Harris and Walz shift the vibe!
August 19, 2024
As we look ahead with hope and anticipation to the Democratic National Convention, the Harris-Walz campaign continues to surprise everyone with its effectiveness and nimbleness. On Sunday, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz took a bus tour through Pennsylvania—a complete “vibe-shift” from the enthusiastic crowds at packed stadiums that fueled the campaign over the last four weeks.
The bus tour was terrific! It highlighted Kamala and Tim in “normal” situations that voters can relate to—buying chips (Doritos) in a convenience store, talking to a high school football team, and chatting up the employees at a restaurant. Both joined a local field office’s phone-banking efforts! Kamala Harris even petted a firehouse dog after delivering pastries to the firefighters! (Can you imagine Trump petting a dog?)
There is no way in the world that Trump or JD Vance could have negotiated those situations with anything other than awkward stiffness as they pretended to know how to talk to everyday Americans in normal situations. Both Trump and JD Vance are stuck behind podiums with dwindling or non-existent crowds, while Kamala and Tim turned the “small group” interaction into a show of strength and normalcy.
That is a feat that Trump and Vance cannot replicate. The GOP nominees are comfortable among billionaires and sycophants but not among people who are feeling the pain of Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires, assault on personal liberties, and culture wars.
Harris also asked reporters questions at various stops on the tour. Those reporters—perhaps local reporters(?)—asked the Vice President substantive questions about her economic proposals released last week. No notes, no teleprompters, no “hand-picked” reporters who are afraid of Kamala Harris. Her answers were “okay” to “good”, but they were orders of magnitude better than Trump's meandering words-salads. She answered the questions head-on; not everyone accepted her responses, but that’s politics! Kamala Harris is speaking to voters, not to pundits.
While dwelling on Trump is becoming tedious, he made things worse for himself and JD Vance on Saturday with another unhinged speech that focused on pettiness, grievance, and hate. In the speech, he criticized Kamala Harris for her laugh, dating history, and “looks” before stooping to call her a “communist.” See Trump zigzags between economic remarks and personal insults at rally in critical Pennsylvania. In a sign of supreme insecurity, Trump repeatedly said that he was “better looking than Kamala.” Geez! What kind of person does that?
And then Trump proceeded to have an epic meltdown on social media on Sunday, posting at least fifty-two (52) times, with each post worse, more offensive, and delusional than the last. Trump posted fake “photos” of “Swifties for Trump”, and posted doctored photos of Kamala Harris holding a sign that said, “I am a moron.”
Below is one of Trump's most unhinged posts
Again, apologies for repeating Trump's post, but it is important to understand what the media is not reporting about Trump's descent into madness. At the very least, let your eyes graze over the Unabomber-esque quality of the prose:
We had to turn away lots of people yesterday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, but Comrade Kamala Harris’ Social Media Operation showed empty seats, long before the Rally started, early in the afternoon when, in actuality, we had to turn away 11,500 people! She’s a Crooked Radical Left Politician, and always will be! Everything she touches turns bad, just like California, and San Francisco before it - as is the case with all Marxists. She should have never been Vice President, and had to stage a COUP of Joe Biden, with her America-hating friends, Barrack Hussein Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and the rest. Comrade Kamala is a STONE COLD LOSER, she will FAIL and, if she doesn’t, our Country will cease to exist as we know it, turning into a Communist, Crime Ridden Garbage Dump.
As Trump is off message in the worst possible way, Democrats are heading into their convention more united than ever. Are there potential problems? Of course! Protests over Gaza will give the media a counter-narrative to dampen the enthusiasm that will greet President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, former presidents Obama and Clinton, Secretary of State Clinton, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Then, the main event will be Tim Walz and Kamala Harris.
The convention will be historic. It will serve three purposes:
It will lift and inspire a formerly weary base who can finally celebrate with a sense of confidence and optimism.
It will help unify Democratic messaging—finally!
It will extend the period of enthusiasm that has propelled the campaign thus far.
If the unprecedented enthusiasm continues into September or October, it will solidify the momentum that Kamala Harris is building among the electorate.
Joe Biden’s speech alone is reason enough to hold a convention that has already elected Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. It should be Biden’s finest hour in his half-century of public service.
I resolve to not allow the media’s desire to deflate Democratic enthusiasm to interfere with my enjoyment and appreciation of a historic moment.
And a special note to readers who will be attending the convention: I would love to hear from you about what it is like to be “in the room where it happens.” With your permission (and not for attribution), I will share comments with other newsletter readers who are not at the convention. Feel free to post in the Comment section or email me at rbhubbell@gmail.com.
A word about polls.
Despite Harris's significant progress in the polls, a reasonable interpretation is that the race remains close. Indeed, on Sunday, Kamala Harris said she views herself as the underdog. We should not only ignore the polls but also ignore reporting about the polls.
As one observer noted over the weekend, when polls showed the race between Trump and Biden within the margin of error but Trump having a one-point lead, that “lead” was described as “commanding.” Now that some polls have Kamala up by 4-points among registered voters—still within the margin of error—those same outlets describe the race as “tied.” Which it is.
