Wayne Borders, talking in the garden today about his candidacy.
I was looking for my wife today to ask her some dumb question or other, and found her in the garden to the side of our house. She had paused in her work to speak with a young man I’d never seen before — seeing the rack cards in his hand, I realized he was out campaigning for someone, and when I saw the cards were for Russell Ott, I stepped up eagerly to join the discussion.
To my surprise, he was campaigning for himself. His name is Wayne Borders, and he’s the Democratic nominee against my state representative, Micah Caskey. I’d had no idea Micah had opposition. Wayne was just carrying the cards for Russell because he was a fellow Democratic nominee.
I was also interested to hear him speak, and my first impression was “military brat.” No accent of any kind. Then I asked where he was from, and he said “Red Bank.” So I was more confused than before. He didn’t sound much like Red Bank. But the beginning of his bio on his campaign site sort of explains that. He moved around enough growing up to iron out the regionalisms.
Anyway, we had a nice talk for a little while before I realized I needed to let him go and knock on more doors. But I’ve got his number, and I’ll set up an interview some time soon. So expect some followup.
I’ll also get with Micah. I suspect he’s not terribly concerned, given the district. He didn’t have a primary challenge from his extreme right this year, which I know was a relief for him after last time. For him in this Republican district, the primary is where the rocks and shoals lie. But however slim a Democrat’s chances are around her, this is an interesting development….
Those are two concepts I don’t normally group together, which is a major reason why I’ve never been as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I always was about Joe’s.
Mind you, it’s no great distinction, when the only other person in the race is the famously malevolent ignoramus whose name I will not mention here, as that is unnecessary.
But there’s more here than that.
Ms. Rubin notes:
Don’t take my word for it. “It is a speech Ronald Reagan could have given,” Liz Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week” regarding Harris’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. “It is a speech George Bush could have given. It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place.” Cheney went on to condemn former president Donald Trump’s plan for across-the-board, massive tariffs that “will choke off global trade, will likely lead us down the path that we’ve seen before, for example, in the 1930s … [to] a depression.”
Cheney said that when it comes to “fundamental alliances, when it comes to the importance of NATO, for example, and how important it is for the United States to lead in the world, we’ve seen a sea change.” In other words, those Republicans who during the Cold War ridiculed Democratic fecklessness, showed timidity toward America’s enemies and pooh-poohed the United States as a force for good in the world should now be backing Harris. Remarkably, Cheney affirmed that “if you’re talking about a national security set of issues and you care about America’s leadership role in the world, a vote for Vice President Harris is the right vote to make this time around.”…
Mind you, “Reaganesque” is not normally a word that sets my heart aflutter. If you’d known me 40 years ago, you’d understand that. To say that I was not a fan is an extreme understatement. But this is the way Republicans talk when they’re praising someone, particularly when they’re holding that person up for the admiration of other Republicans.
For me, it’s very reassuring. The column could have compared the veep to FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton or Obama. What she’s saying to me is, she understands the post-1945 nonpartisan consensus of our nation’s leaders as to the role our country must play to keep from having a World War III. And it’s not just about being a “hawk;” it’s about playing the prime leadership role around the globe in economic and humanitarian terms, and championing liberal democracy everywhere.
I’d have realized this earlier, but as you know, I didn’t follow the convention.
Kamala Harris is up against someone who is determined to rend and destroy America’s role and our ability to play it. I know the veep does not want to do that, so the choice between the two is obvious. So I had seen little need to follow this race closely. Therefore I had not until now noticed much to indicate that Harris would be a positive force on this front, instead of merely a harmless, neutral one.
Now that won’t be reassuring to some of you, but you’re mostly probably going to vote for her anyway. If you’re planning to vote for the other option, you’re a lost cause anyway. Which is why you probably won’t hear all that much about it in tonight’s debate.
But it means a lot to me, because to me, this is what we elect presidents for.
Back at the beginning of 2008, we were trying to decide on our candidate for the Democratic nomination, and I was already leaning toward Barack Obama. But I was very concerned about his lack of foreign policy experience, even more than about his lack of experience in Washington.
Mike Fitts posed my main question (it’s the one we always asked first of presidential candidates) to the young senator during our endorsement interview, and you hear his answer at about the two-minute mark in this clip taken with my old low-res Canon. It’s basically what Kamala Harris said in the speech Ms. Rubin is citing.
It was good to hear then, and it’s good to hear now..
Hey, look! Another post less than a week after the last one! Not exactly the same as when I’d post ten times each day while getting an editorial page out, but I do what I can.
Which hasn’t been much, this week. Just before going to the lake last weekend, I picked up a new laptop at Best Buy. It’s a beauty, and I know I’m going to love it — already do, in some ways. But for the moment it presents a bit of a challenge. For more than three decades, I was a rather intensive user of Microsoft machines, for a wide variety of purposes: writing, editing, paginating the newspaper, processing photos, creating videos, and so forth. Writing a blog. Building a family tree that now has almost 10,000 people on it.
And my new machine is a MacBook Pro.
So now, a simple thing like writing a press release for ADCO and getting it to the right place presents a bit of a challenge. Different keyboard, different file structure, different assumptions about the way to do the simplest things, things my fingers used to do without being told to do them…
I’m getting the hang of it, though. Now, late on a Friday, I thought I’d create a space for folks to discuss the political convention that I haven’t had time to follow. But I’m going to try to get through moderating those waiting comments before posting this. I understand that you’ll hardly be tempted to “discuss” a thing when your thoughts don’t get posted.
I still intend, at first opportunity, to watch Joe’s address from Monday night. I expect it to be a rather emotional experience. I’ve watched a minute or two of the speech Walz gave, and he seems to have done quite well, aside from the usual things people say at party conventions that drive me nuts. He appears to have been a very good choice. I need to see the rest of it.
And then I must listen to Kamala’s speech, when I’m up to experiencing all that, from what I hear, youthful exuberance. I figure she did pretty well, too. Or I’d have heard otherwise. Stuff — stuff, that is, in the realm of political news — generally filters through to my consciousness even when I’m not paying attention. Or deliberately ignoring from across the ocean.
I haven’t heard anything bad, so she must have done OK. After all, I saw a notification this morning from The Wall Street Journal saying that “In a bracingly normal address, Kamala Harris delivered a triumphant capstone for the Democrats and defined their new reality.” Here’s that full story, in case you have access.
I liked that: “bracingly normal.” In this political environment, we all could use some bracingly normal rhetoric and behavior. That’s what Joe has been giving us since 2020, and it’s been wonderful. If some of that has rubbed off on Kamala, good on her. And good for us all.
Anyway, everything seems to have gone far better than the last time the Democrats met in Chicago. But as I say, I suspect most of y’all followed this better than I did. Thoughts?…
This one went WAY better than the last one. More orderly, anyway…
As we approached JFK on our return, I wondered why a guy can’t take a little time off from the madness down there…
What, a guy can’t go spend two or three weeks traveling abroad without the whole country going stark, raving mad behind his back?
Apparently not.
I’ll write about the trip later. I’d rather write about that, because the topic is more pleasant, and it interests me more. But this is sorta kinda a political blog, or was. Frankly, I’m less and less interested in that stuff every day, because politics has gotten so insufferably stupid. But most of the craziness back in the States had to do with presidential politics, and that seems to be all that occupies the country’s collective hivemind in years bearing numbers that can be divided into whole numbers by four — no matter what’s going on in Ukraine, or Israel, or China. Or Venezuela, for that matter.
So let me try to get it all out of the way, and once we’re caught up, we’ll move on to other matters.
Oh, one other thing — the years numbered as I described are also known as “Olympiads.” And that was going on, too, during our travels. I was reminded vaguely of it when we turned on a TV in our waterfront room in Calais (I think that was the only time we touched a boob tube during the trip), and saw apparently unending coverage of some event having to do with the Olympics. The arrival of the torch in Paris or something. Huge crowds in the streets and uninteresting popular music performed on an outdoor stage. Which, we recalled, was why we had decided to avoid Paris on this trip. (I mean because of the crowds, not so much the blah pop music.)
