OMG! That convention was literally the best thing. THE BEST THING!
What a week! What a time to be alive! What a time to be a Democrat!
I’ve got so many amazing things to share!
I want to just relive that amazing week with all of you and I have specific DNC related funnies!
I hope you all are allowing yourselves to ENJOY THE JOY!
I don’t know about you, but there is a part of me that gets a little nervous when things are this great. When is the hammer going to drop? What if something goes wrong? What if I get so excited and then we lose?
I understand all those thoughts but I also beg you to allow yourself to ENJOY THE JOY! Sure, there will be hard times, but that is a great reason to enjoy what we had this week and what we have now — an amazing candidate and an amazing party and every reason to be enthusiastic!
It goes without saying that we don’t want to lose focus — but let your joy and enthusiasm guide your engagement! You don’t need to be scared and upset to work hard. This is an amazing time to be a Democrat! YOU are part of a moment that will go down in history. ENJOY THE JOY!!!
Now onto the good news 🤩❤️
The Convention was LIT!!!
The Democratic National Convention made an impossible job look easy
Breakthrough moments are different from great oratory. I expected the Obamas to be precisely what they were: manifestly competent, persuasive and brilliant. No surprises there. Bill Clinton’s fragility was a little startling, but it’s fitting that he broke out with one of the best lines about Trump: “Don’t count the lies. Count the I’s.” Former congressman Adam Kinzinger’s appeal to his fellow Republicans to stand up to Trump was masterful — and differed from some other Republican speeches at the DNC in that it seemed to be actually trying to reach his fellow conservatives (rather than placate a Democratic crowd).
But the really special TV moments at these sorts of things tend to be small and unplanned. One that stood out to me, partly because it was comparatively unpolished, came when Harris’s childhood best friend (and her mother’s best friend) took the podium to tell a story about Harris confronting a childhood bully. They didn’t nail the story; it ends with Harris injured. That inability to tie it all into a bow (narrating her as a fighter who wins, or something) made the story feel, well, real. So did Maya Harris’s focus as she listened, nodding almost imperceptibly, to her sister. Gus Walz’s deeply moving response to seeing his father speak. Elizabeth Warren getting a little verklempt at the intensity of the crowd’s cheers. The very particular expression with which Hillary Clinton — whose iron self-mastery has sometimes served her poorly — listened to the crowd chanting “lock him up” without ever joining in.
Welcome to your unified Democratic Party
This is part of President Joe Biden’s legacy—inheriting a fractured Democratic Party and just four years later, seeing it marching ideologically together.
There is no Bernie vs. Hillary battle, nor anything beyond healthy and respectful disagreement inside our Big Tent. It was telling that mere weeks after Democratic Socialists of America disowned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she took the stage on Monday as a full-fledged representative of the American Democratic Party mainstream—without ever having compromised a single tenet of her ideals. The party has moved to where she was all along. The last two laggards in the Senate, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, will be gone next year.
At the convention, the media desperately wanted another 1968, when protests and division sundered that year’s Democratic convention in Chicago. Instead, planned protests fizzled, barely impacting the proceedings. It’s not just the party that is united, but so is the base.
And it’s not just because of Donald Trump. This is not a party unified by terror and fear of a second Trump presidency. This is one unified by common purpose, joy, and hope.
And how can you not be fired up given our party? We have the best veterans: Biden, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Michelle and Barack Obama, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jim Clyburn, Jimmy Carter, and so many more of our incredible elders.
And our bench, oh, our bench!
Chicago’s DNC: a pulsating rave where the ecstasy is a vision of MAGA-free America
It was somewhere before DJ Cassidy rocked the house at 118 beats per minute for a presidential roll call so loud and boisterous that famed Chicago law-and-order boss Richard J. Daley was probably spinning in his grave, and before Atlanta hip-hop star Lil Jon bounced down the arena stairs chanting “We’re not going back” to celebrate Georgia’s vote for Kamala Harris, when I saw a natural high of ecstasy take hold on the floor of the United Center.
But it’s clear that a much bigger prairie fire is burning in Chicago this week.
This is not the Democratic Party I’ve watched since I entered adulthood in the 1980s, blinded by the faux sunrise of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” so terrified of being called “liberal” or getting a bad headline that they ended up like a dog that’s been beat too much, spending the last four decades covering up. I could feel the shock waves of the vibe shift from the convention floor Tuesday night as I watched the star speaker, former first lady Michelle Obama, who’d famously defined the old ways when she declared that “when they go low, we go high.”
