Mark Kelly is great in that he is a former astronaut (intelligent man) and the husband of Gabby Giffords (which may play well for the gun control advocacy). He also has a body double --- his twin brother, Scott. 😂
The only practical downside I see is that Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, will need to choose a replacement for Kelly in the event he is chosen as VP nominee. There is no guarantee that the replacement will be able to win the next election on his/her own after finishing Kelly's term.
With the Democratic majority in the Senate in the precarious situation, with Bob Menendez resigning, I am not so sure that choosing Kelly is a risk the Democratic leadership and Harris would be willing to take.
Other than that, I would not mind seeing Mark Kelly as VP. ❤️
This was my exact question! As Simon posted in March, "My working premise is that there are at least four groups we should be looking at to expand our coalition in the short term – under 45-year-old voters, Hispanics, Never-MAGA Republicans and those whose political views have or can be changed due to Republican extremism on abortion (not just women but men who run from the GOP due to this too)."
Simon-On tonight's call, can you please address how Vice President Kamala at the Harris at the top of the ticket will help achieve this goal? What can we all do to make "Get to 55" a reality?
Carl, I am taking this post down as it sounds like your are telling us and the VP what she must do rather than making a suggestion about a path she can take. The tone of this was insulting and offputting. If you want to repost this as a recommendation as opposed to a demand feel free to do so.
It is my usual problem of putting things in a palatable way. You know me. Well intentioned but off putting. I am trying to improve. You have been instrumental in helping me in this regard. Much work yet to do. Please don’t hesitate to enlighten me. I know I need help.
United we are! I yearn for a compelling plan of action for the Harris Administration. The 100-Day Plan will be the most meaningful.
I hope we can be organized and clear. I learned over decades in IT and business development that the best way do that is a presentation by limiting the priorities (or thrusts) to 4-6. Studies have shown a group of evaluators cannot repeat 8 things; hence, a deluge is a big waste of time.
What would I suggest? First, I was most successful in organizing around a consensus of only 4 to 6 prioritiesI I used Tony Buzan’s mind mapping technique to reach group consensus on these 4 to 6 priorities. (More than 5 and you have no priority. So said Robert Kaplan from Harvard. I cheated.) All sub actions need to fall into one of the priorities or categories. But those need to also be limited.
The Republican platform was a hodgepodge of 20 promises followed by 63 actions under 10 categories. Most of it was feel-good and disorganized statements: restore American beauty, etc. No one could follow that much BS. I am fearful that the good advice from Kaplan will be lost in the shuffle.
Our weekly postcarding sign-ups blew up after the announcement! We were kicking out at least 1000 a week to swing states. We'll almost double that in the coming weeks!
Gathering with some women in my neighborhood (none of whom have been politically active before) to start working on the 500 postcards I have to send to voters in NC.
FT6 textbanking did tens of thousands of texts into NC. Trump won the state by 1.3% in 2020. There is a huge veteran, military population that can be flipped using the "not suckers or losers" meme. Thousands of potential N Carolina voters are living in foreign countries, many attached to the military or other US employers. Need to partner with Democrats Abroad and Vote Vets. to enlist them
All of us risk entering modern dark ages. Many of us could lose our civil rights. The right to vote. Some of us could face physical; harm. Millions of unregistered folk trend heavily Democratic. FT6 has a database containing 9 million unregistered likely Democrats in swing states. FT6 uses every outreach method there is: email, text, phone, geofencing, direct mail, targeted ads, social media storms, postcards, and live voter drives. Register Democrats -- save the world.
in North Carolina there should be a concerted effort to register the Native American population, especially the Cherokee nation, has anybody got a fundraising PAC for this group specifically?
Anecdotal, but I've been flying around for work... the attitudes I've see in the airports and at events in the past two days are a complete 180 from the attitudes before. People were already wearing Kamala gear YESTERDAY in the airport. In the row next to me, there were folks who were talking about how excited they were.
I'm chairing an event for general counsel and chief compliance officers today and everyone seems to be much happier (and there's a number of attendees in full white "suffragette" outfits), even though this isn't a political event. Even the organizers (a UK company) were talking with me about how this is "just like that Simpsons episode!"
yeah. same with friends. energy was like a tsunami. i had no idea that energy was even there waiting to be harnessed. I was fully on the "please don't go joe" train and now I'm thinking he made the right call.
Ditto on that. I attended the Unity Dinner in North Carolina on Saturday evening. I can tell you that Democrats were a bit nervous and anxious but also energized about moving forward. We all just were waiting for that catalyst. Now that it’s happened, the flood gates of enthusiasm have been opened!
I told a friend that the talking heads have seriously underestimated how deeply the 2016 loss still resonates and how clearly the Dobbs decision has energized us. Join in the wave or get out of the way because it's coming.
It’s been huge- there were over 44k Black women on an organizing call set up by the AKAs, then over 30k Black men on an organizing call set featuring Roland Martin, and then white women were on an organizing call to learn how to build community and strategize talking points for other white women. Just a huge, organic swell of grassroots organizing happening the last two nights!
The AKAs and Divine 9 sorors are organizing like they’ve never organized before and the Black vote is going to be huge. We white women and men need to show up with equal energy and fire!
