Category: Uncategorized

Fifty Years of “The McGowan”

This is a “Sunday Story” – no politics here, just the story of a cross country “institution” in Ohio – “the McGowan”.

Covid

I guess it’s one of the “benefits” of Covid.  The Cross Country (running) Invitational at Watkins Memorial High School started with just a few schools back in 1974.  It grew through the 1980’s and 90’s, then exploded in size during the 2000’s.  It was renamed for its founder, Coach John McGowan in 2003, and to the Cross Country world of Ohio it is simply known today as “the McGowan”.  This year there were 2187 runners who completed the course (high school 3.1 miles, middle school 2.0 miles), and a total of 146 teams fighting for trophies in the sixteen races.

And what about Covid?  Well technically the Watkins/McGowan Invitational traces all the way from 1974 to 2024, fifty-one years.  But in 2020, the “Covid” year, only ten teams were allowed in the “Woods and Mud” meet on that Saturday in September, carefully distancing their team camps, arriving late and leaving early in cars rather than buses, and masking until two minutes before the race (it was the rule).  So there was a meet, but it wasn’t “the McGowan”.  

So 2023 was fifty years of a meet at Watkins, and 2024 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Watkins/McGowan Invitational.  Thanks to Covid, we got to celebrate twice. 

Cool and Fast

It was an anniversary, but that wasn’t the only exception of the 2024 edition of the McGowan.  It’s seldom that the Saturday after Labor Day starts with a cool 40 degrees, and even less likely that there was no rain for weeks before the race.  What’s bad for the local farmers is great for cross country running conditions.  The paths through the woods were hard and fast, and the typical “mud spots” were completely dry.  So it wasn’t a surprise to coaches and knowing fans that times were fast, and when runners run fast, everyone is happy at a cross country meet!! 

Why do teams like to come to Watkins Memorial High School, year-after-year?  Sure “we” (well, I used to be a bigger part of we, but I still take a little credit) run a great meet.  The races start on time, the management bends over backwards to solve problems, and the course is well marked and prepped for running.  There’s always great competition, individually and for teams.  There are lots of races,  and not just for the “best” runners.  John McGowan taught us that Cross Country is for every kid on the team, from the fastest to the kid struggling at the “end”.  So every kid on the team gets to run at the McGowan.

The Woods

But the biggest draw is “the woods”.  Over two miles of the 3.1 mile the high school course are on wood trails.  That used to be a lot more common in high school cross country, but “modern” courses are likely to be around playing fields; smooth and fast, but not challenging or interesting (and unshaded for the hot late summer meets).   So teams come for the meet, but they really come for a run “in the woods”. 

 John McGowan set it up that way, and built some of the trails himself.  Those of us who came “after” John, continued to work on the trails, widening them out, and improving things a little more each year.  The creek crossings now have bridges, the “swamp” now has a boardwalk.  But the “woods” at Watkins still remain unique in Ohio cross country competition.

Tradition

I’ve only been a part of the meet for forty-six years.  John McGowan was with me on the finish line yesterday. He’s still helping the kids struggling after they spent their all on the course.  So was his brother Lonnie, and others who can measure their “McGowan” service in decades.  And the current Coach, John Jarvis, and his staff, Nathan Corum, Scott Parks and Lance Westbrook do a great job of the tough work of putting the meet together, from maps and starting assignments to erecting fences and filling holes in the fields.  It’s an effort that includes the whole current Watkins cross country team, the “labor” of Labor Day practice. They carry on the tradition, from John, to me, to them.

The officiating crew has been the same for at least the last thirty years as well.  Doug and Jeff O’Brien and Penny Zuber do a great job of getting kids “within” the rules. They quietly and calmly deal with whatever infractions might occur.  They fit in perfectly with a meet designed, not for management, or for officials, or even for coaches.  The “McGowan” is about the kids, the runners; and Doug, Jeff and Penny are too.

Finish Line

For me, the finish line is fun.  It’s also the place to see “everyone you ever knew” from decades of cross country coaching.  Old runners, old coaches, old friends; all stop by for a conversation, held in about twenty minute increments between the finish of one race and the next.  Some are still coaching, some come back to reminisce about “their years” at the McGowan. And some just want to catch on the “old retired guys”.   

And there are always the stories.  This year:  a girl from Olentangy Orange High School ran within seconds of the course record, set way back in 2007 by Claire Durkin who went on to win the state championship.  And this year, an unnamed middle school boy discovered why a lunch of bean and bacon soup wasn’t a great pre-race meal (it was evident at the finish line – I’ll leave it at that – so did he).   Orange juice for breakfast isn’t good either. 

The Saturday after Labor Day, like the phases of the moon and the change of the seasons, is just what it is:  the day of the McGowan Invitational at Watkins.  It’s a checkpoint on the calendar, and after all of these years, a moment that echoes back in time.  And it was a good day yesterday, though it will take me a week to recover.  But don’t worry, I’ll be back in the woods, and on the line next year too.  Come say hello.

The Sunday Story Series

Courage

Biden

It takes courage to sacrifice for a Nation.  We learned a lot about that this year from President Biden.  He’s a man whose whole life aimed at reaching the Presidency.  After three decades in the Senate and two runs for the Presidency, Biden got the ultimate consolation prize, the Vice Presidency.  In what should have been “his time”, his final “shot” at the Presidency:   his son, the scion of the Biden political tradition, died. It crushed him.  Hillary Clinton got the call.

It took a combined Constitutional crisis of the Trump Presidency and the world pandemic to open the door to the White House one more time.  Biden finally earned the top position.  And after three years of one of the most successful Presidency’s in history, he was poised to win a second term.  His campaign was well financed, and developed the best “ground game” in American politics.  Then the debate happened.  Joe Biden was betrayed by his own body, showing the wear of forty-five years of political combat.

He could have continued.  The nomination was his, as was the hundreds of millions of campaign funds.  Sure, other party leaders wanted him to quit, most notably, Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi.  But he could have defied their Machiavellian efforts.  Instead, he put the future of the Party, and the Nation, ahead of his own ambitions.  It was the most politically courageous act of this century.

Kinzinger

But Biden isn’t the only politician to demonstrate that rare quality this year.  Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican Congressman from Illinois, joined the January 6th Committee against the “orders” of his party’s leadership.  He knew the “price” of his actions:  he faced being “primaried” from the right.  He didn’t even try to run for re-election.  

And when Trump was nominated again by the Republican Party, Kinzinger stood up at the Democratic Convention. He showed other Republicans “the way” to vote against him.  To use modern psychological parlance, Kinzinger gave doubting Republicans a “permission structure” to vote Democratic, for the good of the Nation.

Cheney

But perhaps the greatest act of political courage of all, is by Liz Chaney.  She is the daughter of Dick Cheney; former Vice President, Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, and Congressman from Wyoming.  Liz followed in her father’s footsteps, a Congressman herself from Wyoming, and the first woman to Chair the House Republican Caucus.  She was third in line in the Republican power structure, poised to ultimately ascend to the Speakership.  

But then Donald Trump came along.  And Liz Cheney made a choice between what was good for her political future, and what was good for the Nation.  She voted to impeach Trump, and along with Kinzinger, accepted appointment (and the Vice-Chairmanship) of the January 6th Committee.  It cost her everything.  She lost her leadership position in the caucus, and then, she was “primaried” out of her Wyoming Congressional seat.

But Liz Cheney makes it clear:  a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitutional Democracy of the United States.  Sure Cheney and Kinzinger have policy differences with Vice President Harris, serious differences about the role of the Federal government.  But those are nothing compared to the existential threat that Donald Trump represents to our Nation.  (I know, Dems aren’t supposed to say that anymore, that’s “old-school speak”.  But it’s still the unspoken truth of the 2024 election – check out Project 2025, the playbook for the second Trump Administration).

This week Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for President of the United States.  She’s going on the campaign trail to support her.

Timidity 

Over the past decade, I have looked to Republicans for political courage.  From Ohio politicians like Rob Portman and Mike DeWine, to national figures like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio; again and again they have turned to Party over Country, and their own political careers over national interest.  Some, like Portman (and Speaker Paul Ryan) left the “field”. DeWine, “laid low” when the pressure was on.  Others, like Graham, became Trump sycophants.  But few stood up against the MAGA takeover of their own Party.  Even Vice President Mike Pence, who showed personal courage and stood against the mob on January 6th, tried to have it “both ways”.  He campaigned against Trump, but still as part of the Trump/Pence team.  It didn’t work.

I lamented that the courage of John McCain was gone.  Instead, in the (supposed) words of retired Senator Lamar Alexander, they supported Trump because, “Who will I eat lunch with at the club if I don’t”.  And I wonder:   where is George W Bush or Condoleezza Rice, or the Generals who made it clear that Trump is dangerous.  Are they too worried about losing their “lunch companions”?  Are they to remain “profiles in timidity”?

But there is still courage in American politics today.  If you’re looking for proof, look to Biden and Kinzinger.  And most recently, look to Liz Cheney, a “Profile in Courage” putting country over career and party.  I hope her fellow Republicans listen.

On the List

Another

Two children and two teachers are dead.  Nine more are in the hospital.  A fourteen year-old with an AR “style” weapon is the cause.  Sure, our hearts are with them, the students and faculty and administration of Appalachee High School. They are “just” another high school that now is “on the list”.  But there’s little more to say.  

We, the people of the United States, have made a choice.  We could choose to make changes, to make a difference, to protect our children and our people. Instead, we choose to be helpless.  

I’ve been writing essays on Our America since 2017.  Twenty-six times I’ve written about America’s sick willingness to allow mass shootings.   I don’t have much new to say except – when we decide to change, we can.

Guns

No Foolin’

Who’s Smart 

Our politicians think we’re not very smart.  And, surprisingly, it’s not just one party.  Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to think “we the voters” just are, well, kind of dumb.  That’s a dangerous assumption to make.  American voters are often very astute.  An example: here in Ohio on the recent abortion amendment, voters who wanted the amendment to pass first had to vote No on Issue One in August, then Yes on Issue One in November.  That mental gymnastics was awkward, but voters got it.  The Amendment passed.

I listen to commentators telling us that Donald Trump is shifting on the abortion issue, or that Harris is more pro-Palestinian than Biden.  With deep and knowing voices, they let us know that the candidates are “moving” to the middle, and might be in danger of losing their base voters.  As the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas kids so often said:  I call “BS”. 

On the Ropes

Let’s take Trump’s “gymnastics” on abortion.  First, Donald Trump was pro-choice, way back before the end of the “Apprentice” and his reinvention as a Presidential candidate.  Then he was pro-life, so much so that he talked about how women having abortions ought to be punished, on air with Chris Matthews back in 2015.  It was part of his campaign to earn the pro-life vote, and it worked.

He is the man who brought us Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch (in place of Merrick Garland), Kavanaugh, and Comey-Barrett (in place of what should have been another Democratic appointee).   Trump changed the nature of the Supreme Court, and the course of American legal rights.  And he assured the Nation that over-ruling Roe v Wade  was what “everyone wanted”:  millions of American women lost control of their own health care choices.  He paid back his pro-life supporters in full.

But Trump is up against “the ropes” in what may be another narrowly decided election.  He needs to expand his “base” of voters, a very difficult political maneuver.  So now he’s against a national abortion ban, and he’s so in favor of In-Vitro Fertilization that he wants the government to pay for it.  Trump thinks that there’s some incredibly narrow segment of voters who will say, “Oh, he’s kind of pro-choice again, I’ll vote for him”.  

Soccer Moms

Really:  the guy who (with the help of Mitch McConnell) single-handedly change America’s abortion policy for the first time in fifty years?  The man who “slayed” Roe? He’s Pro-Choice?  Few voters are going to be fooled by that.  And as for his “base” slipping; the pro-life voters know who exactly who their candidate is.  With “a wink and a nod”, they’ll let him say anything he wants.  Donald Trump has “told them who he is”, and they listened.  They’re certainly not going to vote for Kamala Harris, and they aren’t going to stay home either.  They know a “feint” when they see one.

