Here’s to You, Brew Crew

In the middle of the battle for our democracy, let’s take a moment to toast what I consider a notable achievement: the Milwaukee Brewers’ championship in the 2024 National League Central Division.

The innards of Major League Baseball flowed through my viscera from about the time I was 10 – when in that much gentler era, my friends and I would ride our bikes to the Evanston, IL, El station, take the train to Wrigley Field, and sit in the bleachers (in the early ‘60s, there was nobody there 😉 ) for $2 – until well into my 40s. The imprinting of those decades stays with me – in the same way as I recall [and so frequently (and I suspect, sometimes somewhat so tiringly) refer to here] long-ago policy and political happenings — although I have little regard for (indeed, find fairly boring) the money-ball, technology-and percentages-driven, “strikeout or homerun,” “just throw as hard as you can for as long as you can” strategies that now dominate the game.

Given the juggling of our television packages in recent years, we don’t have regular access to Brewer games, so I’ve only seen them play a few times. It is a team of overachievers, led by a Medicare-eligible manager. I find the team impressive because of what it has achieved without imposing talent; its lineup not only pales in comparison to the 1970s-1980s Brewers of Robin Yount and Paul Molitor; I don’t think it stands up well against the 2000s Brewer teams of Ryan Braun (with or without steroids 😉 ) and Prince Fielder.

They say … You Can Never Tell in Baseball. They say … Anything Can Happen in a Short Series. They say … A Team That Gets Hot At the Right Time Can Win It All. They say … The Best Team Doesn’t Always Win. All true. We’ve all seen it. And yet, having seen the lineups and pitching staffs that the NL East Champion Philadelphia Phillies and the NL West Champion Los Angeles Dodgers field, it’s hard for me to see how, even assuming that Milwaukee prevails in its initial playoff series against the New York Mets beginning this afternoon, the scrappy Brew Crew can beat either, much less both, of the other NL Division Champions powerhouses to reach the World Series.

I’ve previously noted in these pages that Hall of Fame New York Yankee Manager Casey Stengel, who won seven World Championships and ten pennants in his twelve seasons with the Yankees, was once asked what strategies made him so effective. He wryly replied, “There were many, but the three most important were DiMaggio, Mantle, and Berra.” Milwaukee has gotten this far despite having no such advantages. No matter what happens from hereon, this seems like an appropriate time to toast the team for a job well done.

Here’s to You, Brew Crew.

September Notions

Our recent ramblings have provided little opportunity to post in these pages. A few notions over the last couple of months:

First, a mea culpa: I indicated in an August preview of the Democratic Convention, “I suspect that there will be no rising Democratic stars given prime time speaking slots … I doubt that delegates will be offered any opportunity for second guessing, … thinking … ‘“We nominated the wrong ‘guy’.”’ In fact, every rising star I listed by name in that post spoke, as well as everybody who wants to be a rising Democratic star, as well as your Uncle Fred. Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Kamala Harris obviously emerged from the convention stronger than before. Well, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once observed: “I have never developed indigestion from eating my own words.” 🙂 .

As of the time this is typed, Ms. Harris has run a truly effective campaign. Keeping in mind that I am frequently – and accurately — chided as Mr. Pessimism, I consider her performance thus far to continue to offer her a real chance for victory against the implacable support of MAGA Presidential Nominee former President Donald Trump. (I can’t be more bullish than that.) I thought her debate performance was masterful; she has clearly grown exponentially as a debater since her 2020 run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. She baited Mr. Trump while she ignored his barbs and kept repeating her own messages, demonstrating better control than I think I could have mustered. Yet more intriguing was her strategy to let Mr. Trump talk. Although Mr. Trump whined about the ABC moderators’ unfairness in the wake of his obvious debate debacle, I counted only three times when the moderators corrected his obvious lies, but many more than three times when the moderators turned his microphone back on, contrary to my understanding of the debate rules, to let him respond to a point she had made. At the time, I was irritated at the moderators; in retrospect, I realized that she hadn’t objected because she recognized that once she gotten him off-stride, his talking helped her. All that said, I found her 63%-37% victory in CNN’s snap poll of undecided watchers to be instructive. In a sane world, she should have won 100% – 0%. Even so, from the perspective of the real world to which we have become accustomed, I scored it closer — perhaps 55% – 45%. Hopefully, whomever she swayed in the debate will remain in her camp. To her credit, Ms. Harris is seeming to continue to run with an underdog mentality. She had better.

We’ve heard a lot about Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, popularly known as, “Project 2025,” the Heritage Foundation 900+ page opus setting forth a policy framework for Mr. Trump or some other MAGA winning the White House. I try to avoid expounding on a subject without reading the primary source myself. Months ago, I started visiting the Heritage Foundation website to buy a copy (the Heritage Foundation has posted full test online, but these old eyes can’t withstand 900+ pages onscreen), but for all these months, the volume has remained sold out. Any political think tank normally looks to grab any dollar it can. I have read snippets of the work, and think it is fair to infer from the Heritage Foundation’s otherwise curious failure to reprint a sure income generator that the Foundation – as well as Mr. Trump, who has tried to distance himself from it in front of mainstream audiences while embracing it in MAGA conclaves – recognizes that most Americans would find its prescriptions as anathematic as liberals and progressives claim they are. For those with stronger eyes than mine, a link to the volume’s pdf is set forth immediately below.

2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf (project2025.org)

I hate it when I am scooped by national media on a Wisconsin-related point that I intended to enter here 😉 ; I will enter it here nonetheless. On September 20, the New York Times ran an article, “How the Fastest-Growing County in Wisconsin Is Scrambling the Presidential Race,” describing how technology and science workers are flooding into Dane County (where Madison is located) and how these voters may be shifting the statewide balance toward Ms. Harris and away from Mr. Trump. A link is provided below for those who can get behind the Times’ paywall. TLOML and I happen to live on Madison’s west side amid burgeoning technology and science concerns. We see it first-hand. At rush hour, it is now a struggle to even get on the entrance ramps to Madison’s primary expressway that are respectively east and west of our home. It has never been this way – not even four years ago, when President Joe Biden narrowly bested Mr. Trump in Wisconsin where the Dane County turnout – not the Milwaukee County turnout – was ultimately considered decisive. These new Dane County residents are young, highly educated, overwhelmingly progressive, motivated to vote, and present a decided advantage for Ms. Harris.

Feeling good about Wisconsin? And yet, a note of caution. Recall that in 2022, White WI Gov. Tony Evers beat his MAGA opponent by three points, while Black WI Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes lost by a point to White Trump Toady U.S. WI Sen. Ron Johnson, who ran a crime-focused, thinly-veiled race-baiting campaign. This state is a long way from former President Barack Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012. The Democrats’ last female presidential nominee, former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, lost to Mr. Trump although Mr. Trump had made clear his intent to appoint Supreme Court Justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade. In both 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump ended up with a higher percentage of the Wisconsin vote than polls had suggested he would; it is accordingly not unreasonable to anticipate that such might occur again this year. We won’t know the Wisconsin outcome until late on election night or the next day, when the vote counts in the Republican-leaning counties around Milwaukee report; Mr. Biden won in 2020 – by a narrower margin than Mr. Trump had in 2016 – because these Republican strongholds didn’t give Mr. Trump enough boost to overcome Mr. Biden’s Milwaukee and Dane County totals.

I’ve been cleaning out my study, getting rid of documents that no longer matter (at least insofar as the their impact on the upcoming election is concerned). It is stunning to see how much water – or better said, bile – has flowed under the bridge since Mr. Trump came down his escalator to start his 2016 presidential campaign: the Mueller Report; former U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s written attempt to whitewash the Mueller Report; the U.S. Senate Report on Russian interference in 2016 Election on Mr. Trump’s behalf; the Memorandum of the Mr. Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment resolutions against Mr. Trump; the federal indictments handed down against Mr. Trump for defrauding the United States and mishandling of classified documents. There is so much filth connected to one man that you can’t really mentally grasp it all at once, although we have lived it. If I had been presented in 2014 with the hypothetical that a Trump-like demagogue could rise in this country – not only preaching populism and racism but carrying all the ancillary personal baggage that Mr. Trump carries, I would have dismissed it as pure fantasy.

