DNC Rules Committee Sets a Virtual Roll Call

The Rules Committee of the DNC convened yesterday and formally adopted the rules the Democrats will use to choose their nominee. Candidates for the nomination have until Saturday at 6 p.m. EDT to submit their names for consideration. Then wannabe nominees have until Tuesday to submit signatures of at least 300 convention delegates, with no more than 50 from any one state.

Once the nominees are known, the procedure depends on how many candidates are nominated. If there is only one, delegates will be sent electronic ballots and voting will begin on Aug. 1. If more than one person is nominated, then all candidates will get 5 days to make their cases to the delegates. Once that period has passed, the delegates will get at least 36 hours' advance notice as to when electronic voting will start.

In any event, the voting will be completed by Aug. 7. This unusual procedure was forced by an Ohio law that states parties must present the names of their candidates to the Ohio secretary of state 90 days before the election; that cutoff is Aug. 7 this year. In the past, the legislature always waived the rule for whichever party held its convention in August, but Democrats don't trust Ohio this time. The legislature did pass a new law moving the deadline up by 2 weeks, but that law doesn't take effect until Sept. 1. The DNC didn't want to take any chances about court cases keeping Harris off the Ohio ballot. If the nomination is official on Aug. 7, all state deadlines will be met.

Nevertheless, social media is full of disinformation. In particular, one post on Instagram said that Biden's name is already on the ballot in nine states and cannot be removed. That is simply false. Biden's name could not be on any ballot yet because the DNC has not chosen a nominee yet. Instagram users may not know that but the 50 secretaries of state certainly do. That notwithstanding, it is likely that many people will read the post and believe it. (V)

Biden Speaks...

Speaking from the Oval Office, Joe Biden addressed the American people yesterday for the first time since deciding to drop out of the presidential race. Here is the speech, if you didn't see it already (or you can read a transcript here):

He spoke for 11 minutes. The executive summary: It was... OK.

The President had three things he wanted to accomplish. The first was to "explain" why he dropped out of the race. And his explanation was that he decided he needed to "unite [his] party" and to "pass the torch to a new generation." That's certainly part of the explanation, but it omits a fair bit of the story, as well. In particular, right wingers are hopping mad that Biden did not say anything about his health.

The second goal was to convey what he plans to do with his remaining time in office, and to talk about what has already been accomplished. If Biden was going to openly urge people to vote for Kamala Harris, this is when he would have done so. He kept it a touch more subtle, however, declaring: "I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She's been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country." Although it's legal for a president to engage in electioneering from the Oval Office (because the president is explicitly exempt from the Hatch Act), Biden and his team clearly decided that being too overt would be in poor taste, and an abuse of the platform he was being given.

The third goal, which got the lion's share of the verbiage, was to warn the American people that democracy is at risk. He was not terribly specific as to WHY it is at risk; viewers get to fill in the blanks for themselves. Biden did not mention his immediate predecessor by name, though he did mention George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Maybe the rule was that you had to win the popular vote in order to make the speech.

Anyone who already believed that Biden has declined significantly will find affirmation of their views in his performance. The President tripped over his tongue roughly half a dozen times, despite reading from a teleprompter. The stumbles were probably due to his stutter. However, it is now well established that Biden skeptics do not really distinguish between "stutter" and "evidence of dementia."

Beyond the tongue-tied moments, Biden's delivery was a little flat. That is not too surprising; it can't be easy to summon up enthusiasm for giving up the presidency. The language of the speech endeavored to be poetic and inspiring, but didn't hit the bullseye. And the White House still hasn't solved the problem of positioning the teleprompter so that the speaker can read while also looking at the camera. That means Biden was sorta looking at the viewing audience, but not exactly, which is just a tiny bit unsettling.

It was at least plausible that if the speech had been a Kennedy- or Reagan-style home run, it might have given Harris a little bit of a boost. But as it is, we don't think it will have much impact, one way or the other. (Z)

...And So Does Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a badly divided Congress yesterday. About 80 liberal Democrats did not attend, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). President of the Senate Kamala Harris did not preside over the joint session, citing a "scheduling conflict," even though the date of Netanyahu's speech has been known for weeks. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) went further. He said: "Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2,100 years ago." Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did not shake Netanyahu's hand when he entered the chamber. Several Democratic senators also skipped the speech.

