On the Presidency of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

At the end of 2022, I observed in these pages that “at this [halfway] point in his term,” I considered President Joe Biden to be most consequential president America had had since Franklin Roosevelt.

I will spare you an extended litany of pros and cons of the Biden presidency; you have lived the last four years. Although the President’s defenders are now touting his many substantive achievements, four aspects stand out to me: the effective manner in which his Administration dispensed the COVID vaccines becoming available as he took office, reviving a country literally and figuratively crippled by the pandemic; the manner in which he led an economy – which at the time he took office economists were debating only whether it was headed for a “hard” or soft” landing — through four years of uninterrupted growth; the manner in which he protected America and other global democracies by fostering cohesion among NATO allies when Russia invaded Ukraine at a point that the alliance was in its greatest disarray since its founding; and – perhaps most importantly – the decent, stable, open manner in which he conducted the presidency.

That said, they don’t render a final assessment of a starter’s performance when he’s halfway through the ballgame. Mr. Biden’s second half wasn’t as strong as his first half; he didn’t aggressively address the chaos existing at our southern border until too late, and — crucially, even aside from the ultimate political ramifications – he should have recognized in late 2022 that he substantively simply didn’t have the strength to perform his office effectively for another six years, no matter whom the Republicans nominated.

Ever since starting these pages, I have had the idea of doing a post setting forth my ranking of the worst to the best American presidents of my lifetime (which, despite the hoary nature of these entries, only extends as far back President Harry Truman 🙂 ). If I ever do write such a note, I now expect that Mr. Biden will be placed not at the top, but somewhere in the middle, alongside Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Mr. Johnson’s extraordinary domestic policy achievements were ultimately overshadowed by Vietnam. Mr. Nixon’s extraordinary foreign policy achievements were ultimately overshadowed by Watergate.

While I place exceptional weight on the fact that Mr. Biden is a genuinely good man who means well, in 2020 he didn’t run for president and we didn’t elect him for his managerial, economic, or even foreign policy acumen. He ran and we hired him to perform one mission: rid us of Donald Trump.

He didn’t.

Lessons from Mr. Carter

As all are aware, former President Jimmy Carter, 100, died this past weekend. I’m acutely aware that a number of those reading this note can’t remember when Mr. Carter was president. As is appropriate when marking the passing of such a fine man, commentators – I noted that for the brief time we tuned in, even on Fox News – have emphasized Mr. Carter’s fundamental decency. The grotesque dichotomy between Mr. Carter’s character and that of the next occupant of the Oval Office need not be remarked upon here; it speaks for itself. (I do admit that I relish the notion that older Evangelical leaders’ contemplations of Mr. Carter may be causing them to rue, however briefly, how far their movement has strayed over the last 50 years for what it considers expediency.)

As someone who does remember Mr. Carter’s presidency, a number of lessons have occurred to me:

First, he ran a revolutionary campaign in 1976. As hard as it might be for younger Americans to now appreciate, the Deep South was nowhere, politically, in 1976. To be successful, any presidential candidate’s timing has to be right, and has been repeatedly remarked, Mr. Carter’s sincere morality provided the perfect contrast to the sordid revelations of then-former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate; but it was more than that. Mr. Carter and his advisors [Chief Campaign Strategist (and later White House Chief of Staff) Hamilton Jordan and his closest confidante (aside from Mrs. Carter) (and later White House Press Secretary) Jody Powell (both of whom were about 20 years younger than Mr. Carter, and both of whom passed away in the 2000s)] devised a strategy in which he would make an early first impression – and hopefully win – the Iowa Caucuses and then contrast himself from his multiple liberal adversaries for the Democratic nomination by taking positions that were more conservative (except on civil rights, where Mr. Carter’s record was impeccable; African American support was his base) than those held by the rest of the field. Nobody outside of Iowa had ever heard of the Iowa Caucuses before 1976. The Carter Campaign realized that Mr. Carter’s background – an Evangelical, a farmer, a military background – was perfectly tailored for Iowa, and that the national media loved the new, the different. They made Iowa matter, he won, and rode the momentum to a victory in the New Hampshire primary. He was on his way – and won a bunch of subsequent primaries by taking about 30% of the vote while the liberal field split the remaining 70%. (President-Elect Donald Trump employed a version of the strategy — undoubtedly without recognizing the parallel to Mr. Carter’s – to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination).

Mr. Carter’s narrow victory over then-President Gerald Ford is further evidence of a point I have made here several times in connection with my father, a rock-ribbed Republican who nonetheless passionately supported John F. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, in 1960: Mr. Carter needed and swept the Electoral College votes of the Deep South, although I would venture that the majority of those states’ voters were closer to Mr. Ford on substantive issues than they were to Mr. Carter. It didn’t matter; Mr. Carter’s election psychologically empowered them in the same manner that Mr. Kennedy’s did for Catholics and former President Barack Obama’s did for African Americans a generation later. (When campaigning in the South, Mr. Carter would grin, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a president who doesn’t speak with an accent?” The South, which had been trending Republican before Mr. Carter’s 1976 run, returned resoundingly to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.) (The one group that has not been decisively motivated by common identity is women, demonstrating both why we should have a woman president, and why we don’t.)

I will venture that as president, Mr. Carter knew how to manage but didn’t know how to lead. (A criticism he himself acknowledged but didn’t agree with.) Legendary Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “Tip” O’Neill once remarked – my words, but his meaning – that Mr. Carter knew more about policy and less about Congressional dynamics than any president he ever worked with. Last fall, we took a trip to the United Kingdom, and while there I was particularly struck by the simultaneous lunacy and brilliance of the British system. The vast majority of the UK citizens we talked to had respect for and loyalty to King Charles (although clearly not the reverence they held for his late Mum 😉 ) while mostly disparaging their elected representatives (the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, had just assumed his post; I couldn’t remember his name, and most of them couldn’t, either). The allegiance the Brits have for Charles — whose crown in the official photo seems (aptly, to me) slightly askew – who sits in opulence, separated only by an accident of birth from the guy on a pub stool down the street from the Palace — seemed absurd to my American eyes; at the same time, no matter how contentiously Brits may disagree on the policies of the ruling government, they all have the King to rally around. Although Prime Ministers have rallied the UK – Winston Churchill being the most renowned example – for the most part, it is the Monarch who is the communal foundation. I envy the touchstone of unity that the monarchy provides UK citizens. We Americans expect our Presidents to be both King – to lead majestically – and Prime Minister – to get the minutia right. Very, very few men (not only have all of our presidents been men; I fear that all will be men for the remainder of my lifetime) are good at both. Required to choose, we Americans seem to prefer presidents who lead with broad flourishes: in the last century, Messrs. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, Obama, Trump. We seemingly have less patience for presidents, no matter how arguably successful on paper, who govern in a more ministerial fashion: Messrs. Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Biden. Mr. Carter made a fine Prime Minister but a poor King. He checked a number of substantive boxes, but failed to hold the American imagination. His challenge as president was perhaps best captured in the Iranian hostage crisis: he did, in the end, through patience and persistence, bring the hostages home – an achievement for which their families and all rejoiced on a human level – but at a cost of leaving Americans feeling impotent, humiliated by Iran, then a third-rate nation with nothing but oil going for it. What Mr. Carter achieved – saving the hostages while avoiding a Mideast war – was commendable. It is not nearly so clear that his approach was the wisest strategically.

Mr. Carter taught me a lesson about myself – one that I suspect he would not appreciate — that indeed was part of the genesis of the title of this site. Never over the last 50 years have I been as passionately for a candidate as I was for Mr. Carter in 1976. (I have since been at least as passionately against a candidate, but you know that 😉 .) In 1976, I had nothing against Mr. Ford; I had simply become a true believer in Mr. Carter. I was absolutely confident that Mr. Carter would really make a difference, truly lead us in a new direction. For me, his presidency was a terrible disappointment. [I guess that at bottom, I am among those Americans that prefer majesty (while hoping the president has an able staff in the background 🙂 ) to ministry.] In 1980, my vote for Ronald Reagan was not a vote for Mr. Reagan but a vote against Mr. Carter. If you now dismiss my initial expectations as youthful exuberance, I will not disagree; but the fact remains that between 1977 and 1981 I realized, and have always thereafter recognized, that if I could be that wrong about a candidate, any notion I had about any candidate or issue, no matter how firmly held, could simply be … only so much noise.

That said, I leave the most important lesson for last: Mr. Carter’s example after leaving the White House. I would venture that there can hardly be a more bitter blow to one’s psyche than to win the U.S. presidency – to ascend to the highest secular height that the modern world offers – to work as hard at the job as Mr. Carter did, and then … to be so humiliatingly cast aside (Mr. Reagan won 44 states). In Mr. Carter’s post presidency – I think that even the notion of a “post presidency,” and the term, “Post-President” were generated because of Mr. Carter – he taught us that even following the most emotionally devastating defeat, there is much good one can do if one has the gumption to get up and do it. So even at this time when some of us are terribly disillusioned, his example provides encouragement that there is much good to be done – not only in the realm of policy and politics, but also to better the everyday situations of those less fortunate around us.

We just need to see what can be done, and get up and do it.

Gratias tibi, Mr. President. Requiescat in pace.

Mr. Trump’s Scent

As all who care are aware, a bipartisan Congressional funding bill required to keep the government open, considered completed but for formal passage, was scuttled this week. For the most part, I’ve been adhering to my intent to distance myself from public affairs throughout the Holidays, so I don’t know whether the bill was substantively good or bad, but do understand that Congress needs to pass a funding measure by midnight tonight to avoid a government shutdown. It’s been reported that the bipartisan compromise was abandoned after Billionaire Financier Elon Musk tweeted against the bill innumerable times on December 18. It’s also been reported that that President-Elect Donald Trump himself suddenly opposed the bill unless it included an increase in the federal debt ceiling while President Joe Biden is still in office, although there is no formal need to extend the debt ceiling until sometime this summer.

Since Messrs. Musk and Trump torpedoed the bipartisan funding bill, Democrats have declared that they won’t support any new bill that House Republican leaders jerry-rig. I’m hoping they stick to it. I sincerely hope that they aren’t idiotic enough to capitulate to Mr. Trump’s sudden demand to expand the debt ceiling when there is no pressing need. If Speaker Mike Johnson gets no Democratic help, I think he might find – since he has proclaimed that the Bible is his worldview – that it was easier for Moses to collaborate with the Almighty on parting the Red Sea than it will be for him to generate a symphony from the Republican House cacophony.

Not to be lost in the chaos: the Dynamic Duo of Messrs. Musk and Trump are pulling in different directions. Mr. Musk seemingly wishes to use the authority Mr. Trump has indicated that he will be granted to cut federal spending with apparently little regard for public reaction. At the same time, Mr. Trump is evidently well aware that the large segment of his electoral base who depend on government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid don’t actually care about reducing the deficit if reduction measures adversely affect their benefits and services.

In terms that Mr. Johnson would understand if not appreciate: the majority of American voters opted for this Tower of Babel, and now they’re beginning their trip to Gehenna.

While Mr. Musk’s billions have obviously provided him significant influence for some time, his overt political ascendance has occurred at stunning speed. I’m wondering whether Mr. Trump yet perceives the risks he has assumed in squirting a Musk scent so liberally over his incoming Administration, and if so, what he is able to do about it.

MAGAs are absolutely excellent at spreading propaganda through their alt-right echo chamber; they’re already trying to spin this debacle as Democrats’ fault despite the fact that they hold the majority in the House. Their claims will undoubtedly be accepted blindly by Fox viewers and the like. If Democrats have any savvy at all – not a given – they should exploit this extraordinary opportunity to make Mr. Musk the issue – and politically emasculate Mr. Trump (whom exit polls indicate some young men voted for because of his manliness) in the process. Nobody likes billionaires, rank-and-file MAGAs no more than anybody else. One and all, House Democrats should message, “We will vote for what was going to be passed by both parties until Donald Trump’s puppeteer, Elon Musk, got in the way. We will vote for nothing more, and nothing less.” Every House Democrat should put this message out every hour of every day in every outlet they can reach.

According to an “AI Overview” generated in response to my Google search:

“Description

Musk is a warm, subtle, and complex scent that can be powdery, sweet, woodsy, or earthy. It can also have fruity or floral undertones. Some say it’s a better version of the natural smell of skin.

