful of “undecided voters”, (i.e. , people so divorced from the political process that they can’t decide about a guy that was actual president for 4 years), rather than rally Democrats to donate, show up to vote, canvas and more to win an election.  And the political press wonders why now even the left thinks they are completely useless and have no idea what they are reporting on.

  42. 42.

    TBone

    @lowtechcyclist: please see, i.e.,  JoJo Rabbit. Or The Great Dictator by Chaplin.

    They can’t stand to be laughed at.  CROWD SIZE got to that ball gargling thunder twat as if VP Harris had shot him full of kryptonite! (Obama helped with that at the convention 😆).

  43. 43.

    VFX Lurker

    If Walz would only tell a pack of lies that incite a bunch of haters to persecute a minority, he would be “less conservative” and not “bubble wrapped”.

    I went to my dentist of nearly 20 years yesterday. For most of those years, my excellent hygienist would chat about her son and family outings during my visits. She also lost her father in 2020 in a nursing home that did not take safety seriously and had a COVID outbreak.

    For the last several visits, my hygienist started using Fox talking points as small talk. She questioned the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines, and she talked about the danger of people crossing the border and bringing diseases.

    None of that nonsense came up yesterday. Just pleasant small talk about the school year and the upcoming holidays. I don’t know if another patient asked her to knock it off…or if the lies about Venezualan gangs in Colorado shocked her back to her senses. She herself immigrated to the States from Venezuela as a child with her family.

  44. 44.

    artem1s

    If Walz would only tell a pack of lies that incite a bunch of haters to persecute a minority, he would be “less conservative” and not “bubble wrapped”.

    I hope Springfield sues WaPo’s ass for inciting violence.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    @Steve LaBonne:

    “Undecided voters” are largely a myth.

    Not only that, but the fewer undecided voters there are, the more the remaining ones are idiosyncratic.  The smaller the pool is, the more you’re dealing with genuine weirdos: people whose chain of reasoning goes like “I voted for Obama in 2008 because he reminded me of the President from 24, then I voted for Romney in 2012 because people kept talking about Bain Capital and Bane’s my favorite Batman character, and then I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because my grandma’s name was Hillary and I loved my grandma, and then I voted Trump in 2020 because a guy who looked like Joe Biden cut me off in traffic yesterday and didn’t even apologize!”  Who is that guy going to vote for in a month?  Good luck figuring that one out.  Even more good luck trying to get a coherent campaign strategy out of turning out people like him.

    But somehow, the “undecided voters” we hear about in media always just happen to have exactly the kind of politics that a guy with his own Manhattan penthouse would like them to have!  Isn’t that fortuitous.

  48. 48.

    scav

    “Swinging for the fences” must be “Flailing wildly emitting spasmodic gibberish” in the Post stylebook.  The abject drooling admiration individual journalists exhibit for their preferred grand mal entertainment is harder to explain.

  49. 49.

    TBone

    A favorite article, a classic.  We have the superpower.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/far-right-nazis-proud-boys-humor-laughtivism.html

    While it’s completely reasonable to feel angry at these marches and the odious ideas they represent, it isn’t a good political strategy for the simple reason that it doesn’t help advance your goals and may actually strengthen the alt-right. It may be tempting to combat the extremism of the alt-right with righteous anger, and for many, it sounds like a logical response; but our research shows that it is a terrible tactical one. Meeting anger with anger not only increases violence; it tends to diminish support for your movement and distract media coverage so that it centers on the violence rather than the core issues at stake.

  50. 50.

    artem1s

    @Anonymous At Work: ​ 

    she is complaining that Walz never interacts with BOTH “undecided voters” AND the press at the same time in the same space,

    She’s trying to sanewash JV’s recent debacle in Pittsburgh (and donut shop) as some sort of 11 dimensional chess move that demonstrates what a brave campaigner he is. They think they have found their counter argument to Walz calling JV weird. I don’t see this making much headway.

  52. 52.

    TBone

    @HumboldtBlue: I adore that man.  Hubby watches him on reruns of The Heat of the Night as well as Sunday evening reruns of All In the Family.  Thank you for sharing him getting to the heart of the matter.

  53. 53.

    Chris

    @Belafon:

    @SatanicPanic: Or, like the fact that she had a massive crowed in Nevada that was barely covered, the “She’s not Biden” media coverage has worn off.