As a numbers geek, I am waiting for the new polling and other data to come out to see what this massive change entails.
After watching the VPs comments yesterday, I think MAGA is going to have a hard time responding to her, and I would guess they will lean fully into coded racism/misogyny as their only response. I loved the part of her speech where she directly called out Trump as a rapist, a fraud and a felon.
She not only called out T, she laughed, smiled, was at moments joyous (when was the last time a candidate expressed joy?) at other moments talked about a bountiful future for our country! I love Old Joe, and I think Harris learned much from him. I'm amazed, grateful and optimistic.
Madame Vice President is a Happy Warrior- she’s fierce yet joyful. Trump is going to find it really hard to respond to her, which is why he’s still attacking Biden.
As Simon warns us: "…we need to be very careful about early polling…"
As we wait for numbers, let us also remember that there is a host of "pollsters" who are NOT interested in measuring actual public sentiment and voter preferences. Rather, they have found a cost-effective way to *influence* the public narrative.
You might say this parallels "news media" such as Fox, Sinclair Broadcast, Newsmax and OANN; these have no interest in Truth or objectivity. Instead, they weave a narrative of "alternative facts" that serve as propaganda and – more dangerously – create a news bubble that insulate their audiences from Truth.
There is a reason the time in which we live is called the Post-Factual Era.
And this creates a monumental challenge for political campaigns. The only way to cut through this is through huge joint effort. That is how, by "Doing more and worrying less", we create the Pink Tsunami and Blue Wave in November that preserves American democracy. That is how we ensure President Kamala Harris and a Democratic-controlled Senate and House can continue to build on the great achievements of President Joe Robinette Biden!
Correct on all points. I tend to watch the 538 Polling Average and the 538 Election Model, but with all the caveats that it is just data, not the objective truth or a prediction. But even with all of that, my own mental health would take a massive boost if everything ended up showing Trump being a loser in the data and on election day....like the image of him watching an impending blue wave that he can't escape makes me happy :D
I respect 538, as opposed to the blind averages at RealClearPolitics and others.
As far as I can tell, 538 makes a sincere effort to weigh their polling average in favor of high-quality polls from reliable pollsters, and compensating for the known in-house bias of slanted pollsters.
5 Senate holdouts now, one is Joe Manchin (will never happen), and another is Bob Menendez, convicted felon whose endorsement she definitely doesn’t want. So really it’s 3 holdouts. I guess Jon Tester has some internal polling reason not to endorse her, I trust him to know how to thread the needle of running a Dem campaign in Montana.
Five senators, whereof three are actually Independent, is far too few to matter. (Although Angus King might come around.) And there are only 19 representatives that have yet to endorse her; that includes Jared Golden, perhaps the most conservative Congressman in the country. Golden might well conclude that withholding endorsement helps him win his very Red congressional district in Maine.
Frankly, I am joyously surprised to see how many endorsed Kamala Harris – and how quickly they did so.
I will admit when I first heard the news I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. I had this feeling of dread form (I've always been cool with Harris & ready to support her). However the more I thought about it, the more I realized Biden absolutely did the right thing. Prior to that I was stuck with the "precedent" crowd - that is I was convinced it was a horrible idea for any kind of shake up at this point. People kept referring to the turmoil of '68. I think Adlai Stevenson & Walter Mondale also both technically had brokered conventions (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). However then I realized the amount of "precedent"/tradition that has been tossed aside the last 8 years and figured "what the hell - can it hurt ?!" It's very clear it hasn't ! Already donating to Harris and am overjoyed how many of us are on the same page ! Let's do this !
The big difference between this year already and past years with open conventions is that there’s already a presumptive nominee who has tremendous support behind her, and already has enough delegates to cleanly secure the nomination just *two days* after the switch was announced. So far the only confirmed (I think?) name throwing their hat into the ring to contest Harris is Marianne Williamson, who if you aren’t familiar is at least as much of a wingnut as RFK Jr., but has even less support (she also ran against Biden in the primaries, and iirc won exactly zero delegates), and quite frankly there’s no way this white woman nobody who has in the past talked on social media about how we needed to use the “power of positive thought” (or something like that) to stop covid is going to offer any real contest to Harris. Doubly true with Joe Manchin if he actually makes good on his threat of re-registering as a democrat just to try to wreck the convention (no actual democrats like him).
I feel there's nothing to worry about from either Marianne Williamson or Joe Manchin. All they will do is embarrass themselves if they try. If they wait a week or two to see if their chances are any better, they will be met with even higher numbers for Harris in both support and $$. If either of them buys any ad time, it will be a good break to make a cup of coffee/tea or get a glass of wine/beer!!
This race went from one of despair to hope in the span of one afternoon. I’m hopeful that we will look back on that Sunday as a turning point in our nation’s politics.
We will retake the house, keep the senate, and keep the White House. With the blue trifecta, we can revitalize our government and pass legislation that helps the American people, safeguards our democracy, and allows us to retain our global leadership in the fight against autocracy.
I’ve ordered more postcards and will be signing up for my first phone bank and am recruiting my friends and family to join me.
We have a lot to do before November, but watching the Democratic coalition, and this community specifically, rally gives me lots of hope.