So, it’s all about what is condescendingly called “soccer moms”.  It’s the suburban women’s vote, in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Milwaukee (and Columbus, Ohio too; though probably not enough to make a difference in the state’s outcome).  That’s the voting block most mobilized by the end of Roe. States as “red” as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas stood for pro-choice at the ballot box.  Soccer Moms normally vote Republican, but the abortion issue may have altered that paradigm.  This is the first Presidential election where abortion is more than just a theoretical issue, and the Trump strategy is to throw those Moms “a bone” of pro-choice rhetoric.  I don’t think that “bone” is going to work; Soccer Mom’s aren’t fools.

Thread the Needle

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris has her own issue to deal with.  A narrow segment of her “base voters” are pro-Palestinian, and believe that the American government hasn’t done enough to stop the Israeli destruction in Gaza.  The Harris campaign “ain’t so dumb”:  they’re letting President Biden take the heat when it comes to the Middle East.  While Harris has made it clear, even in her nomination acceptance speech, that she supports Israel; she is trying to shade a little closer to the Palestinian cause than Biden.

Her base voters have nowhere to go either.  It’s not like Trump, beholden to the Sheldon Adelson fortune and close friend of Bebe Netanyahu, is going to be anything but “all-in” for Israel.  The Harris campaign’s concern is that those pro-Palestinian voters will simply choose “not to play”, and stay at home on election day. 

So, it’s a second group, one numerically more significant, that Harris is trying to motivate:  young college kids.  And that’s where Harris is trying to thread the Middle East needle; for Israel, but, not so pro-Netanyahu.  

Young voters are notoriously fickle.  They usually don’t show up at all.  The last time they made a significant difference was in the Obama 2008 victory. That’s not about “lazy kids”, it’s all about motivating them to make a difference.  If they can find their way through the Harris-Palestinian dilemma, maybe they can impact the election.  But they are just as likely to also take the third route, and choose “not to play”.  

 As George Bush so eloquently misquoted The Who: “ fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”  Be sure though:both candidates and both campaigns;  they probably aren’t fooling the voters.

Netanyahu’s Failure

October 7th

On October 7th, 2023; the terrorist organization Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel.  The attack wasn’t on military targets.  It was on civilians; people in their homes in Southern Israel, the elderly, babies; and notably a music festival in the Negev desert.  Over 1200 Israelis (and citizens of other nations) were killed in the widespread assault, and 251 were taken as hostages.  Some of those were exchanged in the first ceasefire last year.  Some of them were rescued by Israeli forces.  And thirty-five are confirmed dead, including six found today.  Around 100 are still in captivity.

There should be no question:  when Hamas took the hostages, they took responsibility for their lives.  There are a whole lot of issues about what Israel is doing in Gaza, and now in the West Bank. But none of these change that  “duty of care”; the responsibility  for the lives taken over.  Those young adults in the desert, those senior citizens in their homes, those babies; had no say in the matter.  

Hersh

For those of us who watched the Democratic Convention; we heard the anguished story of an American citizen, twenty-three year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, told by his parents.  He went to the concert in the desert.  When Hamas attacked, he took shelter with dozens in a small bomb shelter.  The lower part of his left arm was blown off by a grenade, but Hersh survived the attack to be taken hostage.

He was alive two weeks ago while his parents stood at the Democratic Convention podium in Chicago and asked for help.  He was alive when they asked Democrats, the President, the United States, Israel and Hamas, to finish the deal and get their son freed. Hersh was alive yesterday morning.  Today, he is dead in a tunnel in Gaza. He was murdered by his captors as Israeli forces closed in, along with five other hostages.

Those that support Hamas have nothing of value to talk about.  Terrorism is beyond any reason; it negates any legitimate grievance.  Those that killed and continue to kill thousands of innocent Israelis, and Americans and others, deserve only just retribution for their acts.  

Lay Waste

But it is the Middle East, and like every other issue in the region, it’s not that simple.

Hamas is not every Palestinian: it doesn’t even represent every Palestinian.  The 1200 and now more killed by Hamas does not justify the utter devastation of Gaza and the death caused by Israeli actions.  Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed.  Even accepting the Israeli estimates that 17,000 were Hamas fighters, that still leaves 23,000 civilian deaths, many of them elderly and babies.   The Israeli forces attack indiscriminately, which makes it difficult for the world to discriminate between terrorist and aggrieved victim.  

It is clear that the Israeli policy, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, is to “lay waste” to Gaza.  Their action does not look like an attack on Hamas. It looks like the ancient Roman army laying waste to Carthage, destroying the city and selling the population into slavery.  It is clear that not only is Israel determined to kill every Hamas fighter, but also every innocent Palestinian in the way.  

US President Biden is committed to getting a ceasefire in the region.  It’s hard to imagine: through all of the destruction and innocent death, there are still representatives from all sides in the same city.  They are not sitting at the same table, but they are still attempting to reach some kind of agreement to stop the violence. But it’s now too late for Hersh, and too late for the thousands of Palestinian innocents.  

But the block to agreement isn’t Hamas.  It’s Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.  And it’s time to ask why.

One State 

Netanyahu is in a tenuous political position.  Not unlike ex-President Trump’s situation, Netanyahu faces criminal charges in the Israeli Courts, held in abeyance while he serves as leader of the government.  Should Netanyahu be removed from office, he faces possible conviction and imprisonment.  The coalition that keeps him in office is a deal with his “devil”, the far-right political parties of Israel.  They are intent on not only the destruction of Gaza, but also the end of talk of a “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine.  They don’t want two states, they want an Israeli state that includes all of the Palestinian territory, but not the Palestinians themselves.

Israel is a democracy, but the far-right’s “one state” would not include Palestinian citizenship.  In the end, there are as many Palestinians as Israelis; a single democracy would mean that Israel would no longer be a Jewish state.  But democracy cannot exist with an equal group that is not free to express themselves – so getting rid of Palestinians is the only choice for their “one state” solution.

Provocation

As long as war continues, Netanyahu is safe from calls for an Israeli election, and from the collapse of his own coalition.  So each time it looks like there is progress in negotiations, he allows one more act to push Israel deeper into war.  He allowed the assassination of the Hamas negotiator.  He antagonized Hezbollah, another terrorist organization to the north of Israel.  And now, he is sending Israeli forces into the West Bank, the other Palestinian enclave under Israeli control.  

Of course President Biden is frustrated with Netanyahu.  Every time the negotiations seem close to success, the Prime Minister adds one more provocation.  But Biden also recognizes the original premise of this conflict:  Hamas attacked Israel.  So he must balance the two as he continues to pressure Israel to sign a deal.  It’s “easy” for those suffering for the Palestinians to say, stop sending weapons to Israel.  But those weapons are the only real leverage Biden has.  He can’t just “stop”, if he does then he loses the US seat at the negotiating table.

And, of course, President Biden is devastated by the all the death, but particularly the death of Hersh.  No one knows better the pain of the death of a child than the President.

This ends when Netanyahu decides it ends.  A majority of Israelis, and it sounds like, a majority of Israeli military advisors want it to end as well.  So what is Netanyahu waiting for?  Why does he continue to deepen the conflict?

Perhaps he hopes for the election of Donald Trump.

If You Believe…

Labor Day

It’s Labor Day weekend. Traditionally, Labor Day is the beginning of the fall election campaigns.  This year that’s more acute. Like the “bad old days” of politics, one party didn’t fill out “their ticket” until just a few weeks ago.  Now we know:  it’s Trump and Vance versus Harris and Walz.  

There’s been a lot of pre-game activity.  Since the Democratic Convention ended; Harris barnstormed south Georgia, and finally did an interview.  Walz got “vetted” by the press: yes, he really was a Sergeant Major; no, he didn’t get deployed in 24 years of National Guard service, yes he had a DUI back in the 1990’s, and yes, he quit drinking after.   

Trump also was busy.  The Arlington Cemetery moment is one more example of the ex-President pushing through an event that might have ended a “lesser” candidacy.  Oh, and Prosecutor Jack Smith is pushing forward, on criminal charges against Trump in two courts.  And Vance, he’s getting vetted too.  It’s all about “single cat ladies” and telling the opposition to “go to Hell” (must be the mark of that Yale education). 

So here we go, an election match-up we didn’t expect just a month and a half ago.  What we thought we going to be the sad sequel to 2020, now is a fresh, new, race.  What was a battle of the old Boomers, is now a battle of Boomer versus Gen X (that “flipped the script” on Trump).  And Harris brings the hidden values of race and gender fully into play.  Obama won decisively in 2008 and 2012.  Clinton won, but still lost the election in 2016.  What lessons should Harris learn from both?  And just to increase the anticipation – in some states, early voting opens in a week.

It Just Doesn’t Matter

As Hillary Clinton would be the first to remind us, the election of the American President is not by “popular vote”.  If it was, our recent history would be very different:  think Al Gore instead of George W Bush, and Hillary instead of Donald.  It’s not that the popular vote doesn’t “count”, but it only counts by state.  Our arcane and flawed Electoral College system will determine the Presidency again.  And when it’s all told, forty-three states and Washington, DC, are likely already determined.  

Sure, those of us in Ohio and California and Texas need to go through the motions:  we need to vote.  But the likelihood of Ohio going “blue”, or California going “red” is small.  If either happens, we are in the “landslide” territory, unseen since 2008.  And while Texas is on the verge of turning “purple”, don’t hold your breath.  The good old boys counting votes down there will make sure “Red” prevails once more (Florida too).

When you split the “44” into Red and Blue, Trump has 219 Electoral votes, and Harris has 226.  93 votes remain in the seven “swing states” that will determine who gets to 270; becomes our next President, and decides the fate of the free world (whoops, fell in Biden-esque language there, but still true).  From left to right they are:  Nevada (6), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Michigan (15), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), and Pennsylvania (19).

Surprise

By the way, North Carolina is a surprise.  It’s been a Presidential “Red” state for a while, and, like Red Florida; Democrats are hesitant to spend “good money after bad” there.  But Harris’s candidacy changed the Biden strategy of completely depending on the Midwest “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania; putting North Carolina and Georgia back into Democratic play.  Keep in mind though:  Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania total 44 electoral votes.  Add that to 226 and it equals 270, the magic number for election.  That’s all the “swing” a Democrat needs.  

Where is Trump’s path to victory?  Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and, crack the  Blue Wall  say at Wisconsin; that’s 272 votes.  It all makes North Carolina’s 16 votes win or die for Republicans, as much as Pennsylvania’s 19 is for Democrats.   What happens in those seven states will make all the difference.  As Pennsylvania and North Carolina go, so goes the Nation.

Polls

We won’t know who won until after election day.  Likely, we won’t know until long after election day.  Like 2020, the margins are so narrow, that it took four days to know for sure.  We know those margins are so narrow, because we’ve fallen back into the trap of worrying about polling once again.  

Polling:  the political equivalent of Lucy holding Charlie Brown’s football.  We think it’s giving us answers, we want to believe it gives us answers; but in the end, in our narrowly divided country, it doesn’t.  But we still line up behind the ball, knowing that “this time”, she won’t let go.  So what are the problems?

Polls are taken with small numbers of people (in the hundreds usually) used to project a result, and each poll has a mathematically determined “margin of error”.  So to start with, if Harris is ahead of Trump by 2%, and the margin of error is 4%; then Harris could be up by 6%, or Trump could be up by 2%, or any result in between.  And here’s the big point:  there’s no greater likelihood of a positive Harris result than there is a positive Trump result, even though “on paper”, Harris is winning.  The margin of error is literally a “gray zone” of indecision.

But we want a winner and a loser, and the poll “shows” a winner and a loser, so we get fired up.

Poll Watching

And polls aren’t just random samples of people.  The polling data is pushed through a “model”, a formula that hopes to reflect what the actual 2024 voters look like.  So different pollsters could take the same data and come out with different results.  Some of that is politically driven; but most is just the “best guest” of what the 2024 electorate might look like.  In both 2016 and 2020, most models under-counted Trump support.  That’s where the Harris “hidden values” may change things.  Trump versus Biden – pollsters had the solid evidence of 2020 to work from.  But now it’s Harris as candidate.  She’s Black, South Asian, and a woman.  Pollsters literally have to take “educated guesses” to determine what the 2024 electorate will look like.  Who’s right? Who knows.

