US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

Harris currently speaking/taking questions at NABJ, wonder if this will go better for her than it did for Trump https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/17/watch_live_kamala_harris_will_take_questions_from_national_association_of_black_journalists.html

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 tbf.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brain was assassinated by a worm in 2005

GPT refused to let me depict any specific political figures, but I came close

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/460645509_10169311451100304_9038359875630762042_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=Wp_3BTO_8ZcQ7kNvgFKo4gY&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AYCeFh4qjFJilpF0TAttrc31DOxik7Q_tXDa0xYXao03ow&oe=66EFC677

The Times is gonna keep stamping their feet until Harris gives them an interview. If she's smart, she never will. (Gift link.)

She has hosted a convention, weathered a debate, held her first sit-down interview with a major television network.

Now the question for Vice President Kamala Harris’s media strategists is: What should she do next?

With no more mass-audience events remaining before Election Day, and former President Donald J. Trump declaring, for now, that he will not submit to another debate, Ms. Harris must determine the best way to keep introducing herself to voters who still have questions about her policies and plans for the nation.

During her 2020 campaign and early in her vice presidency, some of Ms. Harris’s biggest missteps came during unscripted encounters with journalists. To avoid taking chances, she has granted only six interviews in the 58 days since President Biden withdrew from the race, three with friendly radio hosts. Even the press-averse Mr. Biden took more questions in the final two months of his campaign than Ms. Harris has in what is nearly the first two months of hers.

...

Every big news network has a standing request with the Harris campaign for an interview. One potential appearance could be on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” the country’s most-watched news program, which is planning its quadrennial election special on Oct. 7 and has requested interviews with both candidates.

But aides say Ms. Harris is more likely to spend time answering questions from inquisitors with smaller, more niche audiences that include many voters in battleground states. These interviewers include drive-time radio hosts and anchors from the local evening news — particularly those who, like the television reporter from Philadelphia, tend not to ask follow-ups if and when Ms. Harris filibusters or dodges their questions.

“There are big pluses to do local media; there’s no urgency for her to do national press,” said John Del Cecato, who was a media strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. “There’s no soft spots that she’s desperate to keep armored. She simply has better ways to deliver her message to people than in national interviews.”

Y'all shouldn't read the Luntz return to the youth focus group post-debate.

I'd rather poke my eyes out

don't know if it's been discussed here, but the newest right wing outrage is a 'whistleblower' allegation that ABC secretly supplied the questions to Team Harris before the debate

Y'all shouldn't read the Luntz return to the youth focus group post-debate.

Definitely read Jamelle Bouie's comments on it on Bluesky, though. (Reminder: Bouie also works for the Times.)

these focus groups are really a good reminder that undecided voters are people who don’t actually care about politics

also “abigail” is basically regurgitating online republican cant and is almost certainly lying about voting biden in 2020. i’m also doubtful that any of the people who did not vote in 2020 will vote this year

lastly, i find it striking that some of these people are able to watch trump be completely incoherent & then go “well maybe he’ll be a good president.” it’s like the fact that he is a white guy in a suit overrides everything else. (also the fact that they were literal children when he was president)

In response to someone who commented, "don't forget that he's also loud and confident, which in additional to being white and in a suit is probably all that makes up these people's idea of what a president is":

it is super interesting to me that they read harris being prepared as being “fake,” as if the only way to be a president is to be a loudmouthed idiot

That ABC "whistleblower allegation" appears to be just entirely fabricated from one anonymous post, it's a literal nothing — there's not even one lady in Canton who slipped her one question — but it's just a thing to say. Among the many dumb things about it is that all of the questions were about totally obvious things that anyone could have predicted would be asked. Oh, they're gonna ask about the economy? And Gaza? And abortion? Phew, thanks for the heads up.

There's also this fallacy that debates are where You Explain Policy.

yeah, I think they're trying to gin up some excuse for Trump's poor performance, so 'SHE CHEATED!' works as good as anything

“Supplying the questions in advance” is such a ridiculous attack. It’s not a trivia contest. The economy, the border, abortion. I’m sure both teams prepared for these topics; if Trump decided to revert to cats and dogs it’s because he’s a moron.

Or, what Tipsy said.

the allegation that she had access to questions in advance is really funny considering their immediate post-debate spin was that she didn't actually answer any of the questions

or considering that literally nothing about what went terribly for Trump in that debate had to do with how prepared either were for the questions

It’s not a pop quiz!

also Trump said that he won the debate bigly. so what's the problem?

