The view out my home office window at 7:28 a.m. What a bright, sunshiny day, huh?
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
— W.B. Yeats
Well, we know what rough beast. He’s been rending and tearing at the very meaning of our country for eight years now. We know him. And yet all those millions of people, who were right here through it all, actually went out and voted for him. To me, it remains unimaginable that even one person did. (I mean, have you ever seen this guy? Have you ever heard him speak?) But you see what happened.
As for Kamala Harris — well, it would be dishonest to pretend I was her biggest fan, but I was very impressed at the race she ran under such difficult circumstances. And in the end, I was happy and proud to vote for her and Walz and put a sign for them in my yard.
It’s a great tragedy for our country that she didn’t win. The contours of the tragedy are yet to be fully defined, but here’s a starting point: We were the great hope of the world, the greatest force for liberal democracy in human history (and if you’re one of those people who don’t understand the meaning of the word “liberal” in that phrase, please go do some serious reading). Now what will we be?
Whatever it is, there is no reason to think it will be in any way good.
But you know, as much as I mourn for the country I love, I’m even more immediately worried about people in other parts of the world — you know, those people Trump and his most fervent followers really don’t give a damn about. I could write about that from now to the day I die, and only partially describe the horrific likely effects. Just to mention one: I can’t tell you what will happen next in Ukraine, but it’s logical to expect that thousands more innocents will die, and the survivors will spend the rest of their lives being oppressed by Trump’s friend in Russia.
America can (I still hope and pray) bounce back, eventually. I’m not able to be as hopeful for Ukrainians.
Of course, other than that, some things went well, although that sound like I’m saying, “But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, didn’t the play have some fine scenes?”
But, no longer being the public man I was, here’s my personal view. I had five signs in my yard. Here’s how things went with the folks other than Harris/Walz:
Mary Burkett — This is very pleasing, as she seems to be the biggest vote-getter in the Lexington 2 school board race. There are four winners total, and I also voted for two of the other three — Liz Chitty Castles and Craig Aull. My fourth choice was Brian Habing, and he didn’t make it. I have little or no objection to Tre Bray, who did. Three out of four is hard to complain about.
Micah Caskey — No surprise there, of course. But there’s a slightly interesting thing about the result. As I said in a previous post, his opponent was a very pleasant young man, and I enjoyed talking with him. But it would be hard to find anyone who seriously thought he had a chance in this Republican district. And yet — according to SCVotes, he got 39.63 percent of the vote. Let’s just round that up and say 40 percent. Of course, that could be because this is a fairly moderate Republican district, but still pretty good. Here’s why that matters: Fatalists are constantly saying there’s no point in voting in SC if you’re a Democrat, but take a look at the numbers. No doubt some people wanted Kamala Harris to win, but stayed home because soneone told them to be “realists.” (Alas, far, far too many Americans turn out only for the presidential contest.) And yet she got 40.42 percent of the vote statewide. Just because a state, or a district, is considered “safe” for the other party does not mean anyone has an excuse to stay home. Every vote counts. Every vote. Always.
Russell Ott (for whom I had two signs). This is the one candidate I tried most to help elect, as ridiculously minor as the help may have been — introducing him to friends, knocking on doors to talk a very few neighbors into putting up a sign for him. Make no mistake — the guy who made this happen was Russell himself. He worked as hard as I’ve seen anybody work for a state Senate seat. He made his case, and it was clear that he was the better candidate to any objective observer. But there was reason to worry. His district went for Biden in 2020, but Biden wasn’t running, and I never saw much similar enthusiasm for Kamala Harris in these parts. Congratulations, Russell. I’m glad to see you will be my senator.
At first, I thought it was maybe a sign of lack of specifically Republican interest that so few voters were at the polling places I mentioned previously in Lexington County.
For a comparison, since I had to go into town anyway, I ran by several over in heavily Democratic Richland. Most were places I used to drop by each Election Day when I was at the paper:
A.C. Moore Elementary
Rosewood Elementary
Sims Park
Dreher High School
The first two I just drove by, and confirmed that there no visible lines stretching out the doors. At Sims, I went in, and found one or two people waiting to vote — just like at my own precinct back near Lexington Medical Center.
