White House Race- August 4, 2024

93 Days Until Election Day

Where to begin? There are so many directions in which I could go. I held on writing until Sunday to see if word of the Democrats' VP pick might leak, but nothing yet. Somehow, I think we will know tomorrow.

A week ago Saturday, I ended my post saying that the signs were there that Donald Trump was apt to say something pretty outrageous an camera and that his campaign would suffer as a result. How prescient I am! Objectively, this has been a bad stretch for Donald Trump and his party, in the past two weeks, ever since Joe Biden ended his struggling reelection campaign. While it is far too early to rule anything out for Trump and Republicans in terms of a possible victory, unlike the Chicago White Sox, who have currently lost 20 games in a row, things are moving in a direction away from what MAGA-land had been anticipating.

Clearly, Trump and his team are finding it to be a struggle to shift their focus to Kamala Harris in an effective way. I expected as much and will continue to ask the Ridin' With Biden diehards, if they are willing to admit poor judgement at this point. However, the idea that Trump would go in front of a black audience and accuse Kamala Harris of not really being black was probably not even something I could have directly predicted.

Anybody who reads this knows what happened on Wednesday by now and if this post gets read by someone twenty years from now, they may be familiar with it too. Trump went before a conference of black journalists, held this year in Chicago, to take part in a panel discussion, in what was apparently a fairly last minute campaign decision. It could wind up being one of their worse decisions.

When presented off the bat with a tough but fair question that he should have been prepared for, Trump lashed out at the ABC News journalist Rachel Scott. During the course of his 34 minutes on stage (not to be confused with his 34 felony convictions), he said all sorts of crazy things, such as being willing to pardon people already convicted of assaulting police officers on January 6, 2021, in addition to giving a fairly less than ringing endorsement of his embattled running-mate JD Vance. Trump also repeated his claim about illegal immigrants taking "black jobs."

What made the most news though is that Trump said that he had not known some time before that Kamala Harris was black, or as he seemed to put it, "bl-aaack." He said he always thought she was Indian-American, which is true, and that she had always presented herself as purely Indian, which is entirely untrue.Trump said that Harris had at some point "turned black" which might be pretty hard to do, even compared to a guy who has managed to turn orange. Trump can never admit to a mistake or back away from anything he has said or done. The campaign is doubling down on this on a couple of fronts, and Trump surrogates are being forced to go on television to try to defend the remarks or to focus on something along the lines of "well, he only said these things for five minutes at a time and he talked about other issues for another 20 minutes." This is also similar to how they are defending Trump's rally appearance in Atlanta last night, when he revisited his feud with Brian Kemp, the popular Republican Governor of Georgia, attacking him once again over not overturning the 2020 election in the state. This is after Kemp has proven he does just fine politically in Georgia with Trump not on his side, but that Trump has not been doing very well in Georgia whatsoever since 2016.

It is pretty fascinating to try to get into Trump's mind as it relates to these Harris attacks. MAGA folks are so adamant about the fact that Trump is justified because the AP in 2018 had a headline that said Harris had become the nation's first Indian-American Senator. Well guess what, that was absolutely true. Her mother was born in India and that was a well-known fact. I am certain the same AP story also said that her father was born in Jamaica. So, obviously, she was the nation's first Indian-American Senator in addition to later becoming the nation's first black Vice President. Both things are true. There are a whole lot of biracial people in the United States these days, including the children of JD Vance. It is either stupidity or complete dishonesty to try to create a false narrative that Harris never claimed to be black before or that she might not actually be legitimately black. After all, she chose to Howard University,

 

The Trump campaign decided to do this event with the black journalists because they wanted to be able to tell their base, "look, he went into the lion's den, and those black people were so unfair and rude to him." They also get to remind these voters, many of whom thrive on white grievance, which has been at the heart of Trump's appeal since Day 1, that Harris is non-white. At the same time, Trump also seems to actually think that he has made tremendous inroads among black voters and that they will be voting for him this time around. In some way, he wants black voters to consider Harris to be not be authentically black. So, at the same time, the campaign wants it to be bad that she is black and bad that she is not black enough. All of this is likely to backfire and just fire up minority voters to support Harris. She could not have asked for a bigger gift. Democrats very much want to make identity politics part of the campaign and Trump is either falling into their trap and giving them the ammunition on his own to make the race about such factors that are completely not related to issues that most Americans actually care about.

