Chris Cuomo — bulging out of his T-shirt — says Democrats should find "a message" and "then you find the messenger."

And Bill Maher — possibly still digesting that dinner he had with Trump — tells him how wrong he is.

"The Democrats always say message. Who hears a message?"

 

Trump's "message," according to Maher is "I'm me, I'm strong and I'm daddy." To Maher, the people are "like an animal, they're instinctive, like, I smell fear, or I smell alpha... and Democrats have to come up with an alpha, and it's not Tim Walz, and it's not Tim, the other Tim who ran... You know that you gotta appeal to people at a sort of post-civilization stage where we're kind of on a primal level. You just do. And Trump does it better than anybody."

Cuomo takes the cue. But he doesn't go with the idea that Trump is who he is. He says Trump figured out who the people hate and essentially said: "I know who you hate, and I know what you hate...  and I hate them too, and I will make them pay." And Democrats hate Trump: "They just hate him. They do. So he can't even get shot and get compassion."

If Maher is right and Cuomo is wrong and Trump just is who he is and what he is is daddy, alpha, and the people respond by instinct, then what are the Democrats to do? Wait to be taken over and rearranged by some left-wing father figure? Or maybe a true Mother? If Cuomo is right, Democrats need only absorb something of the people's emotions and reflect them back convincingly enough. Neither man believes the people can become educated and rational. We're out here stewing in the "sort of post-civilization stage."

"'I was so distraught when I heard this news last night,' said Senator Tim Kaine... who for years has opposed adding flights at Reagan..."

"... and warned of the dangers posed by overcrowding the D.C. airspace. 'I will not be able to rewatch the speech I gave on the Senate floor about it because it would make me too upset,' he added. Last year, as the Senate debated the latest round of additional flights, Mr. Kaine said he feared the prospect of people sticking a microphone in lawmakers’ faces after a tragedy and saying 'you were warned and you voted for it anyway.'"

From "Congress Approved More Flights at Reagan Despite Warnings of Danger/Lawmakers repeatedly added flights despite fears of delays and accidents" (NYT)(Congress has repeatedly voted to increase the number of daily flights at Reagan National Airport, adding departures that made life more convenient for lawmakers...).

Pete Hegseth wore "an Old Glory print pocket square" and "star-spangled socks and a flag belt buckle. His only jewelry was a wedding ring..."

"... a lapel pin representing the crest of the 187th Infantry Regiment, and a Killed in Action bracelet worn in honor of a soldier, Jorge M. Oliveira, who lost his life in Afghanistan — a series of accessories that served as a form of value signaling. His hair was gelled back without a strand out of place. During the occasional interruptions from the crowd, his jaw was heroically clenched. Hidden were almost all of his tattoos: a large Jerusalem Cross, a 'Join or Die' snake, and an American flag with a stripe replaced by an AR-15.... Just a hint of ink reaching from his right forearm to his wrist peeked out from a carefully buttoned shirtsleeve. (It seemed to be the tail end of his 'We the People' script.) Left behind was the stars ‘n’ stripes cowboy hat. Unseen was the Uncle Sam jacket linings that Mr. Hegseth [has] occasionally flashed.... Certainly he did not look like the hard-drinking, adulterous, budget-mismanaging person that critics of his nomination had described. He looked clean-cut, not politically correct but patriotically correct.... Amid all the theatrics and speechifying by the many committee members and Mr. Hegseth himself, his uniform offered an argument of its own...."

Writes the NYT fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, in "Pete Hegseth Dresses for Defense/The nominee for Secretary of Defense wore his patriotism on his sleeve during his confirmation hearing — and his belt, his socks, and his pocket square."

