Dem
51
GOP
49
Yes, we use that phrase a lot, to the point that it's moving into cliché territory. But yesterday, there were either two or three really good examples of the phenomenon, so we're going with that headline.
First up is an example that comes courtesy of the RFK Jr. campaign. Given the candidate's Trumpy rhetoric, it's clear that the only thing about him that's really Democratic is his last name. And the donor class has figured this out, which is why most of Kennedy's funding comes from right-wingers. That said, he has to pretend to be an independent, which means that his New York State political director, Rita Palma, a devoted anti-vaxxer, definitely spoke out of turn.
What did Palma say? Well, she was doing a presentation for potential supporters in New York, as Junior tries to get on the ballot in the state that sent his father to the U.S. Senate. And after "making sure" that no Joe Biden supporters were in the room, she decreed:
The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, our mutual enemy is Biden. I'm going to vote for Bobby, however, if I wake up on Nov. 6 and Trump wins, I'm not going to be overly upset. But if Biden wins, we're all going to be terribly upset.
Palma also believes that if Republicans vote for Kennedy, there's a chance of forcing a contingent election in the House. So, her understanding of civics is about as strong as her understanding of science.
The Kennedy campaign has already disavowed the remarks:
Rita Palma is a ballot access consultant responsible for scheduling volunteer shifts for our upcoming signature collection drive in the Empire State. She is not involved in electoral strategy, nationally or in New York. This was not a campaign event. Palma was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect the strategy of the Kennedy campaign, which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden supporters alike.
It's interesting how all these staffers of the Kennedy campaign send out Trumpy fundraising e-mails or make Trumpy comments, and the campaign just can't figure out where this is coming from.
Our second example here is a bit simpler. Eric Hovde (R) is the Trump-backed candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin that is up this year. Despite that state's purple hue, the seat hasn't been won by a Republican since Joe McCarthy did it in 1952, and Hovde is apparently determined to keep it that way. He appeared on Fox this weekend, and said that one of the key sources of "fake" anti-Trump ballots is... nursing homes. And he suggested that the solution might be to ban nursing-home residents from voting, since they'll be dead soon anyhow and so ostensibly don't have skin in the game. Here are his exact words: "[Y]ou only have a 5, 6-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote." Apparently, he has not been informed which way the votes of senior citizens skew.
And our final example is the "maybe" example, since it comes from Donald Trump. On one hand, what he said out loud this weekend was not, on the whole, politically wise. On the other hand, he's been saying the quiet part out loud for a decade now, and hasn't paid much of a price for it, so maybe it doesn't really qualify. Anyhow, at his big-bucks fundraiser this weekend, Trump was talking about one of his favorite topics, namely immigration. And he said that he would prefer only to allow immigrants from "nice" countries into the U.S.
Is any reader struggling to figure out what kind of immigrant he means here? If so, we would ask "What, He Isn't Transparent Enough?" And we'd point out that, "Well, He Is Truly Erudite." And maybe that, when it comes to his speech, "We Heard It's To Edify." Anyhow, you'll figure it out eventually. For now, "Well, Here Is The End." (Z)