Vee

That presupposes that deep down we all wanted Trump (or that they all wanted Obama). The truth about America, unfortunately, has always been a lot more messy and imperfect.

With the A.V. Club returning to its classic format and bringing back many of its old writers, we also have Blair Underwood (ex-OLTL) doing Will Harris' always-essential Random Roles about his career. OLTL gets a brief mention, as does the failed recent L.A. Law revival pilot.

There's a difference, at least for me. Buttigieg is a brilliant, incisive surrogate who does very, very well on TV. In a better world he would be an ideal running mate. But we all know you cannot run a Black woman and a gay man on the general ticket today. I wish we could but we can't. Believe me, if the day comes while I'm still alive and a gay man (or lesbian, or whatever other LGBT person) ends up winning as VP or POTUS I'll be crying my eyes out. That day is not today. With Shapiro I think a lot of the general public just see a skilled young politician. The Jewish thing is still a real issue, but I feel it is more isolated to various very vocal segments than in the past. And let's be honest: The leftists who were going to hate him for being a Jew mostly aren't going to vote anyway. YMMV. Oh, go on, which one?

Non-paywall link here. You don't have to tell this Jew. I'd still run him.

At this point I would rather run a good politician who can win Pennsylvania than care if he's circumcised.

Kamala is live (the USA Today feed sucks): Joe is on speakerphone/Zoom as well with her. That was a lovely ending: "God bless you and God bless the United States of America, and Joe Biden."

I can't fault for anyone feeling how they feel. As I said, while Bidenworld made some of their own real mistakes I think the way this whole process was handled in the public eye was shameful, disgraceful and unnecessary. The stories that have already come out are not great, what comes out later will be worse for people we previously admired. Even if someone can make an argument that Joe had to go, this didn't have to happen the way it did. But that's a whole other can of worms. I was thinking earlier about something else. What most often gets lost is how impactful and transformative a president Joe Biden actually has been - it's come out in all the post-Sunday pre-eulogies of course, but even I, someone who kept fairly abreast of the administration's moves, found myself being reminded of some and saying 'oh yeah, what about that?' The reality is Biden's record and achievements have been notoriously and shamefully underreported, by a press that not only disdained him personally, regularly joked among themselves about what percentage 'dead' he was at press pools, were bored by the Biden WH's lack of access and leaks, and missed the drama of the Trump years and the fun rough and tumble neo-Nazis who would call them and gossip all night. Most of them also just had no head for policy, or no interest in policy as set by Democrats vs. on Republican or right-wing think tank terms, which often bear out the conventional wisdom in Washington. If a Democrat did it they start tuning out. That's how you got all the headlines about the economy being bad despite it not being bad, followed by the endless vibes pieces - 'if the economy is good, why doesn't it FEEL like it?' The media was not interested in reporting on fiscally responsible Democrats because they've never been, because it doesn't fit their priors. And so then you end up with a segment of the public who in turn believes this falsehood. Among others. We can attribute a great deal of the drag on Biden's approval numbers over the last four years - and the fact that too few of the general public know what he's done, what he did and what he could do - to a press that had zero interest in reporting on it. Because it wasn't fun, it wasn't access, it wasn't gossip or balls and strikes. If the Democratic Party wants to learn to combat this they have to finally accept that the old way of handling media is over and that they have to make their case much more forcefully, and with more outlets and consistent efforts, rather than simply doing the work and then hoping the media will play fair with them. Too many in the party still think that the media are their friends who just need to listen and understand, and then they'll do the right thing. That's not how this works anymore. We have to work the refs much better than we do. The right wing has been doing it for over 50 years. There's no doubt that the debate was an unforced error. If not for that night I think it's fair to say very little of this happens. But if the press had been forcefully made the case for Biden's record by the party (not just the WH, but so many fairweather folks in Congress who were out for themselves), and given no space not to report on it, the fundamental injury to Joe's numbers that got us to this moribund election cycle and created the preexisting paranoia from donors might not have existed. Too few people have to be educated in 2024 on what Joe has done, and that is a key reason he was weakened in the first place. The party has got to learn that the press isn't here to be fair.

And he got ratio'ed like never before! The media, notably disappointed by the speed and power of the party's unification around Harris when they were hoping for an open primary and more weeks of Dems in Disarray, have stooped to interesting new lows:

This election is very winnable. At least based on the candidate and his condition I saw onstage. I hate how this switch was done, even if the polling was truly bad enough internally. But it's done, Kamala is ready IMO and there's too much at stake to walk away. I'm not even going to comment on the weird posts from the lady who spends most of her days writing fanfiction about how the characters she hates on soaps will have every aspect of their life destroyed ASAP. I don't need that mentality brought into the Politics Thread.

....Anyway, someone got with the program:

Changed headline.

I don't like how any of this happened, but I understand some of her positioning from a purely coldblooded, pragmatic political calculus. But if the numbers really got that bad, it should not have gotten to this point. We should not have had people in the party shivving the president in public or on backchannel to the press for weeks well before now. Nothing that's gone on here could be called 'the easy way.' I don't blame all of that on Pelosi, but what happened across the party was a disgraceful display. What I'm pissed about is that neither Pelosi nor Obama have endorsed Kamala yet. There's not going to be an open field; today has made that clear. If you want to dispel bad blood and the rumor mill, endorse the president's choice.

Politico (via archive.is) has a piece on what allegedly went down re: Biden's decision. Bear in mind, it's Politico.

Ironically, it's the Beltway elite media trying their best to shore up sagging GOP hopes atm - guys like Jonathan Martin and Nuzzi complaining that it's unfair to the Dem voters(??) or that Project 2025 is boring.

Stephen Miller is taking it well. I suspect this vibe is rampant in Trumpworld. They're not prepped. Sure I can!

The money and endorsements are flooding in, so it's nice to see the party finally locking in. Manchin's bid will go nowhere.

Whitmer and Newsom have indicated they have no intention to run. This will likely lock up quickly, thankfully.

It's not going to happen. And if they don't endorse fast, they'll be disappointing many people.

The issue is that he doesn't have enough of that support. He hasn't since 2016, it keeps bleeding off. Can he muster enough back to beat a Black woman is the question. That I don't know. I think we have even odds but I agree it's going to be a harder push than it would've a month ago. I also frankly think Trump is unprepared to run against Kamala.

He was the strongest in 2016. Trump in 2024 is not the same. I saw that man at the RNC the other night. Kamala Harris couldn't have beaten him in 2016, and probably not in 2020. She can now.

Time Magazine: