You know, when you spend more than a half a century emotionally and mentally engaged in a particular passion, hobby, or pursuit, you tend to find that as you get a little older, and you’ve actually got some chops and street cred in your chosen field, as you grow older, you grow a little more arrogant, and you tend to suffer fools less gladly. And that’s the point I’m at right now.
And the current grist for my angst mill at the moment is the Never Trumpers and renegade Nikki Haley voters out there. The Never Trumpers have spent looking for anybody but Trump to go home to, and the Haley voters now think of themselves as being marooned on a desert isle, since their hero turned out to be nothing more than just another hypocritical, opportunist political hack.
Look, I get that, and I’m 100% down with it. After Humphrey, McGovern and Dukakis, I felt like I was marooned on a desert isle too! But now, with Biden’s gracious withdrawal from the race, they all have a new home to come to. And ya know what? In less than a week, they’re already pissing and moaning.
And again, I’m 100% down with that. After all, when you finally trade in your old clunker for a shiny new model, it’s only natural to have regrets for what you’re giving up, and want to find nits to pick. The steering wheel is too small! The turn signal is stiff! The brake is too far from the gas pedal! And I can’t read the clock from way over there!
But that’s not what’s frustrating me and pissing me off. They are not complaining about Harris’s selection of pant suits, or the way she wears her hair, or that she laughs too much, or that Doug is Jewish. No. What they’re whining about is by far and away the stupidest thing that anybody who pays even casual attention to politics could possibly complain about.
So, according to focus groups and in person interviews, what’s their #1 bitch? After 3 1/2 years, Harris as Vice President hasn’t actually done anything! And, After 3 1/2 years as Vice President I have no idea of what Harris’s opinions and policy positions are!Â
Excuse me? What are you, four years old? Is this the first time in your life that you’ve finally decided to take part in the political electoral process?
Well alrighty then, it’s time for lesson one in Politics For Dummies. Open your books to page 7. When a candidate runs for, or is President, he tops the ticket. He lays out his agenda, his goals, and his programs. That’s his job, he’s the Alpha Dog. The Vice President doesn’t get to have opinions, a platform or an agenda. Their sole job is to be a faithful wingman, surrogate, and attack dog for the platform and agenda laid out by the President. They don’t independently do things, they take orders. That’s in the job description.
That’s why we politically savvy people call what just happened in this past week the campaign rollout. Now that Vice President Harris is the presidential nominee of the Democratic party, this rollout process is her first chance to actually introduce herself to the country, and lay out her vision, plans, and agenda for her presidential term. And that’s what she’s already doing.
And all you have to do is sit back, keep your eyes and ears open, and listen. For the next three weeks, culminating at the Democratic National Convention, Harris is going to be crisscrossing the country, introducing herself and her agenda to the American people. And I can guarantee you it won’t be a nonstop prosecution of The Outlaw Josey Trump. Hell, she’s already talking about reproductive choice, freedom, democracy, book banning, an assault weapon ban, and all that other cool stuff that gets the blood flowing.
Politics is no different from buying a car, or a new stereo, a home or a flatscreen TV. When you boil it down, they all come to nothing more than a personal choice. And as in all major decisions, it’s up to each one of us to do our due diligence, and make educated consumer decisions. So do us all, especially yourselves a favor. Sit back, open your eyes, your ears, and your minds. Vice President Harris will tell you everything you need to know, if you just let her. And after all, if it all comes a cropper in November, then collectively, we’ll have nobody but ourselves to blame. Here endeth the lesson.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Murphy I love you lessons! Keep ’em coming!
There is a Never Trumper group called Haley voters for Harris who has started a PAC to raise money and awareness for VP Harris, so far they have raised $400,000.
Haley promptly sent them a cease and desist threat letter and they basically told her to piss off.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/23/g-s1-12998/haley-voters-for-harris-cease-desist-2024-election
Murf…with billions living without basic necessities like shelter, clean water, food, medical care, and safety, it’s clear we are a spoiled group of arrogant children. Everyone seems to feel so entitled, they expect the world to conform to their wishes. We seem, as a culture, to love tearing people down once they rise above the masses. I’m sure the hits will keep on coming. Kamala seems tough enough and resilient enough to win some undecided voters over. Let’s face it…if you were for the woman who tore Trump down in the debate as unfit but then raised her hand saying SHE’D VOTE for him…then something’s wrong with your thinking to begin with.