I pitched it all. Old news. While one might argue that the sleaze is why so many Americans detest Mr. Trump, the fact remains that today he nonetheless remains an extremely viable, if not the leading, candidate for the presidency of the United States. It is a frightening example of the powers of propaganda and hate that Adolf Hitler elucidated in Mein Kampf over a century ago.

A related notion: an indication how Mr. Trump’s influence has finally completely contaminated the previously-conservative political ecosystem: the hullaballoo attending MAGA Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance’s despicable trumpeting of entirely false claims that legal Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, OH. Let’s put aside the irony, noted by some commentators, that in Hillbilly Elegy (which I have read, published when Mr. Vance was a sane voice before morphing into Junior Demagogue), Mr. Vance describes Ohioans’ bias in the 1950s against Mr. Vance’s own Kentucky Hillbilly forebears for allegedly engaging in practices not dissimilar from those for which he now loudly condemns the Haitians. To me the crucial point is that Mr. Vance has admitted that what he is saying about the Springfield Haitians is a lie – that there is no evidence it is happening – and he keeps on with it anyway. I’m a political junkie. As certain as death and more certain than taxes is that all politicians fudge, exaggerate, distort. They always have; they always will. That said, before Mr. Trump, I think it was extremely rare to find a politician who would know something was a lie, get called on it, and just blatantly, nakedly, keep on lying. Mr. Trump has now spawned a whole generation of politicians in his image who have no regard for truth, Mr. Vance now being the scariest of his progeny, because we must now assume that he will keep up his assault on truth à la Mr. Trump if he becomes Vice President, or … President of the United States.

We had the opportunity to hear former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney speak on September 20. Although my views vary from Ms. Cheney’s on domestic issues, my respect for her patriotism and, as a Republican, lonely stand against Mr. Trump has earned my unbounded respect. Although I consider the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, strongly supported if not spearheaded by her father, then-Vice President Richard Cheney, to be the most egregious foreign policy failure of the last 50 years, Mr. Cheney, like his daughter, has forthrightly endorsed Ms. Harris due to the threat to democracy they recognize in Mr. Trump. For the remainder of my days, no matter how I feel about the Iraq invasion, I will always have the mental qualifier about Mr. Cheney: on the most important issue of his conscious lifetime (he was, after all, born during World War II 🙂 ) … he got it right.

At the same time, my current disdain for the reticence of former President George W. Bush cannot be overstated. I agree with pundits who suggest that given the hundreds of prominent Republicans (including former Trump Administration officials) who have already spoken out against Mr. Trump, additional Republicans endorsing Ms. Harris won’t matter, with one exception: Mr. Bush. It is common knowledge that he despises Mr. Trump. To speak plainly: if he has any guts, he should issue a statement to this effect: “During my presidency, I asked our people to give their lives in our nation’s cause. The least I owe them is to tell them directly what I think is best for our nation. I consider Donald Trump to present a direct threat to American democracy. I have honest disagreements with Vice President Kamala Harris on many issues, but she is honorable and will safeguard our way of life. I encourage you to join me in voting for Ms. Harris in the upcoming election.” If Mr. Bush fails to issue such a statement within the next couple of weeks – before advance voting starts in earnest across the country — he will for all time confirm what many of us have long concluded: he was indeed the wanting son of truly remarkable parents.

Finally, something particularly struck me watching the Democratic convention: it was (to state the obvious) a celebration of the predominantly young, multi-colored, multi-ethnic, multi-gender, multi-faithed. It presented a gender, youth, and racial revolution away from our traditional male, white, straight, Christian mores which was markedly more pronounced to me this year than it was in earlier electoral cycles in this century when the Democrats nominated other objectively tradition-shattering candidates — more so than in 2008, with Mr. Obama (cerebral, reserved, witty, beautifully tailored, traditional husband and father, Christian, Ivy graduate, incredible orator, another John Kennedy in all ways but skin color, who went to great lengths to not look threatening), or in 2016 with Ms. Clinton (a traditional Democratic presidential candidate in all ways but gender who was burdened, by having been in the public eye for so long, with sufficient baggage that she somehow forfeited the “change agent” mantle to Mr. Trump). I would submit that the cultural evolution that we have been more or less considering in these last decades is now upon us. We are at the tipping point. Ms. Harris represents not a rejection of tradition but the notion that our nation can accommodate more than one cultural paradigm. Mr. Trump is the embodiment of the posture that there can be only one. I don’t know which way this struggle will go; but I do believe that whether our nation will flourish or wither over the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren depends upon the outcome.

This is what occurs when one ponders without the attendant opportunity to expound 😉 . We’ll see what happens.

The Fifth Election

We’ve just returned from a trip to the United Kingdom; amid the many wonderful experiences we had during our stay, by far the most arresting for me – no surprise to anyone who reads these pages – was a visit to the Churchill War Rooms and the Churchill Museum in London. (TLOML had to finally drag me out, noting that we were in danger of missing a tour we had paid for 🙂 ). Certain aspects of our trip are well worthy of a post at some point in the future, but reviewing the War Rooms and Museum exhibits setting forth the details of the fascist danger that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the British people confronted alone from mid-1940 until the end of 1941 – the period after the Nazis overran Europe until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor finally brought isolationist members of Congress to support America’s entry into the war – is causing me to straightforwardly repeat here what I have indicated in the past: I perceive former President Donald Trump and his MAGA cohort to be a fascist threat to our way of life. I thought that if the former president was defeated in 2020, the spell he had cast over so many of our citizens would dissipate. Given the support he maintains despite his manifest unfitness for office, it would seem that that spell is even more intensely entrenched now than it was four years ago.

You who honor me by reviewing these posts are acutely aware of the many (and frequently wordy 😉 ) notes I have entered here. That said, if I was to list five entries set forth in these pages for which I have the most regard, “The Fourth Election,” which I posted in two parts in June, 2020, would certainly be among them. Its thrust was that the need to defeat Mr. Trump in the then-upcoming 2020 election was as critical to preserving the American life as the elections of 1788 (George Washington), 1860 (Abraham Lincoln) and 1932 (Franklin Roosevelt). I generally feel that I am “cheating” a bit if I quote a previous post to make a substantive point in a subsequent post, but in this instance, I can’t say it better the second time than I did the first. What follows are excerpts from “The Fourth Election,” edited only to clarify references. All emphasized text was emphasized in the original. (I hadn’t initially recalled that it included the longest litany of Mr. Trump’s personality failings that I have ever put together 😉 ). While, given its publication date, there is obviously no reference to Mr. Trump’s subsequent lying denial of his 2020 election defeat, nor to his subsequent seditious instigation of an attack on our Capitol, nor to the Project 2025 document (which, despite his denials, his actions in his last months in office make manifestly clear that he will implement if he is reelected), this 2020 post’s observations now seem prescient, given the glaring demonstrations we have seen since its posting of the authoritarian dangers a second Trump presidency will present.

The Fourth Election

…

On February 5, 2020, President Donald Trump was acquitted by the United States Senate at the conclusion of his [first] impeachment trial. Two days after the acquittal, President Trump removed from their respective positions European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondlund and Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, two witnesses whose undisputedly truthful testimony implicated the President in a scheme to pressure a vital but vulnerable ally for his own domestic political purposes. Four days after the acquittal, the United States Department of Justice, led by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, said that it was reducing the sentence it was recommending for convicted Trump confidante Roger Stone – described by former Trump Administration Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon during Mr. Stone’s trial as an “access point” to Russia conduit Wikileaks for the Trump Campaign — after the President tweeted that the 7-9 year term initially recommended by DOJ was “disgraceful” and a “miscarriage of justice.”