But just like the Eagles prove every Sunday with their trademarked “tush push,” you don’t drive back your opponent unless you get just as low off the line of scrimmage. Obama paid brief lip service to civility before a “crackback block” on Trump’s racism that had caused the GOP cult leader to once claim her husband was not an American.
“Who’s gonna tell him the job he’s currently seeking might be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” she roared, and the floor of the United Center shook in a way that it hasn’t since Michael Jordan dunked over Karl Malone.
It turns out that replacing Biden with Harris was more than a shrewd political calculation. It was a signal for America’s political abuse victims to finally break free, to replace senatorial decorum with in-your-face memes, to speak their own truth about how Trump, Project 2025, and right-wing extremism have been battering America without worrying about what uptight fact-checkers and the tsk-tsk crowd at the New York Times and the Washington Post will say, and to make their own kind of music.
and why is this happening?
It turns out that millions of repressed Americans were dying inside to make their own statement for a kind of freedom that values diversity, a sleeper cell waiting to be activated. Then Harris bounced on stage with Beyoncé’s “Freedom” blaring, with a vocabulary that spoke to generations born long after Reagan waved farewell.
Democrats, from Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, down to the rank and file, no longer care what the New York Times picks nits about. In a remarkable change from Trump’s 2016 victory, it’s now the Democrats who want to be taken seriously but not literally.
A lot will change, and a lot will happen this fall, but right now, I wouldn’t bet against the party that’s dancing in the aisles. My political advice for the Democrats is to rave on — it’s a crazy feeling.
and so much useless angst beforehand about a repeat of 68! DID NOT HAPPEN!
How protests outside the DNC defied expectations, staying mostly calm
Democrats worried that protesters might derail their shining moment this week, pushing the spotlight from Vice President Kamala Harris to the devastation in the Gaza Strip.
Republicans claimed that the Democratic National Convention was spiraling into chaos, disparaging this host city as a “Third World country.”
But as the party wrapped up its four-day gathering Thursday night, the reality on the ground remained calmer than either side had anticipated. Thousands of demonstrators rallied here as delegates met in the United Center — without any convention-upending chaos.
“We intended to have a peaceful, family-friendly march,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana, spokesperson for a large coalition of groups calling itself March on the DNC. “And that is what happened.”
And so many amazing speakers! Here are just some of my favorites:
Exonerated members of Central Park Five warn about Trump at Democratic convention
Four of the exonerated members of the so-called Central Park Five — a group of five teenagers wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a jogger — appeared Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, warning of what a second Donald Trump presidency could bring.
On Thursday, the fourth and final night of the Democratic convention, Salaam and Wise stood on stage with two others of the Central Park Five who had been exonerated: Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson.
“He wanted us dead,” Salaam said, referring to Trump but avoiding using his name. “Today we are exonerated because the actual perpetrator confessed and DNA proved it. That guy says he still stands by the original guilty verdict. He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong. He has never changed and he never will.”
On Thursday, Salaam urged the crowd to throw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in November.
Trump “thinks that hate is the animating force in America. It is not,” Salaam said. “We have the constitutional right to vote. In fact, it is a human right. So let us use it ... and together, on November 5, we will usher in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz into the White House.”
Jaime Harrison’s only-in-America story dispels my cynicism
At the United Center on Monday, Jaime Harrison briefly told the story of how “a round-headed boy from South Carolina” came to become chair of the Democratic National Committee. “Folks, only in America,” he summarized. For anyone who wants to feel better about this nation, let me elaborate.
Harrison, 48, was born and raised Orangeburg, S.C., which is also my hometown. He told the delegates that he vividly remembers watching television coverage of the 1988 Democratic convention, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson — who finished second to Michael Dukakis in the race for the party’s presidential nomination — gave a powerful speech. What stuck with the 12-year-old Harrison was not just what Jackson said but who he was.
“A Black man, from South Carolina, raised by a single mother — that was me,” Harrison told the convention delegates. “So … when our power was cut off, when there was nothing in the fridge, when we lost our home to a con man, I never lost hope.”
That’s my dad!’ Gus Walz charms crowd as father Tim accepts VP nomination
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was onstage to accept his party’s nomination for the vice presidency on the third night of the Democratic National Convention when attention quickly shifted toward the packed crowd, where his 17-year-old son stood up with tears in his eyes, pointed to the stage and declared: “That’s my dad!”
