So Much For That

Today’s theme is that stuff changes.

For two nights the Republicans did a fair job of lowering the temperature on their rhetoric. I doubted they could keep it up. They didn’t.

It started with Kimberly Giulfoyle who screamed about “illegals!” and all kinds of other imagined threats. As I watched her for some reason Imelda Marcos kept coming to mind. Then Donald Trump, Jr., blew through all the stop signs with a full-on blistering attack on Joe Biden and a recitation of ways in which his father has been unfairly persecuted/prosecuted. Still, he bravely soldiers on. Don, Jr., wanted to emphasize his father’s convictions and not, well, his convictions.

Speaking of Biden, it looked to me just 24 hours ago that he would retain his party’s nomination. Then Adam Schiff became the most prominent elected Democrat to publicly ask him to step aside. Then a poll came out showing that two-thirds of Democrats want the same. Then stories were leaked that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had had hard conversations with Biden about his effect on down ballot Democrats. Then the DNC announced that they were scrapping plans to move ahead with the official roll call starting as early as Monday. And then, to top it all off, Biden came down with COVID and retreated to Delaware.

In a day, I went from feeling Biden had survived to believing he was on his way out.

Which brings us to J.D. Vance. Trump’s running mate gave a speech last night that was a triumph of mediocrity. He checked all the right boxes, but he didn’t hit anything out of the park. What he did do is mention Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan about a hundred times. We’ve now got a pretty good idea of Vance’s travel schedule for the next four months.

And that brings us back to Biden and the Democrats. If Biden is going to step aside, then they need to think about Vance’s speech. This election comes down to those three states. How a replacement for Biden might go over in any other part of the country or with any other demographic group is missing the point. They need to pick somebody with the best chance of winning in Wisconsin.