Pretty Fly, for a White Guy

Vice-presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Mike Pence took their turn, in Utah, on Wednesday night. It was a considerably more civil and dignified debate than the one we saw last week. That does not mean it was more useful, or more impactful, however.

Let's once again break this down by looking at each of the three people on stage:

• Vice President Mike Pence: Personality-wise, Pence is the yin to Donald Trump's yang. He's calmer, more level-headed, and much more buttoned-down. If you were to call Central Casting, and ask them to send over a politician (or a topper for a wedding cake), they would send Mike Pence. And so, there was none of the shouting and over-the-top bluster that we saw out of Donald Trump last week.
  
  Substantively, however, there is little difference between Pence and Trump. Although it was done more smoothly, the VP served up a heaping platter of the same spin and outlandish falsehoods that we heard last week. He claimed, for example, that Harris and Joe Biden support abortion "up to the moment of birth." He said, with a straight face, that the Trump administration has always been honest with the American people. He referred to Obamacare in the past tense, and said that the plan that he and Donald Trump have replaced it with is vastly superior. He said that, on climate change, the Trump administration "follows the science."
  
  On COVID-19, Pence—as leader of the White House COVID-19 task force—was particularly vulnerable. And so, it was during that portion of the debate that his nose particularly began to grow. He declared that the White House has been "transparent" about the President's health, repeated the absurd argument that the Obama administration's handling of H1N1 was far worse than the Trump administration's handling of COVID, and outright lied when he said that the Rose Garden announcement of Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court couldn't have been a superspreader event because it took place entirely outdoors. In truth, there was much ill-advised behavior during the outdoor portion of that event and, beyond that, Pence knows full well that the festivities moved inside for several hours. If you'd like to read more, here are fact checks from Politifact, The New York Times, NPR, the AP, CBS News, and CNN.
  
  Beyond the falsehoods and super-spin, Pence was constantly guilty—even more so than Trump—of deploying the classic politician's trick of not answering the question that was asked. Actually that doesn't quite do Pence's approach justice. It is one thing to be asked a question about, say, your administration's tax policy and to turn that into an answer about, say, how well the middle class is doing these days. That's a slight redirect, but at least the answer and the question are in the same ballpark. By contrast, Pence so thoroughly ignored the question, in most cases, that it was like he hadn't even heard it. For example, a question about requiring masks prompted an answer about the Green New Deal. A question about climate change led to a harangue on high taxes. A question about Roe v. Wade commenced with a lengthy monologue on Qasem Soleimani.
  
  The upshot is that the base will be pleased with what they heard, but pretty much everyone else began to tune Pence out early in the debate. It is probably instructive that the online conversation about him in the first hour of the debate centered on whether he has pinkeye or not, and in the last half hour it was about the fly that landed on his head during one of his answers, such that #flygate was trending on Twitter, thanks to thousands of tweets like this one:
  
  

  Playing on repeat. #Debates2020 #Pence #flygate credit Adam the Creator on insta pic.twitter.com/zXQb8ijPfb

  — Kara (Hill) Hall (@karahall) October 8, 2020

  
  Pence did land a few blows on Harris and Biden; he highlighted their fuzziness on fracking and on court packing, for example. But overall, Pence was so base-focused with his rhetoric that it is fair to wonder if he was more concerned with building a foundation for Pence 2024 than trying to change the trajectory of Trump/Pence 2020.
  
  There is also one other problem for the Veep (and his running mate) and, beyond the fly, it's likely to be the lingering memory of the evening. Although Pence was not as obnoxious as Trump was last week, he nonetheless ran over time on virtually every question. He ignored moderator Susan Page's attempts to cut him off, and talked over her instead. He also interrupted Harris 16 times, and regularly talked over her as well. A particularly problematic moment was when he was warned that his time was up, that he had already had more speaking time than Harris, and yet he still kept talking anyhow. It is fair to guess that such behavior will not play well with the much-desired suburban women.
  
