Write in Joe Biden

     “If [Biden] ignores New Hampshire or half-asses it, he loses. But if he goes all-in and blesses the write-in and loses, then it’s even worse. He’s got to win now.”
     Steve Duprey, former RNC Committeeman who endorsed Biden over Trump in 2020.

New Hampshire Democrats start a write-in campaign for Joe Biden.

I consider political emails primary source material, so I let my name get onto lists of candidates and state parties. Beginning yesterday I got an email from a new source, the self-described grass-roots write-in campaign in New Hampshire for Joe Biden. Its proponents want Biden to soundly defeat Dean Philips, the Minnesota U.S. Representative who filed for the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire. Phillips will have his name on the ballot. Biden will not. 

Images in the write-in email solicitation

The whole effort might die if the Biden campaign can successfully disavow the write-in campaign. It could go very wrong for Biden. A loss or narrow win would generate media stories that this unknown nobody with a slapdash campaign did well against a washed-up Biden. A solid win for Biden would "meet expectations," and therefore prove nothing. It's lose-lose. It is smarter to disavow the fight, if he can do it.

But that, too, has peril. New Hampshire is a battleground state. He and the DNC changed delegate rules for Democrats so that South Carolina, not New Hampshire, would have the first presidential primary vote. That First-In-The-Nation status was a matter of pride, privilege, and good business for New Hampshire. A Republican talking point is that Biden and the DNC "snubbed" New Hampshire. This will hurt Democrats there.

The move from New Hampshire reflects current Democratic identity-centric politics. New Hampshire is about 85% White. South Carolina Democrats are primarily Black. Well intentioned Democrats of well-honed conscience considered the New Hampshire leadoff to be implicit support for White privilege. A South Carolina leadoff would be a sign of respect for Black voters. However, the real reason for the change was transactional, to protect Biden. The DNC presumed South Carolina's majority-Black Democratic electorate would support good-old-Joe instead of someone from the party's left flank, as they did in 2020.

This may be the only year with a South Carolina leadoff. The state is bright red. South Carolina Democrats will boost to a candidate who will almost certainly lose the general election in their state. Worse, the winner in South Carolina may not be the strongest candidate in the battleground states that will determine the winner in a close general election.

Dean Phillips says he plans to hold over a hundred town meetings in New Hampshire in the next three months. The best outcome for Biden would be for New Hampshire voters to soundly reject Phillips, with news stories about small, hostile crowds. But Phillips isn't a spiritual guru, a far left ideologue, nor a provocateur. He isn't easy to marginalize. He is a centrist Democrat, sharing the same general political space as Biden.

Phillips was spectacularly underprepared to run a campaign. I looked diligently for a campaign website for the past three days. One finally appeared this morning.

I will return to New Hampshire. There will be plenty to see. Marjorie Taylor Green is there, talking to Republicans, telling them, 

 [Biden] has dementia. He has dementia! I tell the press every day: ‘The election was stolen!’ There is no way that man won.

Lots of drama. I expect more dropouts, but I think Haley, DeSantis, and Christie will stay in the race and have events up through the New Hampshire election. Haley and DeSantis still hope to win. Christie will stay in the race to make his point about Trump criminality. He gets what he wants by cleaning up his reputation and legacy and by getting on TV as a reasonable Republican in a party that went crazy. 

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Mike Pence campaign, RIP

Michael Pence:

     "It’s become clear to me: This is not my time.”

He can cry if he wants to. But it isn't his party anymore. 

Three weeks ago, at the New Hampshire Republican showcase of candidates event, the applause for Michael Pence was so tepid I felt sorry for him.

 

I had a familiar feeling, the one I get in hospice situations when I visit a patient to say a greeting and word of appreciation. I would be saying a "goodbye."  It would be unspoken, but the patient was dying and we both knew it.

By dumb luck I got to say "goodbye" to Mike Pence. I was at my table at the rear of the "Leadership Summit" meeting room three weeks ago, engaged in conversation with a GOP activist. He noticed something behind me. I turned. There was Mike Pence, three feet from me, exchanging pleasantries with a well-wisher. I put on a warm, unthreatening smile as I waited for a break in the conversation. Pence noticed my outstretched hand and shook it. I looked him square in the face. I said, "Thank you for what you did on January 6. It was the right thing to do."