So what’s the “trick” to reading polls?  I look at the “Republican Polls”; Fox News, Rasmussen, Fabrizio among others.  Their models are more likely to under-count Harris support. So if Harris is doing well on those polls, then she likely is doing even better in “real life”.  And if Harris or Trump is outside the margin of error, then that’s solid data.

But polls are nothing more than snapshots of the present.  How people respond on a poll today, is merely an indicator of how they’ll vote in a week, or a month, or on election day.  Polls might reflect the “trends” of where we are going, they still do not determine the destination.  They can make you “believe” in a candidate.  But until those days after the election, nothing really matters.  Believe what you will; only the actual votes count.

Red Right

A very “Republican” friend sent me an article from a group called “Red Right Updates”. It called the Harris economic plans a “disaster” and a “collection of misguided policies that threaten to stifle investment, cripple our economy, and ultimately weaken America…”.   He challenged me to explain “the Left’s” position.  So here’s my point-by-point “rebuttal”.  My guess is that we won’t ever agree, but we can have a civil discussion. (Note – section headings are from the Red Right article).

A National Debt Nightmare

Red Right predicts that the Harris program will create a $1.7 trillion deficit over ten years.  According the them, “…(That) represents a massive burden on future generations and a dire threat to the economic stability of the United States”. 

A $1.7 trillion increase in the National debt over ten years is hardly staggering.  In the last Administration, Trump raised the debt by at least $6.5 Trillion in four years (Heritage Foundation), and as much as $8.4 Trillion (Newsweek).  Biden added $4.3 Trillion in his term (Newsweek) .  So $170 Billion a year really isn’t quite as “staggering” versus $1.1 Trillion a year under Biden or $2.2 trillion a year under Trump.  And Trump’s alma mater, the Wharton School, predicts that his program for the next four years would add another $6 Trillion to the deficit (Wharton).

Stifling Investment and Economic Growth

Red Right is troubled that “…Harris’s plan (will) stifle investment”.

Red Right seems concerned that if lower income workers get an increase in the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Credit, that would somehow remove incentives for them to “work” and cause them to  “…drag down economic output”.  It’s as if folks wouldn’t work as hard if they had some more of their earnings instead of losing them to taxes.  There’s a basic fallacy here:  that the government somehow needs to hammer the working class to pay for something so they “work hard”.  But the reality is, that, according to the Tax Foundation, the bottom half of income earners paid only 2.3% of taxes anyway.  So those that would benefit most from child and earned income credits, don’t impact the amount of taxes collected.  

Is opposition to this is really about making sure workers have to “struggle” to take care of their kids and their insurance?  As you know, there are lots of people who are working hard just to make it at all.  If they have some additional amounts of their own earned money, they’ll likely spend it, encouraging  economic growth.  Why should those people pay what turns out to be a small fraction of the overall tax load?  Is that what this is about – keeping the poor impoverished?

The $25000 First-Time Homebuyer Incentive is a Vote-Buying Scheme

First, let’s be clear.  Both Harris and Trump are proposing ideas that would be, in their view, good for the country.  They hope that voters agree, and show that agreement by casting their ballot for one or the other.  So, in a sense, it’s all “vote buying”. 

Harris is proposing a $25000 first time home buyer credit.  She’s also proposing government incentives to build three million new homes (National Low Income Housing). The reality is, that the entry cost into the housing market is so high, a substantial number of Americans can’t look forward to ever owning a home. A “starter” home here in Pataskala, is well over $200,000 (Rocket).  

Instead, they are locked into a cycle of rental, putting money into something that has no financial return. Here in Pataskala, rent is over $1300/month, a mortgage payment’s worth for a two bedroom apartment that used to cost $700 (Apartment Guide) .  It used to be that parents would help their children with down payments.  It was a way to pay their wealth “forward”.  But, with  current housing costs and inflation, for many it’s not possible.  Owning a home is a way to create generational wealth, that can change the financial life for whole generations of people.  

The Absurdity of Taxing Unrealized Gains

Speaking of generational wealth – let’s talk about “unrealized gains”. (Unrealized gains example:  when a stock is bought at $100, but goes up to $1000. The “gain” of $900 is only realized when it’s sold).  Before we go farther, put that into context:  this is an issue for those with over $100 million in wealth (Smart Asset): serious “generational wealth”.  

Having gains of multiple millions in stock or real estate (or art or old Babe Ruth jerseys) is not really “unrealized”, even if it’s not sold.  The value is used to leverage other profit-making measures (as collateral for example).  The point is pretty simple:  we have a tax system designed to allow “hiding” of wealth.  So those in the $100 million plus category might have to pay a bit more of their fair-share.  “Unrealized gains” is an income “hiding” scheme, that should be “outed”.    One of the folks that agree with that is Warren Buffett, with a net worth over $142 Billion (White House – The Buffett Rule).

Raising the Corporate Tax Rates – A self-inflicted Wound

The corporate tax rate is currently 21%, a percent less than the rate paid by families making from $100,000 to $200,000.  Raising the corporate tax rate, especially when some of the inflationary pressure was caused by corporations taking windfall advantage of our economy, not only seems “right”, but also fair.  The corporate tax rate was in the 50% range in the 1950’s, and even 30% in the Reagan era (Economic Policy Institute). 

Corporations, benefit from living and operating in the United States.  They should share in the tax burden .The United States did well over the last half of the twentieth century with higher rates; 28% isn’t a “load” too great to bear.  Corporations making millions and billions shouldn’t pay a rate less than a middle class family.

Stealing Trump’s Proposal:  Eliminating Taxes on Tips

 Yes, I’ll admit it, Trump actually did have a decent idea; not taxing tips (though that certainly looks like a “vote getting scheme”, especially Nevada’s votes).  It is important to note that the Trump proposal might include lawyers and hedge fund managers as “tipped” workers, folks “looking for a loophole”.   But  for lower paid workers who depend on tips, it could be a good idea, especially as they are still being taxed on their base wages.  So Harris stealing it doesn’t make it a bad idea, as long as my lawyer and broker can’t call their fees “tips” too (Axios).

Price Controls on Food:  A Communistic Approach

What Red Right (and others) calls price controls, Harris calls anti-price gouging.  This has happened especially in the grocery industry, where prices climbed 25% post-Covid, helping drive inflation without a commensurate increase in the supply cost.  Harris is not calling for “price controls” like the 1970’s, Richard Nixon style. (The Republican President actually issued an order freezing prices and wages – what Red Right would call a “Communistic Approach”). 

But she is calling for Post-Covid profiteers to be reined in, through “anti-gouging” legislation (CBS).  A huge share of the grocery market is down to just four stores:  Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons control over 50% (and Kroger and Albertson’s want to merge).   They can get away with gouging because there’s not enough competition to pressure prices down.  Red Right complains that this kind of legislations “stifles competition”, but that competition already is stifled for much of the country with access to only one “brand” of grocery.

Final Thoughts

People of “good faith” can have different views on American economics.  Hyperbole like “Communistic”, “disaster”, and “crippling” doesn’t further the discussion, it just enflames passions.  As I see it, the Trump plan is for unfettered capitalism, with corporations and the wealthy “cashing in”.  Harris tries to temper that capitalism and direct some of that wealth to the lower and middle classes, so they can share in the economic prosperity.  

Democrats and Republicans have had this same argument since the 1960’s; without Communism, or crippling disasters.  America will survive either way, economically.   While I clearly favor the Democratic economic view, the more important issues this year are about Democracy and Freedom.  

But that’s for a different discussion.

Vote Your Pocketbook

John Kasich

I really don’t have much good to say about Ohio’s former Governor, John Kasich.   He wanted to “bust unions”, and tried to break the public employees organizations with his failed “Issue 5”.  He brought his experience making a fortune working for the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers investment firm to government, encouraging state retirement services to hire private investors rather than using more transparent public investments.  As it turned out, state-sponsored studies show that the teacher retirement system lost $60 Billion in potential gains, and paid many millions of dollars to private firms for the loss.  As a retired teacher, that’s a big deal to me.

Kasich was, is, and always will be a business Republican in the “old school” model.  In all fairness, he did do at least two things right.  When the Obama Administration offered Medicaid expansion, Kasich immediately signed Ohio up, adding 1.2 million citizens to the insurance plan who weren’t covered before.  And, when Trump ran for President in 2020, Kasich did his duty as an American. He supported Joe Biden.

Kasich is out of politics right now (he’s seventy-two), but he does serve as a commentator for MSNBC.  When I see him broadcasting from the halls of Otterbein College, just up the road in Westerville, I still remember marching on the Ohio Capitol against Issue 5.  But he occasionally brings up a valid point, and this week was no different.

Economics

The Governor commented on the momentum of the Democratic Convention.  He’s skeptical that the high spirits and imaging from Chicago will make a dent in the incredibly narrow polling difference between Harris and Trump.  Kasich kept coming back to one point:  voters vote their “pocketbook” ahead of all other issues.  Democratic Campaign operative James Carville makes the same point in his usual, blunt, Louisiana bayou way:  “It’s the economy, stupid”.

I disagree to some extent.  Abortion, the future of American Democracy, foreign policy, and justice and equal rights for all Americans will make a difference too.  But, for the moment, let’s assume that Kasich and Carville, opposite sides of the coin, are right.  So what is the state of the American economy today – and how will it impact the election?

Investments

When Donald Trump was President, he continually measured his success against the stock markets. (Measuring is a big thing to Trump, from crowd size to hand size to…never mind).  So on Trump’s scale, where is the American economy today?  Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended within 200 points of a record high, over 41,0000 (at Trump’s best, the Dow was close to 31,000).  Other indexes, Standard and Poor’s and NASDAQ, are also in record territory.  

That impacts more than just high-priced investment guys like Kasich.  Most major retirement programs in the United States (even Ohio teachers, though not enough) are based on market investments, as are personal Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA’s).  So when investments are up, so are folks retirement “nest eggs”, always a good thing.  

Covid Depression

When Trump says that our economy is “the worst ever” in American history – what is he talking about? It’s all about the inflationary period we just went through, when prices went up 20% over the last four years.  It happened since Trump left office and Biden came in. But more importantly, it all happened after Covid. 

When Joe Biden became President, he had to deal with the economic impacts of the Covid pandemic.  Trump already did some of the right things. He pumped money into the economy to keep the US from a Covid economic depression.  (Remember those checks with the huge – size again – Trump signature on them?). While many of us have a memory “gap” from the Covid year, prices dropped (especially gas) because people couldn’t do a lot.  We were stuck in our homes, trying to dodge the virus. 

Products that jumped in price were construction supplies, some food (like meats), and, of course, toilet paper.  That was caused by problems getting the supply to retail market, and in part, because we had nothing better to do than build on our homes (while we were stuck there).  Buying deck boards and outdoor furniture in 2020 was difficult and expensive.

So Trump, and then Biden, pumped money into the economy to keep people spending .  And that money kept America going. Other countries suffered deep economic problems.  But even though US unemployment rate briefly shot to over 13% and there were lots of product shortages, most Americans managed to stay afloat.

Inflation and Wages

The United States avoided an actual depression, but the “payback” for adding so much money into the supply was inflation.  It’s simple supply and demand economics:  if there’s more money in the economy, the money will be valued less.  That means it takes more money to purchase something –  inflation.  

Once the American economy got going after Covid, Biden’s biggest goal was to increase employment and wages, and get control of inflation.  Price increases were as high as 9% for a while, and Biden and the Federal Reserve Board worked to tighten credit, so that the “supply” of money was smaller and inflation was controlled.  Biden called it the “soft landing” of the US Economy. 

Wages increased too (same supply and demand principle).  From April of 2021 to January 2023 inflation was ahead of wages, but since then, wage growth has been way ahead of the inflation rate.  Today, inflation is under control (less than 3%), jobs are plentiful (unemployment rate 4.3%) and wages are going up (annual wages up 4.72%).   The Federal Reserve will reduce their interest rates next month, signaling that the inflation crisis is over.

Today

The inflation “bump” was, and still is, a shock.  The Trump campaign is making “hay” on the four year gas price trend, from $1.50 during the depths of Covid, to $3.30 today.  But in 2020 and part of 2021, we couldn’t go anywhere because of Covid, so the supply of gas was high and the demand was low.  Dig deep in that Covid memory hole; gas didn’t do much good, restaurants and hotels weren’t open.  And gas was close to $2.70 in the summer before Covid, not so far from what it costs today. 

