Sorry, no headline theme this week. That takes time, and we don't want this to be TOO late. The headline theme will be back next week.

BidenWatch 2024

This is the ninth day in the last ten that our lead item has been about Joe Biden's wobbling presidential candidacy (and the 10th day was the Sunday posting, which was dedicated to letters and questions about Biden's wobbling presidential candidacy). It does not please us that this is the case, but we must follow wherever the news leads us.

Yesterday, of course, was Biden's latest "do or die" test—the press conference held at the conclusion of this week's NATO summit. Here it is, if you haven't seen it already, and you would like to:

The executive summary is that, as with the George Stephanopoulos interview, Biden did not exactly "do" OR "die."

What do we mean by that? Well, Biden went on for about an hour, of which roughly 10 minutes was a prepared speech and 50 minutes were questions from the press corps (the Q&A session starts at 47:30 in the linked video). The good news for the President is that he was, overall, perfectly fine. We'd give it a 7 on our scale of 0 (debate Biden) to 10 (SOTU Biden). If not for the debate, nobody would think twice about yesterday's press conference.

That said, the debate did happen. And so, every slip-up is magnified to the Nth degree. While he did not lose his train of thought, he did stumble over his words a few times. He also made two big verbal slips of the sort that are guaranteed to become soundbites. The first came before the press conference; Biden referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin." And the second came during the press conference; Biden referred to Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump."

Truth be told, we don't think those verbal slip-ups are actually all that damning. It's easy to substitute one similar piece of factual information for another, and there's nothing where that is more likely to happen than with names. (As a sidebar, for this very reason, Z does not ask students to recall names on tests.) If you look at the "Vice President Trump" slip-up (the link in the previous paragraph is cued up to that very moment), for example, you can see what happened. Biden was asked about how Harris matches up with Trump, and he answered for the first name mentioned (Harris) but actually used the second name (Trump). Not great, but not terribly unusual, either.

Let us also point out that Trump has this exact same problem, and—arguably—to a greater extent. The former president has, for example, swapped in Nikki Haley's name for that of Nancy Pelosi. And he did it four times in the same speech, which is at least a little less defensible, since it was not a single slip of the tongue. From where we sit, the biggest difference between Biden and Trump, when it comes to their "senior moments," is that Biden tends to pause (sometimes looking like a goldfish when he does so), while Trump just keeps talking, even if his words make little to no sense. Think Hannibal Lecter, or electric boats, or the danger posed by sharks, or any of a dozen other word salads he's served up during this campaign.

Unfortunately for Biden, Trump's mental acuity is not the BIG story right now. And, at least at the moment, the President finds himself in an impossible situation when it comes to "proving" he is up to the job of being president for 4 more years. Nobody can make it through 20 or 30 or 40 minutes of extemporaneous dialogue without making the occasional verbal error. We have delivered thousands of lectures between us, and we've never pitched a perfect game. And then, add to the general challenges of extemporaneous speaking the stresses of being president, the effects of age, and a lifelong stuttering problem.

What we are suggesting here, in so many words, is that Biden—however diminished he may be—is clearly able to put up a capable performance, even in these unstructured fora. But it is also the case that Biden—however competent he may be—is not going to deliver a performance strong enough to silence most/all doubters. The President has agreed to do his second post-debate interview, this time with NBC's Lester Holt, on Monday of next week. It will air Monday night at 9:00 ET. We'll be watching, but we also feel very confident in predicting, right now, that he's going to do... OK. Another 6 or 7 on the scale of 0 to 10.

Before the press conference, at least six members of the House said that if Biden performed poorly, they would come out and publicly call for him to step down. And after the press conference was over... three of them did so. The new members of the "Biden must go" brigade are Reps. Jim Himes (D-CT), Scott Peters (D-CA) and Eric Sorensen (D-IL). It's possible that the other three will make announcements tomorrow, but it doesn't look that way. And if a split decision like that—with three members deciding the press conference was acceptable and three deciding it wasn't—does not speak to a Biden performance that was neither great nor terrible, we don't know what does.