“La grand soiree” goes on and on about “la flamme olympique.” Which was why we were avoiding Paris…
But onto the politics. Now mind you, we’re not talking “politics” as the word was used during the first 60 or so years of my life. You know, relatively sane candidates vying seriously for serious offices by offering their credentials and their character to a discerning electorate. It’s a far weirder thing now. But you know that already. Social media, and all that. So on with it…
Trump weirdness goes into overdrive
Let’s take it in chronological order. Nothing back home intruded upon my vacationing consciousness while we were in London. But then in Canterbury, just as I we were trying to drop off to sleep (it being five hours later than here), the news popped that someone had taken a shot at Donald Trump, clipping his right ear. Which, you know, was like all we needed. I turned off audible notifications on my phone and iPad, and being extremely tired — as tired as if we’d walked all the way there with Chaucer’s pilgrims — went to sleep.
That didn’t mean it would leave me alone over the next couple of days. I kept seeing this kind of stuff:
I found out that kid with the rifle, who couldn’t hit his target squarely despite being given minutes to aim in an ideal sniper’s position — but tragically managed to kill an innocent bystander, and seriously wound others — was also dead himself. I guess that’s the way it goes with deadly weapons fired from four to five hundred feet by someone who never received Marine training….
Oh, hang on — don’t get the impression I wanted him to kill Trump. No way. Total nightmare scenario, that. Worst thing that could have happened. Things went plenty crazy enough without that. Meanwhile, we were hearing how much the whole thing would help Trump get elected. Which I suppose we should expect, since “sympathy voting” is an old tradition. Voters in general are easily swayed by emotion, that goes especially for voters who might be susceptible to voting for this guy.
Where we were, the usual response tended to be “those crazy Americans and their guns,” from a column my wife read in Le Monde to the African Uber driver who took us across Amsterdam several days later. (We’d left England, and were not subjected to The Guardian, which adores that line of discussion.) We could ignore Le Monde (I could especially, since I don’t do Paris talk), but we felt we had to be polite to the driver — he was a very nice, intelligent guy — so we said things like, “Yes, you have a point, and it’s hard to explain, and no one knows what to do about it,” while thinking, Can we talk about windmills or something?…
That mass of crazy sort of blotted out our awareness of the GOP Convention over the next few days, although at one point I did stop to think, wasn’t he supposed to be sentenced by now? Wasn’t the sentencing date just before the convention? I even looked that up briefly, and saw an explanation having something to do with the recent Supreme Court decision, which made no sense, and I moved on. Fortunately, I had lots to distract me…
Wow, this post is taking some time, innit? That’s why I hadn’t written it yet. But to move on…
Joe drops out
Well, I had sort of expected this to happen before I got back. The pressure bearing down on my main man Joe, no matter what he did or said, was reaching a level that no one could withstand. Not even the kind of guy who would step up to save his country — and knew how — despite being at an age when he had served enough, and richly deserved to stay at home and enjoy his grandchildren.
But people weren’t interested in that anymore, if they ever had been. They were too busy twitching in response to things that mattered more to them than the unavoidable fact that a qualified alternative hadn’t emerged in 2024 any more than it did in 2020. And Kamala Harris, who would be the obvious replacement at this date, had been about halfway back in that pack of 2020 also-rans, in terms of qualification for our highest office.
Y’all know very well what my position was: The country, and the world, needed him to stay in office. Not that it would have been good for him — it was the worst possible thing for him personally, and I’ve felt guilty for years for my willingness to exploit his willingness to put himself through it. But Americans, and the rest of the world, needed him to keep his hand on the tiller. Because there was no one else.
It might help you to understand my long-held position if you reflect that my mind doesn’t center around such questions as “Who can win the election?” For me, the question was “Who should win the election?” Of course, you need someone who both should, and can. That’s the trick, and Joe knows it as well as anyone. Which was why he dropped out.
Which means we now ask ourselves other questions… but I’m going to have to take a break and do some paying work, or none will get done today. I’ll try to get back and finish this before the day is over, because I really want to put this stuff in my rear-view mirror…
…OK, I’m back, and now I want to correct what I just said. We don’t need to ask ourselves any questions at all, old or new. The world may be nuts now, but it’s a lot simpler.
Now, the choice is between Donald Trump and… somebody else. Kamala Harris, with close to zero experience that applies to the job of president, is a bit of an unknown quantity. But that’s OK, because it clearly brings us to a simple point. I’ve often said that anyone would be better than Donald Trump. Kamala Harris doesn’t quite qualify as “someone chosen at random off the street,” but she shares a characteristic with that person — I don’t know anything bad about her. She’s basically a neutral character in this situation.
Well, I do know one bad thing — the way she stabbed Joe in the back in that first debate in 2020. Major cheap shot. But Joe forgave her, so I feel obliged to do the same.
So, no bad things (maybe you know some bad things about her, but I don’t). And she’s running against a guy with more bad qualities than anyone who has ever reached this point in American politics.
So there’s nothing to think about. You vote for Kamala, and you hope she keeps Joe’s team in place — people like Anthony Blinken and Merrill Garland. People who know the job. That way, there’s a chance for things to be OK.
Whereas, with the other guy, nothing — at home or abroad, on any level — will be OK.
So there’s not a lot to discuss. Vote for Kamala.
To be more encouraging…
That’s not sounding like a really enthusiastic endorsement, I realize. Let me try to offer something better.
Back before we headed to London, some smart, thoughtful people — not just the freakout crowd, or the people who never liked Joe anyway, like the Bernie Bros and the editorial board of the NYT — were starting to suggest that maybe someone else could take Joe’s place, and it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Sometime way back on July 5 — a few days before we left the country — he did a podcast titled, “Is Kamala Harris Underrated?” This being based on the assumption among smart, thoughtful observers that she hadn’t shown us much yet. But he suggested that now that we’re in this fix of the abundantly qualified and accomplished incumbent’s numbers plummeting, maybe she possessed qualities that made her better than we thought. Among other things, he said:
There are ways in which Harris seems perfectly suited for this moment. She’s a former prosecutor who would be running against a convicted criminal. She’s the administration’s best messenger on abortion by far, running in the aftermath of Dobbs. She’s a Black woman with a tough on crime background, running at a moment when crime and disorder have been big issues in American politics.
And unlike Joe Biden, who I think has very little room to improve from here, the American people don’t really know Harris. The opportunity for her to make a different impression if she was speaking for herself, rather than for the administration, is real. Now, that doesn’t mean she’d be able to pull that off. That’s a hard political job. But she’s a lot sharper in interviews and debates than I think people are now prepared for.
She has a résumé and some skills quite well-suited to this moment. It definitely doesn’t seem impossible that she could rise to the task. There is a reason she was considered so strong in 2019 and in 2020. Wouldn’t you want to see her debate Donald Trump?…
OK, that’s not a really ringing endorsement, either. But he said enough good things — or at least potentially good things — about her that I felt a little better about the situation as we prepared to take off. I felt like Joe might not be running when I got back, and I was glad I was going to miss those last days before that happened. And Klein made me feel like maybe things would be OK. At least, after January, Joe will finally get the time off that he has so richly earned. (About time he had a little Joe time.)
And so far, they have been pretty OK. She seems to have done OK with her first big test — picking a running mate. I’ll probably write more on that subject in coming days.
But I don’t think I’ll be writing as much about the presidential election as I might have otherwise. Maybe because it’s all so simple now. We’ll see. In any case, I look forward to writing about other things. And now that I’ve dealt with this stuff, I can go on and do that.
I don’t think it will be another month before you hear from me…
I’ll come back soon to tell you about our trip. Until then, enjoy the flowers…
Well, it’s over. The campaign started on May 22, when the now-outgoing P.M. called a snap election.
And now, the Tories have suffered their worst defeat in their 200-year history. They are a sorry spectacle, so let’s be kind and look away from them.
