Dueling Banjos: Trump and Harris Each Hold Public Events

Yesterday was the rare day, since Kamala Harris became the Democrats' presumptive nominee, that she and Donald Trump both held major events. That is almost entirely because Trump isn't making many public appearances these days.

We'll start with Trump's event, which was a 90-minute (or so) press conference held at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ. If you wish to watch, you can do so here. As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, he was supposed to talk about the economy (yesterday, he was even flanked by tables with a bunch of grocery store foods, like bacon and cereal). As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump showed he can only stay on topic for 15-20 minutes before he feels the need to start freestyling, and issuing forth with a stream-of-consciousness litany of personal attacks and grievances, only sometimes making sense. As with his appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump lied and lied and lied. Lies at Trump rallies/press conferences are like the f-word in Tarantino films—it's rare that 2 minutes pass without at least one of them.

The most interesting and important thing about the Trump presser, in our view, was this:

I am very angry at her that she's weaponized the justice system against me and other people—very angry at her. I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her, I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence and I think she'll be a terrible president... She called J.D. and I "weird"... they want me to be nice. But they're not being nice to me. They want to put me in prison.

If you want to see this portion for yourself, it starts at 55:05 and concludes at 57:20 (there are a lot of digressions mixed in).

From this, we take three lessons:

1. The "weird" attacks are really getting to Trump.
   
   
2. Trump is well aware of advice, from within the campaign and without, that he should cool it on the personal attacks.
   
   
3. However, he has triple motivation to keep going with the personal attacks. First, it's what his gut tells him to do. Second, he feels he is being, in effect, censored and told what he cannot say. Third, he feels that the other side started it, and he is just defending himself.

Going back to the item we wrote a couple of days ago, that third item is something that must have Trump's campaign management scared witless. If he is pursuing an approach to the campaign that is unwise, but is informed by his belief that he's a victim and a martyr, it's going to be nigh-on impossible to get him to change course.

And now, the Harris appearance, which was also her first joint appearance with Joe Biden since "The Troubles" led to a change in the Democratic ticket. You can watch here, if you wish. It's only 30 minutes, and so one-third as long as the Trump presser.

There are four things we found interesting about the event. First, Harris bent over backwards to respect Biden's dignity. She said "I could speak all afternoon about the person who I am standing on this stage with—our extraordinary President Joe Biden" and described him as "one hell of a president." Expect that to continue whenever they appear together.

Second, it takes a big person to give up a chance at reelection to the presidency. It takes an even bigger person to do that, and then to screw on a smile and appear at a campaign event for one's replacement just a couple of weeks later. We can think of many presidents, living and dead, who would not have it in them. Biden deserves a lot of credit for his fortitude.

Third, Biden delivered a brief address that served as a microcosm of the highs and lows of his now-ended campaign. On one hand, he was fiery and forceful, like he was during this year's State of the Union address. On the other hand, he tripped over his tongue several times, undoubtedly bringing up memories of the debate. He will be speaking at the DNC on Monday; we tend to assume the same dynamic will be on display.

Fourth, and finally, Biden and Harris announced that they have completed ongoing negotiations with pharmaceutical companies that will reduce the list prices of 10 of Medicare's costliest drugs by between 38 percent and 79 percent. It's not clear exactly how much this will cut costs, since the list price and the actual price are not always directly related. And the cuts won't kick in until 2026. Still, it's a step forward for a lot of people who struggle to afford their prescriptions. This sort of thing is one benefit, during an election cycle, of being the party that controls the White House.

Yesterday's events were presumably the finale of the First Act, leading into the Second Act that is "DNC to Debates." Trump will retreat into one or another of his golf resorts, and will let commercials and his social media accounts do the talking for the next week or so, while Harris prepares for and then holds her national coming out party. (Z)

Debates: Coming to Your TV This Fall (Probably!)

Inasmuch as the Trump/Vance ticket is losing ground, while Harris/Walz has all the momentum, the latter duo is in the driver's seat when it comes to debates. Yesterday, there were two important developments on that front.

