Author: mccoysnoise

Requiescat in Pace

[A brief – but entirely warranted – respite from the political maelstrom upon us.]

“In the glass, the grey-blue eyes looked back at him with the extra light they held when his mind was focused on a problem that interested him.  The lean, hard face had a hungry, competitive edge to it.  There was something swift and intent in the way he ran his fingers along his jaw and in the impatient stroke of the hairbrush to put back the comma of black hair that fell down an inch above his right eyebrow. It crossed his mind that, with the fading of his sunburn, the scar down the right cheek that had shown so white was beginning to be less prominent …”

…

“And what could the casual observer think of him, ‘Commander James Bond, C.M.G., R.N.V.S.R.,’ also ‘something at the Ministry of Defence, the rather saturnine young man in his middle thirties sitting opposite the Admiral?  Something a bit cold and dangerous in that face.  Looks pretty fit.  May have been attached to Templar in Malaya.  Or Nairobi.  Mau Mau work.  Tough-looking customer.  Doesn’t look like the kind of chap one usually sees in Blades.”

“Bond knew that there was something alien and un-English about himself …”

Moonraker, 1955:  Ian Fleming

Put aside that in today’s world, James Bond’s womanizing was profane and his drinking habits gargantuan (in the books – unlike the films — 007, despite regular vodka martinis, drank a wide range of different beverages, including Dom Perignon champagne, scotch highballs, sake, and Red Stripe beer); to many young men coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s — which included me – the British Secret Service Agent with the “Licence to Kill” brought to life in 13 books by Ian Fleming between 1953 and 1965 (the last published posthumously) was the epitome of duty, elegance, worldliness and working class grit.  He provided our first inside look at countries such as France, Turkey, Switzerland, Japan and the Bahamas. 

I suspect that those of us who view James Bond primarily through Mr. Fleming’s works – rather than through what I consider for the most part to be special effects films — are a shrinking number.  For those that developed a mental picture of 007 through the novels, Sir Sean Connery, who just passed away, was James Bond come to life – in the same way that Al Pacino was Michael Corleone of the Godfather novel and, in an earlier era, Clark Gable was Rhett Butler rising from the pages of Gone with the Wind.  As Bond, Mr. Connery perfectly projected the written character’s blend of suavity, courage, toughness, and resilience.  The only places where Sir Sean’s portrayal deviated from the written character was with the double-entendre dialog, which was a movieland construct; the written Bond was a working agent who considered himself expendable and, world-wise though he was, didn’t engage in witty repartee.  And … Mr. Connery had brown eyes :).  Of Sir Sean’s successors as Bond, Daniel Craig has come the closest to Mr. Connery’s standard, because Mr. Craig captures the written Bond’s essence – the working class grit – but unlike Mr. Connery, Mr. Craig doesn’t look like Bond and his tuxedo always figuratively seems a bit ill-fit.  Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, both distinguished actors and otherwise favorites of mine, made fine Bond fops but failed to credibly project the seriousness of the character.  Only Mr. Connery had it all.

As the testaments to Sir Sean, recounting his many roles, have rolled in over the last couple of days, for me two beside Bond stand out: learned scholar Dr. Henry Jones, the father of Harrison Ford’s Dr. Henry (“Indiana”) Jones, Jr., in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; and British Agent John Mason in The Rock, a role in which Mr. Connery in many ways combined his James Bond and Henry Jones personas.

Sir Sean was one of those actors for me that when you hear of his/her passing, you feel genuine regret.

Requiescat in Pace.

On Polls and Perceptions

As anyone who reads these pages is aware, I have been – along with President Trump and apparently the rest of America’s political junkies – taken with polls.  At the time this is typed, FiveThirtyEight.com (538) shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a lead in every swing state I’ve obsessed upon during the last year, with a lead above 5 points in all three of the Upper Midwest states in which Mr. Trump eked out his 2016 victory.  I will be fascinated to see how closely 538’s findings on the morning of Election Day square with the battleground states’ final results.  I expect that Mr. Biden’s final 538 swing state margins over Mr. Trump will differ from the candidates’ final swing state vote totals, for two reasons: 

First, the Democrats’ substantive and political approach to the Coronavirus has necessarily required them to rely heavily on what in some states have heretofore been “non-traditional” voting methods – mail in, early drop-off, etc. – which seems likely to result in a proportionately greater number of Democratic than Republican votes being rejected for legitimate (and in some cases, illegitimate) reasons.