Where’s the economy today?  There’s still that consumer “sticker shock”.  But investments are up, prices are stabilized, unemployment is low and wages are increasing.  Biden earned his “soft landing”, and prevented a Covid depression in the process. 

 So in real economic terms, Biden fixed most of the problems (Thank You, Joe Biden!!!). Voters will recognize the alternative the US avoided; an actual Covid Depression.  Now it’s up to the Harris Campaign to explain that to America, and take advantage and credit for Biden’s great work. 

She’s Ready

Vision

There’s an old coaching phrase:  “You can’t be what you can’t see.”   I used it with my track athletes all of the time.  If they could envision themselves winning the race, clearing the bar, throwing or jumping farther; they were half way there.  We used to “practice” visualizing what it would feel like to win, to soar, to stand at the top of the podium.  We even jumped off spring boards, used elastic bands, and threw lighter weights, just to gain the physical experience of what achievement would feel like. If they could see it, they could do it.

I know, with a high school football coach on the Democratic ticket, it opens the door to all sorts of athletic analogies.  He talked about “the 4th Quarter down a field goal”, “blocking and tackling” and getting down “in the trenches”.  It’s not like I needed permission;  my coaching life and my political life often mirror each other.  Laying out a track schedule and laying out a campaign plan are much the same.  Add that to the recent Olympics, and there’s going to be a whole lot of sports similarities in our lives, or at least in my writing.

Last night, Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.  For only the second time in our history, a woman is on the top line of a major party ticket.  And for the first time, a woman of color, of South Asian descent, stands at the brink of that ultimate political power. 

Summon the Future 

I have to say that only sixteen years ago, I questioned whether America was ready to elect a Black man as President.  Barack Obama seemed to summon the future, an action I didn’t really think I’d be alive for.  You see, it was only sixty-four years ago (1960) that Americans elected the first Roman Catholic as President. That’s something that today isn’t even an issue (Joe Biden is the second Catholic President).  It was only thirty-two years before that New York’s Al Smith, was defeated by Herbert Hoover by almost twenty percent.  He even lost his own home state, mostly because of his Catholic religion.

I was very much in favor of Obama in 2008; knocking on doors, putting up signs, and voting for him in both the primary and general elections. But I still questioned whether America was ready.  When he won, I was even more impressed by his opponent, John McCain. Through the exquisite pain of national defeat, he acknowledged the historic marker that the United States had reached.

Last night we watched Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President.  She is the 52nd Democratic nominee in history, a long line going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of our American political system.    When she stood at that podium she told us her life “story”. And she explained why she is prepared to hold the ultimate political power.  Harris demonstrated that she is a central part of America’s “story”, the ultimate success of the “Schoolhouse Rock” American Melting Pot saga.  

And she excoriated her opponent Donald Trump.   

The President

She fulfilled every objective, and did what politics required her to do.  To achieve success, good politicians run “to the center” when it comes to the general election.  Like most elections, this one will be won or lost “in the middle”, by the decision of those ten percent of our citizens who remain willing to vote, but undecided.  Harris gave a “centrist” speech, praising American institutions, and promising to defend freedom and liberty both here and in the world.  

She explained her “bona fides”. She told us the work she’s done as a prosecutor, a state attorney general, a Senator and a Vice President, that prepared her for the task.  And she exhorted her fellow Democrats to go to work.  As Governor Wes Moore of Maryland put it, there are seventy-four days and a “wake-up” before election day. It’s only a little time before the decision is made.  And as Governor/Coach Walz of Minnesota said:  we can sleep when we’re dead.

But the most important thing that Vice President Kamala Harris did last night, was give America the vision of herself as the President of the United States.  America saw what could be.  We saw, not just a Black woman, not just a South Asian woman; not just a Prosecutor from California. We saw a person who would be, should be, President.  She showed all of us that she is “ready”.  

And if we can see it, we can do it.

Dirty Laundry

Wednesday Night

So it’s Thursday afternoon.  Kamala Harris will give the “keynote” acceptance speech tonight, and I’m looking forward to it.  I’m also looking forward to getting some sleep:  no matter how late my Democratic friends talk, the dogs still are “on the clock” at six in the morning.  Coach Walz used the old political campaign line: “We’ll sleep when we’re dead”.  But I need to get some snooze time sooner than that.

Last night was amazing.  Tim Walz is a natural, a leader, a man who can get others to follow him to the State Championship, to accurately fire an artillery piece, to the Congress, and the Governorship of Minnesota.  He now will take his leadership national, and he’s off to an awesome start.   Josh Shapiro is a strong speaker, but Pete Buttigieg is even better. Hakeem Jeffries, ” the next Speaker of the House” can rap and rhyme with the best.  And while I will always bare a grudge against Bill Clinton, in the end, he still is the “Explainer in Chief”.  Oh, and “OOOOOOOOOOOOO-PPPP-RRRR-AH” is pretty good too.

But today isn’t about praising oratory.  It’s about the “dirty laundry” of the 2024 Democratic National Convention.  I’m going through it all, once, and then I’m done – and it’s back to the candidate of “Joy” (thanks Bill).

Held Hostage

First, let’s talk about what didn’t happen last night.  John and Rachel Goldsberg-Polin have a twenty-three year old son, Hersh, held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. They wear the number 320 on their chests, a hard reminder of the days their adult child has been in captivity.  Hersh was at the concert in the desert, and lost the lower part of his left arm in the grenade assault that ended in his capture.  There have been pictures, taken months later, and John and Rachel believe that Hersh is still alive.

John and Rachel anticipated neutrality or even animosity from the Democratic crowd when they came to the podium.  After all, Democrats are trying to get a ceasefire, and not rock-solid secure in their backing of the current Israeli government.  And many Democrats express concern for the thousands of civilians casualties in Gaza, bystanders to the violence between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas.

Bring Them Home

What the Goldsberg-Polin’s didn’t realize, is that the thousands of Democrats representing the country in Chicago are just as concerned with the fate of their son, and the other hundred or so still held alive in Gaza, as they are with Palestinian civilians.  And when they saw the real tears in the eyes of so many of the delegates, heard the chants of “bring them home”, and felt the warm applause for their statements, they found allies.  

Democrats are concerned about the hostages:  they know Hamas started this whole cycle of violence on October 7th.  It’s not that they support Hamas, it’s concern for the thousands of civilian Palestinians caught in the crossfire.  No matter what the MAGA propaganda machine says; Biden, Harris, and Democrats aren’t Hamas sympathizers.  They simply want the dying to stop. 

Pro-Palestinian (not Hamas)

There are thirty Minnesota delegates who are dedicated to the thousands of Palestinian civilian dead.  They are asking (not demanding) that the Harris Campaign give them some time to explain their concerns to the convention.  It’s a delicate balance for Harris; Minnesota, and more significantly, Michigan has a large Palestinian/American population.  They won’t vote for Trump, but they might not vote for Harris either. And it’s in states where she has a narrow lead in the polls.  

So the Harris team has listened to them, arranged meetings for them, and “massaged” them.  But they won’t give them time on the podium.  Harris has to hope that’s enough, especially when the alternative for them is Trump in the hip-pocket of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, determined to wipe out every Hamas member, even if he has to kill every Palestinian to do it.

Chinese Communist Party

The second issue is the Tim Walz/China connection.  As a younger teacher, Walz spent a semester in China teaching English and learning the Chinese language.  A lot of teachers take advantage of exchange programs, from Australia to the Philippines to Europe to Asia.  Later in his career, Walz led student field trips to China, a deal that many teachers do:  you go free or even get paid if enough students pay to go.  I seriously considered taking “track trips” to Ireland and the United Kingdom a couple of times, and a fellow teacher and coach now makes a living leading student field trips.

Look, China is a Communist country.  Any connection with China; industry, technology, entertainment, and most certainly education; is controlled by the Communist government.  The Communist government is made up of the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY; so if you take kids on educational field trips to China, you’re definitely dealing with the CCP.  

But the MAGA-Republicans (like the Chinese Government, there’s no distinction between the two) will tell you that Coach Walz is somehow “in bed” with the CCP.  It’s nonsense, stupid, and depends on voter ignorance to “fly”.   You’re going to hear it, but don’t fall for that.  There’s so much more important stuff to talk about.

Puppet Master

And finally, the media is still trying to stir the story of the “mastermind” Nancy Pelosi pushing Biden out of the Presidential race.  She doesn’t deny it; she says it’s just “old news” and moves on.  The best I can figure, she did exactly that.  And while I don’t like to admit it, it’s better being the Party of Joy, rather than the Party of “please Joe, don’t lose it now”.   The President said it best:  “When I was elected Senator at 29 I was too young, now I’m too old to be President.”

I love you, President Biden.  I love your sacrifice and your courage.  But you, and Nancy Pelosi, are right.  Bill Clinton looked too-old too, and he’s two years younger than you.

Dirty laundry displaying is over.  I look forward to writing about Kamala’s speech tomorrow.

Wisdom of our Mothers

Just noticed this  – according to the Major Cities Chief’s Association, violent crime is down 6% this year nationwide – and 41% in Columbus, Ohio (Axios); Just sayin’.

The Party

I have a confession.  I didn’t make it through the second night of the Democratic Convention.   Somewhere between Doug Emhoff and President Obama, I dozed off.  So this essay is “late”; I had to watch both Michelle Obama and the President this morning, first thing.  And, like the Democrats on the floor of the United Center in Chicago Tuesday night, I am fired up.  

The lineup of speakers this week is amazing.  From Raphael Warnock to Michelle Obama, Democrats are demonstrating a vision of America that seemed lost to the polarization and acrimony of our current politics.  To borrow from Wednesday’s keynote speaker, former President Bill Clinton, the Democrats are offering a thing called “hope”, in contrast to the Republican vision of a nation of “carnage”.  

It’s positive versus negative, forward versus backward; solutions versus grievances.  And, to steal a line from MSNBC host Ari Melber, “There’s political parties, and then there’s just parties.” Democrats are partying in Chicago this week:  celebrating a Biden Presidency, celebrating Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and celebrating a new hope for the future.  

Even calling the role of states turned into a celebration, complete with a deejay,  with state’s vying to “one-up” each other as they danced and nominated Kamala Harris for President.  Who’d have thought fifty-five announcements of vote counts could be fun (from California to the Northern Mariana Islands).  The Democrats made it so.  Even Senator Chuck Schumer was dancing on the stage.

Against the Empire

We have come a long way in a month, from “just” a campaign against the “existential threat to democracy”, Trump-MAGAism.  We were “the desperate”.  For “Star Wars” fans, we were the Rebellion facing the Death Star, the whole future on the line. And it isn’t that the threat went away.  But now Democrats aren’t just warning of a dark future, they are showing the light of a better future instead.  We are now dancing with the Ewoks on Endor; the “spirits” of Obi-Won Kenobi and Joe Biden enjoying the show.

To press the Star Wars analogy a step farther, the “Empire” hasn’t gone away.  But we can now face the struggle, the election, with joy instead desperation, a positive alternative beyond just “not them”.   And we are doing it with “DEI”, diversity, equity and inclusion.  That’s not a  “dirty word”, it’s the definition of what the Democratic Party, and the United States, is becoming.  Doug Emhoff described blending his family, a Jewish man and his African-American/South Asian wife and their children and relations. It is the description of what America is and will be, despite the “hopes” of Donald Trump and his “mass deportation” friends.

Mothers

Another underlying theme of the Chicago convention is simple:  how did we go from Obama to Trump?  How did we go from Roe v Wade to Dodds? How did we fail?  Or, as several of the Democratic speakers alluded to:  did we let our mothers down?   

Both Michelle and Barack Obama referred to Michelle’s mother, Miriam Robinson, who passed away in May.  They talked about her power as a Black woman growing up in the 1940’s and 50’s, and the struggles she had in that era.  She raised her child in South Chicago, a child who went onto Harvard and Princeton and married a “community organizer” who became President.  And the former President talked about his grandmother, a White woman from a small town in Kansas, who shared many of the same values of hard work, and hope for the future.