Finally, at Dreher, I went in and engaged the workers — who weren’t what you’d call busy — in conversation. And maybe I got my answer, although it’s an answer I brought up and immediately dismissed in my last post.
One of those signing people in (occasionally) told me not to be “fooled” by the light trickle of voters. He said 600 people from Ward 16 had voted early. That didn’t impress me until he explained that was half the registered voters (as least I assumed he was talking registered and not voting age population, because he would have had those data at hand — but I neglected to ask) in that ward. And, he said, while it might not look like much at any given moment, 300 had already voted there today. He said that at about 1:15. Conceivably, that left open the possibility that the remaining 300 could vote by the end of the day.
I don’t know, but the same could be true at the other places thus far mentioned, and at the Saluda River precinct I drove back by on my way home.
Huh. Those lines for early voting hadn’t looked very long, particularly when you consider these were people from precincts all over that part of the county. But when you stretch that out over a couple of weeks…
So, maybe folks are voting after all. I may not like the way they vote on this or that race, but I suppose I can’t accuse them of slacking off. Or maybe I can. We’ll see. Dreher was the only place where I went in and got some numbers, and maybe it was different at the other places…
Normally, there are loads of campaign signs in this spot. This time, they had all been stripped away. Voters were almost as scarce in this location…
I get up, and I read how painfully excited everyone is supposed to be across the country, which was to be expected — right?
But then I go check out the action at my own polling place, and — there’s nobody standing outside. And I drive by my Mom’s a couple of miles away, and — it’s the same.
Which is a shock. I mean, here’s what it looked like at my polling place in 2008, which is the year I think of when I think “big turnout.”
You may say, “Yeah, but it’s raining right now.” Yes, very lightly. And an almost identical rain was falling when I took those pics in 2008, too.
But thinking of that, I went back to my own precinct to see if the crowd was all jammed up inside the building.
No. Nothing. No lines at all. I talked briefly with a school board candidate who was standing out greeting people at the door, and he said the workers told him it had been like this all morning — one or two voters at a time.
I stood there and talked to him for several minutes, and during that period that description of the trickle was borne out — one voter went by us and entered.
It wasn’t like this at early voting, as you can see from my previous posts. But at the same time, while the early crowds were good-sized, they weren’t big enough to tell us there would be virtually no turnout on the Day.
One reason I don’t blog more often these days is that I find myself torn between writing fun little things about trivia, and addressing the serious matters of the day. I enjoy doing the former, but a lifelong sense of duty instructs me to do the latter.
The trouble is, so many serious things are so fouled up these days, on so many levels, that explaining what’s wrong with even the smallest thing seems to call for writing a book. Or perhaps several volumes. But I’ll try to be brief.
On its face, it’s a simple enough matter, and 20 years ago, there would have been nothing objectionable about it, whether we’re talking about a special-interest publication such as this, or a general-interest newspaper. This is their crack at a timeworn institutional convention — the “voters’ guide” edition.”
In a newspaper, the edition would summarize all offices facing readers, giving you brief bios of the candidates and neutral descriptions of their positions, plus how-to info about where to find your polling place, the hours it will be open, etc. With a special-interest pub such as this, you’d particularly provide info on candidates’ positions on issues of intense interest to your target audience. Which in this case would be senior citizens. Hypothetically, that is a category that includes me.
And in the minds of the AARP editors, these special-interest issues include Social Security, Medicare, inflation, caregiving and jobs.
But even in the best of times, this information would have been of little interest to me. These things are far from what I look for in a president. The president is the person who represents our nation, and makes the critical decisions at critical times, in the area of global affairs. These considerations would matter most to me even if I were a voter choosing a chief executive in Britain, or Germany, or Ecuador. But it is of supreme importance in the richest and most powerful nation in the world, which has so clearly been the linchpin of peace and prosperity in the world since 1945.
If I need to read about those things to make up my mind as a voter, I’ll look to such sources as… to pick something quick and easy for you to glance over, here’s a recent column by Max Boot addressing that sphere of concerns. That should give you the general idea.
But the thing is, I don’t really need to read anything at this point regarding those subjects. Since he first blundered into politics to our nation’s great sorrow, Donald Trump has made it clear — and he continues to do so daily, even if you do your best to ignore him — that he will proudly dismantle all international arrangements that have prevented a World War III, blithely destroy the fortunes of our allies and joyfully promote the interests of the very worst people in the world.
