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More Senior Democrats Call for Biden to Withdraw
Joe Biden is not out of the woods yet. Not by a longshot. Every day more Democrats are asking him to call it quits. Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) held a video conference call with the ranking members of most of the House committees. Now we are finding out how that went: not so good for Biden. Four ranking members are now asking Biden to call it quits. They are Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY, Judiciary), Joe Morelle (D-NY, Administration), Adam Smith (D-WA, Armed Services) and Mark Takano (D-CA, Veterans Affairs). They all think Biden has to go for the good of the party and the country. They join five other House Democrats who have already called for Biden to end his campaign, but these four are all prominent Democrats with years of seniority and real power.
Another dozen have expressed their concern. And we thought that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) had a trademark on expressing "concern." One Democrat who has not taken a clear stand yet is Jeffries. He said he is in listening mode. If he comes out against Biden, it will tough for Biden to continue, but we are not there yet. Two other Democrats who are still on the sidelines, after initial statements of support, are Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Barack Obama. They carry a lot of weight with Biden.
Meanwhile, Biden is touching base with dozens of Democrats to get a feel for where the party is. Some of them are waiting to see how well he does at the NATO summit this week. He will have many unscripted moments then and all eyes are on him to see how well he handles himself.
The House has always been rowdier than the Senate and that is still true. While a number of House Democrats have openly called for Biden to end his campaign, so far no Democratic senators have gone quite that far (though Mark Warner, D-VA, came close). In part, that could be because the Senate is older than the House, with an average age of 64 vs. 57 for the House. People like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA, 90) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT, 82) get nervous when people say 81 is too old to serve in public office. However, today is the usual lunch for the Senate Democratic caucus. We wouldn't be a bit surprised if the subject of Joe Biden came up. But the Senate doesn't leak as badly as the House, so we might not hear what happened for a while.
Another bit of information came out yesterday that isn't going to help Biden much. The log of visitors to the White House showed that a neurologist specializing in Parkinson's disease, Dr. Kevin Cannard of Walter Reed Medical Center, has visited the White House eight times this year, including at least one meeting with presidential physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor. Why so many visits by this kind of specialist? Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to this story by saying that Biden was not being treated for Parkinson's. She didn't explain why Cannard was in the White House so often, though.
Maybe there is a good explanation, but the odds of Biden surviving keep decreasing. Then what? James Carville wrote an op-ed in The New York Times yesterday. In it, he says that Biden can't win and must drop out for the sake of the country. He also said that Biden can't just pass the torch to Kamala Harris. The process of replacing him on the ticket has to be open. His plan is to hold four town halls, one each in the Northeast, South, Midwest, and the West. He proposes they be moderated by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and feature eight candidates they select. Then an open convention would pick the nominee. He closed the op-ed by quoting Winston Churchill: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." (V)
Biden's Strategy: Diss "Elites"
Joe Biden is desperate to save his candidacy amid the increasing calls for him to end it. One of the Democrats' great achievements in recent years has been to woo affluent, well-educated suburbanites from the Republican Party to become Democrats. These people are great voters to have because their turnout rate is high. In a desperate move, Biden is now ignoring them and appealing to Black voters and union members to save his candidacy. He has to hope the affluent, well-educated suburbanites forgive him and don't go back from whence they came.
On Monday, Biden forcefully rejected all calls for him to step down. He wrote a letter to Democratic members of Congress and told them by carrying on as they are, they are only weakening him and strengthening Trump, so cut it out right now. He pointed out that tens of millions of Democrats voted for him in the primaries and if the Democratic voters want him, he should rightly be the nominee. In the letter, he cited his legislative achievements as reasons he should be the nominee. Of course, that somewhat misses the point. The Democrats aren't suggesting he was too old and infirm 2 or 3 years ago. They are questioning whether he is up to the race right now, after his debate performance.
Various Democratic celebrities are openly calling for Biden to drop out. Big donors are also closing their wallets. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he was pi**ed off at the Founding Fathers. They wrote a minimum age for president into the Constitution, but not a maximum age. Damn them. He said that he has talked to many big donors and they are now going to skip the presidential race and pour money into critical House and Senate races. Biden is calling them "elites" now. They used to be his friends. He called into Morning Joe and sounded off against them. Watch:
Biden also said that if anyone doubts his abilities, that person should challenge him at the convention and let the delegates vote. Of course, since he picked nearly all the delegates, he would win that one. He is clearly very angry now, but he is angry at Democrats, not angry at Donald Trump.