I tend to buy books in clusters. Largely driven by these Trump Administration actions … I went to my local bookstore to acquire specific titles that I considered appropriate supplements to my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer: Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy; The New Sultan, the story of Turkey’s President (and now autocratically inclined) Recip Tayyip Erdogan, by Soner Cagaptay; Fascism: A Warning, by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; and … a final selection — a volume generally available, but a title that causes you to lower your voice when requesting: Mein Kampf (in English, “My Struggle”), by Adolf Hitler.

At my last request, the young woman with whom I’d been working glanced up at me a bit sharply, then relaxed; apparently – thankfully — I look like a researcher, not a believer. She located Hitler’s opus, glanced at the price, added it to my pile, and observed sympathetically, “That’s a lot for such trash.” Then she added: “My Dad says I shouldn’t wear this necklace out like this.” I hadn’t previously noticed, but saw then: at the base of her neck was a small Star of David.

That is where we are today. Throughout President Trump’s term, we have seen countless instances of his deliberately sowing seeds of division among us, his lying, racism, religious bigotry, sexism, xenophobia, bullying, instability, narcissism, erraticism, avarice, pettiness, and flouting of norms, rules, and laws, his virulent attacks on the principled who disagree with him, a free press, and free speech, and his collaboration with foreign enemies for his own ends. Even so, never seriously did I contemplate the potential for his dictatorial inclinations until – after he was acquitted in the Senate — he dismissed Messrs. Vindman and Sondlund and meddled in Mr. Stone’s sentencing. Since that time, the Justice Department has sought to drop its prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn (after Mr. Flynn twice pled guilty), Mr. Trump has dismissed four Inspectors General (dismissals U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney called “a threat to accountable democracy”), he has issued an Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship after Twitter added corrective links to his completely unsubstantiated tweeted claims of fraud related to mail-in voting, he has called upon the nation’s Governors to “dominate” protestors in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, and on June 1 had peaceful protestors cleared from Lafayette Square, in part through the use of chemical agents, in order to provide himself with a photo opportunity.

The above list isn’t exhaustive, but it is indicative. Clearly Mr. Trump has considered himself unfettered since his acquittal, and has felt free to exact revenge and pursue vendettas against those he considers to have wronged him or his entourage. Does anyone think that Mr. Trump will be more restrained if he is re-elected?

…

Former President Barack Obama is reportedly fond of a statement by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” With all due respect to Messrs. King and Obama, I consider the sentiment poppycock. What is right and just is not inevitable; it must be defended. Messrs. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, and Messrs. Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur didn’t prevail in their struggles because they were right; they won because they had more troops and better weapons than the enemy. I would submit that this is the Fourth Election in which the American way of life is at stake. We citizens have only votes to defend the freedom this nation provides. The existential threats [existing as of the 1788, 1860, and 1932 elections] were brought about by outside circumstances beyond the control of the Presidents called upon to address them; in this election, [Mr. Trump] is the existential threat. His presidency has revealed both the strength and fault lines within our system of government.

…

Although perhaps those that read these posts are already aware of this, it is nonetheless worth noting that Messrs. Hitler, Putin, and Erdogan all first assumed their leadership positions by Constitutional means in what were then actual democracies; none had to overthrow an established order before beginning their accumulation of control over their respective nations. While I draw a measure of solace from the manner in which [former Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper and [former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark] Milley have recently distanced themselves and the military from Mr. Trump’s Lafayette Park stunt – one can’t be an autocrat without an army – there are plenty of other Defense Secretary candidates and Generals from whom Mr. Trump can choose from if he is re-elected. I have seen a number of pundits suggest that Mr. Trump’s presidency is “over.” I suggest that we need be watchful, lest his dictatorship start.

In normal times, I consider politics to be the “sports page” of world affairs: Who’s winning, who’s losing, who might employ what strategy. Today, in the United States of America, politics is where the substantive battle to protect our way of life will be fought. Although the ammunition in this contest must remain ballots, the struggle to protect the ideals upon which this nation was founded is every bit as much at issue in the current campaign as it is on Ukrainian lands. The political exchanges we will see over the next two months – and given our experience with the 2020 Election, perhaps all the way to Inauguration Day – will determine whether the American experiment in democracy survives.

On the Green and Gold: 2024

Given my preoccupation with the contest for our democracy – taken together with my belief that the NFL preseason reveals absolutely nothing about how one’s team will fare when the real games start – I have very little idea how the Packers will perform this season as they enter their first real game tonight against the Philadelphia Eagles in Arena Corinthians in São Paolo, Brazil. That said:

The one piece of news during the NFL offseason that did embed with me was Green Bay’s decision to let Running Back Aaron Jones depart (he ended up going to Minnesota, of all places!), and instead sign Josh Jacobs as the team’s primary back. I will be happy to be proven wrong – it’s a natural law that when an NFL running back goes downhill, he goes downhill fast; Mr. Jacobs is four years younger than Mr. Jones, has led the NFL in rushing, and I understand has spent less time on injured reserve over his career than Mr. Jones, all positive notes – but I have significant reservations about the move. Mr. Jones brought an explosiveness to the Green Bay running game that I consider matched in the Favre-Rodgers-Love era only by Ahman Green, if at all. While acknowledging Quarterback Jordan Love’s bravura performance down the stretch last season, during that string of victories the Packers’ opponents’ defenses were clearly acutely aware that they had to account for Mr. Jones, which took some pressure off the young starting quarterback. We have yet to see whether Mr. Love can maintain an elite level – as his predecessors, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, could – if the Green Bay running game sputters.

Hopefully, Mr. Jacobs will not sputter. I admit that I do not remember having seen him perform – opposing players rarely register with me, unless I’ve seen them a lot — and I am clearly of the “Go with the guy that’s produced for you” philosophy. We’ll see what happens. (We might also need to be ready to hide under our sofas when Mr. Jones starts carrying the ball against us for Minnesota – in two games. As someone – who I didn’t know; Packer fans readily exchange perspectives — recently confided to me: “When we play the Vikings, it could get ugly.”)

As many are aware, we have family members who live in Brazil, including one who has been a Packer fan from birth and has since leaving college seen a lot of Green Bay games on TV in faraway places (and at what were for him, unusual times 🙂 ) from Southeast Asia to South America. He and other extended family members, diehard Packer fans who happen to be visiting Brazil, will be in the stands tonight. May the Green and Gold make them proud!

Mr. Lincoln on Labor’s Importance … and Immigrants’ Contributions

President Abraham Lincoln was elected in November, 1860, but under the then-prevailing Constitutional provision, would not be inaugurated until March, 1861. Mr. Lincoln began his trip to Washington, D.C., in February, 1861, after indicating in a Farewell Address to his fellow Springfield residents, “I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.” Upon his railway trip east, he made a stop in Cincinnati on February 12, 1861 – his birthday – and addressed a group including German immigrant laborers. It seems fitting to note his remarks in these pages as we celebrate Labor Day:

“I agree … that the working men are the basis of all governments … I am happy to concur … in these sentiments, not only of the native born citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners from other countries.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind. …

In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke, than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new … if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States.”

It only occurred to me as I was typing this note that my father-in-law, of German heritage, who I came to revere before he left us too soon, was born in Cincinnati in 1923, only a few generations after Mr. Lincoln made his stop in the Queen City. It is improbable but seemingly not impossible that he, and if so, TLOML, our children and grandchildren, are descendants of one of the men that sought assurance from Mr. Lincoln that day in 1861 that the nation he had been elected to lead would give them a fair opportunity for a better life. It is a certainty that our children and grandchildren are descendants of Irish immigrants who were derided when they landed here as limited, brawling Papists who could never be true Americans.

