I see that Kamala Harris now has enough pledged delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. And my impression is that Democratic voters are downright giddy with relief. I know I feel a lot better. I was able to watch MSNBC last night with no fear it would be too depressing.
I did not know, until I heard Lawrence O’Donnell say it last night, that only Kamala Harris is in a position to take over the Biden campaign’s war chest. Probably. If someone else were to be nominated, Biden would have had to donate “his” campaign money to a PAC for that candidate or something. Most campaign finance experts think that it should be fine for Harris to just resume the Biden-Harris campaign as the Harris-? campaign, and if anybody files a complaint with the FEC there’s no way the FEC is going to deal with it before the election. There also seems to be no real legal issue with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee, no matter how many Republicans line up to say otherwise.
Do see Josh Marshall, The Curious Lure of Writerly Anti-Politics, about the naysayers who even yesterday were still talking about a slower process and a brokered convention. There were concerns the voters would feel party elites were crowning Harris without giving voters a say. Democratic voters responded by donating $100 million to the Harris campaign in the first 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal announcement. I believe there is a genuine groundswell of support for Kamala Harris, and the elites need to fall in line. Voters realize there is no time to waste.
There is, of course, a certain amount of hand-wringing over a woman nominee. Hillary lost the Electoral College, after all. The difference between Clinton losing but Biden winning is that Biden got a bigger proportion of the male vote, some are saying. But while I certainly acknowledge that misogyny was big a factor in 2016, I also think that Clinton lost a lot of voters in the Rust Belt because she was Hillary Clinton. This is not something a lot of people in the Democratic Party are willing to acknowledge even today. She and her husband are not exactly famous for being supportive of Unions or for keeping manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Trump narrowly won the Electoral College in 2016 in part because a lot of voters in Rust Belt precincts thought he was listening to them and Clinton wasn’t. And she wasn’t. Clinton did get a lot of Union endorsements, but the rank-and-file had nothing to say about that and preferred Trump.
I don’t think so many prefer Trump this year, however. Probably some do, but a lot of them must realize now that Trump isn’t the friend of labor they thought he would be in 2016. The Rust Belt vote was a lot bluer in 2020 than it was in 2016, and I think Joe Biden worked to persuade union members he was listening to them.
So while I do not doubt there will be bumps we don’t anticipate, I am feeling fairly optimistic about the next few months.
Thanks everybody for chipping in to my fundraiser. I have now paid off all my medical bills and will not ask for any more money, although the fundraiser links will be open for a few more days. And I’m saving up for some furniture. I moved into my apartment a year ago with a bed, a desk, and a bookcase. I’ve added a cardtable and chairs and a couple of standing cabinets, and I have some more bookcases my son is going to put together for me in a couple of days. I think next I’ll go for a sofa. Eventually.
"I also think that Clinton lost a lot of voters in the Rust Belt because she was Hillary Clinton"
It would be difficult for Harris to be as bad as a candidate as Hillary was that is for sure!
I see the GQP along with some squishy democrats have forced the resignation of the first woman to lead the secret service, another shameful display by some in our party. Biden should appoint Leticia James as interim director until the end of his term. That would make some heads explode!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0FWxzwPcC0
From what I read from liberal sources the USSS head refused to answer a lot of questions. (One exception being: Trump did NOT request additional security.) I do not care which party candidate got shot at or which party is in control of the heating – you have to be forthcoming with what you know, possibly with caveats, to Congress when you screwed up bigly. Stonewalling Congress got her fired and I have no sympathy.
If the breach in security was because of demands by the Trump camp,.. Example: Did the Trump camp not want magnetometers or whatever you call the gun detectors that every theme park in FL has? If so, does she have the written criteria that Trump demanded gun-friendly events? That's the only excuse I can think of for the USSS screw-up and she never offered it.
"the USSS head refused to answer a lot of questions"
Well most of the questions came from GQP'ers playing for the cameras trying to trap her into saying something incriminating, have you ever watched a hearing headed by a wing-nut? If they really wanted answers they could have asked them in closed session (it’s an ongoing investigation so some things can’t go public) but as usual they use the committee rooms as content generators for wing-nut media. There have numerous assassinations and assassination attempts on presidents and presidential candidates over the last 100 years she is the first head of the agency forced out after such an attempt. She is also the first women to head the agency.