He smiled warmly, looked me square in the face and said, "God be with you." He positioned himself for this selfie.

Pence understands why he did not have political traction. Pundits who say that Pence had no "lane," miss the point. They say Pence was squeezed between the Trump loyalists, who will never forgive him, and the anti-Trump Republicans who don't trust him because he spent years giving political cover to a dangerous president. Pence understands his party has changed. There was no "Trump-Pence" administration. It was all Trump after those first few months in 2016 when Pence gave permission to Evangelicals to support a flagrant, unrepentant sinner. After some time meeting voters Pence saw his party no longer wants Christian conservatism. It wants populism and nationalism. Its members are part of a tribe and they want an angry rule-breaker who will help it win against the enemies besetting it from all sides. Party members are impatient with regulations, constraints, diplomatic protocol, and tender hurt feelings of liberal snowflakes with chips on their shoulders. It wants results. Liberal tears are a bonus.

"Larry the cable guy" understands the mood. Get stuff done. Break eggs.

Pence got left behind. His resume looks right on paper: U.S. Representative, governor of a Midwest state, and Vice President. His positions are perfectly normal: Opposing "Biden weakness," inflation, high gasoline prices, fentanyl, unregulated immigration at our southern border, crime, "out of control spending," and abortion. But he gets wrong the most important thing, the new mood and style of the GOP. In speeches Pence says, "I'm a conservative, but I am not angry about it." It draws a chuckle. He also says he is Rush Limbaugh, but on de-caf. The first statement is true. The second one is not. Limbaugh was joyfully irreverent, ironic, naughty. He loved being offensive. Pence is a choir boy, eager to do the right, very conservative, very earnest thing. That party no longer respects or wants that. It is a kick-ass and take names party now.

Republican voters who retain affection for the grand old party of propriety and civic virtue can put away that sentimental memory and the inertia that keeps them voting Republican. The old-style Republicans that got votes a decade ago are gone. Marjorie Taylor Green calls McCain a "traitor." Trump calls the Bush presidents, Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell cowardly RINOs and enemies of the people. An old-style red-team player like Pence gets 2% in the polls and cannot raise money.

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Easy Sunday. The Dean Phillips campaign is a bad idea.

Yesterday I wrote that the Dean Phillips' campaign for president was harmless, and maybe good for Democrats.

Most news articles and pundits disagree.     

TV ads mocking Phillips write themselves. A Lincoln Project ad simply shows Phillips' earnest words of praise for Joe Biden. 

"President Biden has delivered the most important thing this country has ever needed, and that is competency in lieu of chaos."

The ad ends with an image of a smiling Joe Biden saying, "Thanks for the endorsement."

Lincoln Project ad helping Joe Biden

Dean Phillips filed his candidacy for president in the New Hampshire primary. The filing upset the Biden and Democratic Party plan that Biden would run unopposed. An uncontested nomination would send a message to the public that the Democratic Party is unified. Even Republican partisans agree that there is division in the GOP, what with Trump, Speakership struggles in the House, MAGAs, old school "normies" Republicans, RINOs, and Liz Cheney.

Candidate Marianne Williamson wasn't a problem. Williamson is a glib spokesperson for spiritual wellness, not a serious candidate for president. Dean Phillips, though, is a sitting U.S. Representative. He attempted to get high-profile Democrats to file to replace Biden. When one did not, Phillips stepped in. 

Reasonable news and opinion commentary has a consensus view that the Dean Phillips campaign is dangerous.

Lincoln Project people are posting tweets on "X" saying the Dean campaign has no purpose and will result in a Trump victory.

Politico's Steven Shepard wrote "Dean Phillips poses a real danger to President Joe Biden’s reelection next year — even though he doesn’t stand much of a chance of winning the Democratic nomination."

The HuffPost put this headline above a story by Ben Blanchet: 

"Biden's Primary Challenger Unleashes Bizarre Claim On Why He's Running For President."

