The Dispatch Podcast - SNEAK PEEK: Kamala Is the Democratic Nominee | Dispatch Live Roundtable

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

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Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Hello and welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Last night, Kamala Harris gave her acceptance speech and the dispatchers were there to respond to it live. So they are all very, very tired right now. So unfortunately, we don't have a full dispatch podcast episode today. But instead, you can listen to the first half of last night's Dispatch Live conversation with Jonah, Sarah, and the Dispatch Politics team in Chicago. If you want to get the full episode, though, you'll have to be a dispatch member, which will come with a wide array of benefits. If you're interested, which, come on, you should be. Go to thedispatch.com slash join and claim your membership. Claim the newsletters that you've been missing out on. And most importantly, the skiff are private members-only feed.

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Hello, Jonah. So the 2024 Democratic National Convention just came to its exciting and shocking conclusion with Kamala Harris accepting the nomination of her party to run for president of the United States. Jonah, there was a lot of scuttlebut about there being a surprise that was coming tonight. I'm unclear on what the surprise was. Was there a surprise? I think the surprise is in our hearts all along. There we go. It's the joy.

You say this convention ended. I say it's just beginning in our hearts. Okay. So here's the thing that was a surprise to me. In her speech, Vice President Harris was talking about the Democratic Party being the party of freedom and opportunity. I remember that convention. It was the 2012 Republican convention. I was working for the Republican candidate at the time, Mitt Romney. She talked specifically about an opportunity economy and cutting tax. and helping small business owners and entrepreneurs build the economy.

Look, I want to set aside whether you believe that Harris is, you know, serious about these things or going to do these things, whether she's just a total liar. Set all that aside, just the politics of that for a moment to hit the fast forward button by 10 years, really from the RNC, I remember the RNC brain. branding for the 2014 midterm, the Freedom and Opportunity Party. Sort of stunning, right? It's like conservatives ideas have won in the sense that clearly the Democratic Party thinks it's the popular thing to talk about, and yet conservatives don't have a political

party anymore in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, I had some quibbles with some of that. I think conservative rhetoric has won. That's what I mean. Set aside the truth of the matter asserted for a second. I mean, her opportunity economy is probably different than what Mitt Romney's and Paul Ryan's would look like. Her definition of freedom is different

than what their definition would have been. Totally. I feel like I have to go off and take off the shelf like 400 different G-files about the difference between positive and negative liberty is because there's so much of this stuff about freedom. But, like, it was interesting. Trump on truth social said something like,

Kamala is talking about an opportunity economy, but I created Opportunity Zones, which were hugely successful, blah, blah, blah. Opportunity Zone is an idea that goes back to Jack Kemp. They argued about it in the first Bush administration, and there's a famous line where Dick Dorman said, you can call it anything you want, but you can't call it Opportunity Zones

because people don't call it the land from Oz, and that doesn't work. I mean, all these ideas are very old. Look, I agree with you, and I am glad. I know a lot of readers and listeners, are getting exhausted with me talking about how flip-flopping is good. But I'm glad that the Democratic Party is talking about how much they love patriotism and love this

country and all that kind of stuff. I actually don't really believe that. I'm not saying they're unpatriotic, but like there's a real weirdness in something is forced in some of this in the patriotism stuff. And I got to say some of the media coverage was shockingly boosterish insofar as if Republicans at a convention have been handed American flags and told to chant all this stuff, you would not have reporters on the floor of the Republican convention just saying patriotism is the defining spirit here. That there's just love of country everywhere you look. You would get a little more skepticism, a little more cynicism. they're wrapping themselves in the flag, you know, and that kind of thing.

And the infectiousness of all of this left up. I don't like big crowds. I don't like mass enthusiasm. So this kind of thing brings out the curmudgeon in me. But politically, I think, was a hugely successful convention. I mean, I don't think there's any getting around that. And I thought Harris's speech was more than good enough, politically speaking. But you're right.

It's a lot of eating off of Republican plate because the Republicans have walked away from their plate, and they deserve to have it stolen from. Let's bring in Mike Warren to talk about some of those vibes on the ground. I mean, Mike, the reporting was nuts. The fire marshal, as we got closer to Harris' speech, blocking people from reentering reporters. Sort of everyone got trapped where they were. People couldn't get back to their seats because there was, was it enthusiasm? What was it?

