Well, isn’t this nice. After all these years, minus her law license and plus a criminal conviction plea deal in Georgia, batsh*t crazy Sidney Powell is about to get her fondest wish. The fabled Kraken has finally been unleashed, and is surfacing to wreak electoral havoc. Unfortunately for her, it’s not wreaking havoc for the ass gasket she called it up for.
I’m lucky. Not only am I more than old enough to remember the last time a political candidate harnessed this kind of grassroots lightening-in-a-bottle, I’m old enough to remember the time before that. Not personally, but because my parents told me about it.
1960. World War II was over, fascism was consigned to the ash heap of history. Returning soldiers were getting college educations from their GI bill, manufacturing and the economy was booming, they were starting families, Eurpoe and Japan were rebuilding, and the world was ours.
And onto the stage stepped a brash young Senator from Massachusetts. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sent straight from Central Casting to play the part of the young, energetic President. So did his wife and children. It was national love at first sight. Historians later termed it The Golden Days of Camelot. The country was united, and with the charismatic Kennedy anything was possible. Until Camelot collapsed under the weight of an assassins bullet in Dealy Plaza in Dallas on a sunny November day. Instead, what ensued was a fractured generation of national tragedy.
It happened again in 2008 when a brash, young, tall skinny black kid with Radar-O-Reilly ears stood on the steps of the state Capitol in Springfueld, Illinois, and announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Love at first sight again. Tall and handsome, energetic, with an impish smile, Obama was cast from Central Casting to break a barrier, along with his beautiful wife and two adorable children. Barack Obama was unstoppable.
What followed Obama was eight successive years on ingrained senior citizen domination at the top of the presidential tickets. The Democrats nominated Septuagenarians Hillary Clinton, followed by Joe Biden. It was even worse for the GOP, nominating John McCain in 2008 followed by Mitt Romney in 2012, before Traitor Tot took over to make three consecutive runs at it. Meanwhile the world in general, and the United States in particular became younger and browner.
And now, here we go again. On the cusp of a Biden-Trump rematch, in one selfless move Biden stepped away, and instead gave us an attractive, energetic 59 year old woman to once again take up the torch of change. A woman of black, southeast Asian descent, the photogenic Kamala Harris, with her infectious belly laugh is another Central Casting character to once again break through a ceiling.
And as Dolly Parton likes to sing, Here we go again. Another national love story. And it’s instructive, because all three, Kennedy, Obama, Harris, and even in his own quirky way Joe Biden made their paths easier. Because they naturally created an incredible groundswell of grassroots enthusiasm in minorities and younger voters. All the way back in the 1960’s, comic parody singer Allan Sherman, in his classic Harvey, and Sheila, Harvey, sung to the tune of the Jewish song Hava, Negila Have sang, Borrowed from HFC, bought some AT&T, then on election day, worked for JFK.
And here comes the Kraken. Because that’s the secret sauce for Harris and the Democrats. Reach people where they live. A grassroots group called Black Women for Kamala held a combination rally/conference call that had some 40,000 attendees and raised more than $1.5 million for the campaign. Another one titled Black Men for Harris held a similar call, and raised over $1 million. Another group named White Dudes for Kamala is doing the same thing, although there is some doubt as their legitimacy. Hispanic grassroots organizations are also mobilizing.
Meet people where they live. I’ve done my share of door knocking and phone banking in Illinois, and it’s incredibly effective. People tend to actually like to talk to their neighbors about politics. Illinois being navy blue, I also volunteered to phone bank for Democratic candidates in other states, which doesn’t tend to work out so well. Your accent, verbiage, and syntax are different, and wavering voters in other states are more likely to see you as a carpetbagger.
But the Harris campaign is doing this holistically, at the local grassroots level. Whether it’s door knocking, phone banking, or voter registration, when these troops hit the ground, every person they talk to is going to be a local, neighbor, friend, or coworker. Their skids are greased by simple familiarity, being able to talk about local restaurants, hot spots, and local issues. The connection is far more likely to be lasting and effective.
