How Do Replacement Candidates Do?

The most recent party to switch horses in midstream was the Democrats in the 2024 presidential race. You know how that turned out. If there had been a normal primary process and Kamala Harris had simply beaten all the other contenders, she might have won the general election because some of the opposition to her was that party insiders in a smokeless room picked her without consulting the voters. Maine is trying very hard to avoid that trap now. The Maine Democratic Party is working on a way to run the whole show in 2 weeks, give every Maine Democrat who wants to have a say have their say, and be done on time. Counties will probably run caucuses or something like that and elect delegates to the state convention. The 600 delegates at the state convention will elect the Senate candidate.

But the Biden/Harris swap is not the first time there was (or almost was) a candidate swap late in the campaign. How did that work in the past? Let's take a look:

• 2004 Illinois: In 2004, incumbent Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R) decided to retire instead of running for reelection. An ambitious young politician named Barack Obama won the Democratic primary. A businessman named Jack Ryan won the Republican primary. As a part of its campaign reporting, the Chicago Tribune convinced a California court to release records relating to Ryan's divorce and custody case. The records showed that Ryan had pressured his then-wife to perform sexual acts in public. This might have been related to her decision to file for divorce. Four days after the Tribune published its story, Ryan dropped out.
  
  Republicans spent 6 weeks flailing around, trying to find a replacement. They tried every play known to man to convince Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka to run. But he punted instead. Even Iron Mike knows that he can't win diddly squat without Buddy Ryan doing the heavy lifting. In desperation, the GOP state central committee gave the nomination to a prominent Black conservative, Alan Keyes, despite the minor detail that he lived in Maryland. Obama won 70% to 27%, a 43-point landslide that launched Obama on the path to the White House.
  
  Result: Replacement lost
  
  
• 2002 New Jersey: In 2002, Sen. Bob Torricelli (D) was unopposed in the Democratic primary. He expected to cruise to reelection. Businessman Doug Forrester won the Republican primary. When the Republicans discovered that Torricelli had accepted illegal campaign donations in 1996 and improper gifts, they made this the centerpiece of Forrester's campaign. The Democratic Party wanted to dump Torricelli but he didn't want to go. Eventually, under public pressure and bad polls, Torricelli decided to go and dropped out on Sept. 30, long after the drop-out deadline. The Democratic Party went to court and the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled they could replace Toricelli.
  
  Now they had to find someone to run with only 5 weeks left before the election. It had to be someone already well known. It wasn't easy. Former senator Bill Bradley, Rep. Frank Pallone, and future senator Robert Menendez all refused. Finally, they convinced former senator Frank Lautenberg, who had retired in 2000 at 76 after three successful terms in the Senate, to go for one more hurrah. Lautenberg really didn't want to, but as a good party loyalist, he offered himself up and filed to run. Forrester's lead in the polls vanished instantly and Lautenberg won easily, 54% to 44%. Then-majority leader Tom Daschle (D) reneged on a promise to Lautenberg to let him keep his seniority, which upset Lautenberg. Despite his demotion, he decided retirement was not all it was cracked up to be and in 2008, at 84, he won his fifth and final Senate race.
  
  Result: Replacement won
  
  
• 2002 Minnesota: This is probably the case that most readily occurs to readers. Sen. Paul Wellstone (DFL) was a rising star on the left, and seemed to be on a glide path to defeat Norm Coleman (R) in his reelection bid. However, 11 days before the election, Wellstone died in a plane crash.
  
  The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party had the good fortune that one of the nation's most famous Democrats lived in Minnesota and was available. So, Walter Mondale got the nod. The Party had the bad fortune that Wellstone's memorial service, held a week before the election, turned into something like a Mondale rally, which left a sour taste in the mouths of many voters. Pre-memorial polling gave Mondale a 5-ish point lead, but he ended up losing by two points.
  
  Result: Replacement lost
  
  
• 1990 Minnesota: In 1990, two-term Gov. Rudy Perpich (DFL) decided to go for a third term and got the nomination. The Republicans nominated businessman Jon Grunseth as their gubernatorial candidate. On October 14, allegations came out that in 1981, while Grunseth was swimming naked with his daughter at his home pool, two of his daughter's friends, 12 and 13, came by. Grunseth told them to remove their bathing suits but they refused. Grunseth then tried to rip the girls' bathing suits off. Witnesses at the pool party corroborated this. On Oct. 28, the local paper reported that Grunseth had an affair in 1989. That was too much and he dropped out.
  