There will continue to be stories festering about Harris's personal life from decades ago as well as some ugly circumstances which have basically been admitted about the demise of her husband Doug Emhoff's first marriage. Are supporters of Donald Trump really the people who ought to be troubled about a past marriage? There is much that could be used against Kamala Harris in regards to her past position stances, the record of the Biden-Harris Administration, and what her policy plans actually are. It is pretty remarkable that in two weeks, Harris has not really spoken to reporters at all or given a single interview, as she has been lucky enough to see a Presidential nomination gift-wrapped to her.. None of that is really being discussed though, because Trump acts the way that he does, and seems to be willing to make the entire election a referendum on what people think about him. That might not turn out well for Trump.

Another remarkable thing that happened this week as a prisoner swap in which the U.S. and its allies released some Russian criminals in exchange for innocent and wrongly detained Americans. Of course, there is risk to doing something like that, and there should be concern about the precedent. However, one cannot deny the joy and relief that comes with seeing these Americans return to freedom and their families. President Biden has clearly been working on this deal for months now and is said to have been very much involved even in the minutes before he made the difficult forced decision to end his campaign. Some credit has to go to him for pulling this together. It definitely took diplomacy and having a positive influence over American allies such as Germany to make it happen. Yes, Biden milked it politically on the day that it happened this week, but I cannot blame him too much, It is an important reminder of why someone like Trump should never be President. Dare I even say that in his public appearances that day, into late in the night when he welcomed the Americans back at Joint Base Andrews. Dare I even say that Biden looked a bit less old and sounded a bit more coherent on that day? Maybe the pressure of no longer being a doomed candidate for reelection is a good thing for him and his health. It was also beneficial for Vice President Harris to be right as his side at the base.

For his part, Trump has seemingly not said a word in support of the return of these Americans. A while back, he said he would get at least one of them out, after, but only after, he would be elected. He basically said that Putin would only do it for him. Trump and his allies have criticized the price the U.S. has paid in regards to the prisoner swap in getting this deal done, and perhaps there are valid points there, but it is completely dishonest for Trump to claim that any released American on his watch came back free of any exchange. The facts definitely show the reverse is true. Last night, Trump congratulated Putin on the deal. Very telling. There is a lot to consider. It does seem like Putin agreed to this, knowing it would be somewhat of a gift to Biden. Does Putin no longer think Trump is likely to win? Of course, Republicans will say that it shows that Putin is afraid of Trump winning. I am not sure I buy that explanation.

So, now we are waiting on whom Kamala Harris will pick to be her running-mate. We are told she met with at least three "finalists'" at her home this weekend. The front-runner is said to be first term Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. He is very popular in his home state and if he can help the ticket pull off a win in the Keystone State, that might be the crucial keystone to an Electoral College victory. In my view, it simply makes the most sense. I will at least be moderately surprised if Shapiro is not chosen. However, he has his detractors. Some on the left dislike some of Shapiro's perceived moderation on some domestic issues. That might be fair enough. However, let us be honest. A whole lot of people do not like the fact that he is Jewish, and a Zionist one at that, unlike, say, a Bernie Sanders. As I have mentioned before, this is further complicated by the fact that Harris is married to a Jewish man. (I could joke that if she wanted to pick a Jewish guy who could appeal to disaffected Republicans, I might be worth talking to.... but then again, I am still leaning against actually voting for her in November in my already blue state.) Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who was elected the same day as Shapiro in 2022 is said to be actively lobbying the Harris campaign  against picking his state's Governor. Apparently, there is some sort of long-standing bad blood between them that I was unaware of. Ironically, Fetterman has been perhaps the most vocal high-profile Democrat officeholder in support of Israel in recent months. Now, the Israel haters on the left are hoping that Harris listens to Fetterman. Politics sure can be crazy.

