Here’s Minnesota governor Tim Walz (picked by Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice President), addressing the conventioneers tonight.
Monday/ red, blue and battleground states 🇺🇸
Happy Monday.
The Democratic National Convention is underway.
*Fun fact: Richard Nixon is the technically the only US president from the West Coast, ever. Yes, there was Ronald Reagan who was governor of California, before he was elected president in 1980, but he was born in Illinois.
[From the Washington Post]
Sunday/ the Democrats’ convention 🫏
The Democratic Party’s national convention starts tomorrow in Chicago.
A headline in the New York Times reads ‘Democrats’ Unity Convention Has One Giant Exception: The Gaza War’.
From bbc.com:
President Biden will headline the convention on Monday night. The crowd will also hear from First Lady Jill Biden, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other Democratic leaders.
On Tuesday, former President Barack Obama is expected to deliver remarks. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Ms Harris’s husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, will also address the convention on Tuesday.
Wednesday’s line-up reportedly features former President Bill Clinton and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, among others.
Ms Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will give the prime-time speech that night after his nomination.
The most important night of the convention is Thursday, when Vice-President Harris will take the stage. She will formally accept the presidential nomination and give her speech on the final night of the convention dedicated “For the Future.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will also take the stage at some point during the week.
[Poster by Shepard Fairey]
Saturday/ frightening 😱
Toto, I’ve got a feeling this isn’t Trump’s show anymore, says the heading on the opinion piece that accompanies the cartoon.
.. and then there is Tom Nichols from The Atlantic that says about Trump’s press conference (‘press conference’ is flattering Trump) at Mar-a-Lago this week ‘His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny’.
Tuesday/ it’s Harris-Walz 👩🏽👴🏼
I was convinced that VP Kamala Harris would pick Governor Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania as her running mate, but we learned this morning that it is Governor Tim Walz from Minnesota.
Here’s Lisa Lerer writing for the New York Times:
In selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has picked a partner who is many things she is not: a product of small-town America. A union member known to campaign in a T-shirt and camo hat. A white guy who exudes Midwestern dad energy.
And, perhaps most important, a politician who has had to rely on the support of independent, or even Republican, voters to win elections.
Their pairing is somewhat predictable; a cardinal rule of vice-presidential selection is to construct the ticket with political balance in mind. But it is also a statement about what many Democrats believe is one of Ms. Harris’s key vulnerabilities: that she is perceived as too liberal, putting even the small slice of rural, working-class and moderate voters that she needs across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan out of her reach.
Thursday/ free at last 😘
This is wonderful news.
That is Evan Gershkovich to the left of President Biden, hugging his mother Ella Milman. The prisoner swap with Russia ultimately involved 24 detainees and 7 countries.
From CNN online:
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva have landed in the United States, following a historic prisoner exchange between Russia and the West. The returnees were greeted with tears and embraces by their joyous families at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also on the tarmac to welcome them after their plane touched down about 20 minutes before midnight on Thursday.
Thursday/ the veepstakes 📇
Veepstakes is an informal term for the quadrennial process in which candidates for president of the United States select a running mate.
If the ticket wins, the running mate becomes the vice president of the United States— and first in line to the presidency.
-Wikipedia
The Trump campaign announced that their candidate is backing out of the second debate that had been scheduled for Sep. 10 (that would have been with Pres. Biden, but would now be with Vice Pres. Harris).
We should know in two weeks who the other name on the Democratic Party’s ticket is, for the Nov. 2024 election for president of the United States.
Monday/ Day 1 👩🏽
[From the New York Times online]
On Day 1 of her campaign, she drew endorsements from her final possible rivals, hauled in record sums of cash and attacked Donald Trump.
Should the Democrats have spent more time and effort to hold a mini primary, or townhalls, or debates, to encourage challengers to Kamala* Harris to step forward? Probably not.
*Pronounce comma-la as in ,-la
Says Lydia Polgreen from the NYT:
I think Harris will be fine. We are all overestimating Trump’s strength. Our colleague Jamelle Bouie has been saying for a while that the vibe feels very 2016, with the soothing sense of inevitability on the G.O.P. side rather than the Democratic side. I agree. I think there is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for anyone but Biden or Trump, and it might matter a lot less than we think who the person who stands in is.
Sunday/ a new campaign: Harris for President 👩🏽
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President.
And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
For my part: my very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President.
And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.
Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.
Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”
– A message from President Biden on the Biden-Harris campaign website
To be sure, Vice President Kamala Harris is not officially the candidate for President yet— that is what the upcoming Democratic National Convention is for, which starts Aug. 19.
