Ms. Harris After Paris
This will be long but, hey, c'mon, I've stored up a lot from two weeks writing only about the Paris Olympics. Hopefully it's worth it.
A friend who is notorious for panicking during elections and having to be talked off the ledge sent me an email the other day. He wrote excitedly – “Harris winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by 4 points, per NY Times poll released today.” He then suggested locking away the ketchup bottles at Mar-a-Lago.
I didn’t really have to send him a response, because he well-knows my position on polls this early. Democrats haven’t even held their convention yet. Putting polls aside, though, what’s hard to ignore is the reality of crowd sizes, the blatant enthusiasm and Big Mo, momentum.
(Well…hard to ignore unless you’re Trump and claim the images are all Artificial Intelligence. Actually, though, I was pleased to read that from him. Beyond showing again his obsession with crowd size, what it show is that he actually does see how huge her crowds are and can't deal with it. So, I think, fine, let him think the huge crowds are fake. That doesn't change the reality, and if he ignores it that means he can’t deal with it.)
I love MAGOP officials’ response to the Harris enthusiasm and crowds where they suggest this is just a temporary bump. I’m sure some are saying that out of PR necessity, but I’m equally sure many are saying it in hope and others also believe it – because, after all, she’s just a Black woman, so to them it can’t last. Everyone but those speaking about because of PR necessity are delusional. The crowds now may not translate yet to a win, but it certainly is clear evidence of electric momentum. Polls may not mean anything now, but they do always show the direction of things. And the direction of things for the Harris-Walz campaign right now is profound.
There are two things to keep an eye on as the campaigns take shape:
1) I don’t think most MAGOPs get yet how impactful I think the Democratic Convention will be. I really, truly believe that it will be the point where there is the possibility of changing the dynamics of the race. Barack Obama will give a speech, and it is hard to imagine it won’t be rousing. President Biden will give a “farewell” speech, and it may get an even bigger response as a hero’s welcome. Tim Walz will give a speech, and we’ve seen how rousing he gets, and the crowd (knowing the attacks on his admirable 24-year military service) will be on its feet, they love the guy. And…of course, as they say on Broadway, the big showstopping 11 o’clock number with Kamala Harris. And (and this is the important thing), it will all be on in primetime, and all those speakers will attract huge audiences of moderates, undecideds and wavering Republicans who will want to see Obama and Biden on general principle…and who don’t know Harris and Walz well enough, and will want to see them. (And who knows, I suspect there will also be a big primetime speech from Bill Clinton and perhaps Hillary Clinton. And if Democrats also decide to invite Michelle Obama to speech, the Nielsen ratings meter could break down.) And not only will it all be rousing, and all with a big audience, but it will all be seen in contrast to the RNC and Trump dystopia.
2) In Trump speeches lately, it’s not just that they’re rambling or full of lies or are weirdly delusional, but at times they come across like he almost doesn’t want to be there, that he’s doing the contractually-obligated bus-and-truck tour out in the sticks of The Music Man for the 4,258th performance. The crowds cheer, at all the right places when prompted, at all the right lines that they long-know by heart and would be disappointed if left out, on their feet because...clip-clop, clip-clop, yes!, there it is, the Wells Fargo Wagon, and it's a-coming into town. Hurrah! Lock her up. But the response is almost by rote. And you contrast that to the 15-20,000 roaring crowds for VP Kamala Harris. Now, of course, a) crowd size doesn’t guarantee votes, and b) Trump does still get respectable crowds. Though his haven’t been as well-attended as in the past or as “electric” as we see for Harris. But the larger point is that she and Walz are clearly energized, and Trump is…a 78-year-old man scared of losing to a Black woman he doesn’t know how to campaign against, scared of what losing means for his other trials and the possibility prison, and who has early dementia.
What’s amazing is that his campaign still hasn’t figured out how to campaign against Harris and Walz. It somehow caught them off-guard. How??? These are professionals running his campaign – we were all told that, “He has the smart guys this time.” And everyone could see there was at least the possibility that President Biden would drop out of the race, and that his VP would take over. And Tim Walz was on all the lists of possible running mates. Yet the Trump-“Vance” campaign seems to have no idea what to do with their opponents. The fact that Trump says he now wants to debate three times is evidence of his fear (and evidence, I’m sure, of him actually believing Kamala Harris stupid, likely because she’s a Black woman). And the fact that the flailing attacks are about insignificant issues (she smiles too much, she hasn’t done interviews, he hugs too much) is evidence that they have nothing. Trump’s big issue against her is that he just found out she is Black????!! And “JD Vance” – born James Donald Bowman, changed to James David Hamel, changed to James David Vance, changed to J.D. Vance, changed to JD Vance, claiming to be born in Appalachia, born in a suburb of Cincinnati – claiming it’s Kamala Harris who is, for some weird reason in his mind a “chameleon”?? And claiming that the beloved Tim Walz, a 24-year-veteran with many medals -- who is the VP candidate only, not the person who is actually running against Trump who people vote for – retired from the military too early and didn’t serve properly is his big issues!!!! That’s nothing, zero. That’s all they have so far.
A slight pause for a word about the “Vance” attacks on Gov. Tim Walz. First, a veteran attacking another veteran for his service is creepy. Second, most career soldiers retire at 20 years. Tim Walz retired after 24 years -- furthermore, receiving many medals for his service. And third, for all "JD Vance's" venal cries to the contrary, the attacks are over semantics, generally not considered a winning presidential hot issue, let alone a vice-presidential one. The Swift Boat-type smear against him is that Tim Walz didn’t carry a gun into a war zone like he said. So, for the record: Command Sergeant Major Tim Walz mobilized with his battalion an artillery expert in a security support mission for Operation Enduring Freedom in Europe, serving there for 8 months. Something that is most definitely a war effort. Whatever words you want to use to define it. The attacks will get nowhere -- because sane people understand a 24-year veteran with earned military medals. Period. Moreover, one sent on a security mission in support of a war, as an artillery expert. Who at the time was also a school teacher and a football coach. And the attacks by "Vance" only go to show that he and Trump’s campaign have nothing else to run on -- and in the end they will only make “JD Vance” look more weird and creepy (if that’s possible) if he continues the same empty, unseemly smears. And even risks pointing back to Trump getting multiple deferment during Viet Nam for mystical “bone spurs.”
And far more problematic for MAGOPs is that Trump is only going to get worse. Early dementia is only early, it is still dementia and degenerative. And sociopaths and malignant narcissists don’t take the risk of losing well. Saying crowd sizes are just A.I. Asking to poll on nicknames for President Biden, who isn’t running. Insisting and doubling-down that you took helicopter rides with the wrong person and had non-exist smear conversations, refuted by all those involved. Sharks, electric motors, windmills causing cancer, bleach curing COVID. His paraphasia making up words when unable to think of what he wants to say. Those don’t come out of nowhere.
There are challenges ahead for the Harris-Walz campaign. And Harris will have to answer about immigration. But honestly, even that, perhaps her toughest challenge, is easy for her. On the debate stage: “I wasn’t the immigration czar, like Donald lies. I was put in charge of being the liaison to countries with citizens fleeing to the U.S., so that we could see what we can do to help them improve their citizens’ lives at home – and immigrants from those countries crossing into the U.S. has dropped 40%! And further, Democrats had a bipartisan border bill that Donald had House Republicans block! If that bill passes and comes to my desk when I’m President…I will sign it? Ask Donald if he will?!!!”
And we haven’t even got to abortion, which Trump says now isn’t even an issue anymore. (Does anyone on his team want to tell him the bad news??) And IVF – which is how Tim Walz and his wife got their daughter. And now Mifepristone, on which Trump garbled his way through at his press conference. Something about “voting” that was gibberish, all in order to do a poor job of hiding him saying, yes, he’ll ban it.
Which bring us back to finishing up the original point about momentum. (See! That didn’t take long!)
Polls aside (regardless of how encouraging they may look), absolutely, 100%, not only do Harris-Walz have significant momentum and enthusiasm right now – but I don’t even think the momentum has fully kicked in yet. Meanwhile, the Trump-“Vance” campaign is stuck in slow gear, not knowing yet how to respond to two candidates they bizarrely didn’t prepare for. With a 78-year-old tired, scared candidate who has early dementia.
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