Washington Post opinion writer Henry Olson wrote about Phillips' "quixotic primary challenge." 

The story by the NYTimes' Maggie Astor described Dean's campaign as "last-minute, long-shot" effort. She wrote that Democratic leaders, "are less than pleased."

The Hill headlines its story about the Phillips campaign with "Democrats voice concern, outrage over Phillips primary bid." It quotes an anonymous Democratic consultant saying, "the White House should be terrified." 

Probably the loudest and most sustained applause I heard at the New Hampshire Leadership Summit was in response to Asa Hutchinson's answer to my question. I asked why he didn't drop out. He responded that New Hampshire voters decide who are legitimate candidates, not pollsters and pundits and the candidates themselves. 

The Dean campaign will have a tailwind. New Hampshire voters resent the idea that Democrats are circumventing their "First In The Nation" primary status and are treating Biden as a fait accompli nominee. They want to make that decision themselves, not have it made by the DNC. A vote for Phillips is a protest vote to retain a status they treasure.

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Democrats freak out

Democrats: Joe Biden is precious and delicate. The Dean Phillips campaign is a disaster!

They can chill out. It's OK. 

In fact, it is good.

On March 12, 1968, Democrat Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary election against the incumbent Democratic president Lyndon Johnson. It sent a message so loud that even an incumbent president could hear it inside his cocoon of power, inertia, and affirmation. Johnson saw that a great many people who supported him in the past, now did not. Democratic voters weren't buying what he was selling on the Vietnam War.  

I was "Clean for Gene" back then. I wanted McCarthy to do well. McCarthy did not cause a weakness for Johnson. He revealed the weakness. Vietnam wasn't something Johnson -- or Democrats -- could sweep under the rug.

Dean Phillips, candidate for president

By this morning most readers will have heard the news that Dean Phillips, a Biden-supporting Democratic U.S. Representative from Minnesota, has filed to run for president in New Hampshire. I am not there to record it, but he would have stood at this desk amid cameras, given the New Hampshire Secretary of State $1,000, and signed an affidavit swearing he was a Democrat. He will be on the ballot. 

Biden and the DNC decided to game the nomination system and arrange that the free-for-all New Hampshire primary will not be the first in the nation primary for Democrats. The Biden/DNC rules forbade candidates filing there if they want their delegates counted. South Carolina must be first, the DNC declared. This decision is part of a larger project to assure Biden would run for re-nomination without opposition. And it worked. The restless Democrats in the on-deck circles could wait, or face reputational exile among Democrats. The message was driven home to governors Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Jay Polis, Josh Shapiro, Jay Inslee, and senators Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bob Bennett, and more. 

Don't touch Biden. His re-election hangs by a string. Don't weaken him by making him sell himself to Democrats. He can only save the world from Trump if he doesn't have to win any contests. 

There is an unsaid message hidden in the Biden/DNC position. It is that Biden is fragile, not strong. That implied message hurts Biden. 

Dean Phillips decided to break the code of silence. He praises Biden. He says Biden has done a fine job. It is rather similar to the campaigns being run by DeSantis, Haley, Scott, and Ramaswamy. They are all younger, less baggaged versions of the person they want to replace. Dean Phillips has an advantage here. Republicans who love Trump are in love with Trump, the person, the personality, the Trump-specific schtick. Democrats respect and like Biden. Biden served an important need, and still does. But Biden does not lead a cult of personality. 

Dean Phillips will be an opportunity for Democrats who now tell pollsters that they want an alternative to Biden to say so at the ballot box. If Biden is indeed loved enough to beat Trump in a general election, we will learn something useful in New Hampshire. Phillips does not intend to draw blood or give sound bites to Republicans. But he gives Democrats a chance to vote what they say they want -- someone new.

Write-ins for Biden will send a welcome message to Biden supporters. It might happen. If it does not, then it is better Democrats learn it now, not in November, 2024. Biden wants a coronation. Biden can win a coronation, of course. But November will be a knife fight, and his fitness for office will be a central question in front of voters. This is a chance for Biden to prove-up. Biden should embrace the contest, and win it.