Well, I did see a report that, at least when it came to the press, that they had let a bunch of influencers into where the press are supposed to sit. I don't know if that's true. What I do know is at every point where I was trying to get in to sit down as a member of the press or to get a pass to go down on the floor of the convention, I and our colleagues who are there, were told basically it's full. You can't come in. So there was just a lot of, there were just a lot of people there. I had never seen a convention like this

where there just wasn't enough room. Maybe the venue was smaller. I'm not sure. But I was struck by the, just the kind of air of excitement and anticipation. And it seemed to be a continuation. of what I saw, I've talked about it a lot internally. It was a sort of a changed my view about where this election could go.

What I saw when Kamala Harris made her kind of first big campaign appearance in Atlanta a few weeks ago, there's just a lot. Democrats are just super excited and motivated. And what else should a national convention accomplish? What else does it need to accomplish than that? And it seems like they have. So this is my question coming out of that then. Because like with so many things, I wonder to myself, yeah, but doesn't matter.

And here's my theory. Conventions matter a lot when you've been through a bruising primary and the drudgery of the first six months of a general election, which are usually focused on fundraising and not really on voters. And so what the convention does is refocus, make it feel like it's about voters, bring home the people who had been, you know, wandering out with bad feelings after the primary. And that's why it works really well. That's why we say, you know, in heading into Labor Day, partisans come home. It's the conventions are their homecoming party.

Except that Harris just became the nominee four weeks ago, five weeks ago, there wasn't a bruising primary. There wasn't the drudgery of a general election. And so that bump that she got in the polls, say in July that we're still seeing some effects of now, I wonder if that in some ways replaces a convention, a conventional convention, and therefore this convention, in that sense,

isn't going to do the same thing that a normal convention would do in terms of that like quick polling bump, number one, number two, I'm starting to solidify my feeling that this is not a base election, that in fact this will be a western Pennsylvania election

where the choice is whether they vote for Harris or vote to stay on their couch, right? Because Trump has been an option this whole time. If they were going to vote for Trump, they would have been voting for Trump, they know who Trump is. It's Harris or F it I'm staying home. And in that sense, also then this convention doesn't matter

because this is for people who are the base, or base curious at least. And so, Mike, with that theory, that two-part theory of, will there be a bump from this? Is this like the message, even like the people hearing the message? Are they the people who need the message? All of that? What say you?

I mean, so take the counter, I don't know what the logical statement would be of this. But let's say that this was a disaster of a convention. I think it certainly would matter then. It would be the kind of thing, if you looked at the past four or five weeks, the kind of thing that like the skidding of the otherwise, you know, speeding right along Harris campaign. You can't lose your base. I'll grant you that.

Yes. Okay. But it would have, it would have, it could have, you know, reveal that everything that we saw leading up to the convention was ephemeral. And when it actually came to putting on this event, there was nothing there. So I think the opposite happened. And so I think we can say, it does matter in the sense that it continues that sort of ineffable quality of momentum.

The thing that I keep thinking about is I've covered lots of different campaigns, presidential, yes, but like Senate races, House races, governors races, House races are a little different. There's so much more like where the country is. But in like closely fought elections, there are these moments where like somebody seems like they're winning and somebody seems like they're losing and when they seem like they're winning things keep happening that keep making it more

sort of like making them win more and lose more if they're losing that's how the election felt by the way right up until Biden withdrew like Biden felt like he was losing and then it seemed to beget more losingness and so

I do think this matter because I think it's especially her ending and you know it was a 40-minute speech started at 930s central time here in Chicago at 1030 in on the East Coast she ended basically 10 minutes after 11 o'clock I think the ratings have been pretty good like a lot of people are watching this and I do think it contributes to this idea that Harris may not win I might not even bet on her today. but it's feeling more and more every day like actually she could win and that could be get more and more winning. Yes, Sarah. I mean, I think Mike's point about how if the convention had gone poorly,

we would all agree conventions matter, right? It's sort of like analogous to the vice presidential pick. Vice presidential picks are not supposed to hurt the ticket, right? And so when they hurt the ticket, they matter, and you notice it, right? And I think that was the conversation about Vance. Maybe he's recovered. My point isn't the ding on Vance here.

I think that this was not that. I think culturally and vibe-wise, it was a base-pleasing convention. I will say that just, I mean, the DJ for the state roll call was the best innovation in a political, you know, in politics I've seen. Turn out for what?

It was fantastic, right? Joe, Joe, let Sarah keep going. I'm trying to help. I'm helping Sarah here. Particularly insofar as they had already done the roll call on a Zoom. And so this was purely ceremonial and to turn it into this sort of advantage I thought was kind of brilliant. The whole joy thing, I know people are getting tired of hearing about it, but I think the joy thing works. And that works for the Bates. There was a lot of stuff, not just economic opportunity and patriotism stuff.