To start, J.D. Vance finally brought an end to his dithering, and committed to debating Tim Walz on October 1 on CBS. That matchup will be moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, and could well engender more interest than any VP debate since Sarah Palin-Joe Biden in 2008.

After that was settled, the Harris campaign put out a statement:

The debate about debates is over. Donald Trump's campaign accepted our proposal for three debates—two presidential and a vice presidential debate. Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on September 10 to debate Vice President Harris, then Governor Walz will see JD Vance on October 1 and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October. Voters deserve to see the candidates for the highest office in the land share their competing visions for our future. The more they play games, the more insecure and unserious Trump and Vance reveal themselves to be to the American people. Those games end now.

Clearly, Harris and Walz are not pulling punches these days.

There are a number of implications of this statement. To wit:

• Harris and Trump will debate on ABC on September 10 (admittedly, not quite the fall, despite our headline).
  
  
• If Trump behaves himself on September 10, then an October debate will be scheduled. No date or host has been settled upon, as yet, but NBC seems the most likely to do the honors. If so, then the moderators would probably be Kristen Welker and Lester Holt.
  
  
• There will be no Fox debate.
  
  
• We presume there will be no audiences.
  
  
• Vance's suggestion that there be two VP debates has been rejected. More specifically, a debate on Sept. 18 on CNN is not going to happen.
  
  
• Both Trump and Vance are going to have a very hard time coming up with an excuse not to show up.

If there is more of a total victory for Harris/Walz on the debate arrangements than this, we don't know what it would be. Maybe if, instead of standing behind a podium, the candidates had to sit on a couch. (Z)

Trump Campaign: Lewandowski Is Back; Can Manafort Be Far Behind?

Let us now make a few observations:

• The Trump campaign is not going very well right now.
  
  
• Whatever the issue or issues might be, they are NOT Trump's fault. And they never are—just ask him.
  
  
• He's open to scapegoating his campaign management, or others in his orbit, but firing Chris LaCivita or dumping J.D. Vance would be a bad look. Not that Trump won't do it, but "something that could hurt my image as the world's foremost political genius" tends to be the last option for him.
  
  
• His only successful campaign, back in 2016, was run predominantly by Corey Lewandowski.

All of these things being the case, is it a surprise that Trump '24 announced yesterday that it had brought Lewandowski on board as a senior adviser (despite his now lengthy history of sexual misconduct)? Also returning are a bunch of lower-level operatives from the past, including Tim Murtaugh, Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz.

We very seriously doubt that this will be the last major change to the leadership of Trump '24, for two reasons. First, Lewandowksi is not likely to be able to right the ship, since the main thing wrong with the campaign is Donald Trump (see above). Second, there are now an awful lot of cooks in the kitchen. Given the egos that are characteristic of high-level political operatives, we foresee lots and lots of friction.

And as long as we are on the subject of key players in Trump's orbit, Russell Vought is a key contributor to Project 2025. And, in news that broke yesterday, he's become the latest Trumper to be secretly (but legally) recorded saying things that were not meant for public consumption.

Vought thought he was speaking to a couple of hard-right evangelicals, but they were actually a pair of British journalists. It apparently did not occur to him that evangelicals do not generally have British accents. In any case, with great relish, Vought talked about the many executive orders and political appointees that he and the Heritage Organization have teed up for a second Trump presidency. He also said that Trump "blessed" their efforts and added that, "[Trump]'s very supportive of what we do." If you are interested, here is the footage (with some commentary from CNN). If you want to skip the commentary and go directly to Vought himself, he starts at 1:56.

We are currently unsure what role Project 2025 will play in the campaign. The plan is clearly unpopular with a sizable majority of voters, and a liability for Trump, if he can be connected to it. However, he is, of course, trying to pretend he doesn't know anything about it. The question is whether the Harris/Walz campaign and/or its allied PACs, will try to convince the American public that is a lie (which it most certainly is). If so, then the footage of Vought should be very helpful. (Z)

Another Walz Mini-Scandal: Initial DWI Story Looks to Have Been a Snow Job

The Trump campaign wasn't the only one to have a mini-scandal on its hands yesterday. Reporters and political operatives are currently looking everywhere for dirt on Tim Walz, and they think they've found some.

