By Any Metric, She's The Stronger Candidate
The GOP is calling it a “temporary convention bounce,” but, fact of the matter, is that Kamala’s polling has been going straight up since Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed her. As for convention bounces… Trump bounced downwards after this crazy convention. And that doesn’t seem to be temporary either. And by the way, early voting starts next month in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Illinois and Virginia.
538’s polling average, which still uses worthless GOP polling firms in the averages has Kamala up by 3.6%, rising as Trump flatlines at 43.7. The brand new Fairleigh Dickinson poll, out this morning, has Kamala up by 7 (50-43%). Convention bounce? That could be part of it. Today, Madison, Wisconsin’s top newspaper, the Cap Times explained it another way: “Trump is a twice-impeached, multiply convicted, wholly dishonorable candidate who literally tried to overturn the results from Wisconsin in the 2020 election. The American electorate rejected him by 7 million votes. He should not be allowed near the White House, and neither should Vance, whose wild-eyed extremism suggests that he has no more respect for democracy than Trump. If the Republican Party was serious about politics, and serious about governing at this definitional moment in American history, it would have rejected Trump and Trumpism at its convention in Milwaukee. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Republicans doubled down on their dysfunction, and, in so doing, they disqualified their ticket.”
And it’s not all about what’s wrong with Trump: “In stark contrast, Harris and Walz are uniquely qualified. In addition to her four years of experience as vice president, Harris served ably in the U.S. Senate, as California’s attorney general and as San Francisco’s district attorney. Walz, a former teacher who for decades served in the National Guard, has 12 years of experience as a member of the U.S. House and six years as one of the most effective and progressive governors in the history of Minnesota. Harris and Walz are ready to govern. They will do so with a domestic policy vision that builds upon the successes of the Biden-Harris administration, working to counter inflation by cracking down on corporate price gouging, investing in housing construction and initiatives to make home buying easier for working Americans, cutting child poverty and addressing the medical debt crisis. Trump says Harris’ proposals are radical. That’s absurd. These are relatively modest interventions that, in many instances, are less ambitious than the anti-inflation initiatives of former Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. And the effort to tackle medical debt, while surely welcome, falls far short of the single-payer ‘Medicare for All’ reform that represents the best strategy for cutting costs and improving care.”
This morning, the L.A. Times ran an OpEd by RFK, Jr’s brother, Max Kennedy. He’ certain that their father “would have despised Donald Trump. Trump was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully my father used to prosecute. Robert F. Kennedy’s life was dedicated to promoting the safety, security and happiness of the American people. That is why he would have so admired another former prosecutor, Kamala Harris. Her career, like his, has been all about decency, dignity, equality, democracy and justice for all. Trump is the enemy of all that. The only thing he seems to be for is himself and, disturbingly, autocrats such as Vladimir Putin, whom my father would have regarded as an existential threat to our country.”
He called his brother’s endorsement of Trump “sordid… a hollow grab for power, a strategic attempt at relevance. It is the opposite of what my father admired: ‘the unselfish spirit that exists in the United States of America.’… My father was an anti-racist who joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in common cause, and forged a powerful bond with African Americans everywhere he went in 1968. Donald Trump is a lifelong racist whose entire career has been shaped by his dislike of people with a different skin color. My father believed in expanding legal immigration because he came from an immigrant family and knew how much talent and drive hard-working families bring if we open our doors to them. Donald Trump stirs up hatred of immigrants, whom he mischaracterizes as criminals and drug addicts. My father believed in the rule of law, as a prosecutor, and as the attorney general of the United States. Donald Trump has contempt for the law, as evidenced by his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election and his ongoing legal struggles. He is the first felon to run as a serious candidate for the presidency. My father believed in bringing Americans together. He said, ‘I don’t think that we have to shoot at each other, to beat each other, to curse each other and criticize each other, I think that we can do better in this country.’ Donald Trump’s entire campaign is about stoking division. My father loved the priceless inheritance of our land and water and surely was an environmentalist in his way, even if the term did not catch on until later. It feels especially hypocritical that Bobby, a genuine environmentalist, has thrown in with the most anti-environmental president in our history, who promises to ‘drill, baby, drill’ if elected. My father was against the ‘mindless menace’ of gun violence. Donald Trump is against any meaningful form of regulating guns. My father believed in democracy. Donald Trump does not. My father believed in the truth. Donald Trump does not.”
One last thing: if Kamala wins, she stops Trump and that’s crucial. But to give her a chance to build the more progressive country most Americans want, it is also urgent that the Democrats hold the Senate and win back the House. Look at these policies and how the general public perceives them:
These are not radical ideas for anyone but the greed-and-avarice-driven billionaire class. Please consider helping the Democrats hold the Senate here and defanging Trump's most pernicious allies by flipping the House here.
Comments