Uses

Musk is a common base note in perfumes, adding depth, warmth, and longevity to fragrances. It can also be found in candles and room sprays.

Origins

Musk originally came from the musk deer’s glands, but is now mostly synthetic or plant-based. The name “musk” comes from the Late Greek word moskhos, which is derived from Persian and Sanskrit words meaning “testicle”. The deer’s gland was thought to resemble a scrotum.

Ethical concerns

The use of natural musk in perfumery has been banned due to ethical concerns over the cruel practices involved in obtaining it from deer.”

There are certainly those among Mr. Musk’s detractors who maintain that Mr. Musk will engage in cruel practices. Unless the incoming Administration is willing to quickly institutes autocratic measures to achieve its unpopular aims, Mr. Trump and Congressional Republicans may soon determine that they need to distance themselves from Mr. Musk before he extracts any more from their political moskhos. 😉

On the Power of Faith

[As always, please excuse my use of male pronouns when referring to a Supreme Being without gender.]

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln regularly pondered the irony that two sets of peoples were fervently praying to the same Deity for diametrically opposed ends. In September, 1862, he wrote:

“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for, and against, the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something quite different from the purpose of either party – yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose.” [Emphasis Mr. Lincoln’s]

In a letter to a friend on September 4, 1864, Mr. Lincoln wrote:

“The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. … God knows best … We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains.”

Finally, in his March, 1865, Second Inaugural Address, delivered on the cusp of what had become an overwhelmingly-likely Union victory, Mr. Lincoln noted the aspect that faith was playing in the conflict:

“Both [Union and Confederate adherents] read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. … The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

For someone who has been so viscerally engaged in our current electoral struggle, I find myself, if not serene, with at least a level of equanimity as we contemplate today’s uncertain outcome. I have realized that it is because I believe – as Mr. Lincoln held – that God knows best. What follows is the passage we chose as our wedding Gospel so many decades ago and has since been included in each of our children’s wedding celebrations:

“Therefore, I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. … Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they?

… Consider how the lilies of the field grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which flourishes today but tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith?

Therefore, do not be anxious … But seek first the kingdom of God and His justice ….”

Matthew, 6:25-26, 28-31, 33

As this Election Day unfolds, I know what I think is the best way forward for our country; but about half of my fellow citizens feel just as strongly to the contrary. I have frequently referred in these pages to what I consider to be our struggle to maintain democracy; yet it cannot be forgotten that the peaceful expressions of different views are the essence of a democracy. Given these circumstances, I feel fortunate – nae, blessed – to have the consolation of my faith. Today, I am confining my prayers to this: that the Almighty bring about the victory of the presidential candidate who will do the most good for our nation, our children, our grandchildren, and – given our geopolitical, financial, and military standing in the world – who will provide the most good for all of His people of the earth.

If you haven’t yet voted, quit reading this and go vote. If you have voted, it’s time to sit back and embrace what has been, for over two centuries, the most magnificent expression of public will in the history of the world.

Pre-Election Notions

As all who care are aware, over the weekend the highly respected Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released results of its last Iowa poll taken October 28-31, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris – who in all of the organization’s previous polls since she became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee had trailed former President Donald Trump in a state he won in both 2016 and 2020 – had edged 3 points ahead of the former president. Even more intriguing was the poll’s finding that Ms. Harris’ strongest Iowa demographic group was women 65 and older, in which she held a whopping 2:1 lead over Mr. Trump. I find the results particularly noteworthy since there are a lot of Evangelicals in Iowa.

To start with the most glaringly obvious: winning a presidential election is a matter of math — how many votes a candidate gets, and where the candidate gets them. Although I’m confident that Ms. Harris would like to claim Iowa’s 6 Electoral College (EC) votes, the poll may be more important for what it indicates might happen elsewhere.

Although it will take some states, such as Georgia, days to reach a final vote tally – and thus, during those days, the outcome of the election could remain uncertain – I would suggest if we knew definitively on Election night the final results of all states east of the Mississippi River, we’d probably have a pretty good idea who our next president will be. I’ll even go so far as to venture that if we definitively knew the results along the Atlantic seaboard, those alone might provide us a fairly firm indication as to the final outcome.

Take Ms. Harris first. Commentators – including me 😉 – have gone on ad nauseam about her surest path to an Electoral College victory being the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. However, this presupposes that Ms. Harris claims all of the states carried by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. Since the “Blue Wall” path gets her to exactly the necessary majority of 270 Electoral College votes, if she unexpectedly loses even a pretty tiny New England EC state, such as New Hampshire or Maine, she’ll need to win one of the swing states now seemingly favoring Mr. Trump to reach 270, even if the Blue Wall comes in for her.

Conversely, as to Mr. Trump: since the 2000 Bush-Gore electoral debacle, I understand that Florida has sharpened its electoral processes such that it can now report its results reasonably promptly. As of the time this is typed, 538 has Mr. Trump leading Ms. Harris by a comfortable 6.7 points, but there are a lot of women over 65 and Latinos (remember the Trump Madison Square Garden rally) in Florida. Although Mr. Trump’s path to the presidency becomes significantly narrower if he is somehow loses Florida, perhaps more realistic Election Night scenarios from which Ms. Harris might draw reassurance would be if prognosticators consider the Florida race too close to call for an extended period, or if Mr. Trump’s margin of Florida victory is significantly smaller than now forecast. Either of these scenarios might well be an early indicator that Ms. Harris will do well in the Blue Wall states and have a better chance than now anticipated to claim either North Carolina or Georgia. As I’ve also noted here repeatedly, if she does eke out either North Carolina or Georgia, she can afford to lose either Michigan or Wisconsin and still win the presidency.

I understand that the Trump Campaign and the alt-right media silo have been constantly spreading the message that Mr. Trump’s victory is overwhelmingly likely. Let me join those observing that such is a transparent tactic to condition MAGAs to blindly accept the Trump team’s claims of voter fraud that will inevitably begin immediately if the former president loses the election. Likewise, Mr. Trump has recently ranted on his social media site about election fraud in Pennsylvania. Let me also join the chorus who have observed that such is a clear indicator that Mr. Trump is worried that Pennsylvanians are trending toward Ms. Harris.