The second is more fundamental:  the reluctance by some poll respondents to admit that they support the President.  In a past note, I discounted that factor; now, I’ve tentatively concluded that there is indeed an “undervote” that will lift Mr. Trump (to what extent remains to be seen).  I’ve changed my mind because by all objective measures, the President should be trailing by much more than he is.  When pundits bore down into polling results, they note that while Mr. Trump is usually found to lead Mr. Biden narrowly in “the Economy,” he loses to Mr. Biden by notable margins in areas such as, “He cares about people like me,” “Handling the Coronavirus,” “Healthcare,” “Protecting Social Security and Medicare,” “Maintaining America’s Place in the World,” “Addressing Climate Change,” “Environmental Policy,” even – surprisingly – “Maintaining Law and Order.”

I fear that the dichotomy lies in what Mr. Trump has proven to us:  Emotion trumps [if you will ;)] reason.  Rationalists (which, at least in this context, apparently include me) fail to appreciate this. I would venture that if approached in a way that eliminates partisan overlay, many of the President’s supporters would prefer Mr. Biden’s substantive policies to Mr. Trump’s.  I suggest that the polls don’t accurately reflect the deep affinity that a large share of Americans have for Mr. Trump because pollsters don’t ask the right questions (and to which they wouldn’t get a full share of accurate answers even if the respondents are willing to admit it to themselves):

Yes or No:  Are you angry that your life hasn’t turned out as well as you expected?

Yes or No:  Do you believe that America should be white, Christian, and straight?

Yes or No:  Do you just want things to be … the way they always were?

For some, all three questions conjure images of a golden homogeneous carefree past, where everything made sense … that actually never was.  Put aside that we shouldn’t go back; we can’t. Former President Bill Clinton, whom I consider the most gifted politician of my lifetime, famously said, “Elections are about the future.”  I would submit that the outcome of this one will indicate whether we are ready to meet the opportunities and challenges of our future — one of the qualities that actually made America great — or are determined to drown in misshapen memories of our past.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

As all who care are aware, Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris respectively spent yesterday in Georgia and Texas.  I feel personally responsible; I may have jinxed their campaign by observing in a note before the last presidential debate, “No matter the election outcome, I consider former Vice President Joe Biden to have run a smart and disciplined campaign from beginning to end …” It has since been one blunder after the next: the Biden Campaign’s insistence on muted microphones for parts of the last debate, which seemingly psychologically caused President Trump to look as presidential as Mr. Trump can look; the Biden Campaign’s idiotic decision to try to expand its Electoral map – in places like Georgia and Texas; and, given that Mr. Biden’s surest path to 270 Electoral College votes is through Pennsylvania, a fracking state, the granddaddy gaffe of them all — Mr. Biden’s debate declaration that he would transition away from the oil industry.  The latter has in the days since the debate caused images of Gerald Ford’s debate denial of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, Bill Buckner, and Jackie Smith to dance through my head.  [For anyone for whom the references to Messrs. Buckner and Smith are too obscure, simply do internet searches of each of those names together with “YouTube,” and watch  ;)].

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, Host Joe Scarborough asserted that given the apparently-generally-accepted belief that Mr. Biden’s lead over Mr. Trump is insurmountable in Michigan and Wisconsin and (unacknowledged) indications that Mr. Trump will eke out a close victory in Florida, Mr. Biden should be spending all of his time in Pennsylvania:  that the combined Electoral College votes of the three upper Midwest swing states, together with the states won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, wins Mr. Biden the presidency.  Former U.S. MO Sen. Claire McCaskill disagreed, lauding the Democratic ticket’s attempt to expand the map.

I obviously lean more closely to Mr. Scarborough’s reasoning, but not entirely.  Although at the time this is typed, Mr. Biden maintains a 5.2% lead over Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania according to FiveThirtyEight.com (538), 538 also indicates that in Ohio — a reasonable proxy for western Pennsylvania — Mr. Trump has gained 3.2% on Mr. Biden over the last four weeks.  Where I agree with Mr. Scarborough:  Mr. Biden should be spending much of his time in western Pennsylvania and/or determining where he can squeeze out additional votes in Philadelphia – although it is predicted that it will take days to finally tabulate the state’s votes, and Mr. Trump is already telegraphing that he plans to claim that the Philadelphia results are fraudulent.