I like the topic of politics and fashion. And this is fine. Good to see it aimed at a man, as it should be maybe half the time (or a bit less, men's clothing lacking much variation). I like the reference to the "theatrics and speechifying" by committee members, but it should specify Democrats on the committee. Good lord, they were rude! I rarely watch Senate hearings because I can't tolerate the nastiness. But for some reason I sat in front of the TV for over an hour. I'll just offer Tim Kaine as one example of the undignified badgering:

I guess that yelling and pointing and smirking would have paid off if Hegseth had snapped and responded in kind. But he didn't. And why would he? He knows he only needs to put up with this, even as Kaine knows he needs to make something happen.

ADDED: Instapundit mocks the NYT for printing "Unseen was the... jacket linings." 

"Kaine brought good and solid credentials. But the difference between a Cory [Booker] and Tim Kaine could’ve closed the enthusiasm gap."

"Looking back on it, it’s fair for people to ask if we should’ve factored enthusiasm more into it."

Said Minyon Moore, a political activist who worked on the VP selection process with the Hillary Clinton campaign, quoted in "Black Leaders Want a Black Woman as Biden’s Running Mate. But Who?/Among black leaders close to Joe Biden, a commitment to selecting a woman is not enough. They have publicly and privately pushed him to select a black woman to fuel black voter enthusiasm" (NYT). The "enthusiasm" she's talking about is the enthusiasm of black voters.

From the Wikipedia article on Minyon Moore:

Minyon Moore graduated from Boston University's Film School with a certificate in digital film-making... Together with Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, Tina Flournoy and Yolanda Caraway, Moore is a member of the informal group the "Colored Girls," described by political columnist Matt Bai as "several African-American women who had reached the highest echelons of Democratic politics." Governor Howard Dean, former chair of the DNC, who had one of his dinners with the Colored Girls on the night of the 2014 midterm elections, said their perspective was important. "They’re very rare Washington insiders who understand the rest of the country," Mr. Dean said. "That’s part of what makes them so valuable. These women have not lost their connections with where they came from." In 2018, Moore, Brazile, Daughtry, and Caraway published For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics, a joint memoir and history of their time in politics.

The title of that memoir strongly suggests that their choice of that particular racial term was influenced by the 1970s play, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf." The playwright, Ntozake Shange, has said that she used that word "so her grandmother would be able to understand it."

Back to the question of picking a running mate. It's hard to believe, in retrospect, that Hillary picked Tim Kaine. It's hard even to remember him. But — for whatever reason — she resisted the pressure to choose an African-American running mate. Perhaps she wanted to go all-out stressing her potential status as the first woman President. What's the good of complicating the diversity messaging with the idea of the first black Vice President when we're succeeding the first black President?

In that light, you can see why Joe Biden is more susceptible to the pressure to pick a black person for his running mate. He's already committed to picking a woman, but there have been women vice presidential candidates twice before, and it's already a step down from last time to have the woman in the secondary position. It's not a very exciting Diversity! celebration. It's just another instance of an old white man — a boring party stalwart — trying to add what he lacks. The only way for Biden to do anything different from what McCain did — and what Mondale did 30 years ago — is to make that woman he's promised to pick a black woman.

So the interesting question is whether Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams is the better pick. Now that I've posed the question, I think the answer is obvious, but I'll do a poll before I reveal my answer. And I do realize that there's some talk about Michelle Obama. I'm not seeing that as a real possibility, and I want to keep this poll simple:

Assuming Joe Biden decides he must pick a black woman as his running mate, which choice is the smarter choice for him?

Kamala Harris

Stacey Abrams

 

pollcode.com free polls

Tim Kaine's son was arrested "on suspicion of second-degree riot at the 'March 4 Trump' rally in St. Paul."

March 4 Trump? March for Trump? Was Linwood Michael Kaine, 24, for Trump? No. There was a clash between pro- and anti-Trumpers.

I can't believe we're still waiting for Clinton to come out and do her concession speech.

This should have happened last night, and now we've had announcements of speaking times that have been missed. The newsfolk on CNN are blabbing — about Clinton, not the President-elect — on a split screen with an empty lectern in front of a line of American flags. They're talking about Hillary's whole life. I'm hearing about how she does "her homework" and how she was inspired by religion and her mother and how she believes that "Donald Trump would hurt little girls."