As I understand it, she didn't stonewall Congress; she only said that the FBI was investigating. Don't get me wrong: I assumed that the full report should come out in 2-3 months, and she should have resigned *then*. But I didn't see any reason for her to resign, yet, because no one had mentioned any deficiencies.
The problem wasn't so much a "screw up," though if it had been a pure-Secret Service detail, the response would have been better. For example: an officer tried to confront the shooter-to-be, causing a rushed set of shots. Had only-the-SS been there, the officer would have been shouting "SHOOTER ON BUILDING (whatever)" and snipers would have known a clear target was identified.
In response to the situation, one Xit said "what would the Secret Service do, shoot everyone with an AR-15 who was acting strangely? At a TRUMP RALLY? That would be a MASSACRE!" With all respect to every Republican I've ever loved… that's actually a damn good excuse.
And if I may be so bold, that is *precisely* why the rule used to be "you don't carry a gun to send a message (except, maybe, "I'm armed"). You carry a gun, if, and only if, you reasonably expect you might need it." If no one carried an AR-15 who wasn't planning to kill people at long range, would-be assassins would be a lot easier to stop.
“Example: Did the Trump camp not want magnetometers or whatever you call the gun detectors” … remember, on January 6th, Trump told the Secret Service to stop checking whether the people gathering (i.e., those about to riot) were armed because "they are my people"!
I'm just extremely grateful that it seems like it won't be such a heavy lift to get a Democrat into the White House, and possibly take all of Congress. I feel a lot better today, and expect to feel fantastic by late August, when the VP choice is settled.
It's pretty clear that Biden had to go. I've read that Nancy Pelosi, the supreme tactician was instrumental in making it happen. I've read that she / they basically concluded "there's the easy way, then there's the hard way". Three weeks of whisper campaign was the easy way, which was about to become the hard way.
People are maybe pissed off at the heavy-handedness of this, but the fact is, an intervention was needed, and there was no clean way to involve the rank and file.
We'll never know if Biden would've defeated Trump, but I'd say we have a much better chance with Kamala. It's like judging whether my 2007 Corolla is going to be able to make a cross-country trip. I think I'll fly instead. And breathe easier.
Read that Beyonce has donated her song "Freedom" to Kamala. Just wait until Taylor Swift steps in. TikTok is abuzz with all sort of videos about Kamala, including ones of her dancing and having a ball. She knows how to party, and this is what the kids need to see.
The media and pundits are going to cut her down – because bothsiderism – the same way they treated Biden. Get ready for it, and get ready for Maximum Ugliness from the MAGAts. They see this as do or die, their last chance. I would bet Trump is phoning his pals in the Middle East for a little permanent golf vacation. “Got some top secret docs you might be interested in…”
I'm relieved.
One sentence I read somewhere (and I paraphrase) said that on Tic-Toc Harris went from not cool to very cool almost overnight. I'm sure that has something to do with PR and memes that Democrats got online. But there's something else.
Harris deliberately stayed in the background for three and a half years, NEVER upstaging Joe. She was an unknown with some interesting history – her participation in the Kavanaugh hearings, especially the episode of a rape attempt. Plus she made Jeff Sessions squirm in questioning when he was A/G. She can be focused and fierce. None of that was getting traction – by design – when she was VP. Not surprisingly, Harris' poll numbers up until Sunday afternoon mirrored Joe's ratings.
There's no reason to expect thatHarris can't use her communication skills – on a par with President Obama, IMO, to take Trump on where he is MOST vulnerable and (IMO) Joe could not be as effective.
Top of the list: abortion! I have no doubt that Joe is sincerely on-board with abortion rights but I think Kamela can argue the case much more effectively than an 80-year-old man. Kamela can speak with righteous anger (under tight control) where Obama , as a black man, could not. (That's highly subjective – love to hear opposing views.) Harris can discuss the personal impact and pain women in Texas HAVE suffered because of draconian abortion bans.The delivery of the message can be ten times more effective from a woman than the same words from an old man. (Like me.)
