WHO CAN STOP KAMALA?

 

The Democratic nominee for President, Kamala Harris has momentum. There was an Obama like vibe emanating from the Democratic Party Convention. Kamala has raised 540 million dollars in five weeks and hundreds of thousands of volunteers have joined the stronger Democratic ground game. Donald Trump has extended Kamala's honeymoon, forecasting that she would receive a 2 to 3 percent post convention bump in her poll numbers because presumably that’s what happens, except, for him. That prediction would boost her to a nearly 6 point lead of all voters that would allow her to run the swing states that Biden chalked up in 2020. All in all pretty remarkable - the Administration candidate has become the change factor and the challenger the stale incumbent. But that is far from a done deal. There are demographics where Harris is behind.

The positive grateful humble Vice President Harris thus far has delivered a flawless campaign making a sharp contrast with the negative whining omnipotent victim that is her opponent. She is portraying the contrast between her and Trump, not in Biden’s dark terms but rather framing Trump as an “unserious man who can do serious harm", that he and his running mate Vance are “weird” and they are “out of their minds” with their policies. Joy and optimism versus darkness and fear.

The Democratic Party have refashioned their message. They, not the MAGA crowd, were waving flags and screaming USA USA. They, not the MAGA crowd, were claiming that America was the greatest country in the world. (The Trump team were adamant that America was in decline and the laughing stock of the world), They, not the MAGA crowd, were a big tent inviting everyone including former Republicans to come in. They, not the MAGA crowd, “were not going back” and “when we fight we win”.

The Harris ecstatic month long campaign with coach Walz success is reflected in the polls.Yet the stalwarts like former Presidents Clinton and Obama at the Democratic National Convention, warned the delirious crowd that the road to victory was paved with massive stumbling blocks which leads up to the question, “Who can stop Kamala?”. They are mindful of the fact that polls at best reflect trends, that elections are decided at the margins, that in reality to win convincingly one needs to persuade eligible voters that otherwise stay at home as well as swing voters, (only 67 percent voted in 2020 and 5 percent didn’t even register), that there are only 7 states that really matter, that a Presidential election tussle usually lasts two years and they had only 75 days to seal the deal, that certain key demographics were leaning towards Trump and that elections are won on the ground.

The exit of Joe Biden lightened the Democratic burden dramatically and once again made the election about the danger of a second Trump term. The demographics that Kamala has to focus on are crucial and to a certain extent overlap. One that is front and center is the white working rural class males in the Rust Belt, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. If she won the latter she would win the election regardless of the outcome in the other purple states, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. 

THE WHITE MALE WORKERS IN THE MID WEST RUST BELT.

One of the reasons that Biden won in 2020 was that a slither of  Mid West white males came "home" .They were mostly without college degrees some of whom were in the rural areas. They had left the Democratic Party, (DP), in 2016 to vote for Trump. Biden had solid working class credentials which facilitated their  switch.

The MAGA Trump Party is now claiming to be the working class Party. The DP has reasserted its ownership as demonstrated at their Convention. The endorsement by nearly all the Unions, particularly and prominently the United Autoworker’s Union bears witness to their owning the mantle. Shawn Fain their leader is campaigning  and is “working on”  the 30 percent of the Union’s members who have supported Trump in the past. Harris et al are also parading Governor Walz, a regular rural football loving “coach” to  influence the turnout. Harris herself stood on the picket line but played a back seat to Biden so like with everything else has to introduce herself. 

The polls for the moment show her convincingly in the lead in the Rust Belt and interestingly Trump and Vance are campaigning in the area big time. It is believed that some of this turnaround since Biden exited is as a result of the pick up from other demographics such as the youth as well as the African American demographic rather than the white workers.

THE HISPANIC POPULATION

The DP has steadily lost the backing of the Hispanic peoples who are19 percent of the population. Since 2008 when Barak Obama captured 70 percent of the vote it has been downhill. Biden got 56 percent and his numbers were much lower at the time of his departure. Harris has picked up to match Biden's 2020 number and is on an upward trajectory. Voter Latino has for the first time in its history endorsed a Presidential candidate in supporting Kamala. 