The good news is that Labour’s overwhelming victory means Keir Starmer is the new Prime Minister, officially invited by the king to form a new government (see image above).
The British people wanted a change, and they got it. Right away. Will it make a difference? I hope so. I’ve been hearing so many sad stories lately about the state of Albion.
Last time I was there, the Tories were in charge. Next week, I will be in London, and am curious and hopeful as to whether I’ll see a difference. Oh, not in terms of infrastructure or a cure for the nation’s fiscal problems. I’m looking more for a different mood, a happier one.
And it all happened so quickly. Fourteen years after this sorry string of Conservative prime ministers (one brief, flickering failure after another) began, in a handful of weeks we have something new.
The world has yet to take the measure of Mr. Starmer, but I’m hopeful so far. For all these years, Labour had been held back by the disastrous, repellent Jeremy Corbyn. Now we have someone very different, and I’m picking up vibes of my main man Tony Blair. Is New Labour back? I hope so. We’ll see.
And again, it all happened so quickly.
I think we can agree that this seems to work better than our own painful system. This current election has been going on since when? I suppose since that moment in 2015 when Donald Trump came down that escalator. And instead of laughing at him and moving on, the nation has been engaged for nine years in an incredibly absurd and debilitating argument over whether he, or some normal, qualified person should be the most powerful person in the world.
Of course, quick and decisive elections aren’t always everything. Look at what just happened to poor Emanuel Macron. But at least he gets to keep his job, for now. It’s debatable whether he or Rishi Sunak is the lucky one, though. At least Sunak gets to move on.
But they are both more blessed than we in that our ordeal continues. At least I’m about to take a break from it. And on this break, I will also visit France. But I don’t expect to notice many changes there, one way or the other. I’ve never been there before…
I’ve been extremely busy Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday on an important matter that’s not only a work thing, but a personal thing — my deep concern about the situation at Alvin S. Glenn. Here’s a release about what’s happening tonight. Very little of my time was spent on the release, of course. Mostly it was reading documents catching me up on the case, and harassing various media to let them know what was happening tonight.
I’ll be glad to elaborate further on the matter, but right now I’m caught up with communicating with media about the jail, but I think I have a few minutes to address what the rest of the world has been yammering about for days.
Everywhere I’ve gone the last few days — my walks (I’m going to get in my 10,000 whatever else I’m doing, even if I don’t sleep), Mass on Sunday, what have you — everyone has wanted to talk with me about it. I was no more interested in talking about it than I was before the “debate.” An alternate scripture reading from Friday kind of sums up my attitude toward these silly spectacles over the last few election cycles:
Pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace,
along with those who call on the Lord with purity of heart.
Avoid foolish and ignorant debates,
for you know that they breed quarrels…
I read that and thought, yeah, that’s what I keep saying. Avoid stupid and ignorant debates (has there been any other kind in recent years?) indeed.
I’ve covered and organized and participated in these things we call debates over the decades. I covered the GOP presidential debate in early 1980 in Des Moines. I’ve been a panelist asking the questions several times. Once, when my newspaper was sponsoring a U.S. Senate debate — in 1982, I think — I found myself outside of the venue explaining to anti-abortion protesters why they couldn’t come in and disrupt the event. The woman leading them was a friend — we were both in the folk choir at our church — and she was in my face and screaming at me. Something I remember more vividly than the debate itself.
For years, I generally ignored the purists who insisted these media events were not “debates” at all. I felt they served a purpose. Over time I increasingly had my doubts about their value in national elections. The superficiality was painful. The evidence leading me to doubt has been piling up for a long time. Remember Lloyd Bentsen’s zinger, directed at Dan Quayle in 1988? And do you remember anything else from that event? Increasingly, debate prep was about memorizing zingers and avoiding gaffes. No more boning up on details about Quemoy and Matsu.
I still think there can be some value in letting people hear from candidates for lesser offices, involving folks they may never have seen or thought about before. I was disappointed as a voter recently when a debate held between Russell Ott and Dick Harpootlian was not televised live. Never mind “live;” I couldn’t find a full video of it anywhere after. Maybe it was out there, but not terribly accessible. But no matter. The right candidate won anyway.
A decade ago, despite the mounting evidence, I was still enthusiastic about debates. The enthusiasm was fueled by the novelty of social media. I loved tweeting about 30 or more times during a debate, and the energetic discussions this would engender. It was fun. But that’s about it. Not much of substance. It was entertaining to chortle at stupid things people said at the podium. But not what you’d call enlightening. And the novelty wore off.
As last week’s event approached, my enthusiasm was deader than usual. There was nothing to be gained from the event, either by my candidate or by the country. Trump, of course, would say stupid, offensive, embarrassing stuff from start to finish, and it wouldn’t cost him a single vote — his supporters love that stuff. The only person who could “lose” would be the one man — the infinitely better man — who stands between him and his planned dictatorship. Of course, he wouldn’t lose on substance — on any matter of character or understanding of policy. But he would lose if he slipped — committed a gaffe — even slightly. And God forbid he should “look old” on camera, because the country is full of people who think that’s important in his contest against a deranged 78-year-old.
So I wasn’t looking forward to it, and when I had initial trouble keeping it on my screen via a couple of sites (I don’t have cable; I have to stream), I was pleased to stop trying and do pretty much anything else. But I saw enough to agree that Joe had a bad night. He didn’t look good or sound good. In other words, my assessment agreed with those of people across the spectrum who said that — the chortling Republicans, the horrified Democrats, and others. I agreed also with the president himself. He had a bad night.
And none of that bore in any way on the question of which of these men should be elected — which is the only question that matters. I’m not going to go off on a long digression on the reasons why one of these men will be elected, but that’s the case — unless one or both of them succumb to the grim logic of actuarial tables sometime between now and Election Day. So that question is what matters. And all that matters.
Let’s consider one slice of the set of people currently in the “Biden must bow out” camp: I have zero patience with the editorial board of The New York Times. These are the sophomoric hammerheads who, in 2020, despised Joe — the only Democrat who could win — so much that they wanted to endorse anybody else for the nomination. Trouble was, their weak collective mind was incapable of assembling a consensus on exactly which of the zero-chance challengers to choose. So they picked two of them, thus disqualifying themselves from being considered seriously regarding such matters for the forseeable future.
So where do I stand? Well, for a concise description of my position, I refer you to President Obama:
Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the…
That’s pretty much what Joe himself has been saying. To quote from a fundraising text I received, which summarizes what he’s been saying elsewhere in recent days:
Hey folks, it’s Joe. On Thursday, I spent 90 minutes debating on a stage with a guy who has all the morals of an alley cat.
I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.
I also know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.
And I know — like millions of Americans know — when you get knocked down, you get back up.
I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job. Because quite frankly the stakes are too high…
Yep. I agree with all that. And I can identify. I’m only 70, but when I’m on video, I come across like Methusaleh’s uncle. See this video from this past Friday, in which I’m introducing a speaker from the Relic Room. I’m the stooped old guy at the very beginning.
Anyway, that’s about it. This has taken more time than I had to spend. I’ve been handling calls and texts from reporters and attorneys while writing it. I’ve got to go. When I come back, it will be to write about something else — there are a number of topics I’d like to address before I leave the country next week (that’s actually one of the things I hope to write about, if things calm down)…
Early voting for the 2024 state primaries has begun, so I trooped over to the West Columbia Community Center to cast my vote. (I’m going to be out of town on the actual election day, June 11.)
And when I say “cast my vote,” I mean exactly that. “Vote,” singular. I voted for Russell Ott for state Senate, and no one else.
That’s partly because I live in Lexington County, and he was on the Democratic primary ballot, and in this area, you mostly only have Republicans running, and thereby offering choices. There was one other choice being offered on the ballot I took — I could have chosen between the two guys vying to lost to Joe Wilson in the fall.
I wasn’t going to do that. I had never heard of either of them before I saw them on the sample ballot, just a few minutes before I headed to the polling place. And as I’ve said many times, I don’t vote for people I know nothing about.
But I was glad to vote for Russell in his contest against Dick Harpootlian.
