"'Pennsylvania is such a mess': Inside Team Harris’ unusual levels of finger-pointing/Many of the state’s most well-connected Democrats have been worried about the operation for months."

Insiders are complaining to Politico.

And in the same vein: "Latino leaders warn Harris camp: You need to do more to bring Latino men on board/Harris’ performance with Latino voters in Pennsylvania, home to about 580,000 registered Latino voters, could tip the entire election" (Politico).

"Even 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts whipping down from the nearby Poconos couldn’t move the bubble of Donald Trump-scented awe and alternative reality ..."

"... that descended on this hilltop village for about eight hours on Saturday.... This Schnecksville extravaganza was the fourth Trump rally in the Mid-Atlantic that I’d attended since 2016. I go largely because I think the media still fails to understand America’s most important story of the last 10 years. U.S. democracy is staring out into the abyss not so much because of the narcissistic bluster of one alleged billionaire ex-president, but because of the people with fleece hoodies over their MAGA hats who spent hours in an April windstorm to see him.... So who are these people? A new best-selling book blames Trump’s unshakable popularity on 'White Rural Rage' and that is something you might expect to see here in Schnecksville, where the urbane Eastern Seaboard melts into live-bait shops, Baptist churches and red-brick 19th-century homes. The only problem is that almost everyone I met scoffed at their Green Acres stereotype...."

Writes Will Bunch, in "'Trumpstock' brings peace, unity and a ton of disinformation to Schnecksville/Fierce mountain winds in Lehigh County couldn't move the bubble of misinformation surrounding the throng at a Trump rally" (Philadelphia Inquirer). 

Here's video of that Trump's rally:

 

Trump: "This is a hell of a rally. I just heard there are 42,000. You know we expected maybe — because it's freezing, right, it's freezing. I'm freezing my ass off up here. At least they could have given me a little bit of a heater underneath this. They gave me nothing! See, they take advantage — my own people take advantage of me. They gave me nothing. But... you know we expected maybe 10,000 people. We have 42,000 people tonight. 42,000. As far as the eye can see. I wish the I wish the fake news media would turn those camera look at all those cameras. Wow wow wow wow...."

"Faced with a potentially campaign-ending crisis this weekend, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman of Pennsylvania released a Sunday statement thanking the 'kick ass staff and doctors' who treated his stroke."

"The vernacular was not the stuff of parliamentary propriety — 'I need to take a minute,' he wrote about stepping back from the trail — but that was the point, as is often the case with Fetterman. At 6-foot-8, with a shiny pate, a salt-and-pepper goatee, tattooed arms and a sports-bar fashion sense, Fetterman was announcing from a hospital bed that even in illness he remained a different kind of Democrat. It’s a pitch that paid off Tuesday in a state primary that could set up the one-term lieutenant governor to lead his party into the marquee open-seat contest of the 2022 election — a chance for Democrats to find out whether they can arrest the building red wave and their declining White, working-class support with a candidate who does not fit easily into any partisan box. Fetterman, 52, easily beat his principal Democratic rival, Rep. Conor Lamb, a clean-cut Marine Corps veteran and prosecutor whom President Biden had compared to his late son Beau and whom other party leaders as recently as 2018 had held up as an exemplar of the party’s future."

From "Democrats pick John Fetterman for Senate in Pennsylvania/He could represent a chance for a party facing declining White working-class support to put forth a candidate who doesn’t fit easily into any partisan box" (WaPo).

So... one guy may "represent a chance" for the Democratic Party as it faces decline and the other guy was "held up as an exemplar of the party’s future." Looks like the party went into the primary assured that the winner would represent the future. Whatever happens will of course be what was once that crazy thing called The Future. The version of the future that actually arrived is the one without the clean-cut Marine preferred by Biden and other party leaders. The Fetterman future is here:

Comparing 3 states based on how they billed us for skipping the toll booths on a recent trip to NYC.

Pennsylvania — charged $0 and advised that we'll have to pay next time.

New York — required to pay the toll amount ($16).

New Jersey — must pay the toll amount — $3.95 and $9.85 — plus a $50 administrative fee — with the amounts billed separately and the administrative fee charged twice. That's $100 extra on top of $13.80 in tolls.

NOTE: There was no option to stop and pay the toll. There was no one in the booth, presumably because of Covid.

I think it's valuable to read the transcript and judge Trump's words on their merit, not just to remember how you felt as you heard this...

... (if you listened to the whole thing live) and what it seemed as though he was saying. This speech was, I presume, intended to cause intense emotion, and I think it did. I got the feeling he was making wild accusations and that he ought instead to stay very closely connected to the evidence. 

