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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Eh, I'm a bit more sanguine. Firstly, Trump supporters were probably high on copium before the candidate switch, and even Biden probably could have tightened things up a bit before the election.

Vance is disappointingly bad at message discipline (Please don't publicly project your mommy issues into your politics about women!) and the "hillbilly who made it out" schtick can be grating (I say this is someone from a close enough background that I I want to like him, but it comes across as less sincere than it probably is.), but it's entirely possible that the Democrats will stoop to their level and be emotionally indulgent with their own VP pick (Mayor Pete or Beshear, also a possibility that 2028 frontrunners are trying to stay out of it.) and in the end I don't think VP matters much or that Trump had a slam dunk option (DeSantis isn't any less awkward at Trump's style of campaigning.). It could have been worse; he could have picked Tommy Tuberville.

Harris will definitely be better at fundraising than Biden was, but I'm not sure how much that moves the needle on its own. She will definitely supercharge enthusiasm among the media, college educated women, etc. but those are the groups that needed the least persuasion in the first place and were unlikely to forget to vote or defect to Trump. Harris remains relatively untested at things that aren't intra Democratic Party politics and is likely to remain weak in the Midwestern swing states that actually matter for winning the electoral college. The Trump campaign can hit her for things she said during the 2020 primary while trying to outflank Biden from the left.

I expect polls to tighten up and that Harris will definitely get a DNC bounce, but we'll know more in a few weeks to a month where things really stand. With that, as much as I wanted DeSantis the first place I don't think he would be running away with this either. Presidential elections are hard and Republicans being bad at winning them has been an issue for them since Reagan was no longer leading the charge.

Roy Cooper would seem to be the best VP choice simply because he specifically looks (and has the name of) a fake TV president who gives the hero orders and a godspeed speech in some epic action movie. Like someone had morphed both Bushes, Reagan, Clinton and Biden into one superpresidential figure.

Optically, Cooper seems like a great choice