Harris 277
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Trump 261
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GOP 51
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Political Wire logo Two Questions from the Debate
Something Far Worse Than MAGA
The Tension Roiling the House GOP Leadership
For Your Weekend Listening
Harris and Trump Place Their Chips on Different States
Harris Visits Red Areas of Pennsylvania


Sorry it's late. They aren't kidding when they say COVID slows you down mentally.

Debate: With the Benefit of Hindsight... Harris Is Still the Hands-Down Victor

The presidential debate is, at least for those of us who write about politics, the gift that keeps on giving. Let's take a look at a dozen debate-related storylines from the past 24 hours or so, nearly all of them speaking to Kamala Harris' success on Tuesday evening:

  • That's a Wrap... Maybe: Let's start here by reiterating something we've written before. When presidential debates were first held, they were optional. So, they did not happen unless both candidates felt they had something to gain. This is why there were no debates in 1964, 1968 or 1972.

    Eventually, the debates became something much closer to mandatory. Not legally, of course, but there was an expectation that if a person was nominated for president by a major party, they would submit themselves for what is, in effect, a job interview. So, there were presidential debates for 12 straight cycles, and for most of those it was unheard of for a candidate to even consider skipping out (the exception is Jimmy Carter for one debate in 1980).

    Thanks to Donald Trump, who has skipped both primary and general election debates at various times, we have returned to optional territory. Since the Commission on Presidential Debates no longer runs the show, debates only happen if both candidates and a host agree on a date, a time, and other conditions.

    Yesterday, Trump said he's not interested in having another debate, while Harris said she would be delighted to lock horns again. He declared that he won this week's debate, and that it's like a prizefight in boxing—only the loser wants a rematch.

    Trump's analogy misses a couple of key points. First, the winners of prizefights often want a rematch, so as to prove their victory was not a fluke. Second, Harris did not take a position until AFTER Trump did—she wasn't pleading for a rematch from the outset. In any event, Trump may feel he really won the debate. You never know with him. But it is indisputable that the overwhelming public perception is that he lost. Even many Trump-friendly politicians and media outlets say he lost. And so, if he ducks a rematch, he not only gets to spend the rest of the cycle as "the loser" but also as someone who is scared to tangle with Harris again. That is not great for his "macho" image.

    For this reason, he might well change course, particularly if his polling numbers get weaker. It's also possible that he thinks he is "negotiating" and that he can maneuver things such that he can grudgingly agree to another debate if it's held on his home turf (i.e., hosted by Fox). If that is indeed his thinking, he is grossly misunderstanding his position. He needs another debate more than Harris does.

  • Polling: Speaking of polling, the first major post-debate poll, from Morning Consult, is out. Shortly before the debate, they had Harris +3 (49% to 46%). On the day of the debate, they had Harris +4 (50% to 46%). Yesterday, they had Harris +5 (50% to 45%).

    It's only one data point, of course, and the movement is within the margin of error. That said, a point or two is about what we would expect her to pick up from a very successful debate.

  • That Was Swift: Taylor Swift's endorsement is already having an effect. By 2:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, or about 15 hours after Swift first posted to Instagram, 337,826 visitors had been referred to vote.gov through the link that Swift posted.

    Obviously, not all of those people will register. And not everyone who registers will vote. And many of those who do vote will be in "safe" states. On the other hand, the number of referrals will undoubtedly surpass half a million or more by the end of the weekend, and there will also be people who register to vote in other ways, or who were already registered but who are motivated to get to the polls by Swift's prompting.

    Now, the dumbest thing for the Trump campaign to do would be to further goad the singer, thus rousing the Swifties to anger. Needless to say, that's exactly what Team Trump did by announcing a knock-off of Swift's Eras Tour shirt:

    The Taylor Swift shirt has 
a 3x4 grid of pictures of her in duotone--one's in shades of blue, one's yellow, one's red, etc.--then a cutout of her
layered on top of that. It says 'Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour' at the bottom. The Trump one is in the same style, 
except with pictures of Trump, and says 'Donald Trump - Make America Great Again'

    There is some talk that the Trump campaign is actually trying to bait Swift into a lawsuit. If so, well, we think that the PR from that will NOT work to Trump's favor. Of course, when it comes to musicians suing Trump, Swift will have to get in line. The White Stripes, earlier this week, became the latest to sue over the use of their music.

  • It's a Conspiracy!: There are many debate-related conspiracy theories circulating in right-wing circles right now. This is yet another case of folks who don't apparently realize that they are advertising, in bright-neon letters, that they know their candidate lost.