    This.

    “The narrative” is whatever the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and NPR want it to be, and none of these people have any interest in seeing a successful Democratic presidential candidate or president.  Which means when that candidate/president loses control of the narrative is a matter of when not if.

  54. 54.

    artem1s

    @lowtechcyclist: 

    That worthless schmuck DeWine must feel trapped between the MAGAts and the truth, but he could always resign if he can’t take the heat.

    Can’t. He’s been bought and paid for by First Energy and the Catholic Diocese of Ohio.

  57. 57.

    wjca

    @Steve LaBonne: “Undecided voters” are largely a myth. It’s all about turnout, turnout, turnout (and BJ is certainly a place where people thoroughly understand that).

     

    @Tony G: More than nine years after Trump first announced that he was running for president, I cannot imagine any American being “undecided” about him.

    You guys suffer from either a failure of imagination or a lack of contacts outside this bubble.  There is a significant fraction of the population for who pretty much anything pre-covid is a dim memory at best.  Maybe they remember things were generally better before covid than during covid (not unreasonable), but that’s as detailed as it gets.

    Further, they simply do not pay much attention to politics, outside (maybe) the month before a general election.  However inexplicable it may be to you, they just don’t see it as relevant to their daily lives.  Not a day-to-day priority.

    So, come the beginning of October, when they do start to pay a little attention, they honestly are undecided.  Because they don’t remember Trump, beyond the bare fact that he used to be President.  And they don’t know anything about Harris yet, having not been paying attention all summer.

    So, while turnout is, indeed, enormously important, ignoring those who are undecided would be a mistake.  That’s why Harris and Walz are putting in so much time on social media events.  Spending time talking to podcasters with big followings, especially among demographics where there are lots of undecided voters.  They know, if you do not, that there is an opportunity there.

  58. 58.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Chris: It does pay however to remember that this election is not national at all, but a set of 7 or so separate though somewhat correlated state elections. Both national polls and national media matter less than national pundits want us to think.

  59. 59.

    SatanicPanic

    @Chris: Why was she getting weeks of great coverage when her campaign started though? The media isn’t great, but we still have to figure out how to work around it.

  60. 60.

    Ksmiami

    Harris needs to stop the policy stuff and just hit rallies in the swing states now keep up the joy and taunt Trump etc

  61. 61.

    matt

    Translation: she likes Vance’s insane crap about women and minorities and considers him to be an exciting ‘firebrand’.

  62. 62.

    Memory Pallas

    I saw a mainstream media headline on Biden’s calling Trump a liar (about his claim of lack of fed help for flooded Southern governors) that described Biden’s statement as “lashing out.” Insane.

  67. 67.

    BR

    @Ksmiami: ​

    Harris needs to stop the policy stuff and just hit rallies in the swing states now keep up the joy and taunt Trump etc

    Exactly. It’s totally doable. Party atmosphere. Fun podcasts. People want a likeable president not a grim hate march.

  69. 69.

    Steve LaBonne

    @wjca: There just aren’t as many of those people as often believed- 3% is one estimate I’ve seen. And they don’t necessarily end up voting at all.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    Via reddit

    A Michigan man has been arrested for allegedly attacking a Black postal worker with a knife, fueled by anger over receiving political mail for Vice President Kamala Harris. The incident took place in Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit, where 61-year-old Russell Frank Valleau was charged on Friday with assault and ethnic intimidation, the latter carrying a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

     

    Valleau, who identifies as an “ultra-MAGA Trump supporter,” reportedly confronted the U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, hurling racial slurs and threatening her with a knife. The postal worker, fearing for her safety, used her service-issued pepper spray to fend him off.

  72. 72.

    artem1s

    @SatanicPanic:

    so time to start the panic over Harris’ negatives and start to introduce the narrative about how she should drop out. how much piling on do you think it will take to make it go viral?

  74. 74.

    Ksmiami

    Ps. If the media helps get Trump elected and a lot of these asshats end up getting loaded onto rail cars; we’ll let me just say, my sympathy will be non-existent. They’ve had years to adjust their coverage. Now I consider the lot of them Co-Conspirators. Fuck em

  76. 76.

    Chris

    @SatanicPanic:

    Why was she getting weeks of great coverage when her campaign started though?

    She got a few weeks of good coverage from being the shiny new toy in a situation without precedent in modern history.  Even then the bad faith whispering started almost immediately, even if it wasn’t enough to overcome the novelty on the very first day.