The folks complaining that Harris “hasn’t really done anything” might want to go back and look at the last couple of times we’ve been in a similar situation.
Back in 1980, George H W Bush was running for the GOP Presidential nomination against Ronald Reagan and Bush’s main argument against Reagan was Reagan’s “voodoo economics” plan. That summer, Reagan ignored Bush’s views and selected him to be the VP candidate, and Bush gladly accepted. Flash forward 8 years and Bush is once again running to be the GOP’s Presidential nominee (although this time, fresh off 7 1/2 years as VP) and he’s got NO policy achievements of his own; in fact, he has NO actual NEW policies planned for his hoped-for presidency–just another four years of “Reaganomics” (what Bush’s “voodoo economics” became) and continuing pretty much all of Reagan’s other policies. Oh, his campaign manager, Lee Atwater, came up with some nifty ideas–but they were all directed at tearing down Bush’s opponent(s) and they really came to full fruition against the Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, and so Bush won, both the nomination and the presidency.
Then, back in 2000, the Democrats were largely looking to be united behind Al Gore (although there was some opposition coming from Bill Bradley) but Gore chose to ignore Bill Clinton which meant that he couldn’t really lay claim to any of the actual achievements made under the “Clinton/Gore” administration and, unfortunately, Gore wasn’t exactly working with 18 “Charisma”–more like a 10, at best–which is why he really shouldn’t have sidelined Clinton. So, when voters were asked those important polling questions–notably, “Which candidate would you most like to have a beer with”–they started going with Bush because he “seemed” like a “down to earth” guy (ironic, since Bush had admitted to having had substance abuse issues–that he’d allegedly worked out before going into politics).
When you have a VP running for President, the Administration’s achievements and failures belong to the VP as much as to the President. The VP is a largely thankless, invisible job which, incidentally, didn’t even officially exist AS a job until the 25th Amendment codified the VP’s most important function–replacing the President; until then, when a VP had replaced a President who’d died in office, the VP role was NOT filled until the next election when the “acting President” ran for office and selected a VP (the 22nd Amendment had only spoken to a President’s only being elected to office twice OR serving only 10 years, under the assumption that the person served as President for two years before being elected as President but the role of Vice-President wasn’t specified–it just said “or acted as President” so that could’ve applied to a Speaker of the House or Cabinet secretary).
Since the passage of the 25th, the VP candidate has largely been pro forma. A Presidential nominee picks a person and the convention typically acclaims the nominee with little discord. It’s a bit odd that prior to the 25th Amendment, conventions would tend to have some very “lively” debates and votes over who became VP while post-25th, the vote for VP rarely results in any controversy. The VP choice is normally just based on a need to “balance” the ticket: Reagan’s selection of Bush was largely seen as a way to appease the “old-guard” GOP that felt Reagan’s “social conservatism” ran counter to the overall conservative view of “limited government”–kind of hard to explain that it was fine for the government to get involved in a woman’s abortion rights but not have that same government just letting businesses and corporations run roughshod over how they treat employees; Bush’s selection of Cheney and Obama’s selection of Biden were to offset the Presidential nominee’s perceived “inexperience”; Gore’s selection of Lieberman was largely to show support for “traditional” values and show disapproval of Clinton’s “indiscretions.” (Before the 80s, ticket-balancing was based more on regional matters: A Southerner would pick someone from the Northeast; a Northeasterner would pick someone from the South or Midwest; a Midwesterner would generally pick someone from the Northeast. OR, it would be done to appease political wings: A conservative would pick a moderate or liberal; a liberal would pick a conservative. The perfect match would be when a Southern conservative picked a Northeastern liberal or other similar matches. It should be noted this has become less common but it has happened, as with the Democratic ticket in 1988–Northeastern liberal Dukakis and Southern/Western conservative/moderate Bentsen.)
Absolutely right, Murf! I am sick of living in a world where large numbers of people feel so comfortable in their ignorance that they proclaim it with pride!! Crack open a book or STFU!!