From the transcript of Donald Trump's press conference yesterday:

The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democrat machine that you’ve written about. And for a long time, you’ve been writing about the corrupt Democrat machine. I went to school there and I know a lot about it. It hasn’t changed since a long time ago and hasn’t changed. It has gotten worse. 

In Pennsylvania, partisan Democrats have allowed ballots in the state to be received three days after the election, and we think much more than that, and they’re counting those without even postmarks or any identification whatsoever. So you don’t have postmarks, you don’t have identification. 

There have been a number of disturbing irregularities across the nation. 

Look how the Pennsylvania polls ended.

Specifics here, but look at those lines:

I do think Pennsylvania will determine the outcome. 

Perhaps it all depends on how black people in Philadelphia feel today. 

"This newspaper has not supported a Republican for president since 1972. But we believe Mr. Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year."

Say the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette... that's Pittsburgh, the second-largest city in the state that will probably determine the outcome. 

"Polls show Mr. Biden leading by five to 13 points, but I grew up around here and am dubious. This place — the land of hoagies and Bradley Cooper and Rocky Balboa worship..."

"... and Tina Fey’s 'Cousin Karen' accent — has transmogrified into Trumplandia. 'He has so much more support than in 2016, because it’s been four years of accomplishments,' said Darinna Thompson, 49, a homemaker who was talking with a group of women outside the Trump Store. They were part of a caravan that had just encircled the Democrats’ rally 'to say bye-bye to Biden' and let his supporters know they were outnumbered.... Pollsters say that suburban women are President Trump’s kryptonite, that they’ve turned on him.... 'I feel like that’s wrong — we’re the majority,' said Jennifer Girard, 41, a single mother working in consumer goods.... My mom says many of her girlfriends will go for Mr. Trump, and she hasn’t been able to match with any man on Bumble who isn’t a Trump voter.... The front yards of the houses flanking my mom’s, the one across the street and three more on the block feature Trump signs. There is one Biden sign on the street. One of my mom’s acquaintances recently held a Trump-themed birthday party for her child. Icing on each cookie read, 'Make ninth birthdays great again.'... Lochel’s bakery in Hatboro has become an overnight Oracle of (Phila) Delphi, selling red 'Trump 2020” and blue 'Biden 2020' sugar cookies. Whichever cookie sells the most will predict how this area, and thus the state, and therefore the election, will turn. Supposedly.... So far, the count stands at 3,367 blue cookies, 18,241 red. 'I do think that Trump supporters are more competitive,' said Dan Rutledge, standing in line outside of the bakery in the spitting rain on Sunday."

From "Can We Trust Pennsylvania’s Polls?/They show Joe Biden clinching crucial counties. So why does it feel so different on the ground here?" by Shawn McCreesh (NYT).

ADDED: At FiveThirtyEight: "Is Joe Biden Toast If He Loses Pennsylvania?" Answer to the question: "No, not quite. It is close to being a must-win for Trump, who has only a 2 percent chance of winning the Electoral College if he loses Pennsylvania. Biden, however, has a bit more margin for error. He’d have a 30 percent chance if he lost Pennsylvania.... The reason losing Pennsylvania wouldn’t necessarily doom Biden is because he could still hold those other Midwestern/Rust Belt states. Pennsylvania is fairly similar to Michigan and Wisconsin, but not that similar."

Obama twirling and skittering in Lititz... Trump in Lititz...

On April 2, 2008, I blogged about Maureen Dowd's assertion that "Hillary has clearly raised Obama’s consciousness about the importance of courting the ladies." She fleshed out the theory like this: 

Touring a manufacturing plant in Allentown, Pa., Tuesday, he was flirtatious, winking and grinning at the women working there, calling one “Sweetie,” telling another she was “beautiful,” and imitating his daughters’ dance moves by twirling around 

Later, at a Scranton town hall, he went up to Denise Mercuri, a pharmacist from Dunmore wearing a Hillary button. “What do I need to do? Do you want me on my knees?” he charmed, before promising: “I’ll give you a kiss.”... 

At the Wilbur chocolate shop in Lititz Monday, he spent most of his time skittering away from chocolate goodies, as though he were a starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline. 

“Oh, now,” the woman managing the shop told him with a frown, “you don’t worry about calories in a chocolate factory.”

At the time, I said: "Wait, is [Hillary] toughening him up or feminizing him? And is the feminine stuff nauseatingly stereotyped?" Look at all the stereotypically feminine things pasted on Obama: He was "flirtatious." He was "twirling." His dance was an imitation of his daughters' dancing. He "charmed." He "skittered." He acted like " starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline." He was chided by another woman for worrying about calories. 