One might question whether our country is still as Mr. Lincoln described it over 150 years ago – i.e., whether it remains “extensive and new.” I believe that it is. The majority of Americans – ironically, certainly the vast majority of those who today seemingly most dread immigrant influences — need only drive short distances from their homes (if they need travel at all) to appreciate our vast expanses; those fearful should perhaps consider from whom they are descended. It is the courageous, entrepreneurial, industrious, open spirit of those who have entered our nation over these last centuries that has made America great. Our nation is and will remain forever “new” as long as we are willing to replenish our spirit and strength through the labor of both our native-born citizens and those who wish to join us to work to create a better life for themselves and their families.

Enjoy the Holiday.

Ouch!: A Postscript; Democratic Convention Preview

[Please pardon this note’s length; our life’s circumstances taken together with the timing of the Democratic Convention have caused what are essentially two posts to be compressed into one.]

“Decry my pessimism; berate me if you wish, I would love to be persuaded …”

In this original (“Ouch!) post, while noting that I had nothing personally against putative Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee MN Gov. Tim Walz, I expressed regret that the Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, had chosen to pass over PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, who I believed that if chosen would have given her the best chance to win Mr. Shapiro’s pivotal, perhaps politically existential for Ms. Harris, Electoral College state of Pennsylvania.

No entry since the Noise started spouting in 2017 has generated more decrying and received more berating. 😉 Some expressing disagreement with the opinion expressed here have thought Gov. Walz’ optimistic demeanor would help Ms. Harris; some that Mr. Walz’ more progressive record (as contrasted with Mr. Shapiro’s more centrist tendencies) would be an asset; others (one as recently as yesterday) that Mr. Shapiro’s staunch support of Israel would be a detriment; others, that it wouldn’t make any difference whom Ms. Harris chose. I must admit that when one particular dissenter, who is very taken with Mr. Walz’ positive demeanor and progressive record, disagreed with me – across our kitchen counter – I wisely adopted the approach often taken by Lee Childs’ fictional Jack Reacher, familiar to all fans of Mr. Childs’ thriller series: I said nothing. 🙂 .

Given my lawyer DNA, I thoroughly enjoyed the spirited responses. Our kind actually relishes the rough-and-tumble of well-intended clashes of views. (Well, there’s maybe one that it would have been simpler to live without 😉 ). As I indicated in the post, I most fervently hope y’all are right.

Now that the dust is settling a bit, a few impressions – the most intriguing (which, alas, was not originally mine) last:

It has been reported by credible sources that Israel’s strikes into Gaza against Hamas have killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including thousands of children. Recently, yet more Palestinian children have been killed or maimed in Israel’s attacks on schools harboring Hamas terrorists. It is conceivable that if the Israeli-Hamas conflict cannot be settled soon – and certainly, if Israel bombs more schools or the war widens – Mr. Shapiro’s avid support of Israel could have become a liability to the Harris ticket.

I don’t think any of the aspersions that MAGAs have thus far sought to cast on Mr. Walz will carry any weight with anybody with any sense. To impugn Mr. Walz’ 24 years of National Guard service because he retired before his unit was deployed to the Middle East rings pretty hollow coming from a party whose standard bearer was clearly a Vietnam draft dodger. MAGA presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s calling Mr. Walz, “Tampon Tim,” because as Minnesota Governor Mr. Walz signed a bill that enabled the provision of feminine hygiene products in Minnesota grade school restrooms is just … stupid. (Although CNN has largely disproven MAGAs’ claim that the products have been placed in boys’ bathrooms, my question is: even if Mr. Trump’s claim was true, aside from any miniscule waste of Minnesota taxpayer funds – Who cares?) Finally, MAGA Oversight Committee Chair U.S. KY Rep. James Comer is now asking the FBI for information on Mr. Walz’ connections to China. Apparently, Mr. Walz spent a year teaching in China after he graduated from college – a pretty long time ago — and during his subsequent Minnesota high school teaching years organized many student trips to China. That, at least insofar as I know, is the summary of Mr. Walz’ connections to China. I would venture that the majority of those reading these pages either went on, or had children who went on, high school trips similar to those organized by Mr. Walz (one of our sons went on a trip to Russia in the late ‘90’s, for pity’s sake.) This is so pathetic that one can even envision any sane voice left at Fox News saying, “So Walz organized high school trips to China? When he was a Minnesota high school teacher? Not even we can make something out of this – Comer’s a moron.” Is that all they got?

Now, what I find the most intriguing impression I have heard about Mr. Walz’ selection – one of the million notions I wish I would have thought of before I heard it – from MSNBC Commentator Chuck Todd: After Mr. Walz was chosen, Mr. Todd observed that an assessment of the respective strategic electoral benefits of Messrs. Walz and Shapiro ultimately came down to whether one viewed the upcoming election as a turn out election or a persuasion election. In other words: If one believes that the path to victory is turning out the vote of all those already committed to one’s cause, then the Walz pick made sense because it avoided the potential for a rancorous split among Democrats, including the key student voter segment, who object to Mr. Shapiro’s steadfast support of Israel. On the other hand, if one views the key to victory as persuading, and thus gaining the vote of, swing state swing voters – mostly suburban conservative independent and moderate Republicans, largely financially secure — that the Democrats are safer than Mr. Trump, then Mr. Shapiro was probably the wiser choice.

These are the kinds of nuanced decisions we expect the President of the United States to make. Although I remain unpersuaded that Mr. Walz was the wiser choice – I remain fixated on Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes — Mr. Todd’s comment offered a strategic rationale for Ms. Harris’ selection. The talk of every Presidential candidate about having picked a running mate “Ready to step in on Day 1,” or “Chemistry,” or as a “Governing Partner,” etc., etc., etc., is all a bunch of bunkum. If you don’t win an Electoral College majority, it’s irrelevant.

No matter whether one applauds Mr. Walz’ selection or would have preferred that Ms. Harris pick Mr. Shapiro, I think all who seek a Democratic victory can probably agree on this:

If Ms. Harris wins the presidency, she was right whether or not she carried Pennsylvania.

If she loses the presidency but carries Pennsylvania, it probably didn’t matter which finalist she chose.

If she loses Pennsylvania and loses to Mr. Trump in the Electoral College by 19 or fewer votes, she was wrong.

The Democratic Convention starts today. The party has scheduled a celebrated all-star speaking cast. Notions on the gathering:

First: I suspect that there will be no rising Democratic stars given prime time speaking slots – no Mr. Shapiro, no U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, no MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, no KY Gov. Andy Beshear. To win, Democrats need to remain united; I doubt that delegates will be offered any opportunity for second guessing, for them to leave the convention hall on Thursday evening thinking – as the Democrats did in 1956 when they nominated U.S. TN Sen. Estes Kefauver instead of then U.S. MA Sen. John Kennedy for Vice President, and the Republicans did in 1976 when they nominated President Gerald Ford instead of then former CA Gov. Ronald Reagan for president — “We nominated the wrong ‘guy’.”

Tonight, former Democratic Nominee, Secretary of State, NY Sen. and First Lady Hillary Clinton will caution Democrats not to be over exuberant, and to remember Electoral College math — that she beat Mr. Trump by 3 million votes, but he won the White House. She will remind women that although her campaign put tens of millions of dents in the last American glass ceiling, it remains up to voters this year to break through it.

Tonight President Joe Biden will remind voters of all he has accomplished. Expect an overwhelming, and extraordinarily well-deserved, ovation. He will talk about the need to pass the torch to the next generation, perhaps even quoting Mr. Kennedy from 1960. (An aside: I dismiss claims that Mr. Biden was “pushed out” by the Democratic Party establishment. While the President obviously withdrew with a heavy heart, he did so because saw what we all saw: he was going to lose to Donald Trump. He couldn’t be “pushed aside”; he is the sitting President of the United States, and he had already won enough delegates to clinch the party’s nomination, had he wished to hold it.)