Pennsylvania will provide its victor 20 Electoral votes.  Where I disagree with Mr. Scarborough:  I would seek to expand the map not in Georgia (where, despite 538’s current showing that Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by more than 1 %, I still consider Democratic Fool’s Gold) or in Texas (where 538 shows Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump by over a point, an outcome seeming sealed by Mr. Biden’s politically idiotic debate declaration about the oil industry), but in Arizona, Iowa, and … Omaha.  538 has shown Mr. Biden to have a steady if not impressive lead over Mr. Trump in Arizona for months; it is a bit under 3 points as this is typed.  Mr. Biden has gained 2.6% on Mr. Trump to take a narrow but seemingly growing lead in Iowa (won twice by former President Barack Obama) over the last month; it seems that Iowans are trending in the direction of Michiganders, Minnesotans, and Wisconsinites.  Finally – something I concede I had forgotten – Nebraska is one of the few states that casts its Electoral College votes by Congressional District.  Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, worth one Electoral College vote, is essentially Omaha.  Another proxy:  538 – in admittedly somewhat dated findings – indicates that the Democratic challenger for Congress in the Nebraska Second, Kara Eastman, has moved slightly ahead of Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon in their contest.  (Mr. Trump sees his vulnerability; he was in Omaha last night.)

Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes, Iowa’s 7, and Omaha’s 1 equals … 19.  It sufficiently makes up for any loss by Mr. Biden of Pennsylvania’s 20, and gives Mr. Biden the presidency.  Perhaps this strategy makes sense to me because we are the proud parents of Creighton University (based in Omaha) and University of Iowa graduates; my gut says that both of these areas have too much sense to want another four years of Mr. Trump.

Get out of Georgia and Texas.  Go to Pennsylvania, Arizona and Iowa.  Then go to Omaha, and help Ms. Eastman bring home the … er … Bacon.

WWVD? Part II

[If one intends to review this post, but has not yet read Part I (which is immediately below), I would start there  😉 ]

Russian President Vladimir Putin obviously prefers to have President Trump pull off what will be viewed as a second upset Electoral College victory over former Vice President Joe Biden, and is undoubtedly using every means at his disposal to try to help bring that result about.  A re-election of Mr. Trump seems likely to lead to the emasculation if not dissolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and will enable President Putin to take less provocative gradual steps over the next four years to further what he views as Russia’s strategic interests.  Mr. Putin has probably concluded that Mr. Biden’s succession to the U.S. presidency will make such incremental Russian advances more difficult.  I suspect that Mr. Putin sees what we see:  while Mr. Trump might still pull out an electoral victory, the odds – despite the best efforts of the American alt-right propaganda machine and Russia – currently remain in Mr. Biden’s favor.  Mr. Putin is, as well documented by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy in their book, Mr. Putin, a survivalist and superb contingency planner.  What does President Putin do if Mr. Biden is indeed certified the winner of the U.S. Presidential election?  Perhaps a few options:

American domestic relations:  the use of social media and other outlets to spread incendiary disinformation among Trump supporters that the election was “stolen” from Mr. Trump, in an effort to incite violence by the Trump fringe elements and to persuade traditional Trump supporters that Mr. Biden’s presidency is illegitimate, perhaps thereby hobbling a Biden Administration’s ability to thwart Russian initiatives.  A divided enemy is a weak enemy.

International relations:  During the interregnum between any certification of a Biden victory and Mr. Biden’s inauguration, Mr. Trump’s narcissism, bitterness, incompetence, and erraticism will reduce American foreign policy to its most impotent state in over a century.  Although Mr. Putin has certainly relished dabbling in and – due to American missteps during both the Obama and Trump Administrations – having Russia arguably supplant the United States as the most influential outside power in the Middle East, Russia’s strategic interests lie in the former Soviet Socialist Republics — referred to by Russian officials as the “near abroad” — and Europe. Hill and Gaddy report that Mr. Putin indicated in 2014 that he sought to extend Russian influence “… to all the space in Europe and Eurasia that once fell within the boundaries of the Russian Empire and the USSR.”   When (given Mr. Trump’s inadequacies, adding “if” to this sentence is absurd) Mr. Putin sees American response effectively neutered during the interregnum period, these are some of the areas in which he might consider proceeding:

Create a pretext, invade and annex the parts of east Ukraine in which the ethnic Russian population exceeds one third of the overall population.  Ukraine, a former Soviet Socialist Republic, is not a member of NATO, and thus, such an overture would not result in the invocation of NATO signatories’ collective defense obligations under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.

Provide troops to actively help Russian puppet Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko put down the continuing Belarusian opposition against his recent fraudulent election victory.  Belarus is a former Soviet Socialist Republic.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is reported to have called the continuing protests against Mr. Lukashenko a geopolitical struggle over spheres of interest (dismissing the notion of an intra-national dispute between Belarusians).  The European Union’s recent award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (ironically, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov) to Belarusian Opposition Leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her followers is almost certainly seen by Mr. Putin as an EU effort to undermine Russian influence in Belarus.  Mr. Putin might anticipate that Russian military assistance to Mr. Lukashenko would receive international condemnation, but be very unlikely to trigger a more aggressive Western response in what is a non-NATO intra-national dispute. 