The speech was as much aimed at Israelis as at the members of Congress or the American public. This is why it was set for 2 p.m., which is 9 p.m. in Israel. Netanyahu described the war in Gaza in almost Biblical terms, as a battle between good and evil, between civilization and barbarism. It was a fiery speech with lots of drama. He is a very good speaker.

The PM also was clever enough to lavish praise on both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. He tried to make it clear that the war was also America's war. He said, "Our enemies are your enemies. Our fight is your fight. And our victory will be your victory." Republicans gave him raucous standing ovations multiple times. Netanyahu wore a lapel pin with crossed American and Israeli flags (to show that America's interests and Israel's interests are the same):

In his speech, Netanyahu described what happened on Oct. 7 in graphic detail. He said that 3,000 Hamas barbaric terrorists stormed into Israel, raped women, and burned babies alive.

Netanyahu knows that Biden wants a cease fire, so he offered a proposal. If Hamas disarms, surrenders, and returns all the hostages, the war would end immediately. Needless to say, Hamas has no interest in doing that, since that would end all of its leverage. He also wants a security alliance with Saudi Arabia and some other Arab countries. They want it too, but they can't proceed as long as the war in Gaza continues. But if Netanyahu were to tell the Israeli Army to stop fighting without the other side conceding anything, his government would fall and there would be total chaos. Also, Hamas would interpret that as weakness, and in that part of the world, the weak are eaten.

Experts said that for decades, support of Israel has been bipartisan. If that support erodes and support of Israel becomes just another partisan issue, that would change the nature of the U.S.-Israeli relationship for the worse. Netanyahu sort of tried to avoid being openly partisan, but given the different views of the Republicans and some Democrats, there is no real bipartisan position.

Outside, an estimated 5,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested his speech, called Netanyahu a war criminal, and demanded that the U.S. stop sending arms to Israel. Netanyahu did not help his "bipartisan" case by saying that the protesters are standing with Hamas, standing with rapists and terrorists. He called them Tehran's useful idiots. That was probably for domestic consumption in Israel, but won't go over well in the U.S.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian-American in Congress, held up a sign reading "WAR CRIMINAL" on one side and "GUILTY OF GENOCIDE" on the other. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) went over and sat next to her and had a brief interaction with her. Rep Steny Hoyer (D-MD), a former House majority leader, called the sign "unfortunate."

Biden and Netanyahu will meet at the White House today. Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, possibly Friday. (V)

Structural Factors Point Both Ways

Who's going to be elected president? Beats us. And everyone else. Don't believe people who claim to know. We will have more polls in a week or two, and probably some swing state polls soon, but it takes time for people to process something as momentous and unprecedented as a candidate swap. Double haters, especially those who think anybody older than grandpa is too old to be president, need time to reassess their position. Nevertheless, there are a number of structural factors that are clear now. How big each one will be is impossible to say, though. And there could be more known unknowns (e.g., debates) or unknown unknowns (?) that roil the race.

Here is a short list of factors, but we have added a number of others we thought of ourselves below. The number of items in each list is not terribly important because some of them may be huge and others microscopic.

Factors Working for Trump

• Bigotry: Let's start with the 800-pound gorilla sitting peacefully on the couch in the living room and eating a bag of peanuts. Joe Biden beat Trump whereas Hillary Clinton didn't because Biden did much better with white men. There are a substantial number of white men who will simply not vote for a woman, not even a highly qualified white one. They are never, ever going to vote for a Black woman. This group absolutely exists but the key question is how big is it. Clinton got abut 3 million more votes than Trump but the distribution was wrong and she lost three key Rust Belt states. Will we get a rerun of that?
  
  
• Harris' Low Ratings: Harris' approval ratings are poor. Only 38% approve of her and 50% disapprove of her, so she is -12. Not a great start. People don't like her. People usually look at all the issues carefully, think about the consequences of the various policies, and then... vote for the person they want to have a beer with. So far, Harris fails the beer test. On the other hand, Trump is just as bad, with 42% approval and 54% disapproval, so also -12. One key difference though is that 12% don't have an opinion of Harris yet, so she has potential to grow her support.
  