Tuesday night, President Barack Obama will be … Barack Obama. It takes no prescience to declare that he will deliver the most soaring rhetoric of the Convention. He has been carefully scheduled not to upstage Mr. Biden, Mr. Walz, or Ms. Harris. He will speak warmly of Mr. Biden, laud Ms. Harris, excite the young (notwithstanding his now gray hair 😉 ), and lecture voters of color – as only he can – as to the consequences if they don’t come out to vote for Ms. Harris.

Wednesday night, President Bill Clinton will, in his own style (for those with shorter memories, as effective albeit a different manner than the oratory of Messrs. Kennedy, Reagan and Obama), remind voters of how he effectively administered a 1990s growth economy and draw analogies to Ms. Harris’ platform, and emphasize a point he always made extremely effectively in his own campaigns: our need to think about the future. (I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes on stage to his campaign song, Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop [Thinkin’ About Tomorrow].”)

Mr. Walz closes Wednesday night by getting to introduce himself. He does seem a “Joyful Warrior,” in the style of arguably Minnesota’s most influential politician of all time, the late Vice President and U.S. MN Sen. Hubert Humphry [who was literally known as the “Happy Warrior” (for those of us old enough to remember, Mr. Walz’ cadence is reminiscent of Mr. Humphrey’s)]. He will talk about his family, his upbringing, his military service, his years as a teacher, what he did in Congress (he was a centrist representing a conservative district), what he has done as Minnesota Governor. If he is effective, he will dispel the Republican claims that he is somehow a military shirker or a wild-eyed liberal. He will particularly seek to draw a contrast between himself and the extremely inexperienced Republican Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance.

These are, of course, all merely opening acts. Ms. Harris needs to bring it home on Thursday night. She should paint a happy, positive picture while noting her prosecutorial background and blaming Mr. Trump for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the constant erratic and divisive upheaval of his presidency, the fact that he lost in 2020 and he’s still lying about it, the January 6th assault on the Capitol, kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and killing the bipartisan immigration bill. I’ve been pleased to see that she keeps reminding her crowds that she remains the underdog to Mr. Trump. She needs to stress that in her acceptance speech. While she should be careful not to offend moderates by attacking the Electoral College – “It was a compromise that our Founding Fathers struck to form our union” – she should note that Electoral College math presents Democrats an uphill battle. She might well point out that the Democrat has won the popular vote in all presidential elections since 1992 save one, but Republicans have served three terms White House terms during which they appointed the six conservative justices that overturned Roe; that every vote counts. She might conclude with, “Our quest is every citizen’s vote; our mission is to save our democracy; our vision is to provide a better future for every American. God bless America.”

I know, I know. I’ve read way too many Churchill and Kennedy speeches.

We’ll see what happens. Enjoy the show.

Ouch!

[Noise Alert: this breaks this site’s general rule of not publishing a post on the day it is written, and may be the most depressing note ever entered in these pages. Feel free to pass it.]

So – it turns out that I was wrong. The Vice President of the United States isn’t following the Noise. Apparently, it only becomes compulsory reading when one ascends to the Oval Office (and even then, only for those Presidents who are actually willing to read 😉 ).

Nothing will be said here against MN Gov. Tim Walz, whom Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen to be her Vice Presidential running mate, personally. Every time I have seen Mr. Walz interviewed, I have been struck by his ability to articulate, his command of the issues, and his down-home, midwestern friendly folksiness, but – and there will literally be NOTHING I EVER enter in these pages for which I will more fervently hope to be proven wrong – I fear Ms. Harris’ selection will ultimately prove to be a critical factor contributing to an Electoral College victory for former President Donald Trump in November.

Mr. Walz reminds me of U.S. VA Sen. Tim Kaine, selected as running mate by former Democratic Presidential Nominee, U.S. Sec. of State, U.S. NY Sen. and First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2016. Mr. Kaine (still in the Senate) is an able guy and a nice guy who I think – had he been at the top of the 2016 Democratic ticket – might well have beaten Mr. Trump in 2016. He wasn’t. If Mr. Walz was the Democratic Presidential nominee, I’d like his chances against Mr. Trump.

He’s isn’t. Ms. Harris is. She needed every edge she could get in what had promised to be a razor-close race against Mr. Trump. She’s already being painted by the Trump forces as a Wacko Woke Progressive – a label that MAGAs could never effectively pin on President Joe Biden, but will be effective against Ms. Harris (I know; she was a prosecutor. Doesn’t matter. Swing state voters are well aware that she’s from California – which is Latin in the rest of the country for, “Wacko Woke Progressive.”) If Mr. Walz is as progressive as he has been described in the media, he will, no matter his every-man style, have given MAGAs, thus far floundering with misogynist and racist attacks against Ms. Harris, a politically-acceptable wedge with mostly suburban moderate swing state swing voters: that the Democrats are too left, during a campaign in which Ms. Harris needs to convince them that she’s safer Mr. Trump – i.e., that she will govern in a steady, centrist manner despite MAGAs’ claims to the contrary.

I have seen media reports that PA Gov. Josh Shapiro was the early front-runner in Ms. Harris’ selection process, but that Gov. Shapiro’s staunch pro-Israel stance in the current Israeli-Hamas conflict created concerted and vehement opposition to his selection in Democratic Party progressive ranks. One cannot know for sure why Mr. Shapiro was passed over; perhaps there is an unreported factor in his background that Ms. Harris and her advisors feared would ultimately harm the campaign if it came to light; but if she actually turned away from Mr. Shapiro – who has governed as a centrist, and is very popular in the one Electoral College state Ms. Harris most probably needs to win to claim the presidency – because of progressive opposition, she’s a fool, and perhaps warrants the questions regarding her competence that have been circling her since she announced her presidential candidacy in 2020. Does she really fear that progressives and the young wouldn’t vote for her – a charismatic black woman — or vote for Donald Trump, because of Mr. Shapiro’s views on the Israeli-Hamas war? She is the one who would be president, and she has made clear her own reservations about the unrestrained manner in which Israel has prosecuted its war against Hamas and concern for the thousands of Palestinian civilians arguably unnecessarily killed or injured as a result. The progressive Democratic constituencies would have still come out for her despite their concerns about Mr. Shapiro’s Israel-Hamas stand – and Mr. Shapiro would have given her a real chance to claim the one swing state she seemingly can’t afford to lose.

The historical reference is obvious (one can’t have a Noise post without a historical reference 🙂 ). Then-U.S. MA Sen. John Kennedy horrified liberals when he picked then-Senate Majority Leader U.S. TX Sen. Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in 1960 (reportedly, Robert Kennedy was shocked at his brother’s decision, and argued vehemently against it). Sen. Kennedy knew better – knew that the liberals would swallow their gripes when the opposition was the detested Richard Nixon – and that he might need Texas’ Electoral College votes to win the presidency. [If one looks at the 1960 Electoral College totals, it looks as though he didn’t – until one realizes that had Mr. Kennedy not swept the entire South (already uncomfortable with northern liberalism and getting over its hatred of Republicans dating back to Abraham Lincoln, and which ultimately turned decisively Republican eight years later) – he would have lost]. By selecting Mr. Johnson and making liberals abide it, Mr. Kennedy made it clear that he, not they, was in charge. By her passing over Mr. Shapiro, Ms. Harris appears progressives’ captive rather than their master.

If Ms. Harris couldn’t win Minnesota’s Electoral College votes without Mr. Walz on the ticket, she wasn’t going to win the presidency. How do you think the Pennsylvania Democratic Party apparatus, undoubtedly very dedicated to Mr. Shapiro, is feeling about Ms. Harris today? Enthused, or deflated?

I have been told that Gov. Shapiro has announced that he will campaign vigorously for the Harris–Walz ticket. Of course he will. One final and arguably apt reference to John F. Kennedy: after being passed over by a whisker for the Vice Presidential nomination in 1956, he gave a ringing speech at the 1956 Democratic Convention on behalf of the Party’s nominees, Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver — who were never going to beat President Dwight Eisenhower and his Vice President, Mr. Nixon – which essentially amounted to his introduction to the American people and the commencement of Mr. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. I would suggest that Mr. Shapiro’s enthusiastic support of the Harris-Walz ticket is in the same vein. Mr. Shapiro is readying himself for a 2028 presidential campaign.