I’m not as optimistic as I’d like to be about the outcome on June 11, but my worrying could be a mistake. I just don’t know. The thing is, while I know Russell — and Dick — I don’t know this odd new district they’re running in.
You may recall that Dick had given the impression that he wasn’t seeking reelection from his current district, so the Republicans just drew him into the same district with my senator, Nikki Setzler. Then, weird things happened. Dick changed his mind, and Nikki decided to retire. So Dick ran in this new district, which somehow included not only his urban Columbia address, but Russell’s out in St. Matthews.
It would be city mouse versus country mouse — the lawyer versus the farmer — and in this case, knowing and observing them, I preferred country mouse.
And I think if every voter here in Lexington County knew both of them as I do, most of tthem would prefer Russell. He’s the one who’s more like Nikki, who has been elected and re-elected around here enough times to become the Senate’s longest-serving member.
But here’s the thing: They were used to choosing Nikki in November, and Nikki was too smart ever to mention his political party on his yard signs. Russell’s trying to get to the November ballot through a strongly contested Democratic primary.
And I don’t see a whole lot of my neighbors choosing the Democratic ballot when they go to vote. I asked a poll worker whether they had given out many of those today. They had not.
Which is why Dick, who has largely been a pragmatic guy in the Senate, is running this time like a zampolit, an enforcer of party ideology. You’d think he was running in AOC’s district or something. But I think that’s because he assumes Richland Country Democrats will dominate the contest, and that they want to hear that kind of stuff. Maybe he’s right. And maybe he’s wrong. I can’t tell.
We’ll see. But we’ll have to wait until June 11, at least. I’ll just keep hoping it will be Russell. I think he’s the better man for this district, and for South Carolina.
How about you? Have you voted? Do you plan to? Maybe not. While they handed out very few Democratic ballots at my polling place today, it didn’t look like there were all that many takers on the GOP side, either. People just don’t vote in these things. And that’s a shame…
This is what was on offer over on the Republican side.
The main spur was when a sign — actually, two of them — appeared in the yard of a neighbor. That one was for Chris Smith, who’s one of three Republicans also seeking the Senate seat from which Nikki Setzler is retiring.
None of those three has given me any reason to want him as my senator. More about them later. As I’ve said before, for me as a voter, this is about Democrats Russell Ott and Dick Harpootlian. This remains to me the most interesting SC legislative contest of 2024. It would seem so even if I didn’t happen to live in the district.
And between the two, I’m planning to vote for Russell on June 11.
Why? Well, several reasons, but let’s start with this one: Have you ever had a conversation with one, or preferably both, of those guys? Dick is clever and endlessly entertaining, and a gold mine if you’re a journalist. You’ve gotta like a guy who says things like “I don’t want to buy the black vote. I just want to rent it for a day.” Now that’s some good copy. I wasn’t there when Dick said that, way back in 1986, but I can picture the smirk on his face when he said it. If you know him, you’ve probably seen that look.
I’ve never seen anything like that on Russell. You know why? Because he’s a really nice guy. More than that, he’s a respectful guy. He listens to you. He cares about what you think, and respects it even when — maybe especially when — you disagree with him. Does that make him sound like some weathervane who’s just looking for the crowd’s approval? Hardly. He thinks for himself. But when he arrives at a conclusion that’s going to outrage Democratic voters — such as, say, on abortion — he’s just as thoughtfully considerate.
I bragged on him for that back in 2021. You might want to go back and read that, particularly the statement that inspired the post. When you read it, note the tone. You don’t see many people who speak of that issue the way he did. Most, on both sides, are in the “I’m right, and you can go to hell!” camp. Not Russell. He models the way a representative should relate to people no matter what the issue is — and even on the most explosive and divisive issue in the country.
Meanwhile, Dick Harpootlian sees that statement as something to use as a bludgeon against Russell. Note this tweet from Dick last week:
You’ve likely seen the way Dick’s been pounding Russell about the head and shoulders for failing to be what Dick sees as a proper, orthodox, toe-the-line Democrat. Well, that Tweet was presented within that context. Dick obviously sees it that statement from Russell as conclusively damning.
Now watch. Someone from the ones-and-zeroes camp will say, “Well, of course Brad’s putting up his sign! Ott’s against abortion!”
The person who says that doesn’t know me, and doesn’t pay attention. I have little patience with single-issue voting. Not my style. I mean, look back at the other folks whose yard signs I’ve put up in the last few years. Or look at the bumper stickers I still haven’t taken off my truck (see the selfie below from the day I voted in the 2024 presidenial primary). Those are not what most people call pro-life candidates. And each of them had an opponent who at least claimed to be pro-life. But look at which ones I chose to support.
Russell is used to taking heat on positions he takes, such as when he led the charge last year to legalize online betting on horse races, an issue he mentioned to me this morning when he dropped the sign off at the house.
But he doesn’t lash out at the people who disagree with them. Not that I’ve seen. And I like that, and I’m happy to support him for it…
OK, I’m going to conduct an experiment here. Please help me out.
The last couple of weeks, E.J. Dionne has had two really excellent columns. There’s nothing unusual about that. But there’s something new — or something that I hadn’t previously noticed — about them. Here’s the first:
In 2024, Joe Biden is the conservative & the progressive. He’s trying to preserve our institutions against Trump’s onslaught & is the most progressive president since the Reagan Era. He needs to show that safety & progress go together
My column free access https://t.co/LQ2hCrwi50
Did you see that at the end of the tweet — “my column free access?” I’m asking y’all to try to link and read the column, and let me know if you’re able to do so without being a subscriber. Then, leave your thoughts on the column.
I loved the piece, because E.J. is getting to the heart of my great appreciation of Joe Biden. Because I am both liberal and conservative myself, I see Joe as the only hope left to the country. We had plenty of such people to choose from in the decades after 1945. And we needed them. We need them more than ever now. But now there’s just Joe.
But E.J.’s piece also shames me a bit. I say the same things he’s saying here all the time, but I tend to present them as truth without the careful documentation and explanation. This is possibly because I grow weary of repeatedly explaining how I arrive at conclusions that have taken seven decades of thought and observation to reach. And people shrug it off, because they think it’s just the ranting of an alter cocker.
But I guess it’s also because I don’t get paid anymore to put in the time to dig up all the evidence supporting conclusions I reached long ago. So I don’t. Too much time spent doing what little I do to make a modest living. And doing it around those naps that are the residue of my stroke in 2000. I can do all the things I used to do, but I have less time in which to do them.
In any case, I’m very appreciative to E.J. for taking the time to explain it to his readers, especially since I know he’s busier than I am.
Now, the other column, which features the same “free access:”
Trump’s immunity claim tells us all we need to know about him. He’s saying what no other candidate has ever said: That the only way to be effective is to be willing to break the law—that it takes a criminal to be a good president.
My column, free access https://t.co/MRvqzDBspb
First, again, please let me know if you can read it. Beyond that…
Another good piece. There are, of course, many things that, considered alone, tell us “all we need to know about him.” You could compile a lengthy list of things that, considered singly, should cause any voter to run the opposite way. But this should be, if not the top item, at least very close to it.
Anyway, I wanted to share these columns because they’re important, and I’m thinking E.J. gets these points across batter than I do.
Beyond that, though, I really want to know whether those links work for nonsubscribers.
This is one of the things that concerns me most about blogging these days. To me, almost everything worth discussing these days is from things I subscribe to. This was fine 10 or 15 years ago, before everybody got so serious about pay walls. Now, it’s a huge problem — I bring up something, and I want everyone to read it so we can have a discussion with everyone fully informed, but most people can’t open it. Because normal people don’t subscribe to four or five newspapers.
So when I get a chance to share, I seize it. But please let me know if it worked for you…
I get multiple texts every day — not to mention all the emails — asking me for money for electoral candidates.
Usually, they’re Democrats — because of all the lists they must have put me on when I was with James Smith’s campaign. But not all.
