Unconventional, Night Two

The Democrats once again gathered (a bunch of video clips) in Milwaukee, as the second night of their virtual convention came and went. Here are our impressions:

• Looking Backward: Just in case anyone has forgotten the Democratic Party has produced some pretty popular presidents (or ex-presidents), they were reminded last night. Early in the evening, following a montage of keynote speakers from the past (with Barack Obama's 2004 keynote the final clip in the sequence), John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline and grandson Jack Schlossberg threw their support behind Joe Biden. That was followed by audio from Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, accompanied by historical video footage. It was not clear why there was no live video of the Carters; presumably either their physical condition is poor enough to be distracting, or there was no satisfactory way to safely install a TV studio in their residence.
  
  Completing the evening's presidential parade was Bill Clinton, who was popular in his time, and who is still remembered fondly by many voters, but whose centrism and sexual dalliances are out of step with the modern party. In order to steer a middle course, the Party let him speak, but gave him only five minutes and put him (and the other presidents) in the first hour, which is the one being broadcast only by the cable outlets. Clinton's job was to explain, in his folksy way, why it's time for Donald Trump to go:
  
  
  
  Clinton is not the speaker or the presence he once was, but his speech was still effective. The heaviest blow was probably this passage:

  At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it's a storm center. There's only chaos. Just one thing never changes—his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.
  
  Now you have to decide whether to renew his contract or hire someone else. If you want a president who defines the job as spending hours a day watching TV and zapping people on social media, he's your man. Denying, distracting, and demeaning works great if you're trying to entertain and inflame. But in a real crisis, it collapses like a house of cards.
  
  COVID doesn't respond to any of that. To beat it, you've got to go to work and deal with the facts.

  We think it's entirely possible that will reach some voters who aren't especially reachable by any other politician. Incidentally, Clinton has wangled a speaking spot at every DNC since 1980, which means this was his 11th straight appearance. He's going to be giving speeches at these things 12 years after he's dead. He's probably prepared the video clips already.
  
  
• Looking Forward: In addition to reminding voters of some of the stars of the past, Tuesday was also a showcase of some of the stars of the future. Stacey Abrams was given about 90 seconds, albeit early in the program. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) got the same, and although she is an excellent speaker and she was very good, her job was to help put Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) name into nomination, so she never actually mentioned Biden. There were lots of other folks who got some face time, and who may be playing a much more prominent role in the Party in the future.
  
  
• Presumptive No More: Tuesday was the evening that the Party formally bestowed its nomination on Joe Biden. After Sanders was nominated by former United Auto Workers union head Bob King and seconded by AOC, Biden's name was put into nomination by Jacquelyn Brittany, a security guard at The New York Times who struck up a friendship with the candidate as he rode the elevator up for his interview with the paper's editorial board. Beyond the obvious symbolism of choosing someone who is Black and working class for the honor, we assume this was also some subtle shade thrown in Donald Trump's direction, given that he has a reputation for interacting with women in elevators in much less wholesome ways. The nomination was seconded by Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (both D-DE).
  
  Once the nominations were made, it was time for a trip around the country and the world, as 50 states and 7 other entities cast their ballots for Sanders and Biden. When talk of a virtual convention first began, we suggested it would make for compelling TV for each to declare their votes at a location apropos to that place's history/culture. And, on the whole, it was indeed compelling. A wide variety of folks were chosen to do the job, from prominent politicians (Gov. Phil Murphy, D-NJ, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-MN, etc.), to politicians a little lower on the food chain (LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, etc.), to some prominent non-politicians (gold star father and enemy of Trump Khizr Khan, the family of Matthew Shepard, etc.), to party activists, to small business owners, to blue-collar workers.
  
  In some cases, the settings were obvious and recognizable choices—the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in front of a saguaro cactus in Arizona, Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C.—and in other cases, well, the locale was presumably recognizable to the locals, at least. It was like a living version of the collectible state quarters the U.S. Mint issued a few years back. The cheesiness factor was sometimes high, but the presentations were generally charming, even the poor woman in Montana who could not be heard over the howling wind, the fellow in Rhode Island who struggled to keep the plate of Rhode Island calamari he was holding in the frame, and the two folks in American Samoa who were flanked by masked soldiers and so looked like POWs in a North Korean propaganda video. The only time when the cheesiness went beyond tolerable levels was when the process ended and Biden formally accepted the nomination to the sounds of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration." That song is over the top even when it's played during the traditional balloon drop. And in this context, it just did not work.
  