  On Oct. 30, the Republican central committee met to decide what to do, with the election in a week. They concluded that they should go with the runner-up in the GOP primary that year, state Auditor Arne Carlson. Carlson won handily and was reelected by a 29-point margin in 1994.
  
  Result: Replacement won
  
  
• 1978 Virginia: Incumbent Sen. William Scott (R) declined to run for reelection in 1978. Democratic AG Andrew Miller won his primary and Republican Richard Obershain, who was chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, won his primary. On Aug. 2, 1978, a Piper Seneca carrying Obershain home from a campaign rally ran into a tree at night. Obershain was killed immediately.
  
  A team of 78 state Republicans got together, scratched their heads, and decided to go with the runner-up in the GOP primary, John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy and then-current (and sixth) husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor. Warner won by a mere 4,721 votes, but went on to have a 30-year career in the Senate.
  
  Result: Replacement won
  
  
• 2012 Missouri: There was a near-miss in the Missouri Senate race in 2012. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) was running for reelection. She dabbled in a bit of rodent reproduction in the Republican primary, spending $2 million to call Rep. Todd Akin (R) "too conservative." That helped him across the finish line in the Aug. 7 primary. Akin was a fanatical opponent of abortion, even in cases of rape. On Aug. 19, 2012, Akin said: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Many people took this to mean Akin thought there were two types of rape, legitimate and illegitimate. That didn't go over so well, to put it mildly.
  
  If Akin dropped out before September, the Republican Party could replace him. McCaskill understood how wounded he was and wanted him to stay in and tried to stop the Republicans from forcing him out. She did this by leaking fake polling data showing him winning anyway. The Republicans thought he could win and didn't force him out. On Nov. 6, McCaskill crushed Akin by 15 points.
  
  Result: Guy who should have been replaced lost

So what's the score here? In three of the five races where there was a replacement, the new candidate won. In Illinois, the replacement lost, but against Obama, any Republican was going to lose. In Minnesota, who knows if the insta-polls were out of whack, or if the Wellstone memorial really was decisive, but 11 days is so short that any semi-close election is converted into a crapshoot.

The message here is that a late replacement is not necessarily hindered if that candidate is otherwise a good candidate. In Maine, it is important that voters see that the replacement was chosen by the voters, not the party bosses, and that the new candidate has broad support. If the Democrats indeed pick Troy Jackson, as our readers have, and all the progressive pooh-bahs line up behind him, he probably has a decent chance.

Now that Lindsey Graham has gone off to the true Upper Chamber, that race will also involve a late replacement candidate. South Carolina is fairly red, so any Republican is favored, but at least we will know later if the replacement does as well as Graham did last time. (V & Z)

Why Couldn't Platner Get Away with Behavior Trump Gets Away with?

Donald Trump has violated so many norms, rules and people, it is hard to keep track. Think: "grab 'em by the pu**y," being held liable for sexual assault (behavior that would be called "rape" in most states), Jeffrey Epstein, numerous women claiming he assaulted them, conviction on 34 felony counts, hiding classified documents in his bathroom, not paying his vendors, hiding his tax returns, being impeached twice and surviving, and much, much more. Why can't other politicians, like Graham Platner, get away with things Trump gets away with? It is a valid question.

For starters, the two parties are very different. A large part of the Republican base—white, working-class men—feels the country's economic and political systems are crooked and rigged against them. They see Trump as a disrupter who is also fighting the "system" and admire him for doing so, and are therefore willing to overlook his personal flaws as minor compared to what they perceive he wants to do (get even with media, legal, political, academic, and other elites who want to punish him).

The Democrats are dominated by precisely those same college-educated, affluent elites who believe in the rule of law and also believe the "system" is largely on the level if someone like Barack Obama can grow up to be president. The Democratic voters are heavily female and think sexual assault is a Very Big Deal, unlike many of the working-class men who admire Andrew Tate and his ilk in the manosphere. Democrats simply hold their politicians to a higher standard than many Republicans do.