The force is strong—against Kamala Harris. Accept that fact and look away. Stay focused on electing Kamala Harris without regard to how the media tries to convert the future of democracy into a horse-race to sell advertising.
Washington Post Editorial describes V.P. Harris’s economic plan as “gimmicks.”
When Trump held a press conference last week to promote an economic plan that consists of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and imposing a 10% tariff on all imports, the Washington Post Editorial Board said nothing. But when Kamala Harris unveiled a detailed economic plan designed to help the working poor and middle class, the WaPo Editorial Board strongly criticized that plan under the headline “Opinion The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks.”
In a coincidence too coincidental to be a coincidence, the one item that the Editorial Board criticized the most is the item that affects Jeff Bezos the most—the effort to prevent price gouging among large grocery distributors. Jeff Bezos owns the company that owns Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, and the second largest grocery delivery operation in the US. Oh, and Bezos owns the Washington Post.
A reasonable inference is that WaPo Editorial Board dumped on Harris’s plan to do Jeff Bezos’s bidding—while ignoring Trump's insane and offensive economic plan. I wrote a comment criticizing WaPo’s editorial and pinned it to the top of the Comment section.
I won’t repeat my comments here, but I believe that Bezos and WaPo have made a big mistake—by setting up WaPo as the lackey for a billionaire. The media and pundits are making the mistake that Democrats were making before—focusing on policy to the exclusion of the how voters feel about the economy.
Whether, when, and how Congress approves prohibitions against price gouging, the GOP (and WaPo) are now in the position of defending price gouging—and Jeff Bezos, who is currently building his third mansion on a private island in Florida while his private newspaper is criticizing $25,000 subsidies to first-time homebuyers.
Opportunity for Reader Engagement
Here is a special call to grandparents, aunts, and uncles who are concerned about younger family members who may not be committed to voting in November!
Tuesday, August 27th, at 8pm ET and Thursday, September 5th, at 7pm ET
Join us in promoting and joining in on The Grand Connection! RSVP HERE for one of these two 30-minute Zooms (or for both!)
Please invite—maybe even push— the voting-age grandkids, nieces, nephews, and other young people in your life to join you on a 30-minute Zoom with 20-year-old Sam Schwartz. Here is a letter to grandparents that explains why one concerned Today’s Edition reader who is a grandparent came up with the idea for The Grand Connection!! Please pass it on!
Sam Schwartz and some fellow travelers from this summer's Tour To Save Democracy will briefly talk about why they feel voting is so important that they went all over the country in a bus this summer talking to young people— and they will follow that with Q&A.
******The idea is that it might be easier for grandparents and others besides parents to get a young person onto this Zoom to hear from Sam!******
Read more about Sam, the Tour, and view an 86-second video at the RSVP Link.
Concluding Thoughts
The convention should be a moment of triumph and unity. For that, we have Kamala Harris to thank. And Joe Biden.
Talk to you tomorrow!
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Astronomy note:
Readers continue to say the focus on astronomy has been helpful in putting the news into perspective. I will keep it up until I hear otherwise but will likely reduce the commentary (or include the commentary in linked documents outside of the newsletter).
I made a second attempt at imaging the Bubble Nebula. In this attempt, I used a hydrogen-alpha filter that selectively blocks some wavelengths of light while allowing others to pass through the filter. Although I am not satisfied with the second attempt, I was able to tease out some of the blue that is prominent in photos of the Bubble Nebula by other amateur astronomers.
My excuse this time is that I planned to do a four-hour imaging session, which necessitated getting up at 3:00 a.m. to power down my telescope. After a few moments of reflection, I said, “Who am I kidding? I am not getting up at 3:00 a.m.” So, I ended the session after thirty minutes, which resulted in a washed-out and incomplete image (in my view).
Below is the same image without the hydrogen-alpha filter. As a reminder, the photograph below is of the Bubble Nebula, estimated to be 11,000 light years from Earth with a 5-light-year diameter. The “bubble” is created by a young, hot star in the center of a gas cloud. Stellar winds from the star blow outward, creating a “bubble” around the star.
I want to share a story about what this substack continues to create, Robert.
In about an hour, I will head to a naturalization voter registration event here in the Dallas area.. This is an all-day event requiring 50+ volunteers. One of our first-time volunteers today will be a new friend in this EDITION community, who subsequently recruited ANOTHER volunteer she met over the weekend. That first volunteer will also join me tomorrow at an area campus, where I registered 10ish students yesterday..
All this to say what you have created and continue to sustain is exponential encouragement and actual volunteerism.
Thank you! (And hi to my new friend—you know who you are.)
Campusvoterreg@lwvrichardson.org
Newcitizen@llwvrichardson.org
The Fourth Estate continues their work to become the Fifth Column.
Interestingly, Washington Post editor Jonathan Capehart brought a member of the WaPo Editorial Board onto his weekend MSNBC show, where she went after the price gouging proposals in Kamala Harris' economic plan. He does a lot of "normalizing" of WaPo political points on his show. Perhaps we should just consider him a Washington Post shill? I don't like that he's using the good will he has with MSNBC viewers to do this, which is done very often.