And why Kamala will win (hopefully) while Biden would have lost. Biden just pulls the Not-Trump vote while Kamala pulls the Not-Trump vote and the Elect-Harris vote. Small negative effect because the Vote-MAGA, Anti-Biden and Anti-Harris voters are all the same people.
Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo (an extremely worthy political news site, and one definitely worth the subscription price IMO) makes the argument that Harris has successfully cast herself as the “challenger” and Trump as the “incumbent”:
But there’s another paradoxical way that Trump himself laid the groundwork for this campaign, and made it possible for Harris to turn his own political heft against him. The centerpiece of Trump’s post-presidency is the wicked conceit that he never stopped being president at all. At the most basic level he never admitted that he lost the 2020 campaign. His most ardent supporters believe he is the legitimate president and some of the most febrile actually believe in a funhouse mirror, QAnony way that he still holds secret reins of power. But much of it is more immediate and open. He still calls himself president. He demands and universally receives that billing from his followers. He moves through the country with the trappings and insignia of the presidency.
SNIP
If Trump and his toadies are now complaining that Harris is treating him like the incumbent it is because in ways vast and small he has acted like one and demanded to be treated like one for almost four years. She’s taken his most perverse and vainglorious conceit and turned it into a massive liability.
SNIP
Harris’ campaign is essentially taking everything that happened since 2015, the whole long parade of horribles, blaming it all on Trump — mostly true — and saying let’s turn the page and put all that behind us. That has Trump’s campaign steaming mad. But they laid the groundwork for it. Trump himself meanwhile is too tired and probably too old to gin up a new story. And the truth is that the country is ready.
(Quoting TPM, not @iiandyiiii)
I hadn’t fully grasped this strategy, but this makes it clear and it’s brilliant. Despite Biden’s excellent work, the last 9 years has been a shitshow, and from a marketing POV you want to stand your offering up in stark opposition to whatever your audience doesn’t like.
“We’re not going back” is the ideal slogan to capture that positioning. Well done.
More like the “in-DUMB-ent”, amirite? Eh? Eh?
Sorry.
As for Trump still having sway over people with degrees in PA, it is the home of Grove City College, for example, which is billed as one of the best colleges for young Republicans.
Recent poll- and yes a bit of an outlier-
has Harris +11 over trump- and with rfkjr in the poll.
That poll is specifically New Mexico if I’m looking at the right one (Emerson/The Hill?).
If you click on the “Who’s Ahead in National Presidential Polls?” graphic at top left, it will list only the national general election polls and exclude individual state polls.
Dammit you are right. Still the overall national polls is not bad.
This might be linked somewhere upthread, but I’m not seeing it, so:
Twelve former officials of the Reagan-Bush administrations are not what I’d call “mass,” although I’m certainly happy they issued the letter.
Foxnews.com has it buried pretty deep on its politics page, but here’s the story.
White House lawyers who advised Reagan, Bush endorse Harris over Trump in 2024 showdown | Fox News
I saw my first
KAMALA HARRIS
FOR THE PEOPLE
yard sign tonight!
The Daily Show posted a mock Harris ad stressing the fact that she is normal. t’s good enough to be an actual ad.
@psychobunny When you paste the link for a video, paste just the link onto its own line. Then you will get a preview. I fixed your link again.
It’s pretty good except for the Biden bashing. I don’t think that is true or a politically good idea.
I stopped in today at my local [County] Democrats office, which is in the middle of a quite red area, looking for bumper stickers.
They’d run out of the most popular ones and had had to order more. I decided to wait for the one I liked best to come back into stock.
They handed out about six yard signs to about four different people in the short time I was there (some took one for Harris and one for the House candidate, who probably has no chance, but who knows?) Not much sense in my getting a yard sign to put at the end of a dead end road, or I would.
The thing the MAGAs are pushing now is that no one voted for Harris. They ignore that fact that when you voted for Harris also when you voted for the ticket. Also, the GOP didnt bother with a primary in 2020.
But it is consistent with Stewart’s position from the start. The fact is that it reflects how many feel which is where the pent up excitement comes from.
I loved Biden but clearly he was no longer normal. For all her firsts Harris is notably just a normal candidate. Really that is such a relief!
Yes, he was. Judging a man on One. Single. Debate. Did you see his speech at the DNC? Joe Biden is a great man. I am sorry to see him step down, but yeah, at his age, there is just so much energy. Running the White House takes a shit tonne and so does running for President. I think he needed a little break.
Back to the subject at hand…
I hope we get some new polling soon on Georgia and Arizona. According to 538, the most recent polls in both states were Aug 6-16 by Focaldata (Trump +4 in GA, Trump +1 in AZ), and Aug 12-15 by Redfield/Telegraph (even in GA, Trump +1 in AZ). The first outfit is unrated, and the second has two stars (out of three).
North Carolina does have a new poll – and it’s a straight-up tie there now.
To be fair to Mr Baldric, while his “cunning” plans came to nought, he was less skilled at fucking things up than his superior, Blackadder.
Immutable stupidity is possibly a benefit
Very interesting! And the poll was taken on Monday-Wednesday of last week, so while it might have a bit of effect from the convention, it doesn’t have the full effect.
I have a secret worry about NC. Our Republican governor is famously terrible, so I’m optimistic that he’ll lose. And a lot of NC folks are looking seriously at Harris. But what if a bunch of moderates decide taht they need to balance these Democratic votes with Republican votes for candidates they’re less familiar with–such as the Republican Superintendent, who’s called for public executions of her political opponents? If we get Harris and Stein, but also Michele Morrow (and a Republican NC supreme court justice), it’s going to be a very bad four years for teachers.
But, pulling it back here, seeing NC in play for Harris would be really great.