White House Race- August 10, 2024

87 Days Until Election Day

There is always so much to say about the events in politics these days that I am certain to leave much out. Nonetheless, it is time once again to take a somewhat brief look at the goings on in the Presidential campaign over the past week.

When I last visited the topic on here Sunday, it seemed that the most likely option for Kamala Harris in regards to her Vice Presidential candidate selection would be Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. By Monday though, I realized that the signs were pointing to Tim Walz of Minnesota. That is whom she picked and I happened to think then that it was a political mistake. If her ticket narrowly loses Pennsylvania and thus the election with it, that will definitely be history's take as well. However, it really may not even matter. Democrats have momentum and might win Pennsylvania anyway. There is still a ways to go though. While Republicans were initially thrilled that Harris went with Walz and not Shapiro, Democrats reacted very positively to the pick of the Minnesota Governor. The roll-out seems to have been pretty successful.

There are a variety of reasons why Harris went with Walz and not Shapiro, but it cannot be denied that the fact that Shapiro is Jewish, and the "feelings" that stirs up among many Democrats was part of the calculation. I believe that all other things being equal, if Shapiro were Catholic, they would have picked him, simply because of the Pennsylvania factor.

It is also true that Walz is at least a bit more liberal than Shapiro. That has certainly been Walz's record as Governor, though as a Congressman, he was considered more towards the center. The powers that be among Democrats,especially those in the Biden orbit, who are now running the Harris campaign, think that America is a more liberal country than it is. They still do not quite understand why Biden's record is not as popular as they believe it should be. In fact, it has been very unpopular. This is all related to the issue of political judgment, but the one thing Democrats have going for them is that they are running against Donald Trump, and that has already worked out well for them in 2018, 2020, and for the most part 2022.

In the aftermath of the pick, there has been some leaking from the Harris campaign, trying to justify why they passed up Shapiro and trying to get people to move away from the anti-Semitism reaction factor. We are told he was somewhat ambivalent about the job, which of course should matter, and that he wanted larger responsibilities than the person at the top of the ticket might have been willing to give. That is probably not unheard of for VP hopefuls in both parties over the past few decades. On the other hand, Walz is said to have told the vetters that he was game for whatever, would do what he was asked, and that he had no plans to ever run for President himself. Obviously, Shapiro wants to be President one day himself. So,much of this was about 2028/2032 (they hope for the latter), and people not wanting to give him any leg up.

Perhaps Shapiro might be a strong Presidential candidate one day, but as a Jewish-American, albeit one far more to the right than the Pennsylvania Governor, an unfortunate though occurred to me this week. With this decision, I think it is very likely that there will never again (cannot forget about Joe Lieberman in 2000) be a Jewish nominee of a major party for either President or Vice President. Ever. That of course means that no Jewish person will ever be President. My people have tended to do very well in American society, but there may be limits. After all, we are only about two percent of the population and perhaps getting smaller every year. Today's version of the Republican Party contains many that openly believe we should be a Christian Nationalist country and today's version of Democrats at least finds itself willing to shrug off anti-Semitic extremists amongst them.

Walz has an interesting biography though and seems to be the kind of "regular white guy" that Democrats think will help appeal to the kind of voters they have been struggling with. I am surprised there has not been more talk about his 1995 DUI arrest though. Some people on the left have spent years saying High School football should be banned, but not will talk incessantly about how great it was that Walz was a High School football coach. They will play up his military service, as I believe they should, even as Republicans, deliberately try to sow seeds of distrust over his record with what are unfounded claims of "stolen valor." The bottom line is that Walz chose to enter the military as a teenager and served honorably. By 2005, he was in his forties and had a political career on his mind. It should have been his choice to get out. There is no reason to believe he was aware that his unit would be called to Iraq several months later, and even if he would have, that burden should not have been on him. He did his time. That being said, Walz sometimes did play a little bit fast and loose with the history of his service on the campaign trail, and while the examples were not egregious, he needs to prevent that from happening in the future.

MAGA world will also try to discredit Walz as a far-leftist. It is definitely fair game to criticize his record, but they will go too far in doing so out of desperation. They seemed to have plenty of opposition research on him ready to go as soon as he was announced, whereas I think they would have had a harder time finding an immediate line of attack on Shapiro. One of the main topics were the riots in Minneapolis in 2000 after the murder of George Floyd. Walz, who did call in the National Guard, himself has said that he wished some aspects of the response were better. However, there is a phone call from the time featuring then President Trump, speaking to what I believe were a group of Governors, and praising Walz for his response to the unrest. Now, they are going to try to have it both ways.

Democrats seem to love Walz and Walz seems to relish being in this position as sort of a modern Hubert Humphrey Minnesota "happy warrior."One thing they have especially liked is that he seemed to have gotten the credit for using "weird" to describe Trump and JD Vance in recent weeks. I think George W. Bush should get credit for it by using the term privately back on Trump's Inauguration Day. In his official rollout, Walz even made a JD Vance couch joke, which was good for a laugh, but if you think about it, probably unworthy of a campaign that should want to bring people together over such fundamental needs as honesty. The "couch story" is simply untrue, (would be irrelevant even if it were) and they should not join Trump's universe of shamelessly spreading falsehoods.