Consider stirring unrest in the Baltic States:  Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all former United Soviet Socialist Republics.  Since all three are now NATO nations, they present very different challenges and opportunities from Ukraine and Belarus.  Given the NATO Treaty’s Article 5, Mr. Putin would probably deem overt military operations too risky even with a distracted and figuratively disarmed United States.  Still, covert efforts through infiltrated agents to sow discord in the Baltic States’ civil affairs might increase Russian influence and disrupt NATO relationships, provided that they can be undertaken with Russia’s plausible deniability.

Make Germany a very advantageous offer with a short acceptance window on a long-term arrangement for Russian oil and natural gas.  This would cement the German-Russian energy relationship as the two nations’ Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will provide Russia with additional distribution avenues and greater capacity to provide energy to Europe, nears completion.  The project is bitterly opposed by the Trump Administration and will be by a Biden Administration.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has consistently rebuffed Mr. Trump’s efforts to kill the project, undoubtedly primarily because (whether or not correctly) she views the arrangement in Germany’s best interest, but perhaps with less heed to American concerns than she might have had five years ago given Mr. Trump’s obvious disdain for NATO, the EU and her personally.  Germany is the EU’s economic bedrock.  Mr. Putin understands that there are some areas in which use of military power isn’t feasible; use of energy leverage to unravel NATO and wean core EU nations away from the United States significantly furthers Russia’s interests.

Too dark?  Paranoid?  Perhaps; it is the Halloween Season, and I did indicate at the outset of this note that Mr. Putin is a scary book  ;).  That said, it is a seminal work; it enables one to see through Mr. Putin’s eyes.  It seemingly behooves us to consider how well over the last 20 years a man who came from nowhere has played what was in reality a very weak hand when he came into office.  President Richard Nixon reportedly once told Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev that he respected what Mr. Brezhnev said, but made policy based upon what Russia did.  I submit that Mr. Putin’s record suggests that we ignore the measures he might take at our peril.  I suspect that they will be sufficient to keep a President-Elect Biden awake at night.

Trick or Treat.

WWVD? Part I

In this Halloween Season, I’ve been reading the scariest book I’ve bought in retirement:  Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, which is more a psychological profile than a biography of Russian President Vladimir Putin.  (I thoroughly recommend it to foreign policy junkies; it makes quite a pairing with Mary Trump’s psychological profile of President Trump, Too Much and Never Enough.)  [Note:  the latest edition of Mr. Putin was published over a year before Mr. Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency.]  Some excerpts:

“If Putin says he will do something, then he is prepared to do it, and he will find a way of doing it, using every method at his disposal….Vladimir Putin is a fighter and a survivalist.  He won’t give up, and he will fight dirty if that’s what it takes to win….Putin’s tactics at home and abroad are geared toward gaining advantage against his opponents. [Emphasis in Original].”

On Mr. Putin’s handling of the Russian oligarchs:  “There must be some kind of hook to guarantee loyalty, even with [those] that seem most closely linked to [Mr. Putin]….The role of money in this system is important but commonly misunderstood….[I]t is not money that guarantees loyalty …. Instead, it is the fact that the money derives from activity that is or could be found to be illegal.  Participants in the system are not bought off in the classic sense of that term.  Instead, they are compromised; they are made vulnerable to threats.  Enforcement … is achieved … by implicit threats …. Loyalty is ensured through blackmail. … [T]he risk of loss is more important than any reward.  And, as in the most effective blackmail schemes, it is not the threat of loss of money or property that frightens most people.  It is loss of reputation, loss of one’s standing in the eyes of family, friends, and peers – loss of one’s identity [Emphasis in Original].”

“Viktor Yanukovych [who became Ukraine President in 2010, and fled to Russia for refuge in 2014] seemed much more interested in running Ukraine as a ‘family business’ than dealing with the business of economic and political reform. … From Putin’s perspective, the Ukrainian president’s well-documented venality was a major vulnerability that Putin could use to his benefit.  It provided leverage.  Yanukovych was similar to the foreign targets Putin and his KGB colleagues had set up … in the 1970s and 1980s.  His greed and transgressions opened him up to reputational risk at home and abroad.  They also made him relatively easy to buy off.  Putin did just that — … encouraging Russian companies to place lucrative offers with industries closely connected to the Ukrainian president and his family.”