The effort to mobilize the Latino demographic is ongoing and a 1000 are being registered to vote daily. The three States where they could swing an election are Nevada, Arizona with a very very outside chance in Texas. The DP has made an effort to nominate Latino candidates. Arizona has an excellent Hispanic candidate running for Senate, who like Jacky Rosen, (Nevada) and Colin Altred (Texas) were all well ahead of Biden in mid July. Polls show Harris benefiting from the down ballot. Obviously this is key area for Harris to improve in. These three states are near the border and in ads she is touting the bipartisan border policy which Trump got his minions to axe. 

The Hispanic surrogates are out with a vengeance especially Alex Padilla the eloquent and influential Senator from California.  This is Harris’s second toughest nut to crack in the limited time available. With a shocking MAGA election denier in the Senate race in Arizona she should win that State but the swing state of Nevada is another story.

THE YOUTH VOTE  

The youth vote across the board white, Hispanic and black were fazed out with Biden and have been energized by the Harris and Walz candidatures, Both are extremely popular on the social media sites. This time the DP are benefiting from the internet medium. The Gen Z's show potential for the Democratic ticket all round. They connect with the “touchy - feely” approach of the Harris led campaign.

The Biden Administration’s policy on the Israeli/Hamas war threatened to be a a youth issue that would mobilize against the DP with massive demonstrations during their Convention. This all proved to be hype and there were at most 3,000 demonstrators poorly organized from at least 10 organizations as opposed to 30 to a 100 thousand that the activists had promised. 

The Democratic response tone was set by the parents of a  hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. in Hamas’s tunnels who  expressed empathy with the plight of the carnage that had taken place Gaza, While there was no daylight between what Biden has articulated, Harris came across in her inimitable style that has won the hearts and more importantly the votes of many. It is fair ro say that notwithstanding the fact that the DP position is where 90 percent of the country are the non presence of a Palestinian American speaker left a bitter taste in their proponents' mouths.

THE BLACK VOTE

There is hope that Harris can hit the Biden high of 92 percent of the Black vote in 2020. Biden had slumped to 77 percent in the polls and Harris has made up at least half the deficit. In the Rust Belt States of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin they are able to run up the numbers and could make the difference in Georgia which has a well oiled machine against the voter suppression tactics in that swing state. Georgia has voted against Trump and his candidates electing Democrats nationally. Trump has given his friends a little bit of help by attacking the Georgia Republican establishment who refused to collude in his election subversion tactics. 

THE GENDER GAP

Since 1996 there has been a gender gap among DP backers with more women than men favoring them. At present this is more marked with Kamala. However the important urban and suburban women vote remains solidly in her corner. With abortion referenda in several states this cycle the MAGA freak show is going to help the DP ticket. With regard to men it remains to be seen whether the EmhoffWalz version of the gender will fair better than the testosterone misogynistic rendition of MAGA.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Biden’s enduring political savvy is reflected in his choice of Kamala as the candidate. Harris’s nascent skills manifested with her pick of Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz is a Renaissance candidate with rural, Midwest, Muslim, youth and football support.

The September debate gives both candidates the opportunity to show their wares. These clashes have assumed  disproportionate significance as the first Biden/Trump event proved.

How long can Kamala go without making a mistake? Time will tell. Meantime she is on a trajectory to become the first woman to become President of the United States of America, something the MAGA King will not allow to happen without a protracted battle at least until inauguration day and if history is a guide, long after. 

WHAT IS TRUMP RUNNING ON?

Donald Trump is facing a tectonic movement which is gaining momentum with each news cycle dampening his presidential hopes that seemed so certain just one month ago. Frank Luntz the famed Republican pollster, who conducts focus groups, maintained that that he had never seen anything like this in his thirty years in the business. On top of all that what is really rattling the reality TV star of yore’s cage is his sentence hearing in September which will confirm his 34 convictions. While his base will wallow in paranoia and martyrdom with him the whole scene is very unlikely to win him swing voters.To add to the former President’s misery he has to live through a week of the Democratic Convention. In between this avalanche of tragedy, he is running his bonkers and scary campaign.With regard to the latter the “GOP” legislators are strangely silent. Only Fox News is begging him to stick to policy.