Thank you to Simon and everyone here for helping me and many others like me get engaged in our system and for making a difference in the fight for a better America.
Yes! And I sincerely hope Democrats and organizers can find a way to prevent Gaza protesters from taking up oxygen or stealing the media limelight. That matters!
I think the Gaza hard liners are going to have a much harder time with Harris than they did with Biden, because as VP, Harris is at least somewhat distanced.
I don’t take the “Gaza Gaza Hey” people seriously anyway; all surveys show that even with young people, foreign policy in general and Gaza in particular is not nearly as important as the economy, jobs, and climate. I surmise that a lot of the Gaza hardliners are malcontents who don’t vote (because it only encourages them) or vote for the most obscure third party candidate anyway.
I also hope that protesters, and people such as Rep. Tlaib, have the good sense to simply stay away when PM Netanyahu gives his speech to Congress – what is sure to be a campaign speech for his pal in Florida, Donald Mar-a-Lago.
- passing legislation that codifies reproductive rights into federal law
- getting something akin to the “Green New Deal” through, or at the very least more aggressive climate reforms than we have now (previously coal baron DINO Joe Manchin was there in the senate to shut anything like this down, and more is really needed in order to assure that carbon emissions peak before the end of the decade)
- passing legislation to codify marriage equality into federal law as well (who knows when this supreme court will go after it)
- doing something about student loans that SCOTUS can’t just upend
- really, do something about the SCOTUS itself (I don’t know if the best option would be just to try to impeach Thomas and Alito for their flagrant support for fascist insurrection and blatant corruption—although I have no idea how impeaching supreme court justices even works—or if the democrats should finally just push for more radical court expansion and reform, like maybe adding more justices to politically balance it, and then passing some sort of law saying that from now on, the court needs to always have equal representation from both political parties, so if new justices need to be appointed by a sitting president, and there are already too many from said president’s party, they will be required to appoint someone from the other party. Clearly just trusting justices to be politically neutral has not been enough)
- passing the Equality Act (or something equivalent) to federally enshrine rights for the entire LGBTQ community in law, and end the legislative attacks upon trans people in particular in red states
- passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act (or something equivalent) to end attacks upon democracy in red states
- a new infrastructural renewal plan
- more immigration reform (to create easier paths to citizenship)
- statehood for Puerto Rico and DC (if they still want it)
- hopefully reforming the way the senate filibuster works (if the minority party wants to filibuster anything, they should have to do it the hard way, rather than being able to just easily obstruct everything all the time)
and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting right now, but basically a lot of the stuff that should’ve happened in 2021, but didn’t because the democrats had a senate majority in name only (with Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema obstructing anything the slightest bit progressive). Basically, we need a direct inverse to Project 2025 to happen.
I like the idea of expanding the Court to 13 (since we have 13 federal circuits) and then using a lottery system to randomly assign 9 to hear a case. Also term limits, a code of ethics, and a removal process for violations of those ethics rules.
I think it would be useful to contact major newspapers (I suggest the NYT) and demand they now focus their political reporting exclusively on policy and governing philosophy of the two parties so readers can see the fascist and democratic options side by side. They need to understand and report on the existential threat a 2nd Trump term will be for all of us. There is no time left for the breathless gossipy articles they are no doubt planning on the Harris campaign ramp up. It's time for them to do their job and we need to tell them this.
Yes! And also: articles that compare what Democrats do in states where they gain a trifecta with what Republicans do in their trifecta-controlled states.
Good luck getting the Moscow Time…*ahem*…I mean *New York Times* to listen, it’s pretty clear some higher-up(s) there has a political agenda, and has for a while now (tbh one of the good things to come out of this whole debacle with Biden imo has been a lot of other people finally seeing in the NYT what I have for years, that they are *not* actually friendly to left-leaning politics here in the US, and if anything actually have something of a right-leaning slant. They’ve been terrible about attacking Biden this entire election cycle, and now it seems are already coming for Harris as well, with op-eds calling making her the presumptive nominee a “mistake” and continually trying to encourage destructive open convention chaos because it would be “entertaining”, because apparently politics really is just a game to these people).
Does anyone know if reoccurring donations to the Biden campaign on Actblue transfer to Harris. I suspect the will but I would hate for my reoccurring donation to skip through inaction.
I looked at my actblue account for details and it looks like the old Joe Biden donation is now going to the Harris Victory Fund, still marked as monthly. It is marked as the joint committee.
It is different to the Kamala Harris presidential candidate fund. I am not totally sure on the details of difference but presumably the Victory fund is designated for the general and to be split to state committees. Actblue is not the clearest in what each means.
ActBlue needs to make this crystal clear - if it's an ongoing donation to Joe Biden, I don't see how they can just switch it to anyone else without an agreement or directive from the payor. Doesn't seem legal to me. Whereas a payment to Biden/Harris does - it would (probably, maybe) be like a joint account and payable to both or either. Just my opinion, mind you!
I think literally everything fund raising-wise transfers over. Harris for President functionally *is* the Biden-Harris campaign structurally, just re-branded.
Those pre Biden leaving the race Civiqs cross tabs of Trump vs Harris with young, independent and black voters is extremely encouraging. She picks up quite a few votes in those areas. Hope swing state (Pa, Wisc, Mi, NV, Ga, Az, NC ) polling is similar. Good read. Seems hope is on the come back.