It is not a secret that Walz was busted for DWI back in the mid-1990s. And at the start of his first gubernatorial campaign, back in 2018, he gave what appears to be a fairly accurate accounting of that incident. That is to say, he was driving drunk (0.128 BAC at a time when 0.1 was the legal limit) and he was also traveling well above the speed limit (96 mph in a 55 zone). He was followed by police, and did not instantly pull over. Eventually, because he admitted guilt and because he agreed to enter a treatment program, the charges against him were significantly reduced, and he's never touched another drop of alcohol.

The new dirt, ostensibly unearthed by CNN, but prompted by tips from right-wing sources, is that the story Walz told in 2006, when he first entered politics, was rather different. Reportedly, he claimed back then that he was not drunk, that his failure to pull over was a misunderstanding (he claimed he thought he was being chased by a criminal), and that his failure of a roadside sobriety test came because he could not hear the officer and did not understand what he was supposed to do.

This is not a great look for Walz, obviously. That said, CNN's reporting is based on a few very old, largely defunct sources. That means it's hard to tell if the false narrative came from Walz, or if it came from an inventive campaign operative. It's also hard to tell if that story was carried through the 2006 campaign, or if a more honest version was eventually promulgated. What is clear, as we note, is that Walz eventually owned up to the true and complete version of events. We can think of some dishonest politicians who would never, ever do that, no matter how much evidence of their lies they are confronted with.

We pass this story along for a couple of reasons. First, because we know readers like to be well-informed about the facts behind a story like this, particularly if it becomes a new front in the right-wing war on Walz. Second, because there are some pretty strong indications that right-wingers are experimenting with a "the entire ticket is made up of drunkards" narrative. Back in 2019, Harris appeared at a race called the Des Moines Turkey Trot. At one point, she bent over to speak to a child and offer a cookie. Someone took a screen capture of video Harris posted to her eX-Twitter account, picking just the right moment to create a false impression:

This became the basis for spurious claims that Harris was soused, and that she spent her time at the race throwing up on everyone.

The "Harris is an alcoholic" claims are back. Thus far, it's limited to the fringes of the alt-right, but it doesn't take much for a claim to move from "fringes of the alt-right" to "Donald Trump's mouth," particularly if he sees just the right tweets or truths. Maybe nothing will come of this, but it's useful to be forewarned, just in case. (Z)

Which Side Are You On?: Kennedy Tries, Fails to Make Nice with Harris Campaign

It is not a secret that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked to Donald Trump a couple of weeks ago about possibly trading an endorsement and withdrawal from the race in exchange for an appointment in a potential second Trump administration. After the news went public (and after Trump, very likely, told Junior to pound sand), Kennedy excoriated the former president on social media.

In the last 48 hours, the same thing has played out, except on the other side of the aisle. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Kennedy reached out to the Harris campaign, trying to broker the same sort of deal. He made even less progress than with Trump; Team Harris refused to even discuss a meeting. So, yesterday, Kennedy threw another temper tantrum, using eX-Twitter to declare that his famous forbears would be disgusted with Harris & Co., and that "My dad and uncle's party was the champion of voting rights and fair elections. VP Harris's is the party of lawfare, disenfranchisement, and the coronation of its candidates by corporate donors and party elites."

It's not too hard to understand Kennedy's thinking here. He's in freefall in the polls, having seen his support drop by half in the last month. He is most certainly not going to be invited to participate in any debates, and he's at serious risk of being kicked off the ballot in some/many of the states where he's qualified, by virtue of having used a non-legitimate home address. This is his best, and presumably last, chance to try to squeeze some tangible benefit out of his quixotic campaign.