I’m no expert on what Kamala Harris would do on this front — no one is, because she has practically zero record — but everything she has said, and what little she has done, indicates she has no intention of being a reckless, destructive force in the world.
But that’s not my major beef with that list of topics. I have a broader objection. I may be the only person you will hear say this — God knows everyone else seems OK with it — but I have always been appalled at the idea of basing my vote on how it is likely to benefit me, or that offensive phrase, “people like me.”
I really, truly believe with every fiber that it is our sacred duty to vote according to what our careful judgment tells us is in the collective interest of the country — or the city, or state, or school district, or whatever political division or subdivision under consideration — as a whole. (And as indicated above, in the case of the U.S. presidency, the world as a whole.)
If we can’t master our selfishness enough to do that to the best of our ability, we shouldn’t be voting — and our community would be far better off if we didn’t.
Many of you will think this view of mine beyond absurd — laughable, contemptibly out of touch. Don’t I know how the world works?
Yes, I do, and I’ve had about enough of this garbage. I am sickened by calculations of will my taxes go up or down, or am I better off than I was four years ago, or will this candidate improve the lot of left-handed Lithunian CIS men like me? I’ve had enough of it, and so has the country.
(Oh, and before you say, “But there are instances in which considering the situation of this or that group is the only right thing to do!” let me say that you are absolutely right. An American voter in, say, the early 1960s had a profound moral obligation to vote in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Not because of the way it affected that voter, or “people like” that voter, but because it was the right and fair thing to do, for the sake of the whole country.)
But enough preaching, right?
Finally, there’s possibly my greatest objection to this feature on the front of the AARP mag:
It pretends that this election for this office is all about cold, hard positions on this, that and the other issue. It isn’t. If you think it is, you really haven’t been paying attention, have you?
A lot of folks on the left like to complain about media engaging in what they are pleased to call “false equivalency.” You know, pretending that these are equally worthy candidates who must be covered and dealt with with a balance that is entirely and equally respectful of both. Lots of times, my readers fling that charge at me, and I do my best to explain why that’s not what I’m doing or saying in that instance.
But folks, this magazine cover is definitely a case of doing that very thing.
It pretends, outrageously, that these candidates are equally decent and qualified people, and that the only way you can choose between them is by carefully examining their stated positions on these specific, cut-and-dried issues.
What utter insanity.
And I’m not just dismissing political promises the way I usually do. As I’ve said many times before, policy statements and other promises are of limited value in determining how well someone will do in office. The future is too unpredictable. No one has the slightest idea what a president, for instance, will face in office, or what will be the best thing to do under those unforeseen circumstances.
This is why I value previous experience as much as I do. If someone has performed in the public sphere before, and we have had ample opportunity to see what that person has done in real life, then we have a basis for a decision. And it’s not about some certain knowledge of what that person will do in the future, based on specific promises and proposals. What we have gained from observing is a sense of whether we trust this person to be the one deciding what to do under unknown circumstances.
A simpler way to say it is, it’s about character, not policy proposals.
And there has never, in the history of our country, been a clearer case of that being true with regard to an election.
I don’t know Kamala Harris’ character as well as I’d like. But I’ve had some opportunity to observe her over the last several years, and I have seen nothing that gives me serious concern. Yep, I’d rather see Joe Biden on the ballot, because I know Joe, but I don’t have that option.
But I have seen far, far, far (I could keep going with the “fars” to Election Day and beyond) too much that shouts of the abominable character of Donald John Trump. So have you. So have we all. I had seen enough back in the 1980s. Maybe you hadn’t yet. (I’m surprised when I hear about people who didn’t know who he was before that “reality TV” show. But I suppose a lot of folks just don’t pay attention.)
I didn’t need to see him being impeached twice, although that definitely needed to happen. I didn’t need the 34 felony convictions, or any of the other legal findings against him. I didn’t need to see him instigate insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
And I certainly don’t need a recitation of what he says he would do about, say, Social Security to make a decision. (And I just have to ask: Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t know that this is a guy who can’t be trusted to stick to the same position from the beginning to the end of a single sentence — if “sentence” is even the correct term for those aimless word salads that come pouring constantly out of him?)
