Wednesday, August 7, 2024
BY CROOKED MEDIA
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The battle for the northern “Blue Wall” states kicked off in earnest Wednesday with back-to-back dueling rallies in the same two cities on the same day: Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Detroit, Michigan.
- It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of the upper midwest in this presidential election, which explains why both campaigns went there today. VP Kamala Harris and her newly minted vice presidential running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), kick-started their campaign partnership in the city Eau Claire, Wisconsin (pop.: 70,000), just as JD Vance, the veep pick of disgraced former president Trump, took the mic at a rival event nearby. Then Harris and Vance flew into Detroit, just hours after Vance held an event in one of Motor City’s northern suburbs.
- The drama between the two camps kicked off almost immediately, when Vance, Harris and Walz all arrived at the same time to Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley Regional Airport. The political meet-cute prompted Vance to act… you guessed it... weird. Vance strode over to Air Force Two and awkwardly addressed assembled reporters. “I figured I’d come by and, one, just get a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months,” the Republican Ohio senator said. “I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days.” (Harris and Walz were greeted a little later on the tarmac by giddy Girl Scouts.)
- What do the rival rallies tell us about the state of this race? Videos and crowd numbers offer up evidence that Harris and Walz had the mojo today. Just listen to this clip of Harris’ crowd thundering, “this is what democracy looks like!” posted by NBC News reporter Jake Traylor. Then, check out this 360-degree view of Vance’s hilariously low-energy parking lot scene in Shelby Township, an affluent northern suburb of Detroit, posted by journalist Maggie George of the Michigan Information & Research Service. We all know how much Trump loves to brag about crowd sizes. This split-screen image has gotta sting!
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Winning a presidential election, of course, takes a lot more than good vibes at a couple rallies. But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Wednesday’s events offered up further evidence that team Harris has the momentum for now, backing up plenty of polling data that says the same thing.
Who could have predicted that a charisma-black-hole who cannot stop spouting off creepy Christian nationalist rhetoric and gives “don’t be alone in a room with this guy” vibes would be a bad No. 2 on the GOP ticket? Certainly not us. |
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Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) lost her primary fight for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District Tuesday night, in another blow to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Bush, a nurse-turned-activist and member of the group of progressives known as the “Squad” in the House, has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza. A super PAC aligned with the pro-Israel lobbyist group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and similarly aligned groups poured more than $8 million into the race in support of Bush’s opponent, Missouri county prosecutor Wesley Bell.
The Democratic primary race that ended Tuesday night with Bell’s victory amounted to the second-most expensive primary in history, only eclipsed by Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) primary race a few weeks earlier. Bowman, also a progressive Democrat and critic of the war in Gaza, lost his primary race and faced similar opposition and funding from pro-Israel groups, to the tally of $15 million.
Bush allies denounced the role of PAC money in the race. “We should really be wary of the same mega donors that are funding Donald Trump and JD Vance to win in November, are spending millions of dollars targeting mostly black and brown, working class Democrats of color in Democratic primaries,” Usamah Andrabi, the communications director for Justice Democrats, said in an interview with What A Day. “That should be a crisis for our party. It certainly is a crisis for our democracy, because this level of spending is an all out assault on our democracy.”
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Young boys are suddenly flocking to sign up for gymnastics after glasses donning, pommel horse guy Stephen Nedoroscikhe star broke the internet with his nonchalant posture, but also gold medal skills, during the Paris Olympics. He pommeled America’s hearts (and clearly needs a Warby Parker sponsorship). |
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