Tuesday Open Thread [7.5.2016]

Why Hillary Clinton’s perfect running mate is… Joe Biden

But there’s another option that is virtually risk-free and carries more upside: Joe Biden. The current vice president is universally known, vetted, and unquestionably fit to serve. As America’s affable “Uncle Joe,” he is viewed positively by 51 percent of the country and unfavorably by just 36 percent. He’s absolutely beloved by Democrats, helping to shore up the Sanders-Warren wing of the party. And he has already proven to be an able complement to a candidate who, like Clinton, sometimes struggles to connect viscerally and emotionally with voters. He also appears to absolutely love being vice president, and is good at the job.

This piece notes that Tim Kaine is the frontrunner, which I really hope is not true. But Joe Biden’s name as VP for a President Clinton is an idea I’ve heard a few times before. Why not?

Moody’s Analytics Predicts Clinton Victory

According to The Hill, the Moody’s model has shown for four straight months that the Democrats will 332 electoral votes, with Republicans picking up just 206. The model is based on historical votes and economic factors.

“The closer we come to election day, the more that two-year change is based in history and less on our economic forecasts,” Dan White, who oversees the forecast for Moody’s, said. “With just four months left to election day, the chances of an economic forecast error distorting the results are fading.”

I didn’t remember that Moody’s also did Presidential predictions. But here is another datapoint. It is too early to get cocky, of course, but it still points out how much work the GOP is *not* doing yet.

Now that the Benghazi investigation has produced nothing, conspiracy nuts are targeting Trey Gowdy

Now that the years-long Benghazi investigation has embarrassingly failed to produce any fruit, conspiracy theorists have turned their ire against the Benghazi Select Committee’s head, Trey Gowdy (R-SC).

One example is conservative radio host Michael Savage, who ripped into Gowdy yesterday in his radio show after the Committee released a new report that offered no new details on the September 11, 2012 attack on an American diplomatic compound in Libya.

“Trey Gowdy should be impeached for wasting my time!” Savage said. “He promised us a lot! Remember?”

“He had a Benghazi hearing three months ago and it was an embarrassment,” he continued. “Hillary turned them into idiots. Trey Gowdy. Here he is again now, $80 million later, what did he find out? What we knew already.”

Well, well, well. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

This picture was everywhere on social media this weekend:

The post is credited to R Eric Thomas on Facebook, who provided this glorious commentary:

Whoever took this photo deserves a GD Pulitzer Prize. We may be two minutes from doomsday but thank the Lordt we still live in a universe where three world leaders can strut into a room like they’re the new interracial male cast of Sex and the City. Like I have ALREADY prepurchased tickets to this film. Out here in these streets looking like Career Day Ken. Looking like Destiny’s DILF. Looking like the Alternate Universe version of our Current Political Universe. Looking like Tom Ford presents The Avengers. How you going to be one of the leaders of the “free” world and still stalk the runway, killing all our faves? The only thing that would make it better is if they were pounding through a pool of water like Bey-sus on the BET Awards. Why do any of us walk on land anymore, tbh? YES YOU BETTA SALUTE YOU MOUNTIES! Pledge allegiance to this day drag! Based solely on this photo all three of them were just declared the first non-drag winners of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Happy Heterosexual Pride Day, y’all. And look at Obama’s smile! Don’t try to tell me that man isn’t angling for the lead in a Rihanna’s next music video. Drake wishes he was this happy. And Drake is so happy. Oh my God. I need to sit down. I’m getting light-headed.
[Edit: unclear if the photographer is Kevin Lamarque or Stephen Crowley–it’s credited to Reuters. So… Give them both the Pultizer.]

Right?

The NYT reports on the possible VP choices for Trump. HaHa:

Chris Christie would pretty much seal the Reality TV thing for the GOP this cycle. Christie got NO traction in the primary, even though he was widely thought to be a top tier choice. I doubt he could deliver his own state.

Joni Ernst is the I want to choose a Palin, but she’s too insensible now pick.

Mike Pence. Yikes.

Newt Gingrich. Double yikes. But leave it to Newtie to destroy the aura of GOP intellectual he so carefully nurtured.

This is a long read from the New Yorker and brilliant author George Saunders — WHO ARE ALL THESE TRUMP SUPPORTERS?

American Presidential campaigns are not about ideas; they are about the selection of a hero to embody the prevailing national ethos. “Only a hero,” Mailer wrote, “can capture the secret imagination of a people, and so be good for the vitality of his nation; a hero embodies the fantasy and so allows each private mind the liberty to consider its fantasy and find a way to grow. Each mind can become more conscious of its desire and waste less strength in hiding from itself.” What fantasy is Trump giving his supporters the liberty to consider? What secret have they been hiding from themselves?

Trump seems to awaken something in them that they feel they have, until now, needed to suppress. What is that thing? It is not just (as I’m getting a bit tired of hearing) that they’ve been left behind economically. (Many haven’t, and au contraire.) They’ve been left behind in other ways, too, or feel that they have. To them, this is attributable to a country that has moved away from them, has been taken away from them—by Obama, the Clintons, the “lamestream” media, the “élites,” the business-as-usual politicians. They are stricken by a sense that things are not as they should be and that, finally, someone sees it their way. They have a case of Grievance Mind, and Trump is their head kvetcher.

What interests you today?