In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

As I've already noted here, I was puzzled that the Harris campaign had chosen to die on the hill of unmuted mics in trying to renegotiate the rules for the September debate, since Trump's record in debates is that he wins them whether or not mics are open (the second Hillary debate in 2016) or muted (the June 27 debate this year). Most commentators thought Kamala's handlers were pinning their hopes on the slim chance that Trump would embarrass himself trying to interrupt Kamala, giving her the opening to scold him with "I'm speaking!" Big whoop, huh? It turns out, at least based on this story in Politico, that they actually had something else in mind : Kamala Harris had planned to object, fact-check and directly question Donald Trump while he was speaking during their debate next week. But now, with rules just finalized to mute the candidates when their opponents speaks, campaign officials said Harris advisers are scrambling to rewrite their playbook....

Here's the conundrum leading up to the debate, from David Strom at Hot Air : Kamala could appear on stage drunk out of her mind, vomit on the moderators, and do a striptease revealing she is a lizard person, and her poll numbers would only drop by 3 points. Everybody anticipates this, because it's what happened after Joe Biden's disastrous June 27 -- his performance was so outlandishly bad that Nancy Pelosi had him off the Democrat ticket within a month -- but the polls didn't shift a bit in the wake of the debate. In fact, this was the basis of Joe's own argument for why he should stay, the polls hadn't changed, the race was still within the margin of error. Nancy Pelosi didn't believe it, and the rest is history. I think it's also understood that by "the polls", people mean the Real Clear Politics average , but nobody will quite come out and say this. And as of this morning, it has Harris leading the notional popular vote by 1.8, ...

Joe Biden, back from vacation, was out and about yesterday, but it had nothing to do with Kamala, whom he at least nominally supports. Via the New York Post: President Joe Biden visited a small town in western Wisconsin Thursday to talk up his infrastructure and energy spending in the swing state at a local electrical supply company. The visit to the Dairy State, his first since stepping out of the presidential race, was on official presidential business and unconnected to the Harris-Walz campaign — but that didn’t stop Biden from mentioning his “predecessor” Donald Trump several times during his twenty-five-minute speech. according to CNN, this is fine: Harris’ political momentum and her chances in November hinge partly on her success in painting herself as a fresh option for voters and dispelling any notion she’s pitching for the second term of the unpopular president, Joe Biden. But Kamala was in New Hampshire Wednesday, and none of the usual suspects like Bernie ...

I guess they showed up. 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/LVx7cGEqVr — Faith In America (@NWIPatriots) September 4, 2024 Mark Halperin (for instance, here ) has been among the few observers trying to figure out, as I have, why Kamala had a rally in New Hampshire yesterday. Some of the questions include whether New Hampshire is in play, as was thought possible before Joe left the race -- but if it is, the race is effecively over, so why go to all the trouble of holding a rally there? But if New Hampshire isn't in play, the same question applies: New Hampshire has 4 electoral votes. Wouldn't the time and money be better spent in Pennsylvania? On top of that, the September 10 debate is coming up on Tuesday. The New Hampshire rally took one day away from debate prep, something Kamala badly needs. But beyond that, the rally, ostensibly in New Hampshire, imported people from Massachusetts in 27 buses, according to the count by one bystander , so that the operative purpose of the rally could...

I posted yesterday about the lack of Harris surrogates, which seems tro be forcing the campaign to send its top candidates plus the Second Dude to put out seemingly minor fires in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia. I'm still scratching my head about this -- but now there's a piece in Politico that has other commentators puzzled: Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic National Committee said Tuesday they are sending nearly $25 million to support down-ballot Democrats — an earlier investment and far more money than the top of the ticket has sent in past election years. The funding in part reflects the Harris operation’s ability to spread money around after record fundraising over the past six weeks. But it is also a recognition of the importance of this year’s down-ballot races — which overlap with many of the swaths of the country that could decide the presidential election, and whose outcomes will substantially affect how Harris, or former President Donald ...

In this morning's news , In the coming days, Kamala Harris and surrogates for her campaign are doing events in blue states that are supposedly safe for her. Well and good -- but then I said, "Surrogetes? She has surrogates? Who are they?" The story quotes Breitbart , which says, The campaign is sending Harris and her top surrogates — ticket mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and husband Doug Emhoff — to blue states after a weekend of planned swing state visits. So her top surrogates are a couple of cheesy old white guys, especially Doug Emhoff , whom the press has called a sex symbol. So I asked myself off the top of my head who Trump's surrogates are, and I answered J D Vance, RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Byron Donalds, Don Jr, Eric, Lara, the 13 Gold Star families in the Arlington controversy, Rep Elise Stefanik, Gov Kristi Noem -- the list keeps getting longer. Why does Kamala have so few surrogates? But the main story at the links above has to do with Kama...

Here's an example of the pickle Tim Walz is in. Via ABC News, Republicans want voters to think Walz lied about his dog. False GOP claims could cause real damage : Republicans turned Tim Walz’s outing at a dog park nearly three years ago into an attack on the Democratic vice presidential nominee this week, working on a false online narrative to paint Walz as a liar. The intended takeaway was that Walz somehow lied about the identity of his dog, Scout, by describing two different dogs as his beloved pet in separate X posts. Social media users shared screenshots of the posts as alleged proof that the Minnesota governor exhibits a pattern of deceit, garnering thousands of likes, shares and reactions across platforms. In one post, from June 2022, Walz is pictured hugging a black dog. The caption reads, “Sending a special birthday shoutout to our favorite pup, Scout.” The other, posted in October 2022, showed Walz beside a brown and white dog with the caption: “Couldn’t think...