  
• Border Czar: The Republicans' most potent issue with many voters is the border. They are going to label Harris as the failed border czar. This label may be hard to get rid of after $100 million in ads calling her by that title. Of course, she never had any real power to do anything about the border, but czars always have power, no? She can fight back by harping on the fact that there was a border bill worked out by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) but Trump personally killed it because he doesn't want to seal the border, he wants a campaign issue. But facts don't matter anymore.
  
  
• Base is Solid: Trump does not have to worry about his base. He has a high floor (but a low ceiling). Nothing Harris does or says is going to change the minds of at least 40% of the voters. Nothing. They are his to keep. Harris' base is not as big, at least at the moment, and not as solid.
  
  
• Willie Brown: Republicans are going to run this photo a lot, so you might as well get used to it. You can say you saw it here first:
  
  
  
  In 1994, then 30 and single, Harris dated the powerful speaker of the California Assembly, Willie Brown (above, left), who was 30 years her senior. He put her on some well-paying boards. She took a leave of absence from her work as deputy D.A. in Alameda County and did the work on the boards. No one has ever said she was a no-show or failed to do the work properly, but Republicans are going to say she slept her way to the top. That is totally untrue because what "made" her was not being on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board but winning election as San Francisco D.A. and doing a good enough job that she was later elected California AG. Brown's help got her a bit of extra money, but it didn't help her career at all. That's not how Republicans are going to put it, though.
  
  
• Willie Horton: As we have already noted, the Republicans also plan to "Willie Horton" Harris. Officially, what this means is that they will find one or more people who committed criminal acts, and whose ability to do so can be linked to Harris (however tenuously). For example, maybe she approved a plea bargain that allowed a domestic abuser to get out of prison after 5 years, and that person killed the target of their abuse after being released.
  
  However, the real point of the original Willie Horton ad was not "Michael Dukakis was responsible for violent, marauding criminals walking the streets." It was "Michael Dukakis was responsible for violent, marauding, BLACK criminals walking the streets." It is exceedingly improbable that when the Trump campaign (or one of its allied PACs) releases their version of the Willie Horton ad, it will focus on a white criminal.
  
  
• Sitting Veeps Rarely Win: So far, 49 people have enjoyed that famous bucket of liquid. All of them probably expected to be sitting in their boss' chair some day. Fifteen of them actually did, but eight of those got to sit in the big chair because the boss died. One (Jerry Ford) got the promotion when the boss resigned. Two more (Richard Nixon and Joe Biden) were elected president after their time as veep was over and they were no longer in office. Only four (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren and George H.W. Bush) were elected president while they were the sitting vice president. Put another way, in the past 186 years, Bush was the only sitting vice president to be elected in his own right. Every election is different, but those are not great odds.
  
  That said, there is another way to crunch the numbers. Only 10 VPs have actually managed to secure their party's nomination, and six of those went on to win the presidency. So, Harris has already conquered the biggest "weeder" test when it comes to VPs who would be president.
  
  
• Campaign Skills: Trump knows how to rile up a crowd. Harris ran an uninspiring 2020 campaign. The campaign will be very short this time (unless you are British or French, in which case you will say it is going to be endless). Nevertheless, Harris will have to campaign. It is certainly possible that she has picked up some campaign skills in the past 4 years and she will have far better advisers now than she had in 2020. If she can lasso Barack Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, and pull him into her campaign, that would be huge. On the other hand, Joe Biden had the best advisers the Democratic Party has and still blew the debate. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pointed out, candidate quality matters. Maybe Harris is up to the job, but we don't know yet. Her past is not encouraging.
  
  
• Electoral College: The whole country is a giant gerrymander skewed in favor of the thinly populated rural states that always vote Republican. To beat that, a Democrat has to win the popular vote by at least 3 points. Hillary Clinton won by 2.1 points. That wasn't enough. Can Harris pull it off? Of course, she knows that in the end, if she can win three or four of the seven most important swing states, that will do the job, but being popular in Michigan and Wisconsin while being unpopular nationally is tough.
  