The "GOP" candidate is campaigning with two strategies.

TRUMP CAMPAINING PLANS A AND B

Trump campaigns using two strategies, Plan A and Plan B. The former is a small dose of conventional politicking, a big dollop of lies particularly relating to "that the world is letting loose the scum of the earth on America” and the populists’ central play, smear your opponent. KamaLA who is “lyin, laughin, not smart” etc etc.

Plan B is that if he loses the election it is “rigged”. This strategy was evident in 2016 and 2020 and now in 2024. The Plan has evolved and metastasized. In 2016 even though he won he was so miffed at losing the popular vote that he fantasized publicly that millions of illegal immigrants had pulled the lever for “crooked” Hillary. In 2020 he cooked up a multi layered seditious conspiracy which resulted in an insurrection in order to remain in power. He still claims Biden is illegitimate. In 2024 he is screaming that Harris’s candidature is “unconstitutional”. He claims that her game plan is to use artificial intelligence to show that thousands attend her rallies. Even more ominous is that in the swing states he has had 2020 election deniers appointed to electoral boards. The latter is a serious threat which is not garnering enough media coverage who rather concentrate on the “horse race”.

Having outlined Plan B which is part of every appearance,  Jay H. Ell will join everyone else and concentrate on Plan A which is bonkers.

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN IS BONKERS

In reality the Trump/Vance ticket is all over the place. But it is fair to say  his central thrust is the Democrats should fight fair, bewailing that Joe Biden had his candidature  stolen from him, running against Barack Hussein Obama, who definitely is not in the frame ,and belittling the"try for black KamaLA".

The Trumpian response to his happy go lucky opponent is laced with the usual doses of misogyny and racism. He plaintifully argues that America needs to go back to the good ole days when the white male property owners ran the show. His sidekick JD Vance’s thrust is to pillory the military service record of the 24 year stint of the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Walz. Vance emphasizes his belief daily, in way or another, that a woman’s place is barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen and when she is postmenopausal looking after her grandchildren.

Trump is desperately trying to grab the microphone as he is being upstaged by the rollicking Harris campaign. With several  public appearances that either shocked or bored audiences to death, he returned to his shtik, “the disastrous economy, the fact that Vice President Harris was allowing in those released from mental institutions and jails and that he would create camps and deport millions and the election in 2020 was stolen”. 

Trump’s  love affair with the billionaires is well known. His signature tax bill in 2017 was a tax break for the rich. He confirmed his bias towards the ‘bosses” in his technically challenged interview with Elon Musk. He cheered Musk on his Union busting behavior, laughingly congratulating him for responding, “You are all gone” to his employees trying to organize joining a Union.. He reassured billionaires at a fund raiser that they will pay little tax.This is all totally nuts as the MAGA newest best friends are the workers. They invited the head of The Teamsters Union to address the Republic National Convention. Vance has made a big deal that his is the party that represents the workers. Wonder when they are going to drop this campaign line.

Trump’s most difficult challenge is on abortion. He secured the substantial Evangelical Christian vote by promising to deliver judges that would axe the Constitutional right to abortion. He has bragged that he delivered. This issue together with reproductive rights generally looms even larger than immigration as the central issue in this election. Every State, including blood red ones, that has conducted referenda on the issue, has come down on the side of women’s rights. Trump is now talking out of the other side of his mouth and has changed his line from a national abortion ban to each state must decide. 

Well there are 11 additional states that are having referenda on the right of women to choose which by the way will help bring out the vote for Harris et al. One of the States is Florida where Trump is a registered voter. To date he has refused to say how he will vote. He is being hammered by the coalition fighting against abortion for backtracking. The Evangelicals are not much interested with his argument that he,”needs to win elections”. In fact an Evangelical group have featured an ad dumping on his candidacy. 

With regard to immigration he is promising all the goodies that he promised in 2015 and did not get around to carry out. The wall is still to be built. The spiel on that varies from he needs to complete it, or, that he has already completed it. He obviously has forgot that Mexico has to pay for it as he doesn’t mention it anymore.  He waxes on about the millions of lunatics, criminals, rapists, drug lords all of whom are taking black jobs.