    The wackiest theory, we would say, is that the pearl earrings Kamala Harris was wearing were designed in such a way as to conceal an earbud, so that she could be fed the answers from someone offstage. Because, goes the theory, she's just too dumb to have come up with those answers on her own.

    Naturally, this is all kinds of stupid. First, it would be very difficult to pull off. There's all kinds of equipment inside a broadcast studio, and interference with the signal would be a big problem. And keeping a person who is 10 feet from you, as well as two additional people who are maybe 25 feet from you, from hearing what is going on would be very hard. Second, assuming you did keep the equipment working and you did fool everyone in the room, it would be very difficult to deliver the answers in a natural fashion. Cyrano de Bergerac is a play, not reality.

    This particular conspiracy theory connects with the widespread insistence, on the right, that Harris isn't very smart. Inasmuch as we know that intelligence is a complex and multi-faceted thing, we do not love to deem people "smart" or "stupid" or "average" or whatever. However, in this case, we will say that of course she's very smart. There's subjective evidence, like her considerable command of the English language and her ability to express complex ideas. There's also objective evidence, like her academic and professional records.

    The folks who feel free to judge Harris' supposed lack of smarts—and these are the same people, not coincidentally, who tend to be obsessed with IQ—are, at very least, revealing that they don't know what intelligence actually looks like. They might also be revealing that they are not capable of seeing, or not willing to see, intelligence in a Black woman.

  • It's Not Looneytown, It's Loomertown: Speaking of conspiratorial thinking, there have been a bunch of stories in the last day or two about how far-right nut case/white supremacist Laura Loomer has taken up residence in Trump's inner circle (see here, here, here and here for examples). Loomer even accompanied Trump to the main 9/11 memorial event in Washington, DC. Some of Trump's nuttiest ideas—including, very probably, the "eating cats and dogs" thing—are coming from her. His problem is part that he's very credulous, and part that he gravitates towards information he likes, without worrying about whether or not it's true.

    Just in case anyone needed a reminder as to what kind of person Loomer is, she posted this to Twitter shortly before the 9/11 event:
    If @KamalaHarris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.
    If you don't already know, you'll never guess who called Loomer out for this tweet. It was—wait for it—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Greene said that the message is "extremely racist" and that it "doesn't represent MAGA." We'd agree with the first part of that; not so sure about the second part, though. Anyhow, when you're too racist and too crazy for Marge Greene, you're in a VERY special place. Greene, and other Trumpers, are trying to turn Trump away from Loomer. And we all know how Trump generally responds when you tell him not to do something.

  • Yin/Yang, Putin/Harris: As we note above, Trump is easily manipulated. You can make him believe a lot of crazy things, as long as you make sure they are things he wants to hear. Similarly, there have been some good pieces in the last day or two (like this one) pointing out that the debate provided a pretty good object lesson in understanding how a Vladimir Putin or a Kim Jong-Un plays Trump like a fiddle.

    Kamala Harris, of course, had little trouble getting Trump's goat, and causing him to go off the rails. That is because his skin is as thin as the layer of gold on his toilet. The converse is that it's just as easy to get on his good side with shiny beads and shallow flattery. In other words, Harris mocks his rallies, Putin tells him they are the greatest rallies in history. Harris makes fun of Trump's "concepts of a plan" to replace Obamacare, Putin says that he likes Trump's ideas. Two sides of the same coin.

    Incidentally:
    because his skin is
    as thin as the layer of
    gold on his toilet
    is a pretty good haiku.

  • Money Matters, Part I: In the 24 hours after the debate, the Harris campaign raised $47 million. The Trump campaign refused to say how much it had raised; it's probably safe to guess it was rather less than $47 million.

  • Money Matters, Part II: The Trump campaign may not be willing to share their fundraising numbers. But what they can't hide is the share price of his publicly traded company. Reader M.M. in San Jose, CA passes this along:

    It's a graph of the
stock; the price dropped from a bit more than $18 a share to less than $16 a share overnight

    M.M. explains: "You can see here the effect of the debate. The price dropped by about 15% overnight after the debate. You can see the spike in volume (just over the 'W' in 'Wednesday morning') as people unloaded."

    For those who are wondering, the price has not rebounded since.

  • Face Time: In our initial debate write-up, reader W.F. in Orlando observed that Harris did not repeat Joe Biden's error, and made sure to keep in mind that she would be on camera at nearly all times. W.F. included several screen shots showing particularly effective use of facial expressions by the candidate.