If he does not prove up, then I expect a period of Democratic chaos. I do not fear a wide-open Democratic convention, with delegates hearing from several viable candidates. It might put some excitement into the Democratic race. And the victor would stand up against Trump and a Republican party that nominated the same old baggaged-up Trump. And possibly it will be Biden who would have emerge from that chaos, stronger because he will have been chosen.

                                                     ---       ---       ---

Tomorrow: The Easy Sunday post will be links and excerpts from smart people who write that I am dead wrong.

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Procedural radicalism.

     "But at least as important as these [policy] changes has been the insistence on displays of tactical or procedural radicalism—the willingness to fight ruthlessly for victory, even when it entails breaking from longstanding norms and even laws that limit and constrain the behavior of elected representatives."

Damon Linker, Dept. of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Norms matter. Facts matter. 

I have written about procedural radicalism without having had a term for it. Damon Linker's article at his Substack site provided one.

Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House proved his loyalty to Trump and came to the attention of GOP House members by orchestrating an elegant way for GOP House members to justify rejecting electoral votes certified for Joe Biden.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his allies were spreading a message of election fraud. They cited dead voters, counterfeit ballots, Venezuelan tabulating machines, harvested ballots, and more. Trump sold that story. Fox and the conservative media broadcast it. GOP voters bought it. By the first days of January of 2021, GOP Representatives knew what the text messages show Fox News hosts knew, but wouldn't say. Attorney General Bill Barr and Election Security Chief Chris Krebs knew and said it. Governors in battleground states knew and said it. There wasn't any meaningful, election-result-changing fraud. It was a lie.

GOP Representatives needed a excuse to vote "in good conscience" to reject ballots. Mike Johnson came up with the pretext. They did not need to argue that the election rules were unreasonable, nor that they failed to be examined and approved by the courts of each state. Just assert that the legislatures of the state didn't write the administrative rules. Call the votes unconstitutional. Discard them.

Johnson offered a pretext. A majority of GOP Representatives went along, including my own Representative, Cliff Bentz. Johnson served a purpose. He let GOP House members vote the way their GOP voters wanted, to overthrow the election, even as the fraud story disintegrated. 

It was an example of procedural radicalism. Ignore the procedural safeguards of our democracy and use some pretext to get the desired result, under cover of legality. It is a feature, not a bug. He draws liberal tears of frustration as Democrats watch Trump and the MAGA GOP ignore norms. Refuse to carry out ministerial duties like certifying an election. Assert that a Vice President can throw out votes on his own discretion. Refuse to respond to subpoenas. Ignore criminal behavior. Block military promotions. In budget negotiations hold essential services hostage. Kevin McCarthy's fatal "sin" was that he compromised with Democrats. He had the power to injure the hostage -- our government -- but didn't. That meant McCarthy wasn't trying hard enough. He was a squish. A RINO. 

The public notices what happens in the House and Senate. There are limits to pretext there. The greater danger of procedural radicalism takes place as MAGA drifts down to the state and local level. If a County Clerk in one of Arizona's 15 counties, or a member of the four-person Board of State Canvassers in Michigan, uses some pretext to refuse to sign an election certification, the election system fails. 

We act on the basis of trust and good faith a hundred times a day. We assume oncoming traffic will stay in their lanes. A stripe of paint is all that protects us from a fatal crash. When our groceries are rung up and we hand cash to the cashier, we assume the cashier acknowledges it. But what if the cashier looks you in the eye and says, "You didn't hand me money. I deny it. You can't prove it." That could happen, but it doesn't. We trust people will acknowledge facts. 

But a new norm has taken a foothold in the MAGA GOP. Assert what you want. Let them fight you. Only a RINO holds back. This is a bleak situation, but there is a corrective. Simultaneous with MAGA's procedural radicalism is policy radicalism. The ethic of grabbing whatever one can get away with extends to abortion bans, budget cuts, taxation, immigration, Ukraine, and LGBTQ issues. Some of what the MAGA GOP wants will be unpopular.