Money may no longer be the King of politics, but in this case it’s at least the Crown Prince. because in the first week of the Harris campaign, the campaign reported that they had already received more than 150,000 contacts from people wanting to volunteer to work for the campaign. Third grade math says that assays out to some 3,000 volunteers per state. And the money means that the campaign can, and already is making moves to reign in and keep this grassroots enthusiasm at a high boil. They are already opening more field district offices in critical swing states, and increasing paid staffers and opening new offices to house the phone bankers, door knockers, and voter registrants. They’re striking while the iron is hot. After all, if somebody calls or texts in to volunteer, and has to wait for eight weeks to be placed, their enthusiasm may have waned. The campaign wants to bring them all into the fold, and keep them there.
Meanwhile, the GOP is a hot mess. The RNC, under Trump’s command has completely dismantled any on-the-ground phone banking and local community outreach offices they had up and running. Trump needs that coin for his lawyers. And in several critical swing states, such as MI, CO, WI, MN and Az, the state party’s are already either dead stony broke, or in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Isn’t it funny how bankruptcy follows Traitor Tot around like toilet paper on your shoe?
The Krajen is already loose, and it’s already wreaking destruction. Now it’s the job of Kamala Harris, her campaign, and the DNC to harness that energy, nurture and feed it, and keep it at a gentle boil all the way to November 5th. Three weeks ago Kamala Harris, as Vice President, was 19 points underwater in her favorability rating. Today, as a presidential candidate, she’s +2, something I don’t think Biden accomplished in 3 1/2 years. Keep punching, and keep the faith!
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
This is where the four year difference in our ages is important. You were three, I guess, in 1960 and I was seven and knew how to read and all that good stuff. So I have a vivid recollection of 1960. I remember that my mother got a ride to the polls and the car was covered in Nixon stickers. She didn’t want to get in but a neighbor persuaded her, “They don’t know how you’re going to vote. Just keep your mouth shut.” So she got chauffeured to vote for JFK in a car full of Republicans, which I found comical then and now.
That was some election. I do remember it well. As you can imagine, because JFK was Irish Catholic he was a god to my parents and I absorbed that. And believ eme, next to Nixon, it was easy to absorb. Nixon did not come across well on TV, then or in 1968. Or ever.
Being just three years old I can’t say I remember anything from 1960. My earliest memories are from 1961. Not a lot of them but they are still there and from then on I’d hear my KKK grandfather (an old school racist to the core “southern” Democrat) rail about a CATHOLIC being in the WH. It was a travesty. Many don’t realize this but the old-school Klan was pure WASP. A Catholic or Jewish person was, like black and brown people (anyone who wasn’t white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) not even an actual human being to them. I have lots of memory of the day JFK was killed and I didn’t understand then or since a contradiction in my P.O.S. grandfather who was angry that someone had murdered an American President. Go figure.
It was a helluva time to grow up for sure. Our country would in that decade show both the best and worst of ourselves. Hopes when the dust of the 1960s settled that our country would never go through such turmoil again were naive at best.
I was 13 when Kennedy was running for President, and I remember my mother telling me “The Pope can tell the President what to do”, so I’m assuming she didn’t vote for Kennedy. Even at that age I thought it was a crazy thought.
