I thought this was a BS way to frame the abortion issue last night and because of the rule that the moderators could not fact check Vance’s lies (or even their own questions!) Walz had to just repeat over and over again that it wasn’t true. As TNR reports: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was asked to respond to Donald Trump’s outlandish abortion talking point during the vice presidential debate Tuesday. “Former President Trump said in the last debate that you believe that abortion ‘in the ninth month is absolutely fine.’ Yes or no, is that what you support?” asked CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell. “That’s not what the bill says, but look, this issue is what’s on everyone’s mind,” Walz replied, explaining that Trump had made way to destroy national protections for abortion. During the presidential debate last month, Trump had claimed that Walz supported abortion in the ninth month—and after. Trump claimed that Walz “also says, ‘Execution after birth’—execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born—is OK.
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Representative Mike Collins posted this “perfected” image of JD Vance on his Twitter feed yesterday: Uhm, no: Is this Collins’s fantasy? Vance isn’t hot enough for him as he is? What? And they wonder why people think they’re weird.
Rick Perlstein is out with another interesting piece in the American Prospect today, this time about “undecided voters.” He references the great Chris Hayes piece from 2004 that I’ve often discussed over the years. It had the same effect on me that it had on Perlstein who describes it as “the most important piece of political journalism I have ever encountered.” As he says: The future MSNBC host’s TNR piece was an account of the lessons he learned canvassing among undecided voters in Wisconsin for John Kerry. It incinerates a basic foundation of how political junkies think: “Perhaps the greatest myth about undecided voters is that they are undecided because of the ‘issues.’ That is, while they might favor Kerry on the economy, they favor Bush on terrorism; or while they are anti-gay marriage, they also support social welfare programs.” Chris noted that while there were a few people he talked to like that, “such cases were exceedingly rare.
Writing about a debate on the morning after always feels more like theater criticism than political analysis. How did they look, how did they sound, did they come off as authentic and real or were they phony and glib? Were they believable to the faceless Real Americans watching who were being asked to decide which of them to vote for? But that’s what these televised debates really are. The substance is usually secondary because they’ve practiced their lines and have a specific message they want to impart regardless of the topic they’re being asked to address. They’re political rituals which we use to decide if the person appears to be someone we want to watch perform the role of whatever office they are seeking. The worst debate ritual we’ve all ever witnessed happened last June when President Joe Biden was seen to be doddering and incompetent. It wasn’t that most Democrats disagreed with his policies to the extent that he articulated them or were unhappy with his record, quite the opposite. It was his performance and it resulted in him having to withdraw from the race.
I just wanted to check in to give people an update from Tom Sullivan. He’s doing fine. He’s staying at a friend’s house and power came on last night. His own house is still out. They still have no water and are having to bring it in from a creek nearby for flushing and bathing. WiFi is sporadic. However, there does seem to be a lot of services flowing and local businesses are coming to the rescue with free water and supplies to keep things going. Some grocery stores are open and Jose Andres is in town, so the townsfolk even have some good eats. The airport is letting in some flights but it’s erratic. Lots of helicopters, fire trucks and other rescue vehicles have been going night and day. Lots of people are still missing. I haven’t had the heart to even ask him about the prospects for the election in his area. I’m not all that hopeful, I’m sorry to say. Asheville is one of the blue cities the Democrats were depending on… But we’ll see. You can be sure if there’s a way to get people out to vote, Tom will be there working to see that it gets done.
A reader friend by the name of Sean Kelly, a scientist, seeing me flail about trying to deal with polling, offered this explanation and agreed to let me share it with you in case you are feeling the same way. It cleared a few things up for me: So. Political polling. It is basically experts making data informed guesses, and the reported margins of error are pretty much meaningless in context. Experts making informed guesses are a useful thing, and the best realistic option, but poll results are not scientifically rigorous things. Let me explain some of that context. The reality of political polling usually involves people that answer their phone when the call is from an unknown number. That skews the sample to older people, as many people avoid scammers and random sales people by not answering calls by unknown numbers. Older people grew up in a society where avoiding callers was impolite, so are more likely to pick up – not certain, but more likely. Alternatively, a small army of people can buttonhole people on the street, but that skews the poll to shoppers or business people that are out on the street.
Some of it, at least That was last night. This is today: Special counsel Jack Smith has outlined new details of former President Donald Trump and his allies’ sweeping and “increasingly desperate” efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, in a blockbuster court filing Wednesday aimed at defending Smith’s prosecution of Trump following the Supreme Court’s July immunity ruling. Trump intentionally lied to the public, state election officials, and his own vice president in an effort to cling to power after losing the election, while privately describing some of the claims of election fraud as “crazy,” prosecutors alleged in the 165-page filing. “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” the filing said.
The elite media doesn’t like this sort of thing but it’s smart. Kamala Harris is doing outreach to Black males through alternative media, which is where many of them, like many Americans generally, get their news. I thought this was particularly well done: These influencers have a million subscribers on YouTube and more on other platforms. I had never watched their show but Harris had me at hello so there’s not much reason to target me. This is group of voters she needs and she’s going where they are. Now this feed has 4.1 million followers on Instagram, a million on Facebook and 9.2 million on twitter. Think it makes sense to do this? I do: I keep hearing that Walz and Harris aren’t doing enough campaigning. I think maybe the media just isn’t seeing it. And anyway, Harris did a barn burner of a rally in Vegas yesterday: They’re firing on all cylinders. Let’s hope it works.
A new ruling from Judge McBurney in Georgia overturning the abortion ban and allowing the procedure to continue is amazing. “While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State — and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work — the balance of rights favors the woman.” “Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.” “For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.