You may have heard the news already, but just in case you've just awakened from a coma: President Joe Biden, sequestered by COVID and beleaguered by his party's call to quit running for reelection after his cringe-worthy debate performance on June 27, withdrew from the race and endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, instead.
As unprecedented as his decision was, it was a long time coming. And probably inevitable.
Many who voted for him in 2020 expected him to be a one-term president, cleaning up the mess made by the tumultuous Trump administration. But then he declared his intention to run for reelection, to "finish the job."
Governance, however, is not a job that is there to be finished.
Unless you're planning to implement Project 2025 and finish the Trump job of dismantling democracy once and for all.
Biden's performance in his June debate with Trump obliterated the confidence of every supporter who had been encouraged by his State of the Union speech. It demonstrated why the people around him had scheduled so few press conferences for our octogenarian president during the past four years.
Incidentally, I have heard that people who heard that debate as live-translated into Spanish thought that Biden had won the messaging contest. The Spanish language translators had to make sense of what the candidates said, whether what they actually said made sense or not. Trump's lies, however, translated easily and transparently.
I was pianist last weekend at a wedding where they had two ASL signers up in front for deaf family members and guests. Got me wondering how deaf viewers of the debate thought it went. ASL interpreters don't just use their hands; they also use facial expression — which can be quite exaggerated — to convey more than just the literal spoken word.
Anyway, Democrats now have a lot of enthusiasm and hope invested in Kamala Harris, and will need to keep that intensity up for the next three months.
Harris has a reputation for having a rough relationship with staff. It supposedly doomed her 2020 campaign aborning, and if there's anything like that during this one, we will hear about it. The media love to report on the nuts and bolts of campaigning, because the campaign staffers are the people the press on the campaign trail talk to all the time. And disgruntled staffers tend to be eager to vent.
So Harris came to Milwaukee this week for a previously scheduled campaign event, and the staff had to find a larger venue to accommodate the increased interest. The Harris for President organization raked in a record amount in donations in the first days of her candidacy. And I dug out the Kamala Harris button I'd picked up at a union picnic in 2019.
Meanwhile, let's see whether Harris can appeal to those doggedly undecided voters out there.
Like the woman in the focus group on CBS Morning News yesterday who thought that the the first name of the incumbent Vice President of the United States is Camilla.
Yeah, let's not pop the victory champagne just yet, folks.
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Drawing this cartoon put me in mind of a cartoon that was showing up in my social media feed while back. (I'd credit the cartoonist, but now that I want to cite it, I can't find the cartoon.) A guy has brought his car into the shop, and the auto mechanic has the car's hood up. He turns to the vehicle owner and says, "Here's your problem. The cartoonist doesn't know how to draw an engine."
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