So anyway… thanks for your efforts, AARP, but you can take your handy-dandy voters’ guide and drop it into the oubliette…
At 11:37 a.m. Friday at the West Columbia Community Center. About 50 people behind us, too.
Finally.
I have voted. After what seems like 100 years of people yammering about nothing but this election, to a point way beyond weary disgust. (People talk about Kamala Harris having only 100 days to campaign. That’s more than enough, people.)
Anyway, it’s over. And as I’ve said before during these last four years since I voted early for the first time, can we just go ahead and count the votes and move on? Not one of us needs 11 more days of this hysteria.
Anyway, the line was fairly long outside the West Columbia Community Center. You can see above what it was like at at 11:37 a.m. At that point there were also 50 people behind my daughter and me in line (this wasn’t the first picture I took). But it moved pretty well. Going by my texts and other evidence, we were at the door of the building at 11:54. And we were completely done by a couple of minutes after noon, in spite of my usual obsessive slowness, checking and double-checking each step as I’m voting.
As we were leaving, and the lady was about to hand me an “I voted” sticker, I pulled out my phone. She reflexively started to tell me not to take pictures, but I explained, that no, I wanted to show her something. That was the photo below, of a friend’s 3-month-old after her parents voted at this same location yesterday.
I told the lady I wanted a sticker that would make me look THIS cute. She admired the picture, and gave me a sticker, but It didn’t work….
Russell Ott — who, as I’ve pretty clearly indicated, is the candidate I’m trying hardest to promote in this cycle — is in those last pressing days of a long, hard campaign, so I really appreciated that he stopped by to say hi this morning to some friends I wanted to meet him.
This is an updated — but I guess not all that updated — version of a familiar campaign trope: Shaking hands with the old guys sitting around on the benches around the courthouse.
When I said so this morning, Clark Surratt — that’s him at the right in the picture — nodded. As an old political reporter, he’d been there, too.
(I just paused for a moment to dig up some old images of what I was thinking of, from my first time on the road covering a statewide campaign, back in the summer of 1978. I couldn’t find a full print, or the negatives, but below you’ll see some blowups from a contact print sheet. I used to always make one of those when I developed a roll of Tri-X in those days…)
Anyway, I was glad to get Russell together with Clark, and with John Culp. That’s him in the middle. John is a retired Methodist minister, perhaps best known as the guy who started the Salkehatchie Summer Service program. He’s also my neighbor. Clark was my predecessor as governmental affairs editor of The State, back in the ’80s. Clark occasionally comments here. He and John are friends from back in their school days. They gather for these breakfasts frequently, and sometimes let me join them.
I had wanted them to meet Russell, and as it happened he had to be in this part of the district this morning for a Greater Cayce/West Columbia Chamber of Commerce meeting. So he joined us a bit before 7:30 at the Just Us Cafe in Cayce, then on to the Chamber before 8. I’m probably going to see him again this evening because he’s visiting my mother’s HOA meeting, and she wants to meet him. But he’ll only be there a few minutes before he has to charge off to a Lexington County Democratic Party meeting.
I know what that kind of schedule is like, and I don’t envy him. I don’t know if I could do today what I did out on the road with James and Mandy in 2018. In fact, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. But Russell seems to be holding up pretty well. I’d say that shows it’s a young man’s game, but I watched Joe Biden moving like mad when he campaigned with us that same year, and he was amazing. Some people are just made for that. But eventually, of course, we all wind down…
As I said, Russell couldn’t stay long, but we had a good chat. Some of the news we shared (almost entirely political) was encouraging, some not so much, as we fly headlong through this home stretch.
I just hope he wins. He is just the right candidate to replace Nikki Setzler in this Senate district, and he will represent it effectively and with great dedication. Most of all, he’ll work hard to represent every single constituent, regardless of race, color, attitude or (gasp!) political party. And senators like that are too rare these days…
I drove by the West Columbia site for early voting, which started today.
I spoke to some folks coming out. I got comments such as big turnout… but it’s moving… not bad… maybe 25 minutes. I overheard one man exiting and speaking to someone on the phone and saying it took “forever”.. but he was using a walker, so I suppose it was especially tedious for him. I wonder that they didn’t just let him vote from his car. Maybe he didn’t want to.