The emotional moment Wednesday night captivated viewers as Walz addressed Democrats as Vice President Kamala Harris’s official running mate. His son and daughter, Gus and Hope Walz, were both crying as Walz talked about how he and his wife had struggled to have children, and how fertility treatments had made it possible for them to conceive.
Doug Emhoff Raves About Kamala Harris, Her Brisket, and Her Laugh
Emhoff poked fun at himself.
“Now, for generations, people have debated when to call the person you’re being set up with. Never in history has anyone suggested 8:30 a.m. And yet, that’s when I dialed, got Kamala’s voicemail, and just started rambling. ‘Hey, it’s Doug. I’m on my way to an early meeting. Again, this is Doug …”
He delivered the line like a stand-up comedian and the audience arena shook with laughter. He also delivered it as if he remembered the moment a little more clearly than one would expect for a call that took place more than a decade ago. It soon became clear why.
“By the way, Kamala saved that voice mail and she makes me listen to it every anniversary,” he said.
DNC Crowd Roars ‘Lock Him Up!’ as Hillary Clinton Slams Felon Trump
Hillary Clinton basked in some karmic revenge against Donald Trump on Monday night as the crowd at the Democratic National Convention chanted “Lock him up!”—eight years after the now convicted felon defeated her.
“Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” Clinton said. “When he woke up, he’d made his own kind of history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”
The comment thrilled the crowd. “Lock him up!” they chanted, interrupting the speech. Clinton smiled and nodded along approvingly.
Michelle Obama articulated something Democrats have been afraid to say
“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” former first lady Michelle Obama said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday. “A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long.”
“You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!” she said, adding: “America, hope is making a comeback.”
First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost hits Trump on climate change at DNC
Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida brought a message about environmentalism and climate change to Thursday night’s Democratic National Convention.
“This election is about every drop of water that we consume and every breath we breathe,” the youngest member of Congress told the crowd.
“Fighting the climate crisis is patriotic, and unlike Donald Trump, our patriotism is more than some damn slogan on a hat,” Frost continued. “It's about actually giving a damn about the people who live in this country. Because when you love somebody, you want them to have clean air. When you love somebody, you want them to have safe drinking water. And when you love somebody, you want them to have a dignified job.
Kamala's adorable nieces teach America how to say their aunt's name
‘That Woman From Michigan’ Twists the Knife on Trump
Heading into the closing hour of the closing night of the Democrats’ Chicago love fest, “Big Gretch” took the stage to make the case for “badass” women. And, really, who better than the tough-as-nails governor of Michigan — Gretchen Whitmer, the woman who stood up to Donald Trump during the thick of the pandemic and subsequently wound up the target of an alleged kidnapping and assassination plot by a pack of slack-jawed yahoos?
“Donald Trump calls me ‘that woman from Michigan,’ as an insult,” Whitmer boasted. “Being a woman from Michigan is a badge of honor. Like women across America, we just G.S.D.: get stuff done.”
No one knows what the next four years will bring, said Whitmer. But when crisis inevitably strikes, “you’ll ask, ‘Is my family going to be OK?’ And then you’ll ask, ‘Who the hell is in charge?’”
Here she slowed down and twisted the knife: “What. If. It’s. Him? What if it’s that man from Mar-a-Lago?”
Now is the time for choosing, she said. “Why wouldn’t we choose a leader who’s tough, tested — and a total badass?”
Amen, sister.
Tim Walz positively nails his big DNC moment
Yes, Gov. Tim Walz is that guy: your favorite neighbor, teacher, coach—the guy you’d call when you needed help changing a tire, or facing a hard conversation with your parents, or just want to have a fun fishing companion.
That’s the man who showed up Wednesday night to accept the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to be vice president. The heart of his message: “Everybody belongs.”
Check out the first few minutes of this — the side by side of the RNC and DNC roll calls! LOL
and finally KAMALA’S SPEECH. Poetry
Kamala Harris Nailed the Greatest Speech of Her Life
They saved the best for last.
In a week of speechmaking like none of us have seen in our lifetimes, with one barn-burning or heart-tugging or inspiring address after another electrifying the crowd at the Democratic National Convention, the biggest question confronting Kamala Harris before she took the stage for the final keynote of the event was “How can she top all that?”