Their mothers, and Kamala Harris’s mother, an endocrinologist who immigrated to the United States from India to do research, all worked hard to achieve more for their children than they had for themselves.  They believed, they achieved, and they taught their children and grandchildren to do the same.  

Democrats, we didn’t let our mothers down.  The only way for us to do that, would be to not join the struggle to make things better now.  That’s what Michelle and the President told us last night, and that’s what the Party, (and the party), are doing now.  Joyfully; while Donald Trump mumbles to some sheriff’s deputies in the KKK center of Michigan (don’t boo – vote!). We are energized to go out and fight for the future.  It’s the future that our mother’s and grandmother’s sacrificed for; the one that our children deserve.

The West Wing

Sunday Morning

I didn’t see it coming.  It was Sunday afternoon, and after writing an essay, getting through a workout, and eating a Sunday-late breakfast with Jenn, I settled to watch “the rest” of the Sunday news shows. (OK, Sunday morning is where I surrender to complete political nerd-dom.  I wrote my essay to the background of MSNBC’s “Weekend”; did my workout to ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” and the local NBC channel’s “The Spectrum”; ate breakfast to NBC’s “Meet the Press”; then back to MSNBC for “Inside with Jen Psaki”.  I used to try to leaven that with a little bit of “Fox News Sunday”, but when Chris Wallace left, so did I).

After all of that talk, and thought, and workout, and food; you’d think that would be enough news and commentary.  And it was; I moved to the family room with all the dogs.  They crashed on the couch with Jenn; I hit my recliner.  So I was dozing through the end of Jen Psaki, kind of half listening to her as I faded in and out.   And then, I got blindsided.

Counterpoint to Reality

Jen Psaki’s last guests were Mary McCormack and Martin Sheen.   If you don’t know their combined names, you may not get the rest of this essay (but please, carry on). Both played characters in the long-running political show The West Wing (1999-2006).  McCormack played Kate Harper, Deputy National Security Advisor for the last three years of the series about the White House.  Martin Sheen starred for seven years as President Josiah Bartlet. 

The West Wing was about the Bartlet administration, from beginning to end.  Bartlet was a “moderate” Democrat, and the Aaron Sorkin produced show quickly sucked in viewers with political interests from all parties.  It had (has) a special place in American politics:  an uplifting show at a time just after the real President was impeached for having a sexual relationship with a twenty-one year old intern.  As an American and a Democrat, The West Wing helped me emotionally get through the election crisis of 2000 that resulted in the George W Bush Administration, and 9-11.  

Art Imitates Life

In fact, it was right after 9-11 that I realized how important The West Wing was.  How does a television show about the Presidency, talk about the ultimate national crisis?  Instead of trying to reconstruct a White House under attack, or somehow dramatize the event; they chose to educate America on who attacked us and why.  “Isaac and Ishmael” wasn’t in sequence with the series; it was a stand-alone episode written by Sorkin. It was the show, but more importantly it tried to teach a lesson, the same lesson President Bush taught when he spoke at the Islamic Center and quoted the Koran soon after the attack.

Psaki opened the segment of her show with a cut from the final season of The West Wing.  President Bartlet, finishing his second term, is backstage at the Democratic Convention, waiting to endorse the new Democratic candidate for President, Congressman Matt Santos.  Standing beside him is his former Chief of Staff and best friend, Leo McGarry, who accepted the role as Santos’s running mate.  Bartlet is introduced to resounding applause and cheers, as the convention recognizes his accomplishments in office.  There are chants of “Four More Years!!!” 

Life Imitates Art

Sure, it relates directly to Joe Biden appearing at tonight’s Democratic Convention to endorse Kamala Harris.  Democrats will shower Biden with “love”, for what he achieved, and also what he sacrificed for the Party, and the Country.  I hadn’t really thought of that direct tie to The West Wing.  And then, when the clip ended and Psaki, Sheen, and McCormack were sitting at the table, all three were shedding tears.  Psaki because life was imitating art.  Her President, Joe Biden (she was his Press Secretary), is in the “final season” of his “Bartlet” role.  

Martin Sheen and Mary McCormack were crying for a different reason.  This was the last scene in the show the Sheen and his friend John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry, were together.  Spencer died of a massive heart attack soon after (another example of life imitating art, the McGarry character suffered a near-fatal heart in season six).  The last few episodes of the show were written around his absence, and, in the show, he died of a second heart failure on election day.   Sheen doesn’t often watch his own work – this, now eighteen years later, was the first time he saw the scene with them together.

A West Wing Moment

The West Wing gave “us Democrats” hope in the interminable stretch from the end of Clinton until the beginning of Barack Obama.  It wasn’t long from the end of the series to the beginning of “Yes We Can” with the first African-American President.  But it wasn’t just “us Democrats” watching the show.  In the third season, Bartlet is running for re-election.  After struggling to find a “rhythm” for the campaign, McGarry sums up the way to “right the ship”:  “Let Bartlet be Bartlet”.  Last week, Corey Lewandowski, an early Trump campaign manager from 2016, returned to help the floundering Trump organization.  Lewandowski’s is known for his campaign “fix”; “Let Trump be Trump”.  

The West Wing set an example of “hope” in the politics that a whole generation of political “folks”, Democrat and Republican, use as a frame of reference.  It also became a counterpoint of derision:  “Don’t expect Biden to leave the campaign and Harris to come in like a “West Wing” moment.”  That was actually said on network TV.

Of course, that’s exactly what’s happening this week.  The cast of the show aren’t the only ones with tears in their eyes – like their show, now two decades old; real life is giving us hope.

Peril to Promise

What Was

It’s the week of the Democratic Convention.  Two months ago, this was a moment fraught with peril.  Joe Biden was in deep trouble, mired in the impossible task of “proving” his own fitness in the future tense.  While he has an enormous record of success in the three years of his Presidency: rebuilding after Covid and “landing” the inflationary economy; legislation dealing with infrastructure and climate and reducing drug costs; appointing more Federal Judges than any President and ending America’s longest war; all of that didn’t matter.  It wasn’t even the old political phrase, “What are you doing for me today”.  It was worse,  the unanswerable, “What will you be able to do tomorrow”.

Thousands of pro-Gaza demonstrators were looking to repeat the history of Chicago in 1968, when anti-Vietnam War protests disrupted the convention and the police caused chaos.  They were poised to achieve the same “success” in 2024 as well.  The riots of 1968 created a barrier so high for Democrats that the Republican, Richard Nixon, a staunch war supporter, was able to win the Presidency that November.  Pro-Gaza demonstrators this week hopefully learned that “whole” lesson.  A Harris defeat is a Trump victory, guaranteeing total support for every possible action Israel chooses to take, regardless of the cost in Palestinian lives. 

Untying the knot of the Democratic Presidential choice looked unsolvable.  Running with Biden, while well-deserved and earned, looked like a sure path to defeat.  And that defeat would be more than just Biden, it seemed the guardrails in the Senate and House might fall as well, leaving Trump with a fully unified government to work his Project 2025 “nightmare”.  

Sacrifice

But choosing some other candidate in a month’s timespan also seemed impossible.  The “blessing” of a deep Democratic bench:  Harris, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Moore, Newsom, Shapiro; all pointing to 2028 as “their time”; would surely “take their shot” in an open vote.  And that would create typical Democratic chaos, a confusion that even a Convention wouldn’t clarify.  It wasn’t a path to the Presidency, it was one to fractionalization that would never heal, at least, in time for the election of 2024.

Biden cut the knot, sacrificing his own political career to change the paradigm.  And he immediately paved the way for Harris to inherit his mantle, demanding that the “bench” follow his lead.  Any other action became an act of disloyalty, and worse, giving “aid and comfort” to Trump.  Harris became the presumptive nominee in thirty-six hours, the bench all fell in line.  So now, going into a week of “Democracy”, where do we stand?

Masterful

Harris is masterful in handling her candidacy.  She spread out her rivals endorsements, so that her campaign was constantly in the front of the news-cycle.  She locked-in the most important Democratic “royalty”, Pelosi, the Clintons and the Obamas, all presenting a united front.  And she carefully chose a Vice Presidential candidate to balance herself.  She’s a California politician; Tim Walz’s is a Minnesota Governor, school teacher, National Guard Sergeant, and football coach.  She’s a product of an HBUC education, he’s got very-Midwest degrees.  And, of course, she’s a She, Black, of South Asian descent.  He’s a White guy from Nebraska and Minnesota.  You couldn’t balance the ticket any better than that.

And she didn’t take a Senator, any Senator.  That leaves Democrats with a better-than-even chance of holding the US Senate majority in a very tough electoral map.  Democrats hold a two-vote majority in the current Senate, but they will lose one of those after Joe Manchin retires and West Virginia finally matches their Senate seat to the rest of their all-Republican state.  So Democrats are down to a one-vote lead, with five seats teetering on the brink.  

Balance of Power

In spite of the multiple millions of dollars spent, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown in Ohio seem safe (so far).  Democrat Reuben Gallego in Arizona’s open seat election, narrowly leads Kari Lake (up by 2% in the most recent poll, taken by the very Republican Club for Growth).  Polling also shows that Democrat Jackie Rosen is clearly ahead in the Nevada.  Which leaves Democrat incumbent John Tester in very-Red Montana, where polling shows a close race against Republican Tim Sheehy.

All of the Democratic Senate candidates have been buoyed by the successes of the new Harris-Walz campaign, also leading in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.  And, of course, if Harris wins the Presidency, Vice President Tim Walz would cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

In the House of Representatives, re-districting in several states, especially New York, favors a Democratic majority.  Republicans hold a six-vote majority in the 435 member body, so a flip of only four seats would change control.  A powerful Harris-Walz ticket is likely to pull several more seats as well, leading to Hakeem Jeffries as the next Speaker of the House.

Exciting New Promise

So the convention starts tomorrow. There’s lots of “official” labels, but it comes down to this. Monday Democrats will celebrate the successes of Joe Biden and his administration, with the President himself speaking. Tuesday will be about “vision”, highlighted by former President Barack Obama’s speech. Wednesday will be Tim Walz’s night, but the Clintons will also be on the podium. And, of course, Thursday will be all Kamala Harris’s night. What could have been a Democratic disaster, now will be a coronation of a master campaigner for President.

It’s 2024, a year that so far proves that literally anything can happen.  But, if the Democrats continue the trend-line of the last few weeks, and the city of Chicago and the Palestinian protestors don’t make the same mistakes as 1968, the future looks bright.  What was the “peril” of just a month ago, now looks like an exciting new promise for 2025.

Keep Chewing

Time Out

There is an old political saying; “We can walk and chew gum at the same time”.  You often hear it when political maneuvering seems to outweigh solving the National problems.  Sure, Democrats and Republicans are fighting “tit for tat” in the media, but they got together to reach a real solution to the illegal immigration problem.  They “chewed and walked”; at least they did for a while.  But then, well, they couldn’t.  Politics overwhelmed “the good”, and the immigration deal fell apart.

The world knows it. The United States called a “time out”.  We are busy trying to elect a President.  A lot of what goes on in the “world” is now neglected by the “leader of the free world”.  We’re so busy running, we can’t manage to chew, at least, that’s what usually happens about this time.

Cutting the Knot

Politics have been overwhelming for the past month or so.  I mean, look at what’s happened.  The serving President, Joe Biden, had a terrible, awful, horrible, debate performance, that raised questions about his ability to serve four more years as an octogenarian.  For weeks after, the Nation watched the Democratic Party squirm whether to keep Biden or risk chaos finding a new candidate.  Meanwhile, the ex-President, challenging to return to the White House, looked unbeatable; even more so after surviving an assassination attempt and with a “glorious” Republican convention.  

Then Biden himself cut the “Gordian” knot.  In an act of masterful political timing, thirty-six hours after Trump stepped off of the convention stage; Biden withdrew from the race, and threw his whole Party’s political apparatus behind his Vice President.  Within two days, Harris consolidated the nomination.  There were no “mini-primaries”, no showcase of future Democratic talent, no time for the normal Democratic chaos. All of the “Young Turks” immediately fell in line with Harris.  And even though Joe Manchin was “salty”, at first looking for votes in the convention; he then realized that there were no votes to gain.  