Anyway, it’s started, and the line you see coming out of the West Columbia Community Center tells us it’s a respectable turnout, but not overwhelming — yet.
My wife and I plan to go tomorrow. If you plan to do the same and don’t know where to go, check out this page…
There aren’t a lot of signs in this image, but this is fairly typical — two for school board, none for anything else.
Couple of things I neglected to say in that last post, and it was way to long to add to it.
So here’s a sequel.
Actually, the first thing wasn’t so much “neglected to say” as I got it wrong. I mentioned that I was supporting Mary Burkett for school board, and needed to identify one more, because we vote for two.
That was wrong. I’ve got to pick three by the time I go vote next week (early voting starts Monday), according to my sample ballot: “You may vote for Four, less than Four, but not more than Four.” (And apparently, when we do so, we must capitalize the number “Four.” For some reason.)
Well, that’s going to be a lot of work. Because if there’s any segment of the electoral universe about which I feel particularly ignorant, it’s school board. As you may recall, I have many times donned sackcloth and ashes over my utter failure to give school boards sufficient attention — or any attention, usually — during my time as editorial page editor. All that work on endorsements at every other level from president to council members in small municipalities. I felt and feel terrible about it, because I think that if there’s any electoral office in the land that needs and deserves a spotlight, it’s school boards.
But I just couldn’t, with the scores of other offices for which we were interviewing, further researching, debating and endorsing in each cycle, we just barely got through election seasons, and I wasn’t ever fully satisfied that we’d had enough time.
And I did the math a number of times: Just doing the seven school boards in Richland and Lexington counties would have doubled our load. And if we did that, we wouldn’t do a good job on any of them. So we didn’t.
And I would go the polling place on the day of an election I’d been slaving over for months if not years, and would end up asking my neighbors in line whom they were backing for the board, if anyone. Of course, I still seldom voted for one, as I have to be convinced I know a candidate — and the candidate’s competition — well enough to pull that lever.
Consequently, to this day, I seldom vote for school board. But I’m going to do my best this time.
And part of the reason I’m determined to do so is… yard signs.
There’s another factor regarding signs in my neighborhood that seems different this year, one that I meant to mention in that other post:
Without doing a census or anything, I’m pretty sure that there are easily more school board signs in my neighborhood than for president, Congress, Legislature, and countywide offices combined.
And that makes me proud of my neighbors, and shamed into trying harder to be as smart and dedicated as they are regarding these important offices. Of course, with some folks it might just be that this position is so hyperlocal that they personally know the candidate whose sign they are displaying, so they’re just doing a favor for a friend. Which is OK, of course, up to a point.
But I prefer thinking they’re just savvier and more diligent than I am. Because I like being proud of my neighbors…
More signs in this one. Four in the near distance, and more you can’t quite see in the far distance. All school board.
That was the only part of the song I could work into what I wanted to say. So here I go working it in…
My answer to the question is both “yes” and “no.” “No” in the sense that I’ve found yard signs a bit puzzling in this election year.
First, in my relatively moderate Republican neighborhood, there were more signs for Biden than Trump in 2020. I wrote some about that at the time, I think. I was under no delusions that Joe would win my precinct, but it seemed obvious that people who wanted him were prouder of it, more willing to share it with the world.
This time, I know of only three Harris/Walz signs (including my own) in the subdivision. Not that I’ve driven every street in search of them, but that’s the total on the streets I frequent. And I had to go looking for the third one, after hearing about it. Meanwhile, although there is no great number of Trump signs, it’s more than three, and more than what I saw in 2020.
And here’s the weirdest bit — they’re not in the same yards. There are no signs at all in two yards I remember as the most enthusiastic for the Donald. (One had signs for several GOP candidates, including the only one in the whole subdivision supporting Nikki Setzler’s Republican opponent, and the other had two Trump signs, and kept them out well after the election was over.)
I don’t know what’s going on on the MAGA side. I understand the lack of Harris signs, because it reflects a lack of enthusiasm that I share, as you know. But hey, my man Joe dropped out and dubbed her as his successor, and that’s good enough for me — and of course, Trump must be stopped, and she’s the only person in the world in a position to stop him now. I hesitated about the sign, though, because there’s a difference between voting for somebody and going that extra step to put out a sign. But in this situation, we have to pull out all the stops.
