Harris-Walz: The First Rally
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
The last thread is getting unwieldy and there’s a lot to discuss after tonight’s first rally in Philadelphia.
Here’s the video if you didn’t get to watch it:
I think this one might be my favorite so far:
Heh. Share a link to your favorites in thread below.
From the last thread, it looks like several of my personal favorites have weighed in negatively, including Nate Silver, Jonathan Chait, and Mark Penn. Also the idiots at the NYT, which I would not have know if not for this site.
Maybe we should start a list to see the losers who have sadz.
The NYT is probably in the doldrums because it’s beginning to look like their Donny Trump is not going to win. In fact, he’s likely to go down in flames. The cynical NYT must be sad that it won’t have the easy, just say what Trump says, storytelling hour for much longer. Its reporters will have to go back to work.
As far as Trump not winning, I wouldn’t count on anything till Scotus has weighed in. As they’ve already shown us, they feel that they run the show. And what other gifts have they taken and have they done crimes that Barr has kept hidden from us?
I don’t see that the electorate has fundamentally changed in any way. The almost hysterical enthusiasm is a very good development, but this election will still/again be decided in the margins of a handful of random swing states. Harris is swinging for the fences, which I think is the right move, but a home run is the longest of shots. Not impossible, but keep the South, Pensyltucky, a chunk of the West, and Florida in mind. Indiana/Ohio too.
All the votes matter, not just those in proverbial swing states and districts. Harris isn’t swinging for the fence. The relief and excitement are palpable and real.
Harris isn’t just campaigning against Trump, as she said tonight, or even for the future. She’s running against Reagan and Reaganism, and the now half century old lie that government – and taxes – aren’t the solution, they’re the problem. That legacy has left us to the tender mercies of unrestrained capital.
She’s brought together two real personalities, who showcase a potentially better future, and how far from that future Donald Trump and JD Vance would take us. Her future will be imperfect and won’t all come out as intended, but imagine what Donald Trump’s future would be.
To quote the Sex Pistols (sort of):
God save this team
She is a human being
There is no future
In Trump’s sad preaning
EoH – This is well said. It is what I mean by saying Walz is a moderate. Nothing accomplished by the legislative-executive trifecta in Minnesota has been extreme. Medicaid has been well managed, but not organically changed. Harris at one point embraced Bernie’s Medicare for All, than backed off. While believing ultimately MfA will happen, Walz and the MN leg. has been incremental. This weekend I spend a large part of a nice weathered day pounding rebar for a county board candidate who on the signs notes “common sense leadership.” She is a long-term Dem activist back to the days the MN DFL adopted party rules of gender balance in leadership roles, grassroots level, up.
With years wandering in the Reagan desert, moderate sensible state governing looks special, which it is and isn’t. It is not swinging for the fences, it is getting on base, stealing second and scoring on a sacrifice fly. It is incremental, and by Reaganist conditioning it seems special. We need emphasis on what Harris and Walz represent is ordinary decency to the population, Why people bought into Reagan was a giant con job I struggle to understand (ditto with Trump), and Harris-Walz represent a swing back to normalcy. “Weird people” is a beginning to making that point.
Seeing Mark Penn upset about the pick, displaying his butthurt over her not picking Shapiro, makes me even happier. Penn is one of the worst “Democratic” strategists we’ve had, and he keeps coming back like a moderate zombie to undermine the Party.
Shapiro is a school privatizer. Some might be tempted to dismiss such a stance as unimportant, but it is a cherished goal of the right to destroy the public education system. They have had major successes via vouchers imposed by GOP legislators, though nowhere have voters approved sending public money to private or religious schools. That Harris choose a long term rural public school teacher for VP has teachers everywhere rejoicing. A cornerstone of democracy finally may have a champion in the upper echelon of government.
And Gwen is also a life-long educator!
In a word, f**k the horse race pundit/scribes. I’ve seen maybe two minutes of Walz speaking, plus coining “weird”, to know this guy connects.
Right on.
Chait’s sad bc he wanted a fan of charter schools.
But with both Penn and Nate, these are people paid by Republicans to pretend they’re (still) Democrats.