President Joe Biden was asked some time ago whether he thought our election processes were fair and accurate, and whether he thought violence might ensue in the election’s wake. He replied that he was confident that our election processes would be fair and accurate, but he wouldn’t offer a firm opinion as to whether violence might result as the results were announced. I obviously agree with the President as to the integrity of our electoral processes – only the willingly gullible can think otherwise – and time will tell whether or not there will be violence after the winner is declared. I would offer that if Ms. Harris is declared the winner after all legal votes are tallied, Mr. Trump’s supporters might be less likely to riot than in 2020 because they will be acutely aware that unlike 2020, Mr. Biden is the Commander in Chief in charge of the National Guard and the U.S. Military.

At the same time, I consider the likelihood of election interference by swing state Republican officials, now fully immersed in MAGA election propaganda, at least a great a risk to Ms. Harris’ presidential bid as losing the vote. Taking Wisconsin as an example: If Ms. Harris wins the state’s popular vote after the initial tally, I do not consider it beyond if the state’s rabid MAGA-controlled legislature to adopt some rationale to disallow a significant number of votes in a Harris stronghold such as Dane County (Madison), in an attempt to award Mr. Trump Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes. (To be fair: I have no fears about Georgia. GA Gov. Brian Kemp and GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger proved their mettle the last time, and they must each privately personally detest Mr. Trump. If they declare that Mr. Trump won Georgia, I’ll believe it. 🙂 )

I have commented in different earlier posts that no matter what I might think about other aspects of former Vice Presidents Dick Cheney’s and Mike Pence’s respective conduct of their Vice Presidencies, I will always mentally qualify my assessments of them by noting that on the most important issue of their and our time, each got it right. On the other hand, last week former Green Bay Quarterback and Hall of Famer Brett Favre spoke at a Trump rally in Wisconsin. It is the latest of a series of disreputable incidents in which he has been involved since the end of his Packer playing days. I will always have a bifurcated view Mr. Favre – the division between the truly incredible athlete and competitor … and the person he has shown himself to be.

I mentioned in an earlier note that Ms. Harris had been looking tired. In the last couple of weeks – perhaps from the adrenaline she’s felt from being electorally on the upswing – she has looked revitalized, vibrant. On the other hand, it is now Mr. Trump that seems spent – perhaps not unexpected given his 78 years. Although I thought that Mr. Trump would fade away if he was defeated in 2020, I do not think it is unreasonable to suppose that if Mr. Trump is defeated this time, we will dispense with him personally, although the MAGA movement has now unfortunately grown deep-enough roots that it will survive him. Another MAGA Messiah will emerge, although I haven’t yet seen a potential successor with the former president’s animal charisma.

In a couple of previous posts, I have likened this campaign to an NFL game. In recent days, a different image has entered my mind, perhaps arising from what I consider Ms. Harris’ and Democrats’ Herculean efforts on behalf of our democracy. It is from one of our daughter’s high school swim meets. (This is, mind you, a distant memory; our daughter has been a practicing psychologist for over 15 years 🙂 ). In that meet’s last event, a relay, a teammate of our daughter swimming one of the first “legs” had difficulty such that by the time the relay got to the last leg – always swum by a team’s “anchor,” the strongest swimmer of a team’s relay quartet — the other team’s anchor was half a lap ahead – a quarter of the leg’s entire distance — by the time our team’s anchor even hit the water. Although the other swimmer’s lead looked insurmountable, our anchor was an extraordinary swimmer and competitor; she launched in, and took off. With every stroke, she closed the gap. We spectators, starting to collect our things to depart, at first called out support in moderate tones for what appeared an obvious lost cause; but then, as the gap closed — as the two swimmers hit the turn, and started back, one ahead, then the other, steadily closing — we stood, and started yelling; by the end – as what was initially a yawning chasm between the two young women unbelievably narrowed, and narrowed, and narrowed, as they strove to reach the pool wall, the impossible suddenly seeming possible — all were screaming and jumping. It wasn’t clear until the last yard – the last second – who would win.

We’ll see what happens. If I post at all tomorrow – and I appreciate your bearing with me if you have waded through this series of lengthy missives as we passed these many days to our election outcome — it will be from a different perspective. That said, all who read these pages are aware that I am a West Wing fanatic. My Twitter feed recently included a reference to a recent book event at which Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet in the television series, spoke. The video is poor, but stay with this clip. As the link indicates, Mr. Sheen, as undoubtedly was planned, first reads an assortment of snippets of Bartlet dialog crafted by series creator Aaron Sorkin over the years; but at the end, Mr. Sheen closes the binder and for a golden minute, he again is Bartlet. As we look with hope at an uncertain electoral outcome, it seems fitting to conclude with inspiration from our greatest fictional president.

Queen Leigh 🥥🌴 on X: “Martin Sheen concluding 6th & I West Wing event with a sort of Bartlet pastiche of Sorkin speeches—and then he closes the book and *becomes* Jed Bartlet, speaking from the heart. It’s pretty cool. https://t.co/JZzl9TTXzU” / X

Wisconsin May Be Ground Zero … Again: a Postscript

After the last post – in which I indicated that today’s Packers/Lions game would provide us in Wisconsin a brief respite from election obsession — a very close friend of over 50 years – a Chicago Bear fan, to boot – pointed out to me the error in my thinking: “This game is providing probably the most compelling political turf during the final minutes of this nail-biter election. The NFL ad space between two of the NFL’s hottest teams will provide not just an audience in two of the critically contested states with a great demographic (politically) but a great national audience as well.”

He is of course right (sigh 😉 ). Although I record Packer games, and may well record this one, my conscience as a citizen won’t allow me to fast-forward through the commercials, as I normally do; indeed, if – perish the thought – Green Bay loses, I’ll probably fast-forward through the game, and only watch the political commercials 🙂 .