Looking at the numbers, Trump’s stay the same, ours bounce back up to where they should be. That, along with the anecdotal reports, suggests Kamala brings enthusiasm on our side way up. Trump’s support appears to be stuck. So I think the race probably remains where it was, close, but now we have enthusiasm on our side—which should definitely help drive volunteering and turnout, and that, in turn, will affect the outcome, if not the polls. We can do it!
This is why figured the panic over Trump’s ceiling supposedly rising was based on an illusion, there’s no way a significant number of people are just going to suddenly start breaking for Trump at this point in the race, his campaign has done literally nothing to try to woo anyone who isn’t a MAGA radical, in fact they’ve continued to do things to *alienate* non-MAGA voters (like picking JD Vance as running mate, or Trump’s insane fascist rant at the convention). It just wouldn’t make sense for them to be suddenly gaining new voters, whereas it did make sense for Biden to be losing voters prior to bowing out.
Donated, writing my 200 postcards to Swing State voters, first of three phonebanking shifts this week starts tonight. Every friend sending me a meme about Kamala getting in, I'm responding with a volunteer link. It's gotten at least one friend to sign up for a shift today! LFG, leave it all on the field. We can win this.
Lawrence O’Donnell was so great last night, opening with a tribute to Joe Biden that segued into where the Harris campaign is now. Really made me feel good and confident. I know Kamala Harris will face some headwinds in the campaign but I’m amazed at the excitement she’s generating. Really great all around.
I am taking the liberty to repost this, a link to a video where eminent historian Heather Cox Richardson analyzes Sunday’s dramatic developments. This is uplifting – pure Hopium!
Heather believes President Biden’s timing was pure genius! It left the Republican Party and their ticket stranded high and dry. All their attack points are suddenly irrelevant. In fact, their claims that Joe is "old, weak and unfit" have now boomeranged against Donald Trump – the oldest American presidential candidate ever!
Just in general, there aren’t many substantive attacks they really have against Harris, like there are a couple controversial things in her past they can *maybe* bring up, but they’re not exactly major scandals, and I doubt will draw much attention from most people.
All that really leaves is blatant racism and/or sexism, which I’m certainly sure Trump’s campaign isn’t above, but it wouldn’t exactly help them in this race, given that Trump would need a whole lot of POC and women to vote for him in order to win, and most reliable data suggests that he still mostly struggles with those communities (unsurprisingly, his campaign’s bullshit about how being a convicted felon supposedly helped him with black men is just insultingly racist, and obviously untrue).
I suspect they’ll try to attack her for old policy positions and statements she made when she was a candidate back in 2020, for instance on the Green New Deal. They will also try to attack her for "but the border" etc etc. In short: desperate attempts.
All this momentum suggests great energy and enthusiasm by the base. This makes me hope the Harris campaign is focused on broadening the appeal, which I think she did yesterday with her Delaware speech. There is little need to ignite the base. It’s already lit. Focus on speaking to the Obama, Trump 16, Biden 20 voters outside of Philly, Detroit and Milwaukee plus Phoenix. Get the Blue wall nailed down first and foremost.
Looks like she listened to you and went to Milwaukee!!!! The thing that totally blows my mind is how flat-footed the GOP is today. It's as if they only had one strategy around going after Joe Biden. It's as if they did not take any of the past five weeks of "step aside" talk seriously at all. I know that they will adjust, but right now they really look old, slow and fighting last year's battle.
Mark Kelly is great in that he is a former astronaut (intelligent man) and the husband of Gabby Giffords (which may play well for the gun control advocacy). He also has a body double --- his twin brother, Scott. 😂
The only practical downside I see is that Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, will need to choose a replacement for Kelly in the event he is chosen as VP nominee. There is no guarantee that the replacement will be able to win the next election on his/her own after finishing Kelly's term.
With the Democratic majority in the Senate in the precarious situation, with Bob Menendez resigning, I am not so sure that choosing Kelly is a risk the Democratic leadership and Harris would be willing to take.
Other than that, I would not mind seeing Mark Kelly as VP. ❤️
Vote for Kamala. Vote Blue. 😊
This was my exact question! As Simon posted in March, "My working premise is that there are at least four groups we should be looking at to expand our coalition in the short term – under 45-year-old voters, Hispanics, Never-MAGA Republicans and those whose political views have or can be changed due to Republican extremism on abortion (not just women but men who run from the GOP due to this too)."
Simon-On tonight's call, can you please address how Vice President Kamala at the Harris at the top of the ticket will help achieve this goal? What can we all do to make "Get to 55" a reality?
Please explain what the get to 55 challenge is, for those of us who weren't on Hopium until recently.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/memo-get-to-55-expanding-our-coalition?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Thanks, Maggie!
If you saw her speech yesterday to staff she was very clear.
Thank you. The platform was my drift. It has to be written and published.
Carl, I am taking this post down as it sounds like your are telling us and the VP what she must do rather than making a suggestion about a path she can take. The tone of this was insulting and offputting. If you want to repost this as a recommendation as opposed to a demand feel free to do so.