    We didn't include the screen shots, in part due to time constraints. That may have been an error, because there have been a plethora of pieces on her use of facial expressions and body language (we thought this one was especially good). There are now screen caps all over the Internet illustrating this point; here are the ones from W.F. that we did not include on Wednesday:

    Three are three sets,
and we would describe them as Trump skeptical/Harris laughing; Trump angry/Harris doing the 'Mmmm Hm' look'; 
and Trump goofy/Harris serious

  • He Got His TikTok Cleaned: The social media analytics firm Zelf crunched the numbers and found that Harris is wiping the floor with Trump on TikTok. Of the top-performing posts mentioning Harris this week (basically, 5 million views or more), 72% are positive. Of the top-performing posts mentioning Trump this week, 71% are negative.

  • Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: In our original write-up, we noted that Harris did not lie very much, in our estimation, even including politician lies, while Trump lied left, right, and sideways. And we wondered what the fact-checkers would say. Well, we've now had time to read the fact-checks, and it turns out... they agree with us (see here, here, here and here for examples). They generally concurred that Harris should have been clearer that when she talked about the "Trump sales tax," she meant the impact of his tariffs. She said that Trump left office with the worst unemployment since the Great Depression; the truth is that the worst was actually in May of his last year in office, by the time he left in January, it was improved a bit. She also said a couple of things that she believes to be true (e.g., "he will sign a national abortion ban") but that run contrary to his public statements. That's about it. Meanwhile, they all found a mountain of Trump lies.

  • Those Who Know Him: A few people who know Trump very well have weighed in on this week's debate with not-so-good-for-him comments. Most notable is Niece Mary Trump, who hates her uncle, of course. Yesterday, she shared her view that he suffered "narcissistic injury" in the debate, and he won't be able to recover before the election. In other words, she's predicting that he's going to remain off the rails for the rest of the campaign.

    Meanwhile, Philippe Reines does not literally know Trump. And yet, it's his job to "know" Trump, as he's the guy who plays Trump in mock debates with Harris (he did the same for Hillary Clinton). Having studied Trump in a way that few people do, he told CNN that Trump is a different person than he was in 2016. In short, there may have been madness 8 years ago, but there was also method. Now, in Reines' view, it's all madness. "He's all over the board," remarked Reines. "I think he's losing train of thought and he's just blurting out the next thing in his mind."

Please be clear, we did not cherry-pick here. The coverage, across the spectrum, is overwhelming: Trump got thumped, and now he's reaping the harvest. And we still have one more debate post today, plus we'll have one next week (with the bingo material). He's gotta hope that this doesn't last TOO many more cycles. (Z)

Debate Memes: Bravo, Internet!

On Wednesday, in our debate write-up, we included the observation that, in our view, there weren't "any meme-y moments that will enter the annals of presidential debate lore, like 'There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe' or 'binders full of women' or 'There you go again.'"

Oops. Clearly, we were wrong about that. And really, we should have chosen our words more carefully; what we meant is that there were no game changers. Thanks to the "dogs and cats" thing, it might also have been wrong to say that. But it was definitely wrong to suggest there would be no memes. There are all kinds of them. To make up for our error, we thought we'd run down some of the best and most ubiquitous ones:

Scheisskopf?: Even other countries were piling on Trump after the debate.

A tweet from the German foreign office that
says: 'Like it or not: Germany's energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables. And we are shutting down-not 
building-coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest. PS: We also don't eat cats and dogs.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Orange Fish: Dr. Seuss may have been dead for 30 years, and yet...

It's a cover that looks like
a Dr. Seuss book called 'They're Eating the Dogs, They're Eating the Cats'; it also has a Trump-looking orange figure
on it

Save the Animals: There are literally thousands of these out there. And they are being posted by both Republicans (un-ironically) and Democrats (extremely ironically).

A picture of Trump carrying
a cat and a goose and running away from a group of Haitians, a cat with an AK-47 and a MAGA hat, Trump riding a giant tabby 
cat, a picture of a big-eyed baby duck, dog and cat holding signs asking you to vote for Trump to save them

What Would Franklin Do?: We think this is a more effective version of the previous bit.

It's a parody of the
'Don't Tread on Me' flag that has a kitten and the phrase 'Don't Snack on Me'

Our Mistake: Several readers wrote in after the debate to point out, quite rightly, that there is one very well-documented example of an alien eating a cat.