  
• Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): Kamala Harris was guilty of many of the same crimes that Pence was, albeit to a lesser extent in each case. She sometimes interrupted him, but about half as frequently (9 times compared to 16). She sometimes answered a question other than the one that was asked. She sometimes ran over time (although she usually stopped when Page spoke up). She sometimes said things that are not true, although they were generally more in the realm of hyperbole than outright falsehoods. For example, it's not true that Donald Trump called COVID-19 a hoax, nor is it true that Joe Biden will be able to overturn the 2017 tax cut on his first day in office. However, the sentiment underlying those assertions (Trump downplayed COVID, Biden will make overturning the tax cut a top priority) is basically accurate.
  
  Harris also won the battle of the body language. She was much more expressive in her reactions while Pence was speaking than Pence was while Harris was speaking. Harris also took a page from Biden's playbook, and made a point of addressing the camera directly (Pence tended to look at Page). The Senator also foresaw that Pence would try to talk over her, and had her response ready:
  
  
  
  Her "Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking" mini-lecture played well with many women viewers, it would appear; they were pleased to see her stand up to a powerful man who was trying to drown her out.
  
  As to Harris' actual content, it was generally stronger than Pence's. As noted, she was sometimes evasive, or answered a question different from the one asked. However, she did a pretty good job of introducing herself to the audience, she effectively communicated some key Democratic messaging ("Vote! Vote early!"), and she pinned Trump/Pence to the wall on several key issues, including COVID-19, the economy, and the President's failure to confront Vladimir Putin on bounties.
  
  
• Susan Page: Page asked very detailed questions about very important issues. And, of course, the debate did not turn into a debacle like the one last week. For these reasons, we suspect she's going to get very good reviews for her moderation.
  
  For our part, we will not be boarding that train. First of all, just because the two candidates were not loud does not mean that Page maintained order. Harris and Pence, and particularly Pence, figured out early in the debate that time limits were optional and behaved accordingly. We have no idea why the Commission on Presidential Debates is so leery to install cut switches on candidates' microphones. If they can't find the fortitude to do it, they should just cancel the debates.
  
  Moving on, Page's questions were—in our view—a little too detailed. Here is an example:

  [T]he economy. This has been another aspect of life for Americans, it's been so affected by this coronavirus. We have a jobs crisis brewing. On Friday, we learned that the unemployment rate had declined to seven point nine percent in September, but the job growth had stalled. And that was before the latest round of layoffs and furloughs in the airline industry, at Disney, and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of discouraged workers have stopped looking for work. Nearly 11 million jobs that existed at the beginning of the year haven't been replaced. Those hardest hit include Latinos, Blacks, and women. Senator Harris, the Biden, Harris campaign has proposed new programs to boost the economy. And you would pay for that new spending by raising four trillion dollars in taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. Some economists warn that could curb entrepreneurial ventures that fuel growth and create jobs. Would raising taxes put the recovery at risk?

  That may seem pretty easy to parse when you read it, but in verbal form, it's an awful lot, and it was easy to lose track of exactly what Page wanted to know. That made it all the easier for Harris and Pence to just say whatever they wanted.
  
  And that leads us to Page's biggest sin of the night. The most important job of the moderator is to shake the candidates up and to get them off their pre-scripted talking points. Otherwise, the networks might as well broadcast each one's stump speech and be done with it. Thoughtful and detailed questions are nice, but they are useless if they don't get answered. And Page never asked any follow-ups, nor did she follow Chris Wallace's lead and say things like "You didn't answer" or "But what is your actual position on fracking?"
  
  
• The Bottom Line: The winner here, such as it is, was Harris. She was both better and less offensive than Pence was. The first post-debate insta-poll, from CNN, confirms as much; 59% of respondents gave the nod to Harris and 38% favored Pence.
  