  
• Jill Stein and Cornel West: Trump will undoubtedly praise Jill Stein and Cornel West to the moon and Republicans are already funneling money at West (and probably Stein) to get them on the ballot everywhere. Once done, they may run ads for them and do everything they can to help them, knowing that there are Democrats who think Harris is not perfect and so won't vote for her. If Stein and West can siphon off 1-2% of the vote in the swing states, that could flip the election to Trump. We've seen this movie multiple times, certainly in 2000 and in 2016, but some Democrats never learn that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Looks great for Trump and glum for Harris? Not so fast. There are also a fair number of structural issues that work the other way:

Factors Working for Harris

• Timing: Harris is probably the luckiest person alive. The circumstances that got her the nomination are so weird that Aaron Sorkin would never have dared writing this into a script for fear of being laughed out of town. Suppose Joe Biden had annnounced a year ago that he had accomplished his goal of defeating Donald Trump and it was now time for a younger candidate to take over. There would have been a primary, probably featuring Harris, Govs. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), and a cast of thousands. Harris might well have eked out a narrow win, but unifying the Democratic Party around her would have been a huge problem (think: Hillary vs. Bernie, part 350). Some Democrats would have stayed home in November "to teach the Democrats a lesson." Others would have voted third-party or written in their defeated favorite. It would have been a terrible start. Now the entire Party is unified and behind her in a way Democrats rarely are. Harris has a black belt in cat herding.
  
  
• Enthusiasm: In part due to the way things have worked out in the past week, Democrats are incredibly excited and enthusiastic. Things looked terrible for at least 6 months and now they are looking up. That is hugely important. Enthusiasm translates into high voter turnout, many volunteers to go door to door, donations, and so much more. Now it is the Republicans who are in shock and dispirited.
  
  
• Money: The enthusiasm is being felt concretely in the form of donations. Harris raised $100 million from small donors and $150 million from large donors in the first 2 days. The small donors (under $200) can be hit up again and again. Money is likely to keep streaming in until Nov. 5. Under Biden, donations had dried up, which is probably one of the reasons he threw in the towel. The completely changed situation also works the other way. As we noted yesterday, Elon Musk is suddenly not going to be giving Trump $45 million/month. He's probably not the only high-profile person who is going to have second thoughts. Certainly, any CEO who wants things from the government is going to think three times before betting the farm on Trump. For example, Trump asked the oil company executives for a billion dollars. They know that if they do that and Harris wins, the hammer will come down on fossil fuels very, very fast and very, very hard. If they stay neutral and Harris wins, they will at least get a chance to make their case for a slow phaseout rather than a very rapid one.
  
  
• Trump's Plans Are Obsolete: Trump's entire campaign was built around the idea of attacking Joe Biden as old and senile. There are probably a dozen or more ads featuring him making verbal mistakes that are now in the recycle bin on some computer. The whole carefully planned campaign is in tatters. The Trump campaign has to start all over again. No one on the red team saw this coming. The campaign was not ready for it. Sure, they are going to call Harris a socialist, a Communist, and a pinko, but they have been doing that for decades and it has probably lost its effectiveness. Also, for some young voters, Harris being a socialist is a feature, not a bug.
  
  
• The Age Issue: The whole age and senility thing is now turned 180 degrees. Harris is going to say that Trump is old and senile. There is plenty of video footage of him making mistakes that can be used as evidence. So all of a sudden, the Republicans are going to get their own campaign thrown in their faces. In fact, it has already started. Here is what George Conway's super PAC has put together. Expect more like this:
  
  
  
  
• Low Ceiling: Trump doesn't seem to be able to get more than 47% or so nationally in any election or any poll. More than half the country really dislikes him. If Harris can neutralize the minor parties, she could get over 50%. Winning nationally by 3% or more is very likely enough to do the job.
  
  
• Abortion: Biden is pro-choice, but he is also a Catholic and his heart isn't really into making abortion issue #1, issue #2, and issue #3. Harris is not a Catholic and is a woman and is 100% committed to talking about abortion day and night. This is the Democrats' answer to immigration. Further, it is much easier to make abortion personal. That you won't be able to get an abortion if you need one is a lot more potent for voters, on the whole, than how many people are sneaking across the border in Arizona. She is going to flog this for all it is worth, especially knowing that a large majority of the country is with her. Also, there could be abortion initiatives in as many as a dozen states, which will help drive turnout if she campaigns in those states.
  