Anyway, have you noticed these patterns where you live? Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe my neighborhood is more sensible of shifting winds that are not felt in more committed ones-and-zeroes areas. As I said, this is a Republican precinct, but it went for Nikki Haley in the precinct. You don’t see people wearing MAGA hats when you go for a walk here.
Another reason I say “no” is that people don’t always see what you mean when they look at your signs. I told you I’m confused by the yards that had Trump signs four years ago, and have nothing today, as well as the ones that never had signs before, and are now all in on MAGA. Meanwhile, I know my own get misread. Remember I mentioned in my last post the pleasant talks I’ve had recently with a Republican neighbor? In the latest such interaction, I said something like “You’ll notice I’ve started putting signs out,” and he said, “Oh, I know, I can always tell a Democrat.”
I answered politely that no you can’t — not if you think I’m one… and explained further. Of course, part of this confusion is because I only had two of my signs out, and they did not include either the one for Micah Caskey, or for that matter the Harris/Walz sign.
In this time in which people have retreated into their own safe spaces, only associating with people who agree with them, I think we have an obligation as citizens to stand up and say what we think, and be willing and even eager to discuss our positions. We desperately need such discussions now. And I’ve been having them — not just with the Republican neighbor across the street, but with a couple of candidates who have come by, with folks I meet out walking, and with the man who mows our yard. Worthwhile discussions that have led to good things thus far.
I think signs do communicate worthwhile things to passersby, although of course the ways they do so are complicated — way more complex than most people fully realize. Generally speaking, I know that I get impressions of how things are going from the signs I see, taken in aggregate. And often those impressions affect my own thoughts and decisions about candidates (and no, I’m not speaking of the silly “bandwagon effect” — or at least, not exactly.) It’s more like, well, the reason that Harris/Walz sign is in my yard. Normally, she would fit into the category of people I would vote for and definitely want to win, but I’m not quite enthusiastic enough for a sign. But I put this one out because at that point I had only seen one other sign for Kamala in our neighborhood, and I believe wavering people need to see more support for her around them. Just as one example of what I mean.
Anyway, that’s enough philosophizing. As for my signs this year, I have five:
Russell Ott — I’ve got two for him — one at each end of my sign display — and he’s probably the candidate about whom I’m most excited. Nikki Setzler has long been one of my favorite people in the state Senate, and I’ve been proud to have him as my senator. But I’ve told you that before. By the way, the second sign for him is one of five he gave me the other day, and I’ve already got the other four distributed. Maybe I need some more.
Mary Burkett — This is my favorite candidate for Lexington Two school board. And not just because we’ve known the Burketts forever, and their elder son took one of my daughters to the prom many years ago, and joined our elder son in forming their first garage band in high school. I have more pertinent reasons to support her for school board. Mary cares as little about left and right and parties as I do. She just wants to get the job done. And the job, to her, is about effectively addressing the problem that 70 percent of kids in our district don’t perform at grade level. I’m certain about her, but still need to pick another board candidate to vote for.
Harris/Walz — While I was still making like Hamlet over whether to get a sign in this all-important race, a kind neighbor who knew me dropped off three at the house, and we immediately put one to work, and shared the others. And boyohboyohboy, do I hope they win.
Micah Caskey — That makes one Republican, two Democrats (well, three when you consider Walz being on the Harris sign) and an independent (Mary). There’s no point in you folks on the left trying to convince me how terrible it is to have a sign for this Republican, or any Republican in our post-2016 world. You may not understand my reasons, but I do. And I only reached this decision (after things Micah’s done lately to tick me off), after talking with him, with his Democratic opponent, and for that matter, with three other present and former Democratic legislators who know Micah and understand the ins and outs, and all told me I was making the right call. And while I had been torn, I feel good about it.
Well, that’s enough. I’m on to other things…
It’s a bit more tricky to get all five of our signs in one picture, since we live on a corner, and I make use of both streets. Click to blow it up and see them better.
I’ve been meaning to get to this for a couple of days, so let me take a shot now.
