"Put Donilon on the phone."
That's the quote of the day.
Takes a woman to do a man's job. While wimps like Schumer kept saying their hands were tied, Pelosi set the bait last week, when she went on MSNBC and countered Biden's statement that his nomination was a done deal, he was continuing to run.
And then Pelosi pierced the bubble.
"One ally said that Ms. Pelosi told Mr. Biden in a recent call that she had seen polling data suggesting that he could not win, and the president had pushed back, saying he had polls showing otherwise.
"Ms. Pelosi, never shy in such situations, challenged him on that.
"'Put Donilon on the phone,' Ms. Pelosi told the president, referring to Mike Donilon, the president’s longtime aide, according to people familiar with the exchange, which was reported earlier by CNN. 'Show me what polls.'”
Free link:
t.ly/AhNwF You don't want to argue with the data.
And speaking of the data, you need to subscribe to Nate Silver's "Silver Bulletin":
www.natesilver.net All data is not created equal. But even worse, all data analysis is not created equally. This is what is happening with AI. The problem isn't hoovering up data, it's trying to prevent the model from hallucinating. Google had to pull back because of this. In other words, can you trust AI? Not yet! So when you see a result in your search engine, don't accept it at face value. Because it may be wrong. Dig deeper, or you might end up with egg on your face.
Silver has made his name with his model that averages the polls. And so far, no one has been able to do it as well. (Read Silver's takedown of the new 538 model here:
"Why I don't buy 538's new election model - It barely pays attention to the polls. And its results just don't make a lot of sense."
t.ly/OlpV3 Silver left the "New York Times" for greener pastures at ABC, establishing 538.com, but that was a financial failure and the entertainment behemoth refused to renew Silver's contract, so Silver went independent, on Substack, and he's asking for money, but in truth his e-mail is free, and you should sign up.
This is the information age, and you need all the information you can get. Now is the time to sign up for the "New York Times", if only for the next three months, because the Gray Lady has been breaking this story.
Save me the blowback. I'm just trying to help you. Democracy does die in darkness, and you want to shed some light. Scott Galloway took a huge swing at MSNBC last week and he's positively right. Every time I've tuned in Lawrence O'Donnell since the debate...speaking of hallucination, you'd think Biden is triumphing. Cable news is inherently biased, that's how they get eyeballs, ratings. And unless there's an assassination attempt or something gigantic to which they can send a film crew, they do almost no reporting, only opinion, and that gets old, very old.
And regarding the straight dope, every Democrat must read Bret Stephens's recent piece in the "Times":
Free link: "The Secret of Trump's Resurrection." -
t.ly/2mRY3 The landscape has changed, and too many on the left refuse to acknowledge this.
Turns out life is too hard for too many people. Sure, the economy is good, if you own stock, as long as you don't have a service job.
Rightly or wrongly people are sick of others gaining a seeming advantage, whether it be via affirmative action or immigration. As for pronouns... This has got to stop. Along with trigger warnings. The pendulum has swung back. Too many on the left can't see which way the wind blows.
This is why the Democrats' reluctance to put the stake in the heart of Biden after the debate, letting three weeks go by, is so bad. It makes them appear weak, whereas Trump appears strong.
Don't shoot the messenger, literally.
Bottom line is you're college educated, you think you know better, and the disadvantaged and less financially secure know you do.
In other words, we've got a repeat of 2016. Trump is more in touch with the public than the Democrats. How did Biden squander success?
Once again, read Stephens's piece.
But know that the cavalry is coming.
There are leaks that Biden will announce he stops running on Sunday, that he won't endorse Kamala Harris. Take all that with a grain of salt, but know that James Carville is right, that if Harris is handed the torch the Democratic public will be deflated. They were left out of the decision to anoint Biden's second term run and they won't like being left out of the decision this time. They're just like the Republicans, sick and tired of being dictated to, told by those in power that they know better.
So what happened here?
Well, of course we had the disastrous debate.
But then came the aforementioned "Times" with its editorials and opinion columns, from the aforementioned Carville to Clooney. People have been talking about the power of Fox News for decades, why can they not accept that the "Times" has power?
And then came the drying up of the money. Recent donations have been anemic. Turn off the spigot and you end the race. Period.
But you need someone to put the stake in the heart, of in this case Biden.
Or maybe it's like a bullfight, a number of knives and then a deep gash by Pelosi.
But this illustrates how out of touch our leaders can be. Biden has done almost as much to hurt the country as Trump has. If Biden is out of touch on the polls, refuses to face facts that all of the hoi polloi can see, what else is he delusional on?
So for nearly a week it's been all Trump/RNC, all the time.
But the best piece I saw on this was in the "Atlantic":
"STOP PRETENDING YOU KNOW HOW THIS WILL END - The failed assassination of Donald Trump might not have any lasting effect on the election or politics in general":
t.ly/sU0zD Bingo. Not only does no one know, everything lasts less these days.
Kind of like the assassination attempt itself. If you lived through JFK and MLK and RFK you know that coverage was wall to wall, the only thing on TV, but in today's multifarious world you saw the headline and then...moved on. The media keeps telling us how big a deal it is, but is that the way the average person feels?
The despicable two-faced Vance is young and smart. He duplicates Trump, but he's a bulldog who can press the case. Where is the Democratic bulldog?
That's what we're going to find out.
One thing is for sure, Biden's replacement will be much younger, with a greater facility with the language, and will be absent at least some of Biden's baggage.
Stop saying the Republicans' success is based on white nationalism, that it's racism at the core.
What is it going to take for Democrats to accept reality?
Once again, it takes a pro to win. Which is why Trump lost in 2020. And once Minnesotans had seen Jesse Ventura govern, they wanted no more.
So you can stop saying you want Michelle Obama, or Oprah Winfrey, or even Clooney. Now is the time for a pro.
Harris ran a terrible campaign in 2020 and didn't get a single delegate.
As for her inclusion on the ticket as VP... The "Wall Street Journal" had this right:
"The Mess Democrats Have Made, Kamala Harris Edition - Imagine if Biden had chosen a Vice President for competence rather than identity politics."
Free link:
t.ly/rbj0y Did Biden ever contemplate that Harris might have to replace him, and this would be unpopular with most Democrats?
But you keep telling me women and Blacks will cashier the Democratic candidate if it's not Harris. Based on what? Nobody gets everything they want, ever hear of taking one for the team?
Maybe Harris ends up the candidate, but let's get the public involved, let's put it to a vote, let's squeeze out the Republicans' hold on publicity.
Pelosi won because she's a pragmatist.
It's time for Democrats to embrace that viewpoint. If you think Trump is so bad, concentrate on winning, that and no less.
Biden is finally toast. Funny that he didn't even realize it until today. But he's gone. Kaput. Out of the way. The Democrats are getting a do-over. Take out the flashlight and pore over every nook and cranny of potential candidates' lives and careers. And when we end up with the candidate...
We all need to rally around them. Period.
It will be time to shut up.
But if you kept supporting Biden after the debate...
As we said in the sixties, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution.
You learn, you adjust on the fly, that's the only way you succeed.
The game starts NOW!
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