The MAGA ethic calls for players to run up the score when winning. That will be their undoing.

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GOP: Right turn.

     “If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”
                       Matt Gaetz

Trump still has the power to shape the GOP. So does Matt Gaetz. It's a one-two punch.

The GOP House looked at a fork in the road and swerved right.

Readers who are not on the GOP list of donors and rally attendees are missing an important factor in American politics. I am on the lists. Donald Trump thinks I am a supporter, and therefore a "Patriot" and a "Friend." Trump is relentless in enforcing loyalty within the GOP. He is communicating to me by e-mail, by TV, by rallies, by conservative media, and by social media. His supporters re-distribute and amplify his message.

Matt Gaetz and a few of his Freedom Caucus allies also enforce loyalty within the GOP. They have policy goals: Cut spending including Social Security and Medicare, and shut down the government if necessary to get that outcome. Impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Find goods on Joe Biden and then impeach him, too.

Gaetz pushing right on policies. Trump pushing orthodoxy on personal loyalty. To be a Republican in good standing one needs to have been loyal to Trump in supporting his effort to overturn the 2020 election. 

Trump's power to punish heretical Republicans doesn't "just happen." He is vigilant. He is relentless. Nuanced or qualified support isn't enough. I got 11 separate emails from Trump in the past 24 hours. The subject lines show the target is within the GOP.

"While the RINOs play right into Crooked Joe's hands, you and I will. . . .

"The RINOs were just dealt their greatest failure of all. Patriot. . . ."

"Not a PEEP out of them. They're nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing, Friend. . . 

"Who knows what desperate, closed-door deal the RINOs will. . . .

Officeholders have reason to be afraid of opposing Trump. Everyone saw what happened to Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker and to U.S. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. 

There are limits to Trump's power to advance a career. Trump was 100% in favor of Jim Jordan this week, but that didn't overcome the Appropriation Committee Members with an agenda to build projects. They knew Jordan was a destroyer, not a builder. Nor did Trump win over moderates who got elected in Democratic-leaning districts who knew Jordan would tank their re-elections. Trump's power to oppose is more evident. He stopped Tom Emmer's bid to be Speaker. Emmer had voted to confirm the electoral votes for Biden. Trump called him a "globalist RINO."  Trump phoned Representatives. He posted on Truth Social. Trump bragged, "He's done. It's over. I killed him." And he had.   

With Trump blessing, and Gaetz's, yesterday the House GOP elected a Speaker, Mike Johnson, a friendly-looking and very conservative Louisiana representative. He is little-known but affable, and therefore had no entrenched enemies. Prior holdout votes from Republicans representing purple Districts like Oregon's 5th were in a hard spot. Either continue the immediate story of GOP dysfunction or be part of a GOP that will be undeniably far-right extreme. They chose to go along with Johnson and delay the pain. 

Johnson helped organize the GOP House's effort to refuse certification of Biden's election -- the Trump litmus test. He is on board with the Gaetz agenda on government spending, plus he opposes aid to Ukraine and he supports a federal ban on abortion -- the new orthodoxy for the GOP.

There was an alternative available the GOP. Eight moderate GOP members might have allied with the Democrats and then picked a moderate Republican "Problem Solver" to be the Speaker. There probably is a majority of "normal" Republicans, quietly hiding in the House. Their sentiments appear in the secret ballots on proposed Speakers Jordan and Scalise. Half the members said "no" in the secret ballot but then switched to "yes" in public. They are more afraid of being called a RINO than in suffering the criticism of a Party that advocates cutting Social Security and Medicare, or letting Russia swallow Ukraine.

There is still a broad center in American politics. Under the leadership of Trump and Gaetz, the GOP has drifted far, far outside of it. They made their choice.

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Young people live in a different world.

"Kids! I don't know what's wrong with these kids today."

       "Kids," from Bye, Bye Birdie 

Young people and I are strangers in the same country. 

A report on an incident at the New Hampshire Statehouse last week.