  
• The Veep Will Help: Maybe it is karma or maybe hubris, but Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) is the wrong guy for the moment. He doesn't bring anything to the ticket except enraging the base even more. And many of the things he said are very anti-woman (see below). His campaigning so far is mostly him attacking Harris. Women are going to see that as an attack on all women. Democrats are certainly working on ads featuring him already. In contrast, Harris can pick a running mate who actually helps the ticket. We had a rundown of the veepables Monday. The leading candidates are still Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) and Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY). The first three each could help in a key swing state. Beshear could help with rural voters. Don't forget James Carville's remark that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between (though residents of the Keystone State prefer to describe it as "Pennsyltucky"). Beshear could help in the Alabama/Kentucky part. Likewise, Michigan and Wisconsin also have rural areas and what matters is the total number of votes, not which counties they come from. In other words, Harris has her pick of at least four very strong running mates, each of whom could be of great value to the ticket. Vance is worthless to Trump but now he is stuck with him.
  
  
• Black Female Prosecutors: Trump has run into Black female prosecutors before—for example, NY AG Letitia James and Fulton County DA Fani Willis. He does not react well to them and tends to call them names and belittle them. Harris has already made it clear that one of the themes of her campaign will be the prosecutor vs. the perp. If in a debate she says: "As a prosecutor, my bread and butter was putting rapists and criminals like you in prison" a dozen times in several variations, Trump could blow his stack and say very nasty things that anger women voters. She surely knows this, and will try to get under his skin in many ways. He is not very good at controlling himself and she will try to exploit this to the hilt.
  
  
• Pending Legal Issues: Some of the known unknowns relate to Trump's legal issues. Any of them could pop up and become big news. His appeal in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case could be turned down and he could be ordered to pay her $88 million right now. Suppose, to spite him, she used a bit of that money to make a high-profile donation to Harris' super PAC. He'd go bonkers. His own money being used against him. The appeals court in the bank fraud case Letitia James brought could make a quick decision. Judge Juan Merchan could sentence him to prison in September (and note that Merchan is not required to allow Trump to remain free on appeal). Judge Tanya Chutkan could start hearings on whether riling up a mob to invade the Capitol is part of the president's job. Rudy Giuliani could flip to save his own neck (and legal costs) and start spilling the beans. There are many legal pitfalls out there.
  
  
• RFK Jr.: It is widely believed that Robert Kennedy Jr. is being funded by Republican megadonors to pull votes from the Democrats, but that could backfire. Harris could ask some wealthy Democrats to finance a campaign to run TV ads praising Kennedy as an anti-vaxxer. The ad could say: "If you think vaccines are a government plot to make you sick, there is only one candidate who has your back: Bobby Jr." That could pull a significant number of Trump voters to Kennedy without hurting Harris at all. Kennedy would freak out and try to contact the folks running the ads but they could say: "It is illegal for a super PAC to coordinate with a candidate, so we are legally forbidden from talking to you. We think these ads will maximize your votes. That is our goal. Have a nice day and goodbye." Click.

One issue we don't have in either list is the economy. By traditional measures, the economy is in good shape. Inflation is under control, wages are up, jobs are easy to find, the stock market and people's 401(k) plans are way up. This should work for Harris. Her problem is that for many people, all they see is that eggs and milk cost more than they used to. Harris can run ads full of graphs of wages and prices but voters are not particularly knowledgeable about or concerned with macroeconomics, so that could be hard to pull off. As to Trump, he could make ads with people grousing about how much eggs and milk cost nowadays, but would that affect anyone who is not already angry about how much eggs and milk cost nowadays? In short, we don't really know who would or could benefit from making the economy an issue. (V)

It's Deja Vu All over Again

"Could a woman break through that last glass ceiling?" is a question that seems to come up from time to time. In dozens of countries, including Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Tunisia, Ukraine, and the U.K., the answer is "been there, done that." So far, not the U.S. though. Could it happen now? Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016, but they weren't distributed the right way. Still, a lot has changed since 2016. For example, the work force now has more college-educated women than college-educated men. That wasn't true in 2016. The #MeToo movement happened. The Dobbs decision resulted in making abortion unavailable in half the states.