There is no formal rule-based structure that transfers pledged delegates from one candidate to another (Biden to Harris) ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Under the Democratic National Committee rules, pledged delegates are bound to initially vote for the candidate they’re assigned.
Since Biden has left the race, delegates are now free to support whomever they choose.
Biden’s endorsement will nudge them towards voting for Harris, though.
A much more forceful endorsement would have been for Biden to resign as President, handing over the reigns to Harris, and vaulting her to the top of the ticket that she has been on all along.
Then there is the latest political parlor game: trying to guess correctly who Harris will pick as her running mate once she has secured the nomination.
Thursday/ win with PREZ? 🫢
Today the Washington Post reported that former President Barack Obama has said (in private conversations), that President Joe Biden’s chances at a successful presidential run in 2024 have declined and that he needs to examine whether it’s the best choice for him to remain in the race.
Should I play PREZ— slang for president, and allowed— but netting only 15 points?
Maybe I should trade in my letters, get 0 for this turn, and hope that it will put in a better position to win after the next round or two.
It’s a tough call.
Wednesday/ the drama continues 😷
This morning, it was reported that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), his party’s nominee for Senate, called on Biden to step aside. Schiff is a prominent Democrat, but also closely aligned with ex-speaker Nancy Pelosi, making his words carry even more weight.
Later in the day, Biden’s covid diagnosis was reported.
Here’s Dan Balz in today’s Washington Post:
Biden has rebuffed all calls for him to step aside, has retreated to what is described as a shrinking inner circle of advisers and remains confident in his ability to win the election even if two-thirds of Democrats nationally say he should pass the torch, according to a new AP/NORC poll.
The covid diagnosis adds to Biden’s string of bad luck, possibly drawing more attention to his age and physical strength. Since the debate, he has stepped up his schedule and his travels, holding rallies, doing interviews and conducting Zoom conversations with different groups from his party.
At times, he has been vigorous and energetic. At other times, not so. Even at his best, he has not put to rest concerns about his capacity to win the election and serve another four years.
Saturday/ an assassination attempt 🥷
Wednesday/ a rough week 😵
It’s only Wednesday, and it’s been a rough week for the Biden campaign.
How long will this go on? This is not sustainable.
So far:
Nine House Democrats and one Democratic Senator have publicly called on President Biden to drop out of the presidential race;
Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker emerita, said this morning ‘The President needs to decide what to do’ and avoided expressing explicit support for him;
George Stephanopoulos (news anchor that interviewed Biden after the debate) appeared to say to a passer-by on a New York City street that he does not think Biden can serve four more years (per a video clip from TMZ);
Actor and filmmaker and Democratic fundraiser George Clooney calls for Biden to drop out, in a very direct and brutally honest op-ed for the New York Times.
Clooney writes in the op-ed: ‘But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate’.
Biden with the laser eyes is called Dark Biden. Biden’s team has embraced “Dark Brandon,” reappropriating a right-wing conspiracy meme* that depicted the president as a menacing force and used a nickname, “Brandon,” that become an in-joke among conservatives for insulting him.
*meme \MEEM\ noun. an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.
Saturday/ 9 days, and still a crisis 🚨
I watched the much-anticipated George Stephanopoulos interview with President Biden, and thought: no, that won’t do it.
To the question “Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?” Biden’s answer was, “I don’t think I did, no.”
About getting out of the race, Biden offered “If the Lord Almighty came down and said: ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race”. That does not do it for me, either.
This piece ends with the following:
The House returns to Washington on Monday, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) is looking to rally fellow senators to call for a change. Multiple people publicly vouching for Biden, at the behest of the White House and campaign, privately say there’s no path.
His family is still with him. The race is still single digits. And Biden remains hopeful. As he likes to say, America can do anything if its people work together — “There’s not a single thing we can’t do.”
But in private, people around him have detected some shift. He admits the danger now, can sound more somber at times.
One person who spoke to him over the Fourth of July holiday said, “I think he is focused on recovering, but I personally think he’s still in the denial phase of grief.”
Thursday/ about the debate 🤷♂️
‘Not to belabor the point, but this was a Biden campaign strategy, to have this debate’
– MSNC talk show host Alex Wagner to California governor Gavin Newsom, discussing President Biden’s poor— disastrous?— debate performance that was painful to watch.
Governor Newsom pointed out that the Biden administration delivered on many of the Democratic Party’s priorities and that voters should not write off the Democrats based on one debate’s performance by President Biden.