Biden’s Gift

The entire script of the 2024 Presidential election was flipped.  And the citizens of the United States were completely absorbed in the drama.  We still are.

Joe Biden is a politician; he’s been running for office for fifty-four years.  It was a great personal sacrifice to give up the “prize” of the Presidency.  But it did allow him the “gift” of being out of the spotlight.  The media, the citizens, the world are watching Trump and Harris.  Joe Biden gets the gift of obscurity.  For the last six months of his administration, he can “get things done”, without the constant drone of shouted questions and political intrigue.  Biden can focus on the “good”; he can chew while everyone else is busy running (for office).

Middle East

And there’s a lot to digest.  In the Middle East, Israel seems determined to kill every Hamas member, regardless of the cost to the surrounding Palestinian population.  They are bombing hospitals and schools, and even assassinating Hamas leaders in foreign capitals (and Hezbollah leaders as well).  Iran is poised to launch a retaliatory attack, one that’s not likely to be neutralized by the combined defenses of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United States, that worked so well before.

Yet there still are ceasefire talks going on.  Three of the four parties (Hamas, Iran, the United States) are agreed on the Israeli structured plan.  Only Israel itself is holding out, delaying (to kill as many more Hamas leaders as possible, I presume).   Biden still has hope for some settlement, some avoidance of a greater Middle East conflict that could consume the region.  It would be a pinnacle foreign policy moment for his Presidency.

Holding Firm

Biden has held firm in his support for Ukraine.  What was the summer of retrenchment, with Ukrainian forces slowly being pushed back by Russian forces, altered last week.  Ukraine turned the tables, invading into “Mother Russia” itself.  Ukrainian President Zelenskyy again disproved the myth of the Russia military juggernaut, gaining a “chip” for the negotiations that are sure to come.  Again, Biden proved his point.  Ukraine will not “fall” on his watch.

And what about the border problem, left adrift after the political solution failed?  Right now, the Customs and Border Protection division of Homeland Security reports the LOWEST number of “encounters” with migrants in the last four years, down by more than half from the beginning of 2024 (from over 300,000 for December 2023, to 130,000 in June – CBP).

Oh, and what about that other campaign issue, the economy?  Let’s see:  the Dow Jones, after an unnerving 1000 point drop, is back above 40,000 (the NASDAQ and S&P are back up as well).  Inflation is still slowing, so much so, that the Federal Reserve Board is likely to lower interest rates in their next meeting.  Biden earned his “soft landing” from Covid, first averting a Covid depression, and now controlling a post-Covid inflation.  It hasn’t been easy, for him or for the American public; but it clearly is working. 

Biden’s on the job, and he’s still getting things done while the rest of us are focused on November 5th.   As American politicians are busy running; he’s busy chewing through America’s problems.  

For the Love of Money

Canton Ohio’s favorite: The O’Jays (1973) – For the Love of Money

Cash

Let’s get down to cash.  Estimates are that the combined Presidential candidates in the 2024 election will spend over $10 Billion  (Marketplace).  For perspective, it was record setting in 2008 when the combined Obama and McCain campaigns went over $1 Billion (Politico).  Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $1.5 Billion in 2024.

That’s a 666% increase in costs, not caused by inflation.  So what happened?

From 1976 to 2012, the US Government matched private donations up to $250 in primary campaigns, and paid a set amount for the general election campaigns to each major party candidate.  The deal was:  take the Federal money, and don’t raise any money privately.  That kept both major party candidates on an even playing field, and not worried about fundraising.   However, the law allowed for an exception.  A candidate could refuse Federal money and raise as much as they wanted on their own, as long individual contributions didn’t exceed the limit.

Citizen’s United  

With the development of the internet, individual fundraising became much more effective, so much so, that the 2008 Obama campaign raised more on their own than the Federal government could offer.  They turned the Federal money down.  That was the first “nail in the coffin” in the Federal Presidential Election funding program. 

But the coffin lid was nail-gunned shut in 2010, with a Supreme Court ruling called “Citizen’s United”.  In that case, the 5-4 Court ruled that contributing money to campaigns was a “free speech” activity and loosened restrictions.  All of a sudden, money from individuals could flow to tax exempt groups called “Super-PACs” (political action committees) in unlimited amounts.  Those PAC’s could then donate to individual campaigns, and they could also spend the money themselves in “support” of one candidate or the other.  Campaigns raised billions more than the Federal government fund offered, and in 2014, the fund was discontinued. 

Influence

It’s all about money and influence.  The largest individual donation in the past year (23-24) was from Tim Mellon (of the Mellon Bank fortune).  He contributed $90,000,000 to Republican causes.  Ken Griffin (Citadel LLC, hedge-fund) contributed $74,000,000 to Republicans. Richard Uihlien (Uline Inc) gave $71,000,000 to Republicans.  In fact, this election year (so far), the top ten contributors have already given Republicans $376,159,709.  Democrats got $98,863,042 out of the rest of the ten.

So what is this “power”, the “freedom of speech” represented by money?  Tim Mellon, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Miriam Adelson on the Republican side have a lot of “say”, because they donate so much money.   Look at Trump’s strict adherence to Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza, in part, because of the Adelson’s support of both Trump and Israel (AP).  In the same way, Mike Bloomberg, Tom Styer, George Soros, Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook) have “sway” in the Democratic Party.  How much “sway”? Jeffrey Katzenberg  was the public face of “donors” warning Biden to drop out (YouTube).   No money, no campaign for President; Biden left the election.

Joy and Cash

Sure, it’s nice that the Harris-Walz campaign is bringing “joy” back to politics again.  The crowds at the rallies are testament to the new energy on the Democratic side.  But just as importantly, the Harris campaign raised over $350,000,000 in July (and at least another $80,000,000 this month so far).  That doesn’t include the close the $300,000,000 already in the Biden-Harris coffers transferred over to the new standard bearer. 

Campaign finance reforms were a result of the 1972 Nixon campaign.  Sure there was the Watergate break-in, when some CIA-connected operatives broke into the Democratic Headquarters to bug the Chairman’s phone, and got caught.  But the real shock of the Watergate scandal with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash floating around the CREEP (Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President) office, so much money that it didn’t seem like a big deal to pay some old CIA guys to break-in.  By 1976, there were clear election donation limitations, and $200 million for each of the Carter and Ford campaigns.  

Reform Fails

The reformers (Republican and Democrat under the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002) were moving money out of the campaign equation.  But the internet, and the Supreme Court, put money right back in the center of American politics, where we are now.   

It’s not just about television advertising, though that’s anticipated to be $7.06 Billion (all campaign advertising, not just Presidential) in 2024.   Digital advertising may reach $3.46 Billion, including “social network” spending (EMarketer).  And all of that doesn’t include more traditional expenditures:  staffing, travel, rallies, mailings, signs, stickers, and other so-called “street money”.  Campaigns look for every way to contact potential voters (right now I get sixty or more fund raising emails a day, and dozens of texts, all asking for money). 

My old 1976 Carter/Mondale boss made it clear:  not one sign, or pamphlet, or bumper sticker could be left in the office by election day.  It all had to go out, to try to make a difference and change a vote.  Even with as much money as they have now, that campaign “rule” still exists.  Like the old Nixon CREEP days, with money was falling out of closets, campaigns have more cash than they can spend. But they’re going to try.

Equal Time

Fair and Balanced

In the lead up to the 2016 election, US journalists faced a dilemma.  They “came of age” in an era of the “equal time” doctrine, where broadcast media were required to make sure each candidate for office got equal time in news and other unpaid exposures.  They also came from the Edward R Murrow/Walter Cronkite “school” of broadcast journalism, where the media was supposed to be unbiased, presenting the information for the evaluation of the “consumer”, the American public.  

(There’s certainly an argument that “neutrality” was never really true.  Murrow saw his job as revealing the truth.  His broadcasts certainly revealed the lies behind Senator Joseph McCarthy’s movement.  And even though Cronkite was a “liberal” in his private views, a friend of John F Kennedy, his journalism was “level”.  That is, until he revealed his opinion on the Vietnam War. But those departures from “level” were exceptions, not the rule).

With the advent of 24/7 cable news, there was a need to find a “niche” of loyal viewers. What was once “unbiased” media became “advocacy” broadcasting.  Rupert Murdock, Roger Ailes and Fox “News” started it.  Their “Fair and Balanced” newscasts slanted to the conservative, and for a decade they took the lion’s share of viewership.  

Mirror Image

24/7 “news” on the right demanded 24/7 “news” on the left.  Two organizations tried to fill that void; MSNBC and the original 24/7 news, CNN, who tried to maintain “neutrality”.  They managed to lose viewers from both directions.  Staying “neutral” wasn’t a commercial option for them.  So CNN began to “drift” to progressive as well.  Ultimately the three mirrored the American political split, with Fox getting about half of the cable news viewership, and CNN and MSNBC splitting the other half.  (More recently, MSNBC took most of the “left”, and CNN veered to the center/right to try to gain viewers back. So far, that hasn’t worked).

And it wasn’t just the broadcast media.  The giants of newsprint; the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post all had their editorial bias, but the “newsroom” was, theoretically, strictly neutral.   And, along with the “regular” broadcast media, CBS, NBC and ABC (and PBS) they all maintained their “equal time” of “unbiased” coverage.

Broken System

Donald Trump broke that.  He had a very different approach to the media, one that, love him or hate him, worked.  Trump learned his media strategy from the tabloid dailies of New York, the New York Post and the National Enquirer.  Those newspapers had only a tangential relationship with the truth, and a huge financial stake in controversy.  The way to “win” in the tabloids was to be the story.  Good news, bad news, anything was better than no news.  And so Trump took that hard won New York knowledge to the national media.

Trump discovered that the more he talked, the more attention he got.  In 2015, when the Trump candidacy was still a late-night talk show joke, he called into his “friends” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, day after day.  The premier progressive political morning show gave Trump all the time he could ask for, even if the host was critical, and even if his answers didn’t come close to the questions.  Trump was “out”, all the time. 

 The show invited Clinton to do the same. But Hillary, a traditional politician, was not interesting in being “entertainment”.  So MSNBC didn’t worry about “equal time”, and Trump supporters tuned in to hear their leader.  It was a ratings “win” for the network, and it made Trump a “real” candidate.

He was always the story – often for what were negative statements, actions, or events.  He lied, he was outrageous, he broke all of the political “norms” that American politics and journalism depended upon.  Even when Trump was “in trouble” with the Access Hollywood tape, in one sense, he was still winning.  The spotlight remained on him.

Balance

Add that to the “equal time” inclination, and the “serious” media were forced to balance Trump’s negatives with “equal” Clinton negatives.  So her email scandal dragged on and on; the one big story the media used to show “fairness”.  And any other Clinton failings (she passed out from illness after the 9/11 ceremonies in New York) were magnified, mostly because it balanced the ongoing Trump negative coverage. Then FBI Director Comey reopened the email investigation into the Weiner laptop, and changed the entire political landscape.  But Trump’s negatives were “accepted”, because, that’s just who he was.  They still are.

In the after-action reports from 2017, the media lamented their loyalty to “equal time”.  But they continued to kowtow to the new Trump reality:  some even made the editorial decision to stop saying the Trump was lying.  He did it so often, they felt the word “lie” lost its power.  Fact-checking Donald Trump became a joke, an arduous exercise in truth-telling that few took the time to do.

2020

The election of 2020 was fundamentally different because of Covid.  The candidates (even Trump) were isolated from normal public appearances, and their statements were often vetted by staff before release.  The Trump charge of Biden “campaigning from his basement in Delaware” actually had some truth, and Trump himself was restricted as well.  And when they did appear in debates, the moderators were “tougher” on holding Trump statements to the truth.  Trump lost.

In 2016 the rally going, free speaking, unchecked (and unleashed) Trump won, in spite of the Access Hollywood tape.  In 2020, the literally muzzled and masked Trump lost.  He understood the lesson.  In 2024, he was absolutely prepared to come out as the “active” candidate, opposing the octogenarian President Biden.  But then, Biden turned the tables, leaving the race to his much younger and more energetic Vice President, Kamala Harris.