I was standing in a crowded room at the desk of the New Hampshire Secretary of State, waiting for Vivek Ramaswami to show up, sign paperwork, and talk with journalists for an hour or so. I was surrounded by people and TV cameras on tripods. There were several young women crowded up against me in front of the desk where candidates sign. I asked about them. They were reporters, happy to identify themselves. There was no risk they would think I was hitting on them since I am way past that, utterly out of the game, and they know it. I was harmless. They called me “sir.”

Before I went upstairs to the Secretary of State's office.

The were in their mid-late 20s, all in their second or third jobs out of journalism schools, and their careers were doing well. One holding a TV camera on a tripod was a producer for ABC, another with the same gear was there to gather video for Fox News. A third, holding an I-phone, on which she could type rapidly with two thumbs, was from USA Today. A fourth held an I-phone to use as a microphone. She was from NH Public Broadcasting. They looked out through the crowded office into the hallway and were remarking among themselves that there were a hundred Ramaswamy supporters standing in the crowded hallway waiting for him to show up. 

“Isn’t that crazy of them, out there in that stuffy hallway,” one said.

Early, waiting for Ramaswamy

Ramaswamy arrived

Reporters trying to get a publishable image for their employers.

“Yeah, not smart like us,” I said. Of course, we were doing essentially what they were doing, standing in a stuffy office, waiting for Ramaswamy. I was making an allusion to the dialog in The Magnificent Seven where Yul Brenner said those famous words of self deprecation to Steve McQueen they observed a hanger-on to their group, riding behind them in heat and dust. 

They stared at me blankly.

“You know, that line in The Magnificent Seven? Yul Brenner said it to Steve McQueen as they looked at that guy following them. In the movie."

More blank stares. 

“You've heard of The Magnificent Seven?”  “No”s from each of them.

“Da-DA, da-da-da, da-da-da-DA-da-da,” I sang, doing the movie musical score that Philip Morris repurposed for a decade in TV ads linking Marlboro cigarettes with its iconic cowboy. Everyone knew those ads, I thought.

Head shakes.

“You’ve heard of Yul Brenner?”  Head shakes.

"Steve McQueen?" More head shakes. Blank stares. 

I felt adrift. I wanted common ground. “You’ve heard of Richard Nixon?”  They brightened and nodded. 

“Yes, the former president. He resigned,” one said.

I needed to get my head around this. A classic movie like The Magnificent Seven, 1960, is as remote in time as 1904 was to me when I entered college in 1967 -- 63 years prior. The Model T would not be introduced for another four years. There wouldn’t be talking movies for another 25 years. 

But at least there was some shared culture overlap. Reporters on a presidential campaign beat had heard of Richard Nixon. I needed to remember, though, that Nixon’s election in 1968 is as remote in time as Woodrow Wilson’s election was to me back in 1967 when I entered college, registered for the draft, and thought of myself as a young adult. Wilson was an historical figure I had read about; a sour-puss-looking guy in a tight collar who favored the League of Nations, a blatant racist, a Democrat who got elected by a third-party fluke, and who got sick and hid it with his wife's help. That was most of what I knew. I had read about him in books.  

I stood there in the crowded office, waiting for Ramaswamy to come in and talk a mile-a-minute and say he is like Trump but younger and with "fresh legs."

My mind wasn't on Ramaswamy. It was young people generally. The interaction with the young reporters brought home the obvious, that we are are strangers living in the same world. The Magnificent Seven, the Marlboro cowboy ads, Yul Brenner, and Richard Nixon were part of my life. For them, it is history, if they know it at all. Cigarette ads on TV ended in 1970, twenty-something years before they were born.

The young women called me “sir” because they are being polite to a doddering visitor from a distant country.

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Good job, Joe.

He sounded experienced. Wise. Like he knew how to handle a crisis.

Even Fox's Brit Hume had to admit it.

As Barack Obama observed, the job of the president is "to explain stuff." I have written that Biden isn't good at that part of the job. But Biden is easy to underestimate. He did a good job on Friday. He explained America to itself and the world at a time of crisis.

First, he put the assault by Hamas into the context of the aggression and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Innocent people are killed, horribly and wantonly. He put the U.S. squarely in opposition to this.