Another factor is that Trump is simply sui generis. He has a unique combination of lying, bluster, bullying, intimidation, cunning and snake-oil charisma that no other politician has (or wants, actually). He is able to convince his followers to believe what he says and not their lying eyes. Few, if any, other politicians alive today can pull this off. Trump floats above reality. It is not an easy thing to achieve. Maybe Trump has a skill set that no one else has.

Recent history is littered with politicians who discovered the hard way that there is one set of rules for Trump and a different one for them. Think: Rod Blagojevich, Andrew Cuomo, John Edwards, Katie Hill, Roy Moore, Graham Platner, "George Santos," Eliot Spitzer, Eric Swalwell and Anthony Weiner, to name a few, some of whom discovered this even before Trump was on the scene. There are more Democrats than Republicans on the list because for a Republican to be disgraced and excommunicated, his or her sins have to be extremely heinous. Roy Moore lost to a Democrat because even in Alabama being a child predator is a bridge too far for a Republican.

The fact that Trump is Teflon coated the way no other politician is, is good news. He has a very special talent for avoiding accountability that doesn't transfer to other politicians who try to get away with things he has gotten away with. He can't just spray some of his Teflon on other Republicans and give them the gift of immunity. It just doesn't work. (V)

Democrats Could Exploit Trump's Refusal to Sign the Housing Bill

Donald Trump's secret formula is that he discovered that many voters are very ignorant and he has exploited that to the max. Democrats now have a chance to play the same game if they want to.

Last week, Congress sent Trump a bipartisan housing bill. It passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5. The bill was aimed at alleviating the housing shortage. Among other things, it loosens regulations to make it easier to build houses, provides grants to renovate abandoned buildings, streamlines zoning, allows cities to use certain HUD funds for housing construction, and does a number of other things—nothing spectacular, but together they do help.

Trump refused to sign the bill. He also didn't veto it. According to the Constitution, as long as Congress is in session, a bill that passes both chambers and is neither signed nor vetoed becomes law after 10 days. The housing bill became law on Friday.

It is our guess that very few voters understand this somewhat peculiar default rule in the Constitution. It was designed to prevent the chief executive from killing a bill by just stuffing it in a desk drawer and doing nothing. Again, our guess is that large numbers of voters assume that a bill must be signed by the president to become a law.

This means the Democrats can now campaign on "Congress passed a bipartisan bill that would have reduced housing costs and Trump refused to sign it. He doesn't care that you can't pay your rent or mortgage. All he cares about is himself, not you." No need to mention what happened to the bill, but the above statement is true. In a campaign where affordability is going to be a top issue, pointing out every way Trump could have reduced costs and decided not to could be a strong argument. Democrats need to marshal every argument they can find about why Republicans refuse to help them on affordability, and this one is another piece of ammo, even if it is slightly misleading. After all, Trump could have proudly signed the bill on national television and chose not to. That's on him. (V)

Trump Is Still Messing with Elections

Last Thursday, Donald Trump took action based on the Supreme Court's ruling that members of independent commissions aren't independent at all, but serve at the president's pleasure. He fired the two Democrats on the Election Assistance Commission, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, by e-mail. The remaining Republican, Christy McCormick, resigned afterward. The other Republican, Donald Palmer, resigned earlier this year. By law, the commission has two Democrats and two Republicans. So now the commission has no commissioners and can't function.

The Commission has no enforcement power, but helps states run elections. It also develops, tests, and certifies voting systems. Republicans have always hated the Commission because they believe the federal government has no role to play in election management—except when there is a Republican president who is trying actively to interfere with the state-run elections. In particular, Trump has a bone to pick with the EAC, because in 2025 he ordered the EAC to add a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to voter registration forms and the Commission didn't do it.

It is now possible that since there are no commissioners, Trump will try to bully EAC staff by ordering them to instruct states to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement to their voter registration forms. Republican secretaries of state would howl to the moon if a Democratic president gave them an order, but might say "Yes, sir" to a Republican order and get to work on it.