Trump's economic plan is going to be as great as it was back when America was great in 2017. His parameter of greatness is the stock market which according to him is going gangbusters because the electorate know he is going to be President. He makes one proviso to that analysis, the reason it dropped 5 percent on one day was on that day they thought he was going to lose. 

He has three planks to his economic agenda no taxes on tips, no tax on social security benefits and decrease in taxes for everyone this time. Approximate cost probably close on a trillion dollars. He has no suggestion as to how pay for this all unless he probably believes that his 10 percent surcharge on all imported goods will cover it. The latter being a sales tax that would disproportionately affect the average American although he steadfastly claims that China will pay for it. Presumably the same way Mexico paid for the wall.

Just in case anyone has forgotten that he confided to his generals that the American war dead were "losers", in another of his low energy appearances he told his largest donor by far that the Presidential Medal of Freedom that he had awarded her was even more meritorious than the military Medal of Honor because most of those that received this were either dead or riddled with bullets. 

Then there is Hannibal Lector, electrocution versus being eaten by sharks, bird cemeteries, that if the wind doesn’t blow you can’t turn on the lights, he is more beautiful than KamaLA and “drill baby drill”. 

What he is not running on is Project 2025.

TRUMP IS NOT RUNNING ON PROJECT 2025

Biden literally in the dying moments of his debate with Trump threw out “What about Project 25”. Trump from then went on denying that he had anything to do with the plan to remake America in a manner that would be the envy of Erdogan, Orban and Modi combined. He knew nothing about it. As Shakespeare himself once said, “The lady doth protest too much”. Only it was Trump not the "Indian lady” that was doing the protesting. By so doing he made the issue a cause celebre. 

Then the damn burst one revelation after another. Trump was pictured with the principal author Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation. The latter promptly resigned  in a vain attempt to make it all go away. It was then revealed that good old JD Vance, who had been cheerfully just muddling along, had written a Forward to Robert’s new book. The digital medium, “ProRepublica” plonked training tapes into the world wide web which explained how to carry the whole project out. Ninety percent of the presenters were in Trump’s inner circle. Just in case that wasn’t enough co author Russell Voigt spilled the beans in a sting by British journalists that Trump was just denying his knowledge for campaign reasons. Voight was Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget and reportedly is Trump’s 2025 pick for his Chief of Staff.

For those who haven’t read all the 900 pages this is Trump’s attempt to create his own “Dark State”. Every career civil servant will be fired and replaced by Trump loyalists. Departments such as Education, and Environmental Protection Agency would be axed. Centralized power to the Presidency. “Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen” codified, no abortion, no In Vitro Fertilization no Contraception. 

There is every reason to believe that plenty more will be heard about Project 2025

AT THE END OF THE DAY

For the moment Harris and Walz are on a roll and Trump and Vance have been rolled over.

"Republicans for Harris" has to be a growing concern.

It’s never over till the Congress ratifies the election results. 

IS THE PRESIDENCY A “BLACK JOB”?

In the Olympic week that was Kamala scored a perfect 10 capping it with her Vice Presidential pick, folksy charismatic Governor Walz from Minnesota. Her campaign continued to gain joyous momentum making a stark contrast with the humorless dark vision projected by the MAGA Trump/Vance team. Meanwhile Trump was still smarting from his implosion at the Association of The Black Journalists Convention where he savagely illustrated that he was unprepared for the Harris candidature. He resorted to his lifelong playbook of racism and misogyny. Among other verbal disasters he claimed that he was the greatest president for “Black Jobs” and the hundreds of thousands illegal immigrants were taking “Black Jobs” which entity he simply couldn’t define. 

The 45th President was visibly and verbally seething at being questioned by black female journalists. While he directed his bile to the uppity blacks on the stage he attempted to delegitimize his Democratic opponent conspiratorially revealing that Kamala was not black, she was Indian!