It is my usual problem of putting things in a palatable way. You know me. Well intentioned but off putting. I am trying to improve. You have been instrumental in helping me in this regard. Much work yet to do. Please don’t hesitate to enlighten me. I know I need help.
a suggestion: IMO adding 'I think' or imo or the like, will improve your tone. trying to be helpful here
Thank you. Great idea. Much appreciated. I have a naturally caustic tone. Good for removing grease stains.
nice!! truly, will make all the difference imo
United we are! I yearn for a compelling plan of action for the Harris Administration. The 100-Day Plan will be the most meaningful.
I hope we can be organized and clear. I learned over decades in IT and business development that the best way do that is a presentation by limiting the priorities (or thrusts) to 4-6. Studies have shown a group of evaluators cannot repeat 8 things; hence, a deluge is a big waste of time.
What would I suggest? First, I was most successful in organizing around a consensus of only 4 to 6 prioritiesI I used Tony Buzan’s mind mapping technique to reach group consensus on these 4 to 6 priorities. (More than 5 and you have no priority. So said Robert Kaplan from Harvard. I cheated.) All sub actions need to fall into one of the priorities or categories. But those need to also be limited.
The Republican platform was a hodgepodge of 20 promises followed by 63 actions under 10 categories. Most of it was feel-good and disorganized statements: restore American beauty, etc. No one could follow that much BS. I am fearful that the good advice from Kaplan will be lost in the shuffle.
325 postcards completed as of this morning . . . “I have not yet begun to fight!” LFG!!!!!!!
thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Way to go, TC!
My wife and I did 100 each, I feel like a slacker...great job on this!
Thanks! I do ten a day during lunch, every little bit helps
You ROCK!
Our weekly postcarding sign-ups blew up after the announcement! We were kicking out at least 1000 a week to swing states. We'll almost double that in the coming weeks!
amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gathering with some women in my neighborhood (none of whom have been politically active before) to start working on the 500 postcards I have to send to voters in NC.
Mark Robinson, son of Satan, is a gift.
FT6 textbanking did tens of thousands of texts into NC. Trump won the state by 1.3% in 2020. There is a huge veteran, military population that can be flipped using the "not suckers or losers" meme. Thousands of potential N Carolina voters are living in foreign countries, many attached to the military or other US employers. Need to partner with Democrats Abroad and Vote Vets. to enlist them
All of us risk entering modern dark ages. Many of us could lose our civil rights. The right to vote. Some of us could face physical; harm. Millions of unregistered folk trend heavily Democratic. FT6 has a database containing 9 million unregistered likely Democrats in swing states. FT6 uses every outreach method there is: email, text, phone, geofencing, direct mail, targeted ads, social media storms, postcards, and live voter drives. Register Democrats -- save the world.
https://www.mobilize.us/ft6/event/643086/
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
in North Carolina there should be a concerted effort to register the Native American population, especially the Cherokee nation, has anybody got a fundraising PAC for this group specifically?
Anecdotal, but I've been flying around for work... the attitudes I've see in the airports and at events in the past two days are a complete 180 from the attitudes before. People were already wearing Kamala gear YESTERDAY in the airport. In the row next to me, there were folks who were talking about how excited they were.
I'm chairing an event for general counsel and chief compliance officers today and everyone seems to be much happier (and there's a number of attendees in full white "suffragette" outfits), even though this isn't a political event. Even the organizers (a UK company) were talking with me about how this is "just like that Simpsons episode!"
yeah. same with friends. energy was like a tsunami. i had no idea that energy was even there waiting to be harnessed. I was fully on the "please don't go joe" train and now I'm thinking he made the right call.
Ditto on that. I attended the Unity Dinner in North Carolina on Saturday evening. I can tell you that Democrats were a bit nervous and anxious but also energized about moving forward. We all just were waiting for that catalyst. Now that it’s happened, the flood gates of enthusiasm have been opened!
I told a friend that the talking heads have seriously underestimated how deeply the 2016 loss still resonates and how clearly the Dobbs decision has energized us. Join in the wave or get out of the way because it's coming.
Agreed. Deep loss with Hillary
It’s been huge- there were over 44k Black women on an organizing call set up by the AKAs, then over 30k Black men on an organizing call set featuring Roland Martin, and then white women were on an organizing call to learn how to build community and strategize talking points for other white women. Just a huge, organic swell of grassroots organizing happening the last two nights!
The AKAs and Divine 9 sorors are organizing like they’ve never organized before and the Black vote is going to be huge. We white women and men need to show up with equal energy and fire!
Let Do This!!!! 🥥🌴💙
This Divine 9 member agrees with you. We got this.
Watch Bret Kavanaugh struggle to answer a simple question from Kamala Harris:
"Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6g-zycRv8Q
After the outrageous Dobbs decision, this brief clip should be distributed far and wide! Nineteen simple words...
Those 19 words should be on billboards.
I saw that. Kavanaugh was looking so nervous and future President Harris was just as cool as a cucumber.
yup, an oldie but goodie. Telling in so many ways – for both of them!
Inject it into my veinnssssssss!
As a numbers geek, I am waiting for the new polling and other data to come out to see what this massive change entails.
After watching the VPs comments yesterday, I think MAGA is going to have a hard time responding to her, and I would guess they will lean fully into coded racism/misogyny as their only response. I loved the part of her speech where she directly called out Trump as a rapist, a fraud and a felon.