Trump is also peripherally involved in another state-election-management battle. In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is trying to wrest control from Maricopa County Recorder, Trump ally Justin Heap, who is also a Republican. They want Heap to state whether the 2020 and 2022 elections were fair, something he doesn't want to do. In 2020 it was Joe Biden's victory over Trump that is in dispute and in 2022 it was Gov. Katie Hobbs' (D-AZ) victory over Kari Lake (Q-Mars).

Last year, armed protesters held raucous rallies outside the county's tabulation center and have threatened more this year, with races for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and three contested House seats.

The fight goes back to a 2024 agreement between the Board and then-Recorder Stephen Richer (R) that assigned some IT staff and duties away from the recorder's office. Richer had affirmed the victories by Biden (2020) and Hobbs (2022). When Heap took over from Richer, he canceled the deal, hired a law firm founded by Stephen Miller, and sued the board because it was allegedly starving the recorder's office of funds. The Maricopa County D.A., Rachel Mitchell (R), contested the hiring of Miller's firm and said it was a power grab. But in April 2026, a county judge blocked the transfer of the IT staff from the recorder to the board. An appeals court blocked the county judge, but last week the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of Heap. So, in short, that's Heap wins, Heap loses, Heap wins, Heap loses, Heap wins.

There is also a dispute over ballot scanners and more. One of the board's lawyers said Heap wants a big fight as an excuse to justify more extreme actions. Voting rights groups are very alarmed at Heap, who suggested that the court appoint Cleta Mitchell, the lawyer who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election, as a mediator between Heap and the board.

Another thing Heap has done is to curtail the sending of bipartisan teams to hospitals and nursing homes to help people fill out ballots. Kate Brophy McGree, the Republican chair of the board, said: "Recorder Heap, with his serial lies, has done more to harm voter confidence in our elections than I could do in two lifetimes."

This could be a warning as right-wing groups try to take over the voting machinery and install Trump allies and conspiracy theorists to run elections and count the ballots. What happened here could (and probably will) happen elsewhere as well. Thanks to reader B.P. in Salt Lake City, UT, for the heads-up. (V)

Cook Moves Four Gubernatorial Races toward the Democrats and One Away

Although most of the political world is looking at the House and Senate, there are also 35 races for governor in November. Governors are actually pretty important now that Congress is deadlocked all the time and can't do anything, even though Republicans hold the trifecta. The Cook Political Report is tracking and rating all the gubernatorial races as well as the congressional ones. It has now changed the rating on five races for governor. Here are the changes (asterisks denote incumbents running for reelection):

State	Democrat	Republican	Old Rating	New rating
Arizona	Katie Hobbs*	Probably Andy Biggs	Toss up	Lean Democratic
Maine	Hannah Pingree	Bobby Charles	Likely Democratic	Solid Democratic
New Mexico	Deb Haaland	Greg Hull	Likely Democratic	Solid Democratic
Ohio	Amy Acton	Vivek Ramaswamy	Lean Republican	Toss up
Oregon	Tina Kotek*	Chistine Drazan	Solid Democratic	Likely Democratic

It matters a great deal whether there are more Democratic senators than Republican senators but it doesn't matter whether there are more Democratic governors or Republican governors. At the moment, Republicans have the lead 26-24, but that could change in January, as several states with Republican governors could flip, notably Iowa and Ohio.

In Arizona, fire-breathing Trumpist election denier Andy Biggs is expected to wipe out Rep. David Schweikert in the primary a week from tomorrow. Today's Arizona is not Barry Goldwater's or even John McCain's Arizona. Hobbs is on the air now with $6.3 million in ads. On top of that, she is very popular, with 53% to 34% approval vs. disapproval.

In Maine, Hannah Pingree, the daughter of Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is now the Democratic nominee. The Pingree name is well known in Maine, even if some people may not be able to tell mother from daughter (hint: the daughter is younger). Republican nominee Bobby Charles is another fire-breathing Trumpist, which is not going to be popular in Maine. There is also an independent candidate running, state Sen. Rick Bennett, a former Republican. Maine has a long history of independent candidates mucking up elections. This race does not use ranked-choice voting. It is first-past-the-post with no runoff. Polls show Pingree with a 13-point lead.