There's less shaming of Trump for seeming feminine, but it happens. He was mocked just 2 days ago for dancing like a woman.

But the reason I'm going back to that post is that it's about Lititz and Trump gave a rally in Lititz. My paternal grandparents are from Lititz. They are buried in the Lititz Moravian Cemetery. 

Lititz was founded by members of the Moravian Church in 1756 and was named after a castle in Bohemia near the village of Kunvald where the ancient Bohemian Brethren's Church had been founded in 1457.... For a century, only Moravians were permitted to live in Lititz....

Here's Trump in Lititz: 

I'm so pleased to see him in the home of my ancestors. From the transcript:

"Details with the exact time and location of where Mr. Biden will appear were not immediately disclosed in the campaign’s press release Sunday."

From "Biden to make surprise stop in southwestern Pa. on Monday" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

If you're around the area and would like to attend, where do you go? They're not saying. It's a surprise.

The Trump tweet snarking on this is quoted at the link: "Joe Biden is coming out of the basement earlier than his hoped for ten days because his people told him he has no choice, his poll numbers are PLUNGING! Going to Pittsburgh, where I have helped industry to a record last year, & then back to his basement for an extended period... His problem is interesting. He must always be weak on CRIME because of the Bernie Sanders Radical Left voter. If he loses them, like Crooked Hillary did, he is 'toast', and many will vote for me because of TRADE (Bernie was good on trade). Joe MUST always be weak on crime!"

When did everyone decide that the photo angle for a selfie was from the perspective of someone looking down on me?

Look, it's Joe Biden, doing what I think was once just a silly, vain thing for young women to do:



I know people look saggy and grumpy looking down into their phones. I was just commenting on that here, where a NYT photographer had captured people at a Biden event looking "dull and inert" in part because some were staring down into their iPhones.

But just because looking down is bad doesn't mean you've got to go to the opposite extreme. Traditionally, a portrait is done looking pretty much straight into the subject's eyes:



Seeing eye to eye is an expression that means agreement. (That expression probably first appeared in English in translations of the Bible: "For they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion" (Isaiah 52:8, King James Bible).) Isn't that sense of agreement — and equality and harmony — something a politician should want?

My screen capture of Joe Biden comes from a WaPo front-page teaser for "Trump says Biden ‘deserted’ Pennsylvania. In Scranton, he’s a ‘hometown boy.’" As the article points out, Biden's father — looking for better job opportunities — moved the family from Scranton to Wilmington, Delaware when young Joe was only 10. So it was kind of jerky for Trump to say to the crowd at yesterday's rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania last night, "Biden deserted you. I guess he was born here, but he left you, folks. He left you for another state."

Biden will be stressing his Pennsylvanianess, of course, over his Delawareness, because Pennsylvania is a big swing state and Delaware is a tiny blue state. And Trump will be antagonizing him on that subject: "This guy talks about ‘I know Scranton.’ Well, I know the places better. He left you for another state and he didn’t take care of you, because he didn’t take care of your jobs." That is, the question isn't where a candidate has his personal roots, but what did he do for the people of that place? Biden was a Senator and — aside from the fact that he represented Delaware — he was in a position for a long long time to push for policies that would help the people of the states he now needs to vote for him, and — as Trump puts it — "he didn’t take care of you, because he didn’t take care of your jobs."

Biden's father is responsible for the family's move. That's not on Biden. But Biden's father was in search of a job, and that's a basis for caring deeply about the loss of job opportunity in Pennsylvania. How did that motivate Biden as he lived out his political career? That's a good question, and it's not answered by going on about Biden being a Scranton guy at heart.

Why not bring in "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek to moderate your gubernatorial debate?

That's the right question, but you don't ask the question first in "Jeopardy!"

I'm reading "Alex Trebek moderated a gubernatorial debate in Pennsylvania. It didn’t go well" (WaPo).

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and his Republican challenger, Scott Wagner, sat on stage, their faces frozen and their hands clasped. And Alex Trebek, the “Jeopardy!” host and the moderator of Monday night’s debate, let loose, joking that the only thing with a lower approval rating that the Pennsylvania legislature was the Catholic Church.

Polite laughter from the audience quickly turned to boos. Trebek, dressed in a purple flowered tie with a matching pocket square, looked out at the crowd watching the two candidates face off at an upscale hotel in Hershey, Pa. “Don’t go there,” the white-haired television host said, wagging a finger. “I was born and raised in the Catholic Church and I’m just as ticked off as everybody else is over what has happened with the church.”