It is also not too hard to understand the Harris campaign's thinking. Sure, they could certainly find some fourth-level job to give to Junior. Probably not Vice Undersecretary of Interior for Dogcatching, since he might eat the dogs, but something like that. However, he surely wants something related to infectious disease, which is a total non-starter for any Democratic candidate. Further, the upside in bringing Kennedy aboard the SS Harris is questionable, at best. He presumably thinks that he can deliver 1-3% of the electorate, which would swing the election. But he is probably wrong about that; the Kennedy supporters who are left-leaning appear to have already largely decamped for the Harris ticket—this is why his support has been halved. Meanwhile, there are some Democrats who would be furious to learn that Harris '24 was playing footsies with Kennedy '24, and that might drive some of those voters into the arms of Jill Stein or Cornel West.

In short, both major-party tickets have clearly decided Kennedy is more trouble than he's worth. We don't know where he goes from here, particularly if his running mate Nicole Shanahan, along with the tech bros who were supporting him in hopes of helping Trump, decide to close their wallets. (Z)

The Media: What's with the DeLay in Publishing the Purloined Documents?

The news broke over the weekend that the Trump campaign had been hacked, and that various outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and Politico, were in possession of some internal campaign documents, including 271 pages' worth of information gathered while vetting J.D. Vance for the VP slot.

Readers will recall that when DNC and Clinton campaign documents leaked in 2016, media outlets fell all over themselves to publish the documents. The same was true on the various occasions when pieces of Donald Trump's tax returns leaked. But this time around, the documents have been in the wild for at least 10 days, and there's been no reporting, other than stories revealing that the documents exist. The Post and Politico have said that, as yet, the information is not "newsworthy" enough to publish. The Times hasn't even said that much.

We do not know exactly what is going on, but we do know the claim about newsworthiness is laughable. With something like the Hunter Biden laptop, then yes, there are arguments either way. But a major-party campaign's vetting of half the ticket? That's very big, indeed. To take just one example, do the 271 pages include the "childless cat ladies" comments? Because if so, that says something about the campaign's attitudes towards women. And if not, it says something about the campaign's vetting process. Either way, it tells voters something important.

Similarly, it might be argued that the major news outlets don't want to print something that is phony, and end up with egg on their collective faces again. In other words, they don't want a Russian dossier v2.0 situation. However, this does not hold water, either. Both the Trump campaign and the FBI have already confirmed the documents are real. So, that question is moot.

We know that some readers believe the media, even the non-right-wing media, is in the bag for the Trump campaign, since Trump attracts eyeballs and sells newspapers. Could be, although that would be pretty corrupt. It would also be risky, since Il Donald is exactly the type of guy who would consider arresting and jailing reporters who were not sufficiently deferential. He's already flirted with that.

Here are our theories as to what might be going on:

• The various outlets are working on stories that will be published eventually, but aren't yet ready to be published now.
  
  
• While the files are broadly legitimate, it's possible they could have had false material inserted, not unlike what happened with the Biden laptop. So, the outlets are working to vet the information, particularly anything that might be defamatory.
  
  
• The materials from 2016 were largely released by Wikileaks, which meant that organization bore most of the legal exposure. In this case, the Times, Post and Politico could end up being the ones who break the law if they publish.
  
  
• Alternatively, these outlets might open themselves up to civil liability, and with a man who would love, love, love to file suit against the "corrupt, left-wing media."

These are just guesses, of course. We also suspect that the files will eventually see the light of day, even if that means their being handed off to Wikileaks or some other outlet less concerned about any potential risks. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Our first hint for last week's headline theme was "readers named Jason or Freddy might have an advantage here." On Saturday, we added "Be afraid. Be very afraid." And now, the answer key, courtesy of reader T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St Kitts:

Horror movies!

• Trump Presser: 28 Days Later
• Fu** Democracy, Part I: Changing the Rules on the Fly
• Fu** Democracy, Part II: Of Aliens and Vote Certifications
• More on Swiftboating: Looks Like a Dead End for Republicans
• Foreign Policy: Is This the Thing the Trump Campaign Should Run On?
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Devil Inside
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Musk Told eX-Twitter Advertisers to Get Out... and They Did
• This Week in Freudenfreude: What Walz' Students Saw

Jason and Freddy, of course, are the main characters in the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, respectively. And "Be afraid. Be very afraid" is the tagline to, and a quote from, The Fly.

Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:

M.B. in Albany, NY W.L. in Springfield, MO D.L. in Uslar, Germany K.M. in Ypsilanti, MI D.E. in Baltimore, MD B.R. in Arlington, MA M.B. in Menlo Park, CA D.M. in Chicago, IL G.W. in Avon, CT A.F. in Pittsburgh, PA T.K. in Half Moon Bay C.H. in Atlanta, GA, who adds "Having just come out of my own horror film watching Trump's Ascendancy, love that each of these are classic horror movies." R.D. in Cheshire, CT M.L. in Acton, MA L.D. in Bedford, MA J.T. in Philadelphia, PA J.N. in Zionsville, IN M.W. in Newington, CT M.W. in Frederick, MD H.B. in Berlin, Germany D.K. in Bethesda, MD E.K. in Arlington, MA S.K. in Ardmore, PA R.H. in West Grove, PA M.M. in Leonardtown, MD

J.F. in Fayetteville, NC J.E. in San Jose, CA A.J. in Baltimore, MD D.S. in Fort Collins, CO J.U. in Chicago, IL M.H. in Ottawa, ON, Canada M.S. in Canton, NY M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO C.J.W. in Hamilton, NY S.F. in Hutto, TX D.E. in Ann Arbor, MI E.W. in Skaneateles, NY E.P. in Plainville, CT M.G. in DuBois, PA C.D. in Elmont, NY J.P. in Fredericksburg, VA M.T. in Paris, France S.M. in Morganton, GA M.J. in Oakdale, MN A.C. in Kingston, MA, who adds, "I imagine these past few weeks must feel like living in a horror movie to many on the Trump team." H.B. in Toronto, ON, Canada R.J.L in Columbus, IN E.G.Å in Trondheim, Norway D.M. in Austin, TX C.B. in Lakeville, MN

There are a lot of horror movie fans out there.

As to this week's theme, it's a little tougher. It appears in every headline (except "Today's Presidential Polls," of course), to the right of the colon. It relies on just one word in each headline, and is in the Trivial Pursuit category Famous People & Events. As to a hint, there may appear to be a couple of misspellings or typos in the headlines. In fact, there are not.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com, preferably with subject "August 16 Headlines." (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Musk Is in over His Head, No Ifs, Ands, or Butz about It

As a business decision, Elon Musk's purchase of eX-Twitter makes little sense. He grossly overpaid for the platform, by all accounts, and since then he has run the business into the ground. Revenues are now something like 25% of what they were at the platform's peak.

On the other hand, if you think of his purchase of eX-Twitter as "the most expensive political ad of all time," it starts to make a lot more sense. Normally, the people who really love money also really love power. And by buying eX-Twitter, Musk turned a bunch of money he was never going to be able to spend into an enormous amount of power. To a greater or lesser extent, he can demand the ear of politicians and pundits, high and low. And those who do not play ball with him, well, he can excoriate them, or deny them access to his platform, or perform all sorts of other shenanigans.

He is also in a position to be a bully, which he clearly loves. The most recent example involves the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). That is the group that organized a boycott of eX-Twitter, and that is apparently a threat to democracy on par with Hitler and Mussolini, if you believe ex-Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino (who damn well better win this year's Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress). GARM has shut down because it cannot afford to defend itself against the lawsuit filed by eX-Twitter.

There is a small fly in Musk's ointment, however. He may have a lot of power, but he does not control the legal system. Further to that point, Musk might have a Trump-like talent for approaching the line without crossing it in the U.S. However, unlike Trump, Musk's platform is global. And the South African is apparently not so talented at knowing exactly where the line is in countries he's less familiar with.