Also, Kamala Harris is not Hillary Clinton. Clinton had a lot of baggage and many people strongly disliked her as a person and thought she was arrogant. Harris has far less of that, although there are probably more people who hate Black women than hate white women. The other candidate is the same person, but has changed. Donald Trump is far more misogynistic now than he was in 2016 and voters are more sensitive to that now than they were then.

Certain attitudes have also changed. Back in 2016 you were either a man or a woman. For some young voters now, gender is more fluid, with many possibilities. For these voters, which of the many genders someone is doesn't count for much.

Also, people are now more used to seeing women in high elective office. Currently, 25 senators, 128 House members and 12 governors are women. When a woman runs for high office, in most cases, the fact that she is a woman doesn't play an especially large role in the campaign. More important is whether she is a Democrat or a Republican. (V)

Vance May Be a Net Negative for Trump

Donald Trump probably didn't vet his potential running mates carefully. Vetting requires getting down into the weeds and checking out everyone's background thoroughly. Trump doesn't do that. He goes with his gut, and J.D. Vance was the most MAGAtastic of them all, so he got the nod. Trump may soon regret that.

As mentioned above, Vance doesn't bring in a lot of new voters because the people who like him were already going to vote for Trump. But it is worse than that. As oppo researchers dig into his past, they are turning up things that may actively repel some independents and undecideds, and maybe even some weak Trump supporters who don't actually like Trump but who have always been Republicans and were planning to vote for him out of a vague sense of party loyalty.

Vance's problem is that he is part of the New Right. The people there are intellectuals, activists, politicians, and influencers who hold a variety of views and have different policy goals. But one theme that runs through the movement is disrespect for women, or "childless cat ladies," as they are known. A key thing they largely agree on is rolling back women's gains in many areas and pushing back on gender equality. And some of Vance's earlier remarks about women are going to come back to haunt him as they become better known.

Vance is strongly opposed to abortion, and has suggested it is wrong even in cases of rape and incest: "It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it's whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society." He has compared abortion to slavery. When the Dept. of HHS was finalizing a rule that would have prevented law enforcement from accessing women's medical records relating to reproductive health, Vance was one of only 28 members of Congress to oppose the rule. He is against divorce and said that people now shift spouses like they change their underwear. He has argued that people in unhappy, even violent, marriages should stay together for the good of the children. Watch:

The host mumbles incomprehensibly for the first 50 seconds with the mic in his mouth, then Vance starts talking. He is clearly speaking as an editor of the Yale Law Review and not some country hick from Appalachia. He is intellectual and knows what he wants to say and says it well. Hillbillies don't talk with deep knowledge of "labor force participation rates" as Vance does. If you want to skip the economics stuff (which is interesting because it shows you that Vance is a lot smarter than the average bear), the divorce stuff where he says women should stay in horrible marriages for the sake of the kids starts at 2:43.

Something like 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce and something like 60-65% of second marriages end in divorce. Nearly 70% of divorces are initiated by the woman. Telling women that they should stay in a violent marriage for the sake of the kids is not likely to be a big vote-getter with the ladies.

Vance is friendly with the Claremont Institute, which is home to a variety of industrial-strength misogynists such as Prof. Scott Yenor, a fellow there. Yenor has said that career-oriented women are "more medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome than women need to be." Also there is Jack Murphy, who once said "feminists need rape." Many of the members are also part of a pro-patriarchy fraternal organization, the Society of American Civic Renewal. (V)

Harris' Strategy Laid Bare

Kamala Harris' strategy is not a secret. In fact, her campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, wrote a memo describing it and gave it to Politico for publication.

First the campaign will target five specific demographics where Harris is already much more popular than Donald Trump. The goal here is to drive up turnout. The groups are Black voters, Latino voters, Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander voters, women voters, and young voters. For example, Harris is running 54 points ahead of Trump among Black voters, so getting every possible Black voter to the polls is a top priority. Similarly, among women, Harris' favorability runs 21 points ahead of Trump's.