It's bad enough that her entitlement to the nomination blocked fresher Democratic prospects and that she created so many problems with the email and the Foundation and ran such a terrible campaign. That alone should generate intense anger at her. But for her to now...

Ah! Here she is!

UPDATE: No, it's just Tim Kaine. He's so proud of Hillary Clinton. The delay goes on.

So I can continue my sentence above: But for her to now absorb all our attention this morning is so enraging. I know there are a lot of people who are mad at Trump for winning (or mad at the people who voted for Trump), but I think the anger should be directed at Hillary Clinton. She lost this disastrously. So much was done to clear competition out of her way, and the news media were dedicated to helping her. What does she have to say for herself?

UPDATE 2: She's finally here. She'd better not say "glass ceiling."

UPDATE 3: She's done. There was a mention of the glass ceiling, but in all, I think it was decently generous. She still believes we're "stronger together," and she urged us to go forward accepting that Donald Trump is President but, at the same time, she said we should never stop fighting — fighting him and his Congress, I presume.

UPDATE 4: On CNN, David Gergen is going on about Bill and Hillary Clinton both wearing purple. It means something. The color of spirituality.

"If ruling Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards they impose on the people they govern, they would follow a simple process..."

"They would demand that Mrs. Clinton step down, immediately, and let her vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, stand in her place."

Wrote John Kass in a much-linked column in the Chicago Tribune. That was published a couple days ago. I feel I said the same thing a while back. Oh, here it is, from August 8th, responding to a NYT piece called "Mike Pence Should Get Donald Trump to Withdraw." My post heading was: "And Tim Kaine should get Hillary to withdraw."

I took a poll. Here's how you voted:



BUT: At this point, 22 million people have already voted. I hate this new system of early voting, but it's the game as it is being played this time around. It's too late for a drastic change. And yet, Clinton could make a statement that if she is elected and X occurs, she will have the courage and integrity to resign, and her worthy running mate, Tim Kaine, will become President. But what is X? And would you trust Clinton to follow through? Given that X would have something to do with her being an immense liar, I would expect a lawyerly explanation of why X is not X.

"I got dinged a little bit even by my wife for interrupting too much. Okay."

Said Tim Kaine. Video here.

Something I'm reading this morning not just because of all the talk about Tim Kaine's interrupting, but because interrupting is a big subject with me.

"5 Ways to Stop Yourself From Interrupting People," a column by Rhonda Scharf.

I interrupt a lot and get criticized for doing it, but I'm also intensely critical of the way some people interrupt me, even though I facilitate most interruptions by shutting up immediately — like a lawyer in front of judge — and letting the other person speak without the burden of feeling that they have frustrated or annoyed me at all.

I like back-and-forth conversation and hate to get stuck in situations where one person is holding forth and relying on a privilege to complete long sentences and stringing them one after another, as if desperate to fend off the relationship he could have if only he'd throw it over to me for a change.

My favorite of Scharf's suggestions is:

Reward yourself. Count how many times a day you interrupt others. Set a goal in the morning along the lines of: "If I interrupt others less than 10 times today, I will stop at Starbucks on the way home from work." Continue to lower the goal daily until you can get to the point where you are not interrupting anyone.

What a dreary existence! I'm glad Scharf isn't here in person saying that or my outburst would be interrupting. My tip for avoiding interruption is: Avoid in-person interaction with boring people. Read. And blog. Blogging is kind of all about taking in the words of others until you feel motivated to interrupt.

ADDED: What got me started on the idea for this post was an idle random click back into this blog's archive, where I happened up a February 9, 2013 post in the old Gatsby project. The sentence to be discussed there was:

"Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire."

In the comments CWJ said:

I have often noticed how women can talk over each other but be completely mutually understood. Not a man thing in my experience. That a man would not just notice this but incorporate it into this sentence is simply great.

Did you act like a complete jerk?