    The media isn’t great, but we still have to figure out how to work around it.

    Do we ever.  Particularly the term “work around,” as opposed to “work through.”  Don’t know if Harris’ strategy of going straight to local media markets rather than the national one works well, but it’s a start.  The national narrative is still set in New York and Washington, though.

  77. 77.

    Citizen Alan

    @HumboldtBlue:  I think that might well have been the first mass media manifestation of Poe’s Law: Carroll O’Connor and Normal Lear lovingly crafted a hilarious sitcom about an aging, willfully ignorant bigot who would have fit in perfectly among the MAGAs of 2024 and built nearly every episode around the fact that Archie’s racism and bigotry are the reasons for his profound unhappiness and constant anger. And they were met with right wingers who loved the show because they looked at Archie Bunker and said “Finally! Someone who’s telling it like it really is!”

  78. 78.

    robtrim

    No other country in the world that holds elections has campaigns that last as long and are as expensive as in the U.S.

    What this boils down to is that “journalism” becomes a year long attempt to create “breaking news”, to  fill the airwaves and internet with something resembling “analysis”, and to hype every political maneuver as being worthy of the electorate’s consideration.

    The predictable outcome of this process is the equivalent of a sixth-grade food fight.

    No wonder the U.S. has one of the lowest voter participation ratios in the world.

  80. 80.

    OId Man Shadow

    There are a lot of Americans who want a fascist daddy to think for them and tell them what to do and promise them everything will be safe and great.

  81. 81.

    wjca

    @Melancholy Jaques: I feel like the teacher is scolding the whole class for something that one kid did.

    Mea culpa.  I should have said “You two…” rather than “You guys…”  To make clear I was addressing the two who were quoted.  Then the rest could decide if it applied to them, based on whether they agreed with the quote.  Sorry.

  82. 82.

    Chris

    @robtrim:

    What this boils down to is that “journalism” becomes a year long attempt to create “breaking news”, to  fill the airwaves and internet with something resembling “analysis”, and to hype every political maneuver as being worthy of the electorate’s consideration.

    The predictable outcome of this process is the equivalent of a sixth-grade food fight.

    Perhaps, but the other theory that warrants consideration is this: they’re Republicans, they want Republicans to win, and they’re currently promoting sixth-grade food fights because that’s what Republicans have degenerated to.

  84. 84.

    SatanicPanic

    @Chris: Are we sure that being a brand new candidate is the only way to get positive coverage? That seems implausible.

  87. 87.

    Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Iran has launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel. Live coverage on NBC appeared to show many being intercepted over TelAviv.

  89. 89.

    lowtechcyclist

    @robtrim:

    No other country in the world that holds elections has campaigns that last as long and are as expensive as in the U.S.

    Everyone complains about it, but nobody has a (Constitutional) solution.

  90. 90.

    wjca

    @Steve LaBonne: There just aren’t as many of those people as often believed- 3% is one estimate I’ve seen. And they don’t necessarily end up voting at all.

    I’m giving that 3% the same credence I give polling numbers generally. See the number, every election, who are registeted to vote but then don’t do so.  If they weren’t undecided, they would probably show up.

    It’s true that, as noted, they often end up not voting.  But if they have bothered to register at all, they are persuadable.  It’s a matter of motivation.  GOTV efforts can help.  Sending them flyers may help (although I’m skeptical).  But those podcasts, and the social media stuff, can be a big help — getting across to them that there’s a reason to vote this time.

  93. 93.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @TBone:

    Meeting anger with anger not only increases violence; it tends to diminish support for your movement and distract media coverage so that it centers on the violence rather than the core issues at stake.

    I call BS on at least part of this. When in recent memory has the media centered its coverage on the core issues at stake?

  94. 94.

    Baud

    When there was excitement around Obama, it seems like more people to individual initiative. Today everyone seems to be waiting for top down guidance. But maybe that’s just faulty memory on my part.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    Last night and this morning, I was thinking I would skip watching the “debate”.  Vance is just going to lie his ass off, and CBS is abdicating its responsibilities, so why get all aggravated?

    But I’d just keep peeking at BJ and Twitter anyway, so…I’m going to watch and support Gov Walz!

  99. 99.

    matt

    @Chris: Last few days the only campaign coverage I’m seeing for Harris/Walz is anonymously sourced insiders worrying and second guessing stuff.