She not only called out T, she laughed, smiled, was at moments joyous (when was the last time a candidate expressed joy?) at other moments talked about a bountiful future for our country! I love Old Joe, and I think Harris learned much from him. I'm amazed, grateful and optimistic.
Madame Vice President is a Happy Warrior- she’s fierce yet joyful. Trump is going to find it really hard to respond to her, which is why he’s still attacking Biden.
As Simon warns us: "…we need to be very careful about early polling…"
As we wait for numbers, let us also remember that there is a host of "pollsters" who are NOT interested in measuring actual public sentiment and voter preferences. Rather, they have found a cost-effective way to *influence* the public narrative.
You might say this parallels "news media" such as Fox, Sinclair Broadcast, Newsmax and OANN; these have no interest in Truth or objectivity. Instead, they weave a narrative of "alternative facts" that serve as propaganda and – more dangerously – create a news bubble that insulate their audiences from Truth.
There is a reason the time in which we live is called the Post-Factual Era.
And this creates a monumental challenge for political campaigns. The only way to cut through this is through huge joint effort. That is how, by "Doing more and worrying less", we create the Pink Tsunami and Blue Wave in November that preserves American democracy. That is how we ensure President Kamala Harris and a Democratic-controlled Senate and House can continue to build on the great achievements of President Joe Robinette Biden!
Correct on all points. I tend to watch the 538 Polling Average and the 538 Election Model, but with all the caveats that it is just data, not the objective truth or a prediction. But even with all of that, my own mental health would take a massive boost if everything ended up showing Trump being a loser in the data and on election day....like the image of him watching an impending blue wave that he can't escape makes me happy :D
I respect 538, as opposed to the blind averages at RealClearPolitics and others.
As far as I can tell, 538 makes a sincere effort to weigh their polling average in favor of high-quality polls from reliable pollsters, and compensating for the known in-house bias of slanted pollsters.
Here are the encouraging updated endorsement numbers, while we wait for polling:
Endorsements update Washington Post – 260 endorsements (only 26 total to go):
– 23 governors (all on board!)
– 45 senators (only 6 to go)
– 192 representatives (only 20 to go)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/kamala-harris-endorsements/
Delegate Tracker: 3095 delegates endorse Harris. 1976 required to win nomination.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/07/22/democratic-delegates-kamala-harris/
Thank you. Appreciate your posting the updates! Very motivating.
5 Senate holdouts now, one is Joe Manchin (will never happen), and another is Bob Menendez, convicted felon whose endorsement she definitely doesn’t want. So really it’s 3 holdouts. I guess Jon Tester has some internal polling reason not to endorse her, I trust him to know how to thread the needle of running a Dem campaign in Montana.
Five senators, whereof three are actually Independent, is far too few to matter. (Although Angus King might come around.) And there are only 19 representatives that have yet to endorse her; that includes Jared Golden, perhaps the most conservative Congressman in the country. Golden might well conclude that withholding endorsement helps him win his very Red congressional district in Maine.
Frankly, I am joyously surprised to see how many endorsed Kamala Harris – and how quickly they did so.
I will admit when I first heard the news I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. I had this feeling of dread form (I've always been cool with Harris & ready to support her). However the more I thought about it, the more I realized Biden absolutely did the right thing. Prior to that I was stuck with the "precedent" crowd - that is I was convinced it was a horrible idea for any kind of shake up at this point. People kept referring to the turmoil of '68. I think Adlai Stevenson & Walter Mondale also both technically had brokered conventions (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). However then I realized the amount of "precedent"/tradition that has been tossed aside the last 8 years and figured "what the hell - can it hurt ?!" It's very clear it hasn't ! Already donating to Harris and am overjoyed how many of us are on the same page ! Let's do this !
Me too!!
The big difference between this year already and past years with open conventions is that there’s already a presumptive nominee who has tremendous support behind her, and already has enough delegates to cleanly secure the nomination just *two days* after the switch was announced. So far the only confirmed (I think?) name throwing their hat into the ring to contest Harris is Marianne Williamson, who if you aren’t familiar is at least as much of a wingnut as RFK Jr., but has even less support (she also ran against Biden in the primaries, and iirc won exactly zero delegates), and quite frankly there’s no way this white woman nobody who has in the past talked on social media about how we needed to use the “power of positive thought” (or something like that) to stop covid is going to offer any real contest to Harris. Doubly true with Joe Manchin if he actually makes good on his threat of re-registering as a democrat just to try to wreck the convention (no actual democrats like him).
But she does have them ! And enough to have the nomination !!!
I feel there's nothing to worry about from either Marianne Williamson or Joe Manchin. All they will do is embarrass themselves if they try. If they wait a week or two to see if their chances are any better, they will be met with even higher numbers for Harris in both support and $$. If either of them buys any ad time, it will be a good break to make a cup of coffee/tea or get a glass of wine/beer!!
I am not worried at all about either of them. Just find them annoying.
This race went from one of despair to hope in the span of one afternoon. I’m hopeful that we will look back on that Sunday as a turning point in our nation’s politics.