  
• The Debut: Beyond formally anointing the nominee, the other important business of the evening was Jill Biden's coming out party. She drew the unenviable task of following former first lady Michelle Obama in the keynote slot and...she was actually quite impressive. After a "getting to know you" video, she spoke (in pre-recorded fashion) for about 10 minutes:
  
  
  
  Jill Biden's job was to be the anti-Michelle; while the first former first lady made a negative case against Donald Trump, the aspiring future first lady made a positive case for her husband. In fact, she didn't even mention Trump.
  
  
• Theme 1: Diversity: One of the major themes of the first night of the convention was Democratic diversity and, not surprisingly, that continued on Tuesday (and will surely continue tonight and tomorrow, as well). Tuesday's host was actress Tracee Ellis Ross, who is both Black and Jewish (Wednesday will reportedly be Kerry Washington, who is Black, and Thursday will reportedly be Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is of Jewish descent). There was obvious attention given to representing as many dimensions of the Party and of American society as was possible: Black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American, LGBTQ, the working-class, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, the disabled, etc. One group that had been missing was Muslims, but at least Khizr Khan checked that box on Tuesday.
  
  
• Theme 2: Republicans for Biden: For the second night in a row, prominent Republicans lent their support to Biden. The most prominent of those, at least among the living, was Colin Powell, who was a surprise addition to the evening's schedule. As to the no-longer-living, there was a video montage highlighting John McCain's friendship with Biden, narrated by McCain's widow Cindy. Although it was not stated explicitly, the clear implication was that if the Arizona Senator were still alive, he'd be voting Biden in 2020.
  
  
• Theme 3: Foreign Affairs: Early in the evening, former Deputy AG Sally Yates spoke to her personal experience with the President, and his lack of fitness when it comes to dealing with matters of state. That theme was picked up again at roughly the halfway point, with Powell and former Secretary of State John Kerry emphasizing the matter in great detail.
  
  
• Theme 4: Healthcare: There was a "module," for lack of a better term, where people with significant healthcare issues talked about themselves, often in dialogue with Biden. It was pretty compelling; the star of that segment (which is the portion of Tuesday's proceedings most likely to go viral) was Ady Barkan, who suffers from ALS. There was footage of him when he still had significant-but-diminished control of his faculties, followed by his endorsement, which required the assistance of a computer:
  
  
  
  Barkan said he looks forward to electing a "compassionate and intelligent" president. Ouch.
  
  
• Theme 5: We Are Family: Donald Trump ran for the position of CEO of America, Inc. If there's a president who sold voters on the idea that the country is a big business concern no different from GE or Ford, and then turned that into a successful presidency, we're not sure who it is. Biden's pitch is that America, far from being a business, is more akin to a big family. So, Tuesday night was heavy on clips of him listening and showing empathy, and heavy on people talking about what a nurturing and caring fellow the Democratic nominee is. It's smart to play to your strengths; Biden is no businessman, and Trump simply does not do empathy.
  
  
• Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am?: Despite the fact that Tuesday was the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Milwaukee was no Suffragette City last night. It's true that there were numerous prominent women who were given speaking slots, but outside of the occasional brief mention, there was surprisingly little attention paid to the historic occasion or to women's issues. Maybe they are saving that for tonight, when the Party's first female presidential candidate and second female vice-presidential candidate will be making their speeches.

That's where things stand at the halfway point. Night three should certainly be very interesting, and arguably has the most star power of any of the four nights, with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Gabby Giffords all scheduled to address the convention. (Z)

Trump's Goat Is Officially Gotten

Donald Trump does not like to be criticized. He likes it even less from someone who really knows how to push his buttons. Even worse is if it's a woman, and still worse than that is if it's a woman of color. There was no question he'd see Michelle Obama's Monday night address, and that it would infuriate him. The only question is whether he would give her the satisfaction of reacting publicly. And being who he is, it was not the least bit surprising when he went on a Tuesday morning Twitter jag, composed of a dozen or so Tweets. The "highlight":

Looking back into history, the response by the ObamaBiden team to the H1N1 Swine Flu was considered a weak and pathetic one. Check out the polling, it’s really bad. The big difference is that they got a free pass from the Corrupt Fake News Media!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2020

Later in the day, Trump mocked the fact that the video was clearly pre-taped, as the death total noted by the former first lady was far too low.