EW – Historically, Minnesota has led the nation into embracing charter schools as “public schools.” Not a free ticket to tax money going to religious indoctrination. But there is a Hmong charter. An Islamic charter, primarily Somali since that’s the largest Islamic bloc in the State. But regulated charter schools have been around Minnesota for some time. Criticized by some as allowed segregation. But Walz has never suggested getting rid of Minnesota’s charter school system as far as I know.
Washington Post is already publishing tidbits from Republican oppo research on Walz.
NYT has a breathless story about a pretty lurid DUI when Walz was in his 20s. But guess what? Walz gave up drinking.
In other words, he is capable of making a mistake, recognizing it, learning from it, and using it to make himself a better person.
End of conversation, NYT.
God, I hate their bull.
I don’t recall the NYT taking the same tone with Dubya, who had a harsh and abusive feud with the bottle, into his forties. With the scion from Texas, it was sweetness and light.
Despite indicating that they update it daily, it seems that the Post also haven’t updated their polling data for the last week. They still show Trump up 4 points in Nevada & Arizona and 5 in Georgia…
I’m sure that’s just an innocent oversight. /s
Nate Silver: “Is Walz a reasonable pick in a vacuum? Sure. He’s not JD Vance. He’s well-qualified. Personally, I find his schtick kind of charming, although you might expect me to say that as a fellow Midwesterner. And not unimportantly, he’s not particularly left-wing himself and will likely read as being pretty moderate to voters, having a fairly centrist track record as a member of Congress. He might have been my second choice among Harris’s finalists, although I think it was a real mistake not to consider Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who would seem to be a dominant strategy over Walz other than that it would mean having two women on the ticket.”
It’s paywalled, hence my excerpting a single paragraph from the article. The overall thrust of it is that he thinks Shapiro is better because Pennsylvania, although he admits Shapiro is a higher-risk pick too.
Nate Silver is — well — Nate Silver. GIGO.
I find Nate’s schtick kind of . . . smug and condescending.
For instance, Whitmer rather directly and publicly took herself out of consideration, shortly after Biden announced he was not running any more. But go ahead, Nate, and declare it a mistake by Harris for taking Whitmer at her word.
And (if I know anything abt Big Gretch) for one of the reasons why Shapiro was not picked: bc she’s interested in the presidency, not VP.
Agreed. Shapiro’s hesitancy to join the ticket was probably for the same reason, and not because the interview did not go well (for unstated reasons) or because he wants to finish the job in Pennsylvania. He and Whitmer both want the top slot, not the understudy’s role.
And…
Watch just Walz’s speech from Philly tonight and then convince me she made the wrong choice.
It/he resonates.
LOL. Whatever Midwestern roots Nate Silver rode in on, they ran away some time ago. His commentary strikes me as snark rather than analysis.
His reference to Whitmer, for example, sounds like he’s taunting the left, rather than expressing his real preference. He should also be the last person to talk about making political choices in a vacuum, an environment politicians never get to work in. But it is one commenters use to describe pipe dreams.
Silver seems to call Walz “centrist” in order to make him sound boring, not to accurately describe that he shares his priorities with a majority of Americans. Inside the Beltway, that’s called being left, because it’s not adopting the views and flexible…morality that K Street lobbyists nurture in order to secure their own success.
Silver is pure savvy centrism at this point. Was Harris supposed to blackmail Whitmer? And “pick Shapiro to lock in Pennsylvania” is a pundit wankfest, based on what, 50 year out of date political conventional wisdom? Run to the center, where all the independent voters are! Surely a vague message of gradual advancement will inflame their passions and lead to victory.
Silver’s whole exercise was a circle jerk that ignored common sense, personalities, how they complement each other and work together.
Shapiro could be quite good, for example – with another person on the ticket. But he has a fraction of Walz’s political and life experiences. At this time and place, the latter are essential to help bring America back from the brink of Trumpism. None of that matters to savvy commenters, desperate for clickbait.
The ticket will need more than Pennsylvania. Plus Shapiro may not even be able to deliver that.
Of course, Harris//Balz need more than Pennsylvania, but perhaps you didn’t see the rally. It was aimed at the whole country.
