NICE TO BE WRONG AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS

Some people have asked how I could be so adamantly in favor of Joe Biden staying the course and then “turn on a dime” and be so supportive of Kamala Harris.

The reason is that I am a political realist who lived through 1968 and who has been involved with the Democratic Party for 60 years. Both experiences made it difficult to believe - before it happened - that Democrats could successfully do what they have done in the past four days.

It’s nice when events and people live up to your hopes rather than down to your expectations.

David Kurtz did a good job of explaining this in his Morning Memo today from TPM:

“It was so hard to imagine an incumbent president ditching his reelection campaign as late as the July before Election Day and equally difficult to envision a smooth passing of the baton to his vice president that I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking through what a Kamala Harris candidacy would look like. As a result, I probably underestimated how Kamala Harris would personally embody the the themes of her campaign in ways that are particularly effective where Biden wasn’t in drawing contrasts with Trump.

“The generational difference in age was obviously going to be helpful, but the chant she led at her first campaign rally since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president – “We are not going back” – is more than about relative youthfulness. It combines memories of the dark Trump years and even obliquely references Biden, though not in a disrespectful way, while pivoting toward the future. It’s the same powerful message from Clinton 1992 and Obama 2008. She’s not only delivering that message, but like Clinton and Obama did before her, she stands as symbol of that message.

“It’s easy to see her gender and racial diversity as potent attack points for Trump, but less obvious until you see her in action how her own story embodies the central 2024 issues of immigration, abortion, and tolerance. Joe Biden prided himself on enjoying the same embodiment of working-class whites in the industrial Midwest.

“It’s hard to overemphasize how much of an advantage that personal embodiment provides, not just in enhancing her credibility or in giving her relevant experience or in resonating with particular constituencies. It means her mere presence speaks to those issues. She raises those issues just by showing up, which let’s her address them without even having to talk about them. She’s already checked those boxes implicitly, and it frees her up to address other issues explicitly.”

Wow! Even Politico gets it:

“So much for the new Donald Trump. The former president is back, after a brief pause, to the insults and personal attacks that characterized his last two presidential campaigns — less than two weeks after the attempted assassination that allies and aides insisted had left him a changed man... It’s the latest example of what’s become a familiar cycle for Trump that has played out on a metronomic loop throughout his time on the national stage. Some thought the presidency would change him (it didn’t) or that he would evolve after Jan. 6 (he didn’t).”

Maybe the reason why Elmo Muck decided to fade on his promise to give Mushroom Donnie $45 million a month for the campaign has something to do with the fact Tesla’s second quarter profits fell 45%? Perhaps people are deciding they don’t want to buy tinny toys from the Space Nazi?? (I swear, you can throw a stick in any direction here and hit ten of those damn things. Tesla: The Official Car of White Liberals Stupid Enough to Think Buying One Makes Them Cool.)

The Republican National Committee has decided that the thing to hit Kamala on is her laugh. This is unsurprising, coming as it does from people who are still puzzled by the fact of the female orgasm, something a Five Minute Man will never encounter. The guys at Today’s Big Story have it right: “Someone tell the scary dorks at the RNC that’s the sound women make when they are happy or amused and not reaching for pepper spray.”

Just in case you had any doubts about how fucking cool Kamala is, when was the last time a presidential candidate could give a quote like this? From back in May 2023 when she was spotted picking up records at a community sale:

Reporter: “What did you get?”

Kamala: “Do you know music? OK, so first of all, Charlie Mingus, really one of the greatest jazz performers ever. One of my favorite albums of all time, Roy Ayers, ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine,’ you know this one? It’s so good. It’s a classic. And then ‘Porgy and Bess,’ right? And this is a beautiful one, it’s Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.”

I don’t think even Obama could have done that.

I’m so glad she’s living up to what I was hoping for five years ago.

Contrast that to Any Republican Ever.

According to a new memo from the Harris campaign this morning, they have raised $126 million since Sunday from 1.4 million donors, 80 percent of them first-timers.

Turns out The Little Shillbilly has a net minus-6 favorability rating. He wins “Least-liked VP (non-incumbent) candidate since 1980.” And Mushroom Boy didn’t even get one of the $45 million payments for taking the bribe and putting Shillbilly on the ticket.

From CNN: One celebrity publicist told CNN that campaign managers are “typically begging” talent representatives to get their clients to participate in politics, but said that over the past 48 hours since Biden stepped aside and endorsed Harris, it’s nearly impossible to get through to the White House. “Usually I’m asking my clients,” another celebrity publicist said. “Nobody had to ask. People were like, ‘What do I do, and how do I help?’” “I don’t think people realized how worried they were until they had hope,” said one Democratic strategist with deep ties in the entertainment industry. (In Hollywood, everyone likes being Number Two to make a decisive move.) Actually, I think we can all relate to that last quote.

While plans for next month’s Democratic National Convention are still in the early stages, according to a source close to the Harris campaign, several Hollywood publicists and agents told CNN the DNC will be star-studded with one source sharing that conversations with an A-list pop star are currently underway about a possible performance. “We’ll do a lot better than Hulk Hogan,” said one source.

Here’s something Auld Phartz like me don’t actually understand but are happy to see happen:

“Whether the fascination with Harris on TikTok will translate into first-time voters showing up to the polls is unclear. But so far, the support from Young Hollywood is promising with some of the most influential stars on the planet, including Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, posting photos of Harris alongside a link to encourage their hundreds of millions of followers to register to vote. Lovato, who sang at Biden’s 2021 inauguration, hadn’t said anything about Biden this cycle – but on Sunday, the singer quickly took to Instagram to share her endorsement of Harris.

That’s important.

I’m not always a fan of Agents, but I am a fan of listening to their advice, because with the good ones it is always clear-eyed. Like this: “It’s going to be a tough race,” the agent added. “It’s going to be dark and nasty. That’s what our politics have become – but we can’t let that us stop us because the stakes are too high.”

On that note, I’ll say that Churchill was right when he said “'For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”

Thanks very much to the two folks a day who have stepped up to become paid subscribers over the past 30 days. You make it possible for me to concentrate on this work.

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