And the media itself has changed.  Fox News wasn’t loyal enough for MAGA world.  So outlets appeared to their right, like Newsmax, the Daily Caller, and all of the web-based actors like Steve Bannon’s War Room.   The media world of 2024 is splintered. Facts matter even less, and impact (clicks) matter more.  Fox lost viewers to the right, and that pushed the network to return to Trump.

2024

So here we are, a week before the Democratic convention and the official “coronation” of Harris and Walz.  After the uproar of the last three weeks: assassination attempt, Republican convention, Biden’s withdrawal, Harris’s acceptance, and the Walz candidacy; what looked like 2020 a month ago looks a whole lot more like 2016 today.  The Harris campaign has the advantage of learning from the Clinton mistakes, but the Trump campaign has learned as well.  The Democrats may be “joyful warriors”, but it’s still likely to be a very close decision.

But, so far, it doesn’t seem the media has learned much.  They are falling back into the 2016 trap.  Trump did a “press event” the other day.  He rambled for an hour, ostensibly answering press questions.  But his answers had little to do with the “prompts”, and the media did little to fact-check or follow-up whatever he said.  It was “Mr. President” (he isn’t) and polite conversation without interruption, something Joe Biden hasn’t heard from the press for three years.  

Trump got an hour to rant, but the following Harris rally was summarized in five minutes.  Trump lied over and over again, with no direct challenge.  A couple of news outlets did a half-hearted effort at factchecking afterwards, but most just let him go.

So as we was enter the last eighty day sprint of campaign 2024; watch what the news media does.  Their impact may be fragmented by the web, but they still have an obligation to find something that resembles the truth – I hope.

Truth Squader

Campaign 101

The “Truth Squad” is part of any basic campaign strategy.   It’s simple:  have a surrogate (a prominent stand-in for the candidate) follow the opposing candidate around, and contradict what they say.  So if the Blue candidate gives a speech in Pataskala on Monday morning, the Red surrogate shows up on the City Hall steps Monday afternoon to contradict it.  The Truth Squader rides on the press coattails of the opposition candidate. Since generally the press wants to show both sides of the campaign, the Truth Squad presents an easy balance.  Blue said this, now Red responds and gets “the last word”.

It’s basic “counter-messaging”, and in a Presidential campaign it often falls to the those who are not one of the candidates.  Senior Senators, and also-ran Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates all get their name and image out around the country.  They get a lot of local exposure, just countering the opponents message and doubling down on campaign themes.  Don’t be surprised to see Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg in the same role for the Harris campaign.

It’s the grunt work – the daily grind that good campaigns try to do.

Mud Sticks

Which leads to the question:  why is Senator JD Vance, the MAGA-Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, following Vice President Harris and Governor Walz around the country?  Why do we continually see the contrast of Harris and Walz with thousands of screaming supporters, raising the roof for their candidacy; while Vance appears before a hundred people and the press corps literally down the street?

Why is Vance the “mud-slinger” of the Trump campaign?  Where are the Senators beholden to Trump:  Lindsey Graham or John Kennedy or Marco Rubio or Tim Scott?  Trump has plenty of surrogates to take on the task of smearing the Democrats.   Because when you throw mud, inevitably some sticks to you as well.  And that’s why it’s the surrogates that usually do it, not the principals.  

Just Weird

Vance has a compelling story.  A child of Appalachia, he lived a rags-to-riches career from Middletown High School through Ohio State University and Yale Law, all paid for through the GI Bill earned in the Marines.  He became a multi-millionaire who made his “bones” as a venture capitalist in San Francisco and as a bestselling author.  His life story became a popular movie produced and directed by Ron Howard.  He moved back to Ohio, and won a highly contested election against Congressman Tim Ryan to become Senator.

So why does the Trump campaign have one of their principals, the second man on the ticket, doing the dirty work?  Vance is “truth squad-ing”, but it feels a lot like he’s stalking Harris and Walz.  That got even worse when Vance “invited” himself to the Harris press corps, standing outside of Air Force Two waiting for her arrival.  It seemed creepy, almost designed to fit into the Democratic designation for Trump and Vance;  just plain weird. 

Re-Grouping 

Meanwhile Trump himself is hiding at his Palm Beach dinner club, Mara Lago.  His only appearance was a Covid Era-like press briefing, where the ex-President ranted against his opponent. Other than that, the campaign visibility is all the Vance “Truth Tour”.   Vance gets the limelight, but he also gets splattered with the mud he keeps slinging.  (How good does it look for a former Marine to cry “stolen valor” about a career National Guard Battalion Sergeant Major?).   It looks like a Trump campaign stop-gap measure, while they figure out how they can counter the new Harris-Walz ticket.  

Perhaps the article written by Tim Alberta in the Atlantic is correct: the Trump campaign was completely designed against Joe Biden.  With Biden gone, they are floundering, unable to come up with a clear message of their own.  All they can do is lash out at the opposition, and hope that something “sticks”.

Meanwhile Vance looks small, and shallow, and, as we already said, kind of weird.  His credibility as the “Hillbilly Elegy”, former Marine, up by his own bootstraps guy is tarnished.  He’s even questioned if he’s “happy” or why someone should join him for a beer.  His compelling life story is lost – he’s just another Trump lacky doing dirty work.

Strategy

Americans generally look at Vice Presidential candidates through a single lens:  do we see him or her as President?  Harris herself is quickly making that transition.  Americans are growing to the idea that she could be President – the national polling shows it.  But Vance doesn’t look Presidential, sneaking up on Air Force Two or denigrating Tim Walz’s twenty-four years in the National Guard with bogus claims.   The Trump campaign people must know all of this.  

So it’s intentional; they’re letting Vance get damaged for some unknown reason. Or they just don’t care, and Vance will have to “fill the breech” until they can figure out something better to do.   Either way, it’s not good for Vance, and it’s not good campaign strategy either.

Weird

Coach Walz

Before I “expound” on anything else, let me give you my reaction to Vice President Harris’s choice of Governor Tim Walz as her running mate:  “Welcome to the show, Coach”.   The rally yesterday at Temple University in Philadelphia was a showcase of the “next generation” of Democratic power.  First, Governor Josh Shapiro gave a powerful speech in support of the Harris-Walz ticket.  It seemed clear that he was disappointed it wasn’t Harris-Shapiro.  But it was also clear that he knew his duty to the “greater good” of the Party and America.  He’s “all-in” to elect Harris and Walz to the White House, and he showed it.

Then Vice President Harris came out and introduced her choice for Vice President, Tim Walz.  She gave a solid speech, outlining where Democrats want to go:  to a future of freedom, not “back” to a past of restrictions and limitations.  The slogan, “We Aren’t Going Back” sums up the whole thrust of her campaign.

And then we got to meet the Governor of Minnesota, dubbed by the media a “Happy Warrior”. (That’s the nickname for one of Minnesota’s favorite sons of the 1950s and 60’s, Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey). What’s not to like. He’s a farm boy who joined the National Guard and rose to  sergeant-major and  a hunter and fisherman who favors reasonable gun reform. He’s a twenty-year public school social studies teacher and state championship football coach, a Democratic Congressman who served a dozen years in a “purple” district, and the Governor who led the state response to the George Floyd killing.  The Coach can do his own speech-making as well.  He’s got “the touch”; he make his points, laughs with the crowd, and gets them “ready for the big game” on election day.

Game On

The Harris-Walz campaign made a strategic decision.  While Joe Biden’s campaign was based on the existential threat to Democracy posed by Donald Trump, Harris-Walz has stepped back from that nightmare.  They define their opponents not as dangerous, just “weird” and “out-of-date”, and define their goals as bringing more freedom to a diverse American society.  It’s a positive campaign goal rather than a dark negative.  It doesn’t mean that Trump is any less a threat, but it’s a positive contrast to the Trump Campaign’s, Steven Miller induced, nightmare of America.

It’s a powerful strategy, vote for us for the future, not against them for the past.  And it only works with candidates for the future:  Harris, Walz, and the rest of the strong Democratic ticket. Don’t be surprised when the Coach has us ready for the “big game” in November.

Deep Background

Looming in the background of the Trump Campaign are the radical conservative “think tanks”.  Their goal is to establish not just the foundations of the second Trump Administration, but to literally change the course of the American experiment.  Their view is that the essence of Americanism is in the core values of the Northern Europeans who settled on the North American continent.  Any other cultures entering the United States need to “assimilate”, otherwise they contaminate the “Great American Melting Pot”.  

The most recognizable of those “think tanks” is the Heritage Foundation, authors of “Project 2025”.  That’s a 900 page step-by-step guide to “root out” the “evil of progressivism” in the American government and replace it with those loyal to the Foundation’s values.  But another essential pillar of the radical-conservative movement is a small educational institution (with a decent cross country team) in the southern part of Michigan, Hillsdale College.  Over the past decade, Hillsdale has gone from a conservative Christian school, to the single most important source of opposition to progressive government.  They are a major supporter of home schooling, encouraging parents to get their students “out” of public school where they might be “indoctrinated” into a broader view of American society.

Proud Discriminators

Hillsdale takes great pride in refusing all forms of government educational aid.  Their students can’t get guaranteed student loans, because the College wants no part of the Federal regulations that come from accepting those funds.  So there are no diversity rules at Hillsdale, no Title IX regulations, no guaranteed equity requirements.  Hillsdale doesn’t want to be diverse or equitable, they want their students to follow their ideology.

I wanted to know about the Hillsdale endorsed curriculum for American History a few years ago, “Project 1776” (to contrast with the “1619 Project”), so I got on their mailing list.  I receive a constant stream of Hillsdale “surveys”, damning the actions of the current government.  The latest is an attack on the Department of Justice, a “mirror image” of what Democrats accuse the court system as doing for Donald Trump.  According to Hillsdale, heres’ what the DOJ does:

…Instead of protecting your God-given constitutional rights, the administration uses the Department of Justice to attack its political opponents…as well as Christians, parents, and anyone who dares to stand up for our constitutional liberties.

At the same time, with the help of the media it…

  • Covers up a two-tiered justice system that violates your constitutional rights
  • Hides the corruption of the ruling class
  • Attacks those with traditional viewpoints.

What’s at Stake

When Vice President Harris talks about freedom, she’s talking about the freedom of a woman to control her own body, and the freedom of a person of color to succeed in American society.  When Hillsdale thinks of freedom, they are thinking about the “right” to tell others how to act, what to do, and to stay “in their place”.  Their “freedom” is the freedom to sustain a conservative Christian culture that doesn’t represent the majority of Americans.  But who needs a majority of Americans, when there’s a majority on the Supreme Court, and with a potential Trump re-election, the “unitary executive” power to alter the American Government guided by “Project 2025”.  

It’s what Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are standing against.  It’s what’s really is at stake in the election of 2024.  Either we move onto the future, or we are certainly “going back”, following the route planned out by Heritage and Hillsdale.  

That’s America’s choice.  And as Coach Walz would say, those folks who want to “go back” are just weird.  

How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost)

(This should be a “Sunday Story”, but it’s too long to wait!!)

Olympics

It’s the best week of the Olympics.  Sure, last week was the week of Simone Biles and Gymnastics (and the guys did well too).  There was all of the swimming, Ledecky, Leon and the rest.  And, surprising for me, there was even two men’s basketball games.   This from a guy who’s only watched three NBA games in his life (one live in Cleveland).  But there is something compelling about the best of the best finding a way to work together, as the “underdog” rest of the world tries to find a crack in the armor.  Lebron, Steph, KD, and the rest are so good; they just raise their game to a step (maybe two or three) above the rest every time.

But my best week is this week, because this week is track and field.  

(If you don’t know, I coached track and field at the high school level for forty years, and I’m still a track official, and a “clinic” pole vaulting coach).  

I don’t know why, but my wife, Jenn, is tired of track.  It might be because it’s on all day (Paris is six hours ahead), and then there’s the “highlights” that are on all through primetime.  The phrase, “haven’t I seen this before” has been uttered more than once, as has the suggestion to watch reruns of the “Yellowstone” series.