Playing Kaine in debate prep, we prepared @Mike_Pence to be himself & show why he'd be great VP. It worked. pic.twitter.com/BYSoqTfHYz

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 5, 2016

Tim Kaine's 72 interruptions.

I couldn't put up with the whole thing. Maybe you can get farther than I did:



I bailed at 0:30. I'm glad someone saw fit to count and to make a montage.

I blame the moderator to a great extent. Is Kaine getting criticized for disrespecting the moderator — the one female moderator of a debate this fall? I'm sure he's getting attacked for being uncouth in order to say that Trump is uncouth.

"So Pence... used his performance skills, built up over years as a successful television host and politician."

"When Kaine challenged him, Pence smiled and shook his head wanly. Or looked off toward the audience and shrugged his shoulders. Or flatly denied that Trump has said things that he most definitely said. Or recycled an old Ronald Reagan line ('There you go again')."

Says NYT columnist David Leonhardt, urging readers to "Judge Substance, Not Style."

Pence's style is so different from Trump's because Pence, like Kaine and Clinton, is a career politician. Pence defended Trump's style:

Well, look, it’s — look, he’s not a polished politician like you and Hillary Clinton. And so...

KAINE: Well, I would admit that’s not a polished...

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: You know, things don’t always come out exactly the way he means them.

KAINE: Well, can I say...

PENCE: But I’m telling you what the policy of our administration would be....

So Pence, like Leonhardt, is saying judge substance, not style.

But if you are one of the many people who are admiring Pence's style over Trump's, realize what you are saying: You like the manner of the career politician. That is what you want. A man with a style honed outside of politics will seem too rough, too unfinished, too strange. For all the complaints about politicians — their ungenuineness, their smarminess, their embedment in dishonesty, their guile — a politician is exactly what you want. Admit it!

When Tim Kaine and Mike Pence got religious.

"Great line from the — great line from the gospel of Matthew. From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks."

Tim Kaine interrupted Mike Pence to spout a Biblical quotation as Mike Pence was in the middle of responding to the invitation to "discuss in detail a time when you struggled to balance your personal faith and a public policy position."

Kaine's interrupting had been exasperating from the outset of last night's debate, but Pence annoyed me by resisting the question, praising his own religiosity, and then going on about his favorite religious issue, abortion.

Pence's answer had nothing about any balancing of personal faith with public policy. Kaine had something quite specific: As governor of Virginia, he did not rescue every condemned person from execution, even though his Catholic faith demands opposition to the death penalty. In fact, Pence used his turn to call attention to a second religious struggle of Kaine's:

I know Senator Kaine, you hold pro-life views personally — but the very idea that a child that is almost born into the world could still have their life taken from them is just anathema to me. And I cannot — I can’t conscience about — about a party that supports that. Or that — I know you’ve historically opposed taxpayer funding of abortion. But Hillary Clinton wants to — wants to repeal the longstanding provision in the law where we said we wouldn’t use taxpayer dollars to fund abortion.

Kaine reacts, stressing that women should be "trust[ed]" to make their own decision about abortion and asserting that Donald Trump said "women should be punished, as Donald Trump said they should, for making the decision to have an abortion." (Here's my old post on exactly what Trump said and how he quickly corrected it.)  Pence defended Trump and a dialogue ensued that ended with a Biblical quote:

PENCE: Donald Trump and I would never support legislation that punished women who made the heartbreaking choice to end a pregnancy.

KAINE: Then why did Donald Trump say that?

PENCE: We just never would.

KAINE: Why did he say that?

PENCE: Well, look, it’s — look, he’s not a polished politician like you and Hillary Clinton. And so...

KAINE: Well, I would admit that’s not a polished...

(CROSSTALK)

PENCE: You know, things don’t always come out exactly the way he means them.

KAINE: Well, can I say...

PENCE: But I’m telling you what the policy of our administration would be.

KAINE: Great line from the — great line from the gospel of Matthew. From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So Pence's idea was that Trump's wording some things badly is the downside of something we ought to like: He's not a career politician. Kaine's comeback is: When you're not wording things carefully, we get the advantage of seeing what you really think.