It is also true that Harris and Walz, but especially Harris, needs to do a much better job in communicating with Americans beyond teleprompter speeches at rallies. She should be doing interviews, press conferences, and speaking about her specific position on issues. Americans have the right to know if she  truly agrees with Joe Biden on everything or if there are matters she would go her own way as President. Trump has interacted with the media on recent occasions and I believe it has gone horribly for him, but at least he has made an effort. There is no way that a Harris interview or press conference could be more bonkers than what Trump has produced recently. There was also much talk this week about debates and if Trump was backing out of them. Now, he seems to realize he needs to do them, and the ABC one is back on, though he is still pushing for one on Fox News as well. Perhaps, Harris should debate him on Fox News and wherever else he wants, if he is going to implode, and she thinks she can get the best of him.

I could easily write 15 paragraphs analyzing what seems to be going wrong with Trump these days. He seems to be in extended meltdown mode and unable to come to grips with the fact that the fledgling Joe Biden is now his opponent and that the once lightly regarded (by both parties) Kamala Harris has gotten off to such a fast start as a Presidential candidate. She is beating him in the polls, doing far more public events, and likely drawing larger crowds. This all destroys Trump's fragile ego and he gave a Mar-A-Lago press conference this week that came across as more panicked and desperate than angry, although he was also clearly angry. Trump is even engaging in fantasy scenarios in which Joe Biden is going to show up at the Chicago convention and demand that the nomination be given back to him. Both old men may fantasize about such a thing, but it is not going to happen. Once again, the bottom line is that Trump is such a disliked candidate, that all it took was someone who was not over 80 years old, to become a much greater threat. Harris will have a hard time keeping this level of sustained excitement until Election Day, but she has fundamentally changed the race to the point where Democrats are pumped up, and Republicans, despite being very happy and hopeful for the first few hours after the Walz news came out, are quite concerned.

One big factor is that the once much talked about "double haters" now have a major party candidate to choose that is not Trump or Biden. That is causing serious erosion in the Presidential candidacy of Robert Kennedy Jr (and others.) In fact, Kennedy might now have far more appeal to those who might otherwise vote for Trump, whereas before, he was clearly hurting Biden more. Will Kennedy fall victim to MAGA demands to drop out? There was a brouhaha on Friday about podcaster Joe Rogan seeming to abandon Trump to endorse Kennedy, which was somewhat retracted.  I do not even have time to get into the story that came out last Sunday, in which RFK got ahead of a news story and admitted to having placed a dead bear cub in Central Park a decade ago and staging it to look like a bicycle accident. The craziest part is that it came out in a video of him for some reason, telling the story to Roseanne Barr, of all people, and she was actually the one looking at him, like he needed to seek mental help. I will just briefly say that I think RFK Jr. fits into a pattern of many Kennedys over many decades who seem to think they can get away with things that others cannot. Perhaps, he named the bear Mary Jo. Democrats were more outraged about this revelation about RFK Jr. and a dead cub than they may ever have truly been about a human life being lost and a cover-up attempt at Chappaquiddick. 

Returning to the topic of the Trump press conference this past week and his desperate attempt to have people talking about him again, it was all pretty amazing as usual. At one point, he insisted that his crowd on January 6, 2021, which included many people later convicted of felonies, was the largest crowd anybody had ever spoken before and said it was bigger than the crowd Martin Luther King Jr. addressed in his "I Have a  Dream" speech. These are the things that matter most to Trump. He then went on at great length about having once "gone down on a helicopter" with Willie Brown, the one-time powerful California Democrat and one-time boyfriend (despite the fact that Brown has always remained legally married) of Kamala Harris some thirty years ago. He said that there was some sort of near fatal helicopter emergency and that he knew Brown very well and that Brown had told him all sort of "nasty"things about Harris, perhaps as the helicopter was going down. What sick desperation. While Trump insists this is all a true story, Willie Brown denies it and laughed off the entire tale. The media started looking into it and at first it appeared that Trump was confusing being on a helicopter (which had no issues) during his time as President with then California Governor Jerry Brown, a white guy who looks nothing like Willie Brown. Today, it comes out there was a Trump helicopter incident back around 1990 with an African-American Los Angeles political figure, who might perhaps look slightly more like Willie Brown, but still definitely not the same guy, and definitely not someone who would have brought up Kamala Harris to Trump.

So, that about wraps it up for the week. Despite everything, Democrats, or any of us who simply want to see Trump lose, have to guard against overconfidence. I cannot help but think though that the whiny, desperate, rambling old man at the press conference this week can win a Presidential election, but he should not be counted out until he is truly out. Democrats may think that picking someone like Walz is going to suddenly eat into Trump voters in rural areas or get them back white guys who like to hunt and fish. I have my doubts on that. I think the divisions between the parties are too real. Democrats do need to turn out their base, and with Biden leaving and Harris arriving, they seem on their way to doing that. The election will be won or lost , once again, in upscale suburbs, among the kinds of people who would have been very likely to have voted for Republicans before Trump came along. Pennsylvania remains a crucial state for Democrats. They better hope they did not miscalculate.

Until then, we are left with the irony of the Trump campaign promoting things such as "Criminals for Kamala", which could be taken as an endorsement of an opponent, or whining that some states allow convicted felons to vote in Presidential elections. One of those convicted felons happens to be Donald Trump.