If there is a 2028 presidential campaign. Right now, I can’t hide my disappointment. In the last entry in these pages, I indicated that Ms. Harris’ early steps as the Democratic presidential nominee had given me real hope that she could defeat Mr. Trump and protect our democracy. Decry my pessimism; berate me if you wish, I would love to be persuaded; but I am markedly less confident that there will be a genuine 2028 presidential campaign today than I was yesterday.

It’s a Long Season

We’ve been away from home for most of the period since President Joe Biden ended his campaign for a second term; during our time away, Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the endorsement of enough delegates to the Democratic Party’s Chicago August convention to be the party’s nominee. While we haven’t been in a position to digest the news in any great detail, that has perhaps made it easier to focus on overarching circumstances.

One factor in the race that hasn’t changed: it will be decided by the swing states’ moderate Republicans and conservative independents.

Another has, diametrically: I’ve been stunned at the enthusiasm level generated by Ms. Harris’ candidacy among progressives, liberals, minorities, the young, and a segment of women voters. Ms. Harris has undeniable charm and vitality – I noted here years ago that she has the best smile I’ve seen in politics since former President Jimmy Carter’s – which may well ultimately drive a decisive segment of female, young and minority voters to the voting booth. (Note: in a race promising to be this close, every Democratic constituency will need to be decisive.)

Mr. Biden’s withdrawal and Ms. Harris’ nomination have enabled Democrats, if they are adept, to turn voters’ focus back to where it needs to be for them to win the White House and the Congress: on Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

Ms. Harris has the opportunity to turn this presidential contest into the Year of the Woman. Given the seething abortion issue, the time is now. She has unquestionably been an effective advocate for women’s reproductive rights. Some 70% of Americans reportedly believe that a woman should have the right to abort a fetus at least through the first trimester; those rights have (obviously) been curtailed by Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court picks. His current position – “Let the states choose” – does nothing to mollify those seeking to preserve reproductive rights [particularly given the increasingly restrictive views taken by conservative state legislatures and courts, reaching even to In Vitro Fertilization (“IVF”)], while antagonizing many Pro-Lifers as waffling; this is a gaping political vulnerability for Mr. Trump that he won’t be able to run away from. As if we needed more affronts to women: Mr. Trump has been found civilly liable for sexual assault, and has in effect been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of cheating on his wife with an adult film star.

(An aside: I wonder whether Ms. Harris might not also benefit from buyer’s remorse among some moderately conservative swing state suburban women who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. The 2016 Democratic Nominee, former U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. NY Sen. and First Lady Hillary Clinton, was unquestionably more competent than Mr. Trump, but for a large segment of the electorate, wasn’t likeable. I wonder whether some of these women who simply didn’t like Ms. Clinton and voted for Mr. Trump sufficiently rue their 2016 votes that this time, they’ll vote for Ms. Harris.)

Mr. Trump’s threat to democracy. Swing state swing voters know he lost, know he’s lying about it, and know he incited the January 6^th attack on our nation’s Capitol in an attempt to overturn the valid results of a fair (albeit close) election. They know he is pledging if elected to pardon those who stormed the Capitol. They know (or can be reminded) that Mr. Trump has called for termination of the Constitution to overturn the result of an election he knows lost, and that his partisan judicial selections (talk about rigging) have ensured that he will not go on trial for his alleged actions before the election. I confess that I don’t know why Mr. Trump’s traitorous activities aren’t alone sufficient reason for him to be defeated in landslide that would dwarf those won by Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, and Reagan – for me, it is the issue – but it is one that is reportedly most telling with older voters, who seem to grasp better than younger voters that if necessary we can survive an inept president but not a determined dictator. It is with this electoral segment that Mr. Biden can most help Ms. Harris.

Mr. Trump’s obvious subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his (at best) lukewarm support for NATO. His comment that he won’t necessarily defend a NATO nation attacked by Russia is decidedly unpopular. Ms. Harris can credibly argue that after all the Ukrainians’ sacrifice, Mr. Putin will conquer Ukraine if Mr. Trump is reelected. I saw a poll that 88% of Americans detest Mr. Putin. You can’t get 88% of Americans to agree on what day of the week it is.

Mr. Trump has indicated that Social Security and Medicare need to be revised. These programs are incredibly popular, as emotive with seniors as abortion is with women and the young. (Although Social Security and Medicare do need to be revised, what matters here is saving democracy; Ms. Harris wins the issue by pledging to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits.) He also continues to criticize the Affordable Care Act, although it is now popular with Americans of all political stripes.

Mr. Trump’s age, mental fitness and competence. There is more than enough tape of Mr. Trump mixing up names and people – most famously, his confusing former SC Gov. and U.S. U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley with former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when recounting the events of January 6^th – to place doubt upon his mental acuity among open-minded voters. If Democrats remind voters that there were at least 500,000 unnecessary deaths attributable to Mr. Trump’s mishandling of the COVID crisis, that at one point he idiotically suggested that injecting bleach into COVID sufferers might help them, and that approximately 40 of his 44 Cabinet members refuse to endorse him, this will stir doubts among swing voters. Add to that the antics of the last Congress: it became clear with MAGAs in control of the House of Representatives during the last term that they can’t run a two-car funeral.

Republican Vice Presidential Nominee U.S. OH Sen. J.D. Vance. It is certainly beginning to look like Mr. Trump made a strategic error in selecting Mr. Vance as his running mate. The general rule of presidential campaign running mate selection is that a good pick won’t help the campaign, but a bad one will hurt (although a comment below will make clear that I think that there can be exceptions to the rule 🙂 ). At this point, Mr. Vance seems the most striking example of conventional wisdom since Democratic Presidential Nominee U.S. SD Sen. George McGovern picked U.S. MO Sen. Thomas Eagleton as his running mate in 1972. (After Mr. Eagleton was selected, it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for depression and undergone electroshock treatment. Mr. Eagleton was dropped from the ticket. No matter how unfair some might consider it today, the revelation of Mr. Eagleton’s condition and treatment was the death knell for a campaign already an overwhelming underdog against then President Richard Nixon.) From the outset, I doubted that Mr. Vance, an Ohioan who has without doubt risen from very impoverished beginnings and is author of the 2016 best seller, Hillbilly Elegy, would broaden the Republican ticket’s appeal among the grievance-driven in the pivotal swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Who in this demographic who wasn’t already going to vote for Mr. Trump will now vote for Mr. Trump because of Mr. Vance? Nobody. I also thought Mr. Vance’s unquestioned slavishness to Mr. Trump would be a negative with voters who want a Vice President who, if forced to choose between the President and the Constitution, will be loyal to the Constitution. Now, Mr. Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” and pronouncements that the votes of those citizens without children should count less than those of voters with children (not only repulsive, but about the politically dumbest things I’ve ever heard from a politician) seem likely to alienate pivotal swing state swing voters. He is sounding notes perhaps closer to political eulogy than elegy. (I would love to claim credit for this play on words, but it was suggested by someone very, very close to me 😉 ).

Even on issues which should favor Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris and Democrats seemingly have effective arguments to blunt MAGA advances:

On crime, Ms. Harris’ experience as a prosecutor can be favorably contrasted with Mr. Trump’s 34 felony convictions (“I believe in juries”).

On the economy, job numbers under the Biden Administration have been historic, and if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates by September as now predicted, that will be an objective marker that inflation is dropping. A rate cut may send the stock market even higher. [I understand that most swing voters hold stocks (directly or mutually) in taxable and/or retirement accounts.] Mr. Trump will scream that the Fed is biased against him, but Ms. Harris can point out that he first appointed Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

On the emotive issue of immigration, Ms. Harris has already taken the tack I would have advised: by pledging to sign the very conservative bipartisan immigration bill that Mr. Biden would have signed and Mr. Trump openly killed because he wanted the campaign issue. Ms. Harris’ campaign line speaks for itself: “‘Blame me,’ he said. Well, blame him. It’s his fault.”