It really should go without saying that drawing attention to H1N1 is politically unwise, because even the most uninformed voter will notice that they cannot remember an occasion during the Obama presidency where the nation (partly) shut down, and 170,000-plus people died. That is rather indicative that Team Obama was more effective than Team Trump, not less so. Even worse is crowing about Michelle Obama's fatality figure being too low. That's like saying: "Ha! She said I went bankrupt three times! Doesn't she know it's six?" or saying "Michelle Obama claimed that I am accused of sexual misconduct with 15 women. Shows what she knows—it's actually 25. Dummy!"

In short, lashing out like this may make Trump feel better personally, but it can only hurt him politically. And this is a dimension of the campaign worth keeping an eye on. During the 2016 campaign, there weren't all that many prominent Democrats willing or able to goad Trump into temper tantrums. Maybe Bernie Sanders or Bill Clinton, but Hillary Clinton largely refrained because she knows that some voters don't like so-called "nasty" women, Tim Kaine refrained because he's kind of a wallflower, and the Obamas refrained because as sitting president and first lady, they were expected to be above the fray.

In 2020, though, all bets are off. Unfair as it is, as a man, there is less risk for Joe Biden in going after Trump if he sees fit. And even if he remains above the fray, the gloves are off for both Clintons, both Obamas, and Kamala Harris, who is just a wee bit less milquetoasty than Kaine. If Trump can't bite his tongue—and you know full well he can't—then he might be manipulated into shooting himself in the foot multiple times in the next 80 days. (Z)

More Voters Head to the Polls

Normally, there aren't primaries the same time as the political conventions. 2020, however, is anything but normal, and so while the Democrats were doing their thing in Milwaukee (and elsewhere), primary votes were being cast and tallied in Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming, three states that do not often appear in the same sentence together.

The biggest news of the night was in Florida, where Rep. Ross Spano (R) became the eighth incumbent (5 Republicans, 3 Democrats) to be defeated in a primary this cycle, falling to Lakeland City Commissioner Scott Franklin. Spano was felled as a result of a DoJ investigation into possible campaign finance violations. Since the district, FL-15, is R+6, there is a chance that the winner on the Democratic side of the contest, TV news reporter Alan Cohn, could make a race of it. Incidentally, this is the highest number of sitting representatives to be defeated in a non-redistricting cycle since 1974. That at least hints at a "throw the bums out" mentality in 2020. If so, that's generally bad news for the party that controls the White House.

In other Florida districts, Kat Cammack (R) won the right to try to succeed her mentor Rep. Ted Yoho (R) in the R+9 FL-03. Fashioning herself as a spokeswoman for conservative millennial women, Cammack will face off against one of three Democratic men—Adam Christensen, Tom Wells, and Philip Dodds—who split the vote into almost equal thirds (34.5%, 33.2%, and 32.3%, respectively) and who will have to wait for the absentee ballots to find out who advances. In FL-26, the Republicans got their preferred candidate in Mayor Carlos Gimenez of Miami-Dade County. The GOP hopes they can wrest that seat away from Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D), who won it in 2018. Given that the district is D+6 and Mucarsel-Powell is now an incumbent, that might be wishful thinking on the part of the red team.

After the fall of Spano, the second-biggest story of the evening was in Alaska, where the Democrats got their preferred Senate candidate in Al Gross. Gross is not actually a Democrat, he's an independent. However, like Sen. Angus King (I-ME), he has at least a chance to put together a coalition of Democrats, centrists, third-party voters, etc., and to maybe knock off the not-that-popular Sen. Dan Sullivan (R). If Gross pulls it off then, like King, he would caucus with the Democrats.

Also in Alaska, Rep. Don Young (R) found out that he will once again face off against Alyse Galvin, another independent who would caucus with the Democrats if elected. Galvin lost in 2018 by just 7 points, so maybe in a presidential year she'll be able to make Young sweat. On the other hand, it is not generally wise to bet against a politician who has won 24 straight elections, as Young has.

And then there is ruby red Wyoming. We could make the case that some fascinating things took place in the Cowboy State, but we would be lying. Rep. Liz Cheney (R) was renominated easily, and learned that her victim will be Lynnette Grey Bull (D), a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe. Former representative Cynthia Lummis (R) easily won the right to succeed retiring Sen. Mike Enzi (R); her victim will be Merav Ben-David (D). Lummis collected just 60% of the Republican vote, and yet still got nearly triple the number of votes that all six candidates on the Democratic side got combined.

