When I Grow Up
While I eventually fell in love with teaching; when I was a kid, eleven or twelve, I decided to be a politician. Maybe it was “programmed” into my head even earlier. One of my Dad’s oldest friends, Jerry Ransohoff, had me running for President when I was three in 1960, singing: “Vote, vote, vote for Martin Dahlman, throw old “Ikey” (President Eisenhower) down the sink”.
I know, it’s not a fireman, or a cowboy. It’s kind of like saying, I want to grow up to be a real estate agent or a produce manager at the grocery. But the heroes of my youth; the Kennedy brothers, were gone. Even as a kid, I sensed the void their absence created. Maybe I could be the one.
Critical Flaw
Well, I wasn’t. In between my first taste as a “pro” in a Presidential campaign and managing a local race, I stepped into a classroom, and found a whole different vocation to fall in love with. And in the meantime, I also found the seamier side of politics. No matter how good a candidate, no matter how right on the issues, no matter how hard everyone worked; without the cash, it didn’t matter. Cash wasn’t determined by “value”, it was controlled by “powers”, whoever they were at the time. And while I was great at parsing issues, motivating volunteers, even pretty good at writing; I was (and still am) a lousy fundraiser. And that’s a critical flaw in a politician.
There are no regrets. I spent a career with kids; in the classroom, the office, on the track and the wrestling mat and even in the woods (cross country). There was success and failure, but there was always something learned and taught in each experience. Just yesterday, I saw a guy who looked older than me (my first students are now eligible for Medicare) at Kroger. He still wanted to let me know how his life was going as we stood in the candy aisle. I know I made an impact. It wasn’t the “national impact” that a twelve year-old dreamed of, but, as the saying goes, “it ain’t nothing neither”.
Instinct
But the political instincts I had at twelve didn’t fade. I still have a “sense” of what works in politics, and what is a political loser. The “tried and true” axiom of politics is this: there is a percentage that will vote for you and a percentage that will vote against you. Those are often “fixed”. And then there’s those who are undecided. It’s the campaign that can reach the most of those folks in the middle that usually wins. Every successful campaign follows the same plan. First, they introduce themselves to the voters. Then they spend the majority of time trying to persuade the “middle”. And finally, they work like crazy to get their own voters to come out and actually cast their ballots. My old 1976 Carter/Mondale Campaign boss Mike Jackson summed it up: introduce, persuade, Get Out the Vote.
I do not understand the strategy of the MAGA-Republican Donald Trump. He, of course, no longer needs an introduction. Everyone, probably worldwide, has an opinion about Donald Trump. He is the most polarizing figure in American politics since…well, at least since the Civil War (look up Edmund Ruffin). Trump has an enormous following, willing to swallow his every statement, regardless of how outlandish or ridiculous it might be. That’s his “fixed” vote, his MAGA base.
But that base is a finite number, far less than the number required to actually win the Presidency.
Traditional political theory would have the Trump Campaign first introduce the Vice Presidential candidate to the American voter, and then try to persuade the undecided voters to join them. But the Trump team (with their typical arrogance) threw tradition out the window.
Hubris
I guess I don’t blame them. The Biden performance at the first debate gave them reason to believe there was no need for compromise. Like sharks in the water (not the electric boat kind) they thought it was over. It was time to swarm in, double-down on their core voters, and devour the Biden chum. It was even good enough to overshadow the Supreme Court ruling that gave Trump (and all Presidents) an unthinkable criminal immunity. Biden got a one-day reprieve, then it was right back to his lost capacity to serve. It was a losing battle.
Then Trump got the ultimate gift – eternal victimhood. The assassin at Butler gave Trump a “bloody shirt” (or ear) to wave: the conquering hero that even the dreaded AR-15 couldn’t stop. It looked like that sad twenty year-old gunman “sealed the deal”. It didn’t take an hour after the bullets flew, that the MAGA team had their “best shot” up on social media: Trump, bloody, surrounded by oddly short Secret Service agents, the raised fist; “Fight, fight, fight”. They couldn’t have planned it any better (not implying anything – just saying).
So instead of choosing a Vice Presidential candidate that might be considered of the “middle”, a guy like Marco Rubio or even Doug Burgum (the Governor of North Dakota), they went with Ohio Senator JD Vance. He’s a man of Hillbilly Elegy, Peter Thiel, Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and the “we hate childless cat ladies” right. Trump ignored the middle, and threw more red meat to the sharks. And for about two days, they were all riding the “MAGA red wave”. It looked like a tsunami.
Flip the Script
Then Biden (willingly or not) flipped the script. He dropped out of the Presidential race. All of a sudden, the entire Trump strategic plan looked extreme and out-of-date. The “middle” voters who thought Biden was too old, now were up for grabs again. The Trump team was over-committed to their own extremists. Even the bloody ear was questioned – the FBI said (and then recanted under pressure) that it was “shrapnel”, not the bullet, that caused the wound; as if it really mattered. I guess “I took a shard for you” doesn’t sound as strong as “I took a bullet for you”.
Now fifty-nine year-old Vice President Harris looks young and energetic compared to the seventy-eight year-old Trump. And the full weight of “the powers”, the folks who control money, jumped on her side. She raised over $200 million in less than a week. The “Red Tsunami” is stopped, for the moment. And a “Blue Wave” has surfaced.
Countdown
It’s 100 days to the November election (though early voting in some states starts on September 20th). Unlike my “good old days”, as much as 40% of the vote will be in before election day. For Harris, Get Out the Vote starts just after Labor Day. And the Vice President still has to make her decision about her own Vice President, a decision just as fraught with risk as Trump’s was. Does she look to the middle, Roy Cooper or Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro? Or does she match her own views with Pete Buttigieg? And is a twenty-year veteran school teacher turned politician, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, really in the running?
At least she has a realistic idea of how narrow this election could be. Democrats don’t need a tsunami (though it would be nice). Just a solid blue wave will do, big enough to win the Presidency, turn the House and keep the Senate. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