Feeling good? Now, to some painful realities.

While the emotional high Democrats are currently riding can be expected to continue through a well-orchestrated convention which will conclude August 22, the next three weeks will also give Mr. Trump and his team, currently in strategic disarray given Mr. Biden’s departure from the race, time to determine the most effective ways to attack Ms. Harris. Make no mistake: he and they will figure it out and will be ready to go by Labor Day. They will be ugly, they will have no scruples, they will bar no holds. Since the Democrats have the more popular side of most substantive issues, they will attack her gender, her race, her intelligence, her competence, her disposition. Mr. Trump’s strategists include two professionals who “Swift Boated” Democratic Presidential Nominee and then U.S. MA Sen. John Kerry in 2004, somehow causing the average voter to conclude Mr. Kerry – a decorated Vietnam veteran – was somehow either cowardly or incompetent during his service while then President George W. Bush – who had ordered an Iraq invasion to secure weapons of mass destruction that were never there – was a heroic military figure. Never forget: they are very good at what they do.

If Mr. Trump determines that his pick of Mr. Vance was the egregious blunder it now appears, look for him to blame Mr. Vance, unceremoniously dump him, and select a replacement who will be more reassuring to the swing state undecideds.

Although MAGAs are never shy about sheer fabrication, they will have some genuine kernels to pick with Ms. Harris. I commented in these pages in August, 2020, when Mr. Biden selected Ms. Harris as his running mate: “the internet search, ‘Willie Brown Kamala Harris.’” Somewhat inexplicably to me, in the last campaign Mr. Trump and his team never sought to exploit the fact that Ms. Harris’ political ascent began at or about the time of her undisputed amorous relationship with Mr. Brown, the extremely powerful Speaker of California’s state Assembly 30 years her senior. I understand that the alt-right media is now energetically pursuing the issue. (One might expect Mr. Trump to be reticent here, inasmuch as he has been legally adjudged a sexual assaulter and an adulterer, but … nah. Republicans never shrink from hypocrisy, and will leverage any gender double standard they can.)

I also commented in that long-ago note: “Ms. Harris’ oft-repeated phrase during the Democratic presidential debates – ‘I will prosecute the case against Donald Trump’ – brought to my mind another potential weakness. Any trial lawyer on a major case … attempts to conceptualize the appropriate response to … whatever might come up at trial. A daunting task – but even in complex litigation, the variables are finite. In a presidential campaign, the variables are infinite, and cannot all be anticipated. … While Ms. Harris is good when scripted, I saw her clutch several times in the early months of the [2020] presidential campaign when reporters asked her questions she did not expect. In one of the [2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate] debates, Ms. Harris blanked when [challenged in an unexpected way by] U.S. HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard … How she holds up will be pivotal to the Democratic ticket’s chances.” While the Vice President has unquestionably grown as an official and as a candidate over the last four years, there will still be the potential for her to clutch. Although right now, Mr. Trump is indicating that he doesn’t want to debate her, if he finds himself trailing, he’ll change his mind – and I think he’ll be a formidable debate opponent for her, because she won’t be able to entirely anticipate what he will say; he is the master of the lie and the unexpected.

There’s credence to the claim that Ms. Harris doesn’t have a great track record as an administrator. Her 2020 presidential campaign was a shambles: started with a flourish and a lot of money, but lacked a coherent strategy and chain of command, succumbed to infighting, and ran out of cash. Expect the Trump Team to find disgruntled former Harris staffers and exploit their complaints. (I know; Mr. Trump ran the most incoherent Administration in U.S. history. Won’t matter. See, above: Republican hypocrisy. 😉 ).

The Democrats still face difficult Electoral College math. Current polls show Ms. Harris trailing Mr. Trump by four point in Pennsylvania – the swing state that is closest to politically existential for her – and with a smaller lead over Mr. Trump in Wisconsin than Mr. Biden had. [The fact that Wisconsin is the only swing state in which she is currently faring worse against Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden (2 point lead v. Mr. Biden’s 3 point cushion) is no surprise to any Badger Stater; notwithstanding former President Barack Obama’s two victories in the state, Mr. Obama was an exceptional political athlete, and this state’s views on race are decidedly more charged now than then. Mr. Trump always does better in Wisconsin on Election Day than he scores in pre-election polls.] Ms. Harris doesn’t need Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes if she wins Georgia (16) (the one Republican-controlled state where the Republican officialdom clearly has no love for Mr. Trump 😉 ) or North Carolina (16) and Nevada (7), and doesn’t need Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes if she wins Arizona (11) (where it appears that there will be an abortion rights referendum on the ballot), but paths outside the Blue Wall States are arguably still dicier. PA Gov. Josh Shapiro still appears to me the right choice as her running mate (I predict that the progressives currently voicing objections to Mr. Shapiro’s staunch pro-Israel views in the Israeli-Hamas conflict will nonetheless support Ms. Harris if she chooses Mr. Shapiro), with Mr. Shapiro and U.S. PA Sen. John Fetterman – who looks much more MAGA than Mr. Vance – responsible for securing the Keystone State.

MAGAs are implacable. We were in the center part of Wisconsin when we were away; Trump signs outnumbered Democratic signs 10 to 1; there is no way that anyone who was committed to Mr. Trump before Mr. Biden withdrew will be shifting his/her support to Ms. Harris.

Ms. Harris and her running mate will make mistakes. We don’t know what they will be, but rest assured: they will make mistakes.

All of which is to say what you already know: it’s going to be close.

I was honored, after President Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, how many friends and family, including those who rarely comment in these pages or don’t follow them regularly, who emailed or texted me about my reaction to this sea change in the race. At that point, I indicated that Ms. Harris wasn’t the candidate I’d put up against Mr. Trump if I had a blank drawing board (from my Wisconsin perspective, I would have preferred either U.S. MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar or MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer), but was encouraged by the excitement that the Vice President had evoked. I now think it’s clear that Ms. Harris is creating greater enthusiasm among minorities and the young than either Ms. Klobuchar or Ms. Whitmer would have generated, and her campaign is arguably laying out alternate Electoral College paths for the Democratic ticket through Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and possibly North Carolina that probably wouldn’t have been open to either Ms. Klobuchar or Ms. Whitmer. Ms. Harris’ deft early conduct of her campaign and the reaction to her candidacy have given me real hope that we have a real chance to save our democracy. I had, frankly, been in despair; although Mr. Biden is a good man who has done a great job, it had looked to me that if he stayed in the race that we were going to give up our republic without a fight.

Any baseball fan will tell you that it’s a long season. No championship is won in the season’s early months; you simply hope to position yourself to make a run, be within striking distance of the top, on Labor Day. Those who support Ms. Harris should not be misled by the excitement for her candidacy that they see in liberal media outlets; I think that if the election was held today, Mr. Trump would win. That said, I would submit that Ms. Harris is within striking distance. Given the excitement she has generated, the evident danger to democracy that Mr. Trump presents to the open-minded, the many substantive issues upon which she holds the more popular position, and the very deep antipathy Mr. Trump evokes among those who oppose him, my gut tells me that if she plays well the rest of the way, she has a real chance to get there — that she can win.

It’s a long season. The most crucial games are yet to be played. We’ll see what happens.

Joe Biden Can Have the Last Word

First, an aside regarding Vice President and Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris’ selection of a running mate. Reports are that Ms. Harris intends to make her selection in the near future, and of course the Noise, probably foolishly, wishes to get in its two cents before she does.