Feel free to substitute any name for “Viktor Yanukovych” you consider appropriate.  To be fair:  in Rage, Bob Woodward reported:  “As [Director of National Intelligence, Dan] Coats had access to the most sensitive intelligence … He suspected the worst but found nothing that would show [Donald] Trump was indeed in Putin’s pocket.”

Back to Mr. Putin:

“[Into 2013] in Ukraine, Putin thought he had the situation under control with the venal and vulnerable Viktor Yanukovych in place.  But he had bet on the wrong horse.  Yanukovych could be blackmailed, but he couldn’t keep control of Ukraine.  Once it became clear that Yanukovych had [what Mr. Putin described as] ‘no political future’ … Putin had to make sure that his backup plans were in place.  Annexing Crimea and setting the rest of Ukraine on fire were contingency operations.  They were prepared in advance, ready to be used if needed – but only if needed.”

“As a consequence of his [KGB] Case Officer identity, Mr. Putin cannot simply abandon an ‘asset.’”

The Mueller Report makes clear that when Russia began its meddling in the 2016 election, its primary goal was to sow discord among the American people; it shifted its efforts to a more aggressive support of then-Candidate Donald Trump when it appeared that he actually had a chance to win.  Now that Mr. Trump is in power, Russia’s current effort is undoubtedly heavily focused upon spreading disinformation and attempting to hack American electoral systems to keep him there.  However, one point Hill and Gaddy drive home repeatedly is that Mr. Putin is a contingency planner:

“The notion that Putin is an opportunist, at best an improviser, but not a strategist, is at best a misread. …  Putin knows that unexpected events can and will blow things off course in domestic and foreign policy.  The key to dealing with the unexpected is to anticipate that there always will be setbacks.  This means he focuses on contingency and adaptive planning to deal with them [Emphasis in Original].”

It seems not unreasonable to assume that in addition to doing whatever he can to secure Mr. Trump’s re-election, Mr. Putin has carefully considered what steps his agencies will take in the event that Mr. Trump loses.  Some of his potential avenues in Part II.

How long, O Lord?

I had no intent to post today; it promises to be a busy week ahead.  Focused as I am on the upcoming election, and as numb as I have apparently become to the endless stream of unfeeling actions perpetrated by Mr. Trump and his cohort, the instance of Trump Administration callousness revealed this week almost failed to embed with me:  that in 2017, in a brutal attempt to discourage Latinos from seeking to immigrate to our country, our government forcibly separated over 500 children from their parents at our southern border – and failed to keep records which would enable it to reunite the families.  The Administration is now unable to locate the parents.  The children remain in cages that during last week’s debate, President Trump grotesquely defended – really – as “so clean.”

Many that follow these pages are parents.  I suspect that all that read these posts cherish the love they received from their parents.  These people, who came seeking refuge from us, were and are being treated like animals.

What brought me back was the first reading in today’s Mass, a familiar one:

“Thus says the Lord:

‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourself in the land of Egypt.  You shall not wrong any widow or orphan.  If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.  My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.’”

Exodus 22: 20 – 23

Not long ago, Rev. James Altman, a pastor in La Crosse, Wisconsin, released a viral video in which he declared, “You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat,” and has reportedly called liberals “fascist bullies” acting “just like Hitler’s Nazis did.” He believes that Catholics must support Republicans and Mr. Trump because of their opposition to abortion.

I’m confident that Fr. Altman has reconciled today’s Exodus passage with his vehement support of Mr. Trump.  I cannot.  That said, I cannot presume to judge; he is responsible to the Almighty for his soul, as I am for mine.

Today’s Exodus passage brought other Scripture verses to mind for me:

“How long, O Lord?  Will you utterly forget me?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long shall I harbor sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day?  How long will my enemy triumph over me?  Look, answer me, O Lord, my God!”

Psalms 13: 1-2      

May we receive the means to aid those now suffering at our hands.

Hopefully, Mr. Biden Didn’t Frack It Up …

When one regularly posts to a blog, it’s pretty easy to remember some of the instances in which you were off base.  In the last six months, I opined that Wisconsin Republicans’ efforts to suppress voter turnout in the state’s April statewide election might cost Democratic-backed Supreme Court Justice candidate Jill Karofsky the victory.  It didn’t; she won handily.  During the speculation as to whom former Vice President Joe Biden would pick as his running mate, I indicated that I feared that if she was chosen, U.S. CA Sen. Kamala Harris could well be a political liability.  So far, she has instead proven to be an asset.

I fervently hope that I can chalk up what follows to the “miss” category when all the Pennsylvania presidential votes are tallied, but I think President Trump won last night’s debate – not because of anything he said, although he was markedly better (despite a couple of grotesquely tone-deaf statements and a blizzard of fabrications) than he was in the first debate – but ironically because of what Mr. Biden said during the candidates’ very last substantive exchange, when he was literally moments from escaping the stage with a sometimes wobbly but generally good-enough performance.

Mr. Trump asked Mr. Biden:  “Would you close down the oil industry?”

Mr. Biden answered:  “I would transition from the oil industry.”

I’m sure that Mr. Biden’s response was hailed in California, but he’s already won California.  His answer perhaps cost him any chance of upsetting Mr. Trump in Texas, but he was likely to lose Texas anyway (although if I was U.S. TX Sen. John Cornyn, in an unexpectedly tight race with Democratic challenger M.J. Hegar, I would have popped a bottle of champagne after the debate).  However, the race seems likely to come down to Pennsylvania.  They frack in Pennsylvania – as Mr. Trump quickly pointed out.  Even if the Biden Campaign has internals indicating that Pennsylvania’s avid environmentalists heavily outnumber the state’s fossil fuel employees, Mr. Biden is already going to get all of the environmentalists’ votes; it’s support among the state’s blue collar swing voters – including the fossil fuel workers – that may be the difference in Pennsylvania.  Although Pennsylvania state reports indicate — despite the national energy industry’s allegedly inflated job numbers – that there are only about 26,000 fracking jobs in Pennsylvania, these jobs undoubtedly feed others in some small Pennsylvania communities.  In 2016, out of almost 6 million votes cast, Mr. Trump won Pennsylvania by just 42,000 votes.  Every vote matters.  If I was a Pennsylvania energy worker, I would find his answer a reason to vote for Mr. Trump. 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign declaration, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” wasn’t, if you were one of the three people that ever listened to her complete statement that day, that controversial; it was the tone that resonated. 

One may argue that given the importance of the environment to our future, Mr. Biden’s answer was appropriate, since he’s running for the presidency of the United States, not the Governorship of Pennsylvania; I would respond that unless he wins Pennsylvania, there may be no United States presidency for him.  On the other hand, CNN Commentator Rick Santorum – who was once a Pennsylvania Senator – mentioned the fracking exchange during the post-debate analysis, but didn’t dwell on it.

As I said at the outset:  I hope I’m over-reacting, and will happily chalk this up as a “miss” if I see Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes placed squarely in Mr. Biden’s column.  In the meantime, I don’t care that the national polls uniformly state that Mr. Biden won the debate.  I’ll be watching Pennsylvania polls closely in the coming days.

The Last Hurdle [?]

No matter the election outcome, I consider former Vice President Joe Biden to have run a generally smart and disciplined campaign from beginning to end:  at the outset, making maximum benefit of his name recognition, residual personal and Obama Administration good will; doing well enough in the Democratic presidential debates to maintain his standing; while a series of adversaries briefly shone, shrewdly pinning his prospects for the Democratic nomination on African American support in the South Carolina primary (a state that he will, ironically, probably lose to President Trump); presenting himself throughout as moderate, sane and empathetic (which, by all accounts, he is); picking U.S. CA Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, who – despite my posted misgivings – has turned out to be a safe and effective choice; and focusing his attention almost exclusively on swing states with understandable (given the polls) forays into Ohio.  He’s gotten some breaks.  He was first assisted by having his moderate rivals, who had seen what happened to the Republicans in 2016, endorse him before an arguably unelectable outsider, U.S. VT Sen. Bernie Sanders, could seize the nomination.  In starkly political terms, he was aided by the outrage attending the killing of George Floyd and, primarily, by the Coronavirus, which brought into naked relief President Trump’s narcissism and incompetence, for months diverted attention from any attacks that Republicans planned to level at him, and enabled him to mostly stay out of sight – gaffe-free, while demonstrating responsible Coronavirus behaviors.

In contrast, President Trump has thrown off the fetters of the Coronavirus (both the national crisis and his own affliction) and thus far reverted to his campaign brew of chaos, incendiary rhetoric, and questionable allegations.  The polls indicate that his strategy may be helping him.  The mental image of the contest seems a boat race in which the gap appears to be narrowing as Mr. Trump revs the outboard while Mr. Biden maintains smooth sail toward shore.

One can never tell in the Alternate Trump Universe in which we are trapped, but tonight’s debate may be the last major test for Mr. Biden’s steady approach.  Since reports indicate that he has been preparing for the last couple of days, presumably he sees it as so.  Each candidate has advantages and disadvantages in this last confrontation.