In New Mexico, Deb Haaland has raised $12.8 million to Greg Hull's $600,000. National Republicans aren't helping Hull at all. They have effectively abandoned him. That's never a good sign. If Haaland wins, she will be the first Native American woman governor of a U.S. State. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe. Her ancestors have lived on the land that is now New Mexico for more than 800 years. She is definitely not a carpetbagger. Her opponent was born in Oklahoma, but has lived in New Mexico for many years.

In Ohio, we will find out whether the governorship is for sale. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has already spent $13 million on positive ads and $7 million on negative ads attacking Democrat Amy Acton. The Republican Governors Association is planning to spend an additional $20 million. Nevertheless, Ramaswamy has a likability problem, even among Republicans. Ohio is pretty red, but a recent poll has it 47% to 47% because independents are going for Acton by 28 points. Ramaswamy will outspend Acton by a huge amount, but if people think the candidate is obnoxious, that doesn't help so much.

In Oregon, Gov. Tina Kotek (D) and state Sen. Christine Drazan (R) are at it again, just as in 2022, but this time without a self-funding independent in the race. Last time, Kotek won by 3.4 points. Kotek's approval rating is above water, but not by much, 48% to 42%. Kotek will tie Drazan to the unpopular Trump and harp on Drazan's opposition to abortion. Internal polling from Drazan's campaign, which may or may not be real, has Drazan up 48%-44%. Still, Kotek is the clear favorite.

Governors are important in presidential years because they have knowledge of the state and what is important with the voters, can help the candidate of their party with messaging, logistics and more. They are less important in midterm years, although when a Senate seat is up as well, gubernatorial and senatorial candidates are somewhat joined at the hip, and will tend to rise and fall in unison with each other. (V)

Why Are Democratic Leaders So Milquetoasty?

The Republican Party has a clear base: straight white Christian working-class men (and their wives, who typically vote as their husbands do). There are other groups that vote Republican, too, like evangelicals, but they are a bit of an awkward fit because their religion teaches them things the Republicans hate (like that you should help the poor). Republicans intuitively know that if there were honest and free elections everywhere, with no gerrymandering, no voter suppression and no monkey business of any kind, with every vote counted no matter when it arrived, Democrats would probably have most of the power in most places most of the time. Consequently, Republican voters tend to fall in line quickly.

For the Democrats, the situation is very different: There is no dominant base. The party's voters include large groups of Black voters, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other racial minorities, along with LGBTQ voters, Jews, affluent college-educated suburbanites, single women and young voters. There are also some urban union members who are still Democrats. And while the vast majority of Republicans identify as conservative, Democrats are much more mixed, with progressives, liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives counting themselves as Democrats.

These groups are different in many ways. For example, affluent college-educated suburbanite voters are the least-churched group in America and Black voters are one of the most-churched. Democrats also differ on many issues. For example, young voters and Catholic Latinos are not entirely on the same page about same-sex marriage and trans people. Many progressives view socialism favorably but many union members do not (despite it ostensibly being a worker-driven political philosophy). College-educated atheists generally support abortion on demand while not all religious churchgoing Black and Latino voters do. Because no one group really dominates all the others, there is a continuous struggle for power going on. These disparities and struggles are at the core of the recurrent stories about "Democrats in disarray."

Democratic leaders are frequently criticized for being cowardly. That is true, to some extent, but it has a basis in the nature of the party. The leaders can't do anything that alienates a large group within the party, and with so many groups with different concerns and vital interests, one size does not fit all. The leaders have to be careful not to offend anyone, which leads them to be cautious, sometimes overly cautious. Also, the Democrats are increasingly the women's party, and women are more likely than men to prefer to negotiate rather than to fight. This again makes the leadership careful rather than aggressive. In contrast, Republican leaders have no problem offending Black, gay and trans people, and others outside their core demographic, since they don't expect any votes from them and their (increasingly male) base doesn't mind offending people and getting into fights. (V)

Black Lawmakers Feel Democrats Have Abandoned Them

As an example of the fine line Democratic leaders have to walk, consider the ramifications of the Supreme Court's decision to gut the remaining bit of the Voting Rights Act. Black leaders, especially in the South, are feeling isolated. Party leaders are focused on swing House districts and states and 2028 presidential hopefuls are in early states, of which only one (South Carolina) has a large Black population. Howard Dean's 50-state strategy never got going, and instead, Democrats have something like a 30-state strategy, where the party apparatus has been left to wither and die in many red states, especially in the South.