Trump is a big problem. Yuge.

he destroyed kamala in the debate but she cheated and abc should be put in prison. makes no sense. he makes no sense. where is his sense?

part of it is that, right now, the polls are at something like +3 +/- MOE. If the MOE is at the limits in favor of harris, we get into blowout territory. If they are the limits in favor of trump we get a 2016 type result.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, September 17, 2024 3:06 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

one comforting thought is that polling methodology has changed since 2020, apparently for the last two pollsters would get a number of respondants who would just yell "TRUMP!!" and hang up, in the past they wouldn't count those, but they've since realized those people probably are reliable Trump votes, so now they're counting them. apparently this is what accounts for a big portion of the polling miss in 2016 and 2020.

obviously you cant really predict which direction the polls are gonna miss in but I have to think the advantage Harris has in cash, field offices, and overall enthusiasm matters some. I mean until the vote is cast there's no one who is actually 100% certain to vote. it does seem like people are way more motivated to get this guy out of the picture than they are to give him 4 more years in office. even the idiots I know who are voting for him solely because they really do think tarriffs are gonna solve inflation are saying stuff like "look, it's only 4 more years, then we can be done with him". I have to think there's a chance some of these people just say, "eh, fuck it" on election day.

one comforting thought is that polling methodology has changed since 2020, apparently for the last two pollsters would get a number of respondants who would just yell "TRUMP!!" and hang up, in the past they wouldn't count those, but they've since realized those people probably are reliable Trump votes, so now they're counting them. apparently this is what accounts for a big portion of the polling miss in 2016 and 2020

this is nyt siena poll, which is an outlier in terms of trump polling well (last one had him at +2 nationally)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/upshot/nyt-siena-poll-2024.html

that NYT story is as maddening as the rest of that series. Abigail in particular appears to be ... an idiot?

very enraging when it’s obvious the person know they’re being disingenuous, but they don’t realize their attempt to be smart about it is insanely dumb

Some folks on Bluesky have been looking to see if they can identify the most obviously Republican "undecided voters" and two of them seem to be literal political operatives. One was an intern at the State Department during Trump's first term. The Times has a real issue with using hardcore Republicans as sources and then calling them "undecided."

They should probably interview the drop-off respondents in a diner to find out what small town America really thinks

the fact that the GOP is so into astroturfing these days makes me feel like Harris is ahead by even more than the polls show

I see various online right-wing doofuses excited that there's been a big drop in Democratic mail-in ballot applications in Pa this year from 2020 — somehow not comprehending that the 2020 surge was driven entirely by COVID. A lot of those people are still voting this year, just not by mail.

I think we have Donna Brazile and Hilary to thank for the questions in advance allegations

The dumbest part is that anyone with half a brain could have anticipated most of the questions, it's not like they were pulling out gotcha questions about soybean subsidies

Good morning!

I see various online right-wing doofuses excited that there's been a big drop in Democratic mail-in ballot applications in Pa this year from 2020 — somehow not comprehending that the 2020 surge was driven entirely by COVID. A lot of those people are still voting this year, just not by mail.

pic.twitter.com/f68aRQ1Bxm

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 18, 2024

Is it ghoulish to point out that a lot of the 2020 GOP cohort succumbed to Covid and pandemic-adjacent conditions if my own mom was one of them?

I looked it up, and Stephens was actually calling for Biden to step down two weeks *before* the June debate -- but he wanted him replaced with Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer.

jpg, shared on bsky, from a paywalled wsj story. I want real world consequences for Vance and the rest of these fucks.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:nehvjrqlcz766irejep43jnw/bafkreif7pyea7nzwchvpfz5ui77z346vfvtetrwfbwzmd7rklm67vdw2hi@jpeg

Miss Sassy is actually the nickname for her gay son Andrew.

legit actual lol

I hope this shit follows Vance forever.

like a tough little dingleberry that he just can't unstick

Is this the lady who started this shit? Or just someone who heard Vance talking about this and started making assumptions?

that wsj story

no, this is the woman who started it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/us/springfield-haitians-pets-facebook-rumor.html

Yikes. Suspect this is why Harris' and Dems' rhetoric on immigration is harsher than in past campaigns

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4885895-mass-deportation-immigration-poll/

concerning.

Yet half those people have never even interacted with a non-legal citizen

that's disturbing af

i listened to an interesting podcast recently about the children's book "if you give a mouse a cookie" and how it has been used to indoctrinate people to the right wing concept of reducing/eliminating/stigmatizing the social safety net.

i wonder how many americans have internalized the message that "no one deserves a handout"
seems like a lot from that poll!!

It’s because the Ds have ceded the point to the Republicans and not hit back with a strong defense of immigrants.

yup