First, Mr. Trump’s advantages and Mr. Biden’s disadvantages.  After the President’s boorishly buffoonish debate performance in late September – when he may or may not have been infected with COVID – expectations for him will be low.  The Trump Campaign has been doing a much better job at the “low expectations” game than it did before the first debate, while decrying the “unfairness” of the debate format it agreed to.  Mr. Trump can behave when he has to – the last two weeks of his 2016 presidential campaign showed that – and my guess is that whether or not he admits it, he realizes that his all-out assault on Mr. Biden in the first debate backfired horribly, and that he needs to look restrained and reasonable to have any hope of persuading the modicum of swing state swing voters he needs.  I expect him to take his shots, but to be more the 2016 presidential debater, when he did reasonably well against Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton.  

An aside:  each candidate’s microphone will be muted when the other is giving his opening statement on each debate topic (but not during the topic’s ensuing open discussion).  This change in debate rules is apparently at the behest of the Biden Campaign, which is reportedly seeking a “more ordered” debate.  This, against Mr. Trump, was just dumb, one of the few unforced errors the Biden team has made.  The more opportunity Mr. Biden gives the President to discard his restraint, to show his true colors, the better Mr. Biden looks.  The more Mr. Biden seemingly hesitates — perhaps merely while constructing a work around for his stuttering — in ways not attributable to Mr. Trump’s interruptions, the greater the possibility of increased voter misgivings about Mr. Biden.  In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt comments that Republicans are masters at aiming at intuition, while Democrats appeal to language-based reasoning, and that intuition trumps [if you will ;)] reasoning every time.  Democrats can turn the tables by giving Mr. Trump as much chance as possible to evoke the visceral personal distaste that polls show most not in the Trump Cult feel for him.   

 Mr. Biden’s advantages and Mr. Trump’s disadvantages:  Mr. Trump’s potential lack of restraint, and the fodder Mr. Trump has given Mr. Biden.  Mr. Biden should look for the opportunities to use these:

When Mr. Trump makes his latest claims about Hunter Biden, take your pick:

“You’ve said I’m a criminal that should be arrested.  Are you standing here tonight saying that I am a criminal that should be arrested?”  (No matter what Mr. Trump says, Mr. Biden wins the visual).

“You’re basing your claim on a lead provided by Russians [ding] to your lawyer, Rudy Giuliani [ding], for a story in the New York Post, owned by the owner of Fox News [ding].”

 “You don’t have the guts to face Putin, but you’re going after my son to hurt me.”

On COVID: 

No matter what Mr. Trump says in his own defense:  “You sat on your hands, and now over 200,000 of our people are dead.  You deny, people die.”

“The other day, you called Dr. Anthony Fauci an idiot.  Do you think you know more about how to protect us than he does?”

“We were each supposed to take a COVID test before the first debate to protect each other.  I took the test.  Did you?”  [If Mr. Trump says he did, Mr. Biden can point out that Mr. Trump said in his NBC Town Hall that he didn’t remember; he can call upon Mr. Trump – right there – to authorize Mr. Trump’s physicians to reveal his testing regime to the public.  If Mr. Trump repeats that he can’t remember, Mr. Biden can say, “I thought I was the one that wasn’t able to remember.”]

Most importantly: 

Mr. Biden’s concluding statement, no matter what the actual specified topic, needs to be:  “Do you want four more years of this?”  [Let the viewer fill in the “this.”]

Tonight, we see.

Truly Random October Monday Thoughts

If polls are to be believed, President Trump’s standing has fallen sharply among seniors.  Commentators have generally attributed Mr. Trump’s apparent loss of senior support to his mishandling of our Coronavirus response.  If he has indeed lost senior support, I wonder whether it doesn’t have more meaning than that:  while COVID has brought into stark relief Mr. Trump’s incompetence and disregard for seniors’ safety, it has also caused seniors to confront the sheer lunacy of his presidency.  Seniors remember when the president, even if you disagreed with his particular policies, at least … made sense.  While Bernie, Elizabeth, or Pete might have conjured up fears of continued craziness, Joe Biden offers the prospect of … sanity.  Even if some fellow seniors don’t share my deep abhorrence for the president’s lies, bullying, racism, and dictatorial inclinations, I suspect that many share my attendant wish for a stop to the noise and the craziness.