He went on, unfazed by the ticking clock and the fact that the debate was nearly halfway over. “When I was a young teenager I attended a Catholic boarding school run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Two-hundred and fifty students, other boys and I, spent three years sharing the same accommodations 24/7 with 44 priests and not once in those three years was there any sexual misbehavior. Now boys are pretty sharp, we talk, we would have known. So I believe that there are Catholic priests out there who are able to minister to their congregations without preying — that’s P-R-E-Y — on the young people.”

The comments on WNEP-TV’s live feed were merciless. “Where is this going?” said one. “When do we get to hear from the candidates?” added another. A third viewer put it succinctly: “Alex, shut up.”...

Trebek’s celebrity may have attracted some viewers who wouldn’t ordinarily spend their Monday night watching a political forum. But....

What do you mean, "but"?! We made a celebrity President of the United States and that leap of faith worked out pretty well.

Jill Greene, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, told the Reading Eagle that Trebek’s conversational tone was “problematic” and criticized his frequent interjections and asides.

I haven't watched the debate, but I'm leaning toward Trebek now. "Conversational tone was 'problematic'" — ugh. "Frequent interjections and asides." He brought style and spontaneity and a showbiz-based sensibility of moving things along and keeping people interested. I'm guessing.

It reminds me of Trump's defense of his own style, which I've heard enough times to be able to paraphrase: They say I should sound presidential, and believe me, that would be so easy, but you would be so bored.

Okay, here, I found an example:

"Conor Lamb, the Democrat running in a Republican stronghold that overwhelmingly supported President Trump in 2016, likely needs everything to go right Tuesday to win the special election..."

"... in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District. Some of his supporters are gaining confidence that everything might, indeed, go right," Real Clear Politics reports.

Lamb ran a TV ad where he faced the camera directly to remind voters that he wouldn’t support Pelosi as leader.... Paul Berginc, a retired airline mechanic, had been a Democrat for most of his life, but switched parties and supported Trump in 2016, saying that the Democratic Party “left me.” Asked about Lamb at the Trump-Saccone rally Saturday, he scoffed, dismissing the candidate as a “Pelosi Democrat.” When a reporter pointed out that Lamb had said he would not support the California congresswoman, Berginc shrugged it off: “I don’t care what he says. I would say anything too, if I were in his shoes, to get elected and that’s what he’s doing. I don’t believe it one bit.”...

Uma Thurman "didn’t feel comfortable operating the car" because "she had been led to believe by a teamster, she says, that the car... might not be working that well."

I've been trying to understand Maureen Dowd's NYT article about Uma Thurman, which appears to be about sexual abuse at the hands of Harvey Weinstein but halfway through becomes an article about a car crash that took place during the shooting of "Kill Bill."

This is a separate post on one specific thing that I left out of the linked post: Uma Thurman's last-minute disinclination to drive the car because "a teamster" led her to believe something was wrong.

What nuance did Dowd mean to slip into our head with that word "teamster"? Is there a connotation of violence, a hint of deliberately sabotaging. Here's the image I got:



Yeah, I know. That's gangsters, not teamsters. Even though a "gang" and a "team" might seem like the same thing, the word "teamster" referred, originally, to someone who works with a team of horses (or oxen), and it only later got extended to truck drivers. Only "gangster" refers to a group of criminals. The seeming equivalence of these words might affect your mind, but mostly when you hear "teamster," you think of the Teamsters Union. Unions might make you think of violence. If the union guy warns you something's not right with that car, it carries some extra meaning, some warning — don't get in that car.

Trump did his Harrisburg rally, and the White House Correspondents Dinner stumbled on without him.

We watched the Trump rally, then tried to hang around for some of the WHCD, but we got tired of the blah-blah from faces we didn't know and when they launched into giving themselves awards, it was way too tedious. It's just another banquet. Who would watch an industry banquet — giving out awards to itself — on TV? There was a long draped table on the dais, and little heads slumped back behind big, embarrassing floral arrangements.

I'd be bored if I were in the industry and forced to attend and sit at one of the stodgy tables, so why would I watch such a thing on TV? Because it's on television? Because at some point — they're promising — a comedian will appear behind the lectern and tell jokes? Because the jokes will be about the President? But all the comedians have for years been telling all the Trump they can think of. What could possibly be new? There was the possible newness of Trump having to sit there on the dais while the jokes were being made, but that depended on the participation of Donald Trump. Those jokes Donald Trump made impossible were jokes artificially launched by their proximity to the real-life entity that is Donald Trump.