  The careful reader will notice, however, that those numbers correspond pretty closely to "the base" (38%) and "everyone else" (59%). And those are the groups each candidate was speaking to. Whatever Mike Pence's agenda was, he threw much red meat to the base, and rarely said a single word that would be of interest to those beyond the base. The problem is that Trump/Pence already has the base locked up, which means that the VP did not win any new converts to the ticket, and merely preserved the status quo. And since the status quo is "The Trump 2020 ticket is down by a bunch" (see below), that de facto means that Pence lost the debate, since he squandered one of the few remaining opportunities to move the needle.

The next presidential debate, if the current schedule holds, will be a town-hall-type event moderated by Gallup's Frank Newport on Oct. 15. Any element of that, or all of it, is subject to change based on Donald Trump's health and/or Joe Biden's insistence on protective measures. In addition, the Commission itself was appalled by the first debate and said it was considering measures it could take. If it follows through and gives the moderator buttons to control the mics, Trump might refuse to debate. (Z)

Trump Can't Make Up His Mind About the Stimulus

There is, as you may have heard, an election in less than a month. There is also, as you may have heard, a pandemic sweeping the country and the world. In view of these things, it would appear wise, politically, for Congressional Democrats and the White House to find some sort of COVID-19 stimulus compromise that they can agree upon. At very least, they should be negotiating—for appearance's sake, if nothing else. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) certainly see it this way, which is why they spent the last week trying to hammer something out, even making some actual progress.

And then there is the person for whom "conventional wisdom" is a four-letter word. That would be Donald Trump, of course, who managed to stay out of the Mnuchin-Pelosi negotiations, largely because he was hospitalized with COVID-19. Once he was back on the job, however, he decided that talking to Pelosi was a waste of time, and ordered Mnuchin to stop negotiating. End of story, right? That is how we wrote it up yesterday. But then, the President fired up his Twitter account, tweeting or retweeting over 50 times in the span of about 6 hours. And in among the deluge of conspiracy theorizing and attacks on the media/the Democrats/the deep state/etc. were these two messages:

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? @MarkMeadows @senatemajldr @kevinomccarthy @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, & 135 Billion Dollars for Paycheck Protection Program for Small Business. Both of these will be fully paid for with unused funds from the Cares Act. Have this money. I will sign now!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

This is not a serious attempt at resolving the impasse, since this amounts to Trump saying, "Give me the two things I want most, and who cares about what you want?" Still, this is a rather abrupt change in course from "negotiations are over!"

Indeed, Trump's behavior, which is erratic and impolitic, even by his standards, has everyone wondering what exactly is going on. Here are eight theories, from least to most conspiratorial:

• He's being affected by his COVID-19 (which is known to cause erratic behavior in some patients).
• He's being affected by the medications he's been taking.
• He thinks this is a way to make himself the "reasonable" one and the Democrats the bad guys.
• He thinks he's negotiating from a position of strength, and is doing some muscle-flexing.
• He's grown impatient and thinks this will speed things up.
• Someone got to him after he killed the negotiations and persuaded him that wasn't such a good idea.
• He's deliberately affecting the stock market, so he or his friends can profit.
• He's a sadist who knows the election is lost, and is petulantly trying to take the system down with him.

Given the twitterstorm he unleashed on Tuesday night, at least part of it has to be the effects of the COVID-19 and/or the treatments he's received. Beyond that, there probably is some element of Trump playing the savvy deal-maker, at least in his own head. Of course, such tactics have rarely, if ever, worked for him since he got to Washington (nor, it would seem, did they work all that well while he was still just a businessman).

Even Trump's aides have no idea what is going on, or what the next step is. That said, prospects for a deal appear pretty grim. House Democrats and Senate Republicans are pretty far apart, and the President has almost completely ceded his power to influence the process. After all, whatever the White House is offering this morning could be off the table by this afternoon. That's no basis for negotiations.