That's it for this week. Next week, Oklahoma has runoffs, and then the week after that will be the Kennedy-Markey Royal Rumble in Massachusetts. (Z)

Bipartisan Senate Committee Issues Damning Report on Trump Campaign and Russia

You know it's a big news day when this is only the fourth story on the page. The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) during most of the process (albeit not the tail end), has been taking a look at the interactions between the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 election. On Tuesday, they issued their report, and it's a doozy. Among their findings:

• Then-campaign-chairman, now-criminal Paul Manafort worked closely with Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik, sharing internal campaign information. The Committee describes this as "a grave counterintelligence threat."
  
  
• Donald Trump and other high-ranking members of the campaign used Roger Stone as go-between with Julian Assange, so they were always in the loop about Wikileaks' plans.
  
  
• Often, the Russians manipulated Trump and people in his orbit without their awareness. That makes them, to use the Russian term, "useful idiots." In particular, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya is much more connected to power centers in Russia than was previously known.
  
  
• Once Trump was elected, Russian intelligence services exploited him and his team to their benefit.
  
  
• The Russians may also have plied the FBI with false information, including some portions of the Steele dossier.

Naturally, the spin operation has already begun. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) declared that the report exonerates the President, since the Senator and his committee (he took over the investigation when Burr was compelled to step down) found no evidence of direct cooperation between Donald Trump and the Russians. That's a pretty narrow "exoneration." By contrast, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said that the report documents "a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives."

Given the game of "spin the report," and the propensity for most voters to believe whatever it was they already believed, maybe this won't change anything. On the other hand, partisans on both sides—even Rubio—said it was imperative that more be done to secure the 2020 election. So, maybe there will be some progress on that front.

There was also one more revelation that may prove to be the biggest news of all. Concurrent with the release of the report, a Senate insider confirmed that last year, the Intelligence committee wrote a letter to the Dept. of Justice recommending that a criminal investigation of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince and Sam Clovis be undertaken, due to the possibility that they perjured themselves in testimony before the Senate. Nothing came of it, which is to be expected as long as AG Bill Barr is in charge. However, it does give the Democrats quite a talking point, both about the corruption within the Trump campaign and that within the Dept. of Justice. Further, those five men could be in deep trouble if Joe Biden wins the election, and all of a sudden it's AG Stacey Abrams or AG Preet Bharara deciding whether or not to act on the Intelligence Committee's recommendation. (Z)

DeJoy Backs Down

You know it's a big news day when this is only the fifth story on the page. On Tuesday, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy seemingly surrendered in the ongoing postal wars, just days before he's scheduled to be subjected to the third degree by House Democrats. In a statement, he said: "To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending [alleged cost-saving] initiatives until after the election is concluded."

The most hopeful interpretation of events is that DeJoy and Donald Trump overplayed their hand, or else played it too early, and were compelled by pressure from both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention lawsuits from 20 state attorneys general, to back off their election-sabotaging plans. If so, we can all sing a round of "Hallelujah" and down a snifter of Courvoisier.

From where we sit, however, the snifter may be half-empty rather than half full. It is possible that the damage was already done, and that the sledge hammering of the last two weeks cannot be fully repaired before the election. High-speed sorting machines capable of sorting 21 million letters per hour have already been junked. Can they be brought back? Don't count on it. It's also entirely possible that Trump and DeJoy learned their lesson, but that the lesson was: "Don't be so damn obvious about your shenanigans." Courts, voters, members of Congress, USPS employees, and reporters are all watching closely now, which won't make it easy to cause trouble. However, maybe DeJoy will get a little more subtle, or maybe he'll wait until the heat has subsided and the election is closer to renew his assault. Point is, vigilance is definitely called for, and voting-rights advocates should not back off their "get your votes in early!" messaging. (Z)

House Democrats Want More Stimulus Votes

There has been much criticism of the members of Congress for their presumption in taking a summer "vacation" while the next round of COVID-19 stimulus funding remains up in the air. While that is partly fair, referring to it as a "vacation" is a somewhat misleading and emotionally loaded misnomer. They aren't cavorting on beaches in Jamaica or making socially distanced trips to Disneyland. No, they're at home, doing constituent services and campaigning for an election that grows closer and closer.

