The *ugh* 2024 US Election Thread

[Dr. Medulla]

https://newrepublic.com/post/186444/con ... trump-team

Fainting couch over here, stat!

I can't stop grinding my teeth. I'm so tired of doing this every four years.

I don't think I've ever felt like this during election season, but I'm actually getting anxiety dwelling on this years race.

My anxiety is worse this time, but I definitely got it a lot during the two bush elections.

That 2000 election was bizarre in that the media's narrative was that the two candidates were basically the same except that Gore was an insufferable know-it-all while Bush would be a fun guy to hang out with. Focus groups persuaded Gore's campaign team that nobody cares about the environment, so he should talk about it, even tho it was one topic where he came off as genuinely passionate. And then Gore could have won if he hadn't purposefully frozen out Clinton and instead let him campaign for him. For all the talk about butterfly ballots and the Supreme Court, Gore made choices that made it decisively close.

[Dr. Medulla]

https://archive.ph/bJT3y

America loves folksy old white guys!

[Kimmelweck]

"Senator Vance, what's your position on couch-fucking? You have 2 minutes..."

"Well Margaret, first of all, Kamala Harris left that couch by the curb..."

[Mimi]

"Senator Vance, what's your position on couch-fucking? You have 2 minutes..."

"Well Margaret, first of all, Kamala Harris left that couch by the curb..."

I'm only casually watching and so far Vance has blamed her for everything.

[gkbill]

"Senator Vance, what's your position on couch-fucking? You have 2 minutes..."

Missionary.

[Kimmelweck]

Walz did exactly what he needed to do in this debate. I've read that debating isn't his strength, but the Coach didn't drop the ball tonight, and he clearly got more comfortable as the night went on. Good job Tim. He did nothing to hurt the Harris campaign, and I think he strengthened it. I'm proud of him, and I could see Tim Walz as President eventually.

[revbob]

[Kimmelweck]

"Senator Vance, what's your position on couch-fucking? You have 2 minutes..."

Missionary.

Nope. Reverse couchgirl.

[gkbill]

"Senator Vance, what's your position on couch-fucking? You have 2 minutes..."

Missionary.

Nope. Reverse couchgirl.

Hello,

We want photos - cue TMZ or his college newspaper.

[Flex]

https://archive.ph/bJT3y

America loves folksy old white guys!

I'm going to use this to pivot to something I heard the other day, which is related, and it was discussion of Harris' favorability vs Trump's. Basically, Trump has a 43% solid favorability that can tick up a little but seems to represent his solid base. But he needs 47-48% of the electorate to vote for hint to win, so he needs to pick up a pretty decent voteshare of people who hate him. Which happens, but that's still a pretty good chunk of people to rely on to win. Harris, conversely could win now if she could convert all the people who view her favorably to vote for her. That won't happen - people vote for candidates they like and don't like personally for plenty of reasons, some good and some bad - but unlike Trump that can be a relatively small portion of her overall coalition. I think, but don't know, that her campaign team figured out pretty quick that this was going to be an electoral area of weakness for Trump that could potentially be exploited. The Walz pick was genius because it shored up the base but I think Harris and her team had a good sense that he was going to be a broadly popular figure who would enhance the ticket likeability and help make them more attractive to those unconverted Trump haters (or, let some reluctant trump voter-trump hater folks stay home, that works too).

Her whole campaign is about targeting key micro demographics. Reaching out to different latino population centers in swing states with different spokespeople and messaging, doing just enough to try to peel off a few R-leaning Trump haters, massively segmented social media outreach. The main mainstream criticism of her - that she doesn't do omni-culture interviews and television events - is a result of the fact that this campaign is running in the opposite direction. Will it work? We'll see. But I think it's the smart play. We've had ten years of Trump. The worst has happened. He's been normalized. America as a whole isn't having a come to jesus moment about his awfulness. It's about picking up the needed margins as strategically as possible and not wasting resources fueling national-level fights that will only backfire.

[Flex]

Walz did exactly what he needed to do in this debate. I've read that debating isn't his strength, but the Coach didn't drop the ball tonight, and he clearly got more comfortable as the night went on. Good job Tim. He did nothing to hurt the Harris campaign, and I think he strengthened it. I'm proud of him, and I could see Tim Walz as President eventually.