KH on Sunday started with Biden's numbers. With the most recent poll (after Biden's Sunday announcement) she's up 2 points. Almost 30K people have volunteered to work her campaign since Sunday, whether that's knocking doors or doing phone calls. Eleven hours ago, $100 million had been raised after Biden bowed out. Those two numbers, volunteers and donations, take it out of the opinion area. There's huge enthusiasm for real.
Trump's numbers are not going to move, IMO. Not up, not down. The whole game is turnout on our side – getting disinterested people to vote in November.
Remember when Joe Biden won in 2020, the wave of euphoria that spread across the United States and across the world. People were honking horns and banging pans, everywhere.
Visualize it, and remember what it felt like, from your memory. Now imagine this same scene unfolding. but 2 or 5 times stronger, made all the more sweet by the jubilant young people joining in, and by all the horrific ups and downs of the last eight years.
Moreover, it's a global phenomenon. People have enough of bullies and dictators. Their days are numbered. It will be huge not just for us Americans, but for the entire world when Kamala is declared the winner. It's much bigger than the US.
Those of us who are old remember when America was admired around the world. It was something special to be an American. Two generations later, our country is a bullying laughingstock.
The world is going to warm to us, if we can pull this off. Just visualize and feel the joy you felt in 2020 when Biden won. Project this forward and enhance it for this November, 2024.
Yes I'm relieved and optimistic. Also disappointed in our society. I think that Biden, based on actual political skills, actual knowledge / understanding, and actual accomplishments with 2 years of razor thin margins and 1.5 years of an obstructionist house, should have been able to win the race. It is extremely discouraging for me to accept the REALITY that he wouldn't have been able to do it because too many people are too uninformed and too shallow to make a voting decision on anything other than superficial appearances. But there it is. It wasn't jackals in the party backstabbing him; it was reality really sucking.
And his decision to withdraw, despite his knowing how unfair it is to him that reality is that way, was monumentally patriotic.
But the whole landscape has changed, and I feel the energy that has been released!! We need to ride this wave, while being clear-eyed about the battle ahead. To Moonbat: I wonder what your favorite psychic astrologer has to say about this moment…
Spot on!
Yes, absolutely unfair and counter to the facts showing he was capable of running an effective administration that accomplished a lot of really good things – despite the obstacles he faced.
The reality is that almost all of it was media created…the majority of people do not and did not watch the debate – they formed their opinion of the debate and what it meant through what the media chose to focus on…which was the poor performance of Biden, while completely ignoring the outrageous lies and obvious mental instability of a wannabe dictator (who I believe actually practices looking like Mussolini for the cameras).
Still, politics is the art of the possible – and, thanks to the negative presentation of the media (which we expect from the far right propaganda media sources, but which was also done by nearly all the others) – following the same media's failing to play up the positive things done by Biden that are of great benefit to the country as a whole – it had obviously become impossible for Biden to be sure of a victory in November.
Facing that reality, I believe the timing of the announcement – waiting until AFTER the Republican convention and selection of another far-right racist and misogynist in Vance was on full display to the American people, in all it's disgusting fascist glory – was masterful.
He kept it a complete secret until he was ready to do it – while (I believe, due to how smoothly it went) organizing and coordinating what would happen when the announcement happened.
Brilliant, especially since Trump and the rest of MAGA surely believed his claims that he would not step aside…because NONE of them would have, so they believed Biden would do what they would do.
This country has dodged two bullets. One was the literal bullet that missed Trump, preserving his life for (I hope) defeat, dishonor, bankruptcy, conviction and long imprisonment. The other was when Biden stepped aside for the good of himself and the Republic. This earns him a seat on Mount Olympus, next to George Washington and Cincinnatus, both of whom walked away from power for the good of the nation.
The debate proved that neither Biden nor Trump should be President. Biden is frail and perhaps senescent; Trump is a liar and perhaps psychotic. Both parties can and do make grave errors; the difference is that the D’s can error-correct but the R’s can only ‘double down’, i.e. error-accumulate. That’s the difference between enlightenment and tyranny.