     We’ve have not forgotten the mass graves, the bodies found bearing signs of torture, rape used as a weapon by the Russians, and thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken into Russia, stolen from their parents. It’s sick.

     Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy — completely annihilate it.

He said this wasn't just morally wrong. It was in America's self-interest to stop aggression.

     You know, history has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction.  They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising.

He said the U.S. recognized the perils at this moment. He didn't lecture Israel from on-high. He cited our own errors after 9/11 to caution Israelis and others who seek revenge. 

     When I was in Israel yesterday, I said that when America experienced the hell of 9/11, we felt enraged as well. While we sought and got justice, we made mistakes. So, I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage.

He said our goal is long-term peace in the region.

     The United States and our partners across the region are working to build a better future for the Middle East. One where the Middle East is more stable, better connected to its neighbors. . . .

And he gave an uncomfortable message to people in Israel who wish to dismiss the interests and aspirations of the 2.5 million Palestinians in Israel. There cannot be long-term peace until this is resolved.

     As I said in Israel, as hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution. Israel and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity and peace.

Then he brought this back to ethnic strife in America. The crisis has a home front. He condemned ethnic jingoism.

     Today, Jewish families worried about being targeted in school, wearing symbols of their faith walking down the street, or going out about their daily lives. And I know many of you in the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community and so many others are outraged and hardened saying to yourselves, “Here we go again with Islamophobia and the distrust we saw after 9/11.”

     Just last week, a mother was brutally stabbed. A little boy here in the United States, a little boy who just turned 6 years old, was murdered in their home outside of Chicago. His name was Wadea. Wadea, a proud American, a proud Palestinian American family. 

     We can’t stand by and stand silent when this happens. We must without equivocation denounce antisemitism. We must also without equivocation denounce Islamophobia. 

     And to all you hurting, those of you who are hurting, I want you to know I see you. You belong. And I want to say this to you: You’re all America. You’re all America.

He criticized provocateurs on all sides trying to whip up anger, either at Israel or Palestinians. 

I know we have our divisions at home. We have to get past them. We can’t let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win. I refuse to let that happen.

Then a summary that is present in all of Biden's speeches, his expression of optimism.

We are the United States of America. The United States of America. And there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity, if we do it together.

Some 22 million people saw his speech in real time. 

It disappointed people in the U.S. and Israel who wanted a president to support Israel even if it treated civilians in Gaza as "animals" who deserved retribution. It disappointed people who wanted Biden to condemn snot-nose elitists at fancy colleges. It disappointed people who want one-state Jewish control of all land west of the Jordan. It disappointed people who wanted Biden to say that the fault is Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Biden's delivery disappointed Republican viewers who were sure Biden would stumble, lose his train of thought, and embarrass himself and the country.

It didn't disappoint me. We have a president who understands the complexity and danger of this situation. It's better than having a loose cannon as president. 

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"Electric vehicles are not symbols."

I have seen the future, and it works. It is California.

Tony Farrell is a brand expert, alert to the cultural and symbolic subtext of consumer products. He says that Electric Vehicles aren't a leading-edge high-tech elitist status symbol. They are a car, just a car. 

He is a Californian. 

For your information: Premium gasoline in Medford, Oregon is $4.90/gallon; I paid $3.60 a gallon in New Hampshire last week; it is $6.20 a gallon in California. 

Farrell is a college classmate. He was a brand strategist at The Gap, The Nature Company, and The Sharper Image. He handled the Trump Steaks account.

Farrell, with Robbie the Robot, at The Sharper Image

 Guest Post by Tony Farrell

Electric Cars As Symbol? Nah.

In Peter’s September 23 post on “The Electric Car Vibe,” he opined EVs “still represent modern luxury” to some, and that Democrats pushing this “high-tech elitist baggage” may be “right on climate” but “wrong on getting votes from working class Americans.”

Even today (October 22), Ford’s CEO expressed his distress that “‘woke’ EVs are now a political football” because of Trump fighting Biden’s push for adoption. Republican ads signal alignment with striking UAW workers by dipping EVs in the poison of virtue-signaling and rampant correctness.