It was an overdue Howard Beale moment, except that it came from two normal, well-adjusted, and accomplished people at the top of their game. Their message was that the discontents Americans feel are valid, but that they can choose what to do about them. They can resort to hope and work together to improve the lives of everyone – and create a future worth living in – or foster hate, promote insurrection, and enact violent retribution – and create a future no one wants to live in, except the few who profit from it.
I was thinking more on the lines of a Harris/Shapiro ticket.
I must admit I was shocked at her choice at first. Then I realized, I couldn’t remember the last time a nominee for President chose a VP solely on the basis of the EC votes from their home state they may carry.
Nate Silver is now working for Peter Thiel, and I suspect the right wing vampires like Thiel preferred Shapiro because right now, it’s really obvious what kinds of attack strategies you could use on him.
The best attacks they have on Walz are based on Fox News lies; claiming that he let Minneapolis burn down and that he ordered tampons to be placed in men’s rooms.
I think Silver was pro-Shapiro not for Thielian reasons but because of the nature of his punditry; he focuses on his statistical models very heavily when he can (and shows his whole ass when he can’t) and there is a straightforward argument from his model that “popular-in-state governor of relatively likely tipping point state” affects the odds of that specific state and also in turn the election in a way that, if you ignore other effects, maximizes odds of victory.
The strength of Walz is that he is the better available campaigner, who seems more likely to provide an overall boost to the ticket – but that’s the kind of ‘intangibles’ that Silver discounts. Looking just at tangibles his view is that the governor of Minnesota is less useful than the governor of PA, because Minnesota isn’t going to be the tipping point state, and VP “home-state” effects are minimal on neighbors. In a couple of weeks he’s going to be surprised when Harris continues her climb in the polls, that’s what I think.
Silver’s argument seems simplistic. On or off the ticket, Shapiro should still bring Pennsylvania into the fold, if for no other reason than it sets him up for the next presidential primary, or a cabinet post with the Harris administration. He has little experience in public office and could use seasoning.
Re Shapiro
FWIW
Politico reports
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/06/why-kamala-harris-chose-tim-walz-00172834
[EUGENE DANIELS, ELENA SCHNEIDER, HOLLY OTTERBEIN and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
08/06/2024 12:21 PM EDT]
“ After their meeting on Sunday, Shapiro called Harris’ team and made clear that he was “struggling with the decision to leave his current job as governor of Pennsylvania, in order to seek the vice presidency,” according to a person familiar with the selection process.”
Of course that maybe campaign spin to face save for Shapiro given other comments reported in the piece, but…
Anybody else been in an interview for the most sought-after job in town, expressed doubt about whether you wanted it and whether it was a good fit, and still got the offer?
I {mostly} stopped reading what Silver has to say when he described Walz’s “schitck” as charming. To me “schitck” describes behavior that is utterly performative. The fact that Walz’s behavior is not that, is why he is so appealing.
Exactly. And exactly why Republicans and many in the press need to attack him.
This doesn’t look like schtick to me
https://youtu.be/l-Uvl_AxVdE
but an authentic expression of compassionate leadership in the face of tragedy.
Compare and contrast any number of examples of Trump manufactured moments supposedly ‘communing’ with ‘the people’
Reply to SteveBev
August 7, 2024 at 2:15 pm
Trump throwing paper towels at a crowd in Puerto Rico, for example.
So compassionate! So presidential!
Walz was not schtick!!!
Schtick?…Silver wants schtick?
Joey Bishop,Milton Berle,Jan Murray,Danny Kaye,Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx, Jackie Mason, Victor Borge, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Allan Sherman, Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers, Carl Reiner, Shelley Berman, Gene Wilder, George Jessel, Alan King, Mel Brooks, Phil Silvers, Jack Carter, Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles, Jack Benny Mansel Rubenstein
God bless them all.
Any of them still alive?
Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Mansel Rubenstein are still alive.
Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. Either could play the 2000 year-old man now without makeup.
I live in Minnesota. Minnesotans know what a treasure we have in Governor Walz. His simple, honest, home-spun humor and passion have made the Star of the North the envy of our neighbors. He is a genuine, compassionate high school teacher, coach and mentor to thousands of people in Minnesota and beyond. My sense is that Americans are thirsty for some simple honesty, humor and someone who truly cares for others in our communities who are less fortunate than us. Walz may have driven a stake through the heart of the so-called “Pro-Life” movement with his version of The Golden Rule – MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!