Today, I’ve heard from folks raising money for Joe Biden (and I just gave him $25 a couple of weeks ago — surely he hasn’t spent it already!), Dick Harpootlian and some guy named Dave. That last one cracked me up:
I had no idea who this Dave was. Actually, he addresses my wife in the message, but there’s no point in asking whether she knows him, because I know how that happens. If I call you from my number, it might say my wife’s name instead of mine, because hers is first on the account. But actually, I’m being too logical. Sometimes texts come to my phone, but address me by the names of my kids and grandkids. There’s no logic to it.
Anyway, I didn’t figure out who “Dave” was until I looked back at previous messages from this same number. Apparently, he’s the Republican running against Bob Casey in Pennsylvania.
But he just says “Dave,” like that’s supposed to mean something to me.
Well, you see how I answered him. I was hoping that, if a human ever sees it, he or she (but most likely some A.I. “it,” will think, maybe just for a second, Hey, maybe we should throw “McCormick” in there next time.
Probably not. But just in case, I sent a link to explain the gag. Because I figure whoever it was wouldn’t know that routine…
Not that it means much. Do any Republicans actually live in D.C.? Is there not a local ordinance against that?
But we cherish whatever we have to celebrate.
Meanwhile, on Super Tuesday — possibly her last day in the race — she’s still trying to figure out who she is and how she wants to run. And she’s REALLY confused about her primary opponent, and the man the GOP nominee will face in November.
But she still backs away from saying things you should say if you ever really want to beat the man who is almost certainly going to be the GOP nominee.
If you’re running against Trump, the very first thing you have to do is tell the truth — about everything. That’s assuming you know what the truth is, and I’m not sure Nikki does. But let’s say she does — because she would need to know what it is, and tell it, to win.
Not that the odds would be in her favor. They never were. So she’s absurdly careful. She’s terrified of offending Trump supporters. So she says such idiotic things as this:
When asked directly if she would endorse Trump if she dropped out, she wouldn’t answer but said she has “serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.”
Nikki may lack the sophistication and judgment to be president of the United States. And I think she does. But I don’t believe even she has more “concerns” about Joe Biden, or about anyone on the planet, than about Trump. If she believes that, she shouldn’t be running.
Which is why — even though we see examples of Democrats and independents turning out for her in states with open primaries — we won’t ever see enough of them for her to win unless she inspires far more of them, and the Never-Trump Republicans, to get behind her.
She needs every one of them. And she’s not going to get them to step up for her unless she throws all her timidity to the winds and tells the complete, unvarnished truth about everything.
Of course, it’s almost certainly too late now. But I’m Monday-morning quarterbacking here. And from the very beginning, from the moment she launched her campaign, she should have said, loudly, clearly and boldly:
The fact that Donald Trump ever occupied the White House, and even worse, the fact that we know “Republicans” will vote for him again, makes me ashamed to be a Republican. And it was once such a noble party. (Yep, I’m burning bridges right off the bat. They need to be burned, and a person who could seize this nomination would have the guts to do it.)
It would be extraordinarily dangerous for him to regain that power — for the country and for the whole world. And it would be the greatest gift we could give to those abroad who hate America.
And don’t give me that nonsense about “the world didn’t come to an end when he was president before.” Even if you’re too blind to see the damage he did to our country, especially on the world stage (something I learned a lot about when he named me, a completely unqualified person, to be ambassador to the U.N, solely to make a man who supported him governor of South Carolina), you certainly hear the things he’s saying now. He’s made it clear what he will do, given another term. And rest assured that there will be no “grownups in the room” this time. His appointments would no longer make any attempt at a veneer of legitimacy.
There are so many reasons to say these things — he give us more every day, but this one would be enough: On Jan. 6, 2021, he egged on a mob to attack our nation’s capital. And he did it to overthrow the clear results of a legitimate election removing him from power. We all know this, regardless of how the court cases come out. (“We all know this” works, remember, because she’s not trying to appeal to people who pathetically try to deny it.)
As for you who think — as I once did when I was parroting silly nostrums like “I want to run government like a business” — that he’s a good businessman, so he’s a good leader… This is probably the sleaziest businessman any of us have ever encountered. And you don’t have to wait for a court case to be settle to convince you of that. We recently got 355 million confirmations on that point. (OK, she couldn’t have said that when she launched, but she could say it now.)
Not only will I not support Donald J. Trump if he becomes the nominee, I assure you: In that tragic event, I will be voting for Joe Biden in November. I don’t much like President Biden. I disagree with him on a LOT of things. And even if I agreed with him, I think he (like Trump) is too old. But wrong as he is, he’s a normal, decent, sane human being. And voting for him will be the ONLY way to stop Trump — which anyone who cares at all about this country should be committed to doing. A write-in to make yourself feel good will accomplish nothing. You have to vote for the one person with the chance to beat him.
And thousands of other things. She could say something different every day, never repeating herself, illustrating why it is essential for anyone who loves this country to stop Trump — and it is especially a duty for anyone who also cares about the Republican Party, which is facing its last chance to recover and redeem itself.
She should have said all these things without hesitation, because she had nothing to lose — and everything to gain.
OK, here’s another point I’ve made many times before, but the reporting on the Michigan Democratic primary offered another illustration of it.
There is one predominant “bias” in news reporting, and it’s very harmful to the country. It’s journalists’ addiction to conflict. This is very harmful to the country. (Another one that may be just as harmful is the tendency to explain and interpret everything, from global security to pop culture trivia, in terms of the next election. But that’s somewhat less relevant to what I’m writing about today.)
I don’t think reporters and editors are doing it on purpose. Their brains are just stuck in this mode. When they encounter a story that lacks significant conflict, they instinctively exaggerate what little they can find. It happens on a subconscious level, I believe. At least I hope it’s never conscious.
Anyway, we saw it in Michigan, where Joe Biden won the essentially uncontested primary with 81 percent. It was a victory margin Trump would kill for (and assume his MAGA mob would still support him, of course).
And yet what sort of coverage did we see, over and over and over? On the GOP side, it was about how Trump continues to crush his opposition. And as he always does, he gloated and boasted, and everything he said was dutifully reported.
On the Democratic side, headline after headline after headline said “Biden wins, BUT…” (The one you see above from my NYT Audio app — “Biden Takes a Hit in Michigan…” — was the most disproportional, unhinged hed I saw. Most stuck with the milder “but” construction.)
The “but” is a reference to the small number of Democratic primary voters who opted to vote “Uncommitted.” How small? 13 percent. This is attributed to a campaign in that state to protest the war in Gaza.
So, what do you think that means? Not much, as I see it. These voters did not choose to vote in the Republican primary.* They would have been crazy to do so, if their goal is to stop the fighting over there. They apparently realize that Trump is FAR less likely to do what Biden is constantly doing — trying to restrain Netanyahu (which is an uphill battle, since Netanyahu’s best chance of staying in office is to prolong the war). But of course, lots of voters do entirely irrational things — a phenomenon you can see amply demonstrated over in the Republican contest.
And they didn’t vote for another Democrat, presumably because one who will magically make them happier about Gaza doesn’t exist.
Mind you, this small “but” isn’t some harbinger of what will happen elsewhere. Michigan has the largest number of Arab-Americans in the country. This is the one place you would expect such a protest. But what if it did happen elsewhere? What would that 13 percent mean in this primary or another? Nikki Haley got twice that percentage in Michigan, but where’s the foreboding language about what a problem that is for Trump?
The only remotely plausible reason I saw or heard presented anywhere for making a big deal of this was the idea that Michigan is a swing state, and anything that might cut into Joe’s vote even slightly could be important in November. But that’s not gonna keep this Biden supporter up nights between now and then. (This brings up a third harmful “bias” we see in political reporting these days — the obsession with trying to predict WHAT WILL HAPPEN far in the future rather than simply reporting what actually has happened.)
Anyway, I just thought I’d point this out before the memory fades. Media outlets were desperate to find a fight somewhere in this boring non-contest, and this is all they could come up with…
Haven’t seen our lieutenant governor in a while? I certainly hadn’t.