The trip to church on which Reverend Raphael Warnock and then Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the crowd? Oprah’s searing surprise address? The big names like Bill Clinton or Nancy Pelosi? The high wattage rising stars like Wes Moore and Gretchen Whitmer? The valedictory of Joe Biden? The completely expected but nonetheless surpassing mastery of Michelle and Barack Obama? The star-is-born-yet-again vibe of Tim Walz’s remarks elevated by the pictures of his loving family? The heartbreaking personal stories of gun violence victims?
Pick the analogy that suits your era. This week in Chicago was the Woodstock or the Live Aid or the Lollapalooza or the Coachella or Burning Man of political oratory, but fortunately for all in attendance it was better stage-managed and a lot more comfortable for the attendees than all of those.
Harris had to top it and then she had to make the ultimate call to action.
What is remarkable and deeply consequential is that she did just that.
Her rhetoric captured both the best of being a storyteller telling a tale about people and the role of being a leader calling a nation to rise up and act at a moment of great historical importance.
And then, as all greatstory tellers do, she brought us back home, back to the beginning of the story, back to her mother and the values with which she was imbued as a child:
Our opponents in this race are out there, every day, denigrating America. Talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach. Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.
America, let us show each other—and the world—who we are. And what we stand for. Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness. And endless possibilities.
We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment. It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done. Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love.
To fight for the ideals we cherish.
And to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth. The privilege and pride of being an American.
So, let’s get out there and let’s fight for it.
Let’s get out there and let’s vote for it.
And together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.
She took us from the intimate to the soaring, from facts we needed to the call to action the moment demanded. And in so doing, she provided the best and only possible ending for an extraordinary convention, its greatest speech, and more than that the impetus to begin the hard but essential work of actually winning the election.
The moment when Kamala Harris’s speech came alive
Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech started slow, getting bogged down in a familiar recitation of her biography. But it got stronger over time, really hitting its stride when she got around to a topic that’s often dry: foreign policy. There, she showed a facility with policy and an aptitude for navigating deeply divisive issues like Israel-Palestine that did wonders for her commander-in-chief credibility.
Part of what worked was Harris’s palpably emotional delivery. But there was also a real crispness to the speech’s arguments. Here’s what she said, for example, in discussing Trump’s affinity for dictators:
I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un who are rooting for Trump. Who are rooting for Trump because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.
In just three lines, she presented an entire cogent theory of what’s wrong with Trump — that he is a selfish, unserious man whose entire approach to politics is anathema to American democracy — and illustrated it with a compelling, easily graspable example. As a writer, it’s hard not to admire the craft here.
Harris plants her flag in Chicago: The future is now
It is Kamala Harris’s Democratic Party now. The United Center here has had its roof blown off before, but seldom as explosively as it did on Thursday night. When Harris accepted the Democratic convention’s nomination for president, the hall erupted the way it did when NBA legend Michael Jordan would commit some jaw-dropping violation of the law of gravity.
The arena was perhaps at its loudest when she led the crowd in what has become a rallying cry: “We’re not going back!"
and we beat their ratings every night and she DESTROYED his numbers (LOL)
Kamala Harris Beats Donald Trump in Acceptance Speech Ratings by 22%
According to Fox Sports’s president of Insights and Analytics, Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech drew 22% more viewers than former President Donald Trump’s speech.
Overnight ratings for the *entire show* on Night Four of the conventions. Seven networks combined:DNC - 14.3 (9-11:15p)RNC - 12.2 (10p-12m)Difference: 17%
Other Good News
Excitement over Kamala Harris activates unprecedented flood of Democratic donors
Vice President Kamala Harris activated a flood of Democratic donors who had been on the sidelines, new data shows: More people donated to her campaign in its first 10 days than in the entire 15 months of President Joe Biden’s.
And most of the donors were new not only to the campaign but to giving to any Democrats this cycle.
Kamala Harris has put Trump in a box, and he’s struggling to break out
As Democrats emerge from their electrifying convention in Chicago, Trump finds himself on the defense, and it’s not clear he knows what to do.
In his history as a candidate for president, Donald Trump has never experienced anything like the past month. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black and Indian American woman, has pushed the White alpha male to the sidelines of the national conversation, denying him the spotlight he craves and constantly demands.
The Democrats are in the game, the former president is in a box, and it’s not clear whether he knows what to do.