Some Black leaders in the South are despairing. Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell (D) said: "Republicans in the Legislature and the Supreme Court have said that it's okay to turn back the clock and reverse civil rights progress in this country. They're basically giving these Southern states what they have consistently and persistently wanted, which is to suppress Black voices." Some people are more explicit where the problem is. Yolanda Renee King, the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., said: "The Democrats sort of allowed for this behavior to regularly happen," referring to the Democrats' failure to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act when they had the trifecta.

But part of the problem is internal. The 62-member Congressional Black Caucus, which is entirely Democratic, has been focused on swing seats. A leader of its PAC, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), said: "The PAC has always been focused on electing Democrats in tough seats so that we can reclaim the majority. That goal, that focus, has not changed." Note that he said nothing about holding Black seats or supporting Black challengers to Republicans. In most cases, it is supporting white candidates who have a good chance of holding a tough blue district or flipping a marginal red one. The CBC's priority is maximizing the number of Democrats in the House, not the number of Black Democrats.

Another problem for Southern Black lawmakers is that the Democrats' response to the Supreme Court VRA decision is still murky. Some Democrats want to focus on offense and gerrymander the hell out of blue states like California and New York. Others want to focus on going to court to try to reverse the damage, at least in the short run. If the Democrats end up picking the former strategy, the resulting maps will be ugly as sin and will undoubtedly break up majority-minority districts and put some of the Black voters in previously red districts in order to elect a (white) Democrat there. Still, it is a hard sell to Black lawmakers to have to tell them that for the overall good of Black people, they have to give up their jobs to maximize the number of Democrats in the House, even if they are all white Democrats. In this model, the only Black Democrats left in the House will be those individual candidates strong enough to win in a largely white district. For example, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO), who is Black, represents CO-02, a D+20 district around Boulder that is 76% white, 14% Latino, and 1% Black. But there aren't a lot of Black representatives from enormously white districts. That requires either a very talented candidate or an extremely liberal district or both. (V)

Elaine Chao Issues a Statement

The marriage between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Elaine Chao is perfect: He has power and she has money (an estimated $30 million from her Chinese family's shipping business). So when her husband was carted off to a hospital on a stretcher, after suffering a heart attack, what did the good wife do? She naturally maintained a vigil beside him hopped on a plane to go to China for "philanthropic" reasons. After all, there aren't any needy people in Kentucky she could have helped.

Although not a lot of people care what Chao does now as a private citizen (she was formerly secretary of labor and later secretary of transportation), a lot of people care about McConnell. In particular, if he dies, Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) might try to appoint a Democratic interim senator, despite a law saying he can't do that (because the Kentucky Constitution says he can). If he did, there would be a court case and Beshear might well win it. At the very least, his response to a vacancy could be a make-or-break moment for his 2028 presidential campaign. Will he meekly go along with the wishes of the Republicans in the state legislature (which are probably illegal) or will he defy them and fight them tooth and nail? Democrats want a fighter and Beshear could grab the opportunity and fight if he has the stomach for it. That would be worth a hundred clever quips at some debate in 2027.

Needless to say, there was a lot of "surprise" about Chao abandoning her husband of 33 years to go to China and speculation about why she met with high Chinese officials, including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, while there. Some people even speculated that money and business were involved, one way or another. When she got back, Chao noticed the attention she got and decided to issue a statement. However, she didn't give a press conference, where reporters could ask her questions about: (1) McConnell's health and (2) why going to China was more important than staying with her (possibly dying) husband. The statement said that she met with a number of people, including the U.S. ambassador to China, former senator David Perdue. She didn't explain why she couldn't just call Perdue and the other officials she talked to on Zoom or Facetime, or what the hurry was. She did say that McConnell's health did not require her being with him. True love in action.

Maybe she was telling the truth. Laura Loomer, a not-always-reliable-but-well-plugged-in source, said that McConnell is brain dead and being kept breathing by machines. If McConnell is indeed dead, then maybe business does come first and the funeral can wait. Who knows? Certainly odd, though. (V)

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