BTRTN: Let the Sunshine In
Born To Run The Numbers provides its August month-in-review, chronicling the stunning shift that upended a static and uninspiring presidential race and now gives the Democrats burgeoning momentum that Trump has not figured out how to quell.
https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/08/31/btrtn-let-the-sunshine-in/
Excerpts: "Just two months ago, in this space, I made this statement: 'The 2024 presidential election to date has been characterized by its static nature.' That is no longer the case, to put it mildly. In (incredibly) short order, the Joe Biden debate meltdown set off a chain reaction of events that have, rather astonishingly, put Kamala Harris in the lead for the presidency. This is particularly remarkable because Harris failed to make it even to Iowa in her bid for the office in 2019 and has received mixed reviews as Biden’s VP...
"So, Harris passed three commander-in-chief-worthy tests in her first 16 days: lock down the nomination, find a tone and message, select a running mate. Boom, boom, boom, three A+ grades, just like that. Gone was the fidgety, knob-fiddling, hesitant and failing Harris of 2019. Here was a new Kamala instead, who actually appears to be the real Kamala, who makes tough, quick but thoughtful decisions and executes them flawlessly...
"She rode on those decisions to the convention, filling arenas along the way. Trump and his campaign tried to 'define' her before the convention. Lord, they tried. Let us count the ways: she is not really Black; she has a funny laugh; she isn’t very smart; her first name is not worth pronouncing properly; she is boring (“Ka-ma-blah”); she slept her way to the top and so on. None stuck...
"Harris’s sit-down with Dana Bash of CNN for her first interview as the nominee went smoothly enough. She handled the tough questions capably enough and was clearly relatively relaxed and non-combative (differing from some of her past interviews). She hewed to centrist positions, which has been the winning platform for Democrats for decades (Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden)...
"As for the polls, we have updated the presidential numbers since last Friday’s Snapshot, with a few positive for Harris changes, based on new polling, as follows..."