Meanwhile, if Trump really has become more erratic and more unhinged due to his illness, then the next 27 days are going to be very rough indeed, for everyone involved. (Z)

Biden Delivers Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln had a gift for speechwriting; one could argue that he's personally responsible for half of the Top 10 speeches in U.S. history. Among his best are his 1858 "House Divided" speech and, of course, his 1863 Gettysburg Address. On Tuesday, during a campaign appearance in Gettysburg, Joe Biden thought it might be nice to blend the two together.

Just about everyone who's anyone in presidential politics has delivered a speech at Gettysburg, particularly in times of national peril. It's pretty much always a good idea to channel the memory of Lincoln, and there may be no more notable example of Americans triumphing over seemingly intractable problems than the Civil War, of which Gettysburg is seen (not especially correctly) as the turning point. Anyhow, William McKinley visited Gettysburg for a speech right before the Spanish-American War, Woodrow Wilson did the same right before World War I, Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped by the 75th anniversary celebrations of the battle (1938) to warn Americans that they might just want to be prepared for another European war, and John F. Kennedy sent one of his cabinet secretaries in 1963 to talk about the ongoing Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement.

Biden, for his part, spoke for 22 minutes and declared that (Lincoln Alert!) America has become a "house divided." "You don't have to agree with me on everything, or even on most things," Biden remarked, to see that what "we're experiencing today is neither good nor normal." As Lincoln did 157 years ago, the Democratic nominee framed the challenges facing the country as national, rather than partisan, concerns. Also like Lincoln, Biden did not mention any specific enemy or opponent by name. So, no mentions of Jefferson Davis/Confederates in 1863, and none of Donald Trump/Republicans in 2020.

In short, it was a very statesmanlike address, of the sort we have rarely (if ever) seen from Donald Trump. Maybe it's not always necessary to make people frightened and/or angry. Biden is getting rave reviews, like this one headlined "Joe Biden's Gettysburg address is the best of his campaign." It's hard to imagine that too many people watched a speech that was only being televised by C-SPAN, but the news stories about it will reach many people, and the candidate might also have been trying out some bits for the next debate (if it happens). And if people really are suffering from Trump fatigue, a possibility we noted yesterday, then this is the sort of healing-centered speech they will want to hear. Should you care to watch it for yourself, it is here. (Z)

Vance Gets Closer to Having Trump's Tax Returns

Donald Trump's tax returns aren't much of a secret anymore, but he would still like very much to keep them from becoming evidence. To that end, he and his attorneys have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the justice system, trying to get a subpoena from Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance quashed. On Wednesday, the President suffered a rather serious defeat on that front, as a three-judge panel from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Vance can have the returns.

Initially, as Trump tried to resist Vance's subpoena, his team argued that the president is immune to criminal prosecution and that the subpoena is therefore invalid on that basis. The Supreme Court, even though it's stacked a wee bit in Trump's favor, could not swallow that. They declared that "I'm the president" is no basis for killing a subpoena, but that other justifications might plausibly be. And so, Team Trump went back to the district court and offered up a cornucopia of anti-subpoena arguments, including that the prosecution was malicious, that it was politically motivated, and that it was far too broad in its scope. There is a school of thought that says you should go with your best argument, and hit it as hard as you can, as opposed to going with every argument you can think of. That certainly appears to be the case here, as the panel of judges was not impressed, and swept aside the President's claims, noting that "We have considered all of the President's remaining contentions on appeal and have found in them no basis for reversal."

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow has already promised an appeal to the Supreme Court. However, he's fighting an uphill battle, inasmuch as the Court clearly does not want to get involved in the nitty-gritty here, and they've already ruled against Trump in terms of the "big picture" questions. Presumably, the President is hoping that Amy Coney Barrett will be his savior, but—assuming she is confirmed—she might recuse herself, perhaps with strong encouragement from Chief Justice John Roberts. Add it up, and the odds are that the President is going to be in a lot of hot water once he leaves office—or, if he is reelected, while he is still in office. (Z)

Three National Polls Have Biden Up Big

Three more national polls, each of them of interest for a different reason, were released on Wednesday. They all have Joe Biden in the lead, by 10, 12, and 9 points, respectively.

