{"id":35243,"date":"2024-07-23T08:22:36","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T15:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35243"},"modified":"2024-07-23T15:29:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T22:29:26","slug":"surprise-after-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=35243","title":{"rendered":"Surprise after Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"021-000-00232-1\"<\/a>After the Biden\/Trump debate I said this<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The contrast between the two men was stark: Biden pale, stumbling over words, hoarse and sometimes mumbling; Trump loud, nasty, vicious \u2026 and apparently vigorous. Never mind the contrast was stark in another way: Biden on point, addressing the questions, honest and forthright, in command of details, backed up by an impressive first-term record; Trump spewing lies and worse, refusing to answer questions, demonstrating a lack of understanding of diplomacy, tariffs, NATO, and every goddamn thing else. One man, even though he started biting back after the first few attacks, appeared weaker than the other, and is that what voters\u2019 lizard brains will focus on come election time?<\/em><\/p>\n

It certainly seems to be what the media\u2019s focusing on \u2026 in fact I\u2019d say the media, from the New York Times and Washington Post right down to \u201cliberal\u201d MSNBC, is rooting for Trump. For sure CNN, and in particular CNN\u2019s debate moderators, who never fact checked or pushed back on a single Trump lie.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah \u2026 Biden should have been a place-holder, an intentional one-termer, and the Democratic Party should have been busy these last three and a half years grooming Kamala Harris or another young, strong candidate to run in 2024: a Pete Buttigieg, a Mark Kelly, a Gavin Newsom. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It\u2019s too late now, and all this media talk about Biden dropping out might as well be promises about how great it\u2019ll be when Trump gets back in and starts wiping his ass with the Constitution again, because that\u2019s what\u2019ll happen if Biden does drop out.<\/em><\/p>\n

So yeah, I\u2019m voting for the old(er) guy. I\u2019m not crazy. To paraphrase David Sedaris<\/a><\/strong>, when the flight attendant asks if I\u2019d prefer the chicken or the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it, I ain\u2019t asking how the chicken\u2019s cooked.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, this weekend, the earth shifted<\/a><\/strong>. Suddenly everything looks different.<\/p>\n

To be fair, I was in a despairing mood when I wrote about the debate, and that was before<\/em> some asshole took a shot at Trump and gave him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pose heroically with blood on his face, fist in the air (even if it was staged somehow). The debate and Trump’s ear were a one-two punch to Biden, and then he got Covid and was filmed slowly and hesitantly climbing into Air Force One like the old man he is, and meanwhile the media and most of the pundits and Democratic Party leadership decided he had to step down … and then he did, and threw his support behind Harris, and suddenly everyone’s united and on board, which I thought would never happen.<\/p>\n

I’m not just happy I was wrong. I’m delighted I was. And here’s me smiling to prove it!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0658\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In that earlier post, I mentioned Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Over the past couple of days their names have been bandied about as potential vice presidential candidates to run with Harris. Conventional wisdom has it Harris needs a white man as a running mate to offset the impact her ethnic femaleness might have on voters. Even though Americans elected Barack Obama president two times in a row and then gave Hillary Clinton a three-million-vote margin over Trump, Republican appeals to racism, resentment, and revenge are always popular with voters, and who knows what dirty tricks Trump\u2019s minions are already plotting? So the CW? Probably right.<\/p>\n

It’s going to be a race between optimism and hate, and in spite of ample evidence to the contrary I think there’s more good in us than bad. Kamala can and will win. Thank you, Joe, for doing the right thing. Go, Kamala!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s going to be a race between optimism and hate, and in spite of ample evidence to the contrary I think there’s more good in us than bad. Kamala can and will win. Thank you, Joe, for doing the right thing. Go, Kamala!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,8],"tags":[4600,4599],"class_list":["post-35243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-personal","category-politics","tag-dotherightthing","tag-kamala"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35243"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35252,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35243\/revisions\/35252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}