A New Day

The felon's niece, Mary, offers a new realization.

I finally agree with [my uncle]: It would be a huge mistake to elect the oldest candidate in American history.

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley had an insightful comment in January.

The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.

And Joe Scarborough sums up the Republican reaction to the news that the President will not seek re-election.

Joe Biden puts country first and Republicans meltdown. What a tell.

Update (July 23):  Heather Digby Parton describes the sorry state of the GOP.

So what do the Republicans think about all this?

They seem to have been caught completely flat-footed.

It seems that they may not have anticipated that Joe Biden gracefully withdrawing from the race might be seen as an act of selfless patriotism in contrast to their [Dear Leader], the grasping egomaniac who incited a riot rather than admit that he lost. The contrast couldn't be more vivid.

And Amanda Marcotte points out the advantages of a Kamala Harris candidacy.

[The felon] and his team aren't hiding their full-blown panic that Biden dropped out. They're scared for many reasons. Their entire campaign could be boiled down to "Biden is too old," and now it's [Fuckface] who is the old and incoherent guy in the race. But I suspect it's also because Harris could blow up their strategy to turn out young male voters. The campaign obviously hoped they could send misogynist signals to certain kinds of young men, without female swing voters noticing. And it probably would have worked with Biden at the top of the ticket, unable to draw attention to what [Manbaby] is doing. Harris won't have that problem. She can do one interview and speech after another where she reminds female voters that [the Orange Turd] is a sexual predator and that he and his team would ban abortions, even for rape victims. With her background, she may be in a better position to push this issue than any other potential Democratic nominee could have been.

Update (July 24):  Marcotte further elaborates.

With Harris as the Democratic nominee [the felon] is caught in a no-win situation. If he continues to hang back from the campaign trail while she's out there hustling, he'll start inviting the questions about whether he's too old and weak, the exact questions that plagued Biden. But if he starts doing more media and events that are outside the MAGA bubble, he will draw negative attention and remind voters why they hate him.

Update (July 29):  Ryan Teague Beckwith sees a strong, simple theme for the new candidate.

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign message is clear. She loves freedom and [Dear Leader] is weird.

It doesn't hurt that the campaign got permission from Beyoncé to use the song "Freedom" at events.

Sabrina Haake notes another strong message from the Vice President.

Harris talks about abortion rights clearly, forcefully and unapologetically, and will help shape abortion into the pivotal issue in November.

Update (August 9):  Democrats are energized and Heather Digby Parton notices that the felon just isn't the same after a "meltdown" press conference.

He was dour and angry and frankly is starting to look a whole lot older, just in the past few months. He's not enjoying himself and it shows and compared to the excited crowds greeting Harris and Walz this week this sad, pathetic appearance seemed almost funereal. [Fuckface von Clownstick] isn't fun anymore.

I think he's considering for the first time that he might lose again and he is not psychologically equipped to deal with that reality.

Update (August 16):  Frank Luntz describes the results he found from a focus group comparing the vice president to her opponent.

On these personality traits, Harris has a tremendous advantage over [the felon] and there are people who had voted for [him] in 2020 that will not vote for him again because they're tired of his rude and abusive behavior.

Update (August 19):  Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz spoke to the Aliquippa High School football team.

Politics isn't so much different than this. It's about something bigger than themselves. It's about setting a future goal and trying to reach it. It's about doing it with dignity and hard work. It's about doing it with humility and when you lose, you walk across the field, you shake hands with the other team and know they played hard, too. But we're all in it together to try and make it better.

Our country's not that different. Our neighbors wanna be with ya, our neighbors wanna do what's right and the more we figure out that we're in this thing together and we have more in common than we have separated, we're gonna do a heck of a lot better.

Heather Digby Parton sees a reason for optimism.

The Harris/Walz ticket has the momentum, creativity and palpable excitement on its side. Whether that's enough to overcome [the felon's] inexplicable hold on the Republican Party after eight years of his now very tired old schtick is unknown. ... [I]f the stars align and there is no external catastrophe, the Democrats might deliver that historic victory we all thought we were getting back in 2016, and our long [orange] nightmare may finally be over.