Kamala Harris raised four times as much cash as Donald Trump in July
Kamala Harris raised four times as much as Donald Trump in July, as individual donations poured into her campaign after she replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket.
Her campaign brought in $204mn last month, compared with Trump’s $48mn, according to a Financial Times analysis of federal filings. Her campaign ended July with $220mn in cash on hand, while Trump’s campaign had $151mn.
Harris’s money haul marked a stunning burst of enthusiasm for the new Democratic candidate — and means her campaign may have closed a funding gap Trump had opened over Biden, although the full picture will only emerge with more data published next month.
The rise of the "Brat Pack" — and a new Democratic political style
The great political story of 2024 is President Biden’s decision to stand aside in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. It is a story of selflessness, of a generational transition in the rise of Harris, and of a woman who has at times struggled to command the narrative coming into her own in a way that has energized the party, turned the race upside down, and roused deadened souls.
But this story, as dramatic as it is, may obscure the deeper story, which is less about the transition from one leader to another and more about the ascendance of a new political style at the top of the Democratic Party. We are witnessing the rise of what I’m calling the Brat Pack, and with it a new approach that elevates attention over restraint, storytelling over self-explanatory policy mindedness, fight picking over always taking the high road, and thrilling the base over diluting for moderates.
My best, most distilled understanding of what has happened in the transition to a Kamala Harris campaign is that the civil war has turned. Harris may have inherited much of Biden’s campaign apparatus and its players, but many at the top are new — Harris’s people. And in the giant threadbare temporary startup that is a presidential campaign, the faction that long wanted a different, fresher way seems to be winning.
Yes, we have a new candidate in Harris. But don’t sleep on the deeper shift. A new political style is on the rise. The Brat Pack has a plan to defeat Trump.
voters rejected DeSantis-backed school board candidates in my county and across FL
Many of us know that for years now the Republican Party has worked to strengthen its power by starting at the local level, with school boards being a key strategic target. Well, the Democrats have started fighting back and it’s paying off. In yesterday’s primary election in Florida, voters in Pinellas County (my county, which includes St. Petersburg) rejected three Ron DeSantis-blessed candidates that wanted to take over the local school board and bring their conservative anti-woke crap to our schools. The same thing happened across the bay In Hillsborough County (which includes Tampa), where voters rejected two Ron DeSantis-backed MAGA candidates.
With Harris on the ballot, Democrats work to build momentum for bigger youth vote
Democratic and left-leaning youth organizing groups have seized on a new opportunity to rally younger voters now that Vice President Kamala Harris is their party’s presidential nominee.
Young adult voters—including millions of Gen Zers—could be pivotal in determining the outcome of the race in which the 59-year-old Democrat vies for the Oval Office against former President Donald Trump, 78, the GOP presidential nominee. Members of Gen Z eligible to vote are 18 to 27 years old this year.
These groups say young voters are excited to possibly elect someone who more closely represents their demographics, as Harris would be the first woman to serve as president, the second Black president and the first president of South Asian descent. About 45% of the Gen Z generation eligible to vote are young people of color, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
How Democrats Reversed the Script on the GOP
Democrats arrive here, a city that’s played host to so many drama-filled political conventions, as a party lacking in drama. They are disciplined, orderly and united around Vice President Kamala Harris and, more to the point, thwarting former President Donald Trump’s restoration.
This new era of good feelings for Democrats is a far cry from last month, when they faced their most existential crisis since Trump’s initial election, their leaders staring one another down in a sort of political version of nuclear brinksmanship. And it differs from so many previous conventions when there was often intra-party tension over policy, politics, personnel, or all three, looming above the proceedings.
Democrats are a healthier, better organized, more hierarchical and even ruthless party. Unified against Trump more than they are dedicated to any ideological project, they’ve adopted what’s effectively an Al Davis platform: Just win, baby.
President Biden is finally going to give in? Get in line behind Harris — now.
he vice president is discarding her now-inconvenient left-wing proposals from her 2020 primary bid and airing tough-on-the-border ads? Nod.
She’s inviting a cast of Obama-era Democratic consultants onto the campaign she inherited from Biden? Salute.
Bill Clinton’s old saw that Democrats fall in love while Republicans fall in line has been reversed.
The Mistake That Could Cost Trump the Election
Democrats have managed to make detailed policy ideas into one of Trump’s greatest liabilities.