Alf the alien, from the
1980s show Alf, with a live cat on a hoagie roll

Otto and Flash Disapprove: And it's not just cats.

A live dachshund 
puppy wearing a hot dog bun

D'oh!: The Simpsons has a meme for all occasions.

Bart Simpson, in
one of the standard pre-episode vignettes, writing 'They're eating the dogs.'

Snoopy Also Disapproves: This video is making the rounds; it's remarkable how well the piano from the Charlie Brown theme lines up with Trump's cat and dogs remarks:



A Song of Ice and Fire?: There are a lot of variants of this bit to be found. We liked this one, with George R.R. Martin (who has been promising to finish the book series that inspired Game of Thrones for years) best. (Though we very nearly went with the one featuring the Tesla truck.)

A tweet quotes
Trump: 'I have the concepts of a plan and you will be hearing more in the near future.' and has a picture of Martin

Phone Home: This one pretty much speaks for itself.

The tweet says 
'illegal transgender alien' and has a screen capture from the scene in E.T. where the alien character tries
to hide by dressing in drag.

Anger Translator: This video, from the Lincoln Project, is sort of reminiscent of the old Key and Peele "Obama Anger Translator" bit. Note that it's PG-13, but that it will also please fans of late-20th-century pop culture.



Thanks, incidentally, to readers R.E.M. in Brooklyn, NY, M.G. in Augsburg, Germany, L.S.-H. in Naarden, The Netherlands, J.L. in Los Angeles, CA, S.A. in Seattle, WA, R.L. in Oakland, CA, M.A. in Albuquerque, NM, B.C. in Richmond, VA and C.S. in New York City, NY for sending in many of these examples. We hope we did not miss anyone. (Z)

Today in Ballot Shenanigans: RFK Jr. Is Working Hard to Have an Impact in November

You don't often see "Robert F. Kennedy Jr." and "win" in the same sentence, but he got a pretty big win in North Carolina this week. The state Supreme Court, which has been stacked with far-right justices, ruled that he must be removed from the ballot.

This ruling runs contrary to multiple laws, federal and state. Starting with the latter, Kennedy missed the deadline for removal, and according to North Carolina statutes, he could only be removed if it was "practicable." It wasn't, because more than half of North Carolina's counties had already printed ballots. Oh, and the state will not begin early voting on the date required by state law (September 6). As to federal law, the state is required to send ballots to servicemembers no later than September 21. Election officials say they probably won't be able to make the cutoff, because they have to redesign hundreds of ballots.

All of this has two effects that are desirable, as far as Team Trump is concerned. First, there will obviously be less early voting. Since early voting tends to favor Democrats, this is a win for the Republican ticket. Second, with millions of non-valid ballots to be destroyed, and millions of valid ballots to be quickly designed, printed and distributed, it will create chaos. That jibes well with future plans to claim fraud, deceit, trickery, etc. And, of course, North Carolina could well be the linchpin of the whole election.

Kennedy has been a sleazeball for decades. But now you can add "antidemocratic" to his list of sobriquets. (Z)

Endorsement News: Manchin, Gonzales Both Tango across the Aisle

Politics makes strange dance partners. At least, we think that's the saying. In any event, there were a couple of high-profile, cross-aisle endorsements yesterday.

First up is Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV). Since he's now an independent, maybe this doesn't count as crossing the aisle anymore. Maybe he's standing IN the aisle. In any case, he announced his support for Larry Hogan (R) in the Maryland U.S. Senate race. Manchin explained that he's supporting Hogan because "he's the white person." Er, wait, no. It was because "he's the right person." Our error.

We continue to be mystified as to what Manchin's long game is. He's clearly not planning a future in West Virginia politics; this year was his last chance to run for either the U.S. Senate or for West Virginia governor prior to becoming an octogenarian. We guess he sees himself as some sort of future elder statesman, serving as the guru of bipartisanship. If so, he's in the wrong era, and he's also the wrong guy. Republicans disdain him because he used to be a Democrat. Democrats disdain him because he's Joe Manchin.

Meanwhile, another high-profile Bush administration official has thrown his lot in with Kamala Harris. That would be former AG Alberto Gonzales, who was way up there with Dick Cheney on Democrats' "naughty" list 20 years ago. Yesterday, he wrote an op-ed for Politico in which he observed that he has a unique perspective as the only person to serve as both White House counsel and AG, and then warned:

As the United States approaches a critical election, I can't sit quietly as Donald Trump—perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation—eyes a return to the White House. For that reason, though I'm a Republican, I've decided to support Kamala Harris for president...

