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I like what you say, John, as usual, and just so you know, tr$mp says Biden hurts god because tr$mp is so stupid he thinks he himself is god. Biden and Harris aren't stupid idiots. They're good people and of course like all credible good people they'll make some mistakes and oftentimes admit it. And they will be good for this country which seems to be becoming less good day by day.

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Aug 12, 2020Liked by John Stoehr

"The first thing we should say is that running mates almost never matter. They have very little effect on voter behavior, because voters usually just don’t care."

MAYBE, just maybe... this is the time and place where that all changes.

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Aug 12, 2020Liked by John Stoehr

Few thoughts of my own on the Harris pick. First, there were Biden advisers who opposed her as too ambitious and not loyal enough (per debate). It speaks to Biden's inner strength that he could move on and didn't need a VP who was blindly loyal or obsequious. Politics is a blood sport, and Biden got that. Good for him. Second, she is a mammoth (or should I write MAMMOTH) fundraiser. She can deliver dollars at a level far, far beyond most of her VP competition. (Warren would come close.) Third, she is ambitious. This is double-edged. Will she let Biden have the limelight or will she suck all air out of the room? A good tag team figures out this dynamic early. OTOH, she knows how to attack--and sometimes it's the VP who has to carry the double-barreled shotgun into the public arena that a presidential candidate might not. (So, for example, Harris can go toe-to-toe with Trump while Biden can look a bit more dignified.) The loudest cautionary bell that should be rung about Harris, weirdly enough, is not her prosecutorial zeal or short Senate record, but her shockingly foolish decision to let family--specifically her sister--gatekeep for her campaign rather than letting the campaign professionals that she had hired do their jobs unimpeded. It's why her campaign imploded. The question is whether she learned from that implosion to do better this time around in her candidate VP role.

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