So that's the press conference. And now, let's move on to some other Biden-candidacy-related storylines from yesterday:

• Bad News for Biden, Part I: We have written many times that there are a handful of senior Democratic politicians who could probably push the President out of the race, if they go public with their opposition. At the top of that list are Barack Obama and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). And now, that pair is officially wobbling. Reportedly, Pelosi is working behind the scenes to encourage Biden to re-think his plans to stay in the race. Meanwhile, Obama talked to George Clooney before the actor published his now-famous Biden-critical op-ed. And while Obama did not endorse the op-ed, he did not object to its being published, either.
  
  
• Bad News for Biden, Part II: Yesterday, CNN reported that numerous Biden insiders believe he's slipping, and that his inner circle has choreographed meetings and other events so as to obscure the extent of the problem. As you can imagine, everyone quoted in the CNN piece is anonymous, so the extent to which one believes the story depends on how much one trusts CNN's reporters. That said, if you accept CNN's reporting, even in part, then the story is a pretty bad 1-2 punch when paired with the aforementioned Clooney op-ed, since both speak to people who have interacted with the President recently, and who are favorably inclined to him, and yet are saying that the debate performance was not an anomaly.
  
  
• Good News for Biden: There have been three major new national polls this week. The first, from The Washington Post/ABC News, says that if the election was held today, 39% of voters would vote for Biden and 39% would vote for Trump. The last time this poll was conducted, at the end of April, it was 38% for Biden and 40% for Trump. So, there's been no meaningful change (and what un-meaningful change there has been is in Biden's direction). The poll also included a Harris-Trump matchup, and had Harris up 42% to 40%.
  
  The second poll is from Data for Progress/Split Ticket, and has Biden up 47% to 46% on Trump nationally. This one also asked about Harris, and had her up 42% to 40% on Trump. This at least somewhat implies that undecided voters are even MORE undecided when Harris is on the ticket.
  
  The third poll was conducted by YouGov/The Economist. It has Trump up 43% to 40% for Biden; their last poll prior to the debate had it 42% to 40%. The new poll has Trump up on Harris 42% to 38%.
  
  The very clear conclusion here is that Biden's debate performance, shaky as it was, did not actually move the needle very much, if at all. And that conclusion does not rely on just these three polls. Yesterday, a group of data-crunching political scientists at Northeastern University released a detailed report, based on post-debate polling numbers. And the lead number-cruncher, David Lazer, says:

  Even The New York Times, which is usually better about this, talked about a very tiny shift that was totally insignificant statistically like it was evidence that it was a shift toward Trump after the debate. My hope is that reporters look at this and say, "Maybe we need to be careful in overinterpreting noise as actual signal..."
  
  Trump was convicted of a set of felonies. The impact it had on surveys was zero. Biden had a debate where most people said it proved he was too old. Survey respondents said, "Yeah, I saw that. He's too old. I'm still voting for him." The numbers just aren't moving.

  It is very clear at this point that about 40% of the electorate is going to vote for Trump, no matter what, either because he's the Dear Leader or because voting for anyone with a (D) after their name is anathema. It is also very clear at this point that about 40% of the electorate is going to vote for Biden, no matter what, either because they like him or because he's the only way to stop Trump. It's the other 20% or so who will decide the election, and thus far, that segment of the electorate really hasn't budged. Is it because they are really and truly committed to a third-party candidate, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Because they are not paying attention? Because they are holding out hope that another option will present itself? Probably all of the above, and more.
  
  
• Beware the Tea Leaves: Meanwhile, there are a couple of "negative" signs for Biden that maybe aren't so negative as they might seem. First, he certainly has had a couple of very bad polls since the debate. For example, yesterday we wrote about a New York poll that was much worse than it should be for a Democrat. It is entirely possible that is a product of response bias. That is to say, people who are enthusiastic about the presidential race are much more likely to respond to pollsters than those who are not. If pro-Biden Democrats were depressed after the debate (and they were), it could have reduced their response rate, particularly in very blue states like New York.
  
  Also, we noted yesterday that Biden's fundraising totals in the last week or so have been pretty anemic. Several readers wrote in to point out, quite rightly, that there have been a bunch of stories about how if Biden drops out, the money in his kitty might end up in limbo. Under those circumstances, it makes sense to hold on to one's donations until it's clear how everything is going to shake out.
  
  
• Historical Precedents: Today's godawful op-ed is courtesy of a person named William Hogeland, writing for Slate. Hogeland has written several books on the 18th century, aimed at a popular audience, and on that basis describes himself as a historian. His website makes no reference to any academic training, nor to a college degree of any sort. We do not wish to be snobby, but if someone without any training at all claimed to be an engineer or a physicist, it would cause their ideas to be taken with at least a grain of salt or two. So, we mention his non-CV for purposes of context.
  
