In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I keep saying that the closest historical parallel we have to this year's presidential campaign is 1972, when the Democrats were forced to swap out their vice presidential candidate only weeks after he'd been nominated. But even before that, another parallel is that year's Democrat convention, which is one of the few in modern history, either Democrat or Republican, that didn't produce a bounce in the polls, however brief it may have been. This site lists the respectrive poll bounces for each party following its nominating convention for each presidential election since 1964. The bounce for McGovern in 1972 was 0; the bounce for Nixon that year was 7. In fact, the Democrat bounce was bigger in other years that still turned out badly for them -- in 1980, Jimmy Carter got 10; in 1984, Walter Mondale got 9; in 1988, Michael Dukakis got 7. The only bounces that were worse for either party was John Kerry's -1 in 2004 and Mitt Romney's -1 in 2012. Wednesday...

For now, I don't know what to do with the information overload that's the DNC. I have an inchoate impression that there's no real plan for the campaign, and there are lots of signs that nobody competent is in charge, and we'll have to see how things shake out. But in the meantime, I want to focus on Tim Walz. For instance, what about whether he was really vetted? The best indication I can see is this: 🚨 BREAKING: I just confronted Eric Holder about why he didn’t vet Tim Walz over his Stolen Valor Holder: “F*CK YOU!!!” pic.twitter.com/6j1gzdkW2P — Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 21, 2024 It's hard to avoid thinking that if Holder is so determined to run away from questions about whether he vetted Walz, he may regret his role, or at least the public perception of it. Via Breitbart, According to the Associated Press, the process — managed by Holder — took 16 days, and ended with Walz being chosen. Since Walz was selected, he has been plagued...

I keep saying that the election cycle this year is closest to 1972, and another parallel is Joe's big farewell speech, which was pushed back almost to midnight Eastern time, reminiscent of McGovern in 1972 : The convention, which has been described as "a disastrous start to the general election campaign", . . . with sessions beginning in the early evening and lasting until sunrise the next morning. . . . A protracted vice presidential nominating process delayed McGovern's acceptance speech (which he considered "the best speech of his life") until 2:48 a.m.—after most television viewers had gone to bed. Last night, As the speakers leading up to Biden on the schedule began dragging on and on, speculation swirled about how and why the president had been shoved aside to speak when many Americans would already be asleep. “This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them — do they have to cut him out of prime time...

As I noted yesterday, although the Trump campaign focused attention early Sunday on the possibility that Kamala is impaired at many of her public events, the suggestion isn't new. I did a web search on "Kamala drunk" this morning, and I came up with the image above on Amazon, which was advertising this as just the tote bag you might want for this past July 4th. In fact, this could maybe make the right ladies look hip on the beach out in the Hamptons. The story hasn't hit all the alt aggregtators yet, but this one at Hot Air draws a reasonble inference : Is Kamala drunk most of the time? If you watch her talk with that possibility in mind, so much makes sense all of a sudden. All those word salads, the occasional slurring, the inappropriate laughs... These are all tells that her brain is fogged by something, and it may not be stupidity. Newsweek is already on the case : As Donald Trump grapples to combat the surge of support for Kamala Harris...

Kamala is an alcoholic? pic.twitter.com/Lwc0suHgZW — JKash 🍊MAGA Queen (@JKash000) August 15, 2024 Yesterday I noted that Kamala's scripted public appearances were nevertheless nasal and hyperactive, with a lot of over-the-top excitement. I embedded a longer video that included ther brief vignette above, which has bothered me from the first time I saw it. On August 7, Megyn Kelly said in an interview that there could be additional “negative reporting” about US Vice President Kamala Harris’ history which the public has yet to see. “She’s never been vetted, why would anybody vet her – she was put on the ticket by Joe Biden just to check a box,” she told Sky News host Paul Murray. “Done. It was over. Nobody had any interest in vetting her, and they knew she wasn’t a serious pick. “I think there’s going to be more coming out about her.” But over a week later, no more has come out, and Megyn herself has had nothing else to say. Just yesterday, it was being tea...

Over the past couple of weeks, we've begun to see public appearances from Kamala, however scripted and closely controlled, as well as joint events with Tampon Tim. What we still haven't seen is a good comedy impression of these performances, but I've got to think one is on the way -- in fact, Trump himself, whose standup talents are acknowledged, could well begin to imitate either one at his rallies, as he had been doing with Joe. One thing that's become plain is that neither Kamala nor Tim is comfortable with a national campaign. Walz has been a state-and-local-level politician throughout his career, and the photo at the top of this post shows how stiff and uncomfortable he seems on a national stage. It's also plain that Harris, despite a campaign for vice president in 2020 and four years in office, has never actually had to compete -- she's been a California machine politician who checked the right boxes, and her electoral contests were just pro forma. Thu...

Chris Queen asks at PJ Media this morning: Is it just me, or is Kamala Harris acting like she doesn't want to win the presidential election? Nothing her campaign has done comes across as the tactics of a team that wants to get across the finish line. He cites yesterday's case of the video she made with Walz that consists entirely of giggly small talk about white guy tacos and such, and he links to Matt Margolis: As Vance has said, "Kamala Harris isn't running a presidential campaign, she's producing a movie." But let's go to her choice of Walz as her running mate. What's peculiar is that one of Trump's senior campaign advisers, Chris LaCivita, who is a longtime Republican operative, in 2004 engineered the Bush campaign's use of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry, which proved to be highly effective. Walz, as it turned out, had misstated his military record much as Kerry had, and LaC...