But then I saw the above image in The Boston Globe over the weekend.
Which prompted two thoughts:
Y’all may get tired of hearing me say this, but I haven’t said it in four years, so: Had we won in 2018, you wouldn’t have gone long periods without hearing or seeing Mandy Powers Norrell. And we’d all be better off for that. As the first lieutenant governor elected alongside the governor in our state’s history, she would have been front and center, playing a vital and energetic role in making South Carolina a better place. She offered talent, experience, and substance. As opposed to… well, what we got.
So I haven’t seen her in a while, and when she shows up, what is she doing — standing on a stage enthusiastically aping the gestures of the Creature. Just to let us know she’s as far gone as her boss. Well, I guess in that respect, she is a real teammate of Henry…
I actually meant to write a little bit more about it over the last couple of days, but was busy. I had to take my Mom to the emergency room Friday, and she (and I) spent the night there and she didn’t get discharged until late Saturday afternoon. She’s better now, I’m happy to say.
So I got home pretty wiped out from the hospital, and might have commented on the vote last night, but my wife and I went to a performance of the South Carolina Philharmonic, which we thoroughly enjoyed — especially the Gershwin at the end.
So, if you followed the primary last night, we had more fun than you did. But to go ahead and say a few things:
The result was about as I expected. It was somewhat better than the polls I had seen, but about what I expected in the real world — 20 points. Nikki managed to counter some of the crazy, but not that much of it. She was more successful back in South Carolina when she embraced the crazy, in 2010. Back then we called it the Tea Party instead of MAGA, but it was just a different stage in the GOP’s descent into madness. Here’s that picture again of her standing proudly with Sarah Palin, to illustrate the point.
Should she drop out now? Of course not. That shouldn’t happen before the money from the Koch organization and others who wish to rescue conservatism from Trumpism runs out. No one but the Trump people want her to drop out — no sane people do — and the fact that her continuing to run frustrates Trump is probably enough reason for a lot of people to holler, “Go, Nikki!”
It’s interesting to read the many points of view cheering Nikki on. If you can get past the paywalls, I wish you’d check some of them out: From The Washington Post alone, George Will, Jim Geraughty, and Kathleen Parker.
Of course, she won’t win the nomination and she shouldn’t win the general election — the first because the overwhelming majority of Republicans have lost their minds, and the second is that she lacks the qualifications to be president.
I need to stop now because I have another time crunch on my hands. When I come back, I’ll probably write about something else.
Rarely does a state have an opportunity to make history the way we do on Feb. 24 in the Republican presidential primary election.
South Carolina may be Nikki Haley’s last chance to derail Donald Trump’s path to the nomination. It will be hard for Haley to justify remaining in the race until Super Tuesday without a strong showing here.
I won’t rehearse all the reasons Trump is bad for America, just two quick points. First, Republicans could get all they say they want – conservative policies, family values, and respect for the Constitution – from Mike Pence and several other prominent Republicans. Yet they are drawn to Trump’s scorched-earth approach, despite the Sisyphean rock of baggage he bears.
Second, Trump has proven he is dangerously unpredictable. Almost no one on Jan. 5, 2021 would have predicted what happened the next day: a sitting president encouraged his VP to overturn the will of the people, exhorted the gathered crowd to march on the Capitol, and then watched passively for three hours as they ransacked it. When he finally sent out a Twitter video asking the crowd to disperse, his message to the rioters included “We love you; you’re very special.”
S.C. Democrats and Independents propelled Biden to the nomination in 2020. Our task in 2024 will be less comfortable and potentially riskier. Like me, you may prefer Biden over Haley and have deep policy disagreements with her. But this election is less about the candidates than about America herself. Both Biden and Haley will try to leave America better than they found her. Trump has no such desire.
If you are like many in this state and nation, you have had Trump’s number since he first announced for president in 2015. You recognized what a small, soulless human being he was. You understood his drive to be revered and his dearth of compassion and loyalty. Over the past eight years, you have endured his fountain of lies, from the claim that Obama was not a citizen to his claim that he won in 2020. You’ve asked yourself again and again, is this is the best the Republicans can do?
This is your moment. The turnout in South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Feb. 3 was predictably low, since Biden had only token opposition. Only about 131,000 voters participated (about 4 percent of the state’s more than 3 million registered voters). In 2020, when the outcome was not a foregone conclusion, about 540,000 voters participated in the Democratic primary. That means more than 400,000 voters who turned out in 2020 stayed home this year.
So if you’re a Democrat or Independent who voted in 2020 but didn’t vote on Feb. 3, you can make history. If we leave the election to usual Republican primary voters, the latest polls predict Trump will win by 65 percent to 35 percent. If there is healthy turnout, say 700,000 votes, then the final tally will be roughly Trump 455,000, Haley 245,000, a difference of 210,000 votes.
The 400,000 of you who voted in the 2020 Democratic primary but not in the 2024 primary can swing this election. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of others who didn’t vote in the 2020 primaries who could vote this time around. Everyone, yes everyone, except the 131,000 who voted on Feb. 3, is eligible to vote in the Republican primary (South Carolina has an open primary system, so you can vote in one primary or the other, but not both).
There are two ways to use this power. One is cynically, by trying to elect the weakest opponent for the other side so your candidate can beat them in the general. The better way is to help elect the strongest candidate for the other side, so that America will have the best choice possible. If Haley wins and then goes on to beat Biden in the general, I will disagree with some of her policies, but the country will be in sane, stable hands.
Imagine you have an infant child or grandchildren. How will you explain your vote for Trump to them in 15 years, when they are old enough to understand politics? I suspect many South Carolinians regret their vote for Strom Thurmond as candidate for the Dixiecrat Party in 1948 (more than 70% of SC voters chose him) or for George Wallace in 1968 (over 30% of SC voters). How an evangelical Christian will explain his or her vote for Trump in 15 years to intense questioning from a skeptical teenager, I have no idea (although I would pay to watch it).
I am hoping South Carolina plays the role Iowa did in January 2008 in its first-in-the-nation Democratic presidential caucus. In a state with challenging demographics, Barack Obama won and was propelled to a general election victory over John McCain. Whether or not you agree with Obama on policy, his respect for the office was clear. He adhered to essential presidential norms and left the fundamentals of American democracy as strong as he found them. Needless to say, if someone with McCain’s integrity was the Republican front-runner in 2024, this column would never have been written.
On Feb. 24, we can make a statement similar to the one our countrymen and -women in Iowa made 16 years ago. We can signal the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s political career by voting for Nikki Haley.
A version of this column appeared in the Feb. 14 edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.
So far, at least. I just started paying attention. But it won’t surprise me if this remains the most interesting.
I didn’t take an interest in this one until I saw Sen. Dick Harpootlian lashing out at Rep Russell Ott last week, and realized these two very different Democrats would be facing each other in a primary in June.
It wasn’t until today that I finally realized that this is the Senate district I live in! I mean, I knew Nikki Setzler, whose sign I’ve been proud to post in my yard in recent years, would no longer be my senator. But I didn’t realize this was who would be running — on the Democratic side — to replace him.
My Neanderthal mind was already boggled a bit by the fact that somehow these two guys were in the same district. Dick, who lives in — well, I’m not sure of his address, but it’s in the Democratic part of Columbia. Russell lives on Ott Farm Trail in St. Matthews, which is way down the road from Shandon, Wales Garden and environs.
So imagine how much more surprising — what a “Duh!” moment it was for me — it was to learn that this guy from way over in suburban Columbia and this guy from quite a bit down the road toward Charleston were running to represent me, over in Quail Hollow.
But it’s true. I think. I’m still a bit confused. (Which I guess makes me more like most citizens, who couldn’t tell you who represents them to save their lives.)
So… this being my district, I’ve got a decision to make between two serious candidates — assuming I vote in the Democratic state primary this time (meaning I pass up on having a say in local Lexington County elections), which I’m likely to do simply because of this race.