I’m fascinated that in recent days the Republicans have tried to resurrect their allegations about … wait for it … former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Mr. Trump has spoken about it; Vice President Pence threw in references to Sec. Clinton near the end of the Vice Presidential debate; I saw one clip in which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured us (complete with sardonic smile, almost diabolically rubbing his hands in glee) that he has Ms. Clinton’s allegedly deleted emails and will tell us more before the election.  This is obviously designed to elicit the Pavlovian response from the Republican faithful.  We ourselves have family members (of both genders) who get terribly exercised at the very mention of Ms. Clinton.  My reaction to Mr. Pompeo’s claim:  unless he produces a validated Clinton email which says, “I told Joe Biden that I was intentionally violating email security protocols and exposing our most sensitive information to Russia and China, and Joe said, ‘Great – Go for it!’”, what swing voter – upon whose vote the outcome of the presidential election will rest — cares anymore?  While she’s perhaps not the most likeable, I have never understood the Republican rabid Hillary Clinton fixation.  As First Lady and then Secretary of State, her responsibility was to support the policies of the sitting President.  Has there ever been a more inept national politician?  With all of the Clintons’ institutional advantages in 2008, how does one lose to a 2-year Illinois U.S. Senator, no matter how charismatic he is?  In 2016, how does one lose to … Donald Trump?  Let her rest in peace.

I haven’t been able to muster up that much interest in Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings or Judge Barrett’s impending ascension to the Supreme Court.  As all that read these pages are aware, I’m terribly troubled by the Republicans’ hypocrisy in thwarting Judge Garland’s Supreme Court nomination while pushing Judge Barrett’s; to me, it’s not about what the Senate had the right to do or not do, it’s about partisan Senate Republicans’ failure to honorably do what they should have done.  That said, it’s clear that Judge Barrett seems overwhelmingly likely to be confirmed.  Since she is undisputedly eminently qualified (albeit staunchly conservative) and apparently has no objective disqualifying factors such as drug addiction, I believe she should be.  I will nonetheless venture that if Mr. Biden wins the election and the Democrats gain control of the Senate, the liberal angst about Ms. Barrett’s ascension is overwrought.  Demographic and cultural mores sweeping this nation will not be held back by six conservative Justices, including the three Trump appointees, frantically trying to hold back the tide.  Public perception of the Court is no longer of robed oracles on pedestals as it was when President Franklin Roosevelt proposed his court packing plan in 1937.  Although Mr. Roosevelt’s initiative resulted in the most stinging political defeat of his career [although it didn’t stop him from being re-elected – twice – thereafter ;)], some scholars suggest that Mr. Roosevelt’s legislative overture caused “the switch in time that save nine” – conservative Justice Owen Roberts’ sudden joining with the liberal Justices to uphold New Deal positions.  I predict that independent voter support for court packing will mushroom if the Affordable Care Act is struck down or Roe v. Wade overruled.  The current conservative Justices will ultimately either accommodate their rulings to changing American sensibilities, be neutered by a legislative increase in Supreme Court seats, or depart the Court via “voluntary” retirement or impeachment.  On the other hand, if Mr. Trump is re-elected, a conservative Supreme Court majority will be among the lesser of our problems.

As the polls indicate – whether or not accurately – a potential “Blue Wave” in unlikely places such as Texas and Georgia, I wonder whether former U.S. TX Rep. Beto O’Rourke and former GA State Rep. Stacey Abrams have experienced pangs about rejecting the Democratic National Committee’s repeated requests that they run for the U.S. Senate in their respective states in 2020.  While their reluctance earlier this year was understandable – both had come off close defeats in a non-presidential election year, and presumably didn’t like their electoral prospects against apparently popular incumbent Senators in a presidential election year – arguably the enthusiasm each engendered in their narrow 2018 defeats, against a backdrop of a seemingly dramatic shift in voter sentiment brought about by Mr. Trump, might in hindsight have given either or both of them a springboard to victory.  Two years ago, everyone knew of Mr. O’Rourke and Ms. Abrams; how many can name the current Texas and Georgia Democratic Senate candidates?

A good friend recently sent me the following link to an article reporting upon the State of Wisconsin’s ongoing negotiations with Foxconn.  The arrangement touted with such fanfare in June, 2018, by President Trump, then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan, and then WI Gov. Scott Walker is — and there is no kinder way to accurately describe it — a debacle.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/12/21512638/wisconsin-foxconn-tax-subsidies-lcd-factory-rejected?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWW1VeE1XRmlOVFprWVRWaCIsInQiOiJGVG0rSjJOdHdGelJqVjR3b2d4SWpOVGVETVRqVkVRayt1WlpQWnU4R0M5RUkxNXZUbFhSUkVSajB6RitGUEdRbkZmMlQ0RTE5a2pRaTk0QlVpOUgxRXhreG1EaThQSGtURTZ1ZEMzUzlUV25xYmIrYU1qWHFKWlBZcW5VXC83SXcifQ%3D%3D

All reports indicate that we’re going in the wrong direction on COVID.  Be careful.