  Anyhow, Hogeland's piece was an acidic criticism of (trained) historian Heather Cox Richardson. He decries the emergence of what he calls "resistance historians" and expresses his wish that such people would shut up and return to their day jobs. What he means by that term, in essence, is "historians who presume to draw on the past to make predictions about present-day events." He believes that history is not instructive in this way, particularly when it comes to presidential politics.
  
  For his case study, Hogeland directs his attention to this quote from Richardson, delivered during a hit on CNN:

  My interest is not in Biden or Kamala Harris or Trump or whomever he might choose as vice president. My interest is less in that than in the long-term sweep of American history. I want the whole picture. And in the whole picture of American history, if you change the presidential nominee at this point in the game, the candidate loses ... for a number of reasons. First of all, because the apparatus of the party for the election is set up around somebody else. Second of all, because the news is only going to report all the growing pains of a brand-new campaign, including all the opposition research that the opponents are then going to throw at people.

  Hogeland's critique follows:

  What's clear is that Richardson is invoking an elevated appeal to "the whole picture," and adducing a faux-historical rule, in order to persuade people, many of whom trust her status as a scholar and are unlikely to question her facts, that Biden should stay on the ticket. A leading exponent of the liberal cultural ethos that perpetually bemoans our "post-truth" world has gotten herself into a position where an immediate partisan political tactic, possibly undertaken in a state of desperation, induces her to invent historical fact.

  He's not the only one to slam Richardson; here's another example from Vox, also published yesterday.
  
  Given that we used the term "godawful op-ed," we clearly aren't fans of Hogeland's (not very well written) take. First of all, while criticizing Richardson for assuming facts not in evidence, he... assumes facts not in evidence. There is no basis for the assertion that she is motivated by partisan politics. Even if Richardson is a liberal and/or is pro-Biden, that doesn't mean her answer to the question is informed by her politics, as opposed to by her training as a historian and desire to give some sort of meaningful answer while on national TV. Further, it's kind of a cheap shot to ask someone who is speaking extemporaneously to frame every single observation with absolute precision. Put another way, Richardson had 2 seconds to consider her response. Hogeland had unlimited time... and he still produced mediocre, muddy prose.
  
  Anyhow, that is prelude to what we really want to say here. A couple of weeks ago, we did a brief rundown of parties that dumped incumbents who could have run (including the frequently mentioned cases of Harry S. Truman in 1952 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968). In those cases, the dumping party went 3-8, which is an argument (albeit a weak one) against changing horses midstream. We also noted that there are clear examples of parties that thought about making a change and didn't (Republicans in 1864, Democrats in 1940) and went on to win. Meanwhile, we had an item yesterday about a couple of last-minute Senate-race changes (the dumping party went 1-1).
  
  After yesterday's posting went live, several readers wrote in to direct our attention to the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1990. In that one, Republican nominee Jon Grunseth got into a very bad Roy-Moore-style scandal about a month before the election, as two women claimed that when they were 12 and 13 years old, respectively, Grunseth tried to force them to join him and his daughter in swimming nude in his pool at an Independence Day party. This caused the second-place finisher in the Republican primary, Arne Carlson, to announce a write-in campaign. Grunseth, seeing he could not win, dropped out a week before the election. Carlson won the election, 50.1% to 46.8% over incumbent governor Rudy Perpich (DFL). So, that's a case where a last-minute switch worked out fine.
  
  Meanwhile, we haven't seen anyone (including readers) talking about what might be the single-closest parallel to the current situation. On July 25, 1972, Thomas Eagleton—who had already been nominated as the Democrats VP—admitted, after several stories in the press, that he had undergone electroshock therapy for mental health issues. On August 1, Eagleton was forced off the ticket, to be replaced by Sarge Shriver. Given the vagaries of polling, particularly back then, it's hard to know exactly how much this hurt the ticket. But it certainly appears that it did hurt. In the month before the Eagleton scandal, the Democratic ticket was consistently polling in the mid-to-high 30s. Afterward, it was mostly low-30s. In particular, the last poll before the Eagleton news broke had McGovern at 37%, the next five had him at 34%, 31%, 36%, 29% and 31%. So, that's a case where a last-minute switch didn't work out so well (although the Democratic ticket would surely have been crushed either way).
  