If Shapiro is not the choice, I think it is next most likely to be Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. If Harris winds up losing Pennsylvania narrowly, along with the election, while winning Minnesota, as every Democrat has going all the way back to 1976, that will come back to haunt them. Walz certainly has some political pluses, in regards to his military background and coming across as more of a "guy's guy" than many national Democrats do these days. However, he might be portrayed as being more to the left as compared to someone like Shapiro. I think Harris needs to focus more on winning the small group of swing voters rather than fretting about a base she should have, and right now, seems enthusiastic about her. If picking a Jew could cause the whole house of cards to crash down, in say a state like Michigan, that signals a real fundamental problem for Democrats now and moving forward. I happen to think that people on the far-left screaming and ranting about a Shapiro pick would actually work out to the benefit of Harris by making her ticket appear to be more moderate, and thwarting the way that MAGA is trying to portray them. For now though, Trump's allies are very interested in this. They seem to realize that Shapiro would be the worst news to him, so Trump is saying things like Harris "will lose the Palestinian vote" if she makes that choice. If she passes on Shapiro, they will accuse her of being anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. If she picks Shapiro, and especially if he gives in to any pressure to be more critical of Israel, they will say he is a sellout and not a real Jew. In the meantime, JD Vance continues to look like a horrible decision, but both Republicans on the ticket seem willing to admit that he will not matter much to the outcome and if he does become Vice President will not really have any influence.

Back to the Democrats, the third frontrunner is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who has a military and spaceship background (though he sort of looks like an alien life form if we are being honest) plus comes from the important political state of Arizona. He could be helpful in some ways, but in interviews I have seen, he looks far less comfortable than any of the other names mentioned. It is also true that he only recently became a Democrat. Some on the far-left may not be aware that Kelly, like Harris, also has a Jewish spouse. Like Doug Emhoff, Kelly also has an ex-wife, and apparently that divorce was pretty contentious and the relationship may not be nearly as good as the one that Emhoff has retained with his first wife.  I will say that if Kelly is the pick, Trump will not be able to stop himself from attacking Gabrielle Giffords, the wife of Senator Kelly, in an ugly way For one thing, he will not like the comparison that she suffered from a political gunshot far worse than he did, and that people with disabilities just set him off.

There are some other names mentioned, but now appear to be less likely. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear could have his pluses, and some anti-Shapiro and anti-Kelly labor unions are pushing both him and Walz. Even Michigan Senator Gary Peters got some mention last week for similar reasons. There is also current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who definitely seems to really want it, and has been appearing all over television "in his personal capacity" in what is an apparent get around of the Hatch Act. While "Mayor Pete" is clearly a talented communicator, I do not see what he could really bring to the ticket. The LGBT vote for Democrats is probably a secure as it will be. Finally, there is Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who seems to want people to think he has been interviewed by Harris several times for the gig. He is a very liberal billionaire from Chicago and also very, very rotund, so fairly or unfairly, I do not think it is going to go to him. He also happens to be Jewish, and like Harris, was born and raised in California.

In a matter of hours, we will know which man Kamala will give the blue rose to. I am sure there is no "fantasy suite" at the Vice Presidential residence, thankfully.  (My parents are big fans of that entire horrific franchise, so I am throwing in the reference for them.) As a lifelong conservative and once proud Republican, it is not my place to give advice to Democrats, but I do hope she picks Josh. It would be great to see a Jewish Vice President, even if I am well to the right of Shapiro and other Democrats. For no other reason, he might help put away Pennsylvania, and while this would be a much bigger task, it might be worth asking if a "mensch" like Shapiro could possibly be useful if a perfect political storm hits Florida.