Track and Field

But it’s the Olympics, and it’s track and field.  Once every four years I get to see “my sport” highlighted to the world.  While I made my “mark” as a pole vault coach, I coached every other event as well.  So I was fascinated by the men’s shot put finals (it rained, and these highly prepared Olympians were completely non-plussed by a slick ring), or the heats of the 200 meter dash, or the strategic 1500’s.  And I definitely am a “relay” guy.  The dreaded 4×100’s start on Thursday.  The US should win both men’s and women’s races, but we have blown exchanges in the past as often as gotten on the podium, so there’s always that tension.

And there’s a “new” way to watch the games, one that makes a coach like me very, very, happy.  Instead of just seeing the highlights of a field event, shot put or discus or pole vault; you can click on a streaming service (Peacock) and watch the event start to finish, without interruption.  It’s just like being there, even to hearing the “private” conversations between the athletes and their coaches on the sidelines.

Prelims

I was up at 4:15 am to watch the men’s pole vault qualifying.  The technical detail:  the Olympic pole vault starts with thirty or so competitors.  They have a preliminary competition on side-by-side runways, whittling the competition down to the final thirteen or twelve.  Then they stop, bringing the finalists back for a brand new competition in a couple of days.  So at 4:15 I got to watch a split screen vault, two pits going at the same time, and for a couple of hours there was the “thrill of survival, and the agony of defeat”.  Survival to make the finals or defeat by failing to clear high enough to go on.

Monday, those surviving athletes came back for the Olympic men’s pole vault finals.  And again, it was streamed live, start to finish.  This time it was an evening competition, which meant that it was on all afternoon here in the US.

Mondo

Now I’m not going to get too technical.  But here’s the “scouting report”.  The pre-eminent pole vaulter of our time is a twenty-four year old from Louisiana named Armand Duplantis, but known by his nickname, Mondo (also the name of the most expensive track surface).   He owns the world record, and was the gold medalist in the 2020 (2021) Tokyo games.   So here’ the “joke” about Mondo:  what would you get if an American world class pole vaulter and a Swedish world class heptathlete and volleyball player had a baby?  The answer is Mondo.

He vaults for Sweden, even though he grew up in Louisiana.  There’s a long story about that, the dreaded politics of track and field and a terrible decision by the USA Track and Field powers back when Mondo was fifteen.  Suffice is to say, Mondo started vaulting before he could talk, and he “vaulted his age” from the time he was seven until he was twenty. (A note:  the best vaulters in the world are in the “6 meter club”, that’s a little over 19’8” inches.  Only twenty-four vaulters in history have cleared that; only seven are still active today).  Mondo is coached by his Mom and Dad.  Mom does all the conditioning training, Dad, a 19 foot vaulter of the early 1990’s, does the technical training.  

World Class

Did I say I wasn’t going to get too technical?  Oh well, anyway Mondo has been world class since he was eighteen, and some older vaulters took him under their wings, that is, before he flew far over them.  The best known of those are the former world record holder French vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, and the best “American” vaulter, Sam Kendricks, both  “6 Meter” guys.

In the Olympic men’s pole vault, there were really two competitions going on.  The first was the battle for silver and bronze medals: who would get on the podium.  There were good vaulters from China, Philippines, Turkey, Greece, and Sam from the USA. (Renaud is recovering from injury and unable to vault.  He sat with Mondo’s Dad in the stands).  They battled through to 5.95 meters (that’s about 19’7”). 

 Sam Kendricks won with a great clearance, beating the young Greek vaulter, Emmanouil Karalis.  The joy both of them showed, clearing their best heights (Karalis went 5.90, 19’4”) and earning medals was exciting.  And the camaraderie of the vaulters, winning and losing was uplifting.  There are so few who understand what it takes to be that good, their shared experience makes for a tight “club” of competitors.  The battle is as much against the “bar” as it is about the others.

The Bar

Oh, and that second competition; Mondo versus the bar.  He took vaults at 5.70, 5.85, and 5.95 clearing each bar by “a mile”.  At 6 meters, it was just Mondo and Sam left (vaulters from Louisiana and Mississippi, Sweden and the USA, both coached by their Dad’s).  Sam made three great attempts at the bar, but failed to clear.  Mondo “smoked” 6 meters to win the gold.  He then moved onto the Olympic Record, “only” 6.10 meters (a shade over 20’).  And he smoked that as well.

Which left only his own world record height.  Mondo set the bar at 6.25 (20’6”), one centimeter (about ½ an inch) over his own record of 6.24.   

He was “fired up”, a crowd of almost 60,000 focused on the vault and clapping in unison (literally directed by Sam at the end of the runway).  His first two attempts were close – and it allowed Mondo (and Dad and Renaud) to get the crossbar adjusted to the exact right place.  So he lined up for his final attempt (you get three “fails”, then you’re out).  Sam got the crowd going again, and everyone was on their feet.

The Vault

Here in Pataskala, so was I.  And for a moment, I forgot that I was surrounded by five snoozing dogs, our rescue “pups” who were wonderfully calm through the entire competition.  I know better, I can’t get too excited watching the Bengals football games, my yelling makes them all go nuts.  But it was Mondo, and the world record, and it was going to happen…

Mondo came down the runway, one of the fastest men ever to pick up a pole.  He hit the plant, and swung upside down on the bent pole, made personally for him by the Spirit pole manufacturer.  It shot him vertically up in the air, just barely over the bar. And Mondo snaked his body, chest, and arms over the top of the barrier.  It stayed up without a bounce – a new world record, on the biggest stage in track and field.

The Dogs

So I did yell a little – just like I would from the sidelines of a vault competition.  I yelled “GET IT” as he slid over the bar.  And I found myself surrounded by three barking dogs, one in full “wolf howl” mode, shocked to action by my cry.  So while Mondo celebrated on the track, I tried to calm everyone down, before three over-excited dogs turned into a dog-melee.  

They finally chilled, distracted by the promise of dinner coming soon.  And Mondo, Sam, and the Greek kid celebrated their medals together, posing with their national flags around the track.  Sweden won, the USA second, and Greece third.  But what I saw was one of the reasons I got involved in pole vault in the first place.  Three vaulters taking joy in their shared success in an event that can sometimes give joy, but can just as often cruelly end up in failure.  It was a great competition – and there were no dog fights either!!

The Sunday Story Series

Distracted

Interesting Times

Bobby Kennedy (the Senator, not the current, wacky, candidate) used to quote an old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”  As he said; “Like it or not, we live in interesting times”.  That’s for sure.  We have a former President running for election after his defeat of four years before (a loss that this week he denied multiple times).  We have a present President who determined not to run for a second term.  (Probably the right thing to do for the oldest serving President in history).  And we have a Vice President running in his place, who when elected, will be the first woman, the second Black person, and first American of South Asian descent to lead the Nation.

This week President Biden executed an impressive prisoner exchange with Russia.  While everyone is busy running for President, he’s still running the country.  He even “stayed up late” to greet the returning Americans at the airport, making sure they knew how important their homecoming was to our Nation.

We are on the verge of an all-out war in the Middle East.  I guess it’s “better” that Israeli intelligence managed to plant a bomb in the apartment of a Hamas leader in Tehran, the capital of Iran.  “Better” than firing a missile at him from outside the country, which they did do against a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon.  A secret bomb is “less” provocation to Iran, I suppose.  We have to wonder, what did Biden know before the attacks, and maybe just as important, what did Trump know.  Before Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu raced back to Israel after a dozen children were killed by a Hezbollah missile, the last person he talked to was the ex-President in Mara Lago.

Veep

And the Democratic candidate for President is also on the verge of picking her Vice Presidential candidate.  Will it be the Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro?  He the popular leader of a state absolutely critical for a Democratic victory in November.  But he’s also a Conservative Jewish man (religious conservative, not political), with a clear pro-Israel stance.  Does choosing him in Pennsylvania mean losing the Islamic vote in Michigan, also a critical Democratic state, part of the “Blue Wall” that failed Hillary Clinton and gave us Trump in the first place?

Or does she pick Pete Buttigieg, the 2020 Presidential candidate and current Secretary of Transportation?  He’s shown his governing ability, with the Baltimore Harbor cleanup, the Philadelphia I-95 bridge collapse, and holding the airlines accountable for customer failures.  But he’s from Indiana, a state that will never vote for Harris.  He hasn’t been in his new home state of Michigan long enough to make a difference there.  And, by the way, he’s gay.  Is America ready to elect a gay man, married with two kids, to the Vice Presidency, along with the first woman, Black and South Asian, as President:  a First and Second Gentleman along with Madam President?  Does it make a difference?

Rather Be in Philadelphia

And what about the Senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly.  He’s a “rookie” Senator, only on his first term.  But he’s won statewide election in Arizona (another critical state) twice.  He’s strong on gun control issues; married to former Congressman Gabby Gifford, who lives with the damage of an assassination attempt.  And he’s career Navy, a fighter pilot who joined the Astronaut Corps and piloted four Space Shuttle missions.  But Kelly is critical of the current border policies, a “conservative” on that issue.  That would help Harris with the “Never-Trump” Republicans, but might hurt her with her further “left” base.

Harris promised we’ll know on Tuesday, and will have her new running mate at her side at a rally in Philadelphia (whoever it is, all her roads to the Presidency run through Pennsylvania). The possible “Veeps” are saying what WC Fields liked to say, “Frankly my dear, I’d rather be in Philadelphia”.   

Paris

While politics are non-stop, twenty-four seven this time of year, there is another huge distraction.  The Olympic Summer Games (not the Summer Olympics anymore) are also on, virtually twenty-four seven.  The gymnastic competitions, women and men, were compelling.  

There’s all the sports I don’t usually see, rowing and canoeing and badminton and archery.  And, of course, track and field started this week.  I found myself awake at 4:45 am on Saturday, watching a split screen of the two runway of men’s pole vault qualifying. (Just a note:  I can’t watch pole vault laying sideways in bed.  Two vaulters going at once, sideways, is just too much for my brain to analyze.  I had to sit up to keep from getting confused).  

Shot Put

And then there’s the controversy of the men’s shot put.  After the first three throws (of six) the rain began.  They continued  competition on a slick, wet throwing ring.  The officials pushed forward, forcing the throwers to deal with the slippery concrete.  The throwers complained; slipped, fell, skidded out of the circle:  but the competition went on.  As a coach, I kept thinking – don’t you have grippier shoes?  As an official, I felt bad.  It’s the Olympics; the time schedule trumps almost everything but lightning.  But the officials looked bad as an amazing competition deteriorated into a shot-put follies contest of giant sliding bodies.

Two-time American Gold Medalist Ryan Crouser defended his position. His first throw was good enough to win the Gold for his third Olympics (his winning “put” was over seventy-five feet).  The drama was with the second best shot-putter of all-time, Joe Kovacs from right here in Columbus, Ohio.  He is great – but overshadowed (literally) by Crouser.  His first couple throws were too tight, not good enough to get him in the medals.  Then the rain came, and Kovacs, like the rest of the field, struggled.  But the “dry” throws count as much as the wet:  Kovacs had one throw left, wet ring and all, to get another Olympic medal.  

On his last throw Joe pulled it together on the slick ring in the rain – throwing seventy-two feet, eight inches to tie, for second.  He got the Silver Medal on the tiebreaker.

Camp Night

So, instead of twenty-four seven news and commentary, last week was twenty-four seven Olympics.  This week will be too, except for tonight.  Tonight I get to be “the ghost of coaches past” at the Watkins Cross Country Team camp, one of my favorite talks of the year.  I get to share cross country stories and traditions from the last half-century (forty-six years to be exact), and let the current runners know they are part of a long tradition.  It was twenty-eight years ago that we first went to Camp, sleeping in the same bunkhouse and meeting in the same dining hall.  The kids may be different, but the team is much the same.   So’s the food – hopefully it’s taco night!!

We will all go down “memory lane”.  I hope they enjoy it, learn from the mistakes of the past, and catch the point – Watkins Cross Country is a family that’s gone on for decades, and they are part of something larger than themselves.  We compete: for our teammates, our extended family back generations, and for the “Black and Gold” of Watkins; as well as for ourselves.  

And, like Joe Kovacs, we compete best in the worst weather – “Watkins weather”.  That’s our tradition.  I hope they use my “stories” to make the 2024 team better.  Have I told you the one about the race across “Lake Watkins”…