We say all of this as prelude to running down three different legal problems Musk is currently facing, or may soon face. First up is a lawsuit filed in the U.S. by Yaccarino's (sorta) predecessor, Omid Kordestani. Kordestani worked for 7 years for eX-Twitter, and took a fairly modest salary for a high-ranking executive ($50,000), preferring to receive most of his compensation in the form of stock.

You can probably see where this is going. When Musk took over the platform, he decided that he was not responsible for the liabilities of the previous regime. And so, he not only terminated Kordestani's employment, he's also refusing to pay out the stock, which Kordestani says is worth about $20 million. Yes, we just wrote that Musk is pretty good at avoiding liability in the U.S., but it's hard to see how he wins this one. These things tend to be pretty cut-and-dried, and there's a clear-cut paper trail. It is also the case that Kordestani isn't the only former executive suing Musk, he's just the latest. There are at least four others who say they were stiffed, too.

Moving along, we've made brief reference to the controversy involving Imane Khelif, who unwillingly became part of the latest battle in the culture wars based on the dubious claim from a Russian-backed organization that she is not a woman. Right-wingers, from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance on down, jumped on board with complaints that this is yet another example of liberals wanting men to be able to participate in women's sports. Again, it's actually not that at all—the evidence is very clear that Khelif is a woman and so was participating in exactly the division she should have been participating in.

Given Musk's strong anti-trans feelings, informed significantly by his estrangement from his trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, it is not a surprise that he jumped in with both feet, and posted a bunch of anti-Khelif stuff to eX-Twitter. What Musk knows is that it's pretty tough to get popped for online harassment in the U.S. What he apparently doesn't know is that the rules are rather different in France. Khelif has filed suit with France's National Center for the Fight Against Online Hatred, naming Musk as a defendant (and leaving open the possibility of adding Trump and Vance, as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA—bonus schadenfreude!). Depending on how the case proceeds, France could ask the U.S. to extradite Musk, Trump, Vance and/or Greene, so that they can stand trial. Presumably, a Harris-led Department of Justice would be much more amenable to such a request than a Trump-led DoJ.

Further, Musk is also flirting with potential defamation issues in the United Kingdom. MSP Humza Yousaf was previously First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party. Back in 2020, he gave a speech in support of Black Lives Matter, which infuriated Musk. The recent race riots renewed the tensions between the two men, with Musk blaming Yousaf/PM Keir Starmer/immigrants in general for the violence, and Yousaf pushing back against Musk for using his platform to stir the pot, calling him "a dangerous race baiter who must be held to account for his actions." Musk responded by describing Yousaf as a "super racist scumbag" who "loathes white people."

Again, it sure looks like Musk is thinking about American defamation laws, which make it very difficult for a public figure to win such a suit. British law is rather less forgiving. Yousaf can make a fact-based case that Musk is race-baiting, while Musk probably can't make a fact-based case that Yousaf is super racist or that he loathes white people. And so, Yousaf is seriously pondering the possibility of pursuing civil or criminal charges against Musk.

Undoubtedly, most readers have taken note that this is the second time in as many weeks that we chose Musk/eX-Twitter for this feature, not to mention an item in the interim about the failures of the Musk-Trump interview. We're not obsessed; we're really not. We just go where the news, and the schadenfreude, takes us.

In Musk's case, he is very deserving of multiple helpings of schadenfreude. It's not because he is a disagreeable jerk (although he's that, too). It's because he has become an alt-right troll who is spreading some deeply problematic ideas about race, gender, etc. throughout the world with his new toy. Many Americans have abandoned eX-Twitter (if they were ever on it) because they don't like Musk and/or they have other options. But there are many countries who don't have so many options, and where eX-Twitter is still central to political discourse. As Slate's Nitish Padwa points out, Musk is doing a lot of harm in some of those countries (among them the U.K.) with his rhetoric and his promotion of hateful and anti-democratic ideas.

So, we shall feel free to put Musk under the schadenfreude microscope anytime there is news to justify it, because he richly deserves it. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Here's to the "Great White North"

Many readers will be familiar with SCTV (1976-84), which was, to a greater or lesser extent, the Canadian version of Saturday Night Live (though it might be argued that Saturday Night Live is ALSO the Canadian version of Saturday Night Live, since it was created by a 'Nade, who has produced it for 45 of its 50 years).

