In 2004, Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Titled The Audacity of Hope, it stumped for the election of John Kerry as president in the November election, positioning the race as one of hope against cynicism. It didn’t work. Bush the Second was re-elected. But it laid the groundwork and theme for Obama’s election four years later.
The evening of June 27 this year, I was determined to not watch the debate between Joe Biden and that other guy. I was sure I didn’t need the aggravation. After all, I can no longer vote in U.S. presidential elections. No dog in that race, thank you.
But the political junkie in me gravitated to PBS, drawn by a masochistic power I couldn’t ignore. The candidates were introduced, Biden started to speak. Ninety seconds later, I turned it off. I’m sure my face looked as though I’d been struck in the head with a two-by-four. “Sweet Jesus,” I thought. “Biden’s had a stroke!”
It only took that long to grasp what the reaction was likely to be. By all accounts it was even worse than I expected. He never hit his stride... or maybe that was his stride. Over the next three weeks things spiralled downhill. Biden was in a flat spin. There was a relentless torrent of news stories about his cognitive deficits. There was a very good performance at a news conference completely overshadowed by Biden conflating Kamala Harris with Trump as his vice president.
The end came on July 21. It was inevitable once the big money parked itself on the sidelines, understanding it would be wasted funding Biden’s run.
There was a lot of speculation about whether and when Biden would drop out of the race. There was well-founded concern about the infighting likely to take place among Democrats if he did, each camp pushing for their own preferred candidate and each concerned the others would refuse to embrace any candidate but their own.
It was a grim period. Unless you were a supporter of the Orange Monster. What little hope there may have been vanished like a fart in the wind. The obvious choice to succeed Biden was the vice president, Kamala Harris. But her profile was almost non-existent. She made a splash as Biden’s running mate in 2020 and then disappeared into the netherworld of vice presidential anonymity, surfacing only to cast the deciding vote in the senate more often than any other vice president in history.
I’d abandoned hope. Grim sounding op-eds by what are generally thought of as being left-leaning writers began to yield the election to the Republicans. Canadians with a political bent began to muse in funereal tones about the appalling confluence of a Trump presidency and a Parliament led by Pierre Poilievre.
Cue the audacity of hope.
Harris caught fire. Money began to flood into the Democratic Party. Suddenly the veep was everywhere, and for the first time in four years people began to notice her. She was tough. She was aggressive. She was young.
Suddenly, it was Trump who was the old man, yesterday’s man, the blathering idiot with the over-educated redneck running mate. The race was shaping up to be one of youthful fresh thinking versus old men shouting at clouds, longing for the days when women knew their place and laws were there to make sure they didn’t stray too far from whatever that place was.
Whatever that place is, I’m sure Harris ain’t there. It’s already been interesting to see how off-balance Trump is, flailing around to deal with her when all the planning has been to taunt Biden as a doddering old fool. There’s speculation whether he’ll even debate her at all, though if I were Harris I’d consider refusing to debate him on the grounds she didn’t want to give credence to a seditious convicted felon, a serial philanderer, sexual abuser, frequent bankrupt, racist, sexist, pussy-grabbing, draft-dodging cheat.
It’ll be interesting to watch how it all unfolds, knowing there are still nearly half the voters south of the border who march in line with the Monster.
Days before Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, Aaron Sorkin—he of The West Wing—wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times suggesting if he were scripting the race, he’d have the Democrats run a moderate Republican, namely Mitt Romney, for their presidential candidate. Calling it a bold move that put their money where their mouth was in terms of bringing unity to the country, it goes without saying the notion got no traction in Democratic circles.
But it seemed like a bold idea to have Harris enlist a moderate Republican who wasn’t in Trump’s pocket as a running mate. There likely would have been a tectonic shift in American politics if she had. There would likely have been an exodus of Republicans who hold their nose and vote for Trump if she had.
Well, she didn’t. On Tuesday she announced Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. If you have no idea who that is, you’re not alone. If you know Minnesota is a state that borders Ontario, you’re ahead of many Americans whose grasp of geography remains woefully limited.
If that sounds too harshly judgmental, it wasn’t that many years ago I was speaking by phone with a sheriff in New Jersey who I’d sent legal papers to be served on a local resident. Several weeks had elapsed and I asked him if he’d successfully served them. “Yes,” he replied. “I mailed you my affidavit of service two weeks ago. But you know how slow international mail can be.”
He was shocked to discover New Mexico was actually a state in the U.S. and even more shocked to find out it had been since 1912! I didn’t ask him how much international postage he’d put on the envelope.
But I digress.
With the manifold faults Trump and Vance can claim between them, the Harris campaign has latched onto “weird” as their epithet of choice to describe them. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure I’m not offended. Many people, some quite close, some family, think I’m weird. Come to think of it, most of my friends are pretty weird themselves. It seems too general. Better than deplorables, but not specific enough.
I’d borrow from Tammy Duckworth, Senator from Illinois. She lost both legs while a helicopter pilot during the Iraq War. Responding to Trump labelling her treasonous for not applauding during one of his State of the Union speeches, she took to calling him Cadet Bone Spurs, referencing one of his Vietnam draft deferments.
It’s a better label. Hits closer to home. Might make those vets who support him think twice.
