DL Open Thread Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024
Gonna be a busy day. Delaware’s primary elections wind up today – polls close at 8 p.m. – and the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump begins at 9 p.m., about the time primary results should be coming in. We’ll have an open thread for debate watchers and another for primary watchers.
House Republicans are yet again threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue shut down the government unless they get what they want. This time it’s a bill that would force people to show proof of citizenship in order to vote. It stands no chance in the Senate, of course, not least because shutting down the government just before a big election probably isn’t going to win their party any votes.
Ron DeSantis had his hopes for national office smashed, but that hasn’t stopped him from running Florida as a literal police state. He deployed state police to the homes of people who signed a ballot petition that will let voters add abortion rights to the state constitution. Critics say it’s purely for voter intimidation purposes, as the deadline for challenging signatures has passed.
Ever wonder why all those Republicans who initially scorn Donald Trump come crawling back in supplication? Mark Leibovich has the answer, and it’s something Trump told him early in the 2016 primary campaign that he eventually won.
I was struck by one theme that Trump kept pounding on over and over: that he was used to dealing with “brutal, vicious killers,” by which he meant his fellow ruthless operators in showbiz, real estate, casinos, and other big-boy industries. In contrast, he told me, politicians are saps and weaklings.
“I will roll over them,” he boasted, referring to the flaccid field of Republican challengers he was about to debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that September. They were “puppets,” “not strong people.” He welcomed their contempt, he told me, because that would make his turning them into supplicants all the more humiliating.
“They might speak badly about me now, but they won’t later,” Trump said. They like to say they are “public servants,” he added, his voice dripping with derision at the word servant. But they would eventually submit to him and fear him. They would “evolve,” as they say in politics. “It will be very easy; I can make them evolve,” Trump told me. “They will evolve.”
As for the people who vote for Trump, his strongest supporters aren’t who you think. Yes, they live in rural areas and earn less than urban elites, but they’re not the poor people, they’re the local gentry – in the words of author Arlie Russell Hochschild, people who are doing well within a region that was not – resentful that they’re culturally marginalized. I guess that’s why you see boat parades for Trump, which always made me wonder, “What the fuck are you whining about? You can afford a fucking boat!”
The floor’s yours.
What are y’all seeing at the polls for those who have gone so far today?
8:30am was very light at Marion Profit in the 9th. The only Polling place greeter was for Kevin Caneco.
Turns out not my polling place, so I haven’t voted yet. (In my defense it has been my polling place for School Board and Primaries.).
Two friends working polls. Skyline steady flow and Hodgson guesstimate 60-70 @ 10:30. GO MARCUS HENRY!
“We’ll have an open thread for debate watchers and another for primary watchers.”
YAY!
My last on the record prediction: BHL is the odds on favorite. She will win in Suxco and Kent outright. In NCC O’Mara will win enough votes to spoil in her favor.
It’s a primary so I’ll bet she knows exactly the number she needs to get to and has been in touch with that number of firm “yes” people. She is a retail politics dynamo. If only she turned her prodigious political skills to benefit Delaware the things she could accomplish. Its a sad and sorry waste of political talent.
Also, divorce the jerk in the first 100 days.
Firmly (but respectfully) disagree.
While she’s got the PACs to do her ads and lit, there’s no way she has any kind of ground game to do effective Voter ID or GOTV.
I think that’s the ‘hidden game’ that will strongly redound to Meyer’s benefit.
She sent a ridiculous text message today….
Hi, It’s Bethany Hall-Long .
My opponent is using out-of-state dark money to spread lies about me and my family and to buy the governorship. We cannot let that happen.
I have spent my entire career fighting for you and your family. I care about the issues that keep you up at night. Will I be able to afford my medical bills? Can I afford my mortgage payment? Will I have enough money to retire respectably? Can I send my child to a great public school?
I’m asking for your vote because I want to fight for you. Together, we can make Delaware the best place to live, work, and raise a family. I’d be honored to serve as your Governor.
—–
I’m finding myself spending more time at night wondering what scam she and the hubby are working on next, to be honest.
I’m convinced that her “prodigious political skills” consist largely of knowing where the camera is and smiling on cue.
I hope I am wrong. But I predict that gloating that I was right will be my only solace tomorrow.
Did a four-hour greeting shift for Kam Smith at Wilbur School just off Rt. 72.
Turnout was pretty steady. Did my Kamala/Kamela schtick. I’m available for parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, the occasional bris, you name it.
At some point, I think around 9, we had an influx of elected politicos. Our PAL Val; Kyle Evans Gay; Trinidad Navarro, who wore white sneakers, no socks, black pants, a blue blazer, a smarmy grin, and might have just returned home from a leisure cruise; um, I think that’s it. There’s someone who MIGHT have been Kayode Abegunde, but how would I know?
This was presumably the closest area to what might be considered a Val stronghold. If so, I’m feeling even BETTER about my prediction. Pretty sure that Kam is/was up in these ED’s when I left.
I saw both Bryan Shupe and Pat Smith outside Lulu Ross this noonish…Light but steady voting.
I saw Bryan Shupe at Mispillion Elementary
When I voted today at 11 AM at Thurgood Marshall Elementary in NCC, the clerks told me turnout was ‘light but steady’ . What surprised me was the lack of campaigners at the site. One worker for BHL, but the young guy was just standing there, and only offered me a piece of literature when I asked him who he was campaigning for as I was LEAVING the school after voting, and one for Frankel in the Council Pres race, and he was just standing there making no contact with arriving voters. I realize you’re not going to influence many voters this late in the game, but I would have thought there would have been more people out there, especially for Matt Meyer and the other candidates for NCC Council Pres, especially as there are so many candidates for the post, with so little info on any of them. For what it’s worth, I voted for McBride for Congress, Meyer for Gov., Kyle Evans Gay for Lt Gov, Navarro for Ins. Comm., Henry for NCC Exec, and Hoover for NCC Council Pres.
Joe: I wouldn’t take the presence or lack of presence of greeters to mean much.
I’m not sure if Jack Markell had poll greeters when he beat John Carney in 2008, but he had phone banks going all day long and they had done a great voter ID. Just decided that GOTV was the most important element of their campaign.
The GOTV was augmented by consistent updates on who had voted, so we kept getting new lists.
It’s even easier now to get the updated lists of who has voted.
Hey, it could also be they don’t have enough volunteers…
Prioritizing volunteers at the highest count locations. Not enough for every location all day long.
How many readers HERE volunteered!?
Today’s the day we hammer in the final nail in the coffin of the cancerous Delaware Way.
I voted for Bethany Hall Long, Debbie Harrington, Val Longhurst, and Kathleen McGuiness. Take that, libs! My only regret is that Hilary Clinton wasn’t on the ballot for me to vote for again. RIP Ken Simpler
You can’t fix stupid.
Especially since he couldn’t have voted for both Longhurst and McGuiness.
Man, I feel so owned.