  Back when we did the rundown of presidential ticket switches, we wrote: "It's a little bit questionable to draw conclusions from a relatively small sample size, particularly when most of the specimens in the sample are from more than a century ago, when things were quite different. Still, to the extent there's a historical argument here, it argues against dumping Biden."
  
  Having added four more examples to the mix (the two Senate races, the Minnesota governor's race and the 1972 VP swap), we stand by that assertion, and we stand with Heather Cox Richardson. The data isn't great, but even a little data is better than none. And the data weakly suggests that dumping candidates late in the game is a loser more often than it's a winner.

And there you have it—yet another 3,000-word piece on where the Biden campaign stands.

We do not know what is going to happen. We do think it remains more likely than not that Biden remains the Democrats' candidate, but the movement by Pelosi and Obama makes that much less certain than was the case just 48 hours ago. Presumably, that pair thinks that Biden can handle the job for another 4 years, or they wouldn't have been backing him last week. But they are now worried about the answer to a much more immediate question: Do VOTERS think Biden can handle the job for 4 more years?

What we REALLY do not know is what SHOULD happen, if the Democrats want to maximize their chances of winning this election. Biden almost certainly has a higher floor than any of the other would-be Democratic candidates, but he probably also has a lower ceiling. There is no question that some large portion of the electorate (40% or so) will vote for ANY Democrat, just to block Trump. It really comes down to the 15-20% of voters who are not yet backing a major-party candidate. Who can get more of those votes: Biden, or some other Democrat? That's the issue the blue team faces, and they have a week or so to settle on an answer. (Z)

TrumpWatch 2024

Donald Trump has largely remained off-the-radar for the past week or two, which means there hasn't been much to write about when it comes to him. But, with the Republican National Convention right around the corner, the spotlight is going to be back on him whether he likes it or not. Which, let's be honest, he likes it a lot. Remaining quiet for so long must have been killing him.

On that point, the former president weighed in yesterday on George Clooney's op-ed:

So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act. He's turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything? He uses the Democrat "talking point" that Biden, the WORST President in the history of the United States, has "saved our Democracy." No, Crooked Joe was the one who WEAPONIZED Law Enforcement against his political Opponent, who created the most devastating INFLATION in the history of our Country, who Embarrassed our Nation in Afghanistan, and whose crazy Open Border Policy has allowed millions of people to illegally pour into our Country, many from prisons and mental institutions. Crooked Joe Biden didn't save our Democracy, he brought our Democracy to its knees. Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!!!

First of all, we are not sure what a "fake movie actor" is. Does that mean that when Clooney is playing Batman or Michael Clayton or Danny Ocean, he's only pretending to act, because he actually IS those people? Beyond that, if someone says that your opponent should not be running for office, that would seem to be a time to agree with them wholeheartedly, as opposed to writing a screed about what an idiot that person is, and how their opinion is worthless.

In other Trump news, CNN reported yesterday that Melania Trump has agreed to attend the Convention next week. We cannot think of any other presidential wife who dithered in this way, at least not since candidates and their wives began attending conventions in the 1890s. Jane Pierce would surely have taken a pass in 1852, but nominees and their wives did not go to the conventions back then. In fact, no women went to the conventions back then. In any case, does it say something about Trump as a person that he has to plead with his wife (or is it his "wife"?) to show up for the convention? Perhaps.

Moving along, the Democrats seem to be getting on the case when it comes to Project 2025. Yesterday, the Biden campaign launched a website and posted a very short video to social media, both speaking to the evils of Project 2025. Surely, there will be much more of this coming down the pike, though we continue to believe it would be more impactful if it appeared to be pro-Project 2025 material coming from a pro-Trump source.

Trump, for his part, continues to insist that he is ignorant of Project 2025:

I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING!

Anybody who believes that, let us know, because there's a Nigerian prince who needs to expatriate his millions, and who would be willing to share with you for the low, low sum of $1,000. For those who do not believe it, well, CNN had a story yesterday telling you how right you are. They found that well over 100 former Trump staffers have played some role in shaping the document, including some people in close orbit to the former president, like Mark Meadows and Stephen Miller.