There's a lot of stuff that showed that they are trying to eat out of the Trump getable column. I'm not saying the Trump column, right? I mean, I thought that, you know, Kinziger, not a huge fan of the guy, but there was nothing he said that I could actually argue with. um oh can i i want to talk about kinsinger real quick can we take a pause go down a little kinsinger cul-de-sac we'll do a but i want to come back to another thing yeah yeah no my kinsinger cul-de-sac is um it's like a reverse sister soldier you were given an opportunity to speak to the democratic national convention in prime time as a republican who cannot support donald trump and uh he in his

speech um basically talked about why donald trump is not a republican not the republican party he was from, et cetera, and like how Republicans should embrace the Democratic Party and that they could feel comfortable on this party. Fair enough. What a moment it could have been, what an opportunity to say, and Democrats? Here's what you need to understand about why conservatism is morally correct. And the policy choices that you make on X, Y, and Z are also politically disadvantageous to you. And like, this is a moment where we could yada, yada. Instead, I felt like he only did half of that and pleased the crowd, instead of, like, if your argument's going to be that as a conservative, you are more comfortable in the Democratic Party than I think he had

an opportunity missed to actually speak to conservatism and where the Democrats aren't doing that. Yeah, I think that would have been better. I agree with you. It would have been better for Kivenger and a long one. Yeah. My suspicion is that he had to have his script pre-approved And the sort of tough love for the Democrat stuff, if it ever existed, was redlined pretty quickly. But, all right, so here's a question. I want to throw back at you, and Mike, you can jump in too. But it is really noticeable, particularly when it's Harris talking or any of the top line people about abortion, the degree to which the examples they use, not all of them, but predominantly.

the examples they use about why it was bad that Roe was overturned are all about how vital and good and glorious and wonderful it is to make babies not terminate babies right? It was very and I get it

but this sort of gets to my point about how every time a sitcom character gets pregnant they have the baby they say things about how I have a choice but then they have the baby because you wouldn't write the character getting pregnant only to have an abortion because that's a downer.

You only would write the character to get pregnant if you were going to go have the baby. Similarly, they bring up abortion. Is Shekhov's gun of pregnancies? Yeah, pretty much. I've written about this bunch.

I really believe this. And so it's just very interesting to me like the base who are wildly all in for, you know, abortion rights, which is, you know, their position and we don't need to debate all that. they hear abortion rights, and that's all they need to hear.

The way they pitch why Roe is bad and what Trump is doing is bad, is like IVF and ectopic pregnancy and people who don't want to be sterilized and they need an abortion so they can have babies again in the future. It is a very pro-baby defense of abortion rights, and that's a legitimate argument as far as it goes, but it leaves this big gaping hole in what a lot of people think about what abortion rights are, and I think that was a very interesting framing. Also, there was a few stories about that as well this week about the sort of far-left abortion

lobby being very disappointed with what they're hearing at the convention and not, you know, the language, for instance, return to Roe, to them is offensively conservative. They considered Roe to be a conservative compromise, and they considered Roe to be a conservative compromise, and that in fact there should not be limitations and they thought their home was in the Democratic Party for that. So to your point, yeah, I mean, between not having anyone representing the Palestinian cause be able to speak at the convention

to the language very much staying return to row, not this should just be up to a woman at all times at nine months, et cetera. It was none of that. Mike last thoughts for we bring in Drucker on some of this Look I think this was a convention

for a party and particularly for a candidate who is playing to win it doesn't mean that she's going to win but she's trying to win and how weird is that I haven't experienced it in a while I didn't know that parties

still did that the trying to win thing. I also think, by the way, it doesn't mean she'll do it, right? It doesn't mean she actually believes it. All of that stuff is already baked in. We are only talking about, to me, how interesting the politics is that this is what she thinks

it looks like to try to win. Yes. But can I say that there were parts of her speech tonight that where I think, particularly when she was talking about sort of being a prosecutor and the sort of law and order elements of her biography and her positions on sort of what prosecutors should do and can do for the people, right? That's her line. Where she seemed more comfortable than she ever was in her,

frankly, terrible 2020 presidential run, where she barely got into the year 2020 before she dropped out. This, at times it was like watching a different candidate than than who was there four plus years ago stumbling through trying to get to the left of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on health care. I think that law and order

prosecutor stuff is that's the if there was a real Kamala Harris in there that's the real Kamala Harris and it showed and if she continues to do that and emphasize that

Kamala the cop if you will, that's good. That's good for her campaign. So that's it for this sneak preview. But if you want the full episode and more, go to the dispatch.com slash join and become a dispatch member tonight, today. Whenever you're listening to this,

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