I’ve been really impressed by the job Dick has done since entering the Senate. And as you know, past performance counts for a lot with me. Once, he was the guy journalists loved because he was a quote machine — of the edgy, to-hell-with-what-people-think, Fritz Hollings variety. Now, this wise guy is something of an elder statesman, after his own fashion.
However, the less provocational Russell Ott has made a good impression in the House ever since he succeeded his Dad, Harry, in the seat back in 2013. And I got to work with him a bit during the Smith campaign in 2018 (although we never did quite pull together that presser I wanted to do out in the middle of a farm field, to talk about how Henry’s hero Trump’s embargo was hurting farmers). And as you know, he’s possibly the only pro-life Democrat (or one of very few) in the Legislature, as I wrote back here.
That’s a plus for me, and probably plays better out in the country where Russell lives than it it does in Dick’s stomping grounds. It won’t win him all that many friends among the residents of Shandon, where one of his House colleagues won two years ago by hard-selling her Democratic orthodoxy in the wake of Dobbs.
In fact, I first heard about this contest from a tweet Dick posted last week pounding Russell on this point of party heresy. Thereby causing me to immediately sympathize with Russell — although of course Dick, the former state party chairman, knows that part of the electorate. Which is why Democrats seldom listen to my advice on this matter.
Dick made his announcement last month. Although it was odd that he said he was “running for re-election” when this is his first time running in this district. Still, I’ve give him the edge right now. But we’ll see.
As a voter, I’ve got a lot of studying to do. That’s why I ran downtown today to try to catch Russell’s announcement. But I headed out way too late to deal with the parking challenges. I missed the whole announcement — but the candidate and some supporters were still there, so I got the picture above.
Watch this space. I’ll try to do better as we go along…
I mean, it was easy in terms of not having to wait in a line, and the weather was nice, and the pollworkers were all helpful and professional. And I was unconflicted about it — despite my Hamlet routine the last few days — because I love to vote for Joe.
But in other senses…
I showed up at my usual voting place — for the Quail Hollow precinct — and was greeted by the sign you see at the end of the post. Which made me wonder, WTH, but when I got to Gray Collegiate, one of the pollworkers — who normally works the Saluda River site — explained to me that the party, trying to save money, had asked for the reduction in polling places, to save money.
The arrows were helpful, since I’d never been here before…
OK that made sense, since I and everyone else knew the turnout today would be next to nothing, with Joe having no actual competition. (The weird thing, though, is what I heard later from another pollworker who works at another site across the county — she said the voting places are reduced for the Republican primary on the 24th as well. If that’s correct, THAT is going to be a mess, with all the Trumpistas out to crush Nikki’s bones to make their bread, and 90 percent of Democrats turning out to vote for Nikki. Yeah, I made up the 90 percent, but it feels like that.)
Almost everyone else in the place normally works my precinct, since they’re my neighbors. Everyone addressed me as Brad. And there was no point being cagey about what I was there to do, since all these folks knew me and are used to seeing my yardsigns and bumper stickers. So of course, I wasn’t. Cagey, I mean. Not that I ever am. In fact, I probably blathered more about it than was quite right, but it’s not like I was tying up busy people. I only noticed one other voter the whole time I was there.
I had no line to wait in, which was sweet. I went to my little minikiosk thingy (still haven’t learned a term for those things that are not booths), inserted the paper ballot, pressed the screen to vote for Joe, pressed again to check my vote, and pressed once more to print out the results.
Which is when everything went haywire. There were all these distorted images flashing on my screen, and eventually the screen went white. And there were no sounds of printing going on. So one of the workers had to open the machine and make sure nothing had printed, dig out the unmarked ballot, and give it to me to take to another machine.
So I got to vote twice! Of course, it only counted once, but I had the pleasure of doing it twice. Which was nice.
“_____ is writing an op Ed urging women to go out and vote for Nikki. She is with me and ______ on Dems skipping their primary and voting for Nikki.”
(Yes, I blanked out the names of two people I haven’t spoken with.)
Another county heard from. I told this friend I was still voting for Joe. And we went back and forth on that for a moment.
Then, the same friend sent me something just received by text a moment earlier (at 7:58 p.m.):
I wrote back to say I had just received the same message (or so I thought for a moment). And I hadn’t finished sending my reply when I got a text from one of the people I had called earlier to talk about this. He had just received the same text.
I was thinking that these had to be from someone supporting Nikki — maybe not her campaign, but a PAC backing her. Maybe that Koch group.
But then I looked back at the one I had received, and saw the wording was different. Instead of the flat, noncommittal statement, “Biden is winning by more than 50 points,” mine said:
President Biden will win a strong victory for his pro-democracy agenda.
Huh. It went on to say:
In the Republican primary on February 24, democracy itself is on the ballot. Former governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is running against Trump, a proud election denier. Make your vote count by protecting our democracy.
All straight from Biden campaign talking points. Which were not present in the other two texts. Those were quite neutral.
I called the second of those two friends, the one I had spoken to earlier in the day. This friend was an old newspaper colleague, and the different wordings perplexed us. This friend votes more in Democratic primaries than I do, and yet I had received the “Democrat” version.
Maybe because I was in James Smith’s campaign? That got me on some lists other than the ones based on primary voting.
I don’t know who’s doing this. Are my friends on the Biden campaign or a related group saying, “Look, Brad, we know you love Joe, but he’s got this. Go help Nikki be a thorn in Trump’s side.”
I don’t know. I don’t think so, based on past experience, and knowledge of these people. But I’ve never seen an election like this, and neither have these people, and maybe they’re doing something I wouldn’t expect them to do.
If so, they should call me on the phone and say it straight to me. I’m going to vote for Joe.
How could I vote for anyone else? (2018 file photo)
OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. It just sort of feels like that, after the conversations I’ve been having in recent days. Especially today.
In response to Paul’s announcement that he’s going to skip Saturday’s Democratic primary and vote for Nikki Haley three weeks later, I said that Paul makes very valuable points, but “I’m not going to do what Paul’s going to do.” Joe’s my boy. I’m proud of him and the job he’s done, and deeply grateful to him for running. And I’m going vote FOR somebody — especially someone I like so much — rather than against someone.
And ever since I said that, I’ve been questioning myself. That reasoning is fine under most circumstances — such as when I voted in the Democratic primary in 2010 because I wanted to express approval for Vincent Sheheen rather than try to stop the worst of the Republican candidates. I felt good about that.
But this time, we’re facing an unprecedented threat to the country, and to the world. And if you doubt the “and to the world” part, go ask the people of Ukraine what they think. Or read this column by Max Boot: “If Trump wins, he will destroy the American-led world order.” It’s a good basic explanation of global realities, and I went away from it depressed that Max felt the need to explain such things. But he’s right. We don’t live in, say, Reagan’s America. Reagan supporters understood those things. But now, far too many of their descendants, on the left and right, come closer to the isolationism of Lindbergh’s “America First” movement.
Joe Biden is running for president at the age of 81, when he richly deserves retirement, because he’s the only qualified person who has a realistic chance of standing in the way of the madness of millions of voters who would instead vote for a malevolent ignoramus who — when he actually WAS president for four years — had to be impeached twice (something he richly deserved both times), who tried to throw out the results of the election that removed him from office, and is currently facing 91 criminal charges in a variety of legal jurisdictions. A guy who daily demonstrates to the world that he is more unhinged and vengefully hostile than ever.
As I say, unique situation. So each day this week, I’ve asked myself, “Don’t I help Joe, and my country, better by voting against Trump than by voting for the good guy?” I was doubting my course enough today that when I went on my regular walk around the neighborhood, I called several people who fit these two criteria:
They are people whose judgment I greatly respect from over the years, to the extent that they might have the power to persuade me to change course. Which is not something you can say about everyone.
They are also people who I’m almost 100 percent sure will vote for Joe in the fall.
They said different things, but they all had one commonality — not one was planning to vote for Joe tomorrow. And they made damned good arguments for what they were doing. But so far (I could still change my mind by tomorrow morning), I’m still planning to vote for Joe.