  101. 101.

    SatanicPanic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think you know what the person I was responding to was trying to do by trying to rehash the old argument that Biden’s removal was just moment of panic. I’m not panicking. I’m saying she might be able to do something differently and it might matter. That’s not asking for her to be replaced, because again, our nominee is the best we have. That was not always the case.

  102. 102.

    TBone

    @Chief Oshkosh: 🤣 point in your favor!  But I wish people would take a bit of time to read that article AND follow some of the links it offers.

    As Pulitzer Prize–winning  journalist Tina Rosenberg noted in a 2017 New York Times article on how best to counterprotest Nazis following that year’s deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, alt-right rallies have six core goals: legitimize their views, strengthen their self-image as part of the downtrodden, unite their squabbling factions, attract new people to the movement, control media coverage, and feel powerful and heroic.
    In her piece, she explains that aggressively counterprotesting the alt-right is exactly what they want. It allows them to build on the narrative of themselves as victims. In fact, she points out that when antifa protesters angrily respond, it helps alt-right groups accomplish all of the above goals. Since Charlottesville, examples of far-right violence have only been on the rise.

    I know we disdain the FTFNYT for good reason, but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut.
    Other links there are also productive.

  103. 103.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: Google search shows numerous violent felonies, including possession of firearms as a felon.

    Self-described MAGA moron.

    Tracks.

  104. 104.

    jonas

    @Motivated Seller: “Destroy the media and throw press to wolves” is just the kind of daring, attention-getting statement that Dylan Wells would love to see politicians make more often. Sadly, neither Harris nor Walz has the cojones to think outside the box like this.

  105. 105.

    TBone

    @Jeffro: 💙 I wouldn’t miss this for the world.  My cousin ran into Mr. and Mrs. Walz on Sunday and texted her photos to me. 😍

    “Look who we just ran into!!! We were hanging out at a farm/pumpkin patch/brewery in northern Michigan.”

    SO EXCITING.

    Chuffed to the moon!

  106. 106.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @SatanicPanic:

    I agree with Steve M

    To Steve M, most everything Democrats do is wrong, only Democrats have agency while Republicans have super powers controlling the narrative…so your agreement with him totally explains your nym.

  107. 107.

    TBone

    @jonas: Madam VP Harris has brass balls.  So does Tim Walz.  She strode across the debate stage in high heels and invaded that orange anus’s personal space like a boss.

    Don’t wanna waste time pointing out how much more factual evidence backs up my statement.

  110. 110.

    SatanicPanic

    @Sure Lurkalot: I am aware of Steve M’s many faults, he just happens to be right here. Are you really going to argue that Harris has been in the news more than Trump lately?

  115. 115.

    Hoodie

    @peter: She’s a 26 year old with apparently no experience outside of a few years at a school newspaper, USA Today and Wapo.  To someone raised in that hothouse, the hothouse is the entire world.    This is like the 25-year old “consultants” that work for shops like Bain and McKinsey.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SatanicPanic: Is being in the news the end goal or is winning the election?  One of the things that Biden, and Obama before him, did well was to ignore the temptation to win the day each day in media and concentrate instead on the overarching plan to win in November.  It takes steady nerves.

  124. 124.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Omnes Omnibus: This election will come down to ground games and the surge of newly registered voters, in the handful of states that matter. These are both things that are almost impossible to capture in polls AND that bore the snot out of national mediots. And we clearly have the advantage in both. I like our chances.

  125. 125.

    SatanicPanic

    @Omnes Omnibus: The end goal is winning, for sure. Look, I don’t know how much it matters whether Harris keeps the spotlight. I think it does because people like Harris the more they see of her. If there’s a good way to do that it seems like the campaign should.

    Not sure why this amounts to me panicking or wanting to remove her because neither is true.

  127. 127.

    HumboldtBlue

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken aim at Huntington Beach with a new law that prevents the governing body overseeing elections in California from requiring voter identification at the polls.

    In March, voters in the beachside city approved a measure requiring residents to show valid identification when casting a ballot. The measure, which impacts city elections, is expected to go into effect in 2026.

    In April, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber filed a lawsuit against Huntington Beach, claiming the voter-approved measure “unlawfully conflicts with and is preempted by state law.”

  128. 128.

    cain

    Walz has this. Best part, Trump says he’s gonna do a blow by blow on Truth Social.

    This is the best news because Walz can just position his entire debate for an audience of one. You know these media idiots are going to be jumping between the debate and his truth social stuff. Just start talking about crowd sizes, and watch Trump blow up.

    The press is going to cover all that.

    We know that VP debates aren’t going to be a big deal in terms of moving the needle, but getting Trump to lose his shit online? Priceless.

    He’s going to run to a mic and start up again. Ignore Vance and just keep hitting Trump.

  129. 129.

    Spanky

    @Baud:

    When there was excitement around Obama, it seems like more people to individual initiative. Today everyone seems to be waiting for top down guidance. But maybe that’s just faulty memory on my part.

    MVP is where she is today because when Joe announced he was stepping aside, there was a massive, organic groundswell around her that poured millions into her campaign before Pelosi, et all could organize their brokered convention, or whatever term they were kicking around.

    Seems like there’s more folks than us who aren’t willing to wait for “guidance” from our betters.

  132. 132.

    HumboldtBlue

    Unearthed audio

    Q: Should a woman be forced to carry a child to term after she has been the victim of incest or rape?

    Vance: Well look… rape is inconvenient

  134. 134.

    Baud

    @Spanky:

    Could be my bubble, but I see less of that now. I felt like there was a more sustained effort before, all the way through the election. Could just be me.

  136. 136.

    HumboldtBlue

    CBS announced over the weekend that moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell will not correct any lies when vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance meet in New York to debate on Tuesday night.

    Unstated but implicit in almost all mainstream follow-on reporting and commentary:

    CBS made this decision to appease the Trump-Vance campaign in particular. Professional Democrats have generally gone with the flow of candidate debates, leaving the ref-working to lowly social-media users. Donald Trump, by contrast, has praised CNN and its moderators effusively for letting his lies go uncorrected when he debated Joe Biden, and attacked ABC news and its moderators for correcting a handful of his most egregious ones when he debated Kamala Harris.

    It is, in reality, a decision to let Vance derail the debate, leaving Walz a Hobson’s choice between actually debating and responding to smears.

    A seasoned, well-prepared debater can overcome this disadvantage. Walz can begin his presentation by priming the audience to expect Vance, without a popular agenda or ounce of integrity, to impugn his military service and make a variety of false allegations about his record. (Harris pre-empted most of Trump’s lies this way in their debate.) He can also marshal just a fraction of the voluminous evidence that Vance is a person of exceedingly low character—offering viewers a reason not to trust Vance’s attacks.

  137. 137.

    Spanky

    @Baud: My interpretation is that there’s a bit of exhaustion after all the ebullience, and we lefties are taking a bit of a breather.

    I guess we’ll know when the pace does or doesn’t pick up in the next six months couple of weeks.

  138. 138.

    Anoniminous

    I think Harris’campaign staff knows what they are doing. I particularly note David Plouffe who was the campaign manager for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign as Senior advisor. I certainly think having a campaign staff full of people who have won three national elections rather than a campaign staff stuffed with people that lost four national elections is good.

    I’m just silly that way

  140. 140.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky:

    MVP is where she is today because when Joe announced he was stepping aside, there was a massive, organic groundswell around her that poured millions into her campaign before Pelosi, et all could organize their brokered convention, or whatever term they were kicking around.

    Seems like there’s more folks than us who aren’t willing to wait for “guidance” from our betters.

    Truth.

  141. 141.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The Village loves TCFFG/PAB and Shady Vance because they are just as stupid as the Villagers.

    Wipe them out.  All of them.

  143. 143.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @SatanicPanic: The media has center staged Trump for over 9 years now including whatever it is that passes for liberal media. It’s not only liberals who are sick of him.

    We will know soon whether the mainstream media spotlight is indispensable in electing a president, whether boots on the ground get out the vote, whether this electorate will choose an unstable, vindictive old man over an optimistic, forward looking woman.

    You can take Steve M’s tea leaves seriously if you want.

  144. 144.

    catclub

    @Steve LaBonne: The bellyaching of the latter reflects their uneasy awareness of their encroaching irrelevance.

     

    Tell them that the National Popular Vote compact would make national media more important.  They might start pushing it.

  145. 145.