 America, while hardly being post racial, had evolved since Trump in 2008 became the face of the conspiracy “birther” theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Obama took the bait and the whole outlandish saga assumed gigantic proportions with Obama finally producing his full birth certificate. Kamala was not about to let the jaded cognitively impaired geriatric grumpy old white man get under her skin. She dismissed his smear as being the same old same old “divisive and disrespectful” garbage and labelled him and his Vice Presidential pick as “weird”.

 But there was so much more in the week that was that saw a dramatic change in fortunes for both the MAGA and the new Democratic nominee for President as well as her Vice Presidency pick. As far as “Black Jobs” were concerned Simone Biles the American Olympic phenom, bedecked with the Stars and Stripes flag, proclaimed that what she was doing was a “Black Job” while Biden’s Vice President Harris made it crystal clear that she was Black and agreed joyfully that The Presidency was too, a “Black Job”. 

Kamala’s honeymoon is projected to extend to at least mid August when the battle for The Presidency will continue in ugly earnest. 

TRUMP THE NEWEST GERIATRIC

Suddenly Trump became the only geriatric in the race. The seventy- eight year old was on a projection to become the oldest president in history, by far. While 86 percent of those that had been surveyed a few weeks ago thought Biden too old, 60 percent thought likewise of the MAGA contender. More significantly 65 percent of the Independents signified as such. He was experiencing a let down from his Convention where he had been deified, In his hubris he had appointed the political neophyte JD Vance who was meanwhile doubling down on his disdain for childless women. 

TRUMP FACES UNPRECEDENTED PUSH BACK ON HIS MISOGYNY AND RACISM.

The Trump interview with The Association of Black Journalists was one for the ages. He inter alia defended his hapless VP pick as simply being a supporter of family. Most disturbing  was his racist and misogynistic comments which caused his fellow MAGA acolytes to cringe. The Defender in Chief of the Faith of 2020 election denial, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had previously sent an urgent memo to House Republicans only to attack Kamala Harris on policy: The memo never reached the MAGA chief. 

Down the line there was distancing from the MAGA nominee.   Adding to the House chorus was a string of Senators led by no lesser cult enabler than Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who had a few good words to say about the new Democratic challenger a well as adamantly bellowing that she should only be attacked on her policies. All this falling on deaf ears as Trump pounded off on his social media platform a picture of Kamala in a sari.

TRUMP GOES TO ATLANTA

Trump followed Kamala to the Georgia University Athletic stadium and immediately felt the difference in crowd sizes. The Democratic nominee packed the venue to the rafters with 10,000 outside who couldn’t get in. Trump bewailed the fact that they weren’t allowing hundreds outside presumably to occupy the glaring empty seats. Then he explained that his opposition depended on pop stars to fill the setting. Second only to Taylor Swift, icon Beyonce headlined Vice President Harris’s appearance in Georgia, Trump of course has loss of short term memory as at his Convention a few days earlier he featured Amber Rose, Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock. But never mind.

The Donald was on a riff. He attacked the popular Republican Georgia Governor Kemp and his wife. This was politically calamitous. He had lost that Red Republic State to Biden in 2020 then exacerbated his disconnect with their voters by trying to pressure the popular Kemp and Secretary of State Raffensberg to find him  11,780 votes, “which was one more than he needed”. His unpopularity then extended to two Senate races that followed where the Democrats beat his chosen nominees to take The Senate. The Governor’s wife announced that she was not endorsing or voting for him while her husband told the MAGA Chief to back off attacking his family. Suddenly the Democratic path to victory included Georgia. As a bonus Trump laid into Georgia University whom he claimed were prejudiced against him.

Most ominous was Trump's calling out three election deniers who had been appointed to Georgia's electoral boards. There is more and more evidence that Plan B for the accused in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election is more of the same. If an election board does not ratify the election then predictable chaos will follow. Apparently similar activity is being reported in other swing states.

Off course Kamala’s name was deliberately mispronounced and the back up speakers made it a thing to claim she was not black. But as Trump had confessed earlier they had difficulty defining his opponent so apparently for the meantime they were sticking with the Jim Crow stuff. 