Yeah, he had a couple weak moments (why he can't seem to serve up a crisp answer to the stupid tienamen square stuff is beyond me) but he also landed the best blow of the night with the January 6th stuff at the end. Word is the Harris campaign is already cutting that up for an ad. He let Vance slip his mask a couple times by talking over and mansplaining to the mods which I'm sure the Harris meme team will like. Didn't say anything damaging to the campaign (or stroke out or something). He knew his job and executed.

The bar for Vance was "come off like a human being, even an evil one" and he did meet that low bar so overall it was probably a tie. Whatever. These things don't move needles, I actually thought it was interesting both sides decided to play it civil. Made for a fairly substantive evening (even if the substance coming from Vance was all lies and hate) that I think both sides realized would be better served by not going for any knockout blows.

[Dr. Medulla]

I can't imagine this encounter moving the needle in one direction or another. Probably the most notable VP debate was in '88, when Bentsen pulled down Quayle's pants on air, and Bush still won in a romp. People will have seen what they wanted to see in this and the direction of the campaign continues as it was going.

[Spiff]

I was disappointed by Walz's performance in the 15 minutes I watched before I turned to the long-suffering Mrs. Spiff and said "This is boring" and went upstairs to soak in a hot bathtub and watch cat videos.

Now, as I am a political junkie of the 1st degree, for me to find the debate boring surprised me a lot.

But I was put off right away by Walz's "answer" to the first question, which he dodged by nervously spitting out a half dozen unrelated talking points. (*See my comment below for more on this point.)

My instant take on that was that his debate prep consisted of trying to turn him into something he is not -- trying to make him spew out as many Democratic talking points as possible.

My heart sank, and I cursed his handlers/prep coaches and their strategy that sucked the life out of him.

He was definitely not himself ... and they should have just let him be himself!

The genius of picking Walz was that he could speak directly, from the heart, about stuff average people care about.

If only he had started every answer with "Look, the real issue here is ___________" and then go on to promote the common-sense answers to a host of problems facing our country and that resonate with common people.

Example, on immigration:

Look, while an "open border" is a real issue, it's one that is being fixed as we speak. Both Trump and President Biden have taken concrete steps to slow down the number of illegal immigrants. And it's working. But the idea of a wall that you guys propose is not working and never will work. Build a 20 foot wall, and put another 10 feet underground? Have you guys not heard of ropes, ladders, and tunnels? A huge waste of taxpayer money.

No, the real issue is what to do with these undocumented workers who are already here. Your answer of mass deportations is a horrible plan that will tear families apart, and it would devastate our economy because these workers are not stealing jobs, they are doing the jobs that the rest of us won't do.

Our plan is more humane, because ... etc.

* Anyway, That first question about an Israeli preemptive strike was a bombshell (ha!), and was a shitty thing for CBS to do. But anyway, I was pissed at Walz's answer, but then I tested myself to see if I could come up with something better, and I did:

Talk about how the answer depends on a lot of factors, such as how precise the strike would be, how many civilians would it kill, what would happen after the strike, etc.

Say that under the right conditions, any country at war has the right to make a preemptive strike, after all the U.S. did it in Iraq, although that is still very controversial. Then wrap it up by saying that this hypothetical cannot be definitely answered without more details.

And THEN, use the remaining 60 seconds to redirect to some Dem talking points, just better ones that Walz picked.

tl;dr: Walz didn't lose this debate; I mean, he held his ground just fine, but there were so many missed opportunities!

[Dr. Medulla]

https://archive.ph/fJ5YR

It's hard to evaluate these things because what political junkies and/or pundits look for isn't what the average voter does. It's why the "Harris doesn't talk enough about policy!" is a bit tone deaf, as if voters have downloaded the platforms, made notes with questions they want answered, and that's going to determine their vote. Rightly or wrongly, most people are imagining whether this person is up for the job and whether they'd like that person in the job (not unlike a job interview, frankly). It's about making connections. Reagan was someone who demonstrated that you could be popular and succeed if you connected on a personal level, even if people disagreed with your policies.

[revbob]

I saw a clip where Vance complained that "I thought we weren't gonna fact check".