We are not out of trouble yet. The race remains too tight, though now narrowly in Kamala Harris’s favor. She is a dynamic campaigner with a powerful narrative: that she’s a prosecutor and Trump’s a perpetrator. She said, “I know his type.”
The autocracy party will try racism, misogyny, and random insults. They will mention Willie Brown, but Trump is in no position to criticize anyone for scandal. They will do so anyhow, because their hypocrisy is not a glitch, nor a feature: it is their operating system. Besides, any mention of Willie Brown’s brown willie will reinforce her reputation among Black and Hispanic men.
The autocrats will also deride her laugh, for it annoys them. What annoys me about Trump’s laugh is that he doesn’t have one, nor any sense of humor. That would require humility.
No. I'm sorry, I know, it's popular to "both sides" this, but the debate showed an old man, and a brain damaged liar. The old man was, yes, *old*, but not diminished. I know, I know, since I was raised by my grandmom, *I* don't think Biden is stupid and decrepit, but, since I'm right, I don't care *why* you're wrong.
Screw whether Biden could, or would, have won. I lost the battle that said "don't shitcan the most accomplished and honorable President I'm ever likely to see serve this nation."
But don't pee on my leg, and say it's raining. No one who watched that debate had any evidence that Biden couldn't handle the job of the Presidency, and everyone who watched saw that Trump shouldn't be within a mile of the White House.
I'm sorry if you don't know "old" well enough to see that clearly and obviously, but don't blame me, because you think old people are useless; I could have told you differently, but it sounds like you never would have trusted someone who *just* knew the truth. So, like, it's not my problem you think oldsters are gross, though it was very nearly America's.
(What? You don't think oldsters are *gross*, but you just think the debate proved something about Biden? Good luck supporting that without sounding foolish.)
I have promised to post so I will. We have in the area a local state college. For some reason they are having to urge the local officials to allow a voting location on the campus. As they are considered as residents while attending you would think the local government would attempt to make voting convenient for them. I guess this goes by the normal rule which seems to be in force of late, "If it makes sense, we can't do it that way." Probably more, I fear, some fear the student have any power at all, as they might vote for their future. That might be more democracy than they can handle. Of late the republican party seems to be at odds with any democracy that does not toe their line. A line that favors a powerful minority not the majority of the citizens. I think we have a candidate for president now that can communicate this is not democracy. Young people have more future, so their vote and their voice are important. What good is it to govern only to those whose future has diminishing options? It is not just old dogs that don't learn new tricks. The future demands we have people with new tricks and skills, not old cons with the same old tired tricks and no apparent wisdom. Who needs that?
I will be happy to contribute to you and your blog; but, my comments disappear very quickly. Get in touch withe me so we can work something out.
Let's get rid of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE. My state is never consider a important state for a win for Dems. NEVER.
There is a compact, stating that certain states will give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, if, and only if, 270+ electoral votes worth of states agree.
Hence, if 270+ EC votes are in agreement with the compact, the popular vote will always win. Otherwise, EC votes are as they currently stand.
Keep in mind, it will still be good to run up the margins in California, but, at least the tiny states will matter a bit more, without playing the role of spoilers.
None of the people bitching about the lack of a pre-convention primary and the "undemocratic" process didn't mention the Electoral College, which allows the loser of the popular vote to become President!
I really want Harris to win and I think she might. But many in our party are buying the optimism about her campaign as fast as they bought the media driven take down of Biden. I hope I'm wrong bit I think people are overlooking the fact that Biden won the nomination the voters voted for Biden at the top of the ticket not Harris. I believe this will hurt turnout on our side. Many will say that younger voters will be enthusiastic and make up the deficit but I have seen too many elections where young people just don't bother to vote. Once the dust settles and the campaign starts to grind I fear we will see that many voters are going to feel cheated. Again it won't effect my vote but I really think this candidate switch has the potential to backfire.
Let's Fvcking Go!
"I think next I’ll go for a sofa" … don't buy a used couch from J.D. Vance
That's what happens when a sociopath picks a guy to be a heartbeat away from being a potential POTUS. Poor social \judgement. I hear junior helped pick him. The apple that fell too close to the tree?
Did they hire George Santos to vet D.J. or the ones that vetted George?