And finally, we would be remiss if we did not note that The New York Times eddi board finally wrote an editorial calling for Trump to drop out of the presidential race. Under the headline "DONALD TRUMP IS UNFIT TO LEAD," the board declares:

Election Day is less than four months away. The case against Mr. Trump is extensive, and this board urges Americans to perform a simple act of civic duty in an election year: Listen to what Mr. Trump is saying, pay attention to what he did as president and allow yourself to truly inhabit what he has promised to do if returned to office.

Voters frustrated by inflation and immigration or attracted by the force of Mr. Trump's personality should pause and take note of his words and promises. They have little to do with unity and healing and a lot to do with making the divisions and anger in our society wider and more intense than they already are.

The Republican Party is making its choice next week; soon all Americans will be able to make their own choice. What would Mr. Trump do in a second term? He has told Americans who he is and shown them what kind of leader he would be.

When someone fails so many foundational tests, you don't give him the most important job in the world.

We cannot help but wonder if the newspaper has been bombarded by complaints about their recent anti-Biden imbalance, and felt compelled to course-correct a bit. (Z)

Israel Gets Its Bombs

For various reasons, both political and geopolitical, the Biden administration has rarely said "no" to Israel since the Israelis commenced their current war in Gaza. The one exception to that was a shipment of heavy-duty 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs, which were likely to harm civilians far out of proportion to any military good they might do.

Yesterday, "no" became a partial "yes," as the White House announced that the 500-pound bombs would be released to the Israeli military. The official explanation is that the 500-pound bombs were not the concern, the 2,000-pound bombs were, but the two munitions tend to be stored together. So, putting a halt on the latter put a de facto halt on the former. But now that the 500-pound bombs have been separated out, they can be sent on their way.

We do not know anywhere near enough about munitions to know if this story passes muster. What we do know is that if this had happened a month ago, it would have been HUGE news. But with the news cycle having moved on to new things (e.g., Joe Biden's mental capacity), it was treated as a minor story (if it was covered at all).

And that brings us right back to BidenWatch 2024. Most stories, no matter how big they seem in the moment, eventually lose steam. A month ago, we were not too happy having to write about Israel/Gaza every single day. Right now, we are not too happy having to write about Biden's capacity/lack thereof every single day. It's hard to imagine, in the moment, that the "Biden must go" stories will eventually fade. But it was also hard to imagine that the Israel/Gaza stories would fade, and yet they have, at least for now. It doesn't always work that way; Richard Nixon was sure that the annoying story about that silly hotel would go away, and he was very wrong. But it does work that way a lot of the time, so don't be too surprised if Biden survives the current crisis, and the stories of his demise start to seem pretty distant. Of course, if he shows up for and botches debate #2, then all bets are off. (Z)

Latest House Stunt Fails

It's also been a couple of weeks since we had a story about the House Republican Conference, and their silly stunts. Perhaps, in honor of David Letterman, we should call them "Stupid Republican Tricks." In any case, there are members of the House who just can't stand to be out of the headlines for too long. And so, now that everyone's back in Washington, it was time to, well, waste some more of everyone's time.

The House GOP's latest efforts have been focused on AG Merrick Garland. They don't care about Garland, per se, but the Freedom Caucusers and their ilk desperately want the tapes from the investigation conducted by former special counsel Robert Hur. Particularly after Joe Biden's debate performance, they believe that those tapes will be the "smoking gun" that proves to the American people that Biden is no longer capable of serving as president.

The latest scheme to compel surrender of the tapes involves "inherent contempt," which means that not only would House Republicans find Garland in contempt of Congress for ignoring their subpoena, but they would also enforce the ruling by themselves. One possibility was to actually send the sergeant-at-arms of the House to arrest Garland, and to drag him back to the Capitol, to be imprisoned for as long as it takes. However, that approach hasn't been used in a century, would run into serious logistical difficulties (like Garland's security detail), would make the GOP look like violent people with dictatorial impulses, and would invite the Democrats to avail themselves of the same privilege the next time a Republican is in the White House.

As an alternative, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) came up with a cash-based approach. The basic idea is that Garland would be fined $10,000 a day by the House for every day he failed to turn over the tapes. Ostensibly, this would put enormous pressure upon the AG, given his salary of $221,400 (i.e., 22 days' worth of fines). In reality, all that would be accomplished is to trigger a lawsuit or six, in which Garland would point out that Biden has already asserted executive privilege over the tapes.

Yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought the measure to the floor of the House for a vote, and it failed, 210-204, with 4 Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats. Luna says she's going to bring it up for a vote again, because some Republican members had to leave early, and so weren't around for the vote. The Representative is confident it will pass on the second go-round.

For those who are interested, the math here is... tight. If every Republican is present, and every Democrat is present, and four Republicans again cross the aisle, then the final vote would be 217-216 against, and the measure would fail. That said, it's possible one of the four who crossed the aisle did so in order to preserve their right to bring the legislation up again, in which case the final vote would be 217-216 for, and the measure would pass. It's also possible that one or more of the Republicans who absented themselves did so tactically, to avoid having to take a position on the issue. There's no way to be sure. All we can say is that, at least for now, this particular Stupid Republican Trick has failed. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Vance Can't Dance?

Someday very soon—and today could well be the day, so as to dominate the weekend news cycle—Donald Trump will announce the name of his running mate. A number of sources have suggested that it's already a done deal, and that Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) will be the pick.

Vance is, to use a technical term, a jerk. His "hillbilly" shtick is as phony as the day is long. He's said a lot of mean-spirited and/or hateful things. And, of course, in the vulgar search for power, he's been all-too-happy to enable the proto-fascism of Donald Trump. This despite Vance's having taken two oaths, one as a Marine, one as a U.S. senator, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

This is why there is some small amount of schadenfreude in yesterday's resurfacing of video footage from 2016. Back then, desperate for any attention he could get as he tried to get his political career off the ground, Vance appeared on MSNBC (something he presumably wouldn't do today). And during an interview with Chris Matthews, Vance said he believed the story of Jessica Leeds, who claimed she was groped by Trump. The future senator even added some snark at Trump's expense, remarking: "And at the end of the day, do you believe Donald Trump, who always tells the truth—just kidding—or do you believe that woman on the tape?"

You can't escape your past and, once something is on the Internet, it lives forever. Vance's single-greatest liability, from the standpoint of The Donald, is his past criticism of the Dear Leader. Trump may have been able to grit his teeth and to overlook it, but when he is presented with a fresh reminder just days before the convention, it may be a bridge too far. And if Vance loses out on the #2 slot in that way, then a smattering of schadenfreude immediately becomes a tidal wave of schadenfreude. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: The Future of Social Commentary?

(Z) has repeatedly made the point, based on observations of/interactions with students, that it's a particularly tough time to be reaching adulthood. But he can't make that point as well as an actual member of the millennial generation can. Say, for example, the country duo The Doohickeys, composed of twenty-somethings Haley Spence Brown and Jack Hackett.

What the pair decided to do was take one of the best-loved country songs of all time, namely Dolly Parton's "9 to 5," and reinvent it for the millennial generation. The result is "9 to 6," a title that quite evidently comments on the greater demands placed on workers these days. There's no reliable way to embed the videos, but Part I of the re-imagined song is here, while Part II is here. For those who do not click through, here are some of the lyrics:

They sell you a dream in the form of FAFSA
Gotta go to college
But nobody asked ya
If you know how much tuition really is

Hard to find work once you got your diploma
So now the man
at the big bank own ya
For a choice you made when you were just a kid

Brown, incidentally, sounds uncannily like Parton.

Anyhow, it's good to see younger people finding their voice, and in a medium that will reach other younger people. That's doubly true when the musicians overcame a tough start in life—they met as students at USC.

Have a good weekend, all, and see if you can get off work today before the clock strikes 6. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Sorry, there was a data entry error yesterday—thanks to the readers who gave us a heads-up. The Virginia poll is now correctly input, with Joe Biden up by 3 rather than Donald Trump up by 3. Biden won that state by 10 points in 2020. So, is this: (1) a sign he's losing/lost support, (2) an artifact of Democrats not responding to polls right now (see above), (3) a temporary emotional response to the debate, (4) an outlier, or (5) some combination of the above?

As to Texas, Biden lost that state by 5 points in 2020. So, he's -4 there and -7 in Virginia, as compared to his 2020 numbers. Do with that information as you see fit. (Z)

State	Joe Biden	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Texas	40%	49%	Jun 20	Jul 01	U. of Houston
Virginia	47%	44%	Jul 06	Jul 11	SoCal Research

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

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