Here’s the way I see it, in chunks as bite-sized as I can make them:
I started making those calls because I was listening to today’s “The Daily” podcast from the NYT. It was headlined, “On the Ballot in South Carolina: Biden’s Pitch to Black Voters.” During the introduction, host Michael Barbaro said, “The question is not who will win, but whether President Biden can fix his growing problem with black voters.” Which kind of set me off on a “Here we go again!” trajectory. A premise that suggests that if Joe doesn’t have a decent turnout in South Carolina — which there’s no reason for him to have, since we all know he will win — I’ll end up reading political analyses to the effect that the poor turnout in the South Carolina is yet another datum demonstrating how the Democratic electorate is unenthusiastic about him.
Yes, that would be a profoundly stupid thing to say, as all my friends who are planning to vote for Nikki keep telling me. They’re rational people, and they insist no rational person would expect a big turnout in the Democratic primary when we all know who the nominee will be. And they’re completely right. Unfortunately, rational people make up a distressingly small portion of the American electorate in this moment of collective madness in our country. Every day, we all see idiotic memes take hold around us, and stick.
Worse, the current political press isn’t much better. This was demonstrated over and over in 2020. We had 25 or so people seeking the Democratic nomination, but as I kept saying, only one of them exhibited these three qualities: a) he was qualified, as one could amply tell not only from his resume, but by his record and performance over the years; b), he had the skills, bipartisan sincerity and credibility to appeal across a broad-enough political spectrum to win over the moderates who are essential to victory in a country so evenly split; and c) voters knew him. I kept saying that over and over in this venue. And yet what did we keep hearing and reading — not from the drunk at the end of the bar, but from paid professional journalists? Joe’s past it. Today’s Democrats want a new face that represents new concerns — such as, say, culture war battles of identity politics, rather than say, an understanding of international affairs (ho-hum!). How deep did that rot go? Well, I mentioned the NYT above, and as much as I still respect the Gray Lady, its editorial board was in the midst of some sort of psychotic episode in 2020. They didn’t even consider endorsing Joe, the one candidate who clearly could both win and then do the job. Instead, they embarrassed themselves with a “split decision,” endorsing both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. This seemed to reflect a generational split on the board — Klobuchar for the grownups (she’s who I wanted for Joe’s running mate), and Warren for the kids. This was widely and justly mocked. Vanity Fair said “The New York Times Splits Their Endorsement, Pleasing No One and Inspiring Twitter Bonanza.” Amen.
Of course, the good Democratic primary voters of South Carolina schooled those journalists on Feb. 29, 2020. And they all changed their tunes, immediately, as Joe’s Democratic opponents started hastening to line up behind him. Still, just watch — some people, and not just folks on Fox, will be saying “Obviously, Biden’s South Carolina support isn’t as strong as it was in 2020.” There’s a great deal of foolishness out there.
No, my one vote for Joe won’t do anything to stop stupid interpretations of the turnout. But my vote for Nikki won’t put her over the top against Trump, either. And here’s where we get to the deep, gut reason I have to vote tomorrow instead of on the 24th: I’ve imagined myself doing that, and I recoil at the image of me, Brad Warthen, voting for Nikki Haley to be president of the United States. Because I know how abysmally unqualified she is (and how wonderfully qualified Joe is).
Yes, as unqualified as Nikki is, and as poor a president as she would be, she’s still a normal human being, and having Trump become president again would be infinitely worse. It could well mean the end of this wonderful liberal democracy we have been so privileged to live in since 1789. Got it. I agree completely. But…
If somehow all these votes for Nikki that my friends are planning enable her to defy expectations in this open primary enough that she weakens Trump, thereby causing him to slip and her to catch up and overtake him — all unlikely, but possible — then my man Joe would be facing someone I think would have a better chance of beating him than Trump does. Why? Because she’s a normal, very personable candidate (unlike Trump) who has a talent for winning people over to her. Also, that silly “vote for somebody younger” shtick of hers has more resonance than it deserves. Millions of people would vote for her purely on that point, despite her lack of qualification.
If she were better qualified — say, if she were as good a candidate as John McCain, or Mitt Romney, or for the sake of you identity politics people, as Hillary Clinton — then I could with a clear conscience wait and vote for her on the 24th, even as much as I like Joe. But she isn’t.
And if she weren’t trying to beat such a national catastrophe as Trump, I wouldn’t even be debating myself on this. But she is, and I am, hence this lengthy soliloquy. Maybe I should wait and vote for her. But…
We used to have these long debates on the editorial board… Someone would suggest it might be strategically smart to endorse this or that candidate or issue, even though we really didn’t want that outcome. (This post is already way too long for me to go off on a tangent about why that might happen, but such arguments did come up sometimes.) But then someone would say something like “Never endorse an outcome that you don’t want to see happen.” The vote is too sacred and precious to play such games. And I would nod, and agree. And it is especially risky to attempt such a gambit when we’re talking about presidential elections. Anyone who gets the nomination of one of the two major parties has a 50-50 chance of becoming president, regardless of who it is, or who his or her opponent is. That’s how delicately split our country is. We no longer have elections like the ones in 1964 and 1984.
So I’m voting for the guy I actually want to be president, and who has demonstrated how good at the job he is over these last four years.
Of course, I’m still confused at the moment, as the following post will indicate…
Or at least, that’s what I hope, being a hopeful kind of guy. Eight days ago, I tweeted this:
Just a few more hours, and then it will be over, and no one — no human, no headline, no tweet, no podcast — will ever again mention the accursed Iowa caucuses! Right? I say, RIGHT? Please assure me this is so…
Yeah, I was sounding a bit desperate there, wasn’t I? Well, I was, after suffering through all that hyperventilation over a meaningless contest. But so much for that. After today, it will be over, right? Wrong. After today, I will be tormented by the hellishly long general election campaign, which journalists everywhere will write about as though a normal election was going on, and a serious decision to be made.
When there won’t be. The only “decision” will be whether to turn out and vote for Joe, or vote for (and not voting would be a vote for this) the utter destruction of the country, an outcome that will make the disgrace of America in the four years after 2016 look like a picnic.
So, no decision to be made, not for anyone who cares at all about the country. You either step up and vote for Joe, or become part of the problem. You know what I will do… enthusiastically.
Of course, there’s another way to look at New Hampshire today — as the last chance for Nikki Haley to save the Republican Party from itself. It’s a longshot, but it would be nice to see her win there. Of course, it remains to be seen whether that would give her enough of a boost to win here at home. But it would be nice to see such an expression of sanity happen up north today — and it remains remotely possible, since N.H. has an open primary. (Of course, so do we, but that hasn’t done much good on the GOP side lately, has it?)
Notice I said this was Nikki’s last chance to save her party. I did not say “to save the country.” That was for a couple of reasons. One, the country doesn’t need saving, since we’ve got Joe, and as expected, he has done a fine job. Of course, there’s always the horrible chance that — since doing a fine job doesn’t get you much in our recent social-media elections in Rabbit Hole, post-reality America — Joe could lose to whoever the GOP nominee is.
And as I’ve said in the past Nikki would be exponentially better — or rather, exponentially less bad — than you-know-who by almost any measure you choose. But… she’s not qualified to be president of the United States. Not by a very long shot.
I say that for a lot of reasons, which you’ve seen me state over the years. Frankly, I’ve forgotten some of them — things that offered ample proof of her unreadiness over the years, and fed into my overall impression. The Boston Globe reminded me of this the other day when they ran this item from The New York Times about things we all knew here in South Carolina back in the day:
But that old news is far from being a significant reason to see her as unqualified. Those of us who have known her for what — 20 years now — have a sackful of reasons, from her immature craziness on Facebook while governor, to her failure to denounce Trump and run squarely against him, for which Chris Christie criticized her so aptly before he bowed out. (And yes, we all know why she didn’t. But what good to the country is a presidential nominee who won’t do that?)
So, despite the ongoing breathlessness from national media, I’m not in any kind of great suspense today.