Given the USPS situation, the members are being recalled to Washington this weekend. Many are cranky about that, though they might want to think about how much more pleasant it is to be recalled when you get to travel in a nice, air-conditioned airplane, as opposed to when you have to travel by horse along poorly-maintained or nonexistent roadways. In any case, as long as they are going to be in town anyhow, many members want to vote on some stimulus bills, too.

The thinking here is plain. The Democratic caucus has no expectation that the bills will become law, especially since the Senate isn't even in Washington right now. However, when they go back home to campaign some more, they want to be able to tell voters "we're the party that's trying to do something—anything—and it's the Republicans who are twiddling their thumbs." It has consistently been our supposition that if no stimulus package is approved, that will be to the detriment of the Republicans more than the Democrats. It would appear that the pros, the ones who have access to polling that we don't have, are in agreement. (Z)

Many Businesses Won't Participate in Trump's Payroll Tax Plan

Most companies have never seen a tax-reduction plan they didn't like. Until now, that is. About a week ago, Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum delaying the payment of payroll taxes until next year. It didn't actually cancel the taxes, it just postponed them until after the election, in a transparent attempt to buy people's votes with their own money. Now a number of large industry groups, including groups that represent restaurants, stores, and manufacturers, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying "thanks, but no thanks." They are not planning to implement the deferral.

There are two reasons they dislike the plan: The public one and the real one. The public one, described in the letter, is that if they carried it out, employees would get a small pay boost until the end of 2020. A person making $50,000 would get $119 extra every 2 weeks, for example. However, in January, that person would be hit with a tax bill of $1,073. The trade groups know very well that when people get a small increase in their paycheck due to tax changes, they rarely even notice it. Studies after the 2017 tax cut law and previous ones bear this out. The effect is especially large for hourly workers who have to clock in and clock out, and whose biweekly pay depends on the precise number of minutes they worked in each pay period, such that it is never the same two periods in a row. But when workers are hit with a deduction of $1,000 or more in January, they will all notice it and begin screaming. Companies don't want to have to explain to everyone that the large deduction is a correction to the increased pay they got (and didn't notice) in Q4 2020. This situation will not lead to happy workers.

In the letter, the trade associations call the plan "unworkable." That gets to the real reason they dislike the plan. What they mean is that implementing new software that removes the payroll tax deduction temporarily and stops remitting the money to the treasury, but still keeps track of it so it can be deducted and remitted in one fell swoop in January, is just not feasible. Walmart has a big IT department, so it could assign a dozen programmers to work on changing the payroll code and probably get the job done and tested in a couple of months. Small pizzerias can't do that, though. Almost no small business can make changes to their payroll software so quickly, and even if they depend on an outside vendor, before that vendor has made the changes and everything is installed and tested, the election will be over and Trump won't care any more.

Trump's hope was that the payroll taxes would be eliminated permanently, so that in January no one would see a huge deduction. But he doesn't have the authority to change the tax laws. Only Congress can do that, and there is no way the House is going to permanently eliminate the taxes that support Social Security and Medicare. So the whole tax-deferral exercise was pointless. Even Shakespeare saw this coming: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or maybe: "This is very midsummer madness." (V)

Today's Senate Polls

We cannot understand how polls of the regular Georgia Senate race have it neck-and-neck, but polls of the special Senate race have two Republicans who are much more fraught than Perdue (Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins) defeating all Democratic comers easily. Those two things are incongruent, and we suspect that it's the special race polls that are off. Still, it would be well for the Democrats if Raphael Warnock and Matt Lieberman could reach agreement on which of them is less viable, with that person leaving the race. The problem is that Lieberman is the answer to that question, and the next time a Lieberman puts party first will also be the first time.

As to Maine, Susan Collins has yet to come out on top in any poll this cycle. And Joni Ernst should also be very nervous, since a lesser-known candidate generally has more room to grow their support than a well-known candidate. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Georgia	Jon Ossoff	44%	David Perdue*	44%	Aug 13	Aug 14	PPP
Iowa	Theresa Greenfield	48%	Joni Ernst*	45%	Aug 13	Aug 14	PPP
Maine	Sara Gideon	49%	Susan Collins*	44%	Aug 13	Aug 14	PPP

* Denotes incumbent

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