Our friend also wondered what I thought the respective campaigns’ ad themes might be for today’s game. We’ll soon know; their choices will obviously be data driven, intended to micro-target specific voter segments. I’m guessing that the Trump team will pound inflation and immigration, weighting the former over the latter. [The MAGAs already have all of the votes of all of the Midwest citizens who are truly worried that the illegals are coming to take them away (Ha-Haa 😉 ). It may well feel that it needs to make a final pitch to young women on tight budgets who find former President Donald Trump personally repellent]. Without the benefit of data, if advising the Harris Campaign my instinct would be to target women and young males of color. Although Vice President Kamala Harris prefers an uplifting message, negative ads have for decades been proven the most effective, and we’re now down to the figurative final minutes of the campaign. I’d recommend that the Harris team pound the loss of women’s reproductive rights wrought by Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court appointments (and raise the augur of the likelihood of further MAGA reproductive restrictions if he is re-elected), use “permission” ads aimed at the moderately conservative women repulsed by Mr. Trump (my favorite is in the link below), and an ad depicting a montage of last weekend’s Trump Rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, with the so-called comedian at referring to Puerto Rico as floating garbage and referencing watermelon with an African American and Mr. Trump’s reported reference to American citizens as the “enemy within.” [I’d like to include an ad combining clips of Mr. Trump declaring on January 6, 2021, that his supporters had to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t have a country any more together with clips of the ensuing Capitol riot, but I would guess that the case against Mr. Trump on this issue has already been established with citizens (like me) most motivated by these appeals.]

An ad I’d make room for:

Lebron James’ recent Twitter endorsement of Ms. Harris. The link is below.

https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1852093996350275595

An Ad I would like to see:

Clips of Mr. Trump calling immigrants vermin, mocking the handicapped, and telling his supporters to beat up demonstrators at his rallies, followed by Arnold Schwarzenegger (who has endorsed Ms. Harris) talking into the camera: “Bullies are not strong. They are weak. I’m voting for Kamala Harris. You should, too.”

An ad that I wish existed, and would run repeatedly if it existed (but if there was any prospect it was coming, the story would be too big; we’d already know about it):

Former President George W. Bush – who, shamefully, hasn’t endorsed Ms. Harris despite the fact that all are aware that he detests Mr. Trump – talking into the camera:

“When you elected me I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. My oath didn’t end when I left the oval office. Country over party. I’ve voting for Kamala Harris, and you should too.”

The latest game odds I saw favor the Lions by 2.5 points over the Packers. I would have thought that Detroit would be favored by more, even in Lambeau Field. To win, the Green and Gold need to play close to error-free football – which has not been starting Quarterback Jordan Love’s tendency this season – and win the turnover battle by at least two. That said, I am confident that even the most diehard of Packer fans will agree that today’s game is not the most important contest we’ll witness this week. There has never been a time in our lifetimes in which it has been clearer that our most important colors are Red, White and Blue.

Wisconsin May Be Ground Zero … Again

To state what you already know: given polling trends, Vice President Kamala Harris’ surest path to the 270 Electoral College (EC) votes she needs to win the White House remains the “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin plus the single vote in Omaha, NE’s congressional district.

Let’s take Omaha first. Although former President Donald Trump is vastly ahead of Ms. Harris in Nebraska as a whole, Ms. Harris is up by double digits in Omaha. Since the state allocates its EC votes by congressional district – an idiosyncrasy that may well be vital to Democrats’ hopes — that vote is as secure for Ms. Harris as California’s.

Let’s look at Michigan next. President Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump there in 2020 by about 150,000 votes, and Ms. Harris presumably picked MN Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate instead of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro in part to avoid having Mr. Shapiro’s sharply pro-Israel stance in the Israeli-Hama conflict alienate Michigan’s powerful progressive Muslim, pro-Palestinian constituency. Right now, although the polls indicate that the race in the state remains close between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, if she can’t win despite all of the support she will get in the city of Detroit, from the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, from Michigan’s two huge state universities, and from the progressive Muslim voter segment, she’s not going to win the presidency.

On to Pennsylvania. As all who have read any number of notes posted here are well aware, I have been obsessed with the Keystone State’s 19 EC votes since it became clear that the MAGA movement wasn’t fading away. Although it is mathematically possible for the Democratic presidential nominee to win the presidency without winning Pennsylvania, such a path has looked (and looks) to me to be considerably more doubtful. I have seen it reported that the Trump camp feels that if it can win both Pennsylvania and North Carolina, it will win the presidency, and from purely a mathematical standpoint, it’s hard to disagree.

I’ve always thought that Pennsylvania was going to be this election’s Ground Zero, and it may well still be. Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in 2020 by 80,000 votes out of almost 7 million cast – decisive but hardly overwhelming. I have noted here earlier the observation of James Carville, former President Bill Clinton’s chief political strategist, that between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is Alabama. That said, if there is going to be an “October Surprise” in this race – akin to then-FBI Director James Comey’s declaration, less than two weeks before the 2016 Election Day, that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Democratic Nominee’s Hillary Clinton’s emails – it may well have come at the Trump rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden this past weekend, in which a so-called comedian declared, Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” and “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” I have seen it reported that the Puerto Rican community is understandably outraged, and that there are approximately 500,000 citizens of Puerto Rican descent living in Pennsylvania. If these citizens are registered or can still register to vote, they can be decisive. While one has to assume that the vast majority of Pennsylvanian Puerto Rican citizens who cast a vote in 2020 supported Mr. Biden, it would also seem that the so-called comedian’s remarks could markedly increase turnout among Pennsylvanian Puerto Rican and other Latino voters for Ms. Harris. I would submit that if the traditional Democratic turnouts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Mr. Shapiro’s enthusiastic and able assistance, and a galvanized Puerto Rican/other Latino citizen voting bloc don’t provide Ms. Harris a decisive edge over Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania, she’s not going to win the presidency.

Which brings us to – I note with a sigh for all Badger State residents – Wisconsin. If Ms. Harris can’t win Wisconsin’s 10 EC votes, she needs to win either Arizona (EC 11) – where according to 538, she trails Mr. Trump by 2 points, and in which, despite an abortion referendum on the ballot, Mr. Trump’s stand on immigration appears likely to provide him a decisive edge in this border state – Georgia (EC 16) — where 538 indicates that Mr. Trump holds a similar 2-point edge that seems impressive in a race this tight – or North Carolina (EC 16) – seemingly her best shot to claim a “reach” swing state, where 538 has her but a point down, with a Democratic governor and a population slowly becoming more liberal, but a state that Mr. Trump has carried twice. North Carolina might surprise for the Democrats in 2024, as Georgia and Arizona did in 2020, but it must certainly be considered a Democratic long shot.