She should name PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, 51, as her running mate. I have never seen Mr. Shapiro speak, but it’s seemingly by far the wisest choice based upon reputation and Electoral College math. Mr. Shapiro is reportedly very popular in Pennsylvania, and the Keystone State, with its 19 Electoral College votes, is the one upper Midwestern “Blue Wall” state for which Democrats have no effective counter if they lose [i.e., Ms. Harris could lose Michigan (15) if she wins Georgia or North Carolina (each 16, although both are obviously more difficult electoral challenges for her than Michigan) and could lose Wisconsin (10) if she wins Arizona (11; again, admittedly a longer political stretch.)] An additional plus is that Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a vocal supporter of Israel’s war against Hamas. Without getting into the substance of what our Israel-Hamas policy should be, I would suggest that a Harris-Shapiro ticket would allow the Democrats to have it both ways: Ms. Harris, who looks (although she is not) a bit Middle Eastern, can declare that Israel has the right to defend itself while expressing concern about Palestinian civilians while Mr. Shapiro loudly proclaims Israel’s right to defend itself.

[The swing state theory outlined above could also suggest Ms. Harris’ selection of NC Gov. Roy Cooper as a running mate; I’m not as keen on Gov. Cooper since his age (67) would blunt Democrats’ sudden youth advantage against former President and MAGA Nominee Donald Trump and I think Mr. Cooper’s presence on the Democratic ticket would be significantly less likely to secure North Carolina against Mr. Trump than Mr. Shapiro’s will to win Pennsylvania.]

Now, on to the delicious irony that by withdrawing from the presidential campaign, President Joe Biden now holds perhaps a decisive opportunity to cap over half a century of service to America. I have often suggested in these pages that the outcome of this election – i.e., the future of our democracy — will not be decided by the rabid bases of either party but by the mostly suburban moderate Republicans and conservative independents in the swing states who are disturbed by Mr. Trump’s undemocratic inclinations, erratic impulses and hateful passions but, according to apparently all polling, were even more concerned before the President stepped aside about his physical capability to lead us for another four years. I would submit that these voters, despite the alt-right propaganda machine’s best efforts to demonize Mr. Biden, think of the President as a fine man, a good guy who means what he says, who is now simply too old to carry the burdens of the presidency for another four years.

Mr. Biden has steadfastly maintained until this past weekend that he was the best positioned Democrat to bring about Mr. Trump’s defeat in November. He might not have been then. He is now.

The accolades that have poured in for the President since he announced his withdrawal as a patriot who has placed the good of country over his personal ambition are indications that Mr. Biden has transformed himself overnight, among the decisive moderate segment of our electorate, from doddering power seeker into America’s Eminence Grise (“Gray Eminence”) – its wise advisor. These moderates may or may not agree with all of Mr. Biden’s policies, but I doubt that they’re notably concerned about his mental acuity today and I would suggest that his credibility with these people as both the sitting President of the United States and one wishes what is best for our his people – who now has nothing personally to gain by what he says – has likely never been higher than it will be for the remainder of his term.

One of the great fears of the Kennedy Campaign in 1960 was that the Nixon Campaign would have then President Dwight Eisenhower – the leader of our victorious forces in Europe during World War II, then finishing eight years as president in which he presided over our nation’s 1950s economic boom, and significantly more popular with Americans than either man campaigning to replace him – stump for his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Although Mr. Eisenhower was reportedly willing to campaign – he apparently deeply resented John Kennedy’s criticism of his record — he never went on the road, because the Nixon Campaign never asked. In campaign post-mortems, accounts varied as to why Mr. Eisenhower wasn’t more effectively deployed. Mr. Nixon maintained that he didn’t want to overly stress Mr. Eisenhower, who had suffered a heart attack during his presidency (and at 70, was considered pretty old 😉 ); others suggested that Mr. Nixon, chafing at having had little influence during his eight years as Vice President, wanted to win the presidency on his own. Either way, Mr. Eisenhower’s absence from the campaign trail was arguably a pivotal factor in Mr. Nixon’s narrow defeat.

I am confident that Ms. Harris will want Mr. Biden on the road. I am equally confident that Mr. Biden will want to be on the road. This promises to be a quiet six months on the world stage. Russian President Vladimir Putin (with the prospect that a Trump presidency that will ease if not ensure his takeover of Ukraine), Chinese President Xi Jinping (with the prospect that an isolationist Trump presidency will ease his takeover of Taiwan), Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (undoubtedly cognizant that Mr. Biden, free of political ramifications, might, if provoked, use American power to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability), and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un (who is well aware that his nation will fare better with Mr. Trump, a gullible fool, as president and likely also fearful that Mr. Biden, free of political restraints, might act to destroy North Korea’s nuclear capacity) are all unlikely to do anything provocative. Clearly, absent bipartisan measures that might be required to address a domestic disaster such as hurricane damage, no legislation will pass Congress.

Mr. Biden is more fluent, a more effective speaker, when he speaks from the heart, and now free of the responsibilities of leading a campaign, relieved of the awareness that any gaffes he makes on the stump will be the entire focus of a ravenous media, I expect him to pull out all stops. He needs to hold nothing back; he has the rest of his life after January 20, 2025, to relax and enjoy his family. Wrapped in the trappings of the presidency and the aura of a man who has been willing to put country ahead of personal gain, I would submit that his declarations about what another Trump presidency will mean for America will carry tremendous, possibly decisive, weight with moderates. While only the Vice President can assure undecideds that she is qualified for the presidency, I predict that Mr. Biden will be the Vice President’s most effective surrogate, will be a more effective cajoler of swing state swing voters than Ms. Harris herself.

If Mr. Biden does enthusiastically engage in the campaign as I anticipate he will, and if Ms. Harris does win the presidency, Mr. Biden’s last contributions to our nation will have been to protect democracy and lay the path for our first woman president. In my view, he will already go down as our most important president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. However, speaking as one old Irishman about another, perhaps none of these achievements will be as sweet for him as the knowledge that he did, indeed, have the last word; that he beat Donald Trump one more time.

Democrats Must Hope the Water is Deep Enough

One of the favorite adages of a very able executive whom I worked with during my last years in my organization was, “Watch what you wish for.” Those Democrats calling for President Joe Biden to be replaced atop their party’s ticket need to be mindful of the very distinct possibility that the best day of the substitute nominee’s campaign may be his/her first day. That said, what comes to mind for me are scenes from action movies over the years – likely at least one of the Indiana Jones adventures – in which the protagonist, being chased by villains, wild animals, or some other mortal hazard, reaches the edge of a cliff and looks down into water far below. The choice is to either stand on the cliff and face almost certain doom — or to jump, and hope that the water is deep enough. Obviously, all jump, and thereby escape the peril.

Although I sympathize with those who are fearful of the ramifications of – to use another old aphorism – jumping from the frying pan into the fire (or if you prefer to stick with water analogies, changing horses in the middle of the stream 😉 ) – I would submit that Democrats have no choice but to jump. While I don’t believe that there are enough votes of diehard MAGAs to put former President Donald Trump back in the White House, I also doubt that there are enough votes of those who so abhor the prospect of a second Trump presidency that they will vote for Mr. Biden no matter what – in the terms of a close friend, even if he’s “a corpse” – to reelect the President. Democrats need to change the dynamic, to stem the apparently currently indisputable indications that the undecideds who will determine the outcome of the election are trending toward Mr. Trump.

I have made clear in these pages my high regard for the manner in which Mr. Biden has conducted the presidency. Furthermore, he is by all indications a genuinely good man. I deeply regret that he didn’t choose to announce a graceful exit a year ago, when, if the reporting we are now hearing from media outlets sympathetic to him is accurate, he should have recognized his increasing physical limitations. That said, although his withdrawal at this point will unavoidably be a bit ignominious and certainly accompanied by less acclaim than his over 50 years of service to our country deserve, let us hope for the sake of the country that he is now coming to terms with the fact that a seemingly decisive segment of our citizens have lost confidence in his ability to lead us for another four years. And let those of us who believe in the Almighty and fear for the future of our democracy if Mr. Trump returns to office pray that if the Democrats (let’s add one more aquatic cliché to this note 🙂 ) take the plunge, they — like Indy – find the water deep enough.