    SatanicPanic

    @Sure Lurkalot: tea leaves? I said I agreed with Steve M that she’s not controlling the narrative, are you trying to argue that we haven’t just seen weeks of news about random stupid Trump claims with less news of Kamala Harris?

    Are you just mad I agreed with Steve M about something?

  148. 148.

    Hoodie

    @Anoniminous: It’s easy to get caught up in worrying about who is getting attention vs. who wins the election.   Trump’s strategy is that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but that risks turning off people who get sick of the chaos.  That’s essentially what happened to him in ’20.  Harris’ strategy seems to be directed to getting the fundamentals right, which means keeping your people motivated and being in position to be the reasonable alternative for the 5-10% that’s in play, whenever they make their fucking minds up.   He can be somewhat annoying, but Carville is probably right in pointing out in an interview today that these things tend to break at the last minute.  If Trump’s out there talking about Haitians eating dogs and people getting their throats cut in their kitchens,  it’s less likely he’ll be the “safe” alternative.   Remember, he tends to do worse when he gets a lot of attention.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SatanicPanic:  Yes, we all are.  I am glad you realized it rather than thinking that we might just think that controlling the day to day narrative is not the be all and end all of campaigning.  What a relief.

  150. 150.

    danielx

    @SatanicPanic: ​
     If “controlling the narrative” means campaigning like Tangerine Dreamer and his Renfield, controlling the narrative can go hang.

  151. 151.

    TBone

    @Baud: and I reiterate:

    a well placed kick to the groin can be an invaluable tool.  That fucking guy is begging for it.

  152. 152.

    terraformer

    Right, WP writer – because there are just reels and reels of examples of the orange fella “interact(ing) directly with undecided voters within view of the press. Instead, much of his independent travel involves thanking and encouraging people who already support (him)”

  153. 153.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @catclub: Might endanger their precious electoral college horse race, too.  The lazy SOBs would have to also learn something aside from their established narratives.  Can’t have that.

    Which is why Ellen Ripley’s solution is always in play.

  154. 154.

    TBone

    @HumboldtBlue: that snake needs beheaded.  Closed captioning off and just listening, I feel like I just want to set him on fire.  Thank the gawds Tim Walz will do it for me us all, metaphorically.

  156. 156.

    artem1s

    @cain: 

    This is the best news because Walz can just position his entire debate for an audience of one.

    If Walz can get TCF to drunk dial Fox News again and go on an insane rant on air DURING the VP debate like he did during the convention, that would be epic and the best possible outcome for H/W.

  157. 157.

    Fake Irishman

    @Spanky:

    Could we please dispense with this pernicious myth that Pelosi and the Masons and Barrack Obama and the Pope and any other Democrat who mattered and the Trilateral Commission wanted a brokered convention base on an overly technical and extremely uncharitable reading of a thing Pelosi said in a press appearance?

  158. 158.

    Captain C

    @Hoodie:

    This is like the 25-year old “consultants” that work for shops like Bain and McKinsey.

    Who are basically paid to make bad recommendations that their clients wanted made so the clients can avoid responsibility for their own bad decisions.  At least some of the ‘consultants’ are already permanently high on their own farts and don’t understand this.

  159. 159.

    tam1MI

    @Fake Irishman: Could we please dispense with this pernicious myth that Pelosi and the Masons and Barrack Obama and the Pope and any other Democrat who mattered and the Trilateral Commission wanted a brokered convention

    It’s not a pernicious myth if it’s true.

    But I’m sure that you can produce numerous quotes from elected Democrats from before Biden stepped down and endorsed Harris where they explicitly shot down that idea.

    Take your time. We can wait.

  160. 160.

    topclimber

    @Fake Irishman: Well, the masons for sure stayed out of it.

    The Trilateral Commission was missing as well, replaced by crypto currency aholes who were threatening to pull funding for Congressional candidates.

    Did you miss AOC’s presentation when she said the folks talking about cutting Joe loose were NOT talking about KH as his replacement?

  161. 161.

    Chris

    @Fake Irishman:

    I mean.

    I’d like to believe that senior Democrats, or at least Pelosi, realized what an insanely stupid and suicidal idea a brokered convention was, and that what we heard was her keeping her options open, not pushing for the bad idea but allowing for the possibility that we might end up with it.

    However, that’s basically Pelosi fanfic.  I don’t know what happened behind the scenes.  What filtered out sure as hell hasn’t been reassuring.

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