How will this end? We don't know. Maybe Biden will do great at the NATO Summit and the naysayers will stop. Maybe he will make it worse. But the clock is ticking and it is terrible for the Democrats to keep this "Democrats in disarray" story going. The average voter is going to think: "Those guys don't have their act together." That is not where the Democrats want to be. (V)
Trump Plans to Soften the Entire Republican Platform
It has been leaked for a while that Donald Trump is trying to soften the Republican stance on abortion, which is, more or less, no abortions ever. But now it has come out that Trump wants to do much more than that. He wants the platform to read like the transcript of one of his campaign rallies. Not only does he want to finesse abortion (because he knows it is a losing issue) but he also wants to end the Dept. of Education, end the weaponization of the DoJ (Read: make it take orders from him), stop supporting electric vehicles, and deport pro-Hamas radicals and undocumented immigrants. The platform also opposes early voting and voting machines. Everyone should vote on Election Day using paper ballots.
In 2016, the platform was more of a normal Republican platform. It was 54 pages long. In 2020, there was no platform. The "platform" just said: "We want whatever Donald Trump wants." It looks like this year's platform will be in between the two. Not so long as 2016, but still something. It shows Trump's power over the Republican Party. It will do whatever he tells it to do. There is no give and take and no negotiation among factions anymore. He just gives orders and everyone salutes and says "Yes, sir."
The 2024 platform breaks with the 2016 one on a number of points. It drops support for free trade and argues for tariffs. Free trade is something Republicans have supported for decades because big business likes it. Now big business counts for zilch with Republicans, although Trump does want their campaign donations. Only they don't get anything in return.
Another break with 2016 is that the language condemning the Supreme Court for allowing same-sex marriage is gone. The platform doesn't take a stand on same-sex marriage. Many evangelicals won't like this if they find out, but who reads the platform anyway?
A new issue not present before is transgenderism. It says the government should not fund gender confirmation surgery for anyone. It doesn't call for an outright ban on it for minors, but it does say parents should determine what is best for their children. The platform says men should be banned from participating in women's sports in order to protect women.
The platform committee consists of 112 delegates to the convention. There are two from each state and territory. Trump played a large role in selecting them. In fact, some of the selectees were surprised since they are not party activists, but all are strong Trump supporters. Three of them are Steve Nagel, who believes vaccines harm children, Demi Kousounas, who believes discussing nonbinary genders in school is child sexual abuse, and David Barton, who says the separation of church and state is a myth. They will help write the platform, so don't be surprised with whatever comes out the meat grinder. The final text will be finished next Tuesday and then voted on by the convention. In contrast with previous conventions, the media will be excluded from watching the platform committee in action.
Not all Republicans are enamored of Trump's complete takeover of the Party and the platform committee. Marc Raciot, a former RNC chairman, said: "This isn't about the triumph of ideas. It's about the triumph of Donald Trump. It's frankly an embarrassment." Michael Steele, another former RNC chairman, seconded Raciot's comment about Trump's complete takeover. He said: "If Trump suddenly announced he's pro-choice, they [anti-abortion activists] would say: 'I wish you wouldn't say it so loudly, but OK, sir.'" (V)
True Gretch Out Today
Just in case you thought Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) didn't have any national ambitions, well, think again. Her book True Gretch will be published today. Here is the cover of the book:
Sure, she will make some money from it, but that isn't the real goal. It is to raise her national profile for a run at national office. No doubt she was thinking about 2028, but the uncertainty of Joe Biden being on the ticket could change that. Of course, she is vehemently denying that she has an interest in 2024, but that is par for the course. But if there is an open convention and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) jumps in, she might as well. Some people are already speculating about Newsom/Whitmer 2024 or maybe the reverse.
One problem that she has this year, and which she can't fix, is that she can't be Kamala Harris' running mate. The Democrats are operating on the presumption that an all-female senate delegation works fine in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Washington, but an all-female national ticket is many bridges too far. So if Harris is the nominee, Whitmer will have to sit out 2024. If Harris wins, Whitmer will have to wait until 2032. If Harris loses, Whitmer can try in 2028.
The book is an autobiography and talks about how Whitmer was inspired by her grandmother, who told her never to part her hair in the middle. It also talks about her leadership. Her motto is "get sh** done." As soon as the book is out, reporters will speed read it to see if she ever shot her dog in the head, something some aspiring politicians do.
Yesterday, Whitmer said that she would not run for president even if Joe Biden dropped out. Take that with a couple of cups of salt. If Biden really does drop out and there is some kind of mini-primary or the town halls James Carville suggested, many Democrats will put a lot of pressure on her to jump in. She would be one of the strongest candidates for either president or vice president. Few politicians will insist on not running when their party really wants them in. (V)
Adelson Is Back
Not Sheldon Adelson. He's dead and buried in Israel. But his widow, Miriam Adelson, has decided that she wants to take over his role as a Republican megadonor. She inherited $34 billion from Sheldon and Donald Trump gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018. They get along fine. She is planning to spend $61 million before Labor Day attacking Joe Biden. The ads will run during the Summer Olympics in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Adelson was born in Israel and the ads might attack Biden for caving to the pro-Palestinian students and abandoning Israel at its moment of need. If she does that, the ads may not have the desired effect on the Arab Americans in Michigan. They are probably not going to be impressed by hearing that Trump will do much more for Israel than Biden is doing. But maybe she is smart enough to run ads in Michigan about the economy and not the Middle East. Immigration and national security are also likely to be in there.