Gov. Walz is a treasure, and thank you for sharing him with us. Let’s go.
And you watch this news clip of Walz and his daughter at the state fair, and you get the feeling that he’s a good dad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S233kqP0ak8
Z-123 I will add: Last election in MN the GOP ran an anti-vax rural doctor for Guv, and footballer Matt Birk, Lt. Guv, an avid Catholic Notre Damer, having founded a smallish suburban Catholic school, both wanting and touting vouchers. Walz won for being normal, and more. But being normal was a clear distinction. The Republicans were looking to meld niche blocs but there was too much of a normal majority for it to work. Walz fits that nationwide, as well as in his home state.
Dayum, learned a new word today – ‘bawbag’.
Thank you.
‘Tim Walz has zero bone spurs.’?
Perfection.
(It’s the Scottish equivalent of “klootzak”.)
“So it’s going to take a special kind of humility that white men have not traditionally had to support her. She is Gladys Knight. He got to be a Pip.”
(Sheletta Brundidge)
I think it’s a campaign ready to roll out: I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Midnight Train to Georgia
We can go back to a bit more of this, IMO (the whole set is worth a listen.)
Not a meme, but when Gov Walz said “mind your own damn business” I immediately heard New Zealand’s Tami Neilson singing “Stay Outta My Business”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5xO8p-JcIg
Joy and truth.
Oh yes. I have a feeling that “none of your damn business” is another of his turns of phrase that will resonate with a lot of Americans. And the more people find out about Project 2025 and “Our Plans for You”, all the more so.
David Cay Johnston gives his thoughts on Walz’s selection for the first six minutes and then discusses the payment of $10 million by Egypt to Trump
https://www.you.tube.com/watch?v=K8SgariDQjY
Interesting that company that bought his Post Office hotel in DC for inflated price has defaulted on payments, starting at 14:07
Relatedly: it was primary day in Michigan. I voted at 7:55 p.m. this evening as is my habit. I like to go at the very end of the day to find out what turnout was like. I was the next to last voter and turnout was pretty good for a primary, though it’s impossible to tell what the real numbers were for my precinct given early mail-in voting.
What struck me about this evening: the mood was incredibly upbeat, brisk, and I saw more Black voters in the short window I was at the polls than I did since 2020. My precinct is about 20-30% non-white but I have rarely seen BIPOC voters at the end of the day outside of general elections. This could be an Obama-type turnout if I had to swag a guess based on what I saw tonight.
Mrs. Lego and I took advantage of the absentee ballot option and avoided our fellow damned dirty apes, so I haven’t a clue how many Rethuglican poll watchers we had (if any).
On another note: thank you MN for the loan of your excellent governor!
I’m a Cornhusker, and I can confidently say, never underestimate a Chadron State grad! Balz to the Walz! Let’s go!
“I don’t see that the electorate has fundamentally changed in any way.”
You can’t be serious….
After Biden’s debate and Don the Con’s “Fight!” moment….the Democrats felt beaten.
Now….a massive feeling of empowerment and excitement, that the GOP is vulnerable and can be beat.
Coach Walz vs. JD Vance….
Kamala the Prosecutor vs. old criminal bigot Don the Con…
This is a whole new ball game. Momentum has shifted.
The Walz are closing in on the bad guys.
Harris – Walz
Gonna kick some balls
“Fare cazzi tuoi!” — do your own dicks!
Ma, che cazzo fate, stronzi?
One important thing abt the rally.
CSPAN was originally going to cover just from 5:30. But they started broadcasting at least an hour earlier. That meant that Bob Casey got TV time, and Josh Shapiro’s superb speech was broadcast as well (though he may have started around 5:30).
The enthusiasm for the ticket will result in down-ticket candidates getting earned media.
I had not heard that, but that is also good news. I agree that the addition of “Coach” Walz is going to help downballot for the Democrats. He is an extremely likable person and the contrast between he and Trump and his phony bronze tanner and bleach blonde poofed hair could not be more stark! Trump’s phoniness and lack of moral character shine through like a thousand blazing suns when you compare these men, not to mention his running mate, the Boy Blunder. Walz’s “get up off the couch” reference destroyed him in one blow. Thank you, Marcy for providing a forum to discuss this joyous event!