‘You have the morals of an alley cat’ says Pres. Biden to Trump, after listing all Trump’s sex scandals and his conviction.
Monday/ green phone or blue phone? ☎️
The election result in South Africa is now official.
The ANC party claimed only 159 out of the 400 seats in parliament, down 71 seats from 2019.
Under the constitution, the newly elected parliament must convene within two weeks of the results being declared, and one of its first acts must be to choose the nation’s next president.
Coalition talks are underway behind closed doors.
Hopefully a deal can be struck between the ANC and the DA: a pivot to the center.
Few analysts expect an ANC-MK tie-up, given the bitter acrimony between them.
The MK on the green phone stands for Mkhonto weSizwe, the corrupt ex-president Zuma’s new party. The DA on the blue phone stands for Democratic Alliance, the party governing Western Cape Province, that came in second in the elections.
[Cartoon by Niel van Vuuren in South Africa’s Beeld newspaper]
Friday/ this party is— over 😵
Welp.
With 96% of the votes counted in South Africa’s national election of Wednesday, it is clear that the predictions (of the demise of the African National Congress majority) had become true, and then some.
The party that had once commanded 70% of the electorate’s support (in 2004), and still got 57% of the national vote in 2019, will now scrape in with barely 40% of the vote.
Yes, they still have the biggest share, but for the first time since South Africa became a full democracy in 1994, there will be a coalition government.
M.K. is uMkhonto weSizwe, ex-president’s Jacob Zuma’s political party.
A coalition between the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA) may be the best for the country, but will the ANC be willing to make concessions, such as letting the DA be in charge of key national departments such as National Treasury, Health and and Home Affairs?
[Graphic from IEC dashboard at https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/]
Thursday/ guilty on all counts 👨⚖️
A jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a crime that under New York State law carries a possible sentence that ranges from probation to four years in prison.
-Reported by William K. Rashbaum for the New York Times, May 30, 2024
So Trump is now a convicted felon.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jul. 11, four days before the start of the Republican convention.
(Will the Republican Party nominate a convict for President?)
Even if Trump is given jail time (possible* but not likely), his lawyers will keep him out of jail by starting a lengthy appeals process, and posting bail money.
*His Secret Service detail will go to jail with him, basically. They are required by law to protect him 24/7.
As for calling it a ‘hush money trial’ : it was actually an ‘election fraud conspiracy trial’, which is why the falsification of these business records were charged as felonies.
Wednesday/ South Africans vote ❎
It was election day in South Africa, and the vote counting is under way. Out of a population of 62 million, a record 27.8 million voters have been registered.
The main party leaders are (from bbc.com/news):
African National Congress/ANC: Cyril Ramaphosa – union leader, mine boss, president;
Democratic Alliance/ DA: John Steenhuisen – the man vowing to ‘rescue’ South Africa;
Economic Freedom Front/ EFF: Julius Malema – the radical agenda-setter;
uMkhonto weSizwe/ MK: Jacob Zuma – ex-president, spent time in jail, the political wildcard.
Citizens vote for political parties, though— and then the national assembly of 400 representatives, based on the outcome of the national election, will vote for a president. A simple majority of 201 suffices.
The Big Question for 2024: will national support for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC party fall below 50% for the first time since 1994?
We will soon know. (The final results should be available by Sunday, or earlier). If that is the case, the ANC will have to form a coalition with other parties to choose a president and form a governing majority. I cannot see that even in this scenario, anyone other than Ramaphosa will become president. But hopefully the ANC’s majority power (that they had abused ever after Mandela had left office in 1999), will be reined in.
It is a minor accomplishment just to find your party on each of the ballots.
South Africa’s election management body, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), had cleared 14,889 candidates, including 70 political parties and 11 independents, to contest 887 seats in the May 29 vote.
[Picture posted by Rene Vollgraaff@vollgraaffR on X]
Thursday/ another credibility implosion ☄️
So Nikki Haley* will vote for Trump, she said on Wednesday. She had called him ‘bad’, ‘unqualified to be President’, ‘do not trust him’ blah blah blah.
She didn’t bother to wait for the outcome of Trump’s first criminal trial— 34 felony counts over allegations that he falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. (Closing arguments for Trump’s case are on Tue May 28 and then the case goes to the jury).
*Former governor of South Carolina, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, and the last remaining challenger to Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries until she dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday in March.
Cartoon by Michael Ramirez/Las Vegas Review-Journal for The Washington Post.