The headlines... Oy Vey

The rise of the Harris ticket fuels tantrums in the punditocracy and the major newspapers still have the big sadz. Drink in their sweet tears.

I get a little glee watching the “never trump” opinion authors blubber about how we shouldn’t ‘coronate’ Harris, and as they watch the possibility of a contested floor fight at the convention.

Mostly I suspect this is because their pet favorite candidate isn’t in the mix.

First we have George Will:

Alas, George Will is 83, so he can seriously sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. I think it has been more than 40 years since I found I agreed with Will (it was around protectionist tariffs on steel in the 1980’s)

Then there is the WaPo’s political columnist Karen Tumulty’s shit take on the VP choice:

Look, I like Mark Kelly, Husband of Gabby Giffords, former astronaut, but we need every Democratic senator we have, and he doesn’t do shit for the mid-west states that are must win.

It’s a decision she should make as quickly as the vetting process allows. Lucky for her, Harris has a wealth of appealing options among her party’s next generation of leaders. That starts with its governors, some of whom come from states Democrats need most to win, including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

It is easy to make an argument for any of them, but I think Harris’s smartest selection would be Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

If we had a four or more senate D majority I might advocate for Kelly, but Arizona is still veering from purple to blue, and this would set that back.

Not as bad of a take as Will, but still sit the fuck down.

Something good!

Not a dig, but the Post’s Phillip Bump in his usual, analytical way analyzed the contrast between Harris and Trump. It is definitely worth the read of this gifted link.

Please dive in.

What about the Gray Lady?

Yeah, it is still all pissy and whining that Biden wouldn’t sit for the birthright of publisher AG Sulzberger’s desired long-form interview. Let’s see what they are up to there…

First up, we have Ezra Klien -

Now the Democratic Party has a decision to make: an open convention or a coronation of Vice President Kamala Harris.

As you know if you’ve been listening to the show over the last year, I’ve been arguing for an open convention since February. I still believe it would have been a good idea. The right idea. What Democrats denied themselves with Biden was information. He ran functionally unopposed in the primary and avoided debates and interviews and news conferences. Democrats didn’t know until it was almost too late the toll age had taken. What a mini-primary leading up to an open convention would have offered is information.

But that’s not what happened. And in my conversations with top Democrats in recent weeks, I’ve come to the view that it’s unlikely to happen now for a few reasons. The first is that Biden did step aside, but it took a grueling, uncertain, painful month. The party is exhausted. It is tired of its internal drama. It wants to turn its attention back on Trump. It wants to raise money, build get-out-the-vote operations, run ads. And time is now short. The convention is mere weeks away.

Awww, his widdle fee-fee’s are hurt that the Dems didn’t heed his loft advice. Honestly, he’s the current leader in this week’s HGotW.

I gotta admit I almost admire his wheedling. He is the prototypical bedwetting progressive turd. I can almost see him jumping the horseshoe and go full Sarandon in an attempt to burn it all down.

That gets us to a Time’s favorite, an internal pundit roundtable:

Look, I would rather gargle with Liquid Drano than read anything that Ross Douthat and David French¹ have to say.

But it is not all bad news:

During Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential primary campaign in 2019, she developed a reputation she has been unable to shake — that she’s a messenger in search of a message. This idea has also characterized her tenure as vice president and driven some Democrats’ concern about her potentially replacing President Biden at the top of the ticket. But it is outdated.

In 2019, Ms. Harris was competing on progressive bona fides with the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She was running at a time when progressive voters were uniquely focused on criminal-justice reform and suspicious of law enforcement, which was a problem for Ms. Harris, who had built her political career as a prosecutor. Hemmed in by these dynamics, Ms. Harris struggled to define her brand. (emphasis mine)

Yeah, that is a fair assessment of her trying to stand out in the crowded field in 2019/2020, but this time, without that far left slate to try to stand out in, she stands alone, and that is a different calculus, one that plays to her strengths:

She faces a different moment today. Less than four months from the general election, she would be competing not for progressive points but to keep the felon Donald Trump out of office. She would be doing so at a time when many voters are concerned about crime and public safety, and when prosecutors have assumed heroic status in the fight to prosecute Mr. Trump and his cronies.

This time around, Ms. Harris could finally be herself.

Fuck yeah, be yourself, bring the heat, talk like a prosecutor, and bat away the racism and misogyny that is going to flood the zone.

And you know that is going to bring out the fierce K-Hive (any of my readers who still are on Twitter, please weigh in on whether that is back in force, I suspect it is just giddy.)

Then, there is this from Charlotte Clymer that I have to share:

Please, keep her in your prayers. The risk is real.

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Coda

Yesterday (Monday, July 22) I saw pieces in both the Post and the Times about how it was “good” to have a jungle battle on the floor, and I wanted to write about that.

However, as the Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris, and the dreams of the editors and pundits evaporated, all these posts by the “Editorial Boards” disappeared.

Uh, yeah, like I give an iota of a damn about their opinions.

This was posted on Sunday when their chubbies seemed to indicate a floor brawl:

The next Democratic nominee should acknowledge and offer solutions for the pain and disruptions caused by uncontrolled immigration. America needs immigrants. The nation also needs better policies for controlling their flow into the country.

Voters are angry about the cost of living. Democrats particularly need to offer better ideas for addressing the biggest line item in most household budgets: the high cost of housing.

And Mr. Biden’s successor needs to engage with the American people. Mr. Biden has had fewer unscripted interactions with the public and the news media than any other president in recent decades, often leaving voters with a sense that he was hiding from the public. A new presidential candidate should demonstrate exactly the opposite tendency, showing both a willingness to be open about plans for the future and a real interest in what voters have to say in return.

But then they are big mad that there isn’t a fucking horse-race to fuel their click-bait trach they post.

Choosing Ms. Harris would be a reasonable path for Democrats to take; she has been Mr. Biden’s running mate, and while no votes were cast for her as a presidential candidate in primaries, the president’s voters expected her to be on the ticket in November.

Nonetheless, party delegates should have a voice in a decision of this consequence. There are other qualified Democrats who could take on Mr. Trump and win, and picking a candidate without a real contest is how the party got into a position of anointing a standard-bearer that large majorities of Democrats and independents had profound concerns about. While the hour is late, there is still time to put leading candidates through a process of public scrutiny before the party’s nominating convention begins on Aug. 19, to inform the choice of a nominee and to build public support.

The Times can fuck right off.

Last Licks

I need to tip my hat to Joe Biden. He has been the best president of my lifetime, delivering the goods in the face of adversity, and while in 2020 he wasn’t my first choice, but he has done a phenomenal job.

And the Dark Brandon was absolutely part of this baller move. Withdrawing via a letter, on Sunday afternoon (after the morning talk shows) depriving the MAGA twat-waffles of venues to whinge or gloat.

No, it was just perfection, played to a T, and the butthurt in the MAGAsphere is just GLORIOUS!

Well done Sir!

1. I know a lot of people like David French, but I think he is the typical evangelical douchenozzle who was surprised when his congregation turned on him for his advocacy against Trump. But instead of looking at the people he associated with, he seems oblivious to the racism and misogyny of his sect of Evangelicalism. Fuck him.

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