We will retake the house, keep the senate, and keep the White House. With the blue trifecta, we can revitalize our government and pass legislation that helps the American people, safeguards our democracy, and allows us to retain our global leadership in the fight against autocracy.
I’ve ordered more postcards and will be signing up for my first phone bank and am recruiting my friends and family to join me.
We have a lot to do before November, but watching the Democratic coalition, and this community specifically, rally gives me lots of hope.
Thank you to Simon and everyone here for helping me and many others like me get engaged in our system and for making a difference in the fight for a better America.
I can’t wait for our convention. It’s going to be energetic and hopeful and inspiring!
Yes! And I sincerely hope Democrats and organizers can find a way to prevent Gaza protesters from taking up oxygen or stealing the media limelight. That matters!
I think the Gaza hard liners are going to have a much harder time with Harris than they did with Biden, because as VP, Harris is at least somewhat distanced.
I don’t take the “Gaza Gaza Hey” people seriously anyway; all surveys show that even with young people, foreign policy in general and Gaza in particular is not nearly as important as the economy, jobs, and climate. I surmise that a lot of the Gaza hardliners are malcontents who don’t vote (because it only encourages them) or vote for the most obscure third party candidate anyway.
Good points. I just don’t want them getting undue attention, distracting from Kamala Harris and the now-unified and enthusiastic Democratic Party!
I certainly don’t, either! But I think a lot of wind has been taken out of their sails.
I also hope that protesters, and people such as Rep. Tlaib, have the good sense to simply stay away when PM Netanyahu gives his speech to Congress – what is sure to be a campaign speech for his pal in Florida, Donald Mar-a-Lago.
Me too!
things I’m hoping a trifecta can pull off:
- passing legislation that codifies reproductive rights into federal law
- getting something akin to the “Green New Deal” through, or at the very least more aggressive climate reforms than we have now (previously coal baron DINO Joe Manchin was there in the senate to shut anything like this down, and more is really needed in order to assure that carbon emissions peak before the end of the decade)
- passing legislation to codify marriage equality into federal law as well (who knows when this supreme court will go after it)
- doing something about student loans that SCOTUS can’t just upend
- really, do something about the SCOTUS itself (I don’t know if the best option would be just to try to impeach Thomas and Alito for their flagrant support for fascist insurrection and blatant corruption—although I have no idea how impeaching supreme court justices even works—or if the democrats should finally just push for more radical court expansion and reform, like maybe adding more justices to politically balance it, and then passing some sort of law saying that from now on, the court needs to always have equal representation from both political parties, so if new justices need to be appointed by a sitting president, and there are already too many from said president’s party, they will be required to appoint someone from the other party. Clearly just trusting justices to be politically neutral has not been enough)
- passing the Equality Act (or something equivalent) to federally enshrine rights for the entire LGBTQ community in law, and end the legislative attacks upon trans people in particular in red states
- passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act (or something equivalent) to end attacks upon democracy in red states
- a new infrastructural renewal plan
- more immigration reform (to create easier paths to citizenship)
- statehood for Puerto Rico and DC (if they still want it)
- hopefully reforming the way the senate filibuster works (if the minority party wants to filibuster anything, they should have to do it the hard way, rather than being able to just easily obstruct everything all the time)
and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting right now, but basically a lot of the stuff that should’ve happened in 2021, but didn’t because the democrats had a senate majority in name only (with Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema obstructing anything the slightest bit progressive). Basically, we need a direct inverse to Project 2025 to happen.
I like the idea of expanding the Court to 13 (since we have 13 federal circuits) and then using a lottery system to randomly assign 9 to hear a case. Also term limits, a code of ethics, and a removal process for violations of those ethics rules.
I think it would be useful to contact major newspapers (I suggest the NYT) and demand they now focus their political reporting exclusively on policy and governing philosophy of the two parties so readers can see the fascist and democratic options side by side. They need to understand and report on the existential threat a 2nd Trump term will be for all of us. There is no time left for the breathless gossipy articles they are no doubt planning on the Harris campaign ramp up. It's time for them to do their job and we need to tell them this.
Yes! And also: articles that compare what Democrats do in states where they gain a trifecta with what Republicans do in their trifecta-controlled states.
I can’t resist saying “See what happened with Minnesota when they elected a Cool Tim versus when they elected an Uncool Republican Tim.”
Indeed! But strangely enough, this has largely escaped the national radar.
Good luck getting the Moscow Time…*ahem*…I mean *New York Times* to listen, it’s pretty clear some higher-up(s) there has a political agenda, and has for a while now (tbh one of the good things to come out of this whole debacle with Biden imo has been a lot of other people finally seeing in the NYT what I have for years, that they are *not* actually friendly to left-leaning politics here in the US, and if anything actually have something of a right-leaning slant. They’ve been terrible about attacking Biden this entire election cycle, and now it seems are already coming for Harris as well, with op-eds calling making her the presumptive nominee a “mistake” and continually trying to encourage destructive open convention chaos because it would be “entertaining”, because apparently politics really is just a game to these people).
Does anyone know if reoccurring donations to the Biden campaign on Actblue transfer to Harris. I suspect the will but I would hate for my reoccurring donation to skip through inaction.
I’m interested in this too. Thanks for asking.