SCTV produced some great material, but few would dispute that the show's most popular recurring sketch was Bob and Doug McKenzie. The two characters, played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, hosted a fictional talk show called "Great White North." The McKenzies wore heavy winter clothing and knit caps, chugged Canadian beer, ate back bacon by the handful, and made liberal use of the disfluency "eh" and the insult "you hosers!" In short, they were the most stereotypically Canadian characters you could possibly imagine. You can see examples of the sketch here and here; the sketches only had a runtime of about 2 minutes (for reasons that will be made clear in a moment).

SCTV began its life on the privately owned Global Television Network, but then moved to the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) starting with its fourth season (of six total). Because the CBC ran fewer commercials, that meant that episodes (including re-aired episodes) had to be about 2 minutes longer. Further, because the CBC was calling the shots, its management declared that the 2 extra minutes of content had to feature "identifiably Canadian content."

The SCTV crew thought this was silly, but the rules were the rules, and so Moranis and Thomas told their fellow castmembers that they would take care of it. They hastily tossed together a set, took a single cameraman to make the recording, and then improvised a dozen or so 2-minute "episodes" of "Great White North." They kept the funniest ones and tossed the rest.

The sketch was basically meant to be an "F-U, eh" to the CBC, but... it caught fire and quickly became the show's most popular segment. Moranis and Thomas did not expect to do additional entries, beyond the original batch, but they ended up doing one for every episode prior to their departure from SCTV. And every single one was produced in the same way: bare-bones, improvised, use the funniest and toss the rest.

There were a total of 41 "Great White North" sketches, followed up by a bunch of encores in various media over the last 44 years. The duo did a movie, called Strange Brew (1983), appeared on The David Letterman Show, starred in an animated series called Bob & Doug, were featured as two moose characters in the Brother Bear movies, and had several reunion specials for Canadian television.

Why are we talking about them here? Well, a number of reasons, among them:

• We admire such a successful example of malicious compliance with a dumb rule.
  
  
• We also admire a situation in which a person (or persons) has to pull something out of a hat on a deadline, and comes up with something excellent. Sometimes we also get lucky in that way.
  
  
• We appreciate Canadians' willingness to laugh at themselves. Brits are also pretty good about that. Americans, maybe not so much.
  
  
• There was a pretty big gap in Bob and Doug McKenzie appearances, from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. That is because Rick Moranis' (Bob) wife passed away, leaving him with two small children to raise by himself. And he responded by halting his career as an entertainer, and becoming a full-time stay-at-home parent. Not everyone has the luxury of doing that. However, most people, if given the choice, would hire a couple of au pairs and would continue doing movies and TV. Kudos to Moranis for making a different choice.

All of this said, the biggest reason we chose this topic, this week in particular, is because the two actors got Bob and Doug McKenzie out of mothballs last year, and earlier this year, to do a bunch of political commercials in opposition to a national beer tax. The commercials were not successful, inasmuch as the tax was ultimately implemented, but those who oppose it, including the hosts of "Great White North" are hoping it might eventually be reversed.

This week, if you watch any news, or if you watch the DNC, you are likely to see some vicious, vicious political ads. Sometimes it's good to remember that it doesn't HAVE to be that way, and it's at least possible to advocate using some gentle, good humor.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

We say again that if Trump has to play defense in what should be safe states, like Florida, that leaves fewer resources for the swing states. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Florida	46%	54%	Aug 05	Aug 15	Activote
Michigan	48%	48%	Aug 07	Aug 11	Fabrizio + Anzalone
Wisconsin	47%	47%	Aug 12	Aug 14	TIPP

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

---

If you wish to contact us, please use one of these addresses. For the first two, please include your initials and city.

• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.

To download a poster about the site to hang up, please click here.

---

Email a link to a friend or share:

---The Votemaster and Zenger