Because I’ve lived in the Bay Area for the entire life cycle to-date of electric cars (40 years), Peter asked for my take. My judgment is that, in the EV case, “a cigar is just a cigar.” EVs are not symbols. Everybody loves electric cars and wants one. That’s all I hear.

California is massively ahead of every other state in EV adoption, definitely spurred by Tesla over the past decade. Some 10 years ago, Silicon Valley early adopters could not stop talking about their love affair with the powerful, sporty EV that Musk guided into creation. Seasoned executives acted like teen boys who loved the speed, responsiveness, handling; they marveled at the top-safety-rating-ever from Consumer Reports, the anti-theft features, the customer service, the factory tours, the surprising retail showrooms. Everything. It was goofy but real American, and it signaled the beginning of mass appeal.

The first EV arrived here around 2000: Toyota’s homely Prius. Japan showed the way in battery technology. Before that, the promise of electric cars seemed impossibly remote. The ugly little Prius was an embarrassment, and that’s what Musk changed forever.

As I write, 25 percent of California’s new car sales are for electrics! That is much more than “elitist” appeal. We are living America’s future. California now accounts for almost 40% of all EV registrations in the U.S. (followed by Texas and Florida with about 5 percent each; see?). 

The guy who does paint touch-ups around my house arrives in a huge GMC truck but his wife “drives the Tesla,” he tells me. People love these things; no one loves pumping gas. (Especially me. I drive a high-test Acura inherited from my mother-in-law; at $6.20 per gallon, it’s a fright.)

Of course, less than 2% of vehicles on America’s roads are electric, but the change is coming and will be welcome as vehicle prices continue to come down, model choices proliferate, and as needed infrastructure is built.

With this nearly quarter century of history, here the electric car carries no cultural baggage. People across a wide economic spectrum talk about EVs like they talk about other big purchases that take some thought. 

It’s hard to keep up with advances in EV technology but here’s what I’m remembering: People always talk about the challenges of distance driving. Here, the common drive to Los Angeles (370 miles) cannot be made in many EVs without a long stop to recharge; one has to plan to lunch during one’s “gas up.” Another common drive, from the Bay Area to Tahoe, creates hours-long traffic jams at a charging plaza just short of where everyone needs to get to.

Things are improving with charging speed, range, and battery capacity. However, many still shy from pure EV and opt for hybrids for those longer drives and general confidence (you never know when the grid might go down). Almost everyone still plans to get an EV relatively soon, it seems. The price of gas helps nudge that sentiment.

It was an eye-opener to learn how charging an EV at home can radically increase one’s home electric bill by, like, almost 25% for just one car. It really pays to add solar to the home if one will be charging vehicles at home and not at work (who goes to work anymore?). 

It’s a surprise to learn that EVs retain virtually no value, unlike “regular” used cars. Because the technology moves so fast, and prices are dropping, there’s practically no value in an old used EV. Whatever technology’s been improved, people want that.

The whole issue of charging infrastructure is fraught right now; it’s a big transition. In many places, in cities especially, home-charging is not practical or possible. It’s taken a century to perfect the availability of gas stations; memories of the two gas crises show how awful it can be when fuel sources become suddenly insufficient.

I suppose electric vehicles will continue to have some “brand baggage” linked to the insufferableness of progressive Coastal elites. (Similar to Chardonnay, I guess. But wine sales are just fine.) I don’t think EVs will suffer a Bud Light fiasco; Musk hasn’t dragged Tesla down. His company still enjoys massive share. 

Ultimately I believe electric vehicles of all types will prove to be really popular everywhere. The benefits are just amazing and the price of gas is always the go-to bugaboo for inflation; everyone will be happy to say goodbye to that.

As with the ubiquitous popularity of smart phones (where no one bothers to think about China as their source), electric cars and trucks will be just one more highly-desired consumer product with normal baggage, and no political baggage.

Meanwhile, I’m the last guy I know who has no electric car. But then, I was last to get a cell phone. 

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