I looked at my actblue account for details and it looks like the old Joe Biden donation is now going to the Harris Victory Fund, still marked as monthly. It is marked as the joint committee.
It is different to the Kamala Harris presidential candidate fund. I am not totally sure on the details of difference but presumably the Victory fund is designated for the general and to be split to state committees. Actblue is not the clearest in what each means.
ActBlue needs to make this crystal clear - if it's an ongoing donation to Joe Biden, I don't see how they can just switch it to anyone else without an agreement or directive from the payor. Doesn't seem legal to me. Whereas a payment to Biden/Harris does - it would (probably, maybe) be like a joint account and payable to both or either. Just my opinion, mind you!
I think literally everything fund raising-wise transfers over. Harris for President functionally *is* the Biden-Harris campaign structurally, just re-branded.
Those pre Biden leaving the race Civiqs cross tabs of Trump vs Harris with young, independent and black voters is extremely encouraging. She picks up quite a few votes in those areas. Hope swing state (Pa, Wisc, Mi, NV, Ga, Az, NC ) polling is similar. Good read. Seems hope is on the come back.
Hope scrolling >>> Doom scrolling
Looking at the numbers, Trump’s stay the same, ours bounce back up to where they should be. That, along with the anecdotal reports, suggests Kamala brings enthusiasm on our side way up. Trump’s support appears to be stuck. So I think the race probably remains where it was, close, but now we have enthusiasm on our side—which should definitely help drive volunteering and turnout, and that, in turn, will affect the outcome, if not the polls. We can do it!
This is why figured the panic over Trump’s ceiling supposedly rising was based on an illusion, there’s no way a significant number of people are just going to suddenly start breaking for Trump at this point in the race, his campaign has done literally nothing to try to woo anyone who isn’t a MAGA radical, in fact they’ve continued to do things to *alienate* non-MAGA voters (like picking JD Vance as running mate, or Trump’s insane fascist rant at the convention). It just wouldn’t make sense for them to be suddenly gaining new voters, whereas it did make sense for Biden to be losing voters prior to bowing out.
Donated, writing my 200 postcards to Swing State voters, first of three phonebanking shifts this week starts tonight. Every friend sending me a meme about Kamala getting in, I'm responding with a volunteer link. It's gotten at least one friend to sign up for a shift today! LFG, leave it all on the field. We can win this.
Lawrence O’Donnell was so great last night, opening with a tribute to Joe Biden that segued into where the Harris campaign is now. Really made me feel good and confident. I know Kamala Harris will face some headwinds in the campaign but I’m amazed at the excitement she’s generating. Really great all around.
Stephen Colbert also opened with a terrific tribute to President Joe Biden.
I am taking the liberty to repost this, a link to a video where eminent historian Heather Cox Richardson analyzes Sunday’s dramatic developments. This is uplifting – pure Hopium!
https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/videos/507646105045285
Heather believes President Biden’s timing was pure genius! It left the Republican Party and their ticket stranded high and dry. All their attack points are suddenly irrelevant. In fact, their claims that Joe is "old, weak and unfit" have now boomeranged against Donald Trump – the oldest American presidential candidate ever!
And now Trump can’t go and pick a woman VP or a not-white VP to expand his appeal (at least in theory); he’s stuck with Peter Thiel’s Shillbilly Pal.
Shillbilly. Nice!
Moreover, given that JD Vance has an Indian wife, it makes it much harder for them to attack our Indian/Black nominee.
Just in general, there aren’t many substantive attacks they really have against Harris, like there are a couple controversial things in her past they can *maybe* bring up, but they’re not exactly major scandals, and I doubt will draw much attention from most people.
All that really leaves is blatant racism and/or sexism, which I’m certainly sure Trump’s campaign isn’t above, but it wouldn’t exactly help them in this race, given that Trump would need a whole lot of POC and women to vote for him in order to win, and most reliable data suggests that he still mostly struggles with those communities (unsurprisingly, his campaign’s bullshit about how being a convicted felon supposedly helped him with black men is just insultingly racist, and obviously untrue).
I suspect they’ll try to attack her for old policy positions and statements she made when she was a candidate back in 2020, for instance on the Green New Deal. They will also try to attack her for "but the border" etc etc. In short: desperate attempts.
Thanks, ArcticStones. 👍🏻 Heather’s Sunday video has just been posted to YouTube as an alternative to the Facebook link:
https://youtu.be/9UR8Z8cdfL0?si=Dp_yJ-5Trv_jz3Gb
All this momentum suggests great energy and enthusiasm by the base. This makes me hope the Harris campaign is focused on broadening the appeal, which I think she did yesterday with her Delaware speech. There is little need to ignite the base. It’s already lit. Focus on speaking to the Obama, Trump 16, Biden 20 voters outside of Philly, Detroit and Milwaukee plus Phoenix. Get the Blue wall nailed down first and foremost.
PS. I’m donating $ and sending postcards.
Looks like she listened to you and went to Milwaukee!!!! The thing that totally blows my mind is how flat-footed the GOP is today. It's as if they only had one strategy around going after Joe Biden. It's as if they did not take any of the past five weeks of "step aside" talk seriously at all. I know that they will adjust, but right now they really look old, slow and fighting last year's battle.