To start, there is the latest from USC/Dornsife, which predicts that Biden will win 53% of the vote and Donald Trump will win 43%. This particular poll is notable because USC/Dornsife is the only major pollster that predicted a Trump win in 2016. Clearly, that's not what they think is in the cards in 2020.

And then there is Rasmussen; their latest has Biden up on Trump 52% to 40%. We generally don't report Rasmussen polls, given their well-known Republican bias. However, that bias is also what makes it notable that they are so down on Trump. Their last four releases had Trump up 1 (Sept. 15), Biden up 1 (Sept. 22), Biden up 8 (Sept. 29), and now Biden up 12 (Oct. 6). Either there has been dramatic movement in the race that nobody else has captured, or else the folks at Rasmussen are tinkering around with their model. If the latter, it could be in search of greater accuracy, or it could be an attempt to avoid being embarrassingly wrong when the votes are tallied. Exactly which of these things it is, only the people at Rasmussen know.

Finally, The Economist/YouGov also released their latest. This one is notable because it is the first national poll conducted entirely after Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis was made public. They have Biden up 51% to 42%.

In 2016, Trump lagged Hillary Clinton by 2.1% of the vote, and won the presidency by a razor-thin margin. He might plausibly trail Biden by 3% or maybe 4% and still win if everything goes right, but anything beyond that is unsurvivable. And with 27 days to go, and few opportunities left to change the trajectory, there is every indication that the President will lose the popular vote by double digits unless there is another, and very unexpected, October surprise. (Z)

Trump Campaign Cancels Ad Buys in Ohio and Iowa

Trump 2020 has a lot of issues, and two of the biggest are: (1) they are trailing in nearly every swing state, and (2) they are running low on money. That means it's triage time, and Team Trump has decided that Ohio and Iowa don't need campaign resources nearly as much as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do. So, they canceled nearly $3.5 million in ad buys in the two Midwestern states. That means that Trump will be off the air there for a third consecutive week.

It's never easy to figure out how to fill too many needs with not enough resources. Trump 2020 is saying all the right things, like "campaign ads aren't the only way we know how to campaign." But what they are really saying with their choices is that if they lose Ohio and Iowa, then they know Arizona, et al., are guaranteed goners. So, better to work on the states where desperation is setting in, and to leave Ohio and Iowa to their own devices and hope for the best. Of course, that does improve the chances that Joe Biden can grab one or both, especially since his campaign is saturating the now-Trumpless airwaves in those states. It also means that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who has trailed in five consecutive polls, is largely on her own. (Z)

Puerto Rico's Governor Endorses Trump

On its surface, this story looks like very good news for Donald Trump. Puerto Rico's Governor, Wanda Vázquez, just endorsed his reelection bid. Trump and Joe Biden are fighting tooth and nail for Latino voters, and Vázquez is a prominent Latina. More specifically, the two campaigns are trying desperately to win over Florida Latinos, and that state just so happens to be home to a lot of Puerto Ricans. Every little bit—and every endorsement—helps, right?

Maybe not so much. To start, there is little evidence that the opinion of Puerto Ricans on the island has much of an impact on Puerto Ricans on the mainland. And even if it did, Vázquez is not the influencer her office might seem to suggest. She was not elected governor; she was elevated to that office when the previous governor resigned amid a wave of protests and scandals. And when she ran for election in her own right, Vázquez was primaried—badly. So, she's not someone who has captured the hearts and minds of sizable numbers of Puerto Rican voters.