Power is intoxicating and based on Trump's rhetoric and conduct it appears unlikely that he would respect the power of the presidency in all instances; rather, he would abuse it for personal and political gain, and not on behalf of the American people.

Perhaps the most revealing example relates to Trump's conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, when he encouraged his followers to march to our nation's capital [sic] in order to challenge the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory. Trump failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks that day. He failed to deploy executive branch personnel to save lives and property and preserve democracy. He just watched on television and chose not to do anything because that would have been contrary to his interests. Trump still describes that day as beautiful. And as for those subsequently convicted of committing crimes, he describes them as hostages. He also has promised to pardon the convicted rioters if elected. Why? Because they were acting in his interests.

Gonzales also notes that it's dumb to blame a sitting VP for the state of the economy.

We continue to expect a commercial featuring all these high-profile Republicans making the pitch for Harris. Although, at this rate, it may need to be a series of commercials. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Whatever Happened to the Quebec Nordiques?

Yes, we know what actually happened to the Nordiques; they became the Colorado Avalanche. It was a rhetorical question, along the lines of "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

Anyhow, last week, we gave the clue that the headline theme was "probably a lay-up for many readers. Or a can of corn. Or... a wrist shot." On Saturday, we added "Ice, Ice baby." And now, courtesy of reader C.B. in Lakeville, State of Hockey, er, Minnesota:

Looks like you've got some NHL team nicknames there:
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  • Paging Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the [Philadelphia] Flyers
  • I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: T-Bone [St. Louis] Blues
  • This Week in Schadenfreude: Arlington Incident Continues to Drive Trump [Minnesota] Wild
  • This Week in Freudenfreude: Four Thieves Vinegar Collective vs. Pharmaceutical [Nashville] Predators

The Nordiques, from today's headline, are a (former) hockey team as well, as we note above. Oh, and a lay-up is an easy play in basketball, a can of corn is an easy play in baseball, and a wrist shot is an easy play... in hockey.

Here are the first 50 readers to get it right:

  1. C.W. in Atlantic Beach, FL
  2. J.U. in Chicago, IL
  3. R.C. in Eagleville, PA
  4. M.F. in Goshen, KY
  5. J.C. in Oxford, England, UK
  6. C.B. in Lakeville
  7. G.W. in Avon, CT
  8. J.N. in Zionsville, IN
  9. D.L. in Springfield, IL
  10. R.D. in Cheshire, CT
  11. D.D. in Highland Park, IL
  12. A.S. in Fairfax, VA
  13. M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO
  14. J.S. in Somerset, NJ
  15. R.S. in Milan, OH
  16. R.G. in Bella Vista, AR
  17. R.R. in Lancaster, PA
  18. D.C. in South Elgin, IL
  19. M.W. in Frederick, MD
  20. G.M. in Gaithersburg, MD
  21. K.M. in Ypsilanti, MI
  22. M.M. in Manahawkin, NJ
  23. M.A. in Cornelius, NC
  24. M.K. in Rye, NY
  25. T.M. in New York City, NY
  1. C.G. in Pflugerville, TX
  2. J.P. in Fredericksburg, VA
  3. H.K. in Berlin, Germany
  4. W.L. in Los Angeles, CA
  5. D.S. in Layton, UT
  6. D.S. in Jackson, MN
  7. M.J.S. in Cheshire, CT
  8. R.R. in Camden, DE
  9. J.C. in Long Beach, NY
  10. Z.K. in Albany, NY
  11. E.K. in Arlington, MA
  12. D.K.M. in Grand Rapids, MI
  13. B.K. in Mystic, CT
  14. S.M. in Exton, PA
  15. D.K. in Chicago, IL
  16. C.B.L. in Warwick, RI
  17. C.J.R. in Boston, MA
  18. R.H.O. in Portland, ME
  19. J.M. in Eagle Mills, NY
  20. B.W. in Boston, MA
  21. T.K. in Kirkwood, MO
  22. L.D. in Bedford, MA
  23. J.F. in Fayetteville, NC
  24. B.U. in St. Louis, MO
  25. G.L. in Manchester, MO

R.D. in Cheshire also wonders: "Did someone from the north infiltrate this site?" No, we would never countenance such behaviour. Plus, a Canadian could never produce content of this calibre, eh.

Other hosers also expressed their suspicions.

For this week, the theme relies on one word per headline. The Trivial Pursuit theme would be "In the News," although that's not a great fit. As to a hint, we'll say that we doubt Donald Trump could figure out this theme. But if he did, he'd really hate it.