The Harris-Walz ticket’s best chance for the final EC votes it needs to win is clearly Wisconsin. It won’t be easy – 538 has Ms. Harris ahead of Mr. Trump by only half a point, and Mr. Trump has scored better in the state than polls indicated he would in both 2016 and 2020. That said, the state has a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator running for re-election, a marked preference for abortion rights (clearly Mr. Trump’s substantive policy Achilles heel) and a burgeoning population of young science and technology workers in Dane County (Madison), the county that provided Mr. Biden his edge over Mr. Trump in 2020. (Of note: the state didn’t lose an EC vote in the last census, as both Pennsylvania and Michigan did. Whether or not it was because of an influx of these younger, predominately liberal voters, it certainly wasn’t because older rural voters are flooding into the state. 😉 ) The Harris-Walz ticket also has … Mr. Walz. We’ll get back to him.

I don’t pay attention to candidate campaign schedules, but if I was advising the Harris-Walz ticket, I would suggest that it deploy Mr. Biden to Pennsylvania, former President Barack Obama to Michigan, Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton to the Democratic strongholds of Georgia and particularly North Carolina, and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney to the Republican suburbs of all of the cities of all of the Blue Wall states. As for Ms. Harris: although she obviously needs to make a showing in all of the Blue Wall states in the final days, I would submit that her primary focus in these final days is generating turnout in Milwaukee, Madison, and other liberal bastions within Wisconsin.

Finally, as to Mr. Walz. By all accounts, he didn’t fare well in his debate against MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance. Furthermore, I think it’s hard to dispute what I’ve noted earlier in these pages: that if Ms. Harris picked the Minnesota Governor to hold the swing state older white males more likely to lean toward Mr. Biden than they would toward her, the pick probably hasn’t brought the returns she hoped for. That said, I would submit that now is Mr. Walz’ moment. I would suggest that Mr. Walz could play a key defensive role in these final days, akin — as every baseball fan will understand – to a left-handed reliever, whose sole value to his team is to enter in a late inning to get out the other team’s key left-handed hitter. If Wisconsin is ground zero, Mr. Walz should be everywhere in the hinterlands of the state, seeking to persuade older white men (speaking as an older white man 😉 ) that Mr. Trump is too hateful, that what he proposes isn’t in keeping with the America in which we were raised. Mr. Walz’ job wouldn’t be to win the Trump counties; it would be to hold down the Trump totals. If he would be successful in doing that, while Ms. Harris hopefully hypes turnout in the Wisconsin Democratic strongholds, they can win the state.

Speaking for my fellow Wisconsinites – in this rare instance, for the Trump supporters as well as for the Harris supporters – I think we’re all exhausted at being Ground Zero. But it is what it is, and we are where we are. I suspect that all of us Badger Staters are looking forward to the brief respite that Sunday’s NFL NFC North first-place showdown between the Packers and the Detroit Lions will provide. I don’t hold out that much hope for the Green and Gold – the team is not as good as its record indicates and the Lions may be the class of the NFL’s NFC – but the game will, for a few brief hours, serve as a blessed distraction in which we can all join hands.

After that, all focus will be on the battle for our democracy.

I apologize for any undue burden this recent proliferation of notes, or any hereafter posted between now and Election Day, impose; raking leaves provides additional mental space for idle ruminations 🙂 .

We’ll see what happens.

The Early Voting Riddle

This week, we’ve heard political pundits intone, “Eight days to Election Day,” “A week to Election Day,” and so on. Actually, it already is Election Day. Early voting has started in the three “Blue Wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that polls indicate is Vice President Kamala Harris’ most likely path to an Electoral College victory. What I will go to bed wondering every night between now and November 5 is whether, by how much, and in which direction early voting impacted the outcome of the election.

This campaign has had the ebbs and flows of a classic NFL football game. The MAGAs jumped out to a substantial early lead, and seemed to be coasting to victory against the President Joe Biden-led Democrats; the Democrats brought in a replacement quarterback, Ms. Harris, and staged a furious comeback for over a month that brought the teams even; then – while others might differ, I would place it at the Vice Presidential debate, in which MAGA Vice Presidential Candidate U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance is generally credited with besting Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate MN Gov. Tim Walz — the Democrats’ offense seemingly stalled while the MAGAs continued to grind out their propaganda, and over the last month the Trump-Vance ticket appeared to have crept back ahead by about a field goal. Now, in the figurative last two minutes of the game, the Democrats seem to be back on the march.

By all appearances, the MAGAs are supremely confident – putting aside my obvious sympathies for Ms. Harris, I’d venture that from an objective standpoint, they seem over-confident. Frankly, I don’t know how they can be; just going by the majority of presidential elections in this century, as Americans gravitated to cell phones and became ever more distrustful of pollsters, nobody’s numbers have been that precise in closely-contested elections. Two factors have arguably helped the Democrats regain ground in the last couple of weeks: first, inflation, a serious concern to perhaps a pivotal number of swing state voters, continues to ebb and what I believe are the last major economic indicators to be released before the election demonstrate a continually improving U.S. economy with strong job numbers; and second — staying away from the despicable substance, and speaking strictly in terms of political handicapping – there have been former President Donald Trump’s inexplicable and egregious unforced errors so late in the campaign: expanding his execrable rhetoric about immigrants to labeling American citizens who disagree with him as “enemies within,” compounded by the Trump Campaign’s Madison Square Garden rally this past Sunday, in which a so-called comedian declared, Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” and “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” If that wasn’t enough, the so-called comedian also made an allusion to a black man and a watermelon, another rally speaker referred to Ms. Harris as the “Anti-Christ,” and yet another referred to her “pimp handlers.” Trump aide Stephen Miller declared, “America is for Americans” – seemingly not quite as loathsome until one remembers that Mr. Miller’s remarks echoed similar declarations at a Nazi rally in the old Madison Square Garden in 1939. I am not a fan of horror movies, so I may have these references wrong, but it seems like Mr. Trump has removed a smiling mask of himself (itself hard enough to imagine 😉 ) to reveal the fictional Freddy Krueger underneath. These later incidents have perhaps – finally — created determinative doubts among the former president’s softest supporters who had been heretofore very reluctantly planning to vote for him.