And the story actually gets worse (potentially). For nearly three years, since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico hard, Trump has been unwilling to extend further aid beyond the original amount that was appropriated. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he changed course and announced that $13 billion would be awarded to assist in the repair of the island's electrical and educational infrastructure. Vázquez' endorsement came shortly thereafter. Can you say "quid pro quo"? Obviously, the close proximity of those two events is not irrefutable proof of corrupt behavior, but there is certainly enough smoke there that a future Justice Department might take a look into it to see if there is any fire. (Z)

Arizona Senate Debate Is All About Trump

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Democratic challenger Mark Kelly, who is way up in the polls, met Tuesday night for a senatorial candidates' debate. Although he was not on stage, and was not even in the state, Donald Trump was the star of the show. Kelly reiterated, over and over, his disapproval of the President and his leadership. McSally, by contrast, refused to say anything about Trump one way or another. Every time she was asked about her support for the President's policies, she equivocated with empty platitudes like "I'm proud that I'm fighting for Arizonans on things like cutting your taxes" and "I'm proud to be fighting for Arizona every single day."

Every time Senate candidates get together for a debate in a swing state this year, it's the same story: The Democrat hits Trump hard, and the Republican dances like they are auditioning for a job with the Radio City Rockettes. This happened in Maine, and in North Carolina, and in South Carolina, and now in Arizona. It is clear that not only will the presidential race be a referendum on Trump, but so too will the Senate races. And that being the case, poll numbers like the ones in the item above have to be leaving the Susan Collinses (R-ME) and Lindsey Grahams (R-SC) of the world feeling sick to their stomachs. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

This is the time of year that pollsters pay for their kids' Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/Festivus presents. And Joe Biden is up on Trump everywhere, except for the tie in Texas, and the two small, red states. In particular, the Trump campaign should be very nervous that all three polls of Florida have Biden near or above 50%. If that state flips, then that alone puts Biden just 9 EVs from the promised land. And a 13-point lead in Pennsylvania could more than finish the job. (Z)

State	Biden	Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	48%	46%	Sep 29	Oct 07	Ipsos
Florida	49%	45%	Sep 29	Oct 07	Ipsos
Florida	50%	44%	Sep 27	Oct 02	St. Leo University
Florida	51%	40%	Oct 01	Oct 05	Quinnipiac U.
Iowa	48%	47%	Oct 03	Oct 06	Civiqs
Iowa	50%	45%	Oct 01	Oct 05	Quinnipiac U.
Minnesota	47%	40%	Oct 01	Oct 06	SurveyUSA
Montana	43%	56%	Oct 05	Oct 07	Emerson Coll.
Nevada	48%	42%	Oct 02	Oct 06	Siena Coll.
Ohio	45%	44%	Oct 02	Oct 06	Siena Coll.
Pennsylvania	54%	41%	Oct 01	Oct 05	Quinnipiac U.
Texas	48%	48%	Oct 03	Oct 06	Civiqs
Wisconsin	47%	42%	Sep 30	Oct 04	Marquette Law School
West Virginia	38%	56%	Sep 29	Sep 30	Triton Polling and Res.

Today's Senate Polls

Steve Bullock has a tough row to hoe, given that Steve Daines is going to benefit from presidential coattails (one of only a few senators who can count on that). However, we doubt that the gap between them is really that large, especially since Emerson is not the best pollster around. On the other hand, we also doubt that MJ Hegar has turned the race in Texas into a statistical tie. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Mark Kelly	50%	Martha McSally*	44%	Sep 28	Oct 05	High Ground Inc.
Arizona	Mark Kelly	51%	Martha McSally*	41%	Sep 29	Oct 07	Ipsos
Iowa	Theresa Greenfield	49%	Joni Ernst*	46%	Oct 03	Oct 06	Civiqs
Iowa	Theresa Greenfield	50%	Joni Ernst*	45%	Oct 01	Oct 05	Quinnipiac U.
Montana	Steve Bullock	43%	Steve Daines*	52%	Oct 05	Oct 07	Emerson Coll.
New Mexico	Ben Ray Lujan	51%	Mark Ronchetti	41%	Sep 30	Oct 01	PPP
Texas	Mary "MJ" Hegar	46%	John Cornyn*	47%	Oct 03	Oct 06	Civiqs

* Denotes incumbent

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