I’ll start with this exchange about the Vance-Walz debate from the NYT’s Matter of Opinion podcast:
Michelle Cottle: And I think on behalf of exhausted Americans, people appreciated that we’ve got enough crazy at the top of the ticket that I think both of them had a very specific job. Vance needed to not look mean and cold and unhinged in order to rebrand himself from the clips and what the Democrats have been pushing his image as.
And Walz has a reputation as being a good guy, politicking on the — and I hate this term so much — “the politics of joy.” I’m sorry. That is a Christmas carol. That is not a presidential position. But that’s what he’s there with. So he needed to look civilized and genial, as well. So they both had their reasons. And I think it was a welcome break from what we are accustomed to.
Carlos Lozada: I do think that the civility thing was far more useful for Vance than for Walz, in part because I think it’s something that merely reaffirmed Walz, whereas it was something that helped rehabilitate Vance….
Yes. And of course the panelists touched upon the irony of the veep debate having gone, starting in 2016, from being a barking contest between attack dogs (while the people at the top of the tickets modeled statesmanlike behavior) to an oasis of sanity and civility in the era of Trump.
And that’s what this one was, and mostly the two men met the expectation of civility quite well — with J.D. Vance unexpectedly going a better job of it than Tim Walz. Or, to put it as I did on Twitter in real time:
You’ll note that while he’s spouting a lot of nonsense about Trump, Vance is also very studiously presenting himself as the polite young man. Good for him, as long as it lasts…
I later added to that tweet, “That pose is eroding, though. Am I the only one hearing him shift tone? Less ‘Governor Walz,’ and more ‘Tim…'” But on the whole, it was refreshing.
Interestingly, the panelists agreed that Vance “won” the debate, and they noted how that differed from the after-debate polls, which were more of an even split. They congratulated themselves on their professional perspective, which enabled them to appreciate his “performance.” Which surprised me slightly, especially coming from Ross Douthat. Usually, he’s more of a substance-over-form guy. But then, he’s also the official “conservative” voice on the panel, so I guess he was trying harder than the others to praise Vance.
From my perspective, Walz neither helped his and his ticket’s cause, nor hurt it. Again, I’m not a “performance” guy. I care about substance and character. And to me, Walz stood steady on those.
I enjoyed a moment with Richard M. Nixon — the Twitter feed, not the original. He tweeted that “Walz is nervous.” I replied, “Well, so were you, sir…” Which was true. And that was the beginning of people who looked better on TV having an unfair advantage.
In his podcast, Ezra Klein maintained that it all came down to one thing: Vance refusing to say that he would stand up to Trump the way Mike Pence did, refusing to try to overturn the results of the election. And yes, that is the most substantial objection to him, among many.
At the time, though, I responded to something that I felt spoke more generally to the importance of this decision voters face:
Vance complains that Congress spent too much time and energy impeaching Trump. He’s right. That’s why it’s essential to have a president who doesn’t have to be impeached every five minutes….
I should probably end by saying what I have before, which is that this debate is something of relative insignificance. Y’all know that I hate all “debates” as they now exist, because they do little to showcase qualities that lend themselves to the job being sought.
And of course, I can’t remember a time when I made my own decision about a presidential candidate based on his or her running mate. So this makes vice-presidential debates even less important than the top-ticket contests. But still, we all know so little about each of these guys that I watched it, and above is what I thought.
I’d have gotten to you earlier, but I’ve been busy checking in repeatedly with family members, from my 93-year-old mother to each of the five kids, and each of the five grandchildren. The sitrep:
One has a tree (or a large part of a tree — see the image) on her house and water leaking into her dining room. We have a tree guy lined up, but it’s likely to be tomorrow before he gets there and gets a tarp on it, as the insurance people said we needed to do ASAP.
Another without power.
Another without internet.
One who is down on the coast for work; his family is at home and reports no problems, although his in-laws have no power.
One who flew out of Charleston this morning to Boston, on her way to Iceland.
Another who is sitting in her house on a mountainside in Asheville. She’s watching the river below her, which is at 100-year flood stage and still rising eight inches per hour. She saw a house float down it.
At my house, we’re doing fairly well. We had no water this morning, but it came back — dirty at first, but looking clear now. There are some trees down around the neighborhood, but we have power so far.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard that the Richland County jail has no power. And you know they have virtually no staff.
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…
