RFK Jr. set to bow out

With his campaign floundering, RFK Jr. has started the process that was teased earlier in the week of dropping out of the race.

The independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has filed paperwork to withdraw from presidential ballots in the state of Arizona, the Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, said.

The withdrawal came as Kennedy was set to address the nation on Friday in Arizona amid reports that his presidential ambitions are coming to a close, with falling numbers both in fundraising and in the polls.

A Super Pac supporting Kennedy told Reuters on Wednesday that Kennedy wanted a deal with Donald Trump in which he endorsed his Republican rival in exchange for a job in a potential Trump administration.
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Weird Vance learns the cost of being a chameleon

When someone is catapulted into the national spotlight by being nominated for a high-profile position like vice-president, people immediately start poring over their lives with a fine tooth comb and all manner of details start emerging, usually uncomplimentary. Some of this digging is done by journalists who are seeking to provide a fuller picture of someone who has previously been a blank slate. Part of it is done by people who have known the person in the past getting a bit of attention by sharing vignettes and anecdotes about the person they knew, and these can be positive or negative. And then there is the opposition research by the opposing party that tries to dig up dirt in order to discredit the new nominee.

All these three things are visible in the cases of weird JD Vance and Tim Walz, both of whom were relatively unknown outside the geographical region where they made their political careers, Ohio in the former case and Minnesota in the latter. Even in statewide races, politicians do not face anywhere near the level of scrutiny that comes with making a national run. In weird Vance’s case, he had some extra visibility because of his best-selling memoir that was made into a film.
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The Harris-Walz campaign flips the script

In presidential elections, the messages put out by the incumbent party and the challenger are fairly predictable. The incumbent has to make the claim that things are going pretty well and that to change course now would make things worse. The challenger tries to make the case that things are terrible and that it is they that offer change and hope for the future. This was captured in the ‘Hope and Change’ slogan of Barack Obama when he ran in 2008 after eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration.

In this election, as long as it was between Joe Biden and creepy Donald Trump, that script was being largely followed. Biden would point to favorable macroeconomic indicators, such as that the rate of inflation had come down to very low levels, unemployment was also at very low levels, real wages have been increasing, the stock market is at record highs, and the number of people coming across the southern border had been dropping, and claim credit for it, though it is hard to say exactly how much presidential actions influence such things. Creepy Trump understandably ignored all that and argued that the US was a hell hole and getting worse and that it was he who offered voters a chance to rectify things. Since the macroeconomic factors were not in his favor, he instead focused on anecdotes, and as usual lied outrageously when the facts went against him.
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Where Harris and Trump stand on ten issues, including abortion

Much of political coverage in a presidential election year tends to focus on polls, personalities, and intrigues, with issue and policy differences taking a back seat. In some ways, this is understandable. By this time in the political calendar, likely voters have decided who they are going to vote for based on a whole set of factors both tangible and intangible, and policy platforms put out by the rival candidates and parties are unlikely to sway many people away from their original choice. Furthermore, any new policies that are proposed tend to be those designed to enthuse supporters to vote and even work for the candidate and to shore up support among groups that are disaffected for some reason. It is not at all clear if they have any chance of being implemented if the candidate gets elected. The party platforms that are adopted at the conventions are usually just wish lists designed to appeal to as wide an array of voters as possible, and have no real bite in terms of requiring specific actions.

For those who really want to know where the candidates stand on some of the most talked-about issues, the Associated Press has helpfully summarized the positions of the Harris and creepy Trump campaigns on 10 issues: Abortion, Climate/Energy, Democracy/Rule of Law, Federal government, Immigration, Israel/Gaza, LGBTQ+ issues, NATO/Ukraine, Tariffs/Trade, and Taxes.
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The power of anger when channeled through joy

The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic had a conversation with Rebecca Traister (an excellent writer whom I used to read and link to before her publication New York magazine went behind a paywall) and Brittney Cooper, and they both had very interesting insights into the current race for the presidency and the gender and masculinity dynamics at play, with Republicans appealing to the manosphere in an especially icky way while Democrats have become able to comfortably speak about traditionally feminist issues. They also talk about how anger is being channeled by the Harris-Walz campaign in a joyful way.

Well worth watching.

Expect a Trump campaign shake-up soon

When media pundits analyze campaigns, they tend to follow a predictable pattern. For the campaign that is leading, they point to things that they say are making it do well, while for the campaign that is losing they point to things that they say is hurting them. The problem is that these explanations are highly malleable and if for some reason fortunes get reversed, they will suddenly reverse their explanations as well.

Right now, the creepy Donald Trump-weird JD Vance campaign seems to be losing ground to the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign and there is no shortage of explanations for why this is so. The chief one is that creepy Trump is undisciplined and is going off message to make rambling personal attacks on his opponents. But when creepy Trump was doing well just a month ago when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee, these things were not seen as major liabilities. It seems like when you are winning, you can do no wrong but when you are losing you can do nothing right.
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Good riddance to Columbia University president

Minouche Shafik resigned today. Her terrible handling of the protests at Columbia University, and her craven capitulation to hardline Israel supporters in the US congress infuriated both students and faculty.

Her resignation, effective immediately, was unexpected, with the university’s fall semester just weeks from beginning. It comes on the heels of two other Ivy League presidents’ resignations in the past year.

Immediately after the news, reports of pro-Palestinian protesters celebrating near the university began appearing on X as some members of the Columbia community voiced their support for the change of leadership.
…

Shafik, whose tenure began in July 2023 and made her the first woman to head the prestigious university in New York City, appeared before Congress in April, in highly publicized hearings regarding allegations of on-campus antisemitism. At about the same time, her decision to call the New York police department on to campus, in response to student protests, drew the ire of students and faculty.

Seth Meyers had a lot of catching up to do

The last three weeks have been a political whirlwind but the late night talk show that he hosts has been on hiatus during that time. They must have thought this was a good time to plan their break. It is the summer doldrums, the Republican convention had just ended, the Olympics were going to dominate the news for two weeks, and they would come back just before the Democratic convention

But things have been so crazy that when he returned on Monday, he had a lot of catching up to do and it was worth watching his summary to be reminded about how things have changed so dramatically.

The politics of crowds and poll numbers

There has been a lot of reporting about the size of crowds at campaign rallies. I have never been too impressed by crowd sizes as an indicator of popularity because however large they may be, they represent just a tiny fraction of the votes one needs to win. They measure more the depth of intensity of the most ardent supporters of a candidate, not the breadth of support. For example, in the case of creepy Donald Trump, there seem to be many of the same people who go to rally after rally, sometimes traveling great distances. It is like a cult following. Such people can swell multiple rally crowd numbers but still have only one vote.

But rally crowds do help campaigns in several important ways. The people who are enthusiastic enough to spend a big chunk of a day going to a campaign event and lining up to get in are those who are very likely to vote and, more importantly, more willing to work on the campaign in some way. You can be sure that there are campaign staffers at these events who are signing up people as donors and volunteers. While getting money helps since so much is needed for expensive TV advertising, American elections are awash with so much dark money that by the time elections come around, the airwaves are saturated with so many ads that they are unlikely to sway voters. Their purpose is largely to remind those who are already committed as to why they should stick with the candidate. The main benefit of getting new people to contribute even a small amount is not the money but because once you have given money to some cause, you are more invested in that candidate and want that person to win, like betting on a horse or a sports team.
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