If you have a guess, send it to us at comments@electoral-vote.com, ideally with subject line "September 13 Headlines." (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Thugs in Uniform

We admit that the schadenfreude here is a little limited. But we think it's a pretty important story, so we'll have to be satisfied with what little schadenfreude we can get.

The central figure in this story is Thomas Perez Jr., who lives in the California city of Fontana with his father (Papa Tom) and his dog. One evening, back in 2018, Papa Tom left home and did not return for many hours. Perez eventually called the police, who came to the house and asked him to return with them to the police station.

Initially, Perez' participation was voluntary and the police were cordial. What he did not know is that the officers were buying time so they could get a warrant and search Perez' house. Once they did so, and found some evidence they considered definitive (for example, a cadaver-sniffing dog alerted in one bedroom, suggesting the possibility that human remains had been in the room at some point), the visit with the police became no-longer-voluntary and not at all cordial.

Over several days, Perez was subject to lengthy interrogation sessions. The police denied him food, water and his prescription medications. They required him to strip. They told him they'd found his father's dead body, with blood all over the house, and Perez' fingerprints in the blood. They even put him in a squad car and drove him around Fontana, pointing to the spots where they said Perez might have committed the crime. Eventually, Perez confessed.

Presumably, you know where this is headed. Perez was not guilty of killing his father. Nobody was, in fact, because Papa Tom is still alive. He had flown to Oakland to meet his daughter, and forgot to mention it on his way out.

The good news here is that Perez was eventually freed (of course), and received a $900,000 settlement for his ordeal. The bad news is that others, in his situation, aren't usually so lucky as to be completely exonerated. If Papa Tom had been dead, then that plus the confession would have been enough to put Perez away for a long time. On top of that, while the city paid the price for its officers' behavior, the officers did not. In fact, of the two lead detectives in the case, one just received an award for exemplary service, while the other has been promoted to chief. As noted, the schadenfreude here is limited.

There is no question that police have a very difficult job, and often deal with very difficult people. It is equally true, however, that there are lots of mistakes and lots of abuses. Unfortunately, "crime" (and, in particular, "urban crime," which really means "minority crime") have been turned into such bugaboos that it's virtually impossible for politicians to engage with this issue. Yes, "Defund the Police" was very poor branding. But even absent that phrase, any politician who dares suggest that there may be a problem, and that maybe we could be doing better on policing, risks ending their career. It's really a shame. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Yankee Ingenuity

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield don't actually own the Ben & Jerry's ice cream brand anymore. But they still have big-time name recognition, and they still know a thing or two about making ice cream. They are also latter-day hippies and well-known supporters of the Democratic Party. Though their very favorite politician is their fellow Vermonter Bernie Sanders (who is not actually a Democrat, of course), their leanings mean it is no surprise that they are all-in on Kamala Harris.

The duo have come up with their own special way to rally support for civic engagement and for the Democratic ticket. Starting in Philadelphia on September 16 (the day early voting begins in Pennsylvania), and aided by MoveOn, the duo will mount what they are calling the "Scoop the Vote" tour. Over the course of a month, they will visit 20 cities in battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, in addition to Pennsylvania.

At each stop, Ben and Jerry will be joined by activists, local politicians, and other guests, and will talk to attendees about how to make sure their vote is counted. There will be giveaways, including—of course—ice cream. For this purpose, they have done what they do, and created a special new flavor called "Kamala's Coconut Jubilee." It's coconut ice cream with a caramel swirl and star-shaped sprinkles. And in case you are wondering, they also created a flavor for Sanders in 2020, called "Bernie's Back." It was described as "a hot cinnamon ice cream with a chocolate disc on top and a butter toffee backbone going down the middle." No star-shaped sprinkles, though.

We choose this, in part, because we strongly approve of creative efforts to get people to vote. However, it's also because with all the corporations and fat cats who achieve their political goals through lobbying and giving cash to politicians, it's nice to see Ben and Jerry making a different choice. As a bonus, an item about people making their own ice cream will presumably be less controversial than the item last week about people making their own mifepristone.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

For Kamala Harris, Michigan is the most doubtful of the three upper Midwest states. That said, Harris has led by an average of 2 points or so, which means this poll could be a bit of an outlier. (Z)

State Kamala Harris Donald Trump Start End Pollster
Michigan 48% 49% Sep 11 Sep 12 Insider Advantage

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


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---The Votemaster and Zenger
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