The super PAC Adelson is using, Preserve America, said that it will spend more this year than the $100 million it spent in 2020. Also, it is starting earlier. Last time it didn't begin advertising until after Labor Day. (V)
Democratic House Super PAC Raised $51 Million in Q2
If Donald Trump wins the White House, the Democrats will be desperate to control at least one chamber of Congress to prevent Trump from running rampant over the country's laws. He could do a fair amount of damage using XO's, but far more if he has the trifecta. For this reason, Democrats are surely glad to know that the two biggest House super PACs raised $51 million in Q2. They raised $37 million in Q1, for a total of $88 million so far.
There are 87 House districts in the range R+5 to D+5. These are competitive districts. Of these, 51 are represented by Democrats and 36 are represented by Republicans. If the money is spread evenly across the districts, that works out to about $1 million per district, with an emphasis on defense, but also some offense. A million dollars is serious money in a House race. Of course, all House candidates also raise their own money as well, and don't depend entirely on the national super PACs.
The Republican super PACs haven't announced their Q2 totals yet.
What is also relevant here is that those big donors who expect Trump to win are beginning to pour money into critical House and Senate races. They are interested both in bolstering Democratic incumbents and helping Democratic challengers. For example, Laura Gillen, who is challenging Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) on Long Island, raised $1.9 million in Q2, triple her Q1 haul. The district is D+5 and Joe Biden carried it by 15 points in 2020, so D'Esposito is extremely vulnerable and the big donors want to make sure Gillen knocks him off. If more big donors come to believe that Trump will win, there will be an exponential increase in funding for people like Gillen, which may allow the Democrats to take back the House and possibly hold the Senate. (V)
Menendez' Trial Is Winding Down
With all the attention being given to Joe Biden's debate performance and the aftermath, the trial of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been pushed off to about page 19 of most newspapers, if they cover it at all. The trial has been going on for 7 weeks. Menendez has been indicted for good, old-fashioned corruption. The government of Egypt allegedly gave him cash, gold bars, a fancy car, and more in return for his using his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help Egypt. If true, this is out-and-out bribery.
Menendez has been charged with 16 offenses, including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction. The gold bars and cash were shown to the jury, so denying he got them won't work. His defense is that all the goodies were for his wife and he didn't know anything about the gifts. The famous "blame the wife" defense. Nice guy.
Menendez' defense probably won't work because the guy who bribed him, Jose Uribe, is cooperating with law enforcement. He testified at the trial that he did arrange the bribes, although the car was indeed for Menendez' wife, who had just totaled hers, killing a pedestrian in the process.
Menendez should have known better. He was previously indicted for corruption. That trial ended in a hung jury and the prosecutors then dropped the case. That should have scared the daylights out of Menendez and cured him of his wicked ways, but it didn't. He kept at it and got indicted. Again.
Closing arguments were presented yesterday. The case will go to the jury today or tomorrow.
Mendendez' wife, Nadine, will go on trial in August for her role in the affair. Her trial was delayed because she has stage 3 breast cancer and is undergoing treatment for it.
Menendez is running for reelection as an independent. It is exceedingly unlikely that he could win, even if he is acquitted. If he is found guilty on one or more charges, it's all over for him. Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) is widely expected to be elected senator in November to replace Menendez. (V)
Today's Presidential Polls
The Morning Consult polls of the swing states we had Sunday didn't look good for Biden and neither do these. Was it the debate? We don't know, but unless there is some systematic error, which is always possible, Biden needs to do something. And it should probably start with explaining why a doctor specializing in Parkinson's disease has visited the White House eight times this year. Maybe there is a good explanation, but Biden needs to be more open about his health status since that will be a major issue if he continues. Biden should probably also authorize Dr. Cannard to hold a press conference to discuss his findings. If there is really nothing there, that would help make the story go away. (V)
| State | Joe Biden | Donald Trump | Start | End | Pollster |
| Arizona | 42% | 46% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
| Georgia | 42% | 47% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
| Michigan | 44% | 45% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
| Nevada | 41% | 47% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
| Pennsylvania | 43% | 48% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
| Wisconsin | 44% | 47% | Jun 30 | Jul 02 | Emerson Coll. |
Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.
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