No Sleep Til...Victory...

We'll Sleep on Thanksgiving

Hello, Wisconsin!

We’ve reached the best and worst part of campaign season. In most places, the summer has released its grip to autumn and jackets have replaced t-shirts. You know Election Day is close when the leaves are turning and pumpkin spice is in the air.

For (normal) campaigns, what money there is has been shoveled into the boiler. All the switches that can be flipped, have been. Difficult, if not impossible, to change strategy at this point. The battleship is headed toward November 5th at flank speed: Either victory or an iceberg awaits.

Given how many of these weeks I’ve experienced, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d be jaded. I’m not. As a friend of mine said last week, he’s “nauseously optimistic.” That’s as good a description as I could write.

Kamala Harris has the Numbers

There’s an old trope in politics, “Campaigns matter on the margins.” In close races, a good campaign will win it for you. A bad campaign sends you home empty-handed.

As I wrote earlier this year, I can quantify and qualify how (then Joe Biden) Vice President Kamala Harris wins next week. She has more voters in more key areas available to her. The Democratic coalition is bigger than it was four years ago. The Dobbs decision has super-charged young and female voters of all political persuasions.

The pro-democracy coalition didn’t exist in 2016. It’s bigger now than it was in 2020 or 2022 and now spans the political spectrum from Sen. Bernie Sanders to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Think about that for a second.

I can qualify how Harris wins in two words: She’s normal. Regardless of your own politics, you can be sure she’ll wake up in the morning and think about preserving the Republic before anything else.

Wither Trump?

Tom LoBianco and I were texting this morning. He wrote something brilliant: “He [Donald Trump] occupies the space Hillary [Clinton] did eight years ago.”

More than half the country doesn’t like Trump, doesn’t want more of what he’s offering, and doesn’t need the antics, criminality and incompetence. On the numbers, Trump’s base is smaller, older, whiter, more male, and more extreme than it’s ever been.

Given the GOP is 90% white, any white voter (male or female) that skips the race or crosses the line to Harris is a voter Trump can’t afford to lose. He simply doesn’t have any margin for error, as he didn’t in 2020. There is increasing anecdotal evidence of Republican women quietly crossing the line to Harris.

The only qualification for Donald Trump? His name is Donald Trump.

Seven Days, No Sleep

I saw a clip of Jeff Goldblum years ago describing his philosophy. He shared the following quote by George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

“Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

Is there a better description of Donald Trump than a “feverish little clod of ailments and grievances?”

We owe it to our “whole community” - our nation, our state, our county, our communities and families, to give all we have; to work so hard that by Wednesday morning we’re more used up than we could have possibly imagined.

This is our moment. This life, this election, this fight is our splendid torch. Let’s make it burn so brightly that Americans from Key West to Seattle and Boston to Honolulu see its glow, feel its warmth and know, at long last, we did all we could.

News and Notes:

Lots of Podcasts!

If you haven’t yet, check out my conversation with the one and only George Conway on the latest episode of The Home Front Podcast. Listen, follow, rate five stars!

Thanks to JoJoFromJerz for having me on her new show, Exit 45! You can watch our conversation here!

Please check out my conversation with The New Republic’s Greg Sargent on Michelle Obama’s closing argument.

Take a few minutes to read Martin Pengelly’s excellent piece in The Guardian about what becomes of the GOP after Trump (hint: The fight is FAR from over.) Read it here.

If you’re sick of being beholden to Elon and Mark on social media, check out Sez.us! Join me, Joe Trippi, and so many others in creating a sane social community. You don’t have to leave where you are, just join us! Sez.us