I could only imagine that the jokes without the excitement of the presence of Donald Trump would just be like all those other Donald Trump jokes I've heard for so long, the main one of which is that Donald Trump is a walking joke, a clown, a buffoon. That's the joke: Donald Trump! Well, Donald Trump was out there, in Harrisburg, so according to the theory of all the Donald Trump jokes, the best comic show of the evening was Donald Trump himself, doing his Donald Trump routine, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

I can't find the transcript of his remarks, but I remember him saying that he'd rather be right there — in Harrisburg — than anywhere else and he'd rather be with those Pennsylvanians than with anybody else.* It can't be true, but non-haters get it by not taking him literally. Donald Trump would rather be adored by the glamorous media and entertainment folk of his new hometown Washington, D.C. He'd rather enjoy the trappings of the presidency as they came to be understood during the reign of Barack Obama. But Donald Trump can't have that. He'd like it, but it can't be had. He won the presidency by looking around and figuring what could be had, and now he's got it, and he's practical enough to love the best things that are actually available to him.

________________

 * Here's video of that part of the speech:

"The Green Party is dropping its court case seeking a recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election."

"The Green Party's filing came Saturday, saying it couldn't afford the $1 million bond the court had set. A Commonwealth Court hearing had been scheduled in the case for Monday, and the $1 million bond was due later that day...."

So that's the end. Doesn't matter what happens in Wisconsin and Michigan.

After Trump shockingly won Pennsylvania, we should remember that when Obama talked about "bitter clingers" back in 2008, he was talking about Pennsylvania.

Here's the Huffington Post article by Mayhill Fowler, originally published in April 2008, about a fundraising speech by the candidate Barack Obama. He was speaking in San Francisco, but he was talking about Pennsylvania. And Fowler describes Obama's interactions with people in town hall meetings in Pennsylvania:

In Harrisburg two weeks ago, one person called on by Obama chose not to ask a question. Instead a man who introduced himself as only Dennis told Obama, “Make a speech on patriotism because the Republican Party does not own the flag.” In Wilkes-Barre a few days later, Obama fielded a similar comment from a man who said, “I believe that this nation now has dangerously low levels of patriotism and national pride.... My question to you is How are we going to reestablish America’s reputation to Americans?” 

In other words: Can we make America great again?

At the link, you can read the full text and listen to the audio of what Obama said to the elite-donor types in San Francisco. I'll excerpt some of it and do some boldfacing. The idea is to understand how the Democrats lost Pennsylvania this year:

GOP Governor Tom Corbett declines to appeal the federal district court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania.

"I continue to maintain the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman," he says, but "My duties as governor require that I follow the laws as interpreted by the courts and make a judgment as to the likelihood of a successful appeal."

The announcement came on what amounts to the first day of the general election for governor, a race where Mr. Corbett, a Republican, is seen as vulnerable. On Tuesday, businessman Tom Wolf, who supports gay-marriage rights, won the Democratic primary.

Mr. Corbett's announcement was a fresh sign that the politics of gay marriage are rapidly changing. A string of Republican governors have now declined to either appeal or criticize similar rulings in their own states, including Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico.

The iconic foods of the states — one per state — ranked in order of greatness.

From #1 — Illinois (Chicago-style pizza) to #52 — Ohio (Cincinnati-style chili).

52?! It's coming in after #51, "Being hit by a car."

Whatever virtue this bad-tasting Z-grade atrocity once contained derived from its exemplification of a set of certain cherished American fables—immigrant ingenuity, the cultural melting pot, old things combining into new things—and has now been totally swamped and consumed by different and infinitely uglier American realities: the commodification of culture; the transmutation of authentic artifacts of human life into hollow corporate brand divisions; the willingness of Americans to slop any horrible goddamn thing into their fucking mouths if it claims to contain some byproduct of a cow and comes buried beneath a pyramid of shredded, waxy, safety-cone-orange "cheese."

Hey! I had some, back in '09. See:



Via Throwing Things, to which I also owe thanks for sending me to this page where you're asked to vote to rank "Pennsylvania's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts," including the wig of Thaddeus Stevens.

There are 41 sinkholes in the Pennsylvania state capital Harrisburg and the city isn't fixing them.

Too broke. The city borrowed $300 million to upgrade a trash incinerator. Meanwhile, the pipes under the city are a disaster and the sewage plant is polluting the Susquehanna River.

One sinkhole is 50 feet across and 8 feet deep, and they've just put police barricades around it. To deal with the desperate decay, locals are using the old strategy of humor — naming it "Super Sinkhole Walter" and designating it as a sightseeing point of interest on the travel website Foursquare.