The expression on Harris’ face after Walz let fly the line about the couch was priceless.
Fox is running with “Walz is going to invite illegals to burn down your neighborhood”.
I’m paraphrasing.
I’m not pasting a link, because they suck.
For CFTFG, will it be possible to terrify a decisive portion of the 10-20% of low info, fence-sitting voters in the swing states to, in effect, join a cult?
How will turn-out models reflect the number of citizens who reached voting age after the 2020 election?
If swing state under-forty year old voters increase their turn-out by 5%, which candidate is this likely to favor?
In the swing states will evangelical voters who do not hope for a theocracy vote in greater numbers than they did in 2020?
_
These are some of the roughly-formed questions I’m pondering right now.
Yesterday, the ersatz hillbilly on a stalking tour appeared to be campaigning for Harris while also attacking Shapiro…whom she did *not* choose.
“J.D. Vance’s Backdrop Makes It Look Like He’s Campaigning for ‘Kamala’”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jd-vances-backdrop-makes-it-look-like-hes-campaigning-for-kamala
This morning the candidate and sentence-awaiter Trump, he of the “very fine people”, claimed the ticket is “very insulting to Jewish people”.
Weird, ‘identity politics’ extremists in disarray.
Apparently, Vance is trying to spit in the soup by running competing rallies. However, that strategy only works when the crowds are large enough to compare to the D headliners. It seems only 200 or so showed up in Philly for JD.
If it weren’t for the foreign money and the billionaire techbros voting with their checkbooks, Convict-1 would be toast already. Remember we still have the convention bounce and three more months of the GOP stepping on political rakes (thwap).
In spite of the Very Serious People saying it’s time for Convict-1 to drop out because of his legal and age-related infirmities that will never happen because the only way Convict-1 stays out of jail is by getting back in the WH.
OT: how long will it take to start putting AG Barr under a microscope?
You just provided a handy acronym for this particular group of people: WIPE.
When They Go Weird, We Go Walz! T-Shirt. Clever slogan.
A brief thought on why Walz may turn out to be our secret weapon.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/6/2261194/-A-brief-thought-on-why-Walz-may-turn-out-to-be-our-secret-weapon?
AND
This photo of Walz is topping the r/All subreddit early Tuesday afternoon.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/6/2261089/-This-photo-of-Walz-is-topping-the-r-All-subreddit-early-Tuesday-afternoon?
I think Walz is a great pick to contrast with Vance-
Vance wants 10 year olds to have babies and Walz wants them to have breakfast.
Nuff said.
Nicely put.
As a dad and after more than two decades of teaching, he also knows how tough puberty is to get through, while trying to learn everything life throws at you. Every teenager forgets things. Not every teenager can afford what they need. He wants to relieve young girls and women from the embarrassment of not having ready access to period products.
Like food, this is designed to help kids learn by removing removable distractions, for a modest cost. It’s also about modeling how people should treat each other. That’s a good thing and an easy trade-off that more educators and politicians should get behind.
Wow! It was a very exciting introduction for Tim Walz. Even while the video wasn’t captioned, I could get a sense of an overwhelming dose of joy and excitement. Walz looks perfectly at peace in his own skin, relaxed like it was Sunday in heaven. He has a beautiful, infectious smile, and his wife looked 100% present in her support of him. I was able to read lips a little and I’m looking forward to a captioned speech where I get to join in on the excitement. He’s such a handsome guy!
As Lucinda Williams has so eloquently sung,
I don’t want you anymore ’cause you took my joy/
I don’t want you anymore, you took my joy/
You took my joy, I want it back/
You took my joy, I want it back
Insert photo of Walz with cat.
Caption: “Walz grabbing his rescue pussy.”
Geographers literally uniting! Here is Tim Walz giving the keynote at the recent Esri User’s Conference (the week before President Biden stepped back). So unassuming, but right on the money. I am pretty excited about the campaign.
https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/events/uc/plenary/sessions/tim-walz