My gut tells me that every day between now and Election Day will help Ms. Harris. In a razor-thin race, timing is everything. MSNBC’s Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough has mentioned a number of times over the years that Mr. Trump indicated to him after winning the presidency in 2016 — when the two men were still talking – to the effect that if 2016 Election Day had been a week sooner or a week later, Mr. Trump would have lost. Similarly, some will recall that AR Gov. President Bill Clinton beat then-President George H.W. Bush by criticizing Mr. Bush for an economic recession that economists later concluded had ended before Election Day 1992.

The political maxim has always been that early voting helps the Democrat; a relatively larger share of Democratic voters have traditionally been less motivated to cast ballots than Republicans, and were also more likely to have conflicting commitments on Election Day which interfered with their voting, so the longer voting period helped Democratic turnout. (At least in 2020, Mr. Trump seemed to ascribe to this theory and disparaged early voting. While his pronouncements may have cost him some votes, I’ve seen no reports indicating that he lost enough votes in any swing state to have changed any such state’s outcome.)

This year, we’ll see. Assuming that Ms. Harris has regained some slight momentum, what I wonder is whether it will carry her far enough, and the riddle I ponder is whether early voting helps her or hurts her. Conventional wisdom would hold that if the early votes were tallied today, she would win handily and that if Mr. Trump ultimately prevails, it will be because he stages a “comeback” on Election Day. But at the same time, I would submit that virtually all of the votes she’s “banked” would have registered on Election Day anyway against as polarizing a figure as Mr. Trump, and am wondering whether early voting might have cost her the votes of some moderately conservative Republican suburban women and Latinos who might have shifted to her – or in any event, not voted for Mr. Trump — had they had another week to consider Mr. Trump’s and his surrogates’ hateful, racist, anti-American rhetoric.

What you’ve just read is clearly idle speculation, which you may easily dismiss. On one hand, one can justifiably point out that moderately conservative suburban women – the “hidden women’s vote” that so many liberal pundits wistfully allude to and fervently hope exists – and the Latino community – which Democrats have been too slow to recognize is not a monolithic block – have had nine years to figure out that Mr. Trump is a blackguard, and one more week wouldn’t have made any difference to how they voted; on the other hand – while of course deferring to two accomplished psychologists that read these pages 🙂 – one might argue that Ms. Harris still has time to nudge these potentially decisive voters to her side, because anybody truly unsure about an important decision will generally wait as long as possible before proceeding, so any citizen who has been truly torn about which presidential candidate to vote for hasn’t yet voted.

We’ll see what happens. Once one has voted, there is little to do except idly speculate … and make Noise 😉 .

Candid Advice for Ms. Harris: a Postscript

In an entry yesterday, I suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris needed to toughen her message against Mr. Trump in order to win the presidency. A very close and very discerning woman friend of ours thereafter sent me an email, indicating that she feared that if Ms. Harris followed my recommendation, “being angry might backfire on a woman because she’d be perceived as being too emotional and ‘out of control’ to become the president.” It did make me ponder whether, in such a razor-thin contest, Ms. Harris might alienate more potential supporters than she would gain by being more combative as I had suggested.

Today, we got an answer. If the Vice President had had any idea of our exchange, I’d say that she had thread the needle and addressed both our friend’s and my concerns.

As all who care are aware, retired Marine Corps. General John Kelly, the longest-serving Chief of Staff in the Trump Administration, has within recent days gone on record with the New York Times stating that Mr. Trump meets the definition of “fascist.” Below is a link to a short speech Ms. Harris gave today in the wake of Mr. Kelly’s remarks. I would submit that the extremely grave tone she struck was perfect for the message – neither plaintive, nor too strident — the tone of a president addressing us about a true crisis. The three-minute length was perfect: short enough that any media outlet that wishes to air it can do so in its entirety. Two notes she made particularly resonated with me: first, without undue emphasis she recast her reference to Mr. Trump’s allusions to the “enemy within” to include anyone who might disagree with the former president, not just government officials or journalists; second, she employed the ultimate word about Mr. Trump (while being able to correctly attribute the characterization to Mr. Kelly): fascist.

I don’t know how many voters’ sympathies can be shifted in the days culminating on November 5; I will affirm that I consider Ms. Harris’ efforts today to be pitch-perfect.

CALL TO ACTIVISM on X: “If you watch one video today and decide to share it with others, let it be THIS three minute speech by Kamala Harris over the latest bombshell by Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, former General John Kelly. Trump is Hitler is trending because that’s who he admires. https://t.co/3BaR9jZzeb” / X

Candid Advice for Ms. Harris

On October 18, Branding Pundit Donny Deutsch observed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

“You feel the campaign – it’s within the 48-yard lines … [M]y message to … Vice President [Kamala Harris] is, ‘Just keep punching.’ People want to see strength. I know the ‘Joy’ thing was kind of okay for a while. ‘Joy’ is great, but strength and power and aggressiveness is what I think she needs right now.”

I raise this because TLOML was watching at the time, and she immediately looked at me and said, “He said exactly what you said!” (And here, I had been pretty sure that she had long since zoned out on my political rants 🙂 ).

For quite a while, I thought that Ms. Harris might catch a wave in the campaign’s last days as Ronald Reagan did in 1980 – that race was close until the end, when all the citizens seemingly leaning toward then President Jimmy Carter decided that they couldn’t support Mr. Carter for another four years and voted in a landslide for Mr. Reagan. I no longer think that’s going to happen for Ms. Harris, primarily because I’ve realized that the people who deserted Mr. Carter in 1980 were leaning Democrats. Democrats are mavericks by nature (remember the old Will Rogers line: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”), while Republicans are by nature more doctrinaire, more “Rah, rah, team.” The people she needs to desert former President Donald Trump in order to prevail are leaner Republicans. If she hasn’t persuaded them to vote against Mr. Trump before they vote, for too many muscle memory will take over in the ballot box. They’ll vote for Mr. Trump. If in the days remaining before the election, the main topic on voters’ minds is immigration or the economy (the latter inexplicable to me, even for those genuinely threated by inflation), Mr. Trump will win. If the main topic is Mr. Trump, she will win. She needs to set the dynamic.