I think the passage in Matthew is this, spoken by Jesus:

“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.  I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

It's hard to find a translation that uses "fullness" for "abundance," but "fullness" doesn't make it much easier to understand. The New English Translation is nicely comprehensible: "For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart." If you say something, it's because that's what you mean.

That's a hard proposition to apply to politicians, since so much of what they say is not what they mean. But sometimes the truth slips out. And yet the person who is saying That time you told the truth is probably a political player, accusing you of telling the truth because it serves his interest. If you credit your opponent with telling the truth only when it helps you in your quest for worldly power, will you "on the day of judgment... be justified... [or] condemned"?

If you really believe your religion, how can you dare to participate in politics? The risk is too great.

It's the big Vice Presidential debate!

Watch with me. Comment away. I'll join in if and when I've got something to say. Meanwhile, my son John Althouse Cohen will be live-blogging as he tends to do, which is very well, beyond what I'm likely to do. I'll probably take notes and then expand on things when I've got a transcript to quote.

UPDATE, 8:11: Kaine is plugging in memorized material, not listening to the question.

8:13: First interruptions comes from Kaine. And it's very disruptive.

8:16: Quijano interrupts Pence to say "We need to move on" then lets Kaine speak at length. Pence tries to speak again and Quijano immediately says "We need to move on" again! The moderator seems completely biased.

8:38: I can't believe the way Kaine is allowed to break in, to make a long speech with a series of attacks on Trump, and then Pence gets zero opportunity to respond, but Quijano insists on moving on to the next question. Kaine is interrupting so much, it's making me feel terrible. It feels so unfair.

AFTER THE DEBATE:

Who won?

Kaine

Pence

Both

Neither

 

pollcode.com free polls

The Vice-Presidential debate is tonight — What question about Trump will be wielded to trip up Pence?

The moderator is Elaine Quijano. I don't know much about her — other than that she's Filipino-American and a Democrat and her mother was an immigrant. I'm not basing my idea of a question on anything about Quijano, who will be chosing the questions herself. I'm just speculating about what I think will have to be a question for Pence.

I won't try to word this in the style of a debate moderator. I'm going to put this much more bluntly and you can just imagine a neutral-sounding version with appropriate foundational clauses. I'm just conveying the core idea.

Governor Pence, you are a respectable, honorable man. How could you squander your hard-won reputation to prop up the monster that is Donald Trump?

There should be a corresponding question for Tim Kaine. Like Pence, he's got a more honorable reputation than his running mate and he's on the ticket to lend respectability to a person who could be called a monster... who has been called a monster.

2 monsters. It's like an old horror movie...



We get what we want in a democracy. And it seems we wanted a horrorshow. Too late to find another show. Yes, there's nice little Timmy and Mikey, with their little show tonight. But all that matters is what they will have to say for themselves as they prop up a monster. What are you doing with that monster?

I just noticed that Hillary's dad looks like Tim Kaine.

And Tim Kaine should get Hillary to withdraw.

That's my response to "Mike Pence Should Get Donald Trump to Withdraw" (a NYT op-ed).

What if the presidential candidates suddenly were — by some mutual political deescalation — Mike Pence and Tim Kaine.

I'd be happy and vote for Pence.

I'd be happy and vote for Kaine.

I'd be displeased and vote for Pence.

I'd be displeased and vote for Kaine.

I'd do what I already want to do and vote for Johnson.

I'd do what I already want to do and vote for Stein.

 

pollcode.com free polls

"He stood out by the things he didn’t do — which was spend all of his time trying to impress you somewhat desperately..."

"... which is a characteristic of the majority of the people who graduate from Harvard Law School.... That’s one of the things that made him likable and genuine."

From the class of 1983....

Hey.

Tim Kaine: "I’ll enforce the death penalty as governor and I’m against same-sex marriage."

"I’m conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that’s what I believe."