I heard that same crap, and for years after JFK was dead. If you recall it all started up again when his brother Bobby decided to run. RFK (the real one, not his P.O.S. we see in the news these day) seemed headed to the nomination and likely the Presidency. So all that “has to do what the Pope says” nonsense made the rounds again. I’m not Catholic but had friends that were. In adulthood certain Catholics with clout in my small hometown (Sister Michael Marie at the hospital) and Father Renchen (the head of our Parish who retired but still showed up for some weddings and funerals) let me know I was kind of “honorary Catholic” and fretted that I still wasn’t married. I recall being outside the church during a funeral when Father Renchen came out (he had turned things over and politely declined roles in funerals/weddings most of the time) and we started shootng the breeze. Somewhow RFK’s name came up and with it the trope about the Pope. Father laughed (hard) and said it would have been funny to have seen the Pope try to give orders to RFK or JFK. That the Pope would have been not so politely told to butt the hell out. I believe he was right, and that Popes then and now have known better than to try and play the “Catholic Card” as in ‘you have to do such and such because I say it’s church doctrine’ with any American President. Or even lower elected and appointed types. Folks should note that while some a-hole priests and even Bishops have tried to pressure Catholic politicians by having them denied Communian the Pope/Vatican hasn’t sanctioned, much less excommunicated a single American poltician for departing from Catholic doctrine. They have however lowered the boom on a handful of the most outspoken priests and bishops for their dickish talk and actions and attempts to force our politics to bend to their will/views!
I was 16 during the Kennedy run. I was not Catholic, but was already looking at the church and thinking of converting. The Pope at the time was John XXIII. He was only in office from 1958 untl Jun e 1963, but he made some transformative changes. After his deth, I really thought he would be the best Pope of my lifetime (ad then Francis came long.) No, he wasn’t perfect – even the Pope is only “infallible” when speaking “ex cathedra.” (That’s , very roughly, Latin for “offocial act.”) We would have been a lot better off s a nation if we had all “listened to the Pope” than we would have been, say, listening to Franklin Graham. That is not an argument for mixing church and state,which actually has a much worse effect on the church than it does on the state (but the effect on the state, God knows, is bad enough.) And MAGA is exhibit A for that. Many Protestant Evangelicals had already drifted away from actual Chriatian teachings, influenced by, among other malpractice, the “prosperity gospel.” But wil MAGA they stopped fdrifting and started flooding away – but still calling themselves Christians.
I was 14 when JFK was murdered. I remember my family being so excited that someone like them, an Irish gamer I can Catholic,was President.
On a lighter note, Joe Kennedy had been a dumb runner during Prohibition, while my grandfather’s 3 restaurants were speakeasies, but they were never raided because the mayors and chiefs of police all.drank there!
Smuggling, especially booze,is a proud Irish tradition. When I ordered my wedding veil.from.a convent in Limerick, the nine sent it through as both artwork.and an unsolicited gift. NUNS! My Waterford was mailed two.glasses at a time so I didn’t have to.pay duty. Smuggling and drinking: if those were Olympic sports,Ireland would win ever single time.
Ursula I was also seven in 1960. Funny how quickly the nuances, the gestalt of a time period fades into obscurity. The sense of optimism was everywhere as was the national period of grieving when Kennedy was shot. Even though the Beatles came on national tv three months later and revived a sense of new beginnings, the political landscape became dark in a way it never recovered from. When the leaders of the Civil rights movement, and possibly the next president, were assassinated in 1968, we’ve never returned to the innocence of 1960. And probably won’t ever. As Bill Walton, who endured 32 orthopedic surgeries and a spinal surgery, replied when asked: Bill, when did you know it was over? He said, after smiling for a moment, it’s not over. It’s never over. The fight continues. Exactly. The fight continues.
Another fun fact.
Amount of money set aside from Kamala Harris campaign funds to pay for lawyers.
Zero.
Allegedly (and, no doubt, definitely) there is an army of red lawyers poised to contest counts and generally queer the process. Pretty sure there is a contingency amount to pay for blue lawyers. A legitimate use of campaign funds.
Okay fine.
Amount of money set aside from Kamala Harris campaign funds to pay for lawyers to defend criminal acts committed over the past 10 years? Zero.
Happy?
Absolutely! Though I was not gainsaying youat all but highlighting the need for lawyers on tap on Nov 5 and beyond in defence of illegitimate count challenges
YES!