Mr. Deutsch has earned millions dispensing his opinions; I haven’t, so I am confident you will – as you of course always do with all Noise – take the following with a grain of salt. If I was counseling Ms. Harris, and having seen clips of her speeches over this past weekend, I would have the temerity to qualify Mr. Deutsch’s (and my 😉 ) message a bit and advise this: You not only need to punch; you need to sharpen your jabs. The overriding tone of disappointment, regret, sorrow — what have you – that I see you exhibit on the stump about Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and past deeds won’t get you over the 50 yard line. You need to be angry. You need to be outraged. You need to be (speaking as I would if we were together in a Wisconsin pub) … pissed off. Although you dress impeccably – you look like a president – you need to take off the jacket, literally roll up your sleeves, and go after Mr. Trump. Also – it’s time to be explicit – you need to attack Fox News, try to bait them into airing your attacks on Mr. Trump.

In an earlier note, I suggested that Ms. Harris risked damaging her brand if she got into a mudslinging contest with Mr. Trump; we all understand the adage (again, excuse my lapse from blog tone), “You can’t win a pissing contest with a skunk.” Generally, good advice. However, I would suggest that if she picks her spots carefully, she can show anger and she can score. People never get offended by anger if you’re angry on their behalf, or they consider the outrage warranted.

Cue the tape, to the most important point first:

Kamala’s Wins on X: “BREAKING: Donald Trump’s rallies are going so poorly that Kamala Harris just played a highlight reel at her rally tonight. Retweet so everyone sees this hilarious moment. https://t.co/7D0hC9yG08” / X

I leave it to you; I don’t — despite the title of the link – consider Ms. Harris’ remarks a “win”; I consider her tone in that clip a plaintive one of regret, NOT anger: that Mr. Trump’s despicable accusations are “a huge risk for America.” She sounds like she’s advising a friend against adding sugar and cream to a Starbucks coffee. She had the crowd –she led them right up to it – and then she dropped it. After talking about journalists, election officials, and judges, she should have ended with, “… and then … and then … he’s going to come after you. If you think enough of this campaign to come have out tonight as you have, you’re the ‘enemy within’ that Trump will target some day if he gets back in the White House. What are you going to do about it? And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Fear mongering, you say? Not if the risk is real. I think it is. On to Mr. Trump’s lies:

We have two swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, which have been devastated by Hurricane Helene. Ms. Harris should go into the ravaged areas of these states and loudly declare, “Trump and Vance say we haven’t been helping you. [GA Gov. Brian Kemp/NC Gov. Roy Cooper] is saying that we’re giving you all the help he asked for. Trump and Vance are lying. They’re making you scared to get the help that is right there. They don’t care. They’ll sacrifice you and your family to win this election. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On the Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH: “Trump keeps saying that illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating dogs and cats. It’s a bald-faced lie. Trump and Vance are lying. The only animal being eaten in this campaign is the bull that Trump is feeding the American people. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On the 2020 election: “Trump is still saying he won the 2020 election that he lost. Trump is a lying whiner. He lost 60 lawsuits challenging the results. He knows he lost. His election lawyers have pled guilty to criminal offenses for fraud. Hundreds of people are in jail now because they believed his lie. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On January 6^th: “Trump says that January 6^th was ‘a beautiful day.’ Trump is lying. He started a violent riot. You tell the families of the cops killed that day by people that Trump told to go to the Capitol that it was ‘a beautiful day.’ And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

On Mr. Trump’s felony convictions and sexual assault verdict: “Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts, stemming from the fact he cheated on his wife with a porn star. A different jury found that he assaulted a woman that he said under oath looked like his second wife. He still denies that he cheated or assaulted. He’s been adjudged a liar. Even his supporters know he’s lying – they don’t want their wives or daughters around him. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Finally, Ms. Harris should attack the macho image that Mr. Trump likes to project. I see two avenues:

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Polls show that even the majority of Trump supporters detest Putin. Inasmuch as Mr. Trump has criticized everybody at some point during his political career except Putin, I’m guessing that even Trump supporters think that there’s something … odd there.

“Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine over two years ago. Millions — millions — of innocent, peaceful Ukrainians have been killed, injured or displaced because Putin is a monster. Trump called the invasion “smart.” There are only two reasons why Ukraine is still free: because of the courage of the Ukrainian people and because of our support of NATO. Trump has said that he doesn’t care if Putin invades a NATO country. Trump says he’ll settle the Ukraine war. You know how he’ll do that? By selling Ukraine out to Putin. He’ll bend over and kiss Putin’s butt – if he can even bend over that far. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Last: Mr. Trump’s refusal to debate Ms. Harris again. Mr. Trump has waved that away, and so far it hasn’t hurt him. I’d use his refusal to target the demographic whom polls indicate have the least affinity for Ms. Harris: young males of all ethnicities.

“You know that I’ve challenged Trump to another debate. I’d still be happy to do it this close to the election if he would. He has refused. You know why? He’s gutless. Because I kicked his butt the first time, and he knows I’ll do it again. He’s afraid to debate a girl. And you know what else? Fox News doesn’t have the guts to air any of this – they’re in the bag for Trump.”

Some reading this might be a bit offended by my suggestion that the Vice President of the United States, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, might refer to herself as “a girl.” I would counter that almost all have heard Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional Mr. Dooley’s observation that “politics ain’t bean-bag.” Such is the kind of usage that those she is wishing to move understand – and it sounds decidedly “unwoke,” a major plus. It’s time to put niceties aside; democracy is at stake; it’s time to win. Actually, the fictional Mr. Dooley’s full declaration was:

“Sure, politics ain’t bean-bag. ‘Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists’d do well to keep out iv it.”

Are the suggestions here too strong? Should the Vice President instead continue the tempered tone she has maintained thus far? Will maturity bring enough people over to her for her to eke out a victory? I obviously have significant misgivings, but it’s up to her to decide. These are the kinds of nuanced calls we expect our president to make; if she is elected it will be up to her to decide whether recalcitrant Congressional Republicans should be cajoled or bullied, how to respond to Putin’s recurring threats to use tactical nuclear weaponry in the Ukraine war, etc., etc., etc. Either way, it’s time to prove that at the American presidential level, Mr. Dooley had his head up his ass. (I know, I know; let the importance of the struggle by my excuse 😉 ).

In the meantime, I’ll take solace from the fact that after almost 50 years, my most important audience of one apparently still listens to me — at least once in a while 🙂 .