Certainly Project 2025 contains some outré ideas, but nothing about the exercise itself is unusual. Think tanks on both sides routinely produce various blueprints in an effort to further their priorities and aid presidents with whom they’re allied. The documents seldom make much splash, partly because nitty-gritty policy ideas are not usually what determines elections. Party platforms tend to be short and a little vague on details. They are mostly ignored.
Measured against the typical obscurity, Project 2025 has been a wild success. Not since the Republican House leader Newt Gingrich spearheaded the Contract With America in 1994 has a campaign policy document attracted so much attention. The problem is that many voters seem to hate Project 2025.
Harris Campaign’s Legal Team Takes Shape as Election Battles Heat Up
Amid threats of certification battles and mass voter challenges, Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has assembled an expansive senior legal team that will oversee hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers in a sprawling operation designed to be a bulwark against what Democrats expect to be an aggressive Republican effort to challenge voters, rules and, possibly, the results of the 2024 election.
The legal apparatus within the Harris campaign will oversee multiple aspects of the election program, including voter protection, recounts and general election litigation, and it is adding Marc Elias, one of the party’s top election lawyers, to focus on potential recounts.
The legal group is headed by Bob Bauer, who served as personal counsel to President Biden for years, and Dana Remus, the general counsel to the 2020 Biden campaign, and also includes Maury Riggan, the general counsel for the Harris campaign. Josh Hsu, formerly from the vice president’s office, will join the team, and Vanita Gupta, a former director of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a top Biden Justice Department official, is an informal adviser.
The campaign will also lean on the top lawyers at three prominent law firms — Seth Waxman, Donald Verrilli and John Devaney — to handle litigation, and deploy local counsel to eight battleground states and four other states of interest.
Take a moment to soak in what happened in WI on Tuesday. A landslide against a GOP power grab.
Okay. What happened on Tuesday?
Wisconsin defeated two power-grab ballot questions that the GOP thought would sail right past voters and into the Constitution. It wasn’t inevitable. Our polling in June had us losing both. But we all showed up. And in the end, it wasn’t close.
We’ve learned to fight. And when we fight, as Vice President Harris says, we win.
The GOP wasn’t dumb to think that passing these constitutional amendments would be a cakewalk. 12 of the last 13 constitutional amendments in Wisconsin have passed—all but one in the last 28 years. In June, internal polls found both of the power-grab amendments poised to pass—one of them by 3, the other by 10 points.
They used a tactic that Robin Vos had bragged about before: putting the amendments on normally low-turnout, GOP-heavy election days. For the first time in Wisconsin history, these questions would be voted on in August, the day of Wisconsin’s partisan primary.
It was supposed to be so easy. Their plan had it all. But they forgot one thing: us.
On Tuesday, August 13, turnout surpassed 26% of the voting-age population—the highest turnout in a fall partisan primary during a presidential election year since 1964.
Wisconsinites voted “No” in a landslide. Question 1 fell 57-43. Question 2 went down 58-42. Remove Dane and Milwaukee counties from the calculation, and Wisconsin still voted no. “No” won an outright majority of counties, including 24 where Trump won in 2020.
Putin Is Getting Rattled
In purely military terms, Ukraine’s surprise incursion of Russia earlier this month is a dubious gamble. Moscow has not diverted forces from its grinding advances on the Donetsk front, a main focus of the current fighting, and the physical cost in dead or captured troops and evacuated citizens does not concern Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
The more significant potential of the invasion lies on the other front — that of information, propaganda, morale, image and competing narratives. That is where the fight is being fought to keep the West involved, to keep Ukrainians hopeful and to get Russians worried about the toll of the war in lives and treasure. And this is where Ukraine may see an advantage.
On the Lighter Side DNC Edition!
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I am so proud and so lucky to be in this with all of you ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 💙❤️💛💚✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
![Text of Meme: "Voting isn’t marriage. It’s public transport. You’re not waiting for 'the one' who’s absolutely perfect; you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination, you don’t not travel — you take the one going closest." Debbie B. Moon Source: https://medium.com/@vickipps/voting-isnt-marriage-it-s-public-transport-b7630e6b210a](https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1062901/large/image.png?1650988509 "Text of Meme: "Voting isn’t marriage. It’s public transport. You’re not waiting for 'the one' who’s absolutely perfect; you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination, you don’t not travel — you take the one going closest." Debbie B. Moon Source: https://medium.com/@vickipps/voting-isnt-marriage-it-s-public-transport-b7630e6b210a")
