Kamala— Lookin' Good, Lookin' Very Good... But It Is NOT In The Bag Yet

Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a conservative, addressed the Democratic convention in prime time on Thursday. After acknowledging that the Democratic Party is as patriotic as the Republican Party, he said he had “learned something about my party too, something I couldn’t ignore. The Republican Party is no longer conservative. It has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself. Donald Trump,” said the former Air Force fighter pilot, “ is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim… Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.”

Defining Trump as a self-interested fraud was a primary objective of the convention. Right from the git-go Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan noted that the speeches and videos were meant to think Trump in order to help Kamala rise above him, to minimize him and help the country disengage from him. And to do that, they needed a big viewership. They go it. The ratings, as Trump would call it, dwarfed Trump’s own. More people watched the Democrats than the Republicans.

Nielsen told the story, grim from the GOP perspective. Zach Folk reported that “About 20.1 million people tuned in to watch the Democrats’ conference on Wednesday, Nielsen confirmed— the third night in a row the broadcast reached more than 20 million viewers… The RNC attracted about 17.9 million viewers on the third night of its broadcast— a roughly 11% difference from the DNC’s third day.

However, the RNC’s most successful night was Thursday, July 18— when an average of 25.3 million Americans tuned in to the broadcast. The highlight of the night was former President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated acceptance speech— his first major address after the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. Viewership peaked while Trump was on stage, attracting a whopping 28.4 million viewers.

Privately, Trump has been bragging about his RNC ratings, calling them “tremendous,” Rolling Stone reported on Monday before the convention began. Two anonymous sources told the magazine the former president has been grilling people in his orbit about whether Harris will top his ratings performance when she takes the stage on Thursday.

Kamala’s closing speech was inspiring. Ratings just came in-- across 7 networks combined. Kamala surpassed Trump's 12.3 (from 10:30 on) with 15.0 (in the same time slot). He's probably throwing ketchup bottles at the walls!

John Harwood tweeted this morning that “Trump has taken Republicans so far off the deep end as to leave the American mainstream wide open. Harris and Democrats spent this effective convention claiming it— on broadly-shared values, on decency, on love of country. And after Kamala spoke last night, Jonathan Last noted that “Democrats featured Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton— that’s all but two of the living Democratic presidential nominees going back to 1992. The Republican convention featured no former presidential nominees. The state of the Republican party is so toxic that previous nominees— even previous presidents— have been unpersoned and read out of the movement. That’s a portrait of two institutions: One institution in harmony with its legacy and continuing to evolve in such a way as to hold its coalition together. The other institution in a state of convulsion… Trump is on track to lose the popular vote for a third consecutive election; a mark of futility and failure unlikely to be duplicated. He should lose the Electoral College, too… Trump is an old man. He’s a failed president who lost reelection by a wide margin and has been persistently unpopular for the entirety of his political career. He left office with the economy in shambles and unemployment raging. He is running a backward-looking campaign based on personal grievance and a factually incorrect view of America as a hellscape.”

Jonathan Chait wrote that her speech was the best convention acceptance he had ever seen. “Harris explicitly promised to represent Republicans as well as Democrats. ‘I know there are people of various political views watching tonight,’ she said, ‘And I want you to know: I promise to be a President for all Americans.’ That may seem like easy rhetoric, but it stands in contrast to Trump’s naked partisanship as president, routinely and openly favoring politicians and areas that supported him. More significantly, Harris relentlessly depicted herself as the sane, moderate candidate in the race. She labeled herself a candidate ‘who is realistic, practical, and has common sense.’… Harris is in this to win this. And I believe she will.”

Similarly, Dan Pfeiffer noted that she has come to embody the change that people so desperately want. “[P]eople are sick and tired of our politics, and Donald Trump has been the dominant figure in our politics for nearly a decade. He is omnipresent in our lives. As Obama so aptly put it on Tuesday night: ‘It just goes on and on and on. The other day, I heard someone compare Trump to the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day. Now, from a neighbor, that’s exhausting. From a President, it’s just dangerous.’ The pure exhaustion with the never-ending battles and sniping of the Trump era is why so many people tuned out of politics. Many are weary over the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch. Been there, done that. Biden beat Trump once, and while things in the country improved greatly, many were still unsatisfied. Harris represents an opportunity to turn the page on this entire era of politics, a prospect for a brighter, less rancorous future. Trump is now functioning as the de facto incumbent in the race. People are thirsting for a new direction. They need to know more about Kamala Harris to believe she is the right person to deliver that change. Last night’s speech was a hell of a start.”

“Democrats spent four days in Chicago,” wrote Sam Stein and Marc Caputo, “castigating, belittling, and demonizing Donald Trump. And then they did something even more vicious: They turned him into the incumbent. The 2024 Democratic convention will be remembered for, among other things, Oprah’s oratory, the proud tears of Tim Walz’s son, Michelle Obama’s call to action, and the historic nomination of the first black female presidential candidate, who delivered a speech that sought to claim the mantle of patriotism and outline a less rancorous politics. But the most consequential outcome may end up being how the convention transformed the team currently occupying the White House into the opposition party, while portraying Trump as a dangerous blight that needs to be defeated… Time and again, speakers in Chicago portrayed the election as a judgment on the candidate who currently does not hold office. They described a country still dealing with the lingering outcomes of a presidency that ended three and a half years ago, from a pandemic that shattered society to the rapid debasement of our politics… The predominant theme of the entire week, ‘we’re not going back,’ was not an affirmative case to continue the progress of the current administration, it was a fearful warning about returning to the prior one… ‘This is absolutely a referendum on Trump. People are sick of him,’ said Dan Daley, a Florida delegate and state representative. ‘Donald Trump had his four years and then stuck around. We saw what a disaster he was. So why the hell would we want to go back to that?’”

OK, speaking of Florida… the state  has 30 electoral votes; only California and Texas have more. As recently as 2008 and 2012, Obama won the state— 4,282,074 (50.9%) to 4,045,624 (48.1%) in 2008 and 4,237,756 (50.0%) to 4,163,447 (49.1%) in 2012, after a massive voter registration drive in 2016 that added nearly 700,000 Democrats to the rolls. In 2012, Obama, the Democrats added about 300,000 more Dems and then in 2016, Dems added 400,000, this time around the same as the Republicans added. Since then, Democrats have been unregistering Democrats. There are 4,327,859 registered Democrats right now, the fewest since 2007.

Since DeSantis was reelected-- against Charlie Christ, another Republican posing as a conservative Democrat, by a massive 19 points, the Republicans have expanded their registration advantage by another 750,000, entirely by deleting Democrats from the voter rolls. And four years ago– a Presidential year– Republicans had a 43% to 32% turnout advantage in in-person voting. Democrats had a similar advantage in mail voting: Guess which one of those has been cut in half? Can Kamala win without Florida? Sure; Biden did… but it would be a lot easier with Florida. And Trump can’t win without Florida. The moribund Florida Democratic Party— basically as worthless as Ohio’s— has done NOTHING to stem the incredible shrinkage of the party. It’s as though, the GOP-owned “Democratic” consultants like Pradeep “Rick” Asnani, of Cornerstone Solutions, Christian Ulvert of Edge Communications and Michael Worley of MDW  are calling the shots.

This afternoon, RFK, Jr will endorse Trump. It probably won't matter at all. Like Vance, the two of them are weirdos who basically appeal to the same losers and misfits.