TRUMP BECOMING A RISK FOR DOWN BALLOT

Besides the uncoupling of the legislators from the racist and the misogyny stuff Trump’s cardinal agenda item, a sweeping Tariff on all foreign goods, was getting grief from the MAGA nominees for Congress. So they simply just dissociated themselves from that pillar of stupidity. Then his congratulating of Putin for the Biden/Harris complicated prisoner swop made the hawks in the party wince. That together with his backing of the Russians in the war of Ukraine is not endearing him to those who supported the long time commitment of America to be Reagan's“ shining light on the hill”. Added to the racist attacks was a gratuitous slur to Jews who would be “fools” to vote for the Democrats.

.FULL COURT PRESS ON TRUMP

With the campaign in a new mode the opposition against another dark Trump Presidency juiced up. In the forefront was the cohort of former Republicans whose opposition to the orange combatant has been the most vitriolic. Either independently or in well defined organizations they produce up to the minute reporting and comment on the race. Their excitement is palpable. The proponents include former campaign managers and policy makers. All are ad idem with over 95 percent of the 45th President's cabinet and WhiteHouse inner circle that Trump must be stopped.  Steve Schmidt, Charlie Sykes, Bill Kristol, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell to name a few are all celebrated former Republican operatives manning platforms such as The Bulwark and The Lincoln Project. Then there is the “Republicans for Harris” which replaced Harris for Biden jacking up involvement with the change. 

Most interesting is the newly formed organization, “AntiPsycho.org", which was founded by the famed conservative lawyer George Conway. The latter better known for his acerbic commentary on Trump’s illegality donated 343,434. 43 dollars as seed money for the project. The numbers repeat the number of felonies Trump has been convicted off, (34). Conway lays out in detail the diagnostic criteria for sociopathic and malignant narcissistic personality types which he proves Trump has in abundance. The media refuse to go there but Conway asserts that having an impulsive, self loving, conscience free, vengeful, ignorant, criminal, misogynystic racist untethered man with his finger on the nuclear button, this time without any restraining influences, represents an existential threat to America and the world. 

But back to his Democratic opponents.

KAHMALA’S EXTENDED HONEYMOON.

To Trump’s chagrin “Laughin crazy liberal, KahMAla” is hogging the limelight. The polls have seriously tightened, the majority showing a statistical dead heat and even a few with the Democrat ahead. She netted a record 321 million dollars in just two weeks from small donors and enticed literally hundreds of thousands volunteers. The Democratic ground game is way ahead of the MAGA crowd. Trump cleaned out of all personnel on assuming control of the former Republican National Committee. He seems chronically short of money - must all be going to his lawyers. The Democratic ticket is set to spend far more in the seven swing states than MAGA.

The Vice Presidential pick demonstrated the depth of the Democratic bench. She obviously played it safe and stuck to Hillary Clinton's playbook, "Do no harm". She has to feel very confident to have ignored Shapiro who would have buttoned up the crucial state of Pennsylvania with its 20 electoral votes or Kelly who would have done likewise in Arizona,

The selection of a Vice President garnered all the oxygen in the room and is to be followed by the dual appearances in the seven battlegrounds that will hopefully herald the new administration in Washington. The tussle between the various factions as to which “white male dude” was to be selected will settle soon - the stakes are too high. The extended honeymoon will continue as the team go straight into the Convention. There will be at least three Democratic Presidents on the stage. Jay H. Ell believes that “Mamala’s” non biological children and their significant others are unlikely to occupy PrimeTime like they did in Milwaukee. The event will be a celebration unlike the dark boring ear covered funereal like doomsday MAGA affair.  

The new ticket has opened the field. Biden had concentrated on a narrow victory in the three Rust Belt states. The path to victory has widened to include, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Arizona with Trump making life harder for MAGA everywhere.

So it will be mid August before Kamala's extended honeymoon ends and the media hungry Trump can even begin to emerge. Then the fight will begin in earnest for the soul of America and the world.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Trump has moved on. He grudgingly accepts that The Presidency can be a “Black Job”. His moan is that Harris isn’t black.

America has evolved in that they are celebrating a woman of color as a Presidential candidate. Hopefully they will go the whole way and elect her. Go even further and close out the Civil War for the next generation at least.