Another group consists of voters who didn't vote for Biden in 2020, but have moved toward the Democrats since then, in part due to the extreme candidates the Republicans ran in 2022. These people include the remaining white college-educated voters who aren't already Democrats, as well as seniors. These two groups were formerly solidly Republican, but that has changed rapidly in recent years and Dillon wants to encourage the holdouts to switch parties as well.

Still another group in Harris' sights is the undecideds. It is about 7% of the electorate. Most are Black or Latino and under 30 and don't pay a lot of attention to politics. They need to be aggressively targeted.

The states Dillon will target are the three blue-wall states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) as well as the sunbelt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina. No real surprises here.

Dillion also discusses the enthusiasm of Democrats. As of Tuesday evening, Harris had raised $126 million from small donors. Since Sunday, 1.4 million grassroots donors contributed to her campaign, 64% of whom had not contributed before. In addition, 74,000 donors signed up for recurring contributions, providing a steady stream of money.

Since Sunday, over 100,000 people have volunteered to work for the campaign and another 2,000 applied for jobs with the campaign. These people will work out of 250 offices with 1,300 existing staff, soon to be expanded to 1,500 paid staff.

Dillon expects the race to be close but says it is winnable. She could hardly say otherwise. (V)

Wray Testifies about the Assassination Attempt

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks. The FBI found and unlocked Crooks' computer and was able to report on some of the things they found there. On July 6, a week before the shooting, Crooks registered to attend the rally in Butler, PA, where he shot Trump. Also that day he did an online search for: "How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?" That clearly suggests he spent at least a week on his plan to kill Trump and was starting to work out the mechanics of doing it. However, that doesn't shed any light on why he wanted to kill Trump, since he (Crooks) was a registered Republican.

Crooks was definitely thorough. He visited the rally site on July 7, the day after he registered to attend, and then two more times later in the week. The day of the rally, he flew a drone for 11 minutes around the area 2 hours before it started. Wray thought it was for surveillance. Authorities also found two explosive devices in his car so it is also possible that Crooks had a plan to send and remotely detonate the devices near Trump. The police found the drone and its controller in Crooks' car.

Wray also said that the firearm Crooks used had a collapsible stock, making it easier to conceal. That would explain why he didn't attract much attention before he got to the roof. However, once he was up on the roof and in position to shoot, he was spotted by a local law enforcement officer. Crooks saw that he had been spotted, realized that he didn't have much time left, and opened fire almost immediately. The FBI found eight spent casings on the roof along with Crooks' body.

When asked if there were any accomplices or coconspirators, Wray said there is no indication so far of anyone else being involved.

Wray said that Crooks was a shooting hobbyist and had gone to a shooting range the day before the attempt, possibly to work on his marksmanship.

The opening statement by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) was highly partisan, as usual for him. He said he wanted a second-by-second timeline of what happened that day. The hearing itself, which ran for 3 hours, was orderly, with House members asking serious questions and waiting for answers. (V)

Dean Phillips Was Right

As you might vaguely remember, Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-MN) ran against Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for a bit earlier this year. So did Marianne Williamson, but Phillips is a three-term member of the House and the company he co-owns makes a mean gelato, so his candidacy carried a bit more weight (but not much).

Phillips didn't disagree with Biden's policies. In fact, he voted for them 100% of the time. His pitch was that Biden was too old to win the election. Everyone pooh-poohed him. Biden was in great shape and certainly not too old to win.

Phillips didn't actually want to be president. He just wanted somebody out there to prevent Biden from getting the nomination because he was convinced Biden was not up to another 4 years and could not win the election. He wanted to prevent a Trump presidency at all costs. He called Govs. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) to try to get them to run. Neither returned his calls. Giving advice runs in his family. His grandmother, Pauline Phillips, wrote the Dear Abby advice column.

When Phillips failed to get any high-profile Democrat to jump in, as a desperation measure, he jumped in himself. Not that it did a lot of good. For whatever consolation it might be to Phillips, nobody believed Cassandra either, even though she was right, too. (V)

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